Around the World With Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis Read Free Book Online

“
you
get to wear the
longest
train of anybody in the company. Not even the mannequins or the
danseuse nue
have anything that comes within two yards of yours.”
    There was a tap at the door.
    â€œ
Entrez
,” Vera called.
    The door opened and a morose young man came in. He was wearing gold pantaloons and a big gold turban trimmed with monkey fur. “Ah good,” Vera said. “Here’s your page boy. Good luck, dulling.”
    â€œBut where’s the rest of my costume?” Auntie Mame looked down at the considerable expanse of herself relieved only by the scattering of jet beads.
    â€œOh, I’m so glad you reminded me,” Vera said. “Here are your gloves and here’s your fan.” Vera handed Auntie Mame a pair of long black gloves and a big fan made of monkey fur.
    â€œ
And?
” Auntie Mame said.
    â€œAnd
what
, dulling?”
    â€œDo you mean to stand there and tell me that this is
all
you expect me to wear? Well, Vera Charles, if you think I’m going out there in . . .”
    â€œBut, Mame,” Vera said, “it’s the most expensive costume in the whole finale. Real jets and genuine monkey fur. It’s . . .”
    â€œI don’t care if it’s made of the Missing Link. I’m not going out there practically naked with a totally strange unemployed juggler holding up my . . .”
    â€œOh,” Vera said airily, “if
that’s
all you’re worried about, Patrick can do the train bit for you. Here you,” she said to the page boy, “dis-robez. Strip. Shuck. Peel.”
    â€œHey, listen,” I began. But Vera had my shirt off and was plucking at my belt and the callboy was rapping at the door.
    I CAN’T TO THIS DAY RECALL EXACTLY HOW EVERYthing happened, but the next thing I knew, the six wolfhounds were pulling Auntie Mame, cursing and protesting, down the dressing-room stairs. I followed blindly behind in gold pantaloons, clutching at Auntie Mame’s monkey-fur train with one hand and trying to get the gold turban out of my eyes with the other hand. The dogs dragged us up to the top of another flight of stairs. I heard Auntie Mame cry, “I won’t go on. I’m damned if I . . .” A Romanian tenor was squealing something about Paree,
les belles de nuit
, something-something
cher ami
.
    I got the turban out of my eyes just as the master of ceremonies called, “Mees Verah Sharl.” The orchestra struck up “My Miss American Beauty.” The dogs leaped forward. So did Auntie Mame. So did I.
    As I say, the exact details elude me. I was blinded by the light and deafened by the applause. It was said that not since Josephine Baker appeared there ten years before had such an ovation been accorded any American star. But I wasn’t thinking about ovations. I was thinking about sucking in my bare stomach and thrusting out my bare chest and not falling ass over elbow down those steps. They seemed longer than the stairs from the top of the Eiffel Tower but eventually my feet touched ground. The lesser stars had taken their bows and there was nothing now but for the counterfeit Vera Charles to make her circuit of the orchestra and call it a night.
    The six wolfhounds—seasoned troupers, it seems—capered off across the footlights in smart single file and blazed a trail along the yard-wide runway that surrounded the orchestra pit. Auntie Mame followed, clutching their six leashes in one hand while with the other she flapped her big monkey-fur fan, trying ineffectually to cover as much of her torso as possible. I followed in the caboose, so to speak, the monkey-fur train leaving a gap of some fifteen feet between us.
    The crowd rose to its feet, stamping and cheering and roaring its adoration. The air was thick with cries of “
Brava
” and “Vera.” And from the first row I heard a voice shout, “Yo, Queenie! Take it off!”
    And just then I saw a shooting stick thrust