“Holy mackerel,” one of the men muttered, captivated.
Florenz Ziegfeld beamed. “Gentlemen, may I present the Ziegfeld Follies’ newest star, Miss Theta Knight!” Mr. Ziegfeld said, taking Theta’s hand and helping her down the steps and into a front-row seat.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to wait for my stockings to dry,” Theta purred and glanced over at Henry.
Don’t worry, he mouthed from his seat at the piano.
A reporter tipped his hat. “Miss Knight?”
“That’s my name,” Theta said, and even that was a lie.
“What do you remember about your life in Russia?”
“It was cold,” Theta answered. She dangled her unlit cigarette until a reporter offered a match, and Theta looked up at him with her bedroom eyes. “Even our sables wore sables.”
The reporters laughed, and Theta relaxed a little. If you kept them entertained, they didn’t get too personal. They asked their questions, and Theta answered each one, making it up as she went along. It seemed to Theta that her entire life had been improvised and reinvented to fit whatever story she needed in order to survive. She knew about lying by omission—how you could leave out parts of yourself to be filled in by other people who only saw in you what worked for their own reinvented lives. Theta rarely corrected them. What was the point? Most of the stars in Hollywood had phony names given to them by agents and studio heads, and backgrounds invented out of thin air and a desire to sell movie tickets. That was part of the dream factory.
Theta stole another glance at Henry. At the piano, he yawned, barely awake. Shadows showed under his eyes, and his face was much paler than usual. Maybe he didn’t see it, but Theta did.
“Miss Knight?” a reporter prompted her.
“Huh?” Theta said. “I mean”—she put the husky purr back into her voice, a woman of mystery—“yes?”
“Say something in Russian,” a reporter cajoled.
“Twenty-three skidoo-ski,” Theta deadpanned.
“What part of Russia is that from?”
“The swell part.”
“Now, boys, go easy. Miss Knight was only a little girl when they smuggled her out of a war-torn country in the dead of night, to be delivered to this great country by loyal servants and raised in an orphanage by kindly nuns,” Mr. Ziegfeld said. “It was quite traumatic! The poor girl has amnesia and doesn’t remember much at all. The doctors don’t expect that she ever will.”
“That true, Miss Knight?”
Theta blew a plume of smoke in the reporter’s direction, enjoying his cough. “If Mr. Ziegfeld says it’s true, then it’s true.” She couldn’t wait for this dog and pony show to be over so she could sing and dance. That’s the act she was good at, not this one.
“Hey, honey, are you spooked to perform here after what happened to Daisy Goodwin? Murdered right up there on that stage!”
Theta paled. If she told them about that night and the secret power that had helped her to escape from Naughty John, the newspaper boys would have a story to wipe Flo’s “Russian princess” invention right off the page.
“I don’t spook easy,” Theta said, letting her answer out on a plume of cigarette smoke. “If I did, I wouldn’t live in Manhattan.”
“You worried about this sleeping sickness?”
“Who sleeps? I’m a Follies girl.”
“Say, Theta, honey—you wanna give ’em a little song and dance?” Wally nudged.
“It’s what I live for.” Theta dropped her coat on the chair and walked past Henry. “Look alive,” she whispered. “We’re on.”
Theta’s heart beat fast. She avoided looking at Wally. “This is a brand-new song…” Theta started. In his seat, Herbert Allen preened like a man who expected the world to go his way. “… written by the talented Henry DuBois the Fourth.”
Theta gestured toward Henry. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Herbie’s face shift from smug to shocked. “It’s called ‘Slumberland.’ Hit it, Hen!”
When Theta finished selling Henry’s new song for all she was worth, the news hawks applauded.
“Not bad,” one of the reporters mused. “Different.”
“Yeah. A real surprise,” Herbie said. There was murder in his eyes.
“Gentlemen, I give you the Follies’ newest sensation, Miss Theta Knight,” Mr. Ziegfeld crowed.
“And her piano player, Henry DuBois the Fourth,” Henry mumbled to himself. “Thank you, thank you. Hold your applause, folks.”