Last Dance on the Starlight Pier, page 31
Not only did the crowd love it, showering all of us with applause and coins, but the too-real fakery broke the ice between me and Zave. Laughing, we gathered up the change and filled Minnie and DeWitt’s pockets with it.
That burst of adrenaline buoyed me for a short while. By the time the clock hands crawled their way to six, however, when we should have had at least the bad joke of a fifteen-minute break, I again felt beaten to a pulp.
A series of eliminations jolted us back to attention. Three times, nearly one after the other, Kane fired his starter pistol into the rafters. In all three cases, it was the boys’ knees that hit the floor first. The girls could have continued as singles, but all three chose to exit with their partners, and the floor was emptier by half a dozen dancers.
Next, a couple from Minnesota, veterans of dozens of shows up north in cooler climes, achieved a first of some kind by both passing out and hitting the floor like a pair of dead flounders at the exact same moment.
Even the horses, the real pros, were suffering. Though Ace and Lily were barely shuffling, their mouths hung open and they panted like dogs. Patsy squeegeed sweat from his brow and flicked it toward a laughing crowd.
Fortunately, King Sammie, Samuel Bert, had brought his new invention down from Dallas. He called his treat sno-cones and was selling the balls of ice bejeweled with ruby-red and sapphire-blue syrup as fast as he could crank the handle on his ice-crushing machine. Audience members passed the chilly treats down to us while, surprisingly, Kane pretended not to notice. Zave and I collected so many that we supplied all the amateurs who didn’t have their own cheering sections.
The sweet, icy crystals provided instant relief. Zave’s cone turned his lips a blue so frosty that it cooled me just to look at him. I was sure that my red cone had stained my lips as cherry red as Snow White’s. Or Sleeping Beauty’s. I wanted to press my lips against Zave’s and kiss them until his blue and my red blended and turned both our lips purple. I wanted to kiss him until he awoke and wanted to kiss me back.
“How long can they last, folks?” Alonzo asked, swabbing the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
How long could I last?
Purple, I thought, as I stared at the open doors, willing Sofie to appear and hand me the keys that would unlock my happiness. The color we made together.
Purple.
CHAPTER 75
Saturday, July 2, 1932
6:01 p.m.
It was a huge letdown for us all when the six o’clock break came and went without the air horn sounding. Fortunately, the Saturday-evening crowd in the ringside box seats arrived early and was glamourous enough to take our minds off our aching feet. And backs. And heads.
The Houston oil executives and the slumming bankers joked, smoked cigars, and drank openly from bottles of bonded whiskey while their mistresses or the women they’d rented for the evening fanned themselves and pressed dainty hankies to their upper lips.
Two large parties of women in the sheerest, whitest cotton dresses and men in crisp seersucker suits had brought maids who carried large hampers of food into their row of adjoining box seats. Imagining themselves cutting-edge wits, they laughed at the gay fun of eating squab and cucumber sandwiches amidst the hoi polloi.
Their adult children, the trust fund heirs and oil heiresses, were even drunker, louder, and freer with the smart remarks. Asking one of the poor maids to “Peel me a grape” was a guaranteed side-splitter. The slummers acted as if they’d been set loose in a foreign country filled with natives who couldn’t understand English and whose opinions didn’t count anyway. They competed to see who could curse the loudest and make the most outrageous joke. Even the girls were throwing around eff yous. They didn’t care about the honest folk behind them eating jelly sandwiches on day-old bread who were shielding their children’s ears from the blue language.
A few of the young swells, in addition to being drunk, were also high. Even if they hadn’t been joking loudly about being “vipers,” I’d have known they were smoking marijuana just from the odor of burnt rope and roast beef that wafted off of them. As we glided past these gilded darlings, Zave pinched his thumb and forefinger together and pretended to suck. They howled with laughter and held out joints. Which he accepted.
The reefer made Zave even more distant. I figured he had every right to be. I had wounded him and couldn’t repair the hurt until I was fully armed with the facts. So, in spite of the happy, holiday atmosphere that soared as the sun set and evening breezes blew through the Palace, lowering temperatures, a numb haze imprisoned me. Even when Zave and I performed a couple of specials barely sprightly enough to net us a miserly sprinkling of coins, I merely moved forward in a robotic stupor brought on by a combination of sheer exhaustion and my sadness about my fading hopes for Zave and me.
My doldrums were only pierced when, later that evening, I felt an odd sort of electricity ripple through the audience. A message passed from one enthralled spectator to the next until a clamor of voices drowned out the recorded music.
“What is it?” I asked Zave.
He shrugged and nodded his chin toward the entrance, where a newsboy was selling special editions of the paper as fast as the crowd around him could rip them from his hand.
“Whatever it is,” I said, trying to pique his interest, “the bigwigs don’t look too happy.”
Up front, as soon as the news reached the men in suits, they folded their arms and sour looks creased their faces.
“Let’s go investigate,” I suggested, steering us toward the newsboy. Before we could get close enough to read the huge headline, however, the news reached the stage and the Melody Makers broke into a spirited rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
“FDR won the Democratic nomination!” I exploded.
