The Impersonator (2 page)

It was a small table set for two. I waited for the maître d’ to realize the obvious, but he maintained his expectant face as he held a chair for me. One look to my right and I caught on. The waiter was seating Angie and Sylvia at another table some feet away. The girls, as frozen with uncertainty as I, looked inquiringly in my direction. My call.

Seeing my mouth open to protest, my host said, “Surely you can have no objection to this arrangement. Your friends are nearby”—he smiled at them and waved his fingers—“and the waiter has been instructed to bring them whatever they desire. Our business is best discussed privately.”

Neat. Very neat. And plotted well in advance, which meant he anticipated having to include my friends. I could pitch a fit, demand a larger table, and draw the attention of the entire dining room. Or I could shut up and sit down. I’d come this far. The girls were right there. It was a public restaurant. What was I afraid of? I closed my mouth and sat. Angie and Sylvia followed my lead.

Round one to Uncle Oliver. But I’d be damned if I’d help him out with charming conversation. He could jolly well talk to himself as far as I was concerned. Silently vowing to order the most expensive dish on the menu, I buried my nose in the hand-lettered menu and promptly forgot my resolution.

“Gracious! Lobster? Here? How do they manage that? And pheasant under glass! I always supposed that was made up.” My stomach rumbled its appreciation. No wonder Uncle Oliver was fat.

“Would you like a cocktail? Or wine with dinner? Or perhaps both?”

Right out in the open? That was pretty bold of the Blackstone. “My word. Have they bought off the police, then?”

“No doubt. But they also take care to serve liquor in teacups so no one can tell what anyone is drinking. Should an emergency arise, one merely finishes one’s tea. Quickly.”

I was all admiration. “Could I have champagne?”

“You may have whatever you like, my dear.” And he proceeded to place his order with a handsome young waiter for a martini for himself and French champagne for me. When it came in a porcelain teacup accompanied by a plate of pretty hors d’oeuvres, I couldn’t help but giggle.

He was, I guessed, in his fifties, but his efforts to appear younger only made him seem older. A dapper gentleman of the Edwardian style, complete with malacca walking stick, mother-of-pearl cuff links, and white spats, he would have been attractive in the days before gluttony fattened his figure and age thinned his hair. To afford the dinner we ordered, he must be rich indeed. I decided that when the proposition was made, I would turn him down gently.

The courses came one after the other with baffling complexity as our conversation wandered from Omaha to Europe, where I had never been but longed to go. He had an urbane and natural wit and a boundless curiosity about my life, no doubt prompted by his need to douse that last flicker of uncertainty about my identity. I found myself talking more freely than I had intended.

“No, honestly, Darling is their real name,” I said. “Jock and Francine. And Lizzie is their real daughter, and the boys, Darcy and Danny, are theirs too. I’ve been with them for several years and they’re like family. Francine’s the boss. And bossy. But we all get along.”

“And now the act is seven children, like the Seven Little Foys.”

“That was the idea. Anyway, the Foys broke up a year ago and we’re still going strong.”

“How long have you been on stage?”

“Twenty-five years, if you count the roles my mother played while she carried me.”

His eyebrows shot up and he studied my face closely, looking for wrinkles, I guess. “Is your mother still living?”

I shook my head. “She died after a long illness when I was twelve. She was a talented singer—a headliner. I have her old playbills to prove it.”

Talking about my mother brought back the hollow pain I always felt whenever I thought of her death. I was glad when he changed the subject. “What about your father?”

“He left before I was born.” I thought he might ask if I was a bastard, which I most definitely am and would have said so to his face, but he did not. I guess it was self-evident. Everyone knew vaudeville people were immoral.

“So you literally grew up on the stage.”

“My first role was Moses in the Bulrushes, and I’m told I made a good Baby Jesus later that year. By the time I was three I could memorize lines, so I began acting in scenes for kiddie versions of
Romeo and Juliet, Oliver Twist, Peter Pan,
and other vaudeville staples.”

“I expect you have a good memory.”

“A necessity in my business.” I glanced over to Angie and Sylvia who were diving into a plate of prawns. Angie caught my eye and sent me a questioning look. I nodded back and smiled that all was well.

