The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  23

  WINNIE

  People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.

  —Bob Hope, actor and comedian

  The next morning we came down to breakfast in the hotel dining room, which was mostly empty, it being late for breakfast and early for lunch. The windows were hung with heavy rose-colored curtains with gold satin cords. Midmorning sun poured in, and dust motes swirled lazily through the air as we waited for the sullen waitress to bring coffee. I held little Harry on my lap, leaning over every few moments to retrieve the spoon he liked to throw onto the floor.

  “Sit with us!” Kit suddenly called out, and we turned to see Joe and Lucy Cole enter from the foyer. There was one unused chair between Kit and me, and she jumped up to purloin another from a nearby table. Lucy started to sit in the chair next to mine, but I saw Joe’s hand slide to her shoulder and nudge her toward the one closer to Kit.

  He wants to sit by me! I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

  Good mornings were said all around. Then Lucy said, “You all look so different!” It was true—we had never been in such close proximity without full stage makeup before. Surreptitiously I studied Joe’s true skin color: olive toned, rather than the heavy orange of the pancake foundation we all used. He turned toward me, and seemed strangely startled, as if I’d said boo!

  Then little Harry threw a spoon at him.

  “Oh, Harry!” said Nell.

  “No, it’s all right,” Joe insisted. Turning to Harry he said, “I’ll make a little toy for you, sir, and then maybe you won’t be so quick to throw things at me.” He took a cloth napkin and knotted it twice, once in the middle, and once again over that knot, so the two remaining corners stuck up like rabbit ears. Harry reached for the little bunny, but Joe hopped it up Harry’s arm until one of the “ears” tickled his cheek, making him squeal and bat his hand to try and grasp it. He finally got hold of it and let out a crow of victory. This set the whole table to laughing.

  Joe let out a hearty laugh, too, and my heart nearly burst to see his sad face glow with humor. It was the best breakfast I could ever remember, and I hadn’t had a thing to eat.

  As we came offstage after the first show, I asked Mother if I should get the sandwiches again. “Yes, that’s perfect,” she said. “I’m about to land the last stitches in these new costumes, so I’d rather just buckle down and do it.” She headed off with her sewing basket.

  Gert gave me a look. We knew where she was going to “buckle down,” and it wasn’t our dressing room, a place she only visited to keep an eye on Harry when we were onstage.

  “Hope those monkeys don’t end up with our costumes,” Gert muttered.

  “Hope Mr. O’Sullivan doesn’t ask her to make him a tuxedo,” I said. Gert gave a smirk of accord, and headed back toward our dressing room. Or someone’s dressing room, anyway.

  Much as I wanted to leave Mother’s friendship with Mr. O’Sullivan in the realm of snickering humor with Gert, it pestered me like a mosquito by my ear. What exactly did she want with him, anyway? I hoped it was merely adult companionship, new conversational subject matter, and mutual assistance (though he seemed to offer nothing as he reaped the benefit of her sewing skills and my sandwich runs). Actual infidelity was unthinkable. Wasn’t it?

  I needed to get away from the stuffy backstage and the ring of her girlish laughter. “I’m going out for sandwiches,” I told Joe. “Can I get anything for you and Lucy?”

  “I wouldn’t want you to carry all that by yourself. Why don’t I tag along and help?”

  It was exactly what I’d hoped he’d say.

  When we entered Miss Bell’s, Joe looked at the prices on the tasseled menu and cut a look toward me that mirrored my own thoughts. “It’s a little rich for my budget,” he said quietly.

  “It’s a little rich for ours, too. But I’m ordering for Mr. O’Sullivan, and he gets a bigger paycheck than we do. Mother doesn’t want to embarrass us by going somewhere cheaper.”

  “Would you mind if I stopped at the drugstore?” he asked.

  “As it so happens, I’m going there myself.”

  At Dobbins Drugs, I bought myself a cheese sandwich and used the remaining few coins to purchase a small tube of tincture of iodine.

  “Have you cut yourself?” Joe asked.

