The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  The next day, Mother homed in on the headliner, Isadora the Incredible Impersonator. Her act involved lightning-quick clothing changes from male to female, and mimicking everyone from President Wilson to Mary Pickford. It occurred to me that at every stop, Mother always befriended the headliner—male or female, it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe it wasn’t romance she was after at all; maybe it was just rubbing shoulders with fame and success. Father was no headliner, of course—how could a dear old lump of coal carry a show? I wondered if that might be the key to their unhappiness. Neither of them held quite the right spot on the bill for the other.

  None of the performers interested me in the least, of course. Who could hold a candle to Tip? I preferred the quiet cave of our dressing room. I was with Nell, feeding the baby pea-sized bits of my corned beef sandwich, when Winnie suddenly poked her head in the door. I hoped we might have a little time free from her all-consuming obsession, and from talk of men in general.

  No such luck.

  “Do you mind if Joe sits with us for a while after his act is over?” she asked.

  “Why? Are you getting tired of being alone with him?” I tried not to sound hopeful.

  “Not at all! I guess I . . . I just want you both to get to know him a little.”

  Nell raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were getting so serious already.”

  Winnie looked confused. “That’s serious?”

  “Why, sure, honey,” said Nell. “At first you want him all to yourself—and you certainly don’t want your family’s quirks ruining it for you.” She laughed. “But then you feel comfortable and solid, so you start wanting him to know the people who are important to you.”

  I had never wanted Roy to spend time with my family, didn’t even want them to know about him. Mother might’ve forbidden me from seeing someone ten years older. Or she might not. You never could tell what might send her, and I couldn’t chance it.

  But maybe it was something else, too. Maybe I just hadn’t felt solid enough, as Nell said.

  “Is that what it was like with Harry?” Winnie asked.

  “Why do you think I kept bringing him to dinner? I held my breath every time, never knowing if Mother might swear, or Kit might eat all the meat loaf, or Dad might wander off without a word to listen to his Victrola.”

  I thought of Harry sitting there so politely through all those noisy dinners. “Poor fella.”

  “Oh, he loved you all, but he certainly knew what he was getting himself into when he asked me to marry him.”

  “What did he think of me?” Winnie asked shyly.

  Nell smiled. “I believe the first thing he said about you was, “Well, she certainly has quite a vocabulary!’ ”

  We all laughed—he’d hit the nail on the head—but the humor soon shifted to sadness. Oh, Harry. I thought we’d eventually stop missing him, but now I saw we never would. Nell’s eyes went shiny and Winnie’s did, too.

  The baby reached up to grab Nell’s cheek and she took his sticky little hand and blew a kiss against his palm, which made him giggle. Sweetness and sorrow all mixed up.

  Joe appeared in the doorway. “There you are! Oh . . . should I come back later?”

  “No, please,” said Nell, patting away a stray tear. “We were just being silly.”

  Joe looked uncertainly to Winnie. “We were talking about Nell’s husband, Harry,” she said, “and how he thought I had a big vocabulary.”

  Joe chuckled. “He had that right. Sometimes I think I should carry a dictionary.” He sat down next to Nell. “I don’t think I ever said how sorry I am.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your father, too, Joe.”

  Suddenly there were footsteps in the hallway.

  “April! You can’t!”

  “See for yourself if I can.” Our dressing room door was partly open, and she came into view in the hallway just as a black-suited arm reached to grab her elbow. She wore a plain brown dress with a little cloche hat. A battered tapestry bag hung from her hand. “Let go!” She yanked her elbow free and nearly fell over.

  “They won’t take you back,” he warned, just out of view. “You broke their hearts too many times.”

  “Oh, they will,” she said with a tired smile. “Just like you. They say they won’t but they always do.”

  “April, please. If you just hang on, we can make enough money for a hospital.”

  “A sanitarium, you mean. They’ll lock me up and I’ll never get out.”

  “Better than jail!”

  “You should’ve just left me there.”

  A humorless snort. “Which time?”