“Moving around like that, you could not have attended school. Did you have a governess?”

A governess! What fairy tale did this man live in? I thought of Marie Antoinette, who wondered why the breadless Parisians did not simply eat cake, and stifled a laugh. “Vaudeville kids don’t have a schoolroom education but that doesn’t mean they are uneducated. I learned to read from my mother, and I still read every book I can get my hands on.”

“If Darling isn’t your real name, what is?”

“My name’s whatever role I’m playing. These days I’m billed as Carrie Darling, the second Little Darling. Angie over there is two inches taller so she’s the eldest kid. Height trumps age in this business.”

“But the name your mother gave you?”

“Leah. Why, I’ll never know—she never used it. Usually she called me Baby.”

“And your last name?”

“That depends. Mother’s real last name was Pearson, but she dropped it when she left Ohio. Her family never spoke to her again after she went on the stage. She changed her name to Chloë Randall and stuck with that most of the time. But I seldom used Randall, or Leah, for that matter. During my Shakespeare period I was called Juliet, then Becky Jordan when I was one of the Jordan Sisters. During my Kid Kabaret years, I was billed as Sallie Angel—I
hated
that one!—and for a season I was Jo Baker with my twin brother Joey, and then Sophie Dale with the Dancing Dollies. I’ve done a little of everything, a bit of acrobatics, a dog act—I was even a magician’s assistant for a while. The original jack-of-all-trades. Speaking of names, remind me of yours?”

He looked surprised. “I haven’t properly introduced myself, have I? The name’s Oliver Beckett, at your service.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Beckett.” I slurped another oyster.

“What happened after your mother died?”

The pain that is wrapped around that question cannot be conveyed to a person who has not lost his only parent at a young age. I continued eating, as if the response didn’t claw out my gut. “I didn’t feel abandoned,” I said with practiced bravado. “You have to understand, vaudeville is like one big family. In fact, there are a lot of families that tour together, like the Darlings. Mother fixed me up with a good kiddie act before she passed away. When that one crashed, I got other roles. I didn’t grow much after twelve, so it was no trick to keep braiding my hair, accent the freckles, and avoid getting fat.” Whoops. Too much champagne.

He ignored the gaffe. “You’re vaudeville’s version of Mary Pickford. She’s well into her thirties and still playing adolescents in her films.”

I nodded. Mary Pickford was my idol. She was playing eleven-year-old girls in
A Poor Little Rich Girl
and
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
when she was my age, and she was nearly thirty when she played a young boy in
Little Lord Fauntleroy.
I’d sit through several showings of her films at one go, crouching under the seats each time the theater emptied so I didn’t have to pay again, just to learn the tricks she used to help herself look childlike. What I learned from Mary Pickford about makeup, clothing, and youthful gestures I put to good use.

He asked more questions, and I made vaudeville sound like a pretty nice life. In many ways, it was. I was too proud to tell this rich man about the hungry times, the weeks of no work, the days I hung around the theater after the last show hoping someone would take me with them to get something to eat, the men who wanted a return on the money they’d spent, and the times I’d come out of the grocer’s with more in my pockets than I’d paid for. I hadn’t always played Big Time two-a-days. We were barely there now. Most of my life had been Small Time hardship, four or five shows a day, tawdry boardinghouses, promised salaries unpaid, and nights spent on a cold train to save the dollar the hotel room would have cost.

“If I may be so crass as to mention financial matters … what sort of money do you earn?”

“Enough to get by. The Darlings get $250 a week. They pay hotels and food, and give me $20. The younger kids, Angie and the two boys, get $10 each.” Here it comes, I thought.

“And how long is your contract?”

“A typical thirty-week run. Ends in May. It’ll be renewed, though.” We hoped.

“I have an unusual role I’d like you to consider.” I braced myself and looked him straight in the eye. “I’d like you to play the role of Jessie Carr for a few years. For the rest of your life, if you like the part.”

