The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  “He was so handsome—turns out he was rich, too!—and he practically begged me just to take a walk. And of course, that’s not all he wanted.” I let a little smile play on my lips, as if this had been a secret pleasure instead of the nightmare it actually was. I suppose I just wanted Tip to know that other men found me fascinating, even if he wouldn’t do so much as offer me a seat.

  His eyes, which had been latched onto me like I was the latest Mary Pickford movie, suddenly wandered around the room as if he could no longer look at me.

  “Well, best not to get into all that,” I said. “Anyway, I hope Mother learned her lesson, and she’ll take a little more care with her choice of friends.”

  He didn’t respond for a moment, but his eyes were back on me. “Ought to be careful, Mizz Gert,” he said finally. “There’s a whole lotta bad out there most folks never see coming.”

  I had only meant to flirt with him a little, and here he was unknowingly reminding me of my stupidity with that damned phony cowboy. I felt like a fool. I made some silly excuse about wanting to see the flicker Ohmann was running at the beginning of the show, and it was all I could do to make myself walk calmly down the hallway, and not gallop like a spooked horse. I was confused. And I rarely found men confusing.

  Winnie and Kit were in the wings with a couple of other performers watching the movie. It was Mabel Normand in Mabel’s Blunder, all about a misunderstanding she has with her fiancé. It was nonsense, of course. The problems people have in movies could be sorted out or avoided altogether by a nine-year-old with half a lick of sense.

  When the movie reel ran out, the stage lights came up and Willie “Watermelon” Lee took to the boards, waving his arms around with that crooked branch of a cane. Since I had nothing better to do, I stayed to watch. He started off singing “All I Wants Is Ma Chickens,” and then went on to “Mammy’s Little Pickaninny Boy” and “Coon, Coon, Coon.”

  Although it’s not my color, I’m feeling mighty blue;

  I’ve got a lot of trouble, I’ll tell it all to you;

  I’m cert’nly clean disgusted with life, and that’s a fact,

  Because my hair is wooly, and because my color’s black.

  My gal she took a notion against the colored race.

  She said if I would win her I’d have to change my face;

  She said if she would wed me, that she’d regret it soon,

  And now I’m shook, yes, good and hard,

  Because I am a coon.

  Coon! Coon! Coon! I wish my color would fade;

  Coon! Coon! Coon! I’d like a different shade,

  Coon! Coon! Coon! Morning, night, and noon,

  I wish I was a white man, ’stead of a Coon! Coon! Coon!

  I’d heard these songs before, of course, but they’d never made me feel like I’d swallowed a glass of spoiled milk. Everyone was laughing, but it wasn’t funny anymore. Not to me.

  Then Tip walked by.

  I froze as if I’d been caught with my hand in the box office till. He looked at me and strode past, never even glancing to the performance onstage.

  Lee took his bows; the audience clapped and cheered.

  It was just another day in vaudeville.

  19

  WINNIE

  I was a thirteen-year-old boy for thirty years.

  —Mickey Rooney, singer, dancer, and actor

  As thrilling as a dressing room is, it has one major drawback. You’re expected to stay in it! After that first rush of excitement, the shine wore off fairly quickly as Nell nursed Harry in the only chair, and we all stood around staring at one another. Backstage there was the constant buzz of stagehands bustling about, and new friends to meet. Of course, my mind kept spooling back to one certain face that I felt inexplicably drawn to.

  I went out into the hallway and saw Gert leaning against the doorjamb by Tip’s dressing room. As I passed, she let her hand slide out behind her into the hallway and made a little flicking motion at me. I did as she indicated and scooted past her toward the stage.

  We were friendly with Tip, and it was natural that we’d want to catch up after his hasty departure the last time we’d seen him. Yet passing behind Gert, I felt a certain heat to the situation, as if she were crossing a rickety bridge over a flow of molten lava. We’d already seen the trouble that could come just from accidental contact. I didn’t want that to happen to him again. And I certainly didn’t want it to happen because of us.

