The Tumbling Turner Sisters

by Juliette Fay

  Secretly, Gert and I opened bank accounts. With all our schoolwork to consider, I could only take a few shifts per week at the hospital, so her balance was four times the size of mine. But my $11.37 put a smile on my face every time I thought of it. I was a long way from putting myself through college, but it was a start.

  Even more than that, my anemic little account symbolized the greater goal of my own self-governance, which I had barely considered when we’d begun this vaudeville odyssey. Mother seemed to believe she could exercise her control in perpetuity, and the thought of wresting it from her gave me a shiver of excitement. Maybe I was turning into Gert!

  On that Monday morning, however, all our plans for gradually increasing our accounts were upended when Mother came to school.

  The principal appeared at Miss Cartery’s classroom door, beckoned her over, and whispered something. Then they looked at me, faces solemn. I had seen grave expressions all too often during the Spanish flu, when news of death arrived almost daily for some poor student.

  Oh, God, I prayed. Oh, dear Lord, no . . .

  “Winnie, would you gather your things, please?” said Miss Cartery.

  With broken glass in my veins I made my way through the maze of desks to the doorway. Someone patted my arm as I went by.

  “I’m so sorry, but your grandmother has passed,” the principal murmured. “Your mother is waiting for you in the main office.”

  “My grandmother?”

  “Yes, dear. You’ll be leaving for Albany right away for the wake and funeral.”

  It was all I could do not to laugh. Mother’s parents had been dead for years! This had to be something else—something she needed to lie about. It could only be one thing.

  Gert was already in the office and we had to suffer through several more rounds of condolences before we could get out of the building and Mother could tell us the truth. “Someone canceled and we’re the disappointment act in Geneva this week! Two hundred dollars! Nell’s home packing. We have a nine thirty train to catch!”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Geneva?” I let out a mad whoop and grabbed Gert by the arms. They were rightly puzzled, until I sang out, “Joe’s in Geneva!”

  36

  GERT

  The Saturday matinee was in full swing when I arrived backstage, and there I suddenly found my inarticulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that’s when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?”

  —Cary Grant, actor (the former Archie Leach, acrobat)

  “Mother, Winnie and I have been talking.”

  We hadn’t actually been talking. I’d talked, but I could tell Winnie wasn’t really listening. Too busy daydreaming about seeing Joe.

  “I’ve noticed you two have been getting along better.” Mother didn’t even glance up from the newspaper swaying in her hand as the train rocked its way toward Geneva.

  “We’ve been talking about the money we get paid for performing. Or I should say, the family gets paid.”

  This caught her attention; she put aside the newspaper to eye me.

  “We girls performed for nine weeks and never saw a cent, which is fine, seeing as Dad couldn’t work. But he is working now, and I’m guessing you banked roughly . . . four hundred dollars?”

  I watched Mother carefully. If it had been less than that, she would have jumped to correct me, but she just kept glaring.

  “That’s quite a cushion,” I said. “And if we keep working, we’ll make even more.”

  “What are you getting at?” Mother growled.

  “We have a proposal. From now on, you keep half our earnings, pay the travel expenses from it, and bank the rest. We girls split the other half four ways.” I had already done the math, of course. Birnbaum had negotiated a whopping two hundred dollars for the week. Half of that divided by four was twenty-five dollars. It was more than I made at the Arlington in a month.

  “Absolutely not,” Mother scoffed. “Gert, you think you’re smart enough to handle that kind of money? This isn’t a few dollars you get from waitressing. This is serious dough, and I’m not going to let you fritter it away.”

  I felt my blood boil. “First of all, I am smart enough. And second of all—”

  “The discussion is over.” She picked up the newspaper and stared at it, though her eyes weren’t tracking the text. I was prepared for this. And for the first time in my life, I truly understood it. Despite the gilded cage the world puts you in as a wife and mother—for just being female, for cripes’ sake—she finally had a little say-so, and she wanted to keep it.

