“Come—” He reached out his hands as if I might just drop my oars and climb into his canoe with him. When I didn’t cooperate, he simply pulled my rowboat closer with his oar until they were parallel and we were facing each other.
“Now I see you,” he said.
“I’d rather you didn’t. You’ve most definitely cut my beauty sleep short!”
“And what do you perform in Mr. Ziegfeld’s spectacular? Do you dance on your toes?”
“Dance, yes, but singing is my specialty,” I said, suddenly feeling meek next to this idol.
“My dear, what better place is there to perform our morning exercises—these are the perfect conditions for our vocal cords—the moisture in the air, away from all that dry filth in the city. Do you live in Manhattan?”
“Of course.”
“I do not know how you do it. How can you live and breathe there? Wait until you hear yourself here, it is so powerful, amplified.”
“I know it’s amplified! It sounded like you were singing into my ear while I was trying to sleep.”
“Don’t worry, I have something that will help you wake—” He held up an Icy-Hot Thermos. “The housekeeper made me some of your terrible American Maxwell House. It’s all yours.” He handed it to me, and I unscrewed the lid and took a sip.
“That’s not just Maxwell House,” I said, feeling the warmth of brandy or whiskey or some liquor on the back on my throat.
“Of course not, I said it’s terrible—I have to add something to make the flavor.”
“May I ask what you are doing here?”
“I’m staying at Paul Smith’s Hotel that way.” He pointed his oar to the other end of the lake. “I don’t like to wake my friends and neighbors, so I paddle south.” He grinned. “And what a treat, because I meet you.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I had dreamed of someday meeting this man in person. If I still had money coming in from theFrolicand theFollies,I would’ve spent my entire paycheck from Ziegfeld on a ticket to see him perform. I’d splurge on a ticket in the orchestra section, just so I could see him up close, without having to watch the whole performance through the opera glasses. And here we were in the most unlikely of places.
“Would you care to accompany me?”
“Where to?” I asked.
“To sing, of course.”
We started with some vowel warm-ups and then sang together until the fog had cleared, the sun was out and the birds were singingabove us. We sang “Ave Maria” at the top of our lungs as if we were onstage before a full audience, not in the middle of a lake, on our way to getting drunk on hooched-up coffee in our pajamas. We sang as many songs as we could think of in English.
“O brava,Olive,” he said. “With some proper instruction you could go far.” He nodded, looking serious, and I was both delighted by the compliment from such a talented and accomplished professional and slightly disappointed—I’d thought that all my years of lessons had been enough.
“This is quite a way to start the day,” I said, lying back on my fur coat, feeling the sun start to warm up the morning.
“It’s the only way to start the day.Il miglior modo!” he said. “The best way.”
“Let’s do one more, then I’m afraid I have to get back to the camp,” I said. “We have our first rehearsal and then a performance tonight.”
“One more,” he said. “I have breakfast with my host and then I plan a long siesta. ‘’O sole mio’ forl’ultima.”
“Oh, I don’t know Italian very well,” I said. “I don’t know it at all.”
“You know this,” he insisted. “You must.”
Of course, once he began, I recognized the song and was able to sing along with the chorus, making up and filling in when I didn’t know what came next.
We both laughed when we were done, he at the ridiculousness of me making up words, I’m sure, and I because the whole meeting had been so unexpected, so dreamlike, and I never could have imagined such an encounter.
“Learn Italian, Olive,” he said, turning his canoe to face north. “One or two songs to start, it will help you in your career.”
I smiled, excited at the prospect.
