I carried the horse through the front door of the club, past the doorman and back into the dressing room. I set it down next to my trunk, ripped a ribbon off one of my old costumes and tied it in a bow around her neck, then I sat back on the dressing room chair and admired her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
October 30, 1929
“Lordy, Lordy, would you take a look at this?” The dressing room door swung open, and Texas walked in with a cup of coffee in one hand, an overstuffed paper bag under her arm and a newspaper held out in front of her.
I quickly sat up, pulling the one small blanket I had around me. For the love of God, it felt early. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock on the wall: nine thirty. I’d been staying there for a week, and I hadn’t expected to actually see Texas in the mornings, or anytime during the day, but she acted as though seeing me sleeping on the sofa in the back room of her club were perfectly normal.
“‘Stocks collapse in 16,410,030-share day!’” she read off the front page of The New York Times. “Geez Louise. Listen to this: ‘Stock prices virtually collapsed yesterday, swept downward with gigantic losses in the most disastrous trading day in the stock market’s history,’” she read aloud. “‘Billions of dollars in open-market values were wiped out as prices crumbled under the pressure of liquidation of securities which had to be sold at any price.’”
She sat down at the dressing table, took an orange out of the paper bag and started peeling it.
“‘Groups of men, with here and there a woman, stood about inverted glass bowls all over the city yesterday watching spools of ticker tape unwind, and as the tenuous paper with its cryptic numerals grew longer at their feet, their fortunes shrunk,’” she continued to read. “‘Others sat stolidly on tilted chairs in the customers’ rooms of brokerage houses and watched a motion picture of waning wealth as the day’s quotations moved silently across a screen.’”
She finished the orange and started on another one. “Holy smokes,” she said. “This could be bad, real bad.”
“Texas, wait,” I said as I grabbed my cardigan from the floor and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Texas, slow down a minute. I heard the newspaper boys talking about this over the weekend, but what does all of it mean?”
“It means, doll face, that we’re all in the soup now. All those butter-and-egg men who come walking through our doors each night and put money in our pockets, they just lost all their fortunes.”
“All of them?” My mind immediately went to Archie and then to my father. Both of them invested heavily in the stock market, and my father … well, he’d be in the thick of it down at the exchange.
“I would think so, at least anyone who had their money in the market, which they all did,” she said grimly.
“Oh my God,” I said. The money my father had been saving his whole life. And Archie, he’d worked so hard, building his fortune from nothing. “Can it really just disappear like that?”
“Apparently so. That’s why I keep all my money someplace where I can grab it and run.” She slapped the paper down on the counter and started peeling yet another orange.
“But … if they’re losing all their cabbage, the last thing these fellas are gonna want to do is go home,” she said, mulling it over. “So it could play out in our favor, maybe we’ll be busier than usual.”
“Sure, maybe the regulars will need some cheering up,” I offered.
She turned again to the paper, its stories of desperation luring her back.
“Get this: ‘Wall Street was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday. Men and women crowded the brokerage offices, even those who have been long since wiped out, and followed the figures on the tape,’” she continued. “‘Little groups gathered here and there to discuss the falling prices in hushed and awed tones. They were participating in the making of financial history. It was the consensus of bankers and brokers alike that no such scenes ever again will be witnessed by this generation.’”
I had to reach my father, to see if he’d been affected by any of this. I quickly got dressed and walked two blocks down to the pharmacy, where they had a phone booth inside.
“Number, please,” the operator said.
“Flatbush six-seven-two-seven.”
“Hold, please.”
I didn’t know what to expect. The last phone call with my mother had been so awful, and the news might make things worse. What if they refused to talk to me and didn’t want me intruding on them?
After a moment my mother answered. Even her “Hello?” sounded distressed.
“Mother,” I said, “I heard about the stock market! How are you, how’s Papa holding up?”
“Oh, Olive. Not good, not good at all. He was gone all day and night yesterday. He’s in a terrible way, we all are.”
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“We had our life savings in the market,” she whispered, and then she began to cry.
There was a scraping noise in the background, as if chairs were being moved across the floor, then my father’s voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Olive,” my mother said.
“Let me talk to her,” he said. “Give me the phone.” I heard some shuffling as he took the receiver. “Olive?”
“Hi, yes, Papa.”
“It’s over, Olive, we’re through, finished. We lost everything. We’re ruined.”
“Surely not everything!”
“Just about. I don’t know what we’re going to do.” He sounded as if he might begin to cry, too. I’d never seen or heard my father cry. He’d worked so hard his whole life. “What are we going to do, Olive?”
It was a shock to hear my father, such a proud man, address me this way, as if he were looking to me for something like reassurance. The thought that I might ever provide it was astonishing.
“Papa,” I said, “I’m going to come home as soon as I can.”
“All right,” he said, breathing deeply, as if trying to calm himself down. “That’d be nice, Olive. It really would.”
I took a deep breath, too. Hearing him say those words meant the world to me; it was everything I needed to hear, after all the turmoil we’d been through. I only wished he weren’t in such a bad way.
