Harmony is driving home, eastward out of Las Vegas.
Her spirits high, her head a clutter of memories.
Harmony loves to remember bits of her life, it makes her feel,
well, anyway, it's all been interesting.
One of the memories that pops in is something Ross used to say.
Ross is her husband, she's never bothered
to divorce him but he's been gone for 14 years.
One of the memories that pops in is something Ross used to say,
which was that they ought to call Las Vegas Leg City or else
Titsburgh.
Ross was always thinking of funny names for things.
He had kept her laughing right up
until the time they had Pepper, plus about a year more.
And then she and Pepper took him down to the bus station
behind the Stardust one day, he was just
going to take on a job doing lights for a show up in Tahoe,
and he sort of just never come back.
Although Pepper was as cute a little girl as anyone
could have wanted and Harmony herself
at the time, as had been said by some to have
the best legs in Las Vegas and maybe the best bust too.
Although that was long before she had done topless, so only
Ross and a few of her old boyfriends
really knew the whole story there.
Ross did think she was great looking
though, there was no doubt of that,
and their sex life had been OK.
Maybe not va-boom karoom, which was the phrase Gary always
used about people who had a big attraction for one another,
but definitely OK.
And they'd almost had enough money
to make a down payment on a house
with a swimming pool, didn't happen.
Pepper just had to take swimming lessons down
at the Stardust pool with the other kids whose parents worked
in the show.
But then Harmony had always sort of known
that legs and the sex life and the little girl
in the house with a swimming pool
hadn't meant that much to Ross, he had told her right off
he liked to change lives once in a while.
And he was such a good light man he could just about always
work.
It was just that Ross could always
make her laugh, that had been the cute thing about him.
She still smiled when she thought of Ross,
although he had started going bald
and wasn't even 30 when he left.
She didn't mind his going so much,
Ross should get to change lives if that was what he liked.
And he did send money, not too regularly
but sometimes he would send a lot
if he had a run at the craps tables.
He had never been unkind so if he liked
to change lives that was OK.
The only sad part was that Pepper
was beautiful from the time she was about three,
it seemed kind of wrong that Ross wasn't getting to see it.
By the time she was five, Pepper could
sing well enough that she could have probably even got
on the radio if Harmony had ever had time
to investigate that angle, somehow she never did.
Once in a while she would dream that Pepper
did sing on the radio and then maybe dedicate
a song to her daddy, and Ross would hear it.
That would be a nice thing for him.
He was just up in Reno, still working lights.
But then dreams, they weren't too real or maybe real but not
too likely to happen.
Pepper had gotten more interested
in dancing than singing although she still sang beautifully,
Harmony thought, others too, particularly Myrtle.
Myrtle is an old lady that lives with Harmony
in the only other half of the duplex they lived in.
Harmony had always wanted to sing,
it was something she envied Pepper
but she just never had much of a voice.
The one time she auditioned, people
couldn't keep from laughing.
After all, her name was Harmony but she couldn't sing,
who could blame them for laughing?
"Harmony, accept your fate, just be beautiful," Bonventre said.
Bonventre is the producer whom she's
worked with most of her life.
Meanwhile, driving out Sahara Avenue
as the night was into its finale,
Olivia Newton John sang to her on the car radio
a song from Grease.
Harmony had just loved the movie, plus, she truly did
love driving home just as the day was beginning,
already dawn had sketched the outline of the mountains
to the east in light gray.
Usually after the show, she and Jessie, another showgirl, she
and Jessie and Gary, Gary is the costume man.
Gary would go sit in the little keno bar at the Stardust
and drink beer and wind down for a couple of hours,
mainly it was just listening to Gary talk.
He was the wardrobe manager and if there
was anybody who could talk more than Gary,
Harmony didn't know who.
Gary was an old friend plus he had
his own point of view, sort of an interested in everything
point of view.
Jessie liked him a lot and once confided in Harmony
that she still hoped Gary would stop being gay
and fall in love with her, which was a hopeless wish of course,
Gary couldn't stop being gay, just for Jessie's sake.
But he did spend most of his nights
sitting around talking to two showgirls
rather than hitting the discos or having dates.
He was an unusual man, Gary, for sure.
If you were depressed or in any trouble,
there was no one better to talk to, not in Las Vegas anyway.
But usually it was Jessie who got depressed
and it was happening more and more lately.
Even if the specific depression was over
nothing worse than that one of the dancing nudes
had told her her ass was getting dimpled,
something normally bitchy like that, Jessie
would just about sink out of sight, she would be so unhappy.
She would sit right in the keno bar
and cry with her stage makeup on,
then she would just fade out and go to sleep with her head
on the table, with Harmony and Gary both trying with might
and means to cheer her up.
"It's the end, I know it is," Jessie
always said when she was sinking out of sight.
"No it isn't," Gary would insist,
"It's just that little French girl who told you your ass
was dimpled, she certainly has no room to talk,"
et cetera, et cetera.
"Besides, she uses body makeup which
I hate because it turns the costumes orange
and if it gets on the feathers, you
can just forget that costume, those feathers won't
come clean."
Now I'm going to skip a little now, so we're getting home.
Harmony turned off the pavement onto a little dirt road
that was the last road there was to turn off on if you were
going east out of Las Vegas.
She rolled the window down.
It was good to smell the desert in the morning.
Even in the winter she liked to get some air
when she was driving home.
After all the smoke in the casino,
just the clean air and the dry sagey smell
made her feel lively.
Now the outline over the mountains
was gold instead of gray, and the stars
were beginning to die out in a cloudless sky.
Seeing the line of sun over the mountains made her hopeful,
it just about always did.
For another beautiful day was about to get started,
which meant to Harmony that things could really be fresh
and there could be a lot to hope for if you took the trouble
to notice instead of just getting depressed,
as Jessie did.
Harmony kept wishing Jessie had taken her advice
and got a little house out closer to the desert,
she just had an apartment a block
off the strip, which was handy, it was true but still
didn't offer the great sights Harmony had to look forward
to every day, such as the desert and her peacocks
and the streamers of sun creeping over the mountains.
