The Dollhouse(33)

The bass player dropped his bow and reached out to break her fall, but she still landed with a loud thud. Sam raced up to the stage to help.

Esme stomped over to Darby while the girl was carried off by the bassist and drummer. “I knew she wouldn’t make it. This is my big night and she’s ruined it.”

“You can still do the song. You sound terrific.”

“The final number’s supposed to rev everyone up. I can’t rev without a backup singer.”

Sam, who was headed back to the kitchen, stopped in front of her. “Darby can back you up.”

Esme looked up at Sam, then at Darby, her eyes wide.

Darby laughed. “He’s joking.”

“I’m not, I heard you singing the right notes. Not loud, but the right ones.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I don’t sing.”

“I just heard you.”

“Okay, I sang in the chorus at school, but I never did anything for real.”

“Backup isn’t for real; you just stand there and do it.” Esme sang a phrase, her hands stretched out to Darby.

No matter how badly she wanted to help her friend, Darby knew her place, and it wasn’t onstage at a nightclub. She pictured the audience laughing at her, the same way the Ford girls laughed at her.

“I’ll embarrass you, Esme. You’ll do fine alone.”

“Sing.” She started in again.

“I can’t.”

Sam punched her playfully in the arm. “Sing under your breath, then. Like before. Just to prove to Esme that I’m not crazy.”

His touch startled her. She put a hand over the spot where his knuckles had hit her upper arm and rubbed it gently. Darby sang along, quietly, her voice hesitant but on pitch.

“Yes. You’ve got to do it. You do that three times, whenever I do the chorus, and you sway your hips a little, and that’s it.”

“My hips don’t sway.”

“Come with me.”

Esme dragged her down the hall and opened a door.

“Welcome to the green room.” Esme swept her arms around as if they’d entered a parlor in Versailles. A couple of raggedy couches lined the walls, one of which was taken up by the prone Tanya, who snored softly. A small table tucked behind the door held some cups and a pot of coffee. “This is where the cats hang out before each show.”

“Why is it the green room? It’s not green.”

“No idea. That’s just what they call it. Wait here a moment.”

Darby sat on the couch opposite Tanya, her knees pressed tightly together and her hands on her lap. She didn’t want to look like a baby in front of Sam. And she only had to sing three choruses. She’d pretend she was back at school at the end-of-year concert, surrounded by other girls. If she did that, she might be able to do the song without falling over like Tanya.

Esme reappeared carrying her purse, the contents of which she poured out on the floor by Darby’s feet. An array of cosmetics, from lipsticks to powders, scattered about like Christmas tree ornaments.

“Where did you get all these?” asked Darby.

“Whenever a giraffe leaves something behind in the bathroom, I swipe it. It’s like when customers at the Flatted Fifth leave a tip for the waiters.”

“Won’t the girls notice?”

“Nah. They get all that stuff for free, anyway.”

Esme knelt in front of Darby and twisted a bright orange-red lipstick out of its casing.

Darby bit her lip.

“You’re right, it’s too orange. Try this.” Esme replaced it with one that was a softer shade of coral.

“Mother said I don’t have a face for cosmetics.”

“The only requirement for wearing cosmetics is to have a face, and you have one, as far as I can see.”

“It won’t help.” The same words Mr. Saunders had said when Darby and Mother had come back from shopping for Darby’s “city clothes.”

“I like a challenge. Your face is plain, but sometimes that’s the best kind.”

Esme smoothed a cream over Darby’s eyelids and filled in her eyebrows with some kind of stick. The wand of mascara was frightening, but Esme told her to look at the ceiling and then the floor while she covered her eyelashes in black goo.

She grabbed a wide comb next. “Not done yet.” Darby tried not to wince as her hair was combed backward from the way she normally did it, then flipped to one side and combed back again. “Now look.”

A mirror hung crookedly above the table holding the coffee. Darby stood up and stared. Her eyes, defined in black, appeared bigger than they actually were. Her hair puffed up a couple of inches above her scalp, a triumph over gravity. A plastic taste leached into her mouth from the lipstick.

“I look so different.”

“You look pretty.”

Darby wasn’t so sure. “Mother would be horrified. I look like one of those girls.”

Esme’s grip on her shoulders tightened. She put her face next to Darby’s and looked at her in the mirror with a quiet tenderness. “For ten minutes of your life, forget about your mother. You will be one of those girls, the ones who fool around and don’t care and get into trouble. But it’s all an act. I know you’re a good girl. I’m a good girl. We do it for the audience, ’cause they got hunger for girls like that.”