The Impersonator (22 page)

And why was I so certain Jessie was dead? Could she not be waiting until her twenty-first birthday to return home? What made me think she’d come to Dexter at all? The Smith and Wade office in Sacramento made more sense. Perhaps she was there now, and they were getting ready to spring the trap on her impersonator.

29

On Friday morning as we were making ready to leave for Portland, Grandmother had a sudden change of heart. She would stay at Cliff House a while longer. She was having a lovely visit and saw no reason to cut it short. She would remain until Jessie’s birthday, then she and I could ride the train south together when I returned to Sacramento and the trustees.

No one was more surprised at this turnabout than I. Grandmother had spent her days at the fringe of activity, saying little, dozing often, arranging a vase of flowers now and then, and attracting no attention—but she was an acerbic old woman, and she was keeping an eye on Henry and Ross for me after I told her about the two menacing incidents on the bluff. I was delighted that she would stay. She was my only ally, the only person who genuinely cared about me, and I felt safer with her watching my back. Uncle Oliver, on the other hand, needed to leave. His past visits to Cliff House had never lasted so long, and he feared deviation from the pattern could bring unwanted speculation. Besides, an old friend was sailing into San Francisco soon and Oliver wanted to be on the dock to greet him.

So Oliver, the twins, and I climbed aboard the early train to Portland, and before the clock’s hands pointed north, we had deposited our valises in a commodious suite at the Benson Hotel, with Oliver in a bachelor’s room down the hall. Like puppies pulling at a leash, the twins were wild to reach the stores and the Friday Surprise.

“I’ll meet you girls in the dining room at eight,” Oliver said to me. “Do try not to deplete the entire Carr fortune in one afternoon.” Oliver was becoming quite possessive of the Carr fortune. For the hundredth time, I wondered how he planned to get his hands on it without attracting any notice. I could hardly write him a big check without arousing questions.

This week’s Friday Surprise involved silverware, men’s hats, and ice cream, only one of which interested my young cousins, but the electricity generated by the sale crackled in the air along Sixth Street before we had even reached the entrance. Our plan was to look over all the finer retailers on Friday and return to buy on Saturday, however, Friday evening found us still at Meier & Frank’s.

“This is awful,” wailed Caroline at the dinner table, attacking her beef Wellington as if it had caused the time to fly. “The last train leaves at two o’clock tomorrow. We won’t have enough time for Eastern Outfitting or Roberts Brothers or that little dress shop or anything!”

“Why don’t we stay another night?” I asked, masking my own eagerness to extend the trip. Coming home Sunday afternoon would mean another day in the stores, but my real interest lay across town. The Portland theater district was calling my name.

I’d been seized with an attack of homesickness the moment we arrived in the city. The inescapable pull of vaudeville was growing by the minute, and I knew how the ancient Greek sailors felt when they passed the Sirens, hearing their bewitching songs and leaping off their ships. It would be prudent for me to keep in mind their fate—death on the rocks. But in my entire life I had never been parted one day from vaudeville, and today marked the sixth week of our separation. I missed it, suddenly and with a sharp desperation that made my stomach ache and turned the food in my mouth to sand. The sound of the audience settling into their seats, the smell of flop sweat and greasepaint on players in the wings, the sense of anticipation that makes the pulse race with excitement as one’s act is announced—I wanted it all and I wanted it now. I needed it now. Intense longing for that heart-thumping moment when the curtain rises, the music bursts out of the pit, and the heat of the spotlight meets the skin made my breath come faster, and I twitched with impatience to get to the hotel’s front desk for a copy of
Variety
to see who was in town this week. But I could not do any of this with Oliver clinging to us like a Spanish duenna to her maidens, so my chief goal became his departure tomorrow. If he knew I was planning a visit to the theater, he’d lock me in my room.

“I’ll telephone your mother,” I said, “and persuade her to let you stay another day.” If she wouldn’t agree, I’d bundle the girls onto the train and stay the extra day myself.

“Oh, yes, Jessie, you can convince her! I know you can!” said Caroline. “She likes you.”

“Whatever her response,” I said, “you needn’t delay your trip south, Uncle Oliver.”

