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  Chapter 2 – Lookers, Stunners and Shiners

  “Hey, Big Bird, you wouldn’t be trying to hold out on me. Would you, Big Bird?”

  Indigo Satin’s palm recognized the weight of silver and gold. Her name attracted more of the polishers than that of any of the other girls whose letters glowed and blinked on the large sign above the front entrance to the Crystal Palace. Indigo’s swaying hips and arching breasts made her the favorite of Lady Finch’s girls, and the shape of her lean demanded many a coin from the polishers who visited the Palace to look upon its delights.

  Indigo removed a silver wig of curls, and her eyes blazed as she looked into the mirror in front of her. “So what’s it about, Big Bird? My take’s feeling awful light at the end of the night. You wouldn’t be holding any of my coin back, would you Big Bird?”

  The other girls combing their hair or applying their rouge peeked out from their mirrors and strained their ears.

  Lady Finch hated Indigo’s nickname for her. Though not old, Lady Finch could no longer call herself young, nor had her youth ever been blessed with the curves of all the girls who danced in Lady Finch’s Crystal Palace. Her figure had never made a polisher swoon. A tall and thin frame ran through the core of her shape, with little of the swell that made a man’s eye pause to regard her treasure. Lady Finch’s eyes didn’t sparkle. She feared her limbs were too long. Lady Finch thought she looked more like a bird than a woman far before Indigo Satin granted her that cutting moniker.

  But on that occasion when Indigo Satin tried to wield that nickname as a weapon, Lady Finch smiled. Even Indigo Satin would have to swallow the truth that the curves and the swells that tonight made her name so popular among those glowing upon the sign above the Palace’s entrance would too soon fail her. Even Indigo Satin would eventually be forced off of the stage.

  “I’m withholding your looker’s fee tonight, Indigo.”

  The girls gasped at their mirrors before grabbing at platinum and pink wigs.

  Indigo’s eyes widened in astonishment. “You’re not serious. Woman, I’m the hottest number you’ve got.”

  Lady Finch shrugged. “Maybe I need to buy new light bulbs for all these mirrors in this dressing room. Maybe I need to replace the leather upholstery on the booths, or maybe I need to update the sound system. Besides, Indigo, you look into that mirror in front of you and try to tell me that you’re the same girl who first walked into my Palace. Look into the mirror and try to convince yourself of it.”

  “Did you just call me old?” Indigo’s question hissed.

  “Indigo, this place teems with magic, but even the Palace’s power can’t prevent Father Time from pulling you off of that stage - more often than not, far sooner than you’re ready to accept.”

  “I’ll look better old than you ever did young, Big Bird.”

  Lady Finch smiled. She had struck a nerve very close to Indigo Satin’s heart. “True, but I call the shots in the Crystal Palace. Not you, nor any of the other girls, no matter how many polishers you all drive wild. I’ve a business to run, and I have to make sure I gather the shiners. Whatever magic you or any of the other girls arouse in the Palace all comes down to collecting that coin. Let me tell you, Indigo Satin, I keep a close count, and you’re not collecting the shiners like you used to.”

  “That’s not fair. You know the numbers are down for all of the girls because of all the dust. All that ash, and soot, and grime in the wind is keeping the polishers away. The polishers can’t get down from their towers because they’re working so hard to keep all the glass clean.”

  Lady Finch rolled her eyes. “The Palace has seen worse storms in its time.”

  Yet Lady Finch was not so sure she believed her comment as she watched Indigo Satin snatch her shiners and stomp out of the dressing room’s back entrance. A curtain of dust swept into the chamber, and the girls groaned at their mirrors as their brushes worked frantically to sift from their hair the grime that blew in from the quick opening and closing of that Palace back door. The Crystal Palace had witnessed many a dust storm upon that river shore opposite of the skyline of glass towers. Lady Finch had very good reason for draping her club in so many winking, neon lights and very good reason for owning such a massive and expensive marque, very good reason for earning such a steep electrical bill. Her Crystal Palace had to glow through so much dust.

