"I prefer to rely on my own judgment. I thought her ballet extremely good but I didn't quite have a spot for it. Where is she staying?"
It was as if she had pulled a puppet string. Figente and Lucy were correct. You had to act big, hard to get. What a world!
"At the Athenée, of course."
She could hardly wait to phone Lucy and tell her about Beman. A chambermaid answered.
"The lady's asleep, but if you're a friend maybe you'd better come right over because she's breathin' awful hard. I was just goin' to call the manager."
"Don't call anyone, I'll be right over."
Lucy was breathing spasmodically.
"It's all right, I know all about these asthma attacks," was the first thing she could think of to say to the suspicious chambermaid.
Alone with Lucy, she looked wildly about the room and saw the familiar but almost empty bottle of sleeping pills on the dressing table. I must bring her to, she thought, terrified of calling a doctor and the inevitable newspaper scandal.
She threw open the windows and, remembering vaguely of how drowning people were resuscitated, tore off the covers, turned Lucy over and pumped her chest up and down to no avail. She splashed cold water on her, slapped her face frantically, and massaged the region of her heart. When faint breath escaped the blue lips she screamed into her ear and took her by the shoulders and shook her, thinking as she did that it was a kind of dance against death.
Exhausted, she paused for breath, deciding to call the doctor.
Lucy moved slightly, and sucked in a long sobbing breath.
"Get up, get up!" Vida screamed, and dragging her to her feet, placed Lucy's flaccid arm around her shoulder.
"Walk, walk, don't you dare stop walking," she sobbed and with extra-human strength dragged her up and down the room and then rolled her into the bathtub and turned on the cold shower.
Lucy started and shivered and she pulled her out of the tub, rolling her over the floor and up into the bed. And then Lucy's eyelids quivered and opened.
"Don't you dare close your eyes!" Vida shrieked, and phoned Room Service for coffee.
"If I can keep this up, I can do it," Vida told herself aloud.
A tinge of blood showed in the blue face and Vida took each
