The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  Off in the trees I heard a soft murmuring, and at first I thought there might be a stream nearby. I stood up and walked a few yards toward the sound. Voices. A flash of blond in the trees beyond left field. A tinkle of laughter.

  Joe stood beside me, his face suddenly hard. “I’m going to leave now. You can walk back with your sister.”

  “Why?”

  “So I won’t have to lie if anyone asks what I know.” There was a chill to his voice, and he left without another word.

  I headed toward the edge of the field, disconcerted by his reaction. True, it was almost unheard of for whites and coloreds to pursue a romantic involvement—even friendships weren’t all that common. But was it truly wrong?

  When I crossed into the cool darkness of the pines, I saw them. They were about fifty feet away, too far to hear their words, but close enough to see the gibbous moon outlining their features. I pressed against a tree trunk to give myself a moment to come up with what to say.

  I should be angry, I thought. I should yell at her and say she’d had us all worried and she should come back to the hotel right now and apologize.

  But I wasn’t angry. I was strangely sympathetic, and in my confusion over what I should have felt and what I did feel, I stood motionless and simply watched them.

  Gert stood with her back against a tree, her chin tipped up to look squarely into Tip’s face. Then she reached out and took Tip’s hand in hers, holding it loosely, their fingers slowly entwining. The flat plane of his high-boned cheek rounded into a smile.

  I must have seen black skin touch white skin sometime in the course of my seventeen years, but I couldn’t have told you when. I might have seen a white man shake a colored man’s hand, or I might not. But I’ll say one thing with utmost certainty: I had never seen a colored man lace his fingers with a white woman’s. Ever.

  With her other hand, Gert reached up and cupped that round, brown cheek. Tip shook his head just a little, but not hard enough to dislodge her. His chest rose and fell more quickly as she slipped her fingers around to the nape of his neck and seemed to pull him closer.

  They looked at each other for a long time then, bodies swaying slightly. He began to say something, shaking his head again in that slow, sorrowful way. And quick as a lightning strike, she pulled him toward her, his lips against hers. His hand shot out to the tree trunk to brace himself against the forward motion of his own impulses, but he didn’t pull back.

  That kiss was infinitely tender. I’d certainly never seen my parents kiss like that, nor had I seen anything quite like it in the movies, where the hero always seemed to slam his lips against the heroine’s in a conquering fashion. This was no conquest.

  If anything it was like a slow, sweet dance, two people drifting, unaware of the dance floor or the music or possibly the entire world. I’d seen Gert flirt and dance and kiss boys before, but I had never witnessed anything like the softness she offered up under the branches of that pine.

  Tip’s bracing arm loosened and his body moved toward hers until he was holding her. A colored man’s arms around my sister’s very white shoulders, her arms around the back of his very black neck. And no matter what I’d been given to believe about how wrong this should be—how vile and punishable—I could find nothing but sweetness in it.

  An engine hummed and rattled, headlights flickering along the road that ran behind the stand of pines. They tensed stock-still for a moment, then he pressed himself against her, covering her blond hair with his large black hands, his coloring far better camouflage than hers.

  My heart pounded with anxiety at the enormity of it. Strangely, it wasn’t my own sister I worried about. Gert’s reputation would be ruined if their attachment were ever revealed, of course. But in my experience Gert could handle just about anything that was thrown at her.

  It was Tip my soul quaked for. Because no matter how tender the scene I had just witnessed, there was no way this could go on. A colored man’s hands on a white woman’s body was intolerable to a great many people, and grounds for any number of hideous, unthinkable acts.

  It could very quickly and easily be the death of him.

  28

  GERT

  I ain’t afraid to love a man. I ain’t afraid to shoot him, either.

  —Annie Oakley, sharpshooter

  I never knew a kiss could feel like that. It was all give. No take. From either of us. I suppose when there’s no future and nothing to gain, the only reason to kiss another person is simply because you want to. Need to.

