“Sure you do.” She sets a plate in front of him. ”Here's your hash browns. Sorry they were cold the first time.” She turns.
“Wait. I'm serious.” He pulls a silver card case from his jacket pocket and makes a flourish of pulling out a card and handing it to her between two fingers. “Alan Cooper.”
“Thanks.” She says insincerely as she takes the card and walks back to the kitchen.
“We got another one, Leo.” She flashes the card two-fingered, like they do, eyebrow raised copying the smarmy smile.
“Well tape it to the wall, baby girl, with the rest.”
She finds a spot on the wall of “entertainment” business cards and tucks the new one in. She's a little surprised to see that it says 'The Merradona', but that logo is everywhere. It wouldn't be hard to replicate.
“Order up!” Leonard's voice portrays a line cook's mixture of frenetic activity and monotonous ‘That's the seventy-third over-easy I've fried today’ boredom.
He sees Paulie scrutinizing the card and waves his spatula in her direction, “Don't you get any ideas, tart. I don't need to be bailing your skank ass out of jail after you turn “dancer” for one of those pimps in sheep's clothing and get a coke habit.”
Paulie smiles sweetly over her shoulder, “You mean you'd come bail me out? I didn't know I meant that much to you.” She smacks him on the butt with her free hand as she passes, grabs the plate and heads out of the kitchen.
She sees after she delivers the eggs that Mr. Cooper’s booth is now empty.
Shit. If he walked his tab I swear...
But there on the table is a crisp $100 dollar bill with another business card with the words, “I wasn't kidding,” written on it.
She puts the card in her apron pocket and takes the Benjamin to the register. She calculates the bill and pulls a $93.50 tip out of the register drawer.
____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____
Paulie's not surprised to see Mr. Cooper at the bar when she comes in the next afternoon.
“Hey!” He stands, hands upturned, face frustrated. “I thought you worked the lunch shift, I've been here since 1:00.”
“That's Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday I work 4 P to midnight. You ordered already, I hope.” She keeps walking.
He stands in her way to the kitchen. “I'm not here for food. I'm here to see if you thought about my offer.”
“Look, you're not the first guy to come in here talking to the waitresses about auditioning for casino shows. No, I didn't think about it. I'm 5'7'' and I'm not stupid. You need something a little taller, a little blonder and a little more gullible.”
“Sassy. I like it. Are you from the south?”
“Texas.” She tries to edge around him, but he side-steps in front of her again. “Look, I gotta go let Regina off her shift. Find somebody else.”
“You know I'm from The Merradona. I'm not your usual sleazy dancer-finder. I'm casting a first-rate show and I think you'd fit the part. Did you come to Vegas to be a waitress? I'm giving you a really good opportunity here.”
“It's none of your business why I came to Vegas.” She hesitates. “What's the part?”
“Well, its sort of an Ugly Betty story...You would...”
“Nice.” She cuts him off. “Ugly Betty?”
“Listen, you're a beautiful girl. I need someone who can contrast from the other automaton dancers and someone we can dowdy up a little in the beginning so that she'll be resplendent at the end. I'm telling you, this is not my first time. I'm good at picking them and I think you're it.”
Paulie looks around to see if anyone else was listening. Everyone is.
He picks up his leather briefcase and pockets his blackberry. “Auditions start tomorrow in the St. Petersburg Ballroom at noon. I hope you can get off the lunch shift.” He smiles like he knows she will. “Ciao.”
Paulie scuttles to the kitchen and leans against the counter, face blazing red.
Leo bends down to look in her face. “Baby girl, he used the word “resplendent.” I don't know what that means, but it sounds good. I know Regina will take your shift tomorrow, what with her mother-in-law moved in. Go! It's the Merradona. Just see what it's about.”
Regina walks around the corner untying her apron. “He's right, Paulie. I need to not be at home. Go tomorrow. I'll cover for you.”
Paulie puts on a defeated face, though they both know she wants to go. She's been auditioning for every respectable job in town for over two years and has yet to get a part.
“Oh, and by the way,” Regina throws her apron at Paulie's head, “Tables 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 14, think you should do it too.”
____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____
The next morning Paulie steps into the shower armed with salt scrub and moisturizing body wash. She spends 30 full minutes scrubbing, cleansing, and shaving. She blow dries her hair with the round brush in sections using actual mousse. She puts on her makeup with a paint brush in strokes, makes sure every lash is separated and uses the mirror to put on her lipstick.
