Sophia could never face her friends or family ever again. She had humiliated herself in their eyes by being unfaithful to the man she was going to marry-the night before her wedding day!
There was only one thing for her to do. She would go to New York. She needed to be in a modern urban city, where having a sexual affair was not considered scandalous activity.
Once she hits the big city, she meets many people in the glamorous world of television. When she tunes in to famous personalities, she gets turned on to a new life-one full of glitter, glory and lust.
CHAPTER ONE
Sophia wanted to be excited about her marriage. After all, it was only twenty-four hours away.
Tomorrow she would be Mrs. George March, and her life would finally be secure.
She was in her bedroom. She glanced at the clock by the bed. Three-fifteen.
She had promised Rick Warren she would meet him at three-thirty.
Sophia shivered in the sudden chill. She was naked, and her reflection in the mirror showed a beautiful woman with long legs, blonde hair and a slender figure that promised never to fatten or thicken.
But what was she to do?
By tomorrow she would be a married woman. Not only married, but married into the most conservative family in town. In a way, she rejoiced. It put the lie to all the things people had said about her.
She'd rub their noses in it once the wedding was a fact. There was nothing more respectable than marriage, and no people more respectable than George March and his family.
Still, Rick Warren was waiting in his cab. She dressed quickly, without even considering that she didn't have to meet him. She would, though; she owed it to him.
She left by the back door and walked two blocks. Rick was there. She got in and he said, "I almost left."
"Why? You knew I'd be here."
Rick's insolent dark good looks made her heart skip a beat. After tomorrow, she thought, no more Rick. No more of any of the men and boys that she had enjoyed so much.
"Let's take a ride," he said.
"Not too far," she answered.
He drove to the ridge road and parked on a deserted turn-off. "So tell me all about your marriage," he said. "I can't quite believe it."
"You'd better believe it," Sophia said. "I'm marrying George March tomorrow."
"And letting yourself in for one long boring life." He shook his head. "Not you, babe. It won't work." He took her into his arms, his lips pressed against hers. She felt his tongue and slowly answered with her own. She did not protest when his hand cupped her breast lightly.
"Hey!"
They both looked up. A state trooper stood by the car. "Move it," he said. Then he leaned down and peered into the car.
It was Harry March, George's older brother. Harry went white-faced with anger when he saw his sister-in-law-to-be.
"Harry," she said, "I can explain."
She cried all the way back to town. Rick let her out near the March home. "I think it's a mistake," he said softly. "Maybe it's best this way. Just let them be."
"No," Sophia said. "I've got to see George-explain it to him."
"How? How are going to explain that you were parked with another man the day before your wedding?"
"I don't know," she said. "I'll think of something."
Harry greeted her at the door. "Go away," he said. "We don't want to see you around here anymore."
"I want to see George," Sophia said firmly. "Isn't he interested in seeing me?" From inside she heard George's voice: "Let her in," he said.
Harry turned around. "Then I'll be going," he said. "Still got some patroling to do."
George was sitting at the kitchen table. "What do you want?" he said.
"To explain," Sophia said.
"Explain?" No amount of explaining was going to work, his eyes said.
"Please. Let me talk," Sophia continued.
"Look," George said. "We both know I'm not a sophisticated kind of guy. Just a stick-in-the-mud, interested in living in this town, starting a business, stuff like that. You knew that, and you played me for a jerk. So get out."
Could it really be over? Wasn't the whole afternoon a bad dream? "I'm going into the next room to call up the minister and all of my friends and tell them that the wedding's off," he said. "And I don't ever want to see you again." He got up and walked through the doorway.
Sophia got to her feet and left the March home. She went home, entered through the back door and walked quietly upstairs to her room.
She packed quickly, and then stole downstairs again. She could hear her father and uncle arguing in the living room. By the time she got to Rick Warren's place, it was barely five o'clock.
Rick let her in, and when she told him what had happened, he told her that she could move in with him if she liked. She shook her head no.
"Lend me some money," she said. "About sixty dollars. That will get me to New York."
Rick nodded. "Sure," he said. "Only what are you going to do there? Stay with your sister?"
"I don't know. I'll figure it out once I'm there."
He handed her the money, and she kissed him once and left.
Two hours later, she was settling into her coach seat for the run into New York City.
On the train, of course, she suffered ... or enjoyed ... the usual flirtations of salesmen, and, in the latter part of the trip, commuters on their way to their cozy little wives and homes in the city. There was a certain thrill about it all, and a certain fear as well. Sitting in her seat, she found herself sometimes jittery, sometimes calm and confident. Anything that lay ahead of her she could handle. And then there were other moments, as towns and countryside raced by, that she asked herself, "Can I?"
"Next stop, Pennsylvania Station, New York!" bawled the conductor.
Sophia looked up. The past hours in this coach seat had been both an eternity and a speeding blink of the eyes. She'd managed to shoo away two Casanovas, and, also successfully, she'd managed to not think too deeply about the abyss into which she might be falling. What would happen would happen. She was ready for anything. She'd never been particularly good at sharing innermost secrets with Margo. Maybe Margo had changed a lot; after all, she was a big name on television now.
She'd take Sophia in. She'd have to.
The train jerked back and forth and then came to a dead stop. Sophia carried the grip up the long ramp, into the station's overfilled lobby, and thought, "I'll be able to breathe here." There won't be the necessity to melt every time a man touches me-not here in New York. I can be my own woman.
But, as she sat in a phone booth and dialed her sister's number and waited to hear the familiar voice, Sophia knew it could not be as easy as that. And the truth of it crashed at her.
Margo's newly acquired maid announced, "Miss Holland's residence," with perhaps a trace of too much phony pomp. But it did sound regal.
Sophia gave her own name and was told to wait. Her famous sister didn't come bounding to the telephone, but Sophia heard the familiar, husky voice call out, "Tell her to get her bucket into a taxi and snap it up. The whole world's been looking for her."
In the cab, Sophia divorced herself from her problems long enough to marvel at this city her petite sister had conquered. Margo was only six years older than she, but the witty, intelligent, attractive redhead had made use of everything put before her, good and bad. She, too, had had the same passive father; she, too, had lived in a motherless home. But nothing has stood in her way. There had been two goals: New York and success, and she'd achieved them both. Daddy had fought her, of course, but she'd known how to handle him. Margo had succeeded everywhere that Sophia had failed.
"Here's Central Park South, lady," the driver acknowledged.
"To the right," she directed, remembering that cheerful-looking building exactly. The doorman was waiting, under the extended awning, to help her out of the cab and to take her bag. Thanking him, she felt bedraggled, a ragamuffin about to enter this sumptuous dwelling. She'd done her best at washing and hair-combing in the train's two-by-four compartment, but her skirt was wrinkled and in her throat she could still taste the grit of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
"Miss Holland, please," she said to the doorman after paying the driver.
"Yes, indeed. Will you come this way, please?" Unsure of herself, particularly as she brushed past stylishly dressed tenants emerging from the building, she was lulled by the acceptance of the doorman. He was trying to be secretive about it, but his eyes were sliding over her generous curves, and his Central Park South polite smile furtively informed her he like what he saw.
Then, moments later, the maid was opening the door for her, inquiring, "Miss Sophia?" and taking her bag from the doorman.
"That you, Sophia?" came Margo's voice from the bedroom.
"Hello, Marg!" she called back, once more drinking in the opulence of Margo's apartment. It was immense and it was wealthy. Three wide steps led down to the spacious living room with a wall-to-wall picture-window view of the park. Its splendor was other-worldly, still hard to associate with the Margo who used to make such a big deal of her presidency of the sophomore class and the loss of her skate key and her talent in hopscotch. Each time Sophia had come here, she'd been welcomed; but still she felt uneasy, never quite invited.
"Well, what the hell are you doing out there?" bellowed Margo, "employing squatter's rights? Come on in here and share my hangover!"
The maid grinned sheepishly, as if she were responsible for her mistress's bad manners, and guided Sophia into the luxurious bedroom.
Margo was sitting with her legs folded, Indian-fashion, in the direct center of her oversized blue bed. Every piece of furniture matched the blue walls.
"How goes it, kid?" greeted Margo. She was completely nude. In her right hand she held a cigarette in a long bamboo holder; in her left was a cup of black coffee. She extended a crooked, palsy-walsy grin.
Something had happened to Margo in the three years since Sophia had last seen her; there was a tiredness in her pretty face that wouldn't be removed by sleep alone. Her good figure was just a bit fleshier and her once brilliantly titian hair was now a mass of orange straw. With a lipstick and comb job, she'd be glowing again, of course; but Sophia was disturbed by this early-morning picture of realism.
"Hi, Marg," Sophia said and kissed her. "Should I have wired you first?"
Her sister shook her head and pointed to the coffee carafe on the night table. "Help yourself. You look beat." Sophia did; coffee would go just right now. "You might've let your aging sister know you were coming, yes; but you're here, so forget it. Will you look at you, though! You've really bloomed, honey. You always were the beauty of us two but you've gone and abused the advantage." She held out her cup. "Pour me, will you? I need three of these jolts before I can mobilize. Ooh, that drinking last night! I keep swearing on Grandpa Holland's grave that I'll stick to buttermilk forever after, but as soon as noon comes around and the waiter places a luncheon cocktail in front of me, I'm a goner."
Sophia filled two cups. "Marg, what'd you mean, 'The whole world's been looking for her'?"
Unperturbed, Margo nodded. "Daddy phoned here about an hour, hour and a half ago. Woke me up."
"Daddy? Phone here?"
"Yeah." She noted the electric clock on the dresser: nine-twenty. "Had I heard from you, he wanted to know. Said you'd run away from home." Margo laughed huskily. "Those were his precise words, as though you were eight years old."
"Did he-seem worried?" Sophia inquired, suavely carrying her cup to the armchair, sitting and slipping out of her shoes.
"Oh, you know Daddy," Margo shrugged.
"Very controlled, very contained. Let's not get ourselves upset, he says, spoken to prove he's as cool as a cucumber but designed to scare the tar out of anyone else."
"Did it scare you?"
"Nah. Only two things scare me any more. Will my option be picked up by Lily Laval's lipstick? And is my man rocking with another woman? You're a big girl now, Sophia, there's no sense in anyone worrying about you. I told Daddy that"
"Did he-tell you anything about last night?"
"Well, yes, in his my-arm's-being-twisted way. I'd thought your little prank at college was entirely forgotten by now, but Daddy said you're still guilt-ridden by it. He's tried to put you at ease, but you take everything so seriously. I'm quoting now."
"Tried to put me at ease," she thought. When was I ever allowed to forget it? But maybe he actually does believe he was putting me at ease....
"-went back to Willetsville very contrite," Margo was saying, "and you told him you wanted to make it up to him and you'd do anything he said. So he picked you out a fine, upstanding young grocer to marry, and you agreed to be led to the slaughter. Is that right, more or less?"
"It's not quite that simple."
Margo drained her cup and got out of bed. Screwing a fresh cigarette into her holder, she affirmed, "Nothing is ever simple. So what happened last night? From what he hears, you told your grocer you couldn't go through with it. You packed your arch supports into a paper bag and stole out of town. Finis. According to Daddy, that's the story." She lit her cigarette, and appeared to detect that Sophia wasn't up to being grilled. "I'll tell you what, Sophia. I don't want to hear morbid confessions this early in the day, anyway. Suppose you get on the phone there and give Daddy a buzz. Just tell him you're here for a while, safe and snug. He'll never admit to being a worrywart, but I'm sure he's biting his nails this minute."
"No, I-can't do it, Marg. I can't talk to him."
Walking to the telephone, Margo bellowed, "Blossom!" and lifted the receiver. The maid opened the door and Margo instructed, "Run some water into the tub." Blossom scurried to the bathroom and Margo, dialing, called long distance.
"Okay, you let Colonel Margo take over all the red tape," she advised. "Go on in there and scrub your ears. You'll find a housecoat on the door. Did you bring much in the way of clothes?"
"No, I-" Sophia began, but Margo interrupted by placing the Willetsville call and ordering the operator to make it fast. When she returned her attention to her younger sister, her thoughts apparently had jumped to an entirely new tack. "We aren't going to be able to yak it up, baby. I have a rehearsal for this ghastly soiree on T.V. at half-past ten this morning. Larry Barker's picking me up here at a minute or so before ten. He's the director on the show. And when a T.V. director specifies a time, he is never to be kept waiting."
"We've seen his name on the screen credits of your show," Sophia submitted, rising. "Should I know him otherwise? Daddy hardly ever has the set on, except when you're appearing."
"No, Larry's just starting; two or three years in the business. He directed a few flops on Broadway, now he's in charge of our epic, The Keith McClure Party. That's a flop, too, except that it's been running for a year and a half. Maybe you will hear more about him, though, soon." She got purposely kittenish. "He's my fella."
"Oh Marg, how wond-"
Margo raised her head, indicating the operator had gotten Willetsville. Quietly she said, "Cut into the John, Sophia. Let me handle this in my own way. Check?"
"What'll you say? I haven't even-"
"Sh," Margo persisted and segued cleverly into a calm greeting to their father. Fuzzily, Sophia saw Blossom emerge from the bathroom, heard her advise that the bath would soon be ready and ask if she'd breakfast yet. Sophia nodded, thanked her and withdrew to the blue-tiled bathroom.
She stripped and stepped into the luxurious sunken tub, feeling more lost, more adrift than ever. When Margo, without knocking, opened the bathroom door a few minutes later and entered with a wry smile, Sophia still felt the strange barrier between them. Margo was so perfect, so positive of herself, never wrong, never awkward. They were sisters, but the tall, blonde girl's ego had been badly battered in the past few months and she was conscious of every move she made, as if it could be nothing but incorrect and therefore displeasing.
"All's well that starts well," announced Margo. "Daddy sputtered like a thirty-cent outboard motor for a little while, but I cooled him down. He said he feels a lot better knowing you're under big sister's wing."
Sophia marveled. "You've always been that way, Marg. You can say a half-dozen choice words and everything's set right again."
Chuckling, Margo took a huge bath towel and went to the stall shower next to the tub. "It comes from clean living and deepbreathing exercises." She turned the faucets on. "Do you have any plans?"
"Well, I left so quickly, I-"
Margo darted into the shower, cutting off her sister's words. Sophia scrubbed herself vigorously and decided it was time to assert herself. Margo wasn't an ogre. She was simply a busy, fast-living girl who had a rude manner but whose heart was invariably in the right place. When Margo reappeared, teeth chattering and groping for a towel, Sophia had emerged from the tub, dried herself and gotten into the housecoat. Margo remarked, "What'd you say? Do you have plans in the big city?"
"Could be, Marg. I didn't get my sheepskin, but I spent enough hours in Dramatics I and II to give me a little bolstering. I'll start knocking on producers' doors in the morning."
"Maybe I can help a little."
"I don't want to impose."
"Hell. What's a sister for?" Margo growled with remote irritation. The shower appeared to have done wonders for her. Full of life now, she set about running the towel over her nimble body with graceful speed. "I frankly don't know if my name will be a help or a hindrance. I meet all these big wheels from Broadway, at parties and places, and there's nothing they won't do for me-but I'm not such a popularity kid in the dark corridors when they start pinching me and I have to start slugging. But we'll see what we'll see."
The doorbell sounded and Margo frowned. "Oh, God! Is that Larry already?"
"Can I help?"
"Yes. By all means, yes. Go out and say hello. Keep him occupied till I make my entrance, will you, baby?"
"Say hello? But look at me. I'm not dressed. I look like old laundry."
"You look delicious. Go on, Sophia. It's late and I've got no excuse and Larry goes wild when I'm not ready at his beck and call. Charm him for five minutes or so. Please, Sophia."
Sophia haltingly obeyed. She took one quick look at herself in the bathroom's full-length mirror, figured she didn't look too bad, and left the scampering Margo.
Blossom was escorting the muscular, extremely good-looking man into the living room as Sophia appeared, tightening the sash of the houseboat and dispensing with most of her self-consciousness. Blossom took it upon herself to introduce Miss Holland's sister to Mr. Barker.
Mr. Barker, Sophia saw, was reason enough for Margo to have been so kittenish. Dapper, with a masculine, sensitive face, he looked as if he might have just stepped off a Parthenon frieze. There was something just a trace foreboding about his manner, but it somehow added rather than detracted from his attractiveness.
"How do you do, Mr. Barker," Sophia declared, determined to put all her charm to work. "Margo will be out in just a moment."
He nodded curtly but didn't smile. "Thank you. This time it's my fault; I'm a few minutes early." Turning to the maid, he inquired, "Blossom, could you rustle me up a quick coffee, please?" Blossom made her exit, leaving Sophia fearfully alone with him.
"Margo's sister, hmm?" Larry Barker queried. The first impression of foreboding now emerged with an impression of rudeness. His frown remained. There was ice in this man; if he was equipped to having it melted, he was putting on a strong show of hiding the fact. But, she had to admit, if his aloofness remained, so did his good looks. He was about thirty, with brown wavy hair and a firm chin. His dark eyes pierced past her but into her, as though they were instantly able to evaluate her. Sophia, leading the way to the depth of the living room and sitting on the striped couch, summoned up all the faculty for poise she possessed. She knew her gauche costume and unpowdered nose put her at a disadvantage, but she was damned if she was going to dwindle before this challenging, ungiving man.
"Yes," she assented. "I beat you to this apartment by less than an hour."
Approaching her, he offered a cigarette, which she took, and he took one for himself. "Margo's talked about you. You're interested in the theatre, as I recall." As he bent down to light her cigarette, he proved himself to be at least temporarily human, for as Sophia leaned forward to meet the light, she caught a glimpse of his cold eyes traveling between the folds of her robe. The vicarious thrill of it struck her. It was an outrageous stunt she was pulling, getting him over to her side if only for a second by partially exposing the provocative valley of her bosom, but she did achieve it. Laughing inwardly, she failed to censure herself. Whom would it hurt? And who would be the wiser?
"I did some acting at college. And I have the usual notes of acclaim from the collegetown newspaper." She sat back, leaving his eyes tormented. He collected himself, though, and retreated. Lighting his own cigarette, he walked to the deep chair across frqm her.
"Uh-huh. You played Juliet and theingenue in The Old Maid, right?"
"Juliet, yes." Her hostility, born of nothing tangible except her overwhelming urge to melt his iceberg mien, prompted her to cross her legs and pull the hem of the housecoat's skirt snugly over her legs, so that the outline of her shapely flanks would be perfectly visible.
"Do you sing? Dance?"
"Well, Margo has the voice in the family. I do sing, but it's a kind of whiskey baritone. My dancing isn't bad, though."
"Uh-huh," he said absently. Blossom re-entered, carrying a cup of steaming coffee. "Thanks a lot, Bios."
"Is this supposed to be your breakfast?" insisted Blossom.
"My breakfast. And probably lunch, too, unless you go in there and yank that tempera mental redhead out here."
"Now she's hurryin'; don't fume and fuss so much. Why don't you eat right, Mr. Barker?" Shaking her head wearily at the thought of this nice young man who refused to take care of himself, she waddled out of the living room.
"Blossom's probably got your number," Sophia volunteered as he drank his coffee. "I'd be happy to scramble some eggs for you."
