Love on Stage (3 page)

He had grown up spending his summers at Starlit Lake, in a rambling three-story house at the water’s edge that was jointly owned by his grandmother and her two sisters. Someone’s mother was always cooking something in the old-fashioned kitchen, and there were cousins ready to swim, sail, or water-ski on the lake.

A wide porch stretched along the lakefront, and evenings, the family would gather out there, the old folks on the porch, Gavin’s parents’ generation sitting at the picnic table sipping cocktails, and the kids romping on the broad green lawn, jumping on the trampoline or tossing a football around.

It was the Fourth of July and the fireworks spectacle across the lake was about to start. Gavin was enjoying sitting with his grandmother when, behind him, he first heard his Uncle Jim run his fingers over his banjo and then the familiar chords of “Apple Cider Time,” a song his grandmother and her two sisters had made famous back in the 1950s, when they were a harmonizing trio called the Sweetheart Sisters.

His grandmother had long since quit the music business, but she still loved to sing. She was still pretty too, with a slim figure like Gavin’s and thick, glossy blonde hair that had shaded to white.

“
When you take my hand and walk me beside the apple trees
,” Grandma Frances began, her voice still lovely to listen to.

Across from her, Gavin’s great-aunt Myrtle chimed in. “
Then I know what they mean by the birds and the bees
.” Myrtle was the middle sister, and her face was unlined, her hair blonde, though Gavin thought the color was enhanced. She had the deepest voice of the three sisters.

His other great-aunt, Ida, joined them, walking up to the porch. She was the soprano, with the highest voice. She was also the tallest and bustiest. The three of them harmonized through the first verse, and to Gavin’s ears, they sounded almost as good as they had on the old thirty-three-and-a-third records from his parents’ basement.

After they finished the first verse, Grandma Frances motioned to Gavin and his cousins Archie and Erica. “You children join in too. You know the words.”

Gavin, Archie, and Erica, all three of them second cousins, were the only kids who’d inherited their grandmothers’ voice talent; the rest of the family couldn’t sing, though many, like Gavin’s Uncle Jim, played instruments.

They fell into harmony easily. Grandma Frances’s voice quavered a bit, and Myrtle and Ida didn’t have the volume they used to, but Gavin found it was a lot of fun to sing together. If only he’d been born earlier, he might have been one of the Sweethearts himself. Of course, that would have to be in some kind of alternate universe, when he’d somehow be the same age as his grandmother and her sisters.

As little girls in the 1940s, Frances, Ida, and Myrtle had begun to sing at beer festivals and talent competitions in Milwaukee. They’d blossomed into slim, beautiful blondes, and following the lead of groups like the Andrews Sisters and the Lennon Sisters, they’d exploited their looks, their sweet voices, and their three-part harmony to build a following.

Years of singing together as children had helped them blend their tones, but Frances was always the star because her voice was stronger and could do more.

They’d sung at Funtown Amusement Park at Capitol Court in Milwaukee, recorded a jingle for a local dairy, and performed at a benefit at the rectory of Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church. A talent agent who’d spotted them on
Dance Party with Johnny Anthony
had gotten them an audition for
Texaco Star Theatre
, and for a few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the trio had made occasional appearances with hosts Gordon MacRae and Milton Berle. Gavin had grown up watching reruns on public television, amused by the ads for old-time products and the happy gas station workers who sang the show’s theme.

After the fireworks were over, the younger cousins went inside to watch TV or play video games. The grandparents went to bed, and the parents sat on the porch drinking beer and cocktails. Gavin walked down to the lakefront with Archie and Erica. The night seemed much quieter after all the noisy display.

When they got to the water’s edge, Erica pulled a joint out of her pocket. “You guys want to smoke?” she asked.

“Put that away!” Archie said. He had red hair and freckles and had always been teased about his resemblance to the cartoon character. Gavin thought that was what had made him so serious.

“Don’t be such a stick, Arch,” Gavin said. “Sure, Erica. Light it up.”

She pulled out a cigarette lighter and ignited the joint, then inhaled deeply. She passed the joint to Gavin, who did the same.

He was about to give it back to her when Archie elbowed him. “Don’t hog it.”

