That night at the Alhambra Theater I felt something else, considerably more unpleasant. As the curtain rose I was suddenly sweaty and faint, my fingers shaking. The calcium stage lights seemed to pulsate, a strobe effect in my brain. I shut my eyes tightly. What the hell was going on? After long moments the sensations subsided. I thought the milkiness had been about to come on during the worst of it. I didn’t like that one bit.
Around me, the Eagles and Stockings were resplendent in their colors. This era’s ball clubs regularly wore their uniforms on public occasions. Here it helped Hatton boost game attendance. And it wouldn’t hurt Elise either. With much pomp we had been seated in a dress-circle section set off by red bunting.
Elise’s extravaganza was called Military Billy Taylor, or Life in the Cariboos. She played the title role of a Scotchman wooing the same woman as one General Jenks. Her antics got her into varying degrees of undress. The production numbers were filled with blondes in tights—particularly one called the “humbrageous humbrella tree,” a gilded prop that spread itself each time the temperature reached 180 degrees, a phenomenon produced by Elise’s dancing.
As she took her final bows she was presented a bouquet of roses. She glanced at the card, then waved grandly at us in the dress circle.
“I think she wants to meet you,” I said to Andy.
He stared at me. “Oh, no, Sam, you didn’t. . . .”
I took him backstage, where it didn’t take Elise long to figure out that the flowers, from “A. J. Leonard, Cincinnati,” were my doing. Since Andy was hopelessly tongue-tied, she did the talking, even to the point of asking about baseball. I could feel her assessing him, finding him attractive. He was lithe and muscular in his uniform, much more her size than I. His nervousness did not obscure his athlete’s physical-ity.
“Would you buy a lady a glass of champagne?”
She wasn’t looking at me.
“Why . . . uh . . . surely,” said Andy.
“Guess I’ll be leaving,” I said. Her blue eyes flicked at me in amusement. Andy, I suspected, was in for a hell of a time. With tomorrow Sunday, and no game to be played, Champion was unlikely to run a bed check. Some guys got every break.
As I passed the Mercantile Library on my way back to the Cosmopolitan, my vision suddenly did its half-light trick again, and my pulse seemed to flutter. Something caused me to glance up at a passing carriage. I saw a moon countenance framed in its window, a dumpling face fringed with long girlish ringlets. I couldn’t tell if the eyes were pale, but I would have sworn I was looking at Clara Antonia. The carriage turned up Montgomery and disappeared. The whole sequence took no longer than a few seconds, but I couldn’t put it out of my mind.
Hatton arrived with coaches at noon. It was eighty-five degrees downtown. The Stockings grumbled that in any single day here they’d see every gradation of Cincinnati’s weather from April to November.
“Where’s Andy?” I asked Sweasy.
“Not feelin’ tip-top.” He flashed me a look. “Said he’d rest up today.”
We moved away from the others.
“He didn’t come in last night,” Sweasy said worriedly. “Just sent a note saying to cover up for him. You think he got shanghaied?”
“Not in the usual sense,” I said.
The Cliff House was a long, low, pyramid-roofed building bearing a huge American flag and standing exactly on the site of the larger establishment I’d known. Hundreds of rigs and teams were hitched at the racks in front. On a deck built on the ocean side Sunday couples sipped sherry and peered through binoculars. We walked to the edge of the bluff and watched combers surge against the shore. Below on the guano-encrusted crags of Seal Rocks, a family of sea lions, glistening like gray slugs, loosed occasional coughing barks.
“We’ve stood on both coasts,” Harry said. “By the time we’re home we’ll have gone ten thousand miles.”
Captain Junius Foster, owner of the Cliff House, greeted us warmly. We sat down to a meal of breast of guinea, terrapin, and hangtown fries. I eyed the elegantly dressed clientele drinking cocktails. The Cliff House was doing great business for a place so far outside the city, no bus or horsecar lines remotely near.
“The social set all patronize it,” Hatton told me. “And young blades who like to race their flyers along the road.” He nudged me. “Not to mention a certain fast breed of women who take pleasure in champagne lunching.”
No sooner had he said it than heads began to turn. A lavish hansom, its brass and lacquered surfaces gleaming in the sunlight, pulled in beside ours. A uniformed groom hitched the horses. We watched in astonishment as Andy emerged. He offered his hand, and Elise Holt took it and stepped gracefully down. Arms linked, they walked toward us.
“Oh my,” breathed Brainard, next to me. “Oh my!”
A low hum came from the others, then somebody clapped. Then we were all on our feet, applauding and cheering. Elise smiled winningly. Andy’s face was strawberry red.
“Thank you,” Elise purred. “I wanted to thank all you gentlemen for your patronage last night. And for your kindness in allowing Mr. Leonard to escort me here.”
“Mr. Leonard,” Brainard echoed in wonderment.
Elise marched up to Champion. “I wish you to know, sir, that Mr. Leonard speaks with utmost praise of your presidency of the Cincinnati
