Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

room across the hall. The comedian looked out of place against the gold-flecked wallpaper, sitting beneath a crystal chandelier. Asa found a bottle of whiskey with a ribbon around the neck, poured a mug of cold coffee into a trash can, and opened the bottle,hands shaking as he poured. William could see the man’s Adam’s apple rise and fall with each gulp. Then he set the mug down, looked into the mirror, turned and met William’s gaze with sad, bloodshot eyes, and slammed the door.
    William and Charlotte sat in the greenroom—which wasn’t green at all—surrounded by bouquets of flowers, baskets of fruit and hard rolls, and a silver tea service steaming with fresh coffee. They were afraid to touch anything, certain that someone would see them and kick them out at any moment. But when a stagehand popped in with a clipboard and asked who they were with, they held up the tickets Asa had given them. The stagehand’s suspicious eyes softened when he saw Charlotte’s white cane, and he shrugged and walked on. Thank you, Charlotte , William thought. No one doubts the intentions of a blind girl . Charlotte suggested he read something to her, but the only thing he could find was an old newspaper. The headline was about a high school girl named Frances Farmer who won a trip to Russia with an essay entitled “God Dies.” William spared his blind friend the article but nodded in agreement.
    He sat back and watched a small parade of theater workers and performers breeze in and out of the greenroom. Some he recognized from earlier in the day. Others were new, like a ventriloquist with a dummy that played the bagpipes, and an old man who arrived with a chimpanzee in a tuxedo. And each time he heard a commotion in the hallway he expected to see his ah-ma and each time he was disappointed. Eventually he heard the musicians in the concert hall tuning up for their performance and began to worry that Willow might never show up. Then he heard flashbulbs popping and laughing from the alley. He peeked down the hallway, expecting Willow, but instead it was a black man in a finely tailored suit.
    William hesitated. At first he thought the man was an usher. Then William recognized him. “You’re Mr. Fetchit, aren’t you?” William noticed the man had a daily racing form from Longacres tucked beneath his arm, along with a copy of Ulysses .
    “Call me Lincoln.” He shook William’s hand. “Lincoln Perry. You know there’s a place here in town called the Coon Chicken Inn? I thought everyone in the Great Northwest was better than all that.” He turned his head and cursed. “Say, are you an acrobat or something? Man, I hope you’re not performing tonight—kids always steal the show. Bad enough I have to share the stage with that damn monkey …”
    “We’re here for Willow,” Charlotte said, waving her cane.
    William watched as Stepin looked at them quizzically. “That so?” the man said. “Well, she’s here. Though I don’t think she’ll be hanging out in the greenroom. She’s in one of her blue moods. When she’s down like that, we all just leave her be. She’s in her dressing room.” Stepin pointed. “But if I were you, I’d enter at your own risk.”
    “She’s here?” William blurted.
    “She’s been here for thirty minutes—down in the basement. That’s where all the ladies’ dressing rooms are, in case you were wondering.”
    “But Asa told us to wait here …”
    Stepin waved his hand. “That man don’t know his last name half the time. He came home from the war all shell-shocked—went from receiving the Croix de Guerre for heroism in the trenches to years in a funny farm. Now he’s Mr. One-liner and all that. Somehow it makes sense, I guess.”
    Charlotte interrupted. “Go, William. Just go.”
    William thanked the man and promised Charlotte that he’d be right back. He thought about what he could possibly say as he ran downstairs, going against the flow of glittering dancers and corseted