A Summer of Kings

by Han Nolan

  What King-Roy said was true; I didn't know what could happen. I was afraid of riots and violence, and I guess so was Dad, because even though Mother had purchased the Keds for Sophia, he said Sophia and Stewart couldn't go and that he'd ask Daisy if she would stay home with them. Then he started to worry about me going and then about Mother going, and then he wanted to call the whole thing off and he called it a bad idea, after all.

  When Mother told me this, I stormed into my father's study, a dark-paneled room with lots of leather-covered furniture and framed photographs and posters of his plays, and Hirschfeld drawings of actors and actresses all over the place. He was sitting on his desk and talking with Monsieur Vichy, but I burst in and interrupted them and said, "Dad, you can't call off the trip. I have to go. I have to be there. This is important to me. Don't you see? We're going to change things. We're going to make it right. I have to go."

  My father wiped at his balding head with an angry swipe of his hand and said, "Esther, don't come barging into my study and tell me what you have to do. I'll tell you what you have to do. You turn yourself around and you go out the door and you knock like a proper young lady."

  "Dad, could you for once stop training me to be a proper young lady and just listen to what I'm saying? Could you just listen to what I have to say, just this once? This is important to me. This is the most important thing in the world to me. We have a chance to change things. We can go to Washington and show President Kennedy and everyone that we all want what's right. We all want Negroes to have their rights and their freedom."

  My father made a fist and hit it on his desk. He said, "Esther, your mother told me all about your romantic notions about King-Roy. And I'll tell you now that you will never—"

  "That's not fair. I don't want this just for King-Roy. I want it for our country. What kind of people are we if we're so mean and hateful to people just because they got black skin? It's not fair. It's not fair, is it, Dad? Don't you want to see Negroes and white people get along? Don't you want them to be able to vote like us and to be able to eat at any diner they want and get equal pay for equal jobs? Don't you?" I had begun to march back and forth in front of his desk, and the marching gave me energy.

  My father said, "Esther, yes, of course I do, but there are other ways of handling this. You can write—"

  "It's time to act, Dad," I said. "It's time to march, not write," I said, still marching myself. "Sometimes I think we have to come out from behind our desks and come out of our houses and just march. Don't you think so?"

  I stopped in front of Dad's desk and watched my father shake his head. Then he said, "You're just too young. It's not your battle—"

  "No, I'm not! I have to go, Dad. I have to go."

  I wanted to cry but I didn't because that would just prove to my father that I was too young. I paced over to the windows, then back again, while Monsieur Vichy went, "Tsk, tsk, tsk," at me. I ignored him and turned back to my father and said, "Do you remember that postcard Pip once sent me from Washington, the one with President Kennedy on the front? Remember when he was visiting a pen pal there?"

  My father leaned forward in his seat. "Esther, what does—"

  "It said on it, 'Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.' Well, this is it. This is what I can do. I want to be a part of a group of people who want to make a positive difference in this world. Dad, this is important. Don't you see that? This is the right thing to do. This march is the right thing. Why can't you see that?" I looked at him and then at Monsieur Vichy, who had some kind of amused look on his face that made me want to kick him.

  "Dad," I said, returning to him, "King-Roy says it's too late. He says we're in a race war. He says there are no more nonviolent Negroes left, but I don't believe it. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior doesn't believe it, either."

  My father raised his hand to stop me and opened his mouth to speak, but I kept right on talking.

  "We can't let mean, hateful people be the ones who control how our country behaves. Gandhi says we have to be the change we want to see in the world. Well, if all we do is sit around and do nothing while all the angry white and black people fight it out, then that just must mean we want to see all the blood and hatred and bad things happen."

  "Esther." My father stood up and I shut my mouth.

  "Where did you get all these ideas? From King-Roy?"

  "No, all King-Roy and I do is fight. I've been reading stuff and"—I shrugged—"I don't know, I've just been thinking about it a lot, I guess."

  "Well, Esther, you've surprised me," my father said. He crossed his arms and pursed his lips and stared so hard at me, I felt squirmy. I didn't know what he was thinking.

