NINE

Ella's mind was in a whirl as the sleek red car drove through the nighttime streets of Chicago. Flattop didn't speak to her and she was not inclined to conversation, huddling in the passenger seat. She was confounded by the conversation at the Villa Venice, not really sure what Flattop's agenda had been in his brutish philosophising. But as the car sped over the bridge and towards the street where she lived with Mrs. Brooks, she began to fear what was to come and to wonder if his point had been simply that what they were about to do was merely an act of survival for her - a subtle jab to 'get over it', as it were.

She tried not to think about what was to come, her stomach twisting in knots and her heart thudding painfully as they turned into her street and he found a parking spot. He switched the engine off but left the radio on and then sat there calmly while the hit song 'Body and Soul' played over the waves, crooned by Billie Holiday. Ella was suddenly horrified he expected things to take place in the vehicle and although she had quailed at the thought of taking him into her tiny and shabby apartment, her own private space and letting him have his way with her while the sweet Mrs. Brooks slept in the apartment next to her, she was desperate to do whatever had to be done to avoid the sordidness of the vehicle.

The tension grew as they sat there in silence, Ella's chest constricting tighter as she waited breathlessly for him to make his move.

The music ended and abruptly Flattop switched off the car, pulling the key from the lock and opening his door. "I love that song," he muttered as he got out of the car and Ella stared after him in astonishment before a sensation of foolishness washed over her.

He came around to her side and opened the door for her, extending his hand to assist. She nodded to him in thanks and wrapped her velvet coat tighter around her as she walked towards the steps leading up to her front door.

He followed her to the bottom of the steps then stopped and rocked back on his heels and looked up at the crumbling edifice, an old brownstone that had seen its glory days a long while ago. His lips twitched in distaste. "What a dump," he remarked frankly and Ella, provoked in embarrassment, turned to him on the step and said, rather desperately:

"Listen, just tell me now: after this, we'll be square, right? This is all you expect? I just gotta know how this works." Her eyes prickled a little and she prayed desperately he could not see the intensity of her distress.

He looked up at her coolly and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a sneer. "Lightfoot said you asked what the wages were before you screwed him," Ella felt her guts tip upwards, her skin rushing cold. "That was smart. Got a head for business underneath all that quakin' and blushin'."

Tears blurred her gaze but she didn't look away, determined to salvage some of her dignity. He chuckled and stepped up to her, patting her twice lightly on the cheek.

"You don't owe me nothin', kid. Just looked like you needed a great night out."

He turned away and walked down the steps without looking back. As he got to the car, she saw him shake his head and his shoulders shook a little. She rushed up the rest of the steps and fumbled to get the key in the lock, finally yanking the door open and slamming it behind her before breaking down.

Ella cried for a long time that night up in her room, sitting in the dark and gazing out her window at the city beyond. Tears ran down her neck and dribbled beneath the silk of her glamorous green dress which she did not bother to remove. She got out Mrs. Brooks' brandy and poured herself a liberal amount, sipping it steadily as she agonised over her various humiliations, each glaring memory incurring a fresh wave of tears.

But eventually the glass was empty and she was all cried out.

She then found herself reflecting on her circumstances rather dispassionately. Somewhat surprisingly, she started to concede that whilst she could torture herself for as long as she wanted worrying about who in the Club Ritz knew about her fleeting tryst with Lightfoot, it would not do her any good or change in the least what had happened.

Instead, she reckoned she had two choices.

The first was to go back home to California. She had money enough for a ticket plus savings besides. Her parents would be glad to see her back and she could help support them with her assistance around their home and in whatever work she could find. It would mean saying goodbye to her independence and to the stage, but it would also mean escaping from a world to which she simply didn't belong - and the people in it that seemed determined to ridicule her.

The other was to stay.

And with her newfound coolness, she began to appreciate certain facts about her situation that she had been disregarding.

The first, of course, was the fact that her job was extremely well paying. Since she had begun at the Club Ritz she had accustomed herself to the perspective that the money was practically compensation for what she had to do to get it - that she had made enormous sacrifices simply to survive.

But twenty-five dollars a week was not surviving. And then there were the tips. Left anxious after her extended period of near-destitution, she was loathe to be careless with her cash and had amassed a reasonable cache of savings. No longer did she have to carefully scrimp and save just to have a decent amount of good food. She was not spending extravagantly but in terms of the bare necessities, she was more than able to have what she liked and then some - as well as treat Mrs. Brooks to share. Without being hard up afterwards.