  She stared in his direction for a moment, her face fallen with hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “That was mean.”

  “No,” she said softly. “I’m mean. You’ve spent your whole life watching out for me. You’re the best brother anyone could ask for, Freddie, and over and over I let you down.”

  He was her brother! Now it made sense that he hadn’t just left her by the side of the road somewhere.

  “If you could just stay away from it . . .” His voice was pleading but hopeless.

  “You know I can’t. And you’ll never understand why. Maybe if I could find someone who understands . . . but no one admits to it. No one just says, “I have a problem.’ ” She let out a weary sigh. “Well, Freddie. I have a problem. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep making it your problem.”

  He took one of her hands and put some bills into it. “It’s all I have,” he said, his voice beaten with sadness. “Promise you’ll use it for train fare home.”

  She held his hand in hers for a moment. “You know what my promises are worth.” Then she strode quickly away.

  He took a step after her and came into view. He glanced into our dressing room. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he muttered, and turned away.

  “Fred, don’t go!” Winnie jumped up and went to the door. “Come sit with us. Please.”

  “I should tell the manager to find a disappointment act,” he said, but he allowed her to guide him to a chair.

  “Where can you go with no money?” said Joe. “You have to stay in the show and get your pay. Can you do it alone?”

  Fred thought for a moment, but shook his head.

  “I could do April’s part,” Winnie offered. “You could teach me the steps and the jokes.”

  He looked up at her quickly, then an uncomfortable smile crossed his lips. “That’s very kind of you,” he said. “But I think it’s best to let it go.”

  “Winnie’d be great!” said Joe. “At least you’d have some money in your pocket.”

  But Fred’s uneasiness remained. “You have to understand,” he said. “I’m thirty years old.”

  She clearly didn’t know what that had to do with the price of tea in China, and Joe seemed confused, too. “Winnie,” I said, “all the jokes are courtship gags. You look young for your age. It would seem as if Fred were . . .”

  Joe nodded at the realization. “. . . an old man going after a little girl.”

  I was about to offer to do April’s bit myself, though I hated their silly soft-shoe routine, and was in absolutely no mood to act coy and amorous. But Nell surprised us all and beat me to the punch. “I could do it,” she said.

  Fred blinked at her. “I couldn’t ask you to.”

  “Oh well.” Nell shrugged. “It probably wouldn’t work anyway. Who’d believe you’d want to court me? I’m an old mother, after all.” She was only twenty-two, and rather pretty now that she’d put a little weight back on. I stifled a smile at the way she’d made it impossible for him to turn her down.

  “No, of course not!” Fred said. “You’re so . . . I’d be thrillighted . . . I mean, thrilled . . . and delighted!”

  Nell handed little Harry to me and stood up. “I guess we’d better get practicing, then.”

  They didn’t have long. The next show began in half an hour. Fred simplified some of the dance steps, and t
aught her most of the gags. April had left her blue ball gown behind, which would’ve been loose on Nell, except that she had to wear her tumbling costume underneath. The Turner Sisters followed right after on the bill, so she didn’t have time to change.

  She was nervous as we waited in the wings for the old blindfolded fellow to finish his wobbly sketches of the White House and the Eiffel Tower. “What have I gotten myself into?” she murmured in my ear.

  “Break a leg!” I whispered back.

  “He’ll be lucky if I don’t break his!”

  They didn’t exactly bring down the house. Even drunk, April knew the act and was a better dancer. But Nell was better at delivering lines, if only because she didn’t slur her speech.

  They twirled onto the boards and did an easy waltz around the stage, then went into a little side-by-side soft shoe. Fred started the patter by saying, “I’d like to take you out. You’re one in a million!”

  “That’s quite a coincidence!” said Nell.

  “It is? Why?”

  She cocked her head coyly. “Because so are your chances.”

  The audience chuckled at this, and Fred waited a beat before clutching his hands to his chest and exclaiming, “But my heart burns like a blazing fire!”

