Maybe my father was right, maybe I’d been a fool to think I could do this, that I’d amount to any more than a biscuit in a frilly dress. I had a sudden urge to go home, to curl up on the couch and let my mother bring me hot milk. I wouldn’t, though; that would mean admitting defeat, and worse than that, it would mean sitting around waiting to be paired off with someone my father thought was suitable. And even those prospects, my father had told me, would be slim after working as a show girl and living away from my own family as a single woman. He didn’t know the half of it.
I found myself on the ladies floor of Lord & Taylor, staring at a heavily beaded Chanel dress in lipstick red.
“It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” a salesgirl said, appearing at my side. “Would you like to see it on one of our girls, madam?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll try it myself along with some shoes, evening, none of those daytime heels.”
“Of course.” She seemed excited.
“I need a new coat, too, white fur collar and cuffs, doeskin gloves and stockings, rose beige.”
She scurried off, and while I waited, I perused the evening bags, settling on a lizard skin, black with white trim. I might as well spend my money while I had it.
I asked for everything to be wrapped and boxed. It came to$436.50—a little over what it cost Ruthie and me to furnish our three-bedroom apartment.
“How would you like to pay?” the salesgirl asked.
“Put it on my account,” I said. Ruthie and I had splurged a few times since I’d been in the show, though nothing as extravagant as this. She’d bought a pair of brocade T-strap sally pumps that we took turns wearing when we knew we’d be out dancing all night. I’d bought a gold chiffon dress with real metal sequins and a bejeweled cigarette case.
“Of course,” she said.
Afterwards I went to the tenth floor and had lunch in the Wedgewood Room. It wasn’t so bad, I thought, looking at the various groups of women gathered around me, but then two elderly women at the adjacent table eyed me suspiciously and mumbled about my eating alone. I stared into my salad, and when I looked up again, I noticed a mother and daughter sitting a few tables over. The girl was four or five, so well behaved in such a grown-up setting. I watched them for a while, the little girl picking up her teacup and taking a sip each time her mother did. The mother reached over and touched the girl’s cheek. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, I couldn’t help imagining what my life would have been like if I’d insisted on taking the baby with me. I must have been staring longingly because the mother looked up at me and glared. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t seem to belong anywhere. I paid the check and left as fast as I could.
As I walked back toward the theater district, the momentary thrill of the pretty bags and boxes that filled my arms had dissipated. The thought of rehearsal going on without me, the girls’ skin pink and beaded with sweat, made me sink again.
I strode all the way west to the Landmark on West Forty-sixth and went straight up to the unmarked third floor. There was one lonely blotto sitting at the bar. Alberto Ricci was playing on the gramophone, and I breathed in the vibrations of his voice, so alive, so powerful. I’d seen posters and billboards all over town announcing his return to the Metropolitan Opera House that summer. I’d loved listening to his voice for as long as I could remember, ever since my parents took me to see him perform in Minnesota. What I’d do to see him sing again, in person, in New York City. I should have bought myself a ticket two days ago. I’d never be able to afford it now.
“We’re not open,” the barkeep said, looking me up and down, his eyes resting on my shopping bags.
“It looks like you have a couple of customers,” I said, nodding toward the gentleman with his chin on the bar, then I pulled up a seat next to him. “I’ll take a bourbon, make it a double.”
When I walked into the dressing room later that afternoon with my shopping bags and a jolt of confidence from the bourbon, the girls stared, then looked away—that was until Ruthie caught sight of me.
“What the hell are you doing?” she said, barging through the others to get to my mirror.
“What do you mean? A little shopping, that’s all.”
“You’re going to get yourself cut if you act up like that! And you smell like hooch.”
“I already got cut, so I can do what I damn well please in my free time. But I need to get ready for myFrolicrehearsal because that’sthe one thing I’ve got left right now, so if you’ll excuse me…” I felt defensive. Ruthie, though she was my closest friend, seemed like someone on the other side now. She was with the girls who had everything, I was hanging on to what I had for dear life.
Sure, I’d put down a few bourbons, I had to take the edge off, but I’d knocked back a few black coffees, too. After I finally got Ruthie to leave me alone, and the morning girls cleared out of the dressing room, I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. By rehearsal time, I felt terrible.
Howie peeked his head in the door. “I heard you went out and drowned your sorrows.”
“I didn’t have many options,” I said.
“We’re not going to rehearse like this,” he said, his face stern. “Come back tomorrow, same time, in better shape. I won’t mention it to Ziegfeld if you promise this will never happen again.”
I nodded solemnly.
CHAPTER NINE
I was already warming up when Howie walked in the next morning, and he looked a little surprised. I had a one-hour rehearsal for my solo in theFrolicand then the chorus girls would arrive for us to go through the numbers together.
Ziegfeld liked to keep the routines fresh, adding new elements every few days to surprise the repeat patrons. And there were many repeats—gents who came in night after night despite the hefty five-dollar door fee on top of the ticket price. For most, the idea of riding the elevator from the theater lobby up to the rooftop garden, where the doors would open to a party of dancing and the sound of champagne being uncorked, was far more appealing than venturing out into the busy streets of Times Square and making their way to another nightclub across town. So once they were on the guest list and they proved they could afford the front-row seats, steak dinners, Beluga caviar and the absurdity of $2.75 for a miniature bottle ofchampagne (about the cost of eight one-pound steaks at the butcher’s shop), they were welcomed back night after night.
“I was thinking about the ribbon number,” I said to Howie as I sat on the floor and stretched forward to touch my toes. “How about we jazz it up this time?”