Though, of course, Jessie was scared to death of peacocks
along with about everything else.
But still, just to get further from the strip
and see a real morning once in a while
might have at least taken her mind
off bad comments she heard in the dressing room.
When she turned off the pavement onto the bumpy dirt road,
Harmony looked back at the strip eight miles away.
It looked so miniature, like a wonderful toy place
with all the lights still on, whereas on her other side
there was a bright band of sun behind the mountains
from horizon to horizon.
Was one of her favorite things, to turn on to her own road
with the air smelling so good and be
able to see the strip, with the Trop
up at one end and then the Sahara at the other.
And besides that, have the sun coming up just as she got home.
With sights like that to see every day, who could complain?
Pretty as the sunrise was though,
it wasn't enough to keep her mind off the fact
that Myrtle's car was acting like it meant to conk out.
Harmony had been having to borrow it ever since Denny,
Denny is a boyfriend, a former boyfriend,
totaled their Pontiac three weeks before.
Myrtle was generous in emergencies,
which was a good thing because it was definitely
an emergency since Denny had taken off the day after he
totaled the Pontiac.
The insurance check hadn't come yet either,
though Harmony had been told several times it
would come any day.
Myrtle's car was an old Buick station wagon
which was sort of manageable on the highway
but got cases of the jerks when it had to go slow.
There was no way to keep from going slow on the dirt road,
to go fast probably meant knocking on the bottom
out which Myrtle no doubt would not appreciate.
She didn't consider Harmony a good driver anyway.
The more she slowed down for the bumps,
the worse the Buick jerked.
Also it could not be said that it smelled so great mainly
because Myrtle was in the habit of stuffing
Maude, her main goat, into the car
so she'd have company while she roamed around Las Vegas
and went to Boulder City to check out garage sales.
Myrtle had very little to do except go to garage sales
or else hold them in their mutual garage.
The car had had so many goat hairs in it
that Harmony had to spread towels
on the front seat in order to keep from being covered
with them and she got to work.
"Well, this car is not going to make it home,
I guess we're down to no car," she
concluded about five seconds before the Buick conked out.
I'll just go over and show her getting home.
When Harmony walked up the driveway carrying
her bag and the newspaper, Myrtle
had already laid out her garage sale for the day
and was sitting in the only lawn chair she hadn't already
sold at previous garage sales, eating a bowl of cheerios
and waiting for customers.
Sometimes customers came early too.
A lot of the Keno runners and even a few dealers, older women
mostly, were into the garage sale scene
and would grab a morning paper and hit a few sales
before going home to bed.
It was Myrtle's theory that any sane person would rather
buy things than sleep and the steady parade of
would be customers proved her right.
Although Myrtle actually had nothing
left to sell except cheap glassware,
cheap costume, jewelry, some Reader's Digest books,
and a few bedraggled blouses that
had hung on a rack in the garage long since picked over
by every bargain hunter in the area.
Myrtle had set a bowl of dry cheerios
on the driveway for Maude but Maude,
a little black goat not much bigger than a dog,
was sniffing around Myrtle's old card table
as if she would much rather nibble at the costume jewelry,
mostly imitation pearls, Myrtle's one area of expertise.
Myrtle was a tiny redhead in her early 60s
who had no intention of letting age or anything else
get in the way of pleasure.
She lived on cheerios, except on the rare occasions
when her boyfriend Wendell could be persuaded to take her out
for a fast food feast.
Wendy's was her favorite feasting place
but Wendell was not a big spender
and would only pop for Wendy's about once a month--
Wendy's about once a month, which was for that
matter about as often as Myrtle had any intention
of popping for Wendell.
"He's too old, and any way, he's got that tricky back,"
Myrtle said in her own defense.
Wendell was on the pool maintenance crew
at the MGM Grand which in Myrtle's view
contributed to his sexual discontent.
"Sure he sees them gals with their floppies hanging out,
what else would he come home thinking about?"
Myrtle said.
Harmony's private opinion was that Myrtle
took advantage of Windell.
The sweet gray headed man with a big belly and sad eyes who
had never meant to stay in Las Vegas in the first place,
he had just come out and gotten stuck.
His son had killed himself because of gayness, at least
that was Gary's angle on it, and Wendell's wife
had divorced him and married a fireman.
It had left Wendell with such a sad look in his eyes
that Harmony could barely stand it.
The sadness of men, once it got into their eyes,
affected her a lot.
She sort of couldn't bear it and would usually
try and make it go away if the circumstances permitted her to.
Often they didn't but sometimes they did.
It was mainly a desire to kiss their sadness away
that it caused her to bring so many of them home.
A habit she knew Pepper didn't appreciate but then Pepper
wasn't even old enough to notice the sadness in men
or if she noticed, she wasn't too sympathetic.
Harmony was though, sad eyes men just got to her.
She could rarely keep it from happening and might not could
have even kept-- might not--
could even have kept it from happening with Wendell had it
not been that Myrtle was usually sitting there
in the cool of the garage in her lawn chair
waiting for one last customer to come by
and snap up some imitation pearls.
Wendell didn't talk much, he mostly just stood
around looking down at his feet, unless Myrtle
was in such a good mood that she brought out one of the kitchen
chairs for him to sit in.
Harmony would look out her window
and see him standing there and think, oh Wendell,
she couldn't help it.
Unhappiness just made her feel tender.
When she saw a guy looking that way,
she wanted to maybe just lay her palm against his cheek or maybe
a kiss, something to let him know her heart
did sort of go out to him even if she didn't understand
precisely why he looked sad.
Old or young, fat or thin, didn't matter so much.
Although definitely fat rather than thin
if she was given a choice.
She was not so drawn to the skinny guys,
it was just that she sometimes got the sense
that she overwhelmed them.
After all, she was pretty tall and had a good bust
and a few of them had sort of seemed
to feel that they might be smothered.
Also, her preference for the husky ones
might have had something to do with Didier,
who had given her first job at the Trop when she was only 17
but a lot more mature.
Wait a minute, yeah, OK.