That was certainly not what I expected, but I was too well schooled to let my features betray surprise. At that moment, the young Adonis materialized at my shoulder to ask if I’d care for more tea. Dumbly, I nodded, and he left with my cup and saucer. I detected a flash of raw hunger in Oliver’s eyes as they followed the waiter until he disappeared around the bar, and all at once I understood I had never been in any danger of an indecent proposition. Oliver turned back to the matter at hand as if there had been no interruption. “Before you say anything, let me tell you the whole story.” Sure of his audience, he settled back in his chair and milked the pause before he began.

“Like you, my niece Jessie was orphaned as a child. Both her parents drowned in a sailing accident when she was eleven. She was sent to live in Oregon with her aunt and uncle and their four children. Have you ever heard the name Carr?”

Not in the way he meant it.

“Jessie’s father, Lawrence Carr, was a very wealthy man. He inherited a family business that centered on logging and mining operations in a dozen states, and while he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least he didn’t run the business into the ground before he died. Jessie was his only child and sole heir. The business has been managed by a trust ever since—managed a good deal better than foolish Lawrence Carr would have done—and the fortune has grown considerably. I know little of the details but it seems to be worth somewhere in the range of ten million dollars. Jessie inherits everything the day she turns twenty-one. That day is September 30, 1924.”

Six months from now.

It occurred to me that Uncle Oliver was not a nice man.

“Look, Oliver,” I cut in. “If you think someone who looks vaguely like Jessie is going to convince her hotshot lawyers and all her relatives that she’s the real McCoy, you’re screwy.”

“Jessie has no family left who knew her before she was orphaned. The lawyers and trustees met her once, when she was eleven and they were settling the estate after her parents were killed. Her aunt and uncle’s family knew her only for the three years she lived with them. Jessie disappeared seven years ago. Memories dim with time.”

“You really think someone like me, with no fancy manners, could fool rich people that I was one of them? Maybe for ten minutes!”

“Having just observed you eating your salad with the fish fork, I am well aware that certain training would be required in the realm of proper etiquette.”

“And when the real Jessie Carr shows up on her birthday?”

“Jessie’s dead.”

He said it with such finality, I blinked with confusion. “I thought you said—”

“Oh, I don’t know it for a fact—probably no one does. But it’s been seven years this August. If she was kidnapped—something we all considered likely at the time—the kidnappers never asked for ransom. Or perhaps they killed her accidentally and had nothing with which to bargain.”

“But you said she ran away.”

“Sheer speculation. It’s possible. If she ran away, she caught the Spanish flu and was buried in some potter’s field. If she joined the circus, an elephant stepped on her. If she was playing a cruel trick on her aunt—something she was quite capable of doing, that child was bereft of decent feelings—she missed the pleasure of shocking her aunt into a heart attack with an unexpected return.” He turned up his hands in the universal gesture of helplessness. “How do I know what happened to her? Except for the few hours I thought you were Jessie, I’ve been convinced for years that she was dead.”

He glared at his water goblet while I swallowed my disgust. His blunt words and cold manner made it clear that he had no genuine affection for his poor niece. No, the girl had inconvenienced him by going missing, and he resented the disruption. I could hardly hide my contempt.

He reached into his breast pocket and took out a wallet. “Here,” he said, handing me a small photograph. “Judge for yourself.”

A familiar face stared back at me with an intensely serious expression, and I felt a queer jolt of electricity tingling through my limbs. I guessed she had been about twelve when it was taken. She had my hair and my features, and I had to admit, the resemblance was striking—but it was the resemblance of sisters, not of twins. Something about her touched me deeply though, something beyond superficial appearances … perhaps it was the connection of having been orphaned at almost the same age.

“I see now why you mistook me for her,” I said, returning the photograph.

“As will others. Now”—Oliver preened, unconscious of his own outrageous conceit—“the key to the success of this plan is myself. No one else could carry it off, even with an impersonator as perfect as you. You see, I spent a good deal of time during those three years with my niece’s family. I visited their remote house in Oregon quite often. My point is, I know the house, I know the family, I know the servants, the pets, and all the little details of everyday life that will convince everyone you are Jessie. I know what Jessie knows and I know what she doesn’t know. I can teach you. It is simply another role for you to play.”