RANSVESTIA

"Seriously though," said David, when they were seated on the brown, leather-covered benches that Ali, the proprietor, called "booths," "our being here is as stupid as this show we're trying to fob off on the public."

"Tush, child," Rosalie Hammond, the pert Eurasian, put a green- tipped finger on her dark lips. "Don't ever bite the hand that feeds you."

"Feeds us!" Now, Ace was joining in, too. "Look at the pack of us. We twelve keep that whole show going, and look who's on the per- centages. Not Nadine or any of the backers. Oh no. Not Miss Con- geniality. Ugh!"

David hadn't wanted to get Ace started again, even though he could sympathize with him. They all felt it, he was sure. The very un- fairness of the system wrankled. They'd had nothing to do with setting up the show, but the demands of Director Nadine Boorman that they be actors, singers, as well as dancers, on stage almost constantly, even for costume changes, were adding up to be too much. And now, with the last pay day missed, all the "troupe," at least they were together in that, all they could afford was coffee at this second-rate diner, while listening to last year's hits on the jukebox.

"Come on, Dave. Let's dance." Cindy had his hand, pulling at him, and he followed her willingly. Ali didn't have a license but he didn't object to them dancing in the small space behind the machine. The girls were good, and the boys were sometimes better. Ali would beam and say it was good for business, though nobody evr gave them more than a second glance. David cynically guess that Ali was just trying to be friendly enough to get them to stop calling the Bazaar-am-Baal Coffee House, "Fatima's."

"We lack elan," he returned to his theme later as he and Cindy prepared for bed, in the bed-sitter, they shared in the boarding-house.

"Oh, David," she said, tired and snuggling down into the soft mat- tress. She'd heard him go on about this topic before.

"We don't do anything that isn't predictable," said David, slipping

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