Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Alice Mae and (late) Wild Bill

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One: I Concentrate on You

  Sophia

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Naomi

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Two: When I Fall in Love

  Sophia

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Naomi

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part Three: Come Rain or Come Shine

  Sophia

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Naomi

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Four: Stormy Weather

  Sophia

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Naomi

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part Five: My Foolish Heart

  Sophia

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Naomi

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Part Six: Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me

  Sophia

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  NAOMI HILL STANDS center stage in a pool of light. Silver sequins teeter on the surface of the pale dress, her white arms rise like ribbons, palms facing the crowd as though to say, I can hold you all, I will. A note comes out of her—fills the room, clean, unwavering, unending—until a little vibrato appears near the end like a shiver, much the way David shivered over her in another life. Tonight is her last show at the Blue Angel and you cannot tell by looking at her just how much has gone wrong. That our life, as it was, is over. Her face says, I know exactly what I am and what I’m good at. It’s this right here, right now. My voice. And your eyes on me. There is nothing else. Not anymore.

  The table lanterns are turned low, all the better to hide the club’s decline—matchbooks shoved under table legs to stop the wobbling, the rotting floorboards, the dripping plumbing. It is a full house tonight. The fullest it’s ever been. Smoke hangs above the crowd like a big, wide ghost. It is a room full of people. It is a room full of ghosts.

  A record-company guy sits in the front. He’s come to watch the redhead he saw on the cover of Look magazine, and as he looks at her, he thinks she’s lovelier in person, and as he listens to her, the black and gray hairs on his arms stand up. His evening had begun so disastrously with a pretty but dim blind date and now, only hours later, his luck has turned. He has found the woman who will put him—put the Canary label altogether—on the map. Of this he is certain. The hairs on his arms are never wrong.

  In a table to the side sits David, who believes he still has a shot, because no matter what happens, he always believes he has a shot. He turns a cuff link, thinks the dress makes her body look like it’s been dipped in diamonds. Laura sits beside him. She is smiling because when she sees Naomi onstage, she can see all the Naomis there ever were.

  The LaFontaines, their friends, and my Elizabeth take up three tables near the stage. They have never been here before, never been allowed in, and they study the old place while the rest of the crowd studies them. Rita and Sister Eye say hello to them before curtain, welcome them like friends, and sit down near the back.

  All of these people are here tonight—the friends, the family, the strangers, the lovers—because of Jim’s pictures. Because just last week, Chicago woke up to find Mother on the cover of Look magazine and the whole city fell in love with her face and her struggle, which Jim has been recording, shot by shot, my whole life.

  And if you look carefully, you can see the top of a girl’s head peeking out from behind a curtain, red curls and a green eye, studying Naomi and studying the crowd.

  That was me. It was the summer of 1965 and this was the night my mother became famous.

  PART ONE

  I Concentrate on You

  Sophia

  CHAPTER 1

  CHICAGO, 1965

  SEVERAL MONTHS PRIOR

  MOTHER IS A singer. I live in her dark margin.

  For the first ten years of my life, I watch her from the wings.

  She just started working here a few months back. A club called the Blue Angel. She says it was a very important joint once upon a time. There she is taking a deep breath, arching her back, wiggling her jaw, shaking out her hands. Steve the stage manager stands at his station in front of the control board and all the backstage eyes are on him. He raises his arm, counts from five to one, and swings the air in front of him like he’s whacking a fly. The guy on the pulley pulls with all his might so the tired old curtains open as smooth and slow as sheets of oil.

  Jim turns the crank on his twin-lens reflex. He gives me the behave look—bushy eyebrows raised—and I’m not even doing anything. Taking pictures is somehow Jim’s job. He photographs two things as far as I can tell: one, buildings that are mostly falling down (he says that soon there won’t be a single beautiful building left). And two, Mother (all he has to say about this is that he can’t help it).

  Mother looks at Bennett, the piano player, who closes his eyes and nods like he’s saying, Okay, you can have the candy. She steps up to the mike. I can see the audience if I lean forward a little, but only a little. Steve made an X out of yellow tape and this is where I sit. If I want to stay here, says Steve, says Jim, says Saul, Stay on your X.

  When she appears onstage all the chatter and glass clanking gives over to applause. A little whistle here and there. I clap, too, because I want her to know I’m her biggest fan. Even though I know her better than anybody else.

  Tonight I clap so hard I think she’ll look over at me and pull me out of the wing into the spotlight and introduce me as her daughter, whom I love more than anything, she’ll say. But she doesn’t.

  The lights get cranked up a little, shine off her white skin and dark red, shiny hair. She glows beneath the spotlight.

  Jim opens the body of his camera and fixes a roll of film to its spool.