She had always thought Tropicana was a wonderful name.
When she was younger, just saying it or hearing
it mentioned on the radio made her feel romantic so
that when she got off the bus in Las Vegas the first time,
all that she did was walk right up the street and look at it.
And about three months later just when
she thought she was going to have
to be a waitress her whole life, there was an audition
and she got up her nerve and Didier
hired her right away and then fell in love with her,
although he was 64 at the time and was a producer of the show
and very busy.
She had even got to live in his suite
at the Trop, which was a pretty big change from life in Tulsa
where she grew up.
Probably it was Didier who got her to liking fat men.
He was French and used to good food
and was so fat he was dangerous to himself.
Which was proved for sure about six months later
when he died in bed one morning while Harmony
was downstairs unwinding with some of the girls.
It was her first death, she was not experienced with it at all.
She had come in meaning to give Didier a kiss
and saw that he was dead, only she couldn't admit it
right away, couldn't admit it one bit.
And went on and took her makeup off and looked,
and Didier was dead, OK, though she still couldn't admit it.
Maybe not for an hour until she thought, well,
I guess now I'll order some breakfast.
So she did and Jimmy came up with it,
they always sent Jimmy because Didier was fussy
about his food.
He was fussy about everything actually but particularly
about his food.
When Jimmy came in with the breakfast
and sat around waiting to serve it and she just said,
"Could you go look at him?"
Which surprised Jimmy, that was a little unusual.
And he looked and came back and said, Harmony, he's dead,
which was when she admitted it and started to cry.
Years later, Jimmy's wife who by his own admission
had been a hooker once, went back to her old habits.
Only she took it further and stole some guy's wallet
and he turned out to be pretty big time
and the wallet had a few thousand dollars in it.
So she got sent to prison and Harmony was driving along
the strip one day and happened to see Jimmy standing
at the bus stop in front of the Circus Circus
looking so sad that she just immediately took him home.
Only the problem was that all they could ever
find to talk about was the morning Didier died.
It was not a basis for a relationship, they concluded.
Although Harmony had no regrets about trying it,
she had for sure tried worse than Jimmy.
He was from San Francisco and dressed nice
and would definitely spend his last dime
if it was something she and Pepper needed for the house,
for doctor bills or whatever.
Still it was Didier she remembered every time
she saw Wendell standing in Myrtle's driveway
looking down at his feet.
It had to be the big belly that caused it to be reminded,
they were otherwise not alike.
Now, I want to skip a bit.
Now here's Myrtle.
Myrtle looked up from her cheerios
and saw Harmony but no car, which
was a shock but secondary to finding out if there were
any garage sales on that day that offered
goodies she had urgent need of.
Harmony pitched her the morning paper
and squatted down to say good morning to Maude, knowing full
well that Myrtle wouldn't even say hello
until she had checked the garage sale ads.
Maude was nibbling the bottom of the card table.
When Harmony made her stop, she gave an annoyed little bleat
and ran back in the garage to sulk.
"Oh Maude, don't be mad.
It's such a pretty day," Harmony said.
The want ads were a cruel disappointment, all the garage
sales being continuations of the ones
she had already been to, at least once
if not several times.
Myrtle tossed the paper aside and began
trying to get resigned to sitting and waiting.
"If that goat was to have to wait for a cloudy day
to get her feelings hurt, she'd be out of luck," Myrtle said.
"I hope you didn't forget the vodka,
this one's going to be a long one."
"I didn't forget it, I just left it in the back seat,"
Harmoney said.
On her days at home, Myrtle had a tendency
to get looped after which if a customer irritated her
by trying to bargain, she might capriciously
double the price of everything in the sale.
Myrtle had worked as a checker at the Safeway
for 25 years, during which time she had often
had the desire to double the prices
when a snotty customer came along.
And then pretty soon after this, Harmony's terrible boyfriend
comes and steals the insurance check
that's supposed to pay for the Pontiac
that he had just wrecked, and Harmony is very upset by this
and comes home and tells Myrtle.
Myrtle had been in a fret about Maude
but when she heard what had happened,
that is the theft of the check, she forgot about that
and came right over, looped as she was,
and started offering advice.
All of it having to do with calling the police
and getting criminal charges started.
Harmony thought of calling Gary but he seldom
got up before 4:00 in the afternoon
and it wasn't 4:00 yet.
So instead she let Myrtle call Wendell to get his opinion
but he was on his coffee break and nobody could find him.
It for some reason caused Myrtle to assume
he was having an affair with the bathing beauty.
She often got a little insecure when she was drunk
and imagined that Wendell was having affairs with women he
had practically never even met.
Harmony got the phone long enough
to call the insurance company and ask
him to please stop payment on the cheque
but the girl she got was cross with her
because she didn't know her policy number, though she
could have probably found it given a little time.
Then Myrtle got on the phone again and somebody at the Grand
finally located Wendell but instead of asking his advice,
Myrtle spent 15 minutes grilling him
about how he spent every second of his coffee break
and then totally forgot to ask him
what he would do if someone stole an insurance
check from him.
So it was clear that Wendell had been completely innocent,
he didn't have the effect of getting
Myrtle in a better mood.
"Myrtle, you ought to be glad he's faithful,"
Harmony said, forgetting her own troubles
for a second to marvel at the fact
that Myrtle had managed to get angry at Wendell
for not having an affair with the bathing beauty
during his coffee break.
"Well, he don't even have the guts to get in trouble,
I think I'm losing interest," Myrtle said.
She went back over to her house to get her drink
and apparently went to sleep because she never came back.
Later in the day, they go to pick up, she
and Gary, the wardrobe man, go to pick up Jessie
to go to work, it's about 7:00 o'clock now.
Jessie lived in the sand colored apartment building
across the road from the Desert Inn.
Sure enough when they got there, Jessie had been to the dentist
that day so they knew she was going to be in bad shape.
Sure enough when they got there, Jessie was in tears.
She was sitting out on her tiny balcony in her bathrobe
crying and then dropping wet Kleenex beside her chair.
