— That’s the argument I started. I said “Mom.”
— You made me yell.
— I made you yell. You called an old lady with cancer a cunt.
— I didn’t say it to her face.
All about the Baby
The next two years in Binghamton are all about the baby. You should have known. You sew the most precious clothes for the baby; later you make several sets of matching dresses for you, me, and my doll, one out of a darling red toile, another in pink with white rickrack trim, another from a tiny floral print. You genuinely enjoy having a girl and dressing her up and showing her off. (The doll alone gets a reversible raincoat, solid on one side, coordinating gingham on the reverse, not so much as a single stitch to be seen on either side. It’s an engineering marvel.) You have not forgotten about singing, or New York City at all; even though you’re an attentive new mother, even though it is a strong instinct in you, you vocalize when you can; why didn’t you wait just a little longer to have kids? Don’t some people do that? You still veer off, in your mind, baby in arms, to a life onstage, reviews in the New York Times, a high-rise apartment, a flash of someone with his arms around you who isn’t Fred. You shake it off, that’s not how it’s supposed to go, but those flashes visit you daily, and when Dad gets a tenure-track job at LSU and moves us all to Baton Rouge, they become a constant presence for the next two years. Before the move, there’s a brief discussion about how well it was going for you in Binghamton before the baby, that if you just wait until she’s in nursery school and you have the time to get going on your performing career, it would be good to stay (though it could conceivably help your case if played right, you deliberately fail to mention how much closer Binghamton is to the city than Louisiana — one thing at a time, to ease him into the idea, seems the best way to go), but he’s the breadwinner, and even if he’s not the most conservative early-sixties I’m the man kind of guy, not by a lot, the reality is that he’s generating the income and this is a job he can’t turn down. You suspect he secretly wants to keep you from having a career, though he’s said nothing to indicate as much; in fact, he’s even mentioned that Baton Rouge and New Orleans are both cultured cities where you can develop your voice and pursue work. There will be moments, after I’m in nursery school, when this obsession sends you to your bed for extended naps; Dad knows nothing of this, as somehow you manage to get back up every afternoon and put an apron on over your full skirt and blouse (no heels until dinnertime, to heck with that) to make supper at five when he likes it, but you know that the only real solution is to pursue your career. You discuss this with him, he is still in favor of it, believes as you do that you have the talent, although he is less sure when you raise the idea of traveling to New York on your own for proper training and auditions. You convince him that you are sure you can make it all work, though you’re not at all sure that you can make it all work, you aren’t even sure if you can make some of it work, but he is convinced and that’s all that matters right now and so you dip into your savings account and he sends you off on your first trip to New York.
Bigger
Your room at the Barbizon is tiny, but it has gloriously high ceilings with wood floors and crown moldings, and Grace Kelly once stayed there, maybe even in your room, and there’s a heavenly skyline view, if you lean out the window a bit and look to the right. The hotel is filled with wide-eyed women just like you (though even by this age you are sure there is no one on earth just like you); over breakfast in the formal dining room, you make several new girlfriends, all as eager to forge their careers as you are, aspiring journalists and actresses and even a poet (about which you think — poet? You have no imagination for what that life would look like, post — Emily Dickinson). You observe that some of them have potential and drive, and others are entirely delusional about their prospects. One young woman you chat with, named Evelyn, wants to be a model, but she’s not what you would call anything other than plain; compared with the beautiful, stylish women you’ve seen in the lobby or on the streets just since you arrived, this woman doesn’t have a chance. Why don’t people know this, that they don’t have a chance, why not just accept it instead of holding out hope for some unattainable thing? It does not occur to you at this time that the city is also full of aspiring opera singers, several of them right here in the hotel, and that talent or not, your chances may or may not be better than anyone else’s. You are certain that your spot is assured. Almost certain.
The opera director from Binghamton has recommended a vocal coach. You choose a pale-pink dotted Swiss blouse and your favorite wool gabardine skirt for your first lesson. Her name is Carolina, she’s Cuban, sixty-something, with a cottony blond updo and a flair for the dramatic — you walk in and she says Muy bonito! Come in, bonito! offers a cup of tea, asks if you drink tea; you say Occasionally, she says You must drink tea now and forever, every day, it is a must! Everyone who meets Carolina falls a little bit in love with her and you are no exception.
Carolina sits you down on a sofa in her parlor before you sing, asks a million questions about everything: Do you have a fam-ee-lee, where do you live, how do you practice, how do you take care of yourself, where have you sung before, what have you sung. To say you’re overwhelmed is an understatement; you have been told that Carolina is not guaranteed to take you on, so this is something of an audition, but you had thought all you’d have to do was sing; you weren’t expecting an interview. Still, Carolina has a way of asking questions that indicates genuine interest; she nods, says I see, I see; you don’t see, but it seems all right. You will sing now, she says. First scales, like this: Lololololololo, Lalalalalalala, Lelelelelelele!; you think she’s simply having you warm up, but what she discovers through this process is that you have perfect pitch and four solid octaves. She nods, says Wonderful, wonderful, very good, finally asks to hear the aria you’ve prepared. You sing “Caro Nome” again because it’s gone well in the past.
Ordinarily, Carolina has a game face for first auditions, a semi-ambiguous nod until the singer is finished. Many, many times, Carolina has said Singing is not for you, or No, I am sorry, but you should think of something else to do. (A warm and kind person, Carolina on these occasions will fix another cup of tea and sit down with the singer to hash out other interests and career directions to take.) Today, what Carolina says is Lovely, lovely, lovely. She’s holding back because she knows a singer’s ego, which she will neither stroke nor ignore, but she hears you reach the high C, a fifth octave, closes her eyes, keeps saying Lovely, lovely, lovely, and I can help you. You have mistakes, but I can help you. You are thrilled, in spite of the word “mistakes,” only because it is offset by Carolina’s unhidden enthusiasm. Carolina says You must move here, it is no question that you will do this. Your breath, which you usually have in ample reserve, is almost sucked out of you. Fred hasn’t been at his job all that long; you weren’t planning another move, that was just a little fantasy. You’re just a girl from Muscatine, how will this happen? You don’t know. It just will. You’re bigger than Muscatine, bigger than Binghamton, bigger than Baton Rouge. Aren’t you? You are.