This week on Excerpt Thursday, we're welcoming historical fiction author DeAnna Cameron. Her most recent title, DANCING AT THE CHANCE is set in New York City in the early 1900's, where a strong-minded but insecure heroine, Pepper McClair, chases an elusive dreams. Join us Sunday, when DeAnna will be here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Here's the blurb:
New York City in 1907 is a kingdom of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream. The Gilded Age has ended, and immigrants fill the bustling streets. The glamour of Broadway lures those who desire the limelight-but only a few are fortunate enough to thrive in the lights of a city that casts long, dark, and merciless shadows...
Pepper MacClair and her mother arrived penniless in New York thirteen years ago, and their fortune has not changed. A dancer of fluid grace and motion, Pepper is still only one chorus girl among many, struggling for an opportunity to prove herself worthy of something bigger.
For now, Pepper dances at The Chance, a rundown venue long past its prime. It is not only Pepper's workplace, where she has pushed her physical endurance to its limit, but also her home. And as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of New York's elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to fulfill her heart.
**An Excerpt from Dancing at the Chance**
Chapter
One
New York,
1907
For a full half hour the stage manager
sat on a stool near the footlights, his fingers curled on the hooked head of
his cane, silently watching the vaudeville players at morning rehearsal. Not a
single word of correction or praise passed his lips, not even the typical complaint
that a minute be cut from one bit or added to another. Harland Stanley was
biding his time.
But now, as Pepper MacClair hunched
against a white gazebo set piece with her knees pulled to her chest and the hem
of her black cotton frock skimming the top edge of her boots, she watched the
man pummel the heel of his steel-braced foot into the boards, not once, but three
times in a brutal call for quiet.
In an instant, the music stopped, the
voices fell away.
This was why they were here, the reason
the scrawled note had been tacked to the call board telling performers and
stagehands alike they were expected on the stage.
No exceptions, no excuses. Even the
wardrobe mistress was sitting upon a crate, tugging her needle and thread
through a ripped seam on an extra-large pair of green plaid trousers.
Jimmy, the opening-act juggler, roused
himself from beside the piano, the brim of his bowler clenched between his
fidgety fingers. “Mr. Stanley, before you say anything about that Variety notice, I’d like to say in my
defense that it was hardly raining plates upon the stage. It was one plate,
sir, only one.”
The stage manager raised his palm. “I
am not concerned with your dropped plate, Mr. Jack.” He turned to Marvani, the
magician. “Nor am I concerned with the dove that seemed to disappear beneath
your cape until it escaped by way of your sleeve.” He turned to the Shorty
Shakespeareans, a troupe of thespians measuring between three and four feet
tall. “Neither will I remark upon certain forgotten lines from the Midsummer
scene, except to say it was most unfortunate that these events— and others—were
witnessed by the only critic to visit The Chance Theatre in well over a year.
Shall we leave it at that?”
The stage filled with murmurs of shame
and sheepish agreement.
Pepper watched her fellow players in
disbelief before scrambling to her feet. “No,” she declared. “We should not
leave it at that.”
She searched for a supportive nod from
any quarter, but no one met her gaze.
Except Stanley, who stared back with a
hateful glare. “I suppose you would prefer I make light of these errors? Or lie
and say such mistakes don’t matter?”
“No, but what you might say . . . You
could say . . .” She did not know what he should say, only that what he had
said was frightfully unfair. The day the critic appeared had been an awful day
at the theater. Another stagehand had quit, the third that month, and a
ventriloquist with two weeks left to his contract had gotten himself arrested
for disorderly conduct during the dinner break. The shuffling backstage had
taken a toll, as Stanley was very much aware.
He smiled and watched her fluster.
“You could say the notice was
undeserved,” she blurted at last.
“Undeserved, Miss MacClair?”
