The Goddess Is In

“Have you heard from your friend yet?” Rachel asked Testy.

“No. I’ll let you know when I do.”

They were sitting in Belle’s living room. The Rockette herself had gone to bed, but she was still with them in spirit, in the form of an even dozen cats. Rachel petted Partly Cloudy, while Testy communed with On Location and Lauer between attaching rhinestones to a deep blue dress that could have doubled as a refrigerator cozy.

“Will you?” Rachel asked nervously.

“Yes, honey. I will. Don’t worry. Haven’t you been having fun?”

“Yes,” Rachel admitted. “But now it’s getting colder.”

A moment went by. Some cats purred.

“He’ll come,” Testy reassured her. “Soon.”

“He’d better,” the ex-showgirl grumbled.

Meanwhile, back in Vegas, a completely different sort of scene was playing out.

Miss Honoré knocked on Venus' dressing room door. “Venus, dear,” she said as she entered. And then she paused, because Venus was standing almost nude before her, waiting in her tiny g-string for her dresser to put on her costume.

The first sight of Venus was always breathtaking.

“Lovely,” Honoré breathed, barely audibly. Then: “Venus,” she started again, “I wonder, could you get dressed quickly so we’ll have some time before the show?”

Venus looked more or less in her direction and made a half-shrug. The gesture and her expression seemed to say that she had only the vaguest notion any show was going on, and that she wasn’t entirely sure who Honoré was. She certainly had no idea, that look said, about the time. Time was beneath her.

“It’s nothing, really,” Honoré continued as Venus stepped into her fishnets and let the dresser roll them up. “The hotel has a new project they’d like to involve you in. There’s someone coming in who wants to meet you and explain it. So I’ll bring her by in a little bit, and we’ll find out together what she wants, all right?”

Venus made a movement with her head that Honoré took for a nod. She licked her dry lips and looked down at the clipboard she carried while the dresser hooked Venus’ fishnets to her g-string. “Good then. I’ll come back in fifteen minutes and we’ll talk. Now, for the show. There are ten boys tonight, John’s still out sick, I sent him home, so Terrence and Boyd will lift you in the Finale.” Her dancers were, for the first time in history, fighting to work, whether they were ill or injured or at death’s door. The chance to rub shoulders with the Most Beautiful Girl In the World was worth it. But Honoré had no intention of letting any unhealthy germs free in the theater. She couldn’t imagine Venus with a cold, but she was taking no chances. The cast had to pass muster. They had to prove their fitness to back up the Star each night. And she’d been sending them home regularly, a slump-shouldered, dejected stream trickling from her office, through the corridors, to the stage door. They knew not to dillydally or try to stick around for glimpses of Venus. If Honoré caught them at that, when she’d dismissed them already, their lives, not to mention their contracts, might well be forfeit. “… and you’ll be escorted by four singers in Big Bows, not six,” she finished. “Nothing else should change, I don’t think…” she made check marks on the paper, “unless someone else gets a cough, and then all bets are off.” She looked up and smiled, but Venus had turned back to the mirror, where she traced the line of her right breast with her left index finger. “Good then,” Honoré croaked, her throat achingly dry all of a sudden. “I’ll be back.”

As she walked back out to the corridor she checked again for passersby, and seeing gratefully that there weren’t any, she leaned against the wall and breathed heavily until her heartbeat steadied.

That girl would be the death of her.

If she were lucky, she thought.

NEXT POST: A PROLOGUE TO THE BATTLE OF THE BLONDES (Friday 12/11)