The Life Fantastic Read online

  The Life Fantastic

  A Novel in Three Acts

  Liza Ketchum

  [Merit Press]

  F+W Media

  Copyright © 2017 by Liza Ketchum.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by

  Merit Press

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

  www.meritpressbooks.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-9876-2

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9876-0

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-9877-0

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9877-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ketchum, Liza, author.

  The life fantastic / Liza Ketchum.

  Blue Ash, OH: Merit Press, 2017.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  LCCN 2016026860 (print) | LCCN 2016038608 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440598760 (hc) | ISBN 1440598762 (hc) | ISBN 9781440598777 (ebook) | ISBN 1440598770 (ebook)

  CYAC: Singers--Fiction. | Vaudeville--Fiction. | Race relations--Fiction. | Performing arts--Fiction. | United States--History--1913-1921--Fiction.

  LCC PZ7.K488 Li 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.K488 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016026860

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

  Cover design by Sylvia McArdle.

  Cover images © Mod Paperie; iStockphoto.com/aleksandarvelasevic; GoodGnom.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  A Note on Language

  Acknowledgments

  Entr’acte 1

  Act One: A Voice Like a Nightingale 1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  Entr’acte 2

  Act Two: The Great White Way 19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  Entr’acte 3

  Act Three: The Western Circuit 34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  40.

  41.

  42.

  43.

  44.

  45.

  46.

  47.

  48.

  49.

  50.

  51.

  52.

  53.

  Hard Times by Stephen Foster (1854)

  The Songs (in order of appearance):

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Resources/Bibliography

  For my grandchildren: Rushil and Kinari, Willa and Camille—

  May your lives be filled with music, love, and laughter.

  And in memory of:

  My great-grandparents, who eloped and ran away to the vaudeville stage;

  My grandparents, who taught us the songs;

  And my parents and my aunt Janet, who kept the music alive.

  A Note on Language

  In 1913, the year that The Life Fantastic takes place, African Americans were called “colored” or “Negro,” and they also referred to themselves that way. Although those terms may be offensive today, they were in common use at that time. Theater terms are listed in the Glossary at the end of this book.

  Acknowledgments

  This novel has been blessed with a wide cast of characters who have provided invaluable help, information, and support over many years of creation and revision. For assistance with Vermont history, thanks to Jeff and Peg Barry, at the Brattleboro (Vermont) Historical Society, and Kevin O’Connor from the Rutland Herald. Librarians at the Boston Public Library, the Brooks Memorial Library (Brattleboro), the John F. Reed Library at Fort Lewis College (Durango, Colorado), and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center (New York City) provided invaluable assistance. I wish that my dear, departed friend and librarian Deanna Held had lived to see this book in print. She was an indefatigable researcher.

  Thanks to my cousin, singer and songwriter Coleman Harwell, for help with song lyrics and information about vaudeville in southern states; and to Fern Chasse and Sally Macquart-Moulin for assistance with French translation. Katherine Leiner, Makenna Goodman, Will and Jean Hobbs, and the Klema family provided meals, friendship, and moral support during my stay in Colorado.

  Many smart and savvy readers offered excellent suggestions and advice as the book was revised. Those readers include Heather Arhenholz, Eileen Christelow, Pat Lowery Collins, Karen Hesse, Ellen Levine, Bob MacLean, Lisa Papademetriou, Phyllis Root, Hollis Shore, Eleanora E. Tate, Tinky Turner, Wendy Watson, Nancy Werlin, and Ellen Wittlinger.

  I am lucky to have worked with talented and supportive students during my years as a teacher of writing. In several programs—the Boyds Mills Whole Novel Workshops in Honesdale, Pennsylvania; Rhode Island College’s Alliance for the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature (ASTAL); and Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program—students listened as I read from the novel, offered suggestions, and asked insightful questions. Some sent me books about the period or offered links to resources. To all the students I have taught over the years: I can’t express how much I learned from you, as well as from my brilliant and loyal fellow faculty members.

  Finally, my deepest gratitude to my agent, Ginger Knowlton, and to my husband, John Straus. Teresa sings because you never gave up on her story.

  Entr’acte 1

  Setting: A shabby vaudeville theater in the upper Midwest, January 1906.

  Characters:

  TERESA (RESA) LECLAIR: age seven, a lively child with carrot-colored curls and a strong singing voice.

  ALICE LECLAIR: Teresa’s mother, a singer and dancer. Alice hides her pregnancy beneath the skirt and shawl of her gypsy costume.

  FRANÇOIS LECLAIR: Teresa’s father, a burly man with auburn hair and beard. He plays the fiddle.

  CONROY: a small-time magician.

  THE STAGE MANAGER: a nervous man in his late forties.

  As the curtain goes up, we see into the wings, where CONROY tries to distract Teresa.

  CONROY: (Whispers.) Hsst! Look, Resa. There’s a rabbit in my top hat! (Holds up a live rabbit by the ears.)

