Chapter Forty-one
IVA CLAIRE
1933
INDIANA COULD GET HOT in the middle of summer, and Iva Claire's hands were sweaty. The handle of the costume trunk was slipping out of her grasp.
“You okay?” Tassie panted.
“I need to change sides.”
They stopped to lower the big trunk down onto the sidewalk; they were both out of breath. “How much farther?” Tassie gasped.
“The clerk at the hotel said five blocks.”
“It feels like we've come five miles.”
“There's just two more to go. You ready? I want to get the costumes unpacked tonight.”
They changed sides, heaved up the trunk, and continued their trip down the Main Street of Washtabula, Indiana. Normally, they'd have hired a taxicab to carry the costume trunk to the theater. But the Sunshine Sisters were making half their normal pay for their three-week booking at the Egyptian Theater in Washtabula, so they had to save their pennies. Iva Claire wished they could have turned the gig down, but these days beggars couldn't be choosers, and like most vaudevillians they were beggars.
A lot had happened in the six years since Tassie had joined the act. For one thing, Tassie and Iva Claire had grown up. Tassie was nineteen now, and while she still wasn't classically pretty, she had fulfilled her early promise as a cute little trick with her big eyes and her small hourglass figure. At eighteen, Iva Claire had grown into her strong features; her tall body had slimmed down, her blue eyes had darkened, her complexion was creamy, and when she piled her stick-straight hair on top of her head, she was usually described as handsome.
A lot had happened to the Sunshine Sisters too. At first, they had worked steadily. Not on the Big Time—they were never headed for the Palace—but for most of 1927, 1928, and 1929 they had toured the country with an act that could be fairly described as a modest hit. They played decent theaters and earned enough to support themselves. For the first time that Iva Claire could remember, the checks from Georgia were used strictly for luxuries. And if she felt trapped in her life as a Sunshine Sister, Mama and Tassie were blissfully happy. Two out of three wasn't so bad.
But while the Sunshine Sisters were touring and growing up and getting their laughs, the world around them was changing. In 1927, Al Jolson sang in a moving picture called The Jazz Singer, and the talkies were born. At about the same time, RCA brought out a new line of Radiolas that ran on the electricity people had in their houses instead of big old-fashioned batteries. The new radios, as they were called, were compact and simple to use, and people were buying them as fast as RCA could make them. Now families could stay in their own homes and be entertained for free or go to movies for a lot less than it cost to see a live show. Vaudeville was hit hard. But what really did it in was a certain Thursday in October 1929. WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG was the way Variety described the day the stock market crashed.
Initially, most of the entertainers Iva Claire knew shrugged off Black Thursday. “It's not like I ever had any money to invest,” she heard, in dressing rooms and greenrooms. No one understood that life had changed for good.
They caught on when theaters started closing around the country. Shows in New York went dark by the dozens, road shows were canceled, permanent stock companies went under, and work dried up. The Sunshine Sisters got occasional gigs, mostly on weekends, always for increasingly smaller paychecks. Every once in a while they were booked as the entertainment at marathon dances, going on to perform during the fifteen-minute rest periods when the exhausted contestants were off the floor. But even that humiliating work became less and less frequent until, once again, the money from Iva Claire's father was the only thing keeping them going. Then, without warning, he had skipped their last check. Mama refused to write to remind him. She insisted that they should wait and see if he sent it on his own. After five months, the check still hadn't come and their finances went from surviving to desperate. By the time the booking at Indiana's fly-by-night Egyptian Theater came up, there was no way they could turn it down.
Iva Claire adjusted her grip on the trunk handle. She already had a nice set of blisters on one hand.
“I think it's that building at end of the block,” she gasped, indicating a white stone and brick monstrosity with a marquee jutting out over the sidewalk. Tassie nodded, too winded to speak.
There were several reasons why Iva Claire would have liked to turn down the booking in Washtabula. The Sunshine Sisters had been booked as a solo, which meant the theater was a cheap operation that was only offering the audience one act; plus, the theater management had changed hands twice in the last six months, which did not bode well.
But the main reason Iva Claire wished they could have stayed home was Mama. After a lifetime of touring, traveling seemed to exhaust Mama now. Everything did. When they were back in New York, she still read Variety from cover to cover, but there were days when she couldn't get out of bed until it was too late to make the rounds. And right now, instead of running over to the theater to look it over, she was lying down in their hotel room, so tired she couldn't catch her breath. In spite of the heat, Iva Claire shivered. If something really was wrong with Mama . . .
Don't think about that, said the voice she'd been trusting since childhood.
The marquee was a few feet ahead of them. They lugged the trunk up to an impressive front door with glass panes and wrought-iron curlicues. There was a large padlock and chain threaded through the wrought iron. The big marquee was blank. Tassie and Iva Claire dropped the trunk and stood on either side of it, staring at the theater in disbelief.
“It's closed,” Tassie said.
I knew it, Iva Claire thought. I had a feeling about this job.
“I'm going around to the stage door,” Tassie said. “There's got to be an explanation.”
“There is. The Egyptian is out of business.”
“They can't do that. We came all this way. We have a contract.”
