The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (20 page)

Chapter Forty-two

I
VA CLAIRE DIDN'T LIKE
her mother's doctor. He was old, with a voice that sounded like two pieces of something very dry being rubbed together. Without her wanting to, her mimic's brain recorded the sound and stored it away.

“There is no way to predict when or if another heart attack will come,” Dr. Wilbur croaked. “I've given her some medicine to decrease the fluid around the heart, but above all we must keep her calm.”

Mama's never calm.

“Rest, both physical and mental, is the most important element of treatment. These early days are critical. A sudden heart failure like the one she just suffered is often followed by other attacks. We do see the rare patient who recovers and is able to go back to a normal life, but I must stress that that is not the rule.”

Mama will be one of them. She'll be fine
.
Once I get her back to New York
.

She and Tassie wanted to stay with Mama, but Dr. Wilbur said her mother needed to sleep. Iva Claire let herself be led out of the hospital. She had to get back to the hotel so she could write her father.

There had been a time, after her disastrous visit with him, when she hated the sight of the envelopes he sent. When the act was making money, she wished she could tear up the checks and send them back to him in little pieces. But the extra money meant better hotels and sleeper cars on trains when they had long jumps—little treats that Mama loved—so the checks were always cashed. To hell with dignity.

Now she didn't try to be dignified. She told her father the facts and asked him to send the money quickly because Mama was sick and she shouldn't be under a strain and they needed to get her home. She printed the address of the Normandy Hotel very clearly for him. She sent the letter. And she began to wait.

When Mama was released from the hospital they brought her back to the Normandy. The doctor told Iva Claire to watch for signs of another attack. If Mama had trouble breathing or felt chest pain, there were some pills she had to take immediately. But Mama brushed it off. “I'm fine, Claire de Lune. I've had trouble catching my breath all my life.”

Dr. Wilbur told Iva Claire, “Keep exertion to a minimum. This hotel doesn't have an elevator and you're living on the fourth floor. Perhaps you should try to move to the first.”

But until they had enough money to settle the tab they'd already run up, they couldn't afford to move.

“Limit her salt intake. She needs light, nutritious foods,” said the doctor.

But light, nutritious food cost money.

“Above all, don't let your mother get overexcited,” said Dr. Wilbur.

But Mama was already overexcited, or, to be more accurate, she was terrified. There was only one thing that would make her feel safe. “When can we get out of this godforsaken town and go home?” she wept, the way Iva Claire had known she would.

“I would have preferred to wait before she undertook the trip back to New York,” said Dr. Wilbur, “but she is so unhappy that I think it is better to risk it. Her heart cannot stand the strain of all this emotion.”

But the check hadn't come.

The bills were piling up. There were medicines to be paid for, the hospital had cost ten dollars a day, and even though Dr. Wilbur hadn't charged them yet, he wasn't coming to the hotel every afternoon for free. Iva Claire raced down to the lobby every three or four hours to ask the clerk if any mail had come for her. The answer was always the same—there was nothing.

Tassie was spending time in the lobby too, but with much better results. She was flirting with the desk clerk, who expressed his appreciation by “forgetting” to send up their weekly account. But that couldn't go on forever.

“I got a job,” Tassie announced one day, when things were looking so bleak Iva Claire hadn't even ventured out of their room. With the help of the smitten desk clerk, Tassie had landed a gig for three nights singing in a roadhouse on the outskirts of town.

“The crowd can get kind of rowdy, but I'll make sure no one gives her any trouble,” said the desk clerk. But they couldn't live very long on Tassie's tiny paycheck.

Iva Claire wrote to her father again, pleading this time.

Mama has to go home. Staying here is making her upset and her heart is too weak to take it. The doctor says it's a matter of life and death. . . .

“There must be something wrong,” said a voice behind her.

Iva Claire jerked around in her chair to see her mother. She covered the letter quickly with her hands. “Mama!”

“He wouldn't cut me off unless something was wrong.”

“He hasn't cut us off, Mama.”

“You've already written him once, haven't you?”

“Yes.”

“And he didn't answer.”

“Not yet.”

