Dreamland Social Club(24)

After packing the costumes back up, she approached another large piece of furniture—a sort of tall cabinet. She ran a finger along the metal plate on the front that said “Victrola,” then lifted its top lid to discover a record player. Nearby on the wall, a shelf held what had to be several hundred old records, in a size Jane had never seen before, a little bit smaller than Marcus’s handful of collectible LPs but not by much. She thought about putting one on but then saw there was already a record on the turntable. Jane spun it so that she could read the title: “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland.”

She placed the needle on it and then hit a button that looked like a power button, but nothing happened. Opening the front door of the cabinet, she found a crank, so she removed the needle from the record, wound the crank a bunch of times, then put the needle back, hit the power button, and, voilà, orchestral sounds flowed into the room. Then a warbly female voice followed, crooning, “Dreaming of you, that’s all I do,/Night and day for you I’m pining,/And in your eyes, blue as the skies, /I can see the love-light softly shining . . .”

And then Jane wasn’t hearing the lyrics anymore but was concentrating on a memory, trying to re-create it in sharp detail. But it was fuzzy, like the edges of sleep....





I’m not tired. I don’t want to go to bed. I want to play more, but my mother says, “No, it’s time.”

I say, “But I miss you when I sleep.”

She smiles. “Well, then I’ll meet you tonight in Dreamland.”

“Where’s that?”

“You go to sleep, and I’ll go to sleep, too, a little later, and when I do, I’ll find you there. Okay?”

“Is it nice there? In Dreamland?”

“Oh boy, is it! And there are angels there, waiting for us.”

She tucks me in and now I really want to fall asleep, can’t fall fast enough, because the sooner I do the sooner I get to meet her in Dreamland. . . .

She hums a song, a tune I’m sure I’ll never forget, and I drift off and wait and wait until I forget I’m waiting. . . .





Turning off the Victrola, and then the lights, Jane took the burgundy dress and a few of the skirts and tops and went back out into the yard, then into the house.

“Find anything good?” her father asked when she appeared in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table eating a sandwich with one of his old sketchbooks in front of him, pencil in hand.

“I don’t know. Just some baby stuff of Mom’s.” She held up the rattle. “Some of Grandma’s clothes.” She indicated the dress.

He nodded, put his pencil down, and closed his book, then held out a hand for the rattle. “I should send you back down with a couple of trash bags. And up to the attic, too.” He examined the rattle, ran a finger across the engraved letters, then shook it, releasing the jangle of a hollow bell, and handed it back. “This place isn’t going to get cleared out on its own.”

“I don’t mind doing it,” she said, but it wasn’t her top priority. Her top priority right at that moment was seeing what her father was sketching in that notebook. Because from the tiny glimpse she’d stolen, it looked like it might be the beginnings of a coaster design. “Whatcha working on?” she asked with a nod toward the book.

“Nothing,” he said, and he pulled it toward himself protectively.

“Okay,” she said. “If you say so.”

“Touché,” he said.

She crossed the room to the hall, where her bag lay, and pulled out Babette’s newspaper. “I thought you’d want to see this,” she said. “The city is accepting bids for attractions.”

“Oh, Jane.” He sighed. “If only it were that easy.”

“Maybe it is,” she said, and he let out another sigh and started to read as Jane spun on her heels and left the room.





CHAPTER nine


SHE HAD COMPLETED HER EXAMINATION of the yearbook that Sunday and had, infuriatingly enough, found no other mentions of the Dreamland Social Club.

Not a one.

But she had noticed a female student who looked an awful lot like Babette’s bendy friend at school. Like a twin. So when she found herself walking with Babette into homeroom, which she had mostly been avoiding to avoid the issue of deciding where to sit, Jane said, “Hey, I want to thank this girl, I think she’s a friend of yours, for helping me out with the Claveracks last week.” She nodded toward Babette’s usual table, where the girl was already sitting.

“Rita?” Babette said.

“I guess so.”

“She’s got an act,” Babette said pointedly. “Rubber Rita, aspiring contortionist extraordinaire. She’s double-jointed. The Claveracks call her Rubber Rican—racist losers.”

Jane didn’t know what to say except “I don’t have an act!”

“Well, come on, then,” Babette said, and led the way. At the table, she introduced them. “I wanted to say thanks,” Jane said to Rita, “for what you did last week. With the rubber chicken.”

“No problem,” Rita said, and Jane and Babette took seats across from her. Legs and Minnie were at the table, too, talking to each other intensely, and Jane did a quick comparison of Babette’s body type with Minnie’s now that she knew there was an explanation for how they could both be so small in such different ways.