He dabbed his lips on the napkin and gave me a needle-sharp look. “It would not be inconvenient for me to stay another night, my dear. Propriety and all.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ve been taking care of myself for seven years now, and I think I can manage one more night in a luxurious hotel … with two mature cousins for company,” I added for their benefit. “We’ll see what Aunt Victoria says.”

Aunt Victoria needed little persuasion, especially when I let it be understood, without precisely saying so, that Oliver would remain close at hand. “I’m sure you’re a more competent chaperone than I could be, Jessie,” she said. “And the stores are all so convenient to the hotel, I don’t worry about you straying into undesirable parts of town.”

When we retired to our suite to plan Saturday’s assault on Portland’s retail houses, I tucked a folded copy of
Variety
under my arm.

The next morning we bade farewell to Uncle Oliver at the train station and then hopped the streetcar for Tenth and Washington—Eastern Outfitting’s five floors of clothing and household goods. By early afternoon we had returned to Meier & Frank’s to be fitted for riding habits. Mine was a soft fawn color that made me almost look forward to an outing on Lady’s back, theirs in darker shades carefully chosen to look different from one another. I found a ready-made tennis costume—pleated bloomers, very stylish—and proper shoes to go with it, several day frocks with the new-fashion drop waist, five becoming hats, some ritzy evening wear, a couple of cashmere sweaters, several scarves, and six pairs of shoes, some with ankle straps and comfortable low heels, and art silk stockings to wear with them. I topped it off with a crystal bottle of jasmine perfume that smelled good enough to eat. On instructions from Aunt Victoria, who had pointed out that the girls’ wrists were protruding from their winter coats, we bought new ones all around as the twins sighed over the latest shawl collars and wrap-over fasteners.

We rode the elevator to the sixth-floor music section where I chose a number of records I thought would prove useful in the days ahead, and to the luggage department where the staff insisted that a Hermès was the only leather valise worthy of Miss Carr’s wardrobe. At every step of the way, syrupy salesladies swarmed like honeybees to ripe pears, measuring our waists, recommending flattering colors, producing ropes of matching beads, suggesting smart hats and gloves, offering their honest opinions—and charging it all to the bottomless pit known as the Carr account. Alterations would be performed by Chinese tailors sewing into the wee hours, then everything would be brushed, ironed, boxed, wrapped, and delivered to the train station in the morning. I never knew shopping could be so much like a magic act.

“What do you think, shall we have an early dinner and go to the eight o’clock show?”

“You mean
vaudeville
?” Caroline asked incredulously.

“The Egyptian Theater is pulling at me like a magnet,” I said recklessly. “I checked
Variety
to see who was on the bill and I know a couple of the acts playing there this week.” That was an understatement. One of my oldest friends was onstage this week—Benny Kubelsky.

The twins exchanged a silent, wide-eyed message. “We’ve never seen a vaudeville show,” said Valerie, hesitating a little.

I wasn’t aware there was anyone over the age of six who hadn’t seen a vaudeville show, but these girls had been wrapped in cotton wool for their entire lives, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Well then, the Egyptian is the place to start. It’s brand spanking new. I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve heard it’s a spectacle. Are you game, or shall I go alone?”

“We’ll go!”

“Good. Then keep hold of one of your new frocks and we’ll dress up for the occasion—your first time in a theater and my first time to pay for ducats. We’ll get box seats, seventy-five cents each, the best in the house. No dime gallery for the Carr girls!” I said gaily, trying to reassure the niggling voice inside my head warning me that a vaudeville theater was the last place I should venture at this stage of the game.

30

The Union Street Egyptian Theater hadn’t been built when the Little Darlings last played Portland in ’22. Back then we’d been booked at the Nob Hill, and when I was much younger, I’d performed at one or two of the Foster Road theaters, but the Egyptian outshone everything else Portland had to offer. Freshly painted with lotus-flower motifs, slathered with decorative pyramids and colorful urns, it was one of many such theaters built during the King Tut craze that had seized the country ever since archaeologists had stumbled upon the boy pharaoh’s tomb. Egyptian architecture, Egyptian furniture, Egyptian wallpaper, Egyptian jewelry, even Egyptian-looking eyes made up with dark mascara and plucked brows … anything Egyptian was all the rage.

