How High the Moon (40 page)

“Oh, Brenda. Thank you,” Tina said as she dangled a necklace—a necklace with a sapphire stone that I’d seen on Brenda before—in front of her face like she was trying to hypnotize herself. And Julie, who was holding jewelry that I’d seen on Brenda, too, agreed. “It’s okay, Brenda. We know you’ve had your plate full with the gala. Maybe after today, things can get back to normal again and we’ll see more of each other.”

When the girls scurried off, I said to Brenda. “Did you bring me a special present from home, too?”

Brenda put her hand on the side of my face. “I thought of it, Teaspoon. And I looked. But you know what? I have nothing of any real worth to give you. You already have the most valuable thing a person could have. You have hope.”

“Maybe so,” I said, “but I kind of like that necklace you have on.”

“I can’t believe I saw her,” Mindy said the second Brenda was called away, still hopping and looking at me like I’d been listening to her the whole time.

“Who?” I asked.

“Mimi Hines!”

“Did you talk to her?” I asked.

“No. I was too scared.”

I looked at the clock above Mindy’s head and saw that it would be five o’clock in ten minutes. I grabbed Mindy’s arm. “Come on, Mindy. I need to go meet the ladies who are doing our makeup, because they won’t know where to go. We’ll knock on Miss Hines’s door so you can say hi to her.” I told her I would talk first.

“Right there. That’s where I saw her,” Mindy said, pointing to the door with the
MIMI HINES
nameplate on it. The person assigned to being Mimi’s helper wasn’t at the door, so I knocked.

“Teaspoon!” Mindy’s giggle was filled with scared.

Mimi herself answered the door dressed in a dark green robe—which reminded me that I’d have to get a nice robe when I got famous. Her head was piled high with brown curls, and a long fat one hung down over her shoulder. She looked real pretty. “Miss Hines,” I said. “This here is Mindy Brewer. She’s a big fan of yours. Maybe you could give her your autograph… or a necklace, or something.” I shoved Mindy into her, then took off.

The Starlight had calmed down some by the time I got out to the main lobby, and everybody in it was dressed fancy as movie stars. Especially Mrs. Bloom.

She was over by the doors, right where I was headed, wearing a long black dress with a big brooch tucked between her balloons. She had a mink stole wrapped around her shoulders and folded inside her elbows. A fancy hat sat on top of her French twist. Some women I didn’t know were standing near her, fussing.

“Oh, where did you get such lovely opera pumps, Gloria?” one of the ladies asked.

Mrs. Bloom stretched her leg and set the tip of her pointy shoe on the carpet so the ladies could see it under her full skirt. “They’re from France. Gunmetal-gray. I didn’t know what I’d think of this color, but I do rather love it.”

“Yes, very smart,” a lady in a fur wrapped around her shoulders
said, and Mrs. Bloom replied with, “Why thank you, Helen, and your stole is breathtaking.” Helen moved her shoulders side-to-side as she thanked her, making the fur on her stole ripple so that it looked as real as Poochie stirring from a nap. “I’m surprised to see so many women in Borgana and rhinestones,” Helen said, “but I suppose…”

The women nodded and hushed.

I was leaned up against the door, my hands on the glass, popping it open now and then to peer down the street, when I heard Mrs. Bloom say, “Excuse me.” Just like that, she was behind me. “Isabella, get your hands off the glass. You’re making prints. And what are you doing out here in the first place? You should be dressing.”

“I know. But I’m waiting for the ladies who are going to do our makeup. They won’t know where to go.”

I didn’t see Mr. Morgan, but Mrs. Bloom did. “Uriah, come here,” she snapped. Then she told him to wait for “the makeup girls” and to show them back. “And you go get dressed,” she told me. Then she hurried off to trade compliments with more of her friends, I suppose.

“Who am I waitin’ for, Teaspoon?” Mr. Morgan asked.

“The Taxi Stand Ladies. You know. Those two ladies who hang around across from The Pop Shop, where you stand if you need a lift in Ralph’s taxi. The fancy ones. They’re doing our makeup.”

Mr. Morgan’s eyes got huge. “Mrs. Bloom hired
those two
?”

“Nope,” I said. “I did. I chose good, didn’t I?”

Mr. Morgan nodded his head slowly, his mouth grinning wide. “Oh, yeahhhhh,” he said.

I thanked Mr. Morgan and was ready to run off when the door opened. In walked Leonard Gaylor, tuxedo-spruced and carrying a bunch of red roses. I gave him a glare, and he walked past me. Fast. Probably because he was afraid I’d attack his ankles again.

