The Flower Girls
Charlie Flowers strived to be a success in vaudeville. However, not only did he lack the ability to play a musical instrument, but when he tried to sing, he could not carry a tune. Since music was not his forte, he settled for being a comedian. Regrettably, his jokes were mediocre and his delivery was lackluster. Still, he managed to eke out a living by working the Orpheum Circuit along with such greats as George M. Cohan, W.C. Fields, Harry Houdini, Gypsy Rose Lee, Mack Sennett and Sarah Bernhardt.
At age twenty-five, Charlie was still struggling to make it big. After the show he was appearing in closed, he agreed to accompany Maude Hickson, one of the chorus girls, to the New Brighton Theatre in Long Island. His initial reaction was to decline her invitation since he would need to economize as much as possible until he could obtain another gig.
"I've got a friend who can get us free tickets," Maude claimed.
Since the evening would not cost him anything, the comedian agreed to go. As luck would have it, the night at the theater would change his life.
"Eddie Foy," he said as he read the program. "I saw him perform in Blue Beard, Jr. in Niblo's Garden. Now, he's got an act in which he performs with his seven children."
Although Charlie had never really cared much for child performers, he had to admit he enjoyed Foy's act.
"Aren't those children adorable!" Maude exclaimed.
Charlie looked at the chorus girl as though seeing her for the first time.
"Why is it you're not married?"
Blushing, the young woman replied, "I haven't met Mr. Right yet."
For the past six months, the cute redhead had cast longing glances in his direction. He would have to have been blind not to notice that she was attracted to him. However, up until that night, he had been more interested in his career than in romance.
Maybe I ought to take a page out of Foy's book, he mused. I could marry Maude, and we can start our own family.
He imagined the marquee above New York's Palace Theatre: "Charlie Flowers and Children." Of course, there wouldn't be seven children—not at first anyway. Perhaps if he and Maude had two children, their act would be as popular as the Four Cohans once was. First, however, he would need to make the chorus girl his lawfully wedded wife. That proved to be the easy part. Six weeks later, once Charlie found work in a new show, the couple tied the knot. Before their first anniversary, Maude discovered she was pregnant.
"Charlie Flowers and Son," the expectant father said proudly as he and his wife awaited the birth. "I'll teach my boy to play a musical instrument from an early age. And, by God, he'll learn to dance before he can walk."
"But what if he doesn't have any talent?" Maude asked.
"The audience will love him just the same. All babies are adorable. You said so yourself."
"Surely you'll want until he's older before you take him out on stage."
"Why should I? Hell, if he can crawl, he'll be part of my act."
What Charlie had not foreseen was that his wife would give birth to a girl.
"I'd like to call her Rose, after my mother," Maude announced.
Disappointed in his child's sex, the father shrugged. It didn't matter to him what the girl's name was.
"The next one will be a boy," he told himself. "And we'll call him Charlie Flowers, Jr."
* * *
"Another girl!" Charlie cried when he learned of the birth of his fourth daughter.
His dream of starting an act known as Charlie Flowers and Son died once again. Thankfully, his wife was still a young woman. Perhaps her next pregnancy would result in a boy. Meanwhile, though, his family now numbered six. That meant five mouths to feed and an infant. Rose and Lily, ages three and two, were toilet-trained; however, Daisy and the newborn Violet were both in diapers.
"If we don't have a son for the act soon, I'll never be able to support everyone," the comic grumbled.
"Eddie Foy had two girls in addition to his five boys," Maude pointed out.
"So?"
"There's no reason you can't build an act around our daughters."
The following day, Charlie watched three-year-old Rose playing with two-year-old Lily as one-year-old Daisy looked on. All three girls had red hair and green eyes like their mother.
They really are cute, he thought proudly.
"Rose," he called to the oldest. "Can you sing or dance?"
The child immediately began singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." She was off-key and frequently got the lyrics wrong. However, she looked absolutely adorable as she sang and clumsily twirled around, attempting to dance.
"What about you, Lily?"
Although her performance was worse than her sibling's, she looked just as sweet as Rose did.
"Maybe I can build an act around you girls—at least until your mother gives me a son."
From that day forward, the Flowers girls were subjected to a regimen of singing and dancing lessons. They rarely complained although they were forced to practice for several hours each day.
"Of course, if you're to appear on stage, you'll need costumes," Charlie said.
"I can make nice dresses for Rose and Lily," Maude offered.
"Good!" Charlie said. "And if the girls take care of them, they can pass them down to Daisy and Violet when they join the act."
"Violet?" his wife laughed. "She can't even crawl yet."
"Before you know it, she'll be walking—no, dancing across the stage with her sisters."
