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“Let’s just keep moving,” Bill said.
They passed through a small town that had a tiny post office. Memphis tucked the new poem inside one of the Crescent Limited envelopes
he’d kept and marked the front: Care of Mr. T. S. Woodhouse, the Daily News. For the return address, he wrote simply, The Voice of Tomorrow, Somewhere in America.
BARNSTORMING
The Harlem Haymakers’ bus kept going past Philadelphia proper and out an unpaved road that led to a muddy parking lot across from an old barn-turned-dance hall. The whole place looked like it might fall down in a stiff wind. The Haymakers peered out through the dirty bus windows.
“This is the Centurion?” Ling asked.
“What on earth? That’s just a shack!” Lupe said.
“I suppose this is why they call it barnstorming,” Alma said. “Come on, ladies. Shake a tail feather. We’ve got paying customers to entertain.”
“Didn’t know we’d be playing real barns,” Babe said with a shake of her head.
“Jericho, let’s start unloading this bus,” Doc called.
The Philadelphia Centurion—which was, as Babe kept pointing out to anyone who’d listen, not really in Philadelphia: “They just flat-out lied!”—hosted a clientele happy on moonshine and illegal whiskey. At the tables, women pulled flasks from secret pockets sewn into their slips; men took them from hat ribbons and hollowed-out books. But the joint was jumping and eager for more. There were several acts on the bill—comics, dancers, singers, and various orchestras. The Harlem Haymakers were listed fifth.
“We probably won’t even get onstage before midnight,” Sally Mae griped as they slipped into their uniforms in a makeshift dressing room made from a curtain clipped to a clothesline. They could hear two comics telling blue jokes to a room that loved every one of them.
“At least we get to play,” Lupe said, rotating her wrists to warm them up.
Ling was still a little rattled from her cryptic dream walk. What had Will meant by “change”? Change what? One thing she wished she could change was Evie’s crazy decision to go to Nebraska. It made her sore that, in typical fashion, Evie had made a choice without considering its effect on anybody else. She was selfish. And yet…
And yet, her rash decision had allowed Ling this time on the road with Alma. In her own selfish way, Ling was greedy for it. And for the hope that she might get Alma to change her mind about the two of them. Ling thought Alma looked so beautiful in her silver sequined dress with the fringed hem, a thick rhinestone headband resting across her forehead just like royalty. She ached to hold her hand, to sit together somewhere, just the two of them. She couldn’t bear the idea that they might never sit side by side like that ever again.
The Harlem Haymakers watched from the wings as the Thompson Brothers finished a jaw-dropping tap-dance number that saw them hopping from table to table, never once losing a single syncopated step. The crowd roared their approval, stomped the floor for more.
“Lord, we have to follow that?” Alma said and bit her lip.
“You’ll be swell,” Ling said.
“You really think so?” Alma asked.
“No. I only said that so you’d be quiet,” Ling teased. Teasing was good. It was something people did to show their affection, she’d heard. But what if Alma didn’t think it was funny?
“That was a joke,” Ling said, cheeks burning.
“I do know a joke when I hear one,” Alma said, and Ling couldn’t tell if she’d liked it or not. “Oh, golly Moses! I completely forgot—I need a name!”
“You have a name—Alma LaVoy,” Ling said.
“A stage name. Something like Queen of the Blues.”
“Mamie Smith is Queen of the Blues,” Babe whispered as she fit a new reed into her saxophone.
“See what I mean? All the good names are taken!”
“You could be the Empress,” Emmaline said.
“You could be Miss High-Hat,” Lupe said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s accurate.”
“I am not going to dignify that with a response, Guadalupe,” Alma sniffed.
Everybody threw out names then, some dirty, most silly, none of them right. After an encore, the Thompson Brothers were taking their last bows. It was almost time.