“Leonard!” Mrs. Bloom called, tossing her head back. As I hurried past her, I could hear her telling a new group of women what a “patient dear” Leonard was while Brenda was busy putting the
gala together. “…and then to bring flowers,” she said. “How sweet of you.” It was enough to make me want to bite Mrs. Bloom right above her gunmetal opera pumps!

The hallway leading to the dressing room was so crowded that I had to squeeze my way through. I got in between the side-by-side doors that had
LES PAUL
and
MARY FORD
on them when some man stepped on my foot. Hard. And while I was hopping in place and checking to make sure my shoes didn’t get scuffs over the shine, I heard Mr. Carter, the emcee, say to someone, “I don’t understand. They certainly should be here by now, you’d think. I’ll talk to Mrs. Bloom.”

The whole room was sparking like lightning when I got back to our dressing room and found Brenda. The Big Sisters were dressed and huddled in front of the mirrors, checking their hems to make sure their slips weren’t showing, or pushing bobby pins in the parts of their hair that wanted to poke out. Most of the Little Sisters were twirling in their skirts, fanning their faces and each other’s.

Brenda was pulling my dress over my head, being careful not to wreck my hair, when the Taxi Stand Ladies came in. I had to wait for the dress to drop so I could make sure it was them. Walking Doll had on the same suit Charlie and me had seen on Thornton Street, proving it
had
been her. She wasn’t wearing her mole, but she was wearing her locket. The Kenosha Kid was dressed in a suit, too—even though I thought they both should have had on their silkies, which were fancier. Their legs were even in nylons, and their hair was twisted on their heads, Mrs.-Bloom-style.

They stood in the doorway at first, and Mrs. Gaylor hurried to them. Probably because she thought they were mothers of Little Sisters, and it was the rule, for tonight anyway, no mas could be in our dressing room, just Sisters. “They’re our makeup ladies, Mrs. Gaylor,” I shouted over the noise.

Mrs. Gaylor led the Taxi Stand Ladies to two chairs alongside the table where she’d handed out fans. I watched them and waved fast. Tina and Julie were watching them, too. Leaning close to whisper in each other’s ears.

Brenda was patting my hair into place, since I told her not to brush it or it would just get poufy. “Brenda… the two at the table,” Tina said. “Julie and I just figured out where we’ve seen them before. My God, Brenda. Do you know who they are?”

“Our makeup ladies,” I said.

“Brenda,” Tina said, her face tipped down, like she didn’t want anybody to even read her lips. “They’re the whores that hang on the corner of Fifth and Washington. The ones our mothers are trying to have run out of town. Remember them? My God!”

Whores? The Taxi Stand Ladies didn’t have any babies!

Brenda just jiggled my barrette a little to make sure it was tight, then she told me to go get my makeup on.

Mindy had her makeup put on first, and when she was done, she found me in line. “She gave me her autograph, Teaspoon. On one of those glossies. She wrote on it, too.
For Mindy Brewer, my pretty little fan. Best Wishes, Mimi Hines
. Brenda put it in a safe place for me.” Mindy was smiling, and she wasn’t even covering her mouth, which was a good thing or she would have smeared her Taxi Stand Lady lips.

I sang “Sisters” to myself as I waited in Walking Doll’s line, twirling when the dance steps required it. When the room stopped spinning, I saw Tina whispering in Mrs. Gaylor’s ear. And Mrs. Gaylor’s hand going over what little balloons she had, just like Mrs. Fry did when she got a worry or a scare, only Mrs. Gaylor didn’t have a hankie.

Before you knew it, most of the Big Sisters were gawking at the Taxi Stand Ladies and standing back like they were scared of them. But not the Little Sisters, who beamed as Walking Doll and The Kenosha Kid painted their faces and told them how beautiful they were. Even if some weren’t.

“You excited?” Walking Doll asked me as she rubbed red in circles over my cheeks.

“You bet,” I said. “It’s my debut. And my ma’s coming. You can meet her, since I didn’t get a chance to bring her to the taxi stand yet. She’s going to wear a dress from a
boutique
.”

Walking Doll sure was happy for me. So happy that she popped a kiss on my forehead. “Don’t scratch or rub your face now,” she said as she pulled the bib thing she’d strung around my neck off and rubbed a spit-licked thumb over my forehead.

I hurried to check myself in the mirror. Whoo-ee! I was wearing Taxi Stand Lady makeup, and Teddy couldn’t even make me scrub it off.

