“I’m actually not an uptown girl,” I said.
“Here, let’s pull up a chair.” Emily squeezed two stools in between Frank and a couple at the bar, and we sat down.
“Don’t mind these two.” She motioned to a gentleman with a full beard and a woman with a short black bob. “They just got married, they like to be close. This is Anne-Marie and Willis.”
“Nice to meet you both,” I said.
“They were just talking about their utter disgust for bourgeois philistines, so you’d better keep your uptown tales under your hat,” Frank chimed in.
“I told you I’m not an uptown girl; my family lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn. I’ll take a gin martini if you’re offering,” I said, turning to the others. “Anyway, congratulations on your marriage.”
“We asked our friends to pay for the marriage license,” Anne-Marie said. “Two pennies each from a hundred friends, we were not going to let the government put a price on our love. Or let society dictate how we celebrate it. Pennies, I tell you, pennies.”
Emily laughed. “Willis here is a brilliant illustrator and the publisher of theGreenwich Village Saturday Night. He just wants a good publicity stunt to sell his paper.”
“Hardly,” he said, taking a swig of his drink.
“Oh, come on, you love to cause a big fuss, both of you. Olive here is a performer, she might sing for us later if we’re lucky. Will you?” she asked excitedly. “I have some new lyrics.”
“Perhaps,” I said. I always loved a chance to perform, but I was distracted. “Say, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Archie around? I promised him I’d make an appearance.”
“I haven’t seen him yet,” she said with a shrug. “He travels a lot. But it looks like Frankie’s got his eye on you.” She laughed. “He’s an absolute degenerate, but he’s a lot of fun.”
I was disappointed. I’d really hoped to see Archie again. I didn’t even know his last name.
The older dancer approached the bar.
“I was transfixed by your dancing earlier,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” As I spoke, I still didn’t think I liked her style much, it was just different and so was she.
“How so?” she said.
“Your style is so…” I couldn’t quite bring myself to saybeautiful. “Quite unusual and breathtaking.”
“My art is just an effort to express the truth of my being in gesture and movement. It has taken me long years to find even one absolute true movement.” She stared at me for a moment as if asking me to question my own moves.
I smiled. “I could just imagine my boss, Mr. Ziegfeld, hearing this. He insists our bodies must be still as we descend the staircase onstage with fifteen-or twenty-pound headdresses on our heads.” I laughed. “We have to smile and look alluring, as if it’s the easiest thing we’ve ever done, as if the four-foot-high crystal crown is nothing butwhipped air.” Even after performing in two back-to-back shows that night, I was giddy when I described to her my typical night on the stage. But she wasn’t taken with it the way I was.
“You’re a Ziegfeld girl?” she asked, looking repulsed. “It sounds ghastly.”
“Not at all, I love every minute.”
Later that evening, Emily persuaded me to sing a number from the show.
The pianist accompanied me while I sang one of Eddie Cantor’s songs, “You Don’t Need the Wine to Have a Wonderful Time (While They Still Make Those Wonderful Girls).” This one was always a big hit when people were boozing, and partygoing crowds really loved it. I was having fun, but my eyes kept darting to the door, wondering if Archie might make an appearance. He never did.
Determined to get home before the sun came up, I looked around for Emily to ask her to pass a message on to Archie, but she was nowhere to be found, so I slipped out the door, and James drove me back to the apartment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I received a bouquet of white roses in my dressing room one April evening after the show with a card from Ziegfeld inviting me to join him and his wife for dinner that Sunday evening.
I’d been performing in both shows every night for two months now. I knew Ziegfeld’s wife, Billie, well enough from theFollies,but I’d never received the honor of an invite with the two of them. It seemed promising.
He picked me up at my apartment and then circled back to collect Billie, who he said needed more time to get dolled up, then we ended up at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. A big fuss was made as we arrived, and we were seated at what seemed to be the best table in the house.
For most of the evening it was all chatter and laughs, and I had absolutely no idea why I’d been invited. I began to wonder if perhaps there was no motive, that they simply liked me. But as dessert wasserved, and I knew well enough to decline, Ziegfeld got quickly to the matter at hand.
“As you may know, Miss Shine, it is very expensive to put on our shows. I insist on only the best for my girls. I simply will not accept cheap fabrics, or costumes,” he said with disgust. “Costumes with faux glamour are for other shows. We offer real beauty. If it glitters, it’s because it’s made with Swarovski crystals. If it shines, it’s because it has gold-leaf embellishment. I simply will not compromise.”
