All for a Song (25 page)

The operator gave her an appreciative look, as did more than one patron in the lobby when she emerged on the first floor. The women, she assumed, admired her dress, but she wouldn’t let herself think about what might lie behind the men’s glances.

The lobby, he’d said. At noon. Perhaps he’d forgotten just how vast the lobby was. Did he mean near the entrance? At the desk? Dead center under the stained-glass skylight? Whatever confidence her appearance had given began to fade as she noticed everyone around her was moving—men walking brisk and tall, women with a perfect slow, slouching slink. She, once again, stood frozen.

“You look lost.” The voice was thick and unpleasant, much like the man behind it.

“Just waiting,” she said. “For a friend.”

“I should be so lucky to be your friend.”

She recognized immediately that there’d been no harm in his conversation and worked up a smile that she hoped would convey both disinterest and warmth as he touched stubby fingers to his hat and backed away.

The encounter, brief as it was, renewed her confidence. She took a deep breath and moved her body in a stroll of nonchalance. Strains of music underscored her sliding steps, rising above the conversations echoing in the marbled room. A single piano, played in a way that brought the notes dancing through the air. The only piano she’d ever known was the weathered instrument in her father’s church. It had three missing keys, and those that remained battled valiantly to pound out the Sunday hymns under the unrelenting fingers of Mrs. Rusty Keyes.

She found herself being pulled by the music, enticed by
its sheer prettiness, and followed it to the source—a gleaming white grand piano near the window looking out into the street. The pianist was a thin gentleman with even thinner blond hair that showed gaps of pale pink scalp between the comb marks. He largely played unnoticed in the midst of so much milling, save for a modest audience gathered directly around the piano. Dorothy Lynn moved closer behind him, wanting to get a glimpse of his long, agile fingers that moved like ten pale ribbons in a breeze.

His milky tenor voice gave life to lyrics about somebody’s sweet jazz baby. He finished the tune with a fanciful run on the keys followed by a final jaunty chord. The sparse crowd rewarded him with polite applause, and Dorothy Lynn joined them in their praise.

The pianist took up a soft, rambling tune and asked, “Any requests?”

“Yeah,” said a man in a garish red plaid suit. “Beethoven’s Fifth.”

“Sorry, fella,” said the pianist without missing a beat. “I haven’t learned the first four yet.”

The crowd laughed, and once again Dorothy Lynn joined them.

“‘Apple Blossom Time’!”

Dorothy Lynn couldn’t tell which woman had shouted it, but everyone in the crowd sighed their approval.

“No way, Betty,” the pianist said, letting his fingers continue their ambling up and down the keyboard. “Songs about weddings give me the heebie-jeebies.” He shuddered and struck an ominous minor chord, much to the crowd’s amusement.

“‘Alice Blue Gown’!”

It was the same woman’s voice, and this time the mere
mention of the song title provided the comedy. Everybody laughed and echoed the request.

“Hey, c’mon! Bad enough I was too thin to fight, you gotta get me singin’ about my favorite dress? What are ya doing to me?”

But the crowd would not be deterred, its single voice taking on a lighthearted jeer.

“Well, I can play it,” he said finally, the first measures of the tune already beginning to take form, “but one of you ladies is gonna have to sing it. Any volunteers?”

All demurred at the prospect, and those who attempted the first note or two were roared down by the others.

“Hey there, sister.”

Dorothy Lynn looked over her shoulder to make sure he was talking to her.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You’re looking mighty coy. Wanna give it a whirl?”

She knew the song, of course. It was the same tune she and Darlene were dancing to when Roland came to the house that afternoon. The memory was sweet, and she could still hear her sister’s voice singing along with the record.

She listened. “Is that the only key you know it in?”

Apparently the crowd found her a good-natured ally, one not afraid to stand up to the uncooperative entertainer.

“This better for you?” He immediately transposed the tune to a lower key, of which, after testing it out just under her breath, Dorothy Lynn approved.

Once again the introductory notes, and then she sang.

I once had a gown, it was almost new,

Oh, the daintiest thing, it was sweet Alice blue,

With little forget-me-nots placed here and there,

When I had it on, oh, I walked on the air!

By now this was nothing new to her, singing in front of a crowd, but the intimacy of this setting elicited none of the anxiety of being on a stage. Nor did it ignite any sense of power. She could walk away at this moment, midverse, before the chorus, and no consequences would follow. But here, though her voice rose in well-received solo, she felt like nothing more than one of the crowd, and when the next line came, she opened her arms wide, beckoning the others to join her.

And it wore, and it wore, and it wore,

’Til it went, and it wasn’t no more.

When they launched into the chorus, men and women alike were singing of their cherished Alice blue gown, leaning on each other in exaggerated sentimentality. Each verse, though, was hers alone. When the final note died away, applause five times what the pianist himself had received filled the cavernous hotel lobby, and the elegant musician stood from his bench only to bow to Dorothy Lynn.

“Baby, baby, baby.” He came to her, wrapped his long arms around her, and—this stranger—planted a crushing kiss on her cheek. “You could make me a star.”

She was too surprised to respond with anything but a laugh, and before she knew it, he was back at the keyboard with the first notes of “Second Hand Rose,” and she enthusiastically joined him.

Singing had never felt like this before. At times it had given her peace, at other times joy, but she couldn’t recall a time when
she had fun. This seemed more like a long, lyrical laugh, a musical game. She looked like a new woman and sang like one too, scooping some of the notes with a jokey growl to the delight of her playmates just an arm’s length away, quick to supply lyrics when her memory faltered.

