Sequins and Starlight

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ellie sashayed into the wings, timing her movements to the clash of symbols and the bass drum’s insistent thud. The club host beamed at her before he glided onto the stage to close the show.

“Aren’t we fortunate,” she heard him say, “that Stella Nue chose Archway Cabaret club for the final performances of her farewell tour?” His enthusiastic words drew vigorous applause. A few exuberant cheers indicated the presence of Americans or Aussies, less inhibited than Londoners.

She adjusted a rhinestone star ornament, loosened by the velocity of her pirouettes. Hairspray residue stuck to her fingers.

Camille hurried over. “How did you feel out there?” She handed over Ellie’s green velvet robe.

“All right, I think. I was concentrating on the music and the changes to our choreography. It’s been years since I was on a stage that small.” She pulled the fabric over her glittery star-shaped pasties and covered the half-moon at her crotch.

Her aunt’s cat-eye glasses frames matched her magenta column dress, a bright note of color in the backstage gloom. “I went out front to check the volume. Exactly what we requested. Let’s hope the techs can maintain consistency for the rest of the month.”

Earlier in the day, as soon as they stepped off the train from Paris, Ellie’s countdown had begun. Twenty-four times to repeat her routines. Two performances per night, three nights a week, for four weeks.

And then, she thought, I’ll say a final farewell to this bizarre, beautiful world of burlesque.

Stella Nue’s persona would live on after retirement. The stage name was attached to lucrative branded products—her signature fragrance, a popular lingerie line, and other items offered for sale on her website. Her latest commercial endorsements included a television advertising campaign for a luxury automobile and a print promotion for a high-end botanical-infused vodka, contracts that would continue for two more years.

When Ellie and her aunt reached the headliner’s private dressing room, they could hear muffled chatter from next door. At the start of her career she’d belonged to that gossipy girl gang, never imagining that she’d become a worldwide sensation as Stella Nue, the Naked Star. They were joined by the scantily clad girl responsible for gathering up the garments the performers incrementally discarded during their routines. She placed her burden on a chair in the corner.

“Thanks, Lisa.” With a smile, Ellie asked, “Or do I call you Lola?”

“I answer quicker to Lisa.” She was lean and long-waisted with contrasting curves. “I didn’t officially become Lola LaFlamme till I came to the Archway.” One hand indicated the red and orange flames embroidered on the front of her silver lamé halter top and forming side pockets in the matching short skirt.

“I’ll check on your men,” Camille told Ellie.

She reached inside her robe to ease off her pasties. “I started out as a stage kitten,” she confided.

“Where?”

“In the States. New Jersey.”

“My first gig was in Blackpool,” Lisa said. “Stripping. The manager, a racist bumhole, called me Hot Cocoa. I told him I’d take less pay if I could be Lola LaFlamme instead. But it meant a longer slog to save up for my move to London.” She knelt down to open Ellie’s stage case. “D’you got any professional tips? ’Cause I’m working up my solo act.”

“Do I ever. Let’s meet for lunch or coffee. I’ll have morning ballet class, but I’m free after that.”

“That’d be brilliant.” Lisa rocked back on her heels. “I work the afternoon shift at a burger bar near my flatshare in North Acton. Midday is good for me.”

“Soon as I’m settled, we’ll make a date.”

She relished any opportunity to share hard-won knowledge and several years of experience with an eager neophyte. At its worst, burlesque could be a bitchy business, but never enough to destroy the prevailing camaraderie.

“Oh—I forgot.” Lisa pulled a piece of paper from her flame appliqué pocket. “We’re not allowed to pass notes or gifts to performers, it’s against the rules. I’m supposed to give this to that lady. Your manager.”

“She’s not here.” Ellie took it. “And I’ll never tell. Is it from a man?”

“An awfully polite one. ‘Would you be so kind?’ ‘Thanks very much, indeed.’ He wanted me to tell you ‘break a leg.’ I should’ve let him know that round here we say ‘pop a pastie.’”

“For ballet dancers, it’s ‘merde’”

“That’s French for ‘shit.’ I wasn’t taught that word in language class, but I know it.”

“The classier version is ‘toi, toi, toi.’ In Australia, ‘chookas.’”

“You were a ballerina?”

“Once upon a time.” She didn’t refer to herself as one, but people outside the profession used the term indiscriminately.

“You wore a tutu and went up on your toes like they do?”

“I’ll dance on pointe in the second show.”

“Wow.” Lisa draped Ellie’s crystal-studded corset over the clothes rail. “Best be going, before I get told off for being a pest.”

“You’re not,” Ellie assured her. “But when my guys barge in, which they soon will, there won’t be room for all of us.”

