“Arlan, that was incredible!” Toni cried. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sure.” He finished pounding the stave into the earth, tossed the hammer aside—and Toni could now see his abraded, bleeding hands.
“My God, you need an ambulance!”
“Aw no, just some little cuts,” Arlan said with a shrug.
“You saved us!” Toni hugged him as they were surrounded by a growing crowd of onlookers and show folk, including Cliff’s assistant, Phil.
“You save yourself,” Arlan said. “Nice dive.”
Toni turned to Cliff. “How the hell did this happen?”
“I—I don’t know,” he said.
“I told you the barometric pressure was too high,” Phil blurted.
Cliff snapped, “Shut up!”
“What do you mean, barometric pressure?” Toni asked.
“There’s a high-pressure system over the plains today,” Phil explained, uncowed by Cliff, “pushing down, creating air resistance. I told him.”
“You’re fired!” Cliff yelled at his assistant. Then, to Toni: “I thought it was safe! I’d done it before, under similar pressure.”
“You knew about this?” Toni said, stunned. “And you didn’t even tell me?”
“Toni, you saw the crowd, it was huge,” he said. “How could we turn them away? It’s what we both needed! And I really thought I’d clear the tower by at least five feet. Hell, most of me did clear it!”
He grinned at that, but he was the only one smiling, especially after Scobey Moser ran up and boomed, “Are you two all right? And what in fucking hell went wrong?”
Cliff’s ex-assistant was happy to tell him.
Toni’s eyes filled with tears as she faced Cliff. “You son of a bitch,” she said softly.
“Toni, I love you—I swear, I’d never intentionally put you in any danger—”
“What the hell do you call this?” she shouted.
“You wanted this too!”
“Yeah, but I want to stay alive more!”
She had trusted him with her life, all because she thought she loved him. What kind of reckless fool had she been?
“Get that goddamn cannon away from my tower,” she snapped. “Arlan, c’mon, I’ll drive you to the nearest hospital.”
“I’ll go that one better,” Moser said. He told Cliff, “Get that goddamn cannon off my lot. Your contract’s been terminated.”
Cliff’s eyes pleaded with her. “Toni, honey,” he said desperately, “tell him, tell him how careful I was—don’t go, please—”
But Toni just kept on walking. “You sure of this, missy?” Arlan asked.
“Damn sure,” she told him.
But there were tears streaming down her face as she said it.
* * *
Scobey canceled that evening’s dive so Toni had time to pull herself together, but after she had rented another motel room she came back to the lot and to her tank and tower, encircled by darkness amid the flash and neon of the midway—the red spinning lights of the Chair-o-Plane as it tipped and whirled, the blazing gold spokes of the Ferris wheel turning like a wheel of chance. That was what she’d done today: she’d spun the wheel, desperate for a jackpot, and only by chance had it not cost her her life.
There were no floodlights on the tower, but there was enough light spill from the rest of the carnival for Toni to see the rungs of the ladder as she slowly climbed up to the top. Moser had had roustabouts working all afternoon on securing the axle staves that anchored the guy wires, and when Toni stepped onto the platform she felt a comforting and familiar solidity.
She looked down at the darkened tank, a few wriggling neon reflections rippling across the water’s surface. She thought about something Peejay Ringens once told her at Palisades, about how he overcame his fear of doing the bicycle jump by standing each day on his tower and “taking an imaginary ride down” until he had conquered his fear and did it for real.
Toni looked down, imagined herself springing off the platform, tucking her body and somersaulting—but instead of coming out of the tuck, she pictured herself doing another revolution, just as calmly as she had the first one—no disorientation or panic—and after the second spin she straightened her imaginary legs and plunged safely into the water.
She took the same imaginary dive another ten times before climbing down and returning to her motel. She may have done a few in her sleep.
Unlike Peejay she didn’t have a month to spare for her imaginary dives, but the next morning she climbed the tower again and—much to Arlan’s puzzlement—stood up there for the better part of an hour, making dozens of double somersaults in her mind before she felt confident enough.
