invest in air-conditioning. Let’s just turn our attention now toward getting the South Seas act ready for next week. We can get the dancers rehearsing tomorrow morning, and they can be up and running by Tuesday.”
“Not tomorrow morning,” said Olive. “I’ve rented the stage out to a children’s dance class.”
“Good for you. Resourceful as ever, old girl. Tomorrow afternoon, then.”
“Not tomorrow afternoon. I’ve rented the stage out for a swimming class.”
This caught Peg up short. “A swimming class? Come again?”
“It’s a program that the city is offering. They’ll be teaching children from the neighborhood how to swim.”
“To swim? Will they be flooding our stage, Olive?”
“Of course not. It’s called dry swimming. They teach the classes without water.”
“Do you mean to tell me that they will teach swimming as a theoretical concept?”
“More or less so. Just the basics. They use chairs. The city is paying for it.”
“How about this, Olive. How about you tell Gladys when you haven’t rented our stage out to a children’s dance class, or to a dry swimming school, and then she can call a rehearsal to begin working on the dances for the South Seas act?”
“Monday afternoon,” said Olive.
“Monday afternoon, Gladys!” Peg called over to the showgirl. “Did you hear that? Can you gather everyone together for Monday afternoon?”
“I don’t like rehearsing in the mornings, anyhow,” said Gladys, although I wasn’t sure this constituted a firm reply.
“It shouldn’t be hard, Gladdie,” said Peg. “It’s just a scratch revue. Throw something together, the way you do.”
“I want to be in the South Seas show!” said Roland.
“Everyone wants to be in the South Seas show,” said Peg. “The kids love performing in these exotic international dramas, Vivvie. They love the costumes. This year alone, we’ve had an Indian show, a Chinese maiden story, and a Spanish dancer story. We tried an Eskimo romance last year, but it was no good. The costumes weren’t very becoming, to say the least. Fur, you know. Heavy. And the songs were not our best. We ended up rhyming ‘nice’ with ‘ice’ so many times, it made your head ache.”
“You can play one of the hula girls in the South Seas show, Roland!” Gladys said, and laughed.
“I sure am pretty enough for it!” he said, and struck a pose.
“You sure are,” agreed Gladys. “And you’re so tiny, one of these days you’re just gonna float away. I always gotta be careful not to put you right next to me on the stage. Standing next to you, I look like a great big cow.”
“That could be because you’ve gained weight lately, Gladys,” observed Olive. “You need to monitor what you eat, or soon you won’t fit into your costumes at all.”
“What a person eats doesn’t have anything to do with her figure!” Gladys protested, as she reached for another piece of meat loaf. “I read it in a magazine. What matters is how much coffee you drink.”
“You drink too much booze,” Roland cried out. “You can’t hold your liquor!”
“I surely cannot hold my liquor!” Gladys agreed. “Everybody knows that about me. But I’ll tell you another thing—I wouldn’t have as big a sex life as I have, if I could hold my liquor!”
“Boot me your lipstick, Celia,” said Gladys to the other showgirl, who silently pulled out a tube from the pocket of her silk robe and handed it over. Gladys painted her lips with the most violent shade of red I’d ever seen, and then kissed Roland hard on both his cheeks, leaving big, bright imprints.
“There, Roland. Now you are the prettiest girl in the room!”
Roland didn’t appear to mind the teasing. He had a face just like a porcelain doll, and to my expert eye, it looked as though he tweezed his brows. I was shocked that he didn’t even try to act male. When he spoke, he waved his hands around like a debutante. He didn’t even wipe off the lipstick from his cheeks! It’s almost as though he wanted to look like a female! (Forgive my naïveté, Angela, but I hadn’t been around a lot of homosexuals at that point in my life. Not male ones, anyhow. Now lesbians, on the other hand—those I’d seen. I did spend a year at Vassar, after all. Even I wasn’t that oblivious.)
Peg turned her attention to me. “Now! Vivian Louise Morris! What do you want to do with yourself while you’re here in New York City?”
What did I want to do with myself? I wanted to do this! I wanted to drink martinis