He seemed embarrassed by this display of attention. Frowning more deeply, he responded, "No thanks. Today's going to be a killer at the studio. I know the theory about good hot breakfasts, but it doesn't work with me. A full meal make me leaden. Uh-tell me some things about yourself," he pressed quickly, as if anything more said about Larry Barker would be too revealing. "Are you here in New York to live?"
"Well, not here. I intend to get my bearings in a day or two, then I'll find an apartment somewhere."
They talked some more, but the conversation was heavy and stilted. Is it my fault? she wondered. Blossom talked to him as if he were human. Is it just my lot to communicate with a man by either flinging my body at him or withdrawing into a shell?
She was saved in a short while by Margo's bustling entrance. The diminutive redhead, dressed in slacks and a frowsy blouse, charged in, with the inevitable cigarette, as if she'd been awake for hours and was just now winding into full activity. The passivity she'd shown in bed was now missing; she was full of pep. She was also the most feminine, most enticing, most enviable woman Sophia had ever seen.
"Now, no speeches!" Margo chortled as an entrance line. "I'm not late!" Gliding to the chair, she added, "Good morning, darling," and kissed his forehead. "Who told you to get here at dawn? Milkmen don't get up this early!" "Hello," he said somberly and rose. "Today's the first run-through. I'm anxious to get it going on the right foot."
Sophia rose, too, certain she'd never been more of a wagon's fifth wheel.
"You two are old cronies by now, I trust?" Margo grinned, taking his arm.
"Yep," Larry Barker nodded, still not smiling. "You've done The Keith McClure Party and all the television industry a great disservice by keeping her under wraps this long, Margo."
"That's my nefarious plot," Margo rejoined and produced a mockingly vicious laugh, cutely imitative of The Inner Sanctum. "Sophia's the kid sister I keep chained to the bedpost. You see, if I ever did take off those wraps, she'd knock the eye out of every male from here to Madagascar. And where would that leave a flat-chested old crone like me? Come on, let's dance out of here and rehearse our happy little show."
Larry Barker obliged by draining his cup, nodding (formally again), to Sophia and proceeding to the door. Margo, heightened her animation, advanced to Sophia and pecked her lips against her sister's cheek.
"Sorry to run, baby, but I gotta make a buck today. You still look beat. You hop in the sack and grab some shuteye, okay? I'll call you later, the minute this slave-driver lets me sneak out the door.
"It won't be neces-"
"Margo!" boomed Larry Barker. "You're holding up the entire progress of the Chandler Television Network!"
Once more she kissed Sophia, exclaimed, "See? Slave-driver!" and scurried out of the room.
But before she exited, she had fixed one precise, unusual gaze on Sophia, a sober gaze which might very well have instructed, "hands off, baby, and don't get any big ideas. He's mine, all mine."
Sophia watched them leave. It was just as well, she thought. She was still very tired. Perhaps a nap was in order.
She fell asleep at once. The strain of the last few days was telling on her. Sophia didn't know it yet, but her life had changed and would never again be the same.
But in her dreams, she returned home. It was the same as always, dull but secure. In her dream she was leaving the house by the back door, her heart beating furiously. It was another of her secret dates.
She walked three blocks in twilight and then saw him sitting in his sports car. She didn't know his name-she didn't have to. He had the right smile and the right manner, and that was all that counted.
She had met him downtown the day before, and he had asked but one question: "Are you free?"
But it was his smile that contained the real message. "Are you ready?" his smile said.
Sophia had wanted to say no, but she couldn't. She smiled and told him where to meet her. He was there, peering anxiously around in the gathering darkness, thinking perhaps that he had been stood up.
They rode out of town, to a small motel used by the locals as a love-nest for rent. The fellow's name was Tom, and when he pulled in, he told Sophia to wait in the car for him.
It was a scene she had played many times. She nodded, and when he walked inside the office, she watched for the telltale signs of nervousness.
He had them all. He was walking with a bit of stiffness that she could tell was sheer nervousness. He was carrying his shoulders high and tight. And he kept glancing outside to make sure she didn't steal his precious car.
Then he was back, a big smile on his face. He dangled a room key in front of her face. "Nothing to it," he said with a man-of-the-world air. Sophia almost laughed in his face. Men were so stupid, she thought. And then: But how stupid am I for falling for every smooth smile that I see?
She put the thought quickly out of her mind. She hugged his arm to her and he drove to the appointed slot and parked. He turned to her and kissed her hard on the mouth. "I can't wait," he said.
"Neither can I," whispered Sophia. She quickly opened the car door and got out. He walked to the motel room and opened the door.
Inside at last.
"Want to shower?" he asked casually. He set down the bag containing the traditional bottle, ice, and soda water.
Tom brightened when she replied. "Only if you do," she said. "I hate to shower alone!"
They had a drink first. "To loosen up," Tom said. She giggled. She was as loose as a goose. Still, some men needed time, so she let him have it.
Then they were stripping and she noticed that Tom was a bit hesitant about taking off his shorts. Damn, she thought. I hope he's not a guy with some kind of problem.
But it was a problem that a lot of guys would love to have, Sophia thought as Tom finally tugged down his shorts.
Tom was built like a horse.
She sucked in her breath in appreciation and Tom turned to her with an anxious look on his face. "Don't be scared," he said.
"Scared?" She laughed out loud. "Why would I be scared?" Sophia asked. She was watching, and it was getting bigger.
"Gee," Tom said, looking relaxed for the first time all evening. "You don't know how good I feel! So many girls take one look at this thing"-he hoisted his fire hose in his hand-"and they don't want to know me any more!"
Sophia laughed again. "I guess it takes a girl who likes to make love," she said. "And believe me, you've got the right girl this time!"
They showered for a half hour, taking care to soap and rinse each other thoroughly Tom was totally aroused by the shower. Sophia had never seen anything to compare to Tom in a state of arousal. She tried to guage his size. It was at least twelve inches long, and as big around as a baby's arm.
When she saw it fully erect, Sophia, for the first time, had doubts about it. It looked lethal-she wondered if she was elastic enough to take it.
But Tom was in high heat by then. He led her back to the bed and when she tried to service him orally, he said no. "I've had a lot of that," he said. "That's what all the girls want to do so that they won't have to make love to me."
Sophia nodded, her lips dry with excitement. Well, there was nothing for it but the old college try, she thought. She reclined on the bed and held out her arms to Tom. He fit himself between her legs and grunted hard when he shoved it in.
It felt like a baseball bat.
Sophia shivered with pain and then experienced the most wonderfully warm gush of pleasure she had ever had. She wrapped her legs around Tom's broad back and let him hump to his heart's content.
He was squealing with pleasure, filling her completely with his massive member. She was in a state of constant orgasm by then, lolling on the bed, feeling the hot sweetness coursing through her veins.
That was how she woke up, her body pleasured, and a strange ringing in her ears.
CHAPTER TWO
At twenty minutes of noon, Sophia was wakened from a troubled sleep by Margo's phone call.
"I don't have more than a second to gab, Sophia. Can you be down here at three o'clock on the nose?"
"Three? At the studio? Why, I guess so, but-"
"Listen, no time to explain. Gotta dash back. The choreographer's running a dance audition here at three for the new season. Three or four girls're going to be replaced. You dance. So why not you? The pay smells but it'll be a break."
"So? Yes or no? They're yapping for me to get out of here. Larry was very impressed with you. Will you come or not?"
"Yes! Yes, of course!"
"Good. Get the address from Blossom. I'll leave word at the desk. Just ask for me."
"But clothes! Marg, all my stuff is great for Willetsville, but I don't have a thing I'd wear there."
"Urn. Yeah. Yeah, tassels and ribbons would be extra square, wouldn't they? Look, I'll telephone Mme. Borget. That's near the apartment. Blossom'll give you that address, too. I have a charge account there. Go over and get yourself decked out. You won't need a dancer's outfit for this audition, nothing like that. But it's on the way and you're going to need a wardrobe, anyway. Get yourself some stuff. Pick a sexy full-skirted affair for this afternoon, have Borget send the rest to the apartment."
"Marg, I can't let you-"
"Everything clear? Got to fly now, baby. Bye!"
Click.
Replacing the receiver, and sitting up in the wide bed, Sophia was astonished by the rapid turn of events. She had hoped for some identity in this city, but she certainly hadn't expected it to happen this fast, and she sincerely hadn't given any serious consideration to having Margo go out of her way to be of assistance. She'd never felt particularly close to her sister and had always considered Margo a selfish, self-centered girl.
Now Margo was taking the time from a busy schedule to phone her about an excellent lead, and she was ordering her to shoot the works at a fancy dress salon.
Within the rash of the past months' atrocious luck, all this now came as a windfall of wonderful fortune. And because there was nothing so important at this time as positive identity, Sophia would accept it.
A bracing shower, on the heels of this morning's lingering bath, served to make her buoyant. Still in the mood of manic expectancy, she helped herself liberally to Margo's rich perfumes and powders. She dressed with a feverish intensity, trying to hold back unhappy thoughts of the past. This was a new life....She must forget what had gone before.
Childhood had been an unpleasant experience. Her mother had died when Sophia was seven and Margo was thirteen. But Daddy had eased the adjustment. He'd had long, long talks with her at bedtime and had seen to it that she accepted Mother's departure without extended despondency. There was no one in all the world like Daddy. He could play the piano and the saxophone, and when he came home from work at night he never failed to bring her something-a sack of jelly beans or a picture book. Or, if he'd been in a hurry and couldn't get to the store, he'd provide her with a newly madeup story or poem. She never went to bed without knowing that he had something for her.
Daddy's devotion to Sophia was an incentive to be good. She wanted Daddy to be proud of her.
Margo was different, though; Margo had gone her own way ever since Sophia could remember. Not spitefully but just sure of herself, independent. Maybe that's why Daddy used to say over and over again, "Sophia is my girl. My own little girl, my very own prize...."
There wasn't any need to be interested in anyone else; certainly not any boy. She made a point of getting to school on time and getting home on time so that Daddy would be pleased, of doing her homework and keeping her room cleaned and her neck washed so that Daddy would be proud of her. She was in heaven when Daddy rewarded her with a poem dedicated to "my very own little girl."
Something changed, though, when she was thirteen, something gradual but real. For some reason Daddy didn't have his business anymore (she remembered hearing a "Good cash offer on the barrel head" and "You're wiped out, Holland, whadda ya wanna hang around for and watch your store go down the drain?"), and she no longer got presents or even poems. She saw his hair turn white and his always-happy face grow gray and sad.
Then there was the night, when she lay in her bed upstairs, that she heard Uncle Norvel's angry voice down in the living room.
"Let me hear it from you, Foster. Do you want a job with me or not?"
"Norvel, I never worked for anybody in my life but myself. I can't go in with you. I can't explain it. I just can't do it."
"Don't be a sap, Foster. You're a man without a job. You have two daughters to provide for. What're you going to do, take your pride to the poorhouse?"
"I'm not arguing with you."
"Then tell me what the story is. My hardware business isn't the biggest in the state by any manner of means, but it's the biggest in this town and it's getting bigger every day. I sure as shootin' don't need any extra help, but after all you're my brother and it don't look good for business if anybody'd ever say I didn't look out for my own. If you're willing to swallow yur gosh-awful pride a little, I'll hire you as a clerk, pay you a hundred-fifty a week. Keep in mind that's a good deal more than I start my regular help off with. I'm a busy man, Foster. Say yes or no."
Suddenly Sophia heard Margo's voice.
"Daddy, I couldn't help overhearing. Why don't you tell this guy to zip himself up and go to hell?"
"Margo, that will be enough out of you!"
"No, it won't. What are you, a fourth-rate black sheep, begging for handouts? Daddy, go work in a ditch first. Go sell newspapers. Tell him to go to hell.".
Then Norvel's voice: "Is this the kind of children you bring up, Foster? Teaching them to have such filthy mouths and such disrespect? If she was my child I'd know what I'd do, sure as shootin'."
"Margo," Daddy said quietly. "Go to your room."
"Okay," said Margo. "But I'm right. You work for him, you'll never be the same man again."
There were miles of talk back and forth.
But Daddy finally went to work for Uncle Norvel.
As Margo had prophesied (where did sassy Margo get all those brains?), Daddy never was the same man again. His shoulders began to sag a little, and he became careless about the way he dressed. He would sit at dinner and push a fork idly through his food without more than ten or twelve words to say all the way through the meal. Sophia would try to bring him out of his gloom, try to make him feel good by saying bright things, by repeating funny jokes she'd heard at school that day, try to make him feel proud by showing him her straight-A report cards.
He would agree to take the report cards in his hand, but he would merely run his watery eyes over them, mutter, "That's fine," and hand them back to her.
His switch from the adoring father to the distant father stunned her, made her curiously convinced that she was somehow responsible for his change.
By her late teens, the tall Sophia had a. woman's body. She was shocked when young Manny Stokes grabbed her one afternoon in the cloak room and roved his hands over her.
"Manny! Now you stop that!"
"You don't like it, huh?"
"That isn't the point!" she retorted.
The shock continued with her agreement to meet Manny Stokes up near Billingsleys' barn, where she let him kiss her and fondle her until she slapped him finally and ran home. But there followed a long line of one boy after another-Herbie Dilroy and Wilfred Clarke and Jim Curtis and Walt Grady, boys from the junior basketball team and school newspaper, boys on whom she had crushes, plus the pimply-faced boys in whom her only interest was their interest in her.
At no time did she go "all the way," as the old parlance was phrased, but she found herself consistently pleased when she was wanted by one of the boys, and increasingly aroused when they evidenced they cared for her enough to spend late afternoons with her playing around. At no time did anyone advise her that she was developing into quite a beautiful girl, and that it was definitely not philanthropy on the part of the boys whom she indiscriminately allowed to make their inexperienced and fumbling love to her.
Each time she returned home (to find Margo diligently at work at university studies, and Daddy slouching in his chair, half-listening to the radio, half-gazing with vacant eyes at his newspaper) she was torn with guilt and remorse. She would promise herself never to repeat her unholy behavior. .
But a few days later, someone else would give her the friendly, lopsided grin, and once more she would sink into availability.
When Margo left the university and Willetsville for New York, over Daddy's loud but indecisive objections, Sophia was sure that home would take on a different tone, that when they were alone in the big house Daddy would snap out of his unhappy moods, and everything would be right again.
But, if anything, Margo's departure made things worse. It became a special day when Daddy said anything more than, "Good evening Sophia."
Sophia was interested in dramatics in high school. "Miss Sophia Holland's expert performance as Portia in last night's Willetsville High School production of The Merchant of Venice," wrote Mrs. Quimby in The Willetsville Dispatch, "gives proof to our long-held prediction that she will one day be the leading light in a mammoth success on Broadway. Her striking blonde beauty is exceeded only by her warm, professional skill as an actress."
After graduation, the prospect of going on to Poindexter College was a joyous one. Margo was beginning to work in television. Daddy, regrettably, had taken to drinking; he still held his low-paying, nothing job at Uncle Norvel's hardware store, but alcohol was becoming a consuming passion with him. There was nothing to hold Sophia here at home.
The high school scholarship helped. There was something hopeful in all this, she thought. Through her years at high school, she had kissed and been ineffectively inti mate with more than half of the male students at Willetsville High. Even Mr. Watkins, the handsome biology instructor, had kept her after class one afternoon and had kissed her (informing her all the while he touched her that his third-hour classes were conducted sputteringly only because she sat up front and her very presence made his oratory suffer). But she'd managed to study well, get exemplary grades and graduate at the head of her class. Her nearly constant fears of being discovered and being called a tease, or worse, were cast away. No one of importance in town knew what she was; the recommendations for college scholarship proved it.
She would be different at college. She would change. She convinced herself that she'd given in to her desires only because things were so dreadfully oppressive at home and in this closed-in, boxed-up, narrow town of Willetsville. In a free atmosphere, away from all this, she would find herself, free herself of her compulsive need to be loved and petted.
At Poindexter, she learned it wasn't that easy.
Boys were taller, more muscular, more enticing, more insistent.
At first she made valiant efforts to adjust to her new environment. She roomed off campus with three girls who, like herself, would have loved to have belonged to a sorority, but who couldn't afford it. After a while it didn't really matter, though. There was something healthy in the curfews imposed on her by the house mother of the rooming house. She was approved of immediately by the landlady and vowed to keep that approval; she would immerse herself in her studies of the drama and automatically stay out of mischief.
Her good conduct lasted precisely five weeks.
"I just can't figure you out, Holland," complained Beth Armstrong, the least inhibited of her roommates. Beth had honey-colored hair and an I've-been-around manner. "Every dreamboat at school's been buzzing around you, trying to date you. And you make with the forty-below-zero act. You don't make like a snob here with us, in the room ... "
"I'm not a snob."
"Then what goes? Tommy Elliot, for instance, he's really been giving you the good old evil eye. Man, if he ever looked at me, I'd grab him and never let him get away." Tommy Elliot was the college's big man. He was the big man in basketball, the big man in dramatics, the big man in the diaries of many of the coeds. Sophia certainly had been conscious of him. He had been informing her, with a word here and a poignant glance there, that they could make mighty sweet music together. Sophia had brushed him off, just as she'd brushed off all the other willing males at Poindexter-not because she was disinterested, but because she was too interested.
"There are Tommy Elliots all over," Sophia answered blandly. "I'm here to study."
Beth shrugged. "Okay, Miss Independent. But if you change your mind and want to sneak your nose out of a book for a few hours, we're all going to be at the Soiree tomorrow night in Lancaster Hall. Tommy'll be there."
"I doubt that I can make it. English exams Monday."
"Can you use a word from the wise, Holland? You ought to go there. If you don't, you're going to be known as the season's biggest drip. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't be warning you."
By the next evening, Sophia had changed her mind. The hall would be packed with students. She would be as safe as it was possible for a wary girl to be safe. And the growing possibility that Beth's epithet could be applied to her was appalling.
It began innocently enough. She waited till Beth and the other two girls, Joan and Sally, had left the room for the dance. Then she hastened to bathe and dress. She chose her clinging pink taffeta, the provocative dress she hadn't yet worn. Standing before the mirror, she examined herself as she combed her hair. No, they wouldn't get the chance to call her a drip. She would make the grandest entrance in the world. The taffeta caressed her tawny body invitingly. Her liberal use of Beth's earth-shaking cologne helped.
Tall and tawny and stacked. She'd knock their eyes out with this debut. She'd behave herself but she'd command attention and hold it. The dress exposed her arms and the suggestive outline of her womanly curves.
Her yellow hair was striking against her dark, golden skin.
On her way, alone, across the campus, the sound of the Lancaster Hall jukebox wafted through the air, beckoning to her. Near her, from the bushes, she heard a furtive rustling; before she could either retreat or hurry on, a couple emerged from the bushes, their faces flushed, the young man's tie askew. On ahead, other couples were walking, hand in hand, some of them laughing softly, some of them significantly quiet. The campus seemed to be crying out that it was a night for romance.
But not for drips. Never for drips.
At the dance, she created more of a stir than she'd anticipated. Most of the men were acutely conscious of her, but Tommy Elliot got to her first and refused to let her go.
