How High the Moon (29 page)

I slipped into the shorter line, behind Mindy.

“See that dress that’s hanging in the front… right there on this rack?” Mindy said. “I heard that girl up there telling her friend that that’s what our dresses are going to look like when they’re all done. Only they’ll stick out more because we’re going to wear something under them to make them do that.”

The Little Sisters dresses weren’t going to look exactly like the ones Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen wore. Ours had lace from the waist up, like theirs, but the sleeves were short little ones like the brims of baseball caps, not tight ones that went down past the elbow. And instead of a lace sash that hung down the front, kind of on the side, ours were going to get tied in the back, like a baby’s. Ours were shorter, too.

“Where’s our gloves?” I asked Mindy.

“They’re not done yet. Mrs. Campbell got a McCall’s pattern to make them with so they could be the same blue as our dresses. But it takes a long time to sew so many gloves.”

Rebecca heard us talking and said, “My ma offered to sew some, and so did Alice’s mom.”

They were going to blab about those gloves forever, but I was done listening. Especially when I noticed that everybody was holding shoe boxes but me.

“Brenda handed them out,” Mindy told me. “She was over by that table there.” She pointed to the table that had been set up below the stage. There weren’t any boxes left on the table, though. And no Brenda. “See?” Mindy said, opening her lid to show me a pair of shoes, shiny and white as pearls, with a skinny strap and a white button that was just for looks. “I think they’re patent leather,” Mindy said, even though I thought patent leathers had to be black.

I told Mindy to save my spot, then I went to find my new shoes.

Brenda wasn’t in the theater, nor upstairs. She wasn’t in the furniture store part, either. I didn’t know where to look next, so I decided to head back to the stage and get in line in case any other girl was tardier than me and didn’t care if my place was saved or not. But first I had to pee.

I barely got through the restroom door when I heard somebody puking. Smelled it, too. And whoo! I was just about to turn around to go find a grown-up to make the sick kid go home before she gave us all the pukes when I recognized the shoes in the stall. Flats, as Brenda called them, with a little string bow tied by the rounded toe. Her favorite pair for regular days.

I bent over to talk under the door. “Brenda? That you in there puking?”

A ribbon of toilet paper slipped to the floor, then disappeared. “Just a minute, Teaspoon,” Brenda said, her voice hoarse. She coughed, then blew and flushed.

“Man, Brenda. You don’t look so good,” I told her when the stall door opened. “You don’t smell so good, either.”

Brenda went to the sink and used her hands like a cup. She rinsed out her mouth, then splashed water on her face. She yanked the cloth towel and dabbed her face with the clean part. She still didn’t look so good, though, with her face popcorn-pale, but for two patches of red blotching her cheeks.

“I’m okay,” she said, as she dabbed at her eyes; puffy on the outside, cherry-red on the inside.

“You pick up a stomach bug?” I asked. “If you did you should have some ginger ale and broth. That’s what Teddy always gives me when I get that bug.”

Brenda shook her head. “I just get like this when something big is going on. Before my first recital, I threw up on and off for a week straight.”

“Man,” I said. “Glad that doesn’t happen to me. I just get butterflies. Happy ones.”

“You have to go?” Brenda asked, looking at my legs that were crossed at the ankles.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Hey, Brenda,” I called, my voice echoing. “You have my new shoes?”

“I do. You get in line for your fitting and I’ll bring them to you.”

Boy, that bathroom echoed good when you talked loud, so I sang a little bit of “Sisters,” smiling as I did, because I was remembering how Jay told the Little Sisters that they should take a lesson from “Pip Squeak here” and work harder on the song and steps. And how after he said that, he leaned down and said in my ear, “You sing like a dream, Pip Squeak.”

I ran through the whole song, my toes tapping against the floor tiles, before I remembered that I was supposed to be in line so I could get my new shoes. I left the bathroom without washing since no one was looking, then raced out and up the aisle to squeeze my
way between Mindy and Rebecca. “Hey, no butting in line,” Rebecca said, giving me a shove. But then Brenda handed me my shoe box and told Rebecca, “No shoving.” Rebecca really wanted to deck me then, because she was still afflicted in that way, but she didn’t.

