Outside, the rain lashed at the tiny automat like it was Noah's Ark. Inside, Angie was appropriately dramatic for the latter, not the former.
"Peggy, please, I
need
it!" Angie pleaded. Put her palms together and everything, like Peggy was one of her mother's saints.
"Because otherwise you won't get the part?" Peggy reiterated sourly.
"Yes!"
A sigh. "Angie, you and only you are responsible for whether or not you get the part. Your talent, your confidence, and your preparation. You have all my support, but Iβ"
"Then do the thing! C'mon, English... I need all the help I can get. Not getting any younger, you know."
Peggy barely held in a sigh. After the war, she'd felt a million years old. Angie was, in comparison, a pup that'd just finished being house-trained. "I shouldn't have done it with you in the first place, Ang. That's the truth. I know you wanted to research your role, but you didn't even get the part. And yetβ"
"Because we liked it! We both did!"
"You cried," Peggy reminded her pointedly.
"I'm a girl! I like crying! Why do you think I've read Little Women four times, for my health?" Now showing no sign of being a waitress, Angie threw herself into the booth, across from Peggy. "Please, English. Please. I just know if you don't help me, I'll blow it. But after we do the thing, I will be so calm and so on point, I'll get the part for sure! I'll... I'll bet you! Five bucks says you do this and I will get that gosh-darn part."
"Well, if there's five dollars on the line... no, I shan't bet against you."
"I'll lose out on a lot more money not getting the part than I would losing a bet."
"Oh, so I'm robbing you now?"
"Miss, can I get some coffee over here?" someone asked.
Angie whirled to face him. "As soon as my friend here starts being a good friend and agrees to help her friend out!"
Periodically, Peggy had to roll her eyes. It was becoming as much a defense mechanism with Angie as it was with Howard. The two had far too much in common. Peggy would have to make sure they never met.
"Angie." She lowered her voice seriously. "The last time, you got hurt."
"And I knew that going in, and I healed, and I liked it, all of it, so don't you go thinking you're some corrupting monster out of a dimestore pulp and I'm an innocent young maiden who just needs the love of a good man." Angie lowered her voice hurriedly. "I need this and I need you, and you know that if you were asking for this or for anything else, I would be giving it to you already."
Peggy looked at her, unwilling to relinquish her seriousness no matter how charmingly Angie smiled at her. "Promise me that if you think it's too much for you, or if anything else seems amiss or uncomfortable, that you will tell me immediately."
"Of course."
"I won't be disappointed. I will not think any less of you. I just have to know so I can... so things can be done properly."
"
I know.
That's how we did it last time, after all, and that worked out fine."
"Yes, well." Now Peggy looked at her coffee. "I thought you'd be smart enough to be scared off."
"Oh no, not me." Angie moved in quick to tap Peggy on the nose. "Dumb as a box of hammers, that's me."
"Miss, my coffeeβ"
"
Urrrggghhh
." Angie marched over to him with a hot pot. "Like you ever tip me anywayβ"
The geezer scrutinized her as she poured for him. "What are you two gals cooking up, anyway?"
"Carter's going to help me run lines, that's all. I'm an actress. I need to practice staying in character."
***
"When was the last time you were spanked?" Peggy demanded, her crisp British accent low, but leaving no doubt she expected to be answered.
Angie bit her lip. She was suddenly aware of the taste of her gloss, her lipstick. Peggy would be tasting it soon. "When I was a kid. And even then, not unless I really had it coming. My parents were pretty big softies, ya know."
Not like you.
Peggy nodded absently, as if Angie's answer made no difference to her, but had nonetheless confirmed some private hypothesis. She was sitting in Angie's wicker chair, making it look like a throne with her legs crossed and a tumbler of scotch in one hand. She'd told Angie to buy it for her, though the bottle cost Angie most of her tips for that work-day, and her with a ten hour shift to cover for Roxy...
"Do you think you're a talented actress?"
Angie nodded, smiling, she loved this question. "Oh yeah, in my school plays, I made people cry like babies. Not just my parents. Old men, like."
"And do you believe you deserve to be on Broadway?"
"Yeah. Of course." Angie went slower now. A bit nervous, because she knew how Peggy could be. You didn't go up on a roller coaster without leaving your stomach at the top. And Angie was pretty attached to her stomach. "I was born for it. I can sing and dance and, and you know how good an actress I am, English, c'mon..."
"You're not an actress." Peggy aimed a long, deadly finger at her and Angie couldn't help but remember the feel of one of those inside her. Feeling so good it nearly hurt. "You're
aspiring
. That means you've accomplished
nothing,
you've proven
nothing
, you are an
unknown quantity.
And yet you're talented. And yet you belong on Broadway."
"Peggy, c'mon, I thought you were just gonna tie me up some..."
Peggy straightened her legs, leaned forward in her seat. Angie thought of her standing up and walking to her; a keen stab of fear ran through her. Fear of how much she wanted it. "I decide what we're going to do. That's the whole point. I