Alice Gold gasped in awe as she stood on the shore and watched Wilbur Wright, inventor of the aeroplane, circle his flying machine around the Statue of Liberty and over the giant passenger ship Lusitania in New York Harbor before landing on Governors Island. She turned to the two muscular young men at her side. “Dan Dawson, Frank Fairfax,” she said, “I’m going to build one of those and we’re going to fly it.”
“I’ve never seen them sit still for a whole hour,” said Elaine afterward. As Robert had read, the children had scooted closer to him, parents had stopped their whisperings, and some of the adult patrons of the library had joined the crowd that listened. Robert began to feed off the crowd, instilling the exciting moments with drama, lowering his voice at the scary parts, and turning what began as a reading into a performance. When it was over the children applauded for a full minute and mobbed him asking where they could find a copy of the book and what happened next to Alice, Dan, and Frank.
“Was that from one of those books you were telling me about?” said Elaine.
“Sort of,” said Robert. “I edited it from the original.”
“Well, the kids loved it. People were swamping the desk wanting to check out anything about the Tremendous Trio.”
Robert blushed with pleasure. He couldn’t wait to tell Rebecca about the looks on the children’s faces.
“If it’s okay, I’ll call you the next time we have an opening in the schedule and maybe you can read some more.”
“I’d like that,” said Robert.
As he pulled on his coat and stowed the manuscript in his bag, Robert thought about how much he had loved the energy of the morning—so different from the staid events he had done promoting Looking Forward. What would his public say if he redefined himself as a children’s author? The Tremendous Trio books were old enough to be out of copyright, so there would be no legal issues with rewriting them. And it might mean that instead of sitting on panels at book festivals he would get to visit schools and libraries and read aloud to groups of children as excited and eager-eyed as those who had come to St. Agnes this morning.
Outside the library, where sun gleamed off the heaps of snow that lined the street, Robert felt suddenly ravenous. Zabar’s was right around the corner and he decided to swing by and pick up some food. Thirty minutes later, laden with breads and cheeses, pastrami and smoked fish, and a box full of rugelach, he headed home. He was halfway through a pastrami sandwich on rye bread when his phone buzzed. Without even looking, Robert hit answer.
“Is that you?” said a woman’s voice.
“This is Robert,” he said, trying to quickly swallow a bit of sandwich so he could be understood.
“It’s Rebecca.”
“Oh God, Rebecca . . . how are you?”
“How am I?” said Rebecca. “I walk out and tell you I might not come back and you don’t even try to call me for three days and all you’ve got for me is How am I? ”
“I’m sorry,” said Robert. “I . . . well to be honest, I was afraid to call. And I got . . . distracted.”
“Got distracted?” shouted Rebecca, loudly enough that Robert held the phone slightly away from his ear. “Robert, you’ve been nothing but distracted for months. Don’t you understand that?”
“I do,” said Robert. He could feel her pain and anger radiating through the phone. He wanted to take that pain away—the pain he had caused. And maybe he could. Maybe if he followed the path those books laid out for him, a path into his own broken past, he could be the person she wanted him to be. But her voice on the phone seemed to obscure that path. It made him feel sick, especially when he knew that her anger was his fault.
“Are you still there?” said Rebecca impatiently.
“Yes,” said Robert gently. “I was just . . . thinking.”
“Well, can you think out loud, because I can read you pretty well in person, but I’m not there in person, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Rebecca was silent for a moment. He could hear her breathing, waiting, but he didn’t have the courage to begin the conversation he knew they needed to have.
“How’s Bradley?” he said.
“Jesus, Robert, do you really care how Bradley is?” Tears crept into her voice.
“Not particularly,” said Robert. “It’s just that I’m so afraid of saying the wrong thing, of losing you because I didn’t handle this conversation right, that I’m reverting to small talk as a defense mechanism.”
“I think we’re past small talk,” said Rebecca.