"Hi, turtle," he greeted, taking her in his arms and gracefully gliding her into the current dance number. Casanova and Don Juan. You rated when Tommy Elliot accepted you into his special orbit.
"'Turtle'? Is my back as hard-shelled as all that?"
He moved his hand over her back, thrilling her. "Doesn't seem to be. But then I never make snap decisions. I'll have to investigate the question more thoroughly at a later, more convenient date." The music was one of the Barry Manilow greats. The hall was getting more and more crowded and the colored lights were beguiling. "No, I call you turtle because you've been hiding all that gorgeous upholstery for so long. Hiding yourself, as a matter-of-fact. And Dr. Elliot doesn't approve."
"Now isn't that too sorrowful?" she chided.
He wasn't really giving out with the Big Man conceit; or, if he was, it wasn't offensive. She would have to banter with him. She wasn't certain if she was successfully hiding her enthrallment at being in his arms. If she were to drop her guard and be serious for one instant, he would see through her without difficulty.
"Yeah, very sorrowful. You're a luscious lady, Sophia."
Through the evening she danced with a few of the other fellows, but she knew she was rarely out of Tommy's sight. Harmless punch was served. At least, she was told it was harmless and it certainly tasted like nothing that would upset the WCTU. But, close to midnight, one of the cups Tommy brought to her elicited a very special jolt.
Tommy winked. Sophia, still fearful of gaining the "drip" title, drank it, without flinching.
She drank the second one he brought her, too. A delightful, heady buzz went through her brain and for the first time tonight (soon she realized it was for the first time since she'd come to Poindexter), she loosened and felt free.
It was obvious, within the next hour or so, that Tommy wanted to pry her from this constricting hall, and get her alone. When he suggested that they leave, she smiled gaily but refused. There was a pause, after which Tommy frowned, shrugged, said something she felt but did not hear and moved off.
Sophia stood near the door, alone, defeated. She'd wanted his kindness; she'd wanted to prove she could sustain herself.
She'd failed.
Then, suddenly, a hand was on her arm and Beth was saying, "We're all going to drive over to Beanpole's for a nightcap. C'mon along, Holland."
"Where's-Tommy?"
"He's coming, too. Hey, what happened? You two were a couple of bugs in a rug all evening long. Now you're playing it alone. What'd he do, whisper the wrong sweet nothings in your ear?"
"Beth ... what's at Beanpole's?"
"Just a nice guy's apartment where there's no curfew and where the liquor cabinet isn't padlocked. Sally and Joan are coming."
"Sally and Joan?"
"Sure. Wise up. We're all going to have some kicks. What do you want to do, go back to the room and play solitaire? C'mon, Holland. Let's live a little."
"I-think I'm a little high...."
"Great! Then you're one up on us. Let's go to Beanpole's and watch you get higher."
Sophia went along.
Tommy Elliot was there, with a glass in his hand, by the time she arrived. He had not reached out for her after she'd refused him. Now it appeared she was reaching out for him.
CHAPTER THREE
Beanpole Deidrich was a senior from Spokane who had enough money to maintain his own comfortable apartment a mile and a half from the college. Sophia learned within minutes after stepping through his door that he had some of the students here at erratic times of the day and night and on weekends, to dance, to cut up, to sit around and participate in semi-drunken bull sessions.
The radio was on and a few couples were dancing much more intimately than they'd have dared to dance at Lancaster Hall. Sophia was momentarily stunned to see Joan, her otherwise serious-minded, almost prissy roommate, exchanging feverish kisses on the couch with one of the football boys.
Tommy, pleased, plunked a dark-colored drink into Sophia's hand and grinned.
"May I have this dance?" he inquired.
"I'll have to check my dance card, sir."
He embraced her. "I tore it up."
"No, Tommy, don't...."
From the radio, Sinatra was offering his expert job on Bring on the Clowns; the tune was melancholy, taunting. Sophia was caught up in Tommy's arms and his lips brushed over her cheek. The glass in her hand put her at a slight disadvantage, allowing her only one hand with which to struggle away.
But his strong frame was molding against hers as they swayed back and forth and she was wholly aware of the fact that she hadn't the remotest desire to move away.
"I saw you onstage this afternoon," he confessed. "You were reading Plough and the Stars."
"I didn't know you were there," Sophia muttered, impressed that she could get volume into her voice.
"'Way in the back of the auditorium. You know your way around a stage, Sophia.
The other girls trying out for the part were looking daggers through you. That's the sincerest form of flattery."
"You're holding me too close, Tommy."
"Uh-huh," he agreed pleasantly, making no move to release her.
When the song was finished, and Beanpole called out that frankfurters and sauerkraut were on the kitchen table, Sophia saw most of the eight or ten guests walk to the kitchen. Blinking, she noted the drink in her hand.
There seemed to be no time span between the time she swallowed it and the time the party had indeed begun to get rough.
Still blinking, unable to focus clearly, she discovered herself being freed from the troubled state and joining into the loveliness of the party. She couldn't remember when she'd slipped out of her shoes, but now she was in her stockinged feet, dancing alone to a frenzied rock beat from the radio.
She had an audience. The group, men and women, who hadn't given her any particular attention before, were seated on the couch and chairs and floor, applauding her, urging her on.
Somehow she had started to dance for them. Or was she dancing only for Tommy, with the others merely on hand?
She was giggling with the warmth of the liquor and the joy of being in the spotlight. For a moment she considered running away, for her behavior was definitely not the symbol of dignity. But, seeing Joan now on the floor, clapping her hands and resting her head on Bob Downing's shoulder, Sophia remembered that the prissy girl had checked her reserve at the door. And the other girls here, all with men, had checked their reserve, too. Sophia felt on trial. She would have to prove herself.
Encouraged, she executed a mock-sultry solo, wriggling the lower half of her torso, spreading her arms in the charade of embrace. She was drunk. She knew she was drunk. But there was no guilt attached to it. Not as long as Tommy Elliot sent out waves of love.
The hands, that were hers but that were nevertheless foreign, moved the zipper at the side of her dress. An aura of ecstasy clogged in her throat as Tommy laughed appreciatively and she continued to sway.
When the alcohol she'd consumed commenced to take its sickening effect, Sophia worked hard to disregard it. But abruptly (everything tonight, she thought, had happened abruptly) she no longer had strength in her legs or hands.
She blacked out and collapsed.
Beth Armstrong testified the next day that nothing worrisome had occurred after Sophia passed out, that the gang regarded Holland as a lot of fun. But Sophia lay crumbled in remorse. There'd been no enjoyment last night, at the dance, at Beanpole's, in drinking. She knew why. She'd tried too hard. Nothing had happened spontaneously. Her brutal hangover this noon didn't oppress her half so much as the memory of having dipped her toes into the pool of fun, and failed so abominably in every step of the way after that.
During the remainder of the school semester, she agreed to accept dates. But each time, though, she started out with the most hopeful resolutions, the date ended disastrously. She was intelligent and witty, and as long as she sat across a room from her escort, she could conduct herself maturely. But somehow it wasn't enough. The boys who didn't make passes at her were dullards to begin with. The ones who did attempt to take liberties were much too sure of themselves, in one way or another threatening her with abandonment if she refused to "be a good sport."
So she became a good sport.
Mr. Jeffries, the school psychologist, came into the picture near the end of her freshman year. She had met him once or twice, when he'd given her the formalized aptitude tests, when they'd nodded to one another on campus. But she'd never availed herself of her right to sit and talk with him about her growing problem. But, once she'd come to the realization that her trouble was one she couldn't handle herself, it had seemed too late to go to him.
Finally she did.
"I can't trust myself any more," she told him, sitting taut in his office, afraid to look squarely at him. "I don't think I ever did trust myself. I'm-not one of those wild women, Mr. Jeffries. I mean, I don't go out on a date with everything all calculated in advance. But something happens, somewhere along the line during the evening. I keep telling myself there's nothing more important than developing a relationship with a young man. Slowly, sensibly. But ... something happens. I get frightened. I'm afraid I'm dumb or unpleasant or-or something. If he starts to make like a huffing and puffing male, I let him. I struggle for a few seconds, but I-respond. Even on the first date, sometimes....
"It isn't what I want!" she went on, weeping. "They either never ask to see me again or, if they do, it's for more of the same. It-it isn't enough. I can't live with myself the next day. I keep promising myself it won't happen again ... not so quickly, not so thoughtlessly ... but it does, it always does."
"What are you afraid of, Miss Holland? You're intelligent, selective. You're quite lovely. There are other ways to hold a man than to-be accommodating to him the first time out."
"I know. But it's like drinking. I lose myself completely. I have to keep proving to myself that I'm popular, that I'm wanted, that I'm needed. But it's never enough. It's never satisfying."
"What about this other thing you were discussing?" asked Mr. Jefferies. "This exhibitionism?"
Sophia nodded. "That's what terrifies me the most." She stopped crying. She spoke calmly now, resignedly. "The clothes I wear on dates, the way I walk, the way I sit ... it's all unconscious at the time, honestly, but it's all designed to bring attention to me, to make the man notice me more than they'd notice anyone else. I ... tease them. I accidentally-on-purpose leave the blinds up when I change clothes. I accidentally-on-purpose straighten my garter belt when I know I'm being seen. Mr. Jeffries, if I ever did have any self-control, I've lost it. It's bad enough with the kind of boys I go out with now, the anything-for-a-laugh kind. But I'm afraid that someday I'll meet someone who really means something. Someday I'll meet the man I truly want and who wants me ... and I-"
Mr. Jefferies didn't attempt to solve everything all in one hour. He did mention in passing that she should have come to him earlier, that they could have been working together on this over the past year. But he would do what he could to help her from now till the end of the term.
Sophia felt a ray of hope. She saw him for three more visits and each hour seemed to help. She was able to discuss her father and her sister and her own stifling sense of competition. She was able to listen intelligently to his interpretations and suggestions. Genuinely she felt her problem was not insoluble. She was on her way to growing and maturing.
But Tommy Elliot invited her to what promised to be a gala party, to celebrate the end of the term, at Beanpole's.
She fought it, but she went.
She didn't spy the motion-picture machine till she'd been at the party for an hour or so and she'd downed a few stiff highballs prepared by Tommy.
"What's all this?" she asked, pointing. "Are we going to see a travelogue on. Pike's Peak and the Grand Canyon?"
"You're going to be a movie star, baby," advised Tommy, as Beanpole and several of the other fellows busied themselves at setting up the camera apparatus.
"Uh-huh," gaily agreed Beth, who obviously had known all about this before Sophia. "We want to immortalize your famous dance for the films, Holland. Got your dancing shoes handy?"
Not yet drunk enough, Sophia frowned. In the spirit of belonging to the group, she had, over the past few months, fashioned a sultry dance which she performed shamelessly for the gang. (She had learned not to faint.) It was a flexible, instinctive striptease, yet it boasted the precision of a professional, creative dancer.
"Oh, no, I couldn't!" she cried.
"Why not? It'll be for kicks."
"Nope. For kicks is one thing. For movies is another. Count me out, kiddies."
Another highball, though, changed her mind.
At the piano, Sally began the sensual rhythm which acted as Sophia's call to arms. When Beanpole, the "director" of the film, ordered her to start, Sophia found herself in the center of the living room, performing the dance that had been so successful here before.
She pulled out all the stops and while she danced, while she was applauded, she couldn't remember having ever had more fulfillment in her life.
The next day, dragged with guilt and the sureness of defeat, she knew there was only one thing to do: contact Mr. Jefferies, confess everything, and demand a working plan from here on out. Her life had taken a shape of sorts, and everything it implied was torturous.
But she didn't get to keep her appointment with the psychologist.
She was summoned to the office of the dean.
In his office, off to one side she saw the motion-picture camera.
She was invited to introduce her side of the story, which the dean gave every evidence of unwillingness to believe.
She tried to explain, without success.
She was expelled from Poindexter, that afternoon.
Now Sophia crossed Fifth Avenue and continued on to Madison and the Chandler Television Network Building.
She entered the mammoth lobby, gave her name to the efficient-looking young lady at the reception booth. She waited as the young lady contacted the McClure rehearsals, spoke the name Sophia Holland as though it were an onerous disease, and then, after a pause, looked up at her with friendly eyes.
"Yes, you're expected," said the young lady. "Seventeenth floor. You'll see a sign up there."
"Thank you."
"Are you related to Margo Holland?"
"I'm her sister."
"Well! How does it feel to be so lucky?"
"Great," Sophia replied dryly. "Just great. Can I use this elevator?"
On the way up (ignoring the examining gaze of the insolent elevator operator), she reflected on her luck. Maybe, after all, it would be the best thing in life for her to flub the audition this afternoon and start out on her own, free of all ties and responsibilities to anyone but herself.
Yes, lucky was the word. Lucky Sophia. She wasn't in prison or in a mental institution yet. She'd heard of other girls who had experimented with the forbidden, and had been crushed completely.
Sophia was still all in one piece.
So far, she thought somberly.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Seventeenth floor," announced the operator, once more examining her.
Haughtily, she emerged from the elevator, her eyes averted.
A sign to her left read Keith McClure Party Rehearsals. Studio C. Personnel only.
The "personnel only" part stimulated her, bringing her out of her glum introspection. She wasn't among the personnel yet, she knew, but she was on her way to the special sanctum, and it gave her a tentative identity.
The "C" door was closed. She paused there, deliberating. Oh, hell, she scolded herself finally, when am I going to learn that doors usually can be opened just by turning the knob?
The corny philosophy stirred her, made her laugh at her own pomposity. The laughter felt good.
Margo was at the far end, waving and beckoning to her.
Sophia closed the door soundlessly. The studio was a huge room, compartmentalized, with cables and cameras and "personnel." In the control room, up ahead, she spotted Larry Barker. He appeared to have noted her entrance, but he did not greet her in any way.
Margo was seated in a folding chair, next to a man Sophia recognized immediately as Keith McClure. There were others, in a semi-circle, all with scripts in their hands, but Sophia had eyes only for McClure. He was in television's top-ten rating, having starred on his own comedy show for the past several seasons. He looked a bit older here than he did on the screen. He seemed shorter, a trifle less ruddy, somewhat less pixieish, maybe because of the glasses he wore now, or his unattended gray temples. But he was a celebrity Sophia admired, and the knowledge that she was about to meet him was exciting.
"Hello, baby," Margo enthused, lifting her hand for Sophia to take. "Right on time."
"I broke a few speed records, at that."
"Keith, this is Sophia. The girl I've been beating my gums about to you."
Keith McClure half rose, took her other hand. "Hello, baby," he nodded noncommittally.
"How do you do, Mr. McClure."
"Keith," he amended. Looking around, he added, "Where's Eddie? Hey, Eddie!"
A pudgy little man, wearing a sweatshirt and carrying a prompter's whistle, stood a few feet away, directing a line of five leggy, bosomy girls. He called back, "Lemme alone, Keith. I'm busy."
"Come here. Want you to meet my grandmother." Returning his attention to Sophia, he confided, "Marg told me about you, but she didn't give with all the details. You're quite a looker."
"Thank you, I-"
"Can you dance?"
"Yes."
"Keith," Margo said cautiously. "You'd better lay off. Larry'll he sore if you take over."
He chuckled. "Let me make the jokes, Marg. I know a vision when I see one and that's what you baby sister is." When Eddie appeared, Keith McClure said, "Edward, frere, this is Sophia."
"Hello," he nodded in irritation. "I'm busy, Keith."
"Busy, busy!" Keith rumbled. "Take Sophia over with the others, Ed. If she can put one foot in front of the other without tripping, hire her."
"Look, Keith, I don't want to be told how-"
The star raised his eyebrows.
"Am I taking over, Ed? Just making useful suggestions, that's all. This young lady is a natural for my show. Why all the ritual, the red tape? Larry said to hire her."
"Larry said?"
"Sure. Would I lie to you? Take her."
Eddie shrugged. Peering at the silent Sophia, he finally nodded and indicated the line of girls.
"Right over there, Miss-"
She was about to tell him, but Keith, angered now, snorted, "McCloskey! What's it matter who she is?"
The pudgy man, guiding her, said under his breath, "One of these days I'm going to belt that over aged ham."
Sophia said nothing.
A stoop-shouldered man was at the piano, running his fingers up and down the keyboard in a flippant glissando. The five girls looked at her as she approached, as though she were a Jenny-come-lately, uninvited by them and therefore threatening. She observed that three of the girls (uniformly blonde and well-developed) wore tights and long mesh stockings.
"Girls," Eddie stated tiredly. "Meet Miss McCloskey." Glancing up at her, he said, "We're just about to practice the opening walk." He raced through a ten-steps-forward-then-to-your-right-on-the-beat direction.
Sophia followed his instructions. As the minutes passed, and she gradually got the feel of the dance, she no longer wanted to run away. Margo was glancing over from her own rehearsals, from time to time, encouragingly. Mr. McClure seemed to be on her side, too. There was no way to judge Larry Barker's attitude; when she noticed him, still in the control booth, she could see him taking sly, fleeting glimpses at her trying to keep up with the dancing girls. Maybe he was going to wait till he came out of the booth and then tell her to go home. Maybe he'd keep her, but only because of Margo.
But her fears disappeared when, along with Margo's and Mr. McClure's pleased nods of encouragement, Eddie, too, took a second out to nod his approval.
An hour later, Sophia was almost convinced she had the job. With the other girls, she sat on the floor and waited as Larry Barker walked to the center of the studio. He was in shirt sleeves. He was frowning and seemed harried, but no one appeared to be terrorized.
"Our season begins exactly two weeks from today," he announced to the cast, not directing his attention to anyone in particular. "This season's going to be tougher than last because we're in the time slot opposite NBC's top show. That means we don't coast, we work and work hard. If we can cut into the NBC rating with any success, you're all due for a bonus. If we drag along, then we're in trouble. I'll say now what I said at the start of last season's run: Nobody kidnapped you into television. You came of your own free will. Only you know why. It's a hundred times harder, more hectic than any other form of show business-or any other profession, for that matter. For the next thirty-six weeks you're all going to work, eat and sleep the Keith McClure show. If it's going to be too tough a proposition, then run away now. Otherwise, stay and get ready to work your head off. Okay? Let's rehearse."
Sophia listened carefully. Was he giving a pre-season pep talk or was he talking to her, conveying something special to her? It was fully possible now, as it hadn't been entirely possible this morning when they'd first met, to understand Margo's attraction to him. He carried with him a definitive sense of authority. His every gesture, while irascible, informed everyone that he was in charge. Not alone because he was the show's director or because he was naturally dictatorial, but because authority seemed to be the perfect role for him.
Margo, she knew, was headstrong and self-willed, which implied that any man of hers would have to be more than up to handling a hellcat.
Larry Barker looked as though he could handle her. And Sophia was deeply impressed.
It took another hour for her to formally learn if she'd gotten the job or if she was merely a small-town relative who wasn't going to make the grade. She observed Larry Barker, Mr. McClure and Margo in a huddle. She knew they were discussing her, for each, in turn, glanced her way.
When Larry Barker walked away, back to the control booth, Mr. McClure caught her eye. Grinning affectionately, he raised his hand and touched his forefinger to his thumb.
She was in.
The director appeared to be making a point of ignoring her. But he'd given his okay and she was in.
