Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #7)

“The company doesn’t pay for your shoes?”


“Oh no. Costumes, yes, but shoes are a personal item, like makeup. We have to get them custom made for us. If you have a ballet shoe that doesn’t fit properly, then your feet will wind up maimed for life.”

She went back to tucking in the ribbon ends. I started undressing, but a strange thought was forming in my head. I pictured my silent girl’s feet. What if those blistered and raw toes were not a result of frostbite? What if she was a dancer and they were dancer’s feet, made more irritated by her walk through the snow? She certainly had the lithe body for it and the delicate face and hands. Tomorrow I could borrow Sid and Gus’s phonograph and play some popular dance tunes for her, to see if they produced a reaction.

I finished my makeup just in time before the call boy came around with the first warning. My heart was thudding as I followed the rest of the girls down to the stage to wait in the wings. Beyond the lowered curtain I could hear the murmur of a large crowd and the sounds of the orchestra tuning up. I could feel the excitement and tension in the air as stagehands glided past us, making last-minute adjustments to potted plants and spotlights. “Break a leg,” the girls whispered to each other. I thought it was a rather odd thing to say, but I whispered it back to them.

Then there was a burst of applause.

“Conductor has come out,” Elise mouthed to me.

Then the orchestra struck up the lively first notes of the overture and we were instructed to go onstage. I found my hands were so cold and shaky that I could hardly hold the book. I took up my place on my mark and waited, giving a silent prayer of thanks that I didn’t have to say a word. I knew that if I opened my mouth no sound would come out. The overture came to an end and the curtain started to rise. A great roar of applause came from the audience as they saw the girls in their tennis outfits. I could see the front rows, full of faces, and among them I picked out a scarlet feather and below it Gus’s startled face. I studied my book and tried not to smile.

The girls launched into the opening number. The young men arrived in their automobile, getting another huge round of applause, and then Miss Lovejoy made her entrance. I had seen her onstage enough times now to know that she had a powerful voice and a great presence. But tonight I could see why she was a star. There was something about her that would not let me take my eyes off her. When she spoke her voice was more powerful than ever. Her first funny line got a huge laugh and I sensed the girls around me relaxing. For the first time I fully realized that it was Blanche’s show. The rest of us were only window dressing.





TWENTY-SEVEN

We got through the first act with no incidents. I remembered where I was supposed to be and got a good laugh when I was left onstage after the other girls ran off and had to be summoned by Miss Lovejoy. In the dressing room during the interval, the mood had changed. We arrived to find the whole place full of flowers. Some had cards on them, several of them for Lily. Others were addressed more vaguely. “To the pretty little brunette at the end of the line.”

“That’s you, Jewel,” someone said and handed out the bouquet. The girl blushed. “I wonder who it is,” she said with a giggle.

“Hey, Lily, you could quit being in show business and open a flower shop with this lot,” someone yelled.

“One of them’s not from that English duke, is it, Lily?” one of the girls asked.

“Not that I can see,” Lily said.

“Do you think he’ll show up again?” someone else asked wistfully.

“If he does, then he’s mine, so hands off,” Lily said. “I always did fancy myself as a duchess.”

“You? A duchess, that will be the day!”

“You don’t know how to drink tea with your pinky up!”

Lily looked haughty. “Those Florodora sextet girls all married well, didn’t they?”

“Yes, well, they were the stars. We’re only chorus,” someone reminded her.

“But take a look at our leading ladies and gentlemen,” Lily said triumphantly. “All over the hill, long in the tooth, and nothing special to look at. We’re the ones they’ll be waiting for tonight. You’ll see. They’ve already seen our ankles in the tennis scene. You wait until they see us in our bathing suits!”

There was a great burst of laughter at this.

“I wish the censor hadn’t cut that cancan number,” Lily went on. “Then we could show them our bottoms, too.”

“Lily, you are the living end,” someone exclaimed.

“Oh, don’t you go acting the prude with me, Connie Sharp. I know what you do in your spare time, and it ain’t embroidering pillows, neither.”