The piano started again.
Dipsey started again.
Willie got up out of his seat and ran down the aisle. He ran up the steps and onto the stage. Dipsey was in the middle of a turn and didn’t see him until Willie was already doing his steps.
Without missing a beat, Dipsey smiled at him and winked. “Easy-like,” whispered Dipsey.
Willie moved like butter. He followed everything Dipsey did like a smaller one-and-the-same, like a small shadow come to life.
Dipsey was grinning all over himself. “Hold back,” he whispered. “Don’t let ’em have it yet!”
Willie held it in until he thought he would burst, but the smoothness of Dipsey and the smoothness of the piano and being there finally on that enormous stage made him say to himself, “Hold it. Hold it right this minute, or you’ll never get another chance.”
He danced better than he thought he ever could. “Now, baby, like I told you, we going to give it to em!” Dipsey’s voice went from a whisper into a shout as he yelled, “Let’s go, Willie, now!”
Willie danced faster than he’d ever danced, faster even than that day in the apartment. He didn’t make any mistakes and he let them have it, all right.
“Now, back down easy, baby,” whispered Dipsey. “Easy, and over—and out!”
The piano stopped.
All six guys in the audience stood up and applauded. Dipsey grabbed him by the neck. “Hey, you bugger, what you doing here?”
Willie was laughing and gasping for breath and couldn’t say anything, just allowed his head to be buried against Dipsey’s stomach.
“Hey, fellas, you like him?” Dipsey led him over to the edge of the stage.
“If you want him, Dips, you got him. He’s great!” Willie could just see a blurred shape talking.
“You hear that, Willie?” Dipsey picked him right up off the ground and threw him up in the air. “You got the job, baby!” He grabbed Willie and hugged him until Willie thought his bones would break. “You got the job!”
Willie was giggling and laughing and crying and felt like throwing up.
Dipsey led him to the edge of the stage again. “Hey, guys, this is my nephew!”
“No kidding!”
“How ’bout that?”
“Yeah,” said Dipsey, grabbing Willie again and smiling the biggest grin. “Him and me are going places!”
“What’s his name?” asked the man in the audience.
“Willie, this here’s my Willie, my dancing Willie.” Dipsey grabbed him again.
“He have an agent?”
“Yeah, me,” said Dipsey, laughing. “Naw, tell you what. I’ll take him to my agent.”
“Okay, tell him to call us. It’ll be scale anyway, and he’ll have to get an Equity card.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get him all set up. Only small problem might be rehearsals during school hours, or costume fittings, because he’s got to keep on with school.”
“No problem. School’s almost out for the year. Take him back there and get him measured. What’s his last name?”
“Sheridan,” said Willie. “Willie Sheridan.”
“You tell ’em, fat lady,” said Dipsey, and led him offstage.
Willie got measured. Dipsey went onstage for rehearsal. He came back after Willie was finished.
“Listen, Willie, I don’t think you’re going to have any problem with your father, once you tell him you got a job and all like that, but if you want me to go with you—”
“I’m not going to tell him,” said Willie.
“How can you do that? You got to tell him. Your name will be in the papers for one thing, and before that, you’re going to have to be here in the afternoons to rehearse. You can’t get by with that, Willie, he’ll find out, and then it’ll be worse!”
“I’m not going to tell him. I’m going to tell my mother.”
“Oh.” Dipsey smiled. “Yeah. I see what you mean. I don’t blame you. Tell her—” Dipsey looked serious. “Tell her I’m going to take care of you and all. If she’s got any questions, just call me. Okay?”
Willie nodded. Everything seemed simple when Dipsey said it.
“Can you get home by yourself? No, wait, I can’t let you do that again. Here, wait right here a minute.” Dipsey walked onstage and over to where a group of people were standing. He was telling them something. He came back then to Willie. “Come on. You’re going to like this.” He took Willie by the hand and led him out the stage door.
