“Hello, cake. How are you, honey?”
“’Lo.”
She looked at him happily. “I saved all my tickets until you got here.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I bought some.”
“You didn’t need to, honey. That’s what I kep’ these for.”
His glance wandered all around the place. “Did that girl from the show get here yet?” he wanted to know confidentially.
“Yeah,” said Connie. “The manager took her over to introduce her to the leader. She’s going to award the prizes.”
Wally looked down at his feet.
“You’ll make it,” nodded Connie, reading his thoughts. “You have it cinched.”
“What is it, a singles or a doubles?”
“Singles. That’s why I stayed out of it. I didn’t want to go against you.”
He pressed her hand under the table. “Good kid,” he said, which was as close as he ever got to tenderness with her.
Connie felt herself tingle with loyalty. She offered him a straw.
“Let’s finish this drink together,” she said.
They bent down over the glass, their faces close together. Connie’s eyelids fluttered with the nearness of it but she didn’t dare look up. They made a slight gurgling sound. “You take the cherry,” said Wally generously.
There was a crash of cymbals from the gallery upstairs. Connie and Wally raised their heads. The orchestra leader was holding a megaphone to his mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed, “the Charleston contest will now begin. Entries are by name only. Each contestant will be limited to a five-minute performance. Miss Mimi Travers of the ‘Lucille’ company has consented to act in the capacity of judge of this contest. The winner will be awarded a silver loving cup, donated through the courtesy of the United Barber Shops’ Association.” He held the cup up by one handle and a round of applause followed.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” beamed Connie, craning her neck. She put her arm around Wally’s shoulder. “It’ll be pie for you, honey. They might as well hand it over to you right now.”
He smiled — but the smile wasn’t meant for her. It was for Mimi, standing beside the orchestra leader. Mimi was beautiful — she was almost too beautiful to live.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Mimi Travers.” She and the orchestra leader took a bow apiece. With an almost imperceptible movement Wally freed himself of Connie’s encouraging arm. He was clapping his hands vigorously. “Yea, Mimi!” he shouted.
The contest began. Rose and Myrtle and Lily took turns twisting their legs into unbelievable positions while the band played on.
“Faster and funnier,” called the onlookers. “Spread yourself. Do that thing!”
Rose and Myrtle and Lily spread themselves. They did that thing. They did a lot of other things with it. They skipped like devils. Mimi Travers had come out on the floor to get a better look at them. She was sitting gazing over the back of a chair with her chin resting on her arms. There was a gold bracelet around one of her ankles. Rose and Myrtle and Lily were through now. They were panting like grasshoppers. Also they were considerably disheveled.
“Mr. Wallace Walters,” shouted the orchestra leader. The music began again.
“Oh boy, Wally,” Connie was saying excitedly, “go out there and tear that floor to splinters.” She gave him a push between the shoulders as he got up.
Wally was out there now and the whole hall was spinning around him like a merry-go-round. He could hear them chanting:
Wally saw red. He’d show them whether their baby did that Charleston! Mimi was beating time with her hands. Clap-clap, clap-clap. “I never saw anyone like him,” she turned and said to somebody. “Where did he get that from?”
Wally began to skate as though he were on a pond. A tinkle of small sleigh-bells immediately followed from the musicians.
Connie was almost following him around the floor. “Come on, cake! Eat it up, eat it up!”
“Give him room!” they cried.
“Get that girl out of the way,” ordered Mimi imperiously. “What does she think she is, the tail of his shirt?”
Wally was hopping around like some funny little three-legged animal. He went down gradually like a corkscrew going into the neck of a bottle. Then he straightened up and the music stopped sharply.
Connie was waiting right beside him. She threw both her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Bless your little soul!” she cried ecstatically.
“Bless both my little soles,” he panted.
Mimi Travers was talking very animatedly to the orchestra leader. Everyone was watching her curiously. “Hurry up, make up your mind,” growled Connie under her breath.
Finally Mimi stood up and took the leader by the arm as though they were going to head a cotillion together. “Miss Travers wishes me to announce,” intoned that individual, “that the prize goes to Mr. Wallace Walters as winner of this contest. Will Mr. Walters kindly step this way?”
“Boy, oh bay-bee!” hissed Connie, and she pinched him on the arm. “Do you get that?”
There was an explosion of handclapping. Wally made his way across the floor from group to group, showered with complimentary remarks. Rose and Myrtle and Lily came over to congratulate him — not that they were any the less envious.
“I liked it!” said Rose.
It was a cake eater’s triumph. But Wally, who had had many such moments in the course of his career, was thinking of Mimi and her castle of dreams. They were standing face to face now. He could see a golden flame quivering in the depths of her heliotrope eyes. She handed him the ice-cold silver cup and for a moment their warm fingertips touched over its frosty surface.
“Good luck,” she said. “You did beautifully.”
“Thank you,” he answered. “Glad you liked it.” He bowed from the hips.
“Hold it up so everyone can see it,” she said, taking in the entire assemblage at a glance.
When it was all over, he found himself seated with Mimi at one of the little tables, somehow. And on the table there was an empty glass with two broken straws in it, and someone’s rhinestone purse, and a string of blue tickets. Mimi extracted a perfumed cigaret from a small tortoise-shell case and moistened it with her lips. Now almost anyone at all could have told Mimi that smoking was against the rule, but it so happened that the unpleasant task fell upon Wally.
“I don’t think they let you do that here,” he mentioned as casually as he was able.
Mimi didn’t like being told what not to do. “Let you do what — smoke?” she demanded coldly.
He nodded dolefully and made an unpleasant face.
“Oh, yes they do!” she assured him. “They do me at any rate.”
He looked rather doubtful and shrugged his shoulders, having had more than one fair companion separated from her nicotine just when she was beginning to enjoy it. “Well,” he said, “if you think so, go ahead—”
“I don’t think so. I know so,” remarked the fiery Mimi. “I’ll tell you what; call the proprietor and we’ll see.”