A boy handed us programs and another ushered us to our box, leaving us time to watch the audience settle in.

“Backstage right now,” I told them, “a stagehand is calling time. He calls half hour—that’s when all the players are supposed to be at the theater, then fifteen minutes, five minutes, places, and finally overture. You watch your own time after that.”

At last the orchestra struck up a jaunty “Ain’t We Got Fun,” and the emcee strode on stage with the confidence of a seasoned veteran, greeting, welcoming, announcing, and introducing the first act.

“The first act is always a dumb act, with no speaking parts,” I said, leaning across Valerie so Caroline could hear me too. “That’s because of the noise in the theater as latecomers get settled. No one would be able to hear the words anyway. The last act is usually a dumb act, too, for the same reason.” Sure enough, the first group on stage was the Fearless Flyers, eight young tumblers who performed astonishing feats of agility and strength. I had heard of them, but didn’t recall ever sharing a billing. They were followed by the versatile boy-and-girl dance team of Freda and Anthony whose ten-minute medley of tap, tango, waltz, and Charleston was executed without a single pause for breath. Next came the vocalist, ten-year-old Baby Sylvia, billed as the “Little Princess of Song.” I knew she wouldn’t remember me from four years ago when we had played the same theaters together for three weeks in a row, but I recalled her as a spoiled brat. Baby Sylvia was followed by a sinister one-act play based on Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The fifth spot went to the headliner, Adam Berlitz, a swell pair of pipes who delighted the audience with a smooth blend of song and funny stories. After loud applause we broke for intermission.

Valerie fanned herself vigorously with her program. “I’m thirsty,” she said.

We made our way to the lobby where I bought iced lemonade for three. Red-vested boys held open the front doors, hoping to coax a little of the evening air inside without letting freeloaders sneak in, and we stepped outside to cool off.

“So what do you think so far?” I asked, as if their shining faces didn’t tell me the evening was a hit.

“It isn’t risqué, is it?” asked Valerie. “Mother says vaudeville is risqué and not appropriate for ladies.”

“That’s not true!” Criticism of vaudeville always feels like someone is maligning my family. “She’s confusing vaudeville with burlesque. Burlesque theaters feature women who are scantily clothed and men who tell blue jokes—”

“What’s a blue joke?” asked Caroline.

“One that uses profanity, sex, or toilet words. But vaudeville has always been family entertainment and always will be. I’ve seen performers fired for using a vulgar word.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like liar, slob, son of a gun, devil, sucker, or damn.” Two pairs of eyes widened at my naughtiness.

“Do you know any of the performers here tonight?”

I nodded. “The Little Darlings shared the stage with Baby Sylvia some years ago, but I doubt she would remember me. I have a particular friend in the second set. Someone I got to know in the Midwest when our schedules overlapped for an entire season.” I pointed to a line on my program. “‘Jack Benny, Aristocrat of Humor,’ it says here, although that’s a new name for him. It used to be Benny Kubelsky, then for a while it was Ben K. Benny. He’s a patter and violin man. And here’s another group I love. The Highland Fling. They’re talented singers and dancers, and they also play bagpipes. You’ll like their costumes. Scottish men wear skirts, you know.”

They didn’t. What the twins didn’t know would fill an encyclopedia.

Deep inside the theater, a gong signaled the end of intermission. Slurping the last of our lemonade, we turned to go inside, and I happened to glance toward the street. My eye caught two men coming out of the burlesque house down the block. Two men I recognized at once—cousin Henry and half brother David.

Instinctively I drew back into the doorway where I could watch without being seen. They were both dressed to the nines, something that surprised me because I didn’t think David could afford that sort of clothing. They descended the steps and paused, blocking the sidewalk and talking earnestly as people swirled around them like water around rocks. As I looked on, Henry took his wallet from his breast pocket, peeled off several bills, and handed them to David. Settling a debt? Payment for a job well done? Charity for the family bastard? With a grim look on his face, David took the money and abruptly turned my way. I ducked inside and caught up with the twins.