  His lips. His arms around me. His body pressed against mine to shield me from those headlights.

  “Gert.”

  I heard her voice a ways off and I knew. We both did.

  He kissed me again, and said, “Go on now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He slipped away in the opposite direction. I stood there a moment, watching him go, then turned and walked toward her.

  “You won’t say anything,” I said as we trudged across the outfield toward the road.

  “Of course not.”

  “But you’re scandalized.” Good-girl Winnie. I was certain she was.

  “Not really.”

  I eyed her, looking for the lie, but she kept walking.

  “Mother must be in fits,” I said.

  “Mother has no idea.”

  “Thanks for keeping it from her, then.”

  “She wasn’t there to hear about it,” said Winnie. “With any luck, Nell’s found her by now, and gotten her back to their room.”

  “Found her?”

  “We think she may have gone off with O’Sullivan.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be watching her?”

  She stopped and turned to face me. “Are you criticizing me? Because last I looked, no one had to stay up half the night searching over hill and dale for me.”

  I glared back, but she was right and we both knew it. She started walking again, and I had to hurry to catch up. “Thanks for not calling the police.”

  “I would never do that to him.”

  We were walking quickly now, turning onto Water Street, and I hoped she didn’t hear the hitch in my voice when I murmured, “Thank you.”

  Upstairs, Winnie tapped on Nell’s door. It opened quickly and we slid inside. Mother was asleep in her bed, snoring like a half-strangled tuba. The collar of her shirtwaist peeked out from under the blanket; she was still in her street clothes.

  “Where was she?” I asked.

  “Where were you?” Nell retorted. She was sharper these days, now that she wasn’t quite so sad. I almost liked her better before.

  “She was out, Nell,” said Winnie. “Let’s leave it at that. Where did you find Mother?”

  “Mr. O’Sullivan’s room. They were sound asleep, he on his bed, she in the chair.”

  I let out a sigh, but Nell didn’t look as relieved as I felt. “What?” I asked.

  “Her shoes were off.” This seemed harmless enough until Nell added, “Her chair was pulled up next to the bed, and her feet were on his lap, as if he’d been . . . rubbing them.”

  My stomach turned. “That’s disgusting.”

  Winnie winced and shook her head. “At least it’s not adultery.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Nell. “Though I suppose it could have progressed to that if they hadn’t had so much to drink.”

  Mother inhaled a huge snort, and let it out with a whoosh. I wanted to slap her—she was a married woman, for cripes’ sake! But who was I to judge? I was doing something far more despicable in many peoples’ eyes.

  “She’s just lonely,” Nell sighed. “And having your feet rubbed is nice.”

  We stared at Nell. Clearly there was a whole world of bodily contact we single girls could only begin to imagine.

  “Listen,” said Nell. “You two are becoming women. It’s all terribly important in the moment. I remember. I remember very well.” She crossed her arms over her nightdress. “But you’re taking risks we can’t afford.”

&nb
sp; She was right, of course, and I’d known it long before she said so. Which doesn’t mean I felt regret. I didn’t. But I nodded all the same.

  We went back to our own room, undressed, and slid quietly into our bed. I couldn’t sleep, though. I couldn’t stop thinking about Tip, and the absolute rightness of his arms around me, in the face of everyone else in the world thinking it was so wrong.

  And Winnie—she could do whatever she wanted with that piano player! She could run off with him when she was supposed to be watching Mother, and no one scolded her. He could be a Bolshevik for all we knew, and it didn’t matter one bit. His skin wasn’t as pale as ours, but it was light enough to make him A-okay. The unfairness of it, the loss I could see barreling down on me like an avalanche, it made me lash out.

  “It’s so easy for you,” I hissed into the darkness. “You can sit in the park and canoodle all day long, and everyone thinks it’s cute—not an attack against all that’s holy.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes, but you don’t care, do you!”

  I knew it wasn’t true. It was hardly even the point.

  “Gert,” she said. “I let the pigeons out.”

