She had not completely given up the idea of getting into show business.
Getting the classified directory, she made a new list of theatrical
agents in the neighborhood--taking care to select only those whose
listings had display boxes or were in dark type. She wanted nothing
more to do with any one-man agencies.
She dressed with care, in her best clothes, a tight skirt that outlined
the curves of her hips and buttocks, a clinging blouse against which
her breasts jutted like swollen melons. At two o'clock the girls left,
Marilyn to take her position near the entrance to Central Park, Laura
to make the rounds of the agencies.
It was a discouraging afternoon for Laura.
Her first stop was at an agency whose glossy offices took up an entire
floor of a building at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Fifth Street. An equally
glossy receptionist behind a curved marbled counter asked what Laura
wanted and whether she had an appointment. When Laura explained that
she was a novice looking for any sort of singing or dancing work, she
was practically laughed off Fifth Avenue. "This agency handles only
professional talent," she was told curtly. "We don't have any openings
for beginners."
It was the same story at the next place, two blocks further down. They
demanded to see a list of her credits, and, having none, she had to
leave. The third agency, on 49th Street near Sixth, was less brusque;
she was called in for an interview, was questioned for about ten
minutes, and finally was asked to leave her telephone number. "We'll
call you if anything comes up that looks like a promising slot for
you," they told her solemnly. "You don't have to bother checking with
us at all--we'll get in touch the moment we have anything."
Laura left smiling bitterly. She might be a hick from the sticks, but
she was clever enough to see through the Don't-call-us-we'll-call-you
routine. It was a smooth way of brushing her off without making
enemies. In this business, you never could tell when a raw novice
blossomed unexpectedly into an important star, and it didn't pay to do
things crudely when you could be tactful about it.
Brushoff number four was a quickie, though. "Sorry, nothing for
novices," the receptionist said. At number five, it was the same story,
even if she did get another interview first. And at the sixth place on
her list, she was told without enthusiasm that interviews were held
only on Mondays from three to four in the afternoon, and that she
could come back at that time next week if she cared to.
And then it was five o'clock and doors were beginning to close at
offices all over the city. Laura had worked her way down as far as 43rd
Street and Seventh Avenue. Rush hour was under way, and the streets
were full of people streaming into the subways. A northbound bus
passed, crammed to the bursting point. Her legs were aching, but she
turned around and began to walk back uptown. The day had grown cold
again, and Laura felt tired, chilled, discouraged. McCarten had been
right: the other agencies were not looking for beginners. There was a
vast oversupply of pretty girls who could sing and dance. Girls just
as good-looking as she was, and with a great deal more professional
training and experience, were going without work. Only a momentary
fancy had aroused McCarten's interest in her.
For a dismal moment she pondered going back to McCarten's office and
asking for the job. After all, he had taken something valuable from
her; she had every right to demand something in return. And, probably,
if he had a job available he would give it to her. He had to have
_that_ much of a conscience at least, she thought.
But the whole idea was repugnant. She did not want to enter that
shabby, cluttered office again. She did not want to have to look into
those deep, intense, hungry eyes. She did not, above all, want to be
reminded of what McCarten had done to her, or to run the risk of his
doing it again. No, she thought. She would not go to McCarten at all,
not even as a last resort. If she ever got that desperate, there would
always be other alternatives. Return to Kansas. Suicide. Prostitution.
_Anything_, she thought. _Anything would be better than begging that
man to do me a favor._
Wearily she plugged on toward 57th Street. It was half past five by the
time she reached the third floor of the dingy little rooming-house. She
took out the duplicate key Marilyn had given her that morning and let
herself into the little apartment.
She got out of her clothes, hanging them up with care, and filled the
bathtub with hot water. For twenty minutes she soaked her aching feet.
Getting out, she caught sight of herself in the cracked full-view
mirror along the back of the bathroom door.
_Marilyn's right_, she thought. _With my figure I could go places._
She admired herself for a moment: the twin peaks of her bosom, high
and firm, the nipples small and flawless in their little fields of
dark red skin; the flat but yet feminine softness of her belly; the
sleek firmness of her thighs; the satiny globes of her buttocks. It
was a lush body, a magnificently-endowed body. Nature had been good
to her. Her breasts were not scrawny, like Marilyn's, nor did they
hang pendulously the way they did on some women. They rose straight
upward and outward, needing only the barest minimum of support. Her
high cheekbones, strong jaw, and finely sculpted nose gave her face an
aristocratic look that belied her farmland birth.
