The Gallery

by Laura Marx Fitzgerald

  “Bacchus.”

  “Aha,” I nodded, still not seeing what was so funny about it. “God of—”

  Alphonse smiled at my attempt. “Wine.” In the ballroom, the jazz orchestra began tuning up with barn-like bleating. “And wild revels.”

  He stroked his mustache, as if trying to fluff it up, though it had filled out nicely. In fact, in his full livery, he looked rather dashing, and you’d never guess just a few years before he’d been on a boat from the Old Country.

  Ma had drawn the line at costumes for the servants, especially when Lady Florenzia suggested a skintight acrobat getup. I scratched at my own taffeta “formal,” the stiff starched white collar already rubbing my neck raw.

  “Ah. Well, isn’t that clever,” I said flatly. Oh, Rose, I thought, is this really the best time for jokes about mythology? Couldn’t we stay focused?

  The plan was simple. Daddo, Stan, and Jenny Donovan had worked up an act and were scheduled to go on around eleven thirty. After their spot, they’d change out of their costumes, and Daddo would go pull the car around. I’d go up in the dumbwaiter to Rose’s room, where she’d change into Jenny’s bearded lady costume. Down we’d go again, one at a time in the dumbwaiter, to the first floor, where I’d escort her out to the sidewalk, into Daddo’s borrowed car, and on to—

  Where? I didn’t know. Daddo had instructions to drive as far as the night and a tank of gas could take them. On the backseat was an old suitcase with some of Ma’s castoffs and five dollars I’d skimmed from the Ovaltine can.

  The rest was up to Rose.

  A servant at the end of the gallery clinked and clanked bottles as he set up one of the six bars I’d counted so far. “I don’t think we really need a reminder of what’s on the drinks menu.”

  “It is not the wine. And it is not for us.” Alphonse glanced around. “It is for them—the party guests. So they can see who he really is.”

  “Him?” I pointed at Bacchus.

  “Mr. Sewell, of course.”

  “But Mr. Sewell doesn’t drink.”

  “He does not need to. Notice—he’s offering us the wine. And tonight, they will all be drinking it.”

  And with a wave of his hands, the front bell rang, as if Alphonse had summoned the first guest himself.

  —

  Not that anyone took two beans of notice of our friend Bacchus, god of wine or no. Why would anyone look at art when there were trapeze artists whizzing from the gallery ceiling?

  Or carnival games, with a chance to win real gold watches, diamond earrings, a boat cruise to Bermuda leaving at midnight?

  Or a full jazz orchestra from Harlem, playing music designed to make every society matron think she was Josephine Baker?

  Or the year’s biggest film star in a dunk tank? Or a senator and a gangster in a Siamese twin costume, or a World Series slugger doing the Black Bottom with the Four-Legged Woman?

  I could barely collect the coats fast enough, great piles of furs—like being smothered by zoo animals—that I ferried from guest to cloakroom, hustling to get back to The Greatest Greatest Show on Earth.

  And then there was liquor: prime stuff, and a hundred percent illegal. The party was drenched in it. Trays of glasses—highballs, low balls, flutes, coupes, tulips—filled and emptied as if on command, and the parquet floors got sloshier as the night went on.

  Mr. Sewell hovered above it all, looking deeply uncomfortable in the glossy ringmaster costume Lady Florenzia had selected, as if he couldn’t wait to kick out everyone and lock down his fortress again.

  “Infernal, egregious waste of resources,” he muttered, clenching a glass in hand—no Bacchus here, as his decidedly unmerry demeanor suggested seltzer water. He tapped his foot, waiting for something to happen in a room where everything was happening. “By God, this had better pay off.”

  Luckily Lady Florenzia had just arrived, fashionably late to her own party, of course. After trading her fur wrap for a boa—a real boa constrictor to complete her snake charmer costume, all shimmer and shimmies—she twined her snaked-wrapped arms around his. I stuck close, pretending to rearrange the furs in my arms.

  “I was just saying that this had better pay off,” he launched in, dodging her kisses on each cheek. “Just look at these drunken freeloaders—”

  “Why, darling, these are your guests! Or if it helps,” she said with a wink, “just think of them as potential sources.”

