The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  As tired as I was, I couldn’t seem to settle down, and lay there blinking up at the ceiling.

  “That Billy doesn’t give up, does he?” murmured Winnie.

  “Turning him down gives me something to do, at least.”

  “He’s handsome. You could turn down worse,” she said. “Think he’s a real cowboy?”

  “He’s from Rhode Island,” I said. “And he’s only handsome if you like that sort of look.”

  “What look?”

  “That pretend he-man look. It’s all out front. Nothing to wonder about.”

  Winnie was quiet then, but it was a loud sort of quiet, as if some new inkling had shocked her into silence. I felt the fine hairs on my arms stand up. She had just figured out who I wondered about, and it wasn’t Billy.

  “Just go to sleep!” I hissed, and she didn’t say another word.

  The next morning, six baby play yards were lined up at the theatre. There were also eight bags of baby clothes, and a dresser painted with a cow jumping over the moon. It had a lumpy back and a too-long nose that made it look like a camel with udders.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Nell asked. “We can’t possibly take all these things.”

  Mother and Sissy were already inspecting the lode like miners panning for gold nuggets. “Take the best and leave the rest,” said Sissy. “Or better yet—sell it!”

  Even Mother balked at this. “Why, Sissy, I don’t think people would take kindly to our selling off things they’ve given over for free.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Folks might look askance. I know! You could bring it with you to the next town and sell it there. No one would be the wiser.” Mother paused to consider this.

  “I won’t take any of it at all, if that’s what you plan to do,” Nell said quietly.

  In the end, she kept a small fold-up play yard and a half dozen toddler outfits. The rest was donated to the Cuba First Baptist Church for their charitable outreach.

  “Say thank you to Miss Sissy,” Mother whispered at Nell.

  Sissy was fingering a fine little jacket and matching hat that were far too small for Harry.

  “Thank you for your help, Miss Sissy,” Nell said, her jaw tight. “You certainly are someone who sees a need and takes things into her own hands.”

  “You are so very welcome,” Sissy gushed. “And you’re right about me. The world leaves the timid by the side of the road, I always say.” She squinted over at her half-dead banjo player. “Don’t I always say that, Clay? About being timid?”

  He nodded blankly.

  “There you have it!” she cackled. “I might be unconventional, but I get the job done by hook or by crook!”

  On Saturday, I overheard Sissy say, “Now, Ethel, I need some advice.” (Shocking, since Sissy thought she knew everything about everything.) “I’m trying to decide what to do with my pay when Mr. Keller hands it out tonight. Should I mail it home or keep it in my grouch bag?”

  “What’s a grouch bag?” said Mother.

  “Oh, you know.”

  “No, I admit I don’t.”

  “You never heard of a grouch bag?”

  “Sissy, if I knew what it was, I’d certainly say so!”

  “It’s a little pouch you carry under your clothes.” She patted her chest and gave a sly grin. “Close to your heart, if you take my meaning.”

  “Ohhhh!” Mother laughed. “You keep all your money with you?”

  “Well, I do keep some in my room, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But I’m not sure if my hiding spot is any good.” Miss Sissy hung her head for shame at the poor location of her secret stash. “I stuff it under the mattress.”

  “Why, Sissy, that’s the first place they’d look!”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Mother glanced around. I aimed an innocent gaze at Billy, who grinned like I’d agreed to go steady, but my ears were pricked up like a hunting dog’s. I was disappointed when Mother leaned even closer to Sissy, and I couldn’t hear a thing.

  “Smart thinking!” replied Sissy. “I knew I was right to choose you for a friend.” The conversation turned to the proper way to sew a grouch bag, and Sissy had the upper hand there, so Mother’s time as the know-it-all came to an end.

  That night, after Mr. Keller handed out the week’s pay, we all walked back to the Bradley, and Billy tagged along after me as usual. “Won’t you go for one little stroll with me?” he pleaded.

  I surprised myself by agreeing. I suppose I was tired of feeling irritable, and thought spending a little time with a handsome, admiring man might improve my mood.

  No such luck.

