A Song Across the Sea (15 page)

Christmas passed, arousing barely a ripple of emotion in her, except surprise at the glacial temperatures that locked the city in their cold-fingered grip. Winter back home in Ireland had been raw and uncomfortable, but nothing prepared her for the extreme seasonal changes in this challenging new country.

She rarely dreamed about Paddy these days, although there was still a hollow ache in her heart when he invaded her thoughts during her waking hours. She didn’t even have the possibility of a visit by Reece to the boarding house to distract her from the despair that descended upon her when Paddy’s memory came near. Hap had mentioned, last week over dinner, that Reece was in France, helping design something Hap called a “rotary” engine, for use in airplanes.

As he droned on about horsepower and lift, altitudes and speeds, she retreated to the back of her mind and meditated upon one thought: Reece was never going to be a significant part of her life. She’d developed a silly infatuation on him based on…on what? That chance first encounter in the street? The way he comforted her after her nightmare? The way his gaze alone could make her breath catch in her throat? It would probably be best if she moved to a different boarding house so that she could stop imagining that she heard his step echoing up the pavement, his voice downstairs. She was a fool to continue nurturing this feeble hope that he would someday feel the same passion for her that she did for him.

She couldn’t leave, though. She doubted that she could ever find a boarding house as clean, affordable and well-run as the one in which she was currently lodged, but there was even more to it than that. Hap and Delores had become dear friends and she knew they looked on her as something like a daughter.

Friendship also came from an unexpected source. One evening, as Tara was washing her face in water from the basin on her stand, the giddy, talkative Kathleen knocked on her door.

“I was wonderin’ did you have a comb I could borrow,” she said. “I lost me own today and I won’t be able to buy a new one till Friday. There’s others here,” she added darkly, “I wouldn’t even ask, seein’ as how they don’t look so clean.”

Out of politeness, Tara invited the girl into her room. Kathleen sauntered over and sat on the bed, looking as if she intended to stay for awhile. Tara dried her face and found a spare comb in her top dresser drawer.

“You’ve a nicer bed than mine,” Kathleen observed. “The mattress, I think, is newer. Though I don’t wonder, since you were brought here by Mr. Reece Waldron himself. D’ya know, Tara, if I had thick hair halfway down my back like you, I’d put it in two French braids. Have you ever tried it like that? It’d look grand.”

Tara was still puzzling over what Reece had to do with the quality of her bed, which she seriously doubted was better than Kathleen’s.

Kathleen patted the bed. “Sit here and I’ll do \’em up for you.”

Tara sat next to her and reveled in the curiously enjoyable sensation of having someone else combing and arranging her hair.

“You were sayin’ about Reece…?”

“Didn’t you know? Himself bought this building for Hap and Delores, to set them up in a business. He and Hap used to work together. To hear Reece tell it, Hap was somethin’ of a magician with airplanes.”

“What happened to Hap, Kathleen?”

“I’ll have to do this one over. It didn’t come out exactly right.” Kathleen undid one of the braids and started over. “The way I hear it, one day Hap was flyin’ an airplane that Reece had been tinkerin’ with, to make the silly thing go faster or higher or some such nonsense. And the airplane came tumblin’ down out of the sky like a wounded bird, with poor Hap in it. He was nearly killed. Maybe it would have been better for him if he had. He was a big, strappin’ man, I’m told, before the crash. Now…well, you see how he is.”

“Could nothin’ be done for him?”

“Everything that could be done was done. He was in the hospital for a long time, havin’ operations. Delores told me how Reece hired a special nurse after Hap came home to come and lift his legs every day and bend them at the knees, to help them get back the little movement they do have.”

“And Reece Waldron bought this boarding house for Hap and Delores, for them to run?”

“Blamed himself for Hap’s accident. Sure and Mr. Moneybags could afford it. Comes from a family that owns lumber mills and coal mines. His father wanted him to help run the business. Had a big row about it, they did, but Reece would have none of it. He’s that stubborn, he is. His head is filled with fanciful ideas that will never amount to anything, and because of that, his father threatened to cut him off without a cent.”

“Was the accident really his fault?”

