Free Broadway Baby by Alan Shapiro Page A

the evenings, tired in a good way, a happily spent way.
    On the drive home they’d stop at the Clam Shack on the bay and eat a huge bucket of steamed clams. Sometimes they’d surprise the boys and pull into the drive-in movie theater just past the shipyard, so close to the Baker’s factory that the car would fill with the fragrance of chocolate. Miriam loved how excitedly the boys would tumble from the car and run to the playground where other kids were playing while she and Curly would settle in, her head against his shoulder, his arm around her, and watch Carousel or Guys and Dolls or, her new favorite, Th e Best Th ings in Life Are Free —Curly holding Miriam as she sang along to “Lucky in Love,” or “Button Up Your Overcoat,” the two of them even singing together, “Take good care of yourself, you belong to me.”
    Some days it was so easy to be happy it just broke her heart.

Scene VII
    To keep her company while she cooked, she put My Fair Lady on the record player. Th e show had come through Boston a year ago, and she had been there at opening night. Curly of course, as always, was too tired to go. She went solo, the only one of her friends who went without her husband. Th ere was Stanley and Dottie, and Harry and Gissy, and her, poor Miriam. She couldn’t really blame Curly, she knew that—after all, he was at the slaughterhouse by five each morning, and for the past year he’d been mostly working seven days a week. Someday, he said, all the hard work would pay off; he always promised that when he struck out on his own, they’d be living on easy street. Miriam was beginning to wonder. She tried to stay positive. She told herself that when their ship came in, they’d look back fondly on this time of struggle; they’d see it as the character-building phase of their relationship, like Eliza Doolittle’s years on the street, selling flowers, before Henry Higgins, the man of her dreams, turns her into the lady she was destined to become. Maybe, from the pinnacle of her future success, she’d see these years as the “good old days.” But right now, she couldn’t help but resent how hard Curly had to work and how little he got back in return. She tried not to blame him, but she could and did blame his father and his brother—God, how they took advantage of him—and sometimes, she couldn’t help herself, she blamed Curly for his lack of nerve, his inability to stand up for himself. But when she asked him about it, he called it love and respect. Where would he be without his father? How could he disobey his father? Didn’t his father give them the down payment for the house? It was like talking to a wall.
    But all of that vanished utterly when she sang along to “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” While she sang, life itself became a musical in which everybody in the end got just what they deserved. She played the album over and over, and one day, after the third or fourth time, as she lifted the arm off the record to reset it, she heard Ethan singing from the next room. He was singing the same song; while Sam looked on, he was on the floor banging two trucks together as he sang, “I was supremely independent and content before we met. Surely I could always . . .” Barely eight and he sang like a little Eddie Fisher. She couldn’t believe her ears.
    When Curly got home, she had Ethan sing for him, and tired as he was, even he acknowledged that the kid was good. Very good. Miriam was already plotting her next move. Ethan would have to learn to tap dance; he’d need acting lessons. He’d need coaching, direction. She wouldn’t be able to do this by herself.
    S HE FOUND HIM a teacher. His name was Stuart Foster. His studio was on the second floor of an office building in downtown Boston, and every Saturday morning and Wednesday night she took Ethan there. Every Saturday morning and Wednesday night, Ethan didn’t want to go. Th ey fought. She sometimes had to drag him kicking and screaming to