  Nell waved him away and said, “Aw, now don’t be a fuel.”

  Bigger laughter this time, which was encouraging. Nell missed a step here or there when they danced between gags, but Fred held her tight and kept her on course. When it was time to deliver their next set of jokes, they soft-shoed back and forth again.

  “I have a record of all our good times together,” said Fred.

  “Oh, that’s nice!” said Nell brightly. “Is it a diary?”

  Fred rolled his eyes. “No, it’s my checkbook!” He paused again for laughter, then added, “Since I met you I can’t eat or drink!”

  “That’s so sweet! Why not?”

  He pulled the lining out of his pockets. “I’m broke!”

  They danced again and Fred attempted the low dip he always did with April. But Nell was caught off guard and tried to keep herself from falling backward. They teetered wildly until he was able to pull her up to standing. I heard a boo or two, and hoped Fred and Nell were too busy getting back in step to notice.

  In the next series of gags, he grinned suggestively at her. “Now that our date is over, wanna neck, honey?”

  Nell brought her fingers to her throat and said, “No, thanks, I have one of my own.”

  “May I at least hold your hand?” Fred pleaded.

  Nell mimed weighing one hand in the other. “No need,” she said. “It’s not that heavy.”

  When they took their bows, the applause was polite, but not overly enthusiastic. At least they hadn’t been heckled off the stage.

  “I’m so sorry, Fred,” Nell said when they made it back to the wings. “I’ll remember the dip next time.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I’ve had worse shows, believe me. Far worse.”

  As they talked, Winnie and I stripped the blue ball gown off Nell, and she wiggled to get it down over her hips. “Can we practice some more after I come off again?” she asked Fred.

  “Yes, of course.” His face flushed slightly and he looked away. “Anytime you like.”

  As the dress hit the floor in a puddle, the stage manager hustled over. “Where’s April?”

  “She’s . . . uh . . . she’s not here,” stammered Fred.

  “Well, you tell her she’d better stay off the sauce for the next performance. You looked like you were dancing with a clubfooted rag doll out there!”

  Early the next morning, Kit was a foghorn in our ears. “Get up! We have to go to the theatre—Archie’s going to teach us some tricks!”

  “Leave us alone,” Winnie groaned.

  “Gert, you want to add some fancy new tricks to the act, don’t you? Archie knows a million of ’em!”

  “Archie’s an idiot,” I said from under my pillow. “He’ll be slopping pigs for a living by the time he’s twenty.”

  Kit wouldn’t quit. She’d already blasted Nell out of bed with her badgering, and soon we were all trudging through the stabbing midmorning light to the Opera House. Archie met us at the stage door, black hair slicked back, dark eyes shining.

  “It’s so nice of you to help us like this,” said Nell, stifling a yawn.

  “Happy to, missus,” he murmured shyly. “Truly, I am.”

  Some of Archie’s stunts seemed likely to end in multiple broken limbs or necks, but eventually he came up with a couple that we could pull off without risk of death. In the first, Winnie ran toward Kit from stage left and bounced on the springboard. Kit stood stage right and threw an old dancer’s cane Archie had found backstage. Winnie was supposed to catch it midair, then Kit would catch her and twirl her around with the cane held out in her arms.

  “That bouncy board is bloody brilliant!” said Archie after they’d missed the catch and crumpled to the floor for the sixth or eighth time.

  Bouncy board, for cripes’ sake. He didn’t even know the right name. And he had his eye on it, I could tell. The girls kept blowing the stunt, and he just kept grinning like a Limey jack-o’-lantern, tickled pink over Tip’s springboard.

  “You’d better not steal it,” I warned. “If I find out you have one of these at your next gig, I’ll hunt you down and beat you with it.”

  Archie flinched, like I was a dog who might bite him. He was twice my size, the big baby!

  “Gert,” said Nell. “He won’t.”

  “Tip gave it to us,” I said, and for a brief moment I’ll admit I did feel wild enough to do violence over it. “He didn’t want every act in vaudeville to have one.”

