The Chaperone

by Laura Moriarty

  She swallowed and touched Louise’s arm.

  “Louise,” she whispered. “What kind of show is this?”

  Louise looked up, her expression both blank and annoyed, as if she didn’t know what Cora was asking, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, which was just maddening, because of course colored people taking seats on the main floor of a theater was out of the ordinary, even for New York. At the New Amsterdam, colored people had sat up in the balcony, just as they did in every theater Cora had ever been to. She’d never heard of anyplace, anywhere in the country, where things were different.

  “It’s supposed to be a very good show,” Louise said, looking back down at her book. She waved her hand at the seats in front of them. “It’s obviously very popular.”

  Cora’s gaze moved over the seats, then back down to her program. The fact that there was a character named “Jazz” seemed especially worrisome. Was it a jazz show? A radical one with mixed seating? She wasn’t much of a chaperone, sitting there passively with Louise, waiting for the music to start. Just the year before, there’d been an article in Ladies’ Home Journal that warned that the new jazz craze was a real threat to young people, as it regularly led to a base form of dancing that stirred up the lower nature. Even just hearing jazz was bad, the article said: its primitive rhythms and moaning saxophones were purposefully sensuous, and capable of hypnotizing young people. Cora knew that Viola had told her daughters in no uncertain terms that they were not to listen to jazz music, ever.

  “Louise. I think we should go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She didn’t even look up.

  Cora might have insisted, or tried to insist, but just then, a colored woman took the seat to her right. Cora glanced up, and the woman, who had bobbed hair with a Marcel wave, smiled briefly before she looked up at the curtained stage. A skinny colored boy of about twelve sat on her other side, his program rolled like a telescope against one of his eyes. Cora, her heart pounding, folded her program in half, and then in quarters. They couldn’t get up and leave now—not without giving the impression that they were fleeing from the proximity of this woman and the boy, that they were somehow personally offended by them, which wasn’t the case at all. Cora had no problem with colored people. She liked Della, for example, very much. She made a point of telling her how much she valued her as a talented housekeeper and cook. She was the one who had told Alan they should give Della a raise last year, and she’d always tried to be understanding and gracious when Della had to stay home with one of her own children.

  She’d just never expected to sit next to a colored person at a theater. She’d always heard that colored people, unless they were troublemakers or communists, preferred to have their own space up in the balcony, and that most of them weren’t interested in theater anyway.

  She had just managed to calm herself when the orchestra walked out into the pit. She stared. The musicians were colored, not white musicians in blackface, but actual colored musicians. All of them. Back home, she’d seen colored pianists at minstrel shows, goofing and grinning, their faces further darkened with grease paint or burnt cork. But this was clearly something else. She had never seen a show with colored violinists and colored oboists and colored saxophonists, and she had certainly never seen a colored conductor looking relaxed in a three-piece suit and shined shoes. Her eyes slid to her left. Louise. Louise must have known that this was not a regular Broadway show. Did she think this was some kind of joke, having Cora buy them tickets for this? Was getting the housewife from Kansas to a radical theater some kind of hilarious trick?

  What Cora didn’t know was that she wasn’t alone: although the theatergoers around her were playing it cool, much of New York had been similarly taken aback by Shuffle Along. Before the show opened in 1921, no one believed a white audience would pay to see a musical that was written, produced, directed, and performed solely by black people. The producers took the hall on Sixty-third Street because it was the only venue they could get, but after opening, the show proceeded to fill the seats with an enamored, cheering audience—both black and white—for over five hundred nights.

  The show made all kinds of history. Some fifty years later, when Cora’s godson, the dentist, who was born in Wichita the very summer Cora was in New York with Louise, and who at the age of twenty had fought under General Eisenhower in North Africa during World War II, discovered that his old godmother had seen the 1922 Broadway production of Shuffle Along, he asked her if she had any memory of a beautiful black girl, who certainly would have stolen the show, the same girl who would go on to become Josephine Baker, or the most gorgeous woman in the world, so insanely popular in her adopted France that even the occupying Nazis were afraid to touch her, the same girl who would become the Bronze Venus, or the Black Pearl, or just La Baker, as she was called when she performed for the Allied troops and whipped Cora’s young godson into such an obsessive frenzy that when he came home from the war he read everything in print about La Baker, as if that would improve his chances with her if she ever decided to leave France and return to America, and maybe someday happen into Wichita, where she might develop a toothache, sashay into his practice, so he could forsake his wife and proclaim his enduring love.

