Strings Attached Read Online Free PDF

callback. If you’re a dancer, you’ve got to pick up the phone.
    “This isn’t about Billy, so don’t blow up at me,” Nate said. “I know that your play closed. I’ve got a job lead foryou.” He talked fast, like he was afraid I’d hang up. Before I did, he said, “At the Lido.”
    “A nightclub?” I said this automatically, even though my heart raced at the sound of the name.
    “Not just a nightclub. The Lido. You know what that means.”
    I knew. The Lido was class. The girls on the line were chosen as much for their elegance as their legs. Frank Sinatra played the Lido, Ethel Merman, Johnnie Ray, all the big names. And Hollywood movie scouts constantly dropped in, looking for the girl who stood out, the one they’d offer a Hollywood contract to. Lido girls were on the cover of
Life
and
Look,
they were in Walter Winchell’s and Cholly Knickerbocker’s columns.
    “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
    “Because you need a job.”
    “You can’t just fix everything, you know.”
    “Don’t make a federal case. I’ve got a new client in New York, he’s got a connection, I heard something, I’m passing it along. Look, the auditions are going to be on Friday. If you go tomorrow, you can get a jump on the competition. Just go see Ted Roper — he’s in charge of the shows. Two o’clock tomorrow. He’s expecting you. All I can do is get you in the door. I can’t get you the job, so relax.”
    Nate hung up with a soft click. No chance for me to say no. It was like he knew whatever I’d say would be a waste of his time. He knew I wouldn’t turn this down. He knew I’d be crazy to say no.
    I didn’t like him knowing all that. I didn’t like how staying here suddenly made me available to him whenever he felt like calling. I hadn’t counted on that.

     
    I didn’t have cab fare, so I’d have to walk to the Lido. When I got to First Avenue, I picked up a newspaper from the corner store. I flipped the paper in half so that I couldn’t see the screaming headline allies push on Pyongyang, fighting still heavy. I wouldn’t read the war news, but I’d need to skim the want ads if the audition didn’t work out.
    The owner took my nickel and smiled. “You’re back!”
    “Back?”
    He looked at me closer. “Oh, sorry. I thought I recognized you. Enjoy your day, miss.”
    I tucked the paper under my arm and headed west toward Second Avenue. One thing I hadn’t realized about New York was that it was a city of neighborhoods, and not just big ones, like Greenwich Village, but tiny ones, made up of just blocks. You went to the stores right near your apartment, and after a while people knew you. Soon that man would know my face and not confuse me with anyone else. Then I’d feel at home.

     
    Nightclubs shouldn’t be seen in daylight. I loved being in a theater at any hour, loved it especially in the daytime, with its smell of coffee and cigarettes and dust, but the glamorous nightclub I’d read about for so long and dreamed about just looked dingy and sad when the sun was up. It smelled like watered-down drinks with cigarette butts swirling in them, a bunch of sour reminders from four in the morning.
    A man checking receipts at the front told me to go on through to the dressing rooms, so I headed for the stage. The floors were being cleaned, and the furniture had been shifted around into clumps. Chairs and tables seemed to conspire against me on the way. I slammed a hip into a chair back, then bounced off the edge of a table.
    “Doesn’t bode well for the dance routines,” a man said. But he smiled at me in a friendly way.
    “Don’t tell the dance captain,” I said.
    “Good smile.” He wasn’t flirting, he was judging. “Joe didn’t say you were a redhead.”
    I didn’t know who Joe was, but I said, “Born with it, sorry to say.”
    “It’s okay, kid, you’ve got a look. I’m Greg. I’ll be playing your music.”
    “Kit Corrigan.”
    “So you want to be a Lido Doll,