The light breeze was blowing from the land out over the lake, so the smoke floated away on the water. Erica’s hair was as dark as a blackbird’s wing and just as shiny. She’d been a Goth as a teenager, and she still favored dark clothes, though her taste had shifted to a more forties-inspired style. That evening she was wearing a sleeveless black dress in a sleek fabric, with her hair twirled up in a french braid.

“You seeing anybody back in Miami?” Erica asked Gavin.

“Nothing serious. Just playing the field.”

“Pretty broad field down there,” Archie said. He was resolutely straight.

“Broader than in Chippewa Falls, that’s for sure,” Gavin said. “Guys and girls both.”

Archie snorted with laughter. “You mean guys looking like girls?”

“No, douchebag,” Gavin said, but he couldn’t help snickering too, and soon Erica was laughing with them as the marijuana floated through their brains. “You ought to come down sometime. I can hook you up with some of the female models.”

“Archie and a model?” Erica said, her laughter deepening.

“I could date a model,” Archie said. Gavin thought it was probably true, if his cousin ever got out of Wisconsin. He was studly in a Midwest farm-boy way, and Gavin knew that some chicks—and guys, too—really dug the whole redhead thing. “But Mary Anne is woman enough for me.”

Gavin had met Mary Anne once, the last time he was in Wisconsin. She was very pretty, in a petite, blonde cheerleader kind of way, but she was a quiet girl, at least among Gavin’s family of performers.

Erica laughed. She was a stone fox herself, curves in all the right places, though not skinny enough to be a model. Gavin liked the way the three of them looked together.

“How about you, Erica?” Gavin asked. “You seeing anyone?”

She shook her head. “I’m getting ready to move to Madison in August and start graduate school. I can’t see getting involved with someone just before I leave.”

They spent an hour or so lazily out by the lakefront; then the dope made them all sleepy, and they walked up to the house. Gavin sat up in his third-floor bedroom, under the eaves. He opened his laptop and found some old clips of the Singing Sweethearts, lyrics to some of their hit songs, and a lot of publicity stills. The most interesting link, though, wasn’t about them at all.

It led him to a website for a concert called Yesterday’s Music, Today’s Sound, in the Wisconsin Dells on Labor Day. It was billed as “a return to old-fashioned choral singing, in the style of the Andrews Sisters, the Lennon Sisters, and the Singing Sweethearts.”

None of those groups were performing, though. Instead they were younger, newer groups, many of them from the college a cappella world.

Why couldn’t the Sweethearts perform again? Gavin wondered. Wouldn’t that be cool? He found a contact link for the concert organizers and wrote a quick e-mail, introducing himself as a member of the new generation of the Sweetheart family, asking if there would be any interest in having the Sweethearts themselves perform. He could be the emcee, he thought. It would be a chance for him to get on stage, see if that kind of role fit.

He sent the e-mail and then went to bed. The next morning, he woke just at six, as if he had to get ready for a shift at Java Joe’s, but he turned over and went back to sleep until noon. By the time he descended the stairs to forage in the kitchen, most of the family had left the house to do whatever, but his grandmother was at the table playing solitaire.

“What can I make you to eat, baby boy?” she asked.

“Are there any eggs?”

She stood up. “How about a cheese omelet? And there are some fried potatoes left over from breakfast I can reheat for you.”

“Thanks, Grandma. That would be great.” As she began to cook, he asked, “Why did you all stop singing professionally?”

“Oh, it was time,” she said. “I met your grandfather, and I wanted to settle down. My sisters weren’t happy, you know. Ida got married soon enough, but Myrtle tried to make her own career. Didn’t work out, though.”

“Would you ever sing again, if you could?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Who wants to listen to the three of us anymore? All the music nowadays is that hip-hop and rap.”

That reminded him of the Dells concert. “I’ll be right back, Grandma,” he said, and he sprinted up the stairs to retrieve his laptop. By the time he got back down to the kitchen, his breakfast was ready, and he dug in. His grandmother watched approvingly, and he remembered the times when he and his older sister had come out to Starlit Lake as kids during the summer with their mother, while their father stayed in Eau Claire running the family car dealership.