  No, Cora had to say, sorry to disappoint him. She didn’t remember a particular girl. The godson looked disappointed only for a moment before he tapped his own head and said, of course, of course, Josephine Baker had auditioned for Shuffle Along on Broadway, but they’d rejected her at first, saying she was too skinny and too dark for the stage. They let her work backstage as dresser, helping the stars with costume changes, secretly memorizing the lines and routines. Months later, when a chorus girl had to leave, Josephine Baker would step into her role like the natural she was, like the legend she would become, and show them all. But the night Cora and Louise went to see Shuffle Along, Josephine Baker, born the same year as Louise, was still backstage, just a costume girl, unseen and simmering.

  Was that what was in the air that July? All that talent and ambition and yearning so close that Cora couldn’t help but breathe it in? Because even so many years later, she would remember how on that warm evening on Sixty-third Street, despite all her discomfort and fear, she had at some point stopped worrying, stopped silently raging at Louise, and started to enjoy the show, her shoe-cramped toes tapping to the syncopated rhythms, and her eyes tearing up at the end of the slow ballad “Love Will Find a Way.” That had surprised her. She’d never seen a real love story between colored people, and the very idea of it had seemed so odd and silly to her, but by the end of the song, it didn’t.

  Cora would be in her early seventies when a group of young black people in Wichita decided to sit at the counter of Dockum Drugs every day, from open till close, until they were served. They endured cursing, threats, and boredom, but after a month, Dockum’s owner, tired of losing frightened or displaced customers, finally relented and served the protesters at the counter. Plenty of white people in Wichita believed they had cause for concern, because now that Dockum was serving colored people, they might think they were welcome anywhere. Cora, if she were honest, would have to admit she might have been one of them had it not been for that night back in 1922 when she sat between Louise and the black woman with the Marcel wave, and she watched a black man conduct a black orchestra while black men and women talked and danced and sang “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” and black and white people applauded them together, and nothing terrible happened. In fact, even though she’d gone into the theater with her own troubles and sadness that night, she’d had a wonderful evening, as she would later assure the frightened ladies in her circle, many of whom, in 1958, were far younger than she was. An integrated lunch counter, Cora would tell them, was not the end of civilization, and integrated schools and theaters wouldn’t be the end, either. It would be fine, she assured friends, thinking back to that night in New York. Really. It would be more than fine.

  She would owe this understanding to her time in New Yo
rk, and even more to Louise. That’s what spending time with the young can do—it’s the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.

  She read the postcard the next afternoon, while Louise was in the bath. She didn’t mean to read it. She’d never scavenged through her sons’ rooms, even when she’d been tempted, and she’d learned not to look through Alan’s things. But Louise’s postcard had fallen from the writing table to the floor of the front room, and Cora, while sweeping, had crouched down to pick it up, and her eye went to her own name in Louise’s compact but readable script.

  … Cora Carlisle is such a flat tire, and quite the rube. And she has a rich, handsome husband, which makes absolutely no sense. I keep wishing she’d fall into the Hudson or get hit by a trolley or something, but every day, she …

  Cora put the postcard down, writing side down, so she could only see the back, a picture of Charlie Chaplin. She looked at the yellow walls, and the painting of the Siamese cat. It didn’t matter. She was fine. She wasn’t concerned with what a fifteen-year-old snob thought of her. And anyway, she shouldn’t have read it, even the bit that she had. She crossed her arms, looking down at the postcard. Had she written that to her mother? It was too awful to consider, Louise writing such cruelties to Myra. Cora circled the table once, and then again, before reaching to retrieve the postcard.

  Dear Theo Darling,

  Cora put the card down. Theo was the brother. Not the older brother Louise had fought with, but the younger one, who’d wanted to play badminton by himself. It didn’t matter. If Louise had written the same to Myra, so what? So what. She wasn’t going to look at the other postcards. She didn’t care. She moved away from the table.

