The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

W
HAT WERE YOU DOING
in Pete's room, child?” Big Hannah asked quietly.

Don't run
, she told herself.

“The door was open—” she started to say, but Big Hannah stopped her. “Pete's key isn't in the desk. What were you doing, Iva Claire?”

She couldn't answer. Big Hannah came up the rest of the stairs. “I still know people in the business,” she said. “Word is, you and your ma had to pay off that jerk from the Gerry Society. I asked myself how you could do that when you didn't have enough money for the rent.” She paused and looked at Pete's door.

Suddenly Iva Claire was tired—of lying and thinking and trying not to think. She slid down so she was sitting on the floor, and she told Big Hannah about the collar. “Please don't tell Pete,” she whispered. Big Hannah stared down at her for a long time; there was a hard look in her eyes. Then the hard look softened. She tucked her skirt around her knees and lowered her large body to the floor to sit next to Iva Claire.

“No, honey,” she said. “I won't tell Pete.” One big arm pulled Iva Claire in to her ample chest. It felt so good to have someone older and bigger hold her, Iva Claire thought she would never move. But then Big Hannah said, “I don't know what's to be done. Your mother should be reported.”

When she said that, Iva Claire had to pull away. She couldn't let Big Hannah hurt Mama. But she knew something important now. Big Hannah had a soft spot for her, and she could use it.

“Big Hannah, we got a job last night,” she said in an eager little-girl voice. “A tour. If you don't tell anyone about Fritzie's collar, we'll leave tomorrow and you won't have to worry about what to do.”

She could see Big Hannah waver.

This is how Mama gets people to do what she wants
, she said to herself. Then
Don't think about that!

“But it isn't right,” Big Hannah fretted. “You're just a child, and she used you. You can't go on like this.”

“I know what I—what
we
did was bad. But Mama's sorry, and so am I. We brought the collar back as fast as we could. And now we have a chance to make a fresh start.” She made her voice quiver.
Someday when I'm old enough, I'll do good things, I'll help people and I'll make up for this.

“You'd be going on the road?” Big Hannah asked. “I had an idea you wanted to stay put.”

“I want to do the act. We worked so hard on it, Big Hannah.”

Big Hannah was troubled. She wanted to do the right thing, but she wasn't sure what it was. She was such a good person.

Don't think about that.

Finally the woman hoisted herself to her feet. “Give me Pete's key,” she said. Iva Claire stood up and handed it over. “Tell your mother I want her out of my house and on the road, saving her money and taking care of you. And if she ever does anything like this again and I hear about it, she won't be able to send you to do her dirty work. I'll take care of her myself.”

And that was why, in spite of everything Mama had said before, they ran over to Teddy Fitz's office that afternoon and took the job. Rain and Rain, the Sunshine Sisters, were heading south.

Chapter Twenty-six

I
VA CLAIRE!”
Tassie's urgent voice called out from the back of the house, breaking into her daydream. “Come quick! Out here to the lobby! There's something you've got to see!”

Iva Claire climbed down from the stage and ran through the theater to the dark lobby where there was a curved double staircase leading to the second floor. The theater balconies and boxes were on the second floor, as was the rehearsal room.

“Over here!” Tassie said. She was standing near the right wall of the lobby. There was a glass case on the wall where the management put up the pictures of everyone who would be performing on the bill that afternoon. “Look,” Tassie said.

Iva Claire's picture wasn't on the wall. When your publicity still was taken off the lobby wall that meant you'd been canned. For a horrible moment Iva Claire thought somehow the theater manager had heard how bad the Sunshine Sisters were. But Mama's picture was right there in its frame, although there was no sign under it announcing the name of their act. Obviously someone had made a mistake, and with Mama already hating the entire state of Georgia—

“Your ma is gonna be mad,” Tassie said.

With Tassie at her heels, Iva Claire ran up the stairs to the rehearsal room. Mama was already there, pacing and breathing hard.

“I've been looking everywhere for you,” she said. She hadn't seen Tassie. “I need to tell you something.”

