The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  “Well, where did you start?” asked Kit.

  Joe gave a polite but pale smile. “I used to play in a bar called Jack’s Lighthouse. They have entertainment”—he shrugged—“but not the family kind. Lucy would come after school and sit at the piano with me and sing between shows. Then they let her up onstage a couple of times, and word got around, so we started going to other bars, too.”

  “That’s how Mr. Birnbaum found us,” Lucy added.

  “Morty Birnbaum?” I said.

  “You know him?” said Joe. “He’s our agent.”

  “He’s our agent, too!”

  “That’s some coincidence,” said Joe. “What do you make of him?”

  “I can’t really say. He seems nice enough, and he got us all these bookings . . .”

  Joe nodded. “You worry, though,” he said. “He’s got our lives in his hands.”

  I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but it was true. If Birnbaum cut us loose tomorrow—and there was nothing to ensure that he wouldn’t—we’d be right back in the soup kettle.

  At intermission Kit took Lucy back to see our dressing room. Joe and I sat on our crates, and I tapped my knuckles, searching anxiously for a polite way to ask about his accent. Before I could come up with anything, he said, “Do you play?”

  “Play?”

  “The piano. You were playing your knuckles. I think I even saw some chords in there.”

  “No.” I laughed, embarrassed that he’d noticed my nervous habit. “I was just thinking.”

  “I see.” He smiled that lovely smile. “And what were you thinking about?”

  “Well, to be truthful, I was trying to think of a way to ask about your accent.”

  His smile faded slightly. “What kind of name is Turner?” he asked. “What nationality?”

  “It’s English, but it’s an old name. The Turners have been in America for a long time.”

  He stiffened. “I’m American, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate that you weren’t,” I said, wondering how things had gone from pleasant to uncomfortable so quickly. “Only that you have an interesting lilt to your voice.”

  He looked away. “In Boston, it’s not even an accent,” he muttered.

  “Well, I’ve never been to Boston. I don’t know how people there sound.”

  “We don’t all sound alike. Not everyone has been here as long as the Turners.”

  His defensiveness was starting to concern me. “I wasn’t implying—”

  “We’re Italian.” His chin rose just a little, daring me to impugn his country of origin.

  “How nice.”

  My response seemed to calm him and he added quickly, “What I mean to say is that my family is from Italy, but Lucy and I are American. We were born here.” When he said Italy, the first syllable sounded slightly more like eat than it.

  I was afraid to say another word, but then I thought of Mrs. Califano, our neighbor back in Johnson City, who always had a pot of tomato gravy on the stove.

  “I . . . I bet your mother is a good cook,” I said.

  His chin descended from its testy angle, and I could see the thought of her warm his memory. “She is. She’s wonderful.”

  Grateful to have stumbled upon the right response, I asked, “What does she make?”

  “Pasta e fagioli, of course, and pasta puttanesca, biscotti—she can make anything.”

  I had never heard of any of these dishes. He might have been telling me that his mother boiled old fish in dirty dishwater and I would’ve been none the wiser. “Delicious!” I said.

  Disaster had been averted. At least for the time being.

  20

  GERT

  Success in show business depends on

  your ability to make and keep friends.

  —Sophie Tucker, singer

  We’d traveled as a pack our whole lives, squabbling and pushing all the way, maybe, but together just the same. But in Lyons, a strange thing happened. The Turners finally separated.

  Kit and dainty Lucy, a foot apart in height, explored every nook and hidey-hole of the theatre. They even got the stagehands to let them climb up the rickety wooden ladders to the fly loft where the lights and backdrops hung. Winnie stuck to that piano player like he had the keys to the Library of Congress, and though Nell was in the dressing room with little Harry while he nursed or slept, often as not I’d peek in to find the place empty.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked when she returned with the baby tucked into her jacket.

  “Out for a walk. It’s so balmy, and the mint fields smell so nice.” Lyons, as it turned out, was the peppermint capital of the world, shipping its product all over the globe. “Then I went into a little café for a cup of tea and met another mother with a baby. We had the nicest chat.” Even Nell was making friends!

  Mother was in Jackie O’Sullivan’s dressing room anytime I passed it, darning his socks or mending Mike and Mary’s tacky little costumes, her high-pitched laughter practically cracking plaster. I didn’t like it one bit, especially with poor Dad home alone with no one to talk to. Not that he talked all that much. In fact, maybe he didn’t mind a little peace and quiet so he actually could hear his records for once. I didn’t think anything would come of Mother’s little flirtation. Still, all that giggling was enough to make you stick cotton in your ears.

  Frankly, I should’ve thanked O’Sullivan for distracting Mother while I was with Tip. I could practically have spent the afternoon locked in his dressing room alone with him and she wouldn’t have noticed. Not that it mattered. Tip always left the door wide open.

  He was sitting in one of the chairs with his long legs stretched out in front of him the next day, relaxing after his first performance. He sat up when I peeked my head in the doorway.

  “Did you ever send that postcard to your aunt?” I asked.

  “I did.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have, though, seeing as I got cut the next day.”

  “I disagree.”

