• 33 •

OVER THE NEXT few days, Fleurette stayed busy with her rehearsals, but Beulah begged off.

“Why don’t you want to come out at night?” Fleurette asked, pleading her case. “It’s so dull here otherwise.”

“I’m enjoying staying in for once,” Beulah said, and added, with a bit of her society girl weariness, “There is such a thing as too many gay affairs.”

Fleurette raised her eyebrows to indicate that she hadn’t yet had her fill of gay affairs, but said nothing.

Beulah thought it best to keep her distance from the rehearsals. Tizzy had come too close to guessing the truth. Memories were like ashes in a coal stove: sometimes they flickered back to life, just when they seemed to have gone cold. Seeing Beulah in that bonnet might’ve been just the spark Tizzy’s memory required.

But it hadn’t been enough to summon the name Beulah Binford to mind, had it? Wasn’t that all that mattered? She kept reminding herself that six years had passed since her picture appeared in the papers. Tizzy, like so many of the other girls at camp, had been only fourteen or fifteen during the murder trial. How many other faces, reproduced in black-and-white at two inches tall, had flown past her gaze since then?

In fact, Beulah couldn’t be entirely sure, looking back on it, that Tizzy had even looked at her so pointedly, or meant anything at all by her remark about the bonnet. For too many years she’d lived with the feeling that every eye cast upon her was suspicious. She couldn’t bear anyone’s gaze. She took any remark, however innocent, the wrong way. Everywhere she went, with everyone she met, the same two words haunted her: They know.

Now, at camp, They Know might as well be written across the sky. She cringed when her Virginian accent slipped through. Even worse were those moments when the girls from New York noticed that she couldn’t possibly have come from the same world they inhabited: she didn’t know any of the dressmakers and florists they did, or the restaurants and theaters, or even the songs and dances.

If they didn’t know, they suspected. How could they not? Her saving grace was that no one, not even Tizzy, seemed sufficiently interested in her to probe further. Best to keep it that way by staying away from the rehearsals and avoiding gatherings of any kind outside of the classes she was required to attend. The less anyone noticed her, the better. She was determined to be the dullest girl at camp.

Constance kept a close eye on her, and there was no avoiding her gaze. A distraction was required. Beulah found that if she made a great show of studying in the evenings, Constance would merely nod her approval and leave her alone. She practiced her stitchery until she reached a middling level of competence. She studied the Red Cross diagrams until she could fold bandages according to the instructions. She pored over the wireless and telegraphy manual and found that she could read most of it, if she pointed at the words and sounded them out. It began as a charade, but she found that as she persisted, she made some progress. Perhaps she’d learn something of use after all, and in that way prove herself worthy of passage to France.

She was, in measured steps, trying to pull herself together. She might even manage to put the past back to bed, where it belonged. Meemaw, Claudia, her long-vanished mother, Henry Clay, and the little baby she had lost — all of them were like children who could be tucked under the covers, and the lights turned out. If she could keep very quiet, they would not awaken and demand her attention. She’d allowed them to sleep for years back in New York, and she could do it again.

They could sleep forever, as far as she was concerned — even the ones she’d loved.

Come to think of it, she’d once loved all of them.

CLASSES ENDED EARLY on the afternoon of May Ward’s concert because so many girls were either performing in the chorus, helping to decorate the stage, or setting up the mess hall for theater-style seating. May Ward herself was to arrive at four o’clock for a short rehearsal, but her train was delayed and it was nearly six before she turned up.

Fleurette had been pressing Beulah to drop by the rehearsal and meet Mrs. Ward before the audience was seated. It was obvious that Fleurette wanted Beulah to see how friendly she was with the vaudeville star. Beulah was touched by the idea that it mattered to Fleurette at all what she thought of her, or that any sort of proximity to a stage actress would raise Beulah’s esteem for her.

Beulah was ready and waiting at the appointed hour, but when it became clear that there had been some sort of delay, she went back to her tent. “I’ll hear the commotion when she arrives,” she assured Fleurette, “and I’ll be right over.”

But Beulah did not hear the commotion, because by the time Mrs. Ward turned up, the campers were in the middle of collecting their cold suppers on trays, which they were to eat in their tents while the mess hall was converted to a theater. Beulah wasn’t much interested in the supper: it was nothing but sliced ham and rolls left over from lunch, cold potatoes that had probably been boiled the night before, and a mealy apple. She was picking at the roll when Constance stopped in and told her that Fleurette was looking for her.

“There’s a little changing-room tent behind the mess hall,” Constance said, “and Mrs. Ward is waiting there with Fleurette. She’s asking if you’ll come and say hello.”

