Naked Angel (27 page)

Mallory felt her stomach drop. The performer’s steampunk hotness was undeniable. Somehow, the woman got her bustier and shorts off while still in the air, either her arms or legs wrapped around the pole at all times. The crowd was going wild, clapping and screaming with delight. By the time she made her way down the pole, Spider was wearing only the requisite G-string. Her body was tight and hard as a rock, and when she flashed her ass at the audience, she did a little trick where she shimmied her buttocks. And then she turned her body, slid to the floor, and folded herself like a pretzel.

“Is this burlesque?” said Patricia.

“Let’s put it this way: If Agnes were dead, she’d be rolling over in her grave,” said Alec. They laughed, but Mallory knew there was really nothing funny about this. Agnes wasn’t a judge. This wasn’t the Blue Angel. It wasn’t even New York: It was Vegas; it was the Cosmopolitan—the place that had heralded its arrival on the Strip with the tagline, “Just the right amount of wrong.”

By the time the song ended, the audience was giving a standing ovation.

Mallory wished she had not seen the performance. By comparison, her choreography and costumes could only be called quaint. And that was on top of the question of whether or not Nadia would actually make it through her performance.

She didn’t have the stomach to sit through Violet’s performance.

“Okay, well—that was interesting. I’d better go back and get ready to show them how it’s really done,” she said with a bravado she in no way felt.

“Do you need anything back there?” Alec said.

“No, you stay. Watch everything. You’re my eyes and ear out here,” she said, kissing him again.

Martha, Patricia and Billy wished her luck, and she took a deep bracing breath and walked quickly back to the dressing room.

She found Nadia tucked in a corner, head down, listening to her iPod. Her slim body was elegant in the crimson bodice embroidered with lotus flowers. Her long black wig lent an edge to her usually benign prettiness.

“Hey—how are you doing?” Mallory said. Nadia looked up and removed her ear buds.

“Okay. Fine. Did you watch any of the show out there?”

“Yes. I saw one act.”

“How was it?”

“Not bad,” she said.

“But not great?”

“No,” Mallory lied.

“Is Max out there?”

“Not yet—but I’m sure he’ll be here any minute. I just wanted to tell you to go out there and do your best. You look absolutely gorgeous. I hope you can almost feel like someone else in that costume—you’re not Nadia when you’re onstage, okay? There are only a handful of people in that audience who even know you as Nadia. That audience will be seeing Naughty Natasha. Make her come alive for them?”

Nadia nodded. “I won’t let you down, Mallory.”

“You’re doing me proud just by stepping out there. I know you didn’t plan to do this show. Just try to have fun with it.”

She hugged Nadia, taking care not to mess up her wig or makeup. Nadia’s arms were tight around her shoulders, and Mallory felt her tension. “You’re going to be great,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Nadia said. “I will be.”

Max needed an usher to help him find the designated Painted Lady table. By the time he got to the venue, the room was dark, crowded with hundreds of people, and virtually throbbing with music. On the stage, a woman was dancing around wearing only a hot pink thong and waving a pink feathered boa.

Alec and a few other people were at the table. He was happy to see Alec. He liked the guy and wondered if, despite his own involvement with burlesque, he shared any of Max’s discomfort with seeing his girlfriend on that stage.

“Hey, man—glad you made it,” Alec said. He had the woman next to him move over so Max could take the seat. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready, exactly. But I couldn’t very well miss this.”

“No, you couldn’t,” said Alec. “Don’t stress about it. It’s been a great show so far.”

Max looked at his program. “How much longer before they go on?”

“Are you serious? You’re just in time. Five more minutes you might have missed her.”

On some level, Max knew that. He had been tempted to “accidentally” miss it. The way he figured, he was screwed either way. If Nadia froze, he’d feel somehow responsible because he’d denied her the chance to have performed successfully at the Baxter party. And the way they had argued over her performing couldn’t have helped her confidence. If she didn’t succeed today, he would be as much to blame as she was. But if she did perform, he would have to watch her take off her clothes in front of this crowd, a crowd four times the size of a packed house at The Painted Lady. But because he loved her, he wanted her to succeed. If he had to share the sight of her naked body with hundreds of people for one night, so be it. She deserved to hear applause, to feel in command of a crowd. She deserved to feel like the star that he knew she was.

The pink dancer finished up her act amid a shower of pink rose petals. The curtain closed, and a slender young man dressed in a shiny silver tuxedo took the stage.

“Wow. I haven’t seen that much pink since the Wakowski triplets invited me to join them for a four-way,” said the MC, whom Max realized was a woman in drag. The crowd erupted in laughter that lasted so long it prevented her from continuing. She started laughing, too. Finally, the room settled down. “I am excited to introduce the ladies of New York City’s newest burlesque club, The Painted Lady. Let me just say, I saw one of these gals backstage, and while you’ll never get me to shut my mouth, I would actually consider a little footbinding to get in on this action. You’ll know what I mean in a minute: People, give a shout to welcome Naughty Natasha.”

Max leaned forward in his seat. As the curtain lifted, the opening of David Bowie’s “China Girl” filled the room. The back of the stage was decorated with a giant canvas scroll covered in Chinese calligraphy. The only other props on the stage were a transparent Asian folding screen, through which the audience could see Nadia’s silhouette, and an ornate rosewood bench, which was technically a Japanese altar bench and not, in fact, Chinese at all.

