by Mark Dunn
Yes, Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort was doing the nearly inconceivable: she was becoming even more famous than Mary Pickford.
Today, though—today the saintly singing sisters were finally getting to sing. Under the leadership of choir director Vivian Colthurst, choir rehearsals in preparation for the inaugural celebration were finally getting underway. It was on this warm Monday in early July that We Five (lovingly named by Miss Comfort “Sister Lydia’s Quintet of Songful Seraphim”) joined the other fifteen women hired by Lydia on the basis of the mellifluity of their laryngeal pipes and their willingness to lead the congregation once daily (except Thursdays) and three times on Sunday in making the requisite joyful noise unto the Lord.
It was the best job the girls had ever had. It sure beat working as bookkeepers and file clerks in the cramped front mezzanine office of Ramfield Wholesale Drugs and Sundries from whence they were—rescued would be the best way to describe it—by none other than the Reverend Lydia DeLash Comfort herself, when, upon a visit to the offices of that venerable Zenith concern to extract a sizeable contribution to the tabernacle’s building fund from the company’s circumstantially devout and philanthropic owner, Sister Lydia overheard the five singing “I Don’t Know Why I Love You But I Do” in the employee lunchroom and was struck statuary by the close harmonies wafting from the girls’ sweet lilting voices, and then was commensurately struck euphoric over the idea of having the five youthful female songbirds join her permanent choir (which had replaced the itinerant berobed and somewhat bedraggled quartet that had tagged along with Sister Lydia throughout her traveling ministry).
From the flat shared by Molly and her father above his dentist offices, it wasn’t too long a walk to the house in which Molly and Maggie’s friend Carrie and her mother lived. But they were late.
Both Mother and Daughter Hale were taking their breakfast on the front verandah. The colored cook and maid, Vitula, was home with a head cold, and Sylvia Hale, an inefficient time manager, was behind the clock. Eyeing that clock, Carrie suggested the two eat on the porch so she could watch the street and then be able to dash off when her friends came to collect her.
“Well, we certainly made a good thing out of Vitula’s unfortunate absence this morning,” said Mrs. Hale, shaking out her lap napkin at the little wicker tea table. “This is quite lovely.” Carrie agreed with a nod. For a moment, mother and daughter sat upon their marginally comfortable chintz chair cushions in silence and listened to the bright and chirpy sounds of their Floral Heights neighborhood as it rose and shone.
Finally, Sylvia said, “Finish your waffles, dear. You know what they say about breakfast being the most important meal of the day.”
“No, Mother, what do they say?” Carrie grinned. “I respect you for trying, Mother, but your waffles taste nothing like Vitula’s. But don’t fret. There’s always fresh fruit in the tabernacle offices. I’ll just grab a peach or something before rehearsal starts.”
“You have a smudge on your cheek,” said Mrs. Hale, rising to wipe it away. “You look as if you’ve been sleeping in the coal bin.” Out of the corner of her eye Sylvia Hale caught her neighbor, Mrs. Littlejohn, coming down the sidewalk, tethered to her Cairn Terrier, unimaginatively named Toto. Thinking Carrie’s mother was being especially friendly by standing up to greet her, Mrs. Littlejohn waved with wriggling fingers and called out, “Good morning, Sylvia! Good morning, Carrie! There was such beautiful music coming from your front parlor last night. Was that the two of you or the phonograph?”
“It must have been us,” returned Mrs. Hale. “I don’t think we touched the Victrola last night.”
“What a contrast to that perfectly awful jazz scritch-scratch that comes tumbling out of the Prowses’ house every time you turn around.” Mrs. Littlejohn’s eyes went to the house in question, which she’d just passed. It belonged to Professor Reginald Prowse—head of the astronomy department of Winnemac Agricultural and Mechanical College—and his new baby bride, Mirabella (or Bella, to those who were close). “How you can live next door to all that racket and all those bohemian goings-on without pulling out all your hair, I cannot possibly imagine.”
Mrs. Hale drew an index finger to her lips, and then, thinking the gesture required some buttressing, she said, “Keep your voice down, Deloria. It’s still early.”