Mama sat down on the bed. She looked off into space. “He was so handsome when he was young,” she said. “I think if I had really cared about him, I probably could have had him, even though he was married. Not that that matters now.”

“Mama, he'll send the money.”

“There's something wrong, Claire de Lune.”

She couldn't say she was thinking the same thing, because Mama had to stay calm. “Maybe the letter got lost, or he was away from home. So many things could have happened,” she said brightly. But her mother shook her head. She looked tired—and old. When did Mama get old? “I don't want you to worry—” she started to say, but her mother cut in wearily.

“Finish your letter,” she said. “We need the money.”

They waited three more weeks, but there was nothing. No check, no answering letter.

“He did it,” Mama said softly. “He finally cut us off.”

Mama went to bed early that night and got up the next morning before either of the girls were awake. By the time Iva Claire went into her room to see how she was, she was gone. She hadn't left a note, and her best dress and hat weren't in the closet. Fighting panic, Iva Claire woke Tassie, who yanked on some clothes and raced downstairs with her. The barber who ran the shave parlor in the hotel lobby said he'd seen Mama walk out about an hour earlier.

“We all heard how sick she was, so I was glad to see she was better,” the barber said. “Ain't it a miracle what doctors can do these days?”

But no one in the lobby, or the newsstand, or the hotel restaurant had seen which way Mama was going.

I should have slept in her room last night
, Iva Claire thought wildly.
I knew she was upset. I shouldn't have left her alone.

“It'll be better if we split up and look for her,” Tassie said.

They went in opposite directions, Tassie headed for the railroad on the edge of Washtabula. Iva Claire raced to the center of town and the Egyptian Theater.

Mama wasn't at the theater, but the boy behind the soda fountain at the pharmacy had served a small woman wearing a hat with a big pink rose on it. She'd bought a newspaper and taken an order of ham and eggs with her in a paper bag. But she'd left awhile ago.

Iva Claire ran back to the hotel. The lobby was empty now. The barber who had been so helpful hadn't seen Mama come back in, but then he'd been busy with customers. The desk clerk hadn't seen her either, but he took one look at Iva Claire's face and went into the restaurant to get one of the waitresses.

“Millie, keep an eye on my desk, will you?” he asked. He locked up the cash register and turned to Iva Claire. “I'll go up to your room with you,” he said. They climbed the stairs together.

Please let her be in the room,
Iva Claire prayed.
Please let her be mad at me for making such a fuss.
But she knew better.

Mama had made it up all four flights and into the hallway before she collapsed. Her face was white and twisted with pain; her breath was coming hard. She was holding her purse against her chest. Next to her on the stairs were a newspaper and the ham and eggs that had spilled out of the bag when she fell. Iva Claire grabbed the purse and began searching through it.

“Forgot my medicine,” Mama rasped. “Sorry, Claire de Lune. . . .

Iva Claire found her mother's room key and threw it to the clerk. “Her pills are on the table next to her bed,” she said, in a voice she didn't recognize. She was aware of the man rushing to the apartment door, opening it, and going inside. It seemed to take hours.

“Wanted to . . . have . . . something that tasted good,” Mama said. “You give me slop. . . .”

“Mama, don't talk.”

“Read in the newspaper . . . Bob Hope has a new show. . . .” The pain had to be bad, but Mama was trying to smile. Her eyes were big with fear. Where the hell was the desk clerk?

“Mama, if I help you, can you walk to your bed? It's only a few feet.”

“I have the pills.” The clerk was back and shoving the bottle into her hand.

The pills worked their magic. Some of the color came back into Mama's face, and the grimace of pain relaxed.

Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you.

Between them, Iva Claire and the clerk half carried Mama into the room. While he went to get the doctor, Iva Claire settled Mama into her bed.

“Lie back, Mama.”

But Mama wanted to talk. “Bob Hope has a new show . . . on Broadway. A vaudevillian on Broadway. He went legit.”

“Please lie back, Mama.”

“We worked with him. Remember?”

They'd played the same theater in Cincinnati, but he'd been there the week before them.

“Yes, Mama, I remember.”

