“My dear, what better place is there to perform our morning exercises—these are the perfect conditions for our vocal cords—the moisture in the air, away from all that dry filth in the city. Do you live in Manhattan?”
“Of course.”
“I do not know how you do it. How can you live and breathe there? Wait until you hear yourself here, it is so powerful, amplified.”
“I know it’s amplified! It sounded like you were singing into my ear while I was trying to sleep.”
“Don’t worry, I have something that will help you wake—” He held up an Icy-Hot Thermos. “The housekeeper made me some of your terrible American Maxwell House. It’s all yours.” He handed it to me, and I unscrewed the lid and took a sip.
“That’s not just Maxwell House,” I said, feeling the warmth of brandy or whiskey or some liquor on the back on my throat.
“Of course not, I said it’s terrible—I have to add something to make the flavor.”
“May I ask what you are doing here?”
“I’m staying at Paul Smith’s Hotel that way.” He pointed his oar to the other end of the lake. “I don’t like to wake my friends and neighbors, so I paddle south.” He grinned. “And what a treat, because I meet you.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I had dreamed of someday meeting this man in person. If I still had money coming in from the Frolic and the Follies, I would’ve spent my entire paycheck from Ziegfeld on a ticket to see him perform. I’d splurge on a ticket in the orchestra section, just so I could see him up close, without having to watch the whole performance through the opera glasses. And here we were in the most unlikely of places.
“Would you care to accompany me?”
“Where to?” I asked.
“To sing, of course.”
We started with some vowel warm-ups and then sang together until the fog had cleared, the sun was out and the birds were singing above us. We sang “Ave Maria” at the top of our lungs as if we were onstage before a full audience, not in the middle of a lake, on our way to getting drunk on hooched-up coffee in our pajamas. We sang as many songs as we could think of in English.
“O brava, Olive,” he said. “With some proper instruction you could go far.” He nodded, looking serious, and I was both delighted by the compliment from such a talented and accomplished professional and slightly disappointed—I’d thought that all my years of lessons had been enough.
“This is quite a way to start the day,” I said, lying back on my fur coat, feeling the sun start to warm up the morning.
“It’s the only way to start the day. Il miglior modo!” he said. “The best way.”
“Let’s do one more, then I’m afraid I have to get back to the camp,” I said. “We have our first rehearsal and then a performance tonight.”
“One more,” he said. “I have breakfast with my host and then I plan a long siesta. ‘’O sole mio’ for l’ultima.”
“Oh, I don’t know Italian very well,” I said. “I don’t know it at all.”
“You know this,” he insisted. “You must.”
Of course, once he began, I recognized the song and was able to sing along with the chorus, making up and filling in when I didn’t know what came next.
We both laughed when we were done, he at the ridiculousness of me making up words, I’m sure, and I because the whole meeting had been so unexpected, so dreamlike, and I never could have imagined such an encounter.
“Learn Italian, Olive,” he said, turning his canoe to face north. “One or two songs to start, it will help you in your career.”
I smiled, excited at the prospect.
“Meet you again domani?” he said.
“Domani!” I said with my hands and my best Italian accent.
“Domani,” he said, turning his canoe in the direction of his hotel as my little metal rowboat rocked in his wake.
* * *
We rehearsed in the dance hall down by the bowling alley on the south side of the property, and early that afternoon we practiced on the outdoor stage near where we’d had dinner the night before. Howie gave us stage directions for five of the classic Follies numbers—including most of the acts I’d performed during my parents’ disastrous attendance—and while the stage was nowhere near as smooth and polished as the New Amsterdam’s, and it was a fraction of the size, we were able to make it work.
Usually when the company went on the road, they went for four months over the summer to cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cleveland and Philadelphia. They took over two train cars: one for the performers and crew, one solely for the scenery and costumes. This, however, was a one-month deal and we couldn’t bring scenery because there was no way to transport it once we were off the train. It made the whole thing feel less impressive than our usual productions, but we still managed to put on a decent show.
After the performance, we changed and mingled with the guests around the bonfire. Ziegfeld had been right: they were all grateful and complimentary for the entertainment. Archie was sitting with a group of people on the far side of the bonfire. We caught each other’s eye and I saw him excuse himself from his group and walk over to me.
“You were spectacular as usual,” he said.
“Thank you, we had to make do with what was available.”
“Honestly, you could have been unaccompanied with no stage and no fancy costumes and you would have had us all on our knees.”
I smiled.
“Join us.…” He motioned to his friends. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to appear too eager to let him off the hook.
“I should stay,” I said, looking back to my fellow performers. “We were in the middle of discussing the show.”
“Ah.” He nodded, though I sensed he knew I was making him work for his forgiveness. “Maybe tomorrow, then,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said coyly, and I had to force myself to turn and slowly walk away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning, Archie showed up at my cabin wearing his hiking clothes—plaid britches, a button-down shirt and lace-up boots.
“I know you leave in a few days, so I thought I’d try and persuade you to let me take you on a short hike.”
