“I know what else Mother wouldn’t have approved of,” Norma said, returning to the subject of the audition.
“Mr. Bernstein apologized for the fee,” Fleurette said. Constance couldn’t help but notice that she’d dressed herself up in the most charming manner, and worn a little cameo of the deceased Mrs. Kopp’s that looked endearing on her. “He wishes he didn’t have to charge it at all, only the expenses involved in renting the theater and arranging for the lights and accompanists are just too high. And we must perform in front of a full house in order for him to see how we’ll really do. He was very kind about it, and humble.”
“So he’s a trained actor, too,” Norma put in.
“Helen’s father doesn’t seem to mind,” Fleurette said. She was speaking directly to Constance, knowing her to be the easy mark. She picked up her collection of sheet music and sat nestled alongside Constance, paging through all the songs May Ward had made popular. “My Little Red Carnation” and “The Bird on Nellie’s Hat” were all too well known in the Kopp household, as Fleurette sang them incessantly.
May Ward’s picture adorned the covers. Constance thought that she must have been an English girl, or perhaps Irish. She wore her frizzy, dusty-colored hair down around her shoulders in a style that Constance regarded as unbecoming, but what did she know about the theater, or hairstyles?
There were other pictures of May Ward tacked to the wall of Fleurette’s sewing room, alongside her other idols. This was a woman Fleurette had admired for years. She and her troupe traveled all over the country performing what was referred to as “polite vaudeville,” which was meant to suggest a light comedic performance that any respectable person might attend without fear of embarrassment. What harm, Constance reasoned, could come from letting Fleurette sing a song for her?
At that moment, neither Norma nor Constance felt any alarm over the possibility that Fleurette might actually be chosen to join a vaudeville troupe. The two elder sisters were in perfect, unspoken agreement that the auditions were a sham. The only difference between the two of them was that Norma wanted nothing to do with it and was particularly reluctant to part with the five dollars, whereas Constance didn’t see a reason to deny Fleurette that which she had fixed her heart upon.
“Are you sure Helen’s going?” Constance asked.
Norma tried to kick Constance, but she was just too far away. Instead she said, “I only wish you weren’t quite so predictable.”
“Of course Helen’s auditioning,” Fleurette hastened to answer, “and so are all the other girls in my class.”
There! Constance took that as further evidence that these so-called auditions were harmless. Not a single mother had objected, so why should they?
Fleurette pressed on. “I’m the only one in my class who hasn’t paid the fee.”
“You’re the only one who hasn’t any money,” Norma said.
Fleurette rolled her pretty, pleading eyes over to Constance but didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
6
THAT NIGHT EDNA HEUSTIS found herself under the care of the night guard, who didn’t offer anything in the way of care but did walk past her cell four times before dawn, rattling his keys to announce himself in case any of the female inmates happened to be in a state of immodesty. On his first time through he told her that he’d be by every two hours. Edna took some comfort in that, as it helped to mark the passage of time. She did not sleep, but when he passed she pretended to. He only stopped long enough to make out her shape on the bunk, and then moved on.
The cell in which she found herself was even smaller than her room at Mrs. Turnbull’s, with a concrete floor and white steel bars that looked out onto nothing but the wall opposite. What passed for a bed was merely canvas webbing stretched across a frame, and in the corner sat a toilet, uncovered and lacking any sort of curtain for privacy. Deputy Kopp had lent her a few things from her own cell, which she took to be a privilege not ordinarily accorded to inmates: an old flannel quilt, an embroidered pillow, a magazine, and a comb.
“How can you bear to spend the night here?” Edna had asked, before the deputy left for Pompton Lakes.
“I don’t mind at all.” Constance sounded terribly forthright and self-possessed. “I live in the countryside and it’s too far to go every night. Besides, I want all the inmates to know that I’m just like them, and that they can trust me.”
“But . . . you mustn’t be just like . . . all of them,” Edna said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Aren’t some of them thieves, or murderers?”
Constance smiled at that. “They are. But I try to think about the circumstances that brought them here. One of our inmates put a gun on her husband after he gave her reason to fear for her life. I won’t say that excuses it, but doesn’t it say something that she feels safer in here than back in her own home? She didn’t even try to put up a defense.”
Edna found this line of talk fascinating, as she had never met a murderess, and wondered if she would be allowed to. She tried to think of her night in jail as a sort of social experiment that might prove enriching in some way. But after Deputy Kopp left, she saw no one but the night guard, and had only the noise of the jail for company: unseen voices, coughs, grunts, the clanging of metal bars opening and closing, the sweep of footsteps, and the clattering of steam-pipes.
In the darkness her courage deserted her, and she sank into the very despair that a jail cell is designed to instill in its inhabitant. Her liberty had meant nothing to her until it was taken away. The ability to wander down to the kitchen in the middle of the night, or to open a window, or rummage through a closet for another blanket—these were the smallest of privileges, but to have them taken away was an enormous loss. The confines of her cell pressed in on her and she feared she might choke. She was obliged to sit up and force herself to breathe. At that moment an oddly comforting thought occurred to her: It’s worse at the front.