  As the others went into the hotel, we continued down the darkened street. He finally mustered up the courage to take my hand, which I allowed, though it might as well have been an oven mitt for all the romance it kindled in me. And of course, once he’d achieved that lofty goal, he thought he should reach for the brass ring and kiss me. I tried to relax and enjoy it, but he was all wet lips and tongue, and I felt like I was being slurped by a yodeling cow.

  “Stop,” I said, and wrenched away from his licking and groping.

  He grabbed my shoulders to pull me in. “I just have to kiss you, sweetheart,” he moaned.

  “But I don’t want you to.” As if it wasn’t completely obvious!

  He gave a sly little grin and said, “Oh, I think you do.”

  “No, I truly don’t. I’m going back.”

  I turned out of his grasp, but he wrenched me back around to face him. “I hope you’re not teasing me,” he warned. “I don’t like girls who tease.”

  “I don’t care what you like, now let me go!”

  He slammed his slobbery face against mine and stuck his fat cow’s tongue into my mouth, so I couldn’t even scream. He shoved me backward, out of the starlight and into the shadow of a hedge, his fingers digging into my skin.

  A girl can always manage. She can sweet-talk and outsmart and generally have her way. She can do anything she pleases . . . until it gets physical. I couldn’t overpower him or outrun him. But I could trick him. I went loose for a moment, and let him kiss me, trying not to gag.

  In a few minutes, which seemed like an hour-long descent into hell’s outhouse, he came up for air. “That’s right,” he moaned. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “I did, but now let’s walk some more.”

  “I don’t want to walk,” he growled. “I want to neck.”

  “Billy, Billy,” I cooed, turning on my most candied smile. “Don’t be like that, honey.” It confused him, and I took his arm, all fake cozy, and walked quickly toward the light of a little restaurant up the street. “Let’s get something to drink!” I said, and he shuffled along beside me, stupidly hoping his chances would somehow improve.

  Luck was with me. Dutch’s Sandwich Barn was full of people—my people.

  “Hey, Gert!” Kit called out. “How’d you know where to find us?”

  I dropped Billy’s sweaty hand and walked quickly into the crowd. “What’s the occasion?”

  Mother had her arm hooked in Sissy’s as if they’d been best girlfriends since the dawn of time. “Our dear Sissy insisted we all go out and have some fun together after six days of working hard. She convinced everyone except her own partner!”

  “He’s an old poop.” Sissy made a pouty face. “No fun at all, which is why I love you people so much!”

  Even Nell was there, cradling the sleeping baby inside her coat. I wedged a chair right between her and Kit, while Billy went up to the counter to get us a couple of bottles of Moxie.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” I murmured to Nell.

  “I’m surprised, too, but Mother said I owed it to Sissy for getting all those baby things.” Nell shook her head. “I won’t mind when we’re free of her good intentions.”

  Nell kept to herself more and more, avoiding everyone but us. I had half a notion that maybe that awful Sissy had done us a good turn aft
er all, by making Nell socialize.

  The contortionist was sitting on the other side of her. He looked down at Harry snoring his little baby snores in her arms. “You know,” he said, “I used to have trouble sleeping. I’d lie there all night staring up at the ceiling.”

  Nell blinked at him for a second, unused to casual conversation. “Well, I . . . I’m sure that was frustrating,” she stammered.

  “It was. I told my doctor, I said, “Doc, I haven’t slept in weeks.’ He gave me a prescription and said, “This’ll make you sleep like a baby.’ ”

  “Did it work?” said Nell.

  “Absolutely. Now every night I suck my thumb, wet the bed, and wake up every two hours crying for my mama!”

  His eyes lit up at having hit the punch line so well, and Nell couldn’t help but laugh, her body shaking with something other than sobs for once.

  “You should try your hand at comedy,” she told him.

  It certainly would be less embarrassing for everyone involved, I thought, remembering his legs all twisted up, exposing bumps and bulges no one needs to see.