At a few minutes past six, Sophia was waiting for the elevator when she heard, "Going my way?"
She turned to see Keith McClure.
"Let's have a sandwich," he suggested. Before she could reply, the elevator door opened and he gently hustled her in.
The rehearsal, she'd gathered, was Over for the day for the dancers and a few members of the cast. The principals were to be back at half-past seven for a conference with Larry Barker and two of the writers.
On the way down, McClure didn't take his eyes away from her. In the studio he'd only occasionally noted her. But now some of his screen personality showed through and he was buoyant. Sophia was conscious of his nearness. What was he doing with her, an insecure newcomer?
He said nothing on the way down, nor did he seem to want her to talk. Only in the rear booth of the building's T.V. Grille did he intimate that he was ready to give of himself. A few passersby nudged each other and she could hear someone whisper heavily, "Ooh, look! Keith McClure!" But the star was oblivious to this and fastened his eyes on Sophia.
"Marg said you came to town just this morning," he said. "How does it feel to get a job the first time out?"
"I'm still breathless. And the chance to have dinner with Mr. Keith McClure."
Chuckling, he ordered sandwiches; when the waiter darted off, he joshed, "A dinner consisting of tuna fish. How exotic can we get?" He lit her cigarette and settled back. "You've got a terrific rooter in Margo, you know. She's the most generous kid we know in this heartless town."
"She's always been generous."
"Don't overlook friend Keith, though. It was my few well-chosen words to Barker that clinched the deal of hiring you."
"Then I'm very grateful, Mr. McKeith."
Soberly, he nodded. "That sounds awfully good, hearing someone say thanks."
"You make it seem as if it's rare."
"It is. I've had my Hooper rating for quite a while now, and each year the salary bulges just a little more. But each year the friends, the true friends, that is, become fewer and fewer."
What's he trying to pull, she wondered. She'd heard legends about him, but she'd never been told he liked to play hearts and flowers.
"Oh?"
"McClure the loner," he volunteered. He paused, staring at the table studiously. "Oh, well, so what? This is just one of those days, I guess. McClure gets depressions, just like everyone else."
"What about Mrs. McClure? You're married, aren't you?"
"Uh. Jacqueline Lawson. Miss Hollywood of 1946. Yeah, I'm married. But I haven't seen her for over a year."
"Separated?"
"No, not legally. She just likes to travel. Likes to leave Papa home alone." He grinned sheepishly. "Now I've exposed enough of my innards. My whole trouble is that when I get depressed I have to tell my life story, starting with the year one."
Through the door came Margo and Larry Barker. Keith McClure was deep within himself by now and didn't see them. Sophia did and impulsively wanted to call to them. But she restrained herself. Margo detected her, though, and waved. Sophia waved back. The older sister and the director continued on, to a booth at the opposite end of the grille.
"There they go," McClure sighed, looking up. "Beauty and the beast. What she sees in that marshmallow-head, I'll never know."
"Mr. Barker? Now you're being cruel."
"Yeah," he nodded. "Don't ever whisper a syllable against Mr. Barker; that's the overriding cry. Mr. Barker is television's top director. Mr. Barker is a man among men. Next season I'm going to switch sponsors and be in full charge of my own show. Then we'll see how indispensable prima donna directors are."
The sandwiches arrived.
"How should I take all these words of bitterness?" she asked. "Are you just depressed for now or are you really against the world?"
He laughed cheerfully and bit into his sandwich. "I do sound like Scrooge, don't I? I'm not a backstabber by instinct, Sophia, honest. I'm going to learn to keep my mouth shut. After I've finished my sandwich, that is."
"Good. If I thought for one minute that you were going to destroy my illusion of Keith McClure, the hero of television, I'd never speak to you again."
Once more he laughed. "You know, you're a lot of fun. What are you going to be up to tonight about eleven?"
"I plan to be up to my ears in sleep. This has not been a normal day, by any standards."
"I'm having a few people up to my place for a late supper. Come on over."
"Well, thanks, but-"
"What do you mean, sleep, at eleven o'clock?" he said disparagingly. "What are you, seventy years old? When you reach my age, then you can afford to let the arteries go downhill a little. But you're a baby. You should be able to dance around the clock. Especially if you intend to invade show business."
"Do show people have stronger arteries?"
"They've got to. It's always an uphill fight in this racket-first getting to the top, then staying there. You'll meet some people tonight who'll do you some good. You're nowhere in this game without contacts."
"You're right...." she wavered.
He gave her his East Fifties address. "I'll be rambling in around eleven. Just throw on an old T-shirt and tennis shoes; nothing fancy."
"You talked me into it."
Keith McClure lifted his glass of water in a toast.
"To Sophia Holland. I like you. And if I have anything to say about it, you're going to be one of the top personalities in show business."
His words were hopeful, his voice was impersonal.
His eyes were trained in the direction of her bodice.
Later, that last look in his eyes would haunt her. She would picture the eyelashes of those eyes fluttering over the nipples of her breasts, picture his soft lips working their way down over her navel, lower to the dampened pubic hair, nuzzling there, licking a bit there. Perhaps two determined fingers stroking at her vaginal lips, opening them before his tongue did its lovely work. She pictured her own body twisting and raising on some satin-sheeted bed, raising to meet his devil-tongue, which, in her dream's eye was by now buried deep into her, swirling, sucking, wetly delving. And then a strained, tight moment when her body would become as rigid as a tree bark, before it sprang loose with orgasm. Perhaps her legs going up around his neck at that instant, drawing him in tight. And then ... and then....
Oh, but why, how had the sensuous and delightfully evil thoughts entered her mind, somehow subconsciously, by the way he nibbled at the sandwich, so gently, so delicately? Or was it the confident manner in which he raised his glass in toast?
In any event, she found that the minute of daydreaming of how it might be had left her panties a bit more than slightly damp.
CHAPTER FIVE
Margo Holland, sitting in the booth across from Larry Barker, wasn't quite sure how she'd come to the awareness of it, but she felt a distinct sense of loss.
Nothing overt had occurred to change anything in their relationship, but she was positive she no longer had Larry's love.
It wasn't something that had popped up just today or yesterday. It had begun gradually, two, maybe three weeks ago. Yes, he'd always been guarded, with a fence around him. Never openly loving or openly violent. But there had been the times, since their love affair had started six months ago,-when she'd been able to cut through his fence and find his love for her.
He was always on hand, wasn't he? Always there when she wanted him. He telephoned her, sent her flowers, silly Valentine cards. He was the one who'd personally seen to it that she received billing second only to McClure.
But something was going on. She couldn't feel his love any more. And she was the kind of girl who had to understand everything.
But Margo disliked scenes, and it was totally impossible for her to see herself pulling the trigger of accusation.
"You don't love me anymore!"
"Where'd you get an idea like that?"
"You don't. There's someone else in your life."
"Marg, can the dramatics."
"Admit it! Why don't you admit it?"
No. No, she was not the kiddie for curtain speeches. Sophisticated Margo Holland-that reputation was her stock in trade. If their love affair was to go the way of all beggary, then it would just have to happen. She would never be able to bring herself around to pointing fingers or going into hysterics or weeping like a love-sick cow.
"Ready to get back?" Larry asked, finishing his coffee and picking up the check. Their quick between-rehearsals dinner conversation had been idle, aimless. But that served as no clue. When Larry was tied up with the show, he was far from a stimulating conversationalist.
"Let's have one more coffee," Margo suggested. From the tail of her eye she could see Sophia and Keith McClure rising from their booth and leaving the grille. She refused to look their way completely. She wasn't up to playing big sister to Sophia, and she didn't like McClure.
"It's late, Marg," Larry quietly protested. "Bill and Mike said a little while ago they've hit on an idea to segue into the commercials without pain. I want to hear it."
"Is our date still on for that drink after rehearsals?" she asked uncertainly.
Larry frowned. "Of course it is. Who said it wasn't?"
"I just thought you might've changed your mind."
"Look, Marg, what's biting you? What's this suave little sniping at me?"
"Who's sniping?"
"These gentle little bombs you drop. 'Is our date still on?' for instance. Certainly, it's on. If you're sore about something, I wish you'd unload it and let me know."
Margo pushed his jacket sleeve back and read the time on his wristwatch.
"It is late. Come on, race you back."
On the way back upstairs to the studio, she tried to unfreeze her smile but couldn't. He'd given her a golden opportunity to tell him what was bothering her and she'd wriggled away from it. Caution, Holland, she advised herself; don't play a Bette Davis scene now. Or ever. Maybe you are hearing things and seeing blue elephants and getting bats in the belfry. Play it straight and close to the chest. Don't ever let him know you need him. You made a pact with yourself long ago. Remember the pact that went: I will never let people know I need them. Not my father, not my sister or mother or husband or lover. My life will be dedicated to the one and only Margo Holland and no one else.
Through the evening she did her best to pay as little attention to Larry as possible other than to follow his instructions pertaining to the show. As usual, she was taken by his tremendous talent for knowing exactly what he was doing, at all times. Never awkward, never fumbling.
He was on his way up to the top. And, because he was strong, she needed to go along with him.
As she tried out a few of the songs Doc had written expressly for her husky voice and smooth delivery, she was aware of Keith McClure, off in the corner, examining a new sketch for the first show. McClure, the monster who walks like a man. Like every starry-eyed ingenue just beginning to hit the big time, she'd gone vigorously ga-ga over him, that first time two years ago when they'd met and he'd taken her cool hand. She'd gone to his apartment. She'd even let him make his seedy love to her. Not because she'd been enthralled by him (his fascination ebbed quickly) by that time, but because-oh, because she'd been lonely and because it had been raining cats and dogs that night and she'd been in no hurry to get home.
Their "affair" had ceased after two home visits. He'd never been openly malicious to her, nor had she cut his throat. Now they were simply co-workers and they behaved themselves with each other as such in public. She'd never, for any length of time, been taken in by his gooey charm. She'd always been Margo, the chick who knew how to look out for herself and, thus, no harm done.
Now she thought about Sophia. She recalled McClure's watery eyes traveling over the kid this afternoon.
Briefly, she worried. Sophia certainly couldn't be blamed for owning that voluptuous body. But, on the other hand, she could be blamed if she got into a mess, because she used her voluptuous body as if it were a loaded pistol.
Should I bite my nails, worrying about McClure getting Sophia into his clutches? she asked herself. Nuts. Sophia isn't thirteen years old. She's a big girl now. I'll warn her about him. Past that, there isn't anything I can do, or should do.
What I must worry about is Larry. If I lose him nothing else means a thing. My name across the country, my picture in the papers and magazines, the movie offers, the expensive dinners at Sardi's and Toots Shor's-none of that is worth a plug nickel if I don't have Larry....
It was clear that he was bone-tired when the walk-throughs were over, at half-past nine. Margo slid her hand under his arm as they left the studio, and she decided she was not going to be the one to start any debates tonight.
"How do you think the show's shaping up?" she inquired casually as they made their way to a bar they often frequented together.
"Some of the punch is out of it," he said, hunching his massive shoulders and looking drawn. "That's not a good sign. Everybody's been relaxing through the summer; you'd think they'd come back raring to go. At least for the first rehearsal. But-I can't put my finger on it-they act tired, listless."
"Me, too?"
Larry didn't look at her, but he squeezed her hand. (A good sign, she thought. Intimate. Reassuring.) "You're a great performer, Marg. I've seen you give your best when you were floating drunk and when you were running a hundred and two temperature. No, I never worry about you."
"What about our new discoverySophia?"
He nodded. "She's got it, too. I just saw her for seconds at a time. But she's got that way about her, the star-material way. She's going to be fine."
"Then the least you could have done was to tell her so, Larry. Or at least say hello. She's a scared kid, lost in the big town. She was counting on you to be kind. You can't use your gruff-gorilla technique on everyone the same way."
They entered the bar and ordered double Scotches. "That's a lot of bunk. If she's got what it takes, nothing from me is going to change her one way or the other. I've watched directors coddle their performers. They get mushy performances."
"Okay, doctor. You know best."
"What's Sophia's background?" he asked.
Margo bit her lip. Even before she answered him she knew she would say the wrong thing. And say it the wrong way.
"Why do you want to know?"
She was right. The question came out hard and bitter, flirting gracelessly with hysteria. What's the' matter with me, she thought in fear. What am I doing, becoming paranoid? I can't sit easily or talk easily any more. I sound fierce.
Larry frowned. His hand, moving toward his glass, stopped. He turned to her.
His anger partly hidden, he said, "I was just interested."
She had to see it through. "Why were you interested? Is it because she's something special to look at?"
"Marg, we've got to come to some understanding, you and I. Are you playing tug of war? What the hell's come over you?"
"Not a thing."
"I can't say two words any more without you jumping down my throat. It can't be because of the rugged schedules; we're just beginning the season, not ending it."
"Okay. So I got out of line."
"Are you keyed-up, Marg? Nerves shot?"
"Maybe." She smiled coldly and stared at her glass. "Funny confession. I was always the Holland with the nerves of steel. But maybe you're right, maybe I am living too hard."
Now, once having admitted to weakness, she could feel the strength coming from him. "Then we're straight," he assured. "If you're not up to snuff, then I know it and we can work from there. Come on, finish your drink and I'll take you home. You're too important a property to be staying out all hours."
In the cab, Margo snuggled close to him.
His arm went around her shoulder and cradled her, but it was as if it were a mechanical procedure-as if the instinctive embrace, born of wanting her, was a hazy memory now, and this current performance was a token act of kindness.
"Will you kiss me, Larry?" she asked.
He did. It was hateful. She had demeaned herself by requesting (and so timorously) his affection.
When he raised his head again, after the mild kiss, she could not bear to look at him. He had been "friendly old Larry," the service station, and nothing more.
Still, she couldn't fully let him go by the time they, reached her apartment house. It had begun to rain, lightly but ominously, and she dreaded the idea of leaving him this way-formal and uncommunicative.
"Come up with me, Larry."
"Next time, Marg."
"No, now," she implored and she tried not to tremble. "I'll serve you some Scotch that isn't watered."
"I said the next time." He patted the battered briefcase beside him. "Between now and noon tomorrow I've got a month's work to look over. If I don't have the show's new format licked by the end of the week, we're all going to be walking into each other."
"Just five minutes."
Firmly he said, "No, Marg."
Abruptly she forced herself to proffer her well-known wry smile. Nodding, she remarked, "As you say. Margo dances alone tonight." She paused, facing him, as though a minute's time would make him change his mind and agree to go up with her. When it didn't happen, when the magic failed to work, she nodded again and hurried to the building's lobby.
Once in the elevator she was the cool, self-assured television star. Chic, attractive, independent. Lionel, the elevator operator was watching. He was her audience. And .audiences judged you by what they saw.
"Evening, Miss Holland."
"Hello, Lionel."
"In early tonight."
"That's right," she replied evenly, her eyes straight ahead, her hands at her sides.
"Say, that young sister of yours, she's a very nice young lady."
"You've met her?" monotoned Margo, without much interest.
"Uh-huh. I rode her down just fifteen, twenty minutes ago."
"She left? On a night like this?"
"That she did. All dolled up, too."
"Was she alone?"
"Uh-huh," said Lionel. "Very pretty young lady she is, too, if I do say so."
"Yes. Yes, she is."
The door pulled back and he bade her good night.
Blossom, the maid, would be asleep by now. The huge apartment would be terrifyingly dark.
Margo unlocked the apartment door, entered and switched on the light. She found the note on the foyer table.
"Marg, sorry couldn't wait but am on the way to Mr. McClure's party. There will be contacts there. Wish your idiot sister luck. Love, Sophia."
Wish her luck. That was the prize laugh of the season. With McClure she would need luck, but not the kind she thought. She'd need luck if she didn't have her track shoes with her.
Well, that's a nice, callous thing to say about your own sister, Margo recognized. Carrying the note, she continued on to the bedroom. Blossom had made up the wide bed and laid out the pajamas and negligee Margo almost never wore. Ignoring the pajamas, she undressed and slipped into the filmy negligee. She lit a cigarette and realized suddenly that she needed a drink.
Walking with rapid steps to the living room bar, she felt old and haggard. Larry was right; there was no reason to feel so used-up at the beginning of a season of heavy work. But she did. She felt as if only a long lazy vacation at Martha's Vineyard or a trip through Europe could ease the torturing demons within her.
Is it overwork that makes me feel so defeated, she asked herself? Worry? What's there to worry about? I'm one of the most popular singer-comediennes in the business. I never caused grief to anyone. Okay, I'm short-tempered now and then and I give out with the temperament unnecessarily once in a while, but they all know I don't mean anything by it. Even Larry knows I mean well.
Was I wrong to welcome Sophia in the first place? When she showed up this morning I really meant it when I told her she was welcome. I did tell her that, didn't I? Well, I meant to. She's been groping for a long while. She needs understanding. And there I was, all "Goody Gumdrop," ready to give it to her.
"Kindly old Margo," friend to the loveless. Where the hell do I get off, opening my home and heart to her, even if she is my sister? And a beautiful sister at that? If anybody needs understanding, it's Margo. I'm losing all the good things I once had, or nearly had. Like with Larry, the one person I need so desperately. I'm not daffy; I can see the way I behave. Acting out a part-that's me. Always on stage. I'm scared batty of sharing a full love, so I make like a nagging old crone (in my sophisticated way-oh, yes always keep it sophisticated, Holland) whenever I'm with him.
She poured a light Scotch. Then, examining her glass, she changed her mind and stiffened the drink. Aimlessly, she went to the phonograph and found a moody enough piano solo to fit the moment.
"What's happening to me?" she raged silently to the endless walls. Does the answer lie with the lousy life back home? Can any answer be that simple? The whole city thinks of me as carefree, gay, on the beam, positive.
When are they going to find out that the madcap pictures of me the Broadway columnists print are a pack of filthy lies? When are they going to find out that I need love so badly my head is ready to explode?
She finished her drink. But it wasn't enough. Pouring a fresh one, she knew that it never was enough.
Frightened now by her deadly loneliness, she hastened to the telephone. It wasn't quite eleven o'clock, and she was horrified by the thought of the long, probably sleepless night ahead of her.
Her fingers flipped through the red leather-bound address book and stopped at Brad Lester's name.
"Hello, darling," she exclaimed when she heard his voice. Animation came into her own voice and manner. She slouched contentedly onto the arm of a chair and settled back. "Your name just dropped out of a 1924 issue of The Furrow Ploughing Gazette, so I'm calling to say how-do."
"Marg?" Brad acknowledged. "My gosh, 1924 sounds about right. I haven't heard from you in-"
"Oh, phooey to nostalgia. How about dropping whatever bleached blonde is on your lap at the moment and coming on over?"
"Margo, you're plain loco. If memory serves this old bean, the last time we were together you threw a vase at me and told me to pretend I'm a hoop and roll away. Why the sudden affection?"
"Are you coming or not?"
"What for? Or is that a vicious question?"
Margo took another swallow of the Scotch, girding herself. Anything was possible tonight. Anything could be said or done, and with no recriminations.
"Because I want you to kiss me."
"Oh."
"Unless the suggestion repels your finer sensitivities," she added with a touch of sarcasm.
"I haven't had finer sensitivities since I stole a parked car at the age of three."