Neck up complete, she moves to put on her usual audition outfit, but stops in her tracks at the sight of it. The weight of her failure in that outfit since she arrived in Las Vegas falls on her and she starts to lose her nerve.
What if he's just playing with me? What if he made the whole thing up so that I'd walk into the Merradona, ask where the auditions are being held and be laughed out of the enormous marble lobby? Leo says; just see what it’s about. Just go see.
She throws on the only outfit she's ever had any luck in, at least in this town, and runs for the door.
____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____
Dwarfed by the palatial portico of the Merradona, Paulie looks like she ought to be using the service entrance and she knows it.
I was asked to come. I was INVITED here.
She rallies her courage and walks through the shining doors held open by enormous marble seahorses. In the lobby and large sign in black and silver script points the way to the AUDITIONS.
At least he wasn't lying.
She follows the sign toward the St. Petersburg Ballroom and a gathering crowd of girls in trendy frocks and impossibly high heels.
Paulie feels like Alice falling through the rabbit hole. She slowly shrinks as she walks toward the crowd. By the time she reaches them she is barely nipple level the underfed Amazons around her. They mill around fake smiling and greeting each other with high-pitched excitement that gives away their insincerity. She thinks they might laugh at her, but instead she entirely escapes their notice.
They probably think I'm bringing lunch.
She brushes her starched pink diner uniform and laughs at herself and her choice to wear it.
Maybe I should just go.
“Paulie.” She hears her name behind her and turns to see Mr. Cooper swimming through the sea of limbs toward her.
“You came,” he says, smiling the same ‘I knew you would’ smile he used yesterday.
He takes her arm and leads her toward the ballroom’s open wooden doors.
Enormous chandeliers hang from the ceiling, twinkling with gaudy brilliance. The walls are papered in gold and the carpet is a red and deep maroon maze of meringue-shaped designs. There is a panel of disinterested judge-types sitting behind a folding table at the far end of the room in front of a large black-curtained stage.
“This is the girl I told you about.” Mr. Cooper announces loudly as he continues to guide Paulie toward the judges table.
They all look up with glazed eyes showing either excessive boredom or a really good high.
The woman in the middle speaks first. “Alan, have you lost your mind? Just because you want to fuck somebody doesn't mean you have to “discover” them first.” She rolls her eyes and laughs at her own humor.
“Shut up, Sheila.” Mr. Cooper chuckles. “She's got the look we need for “Betty.” She's got poise and sass and I think she'd clean up really well for the final scenes.”
Paulie is unsurprised but nonetheless offended by this exchange and almost tells them all to go to hell, but she waits, keeping an eye on the exit.
“She's got some goods,” says the incredibly thin man on the end, wrists waving. ”But I think your imagination has gotten the best of you. If you see a swan, I'm sorry lovey, she's a duckling.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Cooper retorts. “Just what the part calls for.”
“Yes,” chimes in the fat man standing behind the panel. “But we need a swan we can turn into a duckling so that she can again become a swan. You start with duckling, you don't get swan.”
“Well,” Mr. Cooper relents, “she's in her duckling phase right now.” He looks down at her uniform with derision. “Let me make her up, get her on stage and we can try her out. No harm, no foul.”
The panel has already looked away and begins talking amongst themselves. Paulie, not sure whether to stomp out in protest or be excited that she passed the first test, is again taken by the arm and guided toward another door.
As they exit the ballroom she can see that the sea of limbs has been released into the ballroom.
She takes her arm back from Mr. Cooper, “What are they auditioning for?”
“The part of ‘All the other girls’.”
“Where are we going?” She is becoming lost in the maze of back hallways.
“To my suite.”
Paulie stops in her tracks. “Oh no we’re not!”
Mr. Cooper laughs. “We’re meeting the make-up artist and stylist there to get you ready for your audition.” He keeps walking and she follows. “Why in the world did you come in your diner get up?”
“What did you want me to wear?”
“Something a little less ‘Do you want fries with that.’
____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____ . . . ____
Two hours later, Paulie walks back down the same hallway teetering on 4 inch stilettos. All of her morning’s work has been unceremoniously erased with a wet hotel towel. She has been teased, plumped, sheathed, belted and stilted.
Mr. Cooper, who has told her to call him ‘Alan,’ walks beside her in nervous agitation.
“Don’t forget to annunciate.”
“I won’t but it would help to know what they’re going to ask me to do.”
“They like to keep it a surprise. They ask something different of each person. They’ll toy with you. Just go with it.”
Fantastic.
