the opening number — just me on a stage, singing “Get Happy.” Forget your troubles, I had to sing to an audience full of people saying good-bye to sons, brothers, husbands. I was going to chase their blues away.
I was only nine, so I was sure I could do this.
When my feet hit the boards and I began to sing, I realized that I didn’t belong on that mattress in the closet, or at the tiny apartment on Hope and Transit, or in a classroom, or anywhere but where I was. I heard the crack of the applause and it hit me solid in the chest. I knew that everything, everything had changed. This was where I belonged.
Afterward, there was a crush of people in the lobby — teachers, parents, families, some of the fathers and brothers already in uniform. It was a sight we all were getting used to. It was no longer a surprise to see that Mary McGee’s dad was now in the navy, or that Mr. Sankey, the gym teacher, was home on leave after basic training. The senior classes of the high schools had drained of boys in a rush to sign up.
Through the crush of parents and relatives and neighbors backstage, I saw Da. Behind him was Delia in the gray dress she’d worn to work, looking somber in the midst of all the bright summer dresses. Jamie and Muddie lagged behind. Da was, as usual, crying.
He swept me up and hugged me hard. “You were the best up there, and everybody says so!”
“Shhh, Jimmy, have a little grace,” Delia said, looking around. “There’s other parents here with their own kids.”
“Well, they know she was the best, nothing wrong with it.” Da slipped an arm around my shoulders.
“You didn’t stink up the joint,” Jamie told me. He reached into his pocket and took out a ball. Smoothly, Delia took it and put it in her purse.
“I thought for sure you were going to mess up at the end,” Muddie said. “I was holding my breath!”
A plump woman dressed in a purple dress and a hat with a bird on it swooped down on us. “You,” she said. She bent over and looked me in the eye. “You like to dance, don’t you?”
I nodded, trying not to stare at the stuffed bird. “I saw your name in the program. Kathleen Corrigan.” The woman’s eyes were as small and bright brown as the bird on her hat. Her mouth was as tiny as a gumdrop. “A bit too Irish,” she said. “I beg your pardon,” said Delia. “We call her Kitty,” Da said.
“Kit Corrigan,” the woman said. “There you go — that’s your stage name. You’re her parents.”
The woman turned questions into statements.
“I’m her father, and this is her aunt,” Da said.
“Your daughter,” she said, pointing at Da, “has a gift. When she’s onstage with the other dancers, nobody looks at anybody else.”
Da beamed. “That’s just what I was saying. She’s a star.”
“No.” The woman held up a finger. “She could be a dancer. With training. With my training. I’m Florence Foster. I’ve danced with the most prestigious troupes in the United States and Europe. I’ve danced on Broadway.”
“Did you now!” Da said. “Did you hear that, Kitty?”
“We have to be going.” Delia pressed her lips together. I could see how she disapproved of Mrs. Foster’s hat, of her bright red lips, of the fat that strained her buttons. She didn’t look like a dancer.
Then Mrs. Foster angled her body toward Da and waved her hand, and I saw the movement and the gesture as a single, fluid thing, not the aimless wave of a regular person. “I take some promising students, not many, for dance classes,” she continued. “My students go on to ballet troupes in Boston, New York — into show business, if that’s what they want. They become dancers.”
She said the word dancers like it was a title, something special, like Doctor or Judge.
“We really must be going,” Delia said again, and she took my hand.
“We’re going out for ice cream,” Da said joyously. “Why don’t you join us, Mrs. Foster?”
Delia threw him a look that could slice paper into ribbons. “I’m sure Mrs. Foster has her own plans.”
“I usually do,” Florence Foster said with a cool glance at Delia. “Here is my card.”
Da took it, looked at it, and placed it in his pocket. “We’ll be speaking to you, then. Sure you won’t come for a sundae? Ice cream at Wolfe’s?”
This was