"Then hustle on over," she insisted. Not waiting for an answer, too tense now to go through any more banter-swapping with him, she dropped the heavy receiver on its cradle. Drinking again, she rose and tried to pull herself together.
You're starting on the roller coaster again, pal, she admonished herself, aware that there was nothing else she could do.
Brad Lester was certainly the last man on earth she wanted. He was a successful songwriter and probably a good guy, as good guys went. But, except for his periodic usefulness, he meant nothing to her. He wasn't a particularly good lover, and he could be a crushing bore as a conversationalist.
But, for one night, he would be safe. She would demand nothing meaningful of him and, more importantly, he would demand nothing of her. And safety was what she needed above anything else.
She strolled to the back room, the one she'd designated as Sophia's bedroom. The kid's clothes were hanging neatly in the closet, the Willetsville clothes and the ones she'd picked up today at Mme. Borget's. The bill from Borget's would be steep, but that didn't matter. If Sophia could get out of the woods and find herself, then it would be one accomplishment for which Margo could feel partly and properly boastful.
That's a laugh, too, she thought, as she recalled the hastily scrawled note. The kid was on her way to Madman McClure's arena. Fine sister I am, letting her go into the jaws of death without sending a posse out to protect her.
Oh, come off it, she ordered herself. I'm probably just over dramatizing again. Just because I can't take care of myself is no reason to suspect that the kid's going to have trouble in the ring, too.
"Take care of yourself, Sophia," she said quietly but aloud, "You've got only one life. Don't let it mess you up the way it messed me up...."
In the taxi, Sophia looked again at her wristwatch. Five after eleven. She wanted to tell the driver to hurry it up, but she saw there was now way he could possibly disentangle the cab from the traffic jam. She should have left Margo's apartment earlier; she was in the dead center of an after-theatre jam.
This evening, in the apartment, she had considered from all sides going to Keith McClure's party. It was, in a way, to be a debut for her. She had status now. She was convinced that she would no longer have to struggle with controlling her emotions, once the status arrived, once an identity was indelibly hers.
Now she felt certain of herself. There would be lots of people there tonight and she would be charming. She was Sophia Holland now, not a scared, skulking misfit. Oh, why wouldn't those other cars move away?
Once she had definitely decided to go, she'd gone all out to dress for it. Impishly she'd chosen the linen that fit so snugly, leaving little to any man's vivid imagination. Then, as though to offset this picture, she'd combed her yellow hair severely, tying it in back with a virginal ribbon.
If anyone at the party tonight would be in a position to further her career she'd help them to help her by exuding the charm she knew she had.
The traffic jam unsnarled and soon the taxi drove up to the address Mr. McClure had given her.
She asked for him in the spacious lobby.
The desk clerk eyed her. "Whom shall I say is calling?" he asked, reminding her of the evil ancient at the hotel in Willetsville.
"Miss Sophia Holland," she stated with increasing pride.
In a moment he returned to her and nodded. "Suite seven."
Her excitement grew through the elevator's ascent and remained as she stepped into the carpeted vestibule. She pressed the buzzer, expecting to hear voices and tinkling glasses and music. She heard nothing.
Keith McClure opened the door, his smile wide and inviting. He had changed from his business suit to slacks and sport shirt.
"You made it!"
Sophia moved past him, into an apartment twice as large and ornate as Margo's. "Yes, I hope I'm not late."
"Better late than-how does that truism go, anyway?"
"Where are the guests?" she inquired.
He closed the door and continued to grin.
"Right here," he said. "You and I."
CHAPTER SIX
Sophia stiffened.
"Mr. McClure," she declared, "I think you've made one large mistake."
"I don't think so, Sophia," he contradicted. "Here. Give me your coat."
So his interest in her was no different from that of any of the others. She waited impatiently to evaluate her first reaction: insult or pleasure or anger or fright. As she helplessly allowed him to take her coat, she found she had a mixture of all four of these instincts.
Falling again, something hissed at her: You're getting watery legs. You hate it all and you'll put up your polite struggle and you may even claw at his cheek, but you're too weak to do the only civilized thing: take your coat and leave. You thought you'd broken from it all. But your helplessness now betrays you. You're falling again....
"Why did you give me that phony story?" she asked with a stunning lack of emotion in her voice. Her shoulders sagged but she was not weary.
He dropped her coat on a hall chair and led her through the hall. The sumptuousness of the hall alone was dazzling. The walls were nearly covered with autographed photographs of celebrities from all the arts. The furnishings-evidently not his own selections (they had the feminine touch)-were in rich but quiet taste. It was the beginning of a home that spelled out wealth acquired long ago.
"It wasn't a phony story," he defended with a mild laugh. "At least not altogether. I sort of really expected a few others to drop up-for a while, anyway. But they called to say they couldn't make it."
The sunken living room was much too vast to be taken in all at once. Only after she'd entered it and was able to take her attention away from the imposing fish pond in the center of the room, the huge wall paintings and the countless objects d'art, did she see another man, at the far end of the room. He wore a valet's white jacket and he was lighting dinner candles at a set table on the terrace.
"Sophia," she heard. "Are you listening?" He was patting the sleeve of her dress.
Coming out of a momentary daze, she smiled. "This is quite an establishment."
McClure shrugged. "Serviceable."
"Is this where they store the bison during the winter months? Or where they play hockey?"
"No. In December I have the floor reconverted and I have people in for ice skating. A dollar an hour."
His hand was still on her arm, he was guiding her to the terrace, and soon she didn't feel quite so helpless. She had thought, the moment she'd stepped through the door, that he was planning a seedy hour of wrestling and nothing more, that he'd put her in a cab later and have her carted off. But there was a valet and a table prepared with care. She was almost ready to forgive him for his ruse.
On the terrace, the valet politely mumbled, "Good evening," and drew a chair back for her.
"Let's try the Pernod, Stephen," McClure instructed.
"Yes, sir," Stephen nodded and moved away.
The view of the city from the terrace was compelling. Golden pinpricks of light from faraway buildings brightened the night, and the air was wondrously clean and fresh, following the rain. Sophia, looking from the city's view to the elegant table before her, couldn't help thinking of George. It was a little past eleven. If she had stayed in Willetsville she would have been Mrs. George March now, sharing a stuffy upper berth on a dingy train with a man whose appreciation of the gracious things of life ended with meat-cutting machines and the warbling of Tennessee Ernie.
Keith McClure, who had impressed her as rather brash and emotionally ungiving this afternoon, now represented comfort and success and roughhewn charm to her. He lit her cigarette and settled back admiringly, showing her that she was not just another girl, but someone distinct.
His acceptance didn't embarrass her. She felt human and genuinely wanted.
Stephen returned with wine. McClure dismissed him and filled her wine glass.
"What're you thinking?" he inquired.
"Too many things, all at once. This is a lovely view," she remarked, spreading her fingers over the quiet city. "Do you-ah-look at it much?"
"When there's time. I used to be a great one for communing with nature-you know, feeling holy by watching sunsets and sunrises. But it's not an easy thing to do when your life consists of work and more work. Crazy hour, six o'clock. I don't know who's right, the average white-collar man or the maniac television people. But them's the conditions which prevails. Seeing that skyline is about the only reminder I have that there's something in this world besides my Hooper rating."
He was playing it smooth. Changing completely from his somewhat offensive manner at the T.V. Grille to his mild aura of humored sadness now, he was still not to be trusted, Sophia thought. But she didn't know why. He filled his own glass. It occurred to Sophia that the majority of his television audience would be just a little startled if they could see him now, off-camera. When he came into the living rooms of nearly ten million American homes each Friday evening, he was the lovable, bumptious M.C. of a seemingly ad-libbed comedy-variety show (thanks went here to Larry Barker for directing The Keith McClure Party to give the effect of an unrehearsed, spontaneous show). T.V. critics wrote rhapsodically of McClure, the genius of timing. When he told his opening gags, when he danced with the chorus of girls, when he exchanged patter with Margo, he was not McClure, the lord of an estate-like apartment, but McClure the country hick, wide-eyed at all the doin's of the city folk.
Even Daddy, Sophia thought, was taken in by him, and Daddy was not a man to give much attention to celebrities of any kind. When Keith would gawk at one of the chorus-line lovelies and say, "Gawsh, she's shore purty. Takes me tuh mind o' my first lady friend, Googie Mae Crankshaft. We wuz kids then and we both wore braces on our teeth. Gawsh, it was really somep'm when we'd set on the front porch an' kiss an' watch the sparks fly,"-Daddy would burst out laughing. Margo had once written home: "Keith is a ham and not an easy man to know, but he certainly has a remarkable talent for making something creative out of corn."
Maybe there were worse things than cultivating Mr. McClure. He was hardly the Adonis that Larry Barker was, but in his own self-absorbed way he was attractive and perhaps even desirable.
And he could doubtless help her get somewhere in the theater. The idea that she could even for a second consider using him for this purpose shocked her, but only for a second. Maybe she made too much of being timid and playing the unworthy child. Hadn't Margo used men in somewhat less than honorable ways in order to get to the top? Surely it hadn't damaged Margo. She was the most put-together young woman on earth. Yes, she drank, but that was only because of the hectic nature of her profession. There was no doubt in Sophia's mind that Margo was emotionally healthy and free of troubles, despite being enormously successful.
McClure raised his glass in a toast.
"Drink up, baby," he said with a crooked grin that was suddenly puzzling. "If we don't live it up tonight, there may not be a tomorrow."
"That's a grim toast."
"No, it isn't. It's realistic." He drank.
"I was right the first time. You're a bitter man."
"Sophia, you're much too beautiful to be a thinker. Don't think, just drink."
She did, not approving of the liberties he took in sliding his eyes from her face to her body-and letting her know that he was looking.
Through the excellent dinner, McClure asked her many questions about herself-about her ambition and her life before coming to New York. But the questions were submitted without fervor, as if he were simply marking time.
He helped himself to the Pernod, drinking steadily but not compulsively. Sophia talked about herself, unable and unwilling to confide in him anything deeper than the surface vital statistics.
They left the terrace and returned to the mammoth living room. Perhaps it was Stephen who had switched on a phonograph; a string quartette filled the living room as they approached it.
Sophia preceded him and kept walking. She hadn't felt fully at ease from the time she'd arrived, unable, as she was, to shake from her mind the suspicion that she hadn't been invited up her solely to marvel at his urban charm. He would, of course, want her-maybe during the next string quartette, maybe sooner.
Even though she expected his advance, she hadn't the vaguest idea what her response would be.
"I've got some brandy here I'm proud of," he said. She didn't look at him. She stopped walking only when she got to the colorful Gauguin framed on the east wall. She feigned concentration on it.
"Nineteen twenty-nine brandy," he continued. "Just off the boat. Maybe you'll think it was scraped off the boat, but don't say so."
She could hear him puttering at the living room bar. What tactics came next? Was it possible to use him to help her get somewhere? Or would his first advance weaken her, make her show her incapacity to cope with a man?
"I helped myself pretty liberally to the wine," she bantered, still not looking at him. "Will that mix with brandy?"
"Anything mixes with brandy. That theory about the horrors of mixing drinks has been exploded, anyway." She could hear him coming closer, but she couldn't move. "Candy is dandy but brandy's more handy...."
Then he was behind her and his hands extended to enfold her waist. Sophia tautened.
"Come here, baby," McClure rasped and pulled her around.
She couldn't control the whimper that escaped from her throat. He was holding her tightly, kissing her neck and muttering aimless endearments.
"No...." she softly protested.
Writhing in his grip, she was once more caught up in the panic. Her initial impulse was to raise her own arms, to bring them to him and cradle his masculinity to her.
But abruptly she knew she wouldn't.
His breathing was heavier, more labored ' as he kissed her and held her more intimately. He tried to guide her to the sofa. Sophia regarded him with a detachment that amazed her. He wasn't interested in her. He wanted a tall, statuesque blonde he'd wined and fed.
"You're a knockout, baby," he declared.
Sophia pushed him away with stately ease and stepped aside. McClure's eyes widened in what might have been shock. His expression conveyed, "You're saying no to McClure?"
"What's all that?" he demanded. He wasn't the suave host any more. He was tough, cautiously outraged.
"Maybe string quartettes don't suit my mood."
"Oh, I get it. The lady's playing coy."
"The lady isn't playing."
"Look, baby-"
Sophia held firm to her unannounced strength. She wheeled around and her spontaneously angry eyes seared into him.
"No, you look, baby," she snapped. "If you thought a glass of brandy and a few gags and your famous name were going to be all you'd need to get to home base, you should've let me know sooner and I could've told you not to bother with all the frills of dinner and music."
"Quit the act," he rumbled and took a few steps forward.
Fright seized Sophia as she moved back. This was the first time she'd ever played this role, and she feared she was playing it foolishly.
"It's no act. Now do you intend to overpower me or may I leave without all these speeches?"
"We don't need speeches. We'll have that brandy and you'll calm down."
"Will you get my coat?"
"No. I know you, baby," he exclaimed, still advancing. "You and your sister are cut from the same cloth."
"Shut up."
"Just like Margo. She put up a howl from here to Canarsie, but she caught on after a few minutes."
"What do you mean, 'caught on'?"
"Tell the truth now-do you really think Margo's where she is today because she's got a good voice and a million bucks' worth of talent? Or could it be because she was bright enough to know I could help her where all the agents and talent and that other nonsense couldn't?"
Sophia crossed the room, still avoiding him. She felt strange, as if she were not wholly here, as if everything going on was unreal.
"Marg knew enough to be a pal. Wise up, baby. Keith isn't going to hurt you. You'll get to know Keith in a little while and-"
His hand caught her arm, harshly. The viciousness in his grasp rocked her. But she had crossed too much of the bridge to retreat.
With all the force in her, she slapped McClure's face.
Crying out, he drew back. Sophia stood terrified. "Why, you lousy, rotten, ungrateful-" he sputtered, lifting his own hand, making ready to return the slap.
Swiftly Sophia ran out of the room, to the foyer. She grabbed her coat from the chair and hastened to the door.
He was right behind her.
"Okay, beat it," he thundered.
Her fingers were useless at the lock.
"Just remember one thing, though," he added. "You're going to be sorry you acted the cornball, baby. I'm not without influence in television."
The threat infuriated her. She stood erect and looked squarely at him.
"Did I hear you right?" she stated composedly. "Are you saying that the only way I'll ever be successful in show business is to let a fatuous, greasy oaf named Keith McClure paw me? Is that the way it's done?"
McClure's fury matched hers. He stormed to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. For one fleeting moment, as she watched the unbridled hatred form in his face, she was convinced he was going to strike her.
Instead, he bellowed, "Get the hell out of here! Nobody talks that way to McClure! Get the hell out back to your job of second-from-the-left in the chorus!" Savagely his hand slapped against her shoulder and he pushed her into the vestible. "Beat it, you bum! And see how far you get?"
He withdrew, cursing, and slammed the door.
Sophia pressed the elevator buzzer. The humiliation was oppressive. But it would wear off.
She heard voices just before the elevator door slid back. A handsome, familiarlooking woman stepped out, saying, "Good night, Frank. Thank you," in an equally familiar voice.
The operator said, "You're welcome, Miss Lawson. Nice to see you back. Night."
Jacqueline Lawson. McClure's wife.
The woman saw Sophia as she emerged. There was an instant of natural surprise at seeing anyone in this small vestible. This was followed by a sardonic, knowing gaze. She cocked an eyebrow at Sophia, smiled, nodded good evening and pressed the bell at the front door.
"Going down?" asked the operator.
Sophia forced her guilty eyes away from the still-smiling woman. She murmured, "Yes," and stepped into the elevator.
Nothing was said during the descent to the ground floor. But the humiliation remained and she was sure that it showed on her face.
She was sure, too, that the operator suspected, as McClure's wife must certainly have suspected, that this was just one more slut trying to make her way to success by late-at-night visits to a celebrity's apartment.
Sophia walked home.
Perhaps she was becoming brazen, callous, she reflected. But one thing was evident: there was almost no more humiliation in her. Nor did she have the slightest sign of depression.
Every other time she'd left a man, she had known the intolerable burden of guilt. But now, as she walked rapidly through the lit avenues of the city, she felt wondrously cleansed.
She hadn't let McClure bully her. She had been tough as nails in her talk and action up there-something she'd never been before. The, "No, you look, baby," brand of response was not an instinctive one for her. But she'd used it-and she'd used the slap, too-with soul-cleansing results.
Of course she hadn't believed his filthy lie about Margo. She knew that Margo wasn't an innocent country girl, but Margo had character, integrity. There wasn't any indication that she had ever permitted herself to be a party to the McClure type of love, or that she ever would. And pride could be taken in the same way.
Sophia knew pride now, too, and it made her want to dance down Fifty-ninth Street with uninhibited joy.
She hadn't knuckled under.
"I'm not lost!" she wanted to shout. Here's one little girl who isn't going to go down the drain, by damn!
As she turned the corner, a sports car pulled up to the curb and a grinning man stuck his head out the window.
"Hiya, honey," he called. "Goin' my way?"
"No," Sophia replied joyfully. "I'm going my way!"
She got a cab about half-a-block down the street and relaxed in the back seat after giving the cabbie Margo's address.
There was something about being in a cab that brought back memories of Rick Warren. She shivered. Rick was the guy she was thinking of more and more as this day in New York gave her a perspective on her own life.
It was Rick she had to thank for saving her from a loveless marraige she was about to enter of her own free will. If it hadn't been for Rick, she'd be married to George and already miserable.
But it wasn't merely gratitude she felt for Rick. No man had ever turned her on the way that Rick did. He didn't have anything special-wasn't a celebrity or anything else-but he sure had a way with Sophia.
As the cab inched along in heavy midtown traffic Sophia remembered one sunny afternoon when Rick picked her up outside her uncle's hardware store and drove her out into the country.
It was a perfect day, sunny and bright with everything in bloom. Rick had chatted about this and that as they drove, and Sophia had gazed outside through misty eyes. It was so beautiful that she was crying, and when Rick finally noticed he pulled over quickly and asked what was wrong.
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong," Sophia said. "It's just that everything's suddenly so right!"
Rick grinned. "Oh," he said. "One of those days, is it?" He started up the car, drove about two miles more and then pulled off the highway down a dirt road. "Wait till you see this," he said.
They drove for about three miles and then Rick stopped and parked underneath a big tree. He got out, walked around to the trunk and took out a blanket. "Come on," he said.
Sophia was still sitting in the car. She got out and followed Rick as he walked across a grassy field, through a stand of trees to a lake front, deserted, quiet and lovely.
He spread out the blanket, flopped down on it and said, "Well? What do you think?"
Sophia looked around her. "I've lived here all my life," she said, "and I didn't even know that this place existed."
Rick laughed. "Get down here," he said, tugging her arm.
She collapsed willingly to the blanket. Just like Rick to think of everything!
Then she was in his arms and his mouth was pressed to hers, searching, demanding. She could feel her body responding and she marveled how her body could be aroused while her mind was distant and removed from the action.
But then she decided not to fight it at all and she cleared her inner self and gave it all to Rick.
He struggled with her bra and then the snaps came free in his hands. He tossed it onto the brass and seized each of her breasts in a hand.
