Read Online The Desert Rose by Larry McMurtry - Free Book Online Page B

someone around who was as critical as he was.
    When Harmony was satisfied with her makeup she stepped out of the dressing room hoping to spot Bonventre and did spot him, only he was talking to Monique, obviously an argument, Monique’s face looked very tight. She was almost Harmony’s age only she was thinner and had a narrow face which showed whatever strains Monique happened to be suffering from. Harmony didn’t dare interrupt, particularly not to ask Bonventre what she had been going to ask him, she sort of gave him a wide berth. When Bonventre argued he kept squirting a nasal spray up his nose to keep his mucous membranes from drying out, he hated a dry nose. In the twenty years she had known Bonventre the only real change was that at first he had worn white suits and now he wore black suits, he had decided black suits were more sophisticated or more in keeping with the sinister image he liked to cultivate or something.
    Gary was backstage checking out all the costumes, he looked frazzled but things were no more out of control than usual, that Harmony could tell. She and the rest of the showgirls were in feathers for the opening number. The feather outfits were so large you couldn’t just put them on, they had to be lowered by a little hoist, which was another reason Harmony usually came out a little early, that way Gary could always adjust hers himself and help her get the huge headdress sitting right. That was very important, the headdresses were really heavy and if you didn’t carry themright you could really screw up your back. Another wonderful thing Didier had done for her was to educate her about posture, which was all-important if you had to walk around in heavy headdresses six nights a week.
    “Bonventre’s on Monique’s ass,” Harmony said as she was standing with her arms out, waiting for the feathers to come down around her, they were pink in the first number and she did sort of love it, being a feathered beauty, they were gorgeous costumes and the people out front sort of gasped when the curtain finally went up and they saw them for the first time.
    “Harmony, lean this way or at least move your tit,” Gary said, adjusting her position a little. Once the headdress was on she turned her neck a time or two, making sure it all felt right. The other girls were lining up, all except Jessie, who would invariably be last. She would get insecure about her makeup or something and go back to check it which meant that if a hoist didn’t work or the costume slipped or a zipper stuck Jessie would be the one it happened to. Gary’s two little assistants spent hours pleading with her to line up a little sooner but Jessie couldn’t help it, she was sort of doomed to be last. Half the time they only got her into her feathers and up on the disc about ten seconds before the curtain went up.
    “He’s not on her ass, he’s after her ass, everybody knew that except you,” Gary said and then hurried off to do Linda, leaving her with the living-on-another-planet feeling, she was experiencing it pretty often lately. Maybe it was just Denny that had caused her not to notice things like Bonventre being after Monique. It had been a while since love had hit sort of totally, like it hit when Denny came along—people could warn her all they wanted to, love had hit and before he started coming up with the bad surprises like not paying her back for the scuba-diving equipment she had tended to get to work feeling fairlydreamy and had not been tuned in to backstage gossip all that much. In fact she had never paid all that much attention to it. Knowing Gary, it was easier just to get it from him, that way she could just think her own thoughts and not have to try and keep up with every little anxiety in the whole company.
    When the dancers began to line up Harmony went slowly up to her disc, being careful not to snag the feathers on anything, and then just waited, doing a little deep breathing. She wasn’t really nervous, she