I might show my boobs to the world, but I never talked about where those boobs were born.
“Now, who-all did you find?” I asked, making my accent a little thicker, and a little more breathy, because fuck everyone. I wasn’t afraid of anything.
“We found your dance teacher from Shawville, Alabama. Miss Anita Giroux! Come on out and say hello!”
Standing like this was the best thing that had ever happened, I watched the wing and waited. My smile stayed in place as memories pushed against my mind, hoping to crack it. But I wouldn’t shatter into pieces on the floor. I wasn’t glass. I was a fucking diamond.
The audience whooped and clapped as the woman who’d taken such pride in ruining my dream emerged. When she did, white haired and lithe, all angles and cheekbones, I swallowed hard and lifted my chin a little higher.
“Ma’am,” I greeted because I’d never call her Madame again. She reached for me with spindly arms and clawed hands. Her touch against my skin made me shiver, not in fear, but in disgust. That smile. Those black, flashing eyes. The woman was as evil as she’d been back when she’d hit my stomach with the back of her hand. “Suck it in girl! You have a wire from the base of your spine right out the top of your head. Suck. It. In!”
“Why Elizabeth, we’ve always wondered what happened to you. Aren’t you a sight?” The syrupy sweet accent and smile didn’t fool me for one second.
“I bet I am.”
“Ms. Giroux here promised us some juicy details about you!”
Sure she had, but I didn’t care. She had no idea how I’d prepared for this. All those figurative cats could come out of the bag and I’d invite them to sit on my fucking lap.
Biting my lip, I blinked big eyes at Jonathan. “I imagine she’s going to tell you about the time I had four boyfriends and shocked all the little white-haired ladies of the town!” Then I laughed.
There.
I was not ashamed. She could come out here, dragging my past with her, threats and daggers shooting out of her black eyes, but the girl who would have cowered was gone.
“Oh!” The audience laughed along with me, and I threw my hands up and shrugged my shoulders, giving them my best movie star smile, the one that said, “You all love me, and this will make you love me more.” “How’s a girl to choose?”
As I spoke, I happened to glance at Madame Giroux. She and the rest of that narrow-minded town had ruined my life—the one I fought so hard to get back. So she and Shawville could go fuck themselves. I was ashamed of nothing.
After Jonathan’s show, things happened just the way Steven predicted they would. I started getting bookings for theaters all across America. Since we were in New York, we started there. First the Lyceum. As one of the oldest theaters on Broadway, it was a fitting place to start. It had housed the Ziegfeld Follies, a vaudeville act from the nineteen-hundreds that had featured beautiful chorus girls known as Ziegfeld girls, who paraded past the audience in elaborate dresses.
I did that, too, but at the end of the show, my dress was in a heap on stage.
At first, we’d been offered two days, but we sold out the theater in minutes, and they came back with a month-long run.
“We don’t want to stay in one place too long,” Steven said, watching me as the costume designer glued pasties to my nipples. To his credit, his gaze didn’t even leave the tablet in his hands. Poor man had seen me naked more times than anyone, and that was saying something because I was naked a lot.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Shake,” the costume designer said, and I twisted from side to side so she could make sure the adhesive had worked.
“You’re a hot commodity. You do a couple weeks in New York and people are mad to get a seat.” Steven was from the UK and every so often he used phrases that had me working to figure out his meaning. “But you’re headed to Atlanta. Then Chicago. You’re never in one place long enough for everyone to get their fill. They’re gagging for you, Betty, but you’re unattainable.”
“Weird thing for a stripper, right?” I laughed, but Steven didn’t.
“You’re a performer,” he said, his face serious. “A dancer. Don’t ever let anyone hear you call yourself a stripper, got me?” He pushed his glasses up on his nose while cradling the tablet.
I nodded. This man knew what he was talking about, and I was a fool if I discounted a single piece of his advice.
“You and I both know this could easily be a flash in the pan,” he said. He dropped his phone and tablet on the table and approached me. Bracing myself for the touch I knew was coming, I locked my knees. He cupped my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “So don’t think short-term. We have to play the long game.”
Mixed metaphors aside, I got it.
“Move please,” the costumer, a woman named Celeste, said, holding out the dress I’d wear for the beginning of my performance. Tonight, I was playing to the New York crowd with a costume straight from the Golden Age of Broadway and the musical On the Town.
Part uniform, all booty and legs, I did a quick spin to make sure the dress flared just the way I wanted it.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “I added the break-away just like you asked. Did you want to pin the hat?”
I set the hat on my curled hair. “No,” I replied. “The hat has to come off, remember?”
“Right.” The woman’s cheeks flushed like she hadn’t just applied gum arabica to my areola.
My manager picked up his electronics and hurried after me as I spun toward the door. “You’re good with Atlanta next?”
“Yes,” I replied, my heels clacking against the floor as I went toward the wings of the theater.
“Great.” There was a pause. “We have a request from Birmingham.”
“I’m not going farther south than Atlanta.” I twisted to see him. “Except for Miami. But that doesn’t count as the south.”
