Bobby's Girl (15 page)

‘Not an American one, no,' she hedged, in an attempt to save face. She left the chair and backed into Bobby.

‘Miss Schumacher, if you could repair the damage.'

She walked away as quickly as she could without running and headed back up the stairs.

‘Guess the advice I gave wasn't that sound.' Bobby caught up with her.

‘That's the understatement of the century.'

‘Don't be mean. I found you a job.'

‘One I don't want.'

‘How do you know you don't want it until you try it?'

‘It's not in New York.'

‘It's a couple of hours' train ride away.' He flattened himself against the wall to make room for a waiter who was wheeling a trolley loaded with chafing dishes down the corridor. ‘Come to the orientation welcome party with me tonight?'

‘I didn't think I had to “go” with anyone. Isn't it part of orientation?'

‘You have no idea what the right escort can do to open doors and enhance your social life.'

‘Any enhancement of my social life in America would be purely temporary.'

‘You're here for four months, aren't you?'

‘Bar a few days.'

‘With me at your side you'd move up at least three scales on the social barometer.'

‘I thought you were studying for a masters in medieval history at Oxford, not comedy.'

‘Who told you I was studying for a masters?'

Penny could have kicked herself for letting slip – a second time – that she'd been interested in him enough to question his friends. ‘A girl I was locked in a cell with in Bow Street.'

‘You met Rose Anne?'

‘We were cellmates.'

‘I was at school with Mike – her boyfriend,' he explained. ‘I know you're studying art, which is probably why you want to stay in the city. But art is all around and there's masses of it in the woods in Connecticut.'

‘You're determined to get me and Kate into this camp of yours, aren't you?'

‘It's not my camp but yes, I'm determined to get
you
there. And it might be helpful for you to have a good friend around, so you've someone impartial to discuss the wonders that are Bobby Brosna.'

‘There you are, Pen.' Kate's mouth twitched and she struggled to contain her laughter as Roland Black walked past. ‘I heard your trial didn't work out.'

‘You should have seen her in action,' Bobby gushed loudly for the benefit of the students who were leaving the suite. ‘I've never seen such courage in the face of total humiliation. Penny walked right up to that telephonist's chair, sat in it, and …' he paused for effect and looked around at the small crowd that had gathered around them ‘… jammed the entire communications system of the hotel.'

She wanted to be angry with Bobby for making her the butt of the joke, but she was laughing too much.

‘How did you fare?' she asked Kate when she could speak.

‘It looked all right but I'm not staying here with Roland without you.'

‘Then I'll get two travel passes for Camp Resonance the day after tomorrow,' Bobby declared triumphantly.

‘Have you heard?' Anne rushed up to them.

‘What?' Kate asked.

‘They're recruiting Bunny Girls for the New York Playboy Club. A dollar fifty an hour plus tips. I'm going for an interview. You coming?' 

‘Bunny girls! You want to be bunny girls? In those costumes! With ears and fluffy, white, cotton tails old men get a thrill out of tweaking.' Bobby shook his head in disbelief.

‘And what's wrong with bunny girls?' Anne demanded, hands on hips.

‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing; if that's what you want to do with your summer in the States go ahead. I'm not sure the pioneers of the student exchange movement would approve, given that “bunny girl” can hardly be classed as an educational occupation.'

‘No, but it'll give us the money to continue our education,' Kate retorted.

‘There are other ways of making money.'

Kate was on a ‘burn'. ‘You mean more respectable ones?'

‘I didn't say that,' Bobby reminded her mildly.

‘You think we wouldn't make good bunny girls?' Anne, who was sensitive about her lack of height and waistline, challenged.

Bobby raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘All three of you would make stunningly beautiful Playboy bunnies. And, if that's what you want to do, go ahead.'

‘Liar,' Anne retorted.

‘We would make beautiful Playboy bunnies,' Kate reiterated. ‘Really?' She raised her eyebrows. ‘I sense a “but” coming.'

She turned to Bobby. ‘Is there a “but”?'

‘I was going to say this is the era of the emancipated woman,' he ventured. ‘Women burning bras on the altar of liberation. I didn't think any educated modern woman would be up for life as a sex object in the Playboy world.'

‘I can be a sex object if the pay's right,' Kate answered swiftly. ‘Let's go.'

‘What about the next lecture?' Bobby asked. ‘It's American politics. Something you should know about in an election year.'

‘As we have no right to vote in the States it's more important we find jobs. Besides, if the next lecture is as good as yours, we won't miss much,' Kate added.

‘Thank you for that, Kate. I'm the forgiving sort. Give me a couple of minutes to get my car from the hotel garage and I'll drive you to the Playboy Club,' Bobby offered.

‘Taxi will be quicker. To the loo to repair hair and make-up?' Kate beckoned to her and Anne.

Anne followed Kate but Bobby stepped in front of Penny.

‘You'll love Camp Resonance once you get there.'

‘So you keep saying.'

‘If you're back early enough to play truant this afternoon I'll show you New York.'

‘I'd like that.'

‘And dinner tonight?'

