The Girls at the Kingfisher Club (15 page)

“Easy for you to say,” Mattie chimed in, “you're four inches shorter. Rebecca's practically a tree.”

“Oh, shut it,” said Rebecca.

“Hey,” called Lily to Lou, “you owe me one, before you go off and get married.”

“She's too busy getting all her dances in before she's stuck with only one man,” said Araminta (pretty shrewdly, thought Jo, for someone who tended to the romantic).

Lou laughed and ran her fingers through her hair, sending the curls wilder. “No harm in that,” she said. “He's doing his share of dancing, you know.”

“There's someone whose feet really are falling off,” said Violet. “Trying to get all of us in one night! He's batty.”

“Hasn't danced with me,” said Araminta, taking a pull from her glass of champagne.

“And he hasn't danced with the General,” Violet said.

“She should take her turn,” said Rebecca. “He's good at it. And funny!”

“And he doesn't say anything out of place,” Sophie put in. “None of that love stuff.”

“No,” said Jo, “I don't suppose he would.”

There must have been something in her tone, because Lou glanced over at Jo before turning to the twins.

“The bows on my shoes are a big tangle. You've got to help me before the music starts.”

It wasn't a moment too soon; the music started while Hattie was fixing Lou's second shoe. Then they grinned and rose and tripped away like a line of chorus girls in a flick, leaving only Araminta and Jo behind.

They sat together often, just the two of them. Araminta wasn't a big talker, but Jo felt a little soft toward her, out of the younger ones—the same way she'd felt about Doris, when it was just the four of them going out.

There was something to be said for countless hours watching the same dance floor, commenting on this dancer or that one.

Jo suspected sometimes that Araminta guessed how much Jo loved dancing and was just too kind to mention it.

Araminta's day would come too, to walk down the stairs and be matched with someone their father thought suitable, after meeting him five minutes in the parlor.

That man would probably be the richest of all, Jo thought, watching her profile as Araminta assessed the floor. Araminta was beautiful and sweet, with large, sad eyes and a serious mouth; a beauty of the old kind, the sort Jo remembered seeing on magazine covers back when she was a child.

It was a beauty their mother must have seen right away, to give her a name so out of fashion, fit only for a princess in a tower.

Of course, princesses in towers got rescued. You never heard of a dragon succeeding before St. George did. You never heard of the prince coming through the briars only to find a pile of bones.

“Jo,” said Araminta.

Jo looked up and saw Tom standing in front of her. He had his hand out; he must have asked her to dance.

“Oh,” she said. She wrapped one hand around the edge of her chair. “I don't know if that's a good idea. It's getting late.”

“Go on,” said Araminta. “He's practically family.”

That was the problem.

But Jo stood up and brushed her skirt back into place, and said to Araminta, “I'll be back in a minute,” as if she was reminding herself.

When she took his hand, he held it too tightly. She pretended not to notice.

On the dance floor Tom slid into the line of dance just behind Sophie and her man. For a moment Jo thought dismally, Now there are two witnesses, but shrugged it off. It wasn't the first time she'd danced with Tom, and besides, he was practically family.

The embrace felt natural as always, but even since last night there was something heavier about it, something resigned and older, so that she could hardly hold up her arm, and her hand in his hand was shaking.

The wail of brass carried over the rest of the music, and when the singer started, she sounded the same melancholy note as the trumpet had.

“I waited all night for this,” he said.

She said, “Don't.”

“You know,” he said quietly, “I thought about going straight after I met you.”

She thought about the question she'd asked him in the car on the way over, the look on his face as he nodded.

“I figured you must have liked me all right as I was, to keep dancing with me even after you'd worked things out.”

He was giving her more credit than she'd ever given herself.

“But I never stopped thinking about it,” he said, “even after I got run out of New York. I knew the best thing I could do was raise myself in the world, and that if I really worked to be worth something, then I'd have something to stand on if I saw you again.”

She couldn't answer him; she curled her fingers into a fist on his back.