"You've got some set," he said softly. "Never seen a prettier set of tits."
She moaned. Sophia liked that kind of talk, and she encouraged Rick to do more of it. He chuckled softly. "Want me to suck 'em?" he asked.
Sophia nodded dumbly.
First one, then the other. Her nipples peaked quickly, raw spots of pleasure for his teeth and tongue and lips. He worked her to a frazzle, and when she was finally wet and lathered between the legs he took his oral pleasures down there, nestling between her thighs, leading her quickly to a wonderfully wet orgasm.
And then he was stripping off his clothing and she was helping him, eager for it now.
Sophia's hands were trembling with desire, something that Rick noted and then said, "You're the hottest girl in the county. And I'm sure glad I know you!"
Then she was reclining on the blanket, the blue sky above, the fresh smell of the earth all around her. Rick was standing up, gazing down at her lush nakedness.
How wonderful he looked, she thought. His stiff and throbbing manhood arched gracefully from his flat muscular stomach.
His swollen testicles looked large and jam-packed with juice-juice that would soon be hers!
Then he knelt and let her take him in her mouth and she did so almost gratefully, aware that it was a favor she was allowed and nothing more.
She loved the stiff, salty taste of him, and when he suddenly withdrew it a look of disappointment marred her features. But then he settled between her legs and she forgot everything except the maddening pleasure that started immediately, the burning wetness that always made her cry out in joy.
He worked quickly, knowing that Sophia didn't need much in the way of stimulation. She was on the edge, and when he pushed in she had an orgasm immediately and continued to ride it through troughs and crests until Rick caught up with her and filled her with passionate juice while she rocked her hips underneath him, demanding more and more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sophia returned to Central Park South with the still-exuberant feeling that she had won an enormous battle. She unlocked the front door with the key Blossom had given her and was surprised to see so many lights on. Maybe Larry Barker had brought Margo home and maybe he was still here. As the ugly image of Keith McClure disappeared from her mind, the handsome likeness of Larry Barker took its place. On and off she'd thought of the young director today, never permitting herself any extended thoughts, though, that would serve to entrench him in her being. He was Margo's fellow, and she was determined to remember that.
Locking the door after her, she slipped out of her coat, just in time to hear a door (probably Margo's) open quickly. Margo's voice cried out shrilly, "Beat it, you tenth-rate Cole Porter! Who needs yuh?"
A male voice Sophia didn't recognize called back, "You're insane! One of these days I'm going to read in The Mirror that they've carted you off to the loony bin!"
The door slammed shut and almost immediately a thin, wiry young man came dashing down the hall, scowling, his eyes ablaze. He saw Sophia but seemed to be unaware of her. Cursing, he hurried to the front door, unlocked it, stormed out, and slammed it after him.
"Go fly a coupla kites!" screamed Margo.
Deeply disturbed, Sophia ran up the hall to the bedroom. She didn't stop to knock. She opened the door.
"Marg?"
Her sister was sitting upright on the bed, her legs folded Yoga-style beneath her, in much the same way Sophia had seen her this morning, with the additional props now of a negligee and, in her hand, a glass.
Sophia began to speak her name again, then saw she was drunk.
"And furthermore, if you know what's good for you, you'll-" Margo blinked dully at Sophia, paused, then smiled slyly.
"Oh, it's you."
"Marg, are you all right?"
"Glowing."
"Who-was that?"
Innocently, Margo inquired, "Who was who?"
"That man."
"Oh, that's the boy who comes to read the gas meter."
Sophia took a tentative step forward, still not quite a part of this home, still certainly not as secure with her own sister as she wanted to be.
"Hitting it that hard?" she asked Margo, indicating the glass.
"Mmmm. With rabbit punches. Le'see. You were at a party tonight, right? At Lord High Executioner McClure's, right? And there was no one else there but you two, right?"
"But how did you know?"
"Because he's pulled that party gag on every girl under seventy-two. Did you get away reasonable intact?"
"More than reasonable. Perfectly."
"'Ray for our side. I would've told you 'head o' time, but I got home too late."
There was an awkward silence, Sophia not knowing if she should be seriously concerned or if she should be as flippant as Margo was obviously trying to be. Margo, too, was silent; whether it was because of the strange young man, Sophia couldn't judge.
Finally Sophia broke the ice. "I'd-better turn in, Marg. You get some sleep."
"Baby ... "
"Yes?"
Margo's eyes had a faraway look. Maybe she was entirely sober; maybe she'd merely been feigning drunkness for the effect it would give. Sophia considered it. Margo was the finest girl on earth, but she did often say and do things for effect. Now Sophia, moving to the foot of the bed, tried to adjust herself to seeing her sister in a newer light, and it was hard. Sophia had thought of her sister in terms of perfection, but gradually a new, perhaps more realistic, picture of Margo was coming through.
"Baby ... tell me things about Whoozis, your grocer from Willetsville."
Sophia sat on the bed and frowned. George March! Could it have been only last night that their engagement had been broken? Yes, that was right. Today was to have been their wedding day.
"What can I tell you? You remember George. You know the whole March family."
"The March family...." Margo said reflectively. "Queerest thing. Everything from Willetsville is one big blotchy blur to me. I can hardly even remember Dad; isn't that awful? Shows you it's possible to escape from your background. Six easy lessons; take Margo's Magic Elixir. You escape by the simple process of forgetting and setting your mind to forgetting." She laughed hollowly. "Baby, if you could do things again ... if you could marry this guy and have the guarantee served to you on a silver platter that everything would go fine and dandy and all the unpleasantness could be blotted out ... would you go back?"
"... No."
Margo grinned and took her hand. "Wonderful. That's a wonderful answer, baby. Never go back. Don't ever go back once you've left. Anywhere, anything. Even if things here and now and tomorrow are a million times tougher, face them. But don't ever go back."
"Marg, who was that man?"
"What man?" Margo barked irritably.
"The gas-meter man."
"Oh. An old flame. Somewhat flickered."
"He was here ... in this room."
"That's right. You shocked?"
"Well, you talked about Larry Barker. I thought he was a big case with you."
"He is."
"Then?"
"Then, then! Don't cross-examine me!"
"I'm sorry."
"No, Sophia, you're not. You're a sweet kid and you'd give your life, or some of it, for me, but you're not sorry. You want to know what makes Margo Holland tick, just like everyone else."
"I don't like to see you suffer."
"Ho. I should learn to keep my trap closed. I used to be so skillful at hiding what I truly felt underneath. Now I guess it's coming out in the wash. Know what I think?
I think if there was any justice in life and all things were equal and the right pairs got together, I'd be Mrs. Keith McClure now. Or he'd be Mr. Margo Holland, depending on how one looks at it. We're the same stripe. We both whine and call attention to ourselves. Way down deep we're both self-pitying meatballs. Toil not, neither do we spin. Like the fella says." She poised the glass to her lips.
"That gas-meter man," she continued somberly, "is a faceless, formless male, that's all. Someone to keep the loneliness away for an hour. But it didn't work. It never works...."
"Marg...."
"No, not a word. This is all as embarrassing as the devil. Go to bed, Sophia. Sleep well. You're a working girl now. I didn't even ask you about your new job, how you like it. See how center-stage I am?"
"Can I get you something, Marg?"
For a fumblingly long time, Margo didn't reply; she merely gazed ahead, past Sophia. When she answered, her declaration was spoken too evenly to be shuttled off as a spur-of-the-moment wisecrack.
"Yes," she said. "Larry Barker."
Sophia waited.
Soon Margo's pretty mouth widened in a fetching smile and she leaned forward to kiss Sophia's cheek.
"You go to bed. Listen to how I prattle; I'm a throwback to nineteenth-century melodrama. Nine-tenths of me is phony baloney. And the remaining tenth is fashionably preserved in alcohol. Go to bed, baby, and dream about the lovely life ahead of you."
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the days that followed, the success Sophia had known after the episode at Keith's apartment was lessened by her building concern over Margo. She had no desire to talk with Keith McClure at all, and her efforts to talk with Mr. Barker were constantly repulsed. But she was able to draw out Eddie, the dance director, a few of the dancers and several members of the cast. Pretending casualness, she attempted to learn things about Margo, to piece together the questions in her own mind about the fast-moving girl who was a bundle of contradictions.
Within the first week of rehearsals, Sophia was accepted into the group by everyone but the frowning and elusive director-and, of course, the rejected Mr. McClure who, when he noticed her at all, glared at her. Everyone knew she was Margo's sister, but this didn't cause the slightest rupture, didn't put her on trial. She found herself capable of exchanging gags with the crew, of sharing the natural give and take with her colleagues, necessary in the course of working together in groups.
Everyone talked glowingly of Margo. Best trouper in the business. Heart as big as the United States and Canada. Why, d'ya know, last Christmas she sent gifts to each and every person connected with the show. Nobody can belt a song across like Margo, and no one can shoot a laugh like Margo. She's full of pep and can give anyone the feeling that life is beautiful.
Each hosanna was good to hear, but Sophia continued to be disturbed; nothing jibed with the picture of the groping and the quiet desperation she'd seen in Margo that night in the bedroom.
In time, as the rehearsals became more intensified and her own duties in the chorus line became more time-consuming and challenging, Sophia was almost ready to believe that the scene in the bedroom hadn't even occurred. Certainly Margo was behaving herself like a shrine of health, here in the studio. Her pep was uncanny; she had more get-up-and-go than everyone else put together.
Whenever Larry Barker deigned to come off his gilt-edged pedestal, it was to express in his peculiarly tight-lipped way his appreciation for Margo's work.
More and more, Sophia could understand Margo's love for him, and the cast's slavish devotion to him.
He certainly wasn't civil to anyone. He stalked about as though someone were on the verge of doing something out of step and contrary to his instructions of how a well-oiled television show should be run. But every instruction he gave was right. You felt it as he ordered it, and then when you carried it out, you saw how right it was. Added to this was his extreme attractiveness. Tall and muscular and tanned, he charmed the girls and gained the respect and admiration of the men.
I have no right to want him so badly, anyway, Sophia decided. As the night approached for the first performance of The Keith McClure Party, she worked hard to put everything out of her mind except the work expected of her and the opportunities she could build for herself. Her assertiveness at McClure's apartment had strengthened her. Somehow she had come of age, she was sure, and would no longer need to submit to men for whom she cared nothing.
She dated one of the boys from the cast, a nice, harmless fellow named Pat Greer, and she didn't fall apart with fear or helplessness when he touched her arm. She could be gay and witty and sensitive, and she could accept his interest in her without having to prove herself further as a woman by shamelessly enticing him. Pat seemed to take the cue, for when he was gently rebuffed after making a mild pass, he didn't fold up or explode.
As though by magic, a great weight of pressure lifted from Sophia. She found the courage to write a letter to her father, to write as honestly as she could of just what her problem had been and how imperative it had been that she leave Willetsville and start a new life independently. She oriented herself to the city. She mailed a third of her first week's advance salary to Rick Warren, promising in an accompanying letter that her debt would be squared within the next six weeks. She found out how much her purchases at Mme. Borget's shop had come to and, despite Margo's protests of, "I don't want one red cent from you," she planned to set aside a certain amount of her salary each week until the dress bill was paid off. On her own, she investigated the dancing and dramatic schools available in New York.
She kept briskly busy, permitting herself no rest, no time out to think about the morass in which she'd been swimming for so long. For no reason she could wholly interpret, she had broken from the blonde neurotic named Sophia whose life had been so formless and doomed.
Living hard against the tempo of the city, the new Sophia was getting mobilized.
On the morning of the show's debut, Sophia received a letter from her father. She sat in a crowded subway train on the way to dress rehearsal and toyed with the letter. It couldn't have come at a poorer time. She knew that whatever he had chosen to say would have an emotional effect that would show in her performance tonight. Finally she ripped the side of the envelope and read: Dear Sophia, I suppose I am expected to thank you for your letter but, cannot do this and be truthful. Am glad, of course, you are well and also have made good connection on television (will look for you this Friday night). But although I never raised my voice to you or showed displeasure, am certain now I was always too lenient and made mistakes by so doing.
You were always a strange child and hard to figure out. Even your mother knew this. Your sister Margo was also self-willed, but she set a sight for herself, at least, and knew how to go after it. Cannot recall that you ever did. Even your Uncle Norvel says this. I tried for as long as possible not to face this because you were my own flesh and blood, but facts must be faced.
It was not you but myself who had to remain here in Willetsville and bear brunt of your behavior to George March and his family and the people here in town. Aside from the fact that I am not a well man, it was also hard because I could think of no good explanation to give.
As your Uncle Norvel says, things are forgotten in time and time heals all wounds, etc. Maybe so. But I do not appreciate any of your conduct of past few years and must admit so.
If you make good in N.Y., my congratulations; I will be very happy to have not one, but two, daughters who made good in spite of fact their father never did.
But I believe that inasmuch as no one caused this scandal but you, whereas you left us to face the music, as the saying goes, it is difficult to find any more forgiveness for you. Therefore I do not care for you to write here again nor will I welcome you into this home.
Your father When she finally brought her eyes away from the paper, Sophia realized she'd gone one stop past her station. She had been traveling for nearly twenty minutes in what approximated a trance; she had read and reread the letter, unbelievingly at first and then in horrified disbelief.
Outside the subway she took a cab for the eight blocks back. In the back seat, slowly tearing the letter and envelope to shreds, she was conscious of a very strange thing:
Daddy's letter did not overwhelm her and plunge her into despair.
If anything, she felt a firm, cold sense of relief.
The quiet hostility she had felt for the past several years for her inadequate, self-confessedly weak father now bore its righteous fruit.
Yes, she thought, he was weak then and he's weak now. I never allowed myself to admit it, but it's true. This letter proves it. And he couldn't even have been sober when he wrote it. I know his technique. Daddy was always articulate, but when he's been drinking he gives with the inasmuch-es and the whereas-es and the dropping of pronouns and articles-when he's writing and even when he's talking.
Uncle Norvel must have put him up to writing this, she thought and this makes it a thousand times worse-that I couldn't get his own true feelings expressed.
Well, all right. If that's the way the game is played, then I'll go along with it. It was my own fault to begin with, that I never had the guts to go to him when I really needed his love and understanding and protection. Getting myself into jam after jam couldn't have been all my own fault entirely.
I won't blame Daddy. But I won't grovel before him, either.
I'll make my way in television. I'm a lot stronger now. I can reject someone like Keith McClure. I can be accepted by decent guys like Pat Greer without shaking my torso in front of them. I can look across a studio room at Larry Barker, that human refrigerator, without feeling automatically that he's being an iceberg because of me.
I'm through skulking around corners for crusts of bread like an overgrown Oliver Twist. From now on I'll push some weight around. If the only surefire way to succeed in life is to be tough, then tough I'm going to be.
And no one's going to stop me. 'Everything went wrong in the final rehearsals. The tempers of the most placid members of the group became short; Keith McClure made one of the dancers bawl by cursing her clumsiness; lines were fluffed; cues were missed; and when the producer scurried forward with a stop watch in his hand and cried that the show was running four and a half minutes over, Larry Barker bellowed for the writers and ordered them to get to work, fast, and cut the script.
The rehearsal, which ran all the way up to the start of the actual show, felt and looked like a shambles. But Charlotte, the cute trick who danced next to Sophia, confided in her, "I've been on this show for three years. The only time it's been out-and-out lousy was the time the final rehearsal went smooth as punch. Larry's acting worried, but it's only an act; he knows everything's going to fall right into place the second that red light snaps on and the orchestra plays."
And then, suddenly, the red light did snap, and it was ten o'clock and The Keith McClure Party was underway.
Sophia was the second dancer to appear from the wings. She had expected butterflies to invade her stomach, but they didn't; she was composed all the way through the opening number. Briefly she thought of Daddy, sitting in the drab living room in Willetsville, watching her. Did he regret the pompous letter he'd written her, she wondered. What were his thoughts when he saw her performance in only the flimsiest dancing costume? Was he thinking of his wayward, sinful daughter who was exploiting her good body? The biddies in Willetsville certainly had enjoyed a field day when they'd gossiped about the way she'd dressed and walked. Was Daddy agreeing with them, that his younger daughter was nothing but a conscienceless hussy?
Then the opening dance was finished. She changed her costume for the finale and had a few minutes in which to stand in the wings and watch her sister at work.
Margo was in wonderful condition, wowing her audience. She was doing the hillbilly sketch with McClure. It was all low hokum, but it was acted with skill, and the audience roared.
Sophia detected Larry Barker standing in the control booth, his attention focused obviously on Margo. And just as obviously he was approving of Margo's performance.
Then the cue for the finale sounded and Sophia was on camera again. Although she didn't attempt to steal the spotlight from the other girls, she put all the rhythm within her into the dance and the come-hither smile; and when the red light snapped off and they were off the air, she knew she'd come across successfully.
A letdown set in on everyone once Barker announced, "Okay, kids, good job. That wraps it up for the week." Sophia walked with the others to the dressing room, changed her clothes and wondered again if Larry Barker had made a major point of ignoring her. Am I overlooking the fact, she thought, that he did occasionally glance my way? And when he did, was there something special in his eyes? Or was I just helping myself to some gooey fantasies?
Too, she wondered where he and Margo would go now, what they would do,-what they would say to one another.
She wondered if he suspected, as she suspected, something faintly curious about Margo. For Margo did act strangely now and then. First all cheerful and giving, then, without preparation, viperish and nasty.
Sophia wouldn't try to analyze it. Margo had been much too good to her.
She was the last one to descend the stairs. No other members of the cast were to be seen. Walking toward the stage door, she struggled to overcome her profound sense of emptiness.
Near the door, though, she faced Larry Barker. He stood, certain of himself, as if he had been here for some time.
As if he had been waiting for her.
CHAPTER NINE
"It looks as if we've both been stood up," suggested Larry, smiling at her.
"No Margo?" Sophia slipped into her orange topper, pretending not to notice his smile. The other day someone in the troupe said, it was a rare occasion when Larry Barker broke that marble face and looked pleasant.
Maybe tonight, she thought warily, was a rare occasion in more ways than one.
"No Margo," he repeated, nodding. "She sent word just a few minutes ago that an interviewer from one of the plush magazines called to interview her; she'd forgotten the appointment entirely. So that leaves Old Man Barker on his own. What's your excuse?"
"I've no excuse. Old Lady Holland's been a man-less woman for days now."
"Well, that should be remedied; for the evening at least. Have you had dinner yet?"
"No. I'm on my way now. I have a reservation for a table at Bickford's Cafeteria. I'm famished."
"A cafeteria? Guhh-hh!" He was already leading her to the door. "Why is that? To save your bankroll, or are you just queer for cafeterias?"
"You guess," Sophia bantered, producing her sauciest grin. Larry's hand on the sleeve of her coat was instantly thrilling, evoking a sensation she sought to restrain. There would be nothing wrong in their eating together (although he still hadn't formally invited her), but he was her sister's man; without the remotest threat, Margo had told her that again and again.
"I never guess anything on an empty stomach." The door pushed back and they were out of the building. The night air braced them both, after a full day of working through stale cigarette smoke and stifling quarters. "How about a real feed bag, Sophia? Briani's isn't too far away."
