Author's Notes: Kimonos were very popular as bathrobes in the 1920s (there was a craze for all things vaguely oriental, like mah johngg). 'Semiphor' is a method of communication using flags. Gotrocks was a slang term for anyone who probably had more money than was strictly necessary. :) "Came the dawn" is an expression taken from old title cards in silent movies, and means "It finally dawned on me."

Part 11

Idiot me. In protecting my rather dubious virtue, I'd forgotten that we were being billited on the third floor. Those two flights of stairs might as well have been one of those huge stretches up the side of an Incan pyramid, what with my load. I was panting and swearing in a very unladylike manner as I neared the final landing.

I could hear the girls milling around. Bienstock said,"All right girls, here are your room assignments. Wait... Where are my glasses?"

He must not have been able to find them, because Sue started calling off assignments. "Olga and MaryLou in 412. MayLou, keep your kimono buttoned when you call up room service. Josephine and Daphne in 413. Dolores and Sugar in 414..."

"Me and Sugar?" I heard Dolores pipe.

"Were you expecting a one-legged jockey?"

I heard Sugar say, "I wish they'd put us in the same room."

Joe replied, "So do I, but we'll be seeing a lot of each other."

grrrr. Oh, yeah? We'll see about that! There were more murmurings, but I was too busy trying not to descend precipitously, if ya know what I mean. I finally made it up to the floor as everyone was disappearing into their respective rooms. I headed toward 413.

The door was ajar, and I started to nudge it open with my foot, but stopped when I heard Joe say, "I suppose you'll want a tip?"

A very young voice answered. "Forget it, doll. You work here, I work here, and believe you me--it's nice to have you with..." I swear, he made that same clicking noise that Osgood had on the porch. This boy was dangerous. "...the organization." His voice took on what I guess he assumed was a suave tone. "Listen doll, what time do you get off tonight?"

"Why?" Oh, no. I could tell by the sound of that one word that Joe was 'getting interested'. Lord, the man would mount anything that would hold still.

The voice of what I assumed was the bellhop continued smoothly. "Because I'm workin' the night shift, and I got a bottle of gin, and as soon as there's a lull..." There was that clicking sound again.

I shoved the door open with my foot, making it bang against the wall, and glared at Joe. His took one look at my scowl and drew himself up haughtily. "Aren't you a little young for that, sonny?" I'll say he was. He was seventeen, if he was a day.

He gave Joe a fresh grin. "Oh, you wanna see my--driver's license?" The kid could get as much suggestion into two words as Osgood could. I wondered if they were related.

Joe licked his lips. I cleared my throat. Joe sighed, and said, "Get lost, will you?"

The kid laughed, heading for the door. "That's the way I like 'em: big and sassy!" As he passed me, he ran an eye over me. I gave him a look that dripped frost. He winked, and called back to Joe. "Bring your friend." He snapped his bowtie on its elastic before he left.

I kicked the door shut. "Why, that dirty old man!" I threw the instruments down in disgust. "Well, maybe not so old, but definitely dirty. I got pinched in the elevator. Actually, it went beyond a pinch. It was full-fledged grope."

"Well, now you know how the other half lives."

"Hey, don't give me that! I've never made their lives difficult, have I?" I peered into the mirror, trying to see what it was that Fielding had seen. "And I'm not even pretty."

"They don't care. Just so long as you're wearing a skirt. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull."

"Yeah? Well, you should know. You've been on the other side of the semiphor often enough." I'd had enough. "Let's blow this place."

"Blow where?"

I looked at him. "You were the one saying that the minute we hit Florida, we were going to beat it. What gives?"

"How can we leave? We're broke."

Okay, now I was getting suspicious. "We can get a job with another band. A male band."

"Listen Jer, right now Spats Columbo and his chums are looking for us in every male band in the country. So you got pinched in the elevator, so what? Would you rather be picking lead out of your navel?"

"Oh, all right!" I whipped off my hat and wig and tossed them on the bed. If I did this long enough, I'd have to let my hair grow so I could ditch that thing and... Where had that idea come from? "How long can we keep this up?"

"What are you beefing about? We get room and board, we get paid every week, there's palm trees and flying fish..."

I snarled, "What are you giving me with the flying fish?" I shook a finger at him. "I know why you want to stick around. You're after Sugar. I watched the two of you on the buss, all lovey-dovey, whispering and giggling and borrowing each other's lipstick."

"Oh, please, Jerry! I'm just giving her a little sympathy. She was telling me about what rotten luck she has with men. Like f'rinstance... She's in room 414, right? Well did you know that's the very same number she stayed in with her last male band, in Cincinatti?"

"Fascinating. Your point is?"

"She was with a saxophone player..."

"I've heard about them."

He ignored my jibe. "She was crazy about him. Two in the morning, and he sent her out for knackwurst and potato salad, but they were out of potato salad." Joe said this like he was announcing that the plague center had run out of serum.

"Tragedy."

He nodded. "So she got coleslaw. So he threw it right in her face. So you see? She needs a little warmth."

"Warmth, fine. Heat, no."

"Please, we're like sisters."

"Yeah? Well, I'm your fairy godmother, and I'm keeping an eye on you."

There was a knock at the door, and we heard Bienstock call, "Are you decent?"

I grabbed my wig and jammed it back on, "Then called, "Well, I don't know about decent, but we have our clothes on."