  Backstage, Joe and Lucy Cole sat side by side on their trunk, backs against the wall, looking lost as they watched the stagehands run back and forth preparing for the first show. Lucy looked up. “Winnie!” she said, grinning broadly. “Joe, get Winnie a chair.”

  Joe looked around, and I did, too. If I didn’t have anything to sit on, I would have to hover above them, and the conversation would be curtailed by the temporary quality of our positions. I found a three-legged stool, likely used by the stagehands to reach the higher curtain ropes cinched to large wooden cleats. “This’ll do,” I said, and set it near them. As casually as I could, I lowered myself onto it, crossing my legs out in front of me, and then seeing how unladylike that appeared, sliding them to one side, bending my knees and trying desperately not to let my costume ride up my thighs. It’s a delicate thing to try to behave properly with new friends when you’re wearing only a black satin tumbling dress and flesh-toned stockings.

  “How old are you?” Lucy asked brightly.

  “Lucy,” murmured Joe. “Not polite.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I don’t mind. I’m older than I look, so I’d rather have you ask and know the truth. I’m seventeen.”

  Lucy studied me. “Really? That old?”

  “I’ll be eighteen this summer.”

  This was the wrong answer for Lucy Cole. She held her hand out to Joe, palm down, and he flicked the back of her hand with his index finger.

  “Ow!” She seemed more annoyed than hurt.

  “It wasn’t that hard,” he scoffed. To me he explained, “I guessed sixteen, she said thirteen.”

  “How old do you think we are?” said Lucy.

  I took the opportunity to fully invade them with my eyes, Lucy first, of course, so as not to appear forward with Joe. She was small and dressed like a little girl, but her mind was quick and I suspected that, like me, she was older than she looked. To flatter her, I added one year to my guess. “Eleven?”

  She stuck out her chin triumphantly. “Sixteen.”

  “You are not,” Joe muttered, eyes flitting around the area. “Don’t lie to her.”

  “You told me to say that,” Lucy insisted. “You said I shouldn’t tell anyone that the birth certificate the agent gave me was a fake.”

  “Winnie’s not going to turn you in to the Gerrymen.” He looked at me, a hint of doubt in his eye. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

  “Our agent says sometimes acts stir up trouble for each other to cut the competition.”

  I thought of the Peppers getting Tip fired. Then I thought of what I’d done to their pigeon cage, and a wave of shame came over me. I’ll admit, however, that it passed quickly.

  “Well, that’s true,” I conceded. “Sometimes it can get a little . . . underhanded. But I won’t tell. Besides, my sister Kit doesn’t even have a fake—she’s so tall no one would guess she’s only thirteen. There. Now if I tattle on you, you can tattle on Kit, and both our acts will be ruined.”

  Joe let out a little chuckle, and Lucy said, “I’m twelve. But I don’t get to flick your hand because you were almost right. What about Joe? He’s easy, I think.”

  This was my chance to really study him, though I was distracted by his eyes gazing back at me. I judged him to be fully grown, with his closely shaved whiskers, man-sized shoulders, and large, strong hands, though I could imagine the cute little boy he once was. He had no wrinkles, of course, but there were dark crescents under his eyes that even a month of sleep might not blea
ch away. As they had before, those beautiful brown eyes drew me in, as if I might have been the only kind soul he’d met in a year.

  “Twenty-three,” I guessed.

  Lucy looked at Joe and grinned. “Hold out your hand,” she told me.

  “Nineteen,” said Joe, and flicked his finger against my knuckle.

  “Didn’t hurt,” I teased.

  He laughed, and for a brief moment the dark circles were compressed almost to nothing by his rounded cheeks. “Next time I’ll try harder,” he teased back, and I felt wonderfully accomplished to have made those eyes crinkle in humor.

  As we sat and chatted, my stomach began to rumble. It was embarrassing, of course, but worse, like a dinner bell it announced the end of our little getting-to-know-you party.

  “I think we’d better get some lunch before the one o’clock show,” said Joe, rising and stretching his legs from his low perch on the trunk. “Also, we haven’t found a hotel yet.”

  “We’re staying at the Congress Hall, just a few blocks down. They still had a vacancy a couple of hours ago. It’s just down the street, past the little park.”