Waves of jubilation swept through the cheap seats as the average Joes realized that Roosevelt would be our candidate.
“Thank God,” Zave said.
“Thank God,” I echoed.
In the crowd, when word spread that, for the first time ever, a presidential candidate was going to broadcast his acceptance speech, a chant started, “Turn on the radio. Turn on the radio.” Soon the united voices rose above the band. “Let FDR speak.”
Alonzo’s smooth chuckle was amplified through the Palace. “We hear you, folks, we hear you,” he placated, shooting a nervous glance at Pops, who stood at the edge of the stage. Pops’s nervous glances were reserved for the high-dollar donors in the box seats, who were shaking their heads sternly and giving scowling thumbs-downs. Ultimately, though, the only vote that counted in Galveston was the Amadeos’. Pops fixed his gaze on Uncle JuJu and waited.
Cleo, curled up beside him, whispered in his ear as she gestured toward the cheap seats. JuJu swiveled around, taking in the immense crowd of FDR supporters who looked perilously close to devolving into an angry mob if they didn’t get their wish, and he gave Pops a slow nod of approval. Pops shot a finger at Alonzo, the emcee switched on the radio, and Franklin Roosevelt’s voice filled the hall.
I’d never heard FDR speak before and, after reading so much about his plans to help the common man, his voice surprised me. “He sounds like a snobbish Yankee.”
Zave answered, “Yeah, well, he sure doesn’t think or act like one. And that’s all I care about. Just listen.”
I did.
FDR started his address by pointing out that no other nominee had ever spoken to the convention before. “Let it be symbolic, therefore,” he said, “that I break tradition. I will break foolish traditions and leave it to the Republican leadership, far more skilled in that art, to break promises!”
There was a moment of stunned silence at hearing such harsh honesty, then the Palace erupted in cheers. Mine among them. After only a few sentences, I had come to love that snobbish Yankee voice.
When the furor subsided enough that I could hear FDR again, he was talking about the Depression. “There are two ways of viewing the government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life,” he said in a sonorous voice that built in intensity. “The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to the laborer, to the farmer, to the small business man. But that is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party!”
There was whooping and hollering for that thundering proclamation. Caps and fists were thrown into the air in a mighty hallelujah. The only grumps in the whole place were the bankers and oil bigwigs, who muttered darkly about the “rise of Communism” and “the end of individual liberty as we know it.”
When the furor died down again, Roosevelt was speaking about Prohibition. “This convention wants repeal,” he stated unequivocally. “Your candidate wants repeal. And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal.”
Repeal Prohibition? Did that get them on their feet? You bet it did. I thought the bleachers would collapse under the foot stomping. It took a while for the ecstatic audience to calm down enough that we could again hear the man that every one of us except the box seaters fervently, desperately hoped would be our next president.
FDR said, “The main issue of this campaign should revolve about a depression so deep that it is without precedent in modern history. This is no time for fear, for reaction, or for timidity. It will not do, as Republican leaders do, to explain their broken promises of continued inaction, that the depression is worldwide.
“One word more: out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rose with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose. Today we have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among nations. Blame not governments alone for this. Blame ourselves in equal share. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, has lured us from the old barricades.”
At that a few of the high rollers, the profiteers of speculation, actually appeared ashamed.
FDR railed on, “Never before in modern history have the essential differences between the two major American parties stood out in such striking contrast as they do today. Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope, they have pointed out no path for the people below to climb back to places of security and of safety in our American life.”
“He understands,” Zave whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. “None of us is asking for a handout, we just want a way out. That rich bastard, he really understands.”
In the stands, the chins of strong men who’d slogged on in spite of hardship and hunger trembled the way any victim’s does when, after years of being ignored or even blamed for their tragedy, someone listens. Someone hears them and offers help. Skinny wives clutched their husbands’ sinewy hands. Ropy-muscled fathers lifted up a child to hear the words of the man who would save them.
Finishing as powerfully as he had begun, FDR promised that if we gave him not just our votes but our help, that we would “win in this crusade to restore America to her own people.”
Alonzo switched off the radio, and for one second the only sound that could be heard was sniffling. Then thunderous applause rolled down from the bleachers and boomed throughout the Palace. In reaction, the Richie Rich Hoover supporters began booing loudly and calling them “Bolsheviks” and “freeloaders.” Men in crumpled shirts and suspenders got to their feet and screamed back. Vicious, snarling expressions of rage contorted their faces.
The incendiary whiff of violence hung in the air. One spark and the powder keg of fury would have erupted.
Pops signaled Mel and the band broke into a lively tune.
Most of the smart set relaxed and pretended to take the news of Roosevelt’s victory the way they took all the news that leaked into their enchanted world, as a joke. They called each other comrade, laughed too loudly, and continued to drink too much.
One wag, a stylish fellow in a white cotton tennis sweater, stood up, reached into the pocket of his trousers, hauled up a handful of change, and, to the giddy delight of his set, yelled, “Distribute the wealth!” as he flung the coins directly at Zave and me.
