by Jill G. Hall
Her aunt ran out of the bedroom in her nightgown. “Oh, my stars and garters! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. Look at that bruise on your cheek. You must have others, too.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“What about Farley?” her father cried.
“He might have a broken arm is all. Father, I can’t believe you were ready to have me locked up.”
“Locked up! Leland?” Aunt June gaped at him.
He shook his head. “What are you talking about? Dr. Johnson said a drive would be good for you.”
“I believe they colluded to put me in a sanitarium.”
“What? I had nothing to do with it.”
“Farley isn’t who you think he is. Turns out he’s been drinking and going to speakeasies for ages!”
“That’s impossible.” Her father shook his head.
“The man whose workers rescued us from the river recognized Farley. Said he was quite the dancer.”
“I had no idea.” Her father sat down. “He bamboozled all of us.” Aunt June harrumphed. “Leland, that’s it! You haven’t always been so perfect yourself. It’s time we removed our masks and revealed this masquerade. Clair deserves to learn the truth.”
This is what she had been waiting for.
“June, are you sure that’s wise?” Her father frowned.
“I’m taking her to the farm this week whether you approve or not!”
“I guess you are right. You usually are.” He looked at Clair. “When you learn the truth, please don’t think too badly of me.”
A few mornings later, white clouds floated above them, schooners in the indigo sky. Aunt June navigated the neighbor’s Model T along the dusty rutted country road. They curved over and down small hills and around winding paths. Broad open spaces provided a desolate beauty. A dried-out oak grove spread across a parched meadow, where a pair of emaciated horses attempted to graze. Manure caressed Clair’s nose. A windmill had collapsed on its side.
For the last few days, Clair had begged her father and Aunt June to tell her what was at the farm, but she was told to wait and see.
“How much longer?” she asked, stretching her cramped legs. The bruise on her right hip from the fall began to throb again. The one on her forehead had disappeared.
“About another half hour,” Aunt June said.
“What was it like growing up on a farm? You’ve rarely talked about it.”
“Early mornings. All those chores: milk Bertha, gather eggs, and in the fall, pick crops. But those sunrises were worth getting up early for—peaceful pink pleasures.”
Clair wasn’t sure she’d enjoy it much, being so far away from culture. They rode along in silence. She couldn’t wait to learn the truth and wondered what had been hidden at the farm. It must have something to do with her mama.
“We’re almost there.” Aunt June smiled at her.
Clair spread her fingers wide above her head and stretched. They pulled onto a dusty trail, barely wide enough for the car. Soon a faded frame house with gabled windows, a pitched roof, and a wraparound porch came into view. A barn tilted as if a slight breeze might trigger a collapse of boards. The silo had rusted red.
Aunt June pulled over, scattering a few chickens in the yard, and stopped beside a peeling picket fence. Even though the farm looked dilapidated, Clair could tell it once had charm. Rays of sun shone through a giant oak as if coming straight from heaven.
A tall woman came out of the house, a calico apron hanging loosely on her skinny frame. Staring at them, she dipped her hands into her pockets and tossed feed to the clucking chickens.
How curious. Clair had been told that the farm had been deserted years ago. She opened the car door and stepped out. The weedy ground itched her ankles through her stockings.
Aunt June got out of the car, too, and stood beside it. The two older women eyed each other. The stranger looked at Clair with a frown that became a wry smile. Clair followed Aunt June through the gate. Shadows fell on the ground as the tall woman walked down the steps and embraced Aunt June.
“When the money stopped, I hoped you might come.” The woman tried to smooth her straggly gray hair. Her large dark eyes remained on Clair, glistening with tears.
Aunt June stepped back, wiped the tears on the woman’s weathered cheeks with a hankie, then turned and waved Clair over. “And, of course, this is our girl.”
“Of course. You’re all grown up.” The woman moved to Clair and with rough hands traced the curves of her face. Clair’s impulse was to pull back, but she didn’t want to be rude. As she inhaled, a rose scent tingled a trace of memory from inside her. She lifted her own hand and put it over the woman’s.
“Who are you?” Clair asked.
“I’m your mother.”
Clair shook her head. “No, you’re not. She’s dead.”
“I’m right here. I’m April.”
Clair stood with her mouth open, her soul awash with awe at the truth that had always been hidden. She had never considered that her mother could still be alive.
“Mama?” With a weeping breath, Clair fell into her arms.
“Baby,” the woman whispered as she held her daughter close. “My baby.”
She guided Clair up the steps into the cool, dark house, led her to a worn sofa, and sat her down. June settled in beside her. Clair stared up at her mama. Tinges of her beauty still remained. Caved-in cheeks held a peachy golden glow. Her thin lips tightened into a chipped-tooth smile, yellow as an old lace wedding dress.
April sat on a nearby chair. The contrast between the two sisters was astounding. April’s hair had been twisted back into a tight bun, gray as the picket fence, while Aunt June’s neat coif was still mostly auburn; April wore a soiled apron, June her Sunday frock. It was their matching doe eyes, though, that revealed their relationship, brown pools of grief. Clair had seen those eyes when she looked in the mirror.
“Why did you stop writing?” Aunt June asked.