  "I've surprised myself, too," I said, looking down at my feet. I thought maybe that was the end of our conversation, because nobody said anything, so I started to back away, but then Dad set his hand on my head and said, "All right, we'll go to Washington. But you'll stay with me and you'll listen to everything I tell you to do, do you understand?"

  I sprung up onto my tiptoes and hugged my father. "Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you." I squeezed him and let go and said, "You'll see, Dad. This is going to be beautiful, a beautiful event."

  "Beautiful, eh?" Monsieur Vichy said behind me.

  I spun around. "Yes, beautiful! You'll see."

  Monsieur Vichy nodded and picked up his unlit cigar and stuck it in his mouth. "We shall all see," he said.

  I didn't know if he was agreeing with me or being sarcastic, but knowing him, I decided he was being his usual mean old self.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Our trip to Washington was back on for everyone except Sophia and Stewart, who didn't care about the march, anyway, and the day of our big performance had arrived.

  Auntie Pie had taken an old dress of hers and fit it to me. It was a sleeveless dress with a scoop neck in two layers of yellow material. The lacy outer layer had yellow beading all over it, and near my right hip she had pinned a large white cloth rose. The dress hung straight down from my shoulders to below my knees, and when I walked and tapped, the lower skirt part danced about my legs and I felt like a real flapper girl. Auntie Pie even gave me a soft pearl-colored crocheted cap to wear on my head, and Beatrice pinned my hair up under it, leaving just a few side pieces out to make my hair look bobbed. She did my makeup for me just as we had planned, highlighting my eyes with eyeliner, shadow, and mascara, adding foundation and rouge to my cheeks, and coating my lips with red lipstick. When she had finished, she stood back and took a look at me.

  "You're absolutely stunning, Esther," she said, and her eyes got all watery, which made mine watery, too.

  I turned to look at myself in the mirror, and I thought I looked pretty, really pretty. My eyes looked so big and my eyelashes so long, and the eye shadow brought out the golden lights in the brown iris part. My lips looked fat with so much lipstick on. I didn't like the sticky way the lipstick felt and it smelled funny and tasted bad, too, but when I stood back and took a look at the whole picture, I knew I looked beautiful. I wished that Laura and Kathy and all those boys who Pip said told him I was a goofball could see me. I felt so excited, I wanted to burst. I didn't want anyone in the family to see me until I came out to do my dance, so I snuck down to the library early while Beatrice got Stewart and Sophia ready for their performances.

  Sophia wore a short green dress with lots of frilly stuff around the neck and sleeves, and she, too, had a white rose pinned to her dress.

  Stewart wore tights and a green tunic top that made him look like Robin Hood for his first dance, and he planned to change to his swim trunks for the second one. He had made up both dances all by himself, and he used some classical Tschaikovsky music for Robin Hood. For his second dance, which was my favorite because it had lots of leaps and somersaults and in-the-air cartwheels, he used the song "Surfin' USA"—another reason it was my favorite. He bought the single of the song and said if after the dances Mother and Dad let him keep da
ncing, he'd give me the record to keep.

  Our program that I typed up on Dad's typewriter looked like this:

  Welcome to a Saturday Afternoon of

  Entertainment Galore!

  Starring: Sophia Young, Stewart Young,

  and Esther Young

  Costumes: Hyacinth Jessup (Auntie Pie)

  Makeup: Beatrice Bonham

  Producer: Esther Young

  PART 1

  SOPHIA YOUNG SINGS!

  1. "Wouldn't It Be Loverly"—from My Fair Lady

  2. "I Feel Pretty"—from West Side Story

  3. "Somewhere over the Rainbow"—from The Wizard of Oz

  SOPHIA YOUNG PERFORMS!

  Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz

  (Co-starring Prissy, the Beast, as Toto)

  PART 2

  STEWART YOUNG DANCES!

  "Robin Hood"

  Music : Tschaikovsky

  Choreography: Stewart Young

  "Surfin' USA"

  Music: Beach Boys

  Choreography: Stewart Young

  PART 3

  ESTHER YOUNG SURPRISES!