Little Violet had not yet taken her first step when the fifth daughter, Iris, was born. This time, the father was not upset that the baby was not a boy. His new act, the Flower Girls, proved to be more successful than Charlie Flowers and Son would have been. Originally known as Charlie Flowers and the Flowers Girls, theater owners preferred the condensed name since two words fit better onto a marquee than six.
Rose, Lily and Daisy sang and danced with varying degrees of proficiency while their father told jokes about marriage and parenthood. Halfway through the act, Violet would stumble out onto the stage, delighting the audience with her smiling baby face.
Charlie had been in the business long enough to realize the girls' ages were the key to the act's popularity. Once Rose hit the awkward stage of development, he would have to remove her, but that was years away yet. Hopefully, he would be a wealthy man by that time.
And besides, he thought optimistically, by then I may have a few more daughters.
* * *
As Charlie had predicted, Maude was pregnant the following year and the year after that. Two more daughters were born, Amaryllis and Petunia. Then, after having seven children in seven years, a difficult birth, which required an emergency procedure, brought her child-bearing ability to an end.
"Seven children," her husband mused after the doctor had told him of his wife's operation. "Same as Eddie Foy. Not bad."
The fact that he would never have a son did not bother him. His girls were the toast of vaudeville. Audiences adored the redheaded, green-eyed little angels. However, childhood is fleeting. Before Charlie knew it, his babies were toddlers, his toddlers were youngsters and his youngsters were becoming young women. Fortunately, the "awkward stage" he had feared was no detriment to his act. When Rose shed her baby fat, she became a graceful, beautiful teenager. Lily soon followed in her older sister's footsteps. Daisy was not only beautiful but she also had real talent. She could sing and dance as well as anyone in the theater. Rather than lessen over time, the act's popularity increased as the girls grew older. People eventually saw them not as a group of seven but as unique individuals. Furthermore, it became evident that the Flower Girls were the stars of the act, and Charlie himself became superfluous.
"No one laughs at my jokes," he complained to his wife as she hurried to finish her daughters' latest costumes. "The other day when I stepped out on stage, some young lad had the audacity to shout out that he paid to see Rose, not me!"
"Maybe it's time to let the girls go out on their own."
"What!" the father exclaimed. "They're far too young."
"They've been on stage all their lives," Maude pointed out. "Besides, you can be their manager. That way you can keep an eye on them."
"You're right. Nothing will really change. You and I will still travel with our daughters. You will continue to make their costumes, and I'll handle all the bookings, the finances and whatnot."
"By whatnot, I take it you mean you'll keep the boys away."
"Right you are. I don't want my girls to get any ideas about dating."
* * *
Although the sisters bore a strong physical resemblance to one another, they each had a unique personality. Rose, the oldest, had seen little of the world beyond boarding houses, hotel rooms and theaters. She longed to travel the world. She had a scrapbook of photographs of landmarks she cut out of magazines. They included the Tower of London, the Palace of Versailles, the Roman Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Sistine Chapel and even the Great Wall of China.
"Do you really think you're going to visit all those places someday?" Iris asked as Rose pasted a picture of Venice's Rialto Bridge into her scrapbook.
"I hope so. When I'm no longer one of the Flower Girls, that is."
"Papa will never let us break up the act."
"We'll be old ladies someday. Do you really think people will pay to see us sing and dance when we're past thirty?"
"I suppose not," Iris said with a frown.
"What about you?" Rose asked the younger girl. "What would you like to do when we're older?"
"I want to enjoy the great outdoors. I never had the opportunity to climb a tree, ride a bicycle, play baseball ...."
"Girls don't play baseball. It's a sport for boys."
"If you can go to London and Paris, I can play baseball!" Iris argued.
"All right. If you want to be a tomboy, so be it."
Lily, only a year younger than Rose, had plans of her own.
"I want to be an actress someday," she announced, striking an exaggerated pose.
"You can't sing and dance like Daisy," Iris declared. "Of the seven of us, she's the only one with any real talent. She'll probably be on the stage until she's old and gray."
"I don't want to act on stage," Lily explained. "I want to go to Hollywood and be in moving pictures."
"Papa would never allow it!" Rose exclaimed. "He says people in Hollywood have no morals."
"Once I turn twenty-one, I no longer have to listen to Papa. I can do what I please."
"What about you, Violet?" Rose inquired. "What would you like to do?"
Violet looked up from the pages of the book she was reading and frowned.
"I don't have big dreams like you do," she replied. "The only traveling I want to do is in my mind."
"That means she wants to keep her nose in her precious books!" Lily teased.
"What's wrong with that?" Violet asked defensively. "If I didn't have to be part of the act, I would go to school and study literature. William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Jules Verne, the Brontës. These names mean more to me than Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Buster Keaton and Mae West."