  On the other side of me, Kit chatted with the iron-jaw man. He hooked one finger into the side of his cheek so she could study his molars. Then he stood up, pulled a ladder-back chair away from the table, and said, “Bet you can’t.” Before we knew it, she had locked her teeth onto the chair’s top rung and lifted it, hands out behind her like chicken wings.

  Mother and I yelled over each other: “Kit, no! Put that down! You’ll break a tooth!”

  She lowered the chair to the floor and curtsied as the other performers clapped. Mother gave Nell, Winnie, and me a time-to-go look, and we stood and reached for our coats.

  Billy said, “Aw, Gert, don’t leave!”

  I tipped my head toward Mother and gave an apologetic shrug, playing the obedient daughter. If he’d known me better, he would’ve seen how far-fetched that was.

  “You can’t go so soon!” Sissy cried. “The evening’s not half over!”

  “It is for us, Sissy dear,” said Mother. “We’ll see you in the morning for breakfast. We can say our good-byes then.”

  But we couldn’t. And Sissy knew that.

  “Who’s been in here? Who’s been in my room?” I recognized Billy’s whine right away and tugged the covers up over my ears. “My money’s gone! Someone stole all my money!”

  A prickle ran through me, and my eyes flew open.

  “Gert, do you hear that?” Winnie whispered.

  “Course I do. The whole town can hear it.” We put our coats on over our nightdresses and went out to the hallway.

  The manager was speaking in quiet tones with Billy. Was he sure he hadn’t put it someplace else? Was he positive of how much he’d had? There were no locks on the room doors, but the manager made a point of saying he always bolted the place up after the night clerk came in.

  “My father gave me five hundred dollars when I set out, and I haven’t touched a penny of it. I’ve kept it in a silver money clip in my trunk for the last month, and they’re both gone, I tell you!”

  Winnie and I exchanged glances. Apparently Billy the Cowboy Yodeler was actually William the Rich Boy Whiner.

  Mother opened her door, and from the look on her face the thief hadn’t been satisfied with Billy’s cash and money clip. Another door opened, the husband and wife cloggers. “We’ve been robbed!” Soon almost everyone was in the hallway, claiming to have lost money.

  “Where’s Sissy?” Mother turned on the hotel manager. “Where is Miss Salloway?”

  “She and her gentleman friend left real late last night,” he said, wary of the wild look on Mother’s face. “Said her next show was a sleeper jump and she had to catch the late train.”

  It didn’t take long to figure it out. Clay had ransacked the rooms while we were all at Dutch’s Sandwich Barn with Sissy. Then when everyone was snug in bed, they’d snuck out.

  “How much did she get?” Nell asked Mother.

  Mother’s face was ashen. She’d practically put our money right in Sissy’s grouch bag herself. “I only have a few dollars in change from what I brought to the restaurant last night.”

  The Bradley Hotel manager had insisted all the acts pay up as soon as they’d come in from the theatre the night before. “I’ve had more than one theatre type skip out,” he’d told Mother. “Or drink it away by Sunday morning.” At least we didn’t owe any money.

  We packed up and headed to the train station along with everyone else. We had enough to get us to our next show in Fredonia, but where we would stay, how we would eat, we didn’t know.

  The husband-and-wife clog dancers decided to go home. “We’re too old for this kind of monkey business,” the wife said. “I just hope our son can take us in.”

  As we stood on the train platform, Billy came over to say good-bye. I nearly turned my back on him, but then an idea came to me. “Oh, Billy,” I simpered, taking his arm and pulling him away from the others. “Are you going to be all right?”

  We talked until the train whistle blew, and then before he could kiss me I ran straight up the steps onto the train, as if parting were like losing a limb.

  “What was all that billing and cooing about?” Winnie asked as we settled into our seats.

  “It was about saying thank you. Which is what you’ll be saying to me in a minute.” I opened my hand to show off a ten-dollar bill. “He still had his pay in his pocket because of that little stroll we took. He realized that if I hadn’t been willing to go, he’d have gotten completely cleaned out like the rest of us.”

  “And you helped him to realize it,” she said, grinning.

  “Well, sometimes a person just needs a friend to shed some light.”

  “You’re brilliant!” Mother cried, reaching for the cash.