“The director has a car and chauffeur here. He’s going to let the car run you home.” He led Willie over to a long black car with a chauffeur sitting inside. “What you think about that? You’re a star already and you haven’t even done anything!” He opened the door, and Willie climbed in the back.
“Mr. Green said for you to drop him off at East End and Seventy-ninth, and then come on back here,” Dipsey said to the chauffeur. “Okay?”
The chauffeur touched his hand to his cap and said nothing.
“Hope your mama isn’t too mad,” said Dipsey. “Give her a kiss from me. We’ll knock ’em dead, kid.” With that, he smiled a big smile, slammed the door, and was gone.
The long black car moved off through traffic like a whale sliding through the water.
Willie investigated everything in the back seat. There was a telephone, a fold-down bar, and a fur rug on the floor. He craned his neck to see out the windows as the long car glided along.
Emma was thumping her way along East End heading back to the apartment. The meeting had not been altogether satisfactory from her standpoint. Still, it was only the first meeting. On Wednesday, the brigade would meet, and that would probably be more interesting. She felt a certain lack of stimulation from Saunders, Goldin, and Ketchum. She had wanted to feel close to some people, to feel that she had friends at last, but she didn’t feel anything of the kind. She felt as alone and misunderstood as ever.
She tried to think of Saunders in a good light. After all, they had almost the same kind of problem. Their problem related to women’s liberation. It was a problem that would be overcome when and if men got any sense.
The person Emma couldn’t forgive in this was her mother. How dare her mother sit there and not be aware that her husband was being a male chauvinist pig to her daughter? Didn’t she know any better? Even if she just said a few things to him, or even if she had a job; but then, if she had a job, she probably would be a lot more liberated anyway and would have said something to him by now. Or did she really believe that garbage about getting married to a lawyer and having two lovely children?
Emma had a vision of herself as a mother. She saw herself sitting in her room reading a law book. She saw the two lovely children playing in the kitchen, the lovely girl making fudge and the lovely boy bouncing a ball. The lovely boy bounced his ball into the fudge and hot fudge went all over the lovely girl. They both screamed.
The vision fled in disaster. “I’d have to be watching them every minute,” said Emma loudly, attracting the attention of a passing hot-dog man, who stopped his cart, thinking she was talking to him.
And the lovely husband! What would he be like? She saw them sitting down in the living room. She saw herself pick up knitting while he picked up his pipe. She watched him orate on his successes of the day. She heard him explain the case he was trying.
He described what a witness had said on the stand.
“But that’s hearsay,” said Emma. “How could the judge allow that?”
“The judge missed it, Emma,” her husband whined. “Why couldn’t you?”
She saw his pained face and gave such a shudder of disgust that she set two Yorkies barking in fury. She jumped away from their snapping and started into her apartment house.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something she couldn’t believe. For a moment she thought it was just another of her fantasies.
No. It was true. She had actually seen Willie getting out of a long, chauffeured car.
She stood wa
iting for him under the canopy. He saw her and began to run to the elevator. She grabbed him.
“Wait just a minute there. Where do you think you’re going? How did you get in that car, and whose car is that?”
“Leggo me!” The elevator opened and Willie dragged her after him into it. The door closed. “Leggo my arm, Emma, you hurting!”
“Not until I get the truth out of you. Where have you been and what have you been doing?”
“I don’t have to tell you nothing, nothing in the world! Now, leggo!”
“Come on, you little nit. You want me to blab to your father?”
Willie looked terrified. “I’m not doing anything bad!”
“You want him to know about this?”
“No, but see, it’s nothing. I just got a ride home from school in a friend’s car.”
Emma considered this. It was possible. On the other hand, Willie’s left eye was twitching, which it always did when he lied. “You’re lying.”
“I am not!” yelled Willie, twitching away.
“Listen. I want to tell you something. I could help you a lot, little boy, to get what you want, but if you’re going to lie to me—”
“I got what I want!” yelled Willie. Grinning, he ran out of the elevator and down the hall.