“Come soon if you can,” he said quietly, as though he didn’t want my mother to hear what he was saying. “I’m going to be out of a job by the end of the week. We can’t stay here. We’ll have to move back to Minnesota.”
* * *
I walked back to the club in a state of panic. Everyone seemed to be rushing, and the sounds of the street clanged in my ears. But one thought rang louder than everything else: I couldn’t let Addie leave again. I reached into my handbag and took out a letter from Alberto, along with my ticket to Southampton. It had arrived just two days earlier. I was supposed to set sail for Europe in a week. How was this going to work? How was any of this going to work? I needed to make money in order to provide for her, and touring with Alberto was my very best chance at doing that, but that would mean being thousands of miles apart.
Apart from Addie.
I peered down at the ticket in my hands, as if to decipher its print, but the words meant nothing except for one additional, inescapable fact: it would take me away from Archie, too.
I shook my head to expel the thought—I could not think about him.
* * *
That night the club was empty except for a few belligerent men drinking their last pennies away, apparently too scared to go home. Rather than putting on a show, I sat on the stool and sang a few numbers in the background. No one seemed in the mood to be entertained; the folks who did show up just wanted a rough gin and a smooth bar to lay their heads.
The next morning, I got up after just two hours of rest to buy a paper for myself and see what else had unfolded. I’d never been the least bit interested in the financial pages before, but I stood on the corner of the street scouring the front page
, trying to get a better understanding of what was going on.
EXCHANGE TO CLOSE FOR TWO DAYS OF REST
The volume of trading in the last week has been so enormous that the organizations of the Stock Exchange houses have reached a point of complete physical exhaustion.
A picture on the front page showed stockbrokers and their clerks sleeping on the floor after working until the early hours of Wednesday. I turned the page.
ROCKEFELLERS BUYING HEAVILY
The manner in which the country’s leading men have rushed to the rescue of the market, not only with words but with huge buying orders, has emphasized the public’s conviction that the country’s business fundamentals are entirely sound.
Well, that seemed a bit more optimistic, I thought. But the next night, the club was even emptier than the night before.
“This ain’t good.” Texas took a seat next to me backstage. “I heard some of the Broadway shows aren’t even opening up. Apparently, some of the big investors in them took a hit too. I guess the last thing they want is more money spilling out onto the street. They don’t want to pay the bills for all those lights.”
“It’s as if everything’s falling apart around us,” I said.
I felt in my pocket for my ticket. I’d been carrying it around with me at all times, scared that I’d lose it if I let it out of my sight. “I’ve been invited to go to Europe with Alberto Ricci,” I said suddenly, holding out my envelope as proof. “I wanted to tell you, Texas, but then everything happened. I’m supposed to set sail next week.”
She raised her eyebrows. I didn’t know why I hadn’t revealed this information sooner—she’d been so kind to me. But this had seemed too permanent, too real and so far away.
“Really? Alberto Ricci?” She looked impressed and maybe a little skeptical. I was, after all, homeless, sleeping in the dressing room of the 300.
“Hard to believe, I know, but he’s a friend of mine. I’m just not sure I can go.”
Her expression changed, and she turned serious. “You take that ticket, and you get on that ship, and you don’t look back, do you hear me? Things could get worse, girly. It could get better, all blow over, but it’ll probably get worse, and when it does, I won’t have anything for you, for you or the rest of the girls. This club will shut its doors the minute it stops turning a profit. I don’t work for the fun of it. So you go, and you ride it out for as long as you can, because there’ll be nothin’ for you here, doll face. Nothin’. And I’m sorry to say so.”
* * *
It was hard to believe all the things we were reading in the papers—so the next morning, I showed up at the New Amsterdam Theatre, hoping to catch the girls before rehearsal started. I had to find out what was happening with the Broadway shows, and if I really was going to be leaving, I wanted to say goodbye. The girls were sitting in groups in the rehearsal room. I saw Pauline and Lillian across the room, and they waved me over.
“What are you all doing?” I asked. “Why’s no one rehearsing?”
“We just got news,” Pauline said. “The theater’s dark tonight—no one’s seen Ziegfeld for days.”
“Oh, no!” Ziegfeld had always seemed untouchable.
“They’re saying all his money’s gone,” she said.
“Lillian,” I began, turning to her. But by the time I’d said her name, she’d taken me by the hand and whisked me to the other side of the room.
“Olive, listen to me. I’ve heard some news. I wanted to tell you but didn’t know where to find you. Apparently, Archie lost everything, and Louise left him. The wedding is off.”
“What?” I was stunned. She walked out on him at his lowest—and after everything I’d already put him through. But the fact was, my heart was pounding, too. I could barely breathe.
“How do you know?”
“Evelyn spoke to her family back home, and they told her it was the talk of the town. Local businessman ruined. And then Pauline’s new fella? He’s a lawyer, and he said he saw him a few days ago at his office, he was taking care of his affairs, trying to manage some of his losses, or something—”
“He’s here in the city?” I had to see him. “Where?”