She wondered about the phone-call from the mysterious Mr. Spinelli.
Suppose it _was_ Phil Spinelli, she speculated. No matter how a vice
king could have found out about her; just suppose. Perhaps he could
offer her the wealth and affluence she yearned for. What difference did
it make if you got paid $95 a week for letting men look at your body on
stage, or $500 a week for letting men slake their desires on your body?
Plenty of girls sold themselves for less. Here was poor thin Marilyn,
creeping along hoping to turn four or five $5 tricks a night. While a
call-girl could claim vast sums, if only she had the sort of sleek,
elegant body that a man might pay fabulously to possess.
_A body like mine, Laura thought._
She left the bathroom and curled up on the bed with a towel around her
body, and gave the matter some hard thought. Oh, she had heard plenty
of things from her grandparents about sin, and the pastor had thundered
in church every Sunday morning. But Kansas and Kansas morality seemed
ten thousand miles away right now. She was in New York. And New York
was very different from Kansas.
_What do I want out of life?_ she wondered.
_Happiness_, she answered herself. And happiness meant mink coats
and trips to Paris and lovely clothes and a fine home and a long,
shiny limousine. Happiness meant handsome men and dim candlelight and
champagne.
Marilyn Rivers wasn't happy. Marilyn was having revenge against men,
but it was a petty revenge, a five-dollar-a-trick revenge. How much
finer it would be to grow wealthy and soft at the expense of male lust.
Why wring $5 from them when other men will pay $500?
Laura laughed. She had all but convinced herself to sign up for the
nearest call-girl syndicate, but she had built an entire lacy tower
out of nothing at all. Someone named Spinelli had called her. Perhaps
he was an encyclopedia salesman; perhaps he wanted to sell her dance
lessons. And she had assumed immediately that he was _Phil_ Spinelli,
the vice overlord, and that he was eager to sign her up for his chain
of high-priced girls. _How silly can you get?_ Laura asked herself.
_When you start building plans out of daydreams, you know you're going
too far._
She opened a few cans and fixed a light dinner for herself. This was
a lonely life, she thought, with her roommate out on the streets all
afternoon and evening. It meant she would always be eating dinner by
herself, spending the evening alone. She was grateful to Marilyn for
having taken her in, but, still, she wished she didn't have to stay
by herself all evening in this drafty little room. With eight million
other people in New York, it was terrible to have only one friend.
After dinner, Laura went down. She strolled around 57th Street, going
eastward. There was a concert at Carnegie Hall that night, and Laura
paused, watching in envy as the Rolls-Royces and the long black
Cadillacs pulled up in front, as the gleaming men and women in their
tuxedos and mink wraps got out and disappeared into the concert hall.
What a wonderful life it must be, she thought, to be able to drive
up to Carnegie Hall and stroll in and take your seat in the row of
boxes! Laura had been to only one concert in her life, once on a visit
to Topeka, and that had been tremendously exciting. How much more
exciting it must be, she imagined, to sit in Carnegie Hall listening to
the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony or one of the other
famous orchestras, with famous people sitting all around.
She walked on, down 57th Street, past the fancy store-windows, still
lit, with their dazzling displays of china and imported silver and
furs and rare books and furniture. Each window was a peephole to an
alien universe, for Laura--the universe of money, of elegance, of fine
things. She wanted to enter that universe. Suddenly, that night, as
she stared into the glowing shops of 57th Street, she felt a powerful
thrust of ambition; _I must have these things_, she thought. _Give me a
mink coat and a new dress and you couldn't tell me from the prettiest
socialite in Carnegie Hall. And I want to be on top! I want to have
things!_
She walked down 57th Street as far as Madison Avenue, then turned
around and came back along the other side of the street. The concert
had started, by that time, and the only people in front of Carnegie
Hall were a few doormen, a couple of waiting chauffeurs, and a wizened
little beggar playing a screechy violin. Laura dropped a dime in his
cup, and he thanked her without missing a note.