“And it's a good thing, too,” he said, all false cheer, “because look how useful my work has been to you.”

“Don't,” she said.

The word must have been too raw, because he pulled her closer, his fingertips pressing into her ribs so hard that she could feel the seam of her dress.

(No one could see them in the crowd, no one would know, they were safe for one minute more.)

She felt as if her feet were sticking to the boards, as if at any moment she would sink into the floor.

“I can make myself love Lou,” he said after a moment. “She's a sharp girl. I could love her, if that's what you want of me.”

The singer had given up singing, and the trumpet was crying the last notes. Jo rested her head on his shoulder, just for a heartbeat, like she had when she was a girl.

Then it was his turn to hold his breath, to squeeze her hand, to almost forget to stop dancing. They swayed for a beat after the song was finished.

At last Jo said, “Don't.”

She gave herself a count of three before she tensed and pulled away. Tom watched her as she stepped back, sharp-eyed and hungry.

It made her nervous. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “If I had known last time how long it would be, I would have gotten a look in, that's all.”

“Cut it out,” she said, crueler than she meant. “Tomorrow you're taking Lou to Chicago.”

“I'll come back when she's settled in,” he said. “Where will you be?”

Jo didn't want to think about that.

“Go find Lou,” she said, and slipped through a crack in the crowd back to her table.

Araminta was watching her with wide, keen eyes. “How did it go?”

“He holds on too tight,” Jo said. “We're leaving.”

Araminta looked disappointed, but she was already reaching for her shoes as Jo held up her hand like she was snatching a moth from the air, and the exodus started.

• • •

Lou or Doris brought up the rear, making sure no girl got left in the crush.

They'd have to pick another girl to hang back, Jo realized, now that both of them were leaving.

Rebecca could do it. She kept her head on straight. But she was still so
young
. One of the twins, maybe, but at any moment they'd be called downstairs, too.

“Ladies,” said Tom at the doorway, with a glance at Jo as she passed. “Thank you for a beautiful evening.”

Jo didn't listen for what he said to Lou.

She went on ahead, had her hand out for cabs before she was off the stoop, summoning one and another and another.

The girls poured out the door, the tops of their heads smoking in the cool evening air, leaping into the cabs.

Hattie and Mattie sat pointedly with Ella, and when everything was sorted Jo found herself in the cab with Lou and Violet and Araminta, Araminta's eyes trained on Jo as if expecting a revelation.

“So this will be the last night we're all together,” said Violet finally.

It must have been inconceivable to Violet, Jo realized, that things would ever change.

Violet had grown up in this glass world. She'd known about the dancing since she was old enough to keep time; for her, there had been no other life than the cage and the dance. Now everything was falling to pieces, one sister at a time.

Lou sighed, said to Violet, “I wish I could take you with me.”

“Write to us in three months,” said Jo, “and see if I don't offer to send her wherever you are.”

Violet laughed. “General, you're not serious.”

“Who knows,” said Jo. “I might have the money for a train ticket that day.”

Violet sat back and stopped asking questions.

Araminta said, “You should let me fix that dress, Jo. It's an all right color, but so old-fashioned. If I lowered the waist and took up the skirt it would do wonders.”

Jo said, “And what use do I have for a sharp new dress?”

“Oh, who knows,” said Araminta. “You never know when you'll need something nice.”

“There's nothing I need,” said Jo, and turned to the window.

Soon Violet and Araminta and Lou were talking about this dancer and that one, laughing at an awful partner Violet had landed with (“You should have seen it, he's a menace, I could have lost a toe!”), comparing the bandstands at the Kingfisher and the Marquee.

“I miss their champagne,” Lou said. “The Marquee's is so sweet you get sick.”

“The dancing tonight felt so sad, mostly,” Violet said. “I liked Tom all right, though.”

“I like him all right, too,” said Lou.

Jo curled her hand a little tighter in her lap, as if to keep warmth in.

None of them mentioned what would happen to Lou in the morning.

• • •

When they got home, they slid through the alley and padded up the stairs, disappearing into the attics like ghosts caught out.