  “Gertie,” Winnie soothed. “We won’t let him steal it.”

  “What can Gert do?” Kit pleaded to Archie. “Don’t you have a great trick for her?”

  He eyed me warily, making no sudden moves.

  As the flash of rage passed, I felt foolish. He was just a stupid teenage boy. I took a breath and let it out. “Yes, I’d like that,” I said, still shaken by my own reaction. “Please.”

  His next idea was a rolling human ball. I lay on my back, Nell stood with her feet by my hands, then leaned over and grasped my ankles. She tumbled forward, and I held on to her ankles and rose up. Then Nell was on the floor with me above her, and it was my turn to roll forward.

  “The trick of it is, you relax into the fall,” said Archie. “Your instinct is to stiffen up, but if you do, you get banged up and it’s a real dog’s dinner.”

  “A mess.” Kit had evidently been hanging around him enough to pick up his slang.

  We practiced our rolling and got the hang of it after a while. Kit and Winnie worked on the jump-and-throw, but the timing was tricky, and they weren’t reliable enough by showtime. Anyway, we had bigger problems than adding new stunts.

  The French floozy was on the warpath.

  After the first show, Winnie dragged me out with Joe to find some lunch, though of course I had absolutely no interest in tagging along with the lovebirds. I could tell she was worried about me after that silly scene I made with Archie, and the thought of it only made me feel more bitter. But I went, just to get her off my back. There was a little sandwich place on Exchange Street that had corned beef “sliced very thin,” as our old friends Nat and Benny would say. It reminded me of them with every bite I took, and made me miss the old guys. Stop it! I told myself. It was more missing than I could take.

  On our way back, we turned down the little alley by the theatre and saw Marie standing at the stage door with a couple of fellows. When she saw us, she waved the boys away. They came down the alley toward us, eyes darting sideways at us as they passed.

  “What’s with them?” said Joe.

  “Marie’s rah-rah boys. She was probably giving them rotten fruit to throw at us,” Winnie joked.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” I said.

  So we shouldn’t have been surprised when th
e booing started during our next performance. It seemed halfhearted, though, and stopped completely when our comedy gags made the audience burst out laughing. The human rolling ball was a big hit, too.

  We were in the middle of our snew sketch—Winnie had just announced that she had a bad case of snew—when something came flying onstage! A biscuit, flung by one of the two boys who’d been in the alley. I could see them plain as day, sitting in the front row. It hit me on the shoulder and dropped to the boards at my feet.

  The nerve of those two snot-nosed college boys, thinking they could humiliate me like that. I felt the rage boil up again in my blood . . .

  I bent down and picked up that damned biscuit. Then I wound up and pelted it right at them. It hit one of them squarely in the chest. I booed back! Nat and Benny would’ve been so proud. But to make it truly work, I had to finish the sketch.

  I turned to Winnie and demanded, “What’s snew?”

  “Uh . . . nothing,” she stammered. “What’s new with you?”

  The audience went utterly demented with laughter. We finished the rest of the act and took our curtsies, but applause and cheers kept us on the boards for almost a full minute.

  That conniving Marie started onstage before we were off, as usual. This time I dawdled, and when she barreled straight toward me, I didn’t sidestep.

  I slapped her across the face.

  A gasp went up from the audience, but Marie made no sound, as if being hit were not all that surprising. She raised her arm to return the favor, but I ducked and strode offstage.

  Mother was watching from the wings with little Harry in her arms, and she pointed a finger at me, as the others stood there in shock. “You showed her!” she said. “The Turners don’t take any guff!”

  I knew I shouldn’t smile. I’d just struck a stranger—onstage of all places! But I couldn’t help it. After the biscuit, she deserved it. We watched her act, and I’ll give her this: she performed as if it were just another day in vaudeville.

  That night, instead of sneaking off with Joe, Winnie slid into bed beside me.

  “You and Scott Joplin have a fight?” I said as snores drifted from Lucy’s and Kit’s bed.