Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk Page B

system
     in freshman year. Ran for class president, tried to organize the great unwashed, the
     non-sorority girls. We outnumber them four to one at Hunter, God knows. Only one trouble.
     It turns out that the unwashed worship the washed. I got one vote to Helen Johannsen’s
     six. Ah, well.” She popped a shrimp into her mouth and drank. “There’s something so
     damn wide-eyed about you. How old are you?”
    “I’ll be eighteen next month.”
    “Lawks a mercy me, a child, and an upper sophomore! You’re a mental prodigy too. It’s
     too much.”
    “Prodigy! I barely scrape through every term. It was easy to skip in the Bronx where
     I grew up, that’s all, and I gained a year—”
    “You’re from the
Bronx
?”
    “Lived there all my life until a year and a half ago. Why?”
    Marsha squinted at her, the red light making black lines around her eyes. “Well, dear,
     you
can
act. I’d have taken you for a born and bred Central Park West babe.”
    “How old are you, Marsha?”
    “Dear, I’m a hag. An ancient battered used-up twenty-one.”
    Marjorie laughed. The drink was taking hold. She was finding Marsha more and more
     charming, and the Chinese surroundings no longer scared her. “Marsha, will you tell
     me one thing, and be absolutely honest? It’s terribly important to me. What makes
     you think I have any acting ability? Just from seeing me rehearse a few times—”
    Marsha grinned. “Come on, have dinner with me. Call up your folks and tell them you’re
     busy with the show. It’s true enough, I have a million things to tell you about your
     performance.”
    “Well—look, can you—can you order something for me without pork? I don’t eat it.”
    Marsha smiled. “I can order a whole banquet without pork. Simplicity itself.”
    Mrs. Morgenstern made no difficulty over the phone, merely asking when Marjorie would
     be home, and warning her not to work too hard. When she returned to the table Mi Fong
     was there, ducking his head and smiling. Marsha was saying, “And jasmine tea, of course,
     and rice cookies and—oh, yes, remember now, no pork. Absolutely no pork.”
    The Chinaman giggled, glancing at Marjorie. “No polk. Sure thing. Polk too spensive,
     sure? No polk, missa. Hokay.” He went off, laughing.
    “Mama says it’s all right,” Marjorie said, adding, with a rueful look after the Chinaman,
     “She doesn’t know I’m in a chop suey joint.”
    “You’re kosher, aren’t you?” said Marsha kindly.
    “Well, hardly. My folks are. But pork or shellfish—it’s just the idea, it makes no
     sense—”
    “Dear, don’t apologize. The power of conditioning is fabulous. Fortunately I’ve never
     had the problem.”
    “Aren’t you Jewish?”
    “Well now, strangely enough, I don’t rightly know. My father’s a crusading atheist.
     My mother doesn’t know what she is, she grew up in France as an orphan. I guess Hitler
     would call me a Jew, all right. But Zelenko, if you don’t know it, is the name of
     one of the noblest old Russian families. How our family comes by it my father doesn’t
     know, or won’t say. Maybe my great-grandfather was a noble bastard. For all I know
     I’m a Russian princess, isn’t that a sobering thought?”
    “Marsha, did Gertrude Lawrence really come to dinner at your house?” Marjorie said.
     The stout girl had casually thrown out this startling fact during their conversation
     at rehearsal.
    “Dear, Gertrude Lawrence has loved my mother for years. But then, everybody does.
     I don’t think there’s anybody in the theatre she doesn’t know. Damn few I haven’t
     met, in fact. Not that I pretend they’re my buddies or anything, it’s just through
     Mama.”
    Marsha proceeded to tumble out anecdotes about well-known people, all magic names
     to Marjorie. She knew the funny things Noel Coward did at parties, and where Margaret
     Sullavan bought her clothes, and which famous actors were conducting adulterous affairs,
     and with whom,