They reach the door and he holds it open for her. The room is still full and one unlucky girl is on stage in tears.
“Get off the stage, if you’re gonna cry!” yells the middle judge. “I’m saying your boobs are too small, not off with her head.” To her fellow judges Paulie hears her mutter, “Lord, they can be so sensitive.”
Alan approaches the from behind. “Sheila, I’m back with the duckling.”
The judges turn and scrutinize Paulie, looking her up and down. “Well, get her on stage,” Sheila smirks. “Let’s see what she’s got.”
As she walks to the stage stairs, it is clear that she has now caught the attention of the other girls. They bustle and twitter, looks derisive and amused.
Paulie walks to the middle of the stage, directly in front of the judges table and stands with her legs apart and her hands on her hips, waiting for instruction. Sheila’s boredom seems to dissipate and she laughs. “How tall are you, wait, let me guess, 5’4”?”
“I’m 5’7”, but 5’11” in these heels.”
“Impossible. You look dwarfish.”
This comment draws titters from the peanut gallery.
“Tap.” Sheila declares.
“Excuse me?”
“Tap. You can tap, can’t you?”
“Yes.” Paulie immediately kicks off her high heels and breaks into a tap dance routine she learned in 5th grade but has kept up for just such an occasion.
The room erupts in laughter. Paulie stops in mid shuffle.
Sheila can hardly contain herself. “Well, yes, apparently you can.”
Paulie looks at Alan who shrugs and waves at her to put her shoes back on.
Now the thin judge, still laughing, says, “How about how about a monologue? Got any of those?”
Paulie, still bent double trying to pull her shoes back on, looks up horrified. She does have a monologue – sort of. She learned it for a Mark Twain play she auditioned for a year ago. She hadn’t gotten the part then and she is pretty sure that monologue will ruin her chances here too.
She stands, deciding to do the only other monologue she can summon off the top of her head.
She settles on a tortured facial expression and begins, “Romeo! Romeo. Where for art…”
“STOP!” Sheila yells. The girls titter. The judges roll their eyes. “Tell me you’re not that trite. Choose another.”
Paulie shifts her weight, looking down at the stage.
The thin judge turns to his peers, “She doesn’t know one. Do we need to see anymore?”
Paulie puts up her hands, “Okay! I know one.” Blood fills her cheeks. “It would just be a little more appropriate coming from someone without fake eyelashes. Give me a second.” She turns her back to the audience.
Trying to tune out the comments about the size of her ass, she pulls off her eyelashes and rubs her eyes, blackening them all over with eyeliner. She runs her finger through her red lipstick and rubs a red streak on the bridge of her nose and two rouge dots on her cheeks.
She kicks of her shoes again standing on her bare feet. She takes the belt off of her sheath dress letting it hang off her body like a pillow case. She pulls on her left sleeve and rips a hole at the shoulder seam. Then she pulls at a right side seam, leaving a gaping hole at her waist. She can hear gasps behind her.
It’s now or never.
Paulie turns to face the judges, entirely in the character of Roxy from Mark Twain’s The Tradgey of Pudd’enhead Wilson.
“I stood dah in de dark en look out, en dar in the moonlight, right down under me 'uz one o' de twins a-cussin' 'ca'se he 'uz hit in de shoulder. En Doctor Claypool he 'uz a-workin' at him, en Pudd'nhead Wilson he 'uz a-he'pin', en ole Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard 'uz a-standin' out yonder a little piece waitin' for 'em to get ready agin. En treckly dey squared off en give de word, en "bang-bang" went de pistols, en de twin he say, "Ouch” en I done it too, 'ca'se de bullet glance' on his cheekbone en skip up here en glance' on de side o' de winder en whiz right acrost my face en tuck de hide off'n my nose--why, if I'd 'a'; be'n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder 't would 'a' tuck de whole nose en disfiggered me. Here's de bullet; I hunted her up.”
Paulie freezes, arm extended to the ceiling as if holding up the bullet for all to see. The room is momentarily silent before the peanut gallery breaks into uncontrollable laughter. Paulie brings down her arm. She can see that Alan is holding his forehead in his hand.
Her heart is beating so fast she feels faint. Her embarrassment is intense but her determination more so. She stands strong at 5’7” in her ripped dress and waits.
The laughter takes time to abate, a million years in Paulie’s pounding head. But finally, it stops as the girls begin to realize that the judges aren’t joining in the merriment.
Sheila stands when the room quiets and turns to Alan who raises his head slightly to look over his hand at her.
“She’s in.”
Fun!
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