“He was in the city. Pauline’s guy said he left, says he didn’t know where to, but he did say he was never going back to Cincinnati.” She looked at me, waiting for a response to the news she was imparting. “Sorry, Olive, I asked as many questions as I could, alls he knew was that he said he had to get away, out of the city.”
“The Pines,” I said.
“The what?”
“I’ve got to go.” I kissed Lillian on the cheek. “Thank you.”
* * *
I headed straight for Grand Central and managed to catch the last train out. I skipped a night at the Blue Mountain House. I didn’t need to sleep, I just needed to see him.
It was a good twenty degrees colder at the camp than in the city, and I had left abruptly, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing and my handbag. I wrapped my cardigan around myself and paid the driver, though he seemed uneasy about dropping me there alone. It looked empty and barren except for a guide’s car parked near the pathway to the farm and a few porch candles already lit.
“You sure you’re all right here by yourself, ma’am?” the driver asked. I wondered if I’d made a big mistake, Archie could’ve gone anywhere, but something told me to listen to my instincts. “I don’t feel right leaving you here alone,” he said. “But if I don’t head back now, I won’t get to the main road before dark.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you, I can take care of myself.”
Unlike the red and golden fall leaves I’d seen on the train ride out of the city, the trees in the Adirondacks were already bare, with a light sprinkling of snow on their limbs. It was as magical as it always had been, but my God, what was I doing here, the place where I’d fallen in love, the place where I’d caused so much pain?
Light shone from the main lodge, and I started walking toward it but then stopped and turned toward the cabin where Archie and I used to stay. At first it had seemed vacant, but when I reached the front door, I could sense that someone was inside. Music played faintly, there was smoke from a freshly lit fire, and a light shone through the front windows from the back of the cabin.
I knocked on the door before I could talk myself out of it.
“Come on in.” It was definitely Archie’s voice—it made me catch my breath.
I placed my hand on the doorknob, and the door creaked open.
“I’m in the back, Eugene,” he called.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out, so I walked to the back of the cabin, out to the porch, and saw that he was outside stoking the firepit. I followed through the door he’d left open and walked down the uneven brick pathway toward him. Then I stopped.
“Archie,” I said softly when he turned around. His mouth dropped open, as if he were about to say something, but he didn’t.
“I heard the news, about the stock market, about Louise. I had a hunch you’d be here. I had to see you before I leave. I have something to tell you.”
“Olive,” he said, shocked. I was probably the last person he wanted to see. “What are you doing here?”
“Please, let me tell you what I came here to say.”
He stared at me blankly, then nodded slightly.
“I owe you an explanation,” I went on. “What I did was a horrible, terrible, unforgivable thing.” It was cold and I shuddered involuntarily. “Can we sit down?” I glanced inside.
He nodded and led the way to the living room. We sat in the two worn leather armchairs in front of the fireplace.
“I have a daughter, her name is Addie—Adeline. I was nineteen and foolish. I didn’t know the father.” I looked down, ashamed to be speaking these words to the man I so admired. “He took advantage of me while I was on tour in California.” A wave of nausea came over me, but I forced myself to go on. “I gave her up for adoption. There was a complication during t
he birth and they told me I wouldn’t be able to have any more children.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I should have told you from the very beginning, I should have been honest with you, but I was terrified that I’d lose you. Then when you started talking about having a family of our own, I just couldn’t do that to you. I didn’t want you to be childless if you wanted to be a father, not after what you’d already been through. It was cowardly of me, I can see that now. I should have told you the truth. Instead I ran, because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I couldn’t bear it if you resented me for the rest of our lives. It was selfish and I was wrong to treat you that way, keeping you in the dark, not letting you make your own decisions, instead making them for you.” I finally allowed myself to look up at him, and I saw his eyes were filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Archie, I’m so very sorry.” And when I said those words that I’d been wanting to say ever since I had last seen him here in this very cabin, the tears ran down my cheeks. I wiped them away quickly.
“Almost a month ago, my aunt May died. She had taken me in when my family moved to New York. My mother arranged it, but no one else knew. I stayed with my aunt during my pregnancy, and when I went to the funeral, I discovered a secret. After I had the baby and left, she had taken in my daughter, too, as her own.”
His eyes widened.
“Oh Archie, I thought she was gone forever. I thought she’d been adopted by strangers, that I’d never see her again. I’ve thought about her every day for the last two years, but I tried to force myself not to. I was doing everything I could to tamp down my thoughts, and then I found out that my mother knew about Addie living with my aunt, and she kept it from me.”
“My God,” Archie said under his breath.
“She’s two years old. My parents have taken her to Brooklyn and they insist on raising her now. They say I’m unfit to be a mother.” The words made the tears come again, and the fact that they were planning to take her away, back to Minnesota, was unbearable. But I willed those thoughts away. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I’ve hurt so many people. But I need you to know, Archie, that I have always loved you and I always will. I’m so, so sorry.”
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