The whole fitting thing took forever and a day, so it was a good thing I had my new patent leathers to keep me busy. Boy, they sure were pretty, glossy as piano ivories, the little heels making tippity-taps every bit as noisy as a lady’s high heels.

“You’re going to make scuffs,” Rebecca told me as I tapped make-it-up-yourself steps while standing in place.

“I am not. Johnny Jackson himself told me that they put so many coats of varnish on this stage that it would take a dinosaur’s toenails to scratch it.”

“I’m not talking about the stage, stupid,” she said. “I’m talking about your shoes.”

Mindy turned around and glared at Rebecca. “You’d better not talk to Teaspoon that way, or I’ll scuff your
face
!”

I grinned at Mindy as I worked my legs like a drummer’s sticks. “Wow, Mindy,” I said. “I think you just lost another one of your afflictions.”

“See you at rehearsal tonight,” Brenda said as she walked me to the door, carrying the empty shoe box that had my name written on the lid in marker. “Maybe you should put your shoes in here before you go outside.” I told her that I couldn’t scooter while carrying a box, so I’d just wear them home and leave the box at the Starlight.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Brenda,” I said, then out the door I went, my new shoes clicking and gleaming in the sun like they were made of magic.

It was August twenty-seventh, and I
was zipping back from the Starlight, where I’d gone in the afternoon just to see if Brenda was around because I had nothing to do while Charlie did some work for Mrs. Fry. Brenda wasn’t, so I scootered around Bloom Avenue for a while, watching my patent leather paw at the sidewalk, then headed for home.

Both of the Taxi Stand Ladies were on the corner when I got to Washington Avenue, watching me come down the street, which I was sure meant they were admiring my new shoes. But when I got to the corner, I could see they were watching my face instead. “Teaspoon?” Walking Doll said with a bit of a smile on her red-apple lips. “I think your ma is here.”

I stopped, my whole head going blank like a TV station that just went off the air.

“Short? Pretty? Auburn hair?” The Kenosha Kid asked.

I couldn’t breathe to answer her. I couldn’t even nod my head. All I could do was stare down the street where Charlie was waiting, waving his arms like nuts.

Charlie darted toward my house once he knew I’d seen him, and Walking Doll said in a teary voice, “Go on. Go see your ma.”

I let my scooter fall against the sidewalk and I started running. Crying and laughing at the same time.

Teddy was waiting on the second step when I got there.

I stopped. “Teddy? Is it her?”

He nodded, then came down the steps and put his arm around my shoulder to lead me into the house. Charlie held the door open for us.

Once I got through the door, it was like my new shoes had Bazooka stuck to the heels, and I couldn’t budge. I looked on the couch. On Teddy’s chair. On the Starlight seats. But I didn’t see Ma. So I looked at Teddy to make sure it wasn’t just hope I’d been listening to when I asked if it was her.

I heard a lady’s voice come from the kitchen. “Teaspoon? That you?”

“Ma?” I called back.

And then there she was. Standing in our living room, like she’d never left it. Shorter than I remembered, her hair spilled to her shoulders in Greta Garbo waves. She was dressed in pink and mint green, and prettier than six Glindas put together. I looked at her eyes, her smile, and I remembered her face like I’d never forgotten it.

“
Oh my God!
” Ma shouted. “Look at how much she’s grown!” I think she was talking to Teddy, but I wasn’t sure because I was the one she was looking at. “Come here and give your ma a hug!” she said.

I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her waist, my face pressing tight against her balloons. I breathed the smell of her in so hard that my nostrils clamped shut, like they wanted to make sure they never let go of her smell again. “Ma… Ma…” That’s all I could say. Just “Ma.”

Ma pushed me an arm’s-length away and spun me in circles while she gasped. “Look at you… just look at you! You’re a living doll!”

She gasped again and shook her head. “Isn’t she a little doll, Teddy? She has my bone structure, don’t you think?”

Teddy had his head tipped to the side and his eyes were watery. He nodded, then said, “Charlie, how about you and me take a little walk and let these girls visit.” He put his hand on the back of Charlie’s gouged head and they walked out the door.

Ma took my hands, squeezing them and giving them a little shake. She leaned over so her face was in front of mine. “Did you miss me?” she asked, her voice high and hopeful.

“Course I did, Ma. You were gone for a long, long time. Five years.”