I hadn’t stopped thinking about what he’d told me before dinner two nights earlier, and I’d hoped he’d make another attempt to spend time with me. If he was telling the truth and the engagement was called off, then I didn’t see any harm in getting to know him.
“What do you say?” He smiled.
“I say if you can wait ten minutes for me to put on my sporting togs, then I’ll be right with you.”
He smiled. “Capital,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the main lodge.”
* * *
“So, where are we going?” I asked Archie. He was walking next to me along a pathway leading away from the cabins, through part of the camp that I hadn’t yet explored.
“We’re going hiking.”
“But where? Isn’t there a destination or something, a place that we’re trying to get to?”
“Not really.” He laughed. “We’ll hike through some conifer trees and a hardwood forest, according to the guide, and we’ll pass by Black Pond.”
“So, we’re just walking for the sake of walking? There’s no place to stop and have a refreshment?”
“Agnes, the housekeeper, packed us some sandwiches.”
“Well, I’d do things a little differently around here if I were the owner of all this land. I’d have bar carts all along the trails,” I said, half-joking. “I’d make it a lot friendlier to the average show girl.”
“There’s nothing average about you,” he said.
“I’m just trying to know my onions about the purpose of hiking,” I said. “I’m used to having a goal in mind, and then I do the things necessary to get there. It’s how my brain works. I always have to know what I’m reaching for next.”
“Hiking is about the journey,” he said. “The trees you see along the way, the nature, the views, t
he fresh air.”
“Did you know there’s a tuberculosis-curing hospital near here in Saranac Village?” I asked. “Where people come for weeks at a time specifically for the fresh air.”
“I didn’t.”
“It’s true. Anne told me about it, they get cured purely from fresh air. There are cure chairs and cure porches, and apparently there’s a whole industry up here dedicated to curing people. It sounds like my cup of tea—lounging and breathing air.” I laughed.
We walked through the tall evergreens and I took a long, deep breath.
“Is it really over, Archie?” I asked. I had very little experience with relationships thus far, but what I had experienced had all been based on lies and distrust. I simply couldn’t allow myself to fall for him again if I wasn’t sure I could trust him.
“I promise you, Olive, it’s completely over,” he said, and I nodded, believing the sincerity in his eyes.
We walked on and something hung in the air between us. He seemed thoughtful and serious all of a sudden, and I wondered if I’d missed something.
“There is one other thing I feel I should tell you,” he said quietly.
“Okay,” I said. “It can’t be any worse than what you already shared.” I laughed, but he remained stoic.
We walked along in silence for a few moments; the trail was taking us uphill and our deep breathing was suddenly audible.
“I was married once,” he said finally. We had reached the top of the pathway, and trees opened up to reveal a view of the pond, where reeds were swaying gently at the water’s edge, making a lulling, hushing sound.
“Oh.”
“My wife, Clara, fell ill when she was pregnant, less than a year into our marriage. She went into an early labor, and I lost them.”
“Oh, Archie,” I whispered, shocked by this terrible revelation.
I was suddenly jolted back, in a flash—the fear, the smelling salts, the nuns. I had to wrench myself from its hold to something, anything comforting to say. It was just so awful.
“They actually…” I didn’t know how to ask.
“Yes, both of them, gone. It’s difficult to speak of. It was a horrible time in my life,” he said. “Nine years ago. She would have made a wonderful mother.”
He kept looking out at the pond, as if talking to me about it directly would be too much for him.
“I’ve come to terms with the fact that I may never be a father, and I’d be okay with that, I suppose, but then there are the times that I can picture it so vividly, how it would be, where we would go, what we would do.” He shrugged and seemed to come out of his daze a little. “I don’t know.”
I’d heard of it, of course, dying in childbirth, but I hadn’t known anyone who’d actually experienced this loss, and the death of both his wife and child was so devastating. I pictured Archie, young and excitable, a new bride, a child on the way, a whole life ahead of him, and then suddenly it was all gone, he was left alone. What he had shared was so deeply personal, and I was surprised and yet grateful to him for entrusting me with his past. I reached out and touched his shoulder, and then I put an arm around him and squeezed.
“I don’t talk about it too often,” he said, turning to me, his soft, caring eyes, a sweet, generous smile. “It’s just too sad,” he added.
“I’m sorry, I j-just…” I stammered for words, confused at my swell of emotion. “I just feel for you so very much.”
“Thank you. I wanted you to know I’d been married before. No more secrets,” he said.
“No more secrets,” I said, feeling a pang of regret. He’d been so honest with me, sharing a piece of his past that I wouldn’t have known about if he hadn’t brought it up. I should do the same, tell him my secret, but I couldn’t, of course I couldn’t. His was a tragedy that happened to him, something out of his control. Mine, well, that was my own damn fault.
“You’re easy to talk to, Olive,” he said, and I smiled. He was right, there was an ease between us. If only I could be truthful. “Come on…” Archie began walking again. “It’s this way.”