Thirteen-year-old Amaryllis and twelve-year-old Petunia, the baby of the family, did not want to be left out of the conversation.
"Nobody asked me what I want to be when I grow up," Petunia said petulantly.
"Okay. What do you want to be?" Rose asked.
"I want to wear beautiful dresses and have my hair done up in curls," the little girl replied. "And wear makeup and perfume."
"One sister's a tomboy," Iris laughed. "The other is a girly girl."
"I just like to look pretty. So does Amaryllis. Right?" Petunia asked the second-to-youngest daughter.
"I suppose so," Amaryllis. "Boys like pretty girls, don't they? And I like boys."
"You'd better not let Papa hear you say that!" Violet cautioned. "He'll put you under lock and key if he does!"
"Papa," Rose said with a sigh. "He does like to control our lives."
"Papa," Lily added with a frown. "If it weren't for him, I might be on a film set right now."
"If Papa weren't around, I would be doing a solo act rather than appearing with you six," Daisy theorized.
"And I could be sitting in a classroom, learning about Chaucer or Milton," Violet mused.
"Without Papa, I'd have my pick of beaus," Amaryllis cried. "All of them handsome, rich and sophisticated."
"I can see myself now," Petunia said, running a hand through her hair. "Dressed in a silk gown, my hair pinned up off my neck. I'd be wearing eye shadow and lipstick, too."
"You wouldn't catch me all gussied up," Iris insisted. "I'd wear pants."
"Pants on a girl?" Petunia asked her sister in horror.
"Sure. I couldn't play baseball in a dress!"
* * *
The Flowers family had a birthday party in Mrs. Rand's boarding house on the day Rose turned nineteen. As with all other family birthdays, there were balloons, gifts and a cake.
"In another two years, I'll be twenty-one," the birthday girl said after blowing out the candles on her cake. "I'll officially be an adult. I've been saving up my money. When I turn twenty-one, I intend to go to Europe and visit some of the places in my scrapbook."
The color drained from Charlie's face.
"You can't do that!" he cried. "What about the act?"
"Instead of seven Flower Girls, there will be six. After all, I won't be a girl anymore. I'll be a woman."
"That won't matter to the audience."
Rose looked to her sisters for help.
"And the year after Rose leaves the act, I'll be off to Hollywood," eighteen-year-old Lily announced.
"Don't worry, Papa," Daisy assured him. "I will remain on the stage. Naturally, I expect the name of the act to change. I think Daisy Flowers and Her Four Sisters has a nice ring to it."
"Not for too long," Violet, sixteen, said. "When I become of age, I intend to go to school."
"What is this?" Charlie argued. "No one is going anywhere! Not to Europe or Hollywood or school! I don't care how old you are. You are the Flower Girls—all seven of you."
"Sorry, Papa," Rose apologized. "But I've made up my mind. When I turn twenty-one, I'm going to travel."
"This is mutiny!" their father shouted. "I won't stand for it!"
"Now, now," Maude said, attempting to keep the peace in her family. "Rose is only nineteen. She won't be twenty-one for another two years yet. Why don't we put off this discussion until then?"
Both Rose and Charlie agreed; however, neither one believed the intervening twenty-four months would change their minds.
After the presents were opened and the cake was eaten, the girls went upstairs to their rooms. The three oldest girls shared one bedroom, and the four youngest shared a second one. Since none of the sisters were ready to go to sleep, all seven gathered in one room.
"Papa's never going to let you go to Europe," Iris pointed out.
"He won't let any of us go out on our own," Lily added.
"He never let us break up the act," Daisy concluded.
"How can he stop us?" Rose asked.
"Papa controls the money," Violet answered. "How far do you think you can get on the pittance you saved in your piggybank?"
"But it's our money," Lily said. "We worked for it."
"That's right," Daisy agreed. "We earned it."
"He is entitled to a percentage because he's our manager," Rose reasoned. "But the majority of the money should be ours."
"The account is in his name alone," Violet explained. "He doesn't have to give us a penny of it."
"That's not fair," Rose complained.
"There must be something we can do to get our share," Iris suggested.
"We should hire a lawyer," Lily advised. "We'll take Papa to court if need be."
"Lawyers cost money," Violet told her.
"Let's ask Mama," Daisy proposed. "She can talk to Papa on our behalf."
"When have you ever known Papa to listen to Mama?" Violet asked.
No one replied, but all seven girls knew the answer to the question. Never.
* * *
If it weren't for Papa.
