garments; the sound of the tap beats The young dancer came back to the chair. Shadows pock-marked her face.

"Colorado," Jeanne said. "Denver. If you'll only listen. I'm at the end of my rope. I ..." Jeanne was sure the woman wouldn't understand.

"What's your name?" she said. "Jeanne. Jeanne Turner." "That's a good name, Jeanne. I wish I could help you. But I'm only a hoofer. I only work here."

"Whom can I see then?" Jeanne looked toward the piano.

"I wish I knew that," the dancer said. "We're just getting by here." Jeanne tucked her collar close around her neck. "Oh."

"Wait. Don't go. You live hereabouts?"

"Sort of," she said. "Temporary?" "Well I

She nodded. "My name's Jessie Hall. Here," she leaned forward to get at the wallet in the pocket she was sitting on. She opened the wallet like a book; flipped the snapshots aside. "There," she said, holding a black card up protected in a brownish celluloid folder. "My driver's license." She placed it close to Jeanne's face. A crumb of tobacco covered the middle initial but it did not matter. "Jessica Hall," Jeanne said, and nodded.

"Look," Jessica said; she fumbled in her wallet. "I have a card here. A producer. You might see him. Maybe he can do something for you." She snapped a pen from her breast shirt pocket; opened it and began to write. "Changed his address," she said. As she wrote her head bobbed a little as if her whole

body were engaged in making words. "You might tell him I sent you."

Replacing pen and wallet she pulled the chair from under her. "This is no life for a girl like you, Jeanne," she said, "unless your toes

are tough. They'll step on them you know."

She tapped the floor; a round shadow played across her cheek; a long rectangular one branded her forehead. She jumped; tapped the floor again then swung around. A pointed shadow slipped across her race. Her hair was short cropped and blonde. By an association of facts that did not make her wonder, Jeanne thought of Ted, and wondered only why she hadn't the feeling for him that he had for her apparently. Jessica danced back to the chair, breathing a little hard as she sat, her chin resting on her fist on the back of the chair.

"I suppose I'll go back home," Jeanne said. "I'm not a hoofer like you. My toes couldn't take it."

"Wish I could help more," Jessica said. "I'm sorry. All you need's the breaks."

Gently Jessica unknotted the scarf under Jeanne's chin and swept it from her. Jeanne shook her head a little, letting her blonde hair fall softly to spread fan-like on her back.

"You are lovely," Jessica said. "You shouldn't have left home. And yet . . ." She shook the silk scarf so that it flared and deflated like a dancer's costume. "And yet home sounds too confining, too cozy for a girl like you. You'd be cheating us outside."

Jeanne stood up as if the words were a gift. "Thanks anyway," she said.

"No, wait. You seem so damnedably alone. No friends at all in New York?"

"No."

"Uh-huh." Jessica nodded, authoritatively; pulled a long tweed

coat from somewhere in the shadows. "Come."

"Where?"

"Home." She clutched Jeanne's hand as though to force in jest. Jeanne slipped her hand out from