  He smiled at this. “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. You laid them out that night, and that doesn’t go away just because some lousy manager fired you for no good reason.”

  “He said the reason was decorum.”

  I crossed my arms. “Well, if anyone was being indecorous, it was me. I’m the one who barreled into you.”

  “It wasn’t you, Gert.” His eyes caught mine, making his point. “It was just . . . people.”

  “Awful people,” I said. “Not everyone’s that awful.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not always easy to tell which is which, though.”

  “You’re smart. I bet you figure it out pretty quick.”

  “I bet you do, too.”

  I thought of Billy, and how I’d pegged him as just a dope with a silly crush. “Oh, I get fooled every once in a while.”

  “We all do,” he said gently.

  I could’ve fallen right into the arms of such sweetness right then and there.

  “Would you like to sit?” he asked.

  I took the seat across from him, our two chairs separated by his huge trunk like the Wall of China. “Why didn’t you invite me to sit down when I was telling you about getting robbed?”

  “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

  “The only thing I was uncomfortable about was standing that whole time,” I said. “I think you were the one who was uncomfortable.”

  He smiled and nodded. “I was a bit.”

  “And now?”

  “I guess I’m getting used to it.”

  We talked all afternoon. The door was open, but no one passed by. We might as well have been on the moon.

  “Five minutes, Turners!” Albert, the stage manager, called.

  I got up to go and paused to check my makeup. Tip’s mirror was a rusted disgrace. “How do I look?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t too smudged.

  He smiled. “You look just right.”

  And that’s how I felt. Just
right.

  I didn’t feel just right onstage, though. I felt light-headed, my mind wandering back to Tip as I botched a line or missed a step. I felt so real with him, Gert Turner in all my glory, no more, no less. I’ve spent my whole life being too much or too little for people, I thought as I dropped Winnie. I wasn’t too torn up about it, though, because Winnie was even worse. She was practically dropping herself!

  Mother and O’Sullivan watched from the wings, and as we limped offstage to faint applause, Mother’s face was pink with embarrassment. “Girls!” she hissed. “Everyone to the dressing room right now.” She handed little Harry to Kit, turned, and marched toward the backstage hallway, knowing we would follow her like ducklings after the mother duck.

  We crowded into the stuffy little room, and Mother’s finger flew out in front of her. “What is the reason for this sloppiness? Gert, your head is in the clouds! You nearly missed the punch line of that last bit altogether. Winnie, your timing is like a broken clock. I should keep your ice bag from you so the pain of that lump will keep you wide awake for the next show!”

  “Sorry, Mother,” she mumbled. “I’ll try harder.”

  “You won’t just try, Winnie Turner,” Mother warned. “You’ll succeed. Is that clear?”

  All eyes were on me; my turn to grovel. But I wasn’t in the mood to give a fake apology, no matter how it would smooth my way. I wanted to feel real. I wanted to be with Tip.

  “It was an off day,” I said. “Everyone has them.”

  “Off day, my foot!” Mother yelled. I cringed, knowing the sound would carry down the tiny hallway. I wondered if Tip was sitting in his dressing room next door, grateful there was no one to snarl at him after a bad performance. Not that he ever had one.

  “You nearly broke your sister’s arm, dropping her like that! Then where would we be?” Mother had never shown such concern over Winnie’s injuries in the past. She just felt humiliated in front of her new friend—the headliner, no less.

  Nell nudged me. Time to make nice. “Sorry, Mother,” I mumbled.

  Harry rubbed a chubby fist into his eye.

  Mother snapped, “Now leave poor Nell in peace so she can give this child a nap.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. But Tip’s door was closed for the first time since we’d arrived. Winnie slowed a step to eye me as I wavered, deciding whether to knock.

  I wheeled around and plowed past her, right out the stage door toward those minty fields, to breathe and think and figure out what in the world I was up to.

  21

  WINNIE

  Curiosity may have killed the cat,

  but it did all right by me.

  —Helen Hayes, actress

  The stage door slammed behind her and I stood there a moment. Gert angry—I was used to that, I would barely have blinked. This was different. This was Gert in a jumble.

  I headed for backstage, as much to get away from Mother as to see if the Coles—one Cole in particular, if I was being honest—might like some company. Kit had gotten there ahead of me, of course, and she and Lucy ran off exploring. I sank down onto one of the old crates by Joe. “Not our best performance,” I sighed, examining the bruise rising like a dirigible on my arm.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You took some tough spills.”

  “Before vaudeville this would have made me cry,” I said. “Now I barely notice. Except that this one is an interesting shape. Do you see it? The blood vessels must have broken from the impact of Gert’s curved hand, and the surrounding tissue absorbed it in that distinct pattern.”

  I’ve been studying that first aid book too long, I thought. I’m blathering on like a walking textbook.

  Joe’s eyebrows went halfway up his forehead, and I cringed, knowing that girls usually try to act dumber than boys, not smarter. But then he smiled. “I’ll bet you got all A’s in science.” I gave the tiniest shrug of admission. “Good for you!” he said. “Brains are what America is all about, after all. That’s where the opportunities come from.”

