A Golden Cage Read Free

Laurette.
    â€œI’m not sure. Maybe . . .” She lifted a finger toward one. “Or . . .” She shook her head. “We’ll have to wait until the play is over to find out.”
    Deanna hoped that “we” meant Laurette was including her in the meeting. She’d never even been close to a real actor or actress. Her mama considered them unprincipled, immoral, and a few other things Deanna didn’t remember.
    Deanna thought they were fascinating. And to think actresses made just as much money as the men.
    The play proceeded with a Professor Papyrus giving the schoolgirls a book that held the answers to the Sphinx’s questions each one must answer in order to marry her bedouin.
    Deanna wished they would make plays of some of the stories from the dime novels she and her maid, Elspeth, read together each night. They were much more exciting than most plays she’d seen. They told of dangerous adventures and femaledetectives who did a lot more than worry about marrying some bedouin.
    She was startled from her wandering attention by a cymbal crash. Several members of the audience started. The orchestra swelled, and a panel that looked just like stone, rose, exposing a golden room inside the pyramid. Light shone from it like rays of the sun, glinting on the golden walls and pouring out onto the stage. And from this stepped Hathor, the embodiment of the great stone Sphinx, dressed in shining gold.
    The goddess stretched her arms forward, and she seemed to rise from the floor.
    â€œHydraulic lift,” Joe whispered.
    Deanna ignored him. Hathor stepped out of the chamber and walked forward almost as if she were standing on air—not the wooden stage. The audience applauded her appreciatively.
    The young girls returned, now dressed all in white for their weddings. Only, these wedding dresses looked more like the drapery one saw on Greek statues. They were made of some filmy see-through material, but were completely respectable since they were draped over a satin underdress.
    One by one they answered the Sphinx’s questions correctly. The action became a little tedious, and by the time the maids had married their bedouins and Professor Papyrus and Hathor had fallen in love, Deanna was thankful the play had been only an hour.
    And then in the final chorus, the Sphinx broke apart, and the first young couple stepped back into the golden space. Before everyone’s eyes, they rose up and out of sight. The second couple did the same and the next, until all had ascended in heavenly wedded bliss, and only the professor and Hathor remained on stage.
    The orchestra swelled and the lights rose to reveal the couples standing above the audience, raining rose petals down on the solitary couple below them.
    â€œHow did they do that?” Deanna asked Joe.
    â€œSome kind of wheel, probably a modified Ferris wheel. With platforms instead of baskets.”
    â€œBut where did they go and how did they get all the way up there?”
    â€œI imagine they stepped off the platforms and onto a catwalk that spans the stage. Hmmm.” Joe leaned forward. “Interesting. Yes.”
    The curtain fell to enthusiastic applause, and thoughts turned to dinner being served on the terrazzo. But Joe just sat there looking at the closed curtain.
    Deanna recognized that look. He was getting an idea.
    â€œDid you enjoy the play?” Mr. Ballard asked her.
    â€œImmensely. Though there could have been a little more adventure.”
    â€œA band of bedouins isn’t enough for you?”
    â€œHe’s teasing you, Deanna.” Laurette gathered them up. “Lionel, you and Joseph go on up to supper. I must say hello to Rosalie’s daughter, and then I’ll join you. Deanna, would you like to come with me?”
    Joe started to protest, but Laurette cut him short. “It’s all well and good for you to turn your back on society and go off to do what interests you, but