She launched herself off the platform and, at her pinnacle, went into her tuck-and-roll as she had hundreds of times before. As she came to the end of the somersault, she didn’t let go of her knees, remembering the calm, easy way she had done this in her mind, and that was exactly how it played out: she spun a second time, no big deal, then came out of it with legs straight, plunging into the tank in quiet triumph.
She enjoyed the serenity of the water and thought she could hear Bee Kyle applauding. But when she surfaced she saw it wasn’t Bee, but Arlan.
“Good dive,” he said, grinning. “Very good dive.”
She thanked him, toweled off and got into dry clothes, then went over to the thirty-foot trailer that served as Scobey Moser’s office and knocked.
“How you feeling, honey?” he asked as she entered.
“I feel great. I’ve got a new evening show—a double somersault—and, I think, a snappy new name. An adult name.”
He looked impressed and said, “So what do you want to call yourself?”
“The Amazing Antoinette,” she said, and Moser’s smile told her it was the right choice.
* * *
Lehua was both a fine ukulele player and a talented singer whose melodic voice added immeasurably to the atmosphere of Eddie’s Polynesia. Whenever she sang, diners stopped talking, silverware stopped clattering, and Eddie paused in whatever he was doing to listen to her, to allow her voice to truly transport him to Hawai‘i. She sang in Hawaiian and English, hapa-haole songs like “Sweet Leilani” as well as traditional standards like—a frequent request—“Aloha ‘Oe.” She told the crowd:
“This song has special meaning to me, since the first verse speaks of how the wind seeks out the lehua blossom—the flower I’m named after.”
Aloha ‘oe, farewell to you,
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo.
One fond embrace, a ho‘i a‘e au,
Until we meet again …
Eddie found tears welling in his eyes, quickly blinking them away as he returned to mixing a Fog Cutter for table five.
Later, at closing time, Lehua came up to him and noted, “You always cry during ‘Aloha ‘Oe,’ don’t you?”
He flushed with embarrassment. “Do I?”
“It’s not really a song about farewells or funerals, you know,” she explained. “The falling rain is supposed to be the seed of Wakea, the sky father, conjoining with Papa, the mother of all the Hawaiian people. It’s actually a very romantic, passionate song.”
“I never knew that.”
“You miss the islands, don’t you?”
“I’ve got to admit … I wasn’t thinking about the islands,” he said. “My son is in Korea.”
“Oh, Lord. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Those damn peace talks broke down last week, and … he sent me this letter the other day.”
“What did he say? Is he all right?”
“Yeah, for the moment.” Eddie reached under the bar, took out Jack’s latest letter. “He’s got a way with words. He said, ‘The first time my unit took a hill I heard this sound above me as I scrambled up—snap snap snap, like someone snapping their fingers. My buddy Dominguez said it sounded more like castanets to him. That’s what the bullets sound like, and that’s when you realize, ‘Holy crap, there are pe
ople out there trying to kill me.’”
Eddie put the letter down and said, “Nobody took a single shot at me in World War Two, and it kills me that my son is going through this every day.”
Lehua put a hand on his. “If he is anything like his father,” she said with a smile, “I’m sure he’s very resourceful.”
God, Eddie thought, she has a beautiful smile.
“Mahalo,” he said. “That’s right, isn’t it? Thank you?”
Reluctantly he pulled back his hand.
“Very good,” she said. “You’re becoming quite the kama‘āina, ’ey?”
Eddie laughed. “I’m not even sure what that means.”
“There are those of us who are Hawaiian by birth,” she said, picking up her purse, “and there are those who are Hawaiian at heart.” She smiled as she headed for the door. “See you tomorrow, boss.”
He called after, “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
He smiled. Seeing her was one of the few things that could keep him from worrying about Jack.
* * *
Some months later, on a Thursday morning in October, Eddie was driving up Route 5 to Palisade Avenue when he saw a fleet of police cars parked across the street from Palisades Amusement Park. As he paused at the light Eddie could see a phalanx of policemen, including Chief Borrell, gathered outside Joe’s Elbow Room. Once, Eddie might have stopped, gone up to Frank, and asked him what was going on. But he hadn’t spoken to the Chief in years, and when the light changed he turned right on Palisade.
