If my family hadn’t liked my performing on Broadway, then they sure as hell weren’t going to like me in late night speakeasies. But what did it matter? I thought. I’d already disappointed everyone I cared about, so there was no point in stopping now. To make a big, flashy comeback, I decided on a voluminous pink feather cloak with little more than tassels, pearls and lace underneath. I’d be singing “I Want Someone to Make a Fuss over Me,” and I’d make sure they did.
Club performing was different from appearing on Broadway. Texas called herself the hostess, but she was more like the ringmaster, and we, the scantily clad chorus girls, were the acts in her risqué circus. She was funny and brash and insulting to her patrons, and they loved her for it.
“Hello, suckers!” she said on my first night in the show, her raspy voice silencing the room as the music ended, and Naughty Maureen, the “titillating tap dancer,” left the floor.
“Well? The girl can dance, didn’t I tell ya the girl could dance? Give her a big hand, would ya?” she said, and the crowd did just that. “I just had a fella come up to me, not a regular,” she said, taking a seat on a stool center stage. “And he says he’s been overcharged. I said, ‘Whaddaya mean you’ve been overcharged? Lemme see your check. Why, you poor sap. Sucker, you had two telephone calls and a bottle of champagne. Whaddaya expect? Don’t be dumb.’”
Everyone laughed.
“Listen, suckers,” she went on, “it’s only money. Why take life so seriously? In a hundred years we’ll all be gone. I don’t need your money. Give me plenty of laughs and you can take all the rest.” But that was all horsefeathers, too, because she was notorious for driving prices up and making a fortune from running her clubs.
I waited offstage, a few nips of whiskey in, ready for my entrance.
“Now, this next little girl is someone you all know and love,” she said. “Give a big welcome back to the stage to this little one, former Ziegfeld Folly Miss Olive Shine.”
I sauntered onstage wrapped in feathers and began to sing. It felt good. I didn’t have to do any fancy footwork or think about the precision of the Ziegfeld walk. I started off slowly as I made my way to the grand piano, brushed past the pianist, a much older gentleman called Bones. I ran my hand along his shoulder, then climbed up a few steps at the rear of the piano and arranged myself sitting on top. Toward the end of the song, I threw off my feather cloak and bared almost all. The crowd cheered and it was nice to be back. But it didn’t give me the thrill I’d expected. Instead, my mind went to the money. Please the audience and you’ll increase your pay, I thought. Make them happy, they’ll buy more booze, Texas will have more money in her pocket and she’ll be more inclined to raise my pay. I’d never thought about money like this before. It hadn’t mattered. As long as I could be on that stage, I would have done almost anything.
It was five in the morning when I left the club. The sun would be up soon, and West Fifty-fourth Street was quiet except for the last few patrons leaving the 300. I hailed a taxi to take me to the boardinghouse and was asleep by the time I arrived.
* * *
I fell into a new routine, sleeping all day and staying out at the club all night, an arrangement that the nuns at Saint Agnes wouldn’t have liked one bit if I hadn’t lied through my teeth, telling them I took a job as a nurse’s assistant working the night shift. I was grateful to have money coming in. It made me feel slightly less desperate for the future, but it definitely felt like work. For the first time, performing felt like an obligation.
We changed up the numbers nightly, so that repeat customers wouldn’t have to watch the same acts night after night. I sang “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” which Irving Berlin had written when he was drafted in the army, and I think the audience liked that I put my own spin on it. But the only time I didn’t feel that I was putting on a whole lot of worthless razzle-dazzle was when I sang the rueful songs “What’ll I Do?” and “When I Lost You,” also by Berlin but written when his wife died of typhoid fever, contracted on their honeymoon in Havana. Somehow feeling the sadness and regret in his lyrics made me feel less alone and more truthful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was Sister Theresa, I could tell from the sound of her quick, light step coming down the hall. “Olive, visitor in the parlor.” We’d become friendly, she and I. She saved me a boiled egg and a piece of bread from breakfast most mornings, and I ate them at the kitchen table around lunchtime. Afterwards, I helped her prepare for that night’s dinner by peeling potatoes or chopping onions. I didn’t have anything else to do during the day, and by lunchtime I’d usually caught up on enough sleep to make it through the rest of the day and night. She’d asked me about my nursing duties and it felt wrong to lie to a nun, especially one who was being so kind and helpful, so I told her it was against hospital policies to discuss the ins and outs of it all, I had to respect the patients’ privacy.
“Who’s the visitor?” I called out after she’d knocked, but she was already making her way back downstairs. It could only be Ruthie again, but I was surprised Lawrence had let her leave the house when she was due to have that baby any day now. Maybe it was one of the other girls, Pauline, or maybe Gladys. I quickly dressed, smoothed my hair, then went downstairs.
“Mother!” I said, shocked, seeing her sitting tightly on the edge of the tufted cream-colored armchair. Her face was pale. She was dressed in a black day dress and matching coat, with a single string of pearls—formal for the daytime at a boardinghouse. I quickly glanced down at my jodhpurs and sweater, something I wore most days at the house when no one except the nuns would see me. They were comfortable and sporty and reminded me of my days at the camp. My mother also glanced at my attire, then shifted in her seat and pressed her lips together.
