They finished the Gaby Glide, not looking much different to my ignorant eyes than they had before. Then Professor Duryea and his wife joined hands—she had a great smile; I liked her—to bow together, getting a fine hand, certainly including mine. They sat down, pleased, Mrs. Israel rising to thank them, which she did very nicely. Then she smiled to say, “I think the Professor and Mrs. Duryea have shown us—in the earlier portion of their splendid performance,” she added, getting her laugh, “that an innocent version of the Turkey Trot may well be preserved if rechristened,” and the Jotta Girl winked at me.
Mrs. Israel beckoned to the new couple at the back of the ballroom, and up they came, walking around the edge of the room, smiling across it to acknowledge the polite tips-of-the-fingers preliminary applause, and suddenly I saw who he was. Of course I’d never seen him before, only in pictures, but unmistakably here, edging along the side of the room so that he continued to face us, came a very young version of him, grinning, cocky, having a great time.
“The morning was one of contrast,” the Times reported next day, which I quote because it was true, “and the Duryeas, he in a frock coat and she in a simple evening dress of white, gave way to Al Jolson and Florence Cable of the Winter Garden, she with her hat on, young and gay . . . he in high jollity . . .”
Jolson stood facing us now, smiling and really looking at us, glad to see us, it seemed. We all grinned back, and he said, “I picked up the art of dancing as I saw it on the Barbary Coast where I used to sell papers as a San Francisco boy.” His voice, I thought, had just barely a touch of raspiness, and seemed to fit the look on his face of a man absolutely confident in himself. Suddenly he did a fast little dance step of some kind, the patent leather of his shoes sparking light. Three seconds of that, no more; then he suddenly stopped, knees still bent, both hands thrusting downward to one side, fingers splayed, and he grinned, and had us: we loved him. He flicked a finger at the pianist who instantly began, clawed hands bouncing off the keys in rhythm with his shoulders, and even I knew we were hearing ragtime.
And then how they danced—together, then whirling apart, then together again, Florence Cable simply marvelous, Jolson with the kind of nimble effortless perfection that makes you suddenly sure, knowing better, that you could do it too. They danced close, then threw themselves apart, hands clasped at arms’ length as they leaned far apart, bodies making a V. Together again, chins very nearly on each other’s shoulders, feet flying, hands—I don’t know how their hands were or what they were doing, but oh, they were great. They stopped, piano still going, and Jolson said, “It’s all the same dance. Call it Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug, Lovers, Walk Back, Bird Hop, as you will. Strip off the variations—just watch us!—and they all come down to the same thing.” Again they moved, the happy pianist bouncing from one tune to another, and I guess they moved into and out of various dances, because I heard people murmuring dance names. But—he was right—they were the same dance, and I was wishing I could do what Al Jolson was doing. They stopped again, the pianist continuing, Jolson sweating a little now. “Fifteen or twenty dance halls there on the Barbary Coast,” he said, “doing most of their business on the half-drunk sailors in port. And—what do you expect!—all those ginks could do was half skate around the dance floor to begin with. There was a Negro cabaret there on the Barbary Coast, and they say it all started there; they called it the Texas Tommy.” He grabbed Miss Cable, and they flashed around the floor in the Texas Tommy, Jolson looking comically drunk. They stopped. “And then the orchestra would hit up, and they’d rag it a bit”—he grinned at the pianist, whose hands and shoulders took the cue—“and then strike out on the minors that are more seductive, I guess.” The pianist slowed, striking out on the minors, I’m sure, and Al Jolson and Florence Cable pulled closer and closer, tightly together now, very cheek to cheek, and I glanced up at Mrs. Israel, who looked fascinated. “And get closer and closer,” Jolson said, then suddenly drew back to snap the fingers of both hands, “and . . . I guess I’ve said enough!” Then they just flew, feet flicking, flashing, in a whirling miracle of dancing, and the audience went nuts. “He was thunderously applauded,” the Times said next morning, “as he and Miss Cable showed how it was done.”
Then it was over, the applause wild, the two of them bowing, happy, and I glanced up at the Duryeas. They were applauding too, smiling, and—he was a pro—his smile looked real. But hers, I thought, didn’t quite make it. You can’t really tell what people are thinking, but I had to wonder what the Professor up there in his frock coat and artistically long hair felt in this moment. His face wasn’t old but you could see how it would look when it was. He’d had his way for years, I imagined as I applauded; he’d taught the waltz and the two-step to generation after generation on into this new century. Now, suddenly and out of nowhere as it may have seemed to him, there stood these bowing youngsters down on the floor, and the applause was for their kind of dancing. Finally the applause tapered off, and I sat wondering what was going to happen to the Duryeas now. Maybe they’d saved their money.
16
OUT ON THE WALK with the Jotta Girl, I could see she expected me to ask her to lunch, but I didn’t. Wouldn’t. Stood smiling, nodding, bowing, tap dancing, and howling at the moon, but not a word about lunch. Said goodbye, turned and headed west, across on Forty-fourth Street, toward Broadway—I was on my way to hunt for Tessie and Ted, and that had to be alone.
I hadn’t found them listed in any of the vaudeville ads of the Times or Herald at breakfast. And yet I knew, knew, knew, didn’t I, that this had been the famous week, the never-to-be-forgotten, endlessly talked-about week that Tessie and Ted played Broadway?
On past the Algonquin Hotel, looking about the same I guess, except for its sign: blue and white enamel with clear-glass light bulbs picking out its name. What were Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker right now, teenagers maybe?
Here at the Hippodrome—look across the roof between the towers: that’s the Algonquin—I walked into the lobby and read the posters. Plenty going on in here, but no Tessie and Ted.
At Broadway, beside a brand-new Astor Hotel, a little theater with a cupola: Marie Dressier in Tillie’s Nightmare. Then I wandered all the way down Broadway, the Times building on Times Square up ahead there. And walked into every theater lobby I saw, not quite sure which was legit and which vaudeville. Stood just inside one, listening through the closed lobby doors to the young voice of a Douglas Fairbanks (in A Gentleman of Leisure) who hadn’t yet heard of a teenaged Mary Pickford.