The Stork Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

do," Shelly said. "She was a terrible woman . . . but a great ball."
    They both screamed with laughter. Soon they had ritualized their end-of-the-day meeting on the steps of the theater, each of them finding the way there after the long hours Ruthie spent building and painting scenery and Shelly spent pounding out the same tunes again and again for the rehearsing dancers. Just knowing they could look forward to the time they spent afterward laughing and mining their creative and bizarre minds enabled them to get through each day.
    Ruthie thought it was the beginning of a great romance, though there was never even so much as a kiss on the cheek as evidence. She had the naïveté of the unsought-after girl who had never once felt the front of some eager boy's corduroys, lumpy with lust, pushing heatedly against her, since no boy had ever really desired her. And that was how she came to be nineteen and, with the exception of a few disastrous fix-ups from some of her mother's friends who sent a pitifully too-short son to call or forced a stuttering nephew to take Ruthie to a movie, she had never dated. Undoubtedly it was the fact that she knew so little which enabled her to continue to imagine that someone so obviously crazy about her was simply taking his time about declaring his romantic feelings.
    Then one chilly night she woke in her bed at the Colonial Manor Hotel with an overwhelming urge to pee. She had never yet made it through any night in her life without being rudely nudged out of a dream by herfull bladder. At home where the bathroom was a few yards away and the floors were carpeted, those nighttime forays weren't much of a problem. But in the drafty old hotel with the cold hardwood floors, the communal bathroom was a long journey down the dimly lit hallway. Thank God, she thought, standing up, that my mother wasn't around to see me having to make this trip.
    Groggily she stumbled toward the glow of the bathroom night-light that seemed to be miles away, passing the rooms of the other apprentices, sending a silent little message of love as she passed Shelly's room. Envying Polly Becker, the big-nosed forty-year-old costume designer who wore low-cut blouses and flirted with every guy who walked by, because Polly had arrived at the theater weeks before the others and thereby got to claim the room closest to the bathroom.
    Just as Ruthie reached for the bathroom doorknob she heard an odd sound from one of the rooms. It was a long low moan. Somebody must not be feeling well, she thought. And it was certainly no wonder, with the disgusting food they served around here. In fact she'd felt a little queasy herself just last night after the lasagna. But then there was another moan, after which she understood that it wasn't the kind of sound that accompanies illness. She felt flushed, her whole body aroused by the idea of something carnal happening so close to where she was standing.
    She was sure the sounds had to be from Polly Becker's room. So the old girl had succeeded in luring someone into her bed. And she was having a hot time of it too. The moans were moans of pleasure, a lot of pleasure, mingled with creaks from the springs of those uncomfortable old metal hotel beds.
    "Oh, God. Oh, yes. Oh, God."
    They got louder. Ruthie, embarrassed by her ownexcitement, wasn't sure what to do. She closed the bathroom door behind her and stayed inside longer than she needed to, splashing cold water on her face to calm herself. She even flushed the toilet a few times to drown out the sounds. Finally she opened the bathroom door slowly, listened long enough to be certain that the hall was now silent, then made her way on tiptoe back toward her own room.
    She was looking down at her own chubby toes, which were bent in their effort to keep her from clumping noisily and being heard, so when two big hands on her arms moved her to one side she took in a terrified gasp. When she let it out it was into the handsome craggy face of the