The Vaudeville Star

by Nicola Italia

  Once in the chauffeur-driven car, they headed to Delmonico’s, a high-end restaurant that had been in New York since 1827. The staff at Delmonico’s greeted King as an old friend, and he ordered for them both: cream of artichoke soup, sirloin of beef with mashed carrots, salmon with tartar sauce, asparagus tips, brandied pears, champagne, and coffee to follow afterward.

  “Peach pie for dessert,” he told the waiter. “In honor of the Southern belle,” he said, lifting his champagne glass in a toast to her.

  He never opened the menu, and Ruby realized that King probably knew the menu by heart. She wondered how many times Lourdes had been on his arm here and if he had ever taken the sickly Caroline to dine as well.

  “How is your mother?” Ruby asked considerately. “Well, I hope?”

  “Oh yes, that’s right. You met Mother at the party.”

  “I did.”

  “She is well. Always busy.” King smiled as he lit a cigar. “She likes to keep busy.”

  Their artichoke soup arrived, and King waved a hand at it. “These are my favorite dishes, Ruby. But if you don’t like one, just say the word and back it goes,” he instructed.

  “I’m sure everything will be delicious.”

  She knew that King was a man used to getting his way. He took control of any situation and dictated where they would go and what they would do. She knew the women in his life had allowed it, or had not cared to alter it. Ruby remained thankful that she was not in his life in that capacity.

  “I was speaking to Vernon just before we left. I’ve decided to back the tour to London and Paris,” he said, smiling as he puffed on his cigar.

  “That’s wonderful! I’m sure he was thrilled.”

  “I want you to have two more songs in the show. I told Vern. You need songs that will engage the audience, though honestly you do that just by crossing the stage,” he admitted

  Ruby was thrilled at his words but felt a sudden stab of regret. “What of Zeta?”

  King seemed confused. “What about Zeta?”

  “What will happen to her? Will she be dismissed from the show?” Ruby asked, staring down into her soup.

  “Not at all! She’ll still headline, especially as she has performed in London before, so she’ll be known there. You’re to be the show’s ingenue,” he explained.

  Ruby felt relieved. She had no wish to profit at the expense of someone else’s downfall.

  “You know, Ruby,” King said softly and reached across the table for her hand. “You should focus on your own career, my dear. It’s commendable that you care about others, but you must put yourself first.”

  Ruby nodded but was still relieved that she would be an addition to the show and was not Zeta’s replacement.

  “Did you have any songs in mind? Songs that might fit me?” she asked him as she took her hand back.

  King beamed. “As a matter of fact, I do!”

  Ruby tried to hide her smile. “Do tell.”

  “I think we should show off your Southern charm, and so I picked songs that are older but could be easily revived. Have you heard of ‘All Things Love Thee, So Do I’?”

  Ruby shook her head.

  “It’s a sweet song. We could see about getting the sheet music in town.”

  “I know of a place,” Ruby said.

  “Excellent. The other song I found is called ‘Kiss Me Quick and Go Away,’” he laughed. “The men in the audience will love it! You can have fun with it. The audience likes to have a good time.”

  “I’ll try to get them both,” she said, pleased at the time and effort he must have placed on finding her songs.

  “You can slow the song down if you like, or do what you wish,” he explained. “These are your songs and your time to shine.”

  “Thank you, King. For everything.”

  “And believe me, Ruby, you will shine. I have no doubt about that.”

  9

  As Bessie and Ruby entered the theater from the side street entrance, there was an excitement in the air. Bessie knew about the supper the night before with King and that he had agreed to back them financially for the European tour.

  They greeted the old man, Lewis, who kept an eye on the door and made sure that the performers were let in and the fans kept out. Suddenly, they heard loud voices onstage and looked at each other.

  “What do you mean she’s going to have two more songs? She’s going to have three songs? The same as me?” Zeta confronted Vernon, her voice getting louder.