  “What?”

  “Pepper’s pigeons. After they got him fired, I opened the cage and let their birds loose.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “They deserved it after what they did.”

  “Won’t Tip smile when he hears!” I could barely wait to tell him. Little Winnie—doing something so dastardly! “Wish I’d done it myself.”

  “You would’ve if you’d had the chance.”

  She was right about that, of course. I would’ve done anything to even the score. But I hadn’t. And Winnie had.

  I don’t cry much, and I certainly don’t weep and wail like other girls do. I kept it quiet, but I suppose she could feel the tremors in the mattress.

  “Oh, Gertie.”

  “There’s nothing I can do for him,” I whispered. “Nothing at all.”

  “Hey, sleepyheads!” Kit’s voice roared above us. I blinked and my eyeballs felt as if they’d been dragged through sand. Winnie waved her arm like she was fending off an intruder.

  “What’s with you two?” boomed Kit. “It’s almost noon!”

  We dragged ourselves out of bed and splashed water on our faces, still speckled with yesterday’s makeup. “Go on down and eat without us,” I grumbled at Kit.

  “Lucy and I had breakfast hours ago, all by ourselves!” Her glee was like a tin horn in my ear. “Joe didn’t get up, either—Lucy called him Rip Van Winkle.”

  No one said much as we hurried through breakfast. Mother didn’t even come down, saying Harry needed a bit more sleep, and she’d meet us at the theatre. Joe joined us briefly, but only drank coffee and tucked a roll into his pocket as he left.

  “What’s with him?” I murmured to Nell.

  “He was out late with Winnie, looking for you.”

  Winnie looked like she’d been socked in the stomach. He’d been cold, but he’d sat with us, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d been disgusted with me and hated Winnie for dragging him into it. “He’ll be back,” I said to Winnie, and Nell nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  How did I know? I just knew. “He doesn’t seem . . . done.”

  “He sure looks done,” Winnie muttered, voice quavering from holding back tears.

  “No, he looks unsettled,” I said. “Unsettled is good. Just don’t go running after him.”

  We went upstairs to change. In all the previous night’s distractions, Winnie and I hadn’t rinsed and hung up our costumes, as we did every night. They were wrinkled and smelled like we’d worn them on an expedition to find the Northwest Passage.

  “Mother said we’re to wear the new costumes she made,” said Nell, handing them out, and I felt a feeble thrill at the idea of new clothes. But when I put it on, it was clear Mother had made a mistake cutting the fabric. The skirts were well above our knees.

  But that wasn’t the only problem. Winnie’s costume barely fit at all.

  “I’ve gained weight,” she said miserably.

  “Only in certain places,” I said. Her breasts were still small, but pressed into the new outfit, it was easy to see that they had bloomed. She nudged me away from the mirror over the washstand and stared in horrified wonder.

  Nell came in wearing her new costume. “It’s practically indecent!” she said, tugging down the skirt. “Mr. Ohmann might very well throw us out. He’s not running a burlesque show.”

  I’d never noticed just how long Kit’s legs were before I’d seen them with so little coverage. Surprisingly, she was the least bothered by it. “The stagehands always say if we showed more leg, we’d get a bigger reaction.”

  That silenced our complaints in a hurry. “My goodness,” said Nell, chuckling. “We’ve become applause hounds. Maybe we should just go out in our corsets.”

  “Eva Tanguay doesn’t wear much more than that,” said Kit, “and she makes over three thousand a week!”

  We headed to the theatre, coats tightly buttoned. Mother soon arrived and explained she’d run short on fabric. “You look fine,” she said, waving us away, anxious to take up her spot with O’Sullivan, I supposed. “They’re only a few inches shorter.”

  “Mother, look at my seams!” Winnie said. “They’re pulling apart like zipper teeth!”

  Mother squinted at Winne’s torso as if it were an acquaintance she couldn’t quite place. “Winnie,” she said, “I do believe the Good Lord has finally seen fit to grant you some bosoms!”