It wasn’t long, though, before radio reports satisfied Eddie’s curiosity: apparently the gangster Willie Moretti had been shot dead inside Joe’s, an obvious gangland hit. Willie always had been too chatty for his own good.
Eddie didn’t think much more about it until the following Saturday, when Bunty Hill stopped by Eddie’s Polynesia, bellied up to the bar for an ale and asked Eddie, “You hear about Stengel?”
“Who?”
“Fred Stengel. The Fort Lee police chief.”
“Oh, yeah,” Eddie said, “I saw in yesterday’s paper. He was indicted for corruption? Turning a blind eye to Joe Adonis’s gambling network?”
“Old news,” Bunty said grimly. “He committed suicide this morning.”
Eddie was stunned … and a little saddened. “Aw, jeez, no.”
“I ain’t shedding any tears over a corrupt cop,” Bunty said, “much less one who beat the crap out of a bunch of kids protesting for civil rights.”
“Yeah,” Eddie admitted, “that’s all true. But…”
“But what?”
“He was also the guy who stopped Arthur Holden from jumping off the George Washington Bridge,” Eddie said quietly. “He wasn’t all bad.”
“Maybe not all, but it was still more than he could live with. That’s the line these guys walk. And now the birds are coming home to roost.”
* * *
It was early November and the Central States Show was playing just outside Miami, Florida. The Amazing Antoinette had just performed her backward double somersault to a crowd of about a hundred, taken her bows, and was on her way to her truck when she heard a familiar voice:
“Toni!”
She turned to find a smiling leprechaun of a man and a tall, willowy blonde, weighted down with gold charm bracelets and carrying a tiny Chihuahua, walking toward her.
An instant later she recognized them as Irving Rosenthal and his wife, the composer Gladys Shelley.
“Mr. Rosenthal?” she said, stunned to see him here.
“Sweet act you’ve got there, Toni,” he said, extending a hand. “Congratulations.”
Politely, she took his hand. “Well, thank you.”
“You remember my wife, Gladys? And our little one, Debussy?”
The dog barked at its name.
“Yes, of course,” Toni said. “What—what are you doing in Miami?”
“We’ve been wintering down here the past several years,” Rosenthal said. “I saw one of your show posters around town and thought, this has to be Eddie Stopka’s daughter. How could I not come and see you?”
“You were amazing, hon,” Gladys said warmly. “And beautiful.”
Rosenthal nodded. “I believe Arthur Holden is resting well, knowing the torch has been passed to another Palisadian.” The veteran diver had died three years before, at the age of seventy-one. “I think it would be only fitting if his successor played Palisades Park next season. What do you say?”
Toni was shocked and, despite herself, flattered, but … “I—don’t know if I can do that, Mr. Rosenthal…”
“I don’t blame you for being angry at how the whole picketing business was handled, but it’s all been resolved. The pool is open to anyone who buys a ticket. Ask your friends at CORE if you don’t believe me.”
He handed her his business card. “What do you say to a month’s engagement next summer? Two dives a day at the free-act stage at four hundred a week. Interested?”
Toni’s jaw dropped. “I guess I might be,” she said, “assuming the pool situation has been resolved.”
“Good. We’ll talk when you get back to New Jersey.” He shook her hand again. “Your father must be very proud. I’ll tell him I saw you.”
My father has never even seen me perform, Toni thought as the Rosenthals walked away. But who knew? That might change soon.
Excitedly she ran for her truck to find Melba Valle’s phone number.