Tassie wouldn't believe what had happened until she went into the pharmacy next door, and the boy behind the soda fountain confirmed their worst fears.
“The management was leasing it,” she reported back to Iva Claire. “They went belly up about a week ago.”
Which meant that the Sunshine Sisters wouldn't be reimbursed for their train tickets back to New York. How were they going to get home? Silently, they picked up the trunk and began the long walk back to their hotel.
The Normandy Hotel was not the kind of place where the Sunshine Sisters usually stayed. Mama said it was one step up from a flophouse, which was an exaggeration although not a big one. But it was cheap. And now they couldn't even afford to stay there. There was no way out; Iva Claire was going to have to write to her father. It would be humiliating, but she'd remind him that they hadn't received their last check. If he knew they were stranded, he'd send the money; she was sure of that.
Then, when they were back in New York, she and Mama would have a talk. They couldn't go on like this. Vaudeville was dead and it was time to quit. Mama would scream and yell, but in the end she'd have to accept reality. Somehow, in spite of the Depression, Iva Claire would have to find a civilian job. It would be boring and awful and she'd have to keep herself from thinking about how much better she could have done if she'd had a high school or—dream of dreams—a college diploma, but that was reality too. Tassie could stay with them for as long as she wanted. Of course, if they didn't have an act anymore, she might move on. The leather handle slipped a little in Iva Claire's hand. She looked over at Tassie, her dress streaked with sweat and street dirt as she struggled to hang on to her side of the trunk. What will Mama and I do without her? She's the only friend I've ever had.
Don't think about that.
“You need a rest?” Tassie asked.
“No. Do you?”
Tassie shook her head. They continued on to the Normandy to break the news to Mama that the Sunshine Sisters were all washed up in Washtabula.
The desk clerk at the hote
l saw them coming and hurried over. For a moment, Iva Claire hoped he was going to help them carry their trunk upstairs; he'd been very taken with Tassie when they checked in. But the clerk wasn't smiling and he ignored the heavy trunk.
“Your ma had a bad turn while you were out,” he said breathlessly. “I called the doctor for her. They come and took her to the hospital.”
They spent money they didn't have on a taxicab and Tassie prayed with tears running down her cheeks. Iva Claire was numb. All she could think of was the time six years ago when she'd gone to meet her father. She'd wanted to leave Mama then. Now she bargained with God. I'll never complain about her again. Just let her be all right, and I'll take care of her for the rest of my life.
When they got to the hospital, Mama had already been admitted. She'd had a heart attack.
Chapter Forty-two
IVA CLAIRE DIDN'T LIKE her mother's doctor. He was old, with a voice that sounded like two pieces of something very dry being rubbed together. Without her wanting to, her mimic's brain recorded the sound and stored it away.
“There is no way to predict when or if another heart attack will come,” Dr. Wilbur croaked. “I've given her some medicine to decrease the fluid around the heart, but above all we must keep her calm.”
Mama's never calm.
“Rest, both physical and mental, is the most important element of treatment. These early days are critical. A sudden heart failure like the one she just suffered is often followed by other attacks. We do see the rare patient who recovers and is able to go back to a normal life, but I must stress that that is not the rule.”
Mama will be one of them. She'll be fine. Once I get her back to New York.
She and Tassie wanted to stay with Mama, but Dr. Wilbur said her mother needed to sleep. Iva Claire let herself be led out of the hospital. She had to get back to the hotel so she could write her father.
There had been a time, after her disastrous visit with him, when she hated the sight of the envelopes he sent. When the act was making money, she wished she could tear up the checks and send them back to him in little pieces. But the extra money meant better hotels and sleeper cars on trains when they had long jumps—little treats that Mama loved—so the checks were always cashed. To hell with dignity.
Now she didn't try to be dignified. She told her father the facts and asked him to send the money quickly because Mama was sick and she shouldn't be under a strain and they needed to get her home. She printed the address of the Normandy Hotel very clearly for him. She sent the letter. And she began to wait.
When Mama was released from the hospital they brought her back to the Normandy. The doctor told Iva Claire to watch for signs of another attack. If Mama had trouble breathing or felt chest pain, there were some pills she had to take immediately. But Mama brushed it off. “I'm fine, Claire de Lune. I've had trouble catching my breath all my life.”
Dr. Wilbur told Iva Claire, “Keep exertion to a minimum. This hotel doesn't have an elevator and you're living on the fourth floor. Perhaps you should try to move to the first.”
But until they had enough money to settle the tab they'd already run up, they couldn't afford to move.
“Limit her salt intake. She needs light, nutritious foods,” said the doctor.
But light, nutritious food cost money.
“Above all, don't let your mother get overexcited,” said Dr. Wilbur.
But Mama was already overexcited, or, to be more accurate, she was terrified. There was only one thing that would make her feel safe. “When can we get out of this godforsaken town and go home?” she wept, the way Iva Claire had known she would.
“I would have preferred to wait before she undertook the trip back to New York,” said Dr. Wilbur, “but she is so unhappy that I think it is better to risk it. Her heart cannot stand the strain of all this emotion.”
But the check hadn't come.