  Mother smiles. Hello, she says to the crowd, as if to a neighbor dropped by for coffee. More applause. Some folks saying hello themselves. When she raises her arm, everybody settles down and waits. She breathes in, her belly against the bones of the dress, and lets out a single, clean note that says, Let go. I’ve got you.

  She moves into the first song slowly, like she knows she might be too much for you. She lets you take your time getting used to her—the sounds she ma
kes, the way she moves—and she won’t proceed with all she’s got until she’s sure you can take it.

  I pull my knees up, wrap my plaid uniform skirt around my legs, and set my chin on my knees. You don’t know her, I think. Only I know her.

  Jim takes one shot after another. He smiles while he does it, like they’re talking to each other, like it’s just the two of them. They go way back, he says. But when I ask how they met, he just says, It’s a long story, kid.

  Under her gown, Mother is standing with her legs apart like the sailor boy on the Cracker Jack box. All the dresses she chooses have to allow this position no matter how much Hilda nags. You can wear nice-fitting gown like movie star, Hilda always says. And every time Mother goes, Hmm, we’ll have to think about that, won’t we? But that’s just her pretending to consider something you’ve said. It’s one of her famous tricks.

  She goes on and on, singing us through all our feelings, even old Steve with his headset half on. And though we do this several nights a week, when she rushes off the stage before the encore and waves me over with her Hurry! Hurry! gesture, I feel like I’ve been chosen before everyone else in the club—and maybe in the world. I run to her, hug her, my face pressed into tulle and sequins, steam coming off her like a racehorse, and she says, Homestretch, kitten!

  She waits a second before returning to the stage, holding my hand in the wing, and says, It just doesn’t matter how small a crowd is, so long as they adore you.

  All night I wait for these tiny moments that are just between us.

  She runs back out into the hot lights, revived enough, by me I think, for one last song.

  When it’s all over, Mother takes my hand and we walk to her dressing room. How was I, she says, was I okay?

  It was great.

  Oh, good. Good, kitten.

  But you messed up the verses on “Stairway to Paradise,” I tell her.

  What?

  You flip-flopped the third verse and the second.

  Hunh, says Mother. Think anyone noticed?

  I did. I’m sure Bennett did.

  Think I’ll get fired?

  Probably.

  And then we’ll become hoboes?

  Yes.

  Eat beans out of a can?

  I like canned beans.

  We open the door to her dressing room. Her street clothes are laid out over the chaise.

  When have you had canned beans?

  With Jim, I tell her.

  Help me. She turns her back to me.

  I kneel on a stool, unfasten the hook and eye at the top of the zipper, and then pull the stiff zipper down. Heat escapes. Mother takes a deep breath. The bodice’s boning leaves vertical marks on her skin that angle toward her waist. She steps out of the dress and hands it to me. Then she sits down on the end of the chaise, unhooks her stockings, and rolls them down. Hilda wants her to wear panty hose but Mother says, Stop trying to modernize me.

  I hang up the dress with the others. Up close, you can see how beat-up they are—small rips in the tulle, sequins dangling from loose threads, pale gold half-moons at the armpits. The linings look like flour sacks—rough, stained. I wonder if their job is to protect Mother from the gowns or the gowns from Mother.

  A knock on the door.

  She stands, naked except for her tap pants, rolled-down stockings, and shoes. Yes, she says, lifting her turquoise robe from a hook.

  Miss Hill, I have something for you.

  She throws the robe around her and opens the door. Steve hands her a note. She carries it back to her station, whipping her robe out of the way so she can sit. She opens it and reads. Jesus Christ, she whispers as she leans back against the chair and looks at herself in the mirror, stares like she’s looking for something she lost, then sits up straight. Jesus Christ, she says again, winded.

  Language, I say.

  She leans over her makeup station, scratches something on a piece of paper, and folds it in half. Be right back, she says as she leaves.

  I wait for a second before reading the note left on the counter. Flying through and saw your photo on a window. Imagine my surprise. I was just going to watch you and leave but I would like to see you. I understand if you don’t want to see me. Always, L.

  When Mother comes back she is moving slowly again. She takes off her makeup, pulls the hairpins out of her hair.

  Are you going out tonight? I ask.

  No, kitten. I’m coming home with you, she says this like it’s what she always does.

  What did you write on that piece of paper?

  She rubs Pond’s on her cheeks.

  What’s that, sweetie? Her lips stretch around her teeth.

  The note.

  She yanks a tissue out of its box and wipes her skin until it’s pink and shiny. Then she begins to pull off her eyelashes very slowly. I take my Big Chief writing tablet out of my bag and write: Eyelashes.

