'Fran-ces!' called her mother from upstairs. 'Come on up, honey, and I'll do your makeup.'
'Show time,' murmured Frances, and rolled her eyes. Sometimes she found the whole thing bored her.
There were always two movies shown at the Valley Theater. The songs came between the movies. Tonight the first feature was a Western. As she watched, Frances played the parts along with the actors. Her face mirrored the shapes the actresses made with their mouths, the wide O's, and their wide eyes and their fanned-out fingers held up in surprise. Frances thought they weren't putting enough into it. She would make a great deal more fuss. She would run around and help the hero more.
She wondered if silent actors bothered to talk when they were being filmed. She wondered if they stayed as silent as the movies.
Suppose everything was silent. Suppose you wanted to scream, but couldn't make any sound. You couldn't make anybody notice you. You could wave your hands, but people might not see. It would be like you were drowning.
Suppose no one knew they were in a silent movie? They would all think they were talking. They would move their mouths and nod their heads, but no one would say anything.
Frances watched her mother play piano to make some sound for the movie. Her mother was reading a book at the same time. Her mother was always doing two things at once. Like living in Lancaster and driving to Los Angeles all the time.
Frances was scowling in the dark. Whenever there were guests, Frances could feel the whole family launch itself forward together, forward like it was a show. Mama took Papa's arm, which she never did otherwise. Papa smoked cigars and swaggered, talking to the men, and Mama would laugh with the ladies. Then they played cards. Their voices would be smooth, modulated, flowing.
'Oh, Frank always thinks that shows should be for free, and I agree. If folks can't pay for it now, they will someday. And a full house is always better, for everyone. So you'll always see Frank, giving tickets to people who might not otherwise go. Young boys, you know?'
A full house always seems better, thought Frances, because movies are silent. Only people can talk.
The movie ended. Applause. Not much. The first feature wasn't that good. Mama stood up from her piano, looking pretty, proud and plump in her delicate blue dress. Frank Gumm sprang up onto the stage and took her hand. They gazed lovingly into each other's eyes, for a perfectly timed beat, and broke apart.
Jinny tapped Frances on the arm, and the girls crowded around to the side of the stage.
'Hello, friends,' said Frank Gumm. 'Welcome to the Valley Theater, the only stage in the Antelope Valley providing the finest in kinematograph and vaudeville entertainment. Though I reckon some of you are here because it's cool.'
A light scattering of chuckles. Janie adjusted Frances's collar.
'And so, on with the next part of the show. Ethel?'
Her mother smiled with love at Daddy.
'Girls?'
Frances crowded up behind Jinny, as they lined up in order of height on the narrow steps.
'Ladies and gentlemen, together, the Trio Unusual… the Gumm Sisters!'
They came dancing onto the stage as their mother played, into the lights as the theater darkened, and there were the faces in rows, there never seemed to be enough faces in enough rows, but the faces transformed into those of friends, watching with anticipation. And Janie was with her, and Jinny was with her, and Mama, and Daddy, standing by.
'When the red, red robin comes bob-bob-bobbing along, along…' in something like harmony, and Frances knew she was the loudest, waving her arms, and she could hear people chuckle, and she knew that they liked her, that everybody liked her, there in the lights, where everything worked, and where there was love.
Frances woke up in the night. She didn't remember being loaded into the car, or being carried up to the house in her father's arms. She thought she was back in the theater, and that she would have to talk to people.
It was dark and it was silent. Then there was a shout, and a forced whisper, a whisper of hatred that made something in Frances's chest prickle with horror. She heard the voices of her parents.
'It's starting again, isn't it? It's starting all over again!' her mother's voice was a whisper, but the whisper rose up with a keening wrench, like a bird taking wing from its nest.
Baby listened. The whispering was like a scratching on her eardrum or a record at the end when it goes round and round in the same groove.
'I'm the girls' father, Ethel, you can't do that.'
In this dark world, without the lights, without music, Baby Frances began to sing, softly, to herself. It was like having to sit through a movie. All you could do was sit and watch and hope for a happy ending. Frances hated movies.
Somewhere there was a movie that sang. Daddy had told her about it. It already existed. Al Jolson began to sing, right at the end.
If movies sang, would people want to hear them, the Gumms? What would hold the Gumms together? Maybe the movies were talking now, and not her mother and father. Maybe movies flickered on walls at night, whispering, a new kind of ghost. Maybe it was not her mother and father who were talking at all. If sound could come from nowhere, spoken by no one.
'Don't touch me! Don't touch me!' Her mother's voice was high and breathy, panicked. 'Keep away from me!'
Nothing is hidden. Frances knew she existed to hold her parents together. She was the still point around which all the others turned. She and the music. She and the music were the same thing. Both of them had to stay in the center of attention. The center bore the weight, and if it slipped there would be disaster.