She suppressed a smile. Sandy was right, Bobby was chasing her. ‘If I'm not playing with my new bunny friends.'

‘Mother Bunny?' Kate stifled a giggle after the doorman in reception directed them to the lift and sent them to a top-floor office. ‘I don't believe we're going to be interviewed by “Mother Bunny”.'

‘Someone has to look after the bunny girls,' Anne commented. ‘It's just a title.'

‘I have a feeling she's not going to be your typical Welsh mam in a hairnet and pinny,' Kate murmured.

She noticed the lift buttons. ‘Look, there's a little black bunny one-ear-up, one-ear-down symbol on the red lift buttons.'

‘And bunnies, ear up and down, were woven into the carpet downstairs,' Anne said. ‘I keep pinching myself. I can't believe I'm really in New York's Playboy Club.'

The lift halted, the doors opened to reveal a stunning blonde bunny girl who could have posed for the centrefold in
Playboy
magazine. Penny and Kate stared at the heavily boned skin-tight costume.

‘How on earth do you breathe in that?' Kate asked.

‘You don't, honey,' the blonde drawled in a Southern accent. She looked from Kate to Penny and Anne. ‘You English?'

‘Guilty.' The last thing Penny wanted was to get embroiled in another conversation about Wales being part of the UK.

‘Is this a good place to work?' Kate, never slow in asking for information, questioned.

‘You're applying for jobs?'

‘We are.' Anne confirmed.

She beckoned them to a corner of the corridor beside the lift. ‘I was so happy when I was invited to become a bunny. My life … well we'd need hours to go into that, so we'll move on. But I'm the eternal optimist. As I've kept saying all my days, even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then. But believe me, honeys, this job's not all it's cracked up to be. I quit as of five minutes ago.'

‘The money's good, isn't it?' Kate checked.

‘It's fine, honey, if you only want pin money and you've a man on hand to pay the rent, put food on the table and cover your incidental expenses. All are downright cruel in New York – the rent and expenses I mean. Not the man. And unless your name is Rockefeller you won't be renting around here, so that means getting a taxi when you finish your shift. They don't come cheap in the early hours. Then there are all the bills connected with the job. You have to pay for your own tights – you can get through a dozen pairs a shift – and make-up, perfume … and whatever you do, don't go cheap on either of those. Mother Bunny can sniff out bargain basement six blocks away.' She
looked at Kate. ‘If you're not a natural blonde, honey, your stylist's bill will be higher than the Empire State Building. Slightest sign of dark root and Mother Bunny comes down so hard, you'll want to shave your head and join the GIs.'

‘Tips?' Kate pressed.

‘Can be good if you don't mind where the customer puts the bill – and his hands.'

‘I thought customers weren't allowed to touch bunnies.'

‘What it says in the brochure and what happens in real life are two different things, honey.'

‘Marion, to quote your quaint Southern vernacular, your mouth overloading your tail again?'

They all turned. A hatchet-faced blonde with
make-up
so thick it resembled a mask, wearing an elaborate curled ‘beehive' wig, was posing in a doorway in the corridor.

‘No, ma'am. I'm doing no such thing, ma'am,' Marion answered.

‘No, what?'

‘No, Mother Bunny.'

‘Are those girls here for interview?'

‘We are,' Kate replied.

‘I'm sure you were told to go to the office, not stand in the corridor gossiping to a hand who's just been let go. What you doing, girl?' Mother Bunny called out to Kate, who was stepping back into the lift alongside Marion.

‘Leaving.'

Penny jumped in beside Kate and Marion. ‘You coming, Anne?'

‘You girls make your minds up quickly,' Marion commented after Anne joined them and they headed back down to the ground floor.

‘Penny and I've already served seven years in an all-girls grammar school without time off for good behaviour,' Kate revealed. ‘Apart from the make-up, clothes and accent, Mother Bunny could be our headmistress's twin sister.'

‘You got a job to go to?' Anne asked Marion.

‘Friend of mine left here two weeks ago and headed for the Cape with her boyfriend. They got jobs the day they arrived. She's waitressing, he's a kitchen hand. Start of the season there's always jobs going on the Cape. Me and my boyfriend thought we'd try our luck there.'

‘Cape?' Penny asked quizzically.

‘Cape Cod.' The lift reached the ground floor. ‘See you around, honeys; good luck with the job hunting.'

Penny looked at Kate. They both started to laugh.

‘We can now add the inside of the Playboy Club to our list of New York sights.' Kate led the way to the front door.

‘Where do we go from here?' Anne asked plaintively.

‘Don't know about you, honey,' Kate mimicked Marion's drawl. ‘But I guess I'm heading for twenty dollars a week and living all found in Scarsdale.'

The room set aside for the orientation lectures in the hotel had been transformed into a student common room. People were sitting in groups on the floor and window sills eating sandwiches, cookies and chocolate
bars and drinking from soda bottles. The areas around the windows were the most crowded as people fought to look down on the street, a dizzying twenty-two storeys below.

