When Franny Stands Up Read online

  Thank you for downloading this Sourcebooks eBook!

  You are just one click away from…

  • Being the first to hear about author happenings

  • VIP deals and steals

  • Exclusive giveaways

  • Free bonus content

  • Early access to interactive activities

  • Sneak peeks at our newest titles

  Happy reading!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2022 by Eden Robins

  Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design and illustration by Vi-An Nguyen

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Robins, Eden, author.

  Title: When Franny stands up / Eden Robins.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2022]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2022006659 (print) | LCCN 2022006660 (ebook) | (trade paperback) | (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Women comedians--Fiction. | Jewish comedians--Fiction. | Magic realism (Literature) | Chicago (Ill.)--History--20th century--Fiction. | LCGFT: Jewish historical fiction. | Magic realist fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3618.O31765 W44 2022 (print) | LCC PS3618.O31765 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23/eng/20220331

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006659

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006660

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Author’s Note:

  Reading Group Guide

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For Dad, the thief of bad gags

  Chapter One

  Christmas Eve, 1944

  If a doorman wouldn’t open the door, was he still a doorman? It was like one of Papa’s groaners: When is a door not a door? (When it’s ajar.)

  Franny Steinberg wouldn’t have let herself into the glitzy Palmer House Hotel either. She looked shifty. Frizzy. Raccooned by mascara. She rubbed her eyes but just made it worse. Feet were numb from running in her awful, too-small boots. Bare, frozen wrists jutted from her ratty old peacoat. Stupid growth spurt couldn’t have waited until after the war?

  But Franny had vanquished bigger foes than a measly hotel doorman. She had big plans for this particular Christmas Eve, and she had already twisted the truth in many terrible ways to get here. Lied to her parents about spending all evening downtown with her best friend, Mary Kate Finnegan, and then lied to Mary Kate, saying she had to rush home early for—and Franny was not proud of this—a “Jewish thing.”

  “Aren’t Jewish things at sunset?” Mary Kate had held her palm out like it was raining. “It’s been dark for hours.”

  “Don’t be rude,” Mary Kate’s handsome brother, Peter, had said. “Not everyone’s religion makes sense.”

  Two lies didn’t make you a liar, not if the cause was righteous enough. At least that’s what Franny told herself, out of breath and at the mercy of the reluctant doorman.

  And this cause was righteous. Tonight and tonight only, comedian Boopsie Baxter was in Chicago to perform at the Empire Room.

  Franny had been following Boopsie’s headlines for months—arrested on obscenity charges, arrested for doing comedy in a segregated nightclub, arrested for being obscene, handcuffed in her elegant floor-length mink or her spangled gown, smiling slyly, directly into the camera.

  Franny wanted what Boopsie had. A grin in the face of danger. More devil-may-care, less knots-in-the-gut. A belief in winning, even when it looked a heck of a lot like losing. Franny needed to see Boopsie Baxter. Because Boopsie Baxter had a Showstopper. A legendary, famous, secret Showstopper that was too spectacular to talk about in the papers. And that Franny wasn’t even completely sure she believed in.

  Through the windows, twinkling lights and bows dangled from the ceiling, bored bellhops displayed themselves over countertops to the front desk girls. Wind and snow stung Franny’s face, and her feet throbbed in her tight boots, thumping a staccato of Showstopper.

  Franny just had to know if Showstoppers were real or phony, because if they were real, then magic was real. And if magic was real, she might just be able to bear this endless, dreary war. Dreariness was fine and dandy if it kept her brother, Leon, safe, but it didn’t. Franny got all the safety, and he got bupkis.

  The doorman relented. Franny ducked inside, melting gratefully into the entryway, wiggling her toes and trying not to think about sore thumbs. Everything in the Palmer House was gilded, marbled, bejeweled, or furred. The people were furred, anyway. Franny took the marble stairs two at a time, up to the landing, nearly skidding into a sculpture of Romeo and Juliet, forever batting eyelashes at each other. Poor suckers had no idea how their story would end. The stairs split at the landing, each side curving up to the bustling lobby bar.

  Pillars, ceiling frescoes, Juliet balconies, sconces, chandeliers, gold, gold, gold. The ceiling had been painted with scenes from ancient Greece, when apparently girls got away with being naked all the time. You could barely see any of it through the fog of cigarette smoke.

  Across the way, a towering Christmas tree covered in silver balls and white lights glinted hazily. The elevators to the hotel rooms were down there, and Franny squinted through the smoke, trying to glimpse a celebrity come to take in the famous Randolph Street nightlife on Christmas. It all felt very European. Not that Franny had ever been to Europe. And the way things were going over there right now? No, thank you. She had a bone to pick with that particular continent.