Her mother lay back in her bed and closed her eyes. Iva Claire took her mother's hand and kissed it. “I love you, Mama,” she said. “I don't know what I'd do without you.”

Mama didn't open her eyes, and for a moment Iva Claire thought she'd fallen asleep. But then she murmured, “Bob Hope and the Sunshine Sisters. We're good . . . aren't we, Claire de Lune?”

“Yes, Mama. We're the best.” She held her mother's hand hard. Mama was breathing easily now, more lightly than she had since Iva Claire found her.

I'll have to go clean up that mess in the hall
, Iva Claire thought. Then the little hand in hers went limp. In the tiniest fraction of a second, the breathing stopped. And the whole world froze.

Chapter Forty-three

S
HE WANTED TO PUT
an in-memoriam ad in
Variety
for Mama, but they couldn't afford it. She wanted to take Mama home to New York so she could be buried in the place she loved, but they couldn't afford that either. There was no money for pink roses for Mama's funeral, no friends to sing “Beautiful Dreamer” for her.

I could have done it right if he'd sent the check. Damn him!

The town of Washtabula was generous to strangers, particularly to two young girls who were all alone. The funeral home buried Mama for free, but her grave was in the pauper's field. Iva Claire knew she would never go back there.

After the brief service, Dr. Wilbur handed Iva Claire two train tickets to New York.

“I'm on the township board and we authorized this last night,” he said.

She wanted to say they didn't need charity; she wanted with all her heart to give the tickets back.

“Don't be an idiot,” Dr. Wilbur said softly. “Keep them.”

“Thank you,” she managed to say, through the pain and humiliation. She thought of her father.
Damn him
.

Tassie and Iva Claire didn't own much in the way of personal belongings, and now they wouldn't be needing the Sunshine Sisters' music, costumes, and publicity stills; everything they had left fit into two suitcases. They finished packing for themselves, then they turned to Mama's room. Iva Claire went in first, and collected all of Mama's street clothes out of the closet. She would have liked to have given them away to someone whose face she could see, like one of the hotel maids, but Tassie had found a junk dealer who bought secondhand clothing and they needed the money. Iva Claire piled the garments on top of the theatrical trunk, which was going to be sold too. They'd already emptied it, and sheet music, costumes, and pictures were heaped on the bed. Tassie pulled out a picture of herself and laid it aside. Iva Claire picked up the first page of the sheet music for “Beautiful Dreamer” and did the same. Then they threw out the rest of the pictures and music, and Tassie added the costumes to the pile for the junk dealer. At the last second, Iva Claire grabbed her costume and crammed it with the sheet music into her suitcase with the swirling
B
monogram on the side.

Mama's room was empty now.

“Don't look,” Tassie said. “Just keep going.”

Iva Claire nodded, and they each picked up a bundle of clothes. When they were coming back from the junk dealer, the desk clerk called out, “Miss Rain, this came for you.” He was holding an oversized envelope with the familiar return address on it. Tassie was the one who finally reached out to take it. Iva Claire didn't touch it until they were upstairs in their rooms. She sat on Mama's bed to read it.

Her father had received both of her letters. He had opened them, read them, and torn them up, and sent back the scraps so she would know. There was no check. And he hadn't written one word to say why he'd done it.

“I'm going to see him,” Iva Claire said.

“Honey, let it go,” Tassie said.

“I'm going to find him.”

“Why?”

She didn't know. “I'm going to his house, in the town where he lives. The son of a bitch wouldn't let me go there the last time, but he can't stop me now.”

“It won't do any good, Iva Claire. It's too late,” Tassie pleaded. “We have other things to think about.”

“It won't take me long. You can go back to New York, and—”

“I'm going with you,” Tassie cut in.

It took Iva Claire a moment. “No, Tassie.”

“If you're serious about this, I'm not letting you go alone.”

“You can't.”

“You and Lily gave me my chance to be in the business. You took care of me, even when we weren't making a dime. You're my family. If you want to do this, I'm going with you.”

They cashed in their tickets for New York. Instead of going home, Iva Claire and Tassie boarded a train and headed for Beneville, Georgia.