“I’ll wait right here, Eleanor.”
She won the zipper battle and emerged to wash her hands. Beside her, an elderly white woman was having trouble with the soap dispenser.
Gwen reached over and fiddled with the spout for her. “There you are.”
“Thank you, dear,” the woman said. She finished washing her hands and opened her purse. She offered Gwen a quarter.
Gwen pursed her lips, then laughed. She took Eleanor’s arm. “Enjoy the show.”
Eleanor was unsure if she should say something, to tell Gwen she’d noticed what happened. But Gwen had already moved on, was telling Eleanor about the gown she was sewing for the baby’s baptism.
The play was very different from what Eleanor had seen before. She’d worried she’d be bored without music, but Eleanor found herself sinking into the characters, more enthralled with the tighter focus. She’d expected the play to be more like a movie, but it was another thing altogether; the scenes were tense and intimate, and she felt as though she were inside the family’s kitchen. Eleanor was surprised by the simplicity of the plot. As she watched Sidney Poitier’s performance, she was amazed at the strength of the empathy he evoked from her. It made her wonder if she had been missing something by limiting herself to musicals.
On their way to the opening party—another trip to Sardi’s—Charles had to adjust his gait to accommodate two women in high heels, one seven and a half months pregnant.
“That’s what our show needs a bit of,” Charles said. “Reality.”
“The play was grounded,” Gwen said. “I know those people.”
“Even I felt like I knew those people,” Eleanor said.
Charles stopped them in Times Square. “Look at you, pretty ladies.”
Gwen bent one knee into a bevel and pursed her lips. Eleanor laughed. “We do look nice, don’t we?”
“Gorgeous.” Charles carefully twirled Gwen under his arm and then held her, her back to his front. He rubbed his face on the feather trim on her cape. “Achoo!”
Gwen swatted him away, then turned back and kissed him. Eleanor watched them from the curb. The lights above them shone down multicolored, turning the white of Charles’s tuxedo shirt purple and yellow. He took his wife’s hands and spun her again. Gwen tossed her head back, her mouth open as she laughed. She walked away but kept her hold on Charles, until the smooth line of her arm was long and straight. He kissed her hand.
Eleanor approached. “With this much sugar I’ll never stomach the cake at the party.”
Charles offered her his other arm.
All three linked up, Eleanor skipped and sang a line from The Wizard of Oz.
“Am I the lion?” he asked.
Gwen touched her belly. “I believe that would be me.”
Eleanor looked around Times Square, buzzed by the show, her clothes, the company of her friends. “A year ago I’d have been in bed already, so I could wake up to feed the pigs.”
“Is it true that farms are all in sepia tone?” Charles asked.
Eleanor laughed, then turned somber. “Where do you think Molly and Luke go, after the show ends?”
“On the train?” Charles thought about it. “New York, maybe. I want to see a show about them after they go. I want to see their lives together, in an apartment. I want them to be happy.”
Gwen widened her eyes, shook her head. “In New York they’d find more people to accept them—and more people to make their lives hell.”
“You see mixed couples around here,” Charles said. “I see it all the time.”
“Well, sure. But do they have children?” Gwen asked. “It’s quite another thing, having a family.”
“Maybe that’s the compromise,” Eleanor said. “They don’t have kids.”
Charles shook his head. “Don thinks it’s a happy ending all the way through. The kids, the house, all of it.”
They were nearing Sardi’s. “What a night,” he said. He was smiling wide; Eleanor had never seen him so elated. “Two more weeks and this will be us!”
“Well, after another month of previews,” Eleanor said, but only because she felt the need to temper her emotions. Attending a Broadway opening—she was overwhelmed. Through the restaurant windows, she saw flashbulbs, a crowd in black tie. Her stomach twisted. “Oh my. We’re actually going to be on Broadway.”
Charles watched her, still smiling. When she looked at him, he pointed to her face. “That? That expression? It’s going to feel like that every time,” he said. “Opening night never gets old.”
“I thought you couldn’t give it your all,” she said. “I thought it was a job.”
“I never said it wasn’t the best damned job there is.” He pulled Gwen into him again. “How does it feel to be married to a Broadway star?”
She rolled her eyes, then stood on her toes to kiss him. “You’re going to charm the pants off this town.”
Eleanor felt another twist. She thought of all the protests. “You will, Charles.”
Charles caught her eye. The joy slipped from his face, and she saw her own fear mirrored back. They stood on the sidewalk across the street, watching the cast of A Raisin in the Sun arrive at the restaurant, their expressions reflecting the triumph of their performance. Eleanor hoped that, when she stepped out of her cab on opening night, her face would shine like theirs.
Charles tugged their arms. “C’mon, ladies. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.”