“What are you talking about?” called Emma. She lumbered after him. He was through the door and gone by the time she got there. She cornered him in the kitchen. “What’s happened?”
Martha said, “Wait a minute! What’s going on? We’re not having any more fights between you two.”
“We’re not fighting,” said Emma, swinging her book satchel at Willie’s head. Willie ducked, snatched two cookies, and fled down the hall, Emma after him.
“You’re both late too. What am I supposed to tell your mother?” Martha called after them.
“I’ll find out for myself,” said Mrs. Sheridan, who erupted from her room just as Willie was slamming the door in Emma’s face.
“Where have you been?” she asked Emma.
“I—uh, there’s a committee at school—uh, to study—uh, legal problems,” said Emma.
“You don’t lie very well,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Where have you been?”
“It’s the truth,” said Emma indignantly, realizing suddenly that it was at least close to the truth. Her mother looked annoyed. “What’s the matter?” Emma snarled. “Don’t you think girls think about legal problems?”
“That’s enough out of you, Emma Sheridan. Go to your room and I don’t want to see your face until dinnertime!”
Emma slouched off. Mrs. Sheridan opened the door to Willie’s room.
“Now,” she said, closing it after her. “Where have you been?”
“Mama!” Willie jumped up and threw his arms around his mother. “I got the best news!”
Once more in the comfortable confines of her room, Emma confronted her feelings about Willie.
“I honestly don’t know if he’s worth saving,” she said aloud.
“How did he get in that car?” She became aware of the murmur of voices through the wall. Her mother was asking him where he’d been.
He’ll probably just lie to her too, the little wretch.
Mothers always believe sons, though, don’t they? Emma smiled bitterly to hersell. She was of the opinion that Willie looked more like one of those lovely children in her mother’s dream world than she did. She didn’t look like a lovely anything, and she certainly didn’t feel like a child.
On the other hand, she had already brought up Willie’s problem to those girls. What did she have to go and do that for? Why couldn’t she ever keep her mouth shut? Now they would think she was chicken if she didn’t do something.
Her knees shook and everything turned to water again when she thought of her father standing in the living room confronted by a committee.
She tried not to see it, but she had to: she was trying to hate Willie again so she wouldn’t have to face this thing.
Well, she thought, so I’m chicken. How do you like that? A black chicken.
She shook with silent laughter.
“I don’t know, dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan.
“Oh, Mama, think of it!” Willie’s eyes shone.
“Is this summer stock, the one Dipsey was talking about?”
“No, Mama! This is another one that Dipsey’s in. He says he’ll take care of me. This one’s on Broadway!”
“Broadway?” Mrs. Sheridan looked excited. “You mean that you got a part in a musical on Broadway?”
“Yeah!” Willie did a somersault on his bed. He jumped up and started dancing. “This what I do, Mama, look here!” He danced for her while she watched, her eyes softening.
“Stop that! I’ll cut your feet off!” yelled Emma from the other room.
Willie did every step for her, with lots of “And then Dipsey does this,” and “Then the music goes like this, so I do this,” until he finished the whole thing.
“Why, Willie, I think that’s wonderful!” Mrs. Sheridan had her hands clasped together.
She looks as happy as I feel, thought Willie.
“You know, son, your grandfather always wanted to be in a musical, but he never was. I bet if he’s looking down from heaven now, he’s doing a soft shoe—” Mrs. Sheridan seemed to catch herself. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what your father will say.”
“Dipsey said he’ll take care of me, Mama, and he said I should tell you that.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will. If only there were some way—is this going to interfere with school?”
“Naw, ’cause the man, the director, Mr. Green, he says school’s almost out, and that if I have to come to rehearsals, that they can make some arrangements or something like that. Dipsey asked him.”
“If your father didn’t have to know until—”
“Yeah, Mama, don’t tell him!”
“I don’t know, son. That’s not right, you know. But it seems, oh, it seems such an opportunity. I think that even he, if he knew that it was Broadway—”
“Mama, please, please, Mama, please don’t tell him, please.”