“And wouldn’t that be a tragedy: depriving the professor and his flip-flapper wife of their beauty sleep, when this is exactly what they do to all the rest of us two or three times a week!”
Mrs. Littlejohn interpreted Sylvia Hale’s admonition as reason to come up the flag walk and address her neighbors on a more intimate basis upon the front steps. As the three spoke, the woman, who looked—it cannot be expressed otherwise—like a human-sized pear with legs, permitted, by slackened leash, her small terrier to trespass upon Mrs. Hale’s flowerbed and dig its paws into the ground, still moist and friable from the heavy watering it had received the evening before. The scruffy dog was to do this more than once, and each time it did, Mrs. Littlejohn tightened the lead and yanked the dog cruelly back to heel, and Carrie, who was watching the multiple acts of this painful little drama from her seat, involuntarily grabbed at her own throat in sympathy.
“Mattie Parcher tells me you’re starting your choir rehearsals today, Carrie. You must be so excited.”
Carrie nodded. “I am. It should be such fun.”
Mrs. Littlejohn gushed, “I’ve always known you Hales to be musical, but I thought the family talent was limited to the instrumental rather than the vocal. Sylvie, dear: wasn’t your husband—the man who ran away and left you nearly destitute—wasn’t he some sort of vaudeville musician?”
Mrs. Hale masked her displeasure over Mrs. Littlejohn’s having brought up such a sore topic with the veneer of amiable froth: “Why, Deloria Littlejohn, you are the worst person I know for getting things completely jumbled up. My husband did not leave Caroline and me ‘nearly destitute.’ I have always had income from my father’s real-estate holdings—never as much as I would like, but enough to keep the wolf far from the door. As for my husband’s profession, yes, he was in vaudeville and, yes, he played all manner of musical instruments. But he was not a performer per se. He was an impresario.”
Yank.
Carrie seized her throat. Was the little dog choking? Why was its tongue now protruding frog-like from its mouth?
Mrs. Hale proceeded: “Had Gordon remained in Zenith and retained all his wits, he would have been quite proud of Caroline. Singing in Sister Lydia’s choir! Just think of it. Sister Lydia! I understand she searched far and wide for every single member of that chorus of angels. Isn’t that right, Caroline?”
Carrie removed her hand from her throat. “She was somewhat selective.”
Mrs. Littlejohn hum-sighed. Then she rhapsodized, “Who knew that such a beautiful songbird lived right on this very street?”
Yank.
Mrs. Hale seconded Mrs. Littlejohn’s observation with a knowing nod, her eyes closed, her fist gently thumping her equally proud maternal heart. “Well, I can’t say I’d known all along that Caroline was this talented, but it wasn’t as if I never entertained the possibility. My daughter excels at whatever she sets her mind to. Don’t you, darling?”
“I don’t know, Mother. I suppose I—”
Yank. Yelp.
Seizing her throat once more, Carrie said, “Molly and Maggie are late. They’re hardly ever late.”
“Perhaps they swung around to pick up Jane first,” suggested Sylvia with a superfluous swirl of her fork through the air.
“Well, that wouldn’t make any sense. Jane lives two blocks closer to the tabernacle. Coming for me after picking her up would require doubling back.” Carrie succeeded in saying this without the use of any hand movement at all.
“Well, I should be getting back,” said Mrs. Littlejohn with misfired relevance. “Home, that is. I have an early appointment at the salon. Mrs. Tubb is coming to pick me up. Do you know Mrs. Tubb—Hermione Tubb
? She lives in that newer section of Floral Heights—she’s taking me to her beauty salon for my very first violet-ray facial treatment, and then if all my pores close up properly we’re having chop suey and seeing that new Betty Compson picture at the Grantham.” Mrs. Littlejohn gave her little dog one great, decisive tug with the leash. “Something has been in this bed, it appears. Perhaps the squirrels have buried nuts here. Goodbye, Sylvia. Goodbye, Carrie, and congratulations. We’re all so proud of you. I’m so fortunate to have the two of you for neighbors.” Mrs. Littlejohn glanced at the house next door and narrowed her eyes into coin slits. “Not at all like some people, who taint this block with absolute cacaphonia and the most appalling African rhythms, and dare to call it music. Whatever happened to Franz Lehár and Victor Herbert?”
