Some Sing, Some Cry

  The girls were a bit shaky as they tried to integrate Cinn into their rhythm, but the strength of Cinnamon’s voice and her innate sense of melody carried her through.

  “Aw’right. I think we’re ready,” Memphis said. “Now all we have to do is put on our outfits and we’re cookin’ with gas. C’mon over to our house. We can find somethin’ to wear. Just like sisters, we can switch around.” The girls caught the bus to the Minors’ upper Bronx apartment.

  “As long as you’re home by midnight.”

  “Midnight!” Cinnamon exclaimed. “I’ve gotta be home way before midnight! Mama El,” she beamed, “I have an audition at Juilliard tomorrow for a full scholarship. Two arias and a German lied I’ve got to sing.”

  “Are you serious? Oh, how wonderful for you, Cinnamon!” Elma felt all her dreams come alive again. One of her brood was getting the chance, finally.

  “That puts a whole new light on this, girls. You don’t want to jeopardize Cinnamon’s chance, do you?”

  “Of course not, Mama, but what better practice for a tryout tomorrow than a contest tonight?” Memphis interjected. “And Cinnamon wants her share of the prize money, too. Isn’t that true, Cinnamon?”

  “Well, yes. I did say that, but I didn’t know we’d be out till midnight. I need to know this material by tomorrow.”

  “How could you not know it?” Memphis complained. “You practice every day. Practice tomorrow. Practice on the way down there. You promised!”

  “Okay, you’re right,” Cinn relented, “but we better win.”

  Esther and Memphis jumped with glee all around the parlor. “We’re goin’ to win, we’re number one, we can’t lose with Cinnamon!”

  “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, now. We’ve got to sing as one voice, and you’ve got to carry me through that scat.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll do whatever we have to, but don’t you worry, you’re holdin’ your own. You just can’t hear it yet. But the audience will,” Esther chimed.

  “Let’s go pick out our dresses. Got to look good. Oh, Esther, I’ve got a red dress perfect for you. Cinnamon, you could wear that black crepe. And I’ll wear my yellow silk dress. That way no one will be able to keep their eyes off us. That’s half the battle.”

  The girls rushed to Memphis and Cinnamon’s room, unzipping their everyday dresses to get into their best ones. Then they fiddled with their hair, hot combs and curling irons interfering with Elma’s dinner plans. Finally, all of them had glorious pompadours and shoes that almost matched. The dresses fit. They got so giddy, they were getting late without even realizing it.

  “Don’t you have to get there to sign up before they close the list, girls?”

  “Oh, Mama, you’re right! C’mon, let’s go. We really are late.”

  “Well, you look awfully grown up,” Raymond said. “Maybe we should go with you.”

  At the look of panic on the girls’ faces, Elma slipped her arm around Raymond’s waist. “You know you go with our blessings, girls. Sing your hearts out. I wish we could come, but we’ve got to stay here. Jessie is sposed to call tonight.”

  “I know how much you’re rootin’ for us, Mama,” Memphis said with love.

  “Of course we do, Mama El,” Cinnamon added.

  “Me too, Mrs. Minor. We all appreciate your support. And we’ll be back by one, I mean, midnight.”

  “All right then, get going.” Elma kissed each of the girls. “Wish the girls good luck, Ray.”

  Raymond gruffly kissed Memphis on the cheek and gave Cinn a thumbs-up as the trio departed.

  On their way to the subway the girls practiced Memphis’s song, and in case they were invited, an encore. Their spirits were high. They were certain they would win something. Esther wasn’t sure how she would fit in, but she had always found that the Negro girls at school were friendly. She hoped she would be accepted at the Ebony, that she wouldn’t be a jinx to the Mayfield Sisters, she, a Jew, singing colored music to colored people. Memphis was thinking maybe she should learn to tap dance as well, like her Aunt Lizzie in France. Memphis wanted this night to be the beginning of a whole life of entertaining people, all the people. Then the Depression wouldn’t matter, her father would smile more, her mother wouldn’t be so frustrated, wearing her hair so severely pulled back she looked ten years older than she really was.