Bobby appeared at their side when they entered. ‘Lunch is included in orientation.' He held up four paper bags. ‘Chicken, tuna, ham or cheese?'

‘I'll take the tuna.' Penny knew Kate preferred cheese.

‘Cheese,' Kate answered.

‘Ham,' Anne held out her hand, took the bag and joined a group in the corner.

‘Guess I'm stuck with the chicken.' Bobby handed over their bags.

‘If you prefer tuna, take mine,' Penny offered.

‘I wouldn't deprive you.' He joined them on the floor. ‘Am I talking to bunny girls?'

‘No,' Kate replied, ‘according to a bunny who was running away, the incidental expenses associated with the job are high.'

Penny started to laugh again. ‘You should have seen Mother Bunny. She looked like a waxwork.'

‘They have a
mother
bunny?' Bobby picked the lettuce out of his sandwich.

‘She could have been Liberace's great grandmother.' Kate finished one sandwich and reached for another.

‘I've been to the Playboy Club but I had no idea such a person existed.'

‘You can afford to go to the Playboy Club!' Kate exclaimed. ‘You must be miles better off than us. Unless I find something in the next twenty-four hours,
I'll be left with twenty dollars a week and my keep in Scarsdale.'

‘So you're the grey-eyed blonde with the job in Scarsdale Bobby told me about. Hi, and very pleased to meet you.' Lunch bag in hand, Sandy sat next to Bobby.

‘Sandy meet Kate. Kate meet Sandy.' Bobby made the introductions.

‘Penny told you I have a job in Scarsdale?' Kate asked suspiciously.

‘I did,' Penny admitted.

Kate eyed Sandy as she finished her sandwich. ‘You spent the night in Bobby's room too?'

‘Bobby and I are good friends, but not that good. I was in my own room until eleven this morning, when I had to check out. If I'd met you yesterday, I would have come knocking at your door.'

Kate laughed a deep throaty chuckle that turned the heads of the other boys in the room.

‘Tell me about this job of yours.' Sandy screwed the top from his soda bottle and drank.

‘I'll be nanny to three children. They're younger than the ones I've worked with on teaching practice and I'm not looking forward to changing nappies. But beggars can't be choosers. One's eighteen months, one three and there's a three-month-old baby.'

‘You got a contract for this job in Scarsdale?' Sandy asked.

‘A letter. Live-in all found and twenty dollars a week.'

‘That's no good. You have to insist on a detailed contract for any job you take in the States. One that
gives the exact hours you'll be working and the hourly rate. And, when you're off duty, leave the house so they can't ask you to do anything extra.'

‘That wouldn't be polite.'

‘“Polite”,' Sandy mocked. ‘As I said to Penny yesterday, I know the sort of people you'll be working for. They'll have four cars in the garage, a big Mercedes for him, an imported Jaguar convertible to drive to and swank in at the club, a family estate for her to run the kids around and a truck for weekend camping trips. The house will be furnished in mock-European antiques, taste and money no object. But their generosity won't extend to you. Used to illegal Mexican immigrant labour, they'll work you to death from the baby's first feed before dawn until you finish serving coffee and clearing the plates from their dinner party after midnight. In between you'll be expected to scrub, wash and clean up after the family non-stop. You'll be treated and spoken to like a slave, and expected to eat alone in the kitchen.'

‘It won't be slavery. The pay is twenty dollars a week all found …'

‘For the hours you'll be working, it's exploitation,' Sandy argued.

‘I've no alternative.'

‘Yes, you have,' Sandy said brightly. ‘The Bishop …'

Kate looked to Penny for an explanation.

‘Their boss. It's a nickname.'

‘He's coming over here this afternoon to look for someone to work with the five-to-eight-year-olds at Camp Resonance. You won't be the same side of the lake as me, Bobby and Penny—'

‘Hold on a minute. I haven't said yes to the job,' Penny interrupted Sandy.

‘After I've worked on you for the rest of the day and night you will.' Bobby gave her his most dazzling smile. ‘Forget Pen spoke, Sandy.'

‘All Bobby and I have to do is persuade the Bishop you're perfect for the job. And that won't be hard. You're a trainee teacher, Kate?'

‘Primary.'

‘Primary … that's like …?' Sandy hesitated.

‘Infants five-to-seven-year-olds.' Kate returned her empty sandwich packet to her lunch bag.

‘Your first year of study?'

‘Third in September. I qualify next year.'

‘You couldn't be more perfect. A hundred and twenty dollars a week all found has to be better than twenty, and you'll get a day off a week …'

‘In which we can head off to New York,' Bobby said brightly.

‘Together? They'll give all of us the same day off?' Kate unscrewed the top from her soda bottle.

‘No, but I'll swing it for Pen and me, and when it's your and Sandy's turn I'll loan Sandy my car so he can drive you wherever you want to go.'

‘I wrote to the people in Scarsdale accepting the job.'

‘A letter's not a contract, but if you've a conscience find someone here to take your place. There are enough girls looking for work,' Sandy looked around the room.

‘Say the word and we'll tell the Bishop “mission accomplished” when he arrives,' Bobby offered.