  “Yes, Zeta. I already explained it. King Parker wants to fully finance the tour to Europe, but his condition is that Ruby is given more songs.”

  Max was standing near Vernon and wisely began to inch away from them both.

  “I heard you the first time and the second time, and I still don’t understand why? Why? Perché? If it is only because King wants it, then simply say no,” she reasoned.

  “And lose the financial backing for the tour?” Vernon said, sighing.

  “So? Get the money somewhere else.” Zeta faced him with her hands on her hips.

  “You know I’ve tried, Zeta. This is the first time someone has stepped forward to finance the tour to London and even Paris! Don’t you know what this means? A chance for us all to be seen. For you to be seen,” he said smoothly.

  “At my expense! I’m the star of this show, and suddenly this little peasant comes out of nowhere, and now she has three songs! I don’t think so.”

  Ruby remained behind the curtains, standing in the wings with Bessie while Zeta threw her hands up onstage.

  “You know very well I have been with you for ten years. Ten years! I have fans who come only to see me, and now this? You cast me aside like day-old bread?” Zeta said, dramatically flinging her arms out.

  “Zeta, stop the dramatics! You aren’t being tossed aside! For you, nothing has changed. You still have top billing, and you still have the same amount of songs as you had before,” Vernon said calmly.

  “Oh yes. You think I’m stupid! I know you very well. You are grooming her. So she gains experience and spends time onstage until she is very good. And then—poof! I’ll be gone.”

  “You’re being irrational,” Vern told the diva.

  “Irrational? I am being what? Max! Max!” Max scurried forward as Zeta called his name. “Irrational? What is this word? Tell me!”

  “I’m right here, Zeta. I said the word. Ask me,” Vern said coldly. “It means you are being unreasonable.”

  “Ha! That’s right! I’m supposed to sit back and watch as little by little the clodhopper takes over my place in the show and my life. Does she want my dressing room? Huh? Does she want my comb and brush? My costumes? My hairpieces? Tell me! What else does she want?” she yelled to the empty audience.

  Several seconds ticked by.

  “Are you done, Zeta?”

  “It seems I am.”

  “You might try and look at this in a positive light. A tour to Europe benefits us all,” he said as Zeta whirled away from him.

  Flinging the curtain back, she came face-to-face with Ruby and Bessie. Her dark eyes bore into Ruby’s even as Ruby tried to smile at her.

  “Chi la fa l' aspetti,” Zeta said in a cold voice before she moved past them to her dressing room.

  “What did she say?” Ruby asked.

  Bessie shook her head. “I’ve heard her say it before. Something to the effect of ‘what goes around comes around.’”

  Ruby sighed. “Great. Making friends wherever I go.”

  Bessie placed an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Don’t take it to heart, Ruby. Show business is like this. It can be crushing, but you heard Vern. Zeta isn’t cut; in fact, she’s lost nothing. Yet. But it’s all the more reason why you need to shine brightly.”

  Ruby took the sheet music she had purchased from Ezra’s shop and walked onstage. She handed both songs to the piano player and took center stage.

  Bessie took a seat facing Ruby. “Now when you sing, remember: keep your head up, pos
ture erect, and your eyes engaged with the audience.”

  Ruby nodded as she began to follow Bessie’s direction.

  Lourdes brushed her long black hair in front of the small vanity table and looked into the mirror. She could see King sleeping soundly in the bed, something he always did immediately after they made love. She knew that King was quite taken with the woman that she had met at the party. The singer.

  She smiled smugly. Although Caroline Parker was certainly ill and had been for some time, she was going nowhere, and King would never divorce her. He would not want the scandal, and even if divorce did cross his mind, Alice would forbid it. Besides, Lourdes surmised, she must wait and bide her time. If she could become pregnant, everything would change and mostly for her own good fortune. She may only be the mistress now, but with the Parker heir in her belly, everything would revolve around her, and she would have nothing to fear.