  Cinnamon’s thoughts were on the aria from Madame Butterfly, the piece she had chosen to open the next day’s audition, “Ieri sono salita/ tutta sola in secreto alla Missione.” Cinnamon wanted to get to the beautiful, which she didn’t find at all in the music her cousin lived for, swing. Cinnamon’s sense of self was embedded in the tales that her Mama El had told her about the women in her family whose loveliness and guile had made slavery, for them, a time of reflection, passion, and introduction to all things European. Cinnamon’s sense of self came from Elma’s description of Black Patti, Sissieretta, bedecked in lace and pearls, stepping from her private rail car and bringing her bel canto to cotton pickers and cornfields. Culture, uplift! Cinnamon wanted nothing to do with that trashy loud colored improvisation.

  Then it occurred to her that everybody had to defeat the Depression in some way, to make the ugliness of poverty less painful, less hideous, less all encompassing. People had a right to love whatever they wanted. Who was she to tell Esther and Memphis that what they loved was bawdy and noisome? Besides, who was she, a colored girl, to want to sing Puccini?

  As the train crossed the bridge into Manhattan, Cinnamon turned round to Esther and Memphis singing, “Come with me to Harlem . . .” The other girls joined in, and they sang all the way to the Ebony Club. When the train stopped, somebody put a quarter, somebody else a dollar at their feet, as if they were singing for their supper. They laughed and then looked at each other inquisitively.

  “Either they think we look beautiful or they think we look pathetic to be leaving us money for a bit of a song between stops—don’t know what to make of that,” Esther quipped. Cinn stood in place as if mesmerized as the coin spun on the subway floor, glimpses of memory like windows on a passing train . . . “Look Cinn, that’s what I’m missin’—New Yawk!”

  Memphis jumped into the silence. “It’s like in Paris, like we’re street entertainers, that’s all, no shame in that.” Esther and Cinnamon shrugged their shoulders and started up singing again. Memphis threw her arms around them both. “Harlem, here we come! Tonight Harlem, tomorrow the world!” The trio exited the station with smiles on their faces.

  When they reached their destination, Memphis said, “Let me handle all the business, okay?” The other two nodded. Memphis was spunkier and bolder than Esther and Cinn. Already underage. What I got to lose? Memphis moved quickly and disappeared through the backstage door.

  The acrid cigarette smoke curling through the corridor made Cinn’s eyes wince and water. “Whew!” Cinnamon said, “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled so much whiskey in my whole life.”

  “You probably haven’t,” Esther laughed.

  Somehow they made it through the winding halls to find Memphis talking to a pudgy light-skinned Negro man with his hair oiled back.

  “Oh, here’s the rest of the Mayfield Sisters, Mr. Brooks. This is Esther and this is Cinnamon,” Memphis chirped, batting her eyes.

  “Well, if you can sing as pretty as you look, you might win this contest, gals,” Mr. Brooks sighed heavily. He gave Esther and Cinnamon the willies, so they just smiled and left for the dressing room pointed out to them. They didn’t hear him ask Memphis, “Say, how old are y’all?”

  “Why, Mr. Brooks, you flatter me. We’re all in our twenties, rest assured,” Memphis said with all the aplomb her fourteen years of age could manufacture.

  “Okay, but I’ve got to check on these things.”

  Memphis went searching for the rest of what she thought of as “her” group. She opened one door without knocking and ran into a female impersonator who not only gave her the evil eye, but asked, “What can I do for you, lil girl?
” After that she knocked, but there was really no mistaking where they were. She heard Cinnamon’s operatic voice from way down a narrow hall, “Spira sul mare e sulla terra/ un primaveril soffio giocondo.” Memphis burst through the door, “We’re not singin’ Carmen tonight. We’re singin’ ‘Come with Me to Harlem’!”

  Cinnamon grew quiet. Esther said, “Well, I was enjoying it, Memphis.”

  “I have the most important audition of my life tomorrow and I came here to help you. Don’t ask me to give up my dream. I’m not askin’ you to give up yours.” Cinnamon’s frustration could be heard in her voice. “If you weren’t my cousin, I’d walk out of here right now.” She had nothing else to say to Memphis.

  Esther decided the best thing to do was to leave Cinnamon alone. “Come on, Memphis, let’s go see the rest of the contestants. Then, we’ll know what we’re up against.” Without a word, the two girls left. Cinnamon finally was alone with Puccini. “No. È nato quand’ già egli stava/ in quel suo grande paese . . .”

  “Well, that was close. At least she didn’t pull out,” Memphis confided to Esther.