“If it's about them not putting my picture up, I bet they just forgot. I'll go find the manager right now, and—”

“No, you won't.”

“I'm sure they didn't mean to insult us. If I go talk to him—”

“I didn't give them your picture. You're not doing the act until we're out of Georgia.”

Iva Claire's first thought was that she was free. For three whole weeks she wouldn't have to go onstage. Then she pictured Mama going out all by herself in front of an audience.

“It's a two-person act, Mama.”

“For now, it's a solo.”

“Mama you need me—”

“That's enough!” Mama snapped. Her eyes were wild; she was scared to death to do the act alone, but for some crazy reason she was going to. Iva Claire looked up at the clock on the rehearsal room wall. There was no time to argue. The rehearsal pianist would be there any minute. She had to do something. She couldn't let Mama die onstage. She looked around the room for something, anything . . . and saw Tassie standing off to the side staring at her feet.

“Tassie,” Iva Claire said.

Tassie looked up at her, and Iva Claire knew they were both thinking the same thing. “You said you know all our songs, didn't you?” Iva Claire asked.

Tassie had gotten very pale, but she said, “I've been watching your act every day.”

“Do you know the music well enough to sing it onstage?”

“I couldn't learn all the fancy harmonies you do,” Tassie managed to get out. “Not in time for the show today. But I have a good ear, and I've always sung parts.”

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was better than Mama trying to fill twenty minutes as a solo. Iva Claire nodded at Mama. Finally realizing she was about to be rescued, Mama turned to Tassie. “Could you do it?” she demanded eagerly. “Could you do the act?”

“Rehearse with her and see, Mama,” said Iva Claire. But she already knew what Mama was going to decide. For a second, it felt like something sharp had gotten inside her chest. Not because Tassie was going onstage in her place; Tassie was welcome to that torture. But Iva Claire's biggest pride, the one thing that made her different from every other kid she met was the fact that her mama needed her. And now, it seemed, Mama might not.

Don't think about that.

The pianist came in. Mama and Tassie began to sing. And somewhere in the whole mess of everything that was going on, the question of why Mama refused to let Iva Claire perform in Georgia got lost.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I
VA CLAIRE'S COSTUME
was six inches too long for Tassie. And since the first show was at two-thirty, there was no time to shorten it. Nor was there time for her to learn all the gestures and moves Iva Claire did; watching an act from the wings was very different from performing it. On a more positive note, Tassie hadn't been lying when she said she had a good ear, and she'd actually picked up quite a lot of their harmonies as well as all the lyrics just by listening. What she didn't know she faked, so the music rehearsal had gone pretty well. All three of them agreed she could carry off the singing. As for the stage movements, she'd just have to try to do what Mama did.

It was time to get ready for the first show. Mama and Tassie raced to the dressing room to slap on some greasepaint. Iva Claire followed them, trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong.

Half an hour later, she stood with them backstage as they waited to go on. Tassie seemed all right, but Mama was panicking. The music started, and Mama went onstage like someone in a trance.

Then without warning, Tassie froze. “I can't,” she whispered.

“You've got to.”

Tassie didn't move. Mama was already in position. Iva Claire gave Tassie a little shove—just enough to get her moving. Tassie made it out of the wings and on to the stage, but she'd forgotten to pull up her long skirt, so she stepped on it. Then she walked up it until she couldn't go any farther. Her big eyes now even bigger with fright, she smiled a fake smile at the audience and began tugging at her skirt—which didn't move because she was standing on it. There was a snicker from the house.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the stage, Mama struck their opening pose with both hands clasped over her heart.

Tassie's struggle had loosened the silk rose Iva Claire had pinned to her hair, and it started to slip down on her forehead. She blew frantically at it to keep it from falling, tugged at her skirt, and smiled idiotically at the audience. Then she blew at the rose again. And tugged at her skirt. And smiled. Now she had a routine going; blow, tug, smile, blow, tug, smile. Downstage center, Mama stood like a statue. The snicker from the house turned into giggles.