  The lobby tinkled with champagne glasses and expensive jewelry. A tuxedoed waiter glided through the room with the hotel’s famous brownie and ice cream, delivering it with a flourish to a woman draped, predictably, in furs. Franny must have stared for too long, because the woman glared back, silver spoon poised over its fudgy prey.

  Franny’s stomach rumbled. Mary Kate had promised her hot cocoa, and instead, Franny had run away and come here. Franny, who would have sold off the family silver for a teaspoon of sugar.

  Mary Kate had linked arms with Franny as they loo
ked at the Marshall Field’s Christmas windows, rattling off all the desserts they could get Peter to buy for them. Some of which Franny had never even heard of. Pavlova? Like the guy who tricked his own dogs?

  “You pick,” Mary Kate said, patting her hand. “Your mother has such trouble finding sugar.”

  As if there weren’t a sugar ration for everyone, or a war, as if money were plentiful and the neighborhood boys were playing baseball in Greenfield Park instead of shivering on a European battlefield.

  Meanwhile, Peter had recently been honorably discharged from his post in Hawaii after losing his pinky finger in an air raid that turned out to be a false alarm. Somehow, he still received a Purple Heart. Which he took every opportunity to remind you of should you so much as mention the war. Or the word purple.

  “Sure you don’t wish Leon was here instead of me?” Franny said. Just saying her brother’s name filled her mouth with bees. “I know you’re sweet on him.”

  “Am not.” Mary Kate squeezed her tight. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back. He could come back tomorrow.”

  Franny’s grin had felt like a grimace. “He’s probably back now, wondering what happened to us.”

  Laughter detonated behind Franny. This was no time to think about Leon. Not when a single flight of carpeted stairs led to the Empire Room. Not when a single set of French doors separated her from Boopsie Baxter.

  She took a deep breath and tugged open the door, releasing more laughter and smoke. A doorwoman half her height and twice her width blocked the entrance. She wore a black wool suit and Christmassy red tie, her hair slicked back like a mobster. She grinned crookedly.

  “You got a reservation?” she said.

  “Oh,” Franny said, patting her coat pockets blankly. “I didn’t know I needed one.”

  “We’re full.”

  “I won’t be a bother,” Franny croaked. “I don’t even need a seat. You’ll forget I’m even here.”

  She looked Franny up and down. “How old are you, kid?”

  “Eighteen,” Franny lied.

  The doorwoman sucked on her cigar and contemplated Franny’s face. Finally, she stuck out a free hand. “Two bucks. And no crying to Mommy about the show. It’s Christmas.”

  “I’m Jewish,” Franny said.

  “I wouldn’t spread that around.”

  Franny dug into her purse—two dollars! If she gave the woman two dollars, she would barely have enough to take the train home. Definitely nothing left for a hot drink. Franny wiggled her frozen toes in her boots and handed over the money.

  The doorwoman pointed Franny to a tiny round table in the back corner of the room, up a small set of stairs and at the farthest point from the stage. “You’ll have to share the table with the cocktail waitresses on break.”

  “I’m good at sharing,” Franny said.

  “I’ll bet,” the doorwoman said with a low, manly chuckle that tickled Franny somewhere in her lower gut region. She didn’t understand the joke, but since she seemed to be the butt of it, she wasn’t about to ask.

  Women in red lipstick chatted animatedly over starched white tablecloths. Franny squeezed past, apologizing constantly, jostling candles and forcing the women to protect their jewel-colored drinks from sloshing. Heavy velvet draped the stage, and two massive blooming chandeliers flickered from the ceiling. It was cozier than the lobby but just as glittery. Face hot, Franny finally reached her humble, wobbly table.

  Her fingers and toes began to thaw, and the quiet murmur of feminine voices, the rustle of satin, and the clink of rings against martini glasses felt oddly…relaxing. In fact, Franny noticed her shoulders weren’t hunched up by her ears, her jaw wasn’t clenched. If this is how Boopsie’s Showstopper feels, she thought drowsily, I could definitely get used to it.

  Franny reluctantly removed her ratty coat—the dress underneath was only barely less ratty—and touched the magazine article tucked in her pocket for luck. Boopsie Baxter had been interviewed in Ladies’ Variety, a salacious rag out of Miami that Franny had gone through a lot of trouble to get her hands on. The most information about Showstoppers that Franny had ever found was in this interview, now tucked in her coat pocket as a kind of talisman:

  Boopsie: Showstoppers are real as your magazine. But they don’t work on men, so men don’t believe in them. They call them hallucinations if they call them anything at all. If you ask me, that’s for the best.

  LV: But what is a Showstopper, really?

  Boopsie: If you come to one of our shows, and you laugh? You’ll feel something that only we can give. Comedian Ida Horne makes her room feel love at first sight, NYC’s Lucy Goosey has her room flipping tables and screaming battle cries like Joan of Arc…

  LV: So the Showstopper is unique to each comedian.