  Joe thanked me for the suggestion, and the two of them left with the trunk. I went to find Mother, wondering why she hadn’t gone out for sandwiches yet. I expected that she was taking orders from the other acts, as she liked to do. As I headed to our dressing room, or “dressing closet” as we would soon joke, Mother’s voice drifted toward me before I was even in the back hall.

  “Aren’t they sweet!” she was saying. “Jackie, you’re just wonderful with them.”

  I stopped in front of the first dressing room and peeked in through the partly opened door. Mother was sitting on the little chair by the kidney-shaped table. Mr. O’Sullivan was on the love seat, sandwiched between Mike and Mary, who were nibbling on crackers, their short legs bent up at the knees in front of them. Mary reached across for one of Mike’s crackers, though she still had a small pile on the arm of the love seat next to her. Mike slapped her hand away.

  “Play nice, you two, or you’re back in the crate,” said Jackie, flashing an apologetic smile at Mother. His teeth were distractingly straight and white, and I wondered if they might be dentures. In the far corner was a cage, about three feet square. It seemed barely big enough for one ape, much less two.

  “Excuse me, Mother,” I said. “Should I go out and get sandwiches?”

  I expected her to insist on doing it herself, but she said, “Certainly, dear. Have you met Mr. O’Sullivan? Jackie, my daughter Winnie would be happy to pick up some lunch for you, too, if you’d rather not go out.”

  “Why, yes.” He smiled coyly at Mother as he reached into his pocket for a couple of coins. “I’m quite happy to stay right here.”

  Mother gave me a dollar and change, and said, “There’s a place we passed down on Water Street. Miss Bell’s, I believe it’s called.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. I’d seen Miss Bell’s, too, and it was a far cry from the drugstore lunch counters we generally patronized.

  Mother raised her eyebrows back, a don’t-challenge-me look, and said, “Go on, now.”

  I hesitated in the doorway. Since she seemed to be feeling flush, I thought it might be a good time to make a request. “Could I please buy a few small things at the drugstore? I’d like to make a first aid kit like the one recommended in the manual.”

  “Well, my goodness, Winnie,” Mother clucked, with a little eye roll toward Mr. O’Sullivan. “What kind of accidents are we preparing for?”

  Mr. O’Sullivan took his cue from her. “Vaudeville can be dangerous, I’ll grant you that,” he said, making clear that he was granting me no such thing, “but it is a mite safer than, say . . . coal mining.”

  Mother laughed girlishly. “Or building one of those new skyscrapers hundreds of feet off the ground!”

  “Where do you think we are?” added Mr. O’Sullivan. “Chicago?”

  The two of them grinned wider than the monkeys, showing off for each other at my expense. “She’s got a new first aid book,” Mother explained. “And she’s just as eager as a Girl Scout to help people. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Sweet as pie,” he said. Except he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Mother.

  I left without another word, cheeks aflame in humiliation.

  I bought sandwiches at Miss Bell’s at a luxurious twenty-five cents apiece. For myself I bought a cheese sandwich at Dobbins Drugs, and used the rest to buy an Esmarch bandage, like the one in my first aid manual. It was a triangular piece of muslin four feet long on the diagonal side, and had pictures of six half-naked men modeling the thirty-two different ways the bandage could be used as a tourniquet, wound covering, sling, or splint tie. It was thrilling. And a bit titillating, to be honest. I had never seen the male figure with so little left to the imagination, and I took a few stolen moments to study the bandage, wondering how true to life it might be.

  I had thus far had very little interaction with the male form, never having succumbed to anything more than a wholly unfulfilled crush or two. I had been kissed exactly four times, the first by surprise in the eighth grade. Luigi O’Malley pulled me into the shade of a lilac hedge one May evening, took my shoulders in his meaty hands, and said, “May I kiss you?”

  “What?” I said, stunned. He apparently took this to mean that I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea, and pressed his warm, garlicky lips against mine. I gasped in shock, but with my mouth sealed by his, the air rushed in through my nose, and the sweet, hopeful smell of blooming lilac filled my lungs.

