Chapter Seventeen
Poppy needs to use Agnes’s industrial-grade fabric steamer.
Her new costume is high-maintenance, but worth it.
Ever since walking in on Bette, Mallory, and Agnes conspiring last week, she’s working extra hard.
That night was a wake-up call: Bette isn’t going to be the mentor Poppy had hoped she’d be.
Worse, she’s actively recruiting her competition!
Well, Poppy’s not going to just sit back and accept defeat.
She’s in it to win it—starting with the costume she splurged on for tonight’s show.
She never pays retail for costumes or props, but thanks to Justin Baxter, she has some extra cash and figured, why not?
Isn’t that what people mean when they say invest in yourself?
So she’d gone to Bloomingdale’s and found a sumptuous black velvet cape for her Twilight-inspired performance. But now the steamer is acting up. She sits on the nearby ottoman to try and reset it. At her feet, she notices a scrap of paper. She picks it up to find it’s a business card.
Mallory’s business card.
She feels the weight of the thick paper stock, turning it over in her hand.
What’s that woman’s game? What kind of lawyer wants to also be a burlesque performer?
Isn’t that a little greedy? How would Mallory like it if Poppy showed up at the law firm and stole her thunder?
Unfortunately, Poppy didn’t go to college, so that’s an unlikely scenario.
But then she realizes she doesn’t have to compete with Mallory in the workplace. All she needs to do is let the law firm know that Mallory is competing with her.
Poppy checks the hallway to make sure no one is nearby to overhear her. Then she closes the door tightly before dialing the number on the business card.
Mallory barely makes it down to the Blue Angel in time for her big night. She might be paranoid, but the entire workday she felt like Patricia was watching her especially closely, and she didn’t feel comfortable leaving until after her boss did.
Now, perspiring from the commute and the rush to change into her costume, she sucks in her breath as Bette pulls the laces on her corset.
“Just breathe normally,” Bette says. “Or else I might accidentally make it too tight.”
By now, Mallory regrets agreeing to do the show. It was a foolish idea and a waste of time. But Bette is right about one thing: She needs something to get her mind off Alec. And she doesn’t want to let her friend down. So for those two reasons, she decides to go through with it.
Bette ties the last inch of laces at the top, then steps back to let Mallory take in her reflection in the mirror.
She barely recognizes herself; her body is poured into the black satin corset, and a lacy black garter rests on her waist, hooked onto thigh-high fishnets.
Agnes suggested she wear only pasties and the garter with fishnets, but Mallory refuses. She does have some limits.
“Size seven?” Agnes appears beside her, offering a pair of red patent leather platform heels. Very high heels.
“Yes. How did you know?”
Agnes rolls her eyes as if that’s a ridiculous question. “Take them.”
Mallory steps into them, fastening the straps.
“What’s your stage name?” Agnes asks.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a name. You think I can announce you as Mallory? You have five minutes to let me know.”
Mallory looks over at Bette, who’s now busy adjusting her sexy Alice costume.
In addition to the powder-blue satin bustier, she wears a short matching skirt lined with white crinoline, and thigh-high white stockings with bows at the top.
Her shoes are chunky, seven-inch black patent leather Mary Janes.
Her dark hair is covered with a long blond wig.
With the light hair and her fair skin, she looks as ethereal as the Alice in Tim Burton’s film version of the tale.
“Five minutes are up: I need a name,” Agnes says.
No way that was five minutes.
“I’ve got it,” Bette says, leaning closer to the mirror to adjust her fake eyelashes. “She’s Moxie.”
“Moxie?” Mallory and Agnes say at the same time.
Bette turns to face them. “That’s what it takes to be a star, right? You said so yourself, Agnes.” She smiles at Mallory. “You’re a Moxie. And believe me—it takes one to know one.”
Mallory stands behind the curtain, heart pounding as Kitty’s number winds down to the final strains of the Peggy Lee song “Big Spender.” Most of the others have slipped out into the audience to watch her debut and cheer her on, so Mallory is alone with her nervous excitement.
When Rude Ralph walks past her to step onto the stage, she knows she has about thirty seconds.
He’ll lead the crowd in applause for Kitty, then introduce the next performer while Mallory picks up Kitty’s discarded wardrobe.
The stage lights turn bright and Mallory walks out, a few paces behind Ralph, scanning the stage for Kitty’s discarded clothes and props. She’s only dimly aware of the audience noise, a dull background buzz as she finds one glove … and a stocking. Oh god, this is going to take forever.
“Another round of applause for Kitty Klitty’s debut performance,” Ralph says. The crowd erupts into whistling and stomping. “And how about a hand for our new stage kitten, Moxie.”