  “No, I’m just putting together a little first aid kit, in case of emergency.” As we headed back to the theatre, I told him about my job at Lourdes Hospital and my new first aid book.

  “You’d make a good nurse,” he said. He slowed in front of the park, which fairly glowed with budding trees and greenery. “Do we have a few minutes to sit in the sun?”

  “We had such a nice big breakfast, I’m sure no one’s starving yet.” I certainly hoped that was true. But even if it wasn’t—even if my sisters, Mother, and Mr. O’Sullivan were staggering around in a near faint from malnutrition—I don’t think anything could have stopped me from accepting an invitation to sit on a park bench with Joe Cole.

  He tipped his face upward, eyes half lidded in the sunshine. “This reminds me of home.”

  “You have a park like this?”

  “Well, Boston has a lot of parks. But it doesn’t remind me of that so much as how the old ladies pull their kitchen chairs out onto the sidewalks on the first warm days of spring. Or they put a pillow on the windowsill for a soft place to rest their arms.”

  It sounded like the North Side of Binghamton, the Seventh Ward, with the ladies in their windows, and the smell of onions and peppers wafting out. “Can I ask you a question?”

  He turned his face from the late-afternoon light to look at me. “Sure,” he said.

  “I don’t mean for you to take this as anything other than idle curiosity.”

  There was an echo of wariness in his “All right . . .”

  “If your family is from Italy, why is your last name Cole?”

  He laughed. “You had me worried for a minute!” He explained that the name had been Colella, but his father had changed it after he’d immigrated. “He couldn’t get hired by anyone except other Italians, and they didn’t always have the best business prospects themselves.”

  “What did your father do for work?” I expected that he must have been a fisherman since he’d surely been in water when he’d drowned.

  “He was a delivery man for the Messina Fruit Company. He drove his cart all over Boston, taking produce to the markets.” Joe’s gaze settled on the middle space between us, remembering. “They always let him take his favorite horse from the company stalls. Her name was Cindy or Sandy—something silly like that, but he called her Dolcezza. It means “sweetness’.”

  I felt the wave hit him. A longing that would never find relief.

  He turned his head, jaw clenching against emotion. My throat tightened in vicarious sorrow, and I didn’t trust myself to speak. All we could do was sit in the silent sunlight and wait for it to pass, knowing it would never truly pass completely.

  We returned to the theatre, and Joe went off in search of Lucy and Kit to hand out their sandwiches. I found Mother with Mr. O’Sullivan, of course. As I gave them their meal I noticed that Mike and Mary were hunched over in the cramped cage, eating crackers and peanuts. “Have they been bad?” I asked.

  “Your mother’s more comfortable without them roaming around,” Mr. O’Sullivan said, clearly more invested in Mother’s comfort than that of his meal ticket. Just then, one of the orangutans let out an aggravated screech, and Mother flinched.

  “Pipe down!” O’Sullivan yelled.

  “You must have nerves of steel, Jackie,” Mother said. “It takes a strong constitution to deal with jungle animals!” He smiled proudly, revealing those strangely too-white teeth.

  I excused myself and headed for our dressing room, expecting to see both of my older sisters. But only Nell was there, cuddling little Harry against her shoulder as he slept.

  “Want me to hold him so you can eat?”

  “No, he’s j
ust fallen off,” she whispered. “I don’t want to risk waking him.”

  I took the sandwich from the paper wrapping and held it up. Nell nodded, and I put it to her lips so she could take a bite.

  “Where’s Gert?” I asked.

  Nell lifted her free shoulder, a half shrug that said she didn’t know.

  “But you have an idea,” I said.

  Nell only held my gaze as she finished chewing.

  “I just don’t want anything bad to happen,” I said.

  She swallowed and whispered, “Gert isn’t stupid.”

  “No. But you can lose your head about these things.”

  Nell raised an eyebrow as I gave her another bite of sandwich. I felt my cheeks go warm.

  “I mean, anyone . . . a person could find themselves . . . ,” I stammered.

  She tried to hide her smile behind her chewing, but I could see her amusement.

  I sighed. “He’s very nice.”

