My father never told me much about my mother. I think it was his way of trying to protect me from being traumatized by her loss. He figured the less I knew about her, the less I had to miss. But his silence had the opposite effect: the less I knew about her, the more I thought about her.

My only memories of my mother were of her being sick, and of being kept away from her room because she had no hair. Apart from photos, I can’t remember what she looked like; but I remember what she sounded like. As I lay in my bed at night, I could hear her screaming in pain from her room.

The night she died exists only in snippets in my head. The house was dark, and my father was outside. I remember seeing the ambulance lights, and sitting in the darkness in my brother’s room. He was very quiet. He knew what was going on. I didn’t, but I was crying for some reason. I knew something was wrong. After that night, I refused to sleep alone or in the dark. Every night, I crept into my brother’s room, flipped on the lights, and crawled into bed with him. After that, I just remember my father being sad —extremely sad. The parade of women he dated never seemed to fill the void in him, or in me.

One of the few things my father told me about my mother when I grew older was that she had worked as a Vegas showgirl. He was in the audience at one of her shows, and had fallen in love with her as soon as he set eyes on her. In the few pictures I have of my mom, she looks so beautiful, fragile, and sophisticated —like a swinging London model.

My mother.

When I moved in with Jack, it was summer and I needed a job, especially since I no longer had anyone to support me. So I decided that I would follow in my mother’s footsteps and become a showgirl. After all, it was in my blood.

There was only one genetic problem: I was five feet six inches, three inches shorter than the required height for most of the hotel and theater shows. I looked like a colt. I was a tall girl —with long, thin legs and arms and a slender waist— trapped in the body of a small girl.

But once I set my mind on a goal back then, the only thing that could stop me was death or Jack. The first place I went to was the most prestigious show in Vegas, the Folies Bergères at the Tropicana, where my mother had been one of the principal dancers in the fifties. I had this fantasy that someone would remember my mother and recognize me as her daughter. I even decided to call myself Jenna Hunt, using my mother’s maiden name.

But the first thing they did at the Tropicana audition was measure me. And since I was nowhere near five feet nine inches, they threw me out. It didn’t even cross my mind that there was probably no one left from when my mother danced nearly three decades ago.

I went to the Lido Show at the Stardust, Jubilee! at Bally’s, and the Casino de Paris at the Dunes. And every one rejected me —I was too young, too short, too inexperienced. Yet I kept going back, trying place after place.

The easiest audition was an open call at Vegas World, in the Stratosphere Hotel. At the other revues, if I passed the first cut (which was rarely), they asked me to strut, walk, bow, kick, and dance tap, ballet, and jazz. But at Vegas World, all they wanted was three eight-counts of ballet, just to see my posture and turns.

Though I was painfully shy and antisocial in real life, when I got onstage, I transformed. I had learned how to perform when I put myself through pageants in junior high. The personality and attitude I repressed with everyone exploded out of me onstage. Something inside of me just turned on. I made eye contact with the interviewers, moved with a sensual grace I never knew I possessed, and sashayed around the stage like a natural. I had been taking dance classes since I was four, everything from ballet to clogging, and I knew just what to do: I even iced my nipples to make them stand out. The hardest part was to look like I was enjoying myself without smiling and unveiling my braces.

The next day, I stopped by to find out how I did, and they said I was hired. I had wanted to be a principal dancer like my mother, but they put me in the chorus, which was fine. I was still a Vegas showgirl! As for my height problems, they said that they were going to put lifts in my shoes, give me a big headdress, and place me upstage so that I appeared taller. It was the best news I’d had in years. My dreams were coming true, and I was making my mom proud. Of course, that only lasted for two months.

My costume was yellow with big plumes and a headdress that weighed fifteen pounds. I wore a rhinestone bra —which would come off halfway through the show to reveal sparkled tassels over my nipples— a G-string, stockings, and jazz shoes with lifts. I remember looking in the mirror with all my stage makeup on —including four sets of fake eyelashes— and thinking, “Wow, I truly am my mother’s daughter!”

I was not only the youngest but also the quietest girl in the show. The rest of the girls called me “mouse” and, when they saw my braces, told me I should be playing house with my schoolmates instead.

I could tolerate having no friends there and being constantly ordered around by the women, but the schedule was brutal: eight hours of rehearsal a day and then two shows a night. It was a lot of work, and the money was terrible. As for the glamour I had always imagined when my father told me about palling around with Frank Sinatra Jr. and Wayne Newton in the old days, there was none.

Besides, Jack knew a way I could make much more money.