Part Four:
Some Like it Hot!
The bare bones of whatever the previous show had left behind were still on the stage. Jade identified a bed, a poorly constructed staircase that led to nothing, and a piano. The bed made her nervous. She had been with three people in her life. First her high school boyfriend, best friend, and partner in every sense of the word, Jesse. Then a groupie she had connected to emotionally when they were on tour in Mexico, which ended in a fond memory and a song that never made it onto any album, like a sweet sadness. And finally, her short-lived girlfriend, Jane.
That story was much more. Much more sorrowful, much more meaningful, much more complicated. When Jade was twenty, Jane was twenty-nine, with an eleven year old daughter named Cassie. Everything between the two of them had been serious and normal, and wonderful in its way. But Jane was self-conscious, couldn't trust or shake off a strange glance. Song after song had been penned for her, during songwriting sessions in Nashville that had caused everything to crumble, fast.
Lovin' a music man ain't always what it's sposed to be, Jade thought sadly. And I didn't have the time or the patience to love you so much that you couldn't shake me.
She reached for the folded paper in her pocket, scribbling it down when she realized it was a good line.
"Inspiration strike?" Noah asked, approaching down the aisle.
"Yep."
"Is it about me?" He waggled an eyebrow, jumping up onto the stage and swaggering over.
"No. Girl I loved."
"Hot. So. Why am I here?"
"Well... stand up. Let's dance."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't dance."
"Figure of speech. And if you don't dance how the Hell are you gonna make it in show business?"
"Well, I only dance when I get paid to dance."
"So you're a stripper?"
"I'm only undressing if you do."
She stopped for a minute. Then, slowly, she undid the sash holding closed the tan overcoat she wore, letting it drop to the ground. Noah's lips parted in a hush of breath.
"Lord have mercy," he said, doing his best southern churchgoer.
She wore a white dress, halter straps at the top, overlaying parts in the skirt; the Marilyn. Her brown hair, she'd left, long and straight. When she spoke, she was in character, her voice round syllables, breathy tones and sad, fake allure.
"I'm afraid I've been a bad girl, Noah, you see... I took this dress without asking. I just thought it was so pretty, I couldn't help myself. Maybe I should return it-." She reached behind her to undo the tie of the straps, letting them fall away but holding the top up with one arm. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. "What do you think?"
Silence.
"Maybe not just yet. We have to do a little dancing first. I also took some sheet music. My curiosity just got the best of me, I suppose. Let me take you through the steps."
She moved center stage, in front of him, and they stood in silence for a moment.
"If- you say something is taboo, well- that's a thing I wanna do. Do it 'til we're black and blue!" She placed his hands on her body to wrap around her. Then, hands twisted together, she spun so his arms uncrossed and hers crossed over, then he dragged her closer so her body pressed tight to his. She shimmied down, very sensually. "Let's be bad."
Skipping away from him, Jade was met by dancers in twenties get ups, with old timey machine guns. "Guns and gangsters suit me fine." She caught the guns as they fired to the rhythm, then tossed them across, knocking the men out with a swing of her hips. "Al Capone was a buddy of mine. He's my big shot valentine! Let's be bad!"
A few flapper girls and gangster boys fell into line on either side of her and they stepped to one side, toward the piano. "The spirits are sagging- the feet are a-dragging." She hopped up on the piano, spinning her legs around off one side so a male dancer could drag her off and lift her up. "Fall off of that wagon! The piano hums to the bass and drums. And I'll be dancing when Hoover comes! Don't care if you've tied the knot. Most folks want what they ain't got." She spun from one man and collided with Noah again, turning her back to him but keeping her backside pressed tight to his hips.
"Melt the ice, some like it hot! Let's be bad!" She bent forward, then flipped long hair up, shaking her tush in the compromising position. Noah still held her wrists, so her arms stretched behind her.
He spun her, and they danced among the other dancers, ending up pinned together with her leg wrapped around his side.
"Here's my whistle, make it wetter," she sang, with the other women chiming in, "Let me wear that scarlet letter. When I'm bad, I'm even better! Let's be bad!"
"Say bye-bye propriety! No polite society!" She called, keeping her voice in its mid-range and dancing over to the vent in the floor, which blew the Marilyn skirt up. She pushed it down, but simply let it fly up when she raised her arms and sang, "Give me notoriety! Let's be bad!"