  I held on to that bill. It was my money—they had no idea what I’d been through to earn it.

  Mother’s glare was double-barreled. Her outstretched hand hung in the air like a threat.

  I blinked, and she snatched the bill from me. Then she pulled out a square of black satin and a spool of thread with a needle tucked into it.

  “What’s that?” Kit asked.

  “I’m making a grouch bag,” she said. “I’m told it’s the best way to keep your money out of other people’s pockets.”

  13

  WINNIE

  I believe in the idea of the rainbow.

  And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.

  —Judy Garland, singer and actress

  Fredonia was a bustling little town, unbowed by the fact that the wind blew in near gale-like force off Lake Erie, nearly tearing our coats off. Mother asked a railroad officer where we might find a hotel. His eyes were shaded by the stiff brim of his cap, but I could see them dart from the secondhand trunks to our well-worn boots. “You might find the Rus Urban on West Main to be to your liking,” he said.

  The rooms at the Rus Urban Hotel were small and smelled of must, and the only two available had one double bed each. It was decided that Kit would sleep with Mother in one room, while Gert, Nell, Little Harry, and I shared the other.

  “There’s barely room to turn around,” said Gert. “We’ll have to stand on the bed to change our clothes!”

  “I’m sorry the baby’s things take up so much room.” Nell’s words were so faint they seemed to float off into thin air. I could see her slipping away into one of her silences.

  “We’re just glad we get the two of you to ourselves this week,” I said. “Aren’t we, Gert?”

  “Oh, we’re happy for the trade.” Gert was hanging clothes from nails someone had banged into the wall. “No one snores like Kit—she practically has a locomotive in her nose.”

  The baby sat on the bed, grabbing up handfuls of graying sheets and stuffing them into his mouth. “Oh, Harry, no!” Nell picked him up. “You’re slobbering all over the bedclothes.”

  “He just wants something to chew on with those new teeth he’s got coming i
n,” I said. “Right, Harry-boy?” I took the baby from her and jiggled him around until he squealed happily.

  Nell sat on the bed and stared out the window. I put a hand on her shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do. She reached up and patted it. I suspect she didn’t know what else to do, either.

  At a modest little tavern with a hand-painted sign, Mother announced that she’d decided not to call Morty Birnbaum and ask for another loan. “It makes us look foolish,” she said, “like rubes who don’t know how to take care of ourselves.” I couldn’t help notice the use of the word us instead of the more truthful me. We’d have to make do with Gert’s ten dollars until we got paid in a week.

  The cabbage soup in Nell’s bowl lay only a quarter of an inch below the level at which it had been served. The baby fussed and gnawed at his fist, but she didn’t seem to notice, only gazed off vacantly.

  “Let me take him so you can eat,” I told her. I reached for Harry, and his little arms went immediately around my neck.

  “Thanks,” said Nell. “Looks like he’s happier with you anyway.”

  “I don’t think he loves anyone in the world more than his mama,” I assured her.

  Nell didn’t answer, only took a spoonful of the broth. Half an hour later when we got up to leave, the bowl was still almost full. Kit slurped it down in a couple of gulps.

  “Katherine Turner!” Mother hissed, her eyes darting right and left to see if any of the other patrons had caught Kit’s transgression.

  “I’m hungry,” Kit muttered back. “Why waste it?”

  The Fredonia Opera House had a great crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling, and a horseshoe-shaped balcony gleaming with wood carvings. The plush red velvet stage curtains were framed by a pressed-metal proscenium arch twice as high as the one in Cuba.

  The performers were twice as grand looking, too. There was a family purportedly named the Chinese Chungs, a mother and two daughters, who wiggled around in elaborate Oriental costumes. Their heavy eyeliner trailed off dramatically toward their temples, which, to my mind, put their Chinese-ness squarely into question. There was a man with four trained dogs, from a pony-sized Great Dane to a hairless little dog that rode in his coat pocket. Kit leaned toward me and whispered, “It’s the dog version of us,” and we snickered until Gert pinched Kit, and Kit said, “Ow!” and Mother shushed us.