  When it was over, he scurried off as fast as his freckled legs would carry him, and we never spoke of it again. The other three kisses occurred in darkened basements during the few parties I’d been invited to, and I was always disappointed when there was no lilac scent to improve the experience.

  You could never find Kit, except when you couldn’t get rid of her.

  I had handed out all the sandwiches but hers. Mother and Mr. O’Sullivan were still in his dressing room, cozy as you please, and I felt a wave of concern. She’s just making new friends, I told myself. Like we all are.

  Nell and Gert were in our dressing room. This time Tip was the one standing in the doorway, and I felt bad that I hadn’t gotten him a sandwich, too.

  “I’ll share,” said Gert. “This is too much for me anyway.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you, but I should get back to my own dressing room,” said Tip. Then he chuckled. “My own dressing room. Never thought I’d get the chance to say that.”

  “We never did, either,” said Nell, tearing off nibbles of her sandwich to feed little Harry, seated on her lap. He snapped his wet gums together, mashing each piece, eyes bright at the surprise of this new taste. “It’s not quite what we expected, is it, Gert?”

  “Well, for one thing, I thought there would be more than one chair!” Gert sat on the overturned packing crate, her shapely legs draped to the side. “Please, Tip.” She offered the sandwich half, held out in her long white arm. “Help me out.”

  He reached for it and for the briefest possible moment, his dark fingers and her pale ones nearly touched. I believe everyone in the room watched that homely bit of bread and meat pass from Gert to Tip, her face turned up toward his, his gaze decidedly not meeting it, concentrating on the sandwich as if it were something sharp, on which he might cut himself.

  “I . . . I’d better find Kit before this goes stale.” I held up the last butcher-papered package and forced a smile, anxious to leave the disquiet of the suddenly silent room.

  I found Kit on my stool, of all places, talking with Joe and Lucy. They had found some old crates to sit on, having taken their trunk to the hotel.

  “Here, sit next to me!” Lucy insisted, squeezing over on her crate. “We’re small enough to share. Kit was telling us all about the different kinds of stage curtains.”

  “Here’s your lunch.” I handed her the wrapped sandwich, and hoped that the prospect of a meal that in
volved meat might distract her from a lecture on theatre operations. No such luck. She unwrapped the paper, took a sniff, said, “Ham?” incredulously, and kept talking.

  “Those front curtains are travelers; they go back and forth on an operating line that the stagehands pull. I hear that in the big-time theatres they run on a motor, and all you have to do is push a button! These skinny little curtains there”—Kit gestured toward the side of the stage—“they’re called legs and they hide what’s happening in the wings, but leave an opening for performers to get off and on.” She took a bite of the sandwich and chewed a moment, her face a picture of bliss. Before I could change the subject, she said, “Then you have your guillotine curtain midstage. It goes up on ropes into the fly space up above the stage, and when it comes down . . .” She drew a finger across her neck with a ghoulish look.

  Lucy laughed and Joe smiled indulgently. Kit finished chewing and drew a breath to blab on about curtains and ropes, but I cut her off. “Where are you from?” I asked.

  “We’re from Boston,” Joe said quietly. The laughter ebbed from Lucy’s face.

  “Boston!” Kit said, licking her fingers like a half-starved street waif. “That’s a big city.”

  “It’s big, yes,” said Joe.

  “We’re from Johnson City, New York,” I said quickly, to move the conversation away from their obvious reticence, “next to Binghamton. It’s only a couple of hours from here by train.”

  “It’s nowhere near as big as Boston.” Kit picked a stray crumb off the butcher paper and popped it into her mouth. “Did you ever play at the Boston Theatre? I hear it’s huge—three thousand seats! One of the stagehands in Fredonia said the stage is so big you practically need roller skates to get from one side to the other in a hurry.”

  “We never played there, but we’ve been to a lot of theatres in Boston,” said Lucy. “Joe took me all the time after . . .” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at Joe.

  Joe looked down at his hands. He laced his fingers and unlaced them, then spread them out on his thighs. It reminded me of little Harry, watching his toes wiggle as if they weren’t a part of his own body.