  Ruby had performed several times onstage and was getting more used to the oddity of singing to strangers who had paid for the privilege to hear her sing. She took Bessie’s critiques to heart as Bessie watched her from the wings and would then make suggestions on her performance.

  The more she performed, the more quickly Ruby became the target of young men and their attentions. The first time it happened, she was walking down Broadway when a man whistled from a passing streetcar, calling her by name. She had never met the man, but then she realized he had called her “Ruby the Southern Belle,” her stage name.

  She didn’t know quite what to make of it until she told Bessie and the other woman just laughed. As they entered the side door to the theater with Archie, Lewis pointed to a bouquet of wilted daisies wrapped in newspaper on the table next to him.

  “For you, Ruby.”

  Archie was already walking toward his dressing room as Ruby picked up the wilted flowers.

  “Who brought them, Lewis?”

  “Some fool young man. He wanted to wait for you, and I told him on no account. So he thrust those at me and said, ‘Tell her I want to marry her,’” Lewis said, all the while he scanned the newspaper in his hand.

  Bessie burst out laughing.

  “What did you tell him? I mean about the marriage part?” Ruby asked, bewildered.

  “I told him to come back and ask you to marry him when he could afford some better flowers,” he huffed, and Ruby smiled at the old man.

  “Oh, Lewis.”

  Ruby put the sad little daisies in water in her dressing room as Bessie sat on the couch.

  “How does it feel? You have fans, Ruby Sutton.”

  Ruby sat before her dressing table. “It’s so strange. Suddenly, I’m on the street and people know me, but they are complete strangers to me. It’s very odd.”

  “It’s also fun. Wait until you become really famous. You’ll get gifts and real offers of marriage. Well, but then you already have. Look at what King has done for you, and you haven’t given him anything. Have you?”

  Ruby flushed as she turned to Bessie. “Of course I haven’t! I’m not a light skirt! We’ve been to the park and supper. He says he is my admirer.”

  Bessie surveyed Ruby’s trim figure. “Admirer. Just beware. He’s safe enough with a wife and mistress. But should they ever go . . .”

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Bess. I’m not giving anything to anyone. I’m here to sing. It’s all that I want.”

  Ruby was busy scrubbing her laundry and hanging it out to dry in her little room. She had been spoiled at home, and now everything that had once been taken care of by others, she did herself. She felt a slight tinge of regret. She wondered about her sister and mother from time to time, but she had not written to them. She had not even sent a note to dear Jessbelle in a few weeks and wondered if Ford had told his sister that she was here in New York.

  She thought fleetingly of Ford. Mostly she thought of him at night when she was drifting off to sleep. She kept their one night close to her heart, as it obviously meant nothing to him. They had never spoken of it beyond that one conversation. He had meant to do his duty, and she was bent on New York.

  But she thought of him often. She wondered how different her life might have been had she married him and traveled back to Mississippi. Would he have abandoned her there to return to New York and the agency? Or maybe she might have traveled with him? Either way, none of it had happened, and they were bent on living separate and different lives.

  When the knock on the door sounded, she went to answer it. Mrs. Hodges held a note in her hand.

  “Yes?” Ruby asked.

  “This was delivered for you,” she said, handing it to Ruby and leaving.

  When she opened the note, she was shocked to see it was an invitation to take tea with Alice Parker. How had the woman even known where to find her?

  The invitation was for that afternoon, so Ruby immediately went to her closet and pulled out a modest light blue linen dress that was two years old. Ruby had continued to squirrel away her money, and her dresses bespoke it. When she pulled on the dress and pinned up her hair, she thought she looked passable.

  With her small straw hat, white gloves, and purse, she left the boardinghouse for the Parkers’ grand mansion on Fifth Avenue.

  Ruby was greeted stiffly by the butler and shown into a cozy back parlor that was decorated in dark woods. The floors were covered in beautiful carpets to protect the parquet floors, and a large arrangement of flowers stood near the windows.

  Ruby looked around, but no one was inside. She took the chair nearest the windows and could smell the scent of lilies floating about the room.