She caught herself in time from crying out. Briani's was a fancy New York landmark, known even back in Willetsville. It was on a chi-chi dining par with TwentyOne, The Stork Club and The Sert Room.
"Well...."
"There's a cab. Yes? No?"
"I don't-want anything to get complicated, Larry," she said quietly.
He frowned at her. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning Margo."
"Mar-Have you flipped your wig?"
He didn't wait for an answer or even a reaction. Gruffly he held her arm a little more tightly and guided her to the waiting taxi. Opening the door he snapped, "In. And no yelps of terror about being abducted."
"Yes, sir."
The rear seat was wide but he sat extremely close to her. He called, "Briani's," to the driver and then settled back. Once the meter started to tick and the motor was gunned, Larry looked at her with a reproduction of the inexplicable intimacy he had shown during the performance, the same intimacy that confused her.
"Do you know why you're either going to tear your beautiful hair or leap out of the cab?" he asked.
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to say something I'm sure you hear eight hundred and seventy-seven times a day."
"Well, let's see what that could be. Four hundred times a day Rubirosa phones me and proposes. Four hundred and two times a day Elton John asks to take me to his ranch...."
"No, it's just this: you and Margo are completely different types of girls."
"Umm."
"See? I should've warned you I don't scintillate as a fresh conversationalist."
"We aren't alike, that's true. Nobody seems to know why. We had the same parents, the same background. The difference began, I guess, when Margo decided to leave home. She's had several more years of exposure to civilization."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"No?"
"Don't let me start you dragging out the old family album. I simply wanted to make an observation." He paused, regarded her and then declared, "You're a lovely girl, Sophia."
Embarrassed about being embarrassed, she murmured, "Thank you."
"And you have a raft of talent. You keep plugging and you'll go places."
"I have talent?" She laughed, stunned. "But from all I could decipher since I met you, I was sure you thought I had two left feet."
"Where'd you get that brainstorm?"
"Come now, Mr. Barker. The time I missed a step, for instance, at final rehearsal. You shot me a glance that made me cringe. I was convinced you were going to tell the prop boy to have me taken out to be tarred and feathered."
"Nonsense." Larry laughed and rested his strong hand over hers. "If I'm ever sweetness and light to a performer, it's because there's no hope for her and she's on her way out. I assumed you understood elemental psychology."
He was no longer the stern, slave-driving, single-minded Larry Barker, television director. He was a man-a human being, of all things-and in his only vaguely guarded, defensive way, he was silently insisting that this taxi ride carried more than an employer who was being appropriately polite to one of his employees.
And Sophia still was not certain of how to respond.
"Here ya' go," called the driver, pulling up to the restaurant and stopping the meter clock.
"Ready to tear into a steak?" Larry asked.
"Just point me to it!"
Larry slid out and once more took her hand. The pressure was held just a trace longer than seemed necessary.
Briani's, like many of the elite dining places in Manhattan, was not particularly impressive from the outside, but once inside, all splendor came alive. The host, the headwaiters, the waiters, even the busboys were dressed and moved as though they were entertaining royalty. The murals on the walls, the soft lighting, the red sashes, the deep carpets-everything was designed to give an atmosphere of luxury.
"A toast," Larry said, touching his highball glass to hers, "to you, Sophia. May the most you hope for be the least you get."
"Thank you, Larry."
Gradually, as she sipped from her glass, as she listened to him talk the proper inconsequential and watched him watching her, she was conscious of how she was dressed. Her simple blue sheath was out of place amidst the galaxy of glamorously bedecked women.
But in a short time her nagging feelings of inadequacy left her. Larry's consideration and concentration on her were complete. He was accepting her. Yes, his eyes roved over her body now and then, and it was clear he appreciated her as no man ever had. He was approving of the Sophia Holland she wanted to be.
The dinner he ordered was delicious. The talk (very directedly shop-talk) was stimulating. Only over coffee, when no more trivia was possible did Sophia know that she had to broach the subject of Margo.
"Why is Margo so important, Sophia?" he inquired, lighting her cigarette.
"Margo concerns me, Larry. She's awfully hard to get to, so hard to know. I wouldn't want to hurt her."
"How could you hurt her?"
"Maybe with a meaningless thing like having dinner with the man she loves." Larry paused. "Is it meaningless to you?"
"Don't ask a question like that."
"All right. Then let's say it is meaningless. So what's wrong with two hungry members of a hard-working television show having dinner together?"
"Because you belong to Margo."
"Does Margo say that?"
"Yes."
"Have I been asked if Margo belongs to me?"
"That isn't the point."
"It is, Sophia. Margo's a remarkable girl and a wonderful girl, but we certainly don't belong to one another."
"Larry, please try to understand. Margo's taken me into her home. Forget the fact that we're sisters; Margo and I weren't especially close even back in Willetsville. But she's given me every possible indication that there's nothing she wouldn't do for me. She helped me get my job; she gave me money, clothes; she expects nothing in return."
"But you still haven't answered me. We're two pleasant people having dinner together. If it's meaningless to you, then why are you upset?"
"I'm not upset. But I don't want her to ever ... distrust either of us."
As she talked, Sophia was convinced she was making a mess of it. She meant everything she said, but each word somehow spelled out that their very being together was a testament of their involvement with each other. She was involved with Larry Barker. If he was at all interested in her, he had offered no irrefutable sign of it.
But the mess remained. I must either stop talking altogether, she thought, or tell him outright just how much I care for him....
Larry helped.
"Do you feel what I feel, Sophia?" His hand was on hers. "Larry...."
"I was drawn to you the first day I saw you at the apartment. I yelled and growled and made like an unobserving punk in the studio. But the more I yelled the more I wanted you." He waited only a beat. His eyes were insistent. "Did I read wrong, Sophia, or did you want me from the beginning?"
"No," she whispered, but she could no longer look at him.
"And now? What about now?"
"I don't know," she whispered, gazing at, the table. "I mustn't ... we mustn't think of it."
"Finished your coffee?"
"Why?"
"So we can get out of here and walk."
"... It's late, Larry. I should be getting home."
"Do you really mean that?"
She wished all the suave replies wouldn't get so cluttered in her head.
Finally she said simply, "No. No, I don't."
"Then I'll get the check."
Maybe it was strategy on his part, Sophia thought as they walked in the direction of Third Avenue: his technique of saying no more about his feelings than was absolutely necessary. There was something of the attorney about him. He had a way of observing her, of softly asking personal questions and softly demanding answers-and getting them. But there was no yardstick by which to measure his own true emotions.
"What about you, Larry?" asked Sophia, subtly anticipating the possibility of his questioning her more. "Have you always been a director-all your life and for twenty-four hours a day? Or are there other vital statistics about this man who stomps like a gargoyle and bullies us poor folk?"
"Statistics ... well, let's see. I'm thirt-yone years old, born in West Virginia, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, had twenty-eight months in the Navy. Married for three years, divorced two and a half years ago."
"Oh?"
Larry became a bit pensive. "And that's that."
"Would you tell me about her?"
"Not just yet, Sophia. I keep telling myself the scars have healed completely, but it's still a fairly delicate issue. Okay with you?"
"Sure."
Immersed in the nearness of him, Sophia lost track of time and place. She was wakened by his pointing to a cellar club and saying, "Do you like good, unrefined jazz? I usually drop by here for a drink on my way home. It's nothing ornate, but it's kind of fun."
Sophia agreed. She knew she would probably agree to anything he suggested tonight. And the realization didn't stun her.
They approached the club, a four-steps down dark room with the legend Scrubby's printed over the door. To the side was a dimly lighted yet garish photograph of a not-quite-nude Amazon, her fingers daintily covering the tips of her mammoth breasts. The sign beneath the picture read:
Larry opened the door for her and they walked in, in the middle of an earsplitting hot session coming from up front. It was a wholly different atmosphere from Briani's and it was hardly a place for relaxation, but it gave off a quality of hectic life that excited Sophia.
Scrubby's was crowded. All the tables were occupied, and patrons appeared to be two-deep at the bar. Several people called, "Hello Larry," and, "How's it going, Larry?" as he guided her to the bar, and he waved his greetings back. Even the oily haired drummer up on the stand lifted one of his sticks to welcome the director.
The music was deafening but creative. Sophia felt an animal tension flying through the room. Several of the youngsters at the tables were keeping time to the off-beat music by swaying back and forth in their seats, and by patting their palms like drum brushes on the tables. At the bar a few over-painted, daringly gowned women were conning their escorts, kissing their men, talking low. Sophia couldn't help dredging up a picture in her mind of Willetsville. There was about as much chance of a spontaneous place like Scrubby's setting up business there as there was for the moon to fall.
Larry managed to wriggle himself and Sophia to the counter.
"Scotch and soda?"
She nodded.
He ordered two by raising two fingers. The bartender, who evidently knew him, nodded. The combo on the stand had reached a crescendo and the music was a tangible thing firing through the club. Sophia felt Larry's fingers move over her back, then clench her arm. When she looked up at him, he grinned at her.
"Cool?" he kidded.
"Real cool!" she asserted and, tingling, turned again to face the bandstand.
There was no actual way of knowing when one improvisation from the combo ended and another began. It didn't matter. Nothing really mattered except that, through the blue ribbons of smoke, and the wafting smell of cheap but potent perfume and the welter of lusty activity, Sophia was enthused. She had youth and beauty. And, for now at least, she had Larry Barker.
By the time they'd started on their second drink, the noise had lessened somewhat, although the band was still at work. The familiar strains of How Deep Is the Hurt? was being played, with attention paid to a melodic line. Sophia managed to forget there was something forbidden in being with him.
"It's a little out of character, you know," she remarked, folding her hands daintily. "You're such a rigid task-master at work-no deviations allowed."
"That's the Dr. Jekyll part of my personality." He toasted his glass to hers. "Meet Mr. Hyde."
Her second Scotch had its seductive effect; there was a tingling under her skin and a heightening of wanting to break through the barriers of formality, so that she could be kissed by him.
The self-realization wasn't shocking to Sophia. She had wanted his lips for a long time.
She was about to banteringly ask him, to offset the urge to make her feelings for him known, whether he and Margo had ever been here. But she was interrupted by an elaborate rumbling at the drums, which evidently was to introduce the floor show.
The bandleader bawled into the microphone, 'Tnnerdoocing th' one an' only Cynthia La Starr!"
Above a mingled applause, Larry murmured, "I'd forgotten this was coming on now. Would you rather go? This'll be pretty rough."
Sophia shook her head. Larry shrugged, as if it didn't matter one way or the other to him, but she could tell he was humorously grateful for the reprieve.
All the lights went out for one startling moment as a sensuous, bawdy melody sounded from the saxophone. A spotlight, directed to the bandstand, hit squarely on a naked thigh. There was applause and vulgar catcalls; then still in darkness came a brazen female voice: "Let's hear a li'l more welcome before Cynthia goes to work, sweeties!"
Rewarded with obedient and wild applause, Cynthia La Starr emitted a fierce yelp of approval. The bandstand lights went up, revealing the same Amazon advertised on the outside poster, only the poster photograph had been taken a good five or six years ago. But according to the vigorous acceptance by many of the patrons, age was no deterring factor.
Sophia glanced hiddenly at Larry. His mouth was turned downward in what might have been poised as moralistic disapproval, but his eyes were keenly trained on the star. In the limited space alloted her in front of the microphone and band, the Amazon wore nothing more than a black brassiere, black mesh panties and high black mesh stockings with lacy sandals. Her hands were on her flabby hips, and her coral lips were moistened in an indecent grin. There were signs of pockmarks on her cheeks, and her large eyes appeared to be dulled by alcohol or perhaps marijuana, but there was an indefinable sweetness in her face.
But if she knew it anymore, she disregarded it. She was merchandising sex.
Her opening speech, aimed at her faceless male audience, was annoyingly crude, just this side of obscenity. The band joined in softly as she spoke; she asked the audience what would make them happy, then she guffawed at their crude answers. Larry chuckled, seemingly in spite of himself, but he regarded Sophia and once more asked if she'd prefer to leave. Sophia pursed a soundless "No," on her lips.
"Well, then, let's put this here show on the trail!" boomed Cynthia. "Puhfessor, a little Mozart, please!"
The combo ripped into a strenuous rendition of Sweet and Slowly, and Cynthia La Starr commenced to gyrate. Her entire lush body moved, twisting and contorting, failing to prepare her audience with any kind of subtlety.
Whimpering lasciviously, she dipped forward, shook and maneuvered her torso violently in the exaggerated pantomime of lust, all the while continuing to guffaw menacingly.
Blinking, Sophia watched in abstract fascination at the lengths to which an overzealously endowed woman would go to expose herself. The hand of Larry Barker was once more on her arm, protectively, conveying his concern for whether or not she was offended.
I am offended, she thought glumly, but not for the reason he'd think. I'm offended because that isn't Cynthia La Starr up there, that's Sophia Holland....
The fantasy tortured and numbed her.
Cynthia La Starr fell conveniently into the arms of the grinning, oily-haired drummer; then she embraced and kissed him. Rising swiftly (to the violent laughter of a segment of her audience), she bolted forward. Twisting once, she snapped the hook at the back of her brassiere, and it fell to the floor.
"Had enough sweeties?" she cried, raising her arms above her head.
"No! No, no, no!"
Still guffawing, she continued with the rest of her act. Sophia felt ill and expressed it by leaning, limply, against the bar.
Larry was quickly beside her. "Anything wrong?"
"Come on. Let's go."
"Don't let me spoil-"
"Hell. Come on."
Then he was leading her out of the cramped room and back into the street.
"What happened in there?"
"I'm so ashamed of myself. Maybe it was the liquor or the lack of air. For a second I felt a little sick."
"It's my fault," he confessed. "I didn't stop to ask what you wanted to do. I just dragged you along. Is the air helping any?"
"Yes. I hate to be so lily-livered. Why don't you just dump me in a cab and send me home? Methinks Miss Holland is a drag."
"Would a nightcap help?"
Again he was being blunt, forcing her to tip her hand. He knew, by her indecisive words and motions, that she hadn't the faintest wish to get into a taxi and leave him. They were fencing, and he was winning the duel.
"Apparently two Scotches are my limit. And I've already had two Scotches."
"Some hot coffee. I'm not a Parisian chef, but I do have a kitchenette up at my digs. At the end of the block, by the way."
"You live on this block?" she asked.
Larry affirmed it. Smiling shyly, she volunteered, "Now isn't that the most amazing coincidence?"
"No coincidence at all. Every step of the way was distinctly planned."
"I-see."
"Hot coffee sound inviting?"
Her pause was only momentary. Shutting out the swift image of Margo, she looked at him and nodded.
"Hot coffee sounds divine."
CHAPTER TEN
The neighborhood was disheveled and melancholy, but Larry's apartment house stood bright and gleaming between two old, poverty-caked buildings. The street was dark. Eager young men walked arm in arm with blowsy women, drunks stumbled past and a jukebox from the nearby saloon made its tawdry squeals.
"Here we are," Larry informed her. "The Badlands. It's not quite so Baskervilles-y inside."
The flip rejoinders, which had served as a prop through the hurried evening, now escaped Sophia, and she could not utter a sound. She merely walked with him through the front door and the darkened lobby, fully conscious of what this journey could imply. The throbbing of mild panic, begun at Scrubby's, remained with her, though. Strength ebbed from her. The meaning of her sudden illness at the club still wasn't clear, and she was oppressed with a murky guilt she hoped would lessen once she was upstairs with him.
In the self-service elevator, Larry pushed the 3 button and the door whined shut. Say something, she raged at herself. Don't just stand there like a toothy hayseed. You've got a part in this, Miss Dunderhead, too, you know.
She preceded him into the corridor and attempted to make bright conversation as he fumbled with his key and unlocked the door.
"Voila!" he announed.
He switched on the light and waited for her to enter.
The huge front room was surprisingly like its tenant, conveying a mixture of the simple, the erratic, and the creative. It was very decidedly a bachelor's quarters, all of it designed to suit the male taste. The entire left wall was a giant bookcase, filled with books, magazines and pamphlets. The furniture followed no particular period, but the sofa and each chair, placed strategically, looked immediately inviting, comfortable. There was the inevitable television set, the fireplace. One immense gray drape covered the rear picture window. The mantel was lined with autographed photographs of celebrities from the stage, T.V. and movies. (She had seen this same kind of thing in Keith McClure's foyer, in greater abundance, but there it had impressed her as a showy, gaudy circus. Here, the display had a different, fresher aspect).
Sophia felt instantly at home.
"Just kick your shoes off if you like," Larry said, "and I'll get the coffee perking."
"I don't really need coffee, honestly."
"What about the nightcap, then, the one I promised?"
She'd already had two Scotches, but their effect had worn off under the weight of Cynthia La Starr's suggestive dance. Maybe one more wouldn't hurt. Maybe, actually, it would be the very thing she needed to disperse her fear. She was going to be kissed before she left here tonight; there was little doubt of it. And she wanted this to go right.
Maybe a bracer of whiskey would help to summon up her courage.
"Wonderful," she replied, turning to meet his eyes. Yes, he was still just stepping off the Parthenon frieze. He was strong, all she had ever wanted, all she ever would want.
When he left for the kitchen, Sophia pretended to busy herself in examining the mantel photographs, but only her eyes took them in. Her thoughts flickered between Margo and this remarkable man who had told her his taking her to Scrubby's had not been a coincidence at all, that every step of the way had been distinctly planned.
Please, Marg, she thought, don't hate me. This has to go right for me. He's the first full man I've met in ever so long who's really been interested in me. I don't honestly know what I want from him: his lips, his lust, his shoulder to lean on. But I've got to find out. I must know if men are merely to be used by me, whether, I'm to go on weakening to them, or if I can be a complete woman. It's so awfully important to me, Margo. Nothing in life means anything unless I know I'm more than just a laugh it-up tramp. Don't hate me, Marg....
"The soda shouldn't obstruct too much of the Scotch," Larry remarked, jolting her into reality, making her turn again. He stood in the living room's doorway, smiling, holding two filled glasses. He'd loosened his tie, she noticed. Instinctively looking down at her feet, she noticed she had slipped out of her shoes, just as he'd suggested.
She waited, unmoving, till he came to her.
Even now, she thought, he could set those glasses down and hold me and kiss me, and I would give all my love to him. But I mustn't jump the gun. I must play the game right or not at all. He's not interested in something fast and forgotten-not like Keith McClure. I'm sure of that.
Nor am I interested in quick and then forgotten love.
"Mmm," she praised, sipping and lifting her eyebrows in approval. "Good. Very good."
"My old college bartender experience," he said, sinking to the sofa and patting the cushion beside him in invitation for her to join him.
"Which college?"
"Uh-University of Whiskeyconsin."
They laughed together. "You're pulling my leg, Mr. Barker, sir," she teased.
"The temptation is terrific. Are you going to sit down or not? That's a heavy glass you're carrying."
"Yes, sir." Sophia obeyed, advancing and slithering onto the sofa, not quite in the area he designated but several feet away. She leaned against the arm rest opposite his and propped her legs up in front of her.
"Want to tell me about it?" he asked.
"What? The harrowing story of my life?"
"Why you became ill at Scrubby's. Was it really because of the ventilation or the drinks?"
"It was the dancer."
Larry nodded.