“Yes, very much undeserved.” Fresh
conviction swelled within her. “You could say it was untrue. That we are not a
‘band of vaudeville fools, misfits and deviants.’ ” She was quoting the portion
of the notice where the critic had poked fun with the phrase, alleging it to be
more apt than Vaudeville Stars, Marvels
and Delights, the show’s title since The Chance Theatre had opened its
doors sixteen years before.
Stanley pounded his cane like a gavel.
“I will not be lectured to, Miss MacClair. Not by anyone, and certainly not by a
seamstress.”
His words cut, though not as deeply as
did the muffled laughter behind her. She shot a look over her shoulder and saw
Beatrice Pennington’s froth of white-blond curls at the edge of the crimson curtain.
Her dance partner was already dressed in their Dancing Dolls costume— the snug
black bodice that covered little more than a corset and the black tulle skirt
that dropped to the knee.
Beside her, Trixie Small, the third and
youngest member of their trio— a girl of a mere sixteen years— stared in horror
at the stage beneath her feet.
Pepper ignored them. “I am a dancer
now, Mr. Stanley, and have been since the start of the season, as you well
know.”
“Seamstress, chorus girl, it hardly
makes a difference. May we move on to the business at hand?”
She would have pressed him, forced him
to admit the wrong, if she had not seen the message implicit in the expressions
of those around her. The others wanted her to stop. Jimmy and Marvani. The dog
trainer and the wardrobe mistress. Even the stagehands. She read the meaning in
their dodged and downcast glances: If Stanley preferred to ignore the notice,
they did as well.
She plopped down against the fake
gazebo’s step and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Thank you,” he said with false
sincerity and turned to the others. “I have called you together to say that Mr.
DeGraaf will not return this week as planned, and it is with deepest regrets
that he has advised me his convalescence will extend indefinitely.”
Disappointment tinged the air. The
sickness that had kept the theater’s owner away had seemed a blessing at first.
A welcome reprieve from the old man’s booming Dutch curses and nightly rants.
But now that The Chance had been left solely in Stanley’s tight-fisted charge,
even Pepper was eager for DeGraaf’s return.
The marquee and playbills still read
James P. DeGraaf Presents, but for the past five months it had been the stage
manager filling the show’s slots, and he was doing it with one embarrassment after
another. Last week’s headliner had been the worst yet. The man sang Irish
ballads so maudlin and morose that more than one patron fled mid-act with a
hanky pressed to her nose. The singer had taken it as a source of pride, even
crowed backstage about his “keen ability to stir the soul.” Pepper had to clasp
her hands to keep from smacking him silly. Only a simpleton called a bit that sent
the audience fleeing from the seats a success, but if he did not know that yet,
he likely never would. He was a lost cause, and as far as she was concerned, so
was Stanley.
“So you are still in charge,” she said.
“That is the big announcement?”
“No, Miss MacClair. Mr. DeGraaf’s son
will be stepping in during his father’s recovery.”
Robert DeGraaf was returning to The
Chance? The old man had sent his son off to a Cambridge college on a sweltering
September morning more than three years ago, and the younger DeGraaf had not
stepped foot in the theater, even once, in all that time.
The boy had never spent much time at
The Chance, but the veterans knew him well enough. “How can a young man reared in
classrooms and drawing rooms know anything about running a theater?” “When has
he ever showed an interest in his father’s business?” “What good can he
possibly do?”
Pepper held her tongue. The complaints
about Robert were not new, and they had never been fair. He could certainly do
no worse than Stanley. She, for one, welcomed the change, and it had nothing to
do with her feelings for the younger DeGraaf. Absolutely nothing at all. Robert
had promised he would come back for her. No matter what anyone said, he was
keeping his word.
To celebrate the back-to-back releases of DANCING AT THE CHANCE and the
reissue of THE BELLY DANCER, weekly prizes & a grand prize of a Kindle or
Nook (winner's choice) are up for grabs on the author's website. Visit www.DeAnnaCameron.com
and follow the contest link for details.