Finally Tassie yanked her skirt free, hiked it up around her hips, scurried to her place at Mama's side, and clasped her hands over her heart. More giggles from the audience, and someone clapped. That was what did it. Iva Claire saw something flash in Tassie's eyes and knew she was going to play it for laughs. Her rose fell into her face again, and she blew at it explosively, but this time she looked straight out, so she was giving the audience the raspberry. She got a small hand. And she was on her way.

When she and Mama started to sing, Tassie did all the gestures a beat after Mama did them. At one point, she stopped singing and walked around so she could see what Mama was doing and copy her. She kept up the battle with her rose and her skirt. What made all her bits even funnier was Mama, who went on singing and gesturing as if the mayhem at her side didn't exist. When they finished, the Sunshine Sisters got real applause, the kind where the audience is saying “Thank you!”

Backstage, Iva Claire braced herself for an explosion. Mama was going to be furious. Tassie had turned her beautiful act into a joke for a bunch of hicks to laugh at, and Iva Claire knew it was going to be her fault. She waited for the onslaught.

Mama came offstage first. She threw her arms around Iva Claire, her eyes glowing under the heavy makeup.

“Listen, Claire de Lune,” she said, as the audience clapped. “Did you ever hear anything like that?”

Tassie, whose eyes were glowing the same way, came off and hugged her too, whispering in her ear, “I hope you're not mad.”

She wasn't, not really. She could never have done what Tassie had just done, and she never would have wanted to. But she did wish she had been the one who had put that light in her mama's eyes.

For the next four shows, Tassie didn't get a single laugh. She repeated all the business she'd done before, but it fell flat. She tried harder and harder, tripping over her skirt so wildly that she almost fell into the orchestra pit, but she didn't get a peep from the house. The Sunshine Sisters were back to stinking again. Instead of the act being overrehearsed, it now looked like Amateur Night in Dixie—literally. After the last performance, Mama left the theater without saying a word. Iva Claire stayed with Tassie, who cried all the way back to the hotel.

The next morning, just as Iva Claire and her mother finished getting dressed, there was a knock on the door. Benny and Irene came in with Tassie, wearing her costume with her rose pinned in her hair.

“We gotta get this act in shape,” Benny said briskly, as Irene handed Mama a cup of coffee. “We can't have our girl laying an egg out there. Now, Miz Rain, you sing that opening number, and we're gonna work the shtick where Tassie trips on her skirt.”

Iva Claire thought she knew what it meant to rehearse, but she'd never seen anything like the kind of drilling Benny did with Tassie that morning. Every accident that had been so funny the day before was now analyzed and broken down into minute movements, which were then repeated over and over. And throughout it all, Benny kept saying, “Remember how scared you was when this happened the first time? That's what made it funny. Don't never try to repeat that feeling—you can't. Once you get the moves locked in, you gotta find a fresh way to keep the feelings real for yourself. And they've gotta be real every night. That's what John Q Public wants: fresh and real.”

When he was finally convinced that Tassie was ready, he gave them all one last bit of advice. “In comedy you gotta have a part of your head checking the audience. Not your whole head; think of it like you've gotta split your brain in two.”

Mama and Tassie looked at him blankly.

“Listen,” he said. “Serious actors, the ones who do all the high-hat plays, they gotta keep their mind on what's happening onstage. They gotta ignore the audience. But a comic's gotta be aware of the house so he can time his laughs and pace himself. You gotta do two things at once.” He paused. “Before I met Irene I had a mind-reading act—called myself the Great Otto. Talk about doing two things at once—you're saying your patter for the audience and all the time you're watching the mark like crazy, so you know when you're hitting home. Same thing you do when you're getting laughs. Being a mind reader is the best training for a comic I know of.”

Tassie listened breathlessly. Iva Claire couldn't imagine putting that much time and thought into making people laugh.

When it was time to go to the theater, Benny gave Tassie a kiss on the cheek and said, “You're as ready as you'll ever be. Break a leg, sweetheart.”

By the end of the day Tassie has gotten back most of her laughs. By the end of the week she and Benny had worked in several more. The Sunshine Sisters were almost as good as DeLoura and Ritz. And for the first time since she was five, Iva Claire was unemployed.