"There's no way to explain it," she added reflectively. "I'm about as modest as Buffalo Bill, myself. And I've been to those flesh clubs before, I've seen those girls manipulate their wares before. Tonight, though ... I don't know. She ... Cynthia La Starr ... for some reason embarrassed the bejabbers out of me."
He laughed softly.
"I know her quite well," he said. "Her name isn't Cynthia La Starr. It's O'Hara, and she was born and raised in the Bronx. She's really a good kid. Had a couple of marriages and two-or three-hundred lovers, but she loved every one of them passionately. This is just a job to her."
"They've got a saying in Willetsville: 'There's always a living in being a waitress, too.' "
"Yeah, yeah. But it's tough to explain a thing like that to Bridget. Hell, do you think for a minute she gets a kick out of that? She hates it. She takes six double shots of gin before she steps on that stage."
"Then why does she-? No, I won't ask that."
"It's a good question, but the answer's too pat to be believable. She wants love. Isn't that what the professors say? I doubt that she's conscious of it."
"Does she make a living at a thing like that?"
"Just barely, from that. She pulls in lots of loot from stag parties."
Sophia thought of the "stag party" at George March's home in Willetsville. All the grinning grocers shuffling around in the living room, holding cups of punch, singing The Whiffenpoof Song and exchanging traveling-salesmen stories. But she suspected that wasn't any more typical of stag parties than the citizens of Willetsville were typical of people.
"Call me a babe in the woods, Larry, but what happens at stag parties?"
He shrugged. "At the kind where Bridget officiates? Just empty, hollow blood-stirring parties given by businessmen, or drunks with dough, or kids sending another kid off to his wedding day with bells. They organize these gatherings with plenty of liquor, plenty of girls, plenty of blinds lowered so the cops won't intrude. The girls dance with considerably more nerve and imagination than 'Cynthia La Starr' danced tonight. Then, after the show, they raise the roof some more with the customers, depending on the situation and how much they're paid, which is usually more than they could be paid in any other kind of job."
He paused. "Look, why am I rattling on like this? Here I am with probably the prettiest and sweetest girl in town and I'm delivering a travelogue on stag parties."
Larry took her hand and before she was wholly able to direct her thoughts away from the grim but curiously interesting description of the parties which he had provided, she was being gently pulled to him.
"No, Larry," she breathed.
"Why not?"
Now she was in his arms and his head was descending to hers. No sooner did his lips touch hers than her soul erupted and she embraced him with all the vigor at her command.
"Oh, Larry," she whispered huskily and drew him to her.
There was no way of telling what his reactions were, beyond the instinctive reaction that made him hold her close and kiss her with more scalding vehemence. Her fingers clutched at his hair as her starved mouth invited his.
Perhaps he had already pegged her. The wanton, the quickie, the blonde without any concept of how to build and develop an honest relationship.
As she soundlessly pleaded for his kisses, her worry of his evaluation of her didn't matter.
All she could comprehend now was that he was different from Rick Warren and Tommy Elliot and the dozens of other faceless males to whom she had sighed, 'Dar ling.' He was Larry. He was man, all man. He was the sensitivity and the strength for whom her heart had yearned for so dreadfully long.
Maybe she was falling off the ragged cliff again, into the yawning abyss of unrewarding lust. But she would take that chance.
He was reaching up now to switch off the light. She restrained herself from lurching forward with her half-female, all-animal aggressiveness. Breathing stertorously, he was taking over.
And that, she knew, was the way it should be.
A finger of light from outside beamed in through the window. She could see the intensity of his handsome face; she met his firm and gentle hands.
"You're beautiful, Sophia."
"Be kind to me, darling."
Larry smiled down at her. "I've never had a woman say that to me," he said.
She looked at him. "I'm saying it-do you think it's silly?"
"Not at all. I want to be gentle with you, and that's a new feeling for me, I can assure you."
She looked at him. "Are you really horribly cold and without feelings?" she asked, grinning.
"So I've been told," Larry replied. "Of course, some of the people I deal with don't bring out the best in me."
"Like Margo?"
Larry looked at her. "You brought it up, I didn't," he said.
"I know. It's just that I feel rotten. She's my sister and she helped me out when I really needed it, and here I am, with you."
"That's no one's fault. Margo will understand, in time. Your big sister's a mighty realistic lady. She'll understand completely," Larry assured her.
His arm was around her and he dragged her close to him. "Don't let Margo stand between us," he said. "It wouldn't be fair to any of us."
"Yes. I know." It all reminded her of George and Rick back home. It was senseless to pretend, she had learned that. Margo was better off this way.
Margo would not be happy if Larry didn't cut her loose. Larry didn't love her, and even if Margo loved him, it wouldn't work out. Those kinds of relationships never did.
Or was she just rationalizing to smooth her own way? Sophia couldn't figure it out, and then Larry's soft lips put all those thoughts away.
Sophia responded immediately, and it was a fantastic feeling. Larry wasn't just another guy, someone she'd met fifteen minutes ago.
He wasn't someone who was using her, glad to have her but ready to discard her as soon as she proved inconvenient. No, Larry was more than that.
She felt his tongue push between her lips, and she welcomed the warm smoothness of it. She had never been so excited in her life.
So this is what it's like, Sophia thought. This is what it's like when there is love.
She felt his hand cupping her breast and she arched her back, filling his hand with warm softness. He tweaked her nipple between thumb and forefinger, and she knew then that Larry was all that she could ever hope for in a man.
He led her to the bedroom.
They disrobed silently. Larry didn't need a show, and she was glad. Naked, she climbed into bed between cold sheets and shivered. Larry joined her immediately.
"This being gentle is new to me," Larry said with a grin. "Maybe you'd better show me how."
Sophia laughed. "I'd be glad to," she said. "First of all," she began, "never rush."
"Never would," Larry said.
She ducked under the covers and he could feel her finding her way in the dark. Her hand came around his shaft and then he felt her warm wet lips caress it.
He sighed.
Then her legs emerged from under the covers and her found himself in between her thighs, her warm nest pressed to his eager lips.
He drew back her folded flesh with his hands and, delighted with the way things were going, began avidly licking and biting her center, aware that she was squirming with delight.
He could feel her mouth sliding up and down on his shaft, and she was expert at what she did. She could take the entire length and squeeze it wonderfully with her throat, and Larry wondered vaguely what gentle was all about.
Then she was breathing hard and he knew that she was on the point of orgasm-and so was he-so he pulled away and she came up from under the covers and said, "Now that's what I mean by gentle!"
Larry moved on top of her and she opened her legs wide, admitting his torso and hips easily.
"I feel like a teenager," Larry said. And the truth of it was that he did. Just as Sophia was experiencing a new realm of sexual emotions, so was iceberg Larry. He wasn't sure if it could last, but he loved it while it did.
Then he felt her hand on his shaft, guiding it to her warm and wet center. He pushed forward, and his penis parted her soft flesh and sank in, now encased in warmth and smooth, sliding flutters of pleasure.
He worked it gently, thinking that was what she wanted. "Do it harder!" she said, and Larry grinned. He like to stroke hard, and he was glad that she did too.
Then he was rocking it to her, not aware of how powerful his stroking had become. Underneath, Sophia was breathing hard, loving it, her legs flexed and her hips cradling him.
She took the force of his thrusts on her hips and thighs and loved the way he did it. He was all man, hard and stiff and full of energy.
She felt herself on the verge of an overwhelming pleasure and she wanted to say something to him, but before she could get out the words she was past the point of speech. The warm wetness flooded every thought from her mind and she locked her legs around his back and begged for more and when he gave it to her she screamed with pleasure and clung to him with all of her might.
He was all she ever wanted in a man.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was long past midnight when Larry brought two cups of steaming coffee to the couch. Sophia huddled in the corner of the couch, her dress draped over her knees as a blanket. Their eyes met and quietly Larry said, "Hi,"
"Hello," she whispered, raising her hand for the cup. "Hello, darling."
He kissed her again and sat beside her. "You're much woman, Sophia."
Sophia's palm moved lovingly over his cheek. "And you're much man."
"Happy?"
"Mmm. Deliciously."
"No more lectures then about Margo?"
"Let's not talk about Margo." The dreamy smile vanished from her lips and she was once more pensive.
"What's wrong, Sophia? Why should you feel so guilty when we talk about her?"
"Larry ... what's going to happen if Margo finds out about-us? I don't want to hurt her, but I don't want to think of you and me sneaking around corners, kissing in dark hallways." She paused. "Or am I just assuming we have a big romance already?"
"We have, Sophia. It's a little storybookish, isn't it? That you and I could get so simpatico so quickly, I mean. I'm damned if I know that it's going to develop into the love affair of the century, but it's worth trying for."
She nodded. "That makes sense. A little hard-boiled, but sensible."
"What's hard-boiled about it?"
"Trying for love."
"But people do try, don't they, if they want it to mean something? Love never just appears and stays on its own steam." He drank his coffee and faced her. "That's the point, Sophia. Everybody's looking for love, but too often it's done on tiptoes, as if it were possible to have all the happiness of love and avoid all of the unhappiness. Tell me if I'm delivering a sermon."
"No, you're not."
"This 'in love with love' bit is destructive. Margo's involved with it. She's a great kid and mature about everything else, but she wants love on the platter she designs herself. I'm not being nasty now, I'm just stating the fact. I had a wife once, Sophia. Plenty of fine qualities. She had some of that infection, though, too, that infection that starts, 'I'll give love only after I get it, not until then.' "
"Lots of people do behave that way," she agreed reflectively. She wondered how much he really knew about her-he with his keen mind and tenderness?
"We'll see each other again, Sophia," he said, bringing his arm around her. "If we have something good in store for us, we'll find out."
"Oh, Larry, let's try! Let's be honest and strong! Let's-"
A sharp knock at the door interrupted her.
Worriedly, she looked at Larry. He frowned and, taking her hand, called out, "Who's that?"
The answer came, "It's Margo, Larry."
Sophia sat forward in horror. Calming her, Larry said softly, "You go in the other room and dress. Then come out."
"No!"
"What's there to be nervous about, honey? You were right before: it's no good if we sneak around corners."
Swiftly, Sophia leapt from the couch and picked up her coat and shoes. "Don't let her know I'm here. Please! I'll wait in the other room. Please, Larry."
From the door, Margo called, "Larry?"
He pointed to the bathroom. She hurried there and closed the door.
Numbed for just a moment, Larry Barker gazed around the room. An extra coffee cup. Cigarettes with lipstick stains. All right, he thought, so what? We don't have a pact of fidelity.
He crossed the room and opened the door to meet Margo.
Standing not quite straight, she carried a cape over one shoulder with a crooked finger. There was a silly, somehow pathetic grin on her face.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello yourself," she rejoined, still grinning, showing her white, even teeth. "Can this camel have a drink of water?"
"Come in, Marg," he said stiffly and stepped aside for her to enter. She did, with a minor loss of balance. Margo held her liquor like a trouper, he knew; she must've really been hitting it, though, within the past few hours since the end of the show, for it was obvious in her eyes and walk.
"Thank you." Margo dropped her cape on a chair. Was she up to something, he wondered. How would she know Sophia was here, if she did know? Her making unannounced appearances here wasn't especially unusual; until he'd told her to lay off, she'd popped in occasionally at two or four or six in the morning with some cute but generally unrealistic suggestion that they take a subway ride out to the Coney Island boardwalk and go hunt up a pizza somewhere. Or something.
"The vivacious Miss Margo Holland," he said without malice, "was seen last night entering a gentleman's apartment. She was not accused of being sober."
Giggling, Margo nodded. "Yep. Ol' Margo was taken suddenly drunk. Any spirits on hand, sweets?"
"No."
"Just one," she persisted, sitting on the couch and fumbling for a cigarette. "I want to talk. That interview was six months of combat fatigue all rolled up into two hours."
"Marg ... I have company."
She raised her head and blinked. Her slowly-moving eyes observed the lipsticked cigarettes and the extra cup.
"I ... see." She glanced around. "Where is your company? In the closet?"
"In the John."
"Oh." She sat back, not making a move to leave. "Nice girl, Larry? Anyone you know?"
"Marg, you're under the weather. Go find a cab and get some sleep."
"Your directions, Mr. Barker," she remonstrated, "end when the show ends. After that, I'm a free soul."
"Look, I'm tired and in no mood to swap witticisms with you."
"The scruff-of-the-neck technique, eh? Tossing me down the steps?"
"Stop performing, Marg. You know you're loaded."
"And you wanna get back to the hidden lady, c'rect? Tell me, is this a nightly feature around here? When you leave me do you bring a gal up here and swamp her with the Barker charm? I merely want to know for my memory book."
Larry lit her cigarette and then one for himself. He wondered if it mightn't be a simpler way out of this to let her know it was Sophia in the John. He could feel no hatred for Margo, but he was certain her possessiveness was of her own origins; he'd never led her on, never told her he loved her.
"Ah, Larry, Larry," she cried suddenly and rose from the couch. Her hand went awkwardly around his neck and she tried to kiss him, to mold her body against his. She was making a messy scene and, partly for her sake, because he knew she would loathe herself when she recalled this behavior, Larry made an effort to bring her hands away.
"Get rid of her, Larry," Margo pleaded. "I need you. You need me. We're the same people we always were. I've never loved anyone the way I-"
"Don't, Marg," he said firmly, stepping away. "Come on, I'll find a taxi for you."
Her passion for acceptance switched abruptly to venom and her eyes were ablaze with fire. "Don't do me any favors!" she shouted.
This wasn't anything new, either, he thought. She had a faculty for changing emotions without any notice.
"Pipe down," he instructed, and retrieved her coat from the chair.
"Who the hell are you to make me crawl on my hands and knees this way? Push me away, huh? Listen, I wouldn't have you if you came free in a box of Cracker Jack. Get away from me! Go back to your tramp there. Call her out, let me congratulate her on her new acquisition!"
He brought the cape over her shoulders and led her to the door.
"I said, take your hands off me! I know when I'm being thrown out."
"Let's go," he said and opened the door.
Sophia waited, too frightened to move even after she heard the front door close.
When she was able to mobilize herself, she unlocked the bathroom door and walked out, her legs still rubbery and weak from fear.
She felt Margo's suffering and tortured pride, but she couldn't blame Larry for being so firm. Nor could she blame Margo for wanting him so.
But as she heard his footsteps approaching from the corridor, she knew it was too late to simply drift away.
She was in love with Larry Barker.
The door opened and he reappeared. He assured her that Margo would get home safely, that she had a fantastic capacity for survival in a pinch. Past that, he didn't want to talk.
"We can't let it drop, though, Larry, and pretend Margo wasn't here," she entreated.
"And I repeat: You're making too much of it. This is just an act with Margo. She never behaves this way when she's sober."
"I hope you're right."
He advanced, extended his arms and she invaded them.
"Tired?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Want to go home?"
"I should go home."
"That's not what I asked."
Sophia raised her lips to meet his.
"Now you have your answer," she informed him.
They loved again, this time without the ferocity of hidden suspicion. And it was greater, more poignant to Sophia. There was no Margo, no Daddy, no ominous clouds. As his eager, probing hands accepted the lushness of her, she was a woman dedicated to a love that had purpose.
The next day Eddie, the dance director, pulled Sophia aside and said, "Listen, have I got great news for you!"
"What is it?" she asked.
"We've decided to give you a solo on this week's show," he said. "It'll mean a lot of extra rehearsal, but it'll be worth it!"
This was a break! "You mean I'll be spotlighted?" Sophia asked.
"Exactly," Eddie nodded. "Not bad for a girl who just arrived, but that's how it is in this business. Some people knock themselves out for years and never get anywhere. Others arrive and bowl over the town!"
She couldn't find Margo to share the good news with her. She had been noticing that Margo wasn't around as much as she used to be.
Had Margo figured it out?
She put that thought out of her mind. She would feel too rotten if that were to happen.
Still, in a gossipy, back-biting world like this one, it was almost impossible for Margo not to hear about Sophia and Larry.
And suddenly she knew that she was right, and Margo did know.
But Sophia couldn't face her-not yet. She still had the show to work on, and with a solo this week, she was going to be busy day and night.
Sophia's world held together until the night of the show. Sophia was nervous-she was always nervous before she performed. But she had the routine down pat, and she knew there was nothing to worry about.
Still, Margo had not been present at all. She knew that Margo was avoiding her. It was but a matter of time, she supposed, until they would have it out.
She was walking by Keith McClure's dressing room when he called her in.
"Just saw Margo," he said. "She wants to see you."
"When?"
"Right now," Keith said, smiling.
Suddenly Sophia knew. "I guess you made it a colorful and exciting story," she said to Keith.
He shrugged. "I did my best," he said.
"You're a petty bastard," Sophia said as she left his room. "No wonder you are what you are."
Margo was half-bombed in her dressing room. "Come on in," she called out. When she saw it was Sophia, her face hardened. "My little sister," she said. "Have a drink with me?"
Sophia tried to say no, but Margo was insistent. "Come on," she said. "If I'm going to be a good sport about this, no reason you shouldn't. Have a drink with you sister, for goodness' sake!"
Sophia couldn't refuse.
"So that's it," Margo said, handing Sophia a drink. "You and Larry."
"I'm so sorry you were hurt," Sophia managed to say. The drink was just what she needed. She finished it quickly and Margo fixed her another. Then the two sisters talked, about old times, about the silliness and the plain ordinary cussedness of life.
And then it was time. "On stage!" the stage manager called out. Margo had had more to drink than Sophia, but she got up and quickly walked out of the room.
Sophia was bombed. She made it to her dressing room and quickly got into costume.
Then the next thing she knew she had taken her position on stage. The music sounded and she began dancing, her mind in a whirl. It felt so good to dance, so sensual.
She whirled once and then lost it but quickly regained the beat and almost laughed out loud. It didn't hurt to be drunk, she thought, it was just like in college-people liked to see her dance when she was loaded.
And then her hands were behind her back, and she was fumbling with the clasp on her halter top, and then it was off, dangling in her hands, and she stood there, topless, her beautiful breasts naked and delicious. Pandemonium broke out, the show was stopped and as she was led from the stage she saw Margo gloating and Larry Barker standing next to her, furious.
Totally humiliated, Sophia managed to get out of the studio and get back to the apartment before Margo. She packed quickly, left a note saying goodbye and took a cab to the club where Cynthia La Starr was stripping. Cynthia was sitting in a booth and Sophia walked up to her. "Remember me?" she asked.
"Sure," Cynthia said. She grinned.
"Need a job?" Sophia nodded. "I sure do," she said.
"Relax, kid," Cynthia said. "It happens to the best of us. You can start tomorrow. And believe me, you'll be terrific-you'll see."
Sophia was terrific-and she was also drunk after every show. It was the same old life again, and it was strange how fantastic her other life had been. It all seemed like a dream now, a dream nurtured by whiskey and song and strange old men who pawed her through the night.
Until she stumbled from the club one night and saw a familiar figure standing by a cab. Her heart caught in her throat. Larry!
He caught her in his arms and told her how he had searched for her and how much he wanted her. He told her how upset Margo was as well. She couldn't think of an answer to his speech.
He didn't need any answer. His lips warmed hers, telling her that she need never be alone again.