  But Lady Finch still felt uneasy. The dust storms had never billowed across that river with such intensity. A fresh coat of dust swept into the Palace each time a visitor entered through the double glass doors, and Lady Finch and her girls couldn’t clean the martini glasses and the tables quickly enough to prevent a film of dirt from gathering on every surface. She wondered how the polishers found the motivation to wake up each morning and rise upon those towers when the dust storms mocked their efforts. Lady Finch harbored very real, and very deep, fears for the Palace’s enterprise, for she didn’t doubt all of her light bulbs and signs would go dark if the dust so fractured the polishers’ spirit that they had no energy for the thrills that swayed upon her stages. It was better for the girls to think her cruel than for them to think her afraid, and so she would imply to Indigo that age, and not dust, was the reason why that dancer’s take diminished, though Indigo Satin remained a woman even the dullest polisher sitting at that dancer’s stage craved to ravish.

  After donning a wig of golden tresses, Merry Fortune stepped away from her mirror and swayed to gauge how effectively her knee-high boots might attract a polisher’s eye.

  “The dust is going to deliver something to the Palace, Ms. Finch. My skin can feel it.” Merry paused to adjust the laces of her red corset. “The dust always changes things when it billows in like it has during the last couple of weeks.”

  “You look smashing, Merry. Maybe you’re not one of my stunners just yet, but you’ll be one soon, no matter all the dust.”

  Lady Finch forced herself to smile. As much as she hated to admit it, Merry Fortune often made her feel uneasy. Perhaps it was something in Merry’s voice, or perhaps it was how one of Merry’s eyes was green and the other was gray. Or, perhaps it was something about the sound of Merry’s voice, or the way Merry twirled upon the stage. But something about Merry made Lady Finch squirm. Lady Finch was certainly in no mood to listen to Merry prattle on and on about omens and signs. Merry’s penchant for recognizing the dimensions of every new girl the moment her green and gray eye considered her figure could be helpful, but Lady Finch feared hearing Merry’s opinion regarding the dust storms would only exacerbate her fears.

  “You can tell me all about it later, Merry. But don’t keep the polishers waiting for another minute. They’re restless for you on the other side of that curtain. Get your legs out there before they start spending all their shiners on the flat beer.”

  But Merry hesitated. “The dust this moment carries something new to the dressing room door.”

  The girls at their mirrors turned their faces towards the dressing room’s red, back door a moment before it opened to reveal the figure of a stunner. The dust swirled around that stranger’s shape, didn’t even rest upon the woman’s skin. The girls at their mirrors whistled as dust again settled into their hair. Lady Finch stared.

  “34C-24-34,” whispered Merry before she finally swayed through the purple curtain to take one of the Palace’s stages to the sound of the polishers’ applause.

  “Don’t just stand there in the dust, child.” Lady Finch scowled at the stranger standing in the threshold. “That dirt might not be touching you, but it’s burying the rest of us.”

  None of the girls turned back towards their mirrors, and Lady Finch didn’t fault them for staring at the woman who stepped into the dressing room before closing the door to the dust. Lady Finch knew Merry’s quick read of that woman’s measurements would be proven dead-on correct, and the stranger who stepped into the dressing room’s light didn’t disappoint as an absolute stunner.

  The woman wore a sundress, and not a single mote of dust s
mirched a spot of the fabric’s green and blue. Even Lady Finch felt the breath seep from her as she looked upon that woman, whose long locks of jet-black hair fell to her hips without holding a trace of outside dust. She felt her smile warm as she looked into the pair of dark brown eyes set within the slender face. The stranger’s skin looked tanned from the sun, and no where on that flesh could Lady Finch find any of the grime that fell upon all of her other girls after that door was opened for but a moment.

  Lady Finch grinned. “My dear, you look lovely no matter the storm.”

  The stranger turned and scanned the dressing room’s surroundings, and all of the girls quickly directed their eyes back into their own reflections in the dusty mirrors. There was a pecking order at work in the Crystal Palace, and none of the dancers preparing for their turns in front of the polishers wished to catapult that strange to the center stage and to the top of the bulletin posters because they stared too long, like a soul-sickened polisher, at the incredible curves and the smoldering eyes of that woman the storm brought to their door.

  The woman returned Lady Finch that grin. “I’ve come to dance.”

  Lady Finch beamed. The dust had kept away too many of the polishers. The storms had given those polishers no time to rest from their toil upon the glass to lift their spirits in Lady Finch’s realm. The blowing dust had kept away too many shiners. Yet, that very dust now delivered the Crystal Palace perhaps the very stunner Lady Finch so badly required to tempt the polishers to return.