  “Yes, I know, but . . .” He grimaced as what appeared to be a giant and a midget hobo wandered by. “My God, what a ragged lot.”

  It was Daddo and Stan, dressed for their act.

  “Marty, it’s a disaster,” Daddo launched in with no notice of the house’s ringmaster. “They’re squeezing us between Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson!”

  Stan readjusted his cap and folded his arms. “We’re headliners, we are!”

  Lady Florenzia couldn’t help but overhear this, and her gaze shifted to Daddo and Stan with disdain. “Is this one of the acts you brought in?” she asked me accusingly.

  “Lady,”—Daddo was determined to take his case to the top—“we’re used to the top billing. What’re Cantor and Jolson gonna do, just sing? Me and Stan do it all—sing, dance, comedy, you name it. I mean, just look at this.”

  And there followed a display of the most frenzied and grotesque slapstick.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, Jenny Donovan, our Bearded Lady, wandered by. She’d extended her fake half beard to wrap across her face, but with an unmatched hair color, which apparently she hoped to distract from with a most shockingly low-cut gown.

  “Fellas, fellas,”—she was already slurring—“getta loada this hooch. ‘S’all free, canyastandit?” She swiped another glass from a passing tray.

  Mr. Sewell made a sound of contempt from the depths of his throat. “My word, this is—”

  I shot Lady F. a look that said, “Let me handle this,” and dragged the trio to a corner.

  “Look, I didn’t want to say anything. Al Jolson—he, uh, he requested you. He heard about your act, and he said, look, I need a little comedy to warm up the crowd, see?” I leaned in conspiratorially. “Maybe if you really kill it tonight, he’ll take you on the road? I hear he’s headed to Hollywood to make a new talkie. . . .” I let that one dangle.

  Stan elbowed my dad in the knees. “The kid’s got a point. C’mon, we’ve got a captive audience. Let’s give ’em a preview.” And Stan pushed Daddo into the center of the room, where he proceeded to climb him like a telephone pole and beat him about the head with his cap. Jenny pretended to swing punches at Daddo while he held her at arms’ length. Daddo shouted his new catch phrase, “Everything’s swell, kids!”

  No one noticed.

  My relief lasted only an instant.

  “Miss Smith-Smythe,” Mr. Sewell was saying, “you promised me certain meetings. And I promised you use of my house for this travesty, ensuing delivery of said meetings. But if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, I have no qualms about clearing this house. The Fire Department can always be called for signs of a gas leak. . . .”

  “Please, call me Lady Florenzia.” Miss Smith-Smythe smiled through clenched teeth. “And—Oh!” She exclaimed as a squared-off hunk of granite entered and was relieved of his overcoat. “Speak of the devil, and the devil appears. As it were. Allow me to make the introductions.”

  And as the serpent slid its way around Lady Florenzia’s shoulders, she wound one arm through Mr. Sewell’s and the other through the mystery man’s. She moved the real party to the office, where the door was firmly shut to protect whatever sacred knowledge they shared.

  I turned and saw Ma, staring suspiciously after the group. She’d had a look all night as if she smelled something rancid, but now she looked—shaken. It was something about the way Lady Florenzia’s arm had snaked through Mr. Sewell’s.


  —

  Between the frenzied pace of clearing coats and plates and the free entertainment, the next few hours flew by.

  As their sobriety fell away, so did the guests’ disguises, and soon the true behavior of New York’s rich and powerful was on full display. Any delusions I had of the rich being more genteel or refined than us common folk were discarded that night, along with the contents of Cole Porter’s stomach and the toupee I saw Mrs. Astor fling out a window.

  But with pride I saw that the drunker the guests became, the more the servants’ smooth sailing stood in relief. Ma had choreographed a beautiful dance, putting the staff through their paces in the weeks preceding so that they parried and glided around the stumbling obstacles, balancing tinkling trays as if by levitation, magically producing fresh drinks and empty ashtrays.

  Sometime before midnight my own routine was interrupted by a tug at my elbow. It was Stan, now in a very dapper tuxedo. He shoved what looked like a silk-wrapped badger pelt into my hand. Jenny’s beard and costume.

