I Could Go on Singing Read Online Free PDF Page A

tempo and seeming to lift it, giving herself with all the little turns and struttings of her effort, yet making it all seem without effort, making it seem a total enjoyment. Jason Brown felt it take him as completely as it was taking the big audience, shallowing his breath, running his blood faster. It was the essence of professionalism, but it was also something more, something you could never quite put your finger on. It was the same thing, perhaps, which made her sing to friends with all the skill and care and effort she would give to a great audience. It was her communication, her projection of her spirit and her love.
    (Once, after the pool lights were off at the Americana, and it was a rare moonlight, they had swum then sat close on the low board, and she had sung “Stormy Weather” for him, muting all the power of that voice down to a small and wondrous clarity of tone, audible only to him, her pale strong throat throbbing in the silver fall of tropic moonlight, making of that song a love offering so sweet the tears in his eyes had blurred the image of her.)
    Again came the great crashing sound of applause. She gathered up more of the flowers. She bowed and smiled and bowed. George Kogan signaled the stage man and the curtain came down, and George walked out to her. He grabbed her and hugged her, full of excitement. “Great! Great! Great! Great!” he said. “You’re great!”
    She stood there, barely aware of him, head tilted, wearing her listening look. Jason Brown heard the applause finally begin to diminish, and he saw her give a small nod. Now she could let the long and exhausting contact with them fade, and she could come back to herself, to the private Jenny Bowman. The hairdresser was picking up more flowers. Jenny handed the ones she held to George, and he said, “Listen to them, they’re going out of their skins!”
    She started toward the corner of the stage and Jason Brown moved to block her way. She stared at him absently almost irritably and her face changed. “Brownie!” she said, all a sudden gladness. She squeezed him and kissed him and shook her head marvelingly. “I see you and know how much I’ve missed you.”
    “You were really something tonight, Jenny dear.”
    “Wasn’t I just?” she said with a mockery unlike her, tiredness in her face and an obscure look of anger. “Come along,” she said, and moved by him, ignoring the robe Ida held out for her. The four of them followed her back through the vast and shadowy dinginess of the backstage areas, all the big flats and dust, the dangling webs of heavy cables and ropes. Someone on one of the overhead catwalks, stagehand or electrician, called down, “Great show, Jenny!”
    She glanced up and acknowledged with a wave.
    “Twenty songs and eight encores,” George said. “Admit it, darling. There’s nothing wrong with that voice.”
    She did not answer him. As some of the backstage people moved toward her, George quickened his stride and deftly waved them off, saying to Jenny, “Darling, with all honesty and sincerity, you were magnificent.”
    They reached the dressing room corridor where Jason had been before, and as Jenny and Ida and the hairdresser continued on to the dressing room, George stopped and turned to the commissionaire and beckoned and said, “Hey, you—Chief!” Jason stood by, waiting for a chance to speak to George.
    “Yes sir?”
    “No one gets by here. Understand? No one.”
    “No one. Yes sir.”
    The people were already gathering, moving down the corridor and the commissionaire hastened to block their way. Jason saw two photographers in the group, one of them saying, “Let me through. Let me through. Press. One side, please.”
    George Kogan said with a smiling, easy affability, “I’m sorry, boys. You’ll have to settle for what you’ve got.”
    “But you promised one in the dressing room.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Jason saw the orchestra leader push through the group and George moved to meet him and