A few days later, Sherri could see what Tina meant about training being hard, and she understood why Gloria didn’t want to use the word “waitress” to describe the work the Bunnies had to do. What waitress trained for an entire week, or stayed up late trying to memorize the contents of two huge binders that were bigger than the Old Testament? Memorization was easier for Sherri than for most of the other girls. She was able to take a mental picture of just about anything she saw and store it in her brain, but still she was overwhelmed by all the rules Bunny Starr ticked through. “Don’t let guests see you wear jewelry, chew gum, eat, or sit. You’ll get demerits for having dirt under your nails, if your ears are bent incorrectly, if you don’t keep your locker organized, or if you don’t keep the changing room cleaned. You need to look at the bulletin board every day for updates and attend Bunny Council meetings. And don’t ever forget to check the ashtrays.”

Bunny Council sounded important. They had their own employee newsletter, called The Hare’s Head. Wouldn’t Jeanne be impressed to learn that there was more to Sherri’s job than strutting around in a Bunny suit? Sherri had underlined a line she’d found in the Bunny Manual twice, once for herself, and once for Jeanne: “The Bunny has become what the Ziegfeld girl was to another generation, synonymous with the most glamorous young women in the world.” She was part of a tradition. She was finally part of something.

Sherri even got benefits. She felt like a real adult filling out her forms for accident, life, and health insurance. She had a week’s paid vacation and a free subscription to Playboy magazine that she could read two weeks before the subscribers. Guests could practically eat for free with Sherri’s family discount, but this perk only made Sherri sad that she didn’t know anyone who would visit her. Sherri was told she would be welcome at the Playboy Clubs in Chicago and Los Angeles and all over the world. When she heard this, she smiled at Rhonda. “We should go to Chicago.”

“That’s OK,” Rhonda said. “I went there on a school field trip to see the King Tut exhibit. I couldn’t stand all the shadows.”

“The shadows?”

“From the skyscrapers. The middle of the day in the city feels like the middle of the night. And the El is so loud. I’d be fine if I never went back there again. The loudest thing I hear in Barneveld is a screech owl. That’s enough for me.”

The most important rule, and the one that bothered Sherri the most, was that Bunnies were forbidden from dating not just coworkers, but also keyholders and guests. The women broke out in a collective groan when they heard this.