The piano, bed and staircase spun around them on wheels, guided by dancers, and she did a flapper-dance with the girls in sparkly silver dresses, kicking sparkly heels out. "Bring on the vices!" Her voice turned strong and belty. "Don't care what the price is! I'll add the right spices!" She crashed into the piano, slumping over it and letting her hair fall forward, like a drunken stupor. "When the stand up bass slaps you in the face, well it ain't my husband I'll embrace."
Noah grabbed her and they hurried away, stopping at the foot of the bed where she shoved him down on its soft mattress. "I can't see the use in waiting! Your lips are intoxicating!" Jade climbed over him, spreading her legs to ride his hips close. skimming her hands up from her hips seductively, she murmured in a ditzy blonde voice, "Do my hips need some translating? Let's be bad!"
She kicked a leg over to run up to the stairs. "If I drown in bathtub gin, notify my next of kin!" She jumped off the top of the stairs. "They might grieve, or might jump in!" Noah caught her around the knees, so they pressed together, chest to face.
"Let's be bad!" He set her down and she spun away. "Who wants plays, and O'Neil dramas? Gershwin is the cats pajamas!" Her next line was a combination of belt and her scream. "I'm the queen of the red hot mamas! Let's be bad!"
"Each crook and G-man," the ladies sang, "Each poppin' p man."
"-Just stick with me, man!" They fell into a crowd and one man held up a ukelele for her to strum. "Every joint's a juke with my red hot uke. And just like Judas once said to Luke: Here's the key for my ignition, hit the gas to my transmission!" She took a running start and jumped up into Noah's arms, wrapping herself around his waist. "When you hear the things I'm wishin'- you won't offer opposition!" He held her thighs tightly as she leaned back to a ninety degree angle and they spun. "Let's prohibit prohibition! Let's- be- bad-!" She held the note triumphantly.
"Some like it hot and that ain't bad."
At the last beat she threw her arms out and was standing center-stage, breathing heavily. Noah stared, licking his lips as he followed the curve of her thigh until he boarder of the dress. He approached from behind, and as she just watched the rows of seats, not looking back at him, he ran his hands down her sides, wrapping them around her to grip her hips.
"Let's play Marilyn and JFK. Know any of their numbers?"
"No."
She grabbed his hands and removed them from her, then turned. "I'm not here to seduce you. We do have great chemistry, though, which is why, if you care about this show at all, you'll support me if you win DiMaggio. Because I've loved Marilyn and the theater since I was a little girl, and I give every bit of myself for it. For her."
He sighed, watching her sternly. "I already wanted you to play her. You're Jade Adams, for Christ's sake."
Her phone blared out, "Ring ring, hooker," in the voice of Lafayette from True Blood. She blushed and checked the caller ID, seeing it was Jesse. She stilled a moment, then decided she couldn't handle being alone with him; couldn't handle trying to rekindle their unhealthy relationship again; and switched it off.
She said goodbye to Noah and they locked up the building as they left, then started for the studio to return her borrowed costume, and perhaps run into Miss Fabray.
She slipped in and found the girl bowed over her notes, skimming a new song. She looked up and removed her glasses.
"What are you doing here again?"
"Should leave those on," Jade nodded. "Make you look like a sexy librarian."
Quinn intentionally set the glasses down. "Wouldn't want to encourage you."
She smiled, moving to hang the dress up, then drifting to stand near the pretty woman. "What are you working on?"
"Reviewing a new song. USO tour. A perfect number to show the shell of Marilyn; the sauciness and wit that was mostly an act."
Jade read over the lyrics. "What's your shell, Miss Fabray? We all have one."
"I'm straight," she said quickly, anticipating the question. "That's not a shell. I'm not just pretending. And I'm truly not interested in your advances, so I would appreciate it if you stopped... getting so close to me."
Jade backed up. "I apologize. I didn't mean to pressure you."
There was heavy silence.
Then Quinn murmured, "I do have a shell. I have a pretty thick one, in fact."