“I think they’re still with us,” said Carrie. “I mean, still alive.”
“Well, I hope they’re still writing music. Because what I’m hearing today by the Negroes and the Tin Pan Yids has no business even being called music.” Mrs. Littlejohn waddled off without waiting for a response.
After she was safely out of earshot, Mrs. Hale said to her daughter, “I’m sure she means well.”
“I’m sure she does,” agreed Carrie, nibbling around the burnt part of a piece of toast.
Mrs. Hale looked both ways down the street (as if her daughter’s friends might have taken leave of their attendance to practicality and created a new and even longer route by which to come and pick up Carrie). “Or maybe they have gone to fetch Jane first for some reason. How is Jane, by the way? You haven’t spoken of her lately.”
“She’s fine. All of my sisters are doing well.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t call them your sisters. By proper definition, they really aren’t your sisters, now are they? They are your friends. The only real family you have in the world is sitting right here, still wondering why you’ve hardly touched your waffles. And after I bought a brand new tin of Log Cabin syrup! Pure cane and maple syrup. Not that cheap Temtor Maple Flavor stuff. I don’t know what’s in that rot. It looks like motor oil.”
“The waffles are soggy, Mother, and I haven’t put any syrup on them, real or otherwise. I don’t think you left them in the iron long enough.”
“I wish Vitula weren’t sick so often. I worry she has T.B.—that little cough she always has.”
“I think she coughs because she smokes, Mother. I think she steals a puff or two when you aren’t looking.”
Mrs. Hale harrumphed. “It’s so unbecoming—women who smoke. Like those wanton flappers. Drink your orange juice.”
“There’s a gnat in it.”
“I don’t know why we came out here.” Mrs. Hale blotted the corners of her mouth (which, like her daughter’s mouth, had welcomed very little food inside) and placed her crumpled napkin next to her plate. “Who knew we’d have to contend with Mrs. Littlejohn so early in the morning?”
“I like it out here, Mother. And I’m glad Maggie and Molly are late, because it gives me the chance to discuss something with you that’s been on my mind for a couple of days now.”
“What is it, dear? I so hate it when things trouble you, and you keep it all bottled up inside. It isn’t healthy.”
“It isn’t something that’s necessarily troubling me, Mother. It’s just something that came up, which I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
Sylvia Hale gave her daughter a look with which Carrie was quite familiar. It involved a rimpling of the lips and a slight bulging of the eyes and it said, “I don’t believe any part of the statement you just made but will pretend otherwise through this fixed expression, certain to indicate full acceptance of whatever banana oil you might wish to peddle me.” At the same time she gurgled, “And of course there should be nothing of any substance bothering you, my dear. For aren’t things, on the whole, going quite well for us? You have that nice new job with Sister Lydia, and I have my charity work, and there is enough rental income from the properties your grandfather left me that we want for very little, so long as we don’t become too extravagant in our tastes.”
A pause. A breath. An opening.
“Well, you know, Mother, it’s very interesting Mrs. Littlejohn should mention the Prowses. Because I just happened to bump into Bella Prowse at Blue Delft on Saturday.”
An arched brow. “Oh, you’re calling her Bella, now, are you?”
“Well, she does live next door to us, Mother. And I do happen to remember her from grammar school. Anyway, I was buying those nut-center chocolates you asked me to get for the piano candy dish, and I was standing in front of the Johnston’s display.”
“Yes, I noticed they were having a sale—the dollar boxes of the mixed chocolates were going for eighty cents to the pound. You are a savvy shopper for that to have caught your eye.”
“I’d like to finish, Mother.”
Receding, chastened, into her chair: “Please.”
“Anyway, I look to my side and there she is—”
“Rolled-down stockings and her skirt up to here, and she was probably wearing a long enough rope of those ridiculous shell beads that you could slice it all up and have enough normal-length necklaces for half the women on this block.”
“Mother, please!”