“Miami,” he muttered, typing something in his phone. “Great. So Atlanta, Chicago, Miami—probably—and then Vegas.”
“Sure.” I watched the other dancers I’d enlisted as part of the review, Belle of the Ball, finish their act. Steven and I had handpicked the girls, most of whom came from circumstances similar to my own.
Fucking depressing how shitty this world could be, and how many people got the shaft. Just because someone couldn’t get into American Ballet Theater or Juilliard didn’t mean they hadn’t deserved to get in.
I knew from experience.
The girls, skin glistening with sweat, feathers covering their bits, curtsied and waited for the curtain to fall.
“Betty!” Scarlet, the youngest of the three girls in this act, hurried toward me. She kissed the air next to my face. “This is incredible. Can you believe it?”
“Hi.” I air-kissed the other two, Jayde and Jasmine, and smiled at the girl who’d just turned twenty. She’d applied to my review when I traveled the Midwest. The poor thing had been working three jobs to support herself. “I know. It’s wonderful.”
“Ladies!” the stage manager called.
“Bye!” They scurried away, leaving me and Steven.
“Where’s Gordon?” he asked, looking around.
Gordon opened the act with me, playing the character from On the Town who fell in love with a curvy taxi driver. And right now, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Gordon?” I asked the stage manager.
He paled and spoke quietly into his headset. “On his way.”
“He’s done after this,” Steven announced, and I nodded. Gordon was unreliable and whiny, and seemed to think his position was guaranteed and we were lucky to have him.
The music started just as he hurried up, wearing a white sailor’s suit. “Jesus.” He huffed out a breath. “People are fucking uptight.”
I didn’t bother to answer, just waited for him to take my hand so we could go on stage. Later, my manager would take care of him, but right now I wouldn’t do a single thing that would jeopardize my performance.
The lights
shined in my face, and my body immediately heated by ten degrees. Lots of people got nervous when they performed, but I didn’t. Everything inside me settled when I got on stage and began to dance.
The music filled my ears. My sugar’s the sweetest around/I’m a man’s ideal of a perfect meal/right down to the demi-tasse/I’m a pot of joy for a hungry boy.
The audience laughed at the innuendo. For these performances, the early ones at least, I had to maintain a balance of sexiness and not taking that sexiness too seriously. I had to be relatable to women, but just out of reach for the men. I’d learned the hard way that the audience had to be eased into burlesque—it couldn’t feel kinky or dirty. People wanted something just daring enough that they could talk about it at brunch.
The lights dimmed as the song wound down, and I was left in the spotlight. The music changed, slowing and morphing into something a little sadder and sweeter.
On the Town was perfect for New York. The song I danced to was sung by a sailor who wanted to bring his girl back to his hometown. Little did he know she was actually a burlesque dancer. The connection would be lost on some people, but given the price of these tickets and how hard they were to come by, I took the gamble that I was playing to a knowledgeable audience. They were familiar with Broadway and would catch on to what I was doing.
My mind separated from my body when I danced. Things became automatic, instinctive. I’d removed the hat and uniform during my dance with Gordon, revealing a much more innocent, though still revealing, dress.
This was the part of the act where I showed everyone my goods, but I built them up to it. I didn’t wham, bam them. Classy. Just daring enough. Risqué, but not in poor taste.
I extended my arms, lifting them over my head en haute. The spotlight shone onto the crown of my head. It would make my blonde hair seem even paler, and would make the crystals sewn into the dress sparkle and shimmer.
My heart pounded and my breath came faster, reminding me I was alive. The song changed again, sultrier, and I peeled off the dress.
The music was too loud for me to hear the audience, but if I could, they’d be shifting in their seats, a little uncomfortable but tantalized. They’d lean forward to get a better look.
The women would breathe a sigh of relief when they saw my body wasn’t perfect. My stomach was round, my hips wide, ass heart-shaped. My thighs might touch, but they were strong.
And the men?
They’d be crossing their legs, pulling at their pants and hoping their dates didn’t notice their hard-ons. Some of them would send my manager messages, thinking they could offer enough money for a private performance.
Spoiler: they couldn’t.
The music slowed, fading out, and I stood on the stage, exposed, waiting for the audience’s response.
It began slowly. Clapping. It built and built until it hammered at my eardrums.
I smiled and waved, curtsied in a way I’d practiced so my boobs didn’t hang like pendulums, and left.
Twenty-Four
Josh, Brant, Westin, Landry
October 31st,1:00 am. Eight years ago.
Betsy: These texts say delivered, so I know somebody’s getting them. I really need one of you to call me. Or text me. Please.
Read 1:13 am
November 1st, 11:15 am. Eight years ago.
Betsy: I’m headed to Portland. It’s like a two-day bus trip, but things should be better there. Birmingham didn’t work out. Nothing is working out. Where are you? I get it was too much, but I need you to call me. Can you please just call me?
Delivered
November 15th, 11:30 am. Eight years ago.
Betsy: I lost the ring you gave me. I had to take it off, and the next thing I knew, it was gone. Just like you.
Read 3:30 pm
January 1st, 12:01 am, Seven years ago.
