Joe brought the drinks. The lights dimmed. Marilyn said, “This is the floor show coming on. You’ll love it.”
Chairs scraped over the floor as a girl with an Egyptian profile, a pair of shorts covered with hieroglyphics, and a bra decorated in the same way came out, sat cross-legged on the floor, and made angles with her hands and elbows. She got a spattering of applause. A man with boisterous hilarity came out and made a few off-color cracks into a microphone. A strip-tease artist did her stuff, finishing up in the middle of a blue spot that furnished all the clothing. She got a terrific hand. Then the Egyptian dancer came back into the blue spot wearing a grass skirt with a lei around her neck and an imitation hibiscus in her hair. The bird who had put on the monologue played a uke, and she did her version of the hula.
When the lights came up again, Hale handed Marilyn the wrist watch he’d been playing with during the floor show.
“That all of it?” I asked Rosalind.
Marilyn said, “No. It’s just an intermission. There’ll be another act in a minute or two. This gives us a chance to get our glasses filled up.”
Joe filled up our glasses.
Hale grinned across the table at me, the man-of-the-world grin. “Havin’ a swell time,” he said. “Bes’ little girl in the world. Bes’ drinks in the world. Gonna have all my friends in when I get back t’ New York, show ‘em fine New Orleans drinks. Makes you feel good. Don’t get drunk. Jus’ get to feeling good.”
“That’s right,” I told him.
Marilyn put the wrist watch back on. A second or two later she was looking at me, then at Rosalind. She wiped her wrist with a napkin, said, “Ain’t we got fun?”
The second act started. The man who had been playing the uke came out in evening clothes and put on a series of dances with the Egyptian dancer; then the strip-tease artist did a fan dance. The lights went back up, and Joe was at our elbows.