"Look at that, a pyramid of wet Kleenex,"
Gary said trying to joke.
"You girls will be lucky not to both get fired, you
both certainly ruined your eyes."
Jessie was a beautiful woman, an inch taller than Harmony
but not confident, and was actually not diplomatic of Gary
to mention firing since that was what Jessie lived in dread of.
In all she had had three operations
on her breast, one of which was a disaster.
They had done a tuck wrong or something and when it was over,
her nipples pointed straight down.
Fortunately that was correctable or Jessie would never
have worked another day.
Even so, she was paranoid about her scars which
were up under her breasts and hardly noticeable even
in the dressing room, much less to the audience.
"What's the matter?
Did the novocain hurt?"
Harmony asked.
"Yes, but that's not the terrible part," Jessie said.
"He says I may have to have two root canals."
That was pretty sobering, a root canal for Jessie
would be the equivalent of open heart surgery for most people,
she was just not up to dealing with much pain.
Jessie's apartment was a mess, she
got around the basic matters like making her bed only
about once a week.
The side of it always brought out the housewife in Gary,
he went around picking up beer bottles and emptying ashtrays.
Jessie didn't smoke but Monroe was seldom without a cigar.
Monroe who runs a muffler shop is Jessie's boyfriend.
Harmony didn't know what to say about the root canal,
so when it happens they were all going to have
to be very supportive for sure.
While she was trying to think of something a little bit
cheerful she could say to Jessie,
she wandered into the bedroom to see
if Jessie had got any new stuffed animals recently,
and woke up Francois, Jessie's miniature black poodle
who had been napping beside a stuffed raccoon.
Jessie was totally vulnerable to stuffed animals,
she would buy any species not already in her collection.
She had about 100 arranged along one wall of the bedroom
plus several on her bed.
A stranger just walking in probably
would have thought Francois was stuffed too
but in fact he was a live dog.
And the minute Harmony woke him up
he began to yip and jump around on the bed wanting
to be picked up and cuddled.
Jessie loved Francois more than she
loved Monroe or anyone else.
Naturally he was extremely spoiled
and got very outraged if he didn't
get whatever he wanted instantly,
fortunately he was cute.
Harmony enjoyed cuddling him herself
and took him over and set him on top of a stuffed hippopotamus,
supposedly a third life size that
was by far the most expensive of all Jessie's stuffed animals.
Once for about two weeks Jessie had gotten a boyfriend,
he was sort of a high roller.
He was from Texas and very excited about the fact
that he had actually seduced a showgirl.
He had been generous enough to buy her
the hippo which cost $600 before he went back to his wife.
Now Jessie had her heart set on a stuffed polar bear that
was about as large as the hippo but there
was widespread agreement that she would be lucky ever
to get the polar bear, certainly Monroe
wasn't going to pop for it.
Well, enough of Jessie for the moment.
That very night during the second show,
something bad happens.
Jessie and Harmony are the two showgirls.
In some of the shows in Las Vegas
there will be two showgirls who come down on disk
from out of the sky as it were.
And for all the years that they've been working together,
Harmony has been on one disk and Jessie
has been on the other disk.
Well, as the lights are coming, as the finale is in progress
on the second show and the disk are just starting up,
Jessie's disk breaks and then she falls.
And she's not very high and she doesn't hurt herself very badly
but she does break her ankle.
And we pick them up--
they pick them up as they're riding toward the hospital
in the ambulance.
Harmony just sat and held her hand
then one of the young guys in the ambulance got bored
and decided to come back for a chat.
It was probably not every night he
got to haul two show girls around.
He was sort of fat and had a jolly grin, his name was Jerry,
and he told him about various disasters
he had been to the scene of.
He said he had grown up in Barstow
and had started being an ambulance driver
when he was still in high school.
He told them about one particularly horrible car
wreck in which a person had been totally decapitated,
the head was never found.
He made such a good story of it that it took Jessie's mind
off the end of her career for a few seconds at least.
Meanwhile, they were just driving slowly up the strip,
the driver didn't seem to be in any hurry.
Harmony could see out the back window.
Lots of couples were strolling along enjoying
the pretty night.
She sort of felt a pang.
It would be nice to be part of a couple,
at least have someone to hold hands
with if you were taking a walk.
Of course, she had been part of a couple quite a few times,
it was not as if she had lived like an old maid,
it was just that the guys kept slipping on by.
The day would come and there would be nobody in bed
nor even to hold hands with on a walk if it was a nice night.
"If they give me ether, will you call Monroe?
Nobody did," Jessie said.
"Why would they give you ether?
It's just your ankle," Harmony asked.
One of Jessie's problems was that she had never
gotten over having her tonsils out;
it had been a difficult tonsillectomy.
She'd had to have ether twice and it
had left her with the horror of having things put over
her nose.
"Now, don't you worry, pretty soon
they'll have artificial ankles anyway," Jerry said.
He said it was amazing what they could do with plastics.
One woman who'd been in a disaster he had handled even
had a plastic hip.
Jerry said he subscribed to a magazine that
was totally devoted to artificial limbs
and organs and stuff, he said he liked to keep up
with recent advances.
Sometimes it was a comfort to people
who had just been mangled if the ambulance driver could inform
them that it didn't mean the end of their life
just because they lost a limb or had an organ a little damaged.
They really could do amazing things with plastics.
Harmony began to sort of wish Jerry
hadn't bothered to come back.
Not only was he not making Jessie feel any better,
he wasn't improving her mood either.
Plus, it was clear he was a guy who was easily turned on.
Harmony decided he was about to ask one or both of them
for a date, he definitely had that look,
but luckily they got to the hospital
before it could happen.
Jessie was worried too, after all, Jerry
was sitting right there over her and she just
had on her bathrobe and a g-string.
It was sort of close quarters in the ambulance
and Harmony decided she had been wrong about Jerry
being likable.
Well, now Jessie gets the shot or two
and they sort of sit up with her part of the night
and then they go back to her apartment to feed the dog
and want to pick it up.
And Harmony leaves Jessie at the hospital.
