Abbey's FanFic

Daphne

A FanFiction for the film Some Like it Hot.

Film Overview

Jazz musicians Joe and Jerry witness a murder. They are seen by the murderers and fear for their lives. Needing to escape Chicago they dress in drag and join an all-female Jazz group headed to Florida, the only job available. Joe takes on the alter-ego “Josephine” and Jerry becomes “Daphne”.  After a lot of farce and trickery, Joe ends up with Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) and Jerry, who takes his alter-ego a bit too seriously, ends up engaged to an old male billionaire.  When Jerry pulls off his wig in the final scene confessing “I’m a man”, the old billionaire delivers the famous closing line, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

  My FanFiction starts before the movie begins.

Chicago

January 1st, 1929

  “Five!” a lone voice shouted, signalling the end of the year. “Four!” it continued. Those five last beats hung prickly on Jerry’s skin. How could the year be out already? “Two, one, Happy New Year!” everybody chimed, throwing back their scotch-filled coffee mugs. Chaos for a few seconds as everybody hugged and then they were back on.  Making hot noise for the girls in the line to dance to.

  What a place to ring in the New Year, thought Jerry. Spats Colombo’s underground club. From the outside it was a funeral parlour. But utter, “I’m here for Gran-ma's funeral” and one would be lead into the Toulouse Lautrec-style speakeasy. Jerry had seen a casket being carried in once. Turned out it was full of booze!

 As the drunken young patrons danced the New Year in Jerry glanced at the ‘pews reserved for the immediate family’. Spats Colombo, surrounded by his men, sat solemn and still, despite the commotion. Jerry didn’t expect to see him dance or anything, but still was surprised by the stoicism of the man.

His eyes were fixed on someone, and Jerry felt relieved he wasn’t that person. Enveloped by gangsters in snappy suits, the table made for an intimidating posse. He wore musky cologne that infused with the fragrance of whiskey and he held the most relentless fixed stare. Rub him wrongly and a nod to his men could have you dragged off to- Jerry didn’t want to know where.

Jerry tended to put his boss out of his mind though.. The bouncing bosoms in front of him were first-class distraction.

Joe would be dragging him to any place the ladies danced in their underwear anyway, but every day that he went to work there was chance of a police raid. The back-rent he owed was incentive enough to risk it.

He reflected on the odd jobs which punctuated 1928. There was Bacon’s Casino, innumerable one-night gigs. Nothing in his life was constant but his trusty bass fiddle. And Joe of course, damned Joe and his damned sax.

  

Maybe that was unfair, their friendship spanned years. They had their own language, the two of them. He only wished Joe would stay outta trouble. His constant tail chasing left them with hundreds of enemies. Disgruntled boyfriends were one thing; they could handle that.  Scorned women though, were something else. They were fiery those dames and Joe pissed them off so fast Jerry didn’t have a chance.

 “1929!” whispered Joe, smiling at the girls dancing in front of him.  “I tell you Jerry boy, we are living in the future!”

  “This wasn’t how I pictured my future” said Jerry, plucking quickly on his bass.

  “What could be better, we got jobs don’t we? And we got front row seats” he winked at

Evelyn.

“Yeah, and each of these broads are hasslin’ us for the money we owe ‘em” Jerry countered.

 

I suppose he’s right though, he thought. They were working at least. But this year would be different he vowed, making a secret New Year’s resolution. This year he would do something drastic.

 

Unable to supress a smile, he looked back at the girls; they didn’t have to worry like this. With those figures they could shimmy anywhere.

 Carbon clones, he thought to himself. The same red lips and black-rimmed eyes, the same boned corsets and feathers in their hair.

 

There was one exception. The star of the show and the gentlemen’s favourite. She was dressed the same as the others, she wore the same make-up, but Jerry had a feeling she earned more pay. While the others girls would sweat and ended up racoons backstage at curtain close, this girl seemed to float through her routines. This girl seemed to float through life.

Her name was Daphne and Jerry knew she had it easy. It was the way her eyes opened so widely, evoking a naivety that they all knew was put on. It tricked people into falling in love. She bounced and kicked in time with the others, but eyes were drawn to her, in the magic of the year’s first hour, as if she were dancing her own dance completely.

He wished he could have her, he wished he could hold her but more than anything he wished he could be her. Shaking her bottom to get what she wanted. Catching himself he restructured that thought. He wished his life could be that simple.

January 13^th 

Chicago Train Station

How do they walk in these things he wondered, as his legs wobbled? The balls of his feet were aching already, not to mention how odd his other balls felt. He felt certain everybody could see up his dress. The cold on his behind was something he’d never felt in public before.
 

Dressed in a furry second-hand overcoat, the most awkward panty-hose and glistening pumps, he did his best to amble along the pathway. They wouldn’t get away with this, he thought, in frenzy. He was sure his eyes gave away his manhood. He peered at Joe, sauntering beside him. What a laughable sight he thought to himself, but laughter refused to form in his throat.

Only two weeks ago they were celebrating New Years. In two weeks the joint had been raided, they had witnessed a murder and had signed up for an all-girl jazz group on its way to Florida.

Watching Spats Colombo kill Tooth-pick Charlie had to be the most nauseating moment of his life.  It was by the grace of God that they escaped with their lives.  Glancing down at his padded chest he remembered that ‘desperate times’ saying. 

The long black steam train which stretched out on his left was their only escape from this incredible madness.But wearing this junk almost made him forget that fact.

“It’s no use, we’re not going to get away with it Joe.”

 “The name’s Josephine and this was your idea in the first place!” Joe spat, but Jerry didn’t hear him. He was distracted by the blonde who sauntered passed them at that moment. There were no straight lines on her perfect body and her blonde hair appeared glow-in-the-dark. The “ladies” stared for a good 7 seconds. 

She was wrapped in black silk and carried a ukulele. 

 “Look at that! Look at the way she moves!  It looks just like Jell-O on springs! She must have some sort of built in motor” Jerry shimmied imitating.

 Already he envied her, ‘I bet she shakes her bottom through life too,’ he thought.  Only once before had he seen a woman of that calibre. 

Her hypnotizing allure broke Jerry’s heart, “I’m telling you Joe, it’s a whole different sex!”

But Spats was looking for them, he didn’t leave witnesses. Staying in Chicago meant almost certain death and Jerry reluctantly ambled along.

 “Are you the new girls?” Asked the women by the train

“Brand new!” squeaked Jerry, dryly.

But this was Jerry’s time. This was his drastic move. This was his chance to start a different life.

“I’m Josephine” said Joe in a high-pitched voice, casting an expectant eye in Jerry’s direction.

Jerryldene wasn’t right he thought. It wasn't the name of someone who floated through life. He looked at Sweet Sue, the band conductor and forced a grin, here goes nothing!

“I’m Daphne!”

 -The end-