Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

by Rebecca Rotert

  On the last page of the article is a small picture of the Chicago Stock Exchange before it fell. A sentence on the page reads, in bold letters, “As One Star Rises, Another One Falls.” The last few paragraphs are all about Jim and include an interview. He talks about the failure of urban renewal, whatever that is. Someone asks him, “It appears as though your chief areas of interest are Chicago architecture and this unknown singer. Why this odd combination?” And Jim says, “Not so odd, really. I’m interested in vulnerability, especially in the people and things that appear to be tough, who appear to be here for good.” The interviewer responds, “How poetic.” The writer goes on to say that in the end, the truly vulnerable one was James Piccolo himself. I can’t read any more after that and close the magazine.

  CHAPTER 56

  THE DAY LOOK magazine hits the stands, the whole city discovers Mother. Like she wasn’t right under their noses for ten whole years, says Rita. Mother’s last night at the Blue Angel threatens to be the biggest show she’s ever had.

  On the phone she tells me, I’m holding seats for Sister and Rita but I need you backstage with me. Can you do that for me? Will you help me out tonight?

  I guess I can, I say.

  In the audience are the LaFontaines, their friends, and Elizabeth. I wave at her from the wing and she waves back. Even though her mother keeps tugging at her dress, she can’t sit down. She just pops back up and watching her makes me laugh for the first time in weeks. I’ve never seen so many people at the Blue Angel, the crowd is so loud.

  I realize I’m waiting for Jim to show up and make me do something or scold me. This happens over and over. I’m sure he’s just going to walk around a corner or duck out from behind a curtain with his camera. Then I remember. I walk quickly to the backstage corner, where it’s darkest, and lean my head against the ropes.

  Mother appears backstage in the new dress. It is the color of her skin and covered with rhinestones. The front drops low and the back drops low enough to show her whole spine. It’s straight and long and in it she moves like she’s floating. The guys backstage go quiet when they see her.

  She stands in the wings, absolutely still, and waits. I stand behind her. She whispers to herself, How do I do this without you? Help me. I touch her naked back and she jumps a little.

  You’re going to be great, I say.

  She straightens and takes a deep breath. Of course I am, darling.

  Mother’s voice is clearer and stronger than I’ve ever heard it, it seems like she’s controlling every note. She used to sing like she had no idea what her voice was going to do, but that has changed. She seems to know now.

  I watch her and listen and the wonder settles over me. I feel lost in her voice, more than I ever have. On the heels of that, a small, slow-moving panic rises in me. I think, If I’m feeling this, everyone is feeling this, and it makes me happy and it makes me afraid because once they see her like I do, love her like I do, they will take her away. I just know it. I sit down on my X for the very last time.

  During the intermission, Mother hums and rolls her shoulders in her room.

  Pretty good so far, I tell her.

  It better be, she says, staring at herself in the vanity.

  There’s a knock on the door. Mother doesn’t even blink. Tell them no.

  I open the door and when Mother sees who it is she changes her mind. It’s a man from some record company. He sweats when he talks to her.

  Eventually, Steve pages Mother to stage right. She smiles and says good-bye to the man, waving his business card as she does.

  Let’s go, she says.

  On the way down the hall, Mother stops and leans against the wall for a moment. I stop, too.

  She lowers her head so her chin is touching her chest. The top knobs of her spine poke up on the back of her neck.

  Mom?

  I miss him terribly, she says. I just miss him so terribly much I sometimes think I can’t breathe.

  Miss Hill, stage left, Steve says over the page.

  And here I am with an offer from Canary Records. I’m taking off, kitten. And all I want is to tell Jim. We did it, Jimmy. Finally, huh?

  The second half of the show is even better than the first. It’s like she’s shoving every feeling she ever had into the notes, making them so full they burst. Oh, man, I say to the air, I wish you could see this.

  After two encores, the backstage floods with people. I watch a man walk up to her and introduce himself. He is handsome. Mother smiles and touches her hair while she talks to him. I get closer. Not because I want to, but I feel I should be prepared. He is talking about radio, television, magazines, The Ed Sullivan Show. More people come backstage and surround them until I can’t hear anymore, and as she is whisked away, I wave at her and she blows me a kiss.

  CHAPTER 57

  SISTER, RITA, AND I go straight home afterward. I call Elizabeth, who talks so fast it makes me smile; I can hear her parents laughing with their friends in the background. I hope that tonight will buy me more time with her.

  When I hang up the phone, Rita and Sister are drinking wine on the couch. I plug in my iron. May I? I ask.