  Time step and variations

  Shim Sham and variations

  Music: "Stomping at the Savoy"

  Shoop Shoop—choreographed by King-Roy

  Johnson

  Music: "In the Mood"

  We hope you enjoy the performance!!!!

  When everyone had taken their seats, Beatrice knocked on the library door and told me they were ready. I took a peek and saw Sophia standing in the center of the room waiting for her cue while Mother and Dad, King-Roy, Monsieur Vichy, Auntie Pie, and Stewart sat against the wall in our folding wooden chairs, waiting with their programs in their laps. The only person I didn't see was Pip. I felt crushed that he hadn't come. I pulled back from the door and closed it and tried to compose myself so I wouldn't cry and make all my makeup run. When Sophia began her first number, I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and opened the door back up a crack to watch. Sophia sang and performed everything perfectly, as usual, and the only thing that went wrong was that the Beast had grabbed hold of Sophia's leg with her front paws and wouldn't let go. Finally Beatrice got her to behave and Sophia began again with her dramatic monologue, and when it was over everyone applauded and cheered for Sophia.

  Sophia curtsied several times before she sat down in the seat I had set out for Pip, and then Stewart got up to perform his ballet. He looked back toward the library at me while Beatrice put the record on, and I could see by the wild look in his eyes that he was petrified. I stuck my hand out the door and showed him that my fingers were crossed for him, and he nodded at me. The music began and he started to move. His first few steps were wobbly, and I thought maybe he shouldn't have started with an arabesque since he had to balance on one foot to do it, which was too hard when you're so nervous, but once Stewart got leaping and turning, he loosened up, and then he held his next arabesque without a single tremor. He was beautiful. His curly hair flopped around and his cheeks got bright red and he looked just like an angel dancing.

  I stuck my head out the door a little further to see if Mother and Dad liked Stewart's performance and I saw Mother sitting up ramrod straight with her lips pinched tight and Dad sitting with his hand rapidly tapping his knee, not in rhythm to the music.

  "Come on, he's beautiful, can't you see it?" I asked under my breath.

  Stewart finished his first dance with a grand tour jeté and landed on his right foot and held it while Beatrice turned down the music to make it sound like it was fading out. Stewart then took a bow and I shouted, "Hooray!" and clapped from inside the library, and everybody else did, too, but I could see that Mother and Dad still didn't look happy. Their claps were more polite than everyone else's.

  Sophia stood up in the middle of the applause and said, "There will now be a five-minute intermission while Stewart changes for his next dance. Please enjoy the pound cake and juice we have set up in the solarium."

  Before Sophia had finished her announcement, Auntie Pie had jumped up and headed for the solarium so she'd be first at the cake. The others moved more slowly, and before Mother or Dad could say anything to Stewart, he ran off to the library to join me and get changed for his next ballet.

  "Did you see their faces?" Stewart said, still breathless and flushed from his performance when he came into the room.

  I helped him off with his Robin Hood top. "They're just surprised. They need a bit of time to get used to it, that's all," I said.

  "Dad looked like he wanted to yank me off the floor by my ear," Stewart said, pulling his swim trunks on over his tights. "I'm so nervous. Did you see how shaky I was?"

  "You looked beautiful, Stewart."

  Stewart scowled. "I don't want to look beautiful. Dad doesn't want to see that. I want to look strong and athletic."

  I nodded and handed him the big cardboard surfboard Auntie Pie had made from an old refrigerator carton I had retrieved from our garage. She cut out the shape and Stewart painted it blue with the words SURFIN' USA in fat red letters running along its length. On the bottom, Auntie Pie had glued a surfboard-shaped piece of felt so that the board could slide across the ballroom floor at the end of Stewart's dance.

  "You do look strong, and wait until they see you do that cartwheel without any hands. It's like you're flying, Stewart. They'll love it."

  "I hope so." Stewart looked up at me, his worried eyes wide and innocent-looking, and I smiled and crossed my fingers on both hands and held them up.

