across the street. Mme Sophie Corsets. Franklin Co.—wigs & transformations. Shapiro Sons & Bro.—novelties & magic for all occasions.
Well, Lucy told herself, here I am in Mode but I don't feel famous like I thought anyone would when we were in Denver. No parties, only Master's, the show, and sandwiches after the show with Mother and Peggy and the boys. Chorus boys don't count, they're cute but you don't think of them as men, they're more like other girls, but girls who're fun and aren't catty; they're really sweet and I'm kind of sorry for them because they can't be all men. Since Clem I don't seem to want a man to touch me, but I don't feel sick any more when I think of him. Guess I'm just a regular old maid. Peggy says love is fun but doesn't last long and then you have to begin all over again. Peggy is very one-sided, all she talks about is men and gossip. Vida is smarter. Writes me nice letters about books and so on. I ought to write her. What do I like most in New York? Let me see, what do I think of? How sparkly the air is. How grand the stage feels under the ground cloth. How exciting it looks when only the stage pilot light is on and you're all alone in the big dark empty theatre. Sort of how you want to feel about love. A man ought to be mysterious. Nothing mysterious about that comic, Kel Moyle, always trying to waylay me, any girl.
"I don't see," she said aloud, "why a comic should be called a great artist of theatre because he makes people laugh—mostly at jokes about going to the toilet or double meanings about sex."
"Well, darling," said Mae, "men like his sort of thing."
"Women laugh too. You ought to hear people just screaming at his story about some man wetting his pants. Kel is sure mad at me because I said 'You may be a big star on Broadway but I never heard of you in Denver.'"
Backstage, she thought, almost anything one says is taken to have a sex meaning. And calling some of the chorus boys girl nicknames, like Freda for Freddie. Stars were called by their first names and the chorus by their last or where they were from. Hey Texas, or you there Penatchee, or tell Chattanooga Joe wants her. Almost everyone had a made-up name, showgirls the flossiest. Adorada Mans. Nel Cambridge. Noreen del Haven. Lilianne Westminster. Joceylyn Primrose.
"Oh come now, Claudel," Joceylyn Primrose had said, "tell the truth, I'll bet your real name is Lizzy Schmuk."
