High C

Prologue - Bon Voyage

Buffalo 1928

"Calico Radio proudly presents Uncle Louie's Vaudeville Review-y live from the Olympia Room in the Lindsay Hotel in your very own Buffalo. Visual entertainment for those in the audience, musical entertainment for you folks at home. Tonight's broadcast is brought to you by the fine people at Birchley's Orange Remedy. Birchley's Orange Remedy for colds with the goodness of vitamin C and zinc-rich pine nuts. Feeling sick never tasted so good!"

It actually tasted like a mouthful of exhaust fumes and everybody knew it. Birchley's was widely considered a last resort of the poorest and most desperate, but you couldn't find a company with less to lose willing to sponsor a small-time variety show of trained dogs and bird callers, etc., being broadcast over the radio. Closing performers, The Incomparable Jonas with Crystal, Quick-Change Artists Extraordinaire, were slightly less recognizable local household names. If they had not yet tasted the fame their ambitions craved, they were willing to bet that pine nuts had nothing to do with it. Unfortunately one of the team was always willing to bet a little more than the other.

With an overly confident rap at Crystal's dressing room door just before opening it, Jonas was ready to put off their argument until after show time. After all, Uncle Louie and the Lindsay deserved the same commitment to showmanship as the prime spot at Shea's, and surely the little cream puff could be uncurdled once she understood how necessary his plan was to their success. Didn't he always look after them? Even if he stumbled now and then, wasn't he ever the protective brotherly figure, the only man whose resourcefulness she could count on as much as his gentlemanly honour?

"Crystal, sweet? Are you ready to stop being such an ungrateful, indignant tart?"

Her answer was the make-up tin she lobbed at him from her dressing table, perfumed rice powder exploding all over his Holiday Act tuxedo.

"Fantastic," he said, his face like a powdered doughnut. "It's ten minutes to curtain."

"We're quick change artists, aren't we?" Crystal said coolly, patting blonde pin curls into place at her mirror.

"Some of us are artists," Jonas began to say, just as the pointy end of a tail comb whizzed by his face so closely that it parted his moustache on its way to the wall.

"You listen to me, pal," Crystal said, turning towards him, still managing admirably to apply a perfect amount of rouge without her reflection. "I do all the hard work around here. All you do is sing and throw a hula hoop over me and I'm the one that's gotta smile and suck in my gut to my spine so it doesn't look like I'm wearing three dresses as a belt. You know how many girls would kill for my figure? You know how many guys would? You're up to your ears in woo-hoos and whistles thanks to me and do I ever complain?"

"Like it's your mother tongue."

"Your mother - "

"Uh!" Jonas stopped her with a severe finger point to remind her of their sacred oath. "Nothing we can't come back from."

"Fine, but pardon me if I get a tad upset when you tell me we're going on a London tour which kicks off with me playing stowaway in a steamer trunk!"

"I won't fit!"

"You lost our fare money in a back alley, you get in the trunk!"

"Don't be ridiculous. How will you lift me?"

Somehow she managed to both flash and squint her blue eyes without looking homicidal. "Boy you must really think I'm stupid," she drawled.

"Stupid, never. Short-sighted is all."

Shaking her head with a humourless smile, Crystal once again perused her table for some item. Jonas glanced around the room quickly for something to protect him from whatever she was about to throw next. He'd dodged his fair share of tomatoes, but Crystal had a mean curveball. Luckily, the only thing she threw his way was a look of defeat from her reflection. "You know what? You're right," she said simply, and blotted her lipstick.