Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen Page A

any of those auditions—though she wouldn‧t have been able to say why exactly.
    “Oh, honey, look at all these fancy jobs you‧re thinking about!” Fay‧s kimono was white with blue flowers, almost as pale as her hair and complexion, and her sleeve brushed Letty‧s shoulder as she peered over it at the last page of the Weekly Stage. “You‧ve got to start with something a little less ambitious.” They all hoped to make it on the stage one way or another, but Fay was currently the only roommate who earned money at it, as a chorus girl in one of the big variety shows. Glimpsing her long, coltish legs crossed and dangling from the edge of the couch, Letty found herself wondering if she would ever have the height for a job like that.
    “Oh, hush, we all have to find out for ourselves,” Paulette said, coming toward them with a steaming cup of coffee in her hands.
    “Sad,” Kate interjected from the couch, upon which she reclined as she repaired a wide, beaded belt that she had damaged the previous evening, “but true.”
    “Oh, no —not the new Gordon Grange play. How tiresome,” Fay went on, continuing to spy over Letty‧s shoulder at the wanted listing. He was a playwright Mother used to speak admiringly of, and the part called for a waiflike brunette, which was exactly Letty‧s type. Though she couldn‧t admit it to these girls, who all spoke as though they‧d never been surprised by anything, she had already decided that the part was perfect for her and that if only she could get up the courage, fate would make it her first real job. “They call him a genius, but geniuses are just like other men, you know.”
    “Except they expect more and do less,” Kate put in.
    “You just have to start trying out,” Fay said, patting her white-blond bob. “You‧ll be scared for a while, and then you won‧t be scared anymore, and eventually something will stick. I can‧t tell you how many times I heard no before I—”
    “Before she said yes!” Kate interjected bawdily, and then threw back her frizzy head and howled in laughter.
    Bewildered, Letty sat up and crossed her pale legs under her navy skirt. She wasn‧t quite sure what Kate meant, and if she meant what Letty thought she meant, whether it would hurt Fay‧s feelings. But then she realized that Fay thought it was just as funny—she was laughing even harder than Kate was. Letty, who had started to blush, refocused her eyes on the paper.
    “Oh, sweetheart, don‧t mind them,” Paulette said quickly. She handed the cup of coffee to Fay, bent down on Letty‧s other side, and began rearranging her hair. “You‧ll get there your own way. Anyway, Fay, you know you really aren‧t so bad. You‧d never do anything as bad as what Clara Hay does.”
    “That is very true,” Fay said, leaning back on the couch and crossing her legs the other way.
    “Who is Clara Hay?” Letty asked.
    “Oh, just a girl who works with me at the club. Hasn‧t got an ounce of real talent, but she gets by—doing things other girls won‧t.” Perhaps Paulette saw the new girl squirm a little, because she waved her hand in the air and said, “Never mind. Don‧t think of it. What we need to think about is your hair—it‧s really too old-fashioned. Can I fix it? Please?”
    Without looking up, Kate passed her the scissors that had been resting on a side table. Letty‧s large eyes rolled up toward Paulette, who was smiling so kindly that it was impossible to do anything but nod in agreement.
    “Come over here.” Paulette pulled a wooden chair out from the small table in the kitchenette and gestured toward it.
    Tentatively, Letty took a seat. She closed her eyes. Holding her breath, she tried to banish the thought of what Mother would have said. The room grew quiet as Paulette placed the blades an inch below her ear and began to cut. In the few days that she‧d spent in New York, she hadn‧t yet heard a noise quite as loud as that, and she could not help but gasp