Nadia extended one long leg outside the screen, and the crowd applauded. Slowly, she moved into full view. The vivid red costume was breathtaking even from the distance of the table, the mandarin collar now shining with red sequins, and Swarovski crystals sewn into the tulle skirt. As skeptical as he’d been that first day, Max realized what a smart move Mallory and Nadia had made in going to Devla—and Devla had told him she’d loved “burlesque-ifying” the costumes. On her feet, Nadia wore demure red slippers—an unusual sight on a burlesque stage. Around her ankles she’d wrapped embroidered bandages to convey the notion of a bound foot. It was brilliant, really: To accommodate Nadia’s delicate feet, Mallory and Nadia had decided to improvise on Bette’s original choreography: Instead of wearing the four-inch red heels throughout the performance, the last thing Nadia would take off would be the bindings and the slippers, and she would don the red heels only at the very end—her liberation.

Despite his ambivalence about this performance, he wanted desperately for Nadia to make it through.

And he had to admit, that long black wig was hot.

Nadia carried oversized Chinese folding fans in each hand, which she used to obscure her face as she approached the front of the stage. She slowly extended her right arm to the side, then brought the fan back in. She repeated the motion with the left hand, then simultaneously moved both fans away from her face, shimmied her shoulders, and tossed the fans to the floor. Her pale face makeup and heavily kohl-rimmed eyes were dramatic and lovely, and he felt a rush of pride.

She moved into a series of turns, then, with her back to the audience, removed the tulle skirt, leaving her clad in only the high-necked red bodysuit. She turned back to the audience, her impossibly long legs moving into a wide stance as she did a bump and grind. The audience clapped, but more important, he could tell she was having fun with it. Then she reached behind her back, and he knew she was unzipping the bodysuit. Her movements were painstakingly slow, and he didn’t know if this was hesitation or a calculated part of the performance. He found he was holding his breath.

Finally, with a snap of her hand, Nadia pulled away the bodysuit, revealing her body in just a red G-string, breasts bare except for red sequined pasties with tassels covering her nipples.

She was naked.

The crowd shouted its excitement, and Nadia turned to the wooden bench. She bent in an exaggerated motion, her ass to the audience, as she pulled the red stilettos from underneath the bench. Then, sitting down, she extended one leg and began unwinding the bandage slowly and methodically. Max could honestly say that the removal of a shoe had never seemed more erotic to him.

When both feet were freed from the bandages and the slippers, she pulled on the heels. The crowd, to its credit, went wild with applause, clearly understanding the subtext of the gesture. And finally, she returned to the edge of the stage, shimmied her shoulders and arched her back, her breasts bouncing to make the tassels twirl as she continued to bend backwards at an angle that only a ballerina could pull off.

The curtain closed.

T
he room buzzed with the post-performance energy of all the dancers, who were now making their way to the tables. Any minute now, the judges would announce the winner of the grand prize.

Mallory was proud of their performances. And in the end, Bette’s absence was a blessing in disguise: Seeing Nadia rise to the occasion had pushed Mallory and Poppy to their own personal bests. She knew the three of them had accomplished something special on that stage. She just hoped it was enough to overcome the pure spectacle displayed by some of the other troupes.

She watched some of the girls table-hop, greeting old friends or making new ones. She herself was in no mood for small talk; She was rooted to her seat, clutching Alec’s hand, the suspense almost unbearable. She noticed, too, that Violet was similarly anti-social: Mallory saw her sitting three tables away, her short-cropped, platinum hair a standout even in this crowd of peacocks. Her back was rigid, and she was watching the stage. Mallory could only imagine the intensity in those cat-like green eyes of hers. She knew what it was like to be the object of Violet’s focus, and the memory made her almost shudder. It was hard to believe they had hung out together, performed at the same club, and almost become friends.

Finally, Chelsea Corners took the stage. “All right, sexy beasts—settle down. There’ll be plenty of time to hit on each other tonight at the after-parties. But right now, we still have some business to attend to: Three of you hot bitches are going to walk out of here twenty grand richer.”

The crowd erupted in applause and catcalls.

“That’s right! Now, keep it going for the puppet master behind all these gorgeous dolls, Mr. Marty Bandinow.”

Marty strolled onto the stage, waving to the crowd like Miss America. He wore an expensive-looking dark suit, and his thick silver hair was perfectly coiffed. Mallory had had only the briefest interaction with him the day before when she was checking out the dressing room. She found him a bit on the smarmy side, but he was, in the end, supporting burlesque in a very big way.

“Ladies, let me start by saying that in the ten years I’ve been doing this competition, I have never seen a show like the one you put on for us today. Give yourselves a round of applause.” The room became very loud. Someone threw a garter onstage. “And you made the judges’ decision extremely difficult. If there was ever a year when we would have liked to be able to have more than one winner, this was that year.” Alec squeezed Mallory’s hand. “But unfortunately, we could only pick one troupe. And this year, the prize goes to a newcomer to the competition . . .” He opened an envelope as if he were announcing the Academy Award. “Violet’s Blue Angel.”

Tina Turner’s song “Simply the Best” filled the room. Marty called Violet onto the stage.

“Bullshit!” yelled Billy Barton.

“I’m going to get some air,” Mallory told Alec.

“No—stay. It’s okay, Mallory. And we have to set a good example for Poppy and Nadia and everyone else. . . .”

Mallory couldn’t stay. She couldn’t endure the awkward glances of condolence that Martha and Max were already sending in her direction.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. She maneuvered her way through the tightly packed tables. No one paid any attention to her; mercifully, all eyes were on Violet, who was making her way to the stage.

Mallory pushed through the double doors and didn’t stop walking until she found the elevator bank that would take her to her room.

“Mallory!” Alec called from behind her.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just can’t be in that club right now.”

“I understand,” he said. “But I don’t want you to be so upset. You were incredible today—and so were Nadia and Poppy. And if Agnes had been here, she wouldn’t have traded your performances for anyone else’s in that room. If Bette were here, she’d tell you the same thing.”

“That’s all well and good, Alec, but the only thing that matters right now is that we didn’t win the money. No money, no club. And this whole year has been for nothing.”