Charlotte bent down. “No one’s following you, ma’am. But it’s time for the show.”
Mrs. Ward’s eyes were half-closed. Her head lolled over to one side, and she mumbled something incoherent.
Bernice said, “Let’s get her onto the divan. Fleurette can sit with her until the show’s over.”
May Ward jutted her chin up to make a protest, but no words came out.
“How are you going to do the show?” Fleurette asked.
“I’ll take her part,” Bernice said. “I’ve done it before.”
“But you’ll only have seven Dolls.”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as we have an even number. Charlotte will sit out with you. We’re already late. Help me get into her costume.”
With all of the Dresden Dolls gathered around, they managed to move Mrs. Ward to a little divan backstage and to relieve her of her costume so that Bernice could scramble into it. They wrestled Mrs. Ward into a kimono, whereupon she fell quickly asleep, as limp as a rag doll, her arms and legs draped lifelessly. Before Fleurette knew what was happening, the show had started, and she and Charlotte were by themselves on the floor, watching the actress sleep.
Charlotte rubbed her neck. “I can’t wait to go home,” she said, as the opening bars of “The Bird on Nellie’s Hat” drifted backstage.
“Home? Isn’t there to be another tour after this one?”
“Oh, no. Mrs. Ward’s leaving the stage for the moving pictures, haven’t you heard? This is our last tour. I’m going home to give singing lessons to little rich girls.”
“Don’t you want to get on with another act?”
Charlotte ducked down so that she could see a bit of the stage between the curtains. Fleurette turned to watch, too. Bernice was acquitting herself quite beautifully in the role of May Ward.
“Not really,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want to be a chorus girl when I’m old like Bernice. She’s been doing this for ten years. Can you imagine?”
“But you wouldn’t be a chorus girl forever,” Fleurette offered. “You’d have your own act.”
Charlotte laughed. “Like her?” She nudged May Ward, who was snoring faintly now.
“She doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much as I thought she would,” Fleurette said.
“She’s too high-strung for this life. Maybe she’ll do better in the pictures. She won’t have to travel around as much, and there won’t be so many people everywhere. They get her too wound up.”
“I always thought I’d like to have so many people around,” Fleurette said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . .” She turned around again and peeked at the sliver of audience she could see from her vantage point. “To be in front of a crowd like that. I used to dream of it.”
“Have you ever been in front of an audience that size?”
“Nothing like it,” Fleurette said. “We had a little theater back in Paterson, but it was nowhere near as grand as this.”
Charlotte was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin. She studied Fleurette for a minute and then said, “You’ve learned every single number, haven’t you?”
Fleurette nodded, her eyes still on the stage.
“Then why don’t we both go?” Charlotte stood up and held her hand out. “May’s not going anywhere. Let’s throw a costume on you and get you out there for the next number.”
56
MINNIE DIDN’T RUN OFF on her first night in Pompton Lakes, or on the second night, or the third.
She had her reasons, of course. On the first night, she was simply exhausted over the day’s events and the sudden turn her life had taken. She thought she’d do better on the run if she’d had a good night’s sleep first, and a chance to consult the train-tables. It was also true that she hadn’t a penny to her name. Originally she’d planned to lift a dollar from Edna’s purse—just enough to get her out of town—but then she met Edna, and couldn’t do it. She told herself that it was only the difficulty of riffling through Edna’s purse in such close quarters, but there was more to it than that, even if she wasn’t quite sure, at first, what it was.
On the second night, she was bone-weary from her shift at the powder works. She’d had no difficulty in learning the machine, but she was out of practice and had trouble keeping up. She nearly fell asleep over her supper. By the end of the evening, she remembered that she hadn’t managed to put her hands on a dollar or a train-table, so thought she’d stay just one more night.
On the third night, it occurred to her that she might as well wait and collect a week’s pay, thus remedying the money situation without taking anything from the other girls, who, she could see, needed every penny to get by.
Still, something else was keeping her in Pompton Lakes. She found Edna’s war talk to be strangely intoxicating. Boarding a ship for France sounded infinitely more interesting than boarding a train for New York. She had an idea, already, of how things would work out for her in New York: from the minute her feet hit the pavement, she’d be looking for a way to earn some money, or someone who wanted to spend his money on her. The “someone” would inevitably disappoint. Relations would sour. Work—whatever work there was to be had—would be tedious and unrewarding. She’d be in a city overfull of riches: theaters and tango rooms, dining palaces and smart cafés, dress shops and perfumers. But none of it would be hers. She’d be forever on the outside, trying to maneuver her way in.
But what of France? Here was unexplored territory. She knew nothing of Paris, or London, or of the German front. What did that matter? It was a new world over there. Men were taking up arms, marching against the Germans, and living in the most unimaginable conditions in trenches along the front. Women were working, too—not in factories, necessarily, although there must have been factory work for those who wanted to do it—but in hospitals, Army camps, and training schools. There were women working telephone switches and driving ambulances. Even in the grips of a military campaign, there was a lawlessness about it that Minnie found both terrifying and riveting.
And Edna wanted to be a part of it! Minnie had never in her life met anyone as thoughtful and purposeful as Edna. She was such a slight, mousy girl, with so little to say, but a steel cable of resolve ran through her. The notions of duty and service and country came as naturally to her as breathing. She was entirely sure that Europe had to be saved from the Kaiser, and that the Americans were the ones to do it.
“Yes,” Minnie tried to say one night, “the Americans, certainly. But—you?”
“Well, I’m an American, aren’t I?”
There was no arguing with that.
Minnie found herself attending the meetings of the Women’s Preparedness Committee with Edna. Soon she was sitting next to her in classes on bandage-rolling and soup-making. Late at night, they practiced their French.