  “Well, you did push it. Let her sing what she wants. She won’t let us down.”

  “I hope not. As soon as she finds out we won’t even be up til e-lev . . . vennn . . .” Memphis couldn’t finish her sentence. She saw a man carrying a trumpet case. His chiseled chocolate face made her forget all about her troubles with Cinnamon.

  “What were you going to say?” Esther asked.

  “Nothing, I’ll be right back.” And Memphis hurried down the hall and bumped into the young man with the captivating face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinkin’.”

  The man picked up on Memphis’s come-on and smiled.

  “You didn’t hurt, little as you are. I’m Baker, Baker Johnson.”

  “Hi, I’m Memphis Minor. I see you play the trumpet. Are you here for the contest?”

  Baker laughed, “Oh, no. I’m with Fletcher.”

  “You mean Fletcher as in Fletcher Henderson?”

  “Yeah, I’m first trumpet.”

  First trumpet? But he’s so young! “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought you were like me. I’m here to sing in the contest with a girl group, the Mayfield Sisters,” she said, trying not to look stupefied.

  “Must say, I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Well, we’re new . . .”

  “Okay then. Good luck to you. I’ll be out there when you come up.”

  “Well, thanks so much. Baker, right? I do hope you like us.” She winked and sashayed away, thinking herself very mature.

  “No doubt.” And Baker Johnson made his way to the music pit where a bunch of his cohorts were sitting in with the house band. They each smiled at Memphis, and Esther too, who’d caught up with her unpredictable friend, flirting from the wings.

  “Who are they?” Esther asked.

  “They play with Fletcher Henderson. You know, the Fletcher Henderson.”

  “Really? Oh, God!” Esther swooned. “They’ve gotta like us.”

  “I just know he better like me or I’ll die. I’m tellin’ you, I’ll die.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Memphis. Let’s go see the show.”

  While Esther and Memphis made their way through the crowd, they missed Baker Johnson returning backstage. Looking for his wallet, he found it by the place where Memphis had bumped into him. “That chicky would make a good pickpocket,” he chuckled, then he stopped in his tracks.

  “Ma voi gli scriverete che l’aspetta/ un figlio senza pari!” A crystalline soprano melody lilted above the backstage din. Baker went looking for this voice singing an aria by Puccini. The closer he got to the sound, the faster he walked. When he reached where he thought the wondrous singing was coming from, he hesitated a moment, just listening. Then he couldn’t help himself and knocked on the door. Cinnamon answered very quickly, abruptly, thinking Memphis had returned. When she saw Baker Johnson she was startled. Neither said a word. Cinnamon stepped back into the dressing room and Baker simply took a chair and sat down to listen. Cinnamon paused, looking into his eyes, and began to sing again, “E mi saprete dir s’ei non s’affretta/ per le terre e pei mari!” She glowed through the entire piece as Butterfly was proclaiming that her true love would come flying back to her as soon as he knew he had a son. She didn’t know that Baker felt he could never stop hearing her sing or leave her side. It was magical!

  Memphis stormed in, breaking the spell. “We’re next, Cinnamon.” She saw Baker and was puzzled. “I didn’t know you knew my cousin.”

  “I don’t yet . . .” Baker said softly, trying to let Cinnamon know he really did want to know her.

  “This is Cinnamon Turner, one third of the Mayfield Sisters.”

  “Very pleased to meet you, Cinnamon Turner.” His smile disarmed her. “I hope my intrusion wasn’t disconcerting.”

  “Oh no, it was nice for someone to listen. But who are you?”

  Memphis jumped in before Baker could open his mouth. “This is Baker Johnson. He plays with Fletch Henderson, only the hottest swing band in the world.”

  “I play the trumpet, by the way, and I prefer to call it jazz.” Baker tried to take the conversation back from Memphis, but to no avail. Memphis spirited Cinnamon away just in time for them to hear, “The Mayfield Sisters!” The girls ran to the stage, so fast that Baker missed the disappointed look in Cinnamon’s eyes when she heard he played in a jazz band.

  “Let’s give the Mayfield Sisters a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Now we’re going to bring all the contestants on the stage to determine the winner of the Ebony Club’s Talent Show,” Mr. Brooks proclaimed.