Harmony, during her break every night,
goes down to the $2 craps table and is always
hoping she'll get lucky.
She doesn't exactly get lucky in a gambling way
but there is a slot machine mechanic
who begins to get interested in her, his name is Dave.
And he starts turning up, he figures out,
he's shrewd enough to figure out when her break is,
so every night about the time for her break
he will turn up at the $2 craps table.
So after Harmony has had this depressing time
getting Jessie established in the hospital,
she doesn't quite know what she wants to do with herself.
She started to go back to Debbie's and Marty's, Debbie's
and Marty's is a bar where she drinks in the afternoon,
but then if nobody was there to talk to,
she'd just stuff herself with peanuts or drink too much.
What she did instead was drive back to the Stardust,
she started feeling very lonely and wanted to stop the feeling.
There's a feeling of suddenly not
having one single person available
who cared that much about her.
Of course Gary did but he had just gone to sleep
and wasn't available.
It was late.
There were very few people walking on the strip, which
didn't help her lonely feeling.
She thought of stopping at the Amoco station
and having a chat with Wendell--
Wendell manages the Amoco station
when he's not working in his moonlighting
job, when he's not working at the full crew at the MGM Grand.
But Gary's car was full of gas and that ruled that out.
At least the Casino was still buzzing.
The town wasn't as deserted as it looked from outside.
It occurred to her that there wasn't much point in keeping
Dave on hold too much longer.
She'd been keeping Dave on hold in the hope that her boyfriend
Denny would come back to her and be nice, but then he didn't.
There wasn't much point in keeping Dave on hold
too much longer, Dave is an ex-marine,
who's working as a slot machine mechanic.
Denny was not going to suddenly show up and be nice,
she might as well go on and give up.
It was sort of unfair to keep Dave waiting,
at least he didn't strike her as the kind of man who would steal
somebody's insurance checks.
Luckily Dave was still there; he was off in about 20 minutes.
He sort of looked slightly taken aback
when she showed up and asked him if he wanted
to eat breakfast or something.
Obviously he had not expected to get taken off hold so quickly
but once he got used to the idea, he was willing.
He said he'd meet her at the Keno bar,
so Harmony went and sat at the bar right by the cash register
and had a word or two with Leon, the main bartender.
She also had another vodka tonic or two hoping
they would have an effect on her lonely feeling,
but they didn't, they just went down like water.
"How come you never flirt with me, Harmony?
You flirt with everybody else," Leon wanted to know.
It was true, she had known him for 10 years
and never flirted with him.
He was a short guy and pudgy, although that
wasn't the reason, a lot of guys were short,
including several she had developed attachments to.
Ross for example, and Gary too for that matter.
"Oh Leon, I'm just saving you," she said, giving him a smile.
Leon didn't really care, he'd just
been making conversation, maybe even trying
to cheer her up a little.
"That's awful about Jessie," he said.
"Some people are accident prone.
I remember once she twisted her ankle
just getting off a bar stool."
But that was true, if there was any way to pick up an injury,
Jessie would find it.
Dave was taking a while, it seemed to her.
20 minutes was up and he wasn't there.
She was beginning to wish she's just
decided to flirt with Leon for a while, after all,
he was an old friend.
Whereas Dave was sort of an unknown quantity, good looking,
she liked the streak of gray in his hair,
thought it made him look dignified, but still
an unknown quantity.
Then just when she was trying to decide if maybe she should just
vanish and pretend she'd got an emergency phone
call from the hospital or something, the last person
in the world she wanted to see, namely Bonventre,
the producer of her show, wandered out of the casino
and sat down by her.
She felt like Pac Man had made it through the maze
and selected her as the next person to eat.
As usual, Bonventre looked full of energy,
though it was nearly dawn.
"Harmony, don't you ever go home?"
He asked making it sound like she owed him rent
for the bar stool or something.
"Jessie's ankle was shattered, I'm just having a few drinks
to calm down," she said.
She was hoping he wouldn't mention Pepper.
He was trying to hire her daughter
as the dancer in the same show she's in at this very moment.
But of course it was the next thing he mentioned.
"Fine, hang around another couple of hours
and I'll have someone drive you down to the Sheriff's Office
so you can sign the work consent form," Bonventre said.
"You don't want to neglect that little piece of business,
I want Pepper to get started learning the routines.
"Jackie, can't you just forget it?
Pepper needs to finish high school," she said.
Bonventre just nodded and took the Scotch and soda Leon handed
him, at which point Harmony noticed Dave,
he had been on his way but had sort of stalled
at the sight of Bonventre.
He was hanging back pretending to be interested in the Keno.
"Harmony, you know better than to argue with me,"
Bonventre said, stirring his drink with his finger.
Then he licked the finger, it was one of his habits,
she'd seen him do it a million times.
Harmony suddenly felt pretty depressed at the thought
that she didn't have anyone strong to stand up for her,
there was no use pretending she herself was strong.
A million people had pointed it out to her
that she wasn't and they were right.
She spent large amounts of time doing what someone wanted
her to do, such as 20 years doing what Bonventre
had wanted her to do on stage.
If he wanted Pepper for the understudy,
he would get her probably.
Besides, if Pepper wanted to understudy,
she would do it no matter what anybody
said, even Gary's opinion probably wouldn't stop her.
So what was the point of the argument?
Pepper and Bonventre were both sort of like bulldozers
when it came to going where they wanted to go,
the difference being that Bonventre sort of looked
like a bulldozer whereas Pepper looked
like a beautiful young girl.
Pepper just happened to have a will of iron
whereas she herself had a will of cream of wheat,
as Gary put it when he was in one of his witty moods.
It was hard to be a good mother if you happen to have
a child with the will of iron.
Maybe Jessie was lucky just to have a pet.
Definitely motherhood had been more fun
when Pepper was younger and would sit on her lap
and let her do her hair.
That was before she developed the mind of her own
about clothes and hairstyles and stuff.
"Oh Jackie, why do you want her?" she said.
She felt sort of a sinking and wished
Dave hadn't stopped to watch the keno.
At least he could have sat down by her.