The thought preyed on Daisy's mind and prevented her from falling asleep. She tossed and turned until the wee hours of the night. Rather than count sheep, she envisioned her name in lights: Daisy Flowers. There were no sisters to share the limelight, nor was there a father backstage managing the act and pocketing the proceeds.
Mother will be fine, she mused. She'll be happy sewing costumes for me. If it weren't for Papa, that is!
That thought replayed in her mind like a mantra.
If it weren't for Papa. If it weren't for Papa. If it weren't for Papa.
It was almost four in the morning when she gave up all hope of sleeping.
If it weren't for Papa.
She wondered if her sisters were thinking the same thing. She supposed they were.
"But unlike them, I intend to do something about it!" Daisy whispered to herself so as not to wake Rose or Lily.
Knowing her father was an early riser, she tiptoed out into the hallway. The small boarding house in which they currently lived had four bedrooms. The Flowers family rented three of them; the fourth was vacant since the magician who had been living there was performing in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The landlady, Mrs. Rand, did not reside on the premises. Instead, she came to the boarding house each morning at sunrise to cook breakfast for her boarders and clean the house.
Charlie usually woke at five and went down to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee while his wife and daughters preferred to sleep later.
Daisy sneaked down to the kitchen and found a ball of twine in one of the drawers. She cut a length off, stretched it across one of the uppermost treads of the staircase and tied the ends to the spindles. Careful to step over the taut string, she returned to her bedroom and waited. Forty minutes later, she heard a bedroom door open. Her heartbeat quickened and her nerves tensed. She could barely breathe as she waited for the sound. It came as expected.
Papa fell, she thought, suddenly fearing her plan had not worked as she had hoped. But what if he didn't die? What if he only broke a leg or bumped his head?
Daisy jumped from her bed, but before she made it across the room, she heard another bedroom door open. She heard her mother's voice cry out.
"What was that noise?" Maude asked.
A second later, she heard another voice in the hallway outside her bedroom door.
"It sounds like someone fell down the stairs."
Daisy's blood ran cold.
"It can't be!" her mind screamed.
But it was. Papa turned on the hall light and looked down the stairs at Amaryllis who had fallen to her death after tripping on the twine Daisy had hoped would kill her father.
"She must have gone downstairs for a cookie," Iris theorized. "She often went down to the kitchen to sneak snacks when she thought everyone was asleep."
As her parents and five surviving sisters gathered around Amaryllis's body, Daisy quickly picked up the twine, which had been ripped from the spindles when her sister tripped on it, and hid it in the folds of her nightgown. No one need ever know that the young girl's death had not been an unfortunate accident.
* * *
"You know what they say. The show must go on," Charlie declared, seeing the somber faces of his six daughters. "Besides, Amaryllis wouldn't want us to grieve too much."
How does he know what Amaryllis would have wanted? fifteen-year-old Iris wondered, seething with resentment. He doesn't know what any of us want!
By the looks on their faces, Rose, Lily, Violet and Petunia seemed to share Iris's anger. There was a blank expression on Daisy's face, however. Since Amaryllis's fatal fall, the seventeen-year-old was uncharacteristically quiet. Odd, since she had been the one who loved to be on stage and who had wanted to be a solo performer.
"Come on, girls," their father called. "Don't dawdle. Get into your costumes."
Daisy silently obeyed, mechanically following Charlie's command as though she had no will of her own. Her sisters, though, grumbled with displeasure as they dressed for their performance.
"It seems disrespectful to go on stage so soon after the funeral," Lily complained once their father was out of earshot.
"We ought to observe a period of morning," Rose agreed.
"Papa said Amaryllis wouldn't want us to be sad," Petunia, the youngest of the girls, said.
"Papa!" Iris echoed in a voice full of scorn. "If it weren't for Papa ...."
"Hurry up, girls!" Charlie shouted from the wings. "The curtain is about to go up."
If it weren't for Papa, Iris thought as she took her place on stage between Violet and Petunia.
Once the curtain came down on their act, the six Flower Girls returned to their dressing room. Iris was the first to tear off her costume. Unlike Petunia, she hated the frills, lace and ruffles.
If it weren't for Papa, I could wear pants instead of sequined dresses. I'd be out playing baseball or riding a bicycle instead of trying to sing and dance.
"What I wouldn't give to have a bath right now," groaned Rose, who was perspiring after dancing beneath the hot stage lights.
Due to a shortage of hot water in Mrs. Rand's boarding house, each boarder was limited to one bath a week. Rose bathed on Monday, Lily on Tuesday, Daisy on Wednesday, Violet on Thursday, Iris on Friday, Maude and Petunia on Saturday and Charlie on Sunday. On nights when they were not permitted to use the clawfoot bathtub, boarders had to resort to sponge baths with a washcloth and a ceramic basin.
