The Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor

You’ve been sitting here drinking cocktails all night. You didn’t even see so much as the HOUSE FULL boards outside.”
    â€œBut she was splendid, of course,” Perry adds as he pours us both a glass of champagne. “Regardless of what the notices might say in tomorrow’s papers.”
    I ignore his teasing and take a long satisfying sip. The bubbles pop and fizz deliciously on my tongue. Do I care what the critics say? It’s been so long since I’ve taken any real notice of the reviews. I haven’t needed to. It has simply become habit to read flattery and praise. My housekeeper-cum-secretary, Elsie, cuts out the notices from all the papers and sticks them into a scrapbook with an almost obsessive diligence. The slightest mention of me falls victim to her scissors—photographs, passing references to supper at The Savoy, charitable events, after-the-show reports, costume reviews—nothing escapes her scissors. I tell her I really don’t give two figs what they say, but she persists. She says it is important to keep a record; that people will be interested in my career in years to come. She’s too polite to say “when you’re dead,” but I know that’s what she means, and it occurs to me that perhaps she is right. The more I think about tonight’s performance, the more I realize that the notices do matter. There’s an astonishing honesty required of oneself when faced with one’s own mortality. The notices and observations in Elsie’s silly little scrapbook will soon become the record of what I am—who I was. It is how I will be remembered. It matters immensely.
    I tip my neck back to savor the last drop of champagne and hold my glass toward Perry for a refill, hoping that nobody notices the tremble in my hand.
    The night passes in a heady oblivion of dancing, laughter, and playful flirtation with handsome men who invite me to dance. I allow myself to be guided around the dance floor to quicksteps and tangos, spinning and twirling among elegant young couples who twist and turn as deftly around each other as the champagne bubbles that dance in my glass.
    As the night moves on, the band picks up the pace, holding us all spellbound on the dance floor, our feet incapable of rest. I say all the right things to all the right prompts, but despite the gaiety of it all and the adoring gazes I attract whenever I so much as stand up, part of me grows weary too soon and my smile becomes forced as I stifle a succession of yawns. As I watch the midnight cabaret show the room becomes too hot and the music too loud. I long to slip quietly away and walk along the Embankment to look for shooting stars. I was just six years old when my father told me that they are dying stars. “What you are looking at is the end of something that has existed for millions of years,” he said. It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard, and in a champagne-fueled fog of adulthood, the thought of it makes me want to cry.
    â€œMiss May. Would you care to dance?”
    I turn to see who is addressing me. “Mr. Berlin. What a joy! It would be my pleasure.”
    What I really wish is that he would hold me in his arms while I rest my head on his shoulder and weep, but that is what an ordinary girl would do, and I am not an ordinary girl. I am Loretta May. So I stand tall and look beautiful and allow myself to be led to the dance floor, where the music thumps and the bodies of a hundred beautiful people twirl and sway in a wonderful rhythm of jazz-fueled recklessness. The gin flows, beaded fabrics ripple against slim silhouettes, ostrich-feather fans sway in time to the music, the soles of satin shoes spin and hop, and legsin silk stockings kick and flick flirtatiously as the band plays on and on.
    I play my part perfectly well.
    Shooting stars, and the wishes and tears of an ordinary girl, will have to wait.

9
DOLLY
    â€œSometimes life gives you cotton