“And lose the financial backing for the tour?” Vernon said, sighing.
“So? Get the money somewhere else.” Zeta faced him with her hands on her hips.
“You know I’ve tried, Zeta. This is the first time someone has stepped forward to finance the tour to London and even Paris! Don’t you know what this means? A chance for us all to be seen. For you to be seen,” he said smoothly.
“At my expense! I’m the star of this show, and suddenly this little peasant comes out of nowhere, and now she has three songs! I don’t think so.”
Ruby remained behind the curtains, standing in the wings with Bessie while Zeta threw her hands up onstage.
“You know very well I have been with you for ten years. Ten years! I have fans who come only to see me, and now this? You cast me aside like day-old bread?” Zeta said, dramatically flinging her arms out.
“Zeta, stop the dramatics! You aren’t being tossed aside! For you, nothing has changed. You still have top billing, and you still have the same amount of songs as you had before,” Vernon said calmly.
“Oh yes. You think I’m stupid! I know you very well. You are grooming her. So she gains experience and spends time onstage until she is very good. And then—poof! I’ll be gone.”
“You’re being irrational,” Vern told the diva.
“Irrational? I am being what? Max! Max!” Max scurried forward as Zeta called his name. “Irrational? What is this word? Tell me!”
“I’m right here, Zeta. I said the word. Ask me,” Vern said coldly. “It means you are being unreasonable.”
“Ha! That’s right! I’m supposed to sit back and watch as little by little the clodhopper takes over my place in the show and my life. Does she want my dressing room? Huh? Does she want my comb and brush? My costumes? My hairpieces? Tell me! What else does she want?” she yelled to the empty audience.
Several seconds ticked by.
“Are you done, Zeta?”
“It seems I am.”
“You might try and look at this in a positive light. A tour to Europe benefits us all,” he said as Zeta whirled away from him.
Flinging the curtain back, she came face-to-face with Ruby and Bessie. Her dark eyes bore into Ruby’s even as Ruby tried to smile at her.
“Chi la fa l' aspetti,” Zeta said in a cold voice before she moved past them to her dressing room.
“What did she say?” Ruby asked.
Bessie shook her head. “I’ve heard her say it before. Something to the effect of ‘what goes around comes around.’”
Ruby sighed. “Great. Making friends wherever I go.”
Bessie placed an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Don’t take it to heart, Ruby. Show business is like this. It can be crushing, but you heard Vern. Zeta isn’t cut; in fact, she’s lost nothing. Yet. But it’s all the more reason why you need to shine brightly.”
Ruby took the sheet music she had purchased from Ezra’s shop and walked onstage. She handed both songs to the piano player and took center stage.
Bessie took a seat facing Ruby. “Now when you sing, remember: keep your head up, pos
ture erect, and your eyes engaged with the audience.”
Ruby nodded as she began to follow Bessie’s direction.
Lourdes brushed her long black hair in front of the small vanity table and looked into the mirror. She could see King sleeping soundly in the bed, something he always did immediately after they made love. She knew that King was quite taken with the woman that she had met at the party. The singer.
She smiled smugly. Although Caroline Parker was certainly ill and had been for some time, she was going nowhere, and King would never divorce her. He would not want the scandal, and even if divorce did cross his mind, Alice would forbid it. Besides, Lourdes surmised, she must wait and bide her time. If she could become pregnant, everything would change and mostly for her own good fortune. She may only be the mistress now, but with the Parker heir in her belly, everything would revolve around her, and she would have nothing to fear.
Ruby had performed several times onstage and was getting more used to the oddity of singing to strangers who had paid for the privilege to hear her sing. She took Bessie’s critiques to heart as Bessie watched her from the wings and would then make suggestions on her performance.
The more she performed, the more quickly Ruby became the target of young men and their attentions. The first time it happened, she was walking down Broadway when a man whistled from a passing streetcar, calling her by name. She had never met the man, but then she realized he had called her “Ruby the Southern Belle,” her stage name.