  But my new sympathy didn’t make me stupid. If anything, it spurred me on. Time for the big guns. “Winnie and I won’t perform unless we get our share.”

  Mother turned on Winnie. “You’re conspiring against me.”

  To her everlasting credit, the girl said nothing. I had dragged her into my mutiny without a warning, but she didn’t abandon me. Besides, she knew I was right.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mother said coolly. “I won’t give you the money, and that is final.”

  The rest of the train ride was silent, and Winnie shot me angry looks. But not that angry. She was still with me. When we stood on the platform in Geneva, I took her arm. “Winnie and I will take the next train back to Binghamton if you won’t give us part of our pay.”

  Winnie stiffened till she nearly broke in half. I know—Joe is a short walk away, I wanted to tell her. But you have to stick with me, or we’ll never get any of it.

  Mother looked to Nell for reinforcement. She stunned us all by tucking little Harry onto her hip and taking a step toward Winnie and me. “It’s only fair, Mother,” she said gently.

  Kit scrambled over beside us before anyone could even look at her.

  Mother was fit to be tied. “You can’t go back to Binghamton,” she hissed. “You don’t even have the train fare!”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but we won’t perform. What are you going to do? Leave us all here?”

  Mother shot eye daggers at me while she calculated her options. “Fine!” she said suddenly, and stalked off toward town.

  The victory improved my dark mood, at least for the moment.

  Geneva, New York, was the biggest city we’d played so far, and with summer people starting to arrive, the “drawing population” (in theatre lingo) was even bigger. When you’ve only played small time, nothing really prepares you for the luxury of a place like the Smith Opera House: three stories of red brick with enormous bay windows, and glass globes on pedestals all along the roofline. With eighteen hundred seats and the biggest stage we’d ever performed on, the size alone was a step up.

  Monday-morning rehearsal was in full swing, and there was a herd of young men in acrobat tights and sleeveless shirts wandering around, so I knew competition would be stiff for choice spots on the bill. I didn’t see Joe—Winnie’s head practically spun on her neck like a top searching for him—but there was one familiar face we hadn’t expected to see: Fred Delorme, from our very first show in Earlville. He was in his tails and top hat, muttering at his dance partner, April. Her face was flat with boredom, as if she’d heard it all too many times.

  “Fred?” said Nell.

  He glanced over and took a moment to recognize her. “Nell? Nell Turner! Well, haven’t we all come up in the world,” he teased. “It’s a far cry from Earlville, isn’t it?”

  Nell gave him a warm smile. “How’ve you been, Fred?”

  “Fine, fine. And look at this young man—he’s as big as a bear cub now.” He gave Harry a little chuck under the chin, and the baby offered up a toothy grin. “With chompers, too!”

  “Hello, April,” said Nell. “How are you?”

  “Just swell.” April crossed her arms and looked away.

  Fred greeted us all with smiles and handshakes. Winnie was the only one who didn’t chatter along, her eyes scanning the crowd. I felt my ow
n eyes wander for a moment, too.

  Don’t be an idiot, I told myself. But I wondered if I’d ever really stop looking for him.

  “Dainty Little Lucy!” called the stage manager, and suddenly there they were, parting the crowd to get to the stage.

  “Joe!” Winnie headed toward him on a dead run.

  “Winnie! What—?” He grabbed her up in a huge hug and kissed her, and I felt my chest clench in envy. What I wouldn’t have given just to have Tip near, never mind a public embrace. The boy acrobats sent up a little round of applause and a couple of snickers of “Atta boy!”

  “Dainty Little Lucy, you’re on!”

  “Don’t go anywhere!” Joe called back.

  “Where would I go?” Winnie bubbled like a fountain. I had to look away from all that sticky sweetness.

  I wasn’t the only one cringing. “Winnie Turner!” Mother hissed.

  Winnie knew that tone, though I couldn’t remember it being aimed specifically in her direction before—it was generally reserved for me. Her face fell as she faced Mother’s wrath.