Jade sensed it was a topic best not pressed, and said, "Mine's pretty huge, too. Nothing that people see in me is real. I haven't said an honest thing in years, when there was a camera rolling. No one knows that I have massive depressive episodes, panic attacks. I've been to go to rehab once, a mental health facility twice, and I've seen the bottom of more bottles than you could count."
Quinn bit her lip. Jade noticed than where most people bit their bottom lips, she bit the top, leaving the lower one fluffy and pouted and somewhat sensual. She dug in her bag for a moment to find her pocketbook, finding the photo of herself with a little girl in her arms.
"My niece, Jenny-. But..." She slid another picture out from under it and clasped it quickly to her chest, not looking at it for even a second. "My name isn't legally Quinn Fabray, or Quinn Schuester. It's Lucille Quinn Fabray. And I used to look like this."
She showed Jade the picture, who made sure to keep a straight face, nodding softly.
"They called me Lucy Caboosey. So before I started high school I lost a lot of weight, got a nose job and started going by Quinn. Then I ended up being a mean girl, and doing the same thing to other kids that was done to me."
"I know how much it hurts to get bullied. Had really, really bad acne in school. Not to mention being openly bisexual and sort of pretentious, thinking I was better than everyone else. That part's still true. Why do you keep that picture if it's such a painful memory?"
Quinn smiled. "Inspiration. Not to eat too much chocolate or skip a jog. I always know it's there."
"That's ridiculous. You've gotta skip a jog and eat a lot of chocolate every once in a while, or what's life even for? Guilty pleasures are the most happy I feel these days. You should try it sometime."
"Are you hitting on me again?" Her voice was the breaking wave it had been during The 20th Century Fox Mambo.
"No, of course not, why would I ever wish to get to know a beautiful woman? Crazy."
"Okay, so if you've returned your stolen costume-."
"Oh you can't throw me out yet. This changed name and persona thing you've got going on has just made me even more sure that you need to audition for Marilyn."
It got an actual laugh from her, dry and one-syllable. "Ha! You're insane! I'm not an actress."
"You could be. I saw you, remember. And I know these things. I can get Jesse to let you audition, I know I can."
"What about the fact that my soon-to-be ex husband is on the creative team?"
"Isn't Marilyn important enough to you to endure a little discomfort?"
She looked away almost guiltily. A whisper in that irresistible voice. "Yes."
"So you'll do it?"
"I'll think about it. But it's ridiculous. I never bothered to dream about being on stage because it was so ridiculous then and it's so ridiculous now."
"Trust me."
Jesse sighed and snapped his phone closed, then looked up when a shadow fell on him. Rachel stood there, in an elegant black dress, clutching her purse in both hands. Around them, there were sounds of forks hitting plates, very soft conversations and soft music.
"Mr. St. James," she said, smiling alluringly. "All alone tonight?"
"Uh, yes, it appears so. What about you?"
"Finn has actually taken a job as a night guard at the Met, so I'm by myself, yes."
"Sounds like that terrible Ben Stiller movie."
She laughed graciously, in a high and breathy tone to sound as much like Marilyn's laugh as she could. "Well it's so strange, running into you like this. Maybe we could make it a business dinner."
"Oh." He jumped to his feet, pulling out the chair across the table that he had meant for Jade. "Please join me, Miss Berry. -Or is it Hudson? Or Berry-Hudson or Hudson-Berry?"
"Legally it's Hudson, but in my career I go by my maiden name. I've dreamed of seeing it up in lights since I was a little girl, so it seemed right. What about you?"
"I never dreamed of any of it. My big dream was inheriting my father's business, but someone showed me everything I could be, and everything the world could be, and here I am."
"Jade?" Rachel guessed.
He sighed. "Yeah. I guess you get stuck to people sometimes."
"I know exactly what you mean."
Rachel's heart was racing. Finn would be working until the early morning. He would come home and it would be the same as the last time he worked a graveyard shift job. He would want to sleep, she would begin to feel isolated when he got snippy with her, and the gap would grow even more. She didn't know that their marriage could survive it again. Really, if she did what she had to to ensure she got the part, it was for the good of their marriage. If she didn't enjoy it, if it was only for Finn, if it was only business.
So she laughed like Marilyn, she said sensual, clever things like Marilyn, and she imagined she had Marilyn's curves and confidence when she let the black dress straps fall from her shoulders and climbed into Jesse's bed.