“Five?” she said. She straightened, cocked her eyes up and off to the left, her mouth moving silently, like she was counting behind her teeth. “Oh my God, I think you’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Ma grabbed her purse from the end table and took it to the couch. “Come sit with your ma and tell me everything,” she said.

I ran to the Starlight seats. “Do you remember these, Ma?”

Ma’s pretty eyebrows, arched like rainbows, dipped some. “No, I don’t remember those being there,” she said.

“They weren’t. They’re seats from the Starlight Theater. We just got them. Want to sit over here?”

“In a bit, honey. Right now I’m looking for something.”

Ma started digging in her purse, and I wondered if she was going to take something out for me. Maybe a stick of gum, or a little toy. She pulled out a cigarette and put it between her lips, then kept digging, so I leaned over to watch her hand. I saw her scoop up something gold and shiny. Maybe a new barrette that I could wear to the gala so people could see my eyes. But it was only a cigarette lighter.

Ma lit her cigarette than looked around the living room. “I suppose Teddy threw out all of the ashtrays. Get me that coffee cup over there, Teaspoon, will ya?” She was pointing to the one sitting next to Teddy’s chair.

Ma watched me as she smoked, her lips going from banana-shaped smiles to circles that blew doughnuts of smoke above our heads. “Remember how you used to like those?” she said. “You’d jump like a puppy reaching for a stick, so you could poke your finger in the hole.” Ma laughed. “What a cutie you were. And still are.”

I smiled.

“Teddy told me you’re a part of some girls’ program or other, and that you’re gonna be in some kind of a show in a couple of weeks?”

“In seven days,” I said. “At the Starlight. Can you believe it, Ma?”

“The movie theater?” she said, looking confused.

“It’s a live theater now, too. I thought it was a dream come true, making my debut at the age of ten, and at the Starlight Theater to boot. But now that you’re home and get to come, well…”

My voice cracked on the last part of that sentence, and Ma tapped me under the chin with a curled hand. “Don’t go getting all teary on me now, Teaspoon. This is supposed to be a happy day, and I want to see my baby girl smile, not cry.”

“I’m not going to cry, Ma,” I said, breathing in hard. “Jay, that’s the guy who is our chorusographer—”

“Chor-e-ographer,” Ma said, laughing. “It’s
choreographer
.”

“Oh. Anyway, Jay is teaching us dance steps for our big number. It’s really going to be good. We come on right before Les Paul and Mary Ford. Can you believe it? I can’t! And Jay’s putting me and Brenda Bloom herself smack-dab in the first row, right in the middle. That’s the best spot, isn’t it, Ma?”

She nodded, then said, “Gloria Bloom’s daughter?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s my Big Sister. My mentor. Anyway, we’re dead-center. Well, except for when we do this little dance part and walk around in a big circle. But I come right back to dead-center when we’re done. Our number was my idea, too. Want to see me do the song?”

I jumped off of the couch to sing. “Pretend my right hand is my fan, okay?” I held my fan hand over my face while I la-laed the beginning of the intro, nodding my head once to the right, then the left, then
sashaying
in a circle around an imaginary Brenda. Then I started singing, “Sisters. Sisters…” I sang it to the part where the Big Sisters sang, “Never had to have a chaperone, no sir,” and the Little Sisters sang, “I’m here to keep my eyes on her.” Then I stopped because I didn’t want Ma to see the whole dance—especially the parts I liked best, where we dipped on one leg with a bounce, then kicked a foot to the side to sway and sashay some more.

“Just like that!” I said. “Jay said he’s never seen a kid with lungs like mine. He said what I got is
projection
. And he said that with my
voice, my looks, and my
charisma
, I got star quality. Imagine that, Ma. Star quality. Me! And he should know, because he was in some shows in New York City.”

Ma smiled and said, “Of course you got star quality. You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”

“The whole show is going to be great, Ma. You’re going to love it!” I hurried through the names of the stars, our acts, the songs, our dresses, the fans, everything. Putting it all in one long sentence, so that by the time I finished telling her about the moons, I had to pause to take a breath, because big lungs or not, I didn’t have any more air left in me.

“Huh,” Ma said, “I’m surprised the Blooms are doing the big-band thing. That era’s come and gone. But I don’t suppose word of that has reached Mill Town yet, so folks around here will probably eat it up.