Betsy: Happy New Year, you fucking assholes.
Read 12:02 am
Twenty-Five
Betty
“So what do you think?” Steven asked me.
I stared out from our penthouse in the Bellagio out to the Strip. If I turned, just a little, I could make out a marquis framed in bright lights, announcing my show.
There I was. Twenty feet tall, smiling as I gazed over my shoulder. Feathered headdress. Corset. Hose.
Two weeks only!
Betty Belle and the Belles of the Ball!
Turning, I studied the man whose game plan had worked so perfectly. “San Diego?” I repeated.
“Yes. An old-fashioned USO performance for the boys.” He shook his head, but his perfectly waved and gelled hair didn’t move. “And girls. The armed forces,” he corrected, pushing his glasses up his nose.
It was nice that some things—people—didn’t change. Admittedly, Steven had always been handsome. Older than me by a decade, he looked like a contestant for a reality match-making show. He had striking blue eyes set off by dark framed glasses, a chiseled jaw, and broad shoulders.
Add to that the accent and the ability to dress, and damn. I definitely saw the appeal.
But Steven and I were friends, and that was all we’d ever be. I wasn’t looking for a relationship right now.
Or possibly ever.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Aren’t those usually overseas for people who haven’t been home in months? Why San Diego?”
“American pie,” he replied, and I lifted an eyebrow. “Captain America. Yankee Doodle.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Do you know what month it is, Betty?”
I only knew if it was a show day or not. Otherwise, everything ran together in a blur of practices and airports. And it wasn’t like I could tell by looking out the window. Las Vegas was the middle of the desert, so it was always sunny and a billion degrees.
“No.”
“July,” he answered, and then, “I thought we could do something for Ungrateful Colonist Day.”
I snorted and he flashed me an even, white-toothed smile. “That’s a good idea. Have they asked for me, or did you pull this out of your monarchy-ed, tea-swilling ass? Sorry. Arse.”
He laughed. “They asked for you, and even though it will mean flying from Vegas to San Diego and back again the same day, I think it’s a good idea. You’re starting to get a reputation as America’s sweetheart-slash-calendar girl.”
“Unexpected,” I muttered as I sat in one of the plush armchairs.
“I know,” he answered. He looked down at his ever-present tablet and began to scroll. “I’ve been saving these for you. You’re not an innocent—you can’t pretend that—but there’s something so appealing about you it has people wanting to embrace and protect you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Unnecessary.”
He ignored me. “Look at this.” He flipped the tablet around for me to read. On it was a picture of me from high school, and my throat closed. I swallowed hard and read the article. The story didn’t paint Shawville in a very flattering light. Apparently, Madame Giroux’s appearance on Jonathan had come across as sneaky and mean—and with a little dirt digging—the media had discovered a town full of people willing to talk about what a little slut I was. Violet Harris was quoted. Madame Giroux. A couple old ladies from church.
“Oh good, Pastor Morehouse has something to say.” Somehow I managed to get his name past my lips and not vomit immediately afterward. I read the quote and snorted. “By the grace of God, our boys managed to escape sin. I pray America sees her for what she is—a sinner and a snake.”
“That man seems to have a very special place in his heart for you,” Steven said, chuckling. “What the hell did you do to him?”
I shook my head. My manager was aware of my past. He knew that I’d fallen for four boys and we’d broken up. He knew I supported myself by stripping.
My story was pretty pathetic. Except for the end, because I’d turned stripping into something else. Something that had caught his attention when he’d visited the club I performed in.
“Moreho
use’s son was one of the boys,” I told him.
He snatched the tablet back from me. “The fuck you say!”
I laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Nothing about that time would ever be humorous to me. But if you didn’t laugh, you cried, right? “Yeah.”
“That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not going to give me more than that?”
“Someday,” I replied. “I’ll tell you everything, but I’m going to need a few drinks in me.”
He wrinkled his nose. “You never drink.”
Mashing my lips together to keep from smiling, I grabbed his tablet. “So USO?”
“Right.” He took it back. “You in?”
“Apple pie. Star Spangled Banner. Call Celeste. I’m sure she has a costume somewhere.”
Standing, he patted my head. “Good girl.”
Celeste tightened the shirttails around my waist and hitched up my jeans. “I’ve had some genius ideas before,” she said. “But this might be the best.”
I fluffed my hair. This was the outfit I’d worn from the plane to the stage that had been set up at Coronado. Now that we were on base, I was making a quick stop to check my appearance and waiting for my chaperone to bring me to the performance area. Once there, I would shake hands, change again, perform, shake hands, and come back to Vegas.
Since the article about Shawville had come out, there was a media presence surge. Everywhere I went, I was photographed, which meant there was no dressing down. No getting caught without make-up or flying in joggers and a comfy sweatshirt.
There was this. Skintight jeans. White button-down tied at the waist. Curled hair that took an hour to make look natural.
Aucoin, my makeup artist, added the last bit of red lipstick to my lower lip. “You’re perfection. A face made for the silver screen, doll.”
Boys and Burlesque Page 11