  Of course, darling, says Rita. It’s a Saturday. You can fiddle all night.

  It’s not fiddling.

  You know what I mean, kitten.

  I know, I say, and kiss them both on the cheeks before heading into the closet. I solder until the apartment is absolutely still and my eyes sting.

  A few days later Mother stops by to fill us in on all the good news. Recording, radio spots, job offers, etc. The craziness of it all, the last show, Look magazine.

  So you’re getting settled, I say.

  Well, I sure don’t feel settled! She laughs. I feel like I’m in a whirlwind! It’s all too much to believe.

  Rita clasps her hands in front of her and shakes her head. Oh, my darling, I could cry.

  They talk about all the details, about music, about clothes, about venues. I slip away to the closet. The radio is so close. A few more solders and I can slide it into its neat little box.

  I hear Mother say, Are you sure it’s no trouble? You know, I just can’t be worrying about her right now with everything going on.

  Before she leaves, she comes to find me in the closet. We have to talk, she says.

  I heard you. I know.

  It’s just for a little while, love. And when we come together again, we’ll have a whole new life. A brand-new start.

  I liked our old life, I say as she turns to leave.

  CHAPTER 58

  SISTER TAKES ME to Mitchell’s for supper. She puts her fork down and folds her hands in front of her. I don’t look at her.

  We need to discuss something, she says, smiling. I’ve been talking with your teacher. You’re not doing well in any of your subjects.

  I know, I say.

  There’s still time. You can pull your grades up if you perform well on the end-of-year exams.

  I shrug, turning a french fry round and round in a pool of ketchup.

  Sister is seriously considering holding you back. I really don’t want that to happen.

  I watch her talk. The only thing I think is that if I get held back, I won’t be with Elizabeth.

  I have a plan, of course. I’ve spoken with Mrs. LaFontaine and was thinking Elizabeth could help you catch up. I think it would be easier that way. You don’t seem to want my help right now, she says, mostly to herself.

  The waitress comes, Sister pays, and we leave.

  Will you help me finish the radio? I ask on the way home.

  Sister smiles. I’ll do anything for you, Sophia. You know that.

  Elizabeth is so worried I’m not going to pass she quizzes me on something or other the whole time we’re together. Mostly we work in a study room at her father’s university after school. She makes little tests for me and paces up and down the stacks while I take them. If I do well, she lets me look at microfiche on fallout shelters.

  Mother calls every day and the
n every other day and then sometimes.

  Sister peeks into my closet. What can I do? I make her solder diodes. We leave the door open so it feels like there’s more room. Rita says, You’re both crazy people, which makes Sister jump up and say, You know what I’m thinking. She pulls a record from the stack and plays “Crazy People” by the Boswell Sisters.

  Oh, your mother loved these girls when she was young, says Sister.

  I listen to the song on the couch, watch Rita dance to it, and then I cry for a little while right in front of them.

  A few days later, I come home from school to a note that says Rita has to work late and Sister has a meeting and there’s a sandwich in the fridge. The number to Rita’s club is scrawled on the bottom next to In case of emergency. When it gets dark, I call Elizabeth and talk to her for a few minutes but she has to get off in order to go to a dinner at her church.

  I go into the closet and study the radio plate, the instructions, and Mr. LaFontaine’s notes. There are a few parts left but they are extras. I slide the plate into the brown leather case and snap it shut, reach for the knob, but then pull my hand away. What will I do if it doesn’t work? The last thing he gave me? I hold it for a long time, until I can hear Jim’s voice in my head saying, Oh, for Christ’s sake, turn it on already. I turn the knob. Nothing happens. I shake it a little. Nothing. I feel a sinking in my stomach and look at the magazine against the wall. I did everything I was supposed to do, I tell Jim. And then I remember the batteries. I pull them out of the brown sac and unsnap the case and place them. I take a deep breath and turn the dial. There’s static. I can’t believe it. I turn the knob slowly and hear voices. It works. It works, it works, it works, I shout out loud. I keep turning until I hear a man’s voice, it is low and nice. He’s talking about songs he likes like they’re girls he wants to go with. His voice makes me smile. I hold the radio on my lap and listen to him talk. It’s warm. I made this, I think. Jim, I did it. Listen!

  The low-voiced man says, And now for something really sweet. Hot off the press. I hear a needle touch and the band begin to play. I feel like it’s a song I know by heart but it can’t be, coming from this strange homemade thing on my lap. Then I hear her, her voice. Mother. On the radio. Singing to me in my closet. “I’ll be around,” she sings. “No matter how you treat me now.” I hold the radio in front of me, like it could break any second, like a bit of solder might simply lift off the plate and leave me in silence.