His grandmother often made breakfast then for him and his cousins, and they’d all sit around the big table clamoring for attention. Sometimes Grandma Frances would sing for them as she cooked, and the grandkids would sing along. Those had been good times.

He did the dishes while his grandmother sat at the table playing solitaire. When everything was finished, he opened the laptop and checked his e-mail, where he found a quick response from the concert promoter. He would be delighted to feature the Sweethearts, he wrote, provided that Gavin could prove that they could still sing.

“You want to play cards?” his grandmother asked as he looked up at her.

“Sure, Grandma.” He and Grandma Frances had been playing gin rummy since he was old enough to graduate from Old Maid.

As she dealt the cards, he asked, “Have you heard about this concert at the Dells over Labor Day weekend?”

“What concert is that, dear?” she asked, picking up her cards.

Over the next couple of rounds, he explained the concert to her, showing her the website and the response from the promoter. “Wouldn’t it be fun for you guys to sing again?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You don’t realize what hard work it is, baby boy. And none of us have the voices we used to.”

“I thought you sounded great last night.” He laid down three queens on the table.

“You heard what you wanted to hear,” she said. “Erica was singing the high notes that Ida can’t reach anymore. And Myrtle doesn’t have the breath control. Archie had to pick up her line.” She laid down the fourth queen to Gavin’s three and then the rest of her cards in a run of hearts. “And I know my voice isn’t strong enough to carry the tune. You were the one who did that.”

“Then we could all sing together,” Gavin said. “Come on, Grandma. Wouldn’t you like to perform once more on a big stage, like you used to?”

She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I do miss it sometimes. Especially since your Grandpa Al passed away.”

“Do you think Aunt Ida and Aunt Myrtle would want to?”

She laughed. “They’ve never stopped wanting to perform.”

Gavin jumped up from the table. “Where are they? Can we ask them?”

Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Ida were out on the front porch in rocking chairs, facing the water. “Gavin has an idea,” Grandma Frances said, taking the third chair.

He showed them the concert website and a couple of videos.

“Gavin thinks we could all sing again, if he and Archie and Erica joined us,” Grandma Frances said after he was done. “What do you all think?”

“Could we?” Aunt Ida asked.

“Absolutely,” Gavin said. “This promoter says he’d love to have you, as long as we could send him a video that proves you can all still sing.”

“Wally has a video camera,” Aunt Myrtle said. Her oldest son, Archie’s father, was a computer nut and always had the latest equipment. “He could make the movie for us.”

“And Jim could play the guitar,” Aunt Ida asked. Her younger son usually accompanied the family when they sang.

Grandma Frances looked at Myrtle and Ida. “It’s not that easy,” she said. “We’d have to rehearse. Archie has his job, and Erica’s getting ready for graduate school in the fall.”

“We could make it work,” Gavin said. “At least can we make the video? Please?”

“We’ll take a family vote this evening,” Grandma Frances said. “If everyone agrees, we go forward.”

“This is going to be so great!” Gavin said. He kissed his grandmother’s cheek and then those of her sisters. “I’m going to go find Archie and Erica.”

Convincing

Gavin found Erica curled up on a window seat in the living room, facing out at the lake, with earbuds in. When she pulled them out, he heard a few bars of what sounded like opera. She turned sideways so that Gavin could sit cross-legged beside her on the window seat. “What’s up?”

“I was talking to my grandma,” he said.

He explained the opportunity, but she shook her head. “I don’t think so, Gav. It’s way different from the kind of singing I do, and I need to be careful not to strain my voice before I start school.”

“But it won’t work without you. Your grandma can’t hit those high notes anymore, not the way you can. And it’s just one performance. How could it hurt?”

“Just the one?”

He nodded. “Probably just a single song too. We already know ‘Apple Cider Time,’ so we wouldn’t even have to rehearse.”

“You always have to rehearse, Gavin. And singing on the porch here is way different from singing in front of an audience.”

“But it would be good for you, wouldn’t it? Singing in front of a big crowd? I mean, you get crowds for opera, don’t you?”

“Of course we do.” She wrapped the white earbud cord around her index finger. “It would be kind of fun. And like you say, it would just be one performance. Not a major commitment.”