He walked slightly ahead through a narrow pathway with trees on either side, the sunlight blocked out by the canopy of leaves, except for a few small openings where the sun streamed down in beams. I followed closely behind, and then he reached his hand back, without looking, and grabbed mine, knowing exactly where I was. I looked down at my hand in his. It was such a simple gesture, but a rush of warmth came over me. We walked like that for a while, until the path broke into a fork.
“Left or right?” he asked.
“Which way did the guide say?”
“I don’t know—he drew me a map, but I left it in the cabin, figured we’d find our own way.”
The way he said it made me smile.
To the left was a low wooden bridge crossing Black Pond, with reeds and lilies growing on either side of it. The sun was shining, and birds were dancing about. To the right, the pathway led deeper into the forest.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a structure high up in a tree down the wooded path to the right. “Let’s take a peek.” I tugged his hand before he had a chance to respond. “I think it’s a tree house.”
Growing up with three brothers, I’d always wanted to prove that I could do what they could. There was a field with cows down the street from the house we grew up in. My brothers liked to go in there and try to get the cows riled up, even though the cows never seemed to care about having visitors. I stayed out of the field for the most part, avoiding the massive cowpats at all cost, but the trees surrounding the field were perfect for climbing. There was an old oak they favored, especially hospitable with its knotted, aged trunk and branches and its well-worn foot holes. When my brothers climbed trees, they always seemed so free, high up in the branches, their own private hideaway—a boys’ club where no one could reach them, no one could hear what they talked about. It didn’t seem to matter what was going on below them, they were immune to it, like birds cruising in the wind currents.
I started climbing so I could see what they saw, feel what they felt, but they made the ascent look easy. When they weren’t around, I’d climb onto the fence and attempt to pull myself up, but I didn’t have the arm strength they had, and even one or two branches up seemed terrifyingly high. My father would have locked me in my room for a week if he’d seen me up there.
When I was eight or nine, my brothers were all playing ball by the field with their friends and I casually walked over and started climbing. Knowing they hadn’t noticed yet, I kept going, pumped with adrenaline, not looking down. Just one more branch, I told myself, then just one more. The branches were getting thinner and weaker the higher I got, and I finally had to stop. I looked up. I was near the top of the tree and could see clear across the field and beyond for what felt like miles. As the girl of the family, I’d been missing this. This freedom, this rush. I was on top of the world. Then I looked down and gasped. I was so high up. I clung to the tree branch I was perched on, frozen. The muscles in my feet cramped up, and I was paralyzed with fear.
“Erwin,” I cried. “George!”
They couldn’t hear me. They were caught up in a game of ball farther down the street, and though I could hear them laughing and calling out to one another, they couldn’t hear me. Even my voice was stuck, as if my mind couldn’t let me yell too loud, in case it threw me off balance. Eventually Junior, he must have been five or six at the time, grew bored with the ball game, his brothers and their older friends, and he wandered off closer to where I was. I called out to him and asked him to get help.
“Geez, sis, are you nuts or something?” Erwin said after Junior ran and got him. “What were you thinking?” He looked up at me, clearly irritated that I’d interrupted his game and gone someplace I obviously wasn’t supposed to be. He climbed up and guided me in getting down, telling me where to put my feet and which branch to hold. “Don’t go climbing places you can’t get down from,” he said as we worked our way slowly to the bott
om.
“How was I supposed to know I couldn’t get down?” I said, almost in tears.
“Just go back to your singing and dancing and dolls, and stop being such a pest,” he said. “Bother your own friends, not us.”
* * *
I ran toward the tree ahead of Archie as we got close.
“You’re not seriously going up there?” he asked as I began to climb up a rope ladder hanging down from the tree.
“Hold on to the bottom of it, will you?”
Before he could protest, I was already making my way up to the top, where I reached over and grabbed one of the branches, hoisting myself up to the next and the next until I was on the platform. It was a massive tree, and that old oak back in St. Cloud probably paled in comparison, but I’d been to a lot of places I wasn’t supposed to be since then. This height didn’t faze me anymore.
“What a view,” I said from the top. “Join me.” I looked down at Archie, so handsome and fit in his hiking gear. He looked as comfortable in plaid britches and rolled-up sleeves as he did in a sharp tailored suit and fedora. I liked that about him, how he could seamlessly glide from one environment to the next.
“I don’t know if it will hold my weight.”
I pretended to jump up and down. “Feels sturdy enough to me.”
“Good Lord, you’re making me nervous.” Archie began wrangling with the ladder, swinging all over the place with no one to hold it still. “I can’t very well leave you up here alone when you’re exhibiting such reckless behavior,” he said, breathing deeply when he finally reached the top.
“Wise,” I said, giving him a hand. “Very wise.”
The tree house was tall enough for us to stand, and the platform encircled the entire trunk. On the far side there was a window cut out, providing a panoramic view of the water and beyond.
“It’s beautiful up here,” I said.
“It sure is,” Archie said, standing behind me and placing his hands gently on my waist. I turned around and we were inches apart. “Olive,” he began, as if he were about to ask me a question, those dark brown eyes, serious and intense, looking right at me. But before he could say more, I kissed him.
The Show Girl Page 15