“Olive,” she said. “Here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“We had to track you down. You know, it would have been nice to receive a letter telling us of your whereabouts.”
“I know, I’m very sorry. I meant to, I was just trying to get settled after…” I didn’t want to talk to her about the canceled wedding, about Archie. My stomach clenched at the thought of him. I couldn’t bear to be questioned about it all, not yet, and her visit had caught me so off guard.
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I can imagine it’s”—she looked around—“quite an adjustment.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself to be bombarded with questions: What happened? Why did he leave you? What did you do? How are you going to make this right? But instead she simply sat there, her hands folded in her lap, her face pained. It was distressing to see her like that, looking as if she might burst into tears. I wondered if my circumstances were causing her all this pain. Despite her look of upset and disapproval, some small part of me felt cared for, that she had come to find me, to check on me. Maybe she didn’t want me to be alone.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, but she just looked at the floor. “Is everything okay, Mother?” I asked finally. And when I said it, the tears sprang from her eyes.
“Oh, Olive,” she said quietly, quickly trying to wipe away her tears.
I was wrong, this wasn’t about me, this must be something terrible. I hurried to her as sudden thoughts of every possible horrible thing that could happen flooded my brain: Junior, George, Erwin, my father.
“What is it?” I asked, taking her hand in mine.
“It’s your aunt May. She died.”
“No,” I gasped. “That’s impossible.”
“We just found out yesterday morning.”
I found it hard to catch my breath, a terrible ache in my heart. She’d helped me so much, given her kindness so freely. We had kept in touch too little since I’d left Rockville more than two years ago, with the exception of the occasional letter and her declined invitation to the wedding. At the time, I remembered wishing she could attend, wishing she could meet Archie. I knew she would have been happy at the thought of me getting married.
“B
ut she was so young,” I said, trying to comprehend it.
“I know. She had a heart condition that we knew of most of her life, so I suppose it was inevitable at some point. The doctor had warned her. But she’d seemed fine. Even though we knew about her condition, it seemed to come out of nowhere.”
“I didn’t know about it,” I said hopelessly, as if it would make some kind of difference now.
We’d been through such a tremendous seven and a half months together, it was hard to fathom. But the truth was that since leaving my aunt in Rockville, my thoughts had been elsewhere, caught up in the excitement of my glamorous new life, pushing away the thoughts of my pregnancy, the baby, what had become of her, not allowing myself to think back to that time. I had no idea what Aunt May’s days had been like after I left.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” my mother whispered.
“Mother, I’m so sorry.” I felt terribly guilty to think that my mother had been forced to track me down, probably calling the New Amsterdam Theatre and getting the runaround before finding me here, all while she’d just learned of her only sister’s death.
I should have gone to see them as soon as I returned to the city.
“Was anyone with her?” I asked. Aunt May had lived such an isolated life, the thought of her dying alone was unbearable.
“A neighbor found her.” My mother put her head in her hands. After a few moments she took a deep breath and seemed to pull herself together. “Your father and I will take the train to Rockville tomorrow. We’ll have a few days to take care of her affairs,” she said. “The funeral is on Saturday.”
“What about the boys?”
“George will stay with Junior, make sure he gets to school.”
I nodded. It really should be me helping out.
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Of course,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry for whatever happened between you and Archie. I sensed from the way you were acting in the Adirondacks that there may be some trouble looming. Of course I have no idea what that might have been.”
“It’s my fault,” I said. I knew she was waiting for more, but it was all I could manage. She deserved more of an explanation, she was my mother, after all, but I was devastated to hear the news about Aunt May. I simply couldn’t begin to talk about Archie.
My mother stood up and put on her coat. “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you.”
* * *
That night I went to the club early. I couldn’t sit around at the boardinghouse. I kept thinking about Aunt May, how I’d thought of her so fondly over the past two years but had never really let her know how grateful I was to her for helping me. We’d exchanged only a few letters, and I regretted that now. But there was more—her death seemed to seal another regret. I’d always wanted to know if she’d ever received word about the baby, if she knew whether she’d been adopted by a local family or one from another state. It would be impossible to demand such information from Birdhouse Lodge after I’d signed those papers, but I couldn’t help wondering. I hadn’t asked her, though. Instead, I’d sent the occasional bland letter about my shows, wishing her a Merry Christmas, telling her we’d love to pay for the train ride to the Adirondacks, saying I understood when she’d written that it was too far to travel.
Why hadn’t I asked about the baby, my baby? Maybe I’d been too scared to revisit that time in my life. Giving her away had seemed the only choice I had back then, but was it really? Looking back, I wondered if it had been decided too quickly, too hastily, without much regard for the permanence of it all.
