more.
It was three in the afternoon and slowly but surely night was coming. She had to take care of herself—no one else was going to. With her free elbow she jabbed the elevator call button, and while she waited for the car to arrive she scanned through the building’s list of tenants once more. A place to stay and a way to pay for it—that’s what she needed. And the latter, at least, meant getting a job. Not a month from now—now.
She was no dentist, no lawyer, didn’t know what a ‘notion’ or ‘sundry’ might be. Her knowledge of fashion was, as mama never hesitated to tell her, a disaster, and the only importing she’d ever done involved bringing herself from South Dakota to Manhattan.
But she could move.
When the elevator door slid open and the wizened operator on a stool inside drew back the metal accordion- fold gate, she lugged her bags inside, deposited them on the floor, and met his flinty stare with one of her own.
“Third floor,” she said. “And step on it.”
The hallway was, if possible, even shabbier than the lobby had been, the paint on the walls a tired olive green, the pebbled glass in most of the doorways dark. She passed doors labeled with faded gilt lettering and ones that weren’t labeled at all, just hastily numbered with black paint. Green glass shades hung from the ceiling at intervals along the hall, but fewer than half the bulbs seemed to be working. A few of the doorways were illuminated, and one was propped open at the bottom with a brick. From inside she heard a radio quietly playing what sounded like Perry Como.
She looked back, but the elevator door had closed behind her.
After a stretch, the hallway branched, and a sign directed her to the left for 310-317, right for 318-325. She turned left.
310. 311. 312. Maintenance closet. 313.
Of course it had to be at the very end. Tricia’s arms were getting sore, and she had to put her luggage down twice to rest them before she finally reached the door labeled 317. On the glass it said
MADAME HELGA DANCERS,
MODELS, CHANTEUSES, ETC.
The glass was, against all odds, brightly lit. Tricia could even see shadows inside that looked like human silhouettes. She fixed her hair briefly and, glancing into her compact, traced a pinky along her lower lip to straighten the rouge she’d applied on the train. She looked a wreck, she thought. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, her dress disarrayed, and the day’s strain was telling around her eyes. But it wasn’t as though the passage of still more time, never mind a night spent on the streets of New York, would make her look any better.
She put on the brightest smile she had and knocked briskly.
“G’way,” a woman’s voice called from inside, “audition’s over!”
“I don’t know what audition you mean,” Tricia called back to her through the door. “I just got into the city and I’m looking for some work.”
“What sort of work?” came the voice.
“What sort have you got?”
There was silence, and it stretched on a good long time.
Finally, the voice said, “Well, what do you do? Sing? Dance?”
“I can dance,” Tricia said.
“What?”
She said it again, louder. “I can dance!”
“Well how do you expect me to see that through a closed door?”
Tricia tried the knob, cautiously pushed the door open. Inside was a big open room with a desk in the middle. A window on one wall had words lettered on it in reverse, so they could be read from the street outside. There was a wooden bench under the window and two young women were sitting there, folios of sheet music clutched in their hands. Behind the desk was a third young woman, only a year or two older than Tricia herself, wearing a black sheath dress with a bright red leather belt. Her hair neatly matched the belt.
“And you are?” the redhead asked.
“My name’s...Trixie,” Tricia said.
“Sure it is. Mine’s Scarlett O’Hara. At least you’re not another goddamn singer. No offense, girls.” The girls on the bench didn’t look offended. They looked terrified.
“So?” the redhead said. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Tricia pulled her bags inside, shut the door, stepped up to the desk, then realized she had no idea what to do. “I’m not sure,” she said, “exactly how this works.”
“How it works? You show me your dancing, I tell you it’s not good enough, and you take your pretty little keister back to Podunk, Wyoming or wherever the hell it is you came from. That’s how it works.”
“South Dakota,” Tricia said icily. “Aberdeen, South Dakota. And if you’ve got your mind made up already, I don’t see why I—”
At that moment, a buzzer sounded and a light lit up on the Bakelite intercom box beside the redhead’s telephone. She thumbed a button.
A man’s voice boomed from the loudspeaker. “It’s gonna be Kitty. You can send the other one home.”
“You heard him, girls,” the redhead said. Both of the young women stood up, one looking elated, the other crushed. “Noon, tomorrow, Kitty, at Mizel’s, they’ll fit you for your gown. Sorry, Jean, better luck next time.”
“You think so?” Jean said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for better luck.”
The redhead shrugged. It was no problem of hers.
The two women filed out and the redhead turned her attention back to Tricia. “So, you gonna show me your dancing or what?”
But the buzzer interrupted again. “What?” the redhead asked the little box.
“We’re gonna be here a couple hours more,” the man said. “Order us some food, will you? Maybe some of that brisket from Lester’s, and...what do you want, Robbie?”
Another man’s voice, heavily accented, said “Brisket. What is that, beef?”
“Yeah,” the first man said. “Make it two, Erin, and a couple of beers. Hey, listen, Erin, you know what else, Robbie’s gonna need some girls to round out the number, can you ring up a few?”
“What kind of girls?” the redhead asked. “You want clotheshorses?”
“Jesus, no, they just stand there like coat racks. Get me some who know how to shake their little asses.”
“When do you need ’em?”
“Yesterday.”
The redhead looked up, released the button. “Can you shake your little ass, Wyoming?”
Tricia thought about walking out. She thought about it for all of two seconds. Then she nodded vigorously.
The redhead pushed the button again. “I’ve got someone here right now, says she can dance.”
“Well, fine,” the man said. “Send her in.”
Tricia left her bags outside, walked through the door Erin held open for her. She put a little swing into her step, the sort she knew would win her a whistle on any street in downtown Aberdeen. The two men inside watched her approach. The younger one had a cigarette between his lips, a grey felt hat pushed back on his head, and his pulled-open necktie dangling halfway down his shirt. The other was nicely put together in a snappy suit and bowtie, his black hair slicked back, a pencil mustache punctuating his upper lip. This second man was swarthy, olive- skinned. He twirled a finger in the air in a gesture Tricia interpreted to mean “turn around.”
Neither man whistled.
Tricia turned in place. She could be graceful, she could be delicate—but she could also be earthy and sensual. She tried for a combination of the two. She saw their eyes following her, but couldn’t read their reaction. She put together a couple of dance steps, something slow and languorous, something that looked like dancing even without any music to accompany it. She was tired and knew it probably showed, so she aimed for a sleepy-eyed strut that