  “We bombed,” he offered, before I could ask. “We still get paid though, right?”

  My eyes scanned the room frantically. Jenny was beardless but tuxedoed, asleep and drooling in a wing chair. “Where’s Daddo?”

  “’Ere I am, my girl,” came a Brooklyn braying behind me, and when I turned I saw Daddo, his costume crumpled beyond what was necessary. “Just celebrating a job well done. Had ’em eating out of our hands, din’t we, Stanny Boy?” The glass in his hand jingled merrily with ice cubes and an elixir of dubious origins.

  “You find the bar then?” Stan made his dinner jacket dance with a hand on each lapel. “I’m headed that way meself.”

  “No, no, no,” I sputtered, grabbing the drink out of Daddo’s hand and pouring it into a potted palm. “You’re supposed to be bringing the—”

  “Car around, ’course.” Daddo’s eyes were ringed red, whether from drink or tears I didn’t know.

  I grabbed Daddo’s arm. “Swear, Daddo. Swear you’ll do this, and do it right.”

  Daddo threw a sweaty arm around me. “Now, now, darlin’. When my girl asks, I answer.” He gave me a final squeeze. “Just leaving to get it now.” Daddo made a retreat through the crowd, but I saw him swipe a champagne glass off a gliding waiter’s tray.

  I pulled Stan back by his jacket. “One drink, Stan. One. You have to see to it—”

  “See to what? Oh, hello, Stan. Fine show tonight.” Ma stepped in, and Stan made a hasty exit. Ma’s usually placid forehead glowed with sweat, and she dabbed it with the handkerchief she kept up her sleeve. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you. The sword swallower and Mr. Chaplin made a wager, and now there’s blood all over the music room carpet.”

  “Ma, Daddo’s act was—”

  “A disaster, I know.” She shook her head. “The act was all right, but to follow Eddie Cantor, ach—” Ma’s eyes looked so sad that the room seemed to deflate for a moment. “These last few weeks at home. I did hope—well, never mind.” Ma looked quizzically at the beard in my hands. “What’s that?”

  “So there’s blood in the music room?” I sidestepped.

  “Yes, you’ll need seltzer.” She spotted some breach of etiquette across the room and turned to squelch it. “But first stop by the butler’s pantry. I need you to carry the soiled glasses down to the kitchen. The dumbwaiter can’t keep up.”

  The dumbwaiter.

  I raced to the pantry and finally saw what I hadn’t wanted to see. Waves of platters and trays crashed in and out of the dumbwaiter, filled, then emptied. The rising and falling box was in constant use, manned on either end by servants circulating replenishments and sure to notice even the smallest hitch in its operation, not to mention a Bearded Lady sitting on the canapes.

  How could I have overlooked it? How could I have been so stupid? With no dumbwaiter, there would be no way to get Rose’s costume to her, and Rose herself would be left waiting, waiting, waiting all night, just as she had for years, as the opportunity for her escape slipped away. The weeks of planning drained out of me, puddled around my feet like a snowman in the sun.

  —

  In the absence of a plan, I, for once, did what was asked of me and grabbed trays of dirty glassware to bring down to the kitchen. Not even Bridie gave me a hello in that underground ant farm of activity, where it was hard to say what rattled the dishes more: the jazz music or the rushing of the subway train just outside. I rushed to escape back above deck.

  But on my way back to the stairs, I passed Ma’s sitting room and was shocked to hear a man’s voice inside.

  I pushed the door open.

  “You got someone to take this down? Okay, here goes: Film stars, debutantes, and former presidents—we might have trouble with Taft’s people on that one—former presidents gathered for a night of staggering—heh, staggering, that’s good—staggering excess at J. Archer Sewell’s residence last night. Full stop. In a circus-themed blowout that would have shocked Marie Antoinette, New York’s glitteratti tried their hand at trapeze and the latest Jazz dance crazes, fueled by libations lately frowned upon by Congress—”

  A short guy in a shabby attempt at a nice suit was on Ma’s telephone, usually reserved for calls to the grocer. A mask had been pushed up on his forehead, replaced by spectacles jammed on a stubbed snub nose, and although he looked familiar, I couldn’t quite place him. He peered intently at a stenographer’s notepad in the lamplight.