Now, when I thought back on those months with Aunt May, despite the urgency of the situation, I realized they’d actually been quite enjoyable, hidden away, just the two of us talking, reading and gardening, nurturing the baby growing inside me. It was easier to think back on it now and appreciate it. Though I’d been purposefully pushing it out of my mind, there was so much I still wanted to say to her. She was the only other person who’d known me in that way, and I’d just assumed that she would always be there.
“Hey there, girly,” Texas said, swinging the dressing room door wide open as she marched in. “The early bird gets the worm, except there’s nothing but snakes out there, girly, and don’t you forget it.” She laughed. I tried to smile back at her. “Why the long face? Who died?” she said, laughing again.
“My aunt, actually. My mother just told me today.”
“Oh, doll face, I’m sorry. I’ve got to work on my punch lines. Were you close?”
“Not always, but a few years ago I went through something…” I looked up at her. Hell, it was Texas I was talking to, she must’ve been through just about everything. “I got pregnant and stayed with my aunt in Minnesota to wait it out, then I gave the baby up for adoption.”
“Oh, honey pie, that’s a tough one.”
“I had to hide the whole thing from my family,” I said, strangely relieved to tell someone. “My aunt took such good care of me, never batting an eye in judgment. I just wish I’d spoken to her again, I wish I’d thanked her better, let her know what it meant to me.”
“She sounds like a good lassie. You going to her send-off?”
“I can’t.” I sighed. “It’s this weekend, I’ve got this,” I said, motioning around the club, “and I can’t afford the train ride.”
“How much is it?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. A train to St. Cloud, then another to Rockville, probably fifty dollars at least.”
She pulled a roll of bills out of her bustier and started counting.
“Don’t you worry about the show. The show will go on, it always does. You go and you pay your respects,” she said, placing a wad of bills on the table in front of me. “And when I’m pushing up daisies, you do the same and show up for my funeral. I want everyone I ever knew to be there. Nobody wants to be forgotten.”
* * *
I pulled up to Aunt May’s house in a taxi a little after noon on Friday. It had taken me three trains and forty-seven hours to get there. When I walked through the gate and up the pathway to her home, it hit me—this had been her whole world, this little house.
I had one small travel bag that I slung over my shoulder before I knocked on the door. I could hear people inside, so I knocked again.
“Coming,” came my mother’s voice. She opened the door almost absently, as if she were expecting it to be a delivery of flowers or something. And then she swung back around and stared at me. I, too, stood frozen, staring—not just at my mother, who’d seemed so fragile just days earlier and now seemed flushed, youthful, but at the little girl she was holding on her hip.
The girl, no more than a toddler, looked at me curiously with wide green eyes, her wispy dark hair falling in all directions against her milky-white skin. She reached out a hand toward me, then pulled it back, quickly hiding her face in my mother’s shoulder.
“Olive!” my mother said finally.
“Mother.”
“We weren’t expecting you. How did you get here?”
“Train. Three of them, actually. I wanted to attend the funeral but didn’t know how to reach you.”
“Yes, yes, of course, how nice.” All that youthful color had suddenly drained from her cheeks.
“Who’s this?” I asked, though as I said it, I felt my legs start to tremble under me.
“This?” She seemed stunned, as if I’d asked an absurd question. “This? This is Adeline…” She paused again. “Your cousin.”
“Addie,” the girl said, peeking back at me, smiling, reaching her hand out again to touch me.
“My cousin? Whose daughter?” I asked, but my mother ignored the question. I placed one hand on the door frame to steady myself and reached the other out to the girl. “Well, hello there, Addie,” I said, giving her hand a gentle shake. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Come in,” my mother said. “Your father’s going to be surprised. You come in and take a seat, rest for
a minute, you’ve had such a long journey. I’d better go and let your father know you’re here,” she said, flustered—panicky, it seemed, at the thought of sharing this news. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl, and she didn’t take her eyes off me, looking over my mother’s shoulder as she was whisked out of the room.
Several minutes later, my mother reappeared with my father by her side, the little child no longer on her hip. They stood stiffly in front of me.
“Hello, Olive,” my father said.
“Hello, Papa.” I was so tired and wished I could hug him, but I could see it wasn’t going to be that way. He was angry about my aborted wedding, just as I knew he would be.
“Good of you to come,” he said, as if I were some random neighbor coming to pay my respects.
“Yes, it’s so unexpected and sad,” I said.
“It certainly is.” There was a cold tension in the room. “Well, I’d better get back to the yard, it’s a mess,” he said, and he turned on his heel to go back out the way he came in. I looked at my mother questioningly.
“Papa,” I said, “you have to forgive me—” But he was already leaving the room.
My mother and I stood in the room in silence as I watched the door he’d walked though.
“He has a hard time understanding your choices,” my mother said. “Quite frankly, we all do sometimes. You tend to make decisions that have vast repercussions for your life and ours too. Some people can adapt to that kind of thing, and others can’t. Your father, I would say, cannot.”
I sat back down again; a swirling, unsettling feeling had come over me.
“Can I have something to drink?” I said.
“Of course.” My mother left for the kitchen, but after a few moments I got up and joined her.
The Show Girl Page 25