"I want her because she's got star quality
and besides, she can dance," Bonventre said.
"30% empty seats last night, I hate figures like that.
Every conventioneer in America has seen Monique by now,
it's time she started a cooking school or something."
"Well, you could get rid of Murdo,
he is the worst ventriloquist in Las Vegas," Harmony thought.
But she didn't bother saying it; why
make life difficult for Murdo?
She finished her drink and paid Leon,
there was no point in staying and getting more depressed.
As she was picking up her change,
Bonventre tapped her on the wrist.
"Harmony, don't get stubborn," he
said, "Pepper doesn't need high school and if I don't hire her,
somebody else will.
You should be proud to have such a talented daughter."
Harmony couldn't think of any words to say.
Bonventre was probably right.
Actually she was proud of it, it was just
a shock to think that she and Pepper would
be on the same stage.
Bonventre didn't bother to say anything else.
He knew perfectly well he'd get his way
and was not interested in the lengthy discussion.
Harmony thought maybe he'd have something
to say about Jessie, after all, she
had worked for him quite a few years too.
But Bonventre wasn't thinking about Jessie,
he was thinking thoughts of his own
and stirring his second Scotch and soda.
Dave had gotten kind of nervous from being taken off
hold so quickly.
He didn't have a lot to say.
Also, he was not quite as reassuring
as he had seemed when she and Terry were at the craps table.
Harmony felt hungry.
It had been quite a while since her taco between shows.
She asked Dave if he felt like hitting the Waffle House
but he seemed to think that was kind of extravagant;
he said they could have breakfast at his apartment.
Harmony was agreeable, she loved getting a look
at a guy's apartment, seeing what kind of decorations
they had could be interesting.
Only in the case of Dave's apartment
interesting was not quite the right word,
horrible would have been more like it.
As Dave himself explained, he got his apartment
for practically no rent in return
for managing the other five apartments
in the little green apartment building on Charleston Avenue.
He candidly admitted that cheap rent was
the one good thing about it.
Harmony definitely agreed, it would
have to be that if anything.
It was at the back of a building next to a garbage collection
center.
There was no garbage there but the trucks that
hauled it were parked right next to Dave's kitchen window
and smelled about as bad as if they were garbage themselves.
Dave said he hoped the smell didn't bother her,
he couldn't lower the window because he
didn't have air conditioning, he didn't believe in it.
His theory was it sort of weakens you,
and his years in the Marines had convinced him
it didn't do to get weak.
One of his kitchen walls was covered
with pictures of mercenaries holding machine
guns of various kinds or hand grenades or something.
Evidently Dave's reading consisted mostly
of magazines for mercenaries because his kitchen table
was covered with them.
Harmony definitely began to get the sense that she hadn't made
the best choice in the world.
The fact that Dave had been nice enough
to show up at the craps table every night
just when she had her break could
have been a misleading fact.
Still he was sort of trying to be sweet
and hadn't put any rush on her or anything,
probably she would just be a good--
she should just be a good sport and have breakfast.
Dave seemed pretty nervous, probably
some bacon and eggs would make them both feel better.
But when she opened the icebox, there
was nothing there but beer.
At which point Dave said, "I hope you like K-rations."
It turned out-- it turned out that his cabinet had
no normal food in it at all, just shelf
after shelf of K-rations.
It was sort of an amazing sight.
Dave explained that because of his marine background,
he had grown to like K-rations and had just started
stopped eating normal food or anything else,
after all, they were cheap and there was quite a variety.
Her philosophy of being a good sport was soon put to the test
since to be gallant Dave opened three
different kinds of K-rations.
For him it was a big deal, sort of
like taking her to a fancy restaurant or something,
usually he just restricted himself to one kind at a time.
The sun was just beginning to come up,
which made Harmony wish she had just gone on home
and put on her sleep goggles, at least
she could have been able--
would have been able to feed the peacocks
and make Pepper breakfast.
Why was she sitting around smelling garbage trucks when
she could have been smelling the desert
and feeding her own beautiful child and beautiful birds?
Plus, she had to eat at least a few bites of the K-rations.
Variety or no variety, they were not
exactly what a normal person would choose for breakfast.
They didn't have any liquids available except beer
so she drank quite a bit in order
to wash down the K-rations.
The smell of the K-rations made her a little nauseous.
She thought, "This is a disaster I've walked into, what
am I doing in this kitchen?
This is something Jessie would get herself into,
how come it's me this time?"
To make matters worse, Dave begin
to get his feelings hurt when he noticed she was just sort
of picking at the K-rations.
He had obviously made a special effort
by opening three different kinds.
He started making remarks like waste not want not,
trying to make out like it was a joke.
Although it was definitely no joke,
nothing about the occasion was what she would call a joke.
She thought she was probably going
to vomit every time she put a bite in her mouth.
Her only hope was to immediately wash it down with lots of beer
but the beer didn't mix too well at all with the vodka tonics.
They might not have had an effect but they were there.
She got the feeling she was going
to be very lucky not to get sick, although she could
usually eat anything and it's just
been quite awhile since she had given her stomach
that much of a test.
She told herself she was never going
near that particular craps table again.
Jeanne could pine all he wanted to, it wasn't worth it.
While she was wondering what she'd do on her breaks,
and then Dave sprang a surprise.
He's just been sitting there reproachfully
watching that she didn't somehow manage
to sneak the rest of the K-rations
down to disposal or something, then
suddenly he forgot about the K-rations and jumped at her.
His hand went right between her legs
before she could even drop her fork.
Maybe it wasn't a total surprise,
she had sort of guessed he was thinking about it.
She was just-- she would just have expected
a little more subtlety though.
An invitation to inspect the bedroom or something,
although there wasn't really a bedroom,
just a little living room with a turquoise rug and a day bed.
It was just about the time that Dave made his move
that the vodka tonics plus the beer finally had an effect.
She felt sort of disconnected while the big event was
happening, not that she tried to stop it,
anything was better than eating K-rations.
And anyway, after all, she had been the one
who had taken him off hold.
Besides, it was a short event.