A silver dollar hit Zave’s forehead and anger flashed across his face. Breaking dance position, he scooped up a handful of the heavy coins and flung them with all his might directly at the jerk’s face.
Ace, Patsy, DeWitt, and several of the other pros left their partners and scrambled to grab coins and pelt the rich dope, who was now cowering in his seat, hands protecting his face, as he yelled that he was “only joking.” The plebes in the stands behind the jerk also began peppering him with coins and hurling vicious insults; it was worth a few precious coins to the men to make the brat squirm.
I was certain we’d all be eliminated, and braced myself for a series of ear-piercing tweets then a deafening gunshot from Kane. But the hawk-eyed judge had his back determinedly turned to the melee, pretending to be giving a stern lecture to a local couple. Before he turned around, ever so slowly, Kane discharged several short, sharp blasts on his whistle to give all us misbehaving dancers time to regain proper position.
When Zave pulled me into his arms again, we did a slow, triumphant waltz that was rewarded with coins and even a few bills. Zave, ever the performer, perked up like a wilted daisy in an actual shower. He grinned at the crowd and waved. A roof-rattling cheer arose.
He was their hero. He was mine. But I was losing him. Though he was still in my arms, the link that had pumped joy and hope into my life had become so weak that all I had left was his reluctant physical presence. Tired as I was, a shuddering dread lurched through me as I imagined my life when even that was taken from me. Our future had become a critically ill patient hanging on by the barest of threads. Our time was running out. If I didn’t show him proof of the medical miracles I’d promised, he would be gone. His mind, his heart, would be forever shut off to the life we might have had and I would have lost the two things I cared about: my pin and Zave.
I was already in mourning for what might have been when, like the cavalry in a Western movie, far off, on the other side of the vast hall, silhouetted in the double doors, her white uniform glowing a luminescent pale blue in the moonlight, there she was.
Sofie.
CHAPTER 76
Saturday, July 2, 1932
9:35 p.m.
And she carried a manila envelope. Unfortunately, the fire marshal wouldn’t let her in because the house was full. I searched for JuJu to come and rescue his niece. But it was far too early for him to make an appearance. I started to head toward her, but the band suddenly stopped playing and Alonzo froze all motion with a strange request.
“I need everyone’s attention. That means everyone. Dancers, even you need to stop and listen. That’s right, King Kong is giving everyone a break so you all can hear this important announcement.”
The dancers froze and I was trapped in place as the emcee made his announcement.
“Oh boy, oh boy, folks, this is the best ever. Thanks again to the generosity and community spirit of the Amadeo family, Galveston will be treated to a Fourth of July fireworks spectacle that they don’t want anyone to miss. Not even our dancers. So mark your calendars, friends. Because in two nights, on the Fourth of July, we are going to be taking the whole darn show outside for a spectacular display of pyrotechnics!”
All around me dancers’ mouths opened in astonished delight.
“That’s right, contestants,” Alonzo went on. “You heard me. For the first time in any show, anywhere, you’ll be allowed outside during the competition.” He paused for dramatic effect then concluded, “Because you’ll be dancing on the sand!”
I was so intent upon Sofie that the announcement barely registered. All I cared about was the manila envelope tucked under her arm, its flap held closed by a red string wrapped between two cardboard buttons. Excitement surged through exhaustion when I told Zave, “Sofie’s here and she has it. She brought the information we need.”
Zave peered across the eerily still floor to the entrance, where Sofie was arguing with the fire marshal. Of course, she wouldn’t even think of dropping her last name, the one that opened every door on the island. The marshal folded his arms and motioned for her to move away from the exit he’d been ordered to keep cleared. As Alonzo hyped the fireworks display, my fear grew that Sofie would simply leave. The instant Alonzo finally finished his spiel and the dancers were unfrozen, I dropped any pretense at dancing and steered Zave toward the exit as rapidly as I could. Unfortunately, Kane was planted right in the middle of the floor, whistle stuffed in the grim line of his mouth, hand gripping the elimination pistol, cocked and held at the ready. I couldn’t afford to catch Kane’s attention; not with the information that would change mine and Zave’s lives almost within our grasp.
Bobbing and weaving through clots of dancers, we made our way to the open doors of the exit. Just in time to see the fire marshal turn Sof away.
“She’ll be back,” I told Zave, not believing my own cheery words. Sofie hated calling attention to herself, to her last name, and that’s what would be required to get in.
Deflated again, I was dragging around the floor in a daze when, from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a blur of white: Sofie. And she was flat-out barreling past the fire marshal.
“Sofie!” I screamed, even breaking dance position to wave frantically at her.
“I have it,” she cried, holding the envelope aloft.
Dodging some couples and nearly plowing over others, I tugged Zave toward her. An uproar arose as contestants objected both to the intruder and to me and Zave breaking dance position.
“Sofie,” I yelled, all my happiness at seeing her and hopes for a miracle compressed into that name.