  “There you are,” Alice Parker said as she entered the room. “Punctual. I like that very much.”

  Ruby looked at the older woman, wearing a tight corset and dress about ten years out of style. She imagined Alice Parker liked the tightness of the corset and the secure way it made her feel. Ruby was the opposite. She always felt the corset was constricting and suffocating.

  “Tea,” she instructed the maid who came into the room and then disappeared after Alice spoke the single word to her.

  “Come sit here next to me on the sofa,” Alice directed, and Ruby did. “It’s much more comfortable.” She looked Ruby up and down and nodded. “You’re a lovely girl, but then I’m sure you’ve been told that many times.”

  “Indeed, no,” Ruby said softly.

  “Really?” Alice seemed surprised. “I was once very pretty too. But of course that was many years ago.”

  The tea arrived, and the polished silver set was placed before Alice. The maid poured out two cups using the strainer, and Ruby was handed the first cup as the guest. Alice received her teacup, and the maid departed, closing the door behind her.

  Alice sipped her tea. “Was my invitation surprising?”

  “Yes, I confess it was. I’m a stranger to you.”

  “Perhaps. But not to my son.”

  “No. Your son has been very kind. He is backing our tour to London and Paris. I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “Hmmm.” Alice smiled. “My son. He always had an eye for beauty.”

  Ruby looked down at her gloves. She saw she needed new ones. Her white gloves were discolored from use and the dirt of the city, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable in this grand house wearing her drab dress and old gloves.

  “He’s mentioned you several times,” Alice continued.

  Ruby set the cup and saucer back on the tray. “Has he? I’m sure I’ve done nothing to warrant it.”

  “Come now, Miss Sutton. Ruby, if I may?”

  Ruby nodded. “Please.”

  “You don’t need to be coy. As I said, you’re a beauty, and male attention follows beauty. I know all about you. You aren’t some little theater tart trying to steal my son. In fact, you are much more on the same social standing as us. Second daughter of Earl and Lucille Sutton. Born and raised in Mississippi. Educated in Connecticut at Miss Porter’s School.”

  “All that is true,” Ruby confirmed, though she felt uncomf
ortable as to the reason why King’s mother had chosen to find out so much about her.

  “Of course it is. It’s also true that my daughter-in-law is ill. Quite ill.” She selected a small iced cake that had been placed before them on the tea tray.

  “Yes, you mentioned that before.”

  “I must have grandchildren, Ruby. It’s essential. And William must have a son. An heir.”

  Ruby swallowed lightly. The room felt stuffy, and the tea seemed bitter. “I’m sure your daughter-in-law will recover.”

  “She won’t. The doctors all agree.”

  Ruby looked at the lilies in the window and saw that one petal had fallen onto the table. It was such a small thing, but it seemed to add a bit of disarray to the pristine room. Ruby liked it. It made her feel at home.

  “My son is quite taken with you. Why do you think he’s financing this tour?”

  “I had heard he was a patron of the arts.”

  “That’s quite true. He is. However, I think this time he wants something more.”

  “Madame—” Ruby began.

  “Come now, Ruby. There is no need to blush and stammer. My son is attracted to you. That much is clear. And you are lovely and young, and I’m sure you’ve had admirers.”

  “Not really.” Ruby shook her head.

  “I want you to keep an open mind is all. Half the battle is finding a suitable young woman, and the other half is finding someone that William likes. Caroline was lovely too when she was younger, but she was fragile. I warned him. She had three miscarriages, and then that was that. He could no longer bed her. But you are strong. I see that.” Alice’s eyes flicked over her.

  “Mrs. Parker . . .” Ruby tried to still the conversation, but the older woman would not be stopped.

  “We don’t have time on our side. I want you to look at William as a possible future husband. You will give him heirs, and in turn your life will be comfortable. You will have everything you desire. What more could a young girl want?”

  “I desire to be on the stage,” Ruby said in a strong voice.