“Nothing to say.” April shrugged.
“Mama, what happened? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you visit?” Clair coughed. Her throat felt as dry as the dirt road.
“Hush, hush,” Aunt June whispered. “She’ll tell you everything. First, April, may we have some water, please?”
“Of course.” She filled glasses from a pitcher on the sideboard and handed them to Clair and June. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’ve got a lot to say.”
The women shifted in their seats, sat back, and drank from their glasses.
“I wasn’t like your aunt June,” April began. “She always minded and did what was right, reading those thick books, helping the teacher. A selfish child, I coveted what my big sister had—a candy cane, a ribbon, a doll. I understood it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“You weren’t that bad,” June interrupted.
April put out her hand for silence. “At fourteen I was like a feral cat—wouldn’t do my chores, refused to go to school, stayed out past dark. June went to work in the city. Ma had consumption, hacking all the time. Pop struggled to keep the farm going on his own. The day after he found me between the hay bundles with Benny McDabbens, Pop packed me up and put me on a train to June in New York.
“I guess that’s what I had wanted all along. I couldn’t stand for her to have all that freedom, living in the big city.”
Clair could relate to that.
“When I arrived she was teaching school and was engaged to Leland. He was handsome with his sophisticated manners and fine clothes, smelling of money.”
“Wait! You were engaged to Father?” Clair stared at her aunt, who nodded.
“He adored you, June. Your beautiful brain, as he called it. But as usual, I couldn’t stand for you to have something I didn’t.”
“You were so young.” June reached for April’s hand.
“I knew exactly what I was doing. Leland would come to call. We’d sit in the boardinghouse parlor playing ca
rds and singing to the piano. I’d flirt away, but he’d just laugh. Didn’t take me seriously.
“That night, you had an emergency suffragette rally and asked me to tell him you were sorry but would see him the next night. I had on that dress, the one with the sweetheart neckline Pop had forbidden me to wear. When no one was looking, I slipped off my shoes and lifted my skirt, showing Leland my ankles. I enticed him up to our room. We snuck up quietly. He couldn’t help himself.”
June pulled her hand away.
April looked at Clair. “Afterward, he broke off their engagement but didn’t tell June the reason why. I didn’t tell her either. She was despondent. When she realized I was pregnant, she went to him for solace and it all came out. Of course he did the honorable thing and married me. I moved into the Waldorf with him, had you, and even settled down for a while. I knew he didn’t love me, but I didn’t really care. I was getting what I wanted. Him.”
June dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Did you learn to love him?” Clair asked.
“I tried, but then Benny came to town and started sniffing around. Because of the attraction I felt toward him I was certain we must have loved each other all along.” She shook her head.
“I thought I could have it both ways, be a wife and mother and have Benny, too, but I was wrong. When Leland discovered what I’d been up to, he told me I had to choose.” She sighed. “I needed to be with someone I loved.”
Clair’s stomach tightened. “Didn’t you love me?”
“When you get older, you’ll understand. I needed the love of a man. So I chose Benny.”
Clair couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Leland said I could have him and sent me back to the farm.”
“Where’s Benny now?” June asked.
“Gone long ago. Fell down drunk on his corn mash whiskey.” April sneered. “By then Ma had died and Pop couldn’t keep up the farm. Leland sent money every month as long as I didn’t try to see you, Clair, so I didn’t have much choice. Besides, your father never loved me. He always loved you, June, even after we were married.”
“That’s not true!” June waved her hand, tears pooling in her eyes.
“I could tell by the way he looked at you.” April turned to gaze at Clair. “And when you were born, he doted on you. He wouldn’t go to social events and only wanted to sit at home in the evenings with you. I was stuck, suffocated in that boring blue box of a hotel suite, my beauty fading like a peony. Sure I loved you, but it wasn’t enough.”
Clair’s whole body ached with sorrow. She wondered what she would have done in the same situation. First of all, she would never flirt with someone else’s betrothed. She raised her voice to Aunt June. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your father made me promise to go along with the charade or else he wouldn’t let me spend time with you. I tried to do my best. Tried to give you the love and devotion a mother would.”
Clair nodded and took Aunt June’s hand.
April reached over, put her hand on top of Clair’s, and nodded at June. “I’m so sorry. Will you ever forgive me? I recognized how much you loved him.”
“I forgave you years ago.”
“I have so many regrets.”
“I certainly hope so!” Clair pulled her hand away, jumped up, pushed through the screen door, and ran out the gate to the barren field beyond. She couldn’t let them see her cry.
She waited until her sobs abated and listened to the quiet. Without the city’s rush of traffic or the pounding waves at the cottage, a symphony of sound came to her ears, carried on soft winds. Oak leaves rustled, hens clucked like castanets, a far-off windmill squeaked and banged as if a tambourine, the cow’s moo was an oboe.
Clair’s mixed emotions darted like the sun as it moved in and out from behind the clouds. Bright one moment and dark the next, fading in and out from happiness at meeting her mother, to deep sadness, to anger. The calm country sounds flowed through her body like the touch of Aunt June’s hand on her back.