  “I turned a blind eye to your little friendship with that Italian boy back in Lyons.” Mother said it like Eye-talian. And her eye had certainly been blind all right—blinded by monkey man O’Sullivan. She’d barely even noticed how Joe and Winnie had carried on right under her nose. I had taken full advantage of her “blindness” myself, of course.

  Mother went on. “But I won’t tolerate this kind of canoodling. Especially with a . . . a person of that sort.”

  “Mother!” Winnie spat back. “The sort of person Joe is . . . is . . . well, he’s wonderful! And if you think . . . if you don’t . . . ,” she stammered. Good-girl Winnie had it bad if she was back-talking like that!

  “Winnie, Mother’s right.” I tipped my head toward Mother and made an I’m-with-you face. “Don’t worry,” I said to Mother. “It’s just calf love. Besides, it can’t amount to much. They’ve only got a week.”

  Mother cut her eyes toward me and huffed an aggravated sigh. “All right. But keep an eye on her, will you, Gert? I can’t be everywhere.” I nodded solemnly, clenching my molars to keep a straight face.

  Winnie looked like she might slap me, but I wrapped a firm arm around her shoulder and steered her away. “Just keep it down in public, for cripes’ sake,” I murmured in her ear.

  She gasped in surprise and whispered, “I love you, Gertie.”

  I gave her a shove, and we went to the wings to watch lover boy.

  You could tell Joe was flustered. He played so many wrong notes it’s a wonder Lucy could follow him at all. A true professional, she just sang louder to drown out his mistakes. When they were done, they both came off at a trot, Lucy into the crowd to find Kit, and Joe straight to Winnie, of course. “Are you in the show?”

  “Somebody canceled—we’re the disappointment act.”

  “How’ve you been?” He kissed her before she could answer. She pulled away quickly and whispered something in his ear, which I imagine was along the lines of, Not here.

  “The Tumbling Turner Sisters!” called the stage manager, thankfully putting an end to the mush.

  It was such a thrill to be back onstage again—to be anywhere again. Out in the world without an apron around my waist. Apron—I didn’t even have a corset on!

  When we heard the lineup, I felt bad for Joe and Lucy. Joe’s poor performance landed them in the closing spot. Dainty Little Lucy wasn’t a dumb act, which made the insult even worse. It should have gone to the fellow who drew huge charcoal pictures of famous buildings blindfolded, but he got the opener instead.

  We got the third spot, after Fred and April in the deuce. Given the competition and the fact that we weren’t originally on the bill at all, it was a nice surprise. We were followed by a singer called Marie Dubois, a French girl with big blue eyes and bright blond hair.

  She had four male dancers in tight black pants, striped shirts, and berets, who carried her around on their shoulders or lay at her feet in rapt attention to her beauty and talent. Her voice was good, but not as strong as Lucy’s. Her face and figure were attractive, but you couldn’t actually call her beautiful. Her brittle hair had been dyed so often it looked like hay.

  But Marie lacked nothing in the confidence department. Her chin was always high and she had a little sashay to her walk. When we finished our act, she started onstage before we were completely off, heading right for me, and I had to skip out of the way to avoid a collision.

  “What’s with her?” I said.

  “Maybe she thought you were a mirror—you’re practically twins!” Kit giggled. She went off to explore the theatre with Lucy, and Mother and Nell went to find our dressing room. There were fourteen of them below stage, so every act got one. Some of the bigger acts even got two.

  “Don’t give her the satisfaction,” Winnie said after I told her I was staying to watch that French floozy Marie Dubois.

  I shrugged. “Nothing better to do, and maybe I can pick up a trick or two.”

  Then she and Joe practically sprinted to his dressing room. Oh, the envy I felt.

  I concentrated on Marie. What she lacked in talent she made up for in allure. There was this move she did . . . I stood there in the leg curtain and studied it.

  Kit and Lucy scurried up. They had made friends with the acrobat boys. “One of them said he’d help me learn a few of their stunts,” said Kit. “His name is Archie, and he’s even taller than me!”