Jo, who came in first, glanced into the kitchen to make sure none of the staff was awake and that all the lamps were out.

All was well, and they climbed the stairs, as quiet as they could be.

Their father's study was one floor above them, and neither light nor noise reached them in the kitchen dark; even if his office light was on, even if his door was open to catch some little sound, there was no telling from the back roads they took. There was no warning.

For all Jo knew, no one else was awake in the house.

eighteen

There'll Be Some Changes Made

Jo woke to the sound of Lou fastening her trunk.

It wasn't quite sunrise. Jo watched gray creep over the ceiling for a little while before she said, “Good morning.”

Lou looked up. “Good morning,” she said carefully. “I'll be done in a second, and then you can get some shut-eye. I tried to be quiet, I just couldn't sleep.”

She moved back and forth to the dresser, twisting her hands. “I think I took one of your pomades—I'm sorry. I'd try to get it out, but the trunk's so full I might never find it. I didn't realize how much I owned—you'd think we own so little, but it gets so crowded.”

Jo watched her.

“I'll pay you back as soon as I have some money, I promise,” said Lou, “it's just that it would take me forever to find, and I don't want to be late because I'm repacking everything and then maybe something awful happens and I can't go, so I'll just buy you a new one as soon as I can.”

“It's fine,” Jo said to the ceiling.

“Jo, why did you give Tom to me?”

The question came fast and sharp, as if Lou had been waiting for Jo to say something, anything, and have out with it already.

Jo didn't look away from the ceiling.

“You don't give people to other people,” she said. “Don't be stupid.”

“Jo.”

Jo looked over. Lou was resting stiff-armed on her trunk, watching Jo, looking as though the words were being ground from her.

“I'm not stupid,” Lou said. “I know how you felt about him. You loved him something awful. You were one dance away from running off with him, once.”

“That was eight years back,” Jo said. “You're easy to fool when you're young. It fades.”

“You kept that bag in your closet for ages, though,” Lou said.

Jo blinked. She'd never told anyone, certainly never Lou—Lou, who had always been suspicious of Jo wanting to leave them and look for something better.

It couldn't have mattered, what Jo felt.

If she loved him, she could have forgiven him for almost betraying them (she never would); surely she couldn't have given him up.

But she'd gone home from Tom's little room above the Marquee without hesitating, just after he'd agreed to take Lou someplace where her father couldn't get at her.

Tom had looked heartbroken and distant the whole way back home, like he was working to shut her out of something she'd come too close to.

She could have said, “I missed you.” She could have said, “Keep driving, just you and me.”

She was putting Lou in the car instead.

One sister was safe. That was the bottom line. What Jo felt about it was beside the point.

“You'd better wash up,” Jo said, standing. “He'll be here soon. You don't want to keep him waiting.”

• • •

The sisters said their good-byes in the fourth-floor hall, filing into Jo and Lou's room in pairs, red-eyed. Jo had made them put on day clothes (you never knew, these days, when Father would send for you), but they were bleary from the long night and from crying.

Doris was inconsolable, but refused to leave until at last Ella took pity and walked her back to their room.

“But she's going,” Doris said between sobs, and Ella said something comforting that Jo didn't hear.

“You shouldn't have woken them,” said Lou, blinking back tears. “This is a circus. Too much sentiment.”

“You couldn't have left without seeing them,” said Jo, and Lou made a face but didn't argue.

“If you even say good-bye to me I'll kick you.”

“Just get downstairs before Father changes his mind.”

“Louise,” their father called, “Tom is here. Is the trunk ready? We have an appointment at city hall that I believe you don't want to miss?”

“Yes, sir!” Lou called back, turning a little green.

“Well, then come down and say good-bye to your father, and we'll take your trunk to the car.”

Lou and Jo dragged the trunk onto the landing, where Walters materialized out of nowhere.

“Mister Hamilton would like to see you downstairs for the send-off, Miss Josephine,” he told her.

