The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [139]
“Oohs” and “aahs” of admiration swept through the theater. A silvery light beamed down on her from a diamond moon half hidden behind the layers of blue gauze overhead, and she tilted her lovely long throat and held up her arms to it in supplication. A bevy of young men in blue tights and silver jerkins crowded around her, holding out their hands, and she strode forward, floating gracefully across the stage to a huge silver ramp descending slowly from above. As she stepped onto it she turned again to face her audience, flinging her arms wide, her violet eyes sparkling as she smiled, and then she was wafted up the ramp with her escort of young men to the moon in heaven above. Ravel’s “Bolero” crashed to a climax as the curtain came down amid thunderous applause.
Rosa wiped a tear from her eyes. It was ridiculous, it was silly, but she had loved it and so had everyone else. All around her people were saying it was one of Ziegfeld’s most spectacular scenes yet and that Verity Byron was a beauty, tall as an evergreen tree and fragile as the moonbeam she had represented. She was ethereal, subtle, had fabulous eyes, incredible legs … Rosa could hardly keep herself from crying out “But I know her! She’s my friend! That’s Missie out there onstage!” She couldn’t wait until it was over and she could go backstage and see her.
The finale had Verity walking elegantly across the stage in a puffed violet silk crinoline as Marie Antoinette, carrying a huge ostrich-feather fan with a tiny chihuahua dog tucked under her arm, and the applause that greeted her was tremendous. As the final curtain fell, Rosa ran all the way down from the balcony to the street without stopping once, darting breathlessly along the alley behind the theater to the stage door. She wasn’t the first; a line of smart men in dinner clothes, white silk scarves, and silk hats were already waiting, and the doorman was being kept busy passing their little notes to the girls, as well as several of what looked to Rosa like jewelry boxes.
“Hey, Mr. Doorman,” she called, edging her way to the front, “tell Miss Verity Byron that her friend Rosa is here.”
He threw her an indifferent glance and went on collecting up the little notes, sorting them out carefully and pocketing the ten-dollar bills that somehow slid from the young men’s hands into his.
“Hey,” she called again angrily, “you with the deaf ears, I asked you to tell Verity that her friend is here. Rosa’s the name, Rosa Perelman.”
This time he didn’t even glance her way. She stuck her hands belligerently on her hips ready to call him a few names, but the smart young men were staring curiously at her and she didn’t want to cause a scene and embarrass Missie. She would just have to wait here until she came out. Unless? After waiting until the doorman was heavily involved in his next transaction, she slid silently behind him through the stage door, running along the drab corridor before he could stop her.
“Hey,” she called to a passing dancer, “which way to Verity Byron?”
“Upstairs, third on your right,” she replied, continuing on her way.
The door was covered in little silver stars and said “The Ziegfeld Girls,” and when she opened it there they all were, all twelve of them, laughing and talking at once, and all of them dressed