  She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. She sipped it slowly, listening to the steady drip of melting ice in the ice box. On the other side of the wall, the tub was draining, and she heard Louise humming a languid version of “Ain’t We Got Fun?” She put down the glass and tapped her fingertips on the stovetop. That Louise had called her a bore and a rube wasn’t such a surprise. The girl said as much with her eyes and tone of voice almost every time they spoke; Cora could hardly call her dishonest. What hurt her, what felt like a physical blow to Cora’s chest, was the girl’s cruel but astute observation about Alan, about how mismatched they seemed. It was too bad that Cora had not known Louise the summer Cora was married, when she perhaps could have used an acquaintance with such brutal honesty.

  Louise walked into the kitchen wearing a pink wrap, her hair slicked back and wet. Her forehead was wide and prominent, Cora noticed, almost protruding. She wasn’t as striking without the bangs. She still looked young and pretty, but not uncommonly so.

  “Oh my God, that bath was wonderful.” She tilted her head from side to side. “But I’ve been out for exactly three minutes, and I’m already sweating. The theater tonight had better be ice-cooled.”

  Cora nodded and sipped her milk.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Cora looked at her and smiled. “You’re right. It does seem warmer today.”

  Louise stretched her arms up with an exaggerated yawn, and started talking about Blossom Time, and how she hoped it would be as good as the reviewers said. Cora leaned against the stove and listened with an interested, pleasant expression. There was no point in bringing up the postcard or what Louise had written about Alan, and there never would be. So even while the hurt was still there, a heaviness in her mind and heart, she acted as if nothing were amiss, and of course, Louise believed her. The girl may have sworn off fake smiles, but Cora knew how necessary they could be, and hers was well-practiced and convincing.

  ELEVEN

  Mr. Alan Carlisle of Wichita and Miss Cora Kaufmann of McPherson were united in marriage yesterday under a canopy of white roses and carnations outside the boathouse of Riverside Park, with Pastor John Harsen of the First Presbyterian Church of Wichita presiding. The ceremony was immediately followed by a grand and festive reception at the Eaton Hotel, where over a hundred guests dined on generous portions of roast beef, sweet potato croquettes, assorted cheeses, fruits and vegetables, and a multi-tiered wedding cake. A small orchestra accompanied the happy couple as they danced a graceful waltz, and family and friends soon joined them on the floor.

  The bride was perfectly lovely in a white lawn dress with a high lace collar and a V-insert of patterned lace and pintucks. She wore her hair in a high pompadour adorned with real orange blossoms, a gift from Miss Harriet Carlisle, her new sister-in-law and Maid of Honor. The tall and elegant groom wore the conventional black, his striped tie worn ascot fashion and held with a silver pin.

  Mr. Carlisle, a prosperous lawyer, is well and favorably known in Wichita, and when and whom he would marry has long been the subject of speculation among our city’s single ladies. By all accounts, he is smitten with his young bride, who was recently orphaned in a tragic farm accident, and who seems a very worthy young lady with a sweet disposition. The new Mrs. Carlisle has already made many friends here in her adopted community.

  —“Society News,” The Wichita Eagle, June 7, 1903

  Cora would long appreciate that the reporter left out the low point of her wedding’s festivities, which was when Raymond Walker, a farm boy turned defense attorney who sometimes played cards with Alan but who hadn’t even come to their engagement party, attempted to make the first toast at the reception, apparently forgetting, or not caring, that he was drunk. Raymond Walker was shorter than Cora, but wide in the shoulders, with flame-colored hair, and a deep, theatrical voice that made it easy to command attention. When he stood and started talking about friendship and love, even the busy waiters turned to look.

  “Alan!” he boomed, raising his glass of lemonade. “What a good, decent man you are!”

  This statement was met with a burst of applause, with other guests raising their lemonades and adding, “Hear! Hear!” and Cora laughing and nodding in agreement. But then Raymond Walker, still standing, set his lemonade on the table and nonchalantly removed a silver flask from the interior pocket of his jacket and proceeded to take a long, audible gulp. Cora glanced at Alan, who sat beside her, staring at Raymond Walker with a forlorn expression and shaking his head in tiny, almost imperceptible movements.