A pantomimic buttoned lip. A nod. A hand upon the teapot. A declining wave from her daughter.
“So. Anyway. We exchanged a polite greeting, and she asked me if the music from the party the night before had bothered us, and I could hardly keep from smiling, because I do remember how loud it was—the music and the sound of the motor cars coming and going—and, yes, there was drinking, and how does one defend something like that—well, of course you can’t because it’s against the law—I’m not saying anything you aren’t already thinking, Mother, in big bold letters, but the way she said it, it was almost as if she were wishing I had come over and told her to soften the gramophone and make her raucous guests behave themselves.”
“And why do you say this?”
“Because I think she was looking for an excuse to invite me to her party.”
“And why ever would you say that? Oh dear, is that another smudge? Have you been playing Cinderella in the fireplace, sweet?”
Mrs. Hale licked a finger to saliva-dab away the offensive speck, but Carrie pulled herself out of reach, drew a handkerchief from her strap purse, and applied it to the cursed spot. “I’m sure it’s cinders in the air. Zenith has dirty air from all of its factories. Or haven’t you noticed? Sometimes I think your face looks smudged as well.”
Mrs. Hale sighed. “I’d like us to move to California someday. I think you should be in pictures. I think you’d be divine in pictures.”
“Thank you, Mother. That was very supportive. May I go on?”
“By all means.”
“I say she might have wanted to ask me in the other night because I actually did get an invitation—to her next party. It came right after I smiled and said, ‘No, your music never bothers us.’”
“Now why on earth would you say such a dishonest thing as—wait!—did I just hear you say you’ve been invited to the Prowses’ next bacchanal? By that hell-kitten? By that baby-vamp the professor snatched for himself from the bassinet?”
“Oh Mother, sometimes you sound exactly like Mrs. Littlejohn.”
“On this point, I shall take that as a compliment.”
“The party is Friday night. Bella’s birthday. And I want to go. She said I’m to invite my ‘four girlfriends’ as well, and I think I’d very much like to do that.”
“I am absolutely flabber—”
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought over the last two—”
“—gasted. You know exactly the sort of crowd that will be there: all the professor’s long-hair friends, and, and all the local Bohemians, and every happy violator of the Volstead Act from here to Mohalis—”
Carrie, taking her mother literally for the moment, responded by shaking her head. “I don’t think anyone’s comin
g from Winnemac U. She did say she’s planning to invite some boys from the A&M here in town. And she told me with all candor the reason she’s inviting those boys. It’s because she thinks it’s time for We Five to come out of our clamshells like Venus on the beach—but here’s the part I really wanted to talk to you about, Mother.”
“The invitation alone isn’t sufficient to send me into apoplexy?”
“No, there’s more—a little more that was said that day at the candy store which I need your opinion on. And this is about you too, Mother. She said—well, she said we’re boring. She just came right out with it.”
“Well I never!”
“She said you and I are the most drab, the most boring people on the block, and this even includes Mr. Gruber with his string collection. She said it’s probably too late for you.”
“To do what? To stop being boring?” Sylvia Hale’s jaw was set. She could hardly get the words out.
“That’s right. But maybe there was hope for me. I still had a chance to kick up my heels for a few years before the Grim Reaper came knocking—because wasn’t that the purpose of life, after all: to make a little noise before we go quiet into the grave?”
“Good God.”
“Well, I’m quoting her, of course. Like how she quoted Edna St. Vincent Millay—that little poem she wrote a couple of years ago.”
Wearily: “What little poem?”
“‘My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night. But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—it gives a lovely light!’”
“Oh sweet Jesus. She wants you to be like her!”
“No, Mother. She wants me to live.”
“Live fast and die young. I’m faint. Hand me that Town & Country. I want to fan myself.”
Carrie handed her mother the magazine, but Mrs. Hale didn’t make a breeze with it. Instead, she pointed to the photograph on the cover and said, “Isn’t that a pretty gazebo?”
“We are boring, Mother. You know we are.”
Sylvia tossed the magazine aside with an indignant snort. “Well, we can’t all drink from ankle flasks and dance on tables. Is that really something you’d like to do, darling?”