  “Yes, he seems so,” she said. “He seems responsible and gentlemanly and he certainly seems to enjoy your company.”

  “Really? Do you think so?”

  “Winnie.” Her tone was measured. “I know you’re enjoying his company, too—which is lovely. But you understand it can only be short-lived. Sunday, we’ll move on, and so will he.”

  I felt as if she’d struck me. I’d been so caught up in the excitement of getting to know him, I hadn’t thought to consider the hand of time.

  “Oh dear,” Nell sighed. “I didn’t mean to ruin your good mood. You’ll just have to enjoy his friendship in the time you have left.”

  I nodded and smiled, a pathetic attempt at cheerfulness as dread overtook me. It was only after I left that I realized the emphasis she’d put on the word friendship.

  “Are you going to Minty Millie’s?” Joe asked me during intermission.

  “I think so. Are you?” Willie “Watermelon” Lee had organized a group outing to a local watering hole to celebrate the halfway point in the show’s run. Nell, Gert, and I had little interest, but then Mr. Lee had said, “I reckon your dear mother’ll have to represent the family. She’s bound and determined to be there.” He shuffled off, and we cut our eyes to one another.

  Tip happened to be there as we discussed whether one of us should go. “Why are y’all so worried about your mother?” he asked. “She’s a grown woman. And I’m sure one of the menfolk will walk her back to your hotel.”

  There was really no way to answer this without blatantly impugning Mother’s sense of decorum. After a moment of awkward silence, Tip raised his hands in surrender. “All right, y’all know the situation better than I do, ’specially since I never had a mother to speak of myself.”

  The change in Gert’s face was imperceptible. Not a muscle shifted. Perhaps it’s only because as sisters we share a common infinitesimal thread in the vast tapestry of humanity. Perhaps it’s because we’re so close in age, and her face has been in front of mine more than almost any other image. Either way, I knew as clearly as if she’d broken down and wept: her heart was stabbed with pain at the thought of Tip’s motherlessness.

  As for Minty Millie’s, Nell had little Harry to look after, and Gert flatly refused. That left me as the lucky winner. But once I knew Joe was interested in going, I quickly revised my view.

  “I’d like to go,” he said, eyes flicking toward mine and then away again. “But I can’t bring Lucy, and I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  My pulse quickened at the thought of being out with him late at night. “Kit will be at the hotel,” I said, the plan hatching in my mind only a step ahead of my words. “Lucy could stay in our room with Kit. And Nell will be right next door if they need anything.”

  “She would love that,” he said.

  And she did. “It’ll be like a slumber party!” she said. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the party would likely only last about fifteen minutes before Kit fell into a snoring stupor.

  Minty Millie’s was ramshackle in a homely sort of way, rather than dirty or disreputable. The wooden booths were worn smooth, but clean. The rafters were lined with blue and lavender bottles that had once contained peppermint extract, adding a soft dusk-like color to the room.

  Willie Lee insisted we go straight there from the theatre, and so we did our best to scrub up in the theatre restrooms, and trooped into Minty Millie’s with vestiges of black liner around our eyes. Of all of us assembled there—Willie, O’Sullivan, Grayson, the tenor, Joe, Mother, and me—only Mother looked normal. The rest of us, caught between full stage makeup and clean faces, looked like escapees from a silent film.

  “Didn’t think you’d join us,” Willie said to Mr. Grayson as the latter settled his wide bottom onto the end of the booth next to Joe and me. “Night air and all.” He winked at O’Sullivan, who reciprocated with a low heh, heh, heh.

  “I find this backwater town dreadfully boring,” said Grayson. “Even the hotel bar is tedious. I can’t wait to get back to the city.”

  “What city, Rochester?” said Willie.

  Grayson gave a shudder of disgust in response, raised his finger and called, “Miss!”

  Thus began the rounds of drinking.

  Grayson took his Madeira from a tiny glass, as if sipping from a teacup. Yet he seemed to go through them rather quickly, shooting a finger skyward with a little circling motion over and over. Willie and O’Sullivan drank rye straight up, slamming their short glasses onto the table to indicate another round was in order. Joe would take a swig of his beer and then leave the mug on the table for a while before lifting it for another gulp.

