After the pair exited to the right, the chorus girls came out on roller skates. They were dressed in the shabbiest and oddest ways. They had tried to doll themselves up, they had tried to look pretty for the audience, but they had done so out of rags. Their bright little young sweet faces smiled from underneath crushed mushroom hats with crooked flowers, and black handkerchiefs tied in bows at their foreheads.
They began to take off the scruffy layers. They unbuttoned their threadbare coats and stuffed them into garbage cans that sat in the middle of the stage. They roller-skated with giant smiles on their faces. They were freer with every layer they took off. Some of the girls had become so talented and free with eight small wheels underneath them.
One girl skated backward, her hands up in the air, with such assurance. There was one girl who could barely stand up on her skates, and she kept toppling over. Everyone laughed at her struggle, but not at her.
They took off their gloves that had holes in the fingertips, their moth-eaten scarves, their patched-up sweaters, their faded dresses. They took off their roller skates and their stockings. They stood in their skimpy peach-colored chorus girl costumes, which covered them like undergarments. They pranced to the front of the stage in bare feet, until they were underneath the footlights. They each found a pair of sparkly silver high heels, which they put on.
They were all so naked and they were all so perfect. They all exited the stage, leaving just one girl all alone. She was wearing a ridiculous red wig. The audience thought she was supposed to Little Orphan Annie, but Pierrot and Rose knew that she was supposed to be Poppy. She kept kicking her legs up in the air, not noticing that all the other girls had left and that the music had stopped. She was just too busy experiencing abandon to bother. She opened her eyes, noticed her predicament and stopped in her tracks. She looked out at the audience and laughed and laughed and laughed.
FINAL ACT
There was a clown who was dressed as a shooting star, who rode his toy gangster car across the stage. He spotted a lasso on the ground. He got off his bicycle and picked it up. He kept throwing the lasso up into the air, up toward the ceiling, over and over again. The lasso kept falling right back down. And then, finally, it got stuck up in the air. It was affixed to something above in the rafters that could not be seen. He pulled on it as hard as he could, but no matter how hard he tried, whatever it had caught would not budge.
He began to climb the rope and found himself upside down and tangled in it. Another clown came in with his dog. That clown took the rope in his hands and both men began to pull together. The dog took the rope in his mouth and he began to pull too. Then the other clowns came out. They all began to pull the rope. Three of the chorus girls climbed up on the rope in order to pull harder. Finally, with everyone pulling, it slowly began to budge.
And from above the curtains, the most enormous and lovely papier-maché moon began to slowly descend as the clowns fulfilled what they promised to do in the advertisements for the performance: to bring the audience the moon.
Rose’s greatest theatrical gift was her stage presence. It was evident when she tiptoed out onto the stage in sparkly slippers. She had on her head a triangular hat with a little pom-pom glued on top. She had on a silk jacket with big polka dots. She had on a skirt that jutted outward, little white pom-poms attached to the edge of it like snowballs that were attached to a dog’s chin. She had wires attached to a great big bear puppet that was behind her.
A piano and a bench were suddenly rolled onto the stage with none other than Pierrot seated at it. He was wearing a loose white clown outfit. He had a ruffled white collar, large black pom-poms for buttons, and pants that drooped down at his feet like melting candles. His face was completely covered in white face paint, except for a tiny little black tear on his cheek.
Rose’s face was similarly covered in white face paint, except for a red dot on either cheek—just like the ones on her face when she was found in the snow as a baby.
Pierrot began to play the tune he always played. Rose began to dance her funny dance. When she danced elegantly, so did the bear. Every time she leaned forward, it seemed as though the bear was certainly going to swallow her. But then Pierrot played higher on the scale of the piano and the bear changed his mind and began to dance elegantly behind her.