The swell of renewed applause delights her, and this all suddenly feels like a big, fun game of dress-up.
The audience isn’t looking at her, they’re looking at Moxie.
It’s liberating to think of it that way; Moxie, her alter ego, is a woman who wears corsets and platform heels and exists in a world that unfolds in front of a blue velvet curtain.
This emboldens her to take a peek at the audience. And what she sees shakes her to her core: There, in the front row, is Patricia Loomis.
Mallory drops the stockings. She backs slowly away and then turns to run rush behind the velvet curtain.
“What are you doing?” Bette says, intercepting her backstage.
“Oh my god, Bette! My boss is in the audience—my boss. How is this even possible? What is she doing here? Why, why, why did I do something so stupid? I don’t know what to do.”
“The first thing to do is go back onstage and finish the job or Agnes is going to kick you out of here.”
“I can’t.”
“Moxie, that woman isn’t your boss in here,” Bette says. She looks her in the eyes, holding her shoulders. “You’re the boss in here.”
“Technically, Agnes is the boss,” she says.
“Exactly. So step into your power and do what you came here to do.”
Bettes seems so certain of her words, so sure of herself.
Mallory takes a deep breath. She hears Ralph still talking, stalling until someone comes out to clear the stage for the next performer.
She has to go take care of it. The damage is already done—Patricia saw her.
She probably thinks Mallory has been moonlighting all along.
But she never liked her anyway. The minute she failed the bar, she became damaged goods.
But not at the Blue Angel: Bette is offering her something new and exciting.
Bette sees something in her no one else does, a dimension that she herself didn’t know existed.
One that she’s not ready to bury to please other people—not her boss, and not her boyfriend.
She walks back onstage.
“Stage Kitten Moxie, did you forget something?” Ralph says, winking at her. “Esteemed guests, it seems even the most seasoned professionals can lose their wits when confronted with all of this hotness in one place.”
Mallory collects the discarded wardrobe, keeping her eyes lowered. But like a driver passing a car wreck on the highway, she can’t resist a peek at the audience.
This time, Patricia is gone.
Mallory finishes collecting Kitty’s props, relieved to be backstage. She heads dutifully to the dressing room, wondering how she’s going to continue for the rest of the show.
Why would Patricia be there? Mallory doubts she’s a secret burlesque fan. And even if she is, Mallory doubts her work ethic would allow for being out on a weeknight. And then to show up at this particular club, on the exact night Mallory happened to debut as a stage kitten?
Agnes appears in the doorway. And she doesn’t look happy.
“Did you forget how to pick up clothes and bring them back here, Lawyer?” Agnes said.
“No,” Mallory says. “I just—”
“This is a place of business. Take it seriously. If not, you won’t be sitting in the audience, never mind set one foot on that stage.”
“I’m sorry, Agnes. It won’t happen again.”
She notices Poppy watching them from her perch at a vanity, a strange smile on her face. It’s as if she’s witnessing something she expected to see. And Mallory has her answer: Patricia Loomis didn’t show up tonight by some fluke. Poppy had something to do with it. But how?
After the show, Bette invites her to join the rest of the performers at a nearby bar called Elixir.
“The girls want to buy you drinks,” she says. But Mallory isn’t in the mood to celebrate. The temporary high of stepping onstage, of inhabiting an alter ego called Moxie, was tempered by the reality that she was messing with her real life. She suddenly misses Alec with a ferocious ache in her gut.
Mallory lingers in the dressing room even after she’s changed back into her street clothes.
“You coming?”
“I can’t. I’m behind at the office and have to go in tomorrow,” she said. “But thanks for everything. It was amazing.”
“But it’s a weekend.”
Mallory nods like, tell me about it. She can see Bette is deciding whether or not to push the issue. She doesn’t.
“Aside from your little freak-out, you did good. I think Agnes likes you,” she says, kissing goodbye on the cheek. “I’ll talk to her and see if she wants you back.”
“Oh, Bette, I don’t know. This was just a onetime thing. You know, for the experience.”
Bette gives her a look she can’t decipher, a mix of disappointment and … pity?
“Hey, are you coming? I want to buy you a drink,” Kitty Klitty says. There’s something wide-eyed and innocent about her, and Mallory appreciates her kindness.
“Oh, no. Thanks, Kitty. Not tonight.”
“Well, I wanted to thank you for stepping in tonight,” Kitty says. “If one of the other girls had to cover for me tonight they’d have made me pay for it somehow.”
Mallory thinks of Patricia and shudders. So that’s it. Poppy made her pay for it. But why?
“No problem,” she says.
“Maybe we can convince her to do it again,” Bette says with a wink.
“Of course she’ll do it again! It’s the Blue Angel.”