Ella realised that, while she was still living poor it was because she was choosing to do so - not because she had to. And that placed her in a dramatically different situation to the greater population. It was something to be grateful for.

Secondly, she knew for herself that the girls she worked with were quite liberal in attitude and behaviour. Hanky panky was not scandalous backstage at the Club Ritz - it was simply the way things were for the young and free. The girls were more likely to disdain the chaste and sober than to respect them, to look upon girls who slavishly obeyed the conventions of proprietary as uptight and ridiculous than ladies to be emulated. So why was she so sure she would be judged for her arrangement with Lightfoot anyway? Chances were, she wasn't the only girl in the chorus who had struck the same deal. It wasn't that the girls simply gave it away or didn't have their own code of ethics - they just felt that certain dictates - that women be modest and chaste - were horribly old-fashioned. Most of them were older than Ella by a few years and had spent their teens and early twenties in the roaring twenties - when far more liberal attitudes for women were very much en vogue. Ella recalled her mother saying how glad she was that the stock market crash had seen a return to much the way things were when she had been a girl. But the chorus of the Club Ritz were loathe to give their liberation up.

Liberation - and that was the third thing. Beyond all the stress and anxiety of coping with the Depression alone, Ella very much liked being independent. She came and went as she pleased and kept her own apartment the way she wanted it. There was no one to whom she had to answer and no one to discourage her from what she wanted to do or with whom she had to compromise - Harry had proven to be dreadfully controlling and would fly into the most pathetic sulks when he didn't get his way.

But as well as that, she had been enjoying a liberation of her spirit. Though she clung to her breeding with blushes and guilt - and though she didn't think she could ever get used to something so shocking as the Revue at the Villa Venice - she could not deny that it was a pleasure to be in company that did not so rigorously limit what she might say or do or look at her strangely or with chastisement if she were too free with her laughter or too flashy in her dress. The girls of the Club Ritz were more like movie stars with their cigarettes and paste jewellery, their fancy hairdos and glamorous dresses and for once there was no one around Ella to disapprove or discourage her. "Show-offs," her mother would snort contemptuously at the gay girls back home, seeing how Ella would look yearningly after them. "Making spectacles of themselves." If Ella's lipstick had been too bright or she had dressed up plain black with a yellow scarf or pink gloves, her mother's lips would set themselves in a thin, sour line and she would whisper irritably in her daughter's ear as they left the house: "we're not going to a fashion parade, you know."

Ella had not missed that at all.

But she thought she would miss the riotous, merry dressing room of the Ritz, where the girls would shave their legs in their garters, mix martinis and talk frankly about their boyfriends, where they disdained black in favour of the brightest jewel-tones and dressed up their hair with silk flowers and rhinestoned barrettes - where spending a night's tips on fancy new shoes and lingerie was celebrated, not scolded. She liked the girls with their lack of affectation, unapologetic in their gayness and willing embrace of all things frivolous and fun. Even the girls with a child or two were determined to live well and worked hard to get their tips.

And the work itself - the Villa Venice had given her context to base a comparison on and she had become accustomed to it besides. What had seemed so daring and cheap a couple of months prior now felt comfortable and really, fairly modest - they never even bared their midriffs on stage. The more she gave herself over to the work, the more she was enjoying it. It was not the soaring euphoria of Ballet, but felt instead like she could dance herself eternally young. To dance at the Club Ritz often felt more like dancing with her friends at a hotspot - a lack of restraint rather than the severe control Ballet demanded.

Life, she abruptly realised, could have been terribly fun these last two months, had she allowed it.

Instead, she had occupied her mind with varying convoluted anxieties, all conspiring to age her well beyond her twenty years - an age when all the world should have been hers for the revelling.

As the clock hands crept towards one thirty am, Ella made her decision: she would stay in Chicago, she would keep on working at the Club Ritz and she would have fun.

Finally calm, she rose from the armchair in which she had curled, the broken spring within creaking, changed from her lovely silk gown into her nightie, washed her face and went to bed. Where, for the first time in a long time she slept deeply and without dreaming.

Hey peeps! I've noticed there's quite a bunch of you out there reading this fic, which makes me happy as I wasn't expecting that at all! Folks who usually read my JokerxHarley stuff: have no fear, I have not abandoned our beloved crazy clowns! This is a revitalising diversion! ;)

I'm also very grateful to my one dedicated reviewer - thank you! I would absolutely love to hear from some of the rest of you about whether or not you're enjoying this story or liking the characterisation or any other old thing - so if you would be so kind as to leave a review, I would be deeply appreciative! Thank you!