Dave was disappointed in himself and said he was out of practice
and it had been quite a while, which
made her feel a little sorry for him.
So what if he liked K-rations?
It was just his marine background.
She held him close for a while, after all, he
had needed her a lot and she did like the gray streak,
it was too bad he had such a horrible apartment.
Pepper would have said some awful things
to say if she could see that turquoise rug.
Dave seemed sort of helpless lying there beside her
and she couldn't help feeling a little love,
although she did plan to avoid the $2 craps
table for quite a while.
Then when Dave slept, she got dressed and found
that besides the K-rations, there was no phone.
She had to use a payphone across the street of the laundry mat
to call Pepper and tell her she would
have to cook her own breakfast.
Well, enough of that, I'm just going
to read you one more little part, and that's
where Harmony goes away.
At the end of the book, she gets a job in Reno or at least, no,
her husband of 14 years, who hasn't been around in 14 years,
Ross decides that she should come to Reno.
He's not-- she gets fired meanwhile as a showgirl.
When Jessie breaks her ankle, Bonventre
decides this is a good time to get rid of Harmony
too, so he promptly gets rid of Harmony and hires her daughter,
and her daughter goes on to become the star of the show.
But I'm not going to read you any of that,
I'm just going to read you a little of Harmony's departure.
Meanwhile Jessie moves into Harmony's house
in order to recover from the breaking of her ankle.
Jessie and Myrtle have become fast friends.
They sat in the cool of the garage
most of the day talking about men, how unfaithful they
were and dishonest, and not too sensitive and hard
to understand.
They had enough complaints to get them through the day.
Harmony didn't take much part, she
didn't care to hear complaints and had
none to make particularly, men weren't perfect
but neither were women.
Much as she loved Myrtle and Jessie,
it was obvious that they were a long way from perfect.
So she had an affair with a man named Giardo
but I don't have time to read that.
She went out to the garage to tell Myrtle and Jessie
the good news: she practically had a job in Reno.
But both of them were such pessimists,
they didn't even consider it good news.
"How do you know he'll be faithful?"
Jessie asked.
She thought she was sort of obsessed with that issue.
Harmony never had been obsessed with it, after all,
humans were humans.
If there was some kindness in the relationship,
a little slip now and then could be overlooked,
and actually in most cases she had been the one
prone to make the little slip.
Myrtle didn't care about faithfulness
unless Wendell was the male in question;
she was more interested in who paid for what.
He said if Ross was serious, he ought
to have offered to buy the bus ticket.
"If I was going to ride all the way to Reno
just to let somebody get in my pants,
they could at least buy the bus ticket," Myrtle said.
She was not a very sentimental person most of the time.
Then she headed to town and got Gary just as he was waking up
and he thought it was a great idea, her going to Reno.
He said a change of locale might do
her all the good in the world but then he went to shower
and when he came out of the shower, he was crying.
Harmony didn't know whether it was because
of his unrequited love or what.
"No it's you," Gary said, "You're
one of the most wonderful people I've ever known,
I don't know what I'll do without you.
You're just always so cheerful," he said,
"You're not a depressive like everyone else in this town."
It was sweet that he thought that of her.
For a moment she wished Gary wasn't gay,
something might have happened but what
happened was that they went through a long walk
and held hands.
Harmony was thinking that their friendship could never be hurt.
At that point she didn't feel too
sad to be leaving Las Vegas.
She and Gary talked about what might happen.
Gary said, "Well, maybe Ross has grown up now, will make you
a perfect husband.
Or if not, maybe some wonderful guy
will show up with one of the junkets
and you'll marry him and live happily ever after."
Harmony didn't know about that but she didn't feel sad.
Maybe they would need two hospitality hostesses, that's
what she's really going to do, is
be a hospitality hostess in the big hotel
and show junketeers around the town, et cetera et cetera.
Moving on to the bus station, she
had a very sad time saying goodbye to her peacocks.
And then Gary and her daughter drive her to the bus station.
Harmony decided that Pepper had grown up.
Pepper is already working in the show by this time.
She had a lot of presence.
Pepper was not very likeable.
It was a cool presence but a lot of presence,
she was so beautiful and well-dressed that it
made everyone a little uncomfortable, even Gary.
He had been drinking too much due to his unrequited love
and had put on weight.
None of them looked that wonderful
when they're out of the garage.
They were all sitting around in the garage
full of dusty costume jewelry and worn out tires,
Maude had eaten the bottom out of both the card table
so that things kept falling through.
So in a way Pepper was right, it was sort of a slum like place
actually.
Jessie asked Pepper about her job at the Stardust and Pepper
was casual about it.
"Well, we got to move it," Gary said.
He was quite nervous so Harmony got her suitcase
and her little traveling bag.
"Be good to Wendell," she said as she was hugging Myrtle.
Of course they all cried again and Pepper informed Gary
that she would drive since he was
the only one around with enough self-control to steer a car.
When they got to the bus station,
Harmony gave Pepper a hug and a kiss.
She knew adolescents didn't much like
being hugged by their parents, particularly not Pepper,
but at least she didn't seem too revolted.
"I know it's going to be wonderful for you Pepper--"
let's see here.
"I know it's going to be wonderful for you Pepper,"
Harmony said, "You're so talented, you'll
have a real career."
Pepper had killed the motor, they
were standing in the parking lot behind the Stardust
and the lights had just come on.
"That's the nice thing about Las Vegas though,"
Harmony said, "I was never talented like you are,
I was just pretty.
Nobody would have known what to do with me anywhere else
but here I got to be a feathered beauty."
She didn't let them wait, didn't like
people sitting around feeling awkward
while she got her ticket, people ought
to get on with their lives, particularly
people like Pepper and Gary, who had jobs.
Pepper didn't say anything while Harmony was giving Gary
a long, long hug.
Gary was quite upset.
Pepper sort of stood by the door of the Datsun watching the hug.
Harmony thought for a minute she would say more,
explain to Pepper that it was silly to be jealous any longer.
She had never been talented and now wasn't even
a feathered beauty anymore.
