a song by Stephen Foster called “Beautiful Dreamer.”
Chapter Seventeen
MRS. RAIN
2004
T HE HOUSE WAS DARK and she was supposed to be asleep. But her legs ached. More important, so did her heart. Not the pumping muscle her young doctor was so diligently preserving, but her real heart, that non-organ that was somewhere deep inside. Her heart was where the music had come from, the singing and the laughing, and it was where the memories were kept—memories that were triggered easily because they were so much more real than anything that was going on in her life today. The death of Peggy Garrison had started a flood of them.
Clearly, sleep was out of the question. She got herself out of bed and went into her closet. It was big—in her time she'd slept in rooms that were smaller—and there were two shelves above the clothes racks, far too high up for her to reach. She fought her way through the robes and nightgowns that seemed to make up too much of her wardrobe these days, until she found a stepladder folded up in a corner. She opened it and carefully climbed up—her boy doctor would have a fit—feeling around on the top shelf through a mess of scarves, gloves, sweaters, bits of string, old newspapers, and other debris she refused to let Essie touch until she found a large gray envelope hidden behind some shoe boxes. Clutching her prize, she climbed back down and settled herself in the large wing chair where she sat to watch television. She turned on the lamp, opened the envelope, and pulled out an ancient sepia-toned photograph of a young girl wearing a long old-fashioned dress with roses printed on it and a white pinafore with ruffles, a wide sash, and a big artificial rose. If the picture had been in color, the roses and the sash would have been pink.
She slid the picture back in the envelope and made her way downstairs to the living room where the piano was. She'd never actually learned to play the thing, not more than just fooling around and picking out a melody with one finger, but she'd always liked having it in her house.
She put the envelope in the piano bench, sat down to play, and she caught sight of her hands resting on the keyboard. When you were young you never believed that the day would come when your fingers would be twisted and your pretty voice would become a croak, something you couldn't bear to hear. Still, you had to do the best you could. Slowly she began to tap the notes with one finger while, in a soft voice, she sang the lyrics she knew by heart:
“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.”
Chapter Eighteen
IVA CLAIRE
1927
B EAUTIFUL DREAMER, wake unto me,” Iva Claire sang, as she walked slowly across the stage of the New Court Theater. She sang loudly into the empty house, checking for dead spots, those places onstage that seemed to swallow up the sound of your voice so it never reached the audience. A civilian wouldn't know what to look for, but at twelve Iva Claire was a seasoned professional who could tell when her voice had stopped carrying. Whenever she and Mama played a town for the first time, she always went to the theater before rehearsal to run through their numbers so she could warn Mama about any problems. Mama never thought of things like that.
Iva Claire and her mother were vaudevillians. Their last name was Rain—Mama's full name was Lily Rain—so their act was called Rain and Rain: The Sunshine Sisters. Mama called it their
nom de théâtre
. Being in show business was Mama's dream. Getting out of show business was Iva Claire's dream.
“Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,” Iva Claire sang, as she finished working her way across the stage. There were no dead spots in the New Court; it had been well built seventy years ago. Now it was old and dirty, and it had the peculiar smell Iva Claire had come to associate with the South. She was used to the normal backstage odor of dust and sweat; she'd been breathing that
Chapter Seventeen
MRS. RAIN
2004
T HE HOUSE WAS DARK and she was supposed to be asleep. But her legs ached. More important, so did her heart. Not the pumping muscle her young doctor was so diligently preserving, but her real heart, that non-organ that was somewhere deep inside. Her heart was where the music had come from, the singing and the laughing, and it was where the memories were kept—memories that were triggered easily because they were so much more real than anything that was going on in her life today. The death of Peggy Garrison had started a flood of them.
Clearly, sleep was out of the question. She got herself out of bed and went into her closet. It was big—in her time she'd slept in rooms that were smaller—and there were two shelves above the clothes racks, far too high up for her to reach. She fought her way through the robes and nightgowns that seemed to make up too much of her wardrobe these days, until she found a stepladder folded up in a corner. She opened it and carefully climbed up—her boy doctor would have a fit—feeling around on the top shelf through a mess of scarves, gloves, sweaters, bits of string, old newspapers, and other debris she refused to let Essie touch until she found a large gray envelope hidden behind some shoe boxes. Clutching her prize, she climbed back down and settled herself in the large wing chair where she sat to watch television. She turned on the lamp, opened the envelope, and pulled out an ancient sepia-toned photograph of a young girl wearing a long old-fashioned dress with roses printed on it and a white pinafore with ruffles, a wide sash, and a big artificial rose. If the picture had been in color, the roses and the sash would have been pink.
She slid the picture back in the envelope and made her way downstairs to the living room where the piano was. She'd never actually learned to play the thing, not more than just fooling around and picking out a melody with one finger, but she'd always liked having it in her house.
She put the envelope in the piano bench, sat down to play, and she caught sight of her hands resting on the keyboard. When you were young you never believed that the day would come when your fingers would be twisted and your pretty voice would become a croak, something you couldn't bear to hear. Still, you had to do the best you could. Slowly she began to tap the notes with one finger while, in a soft voice, she sang the lyrics she knew by heart:
“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.”
Chapter Eighteen
IVA CLAIRE
1927
B EAUTIFUL DREAMER, wake unto me,” Iva Claire sang, as she walked slowly across the stage of the New Court Theater. She sang loudly into the empty house, checking for dead spots, those places onstage that seemed to swallow up the sound of your voice so it never reached the audience. A civilian wouldn't know what to look for, but at twelve Iva Claire was a seasoned professional who could tell when her voice had stopped carrying. Whenever she and Mama played a town for the first time, she always went to the theater before rehearsal to run through their numbers so she could warn Mama about any problems. Mama never thought of things like that.
Iva Claire and her mother were vaudevillians. Their last name was Rain—Mama's full name was Lily Rain—so their act was called Rain and Rain: The Sunshine Sisters. Mama called it their
nom de théâtre
. Being in show business was Mama's dream. Getting out of show business was Iva Claire's dream.
“Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,” Iva Claire sang, as she finished working her way across the stage. There were no dead spots in the New Court; it had been well built seventy years ago. Now it was old and dirty, and it had the peculiar smell Iva Claire had come to associate with the South. She was used to the normal backstage odor of dust and sweat; she'd been breathing that
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