“I’m sorry,” said Robert, “I just . . .” Robert fumbled for the words to guide this conversation in a more comfortable direction. None came.
“Just what, Robert? Just what?”
“I don’t know,” said Robert, deflated. “I miss you.”
“Do you really? From what I’ve heard you’ve been having quite the time with me out of the way.”
“What do you . . .” Robert felt panic surging up in his gullet.
“I called my friend Elaine Corrigan at the library today. We have coffee sometimes, and I thought she might want to meet up.”
“And she told you about story time,” said Robert.
“I find it awfully convenient, Robert, that the moment I’m out of the house, the moment you don’t have to face any realistic possibility that you might actually be in an adult relationship that could lead to parenthood, you’re out telling stories to children.”
“It wasn’t like that at all,” said Robert. “It was wonderful. And the first thing I thought afterward is that I wanted to tell you about it.”
“And yet I’m the one calling you,” said Rebecca. “Elaine thinks you’re a shit for driving me away.” After another silence, she added, in a softer voice, “And she said you were great with the children.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Robert. “But she’s right about me being a shit.”
“At least there’s something we can agree on,” said Rebecca. The softness was gone again. “So, what are we going to do here, Robert? I want to come home, but I want to come home to the Robert I knew before . . . before all this. You don’t have to hide or pretend with me. I just want my Robert back.”
“I’m sort of working on that,” said Robert.
“Sort of working on it? God, Robert, this isn’t a second-grade homework assignment. It’s like you’ve turned back into a child, and I can’t wait forever for you to grow back up.”
“What if I told you there’s something I need to do before we try . . . to get together. And that I have a plan for doing it, that I’m actually taking some action for a change. Then how long would you wait?”
“Bradley says I’ve waited long enough already, and so does Elaine.”
“What do you say?” said Robert.
“You seriously want me to give you a deadline?”
“Yes,” said Robert, suddenly feeling in control of the conversation for the first time. He worked well under pressure. Maybe if he had a deadline, he could face down his past, keep the promise he had made to his father, and come out the other side ready to tell Rebecca everything.
“A week,” said Rebecca. “I’ll give you a week. But then that’s it. This is my life, too, Robert, and I’m not going to keep it on hold.”
“Okay,” said Robert. “A week.”
“I’m not kidding,” said Rebecca. “There are no extensions on this paper.”
“I know,” said Robert. “A week—that’s next Saturday at . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Noon. We’ll meet and we’ll talk and you can decide if you want to . . . to take this any further.” Robert felt his own tears welling up as he brushed up against the possibility that Rebecca would decide to leave him altogether.
“Where do we meet?” said Rebecca. “On top of the Empire State Building?”
“I’ll meet you on the Empire State Building
or on the Brooklyn Bridge, or wherever you say.”
“The Ramble,” said Rebecca, sounding calm for the first time in the conversation.
“As you wish,” said Robert.
He spoke the words softly and with his heart beating as rapidly as it had the very first time he had said them to her. And he hung up before she had to decide whether to reply.
XIV
New York City, When Everybody Loved the Circus
After the Slocum disaster, Magda had determined to put her German life behind her and be as American as Teddy Roosevelt. She had gone to work as a salesgirl at Putnam’s bookstore on Twenty-Third Street, just three blocks away from her new rooming house. She enjoyed working in a bookstore, surrounded by the objects she loved above all others. But Magda had no interest in spending the rest of her life as a shopgirl, barely making enough money to pay for her two-dollar-a-week room without dipping into the family savings. By the end of 1904, she had enrolled in night classes at Grace Institute on West Sixtieth Street, studying stenography, bookkeeping, and typewriting. In the spring of 1905, to celebrate her completion of these courses, she decided to do the most American thing she could think of. She went to the Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. And that’s what had given her the idea.