  Kit burst into cackling laughter. Nell smiled at the baby as if he’d just made a joke of some kind. I crossed my arms and put a hand up to my chin, fingers over my lips to cover the wicked grin behind them. Then that foot-rubbing O’Sullivan stuck his head in our doorway. “What’s all the giggling and carrying on about?” he said, grinning. “I can hear it clear down the hall!”

  Winnie bolted.

  29

  WINNIE

  I do not like vaudeville, but what can I do? It likes me.

  —Anna Held, actress and singer

  Just then, Joe entered at the far end of the hallway, and I was not about to face him in my current state of humiliation. I ducked into the nearest open door: Tip’s dressing room.

  The room was empty and I slipped behind the door to hide. Everyone laughing at me like I was some sort of freak in a circus! I felt hot tears slip from my eyes, and it made me even angrier!

  I stood there heaving and snuffling and trying to get hold of myself. My eye caught on Tip’s enormous battered trunk, pocked and scarred with years of wear.

  Tip. He knew how I felt. People looked at Negroes and snickered or told coarse jokes all the time.

  All the time.

  And here I’d only had to put up with it once in all my seventeen years.

  I calmed myself with a deep, shuddering breath, and ran my fingertips under my eyes to wipe away my tears and indignation.

  When I went back to our dressing room, only Nell and Gert were there, and I glared at them a moment until Nell said, “Oh, Winnie, I’m sorry. Mother can be so . . .” We all knew how Mother could be.

  “I told her she’s got to find some fabric scraps and put panels in along your seams,” Gert said. “How can you work like that, for cripes’ sake?” It wasn’t like Gert to take up my cause, and I didn’t know what to make of it at first. But after a moment it came to me: pigeons.

  “Joe came by looking for you,” said Nell.

  “Should I—?”

  “No!” said Gert. “He can work a little harder than that.”

  “What if he came by to say that he never wants to speak to me again?”

  They looked at each other. “First of all,” said Gert, “if that’s what he’s after, he can definitely work a little harder. Second of all, that’s not what he’s after.”

  “Well, what is he after then?”

  Gert shrugged. “Who knows? Let him hunt fo
r you and say so himself. For now, you just sit here with us.”

  The day took a turn for the better, then, as my sisters told me stories and mishaps of their early romantic careers. These included such scandalous episodes as necking behind the cigar factory and coming home reeking of freshly rolled tobacco; riding in Bobby McDonough’s jalopy at breakneck speed from the top of the Park Avenue hill, hitting a bump in the road and nearly being pitched from the car; and late-night swimming in drawers and corset in Quaker Lake. These were Gert’s tales, of course, but Nell told one about smoking her first cigarette with Harry and throwing up in his mother’s primrose hedge, which shocked and delighted us.

  It felt wonderful to say Harry’s name with smiles on our faces rather than tears for once.

  When the stage manager gave us the five-minute warning, we made our way to the wings, passing Joe and Lucy backstage. “Chin high,” whispered Gert, and I sent mine skyward.

  Buoyed by good spirits, and by the cheers and hoots I could only attribute to our newly abbreviated skirts, we gave one of our best performances yet. Despite the difficulties of the past twelve hours, I felt happy and proud to be a Tumbling Turner.

  Until my costume exploded.

  It was our last stunt, the tree of sisters, and I climbed onto Kit’s shoulders as I had countless times before. Only this time, when I shot my arms into the air, I felt a sudden release from the compression of the tight costume. The left seam had split all the way down my ribs, and the top of the outfit flapped open, completely exposing my left breast.

  The roar of approval from the gallery gods, those young men who inhabit the cheap seats in every theatre in America, was deafening. You would’ve thought that one lone tea saucer’s worth of skin was an entire chorus line of burlesque showgirls, for all the libido it stirred. Ladies in the front rows gasped in horror, as did a few gentlemen, though I saw some grins, too.