“Maybe you can do better yourself!”
“Well, I hope I choke if I can't,” Garfinkel said as he passed the manuscript to the camera-man and summoned Kedzie to his embrace. “Here, Miss What's-your-name, git to me.”
Kedzie slipped into his clutch, and he took her as if she were a sheaf of wheat. His arms loved her lithe elasticities. He dragged her through the steps with a wondering increase of interest. “Well, say!” he muttered for her private consumption, “you're a little bit of all right. I'm not so worse myself when I have such help.”
He danced with her longer than was necessary for the demonstration. Then he reluctantly turned her over to Mr. Yoder. Kedzie did not like Mr. Yoder any more. She found him fat and clumsy, and his hands were fat and clammy.
Mr. Garfinkel had to show him again.
Kedzie could not help murmuring up toward his chin, “I wish I could dance with you instead of him.”
Garfinkel muttered down into her topknot: “You can, girlie, but not before the camera. There's a reason. How about a little roof garden this evening, huh?”
Kedzie sighed, “I'm sorry—I can't.”
Garfinkel realized that the crowd was sitting up and taking notice, and so he flung Kedzie back to Yoder and proceeded with the picture. He was angry at himself and at Kedzie, but Kedzie was angered at her husband, who was keeping her from every opportunity of advancement. Even as he loafed at home he prevented her ambitions. “The dog in the manger!” she called him.
Garfinkel paid her no further attention except to take a close-up of her standing at a soppy table and drinking a glass of stale beer with a look of desperate pathos. She was supposed to be a slum waif who had never had a mother's care. Kedzie had had too much of the same.