* * *
With two weeks left until their Broadway performances, they moved into the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway and Fiftieth Street. It sat fifteen hundred people. Eleanor’s hand shook when she touched the cool stage-door handle for the first time. Everyone rushed about, running to dressing rooms, trying their dancing shoes on the stage floor to make sure they weren’t too slippery, locating costume accessories that had gone missing in travel. She stood in the wings. The set was hung backstage: Molly’s room, the backdrop that showed the streets of Chicago at night and during the picnic, Luke’s mother’s kitchen. In the orchestra pit, a man was tuning the Steinway. She smelled sawdust and walked to center stage. The houselights were up, and the designers had a table set up in the middle of the audience, ready for note-taking during their technical rehearsals before they added costumes. Eleanor opened her arms as if to take every empty seat in her hands.
With their new address came notoriety. Groups of protestors began camping outside, but this time, opposing groups joined in. The police cracked down on the protesting after a fight broke out between one group supporting the show and the segregationists. Protestors on both sides gathered every morning, and every afternoon, the cops did a sweep of the sidewalk.
“Almost makes me more nervous,” Charles said on their way back from lunch one day, eyeing the empty sidewalk. “I like knowing where those guys are. You know they didn’t just go home.”
Journalists began covering the New York production. Photographers waited outside and tried to grab cast members before they went into rehearsals. Once, Eleanor had been buying coffee at a deli and was approached by a stranger claiming to recognize her from the papers. Only after a few probing questions did she realize he was a reporter.
Connor Morris appeared only once, all the way from Boston, just before they began dress rehearsals. Eleanor was crossing Broadway and saw him standing on the corner of Fifty-First Street, his red hair gleaming in the morning sun. He saw her and raised his hand. She ducked, running across the street to the stage door, but when she touched the handle and looked back, she saw he hadn’t made any move toward her at all. Unnerved, she went inside.
Once during these hectic weeks, Charles asked her to go for a lunchtime walk in Central Park. It was newly spring; the magnolia trees were blooming.
“Will your family come to the show?” he asked as they began their stroll.
Her parents had not reached out t
o her, though she continued to send money home. The thought of them was like a wound in her belly.
“Gwen has started praying the rosary every morning.” He glanced at Eleanor. “For you, too.”
She didn’t want that to be necessary. “I’ll tell her thanks next time I see her.”
“All those reporters have got her nervous,” he said. “The other shows weren’t covered like this.”
“The protests drew them in,” Eleanor said.
“Prayers won’t do much.” Charles was stiff, his hands in his pockets, head down.
“Is something wrong?”
Charles swallowed. “You said this was just a paycheck for me. I have a wife, and soon, a child. I have to think of it like a job. This show, especially, Ellie. We’re making people angry. I have to be careful, for my family.” He pulled a newspaper clipping from his pocket. “But I’m taking the risk for them, too, you know. It’s not about money. I want you to know I’m all in, when we bring this to Broadway. This show is important to me.”
Eleanor unfolded the clipping. It was from the Times that morning. A fourteen-year-old black boy had been killed in the Bronx, found on a playground with his throat cut. His name was Johnny Randall. There wasn’t a picture, but there didn’t need to be; Eleanor thought of Davey, Charles’s brother. She skimmed lines about how he was armed, how he spent time with alleged street gangs. “He was just a kid.”
Charles took the clipping back, folded it in his pocket. “By tonight, it’ll be pinned on someone who looks just like me. This happens every day, all over the city.”
Eleanor didn’t know what to say. She apologized.
“Who knows who killed this boy? The cops aren’t going to find out.” Charles rubbed his palms on his jeans. “That won’t be my son.”
His voice provoked something in Eleanor that had her looking away, blinking.
“Luke is a good man,” Charles said. “Do you know how rare it is for me to play a good man?”
“He’s no better than you.”
Charles shrugged, then started toward the duck pond. Eleanor watched his long shadow on the sun-drenched path, the article crumpled in his hand, and realized that her pulse was elevated. She took a breath and quickened her pace to catch up with him, wiping the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eleanor smeared cold cream on her face. She reached for a sponge and foundation and painted over her freckles. The sounds of the theater rumbled around her. It was night of the first preview. The first time anyone in New York would see the show. In the female ensemble’s dressing room, girls were shrieking and chatting, warming up their voices and helping each other with makeup. It was a strange, happy din. To anyone listening it would not have sounded extraordinary, but Eleanor knew it was. Tomorrow’s Times would feature an article showing the different makeup stations, where every white girl shared with a Negro girl. It was Harry’s final step; after separating the casts throughout rehearsals, he’d integrated them before the final dress rehearsal.
“We’re in this together,” he’d said that morning, standing on the lip of the stage with his slender arms spread out. The words were a cliché, but Harry was such a dry man that the truth rang through. “I want every audience member to leave this theater knowing what this show is about.”
Eleanor gelled back the fuzzy hairs that tended to slip out from beneath her wig, then slipped on the cap, pinned it down. The tasks focused her mind and calmed her body.
Eleanor had received flowers from many of the leading ladies in town. She looked at them all, amazed. One year ago she would have foamed at the mouth to be where she was. It was as though she had climbed to a momentous height and was now looking down at the drop. Only by recalling every step could she believe she’d done it. She heard the orchestra warming up downstairs, and it gave her more confidence.
