The Life and Times of Lola Fontaine: Out and About in Washington Heights

She slid the shiny, smooth stockings over her long, lean legs. She shivered as she felt the satin of her corseted bodice hug her curves. She gasped for air as each closing inch of the zipper forced what breath she had left in her frail, shaking body outward. The yellow toe-pinching pumps stared at her from the corner. The fluffy feather boa rested on her chair like a python awaiting its next victim, and the elaborate head dress onto which she had painstakingly sewn four thousand twenty two shimmering sequins sat waiting in its garish oppression. She had waited for this moment, but this was not how she had pictured her debut at all. She had wanted the luxurious dressing room of Hollywood starlets with the multi-bulbed lighted vanity mirror and sumptuous costumes draped around the room. Instead, she was in the sketchy bathroom of the bar down the street from the looming Washington Heights apartment building. Faucet-dripping, light-flickering, dirty, smelly, gray insanity was closing in around her. She opened the creaking door into the rancid bar smelling of spilled beer and wasted hope. The lurid light flooded into the bathroom and she slammed the door closed strangled with anxiety.

Lola snapped out of her dreamy flashback as the imitation rain shower began to drip brown, cloudy water on the fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle of Manny’s Grocery. She was picking yellow pears, or at least what was supposed to be yellow pears, and she watched curiously as a woman she knew from her apartment building, Delilah Plunk, delicately selected five and only five red apples. Lola had never heard this woman speak, but she seemed so lovely. To Lola, everyone seemed lovely. Lola marveled at her adorably plump fingers as they caressed each red apple before gingerly placing them into the bag. Delilah glanced Lola’s way, but Lola quickly averted her eyes, batting her long lashes. Lola grabbed her grimy pears, and scampered away to pay for them.
Lola made the short trek from the Manny’s back to Washington Heights avoiding the strange and disturbing stand housing a stuffed tabby cat. She waited on the uncertain elevator, optimistic that today it would not stall in between two floors. The doors opened, already this was a good sign. Standing there in the elevator was another lovely person. Lola was speechless. This woman was breathtaking. Her bright red lips, full and pouty, matched perfectly her beautiful red pumps. Lola had to know this woman’s name... and perhaps where she had purchased such gorgeous shoes.
"Hello there... um my name is Lola," she said sheepishly."

"Lemme guess. Are you a showgirl?" the woman said with a smirk as a flood of wine-scented fragrance filled the elevator.

"Oh my goodness gracious, however did you know?" Lola giggled.

"Lucky guess, I suppose," the woman said rolling her eyes. "Anyway, my name is Nicole Lee Carmine," she slurred.

"What an absolutely lovely name," said Lola as she clapped giddily.

The elevator screeched and lurched to Lola’s floor, and as she bounced off with her yellow pears in one hand, she excitedly waved goodbye to Nicole. "Wow." Lola thought. "What an interesting woman, and she seems ever so friendly. I bet she’s a movie star. Oh fiddledede, I forgot to ask her where her shoes were from."

The Life and Times of Lola Fontaine

She could feel her throat closing. She could feel herself slowly suffocating with each passing second. Beads of sweat began to roll down her body. Feathers, Feathers, Feathers. The feathers were everywhere. Yellow, fluffy, delicate, delightful feathers were floating up her nostrils, crawling into her throat. Each fluffy little finger wrapped itself around her windpipe, tickling her tonsils, toying with and taunting her. Then, the flashing, bright lights in every direction. Now she was blind... she must be dying...
Lola woke up in a cold sweat...again... screaming "I will be the best damn showgirl there has ever been. I WILL!" She shook off the dream that had haunted her ever since...ever since...the incident. It had been months, but she remembered it vividly, but no, she mustn’t think about it now.
She was going to be the best showgirl anyone had ever seen. She had been practicing for years, perfecting her high-heeled walks and routines in her room at night as her mother poked at the ceiling with a broom while screaming for her to knock it off. On her eighteenth birthday she got in her car and began her journey to see if she could make it big in Vegas. Poor Lola had never been out of New Amsterdam, Indiana, so 347 wrong turns later she exited the ramp off overpass 19 into Washington Heights, Baltimore instead of Vegas.
Already lost and utterly exausted, she decided she would stay a while in Washington Heights. If she could dazzle the people in this town, so much bigger than her own, she could dazzle the people of Vegas... or so she had thought.