Probably in a few more years she'd dry up like Myrtle
and not be any kind of beauty; the jealousy was pointless.
The few years would pass soon enough,
then maybe Pepper would remember how hard she
tried to be a good mom, giving the birthday parties every year
and reading stories and things.
But she didn't say any of it, she
didn't want to be a demanding parent.
And anyway, it would be better if Pepper just
remembered it sometime.
"Would you say hello to my father?"
Pepper said.
She sounded rather formal but it was interesting
that she had said it, she hardly ever mentions her father.
"Oh sure, he's been so proud since he
heard you were dancing the lead, maybe he'll
come down and see you some-- he'll come down and see you
sometime," Harmony said.
Then she blew her daughter a little extra kiss
and went on in.
It was time those two were getting on with their lives.
She didn't feel so bad waiting.
The bus station was full of interesting looking people
and it was sort of exciting to be getting on a bus
and going someplace new.
She hadn't really done it since that time in Tulsa
when she was 17 and the bus then hadn't been nearly as fancy.
While she was waiting, she struck up a conversation
with a man who didn't tell her his real name,
he just told her his nickname, which was Boston.
He said he was a professional semi-pro softball player
and he was going to Seattle where
he said a professional could always
get by playing semi-pro ball.
Harmony didn't quite grasp the distinction between pro
and semi-pro but it didn't really matter,
it was nice to have someone friendly to talk to.
She told him she had been a showgirl, maybe still was,
it depended on whether any producers in Reno
happen to need one.
Boston was optimistic, he said he
didn't doubt she could get on with the show right away.
It cheered her up even though it was
obvious he didn't know the slightest thing about it.
He even offered to buy her coffee
but they called the bus about that time.
It was getting dark when they pulled out.
The sky in the west was still blue over the lights
of the strip.
She still loved seeing those lights.
The big Dome was flashing in front of Caesars Palace
and the Flamingo was all lit up.
Since Boston didn't know much about Las Vegas,
she pointed out the MGM Grand, and told him about the fire.
They were nearly to the top and they
happened to pass-- when they passed the Amoco station,
Harmony happened to glance out and see Wendell.
There were no cars in the station.
Wendell was just standing there by the pumps
in his clean uniform looking sad.
She wanted so much to throw him a kiss.
It would be quite a while before he got her windshield again,
like forever probably.
And she was remembering Pepper and being
a parent and the problems and all,
and it broke her heart that Wendell's son was actually
dead and could never remember that he had been a good dad
or stop being jealous or whatever.
She began to cry for Wendell as they went on
past the Tropicana.
Boston was pretty upset by the sight of her tears.
He thought maybe he had made a wrong move, offended her
in some way.
Harmony shook her head, no, she couldn't tell him
the reasons about Didier being dead in their room--
about Didier being dead in their room at the Trop
and her not admitting it about that or about any in her life.
But it wasn't any wrong move, it was just a sight of Wendell.
His sadness would go on forever, even if Myrtle
did let up about the jealousy.
The tears were too much for Boston though.
10 minutes later he had to go to the bathroom and on his way
back he stopped and started talking
to a Black girl who was traveling alone
except for a transistor radio.
Boston sat down with the Black girl and that was that.
Once she stopped crying, Harmony thought
it was probably for the best.
If she had got off the bus talking it up with Boston,
Ross might have got the wrong idea.
Soon it was quite dark, just now and then
a light far out in the desert of the wink of an airplane far up
in the sky.
Harmony had kind of supposed it was all just empty
and they would zoom along and there Ross would be.
But in fact, it was quite a few stops.
Behind her she could finally hear
Boston telling the Black girl about the life
of the professional semi-pro but she wasn't really listening,
it was just sounds in the background.
After Tonopah, she got really drowsy and went to sleep.
Reno was where everyone changed buses
so there was no danger of her sleeping right through it.
Ross knew how to tease and would tease her for months if she did
something so dumb as that, but she didn't.
She woke up while they were still in the desert
and freshened up a bit as they were coming into town.
Reno seemed bigger than it had been
when she had come to it as Miss Las Vegas Showgirl.
It had its share of lights, nothing
to equal the strip, but quite a few.
As they wheeled on into town, Harmony
got nervous all of a sudden.
One moment she had her optimism and felt very hopeful
but then in a second the optimism went away
and she began to think like Jessie thought.
After all, it had been 14 years.
It was definitely sort of crazy what she was doing.
It even occurred to her that Linda could have showed up
during the day, and Linda is a girl who is pregnant by Ross
at the time.
But she's a girl of another generation, Ross assured
Harmony, didn't make any difference,
she had a different attitude about these things.
It even occurred to her that Linda
could have showed up during the day
and decided to keep Ross instead of just
living with the girlfriend.
It's hard not to be a little nervous, if Linda had come back
it could all be off.
She was just as glad Boston had settled in with the Black girl,
one complication was enough.
But then she stepped out into the cold bus station
and Ross was right there.
"Oh Ross, Pepper said hello," she said,
"Didn't want to forget that important information."
Of course she gave him a big hug but seeing
him was sort of a shock.
Ross seemed to have shrunk.
Not that he had ever been a giant
but definitely seemed to have shrunk.
He had always had a kind of potato face,
only the potato had shriveled a little in the bald spot
and definitely taken over.
Ross had hair on his temples but maybe only about 10
on the top of his head.
She was thinking that "I shouldn't have thrown away
so many sweaters, it's cold up here in Reno."
Then she got over the shock a little, after all,
looks weren't everything, she had probably changed too.
She noticed that Ross was sort of watching Boston
who had his softball glove buttoned
around the handle of his little traveling bag.
Boston was moving right along with the Black girl
and her transistor.
"How come that ballplayer didn't take up with you?"
Ross asked, "Don't he know the most beautiful woman
in the world when he sees her?"
"Oh Ross, he did, but I cried and scared him away,"
Harmony said.
Then she grabbed his arm, forget about the potato face,
he still had the soft little Kansas voice, plus best of all,
Ross still had the sweet eyes.
[APPLAUSE]