  The notepad I recognized as a promotion piece the newsstand had given away at Christmas: NEWS TO YOU? read the cardboard cover. READ THE YODEL!

  Lady Florenzia had been very clear: no press. But more importantly, no one was allowed in Ma’s sitting room except Ma.

  “Hey! You can’t be in here.”

  “S’all right, kid. Go back upstairs.” He turned his back to me and pressed his lips back to the receiver. “Okay, picking up with In her younger days—”

  “Hey! You’re not supposed to be here. Not here,” I jutted my chin toward the room, “or here at all, mister. No press.”

  “Look, I gotta get this in before the three a.m. press run. So just run along—”

  “I’ll run along, and I’ll get one of the guys out front.” Mr. Sewell had stationed some guys with ham necks by the door to check invitations and keep out fellows just like this.

  The man shoved his notepad into his breast pocket. “Look,” he fumed into the receiver, “I gotta find another phone. Don’t print anything without my say-so.” He slammed down the phone and pushed past me, not noticing when his notepad got knocked to the floor. I kicked it spitefully into a corner and followed him up the back stairs, intending to see him out the trade entrance, but got caught behind two footmen balancing silver bowls of ice cream for the dessert service.

  “Some shindig, huh,” said the slick-haired Irishman in front of me.

  “I’ll say,” came back a voice by way of Bensonhurst. “Just saw Babe Ruth passed out under the pianah, all tree-hunderd pounds of ’im.” Bensonhurst stopped to swipe a trail of melting ice cream with his finger. “Put yer money on the Dodgers this year, boys!”

  And just like that, I had a new plan.

  —

  “No, no, no, no,” Ma chanted as we made our way to the ballroom. Sure enough, Babe Ruth lay snoring under the grand piano like a beached whale. A beached whale at a raucous jazz spree where no one gave any notice to whales, beached or otherwise.

  “How are we—”

  “McCagg!” I burst in before she could finish the thought. “He’s the only one big and strong enough.”

  She thought for a minute, assailed from all sides by foxtrotting couples. “All right. Go get him. I’ll get Alphonse to help, too.” She turned to leave.

  One down.

  “Oh, and Ma! Almost forgot. I found some reporter type in your sitting room. Didn’t you lock it up
?”

  Ma looked momentarily furious with herself. “Lord, I must’ve forgotten.”

  “Quick, gimme your keys. I’ll run down and lock it.”

  Ma’s hands flew to her keys protectively.

  “I’ll bring them right back. Come on, Ma.” I looked back over at the beached Babe as a trombone blast blew my hair askew. “We can’t leave him here. Especially with a reporter sneaking around and using your phone.”

  I had the keys. I had both Ma and McCagg occupied, I had Mr. Sewell behind closed doors, and a house full of partygoers oblivious to anything but their own good time.

  Now I just needed Rose.

  —

  The key turned easily in the lock on Rose’s room. Like everything else in the house, Ma kept it in good working order.

  Her room was dark—pitch-black, really—and as I closed the door behind me, I wondered how she could sleep with the thumping and blasting of the orchestra, which vibrated through the house.

  “Rose?” I whispered.

  A hand—cool, thin—grasped mine.

  “I’m ready.”

  —

  Rose didn’t speak as she dressed. Far from the crazed, brutish animal I first saw kicking at the bed curtains, or the catatonic rag doll that couldn’t leave her chair, this version of Rose was composed, fixed on the events at hand. She took the Bearded Lady costume from me quickly, whisking off her nightgown and yanking the dress into place.

  As she dressed she asked simple questions, pushing ahead when I rambled my answers. Was Mr. Sewell occupied? Was there a car waiting? How long would she have it? She handed me a hatbox. Inside was stuffed a silk dress and some stockings and undergarments, all too fine and out of season, but the only things left in her armoire, I imagined. I resolved to steal her a fur coat.

  “Are you sure you have everything?” I asked, clutching the bag.

  She pulled the ridiculous beard up and didn’t even turn her head. “I’ve always had everything. Now I have what I need.”

  Chapter