  “Some people marry for love,” Raymond continued, giving the entire head table a misty-eyed look. “But, Alan, you’ve shown us all that real propriety, and real charity, begins at home.”

  Alan stood. But his two uncles and a cousin were already moving toward Raymond, their faces grim. Someone wondered aloud if they should take the flask away, but someone else said, “No, just get him out.” Raymond Walker shook the men off and said he was leaving on his own. He staggered out, big shoulders back, under a collective glare of disapproval, although Cora could only stare, stunned, at her dinner plate. An orange blossom fell from her hair, landing in her roast beef.

  He was just a drunk, she told herself. And he was wrong. It wasn’t charity—Alan loved her, loved her as much as she loved him. He’d told her so, many times, and he’d said it with such sincerity, and with such hope and kindness in his eyes. He was the one with good fortune, he’d said. He’d been looking for her his whole life.

  The door was barely closed behind Raymond Walker when Alan’s father stood, raised his lemonade, and in his most venerable voice told Alan, who was still standing, how very happy he and his mother were to invite a young woman as fine as Cora into the family, and that he had made them very proud, and that they wished them many children and happy years. He walked across the room, shook Alan’s hand, and then embraced him to loud applause, and then it was as if the horrible moment with Raymond Walker simply hadn’t happened. When Alan took his seat again, reaching for her hand, she was surprised to see he had tea
rs in his eyes. Her humiliation already receding, she was moved to see that his father’s words meant so very much.

  The only advice Cora ever got about sex came from Mrs. Lindquist, who told her, just a few weeks before the wedding, that she didn’t want to scare her, but she felt she ought to know that a man was different from a woman in that he was often a slave to his physical self, with far more desire than necessary for a happy home with a reasonable amount of children. It was a wife’s duty, she told Cora, to both submit to this desire and to temper it, for it was a powerful force, and a husband, even a gentleman, could not always be expected to think with his mind.

  “It’s the same as feeding horses and dogs,” she added, cracking an egg on the side of a bowl. “You don’t want to starve them. But they always want more than they need.”

  Cora wasn’t scared. In fact, she was intrigued by the idea that at least in this one arena of her marriage to Alan, she would be the one in charge. She wouldn’t abuse this power. She had no intention, to borrow Mrs. Lindquist’s terms, of starving her handsome fiancé, or even letting him go hungry for long. Still, he was older than she was, and more educated, and more used to society and having money and living in a city. As much as her speech had improved through diligent study of grammar and the way Alan and his family lived, Cora hardly felt his equal, especially when they were out in public. But if Mrs. Lindquist was correct, when it came to the intimacies of marriage, even with all she didn’t know, he would be at her feet.

  And truly, during their first nights together as husband and wife, her refined and mannered Alan did seem like a man possessed, his gentle caresses ceasing as he began to labor over her, his hands gripping the pillow above her shoulders, as if he needed to hold tight to something else to avoid doing her harm. If it weren’t for the peppermint smell of his aftershave, she wouldn’t have recognized him as the same man who, during the daytime, laughingly complained about lazy court clerks and taught her to play chess and held out his arm for her on their strolls down Douglas Avenue. In her room, she couldn’t see him. He only came to her after dark, and he never brought a lantern. She was grateful. With any light, she would have had to worry how her expression should be—forbearing? Determined? She didn’t know. She had seen animals mating on the farm, so she understood the mechanics of sex, but she knew nothing of how she should behave as a human, as a woman. She doubted Alan, given his advanced age, was a virgin as well, and she worried that in her ignorance, she would do something unheard of and embarrass herself. Even in darkness, she didn’t know if she was supposed to just lie still, or if it would be all right to let her arms and legs wrap around him, as they kept wanting to do. She didn’t want to appear sex-crazed. But she didn’t want him to think she was bored, because if anything, her body and her mind wanted him to go on longer, and she felt oddly bereft every time he slumped over her with a quiet cry, and it was done. She wasn’t sure what he would think, if she let on about that.