gaze of Rad Melford with whom she had broken a date to come with Figente. Rad was a nice boy and a good dancer but not the person with whom to see Simone Calvette for the first time.
At the last moment Figente had broken his rule of not going out, overcome by curiosity to witness the American reception of the singer who was of the essence of Paris from which he was forever exiled by the French police.
"Let's ask Vermillion too," Lucy had suggested. She wanted to see what happened when he watched Simone, to discover if he still was in love with her. Maybe why. Perhaps it was because of what she did on the stage, or of what she knew, being older.
Figente rejected her suggestion. "He has undoubtedly made his own plans by now. I'm only going because it's time you and Hal saw and heard a great artiste."
"Then I'd like Vida to come." She confessed to herself she would not have asked that Vida be invited if Vermillion were coming. "By all means, bring Boswell."
"We'll pick you up after the show—how's that for service?"
"You wear the white beaded dress again," she had said to Vida. "It's more becoming to you than to me. White needs a darker lipstick and blondes can't wear dark lipstick, can they, Mam'selle?"
Mam'selle was a hard-faced middle-aged bleached blonde engaged because Lucy wanted to learn French. Cleo had been fired after a spat precipitated by flagrantly unauthorized borrowings from Lucy's wardrobe for display at Harlem's Chennonceaux, the Savoy Ballroom.
"It's a question of taste," Mam'selle replied curtly through her own violent poppy lips.
"What will you wear?" Vida asked, wondering if Lucy really saw herself.
"Any old thing. I guess my dark blue." She minimized the twinkling sapphire chiffon which, Vida knew, would make her a lustrous pearl.
And later, at the Chennonceaux, the irridescent gown shimmering in the rosy lights made her think of the image of Odysseus' winedark sea. Lightheaded from champagne and approving male glances, she tried to compose a verse line in celebration of Lucy. Aphrodite, she thought, was too obvious, but how else could one characterize Lucy who in perpetual dewy freshness seemed to kiss the world impersonally with her eyes?
Lucy regarded the small stage where Reb Honeycutt and his Boys were playing the new "Limehouse Blues." The Chennonceaux ap-