  After intermission, Kit dragged Joe and Winnie upstairs with Nell and the baby to watch the Bob Pender Acrobat Troupe. I’ll admit they were quite a sight. Their act was more muscular than ours, of course, and didn’t include any jokes—the humor was in the knockabout bits, one pretending to punch another and the other guy handspringing backward from the blow.

  When they came off, wiping their faces with the frayed handkerchiefs Mrs. Pender doled out, Kit called to her new friend: “Archie! Come meet my sisters.”

  His big brown eyes and black hair resembled Joe’s, though Archie greased his hair down, rather than left it curly, as Joe did. He was taller by half a foot, and wider across the shoulders. He was handsome in a dopey-kid kind of way.

  “How’d y’do.” His English accent was so thick I could barely understand him!

  “Um . . . how do you do,” I said extending my hand.

  “You’ve got quite an act,” said Winnie. “It’s like a barrel of monkeys!”

  He blinked his long eyelashes at her, uncertain what to make of it.

  “It’s very entertaining,” Nell said.

  He nodded, relieved. “Yours is crackin’!”

  We assumed this was a good thing.

  “How long have you been in America?” asked Joe.

  “We came over last year and played The Hippodrome in New York City,” he said with a hint of pride. With over five thousand seats, it was the biggest theatre in the world, and could host an entire circus. “Been traveling around since.”

  “The Hippodrome!” said Kit. “What did you see?”

  “We saw Houdini make an entire bloody elephant disappear. That was a sight!”

  “Awright, now,” Mrs. Pender chided, nudging at him and the other boys as if they were overgrown toddlers. “Don’t dally about backstage. Off with you. Go on and get some fresh air while you can.” She herded them toward the stage door, with Kit and Lucy tagging after.

  “Looks like Kit has a crush,” Winnie murmured to Nell and me.

  “Well, don’t bother her about it.” Nell smiled wryly. “After all, we didn’t bother you.”

  For the last show that evening, I added a little move I’d “borrowed” from Marie Dubois. I didn’t feel bad about it—like Nat and Benny said, stealing is a way of life in vaudeville. After my handsprings onto the stage, I wagged my outstretched arms and shoulders just slightly, which caused a little jiggle across my chest—not so much as to earn a blue envelope, but enough to make the young men hoot and stomp their feet. Hobart College was only a co
uple of blocks away, and every audience was peppered with rah-rah boys. The later the shows, the more of them there were. I did the arm jiggle a few more times; then every time I held out my arms, they cheered in anticipation. When we took our bows, the applause was like thunder.

  Marie Dubois glared murder at me and bumped my shoulder as she took the stage after us. Her costume was pretty: a flapper-style sleeveless dress with little flags of taffeta hanging from the waist that floated around when she danced and vamped. But it wasn’t as scant as our tumbling costumes, so the arm jiggle didn’t come off as nearly so enticing—all the worse because they’d just seen me do it. It made Marie seem like the thief.

  “I think you may need a bodyguard after this,” Nell whispered as we watched.

  “She was already gunning for me,” I said. “All I did was give her a good reason.”

  “The stage-door johnnies will all be waiting for you now.”

  “They’re a dime a dozen, and she can have every last one of them.” I crossed my arms. “The only thing I care about is making our act the best it can be so I never have to go back to waiting tables in Johnson City. If that means cribbing a move here or there, then so be it.”

  We stayed at the Seneca Hotel a few blocks away. Of course, Lucy wanted to sleep with Kit in our room again, which was fine by Mother—once Joe agreed to chip in fifty cents per night. Now that she pocketed less of our wages, she penny-pinched more than ever. It’s a wonder she didn’t add a fee for babysitting. But he didn’t hesitate; it was worth it to have Lucy happy, he said. The fact that he and Winnie could sneak out and walk by Seneca Lake in the moonlight didn’t hurt, either, I suppose.