Kathleen shrugged. “Hap says not, and you can see for yourself that he bears Reece no ill will. They are the best of friends.” She finished and stepped back. “There, that does look grand on you.”

Tara ran her hands over the intricate braids running down the back of her head and smiled at Kathleen. She stood so she could see herself in the small looking-glass propped atop the dresser. Her hair did look grand styled that way! “That’s very kind of you, Kathleen. How do you know all this?”

“Me sister showed me how to do those braids.”

“I mean, about Hap and Reece.”

Kathleen fitted her face with an enigmatic expression. “I keep me eyes and ears open,” she said mysteriously.

Surprisingly, Tara found herself liking the girl. Kathleen was certainly entertaining, and a font of information besides. How much of it was reliable? Tara wondered if she dared ask about Reece’s fiancée.

Kathleen seemed to be reading her mind. “I saw his lady friend once.” Her glossy black curls bobbed as she talked. “The two of them were comin’ out of one of them fancy women’s stores uptown. Looked just like a little doll, she did. Pouty lips the color of a creamy pink rose. She has perfect skin, like alabaster, and perfect, tiny hands. Child’s hands, really. She must have had a grand time shopping; Reece was carrying that many boxes. He could barely fit them all into the back seat of the Cadillac touring car they had parked there in the street. Ah, now there was a beautiful automobile. The upholstery was black leather, and I could see it had a mahogany steering wheel and mahogany trim. I’d half a mind to step forward and catch a ride on the running board. That would have surprised them, wouldn’t it?”

Tara wanted to guide the conversation back toward Reece and his lady friend. “They sound as if they make a striking couple,” she said, keeping her tone noncommittal. Kathleen’s rapturous description of Reece’s fiancée felt like so many pins being stuck into her heart.

“Sometime I imagine meself with Reece,” remarked Kathleen. “Just for fun. He’s easy enough on the eyes, don’t you know. But it wouldn’t do. I’ve me James to think of. If Reece were ever to ask me out of an evening, I’m afraid I’d have to break his heart and turn him down.”

“James?”

Kathleen, delighted by the query, reached eagerly for a gold locket dangling on a chain around her neck. She pressed the catch so that the engraved lid swung open and leaned forward, to give Tara a better look at the photograph inside.

Tara studied the thin young man rendered in sepia tones who stared somberly out of the locket’s interior. She was transfixed by the way his ears bowed outward from his head, as if they would, at any moment, start flapping and carry him aloft.

“Me James,” Kathleen sighed contentedly. “He’s an important job, don’t you know, at a vaudeville theater. Sweepin’ floors, movin’ scenery, usherin’ people to their seats. One day we’ll be married and I’ll be Mrs. James Murrin.”

Kathleen gazed fondly at the picture as if James was the handsomest man in all the world. Tara thought she’d never liked the girl better than at this very moment. It was a blind and beautiful sort of love, truly, when the man had ears like that.

“By the way, Tara,” said Kathleen, as she prepared to depart for her own room. “I’ve heard you singin’ sometimes, here in your room. That’s a lovely voice you have.”

Tara was embarrassed. “I didn’t know I was after bein’ so loud.”

“You’re better than most of them that’s workin’ at me James’ theater, you know. That’s where you should be singin’. In vaudeville.”

What a preposterous idea! Still, Tara was intrigued.

As she turned to walk down the hallway Kathleen offered, “Maybe you’d like to go to a show sometime. James can sneak us in for free, through the back door.”

Tara could hardly sleep that night, for thinking of what Kathleen said. Vaudeville! Singing on a stage in front of rows and rows of people, just like in her fantasy.

It was a grand idea. Probably nothing would ever come of it.

•  •  •

In fact, she and Kathleen and Lotte went to a vaudeville show two weeks later, although Lotte’s parents were a little doubtful about it. They were suspicious that vaudeville was less than respectable, unsuitable for young ladies, so Tara brought them a printed program which Kathleen had given her. Beneath the long list of acts and performers was an earnest pledge: “It is the sincere aim of management to present entertainment of the highest quality, guaranteed not to offend the refined and cultured classes, including ladies and others of a delicate temperament.” This apparently satisfied the Schoeners, because Lotte was allowed to go with Tara directly from work that evening to a theater on 14th Street, where they met with Kathleen.