  Mother ordered sherry, and though she didn’t drink quickly, I knew even a little could exacerbate the real source of potential indiscretion—her unquenchable desire for attention.

  “Now where are those adorable monkeys of yours, Jackie?” she said, her lips pouty. “You didn’t leave them at the theatre, did you?”

  “Aw, they’ll be all right. I’ll just give the cage an extra good cleaning in the morning.”

  I winced at the thought of those poor creatures crammed into the tiny cage, trapped with their own refuse. I’d heard that stage animals were often abused and neglected, but it sickened me to learn of it personally.

  “That’s not right,” Joe murmured. He was wedged rather close to me, Grayson taking up more than his share of the bench, and I could feel the warmth of his breath by my ear.

  “I don’t think he cares about them at all,” I whispered back.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked.

  “Sarsaparilla.” I might have liked to try a glass of sherry, just to feel more adult and womanly, but I didn’t dare jeopardize my mission of keeping an eye on Mother by dulling my faculties. “Why?” I asked.

  “No reason,” he said. “It’s just . . . your breath smells sweet.”

  Oh my goodness. The flip-flop my stomach did at that comment!

  The night wore on. We learned that Grayson was from Manhattan. “Well, perhaps a tad outside.”

  “How far outside?” asked O’Sullivan.

  “A bit.”

  “What’s a bit?”

  Grayson drained his latest glass of Madeira and let out a high-pitched giggle. “Jersey City!”

  O’Sullivan slammed his hand on the table. “I’m from Brooklyn—we’re neighbors!” This sent the two of them into gales of laughter.

  Willie was from South Carolina, and though he’d been heckled in the north for his act, he insisted that “the darkies down south love it. They love it. Now that’s the best proof that there’s nothing more than fun and entertainment to coon shoutin’. Them darkie-lovers up in Boston can kiss my hindquarters!” He quaffed down some rye and looked at Joe. “Where you from, kid?”

  “Boston.”

  “Hell of a town,” he said. “Wait a minute. You live anywhere near the flood?”

  I felt Joe flinch beside me, and a prickle ran up my neck.

  “Yeah.”

  “How close?”
/>
  Joe took a big swallow of his beer. “North End.”

  “Damn, son. You were right there, right where it happened!”

  “Why, what happened?” said Mother, her voice overly enthusiastic and bright.

  “Mother!” I muttered.

  “Now don’t you “Mother’ me, young lady! Let the boy answer!”

  Joe took another swig.

  Willie was too excited to wait for Joe’s reply. “Damn anarchists blew up a huge molasses tank! Big ol’ tower of molasses come roaring down the street like a tidal wave. Killed a bunch of people and horses. Terrible!”

  I knew then.

  Desperate to offer some sign of support, I reached for Joe’s hand under the table. His hand was large and warm, and it locked onto mine.

  “You know anyone who died?” Willie pressed on, too drunk to read the pain on Joe’s face. “You musta knowed someone, living close like you did.”

  Joe squeezed my hand so hard he nearly broke my little finger.

  “I need to use the restroom!” People at other tables turned to look at me.

  “Well, my goodness, Winnie,” said Mother. “You don’t need to shout.” Suddenly she was the proper one, and I was the one lacking in decorum.

  Joe gave Grayson a shove, and the portly man nearly fell out of the booth.

  “I’m heading back,” Joe said. He tossed a couple of coins onto the table.

  “I’ll go back, too.” Joe clearly needed a friend, and I told myself Mother would be fine.

  Mother squinted at me. “I thought you had to use the powder room.”

  “Not here,” I said, as if it had always been my intention to use the one at the hotel.

  We were out the door in no time, and Joe strode so quickly I had to jog to keep up. In a few minutes we came to an intersection and I could see trees a few blocks down. “There’s the park,” I said, and tugged the sleeve of his jacket in that direction.

  We collapsed onto the same bench that had been so sunny only a few hours earlier and let our lungs rest, the nighttime air cooling us.