“I’ll have to think about this, dear, I really will. This is very serious. I want to do the right thing.” Mrs. Sheridan was clearly rattled. “I’ll have to talk to Dipsey in the morning and get the details.”
“Please, Mama,” said Willie, looking small.
“I’ll see, dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan with a worried look on her face. She opened the door and started out. “Wash your hands and face for dinner, dear.” She closed the door.
“Yes’m.” Willie flung himself on the bed. Oh, boy, how I hate it when they say “I’ll see,” he thought, then let his mind go back to that dark theater, to that big stage, to the first moment that Dipsey saw it was him, Willie, dancing next to him.
Willie was grinning so much at dinner he could hardly eat. Emma kept giving him her district-attorney look.
Mrs. Sheridan was nervous as a cat. She spilled water twice and, in an effort to look neither at Willie nor at Mr. Sheridan, stared relentlessly at Emma.
“You have a good day, Willie?” asked Mr. Sheridan jovially.
“I sure did!” crowed Willie. His eyes sparkled. For once, he began to eat what was in front of him without bothering to push it around.
“You play catch with the guys after school?” asked Mr. Sheridan. Mrs. Sheridan knocked over the saltcellar.
Emma wondered anew what image her father had of his son. Willie had never been known to play ball with anyone. Willie didn’t even have any friends to play ball with.
“Not exactly,” said Willie, grinning again at his mother.
Mr. Sheridan looked to Mrs. Sheridan for an explanation. Mrs. Sheridan said, “Martha, I think you should pass the peas again.”
“What peas?” asked Martha. “You wanted peas tonight? All I made was beans.”
“I meant the beans,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “How silly of me! Isn’t it funny how you say one
thing and mean another?”
Everyone was looking at her. “I knew perfectly well those were beans and I said peas.” She smiled helplessly.
“Happens to everybody,” said Mr. Sheridan magnanimously. “Just yesterday, I was in court and I got up to ask the judge for a continuance and I asked for a contempt of court!”
Emma started shaking silently, so hard that the table shook.
Her father smiled at her. “You know what that means?”
Emma nodded, still laughing.
“The judge—it was old Judge Barlow and he’s got a pretty good sense of humor—he says, quick as you please, ‘If you really want me to cite you for contempt, Counselor, I’ll be only too happy.’”
Mr. Sheridan was shaking now too, and Emma noticed that no noise came out of him either when he laughed. “I had barely heard myself, but when he said that, I heard what I had said and you should have seen me stumbling around getting myself out of that one.” He shook even harder.
Mrs. Sheridan was laughing too. Willie was smiling. Emma considered Willie. What was he so happy about? He could only be happy about one thing, because only one thing made him happy. Something must have happened with the dance lessons or with Dipsey. What would that have to do with that long, black car? This was driving her crazy. She’d get him, after dinner, and twist his arm off until he told her.
“Willie and I are going off after dinner for a little while,” said Mrs. Sheridan, looking her husband dead in the eye. “It’s a new idea I have of each of us spending a little time alone with the kids. I thought I’d take Willie to see a movie, and you and Emma can do something together. Isn’t that nice?” Her voice rose shrilly.
Mr. Sheridan looked as though he’d been asked to a cocktail party at the morgue.
“Sure,” he said weakly. “I have a little work I brought home, but after that.” He gave his wife a steely glare.
“Maybe Emma could help you. She’s very good at—” Mrs. Sheridan seemed terrified to continue, because Mr. Sheridan had her eyes in a vise, daring her to say more. “… helping,” she finished lamely.
“I think I can manage without her,” said Mr. Sheridan.
“I have homework,” said Emma shortly, wondering that she felt she had to get her father off the hook. She imagined herself picking up the phone and calling Cathy, saying “Emergency” quickly into the receiver and hanging up, rushing to the warehouse, getting a committee together, and coming back to confront her father, because for once he would be alone in the house.
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