  TERESA: Go away. I want to hear Mama.

  ALICE: (Sings.) Everybody works but Father . . . he sits around all day. (Points at François and winks at the audience.) Feet in front of the fire—smoking his pipe of clay. Mother takes in washing . . . so does sister Anne . . . (Pantomimes scrubbing.) Everybody works at our house . . . but
my old man.

  ALICE cocks her head at FRANÇOIS. She dances as he plays. The audience is restless. ALICE twirls and nearly falls.

  ALICE: (Sotto voce.) I’m out of breath. Play something slow.

  FRANÇOIS finishes the tune with a flourish.

  FRANÇOIS: (To the audience.) We do a slow number now. This is for all those families who have troubles in their lives.

  (The audience falls silent. François plays the opening bars of the Stephen Foster tune “Hard Times.”)

  TERESA: (From the wings.) Mama! That’s our song!

  CONROY: Hush, child.

  TERESA: Let me go!

  ALICE (Sings.) Let us pause in life’s pleasures, and count its many tears, while we all sup sorrow with the poor . . .

  TERESA: Mama, wait for me! (She dashes onstage, grabs Mama’s hand, sings.) There’s a song that will linger, forever in our ears . . .

  FRANÇOIS: (Still playing.) Resa, stay with Conroy.

  ALICE AND TERESA: (Singing in unison.) Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

  CONROY: (From the wings.) Teresa! I’ll let you hold the rabbit.

  ALICE AND TERESA sway from side to side. Teresa’s voice is clear and pure. She sings melody, her mother harmonizes. François shrugs and keeps playing.

  STAGE MANAGER: (In the wings.) What’s going on! No children on stage. The Gerry Society will close me down! Where’s my hook?

  ALICE AND TERESA: (Singing.) Tis the song, the sigh of the weary: Hard times, hard times, come again no more: Many days you have lingered, around my cabin door. Oh! Hard times come again no more.

  THE STAGE MANAGER stalks toward Teresa, brandishing a long hook.

  TERESA: Papa! The bad man is coming! He wants to hook me!

  Hisses from the audience.

  FRANÇOIS: (Drops his bow and yells in French.) Ne touchez pas ma fille!

  STAGE MANAGER: Very well! I won’t touch your daughter—I’ll hook you instead! Get out of my theater. Right . . . now!

  He hooks François around the waist and drags him into the wings. The audience boos and throws coins onto the stage apron. TERESA darts from one side of the stage to the other, scooping up pennies and nickels.

  STAGE MANAGER: (Enters again.) Get this child off the stage!

  ALICE: Teresa, come with Mama now. (Her gypsy shawl comes untied.)

  TERESA: Wait! I want the money.

  STAGE MANAGER: (To Alice.) How dare you perform in your condition!

  FRANÇOIS: (From the wings.) Resa! Viens ici.

  TERESA: Mama! Why can’t we sing?

  MAN IN FRONT ROW: Yes! Let the child sing!

  Shouts from the audience. ALICE grips TERESA’S hand and yanks her offstage.

  MAN IN FRONT ROW: Keep the little girl! Keep the little girl!

  MORE MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE: (Chanting.) Keep the little girl! Keep the little girl!

  TERESA: (From the wings.) Mama! Papa! They want me to sing!

  THE AUDIENCE: (Chants in unison, stomping and clapping.) Keep the little girl! Keep the little girl!

  Fade to black.

  Act One

  A Voice Like a Nightingale

  Brattleboro, Vermont

  May 1913

  1.

  “There’s a song that will linger, forever in our ears . . .” Teresa picked out the tune on the upright piano with her right hand and filled in the chords with her left. “Ouch.” That low E-flat was out of tune. “Tis the song, the sigh of the weary . . .” She sang louder to send the chorus to Nonnie at the end of the hall. Her great-grandmother’s cloudy eyesight kept her in her room, but she loved this song and had taught Teresa the chords.

  “Hard times, hard times, come again no more . . .” Teresa’s left hand fumbled for the chord in the bass. If only she could find the music for this piece.

  “Try a B-flat chord.”

  Teresa spun around on the piano bench. Mama stood in the doorway, her market basket over her arm. She set it on the hall table and came into the music room. “Your voice sounds lovely. That was our song, wasn’t it?”

  “You surprised me.” Teresa pulled her mother onto the bench and played the B-flat chord. Mama hummed as Teresa sang to the end. She hit the final chord with a flourish, and they both laughed.

  “Remember when I performed onstage for the first time?” Teresa asked. “Where were we?”

  “The Silver Circuit. It seems like another lifetime.” Mama combed her fingers through Teresa’s tangled curls. “Your voice was already strong. You were the star of our show for a few nights.”

  “A few nights? I thought I only performed once.”

  Mama shook her head. “Audiences loved you. They shouted for you to come on every day that we performed in that town. The stage manager had to let you sing, until the night we died.”