Jo's stomach sank. She didn't think she could bear waving good-bye to Tom as he drove off with Lou in the passenger seat, headed for city hall and the open road.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I—I couldn't.”

“He'd like to see you there for the send-off,” the butler repeated, as if she hadn't spoken. The last scraping steps faded as he went down the stairs to the front hall and out to the waiting Ford.

“You don't have to go,” Lou said.

It was a lie; their father issued orders, not invitations.

“Come on,” Jo said. “The quicker you're away from here, the better.”

“Your problem is that you're too sentimental,” muttered Lou.

On the way down the stairs, Jo grabbed Lou's hand and squeezed it once, too hard.

By the time they were in sight of their father and Tom, Jo had her hands back at her sides.

Tom was still in his car coat and had tucked his hat in his left hand.

“Louise,” Tom said, “it's wonderful to see you again. You look lovely.”

“And you,” Lou said, coming down the last few stairs to meet him. Her eyes were fever-bright as she looked up at Tom, her face pale.

In the morning light from the hallway, with Lou in her sharp dress and cloche hat and Tom in his black suit with the tie done up, they looked like a lobby card advertising the wedding at the end of a movie.

Jo could hardly make it down the last few stairs; her body had turned to stone, somehow.

Their father watched Jo with a strange expression as she descended, and she wondered what he saw. If he even guessed, about Tom—

But when she looked again, it was gone, and his face was implacable as ever.

“Josephine,” Tom said. “Nice to see you again, too. It's very kind of you to see us off.”

“Don't mention it,” said Jo.

The ghost of a smile crossed his face before he turned to Lou and caught her hand in his. Then his smile was just for Lou, and Jo walked to the narrow window beside the door, as far away from them as she could get.

The street was bustling; the street was filled with women Jo's age, walking briskly with purses and attachés, hailing cabs to wherever they wanted to go, without anyone minding where they went.

She couldn't imagine.

“Sir,” Tom said to their father, “if you're ready, we should get going—we don't want to miss our chance with the judge.”

“Oh, absolutely,” their father said. “I'll follow you in the car in just a moment.”

“The trunk is ready,” Walters said from the doorway. Jo hadn't even noticed him.

She clasped her hands behind her back.

Lou kissed their father on the cheek, and Tom shook his hand, and they walked through the door.

Jo had a glimpse of Lou's red-rimmed eyes, and of Tom's face in the shadow of his hat—someone brushed her hands as they passed, either Lou or Tom; she hadn't felt it at first and she couldn't be sure.

Then they were both in the car and pulling away, and the silhouette of Lou's waving arm was lost to sight as they turned the corner.

“Josephine, please pull yourself together.”

Jo hadn't realized she'd been crying.

She ran her hand over her eyes and cleared her throat. “Yes, sir. I'm sorry. You wanted to see me?”

Their father smiled thinly. “No, Josephine, I have everything I need at the moment, thank you. Please go upstairs and try to keep some order. I'll be back as soon as the ceremony is over.”

The hair on Jo's neck stood up, but she couldn't figure quite why. He was always most terrible when he was trying to seem kind, and there was no telling what it really meant.

The girls were behind their doors as Jo took the staircase (she had seen more of the front stairs in the last month than in the first twenty-seven years she had spent in the house). It was quiet as night; Jo imagined them crowded into the bedrooms that had a view of the street, peering through the curtains to catch a glimpse of the car as it pulled away with Lou inside, their sister set free and making a straight line for the open road.

When Jo closed the door to their room (her room, now) and closed her eyes, she could almost hear the rumble of the car as it turned through the streets; she could almost hear Louise laughing.

She could feel the restless mourning beneath her, ten wide-eyed birds calling to be let out, their desperation pressing against her feet as if she was the lock on the roof of their cage.

Jo wasn't used to crying. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes stupidly, like it would stop the tears, but the crying had the best of her.

It frightened her how deep her sobs could reach, as if someone was pulling sorrow from her bones.

• • •

Jo had closed the door on them all, and the breakfast tray had come and gone without her even getting up for the knock, but at two o'clock the little raps came in urgent bursts, and Jo recognized at last that it was Rebecca knocking and not the maid.