Magda remembered that day as clearly as if it had happened only hours ago. The smell of sweat, animals, and sawdust tickled her nostrils. She could picture the disturbing sights as she followed the crowd through the sideshow filled with its “freaks” like the three-legged child and the lion-faced boy. And then the feel of the hard, wooden seat and the tingle of anticipation as the murmuring crowd awaited the “Greatest Show on Earth.”
Magda had felt gloriously assaulted by the awe of everything from the grand entry of the Angel of Peace accompanied by the oompah of the band and rows of horses and chariots, to the lines of acrobats turning somersaults over the backs of elephants; a seal juggling a billiard cue; a man climbing a flight of stairs on a bicycle; a pair of clowns engaged in a comic boxing match; performing dogs, elephants, ponies, and a host of other animals; and the roaring thrill of Mademoiselle de Tiers flying upside down through the air in an automobile as she performed her famous “Dip of Death.”
With its three rings of simultaneous entertainment, the circus felt like a fantastical version of New York itself—everything happening at once, with never a moment to catch one’s breath. Nor, she thought, did she have any desire to do so. Magda overheard the little boy next to her say to his father, “They don’t give a feller a chance. They ought to do these one at a time.”
“That would take all night,” said the father.
“That wouldn’t bother me any,” said the boy with delight.
But as much as she enjoyed the near chaos of the three-ring show, demanding that her focus constantly shift from act to act, one performance caught and held her attention for its entire duration. The Florenz Troupe, a family of Italian acrobats, climbed on one another, tossed one another through the air, and put their bodies through contortions and configurations Magda could not even have imagined, much less emulated. She found them entrancing, and especially so the youngest, a girl of no more than twelve or thirteen who sailed through the air over and over again, hurled by one adult and caught by another, with the grace and mystery of a fairy sprite. And then, just as she had climbed to the top of an impossibly high tower built of her family members and plummeted to the ground, arrested from certain doom at the last second by the strength of the largest man in the troupe, Magda heard the little boy beside her say in unselfconscious awe, “She’s beautiful.”
The father burst out laughing and Magda, clapping furiously for the Florenz family, could not resist leaning across the little boy to ask what the man found so funny.
His son now thoroughly distracted by a herd of elephants parading into the center ring, the man winked at Magda and replied, “It’s not a girl. That’s a little boy dressed in a girl’s clothes.”
Magda watched the Florenz Troupe jog out of the arena, and at that moment the idea struck her. She had seen, in the past year of working at Putnam’s, how adventure stories and series of books with recurring characters sold by the thousands. She tried to stay familiar with the interests of her customers, so she had read several of these books. They had much in common with the circus, she thought—full of constant action, flitting from one peril to the next, and always featuring at least one young hero, usually a boy of twelve or thirteen. What if, she thought, that hero was a circus acrobat?
She had read in the previous day’s paper that Barnum and Bailey’s circus was about to embark on its first transcontinental tour to the West Coast. Think of the adventures a young acrobat could encounter traveling across the great North American continent—not just the dangers of the circus ring, but the storms of the great plains, the crossing of the Rockies, the outlaws of the Wild West, and then California with its prospectors and its immigrants from the mysterious Far East. What could be more American than a young boy in the circus, crossing this great land and having adventures all along the way?
As soon as the show ended and she could extricate herself from the crowd, Magda dashed across Madison Square and rushed down Twenty-Third Street. Back in her room, she sat in the ladder-back chair by the window—she had no desk and the small table across from the bed held a washbasin and her hairbrushes. On her lap she placed a sheaf of papers covered on one side with typewriting exercises. She took a pencil from the drawer of her tiny bedside table and wrote at the top of the page: Ideas for Children’s Series—Circus.