  “Oh, I’ve no intention of stopping you,” Lady Finch winked, “but we must first agree upon our terms. Every girl starts on a trial basis. At the start, you take a quarter of the shiners the polishers toss your way. I gauge the passion you inspire. If I judge you to be a looker, I give you half. If the polishers consider you a stunner, then I only take a quarter of your shiners. It’s never difficult to recognize when the polishers see a stunner.”

  The woman’s plush lips parted in a slight smile. “Oh, I don’t need any shiners.”

  The women at the mirrors traded surprised glances.

  Lady Finch shrugged. It was a very rare thing for a girl to walk through that red, back door and claim that whatever thrill she felt dancing before the polishers was payment enough from the Crystal Palace. It was very rare, but that woman was not the first to say she needed no coin to step upon a stage.

  “All the same, dear, I insist that you stick to my policy when it comes to earnings. Believe me, sooner or later all the girls expect some kind of payment, and it’s best to work the terms out at the start rather than try to define them later. I have to insist that you take something.”

  Lady Finch thought she saw something spark behind the woman’s brown eyes. “I didn’t say I was going to dance for free.”

  “Then what will you dance for?”

  “I will dance to live forever, and the city will worship me.”

  The girls whispered at their mirrors. Lady Finch’s custom was to turn away any dancer who displayed signs of an unstable mind. Polishers sensed what girls’ hearts harbored unease for dancing upon the stage, and the polishers avoided those dancers. Nor did polishers enjoy witnessing the spirit of a dancer crumbled over time. The Palace’s sway upon a polisher’s heart was a very fragile type of magic, and Lady Finch had to insure to protect it.

  Only, Lady Finch doubted she had ever seen such a stunner as that woman who had just arrived, unannounced, with the storming and swirling dust. There was no doubt that the woman would drive any polisher wild. Lady Finch needed all the revenue she could gather, for no one could tell how long the dust would sweep over those river shores. Every shiner her Crystal Palace brought her increased her chances of surviving to see the clear sky waiting on the other end of the dust.

  Lady Finch nodded. “All the same, I’ll set your shiners aside, just in case you change your mind. All you have to do now is tell me what you want to use for a stage name.”

  “A stage name?”

  The girls at their mirrors chuckled. Lady Finch smiled. “Oh, darling, do you think any of the polishers care to know your true name? They’re only interested in mirage. They don’t want biography. They don’t want whatever’s real. They want fantasy. So all us girls give them fantasy names.”

  The woman considered Lady Finch’s explanation. “I don’t think you’re right. I think all those dusty men climbing all those glass towers crave something very real.”

  “Who’s to say?” Lady Finch shrugged. The girls cycled in and out of the Palace, but Lady Finch always remained. What did she have to gain by arguing with strangers who arrived with the dust? “Regardless, we have to call you something.”

  “Then call me Satinka.”

  “Just Satinka?” Lady Finch raised an eyebrow. “Is there anything else to go with it?”

  “Satinka the Magic Dancer if you must have more.”

  “Then we’ve settled upon terms.”

  Satinka slowly shook her head. “Not just yet. You have to promise me something.”

  “I won’t know if I can grant it until I hear it.” Lady Finch sighed. Dancers who needed promises often brought trouble. But that woman who called herself Satinka was such a stunner. She would be a fool not to give Satinka the chance to ask for a promise.

  “You must promise that you will never call me down from the stage before I’m ready.” Satinka whispered. “No matter what, no one stops my dance but me.”

  New girls at the Palace often spoke bravely before they took the stage. Bravado was easy before stepping in front of the polishers. “Sure thing, honey. I promise. No one will make you step down from that stage until you’re ready to come down. A stage will be ready for you the moment you decide to step through that purple curtain. Any of the girls over your shoulder will be happy to help you with a routine. You just let me know when you feel up to it.”

  Satinka didn’t take a second to respond. “I’m ready right now.”

  That surprised Lady Finch, and it had become very rare, indeed, for anything to surprise Lady Finch within her Crystal Palace. The dust worked quickly. The dust had delivered Satinka to the Palace’s dressing chamber, and Lady Finch nor any of her girls would have to wait for very long to know for certain if Satinka the Magic Dancer was going to be the kind of stunner to force all of those polishers to take a break from their cleaning to climb down from their glass towers.

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