55
Clair rushed up the stairs and barged into the apartment. Her father was sitting on the couch.
“Father, I can forgive you for allowing Farley in our lives. But I will never forgive you for keeping Mama from me.”
Her father wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry. I believed I was doing the right thing.”
“You were wrong.”
“She didn’t deserve to see you.”
“By punishing her, you were punishing me, too.” Clair stamped her foot.
Aunt June entered the apartment and put her hand on Clair’s back. “Settle down.”
“I won’t. I’m returning to the theater tomorrow. It’s where I belong. Father, I never want to see you again.” Clair ran to her room and slammed the door.
Aunt June knocked on the door and went in. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
Clair crossed her arms and stared at her.
“I never should have gone along with the deception. I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive all of us. If you feel you belong in the theater, then by all means return.”
“Do you really believe that?” Clair asked.
Aunt June nodded. “Yes, to thine own self be true.”
Clair stepped through the back door into the dressing room. She had missed the gang. The Sallies practiced their routine in a corner with a new girl who must have been added after Clair left. Winnie sat in another corner doing her breathing exercises. Nook was teaching the girls how to do backflips.
“Look, it’s Clair!” he yelled.
Winnie ran to her. “Welcome back, honey.”
The Sallies and Winnie surrounded her with hugs as if she was their long-lost sister. In a way she was.
“Look vhat ze kitten dragged in.” Varinska took a puff of her cigarette.
Rudy came in. “Hi, gal pal. Quite the adventure you had the other night.”
“That’s for sure.” Clair smiled at him.
Varinska put her head down on the dressing room table and closed her eyes. “No go on tonight.”
“What do you mean? We’ve got a full house! Clifton Marshall is even in the audience,” Rudy said.
“I’m ill.”
“But it’s time for places in fifteen minutes. We’ll have an angry crowd.” He pointed a finger at the rules. “The show must go on!”
“Not vith me.” Varinska took another drag of her cigarette and coughed.
“Then who’s going to be my showstopper?” Rudy yelled.
Everyone stared at Winnie.
She shook her head. “Not me.”
“But what about your dream?” Clair asked.
“Turns out Hollywood wasn’t meant to be my dream after all.” Winnie put her hands on her belly. “My performing days are numbered. I’m gonna have more important things to do.”
Rudy gaped at her. “What could be more important than performing?”
“What do you think, silly?” Winnie put her hands on her hips.
“Congratulations!” Andre yelled, and everyone chimed in.
“Really?” Rudy’s grin widened and he shook his head. “We aren’t even married.”
“That’s the lousiest proposal I’ve ever heard, but the answer is yes!”
Rudy smacked her on the lips. “I’m gonna be a papa!”
Mordecai stuck his face in the room. “I hate to interrupt this family pleasure, but we need to get this show going.”
“Yes.” Rudy came out from the spell. “Who’s gonna be our showstopper?”
“Me! I’ve memorized all of Varinska’s act.” Bea squeaked and tried to raise an eyebrow.
“Nein.” Varinska pointed her cigarette toward Clair. “Can stop show.”
Clair’s chest beat as fast as a baby bird’s wings.
Andre swished his hands in the air. “Without a rehearsal?”
Winnie put her hand on Clair’s shoulder. “She can do it!”
“Can you, gal pal?�
� Rudy asked.
Clair swallowed, stood up straight, and tilted her head back. “Yes. I can please the crowd, but in my own way.” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm even though she didn’t feel it inside. “I’ve been working on a solo routine for months.”
“Ok, gal pal. Sing me a few bars.”
Clair began to sing to the tune of “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.”
“I fly through the air with the greatest of ease.
Free as a bird, I can do as I please.
They tried to cage me, but I got away.
I’ll be free as a bird
for the rest of my days.”
She moved her arms up and down and flew around the room.
“Okay. I buy it. Find a costume and come on up!” Rudy turned and climbed the stairs.
“This will be fun!” Andre clapped his hands with a laugh.
“Yes.” Winnie followed him into the back room.
“All white! I need to wear all white.” Clair shed her clothes down to a slip.
Winnie returned with an armful of shimmering white fabric. She lifted the sheath, slid it over Clair’s head, and pulled the pearl and sequin voile material down around her narrow hips. In the mirror, Clair could see the ornamentation barely concealed her womanly parts.
“Look what I found!” Andre held up a pair of boa-feathered wings. “Probably from a Daedalus and Icarus skit.”
“Perfect.” Clair held out her arms and he slipped them on. Winnie crisscrossed the laces and tied them in back.
Andre found Clair’s shoes still in their box and handed them to her.
“Oh, no—the taps will be too loud for my number!”
“Hand them over.” Andre found a teeny screwdriver in the toolbox, twisted the screws, and pulled out the taps.
Clair put the shoes on and buckled the straps. She studied her reflection in the mirror. “I need something on my head.”
“We’ve got just the thing!” Andre ran back into the storage room and quickly returned with a two-foot-tall pearl-encrusted headdress. “We made it for Varinska, but she refused to wear it— said it upstaged her.” He positioned it on Clair’s head. She reached up and ran her hands down the smooth pearls, studying her reflection in the mirror.