_There you are_, she thought. _Some people play in the Philharmonic,
others stand outside and cadge dimes. You make your own chances. And if
you're lucky, you get into the diamond horseshoe. If you're not, you
end up out in the cold, like Marilyn, like this little fiddle-player._
There was a movie-theater next to the concert hall. It was showing a
British comedy; Laura decided it was as good a way of killing time as
any, so she went in. The ticket cost $1.80, which was three times as
much as it cost to see a double feature back home. She realized, as she
paid for the ticket, that she was running low on cash. Her savings,
before paying the train fare from Kansas, had amounted to less than a
thousand dollars. Now she had only a few hundred left. If she didn't
find work soon, she'd be forced to borrow from Marilyn, or to wire home
for cash. Neither idea appealed to her.
It was half past eleven when Laura returned home. Marilyn had not yet
come in. Laura washed up, got into bed, turned on the lamp, and read,
getting deeply absorbed in Marilyn's magazines. At quarter after one
Marilyn came in, looking tired and disheveled.
"How'd it go tonight?" Laura asked.
"Five tricks--no, six. Thirty bucks. God, am I tired! You get a job?"
"Not even a nibble," Laura said. Briefly, she told Marilyn how agency
after agency had brushed her off with greater or lesser degrees of tact.
"What are you going to do? Keep trying?"
Laura shrugged. "It's like batting my head against a stone wall. I
could keep going around to agency after agency and get nowhere."
"You could get some other kind of job."
"What kind? I can't type, I don't know short-hand, I don't know how to
operate a switchboard--"
"You could be taught. It doesn't take long to learn how to run a
switchboard," Marilyn said, peeling off her clothes and heading for
the bathroom. "I bet a lot of companies would be glad to have a
receptionist who looks as good as you do."
"Maybe," Laura said wearily. "I'll give it a try tomorrow."
After breakfast the next day, she left Marilyn and went out to pick
up a copy of the _New York Times_. Taking a seat on a bench along
the southern border of Central Park, she looked over the _Help
Wanted--Female_ section of the classified ads.
There were plenty of jobs available, that was certain. But a lot of
them required experience of one sort or another--typing, short-hand,
professional knowledge. Laura eliminated them at once.
The others were almost all offered through employment agencies, which
meant that the first week's salary would go to the agency. And the
salaries were nothing fantastic, either. Laura circled some of the ads.
_Receptionist-Monitor Board, No Typing, Appearance Important. $65. Gal
Friday to Interior Decorator, no exp., Mostly Reception, $70. Personnel
Trainees, no exp., attractive type, $75._
Plenty of jobs--but, probably, plenty of people applying. And the
salaries weren't great by any means. The best Laura could find for a
trainee or inexperienced girl was $80 to $90 a week. Most of the jobs
offered were in the $60-$75 range.
$75 a week was $15 a day, before taxes. Even on her poorest days,
Marilyn took in at least that much, and paid no taxes on it. True, it
was sordid work, but at least her time would be her own, she could
take a day off whenever she pleased, and there was the chance of much
greater income on any given day.
_No_, she thought. _Don't slide straight into whoredom, Laura. Look
for a decent job first._
_Times_ in hand, and without much enthusiasm, Laura began to make the
rounds of the employment agencies. At the first three she went to, the
jobs advertised had already been filled, and dozens of other girls
turned away. The fourth place was impressed with her good looks, and
sent her across town to apply for a receptionist's job. But three other
girls had already been interviewed, and all of them knew how to type.
Laura got a "Sorry--we'd like to use you, but the other girls have
better qualifications."
The day dragged on. It was the same story everywhere.
Everyone wanted a good-looking girl on their job. But what they didn't
want was an utter green-horn just fresh from a Kansas farm. They wanted
a girl who could type, who knew her way around a switchboard, who was
familiar with New York.
Laura didn't qualify.
From agency to agency, interview to interview, until her feet throbbed
mercilessly. Twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock, three. Always
other girls applying for the job, and always the other girls were
better qualified than she was.
