Read Online What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland - Free Book Online Page A

at the Martin Beck Theater, Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina at the Broadhurst, the Lunts in Taming of the Shrew . And then there was opera. Miss Weaver always made them read the librettos first. “We’re going to do it right,” she said.
    The girls went in style. They wore long gowns and black velvet capes and were driven in a pair of black limousines. They often went to dinner first, usually at some little restaurant in Greenwich Village. Once it was Spanish. Jean could feel the flamenco dancers and tambourines pounding out their heated rhythms right near their table. She felt her heartbeat quicken, and she leaned forward in her chair during the whole meal.
    More than anything else the girls did together, Jean loved going to the opera. She didn’t need to have everything explained to her. Strong emotions shot out from the stage in sound. With opera, nothing was denied her. At the Met that season the girls cried at Madama Butterfly and thrilled at Lakme with Lily Pons. But Madame Flagstad’s performances enthralled them most, for she was theirs. When she sang Brunhilde in Die Walkure the girls cheered. When she sang Isolde, they wept. After every opening the girls trooped backstage to see the grand diva, object of their worship.
    Elsa and Jean went alone by taxi to Beethoven’s Fidelio . They had been invited to Madame’s hotel afterwards. Back of the Met after the show a crowd of people still shouted “Brava, brava.” They thronged Madame for autographs, overpowering her and the two girls. Jean was shoved. For a moment she lost Elsa’s arm and stood alone among shouting, shoving people, trying to keep her balance. Shoulders, backs and elbows jabbed at her from all sides. She felt like a thin reed sucked in a spiraling eddy. The world swirled in terror. An arm grabbed hers and yanked her through the crowd and into a car.
    “Oh, Yeanie,” Madame said in heavily accented English, “I’m so sorry it frightened you.”
    “It’s all right. Nothing happened.”
    But her eyes watered and she was quiet for a while in the back seat of the taxi. This was what she had wanted, though, to be out in the world. This was adventure. She took a deep breath and tried to settle herself.
    “Madame Flagstad, what’s your favorite role?” she asked.
    “That’s a hard question, Yeanie. There are too many. Isolde, I think. I love the Liebestod aria in the end.”
    “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s so tragic.”
    Trips through New York crowds made Jean feel more mobile even though she always walked holding someone’s arm. Once they went to Madison Square Garden to see the National Horse Show. Dody sat next to her and described the equestrian moves in terminology she had just learned from their riding master. “It must be impressive,” Jean said wistfully.
    She wrote home every week afterward to find out whether Father had asked Dr. Wheeler if she could ride. Maybe riding was something she could do. All the other sports the girls did—tennis, squash, skiing—were beyond her, but riding might not be. It’s true, she did the ski joring, being pulled on skis by a horse on flat ground, but the girls didn’t do that often. Riding they did every day. If she could ride, she wouldn’t have to be alone in the afternoons. She’d be one of them.
    Finally, a letter came from Mother. Jean had Dody read it. “The reading club was here yesterday. We discussed Balzac. Father was appalled. He said the ladies are titillated by the vicarious living they do at the reading club meetings. Bill is doing well at Yale and Lucy is planning a party for next month. Mort’s learning how to punch a time clock at Babson. Dr. Wheeler called yesterday and said he would see no further harm in your riding.”
    Jean grabbed the letter and headed for the landing, felt for the handrail and scrambled down, counting the stairs.
    “What’s your hurry, Jean?”
    “Where’s LCW?”
    “In her room, I think.”
    She turned on her heel back up the stairs.