But there was no chance for any of that. May Ward rushed right into the very center of the flock of girls, her arms outstretched, a shriek of delight issuing from her painted lips. She wore a hat festooned in turquoise feathers and a gauzy wine-colored velvet frock coat with a frothy white fur around her shoulders, looking every bit like a picture in a magazine.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t know when I will again!” she squealed. Mrs. Ward was, for some unimaginable reason, not looking directly at Fleurette as she said this, or at Helen, but twirling around and clutching at all the outstretched hands offered to her. “We ought to snatch up every last one of you and take you all with us.”
This gave rise to a great deal of giggling and whispering. The air was extremely close, and everyone was red-faced and damp from exertion. Fleurette, being at the very center of the crowd and half a head shorter than most girls, felt a little faint.
“I wish we could, darling,” Freeman Bernstein was saying from somewhere far away. “I wonder what their mothers would think if we took them on a spin through Philly and Boston.”
“We haven’t any mothers.” It was Helen who found her voice first. Fleurette’s head snapped up, and she slipped over to stand next to her friend.
Mr. Bernstein gave an exaggerated gasp. “No mothers! You don’t mean to say that you’re two poor orphan girls! Did you meet in the orphanage? Have you thought about working up an act about that?”
“We’re not from an orphanage,” Fleurette put in. “It just so happens that Helen’s mother passed on last year and mine did, too, the year before. My sisters used to look after me, but I don’t need looking after any longer.”
“Oh, we all need looking after,” Freeman said airily. “Now, listen here, girls, the theater is no kind of life. Take it from me. It’s a rotten existence. Nothing ruins the voice faster than singing in drafty old halls.”
“That’s not all we do, Mr. Bernstein,” Fleurette pressed on. “We’ve had lessons in dancing and elocution, and I play the piano and Helen knows the violin. We could show you.”
“Aren’t you gracious,” he said. “Now, don’t forget that your teacher has a signed portrait for each of you.”
“But what about the audition?”
“Mrs. Ward and I will talk about it tonight, and if the lucky girl was here today, she’ll hear from us. Now, if anyone would like an autograph, I’m sure my wife wouldn’t mind giving a few.”
The crowd pressed in on Mrs. Ward, every girl holding out a pencil and a ribboned autograph book. Fleurette looked around at them in disgust. How could they be so easily placated? Was this nothing more to them than a chance to meet an actress and collect a signature?
Just then May gave a little squeal, and all the girls around her stepped back.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” someone said.
“Is it torn?” said another.
“She didn’t mean to,” said a third.
Fleurette looked down and saw a length of satin ribbon ripped from the hem of May Ward’s dress, dangling from the cheap and lazy running stitch that held it on. She had a sudden impulse to slap the dress-maker who couldn’t be bothered to do better.
May Ward mumbled something to her husband, and Mr. Bernstein said, “That’s enough for today, girls. I’d better get Mrs. Ward back to the hotel for a change of clothes.”
“No, no! Wait right here.” Fleurette darted away and returned almost immediately with a needle and thread. As she ran, she could hear the other girls assuring the actress that it would be made good as new.
“She’ll put it back just the way it was, ma’am,” one said.
“You won’t ever know the difference. Look at what she did to my buttons.”
“She makes the most even little stitches. It’ll be better than before.”
Fleurette dashed back with her kit and dropped to her knees. Her fingers held perfectly steady, and she didn’t doubt for a second that she could make the neatest, fastest repair Mrs. Ward had ever seen.
When she finished, she stood up and shook out Mrs. Ward’s skirts, then walked in a circle around her to check her work. She was met with a little round of applause and a handshake from Mr. Bernstein. Mrs. Ward leaned over and whispered her thanks into Fleurette’s ear, and those near enough to hear laughed and applauded again.
After the autograph books were signed, and the little portraits of May Ward distributed in their brown envelopes, there came a winding-down of the excitement, and a gradual disbursement of the girls gathered around. Even Helen drifted toward the dressing-room. Mr. Bernstein patted his coat pockets with the air of a man gathering himself together to leave.
Fleurette saw, with a rising sense of panic, that the evening was ending and she hadn’t been offered a place as the next Dresden Doll. The situation seemed so entirely out of keeping with her program for the audition that she wasn’t entirely sure, at first, that she had her facts straight.
The words came out before she could stop herself. “But, Mrs. Ward,” she called after the actress’s retreating figure. “What about me?”
A hush fell over the girls still lingering backstage. May Ward stopped and spun around on one heel. Freeman Bernstein crossed his arms and leaned back in the pose of an amused spectator.
Fleurette fought back her mortification and stared May Ward down. Now that the two of them were facing one another directly, Fleurette saw the creases around the actress’s mouth, lined in face powder, and the fatigue behind those brightly painted eyes. Her collar was ill-fitted and wrinkled from having been stretched and pressed too many times. Fleurette realized with a start that May Ward was as old as Norma, and possibly even as old as Constance.
Mrs. Ward allowed a smile to break across her face. “Yes? What about you?”
Fleurette looked around, wishing for Helen beside her, but Helen was frozen in the corner. There was nothing to do but to blurt it out. “Well—wouldn’t you like me to join the Dresden Dolls? And my dancing partner? Didn’t you—didn’t you think our song was so perfectly suited to . . .”
Her voice deserted her. Mrs. Ward spoke slowly and kindly, the way one talks to a child. “We’ve seen so many auditions, darling, and there are more to come.”
Fleurette found herself reduced to begging and wheedling. “But—what about an understudy?” She knew she would hate herself later for talking like that, but she was under some sort of spell and quite unable to walk away or to laugh and pretend she hadn’t meant it.
Mrs. Ward glanced over at her husband and said, “Oh, that’s the reason we have eight girls on the chorus. We can always do with six or seven if we need to.”
Fleurette saw at last that Norma had been right: they hadn’t any intention of offering a spot in the troupe to a student. Her five dollars had gone directly into Mr. Bernstein’s pocket, and that was the end of it.
But what was she to do now? Go home as if nothing had happened? Start rehearsals for the spring variety show? At the very thought of it, something sank inside her.