He came in, peering at us nearsightedly. It almost wouldn't have made a difference if I hadn't put the wig back on. "Have you girls seen a brown suitcase with a white stripe and my initials? It has all my resort clothes in it."

Joe looked around casually. "No, we haven't."

He scratched his head. "I can't understand it. First my glasses disappear, now one of my suitcases."

Sugar came up behind him. "Where's my ukelel?"

He threw up his hands. "Now a ukelele! There must be a sneak thief around here." He went out, shaking his head. Well, some people are just fated to go through life confused.

I handed over the case. "Here you go, Sugar."

"Thanks. A bunch of us girls are going for a swim. Want to come along?"

That sounded refreshing. "You betcha. But I don't have a suit."

"You don't need one. I don't have one, either." Joe perked up immediately. He drooped only a little when she continued, "We'll rent some at the bath house." She bounced. "I can't wait! I'm sure it's going to be just like you said, Josephine. I'm going to forget about saxophone players and get a millionaire, a young one.

The suspicion was reaching paranoia levels. "And what makes you so sure of that you'll make a prediction, Josephine?"

Joe smiled demurely. "Feminine intuition. No thanks, Sugar. I'd rather stay in and soak in a hot tub."

I shrugged. "Let her soak, Sugar. I'll go."

Joe arched a pencilled eyebrow at me. "Don't get burned, Daphne."

Sugar giggled. "Oh, I have some suntan lotion. I'll rub it on Daphne, and she can rub it on me. We'll rub it on each other. Bye."

Joe's tongue was hanging out when we left. I was thinking that I bet he was sorry now that he wasn't coming for a swim. I found out later that he had a lot more planned than a long, hot soak.

So we went down to the beach. Now, this really WAS a class operation. Private dressing rooms, and a large selection of bathing suits to choose from. Luckily there was a thick knit one, with a skirt. You know how wet cloth outlines things, and I had things I didn't want outlined. I had to be a little careful with the wig and the rubber cap, but it worked out. I made a very credible girl. A flat chested one, but hey--this was '29, flat was fashionable.

Oh, it was glorious! Especially after most of my life in Chicago. Sun, sand, salt water... The girls dashed into the waves and we all froliced like porpoises. Bliss!

At one point I was ducking myself, and was presented with an underwater view of Sugar's postierior. All right, I wasn't really interested, but the opportunity was too good to pass up, and I figured what the heck? See what all the fuss is about. So I...

She was squealing and slapping the water when I popped up. "Daphne! What are you doing?"

"Just a little trick I learned in the elevator." And I bet Osgood got more out of that manuever than I did. That gave me as much of a thrill as squeezing a tomato. Oh, well. I am what I am. A big wave was coming. "Oh, here comes a big one!" I grabbed her tight, and it swept us both off our feet, giggling madly. She really was a pretty nice girl.

After that tumble, we went back on the beach, where some of the other girls... I just noticed that I said 'other girls' instead of just 'girls'. Hmmm.... Anyway, they started tossing a beach ball around.

Sugar put on a little beach robe and tossed me a towel so I could dry off. I managed to get off the cap and leave the wig in place, and started drying off. The beach was fairly full. I noticed one of the millionaires (an actually young one for once) strolling along. Very dapper, in white flannels, a blazer with a crest, a silk scarf, a yachting cap and Kaching! glasses. He was carrying, of course, a Wall Street Journal. Hm. Maybe that was Sugar's chance. I might point him out to her later.

Sugar said, "You know, Daphne, I had no idea you were such a big girl."

"You should have seen me before I went on my diet." I finished drying and folded the towel.

"No, I mean your shoulders, and your arms."

"That's from carrying around the bull fiddle."

"But there's one thing that I envy you for. You're so flat-chested. Clothes hand so much better on you than they do on me."

Sigh Women are never satisfied with their bodies, are they? I mean, she had a set of hangers the world admired.

"Look out, Daphne!" I looked up just in time to catch the beach ball Dolores threw rather than get smacked by it.

"Come on, Sugar, let's play."` We skipped off hand in hand to join the other girls. We slipped into the circle they'd formed, and soon were tossing the beachball about with wild abandon. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't done something this innocently childish for years. Guys just don't have the same leeway to be frivolous as girls do.

I noticed young Mr. Gotrocks was sitting on a low beach chair nearby, probably watching the show around the edge of his Journal. I noticed the little kid playing with the sandpail near him take off running, but didn't think much about it. Later I learned that Joe (rat extraordinair) had scared theh poor kid off to take possession of his pail of seashells. How the heck he had determined that they would be an effective seduction tool, I'll never know.

We were tossing the ball, chanting "I love coffee, I love tea. How many boys are stuck on me? One, two, three..." You know the game, you go till someone misses. Well, this time a throw went wild over Sugar's head. She turned and trotted after it. Right toward Gotrocks. Oo. I thought. There's your chance, Sugar. Go for it.

She didn't have to go for it. He went for it. His foot stuck out just a few more inches as she went past, and boom! Down she went in the sand.

A voice with an upper-crusty sort of accent (but it couldn't quite decide if it was English Aristocrat, Boston Brahmin, or Back Bay) said, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry!"

There was something familiar about that voice. I thought I detectected just a hint of Chicago in the rest of the mish-mosh. As Gotrocks lowered his paper to look at the sprawled Sugar, I took a good, hard look.

My head jerked back in surprise. What the...? I looked at the fancy resort clothes, the financial paper, the glasses. Came the dawn.

I hissed to myself, "Joe--sephine!"