The title comes from jazz slang popular in the 1920s. A baby vamp being an attractive girl, the bearcat a fierce woman, the choice bit of calico a desirable woman, and a sheba is a girlfriend. Goof is a bumbling idiot.
Author's note: Now we've had a bit of introduction, the chapters start getting longer.
But of course, there never is. This sap falls for the lines everytime. But I know her attempts to make me a better person, a celebrity, are only misguided efforts to focus the spotlight back on herself. She'll be able to say "Oh yes, my daughter is a star, as once was I" and then she can show everyone her remmants from her former life.
Yet, I never can question her motives directly to her face. That being one of the reasons why I am here, and the other is that she fed me lines about the grandness of it constantly for nearly two months. I eventually gave in and now I regret it.
I feel as if I may suffocate on the climate of Chicago and its only been twenty minutes that I've been in my room on the top floor. The stench of cigarettes has permeated my squalid hotel room, other patrons of the hotel have spilled liquor all over the interior and I hear jazz wafting through from at all hours of the night; serves me right to get a room next door to The Royal Garden. And yet I'm attributing to the odor by smoking.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of my new job, and as I sit here watching the passersbys below, I can't help but wonder why I'm here. I'll be working over the period of two weeks assisting in whatever menial task they can give me. I just can't thank my mother enough, but I'll be sure to when I get home. She can count on it. That is, if I can work up the nerve. What am I saying, of course I won't thank her. I'll lay a line on her about how it was so great, and enriching.
The first acts of the Garden this week are Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. The lady jazz sensations themselves. Seven nights of those former murderesses whose names were in all the papers. First Velma, then Roxie, now the two of them. They're quite the thing here in Chicago. There's posters all over the hotel advertising the show and everywhere you turn, people are sporting the Roxie or Velma look. There's even a Roxie doll in the toy store across the street.
It's been my experience that few people in showbusiness are nice. I attribute this to the fact that during my childhood, and back when my mother was the 'it girl', celebrities from all over paraded into our house. I was made to perform little skits for them, while the hostess embelished my shyness to "coyness".
Perhaps Roxie and Velma will be different. I must admit, I'm looking forward to seeing their act. I've heard they put on quite a show. Perhaps I can take the bellboy who's been trying to get my attention since I've arrived. He keeps offering me dinner, booze, cigarettes. I turn him down constantly. The boy doesn't seem capable of constructing sentences that don't involve the word "me" and "I".
He's somewhat thick-headed and if I can't carry an intelligent conversation with someone, like I could with Thomas, then they are useless to me. As for Roxie and Velma, from what I've gleaned from eavesdropping on other stagehands who reside in the hotel, the two girls are more than show partners. I haven't a clue why someone would say that, I've certainly never been shown any clues.
I think I'd rather see them perform alone than with a goof.