  Boopsie: Exactly right.

  LV: But where did Showstoppers come from? Why us, why now?

  Boopsie: Let me put it this way. A man pinches your rear and you really want to let him have it, but you pretend to be flattered. Been there, honey?

  LV: I’m sure our readers can relate.

  Boopsie: You swallow those feelings, and they sink down deep, stick to your ribs. They shake you up like a beer bottle, and that pressure can suffocate you. Comedians are like bottle openers. We relieve the pressure by making you laugh. Pressure can be painful, but it also has power. And potential. The world doesn’t want us girls to have either.

  ***

  The evening had begun with a set by the Palmer House jazz band, broadcast for the hotel’s Christmas radio show. The comedy that followed would not be broadcast. Only those ladies lucky enough to see it in person would know it even happened.

  The all-girl band packed up their instruments, chatting animatedly with the stage crew as they tested the spotlight. If it hadn’t been for the war and its insatiable appetite for men—including artists and comedians—would Franny be watching male musicians right now? A man comedian? Impossible to imagine. Emily Post complained in her etiquette book that wartime comedy marked the death of good old-fashioned femininity: Alas, American morals are fraying at the seams even as our boys are fighting—and dying—to preserve them. Franny read the whole book, hoping for some mention of Showstoppers, but Emily Post either didn’t believe in them or didn’t consider them worth mentioning.

  A cocktail waitress swooped over to Franny in a stylish but surprisingly skimpy getup and set a glass mug with a lemon wheel floating in it on the table.

  “But I didn’t order anything.” Franny politely tried and failed not to stare at the waitress’s jiggly décolletage.

  “On the house,” the waitress said in a shockingly high-pitched voice. “Courtesy of Diane at the door.”

  Diane’s suit bunched up around her ears as she relit her cigar.

  Franny turned back to her drink. “What is it?”

  “Hot toddy,” said the cocktail waitress, holding out her palm.

  “I thought you said—”

  “Tip?”

  “Right.” Franny dug into her purse and pulled out a nickel. “Thanks.”

  “Boopsie’s on next,” the cocktail waitress squeaked. “I never miss her for anything.”

  “Sorry if I took your seat,” Franny said.

  “I prefer to watch her in private anyway,” the waitress said, jiggling away before Franny had a chance to ask what she meant.

  A red-haired beauty, probably the singer from the house band, grabbed the microphone. “Ladies. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce the girl who started it all, the comedian who needs no introduction,” she said. The audience clapped harder. Some cheered and whistled. Franny could barely breathe.

  “Please welcome to her Empire Room debut—”

  Franny couldn’t believe she had pulled it off. She was really about to see, with her own two eyes—

  “Boopsie Baxter!”

>   Chairs scraped the floor, and dozens of elegant ladies hopped to their feet to cheer. Franny stood and cheered too, even though her voice sounded funny in her ears. She froze midclap as Boopsie shimmied onstage. Her red sequined dress hugged her every curve, winking like fish scales, black hair laid close to her scalp, shiny and finger waved. Her neck was drenched in diamonds. She embraced the singer who introduced her—Franny was surprised at how small Boopsie was—then waved demurely at the audience. She was more captivating than even her newspaper photos. She probably smelled terrific. Franny had never had the chance to clap for a Negro woman before and did so with vigor.

  “All right, all right,” Boopsie said in a smoky voice that sounded many years older than she looked. “We’re all thrilled about the birth of Jesus, now sit your asses down.”

  The crowd tittered and sat. Franny felt prissier than Mary Kate, blushing in the dark at the word ass.

  “Siddown,” hissed a voice right below Franny. It was Diane from the door, looking up at her. Franny was the only one still standing. She plopped into her chair. “And drink up, it’ll get cold.”

  Franny took a sip of her drink and coughed. “This has alcohol in it!” she said.

  Diane laughed. “No kidding. Merry Christmas, kid.”

  Two extremely handsome men in tuxedos wheeled out a glossy baby grand while Boopsie ogled them. “That’s right, fellas,” she said in that husky voice. “One of these days, if you’re lucky, these fingers will practice on you.” She settled in at the piano. “Let’s warm up with a little holiday music, get those juices flowing.” The audience clapped their approval.

  Franny attempted a second sip. The drink was warming and lemony and vaguely spiced, and now that she was expecting alcohol, it wasn’t too bad.

  Boopsie tinkled a few notes on the piano and started to sing.

  When you see a pretty fella

  With a certain kind of asset

  And you wanna get a hold-a

  The eggs in his basket

  Just remember this one trick

  The best way to get his stick

  Smash your boobies

  Smash ’em together