"Me, too!" Lily exclaimed. "But it's Sunday. It's Papa's turn."
Papa! Iris thought. It's always Papa! He wasn't out there on that stage, working up a sweat.
Rather than diminish as the evening wore on, Iris's anger grew. By the time the family arrived back at the boarding house, it had reached a full-blown rage. As she rinsed the soap from her face with a wet washrag, she imagined her father drowning in the bathtub. She smiled and thought of other ways her father could meet his end.
What if someone threw an electric into the tub with him? Electrocution would no doubt be quicker than drowning.
Iris smiled as a plan formed in her brain. She could toss a lamp into his bath, but what if she were to remove some of the coating off the wire for the bathroom light? He would be wet when he got out of the bath. If he were to come into contact with the bare wire ....
Once Violet and Petunia were in bed, Iris crept into the bathroom. Using a knife from the kitchen, she scraped the insulation off a portion of the electrical cord. (Since the light was turned off, there was no danger of her electrocuting herself.) Once she was finished, she ran the cord in front of the sink rather than behind it. When her father exited the bathroom, he would surely step on it with his wet, bare feet.
Then I'll be free to wear pants and play outdoors, she thought triumphantly. With Papa gone, Rose can travel to Europe, Lily can go to Hollywood, Daisy can do a solo act and Violet can go to school.
Iris returned to bed but was too excited to sleep. She sat beneath the quilt for nearly an hour before she heard the footsteps in the hall heading for the bathroom. A smile lit up her face as she heard the water spilling into the tub. She debated whether she would prefer to pitch, catch or play the infield as she waited for her father to emerge from his bath.
What I really want to do is bat. I'd love to hit a home run just like Babe ....
The sound of someone falling in the bathroom woke up her sisters.
"What was that?" Petunia asked sleepily.
Two bedroom doors opened, and multiple footsteps ran down the hall. Her mother's scream pierced the night. When Iris opened her door, the last person she expected to see standing in the hall was Papa. But there he was!
"Rose! My poor, poor Rose!" Maude cried. "What could have happened to her?"
Charlie saw the exposed wire and immediately turned off the lamp.
"She stepped on a frayed wire with wet feet. She must have just gotten out of the bath."
"But it's Sunday," Lily said. "It wasn't her turn."
"She wanted to take a bath so badly, I told her I'd switch days with her and take mine tomorrow," Papa explained.
Realizing she had inadvertently murdered her oldest sister, Iris fainted and collapsed in the upstairs hallway of Mrs. Rand's boarding house.
* * *
Eight months after Rose's death, the Flowers family left New York, and the act opened in Chicago. The five Flower Girls were still performing together despite the loss of two sisters. Iris, like Daisy, felt guilty about her failed attempt to remove Papa from their lives, which resulted in a sibling's death. However, neither girl revealed their fatal error to anyone.
"Maybe our luck will change now that we're in Chicago," Charlie said softly to his grieving wife.
"I hope so. I couldn't bear to lose another child."
Six weeks after moving into a small rented bungalow on the outskirts of the Windy City, the family gathered together for another birthday party. This time it was Lily who turned nineteen.
"It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Rose's nineteenth birthday," Violet said when saw the number nineteen piped on the frosted cake.
"That means in two years you'll be twenty-one," Petunia, now fourteen, observed. "Do you still intend to go to Hollywood and become an actress?"
Lily gave the youngest sister a stern look. Charlie, who had overheard his daughter's question, frowned with disapproval.
"No one is breaking up this act. Especially not to become a movie actress!"
"What Papa doesn't know won't hurt him," Violet whispered to Lily.
Seventeen-year-old Violet was referring to her sister's secret meeting with a director from Biograph Studios before the family left New York. Despite what Charlie said, Lily intended to leave the act once she saved enough money to travel to California.
And it will cost less to get there from Chicago than from New York, Violet thought, believing her sister would be gone within a year.
After the family members sang "Happy Birthday" and Lily blew out the candles, Maude cut the cake into six slices.
"I want a smaller piece," Lily declared. "I have to watch my weight."
"Nonsense!" Charlie bellowed. "Audiences won't mind if you're pleasantly plump."
"They say the camera adds twenty pounds," Petunia said, drawing another angry look from the birthday girl.
"Lucky for us the same can't be said of the stage," Charlie contended.
Violet thought it best to change the subject before Petunia made matters worse.
"I was reading about the Great Chicago Fire last night," she announced. "It's hard to believe how much of the city was destroyed at the time."
"And all because of Mrs. O'Leary's darned cow!" Lily laughed.
"Well, that's how the story goes. But many factors contributed to the disaster."
Throughout the conversation, Daisy and Iris remained silent.
