Dancin’ in The Moonlight and Oh What a Sight

Dancin’ in The Moonlight and Oh What a Sight

By John Sherman

(This is the next episode of Edna Vaughn, who bought a pair of tap shoes off the feet of an Ashby Inn guest and created her own stage celebrity—-and much joy.)

Two months and weekly dance lessons later, Edna came back for another late night recital in the taproom.

Word of her appearance was discreetly passed to selected Clarke County intimates. The hour turned ten. The curtain was about to go up, were it not for a dour couple, the Fitzpatricks, who, given the chance, would have voted for Coolidge. They were the last reservation on the books, and slow eaters. Edna, in a very un-Coolidge outfit, and a close friend, Jeannie Gilpin, had locked themselves in the ladies bathroom waiting for the all clear knock.

And waited.

The delay was profitable for the house. Edna’s gang drank brown drinks, with the odd order of a double. The Fitzgeralds couldn’t fail to notice the entire room fixed on their progress. They finally paid their bill and left. The double knock came to Edna’s dressing room. She emerged as from a chrysalis.

Not as a butterfly, but a bunny. As in Playboy bunny. From head to foot. Pink satin ears flopped from her short blond hair, held by a headband of the same color. Hoop earrings. The iconic bunny outfit (a white bathing suit) that uplifted her bazooms to within a hand width of her chin. Her ensemble tapered with black fishnet stockings and a pair of patent leather shoes.

The click of her taps on the stone steps announced her debut—direct from the House of Hefner. A cassette was slid into the player. She had the smile of a starlet, bright red lips and shiny white teeth.

The smile held as she raised her arm and gave a flittery Marilyn Monroe wave. She turned full circle, tapping the linoleum floor with a slow heel-to-toe to the beat of “Easter Parade.” She grabbed an empty chair and moved it to the center of the floor, slowly tapping as she went. She had clearly practiced her number, which relied heavily on the chair as her partner.

For legal concerns, her routine avoided impersonating Ginger Rogers running in place, head forward, arms swinging, waving a top hat—-all the while pumping out a staccato of clicks and clacks. But it was far improved since the night she bought those dancing shoes.

Like a magician beckoning a member of the audience to join his act, Edna got a friend to sit in the chair while she circled around. Tapity tap. And then, not out of the night’s spirit, she began a wiggling lap dance. Jim, the bartender, tried to dampen the hoots, pointing to the guests sleeping upstairs.

The devil named confidence coaxed her hand off the chair as she decided to throw in a couple of changes. Her audience picked up on the more daring routine and began to snap fingers to the rhythm, urging her into a higher gear.

Both hands came off the chair. Her show smile had disappeared as she pushed harder. The shoe plates could no longer follow her demands. And her feet shot out from under her, landing with a thump and a click. She stared at the chair with fury, as every man in the room rushed to the rescue.

They got her up to the applause showered on an injured player being carried off the field. She waved and laughed in her Vaudevillian way. She never returned with her shoes.

PS. That’s not the end.

Her husband Denny threw a 40th birthday party for Edna, along with a dozen friends, at the Greenbriar. After dinner the first night they grouped downstairs in a nightclub affair where Mayonnaise, a porter by day, and DJ by night, spun dance tunes.

Cutting to the chase, hearing Edna complain about the lack of entertainment, a friend goaded her to go and change into her bunny costume (which she had conveniently packed). Back came the floppy ears, tap shoes and all. There would be no staged routine with a chair that night. Edna took her game up a notch and got up on the bar and began tapping from one end to the other.

Denny, always playing deadpan, just rolled his eyes as the ruckus swelled. “People were lined up at the door,” Edna recalled the other day. Mayonnaise just spun along.

PPS. On another trip, she and Denny were having drinks at the staid Slammin’ Sammy’s over the Greenbriar clubhouse, which boasted a “touch of class.” Lots of old guys watching golf. As she tells the story, she went up to a couple of the gaffers sitting together and asked whether they’d like a lap dance. Understand, she was not in her Playboy get up.

“They were stunned,” Edna chortled afterward. “I guessed no one had ever offered them one. So I began to wiggle on their laps. They laughed. One of them pulled out his wallet and gave me a fiftydollar bill. Lots of fun all around.”

“You may end up in prison,” Denny warned when she sat down. He made her give back the $50.

The management at the well-appointed club was not amused. Shortly afterward, she received the following from Robert S. Wanco, Director of Security, dated July 2, 1997 at 9:27 p.m.:

“Responded to a call from Slammin’ Sammy’s manager regarding one Edna Vaughn, who was seen lap dancing with several gentlemen throughout the bar. While we were able to prevent a scene, it was—-without a doubt—-one of the most “common” events at The Greenbriar.”

Score another for Edna, a woman so full of life, so original, who’s never poked fun at anyone but Edna. Would that the world had more of her kind to make us laugh. For in laughter we find kindness and hope.