was heavily into pop songs, big-band tunes, and show tunes. Besides using Barbra Streisand as my touchstone, I wanted to be on my own like Jewel, Mariah Carey, or Sarah McLachlan, who were popular at the time. I was convinced that was my future.
But I suppose the person who influenced me the most and did the most to encourage me to pursue a singing career was my secondary-school music teacher, Mr. Wollard. He had been teaching for over twenty years and told me that I was the best singer he had ever had during all that time. Unlike most teachers his age, he kept up with what was happening in the current music scene and convinced me I had the voice for it, not that I needed a great deal of convincing.
“You could definitely be the next Streisand,” he said when I told him she was my idol.
From when I was fourteen years old until now, I brought home his compliments gift wrapped in confidence and joy and often revealed them at dinner. Most of the time my father ignored them or muttered something like “The man should be careful blowing up a young girl’s image of herself.” In the early days, never anticipating that I would take the big leap defiantly, my mother would remind him how beautifully I sang and how so many people had complimented them both about it.
“Don’t say you aren’t proud of her, Arthur. I see the joy in your face when you hear the praise.”
He’d grunt reluctant agreement about that but made sure to point out that I didn’t have real competition, thus, deliberately or otherwise, belittling my achievements.
“You can give her a head full of air. It’s not like she’s singing in London on the West End,” he would say, and then turn to me and wave that thick right forefinger. “And one in ten thousand, if that many, makes a living doing it. You mind your grades and think about finding a decent way of earning a living like your sister wants to do.”
Julia had already determined she would be an elementary-school teacher, which our father approved of so enthusiastically in my presence that there could have been bugles and a marching band accompanying him. At dinner he would raise his arms and look toward the ceiling as if the answer to the question he was about to bellow was scrolled across it.
“Why should I have one daughter with her feet solidly on the ground and another who is flighty? It’s beyond me. I didn’t bring one up differently from the other.”
“I’m not flighty, Daddy,” I protested. “I’m very serious about the singing profession.”
“Profession,” he said disdainfully, and shook his head. He looked at me with a softer expression, catching me off guard. “You’re a pretty girl, Emma, and you do well in school. Don’t go chasing pipe dreams. The world is not a friendly place to those who don’t have a solid footing. Remember that. You rarely get a decent second chance in this life.”
I knew he wanted me wrapped like a fish in brown paper, his responsibility as a father done and off his list of worries. If I did anything that particularly annoyed him, he would rant, claiming that sometimes he believed children were rained down upon us “like stinging hail.” However, the more he fought the idea of my pursuing a singing career, the more I clung to it, and not simply out of spite, either. I was that confident in myself.
I never told anyone in my family that Mr. Wollard had a friend in New York, Donald Manning, who managed a restaurant in Manhattan and who had offered to help find me a place to stay and a job at the restaurant so I could support my efforts. I knew if I had mentioned it, my father would have made some formal charge against Mr. Wollard and maybe even have caused him to be sacked.
The day after my eighteenth birthday, I called Donald Manning. I had saved up enough money to get to New York and set myself up for a while. It had always been my intention to do it immediately after secondary school; otherwise, I might lose my nerve. He put me in touch with Mr. Leo Abbot, the landlord of the apartments that were walking distance from the restaurant he managed. After I had spoken to him, I sent him a cashier’s check for the first month’s rent and deposit. All he had available