She was midway through the final chorus when Roland Lundi joined the crowd. The hat and suit were familiar, but the expression on his face was as alien as his new tie—not angry, but clearly not amused. When the song ended, his applause was polite; in fact, were he the only one clapping, there might not have been any sound at all. As he approached the piano, Dorothy Lynn didn’t know if she should be prepared to gloat or apologize, but it turned out neither would be necessary. He strolled right past her, hand outstretched to the man at the keyboard.

“Look at you, Bernie. Trying to steal my girl?”

“Roly-poly,” the pianist—Bernie—said, pumping Roland’s hand with an enthusiasm that dislodged a few strands of his thin hair. “Back in town, are ya? She’s yours? She’s fabulous.” Then, to Dorothy Lynn, “Ditch this bum and run away with me. New York, baby. Broadway.”

“I’m not his girl and I’m not goin’ to New York,” Dorothy Lynn said. “I don’t think I’d last an hour with either him or the city before going crazy.”

Then Roland was beside her in a way he’d never been before, his hand in the curve of her waist, tucking her close.

“Don’t be cruel, sweetheart,” he said, giving her a proprietary squeeze, “making poor Bernie here think he stands a chance.”

Bernie shrugged in comic defeat. “What is it about you dames always going for the Valentino type? What’s wrong with being tall and pale with the physique of a wet noodle?”

It all had the humor of a rehearsed comedy routine, and
Dorothy Lynn joined the spectators in laughter, even offering a good-bye wave worthy of a stage-left exit. Once they were away, however, with Bernie’s next serenade a distant melody, she wrenched herself from Roland’s grip. “I’m not your girl.”

“You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said, instantly deflated. “For the compliment and the clothes. I feel—”

“Chic? Stunning?”

“Different. I guess I got rather carried away back there.”

“Don’t sweat it, sweetie. You looked like you were having fun, but Bernie’s kind of a cad-about-town.”

“Well, then, that’s one more thing for me to thank you for.”

He steered her out of the hotel and onto the street, where her eyes automatically scanned for the car they’d driven in the night before.

“Today we walk,” Roland said. “Fresh air and exercise—at least as far as the streetcar. Then lunch, then church.”

“Church? It’s Thursday, isn’t it?” So many days’ travel, she’d lost track.

“Friday, actually. But who’s counting?” Another of his answers that answered nothing.

“This is our stop.” Roland reached up to ring the bell, then cleared a way to the back of the car, descending first so he could stand on the sidewalk and hand Dorothy Lynn down.

“I’m telling you, six months from today, you’re going to see people lined up around the block here. Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday—it won’t matter. Remember that last night in Kansas City? People scrambling to get through the door? That’s what we’re going to have here, only there won’t be any panic, because
there won’t be any final nights. It’ll be Sister Aimee Semple McPherson every day, every night. Bringing the Word of God to a dying world.”

Dorothy Lynn paid no attention to the sights around them, focusing only on Roland’s face as he spoke, his hands as they gestured toward an imaginary marquee. “Because we all told her, ‘You’re only one woman. You can’t be everywhere at one time, so be in one place all the time.’”

“But why not in the middle of the country? Why out here?”

He laughed. “‘Out here’? Sweetheart, give it time, and Los Angeles, California, is going to be the center of the world. And here’s why.” He stopped and, putting his hands on her shoulders, turned her around to see what would have been impossible to miss.

A temple.

There was simply no other word to describe it. Too big for a church, too sacred for a theater. The rounded building rested below a huge, domed roof. Columns were interspersed along the facade, its surface awash in blinding white. She’d seen pictures of the Roman Colosseum in her history textbook in school—grand even in its state of ruin. Here, on the other side of the world, stood its rival. Not its equal, of course, and certainly not created with such pagan intent, but truly colossal, even behind the scaffolds of construction.

“Look at that,” Dorothy Lynn said, as if it would be possible to do anything else.

“Angelus Temple,” Roland said. “The Church of the Foursquare Gospel.”

“It’s enormous!”

“Want to see inside?”

“Can we? It’s not open, is it?”

Roland reached into his pocket and retrieved a ring of keys. “Remember this from here on out: stick with me, and you can go anywhere you want.”

She punched his arm playfully but followed him behind the tall, wooden fence, past wheelbarrows full of concrete and bricks. Men of all shapes and sizes touched their caps in greeting as they walked by, and a few even took off their leather work gloves to shake his hand, welcoming him back.

“Is there anybody you don’t know?” she asked as they made their way through a maze of garden beds. “Are we havin’ dinner with the mayor?”

“Not tonight. He’s otherwise engaged.”

“But you know him?” she asked, surprised at his response to what she’d meant as a joke.

“I’ve met him once or twice. Sometimes, since her divorce, Aimee needs an escort to social functions.”

“And you’re happy to oblige?”

“She changed my life. What wouldn’t I do?”

They arrived at a nondescript door set in the middle of a looming white wall. It took three tries for Roland to find the right key for the lock, and when he did, the door opened like a great, gaping maw.

“Goodness, Mr. Lundi. How much time have I spent with you in dark hallways?” Still, she walked over the threshold and gasped when the closing of the door plunged them into complete and utter darkness.

His familiar touch steadied her.

“There’s nothing in here. Just walk.”

The place smelled of concrete, lumber, and paint—not unpleasant, but raw. She kept her hand firmly in the crook of Roland’s arm.

“Can’t you light a match or something?”

“Hold on.”

She had just a second to wonder if “holding on” wasn’t his intent when the soft sound of a switch brought forth light.

“Nothing special here. This is the hall for deliveries and such. But it’ll take us clear through to backstage.”

One corridor led to another, one corner to the next, until they came upon a familiar gray world.

“It
is
a theater.”

“It’s not. A theater is a place of entertainment; this is a hall of worship. Sister Aimee’s an evangelist for a new age—it’s a new church.”