Chapter 33
THE RECITAL
At ten thirty the Sunday morning of the recital Lucy, Mae, and Vida, stuffed between sheeted bundles of costumes, set off for the theatre in a rented limousine, followed by Cleo and Janet, the seamstress, in an equally loaded taxi.
"As long as the recital's costing so much we might as well go in style," Lucy had said, though she had not felt like joking.
Talk in the limousine was nervously sporadic.
"Is it going to rain?"
"Did we pack the extra tights?"
"Oh, I rushed so, I forgot to put on my pants!"
"Broadway certainly is deserted on Sunday mornings, isn't it?"
"I hope it doesn't rain."
The old night doorman still on duty was a distant relative of the theatre's owner. A crabbed grunt was his welcome to the intruders. Sighing and grumbling he crept across the shadowy stage to pull switches for dressing rooms and one glaring overhead work light.
"There," he said, panting, "I guess that'll do you."
He unlocked the dressing rooms, warning them not to touch the makeup the players of the show running at the theatre had moved to one end of their tables the night before, and shuffled back to his chair at the stage door.
"Some welcome!" Vida exclaimed sourly.
"It's a funny feeling to be treated like an outsider, but he's all right," explained Lucy, "he's just afraid he may not get a tip. Give him five dollars."
Vida pressed the bill into the doorman's palm and felt his sand-papery fingers clutch it. "I hope we won't be too much trouble, Mr.—"
"Everyone calls me Pop."
"Pop, there'll be others coming and if you would show them to their dressing rooms, and the maid where she can iron, Miss Claudel will appreciate it."