One card lay open on her dressing table, a watercolor hydrangea from a drugstore.
Dear Eleanor,
None of us back home can believe it. You really did it, honey. I wish I could be there. I’ll be first in line to buy the recording.
Your friend,
Pat
This card had brought on tears, which ruined the makeup that she was now replacing. She slid a program from the stack in the lobby and sent it around the cast to be autographed. She imagined Pat framing it under glass, hanging it behind his register, telling people he’d given her the notice for Don’s open call. Eleanor wished there was a way she could express her gratitude; she wouldn’t have been here without him, and not just because of that notice. He’d introduced her to this world, shared his love of it with her.
Though it hadn’t turned out the way they’d planned. Back in Wisconsin, she’d believed that the people who created those beautiful musicals must be as beautiful inside. They must love the art like she did. Now Eleanor was one of those creators and didn’t know if she was fulfilling her dream or proving that it couldn’t come true. The facts of the dream were all true—here she was in a Broadway dressing room, about to premiere a Don Mannheim show. She had imagined something glittering and fun; instead, she’d gotten A Tender Thing. She looked around the dressing room, at the naked bulbs framing her face, the industrial carpet, the lights of Times Square shining through her window, and committed them to memory. Tomorrow she’d write Pat a letter, telling him everything. That way he could pretend he’d been there.
A knock sounded at her door.
“Come in,” she said through a bobby pin in her teeth.
It was Don, carrying a heavy paper-wrapped package.
He was back to avoiding her eyes. But she didn’t feel pressure to make him meet her gaze. She continued pinning her hair. “As though I needed something else to remember tonight.”
He passed her the package. It was a framed piece of sheet music, the first page of “Sunday Evening.” On it, Don had written, To Eleanor, my Molly: Thank you for bringing my dreams to life, and for holding me to a higher standard than I would have asked for. Your friend, Don.
She stared at it for a long time before she could look up. When she did, Don was focused on her makeup, his face red. If he were anyone else, she would have poured out her heart; it was right on her tongue. Instead, she kissed his cheek.
“You have no idea what this means to me,” she said, looking at the music again. “I will always treasure being in this musical.”
“Do you think I got it right?”
The show had not changed much in the few weeks leading up to Broadway. Eleanor believed in it. But she did not tell him all she thought he could change. She hoped the audience would give them a chance.
Eleanor touched Don’s face.
“To the day I die,” she said, “this will be the most important thing I do.”
* * *
Rosie and Tommy were in the audience. Eleanor had seen much less of them since they got their own place, where Rosie lived in all ways but the official. “I’m saving my address change for my wedding night,” she had begun saying in a conspiring tone.
“No one I know has ever seen me perform,” Eleanor said to Charles backstage.
“Gwen’s here, with my mother and Davey.”
Eleanor had too much energy. She hopped back and forth to shake some of it off, until she bumped into Freddie as he stretched. He poked her, laughed. “Watch it, starlet.”
“This feels so much more real than Boston.” Tears once again filled her eyes, adrenaline or emotion. When she turned toward Charles, tenderness for him welled up inside of her, and she thought of their night out in Boston and all the hours onstage, all their lunches. She threw her arms around him.
“There, there, farm girl,” Charles said, but was laughing. When she pulled back, he took her hands once more. “Of course it’s different. This is Broadway.”
She squeezed his hands. “We did it.”
“I’m glad I did this with you,” he said.
Since Freddie had the most Broadway credits out of the cast, he led their preshow congregation. They held hands in a circle. Freddie offered a sort of prayer, with no mention of God—they were united by the art, by music, and they had a mission to tell a story. He kissed the hands of the dancers on either side of him. Then the stage manager called places. Charles squeezed Eleanor’s hands and went behind the back flat so he could enter stage left.
She heard the crowd quiet as the lights dimmed and the orchestra tuned to an A.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck, on her arms, even on her legs. All her nervous energy rose up, knotting into an unbearable peak, and then faded away. Her fingertips stopped trembling. Her eyes dried. She bit her tongue so moisture could flood her mouth, then swallowed; her throat was in good shape.
Eleanor tried to hear the overture as if for the first time. When the dancers entered, the audience had never seen the choreography before, the clever way Harry had blended teenage movements with dance. Soon, Luke entered, singing with his brother. No one had seen Charles like this before. Then, taking one last breath, Eleanor walked onstage.
For a moment, she let herself feel the lights of Broadway. Then she began.
She sang her first song, introducing herself to the audience as a girl on the verge of womanhood. And then she turned around and locked eyes with Luke.
He looked so handsome there, but it was more than that. It was his face, or his movements, the way he inhabited his body. She stilled as the orchestra began to play under them.
Luke stared at her. Molly blinked, turned around, wondering if he would still be there when she turned back. He was. She held out a hand to him. He pressed his palm to hers. Meanwhile, the music played low and sweet.
Someone passed by, upstage of them. Both jerked their hands back. Molly smiled, embarrassed, then looked up. Asked him for directions.
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