Lu checked her watch—in ten minutes they were going to announce half hour. “On Wednesdays my driver's off duty until he has to pick me up at night, but the housekeeper may know where he is. If she can find him, he'll take you home.” She turned to a fascinated George and said, “Tell them at the box office to call my apartment.”

“Since she's here, maybe Rose would like to see the show tonight,” George suggested.

Lu turned to her daughter. “Would you like that?” she asked. She could have killed herself for the eagerness in her voice. “The theater always keeps a few house seats in reserve for special guests.”

“No, thank you,” said her daughter. Her voice suggested she'd rather watch snakes copulate.

Well, what did you expect? Lu asked herself.

As it worked out, the driver wasn't needed. When Lynne came into the dressing room with Lu's costumes, Rose followed the dresser downstairs to the wardrobe room, where, the woman later informed her mother, she was very helpful. It seemed her nonna had taught her how to sew on buttons, and she was a whiz at fixing zippers. She was also very efficient when it came to washing dancers’ tights.

Chapter 17 - New York 2008

“DID MY MOTHER ever see Lu do her thing on the stage?” Carrie asked. They had finished the chili and she and George were washing up the dishes in his monster kitchen. The tiny, exquisitely behaved Yorkies were sitting in a row watching them.

“Rose didn't go to any of Lu's shows for a couple of years,” George said. “She could really hold a grudge—even when she was a kid. But then she started attending the opening nights. And, baby, she stole the spotlight.”

“Mother did?” Carrie asked, although it shouldn't have been a surprise. Her mother always had.

“She was what—fifteen, maybe?” George went on, “And she was beautiful. There was no awkward-teenager time for Rose—no puppy fat, no zits. She knew how to dress herself—pale colors and soft fabrics, nothing showy or stiff, even in the fifties, when everyone else was wearing those ghastly prom dresses. Where she got her sense of style I'll never know. Lu didn't have any. A lot of actresses don't—they always look like they're wearing a costume. But Rose was ravishing. So on opening nights, she got big attention in the press, and she learned to play the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate like an entire frigging string section.”

Carrie thought about the three signature gowns her mother had had made for her public appearances and the white leather scrapbook hidden in the bottom of her bureau drawer.

“How did she do it?” Carrie asked.