  I place it very slowly on a hatbox and curl up right next to it and close my eyes.

  Here she is.

  AUTHOR NOTE

  IN MY RESEARCH for this book, I spent many days wandering the streets of Chicago and countless hours in the city’s libraries. I was trying to build in my mind’s eye a vision of Chicago in the sixties, and as I poured over photographs, I kept returning to the images of Richard Nickel. Nickel’s chief work as a photographer was to capture, with the hope of protecting, the city’s architecture. He made countless appeals to city leaders to save buildings slated for destruction, and he staged protests. His aesthetic scope was broad enough to capture the slightest detail—a banister, a touch of ornamentation—to the entirety of buildings and the blocks on which they stood. He infected my imagination and increasingly insinuated himself into the character of Jim. Nickel, like Jim, did perish in the Chicago Stock Exchange Building but that building didn’t come down until 1972, not 1965 as it happens in the novel.

  I am indebted to Nickel for his work. He ignited in me the awareness of, and the desire to illuminate, the life of a guardian, and this story would be lost without the history he preserved so beautifully and the passion he embodied.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TO WHOM AM I not indebted?

  I don’t know many agents and editors but I know I have the best. Thank you, Henry Dunow and Jessica Williams, respectively, for being smart as hell and fierce and honest.

  My humble gratitude to the teachers, Bob Grunst and Jonis Agee, who expected so much, to the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference which led me to Timothy Shaffert, Maud Casey, and David Ebershoff, excellent artists and guides. To the kick-ass nuns (Servants of Mary, Sisters of Mercy, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet) for being tireless advocates of education, justice, and unblinking acceptance. To Kathy Havlik for holding my indecipherable poems, and my heart, for twenty-five years now. To Sara Koch, for asking, since we were little, to read more. To Mimi, for sharing her Chicago. To the other writers in the family—Ron Hansen, Bo Caldwell—you show me, so beautifully, how to do it well. From this tribe of Omaha artists—the dear musicians with whom I spent so many hours stitching together songs (Air, Brad, Quinn, Al), the writers with whom I share so much, least of all work (the luminous Lindsey Baker and the penetrating Todd Robinson)—I have learned both discipline and a commitment to what we must do, despite the outcomes, and whether or not anyone is watching. To Bruno and Melanie, for taking us to sea during the saddest year and filling me with enough sunlight to finish the book. My dear friend Amy Loyd with her huge talent and huge heart has inspired me forever. To the early readers—Emily Danforth for paving the way and pushing me, Jack Phillips for teaching me narrative via the life of trees (and for firing me four hundred times), Karen Chaka for her nagging and support, and Jim Shepard, the greatest most underappreciated writer on the planet, whose generosity and patience moves me as much as his talent.

  To the people around the tables, especially my Northside family, the Grat Girls, and Tuesday Process, for giving me a safe place to unfold myself week after week. To Leslie Jeffries for fielding four million phone calls, Marilyn Cady and Shirley Huerter for telling it like it is, Father Michael for teaching me over and over that we are loved as is, Kirstin Kluver for shining her big redheaded light all over the place, and to Bernie Devlin who said thirteen years ago, come in, sit down, here’s some coffee, and has been my compass ever since.

  I am nothing if not the product of my mother’s artful life and my father’s cowboy courage. What grace they showed in supporting me whether or not they understood. My brother Wil has made me laugh at myself all my life, and I love him for it. My sister Nik’s big brain and constant inappropriateness are a beacon in the dark. My big extended clan—the Roterts, Hansens, and Shaws—are all stories of compassion and eccentricity and getting back up, and they provide more support (and material) than I can stand. And little B, who will not read this book until she’s at least thirty-eight, you gave me Sophia and you give me wonder.

  Finally, I thank Bud, my love, my toughest crowd and steadiest hand, for crying when I read you scenes and dancing with me in the kitchen.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © by Bud Shaw

  REBECCA ROTERT received an M.A. in literature from Hollins College, where she was the recipient of the Academy of American Poets prize. Her poetry and essays have appeared in a range of magazines and journals. She’s an experienced singer and songwriter who has performed with several bands, and a teacher with the Nebraska Writers Collective. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska. This is her first novel.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  CREDITS

  Cover design by Amanda Kain

  Cover photographs: woman © by Jen Kiaba/Arcangel Images

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LAST NIGHT AT THE BLUE ANGEL. Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Shaw. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, wh
ether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-231528-1

  EPub Edition July 2014 ISBN 9780062315304

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