"What's wrong, you two?" Charlie asked. "Neither of you has touched your cake."
"I'm not hungry," the morose sisters responded in unison.
Maude, who believed both her daughters were still deeply grieving the loss of Rose and Amaryllis, said consolingly, "Your sister is in a better place. And, God willing, we'll all be reunited eventually."
A better place, indeed! Daisy thought brokenheartedly. Rose wanted to see the world, and thanks to me, she's buried in New York with six feet of earth above her!
Lily, too, had an opinion of what her mother referred to as "a better place."
If it weren't for Papa, I'd be in a better place. And it isn't heaven. Or Chicago! I'd be in Hollywood. Perhaps costarring with Douglas Fairbanks or John Barrymore.
As Iris and Daisy struggled with their guilt and Lily seethed with bitterness at their father's failure to understand her desire to become a movie actress, Violet continued to drone on about the Great Chicago Fire.
"Who cares?" Petunia finally cried in exasperation. "That fire was like a hundred years ago!"
"It was not," Violet argued. "The fire happened in 1871. And lots of people care because approximately three hundred people lost their lives."
An idea came to Lily, upon hearing that gruesome fact.
"Wasn't there a famous theater caught fire, too?" she asked her sister.
"You must be thinking of the Iroquois Theatre fire," Violet answered. "That happened in 1903. More than six hundred people died in that one."
"Eddie Foy was performing there at the time," Charlie added. "He was quite the hero, remaining on stage and helping to calm the audience."
I certainly wouldn't want to kill an entire theater full of people, Lily mused. But I wouldn't mind if Papa died in a much smaller fire.
Two days later, Lily put her plan into action. She and her sisters were in their dressing room, putting the finishing touches on their stage makeup.
Charlie opened the door and called into the room, "Hurry up, girls. The comic is just about done with his act, and you're on next."
Four of the girls immediately followed their father's command, but Lily hung to the rear. Once her sisters were gathered in the wings, she doubled back to the dressing room. She filled the metal wastebasket with crumbled paper and set it on fire. Then she called to her father who was drinking a cup of coffee outside the theater manager's office.
"Papa, come quickly. There's a rat in our dressing room."
"I'll be right there," Charlie replied.
Lily hid in the shadows of the hallway, lying in wait for her unsuspecting father. When she heard the dressing room door open, she waited a few seconds and then slammed it shut and locked it.
I did it! she thought triumphantly and headed toward her sisters who were about to go on stage.
As the comic took his bows, her father's voice rang out.
"Fire!"
Something was wrong. His voice was not muffled. Lily turned and ran back toward the dressing room, followed by her mother and sisters. She stopped short when she saw her father frantically trying to open the door. But he was in the hall, not inside the room.
"Someone go get help!" he cried. "The door is stuck. I can't get it open."
A scream from inside the dressing room was followed by the sound of someone coughing. Wisps of smoke came from beneath the door.
"Help me!" Iris called, her voice filled with fear.
The fire company arrived in time to prevent a devastating tragedy as had happened in the Iroquois Theatre. The destruction was limited to one dressing room, and the death toll was a single person. However, to Lily's horror, the person who died was Iris—who ran back to the dressing room to retrieve her forgotten headpiece—and not her father, the intended victim.
* * *
With Iris gone, the four Flowers daughters slept two to a room. Lily and Daisy, both of whom seemed to shut themselves off from human contact when not on stage, shared one while Violet and Petunia slept in the other. Now that three of her siblings were dead, Violet longed more than ever to leave the stage behind and seek comfort in books.
If it weren't for Papa, I could go to school. Perhaps I might even be accepted into a college someday.
"I don't see why people pay to see us," she complained to Petunia one night as they climbed into bed. "Daisy is the only one of us who has any real talent, and she seems to have lost her desire to do a solo act. It was different when we were small children. We were cute back then. Now, we're older."
"You don't think I'm still cute?" the youngest of the girls asked.
"For a fourteen-year-old, yes. But you're not a toddler anymore."
"You know what I'd like to do?" Petunia asked.
"What?"
"I'd like to be in a beauty pageant. Or become a fashion model."
"You always did like to dress up," Violet observed. "But Papa would never allow it."
"Just like he won't let Lily go to Hollywood."
Violet frowned. Lily had been so eager to become a Hollywood actress. However, since Iris died in the fire in the theater dressing room, the oldest surviving sister seemed to have abandoned her dream.
"One thing is for certain," Violet promised herself. "I won't give up my goal of getting an education."
When Petunia fell asleep, her sister reached for the novel on the night table. Although she normally preferred nonfiction books, since being introduced to Hercule Poirot in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, she gained a fondness for Agatha Christie mysteries.