“Just ask if there’s anything else I can do. I memorized your props list and wrote down where to place everything like you want.”

“Thanks. When you give up kittening for burlesque stardom, it’ll be a loss to this club.”

Lisa grinned. “No merde.”

Although Ellie relished her solitude, she was denied silence by the noise on the other side of the wall. An occasional shriek or excited squeal rose above the chorus of voices that she knew so well from years in prestigious ballet companies, and when she and the cast of her Stella Nue show toured major cities throughout her homeland and other countries. Returning to her dressing room, spartan or lavish, she’d face the mirror and ask herself how many performances until she figured out how else to use her meticulously trained body. And she would ponder where next to direct her ambition.

She crossed to the chaise longue crammed against one purple wall and sank onto its unyielding cushion. With relief, she closed her eyes, conscious of their dryness—from the spotlight’s glare and heat, plus insufficient sleep on the Eurostar from Paris. She couldn’t remember whether she’d replaced the bottle of lubricating drops in her show kit before leaving her suite at the Ritz Hotel.

Approaching footsteps halted at her door.

“Decent?”

“Bare-ly.”

Zack Adams, lively and effusive, had the ability to cheer her on her lowest days and brighten her darkest moods. He had also danced at City International Ballet in New York, until an injury limited his ability to perform his tour en l’air and grand jeté —feats not required of a male support dancer in a burlesque act.

Eyeing the lavender liquid in his martini glass, she asked, “How’s your Aviation?”

“Sublime.”

George Karras, his spouse, was drinking white wine. An excellent listener and a source of carefully considered aesthetic guidance, he choreographed their routines. When she started in burlesque, he’d designed her costumes, sourced the materials, and constructed the garments. Another reject from their ballet company, for failure to maintain the mandated weight standard, he was supremely elegant in his black tailcoat and tuxedo trousers.

The trio’s shared experience of constant evaluation of their physiques and humiliating criticism resulted in close comradeship.

Leaning against the doorframe, George said, “Don’t worry, I won’t let him order another. We can’t have him dropping you during a lift.”

“Hasn’t happened yet,” Zack shot back.

“Camille’s giving the stage crew instructions about the set for tomorrow’s first act. Aren’t we doing Treasure Chest? Did you check out your new doubloon pasties?”

“Not yet. How’s your rental apartment?”

“Great,” Zack replied. “Despite being so far from the best shopping.”

“George will take you anywhere you want to go. The Tube map is imprinted in his brain.” She unscrewed the top of a water bottle to break the seal.

“Camille says your club contract stipulates that a limousine will pick you up at the Ritz and take you back after the show.”

“Her idea, not mine. It can’t be much more than a five-minute walk along a well-lit stretch of Piccadilly.”

“Take advantage of all the perks,” George advised. “You’re about to lose them.”

“Don’t talk crazy,” Zack retorted. “She’s a multi-millionaire. She can ride in style whenever she wants. For as long as she likes.”

Her aunt joined them. Peering into the mirror, she smoothed her smoky silver hair, arranged in an artfully layered bob. “Don’t let the management overhear. I fight hard for contract riders.” She turned to Zack and poked his shoulder. “Save the yakking for after the show. Let her have some peace and quiet.” When the two men departed, she asked, “Did somebody bring you tonight’s menu?”

“I seem to be sitting on it.” Ellie shifted her bottom and retrieved the leatherette folder. “I’ll have the plain flatbread with hummus. Caviar makes me thirsty,” she said regretfully. “I can’t drink much water before going on again.”

Harry had always ordered caviar for her whenever he took her to his favorite New York oyster bar. They’d gone each Friday afternoon, after their last class of the day and before their respective evening rehearsals. When she left Juilliard to join the ballet company, they maintained the tradition.

“Something sweet?”

“Chocolate-dipped strawberries.”

Ellie waited until Camille was gone to pry open the note Lisa had delivered. The staple’s sharp tip pierced her thumb, and she pressed it against the paper to blot the drop of blood, leaving a red mark.

Dear Ellie, I look forward to seeing you again and wish to present a proposal that will benefit us both. Please ring or text at your earliest convenience. G.

No name, only the initial, followed by a telephone number with a UK prefix.

“Nice try,” she murmured.

Her fans and followers often sent handwritten messages. Through intensive online research, the most passionately devoted had discovered that Stella Nue’s birth name was Estelle and knew that during her dancing years she’d been billed as Ellie Lowery. Seeking to create a personal connection, they inevitably provided contact information—phone number, email address, social media handle. The creepiest obsessives maintained their anonymity while urging her to respond to their overtures.

She crumpled the paper and dropped it into the wastebasket. It landed on top of discarded tissues, strips of paper backing from her pastie tape, and a single uncooperative false eyelash.