How did he know? Perhaps it was the way she stood, regal, like a dancer.
“You stay here, and Zelda will find you.”
“Who’s Zelda?”
“You’ll know her when you see her. She gets excitable when Mr. Buttons calls an audition. But she’s a good woman, and she won’t hurt you.”
“Mighty nice of you to let me know.”
“Keep up with her, though. She won’t wait for you again.”
The old man’s kindness eased some of her nerves. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
A second later, a large, mostly round woman, swooped into the kitchen. Wearing a red taffeta gown, the hem dragging on the floorboards, she was about as wide as she was tall, and her lace collar appeared too snug. Her coal-black hair was eye-catching, piled high on her head like a nest of long-winged birds taking flight in every direction.
A small handbell appeared in Zelda’s hand, and she snapped her wrist. The bell rang through the kitchen, stopping every cook and waiter in their tracks. The only sound left in the room was the pop and sizzle of the meat in the fry pans.
“Who’s here for the audition? You?” She gestured to Honoree.
“Evening, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Absolutely, ma’am. I’m the one here for the audition.”
“You’re late.” With those words, the woman was on the move.
“Ma’am.” Honoree hurried after her. “Ma’am!”
Zelda pushed through the kitchen doors and barreled up a nearby flight of stairs. “Stay close,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you between here and the rehearsal room.”
She moved like snow on a hot stove, and it was hard to keep up. A menagerie of hallways and doors, most closed, some open, passed by, but Honoree scarcely had time to look left or right.
When Zelda disappeared around another corner, Honoree thought for sure she’d lost her until she heard the woman’s heavy footfalls climbing up a flight of stairs. Racing up the stairwell, Honoree arrived at the archway leading to a long hallway. Halfway, Zelda held a door open. “Change in here.”
Honoree stepped inside, and her heart sank. If this was the dressing room, it wasn’t what Honoree expected. She’d wanted something bigger, better, different, but the room was small and shabby, like the one at Miss Hattie’s.
“You’re lucky we got a telephone call about you,” Zelda was saying. “Otherwise, you’d be outta luck.”
Honoree wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly. “A telephone call. About me? From who?”
“Never you mind who. Now you better hurry and change quickly. The audition will start at any moment.”
As soon as Zelda shut the door, Honoree stripped out of her street clothes and dressed in her audition outfit—dance pants, tap shoes, and a loose-fitting blouse. All the while, part of her mind was thinking about the phone call Zelda mentioned.
Honoree couldn’t think of anyone she knew important enough to stop Mr. Buttons’s audition. Maybe Zelda would give her a name if she asked nicely if she got the job.
She glanced in the mirror, put on a fresh layer of lipstick, pinched her cheeks, and she was out the door. Zelda was waiting down the hall, holding another door open. “Come on now. We ain’t got all night.”
* * *
All the girls looked alike in the rehearsal room. A dozen of them with the same light brown skin, dark red lipstick, and bobbed hair. Wearing short skirts the length of step-in pantaloons, and thin cotton blouses tied at the waist, they whispered in small groups, stretched legs against a wall, and flipped cartwheels.
Most of them acted as if they’d run into a long-lost friend, and likely had. Chorus girls on the Stroll knew one another. Honoree didn’t know a soul.
She tied the tails of her loose-fitting blouse at her waist and sought a spot to stretch. A few girls had lined up near an upright piano. The expensive kind with plain square pillars and trim moldings. Nothing like the broke-down keyboard at Miss Hattie’s.
A girl with a polka-dot bandanna stood alone near the piano, giving Honoree a bubble of hope that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know everybody. Honoree approached, lips parted, prepared to say hello, but the girl turned her back and started speaking to another girl.
Honoree felt sheepish and pivoted, trying to squelch the notion that she’d been slapped.
She placed her hands on her hips and twisted her torso from side to side, limbering up her muscles like the other girls. Except judgmental eyes were everywhere. She sensed them watching, criticizing, whispering, but Honoree refused to shrink from the attention.