Two months later, Magda had a detailed outline of the first book and a cast of characters, including her hero, a thirteen-year-old boy named Dan Dawson, the precocious star of an acrobatic family. More important, she had secured a new job, performing secretarial and bookkeeping work for Pickering Brothers, Publishers. She had seen Pickering books on the shelf at Putnam’s ever since she started working there, and while Drew Stetson and the Wild West Boys didn’t sell as well as the Rover Boys and the Bobbsey Twins, when she read in the classifieds that Pickering Brothers needed a secretary she jumped at the opportunity. Mr. Lipscomb had hired her not just because of her talents with a steno pad and a typewriter, but because she had actually read, and appreciated, Pickering books. Someone who had worked in a bookstore, and had direct contact with Pickering customers, he had said, would understand those readers and what they wanted.
For over a year now, Magda’s writing had been largely confined to answering fan letters and typing Mr. Lipscomb’s correspondence. She worked long hours at the office, and sometimes even took her work home, writing drafts of letters in shorthand to be typed the following day. But now and then, especially on Sunday afternoons, she found time to work on Dan Dawson, Circus Star.
She had not admitted her dream of getting published to Tom De Peyster and Gene Pinkney as they talked at Childs—not even when, after Gene kept complaining about the phony science in current fiction, Tom suggested he try his own hand at a children’s series.
“I’m a scientist,” said Gene. “Why would I write stories for kids?”
“Who better?” said Tom. “You could make the hero a young inventor, and you could get the technology right. If you think H. G. Wells messes up the science, you should read the Great Marvel series.”
“I’ve never really given much thought to writing,” said Gene.
“Read the books,” said Tom with a laugh. “I’m not sure Roy Rockwood has given much thought to writing.”
Magda agreed that the quality of writing in most children’s series books was not going to land them in the literary pantheon. “But I suppose your book is an exception,” she said to Tom.
“Hardly,” said Tom. “I’m no literary luminary. I’m just a journalist . . . a . . .”
“I think the word you’re looking for is hack,” said Gene, lifting his glass of milk toward Magda.
�
��Exactly,” said Tom. “Which puts me on equal footing with Roy Rockwood.”
“And then some,” said Magda.
“So, do you think Mr. Lipscomb will meet with me?” said Tom.
“Come to the office on Tuesday morning,” said Magda. “I’m sure we can fit you in.”
With an experienced journalist like Tom De Peyster coming to the office on Tuesday to pitch Frank Fairfax, Cub Reporter, to Mr. Lipscomb, Magda determined to do on Monday what she had wanted to do for weeks—ever since she finished a draft of Dan Dawson, Circus Star—Danger under the Big Top. She had stayed late in the office night after night to type her manuscript, and now it nestled in the bottom drawer of her desk, waiting for her to muster the courage to show it to her employer. Tom De Peyster would have an easy enough time impressing Mr. Lipscomb. The publisher would love Tom—an experienced writer who knew powerful people like William Randolph Hearst and Upton Sinclair. More important, Tom had one attribute Magda would always lack. Tom was a man. Mr. Lipscomb had very specific ideas about the appropriate spheres for men and women. As long as Magda sat at her desk and typed letters, Mr. Lipscomb would be perfectly happy; but to get him to make her one of Pickering Brothers’ authors would take more than a little convincing.
Every Monday morning, Magda met Mr. Lipscomb in his office at ten o’clock to review the schedule for the week. The first time she saw Mr. Lipscomb, when she had come for her job interview, she had expected a captain of industry—an imposing figure the likes of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller. Instead, she discovered a small bespectacled man in a rumpled cardigan sweater and worn corduroy pants. Instead of chomping on a cigar, he chewed an endless succession of sticks of Wrigley’s gum; instead of sitting in a swiveling leather chair behind a massive mahogany desk, he perched atop a three-legged stool that seemed ready to topple over at any moment and that rose from within a square of cheap pine tables, all barely visible under piles of magazines, manuscripts, newspapers, book jackets, and a thousand other bits of paper. He spoke not in a booming, bass voice but in a volume just above a whisper and in a register well above a tenor with the occasional hint of a Cockney accent. She had both feared him and wanted to take him home and make him soup.
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