Brenda said if
we were quiet, we could keep the door open so we could hear the whole show until our spot. I got Poochie-growly, though, when those girls wouldn’t shut up and Mrs. Gaylor closed the door before the orchestra even finished tuning their instruments. “It’s just a bunch of noise. What’s there to listen to anyway, Teaspoon?” Rebecca said.

But it wasn’t just noise. All messy sounding or not, it was the beginning of the biggest day of my life, and I wanted to hear every single sound it had in it so my ears could remember it forever.

I ran to the door and laid my ear against it, pausing once to yell “Shut up!” to the Sisters, who were still gabbing and racing around, their noise drowning out almost every sound the orchestra made, but the drums and horns when they got loud. I clamped my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t squeal out loud when the orchestra started the song Benny Goodman did, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” even though Louis Prima was the one who wrote it, like Jay said.

When I couldn’t take it no more, I searched out Brenda, who was standing off by herself, as sleep-dreamy looking as a just-fed baby. “Can’t I please sit outside the door? It’s my debut night, Brenda, and I can’t hear nothing with all the racket going on in here.”

Brenda opened the door for me. “Hey, how come…,” some Little Sister called to Brenda before the door shut behind me.

I leaned against the wall, my hands clasped behind me, bumping in time to the music as I pictured my movie-star ma out there with Teddy and Charlie and the rest of the crowd, seated, after eating pinwheel sandwiches, sipping punch, and mingling with all the respectable townsfolk, waiting for me to light the stage of the Starlight Theater.

“Hey, Pip Squeak,” Jay called as he came rushing down the hall. “Get Brenda.” Boy, even when he was only walking fast, Jay looked like he was tap dancing.

I stuck my head in and called for Brenda, and when she came out, he told her she had to get to the stage because Mr. Carter was ready to introduce her and her mother. “We’ve got to stay on time. Five minutes for your mother’s welcome message, and then the intro to our first act.”

I was just about to follow Jay and Brenda, figuring I could watch from the side of the stage, when Mrs. Gaylor poked her head out of the room and peered down the hall. “You stay put, Teaspoon,” she said, “or you’ll come inside.” I crossed my arms over my scratchy dress and promised not to move.

I couldn’t hear every word Mrs. Bloom said, but she was welcoming everybody to the “new” Starlight Theater, and talking about the exciting show in store for them. She sure did brag Brenda up something fierce, saying how Brenda was responsible for the spectacle they were about to see. While the crowd was still clapping, she shouted into the mike, “From me and my wonderful daughter… enjoy the show!”

I didn’t make plans to head down to the stage. It just sort of happened. I was listening to the music, and my feet danced me all the way down there all on their own.

There were about a dozen people standing in the dark area just
off to the side, most with clipboards, whispering that Les Paul and Mary Ford were going to pull a “no-show.” They were worried, but I wasn’t. Paul and Ford were professionals. They’d come. So while they fussed and Mrs. Derby wailed like Ethel, I ditched between the worrywarts and stood on my tiptoes trying to spot Brenda on the other side of the stage.

“Hey, Pip Squeak, get back with the other girls. You’re in the way,” Jay said as Beulah and Morris Farthing headed out from the other side, then posed like mannequins behind the red curtain while Mr. Carter announced them. I didn’t budge though, because I knew that if I was going to be a singer, I’d need to learn a few extra dance steps.

The curtain went up and the whole theater filled with “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” It sure was magical, the way the Farthings glided across that stage like Fred and Ginger, Beulah’s dark pink skirt, light as butterfly wings, floating in big circles around her legs. The crowd liked the Farthings a lot more than Mrs. Derby, which wasn’t exactly a shocker.

“I said get back to your dressing room, Pip Squeak,” Jay snapped, crabbier this time, because he was trying to clear a path for Mimi Hines and Phil Ford.

“Brenda said I didn’t have to stay in there,” I told Jay, which wasn’t exactly a lie. He didn’t squeak back at me, though, because he was too busy smiling at Mimi Hines, waiting for the curtain to drop and Mr. Carter to have his next blab so the stagehands could move the grand behind the curtain for their act.

When the piano and Mimi and Phil were in place, Jay cued Mr. Carter and the red curtain lifted.

I couldn’t keep from clapping when the crowd saw Mimi Hines, dressed in elbow-length gloves and a white dress that sparkled every bit as much as the sliver moon that hung above her, while Phil Ford played on our baby grand.