"How about domestic service?" one agency suggested. "Midtown hotel
looking for attractive white chambermaids. $42.50 a week plus tips."
"No thanks," Laura said, repressing a shudder. Better no work at all
than work like that.
Another place had a page-girl job for her. $52 a week, first week's
salary to the agency. In desperation, Laura let herself be sent over
for an interview, but the personnel manager turned her down. "You're
too imposing for the job, dear. What we have in mind is a high-school
type, not a glamor queen. Sorry."
Sorry.
Sorry.
_Sorry._
Everyone apologized. McCarten was sorry; the theatrical agencies on
Fifth Avenue were sorry; the employment agencies were sorry; personnel
managers were sorry.
You couldn't eat sorrow. You couldn't spend it. You couldn't even feel
happy about it. Everyone was sorry, and you were sorry too.
At half past five Laura gave up, dumped the _Times_ in an ashcan, and
headed home. It had been another wasted day. Her legs hurt fiercely,
she was hollow inside, and she had accomplished nothing.
In the apartment, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her loins no
longer ached from the rape, and she told herself that she was starting
to forget about it. She was no longer a virgin; what of it? She looked
no different. Her face had not changed. She looked tired, now, but
otherwise there was no difference. A man's body had entered her body
and had withdrawn. She was a woman now instead of a girl. But the fact
made no difference. No difference at all, except that now she no longer
had to worry about guarding that meaningless thing, her virginity.
She fixed dinner. Afterward, while waiting for Marilyn to come home,
she considered the alternatives.
Suicide was silly, a coward's way out. And going back to Kansas was an
admission of utter defeat.
What else was there? Calling McCarten? That was defeat, too. Taking
one of the $42.50 jobs? That was worse than defeat; it was humiliation.
Going to secretarial school? A waste of time, she thought. She would
have to study for six or ten weeks to become qualified to take a
miserable $60-a-week job. You didn't get to wear minks on $60 a week.
You didn't sit in a box at Carnegie Hall.
_With your body, you can go places_, Marilyn had said. _Well, why not?
Why not?_
_Why not?_
Marilyn came home at two o'clock, with earnings of thirty-five dollars.
Laura was still up.
"You get a job?" Marilyn asked.
"Nope."
"Not even a near miss?"
"There wasn't anything," Laura said. She smiled. "I'm not licked,
though. I've made up my mind about what I'm going to do. And you can
help me, if you want to."
"Just tell me what I have to do, honey, and I'll help you every bit I
can."
Laura's smile was bitter. "I've decided to go on the street, Marilyn.
Teach me how to be a whore."
_CHAPTER FOUR_
The hotel was on 56th Street just off Seventh Avenue. It had obviously
seen better days. It was a big massive nineteenth-century structure,
with gargoyles and everything. But the marquee was stained and
tattered, and no doorman waited in front. Laura walked in. It was
just as Marilyn had described it: a dump. Even the potted palms were
drooping and frayed. The lights were dim, sputtering fluorescents. A
couple of sloppy-looking bellhops lounged near the elevator. The desk
clerk had a copy of the _Daily Mirror_ spread out in front of him, and
he was doing the crossword puzzle.
Laura felt a tight band of fear across her belly. She remembered with
tension what Marilyn had told her in explaining the pitch. _Hotels
don't like to rent rooms to unescorted girls without luggage, because
they know that nine times out of nine and a half the girl is a prostie.
They'll rent to you, but if you don't grease them up they'll give you a
hard time first._
She moistened her lips as she waited for the desk clerk to look up from
his crossword puzzle. He stared at her out of faded, red-rimmed eyes.
"Yes?"
"I'm looking for a room," she said. She opened her hand and let the
crumpled five-dollar bill tumble out. It landed on the open newspaper.
Casually, the desk clerk covered it with his palm, smiling faintly.
"A single?" he asked.
"That's right. For--for tonight."
She waited hesitantly. The fiver was out of sight, now. All the clerk
had to do was shake his head and say the hotel was filled up, and he
was five bucks ahead for not very much effort. Laura added after a
moment, "I'm a friend of Mary Ryan." That was the name Marilyn used
when she signed the register here; Marilyn had told her to mention it
to the clerk.