  Out came the female impersonator with his boa, then the snake dancer, a group of young men who tap-danced, a big woman who sang the blues, and finally Mr. Brooks announced the Mayfield Sisters again. The winner was decided by audience applause. Mr. Brooks held his hand over the heads of all the contestants, and it was clear that only the female impersonator La Belle Harold with his cape of sequins and his fans, came close to the Mayfield Sisters. All the other groups left the stage except Harold and the girls. Mr. Brooks held his hand over their heads again and, sure enough, the Mayfield Sisters with their original tune “Come with Me to Harlem” won. One hundred dollars cash! The girls had never seen so much money. They hugged each other and jumped for joy. When they were leaving the stage the audience was still clapping.

  Baker Johnson and his friends were impressed, too. The trumpet player leaned over. “Hey, man, even that ofay-lookin’ gal can sing, but it’s that soprano got the goods on all of ’em.”

  “I know,” Baker said. “I know. And you keep your doggish self away from her, ya hear me.”

  “Uh-oh, I feel a jones comin’ over Baker here.”

  “Oh, man, leave me alone. I know the girl. Just leave her alone.”

  “Well, what about the other two?”

  “Far as I can tell, they’re game . . .”

  “Hey, fellas, Baker here is givin’ us permission to go after the white girl and that gal who scats like a pro, but hands off the soprano.”

  Memphis was dividing up the prize money as she jabbered on and on about who was in the audience. “There was Sharkey McGee on trombone, Clifton Shaw on clarinet, and Melvin Grover, the drummer. Oh, can you believe it? The crème de la crème of Henderson’s band saw us swing, baby!”

  “It’s past midnight, Memphis. We’re supposed to be home.”

  “Oh, they won’t be mad. We got the money! We’ll share some with ’em.”

  “Are you forgetting, I have an audition tomorrow? I’m leaving.”

  Just then Baker Johnson and his friends appeared. “You can’t go home now. We were goin’ to take you out to celebrate,” he said. “Stop by the Band Box and the Corner, play a little music, eat some barbecue.”

  Cinnamon was really getting annoyed. “That’s very nice of you, but tomorrow is a very big day for me. I’ve got an audition at Juilliard. It’s near one o’clock in t
he morning, and we still gotta catch the subway. The way that bus runs in the Bronx, we won’t be home till two! I’m sorry, but I can’t go.”

  “Well, we want to go,” Memphis said eagerly, nudging Esther, who nodded her head in agreement.

  “Let me put Cinnamon in a taxi and I’ll be ready to go.” With that, Baker whisked Cinnamon out the stage door. On their way out of the alley Baker stopped her. She turned around and looked him dead in the eye. Before they knew what they were doing the two were in the thralls of an embrace and a kiss. Cinnamon wanted to melt into Baker’s arms, but her mind was on her audition.

  “I’d love to go out with you all,” she sighed, pulling away from Baker. “But I do have an audition tomorrow.”

  Baker took her arm. They began walking toward Seventh Avenue.

  “Congratulations, by the way,” Baker smiled.

  “Oh, thanks,” Cinnamon replied, “I did it for my cousin. I don’t usually sing swing.”

  “Fooled me. Couldn’t tell,” Baker reassured as he helped her into a cab. “Can’t let Madame Butterfly take the subway . . . I hope to see you again.” He gave the cabbie money to cover Cinnamon’s fare to the Bronx, then knocked on the window and waved as the taxi took off. I could marry that woman.

  “We’re ready to go now,” Memphis exclaimed when she saw Baker walk back into the Ebony Club. Baker’s enthusiasm had waned, but he felt like playing in a session, free-wheeling and improvised. There were sure to be other cats at the Band Box across the street from Connie’s Inn. The music would get his mind off Cinnamon.

  Memphis took Baker’s arm. “Let’s get on our way, shall we?”

  Baker’s bandmate had moved fast. Esther was now the flower of the trombone player’s eye. “Yeah, man, let’s hit the spots,” he said, feelin’ the mood come on him, “I wanna play. Let’s make some noise.” With that, they were off on the three-block walk to the Band Box.

  Cinnamon was up at five trying to prepare for her audition. She didn’t get much done with Elma pacing and the memory of her recriminations, “You’re the oldest. Why didn’t you make her come home with you?” At seven A.M. Memphis and Esther stumbled through the door. They didn’t get a chance to go on about their magnificent win, the hundred dollars, the guys they’d met or anything, before Elma roughly grabbed Memphis with a yen to slap her.