Tara was a little apprehensive about whether Kathleen’s rather forceful personality would overwhelm the rather timid Lotte, but Kathleen’s amusing, highly exaggerated gossip about people Lotte didn’t know and would probably never meet soon had the German girl laughing out loud.

James, who looked just exactly like his picture, met them in an alley behind the theater and escorted them nervously through the stage door.

“Watch your step!” he hissed, guiding them through a labyrinth of dark passages backstage. Tara was afraid she’d trip over a stray rope and land James in trouble, but they made it without incident to the “house” and then up to the balcony, where James seated them.

“He’s a smart lad,” Kathleen told Lotte, gazing admiringly at his bony back as it retreated down the aisle. “He’s a great many responsibilities here. I expect he’ll be made manager someday.”

Tara settled back in the plush, red velvet-covered seat and took in her surroundings, feeling tremendously excited. Everywhere she looked she saw elaborate ornamentation, from the gold leaf-painted plaster curves embellishing the private boxes ringing the upper level of the house to the gilded balustrades and the vaguely oriental design in the carpet covering the aisles. Although it was barely dusk outside, the muted wall lights sheathed in waxy glass sconces shaped like leaf clusters submerged the theater’s interior in permanent nighttime. Strident sunlight never pierced this sheltered cove of glamorous unreality.

The house lights dimmed and the show started. The trained dogs whose clever tricks opened the show captivated her, as did the slapstick comedy sketch that had people in the audience wiping tears from their eyes they were laughing so hard.

“I’ll never eat any more of your mother’s pies,” the young man onstage said to his girl, in the midst of a hilarious staged argument.

“I’ll have you know my mother made pies before you were born!”

“I know she did. That last one I ate was one of them!”

There was a ba-doom-boom from the percussionist in the orchestra pit, bows from the performers, and then it was quickly on to the next act. Four European Acrobats were followed by June and Harold Waverly, America’s Favorite Dancing Couple, then by a monologuist, Flim-Flam Joe Kelly, who tickled the audience with droll tales of his experiences as a hobo.

When the boy placed a tablet upon the stage-left easel which read, “Miss Harriet Ringer, presenting a medley of romantic and patriotic songs,” Tara held her breath in anticipation. A vocalist!

Miss Harriet Ringer proved to be a big-bosomed soprano clad in a costume that was ridiculously youthful for her: a sky-blue chiffon party dress bedecked with white ribbons, white stockings and pale blue shoes bearing shiny buckles.

Tara studied every detail of the woman’s performance avidly; the way she switched from a slow-paced sentimental song to a lively number that had her listeners tapping their toes, the theatrical phrasings she used and the way she played directly to the audience for full effect. The applause that erupted at the end of her performance seemed to come as a complete surprise to Miss Ringer. She clapped her hands modestly to her rouged cheeks and then, after making a great show of recovering from the surprise, bowed daintily and blew them kisses.

“Well, I won’t blow them kisses,” Tara said to herself, then laughed inwardly at the outrageousness of her observation. All the while Miss Ringer was going through her paces, Tara had been imagining herself in the woman’s place, singing to the rafters and taking the bows.

The act was a revelation to Tara. Miss Harriet Ringer’s singing had been adequate, nothing more. She did however, display considerable showmanship. The zest with which she’d “put the songs over”—a show business phrase Tara had picked up from Kathleen—had not been lost on Tara.

She now knew, with certainty, one thing. She was good enough to sing in vaudeville. She belonged up on that stage.

Was her heart beating faster? Could Lotte and Kathleen, sitting on either side of her, sense the thrill that rippled through her? No. Their eyes were fixed on the stage, where the next performer was already in the midst of his act. Tara’s nerve endings felt like they were inflamed, burning and crackling with exhilaration as she sat through the remainder of the program: a magician, another comedy sketch, a silent film with musical accompaniment by the orchestra, a one-act play and finally, a rousing song-and-dance burlesque number. It was magical, every second of it.

She belonged up there. The factory seemed hardly to exist in her mind anymore. She belonged on that stage.

Tara felt as if she’d begun a new, unbearably exciting chapter in her life although the change, as yet, had taken place only in her mind.

•  •  •