  An old friend is coming by this evening. She sticks the eyelashes to their tray and tugs at the leftover strands of glue on her eyelids.

  When I turned ten, Mother stopped lying to me. I’d say that neither of us is used to it yet.

  I tell myself, Do not fall asleep tonight no matter what.

  Jim knocks on the door. Always the same. A little dance-step knock—one, two, one-two-three.

  I’ll meet you two out front, says Mother, so I grab my book bag and leave with Jim.

  We open the door to the sparkling night, the wind boxing a sheet of newspaper all the way up to the sky, the El whining up the block, its girders the black legs of giants. I kick at the base of a light pole.

  Hey, says Jim. What’d that pole ever do to you?

  Jim’s camera hangs from his neck still. He fishes for his pack of cigarettes. His shirt is denim with pearl buttons and a long collar. There’s a rectangular square of wear in the pocket where he keeps his pack. That’s how much he wears this shirt.

  You okay, kid? he asks.

  I don’t answer. He studies me over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. His black hair always looks like he just cut it himself.

  I love you. You know that.

  I know, I say.

  And your ma. I love her, too, he says.

  Doesn’t everybody? I say.

  But one day she’s going to love me back.

  There’s a way adults smile at you when you want something you’re never going to get. That’s how I smile at Jim.

  You can call me if you ever need— he says, but I already know this and I interrupt him.

  I know.

  Okay. He tucks his cigarette between his lips. Gotta be sure.

  I’m trying to count how many seconds the red light is red but Jim keeps interrupting me.

  I’m walking you both home, right? he asks, looking down the alley. Not just you?

  She’s coming, I say. I look up at the lights and the power lines. Up in the air. A couple years ago somebody hung speakers all over the Loop and a man’s voice came out of all the speakers telling us the president had been shot. Jim was walking me home from school and all the people froze in the streets and looked up. Some of them fell on their knees or yelled or leaned on the person next to them. Downtown just stopped, the bad news falling down on all of us from the sky. Now everybody’s driving as fast as they can. In a hurry. All the bad things forgotten. I get out my notebook and write: Lights. Streetlamps. Car lights. Stoplights. All different kinds.

  Mother rushes out of the club like she’s making an entrance onto the street. She’s in her wool trousers, satin blouse, wool fedora, the stole with the fox’s head that I cannot stand to look at.

  What took you so long? says Jim.

  Bennett was giving me some notes, says Mother. He says I’m straining in my midrange, where I should be moving into my head voice. Do you think I’m straining?

  I think you sound great, he says.

  We walk by Paolo’s with the check curtains and Jim stops. What do you say we get a bite?

  Yes, let’s! I say.

  No, dar
ling. We need to get you home and to bed. I’ll fix a little something while I run your bath, okay? she says to me. The rush in her voice. The disguise. And besides, I’m done in. Just done.

  A young couple pops out the front door of Paolo’s with a paper place mat. Mother turns her back to us when they call to her. They ask her to sign it and one of them says, In case you make it big someday.

  Someone’s coming over, I tell Jim while Mother’s back is turned.

  Who?

  I shrug.

  Who told you? he says.

  She did.

  He looks at me and stands up straight. Then he does that thing with his eyeballs where they go up and to the left, like he maybe saw a bat but is afraid to look. He starts walking and I follow. He goes slowly so Mother can catch up when she’s done.

  You don’t have to walk us, I tell him.

  Yes, I do, he says.

  Mother joins us. Sighs. She likes to pretend she’s tired of all the attention.

  Jim jogs ahead and turns around to take a picture of us walking.

  Honestly, darling, why all the photographs? says Mother.

  Well, if you DO make it big someday, I’m gonna be flush.

  You should be off photographing people who can pay you. That would be the wise thing, Jimmy.

  I’m shooting a Bar Mitzvah next week.

  Are they paying you?

  No, I’m doing it for fun.

  She smiles and pushes him. You can see him fill with warmth. It’s all he wants—this smile, this little push. It’s how we’re exactly alike, Jim and me. We love the crumbs we get.

  I take a bath with lots of Mr. Bubbles when we get home. Mother makes me fried eggs and toast and smiles at me across the table with a drink in her hand. I get up before I’m done and run to my room.

  Hey, where you going? she shouts.

  I write Toaster in my tablet and run back to the kitchen to finish my dinner.

  Do you think I keep you up too late?

  I shrug.

  Later than normal? she adds.

  What time are kids supposed to go to bed? I ask, food in my mouth.

  Earlier, I think. She looks at the clock and takes a deep breath.

  How do clocks work?

  Mother looks at the clock again. There’s a little engine in there.

  I pick it up and look at the back. I start to unscrew it.