“General,” Rebecca was hissing at the door, “General, we need to know about—oh yipes.”

Jo didn't want to think about what she looked like. She hadn't slept in days, had hardly eaten, had been worn out by worry; she probably looked like a cadaver.

“What is it?”

“It's about tonight.”

Jo stood and crossed the room. “What about it?”

Rebecca flinched at Jo's tone. “Nothing, General. Just wondering if we were, you know, likely to.”

Jo realized with a sinking stomach that she hadn't asked Tom what would happen to the Marquee in his absence. Would it be safe? Who was going to be running operations while he was away?

The Kingfisher was out of the question—it was blind luck to have escaped the cops twice, and it would be unforgivable recklessness to go back now, not when there was any other place in the city where they might go. Poor hunting.

It had been blind luck for Tom, too, though he couldn't have known it then.

Jo hoped Lou would be good for him. It was going to be a long drive to Chicago if they hated each other, but somehow she suspected they'd end up getting along like a house on fire.

(He could love her, he said, if he only tried.)

“No,” she said. “Not tonight. I'm not ready to take you out.”

Rebecca frowned. “That's unfair.”

Jo blinked, looked at Rebecca, and raised her eyebrows. Rebecca took a half step back.

(Jo's fist was clenched. Jesus. She smoothed her hand along her dress.)

“Maybe not,” Jo said. “But it's your answer. Make your peace with it however you like.”

Then she closed the door.

Even though the bed was neatly made just like every other morning, and the wardrobe door was closed, the room was still achingly empty. Every powdered circle on the dresser screamed that Lou was gone for good.

Lou had been the first person Jo told, in this room, as if she'd known even then that dancing would be the best thing they would ever do.

Since Jo could remember, she had fallen asleep to the sound of Lou's breathing. It had been an intrusion when she was young, this redheaded, unwelcome addition from the nursery, a little alien noise that filled the room at night.

Now it was the silence driving her mad; at any minute, she thought, the empty place where her worries lived was going to swallow her whole.

She went to the library, stared at the atlas until her vision blurred.

• • •

In the middle of the afternoon, long after the glass of milk on the tray had stopped sweating and the soup had stopped steaming, the note came from their father.

He had questions about Hattie and Mattie.

She was to come alone.

• • •

On her way downstairs, she knocked at Doris and Ella's door.

“Make sure everyone's still dressed,” Jo said. “He wants to know about Hattie and Mattie. He'll probably ask about you, too, and after that I don't know what's to keep him from calling everyone else down.”

Doris nodded. She was still dressed from the morning, and some of the others went through the motions. The rest tended to do the bare minimum until they could get dressed for dancing.

That was out of the question. Jo couldn't imagine what would happen if their father caught anyone in sequins.

She went downstairs under a stony silence, feeling as though their doors had been shut to protect them from her, rather than closing them inside.

(Fair enough. She hated jailers, too.

Jo swallowed a pang.)

Their father was sitting at his desk. With one hand he was idly spinning the knob of his cane, as if drilling into the carpet for oil, and with the other he was tapping out a rhythm on his blotter.

He didn't stand to greet her when she knocked and opened the door.

“Sit down, Josephine. I trust the business from this morning has passed?”

It took Jo a moment to realize he meant her crying. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Their father sat back in his chair. “I wanted to talk to you about the future of the girls.”

She didn't trust herself to say anything polite, so she nodded. Their father seemed on edge, coiled in on himself, as if he was waiting for something. She didn't want to risk a wrong answer.

“I suppose you've guessed by my rather—efficient agreement with Mr. Marlowe that business is not going as well as I could hope at the moment.”

Jo had not guessed. She had assumed the agreement came as a result of some form of congenital greed.

“I see,” she said.

“As much as I would like to care for you all as long as you might need it, there are other factors to consider. Therefore, I am relying on you girls to make good matches, with husbands who have the means to take care of you in the style to which you are accustomed.”