21
Palisades, New Jersey, 1952
TONI STOOD AT THE GATE to the Palisades pool, taking in the briny air that smelled like home in a way nothing else did, and marveled at what she saw. The vast majority of pool patrons were still Caucasian, but today the onetime sea of white was peppered with two or three black faces and considerably more brown ones, mostly Puerto Ricans. They swam in the same waters as white swimmers; they lay atop blankets on the gray boards of the sundeck alongside white people paradoxically trying to darken their skin. They were relatively few in number—Melba had said that CORE distributed thousands of leaflets in Harlem announcing that Palisades was no longer segregated, urging Negroes to patronize the pool, though most were still hesitant to believe it—but according to CORE, Palisades was living up to its agreement and admitting all those who sought entry.
“I was a fool not to change the pool’s policy years ago,” Irving Rosenthal, standing beside Toni, admitted freely. “I was absolutely convinced that whites would never share a pool or a bathhouse with Negroes. I was hardly the only businessman who believed that, but I’m pleased to say that I was wrong—and you were right.”
“Is that why you invited me to appear here?” Toni asked.
Rosenthal laughed. “If all I wanted to do was apologize for being wrong, I’d have sent you a telegram. I wouldn’t pay my own mother four hundred a week unless I thought she was going to draw a tip.”
Toni smiled. “I’ll do my best. And thank you. For doing this.”
“I wouldn’t have if not for your friends at CORE, making my life miserable summer after summer. But it turned out to be a good business decision that happened to be the right thing to do.” He started off, then turned back: “Oh, by the way—the DuMont Network is broadcasting three TV shows from the park this summer. A talent show called The Strawhatters is going to shoot here at the pool, using aquatic acts—would you be willing to do a few fancy dives off the boards, for publicity?”
“On television?” Toni said excitedly. “You bet I would.”
“Excellent. I’ll talk to you about the schedule later.”
He moved off just as another familiar face came up to Toni.
“Hey,” Bunty said, grinning, “don’t let your head get so big you fall off the ladder going up.”
She gave him a big hug. “That won’t be hard. This all still feels like a dream, being back here as a headliner.”
“Irving ask you to do some dives for the TV show? For ‘publicity’?”
“Yeah, isn’t it great?”
“You do know you just agreed to do it for free?”
Toni went over in her head what Rosenthal had said, then laughed. “Good old Uncle Irving. He’s still that little kid selling pails and shovels, isn’t he?”
“Yep. And you just bought one. So did I.” He patted her on the back. “Break a leg today, kiddo.”
Toni’s afternoon performance was at one o’clock and it was only eleven thirty. She and Arlan had already checked the rigging, so she had time to wander the park, greet old friends, and take in the changes since she had last been here—my God, she thought, had it really been five years?
So much seemed new, but perhaps this was just window dressing: Anna Halpin had finally talked her uncles into adopting an all-pastel color scheme, the kind coming into vogue these days in fashion and interior decoration. There were new rides like the topically named Flying Saucer and Jet Bomb, as well as the park’s biggest hit, the Tunnel of Love—really just a new version of the Old Mill playing up the romance angle, but once Palisades had opened theirs to great success, Tunnels of Love suddenly bloomed like passionflowers at amusement parks across the country.
There was also a new Kiddieland with pony carts, airplane swings, a miniature train, and smaller versions of the Cyclone and Carousel. Kiddieland was itself the province of someone just out of childhood: John Rinaldi, the bright, capable eighteen-year-old son of Joe Rinaldi, who had begun working at Palisades three years earlier as a consultant, planning and overseeing programs for teenagers.
Many of the old concessionaires remained—Sadie Harris still had a teddy bear stand and a few palmistry booths, Jackie Bloom still lorded over the cat game as Curly Clifford did his canaries—but some franchises had been passed on to a new generation. Helen Cuny retired and sold her stands to her daughter and son-in-law, Norma and Peter Santanello. And Minette Dobson was managing two cigarette wheels now, plus the old “mouse game” once owned by the late Adolph Schwartz. Toni stopped by and asked her out to lunch; Minette told a handsome young man who worked for her that she’d be back in an hour.
Toni discovered that the old Grandview Restaurant overlooking the Hudson was now the red-and-white-striped Circus Restaurant. They took a seat in view of Toni’s tank and tower on the adjacent free-act stage.