The Vanishing Half(64)

She hurried over to the man on the corner, who smiled as he leaned in to light her cigarette. A flicker in the darkness, then she was gone.



* * *



—

BARRY SAID THAT Kennedy Sanders was a rich bitch.

“You know the type,” he told Jude. “A couple of solos in the high school choir and now she thinks she’s Barbra Streisand.” He was putting on his face in the backstage of Mirage for the Sunday brunch show, the only time slot available now that The Midnight Marauders had taken over his evenings. He hated the early call time and the thinner crowds but he loved being Bianca too much to wait three weeks until the play closed. He gestured behind him and Jude yanked the hairbrush jutting out of his gym bag.

“So what do her parents do?” she asked.

“Who knows?”

“They haven’t been by the theater?”

“Hell, no,” Barry said. “You think they’d come around that dump? No ma’am, she comes from real money. Some hoity-toity folks, big house in the hills, all that. Why you asking about her anyway?”

“No reason,” she said.

But that afternoon, she rode the bus downtown to the Stardust Theater. The Sunday matinee was starting in a half hour; the teenage usher wouldn’t let her inside without a ticket, so she paced on the sidewalk under the green eaves. She already felt foolish riding down in the first place. What would she even say to Kennedy? She tried to think of what Early might do. The key to hunting, he’d told her, is pretending to be someone else. But she’d never been able to be anyone but herself, so when the usher shooed her away, she slunk off to the sidewalk. Of course right then she bumped into Kennedy hustling toward the entrance. She wore jean shorts so short, the pocket flaps were showing, and a pair of worn cowboy boots.

“Sorry,” they both said, then Kennedy laughed.

“Well, goddamn,” she said. “You following me or something?”

“No, no,” Jude said quickly. “I’m looking for my friend but they won’t let me inside. I don’t have a ticket.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Like Fort Knox in here,” she said. Then she told the usher, “She’s with me,” and like that, Jude was fumbling after her through the lobby, past backstage, and into her dressing room. The room was barely bigger than a closet, the yellow paint chipping off the walls.

Under the dim mirror lights, Kennedy plopped into the worn leather chair.

“Donna wanted to skin you alive,” she said.

“What?” Jude said.

“After you ruined her rug. God, you should’ve seen her, running around like you’d slaughtered her firstborn. My rug! My rug! It was a riot. Well, not for you, probably.” She spun in her chair, eyeing herself in the mirror. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Jude.”

“Like the song?”

“Like the Bible.”

“I like it,” Kennedy said. “Hey Jude, not to be a bitch or anything, but I’ve gotta change.”

“Oh,” Jude said. “I’m sorry.”

She started to back out the door but Kennedy said, “Don’t go. You can help me. I can never get into this thing on my own.” She was tugging the big hooped dress from the opening number out of the closet. Jude smoothed the wrinkles out of the orange fabric as Kennedy yanked her T-shirt over her head. She was slender and tan, wearing a matching pink bra and panty set. Jude tried not to watch, staring instead at the cluttered countertop covered in palettes of makeup, a curling iron, gold earrings, a crumpled candy wrapper.

“So where you from, Hey Jude?” Kennedy said. “Bring that over, will you? Jesus, I hate this thing. It always makes me sneeze.” She lifted her arms and Jude stared into the smoothness of her armpits as she helped lift the dress over her head. True to her word, Kennedy let out one dainty sneeze before slipping her arms into the sleeves.

“Louisiana,” Jude said.

“No kidding. So’s my mother. I’m from here. Well, I don’t know if you can say you’re from a place if you’ve never left. Can you? I don’t know how anything works. Zip me?”

She spoke so quickly, Jude felt dizzy following along.

“Which part?” she asked.

“Hey, can you hurry? Curtain’s in twenty and I haven’t done my makeup yet.” She pulled her blonde hair off her shoulder. Jude stepped behind her, tugging the zipper.

“What’s your mother’s last name?” she said. “Maybe I know her people.”

Kennedy laughed. “I doubt that.”

What was she doing? She’d seen a woman who may have looked like her mother and now she’d ended up stalking a white girl and helping her into a ridiculous costume? What did she care, anyway? She’d never even met Stella. Kennedy leaned into the mirror, powdering her face. For the first time, she was quiet and focused, like Barry right before a performance. “I have to get into my zone,” he always said, shooing Jude before his curtain call. Sometimes she lingered in the doorway and watched as a veil seemed to drop before his face. One moment he was Barry, the next, Bianca. She could see a similar moment passing through Kennedy right now. It felt more intimate to witness than seeing the girl in her underwear. She turned to leave.

“You don’t know anyone named Vignes, do you?” Kennedy called after her. “That’s my mother’s name. Or was her name.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Estelle Vignes. But everyone calls her Stella.”