No matter how smart these murderers are, they always get caught, she mused. At least in novels, they do. But in real life?
Violet put down her book and considered the question. She recalled names of victims that appeared in newspaper headlines. Many of these murders were never solved. False modesty aside, she considered herself a person of above-average intelligence. Surely, she could kill Papa and not be discovered.
Leopold and Loeb believed they were too smart to be caught when they murdered Bobby Franks, she realized. If it weren't for Clarence Darrow, they no doubt would have both been sentenced to death.
Still, she was willing to take the risk.
Besides, I'm a girl. Even if I'm arrested, I might go scot-free just like Lizzie Borden.
Having made the decision to set herself and her sisters free by ridding the world of their father, she was faced with deciding the best means to accomplish this. Nothing violent or bloody. No taking an axe and giving her father forty whacks! Her eyes went to the Agatha Christie book. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, poison was used as the weapon of choice.
"That's it!" she cried, careful not to wake her sister.
The custodian at the theater used arsenic to keep the rodent population at bay. She would sneak into his supply closet when he wasn't looking and take a bottle of arsenic which she would add to the whiskey Papa got from the bootleggers that frequented the theater. For three days, she kept watch over the custodian's comings and goings. Finally, when he was called upon to change a lightbulb in the lobby, she snuck into his closet and stole a bottle of arsenic.
That night, while Papa was smoking a cigarette and talking politics with the next-door neighbor, Violet doctored his whiskey. She then went upstairs to Lily and Daisy's bedroom to peruse the current issue of Harper's Bazaar. Although her sisters had lost interest in the latest fashions and hairstyles, the young women pretended to look at the illustrations.
Lily was the first one to lose interest.
"I think I'll turn in," she announced with a yawn.
"Me, too," Daisy agreed.
"You two are no fun!" Violet laughed. "Please stay up with me. I'm full of energy. I couldn't possibly fall asleep right now."
"Wouldn't you be happier going to your own room and reading one of your books?" Lily asked.
"It's hard to read with Petunia there. She keeps interrupting me with silly questions."
Although Lily went to sleep, Daisy remained awake with her sister. The two girls were discussing plans for the Fourth of July holiday when they heard a crash from the floor below.
"What could that be?" Violet cried, feigning ignorance.
The sisters ran down the stairs to the living room and discovered a body on the floor. Beside it was the shattered decanter where Papa kept his whiskey. Moments later, Lily, Mama and Papa joined them.
"Please tell me she's still alive!" Maude screamed.
Charlie checked his daughter's pulse and shook his head.
Although Maude insisted her youngest child was a victim of the family curse, the doctor ascertained the death was the result of arsenic poisoning.
"It had to have been in the whiskey," her father cried. "Petunia must have snuck downstairs to have a taste of it. She was always far too curious for her own good."
It was a clear case of murder. However, Chicago at that time was overrun with gangsters who put pressure on the corrupt police force to squash any potential rumors that a young girl had died after drinking their bootleg alcohol. Thus, the official cause of death was attributed to a rare, undetected heart condition.
* * *
Lily, Daisy and Violet Flowers sat at the back of the church during Petunia's funeral. Their mother, inconsolable with grief, sat in the front pew, weeping over the most recent death in the family. Charlie sat beside her. Although he offered comfort to his wife, his thoughts were on how to build an act around his three remaining daughters.
Meanwhile, people filed into the church. Most of them were performers or people who worked for the theater. After giving their condolences to the parents, they took their seats and waited for the service to begin. Oddly enough, no one stopped to speak to the Flower Girls.
"Perhaps they agree with Mama that there is a curse on our family," Lily suggested. "You know how superstitious theater folk are."
"Do the fools think it's contagious?" Daisy laughed bitterly.
The three teenagers looked at the face of their youngest sibling who was lying in her coffin.
"She looks so peaceful," Lily observed.
"As though she were sleeping," Daisy added.
"It wasn't supposed to be her," Violet murmured.
"What are you talking about?" Lily asked.
"Petunia wasn't supposed to die," Violet replied. "It should have been Papa."
"Yes, it should have been Papa," both Lily and Daisy echoed.
When Daisy looked at Violet, her eyes widened with surprise.
"Did you ...?" she asked.
"I meant to poison Papa," Violet admitted and then broke down, sobbing. "I never wanted to hurt poor Petunia."
Daisy hugged her distraught sister and whispered, "I know. I never meant for Amaryllis to fall down the stairs either. I thought Papa would be the one."
Lily, too, came clean about her unintentional murder.
"And I certainly never intended Iris to die in the fire. She was supposed to go on stage not return to the dressing room."