  "Good luck," I said.

  Stewart ground some rosin into the bottoms of his ballet slippers so they wouldn't slip too much on the floor and gave me a lopsided smile. "Thanks," he said. He kissed me on the cheek. "You look really pretty, Esther. I'm sorry Pip didn't come."

  I shrugged a shoulder and didn't say anything. A few seconds later we heard Sophia ringing the servants' buzzer, a button set in the wall of each room in the house, and Stewart turned and hurried out of the library with the painted surfboard under his arm.

  I stood by the door and watched him take his place in the center of the room with the surfboard held up in front of him, shielding him from the audience. The room was so quiet, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. Mother and Dad both sat with frozen death expressions on their faces, and I was glad that Stewart couldn't see them.

  I said a quick prayer for him.

  Then Beatrice started the record and Stewart stayed still and hidden during the short musical introduction, but as soon as the Beach Boys started singing, "If everybody had an ocean," Stewart exploded, first by pressing the surfboard to the floor and cartwheeling over it in one slick movement, and then springing up and leaping and turning and flying. He was just flying. Beatrice had turned the music up loud and it must have really energized Stewart, because I had never seen him leap so high. Beatrice began clapping to the music, and Auntie Pie and King-Roy joined in. Then Monsieur Vichy, Mother, and Dad started clapping, and Stewart really flew. He was wild and yet he was graceful. He was all over the room and yet he was in control; he was in total control. Toward the end he did a series of eight leap-turns in a great circle around the surfboard, and then he picked up the board and ran and slid across the room on it and finished with his arms paddling in the imaginary water as the Beach Boys' song faded.

  Then he sprung up from the board and did a low bow while everyone, even Mother and Dad, stood up and cheered. Everyone, that is, except Sophia. She sat in her seat with her arms crossed and a worried pout on her face. But that didn't matter, Stewart was a rip-roaring success!

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I let Stewart enjoy the limelight for a while longer but once the applause had died down and everyone had taken their seats, I signaled to King-Roy to announce me, which he had reluctantly agreed to do. But when he stood up and made his announcement, he did it right—with lots of excitement and pizzazz.

  He said, "Announcing ... the one and only ... the greatest ... the most talented tap danc
er of them all—live from Westchester County, New York—Miss Esther Young!"

  I heard the applause and I made my entrance just the way King-Roy had taught me, with shuffle steps out from the library to the center of the room. I looked at everyone smiling at me, and I smiled so wide back at them, I thought my mouth might rip apart.

  "Why, Esther Josephine Young, look at you!" Mother said. "You're beautiful!" I looked at Dad and he whistled, and then I saw Monsieur Vichy's cigar drop right out of his mouth into his lap, and Auntie Pie clapped and nodded, and Stewart just glowed, and King-Roy's eyes looked wide in his head and he was nodding like Auntie Pie, and Sophia's eyes had turned to mean little slits, but I ignored her. This was my turn to shine.

  I gave a little curtsy, and then when everyone had quieted down, I began with my time step. I made sure that I kept my upper body relaxed and my arms light and moving with the steps, and I saw King-Roy nodding his approval out of the corner of my eye. I finished with a twirl and another curtsy and everyone applauded and I signaled for Beatrice to start up "Stomping at the Savoy" for my Shim Sham. While I danced I could see that Mother and Dad and everyone were impressed. I was even so impressed with myself that I added some extra flourishes with my arms and my hips, and as King-Roy would say, I "really got down into it."

  When I finished the Shim Sham, everyone cheered for me, and I just couldn't stand it, I felt so proud. I couldn't wait to show them the Shoop Shoop dance. It had a number of difficult rhythms and steps that I knew would surprise everybody when they saw that I could do them so well.

  Before Beatrice put on the music, I said, "I would now like Mr. King-Roy Johnson to please join me in performing his very own Shoop Shoop dance."

  Everyone cheered and so even though it wasn't in the plans, King-Roy stood up and walked over to me and whispered, "I'll get you for this," but I saw the light in his eyes, so I knew he was pleased I had asked him.