  I felt my throat tighten with a sudden surge of emotion. He liked my brains! I didn’t know there were any boys on the planet who felt that way, much less that I’d find one backstage at a vaudeville show. The only reply I could manage was a slightly strangled, “Thanks.”

  “Just don’t fall and hit your head,” he teased. “You have to protect all those smarts.”

  I certainly would try.

  As we resumed our conversation, Joe’s eyes followed Lucy, his face a kaleidoscope that rotated from concern to relief. “Are they supposed to be up there?” he fretted when she and Kit leaned from the catwalk and waved. And once he murmured, “She’s so happy,” as if this were unexpected, almost perplexing.

  “Where did she learn to sing like that?” I asked, to distract him.

  He stared into middle space, as if he couldn’t remember, or perhaps didn’t want to, and then said, “My father loved to sing.”

  Past tense.

  There are only two reasons a person who once loved to do a particular thing doesn’t do it anymore: something has made him stop loving it, or something has forced him to stop doing it. In either case, the reason is likely an unhappy one. I angled my response to spare him an explanation. “She has a beautiful voice. So strong for a young girl. It must come from her toes!”

  “She’s always been like that,” he said. “When she was little and didn’t get her way, she was as loud as a grown woman yelling at street urchins stealing from her clothesline.”

  “And you took piano lessons, so she would use those lungs for singing instead,” I joked.

  He smiled back, but it was a smile that makes you want to put your hand on the smiler’s arm, or bring them a cup of tea. “I never took lessons,” he said. “My father taught me.”

  His father is dead, I thought, and it looks to be recent.

  “Was it the Spanish flu?” It wasn’t something people talked about, but the loss seemed so freshly painful, I wondered if saying a few words about his father might help, like letting the blood flow from a wound for a moment or two, to sluice the dirt out before you bound it up tight.

  Joe shook his head. “He drowned.” His eyes caught on mine, and I couldn’t look away.

  “When?”

  “January.”

  It had only been three months. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured.

  “What about your father—why isn’t he with you?” asked Joe, and I told him about Dad’s accident, our dire financial circumstances, and even about Harry’s death. His warm gaze took in every word and gesture, inspiring me to reveal far more of our family’s misfortune than was considered polite. But I didn’t care. I wanted him to know.

  “So you perform to pay your rent, not because you love the stage so much.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose that’s true,” I said. “But we’ve grown to like it.”

  “You’ve got a taste for the sound of applause now.”

  I smiled. “There are worse sounds.”

  “Like the sound of the landlord coming for the rent money,” he said ruefully, and I guessed that he knew all too well what that sounded like.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s definitely worse.”

  22

  GERT

  Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration,

  I don’t think you can go wrong.

  —Ella Fitzgerald, singer

  “Where did you go when you left Wellsville?” I asked him. There was a grassy abandoned lot out behind the theatre, and we sat on an old stone wall eating dinner before the last show of the evening. His sandwich was made from thick slices of hard bread, a few pieces of cheese, and a couple of leaves of a dark green vegetable I couldn’t place. Mine was whatever Winnie had handed me.

  “I almost went back to Georgia. Almost gave up altogether.”

  “Because you were fired?”

  He thought for a moment and shook his head. “’Cause I was angry.” />
  “Angry enough to quit the business?”

  “Just about.”

  “Would have been a shame,” I said. “With all that talent.”

  “It was already a shame. A damn shame.” He glanced over at me. “Beg your pardon.”

  I laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard worse.”

  He gave that little slow smile of his. “Is that right? And where’s a girl like you hear such gutter talk, I’d like to know.”

  “J. J. Wiley’s Pub and Café, Binghamton, New York, is where. The bar is about thirty feet long. Very popular with the after-work crowd. Also popular with the last-call crowd.”

  “You eat there a lot, do you?”

  “No, I waitress there a lot.”

  “Oh.” He dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry. I guess I . . . I guess I’m still working out . . . who you are exactly.”

  “No need to apologize. I’m still working out who I am exactly, too.”

  He chuckled. “I reckon we all are, in one way or another.”

  A silence came over us as we gazed at each other. A stillness. His eyes on mine.

  Then after a moment he looked away. “I just went on to the next town,” he said. “After Wellsville.”

  “What made you decide not to give up and go back to Georgia?”

  “Couple things, I guess.” I waited. I knew he would tell me if I just left room for the answer. “First, I got no home to go home to anymore. My aunt and uncle live on the road.” He leaned back in his chair. “Second, all I know is tapping. What am I gonna do, start sharecropping? Can’t even grow a weed.

  “Third . . .” He looked over at me, checking to see if he could say what he was about to say next. “Third, the hell with him. The hell with all of them that just wants to put me down, keep me from doing what I know how to do.”

  I nodded. “The hell with every last one of them.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “And last of all. Last of all, I said to myself, I just need to keep finding the good people. I just need to meet one good person every place I go, and then I’ll keep going. Like the Turner sisters, I told myself. If I keep finding Turners everywhere I go, I’m gonna be all right.”