The bills were piling up. There were medicines to be paid for, the hospital had cost ten dollars a day, and even though Dr. Wilbur hadn't charged them yet, he wasn't coming to the hotel every afternoon for free. Iva Claire raced down to the lobby every three or four hours to ask the clerk if any mail had come for her. The answer was always the same—there was nothing.
Tassie was spending time in the lobby too, but with much better results. She was flirting with the desk clerk, who expressed his appreciation by “forgetting” to send up their weekly account. But that couldn't go on forever.
“I got a job,” Tassie announced one day, when things were looking so bleak Iva Claire hadn't even ventured out of their room. With the help of the smitten desk clerk, Tassie had landed a gig for three nights singing in a roadhouse on the outskirts of town.
“The crowd can get kind of rowdy, but I'll make sure no one gives her any trouble,” said the desk clerk. But they couldn't live very long on Tassie's tiny paycheck.
Iva Claire wrote to her father again, pleading this time.
Mama has to go home. Staying here is making her upset and her heart is too weak to take it. The doctor says it's a matter of life and death. . . .
“There must be something wrong,” said a voice behind her.
Iva Claire jerked around in her chair to see her mother. She covered the letter quickly with her hands. “Mama!”
“He wouldn't cut me off unless something was wrong.”
“He hasn't cut us off, Mama.”
“You've already written him once, haven't you?”
“Yes.”
“And he didn't answer.”
“Not yet.”
Mama sat down on the bed. She looked off into space. “He was so handsome when he was young,” she said. “I think if I had really cared about him, I probably could have had him, even though he was married. Not that that matters now.”
“Mama, he'll send the money.”
“There's something wrong, Claire de Lune.”
She couldn't say she was thinking the same thing, because Mama had to stay calm. “Maybe the letter got lost, or he was away from home. So many things could have happened,” she said brightly. But her mother shook her head. She looked tired—and old. When did Mama get old? “I don't want you to worry—” she started to say, but her mother cut in wearily.
“Finish your letter,” she said. “We need the money.”
They waited three more weeks, but there was nothing. No check, no answering letter.
“He did it,” Mama said softly. “He finally cut us off.”
Mama went to bed early that night and got up the next morning before either of the girls were awake. By the time Iva Claire went into her room to see how she was, she was gone. She hadn't left a note, and her best dress and hat weren't in the closet. Fighting panic, Iva Claire woke Tassie, who yanked on some clothes and raced downstairs with her. The barber who ran the shave parlor in the hotel lobby said he'd seen Mama walk out about an hour earlier.
“We all heard how sick she was, so I was glad to see she was better,” the barber said. “Ain't it a miracle what doctors can do these days?”
But no one in the lobby, or the newsstand, or the hotel restaurant had seen which way Mama was going.
I should have slept in her room last night, Iva Claire thought wildly. I knew she was upset. I shouldn't have left her alone.
“It'll be better if we split up and look for her,” Tassie said.
They went in opposite directions, Tassie headed for the railroad on the edge of Washtabula. Iva Claire raced to the center of town and the Egyptian Theater.
Mama wasn't at the theater, but the boy behind the soda fountain at the pharmacy had served a small woman wearing a hat with a big pink rose on it. She'd bought a newspaper and taken an order of ham and eggs with her in a paper bag. But she'd left awhile ago.
Iva Claire ran back to the hotel. The lobby was empty now. The barber who had been so helpful hadn't seen Mama come back in, but then he'd been busy with customers. The desk clerk hadn't seen her either, but he took one look at Iva Claire's face and we
nt into the restaurant to get one of the waitresses.
“Millie, keep an eye on my desk, will you?” he asked. He locked up the cash register and turned to Iva Claire. “I'll go up to your room with you,” he said. They climbed the stairs together.
Please let her be in the room, Iva Claire prayed. Please let her be mad at me for making such a fuss. But she knew better.
Mama had made it up all four flights and into the hallway before she collapsed. Her face was white and twisted with pain; her breath was coming hard. She was holding her purse against her chest. Next to her on the stairs were a newspaper and the ham and eggs that had spilled out of the bag when she fell. Iva Claire grabbed the purse and began searching through it.
“Forgot my medicine,” Mama rasped. “Sorry, Claire de Lune. . . .
Iva Claire found her mother's room key and threw it to the clerk. “Her pills are on the table next to her bed,” she said, in a voice she didn't recognize. She was aware of the man rushing to the apartment door, opening it, and going inside. It seemed to take hours.
“Wanted to . . . have . . . something that tasted good,” Mama said. “You give me slop. . . .”
“Mama, don't talk.”
“Read in the newspaper . . . Bob Hope has a new show. . . .” The pain had to be bad, but Mama was trying to smile. Her eyes were big with fear. Where the hell was the desk clerk?
“Mama, if I help you, can you walk to your bed? It's only a few feet.”
“I have the pills.” The clerk was back and shoving the bottle into her hand.
The pills worked their magic. Some of the color came back into Mama's face, and the grimace of pain relaxed.
Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you.
Between them, Iva Claire and the clerk half carried Mama into the room. While he went to get the doctor, Iva Claire settled Mama into her bed.
The Ladies of Garrison Gardens Page 17