“First rule of the biz, sweetie: they can always find someone new to fill your tap shoes while they're still warm from your feet. No one is golden. You can't ever forget that.” Lu did her sad chuckle again. “Anyway, after Soldiers, Bobby had an idea for a new show, but he didn't have a part for me.”

“That must have been rough.”

“I'd always known that he'd have to move on; he couldn't write for one actress for his entire career. But no one else knew what to do with me. I couldn't go back to the kind of shows I'd done before Soldiers and The Lady. I was past playing the cutie-pie parts. Maybe I could have gotten away with it, age-wise—if the lighting was really good—but that kind of thing just wasn't me anymore. Besides, those musicals were considered old-fashioned by the midsixties. Then Hair came along and all of a sudden everything was rock music and kids getting naked onstage.” She laughed—a big, hearty laugh this time. “Mama thought I was lewd when I stripped down to a silk teddy in the fifties. If she could have seen what the girls were doing in 1968… Don't get me wrong, I liked Hair. I saw it twice. But after it came on the scene, there were only two kinds of shows being done: rock musicals with at least half the cast in the buff, or what we used to call the ‘big lady musicals,’ like Hello, Dolly! and Mame. I was too old to wander around without my clothes on, and I never felt right playing the diva. I needed someone brilliant like Bobby to come up with a part that was good for me and good for the time. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of Bobby Mannings running around. I had three bombs back to back.” Lu looked up at the grape arbor above their heads. “I was scared; I thought my career was over. I didn't need the money, but I didn't know how I'd live if I couldn't work.” She brought her gaze down to Carrie. “I learned,” she said drily. “I haven't worked in thirty-three years.”

“George says that was your choice.”

“George never understood that I was brought up Catholic.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Catholics do penance for their sins.”

“I know that. But what did you do that was so bad that you had to give up your career?”

“My daughter was such an unhappy woman—I had to take responsibility for that. As the kids used to say, I blew it.”

“I thought you said her life was good after I was born.” Carrie was confused.

“For a while. But then things between Bobby and Rose went sour again. It was around the time when you were three years old.”

“Right before he died.”

“Yes. That was when everything went to hell.”

Chapter 31 - New York 1974