"What about Rose?" Daisy wondered. "Did either of you ...?"
Her sisters shook their heads.
"I think Iris may have had something to do with her death," Violet surmised. "Remember how she fainted when Rose's body was found?"
At that moment, the priest walked into the church, and the service began. The three Flower Girls wiped their tears and sat holding hands in solidarity for the remainder of the funeral.
"Mama is right," Lily said after the girls left the church and returned home where a meal had been laid out for the mourners. "There is a curse on our family."
"Yes," Daisy agreed. "The curse is Papa, and we must put an end to it."
"Together, we can succeed where individually we have failed," Violet predicted.
* * *
"What's that you're reading?" Daisy asked, seeing her sister with her nose buried in another book.
"It's about the Eastland tragedy," Violet replied. "In 1903, it capsized in the Chicago River, killing more than eight hundred people. Most of them drowned right there beside the dock."
"Did you know Papa can't swim?" Lily asked with a hint of a smile on her face.
"Wouldn't it be fun to have a July Fourth picnic on the shore of Lake Michigan?" Violet asked. "We could rent a boat and go out on the lake."
"Papa wouldn't dare go, though," Daisy announced. "He's afraid of the water."
"True, but if one of us were to fall overboard, he would surely try to save us."
"I'm a good swimmer. I should be the one to go into the lake," Lily volunteered. "Daisy can remain on the boat and cry for help. You, Violet, should remain on the beach and make sure Papa sees we're in trouble."
"And when Papa drowns," Daisy said, "we can attribute it to Mama's curse."
Two days later, on the Fourth of July, the weather was warm and sunny. Charlie and Maude Flowers and their three daughters headed for the beach with two picnic baskets full of food.
"Remember, we have a show tonight," he cautioned the girls, "so don't get any sunburn."
After finishing her lunch, Lily pointed out the rowboat rental stand to her sisters.
"Oh, let's go for a boat ride," Daisy suggested.
"I'll stay here," Violet said. "I want to finish reading my book."
"It's a holiday," Lily teased. "Can't you relax and enjoy yourself for once?"
"Reading is the way I enjoy myself."
The two older girls ran across the sand, got into a boat and rowed out onto Lake Michigan.
"Don't go too far," Charlie called.
"Maybe they should come back," Maude said, wringing her hands together. "We don't want either of them to fall victim to the curse."
"Stop it with that curse nonsense," her husband declared and reached into a picnic basket for a piece of chocolate cake.
Violet pretended to read, but she frequently gazed above the top of her book at her sisters.
Why are they going out so far? she wondered.
As she turned a page in her book, she saw Lily stand up in the boat. A few moments later, she fell overboard. The small, lightweight boat rocked and then capsized, tossing Daisy into the lake.
"Papa!" Violet cried. "The boat. It tipped over!"
"Daisy!" Maude shrieked. "Lily! Hurry, Charlie. Go save them before they drown!"
Despite his fear of the water, the frightened father removed his shoes and jacket and ran into the lake. Since the beach was swarming with people celebrating the holiday, several other men joined him in his efforts to rescue his daughters. Two of them were former members of the Navy and excellent swimmers. However, by the time they reached the overturned boat, it was too late. Daisy and Lily had already drowned.
* * *
Charlie Flowers walked away from the Chicago State Hospital after visiting his wife who had been committed there after witnessing the death of two daughters, Lily and Daisy. The poor woman no longer spoke of curses. In fact, she no longer said anything at all. It was as though a light had been turned off, and she lost the ability to communicate with the world around her.
By all rights, Violet should be hospitalized with her mother, he thought. She is not the same girl anymore.
Since the tragic July Fourth picnic, Violet had not so much as picked up a book or looked at a newspaper. Her dreams of going to school and studying literature were as dead as her six siblings.
Maybe once we leave Chicago and open the new act in Philadelphia, she'll improve.
"Hi, Papa," Violet said in a voice that sounded like Petunia's. "How do you like my new dress? Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"I intend to wear it in my solo act."
Her voice no longer sounded like Petunia's but resembled Daisy's instead. Moments later, it deepened, sounding remarkably like Rose's.
"I always wanted to see Philadelphia. Of course, it's not Europe, but ...."
"I never knew you were such a gifted mimic," Charlie said. "You sound just like your sisters."
The voice changed again. This time it was identical to Lily's.
"I have a lot of talent," Violet said. "That's why I'll be a great Hollywood star someday."
"I thought your dream was to go to school."
"I have many dreams. Who knows?" the mentally disturbed young woman asked in Iris's voice. "Maybe someday I'll even play baseball."
Salem insists he was given the role of Ben Franklin in Hamilton, but the character was cut before the play opened on Broadway.