  “We died?”

  “Our act failed; Papa broke a fiddle string and I tripped and fell. I was too far along with Pascal to keep dancing.”

  “Don’t you miss it?” Teresa asked.

  “Sometimes.” Mama’s brown eyes were dreamy as she gazed out the window. “I miss the feeling of family,” she said. “The way we took care of each other. But I don’t miss the work. Four shows a day in one-night stands. Fleabag hotels, unheated trains, stale sandwiches for supper—it’s no life for children. And we’d never be headliners—”

  “You could have been,” Teresa said. “Besides, you work hard here at the boardinghouse—”

  The front door slammed. “Where are my girls?” Papa’s voice sounded from the hall.

  Teresa glanced at Mama. “I haven’t washed the dishes,” she whispered.

  Mama squeezed her knee. “We’ll do them together.”

  Papa strode into the room and took off his hat. Flecks of sawdust drifted onto the carpet. Teresa cringed, waiting for his scolding, but Papa’s eyes shone like copper pennies and he set his elbows on the back of the piano. “Resa, ma chérie. How would you like to use your musical talents to earn some money?”

  Teresa jumped to her feet. “Are we going back on the road?”

  Papa raised his eyebrows. “Don’t be silly. Vaude is no life for a young girl. Besides, they are strict about child performers now. Those days are behind us.”

  “But Papa—”

  “Don’t start.” Papa cleared his throat and hummed a note. “Qu’est-que c’est?” he asked. “What is this note?”

  “A,” Teresa said.

  “And this?” Papa hummed another note.

  “D-sharp.” Teresa tried to push past him. “I’m too old for that game.”

  “Attends un moment—wait.” Papa set a hand on her shoulder. “You’re lucky you have this talent: perfect pitch. One good thing you inherited from your poor father, the cat scraper. What if you could use this skill to make money—good money?”

  Mama hissed like an angry cat. “François. Don’t you dare . . .”

  The hair prickled on the back of Teresa’s neck. “What are you talking about?”

  Papa rubbed his hands. “When I was installing the stops on a parlor organ, I overheard the manager talking to my boss. He said they might hire someone in the tuning rooms.”

  “I won’t have it.” Mama stood up so fast she knocked the piano bench over. Teresa jumped out of the way and stared at her parents. Had they gone mad?

  “Alice,” Papa said. “Please.” He reached for Mama, but she backed away, as if Papa were an angry dog about to attack. “It’s only a possibility,” Papa said. “You and Resa both complain there is too much work here. We could stop looking for more boarders if she brought in real money. You wouldn’t need to cook, clean, and wash all day.”

  Teresa’s mouth went dry. Did Papa expect her to support them? “I don’t understand. You think I should work at Estey?”

  “If they’d have you. It’s only an idea,” Papa said.

  “A terrible idea.” Mama’s mouth was drawn into a straight line. “You want her to lose her voice, as I did?”

  “Of course not,” Papa
said. “The tuning rooms are the cleanest part of the factory. No sawdust there.”

  Teresa clapped her hands over her ears as if she could already hear the pounding of the giant engine that powered the organ works, the whine of the saws, the clang of hammers in the room where Papa assembled the organs. “I’m still in school.”

  “Not for long,” Papa said. “Summer will be here soon. Besides, you hate school.”

  “I hate YOU!” Teresa ran down the hall and slammed the front door. The rippled glass shivered and cracked, like the fissure that opened in her heart.

  2.

  Teresa stopped at the end of the walk to catch her breath, and squinted. One, two, then three lumpy orbs rose and fell above the bandstand across the street. Was Pascal juggling? She lifted her skirt and hurried over the trolley tracks. Two little boys sat in front of her brother, their eyes big as they watched him juggle fist-sized potatoes. Pascal kept his eyes fixed on the spuds as they spun up and down. He lifted one knee, tossed a small potato under his leg, and caught it on the other side without missing a beat. The boys clapped.

  When Teresa joined in, one of the boys spun around and scowled. “Your sister’s here!” He scrambled to his feet and hurried away. The other boy followed.

  Pascal lost his rhythm. One potato split on the bandstand floor and the others rolled away in the grass. “Look what you made me do.”

  “Sorry.” Teresa helped him clean up. “You’re good. I like that trick where you send it under your leg.”

  “I need real juggling balls.” Pascal stowed the potatoes in his pockets, giving his skinny legs a lumpy look. “I asked Papa, but he said no.”

  “Too expensive?”

  Pascal put his hands on his hips, imitating Papa’s stance. “No child of mine will ever be in a dumb act. I told Papa I’m not dumb, but he laughed at me.” Pascal’s blue eyes filled.

  Teresa ruffled his yellow hair. “A ‘dumb act’ is where the performer doesn’t speak. Acrobats, jugglers, people with animals—those are all dumb acts. They come on first in the lineup.”

  “How do you know so much?” Pascal asked.