Beulah tucked the last corner of a roll in her mouth. “The great May Ward. If only I’d brought my autograph book.”

“Fleurette adores her,” Constance said, as they walked together to the tent. “She used to buy all of May Ward’s sheet music, and insisted that we go to see her perform whenever she came through Paterson.”

“Did you and Norma bring Fleurette up by yourselves?” Beulah asked. She’d nearly given up on asking the Kopp sisters about their lives back home, because they were so rarely forthcoming. It was also true that she’d stopped asking anyone about their past, for fear that they might reciprocate.

“Our mother died a few years ago,” Constance said. “Fleurette was sixteen at the time. She was mostly grown.”

“She still is,” Beulah said.

Constance smiled at that. “Mostly grown? She wouldn’t like that. She’s nearly twenty.”

It was April by then, and light later in the evening, so that the camp had more of the air of a summer retreat about it, with games of lawn croquet set up between the tents, and canvas chairs propped up outside like rocking chairs on a porch.

The campers were starting to emerge from their tents, still in their uniforms, but just a little more dolled up for the evening. Gauzy scarves appeared around collars, hairstyles were more elaborate, and there was the pleasing fragrance of smuggled perfume and face powder in the air. Constance didn’t seem to notice: Beulah had the impression that she’d decided to relax the rules for the occasion.

They arrived at the mess hall just as the doors were opening. It had been transformed with some success into a theater, with Fleurette’s posters wheat-pasted to the wooden posts on either side of the door, and a row of lanterns illuminating the entrance. Through the doorway Beulah saw Clarence at his piano, playing a few warm-up pieces, but the music was nearly drowned out by the audience’s light, bubbly laughter.

“She’s just around here,” Constance called, above the noise. Beulah found herself unaccountably happy to follow along, and to be admitted backstage as if she were a visitor of importance.

The dressing-room tent sat just behind the mess hall. It was the same size as the ones they all slept in: large enough for five campers, or one vaudeville actress. Constance pulled the flap aside and Beulah stepped in.

It was as elegantly furnished as Fleurette could manage. Lanterns glowed from every corner, bright bits of fabric hung from the ceiling, chairs and cots were scattered about like settees in a salon, and a table and mirror had been placed in the center. May Ward was seated in front of the mirror, with Fleurette behind her arranging her hair.

The actress was chatting gaily with Fleurette as Beulah walked in. “Everyone’s trying to get into films,” she was saying, “but I missed the stage. There’s nothing like a full house. Give me an audience over a camera any day. And now, with the war coming, we want to be of service to the men going off to fight, don’t we, dear?”

“Mrs. Ward,” Constance said, “pardon the interruption, but I’d like to present Miss Roxanna Collins.”

Fleurette patted Mrs. Ward’s hair into place and stood back. “This is the girl I told you about! Roxie claims she can’t sing a note, or she’d be on stage tonight with us.”

May Ward turned around, not so much to greet Beulah as to accept her compliments. She was older than Beulah had expected, and wore an overly bright expression of false merriment. She’d once been a freckle-faced young woman, but she’d faded somewhat, and her fine, thin features now only looked pinched. The vivid stage paint on her lips and cheeks didn’t help: she looked garish in close quarters.

Beulah felt an urge to curtsy, but thought that wasn’t quite right. She did make some awkward little bow, nodded, and said, “Pleased to meet you, Miss Ward. I hope —”

“Oh, don’t call me Miss. I’m married, whether I like it or not. I had a husband around here a minute ago. What’s become of Freeman?”

Freeman? Beulah froze. Surely not.

Then she heard his voice behind her.

“Just stepped out for a cigar, dear, and to have a peek at the audience. You’ll have a full house. If we could only charge them a dollar each, we’d really have something. Now, who’s this?”

She couldn’t keep her back to him forever. Everyone else had turned around to face him. What could she do, but spin around and look him in the eye?

There he was: the same old Freeman Bernstein. He’d grown a little more jowly, and he’d lost some hair, but he was in every other way the same showman who’d turned up at the Richmond jail all those years ago.

Who’d had the nerve to turn up at the Richmond jail.

He’d been grinning behind his stub of a cigar, but when he and Beulah were face to face, the smile faded. A look of panic crossed his eyes. He was remembering, and calculating.

He took possession of himself so quickly that no one would’ve noticed, unless they were watching for it.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Who let the likes of you in here?”

Fleurette was already starting her introductions when he spoke. She didn’t seem to take in what he said.

“Mr. Bernstein, I’d like to present Miss Roxanna . . .”

Fleurette’s voice floated along, from somewhere far away, as Beulah bolted from the tent.

She never was much of a runner, but she was behind the barn, over the fence, and into the woods before Constance had time to make her apologies and chase after her.