The Lucky Ones (16 page)

“Yes, that’s just what I meant.”

“Yes.” Astrid nodded, as though she might thus convince herself out of her bleak mood. “I’m going to put on my dancing shoes and have a little fun. Victor,” she called out flirtatiously. “You don’t think I’m so old and sad and married that no one will want to dance with me, do you?”

The way Astrid pronounced Victor’s name sent realization like a hard winter gale through Cordelia’s mind. However she wished she could be rid of this knowledge, it was coming at her from every direction. There was something between Astrid and Victor, something more than a one-sided crush, and whatever it was meant yet more trouble for her family.

Shooting Victor a warning look, Cordelia stepped forward, planting herself between the bed and the door frame and blocking Astrid’s view of the bodyguard. “I’ll dance with you, darling,” she said. “But let’s get pretty first.”

17

IN THE WEEKS THAT ASTRID HAD SPENT AWAY FROM Manhattan, the glittery world had moved on without her. At the St. Regis roof she saw that new couples had formed while she was off honeymooning, and they were doing dances that she didn’t recognize. The hole-in-the-wall places that people used to go to after midnight were no longer mentioned, and while new places were mentioned in their place, she wouldn’t know the passwords necessary to get into them. Of course she was still a person of interest, but the glances she got were somewhat askance, although Cordelia assured her that in fact those glances were for her—they didn’t like that a boy from a very different part of the city had passed himself off as a hoity-toity flyboy, she said, and they weren’t sure what to think now that the papers were reporting that she and Max really were an item. But none of this mattered particularly. Astrid was in no mood to put on any kind of show. She was simply glad to be in her favorite company, and far from Dogwood and Charlie and men with guns.

“There’s really nothing a good dress can’t fix,” Astrid said, draping a slender arm over the back of her chair and leaning away from the round table. A bowl full of orchids sat at the center, and next to it a gold bucket filled with ice was chilling a bottle of champagne. “
This
one is awfully good on you, Letty darling.”

“Valentine bought it for me,” she replied, in a voice dusted with sugar.

“You know, before you two darlings came into my life—and this is not a brag—I was the most talked-about girl this side of the Mississippi. Well, one girl can only hold the torch so long without getting burned. Cordelia came along and carried it for a while, but now I think it’s Letty.” Astrid sipped her champagne and enjoyed watching a touch of the old blush come into Letty’s cheeks. “Cord, don’t you think so?”

The band was at a high swagger just then, and Cordelia had to turn away from the saxophone player to reply. A subtle smile came over her face. “Yes, I think it’s Letty’s turn.”

“To Letty,” Astrid said, and they all clinked glasses and nodded in satisfaction at everything the petite girl from Ohio had become.

The song ended with a gleeful eruption of horns, and the couples on the dance floor stopped to clap. They were the boys and girls Astrid had grown up with—the children of the best families, home from boarding school for the summer to play and spend money and get in minor scrapes before returning, unscathed by their bad behavior, for tranquil seasons of football games and midnight picnics in the quad and sneaking in and out of dormitories. It wasn’t very long ago that she had been as careless and reckless as any of them. Ordinarily, the habits of her peers charmed her, but for some reason she couldn’t grasp, the sight of them laughing away up high above the city made her stomach tight.

The last song had ended, and the applause died down. Astrid turned away from the scene, toward her friends, grateful that she was here with them and not at the center of activity. That was when she heard the sound.

A pop like a gun.

She wheeled around in time to hear a shriek of hilarity and saw Beau Ridley at the next table over, wielding a champagne bottle. Pale liquid flowed from its narrow mouth. The cork had flown across the room, to a table whose occupants were bemusedly fishing it out of the flower arrangement. But knowing where the sound had come from did nothing to quiet the ringing in her ears. Her eyes darted across the room, over chiffon party dresses and tables littered with drinks and flower arrangements and discarded bow ties.

They settled on Victor, who had been standing against the wall. He was watching her, with that same steady gaze, and she remembered that if there was danger, he would protect her. Her shoulders relaxed, but she knew she was no longer going to be able to sit still while the party reached a fever pitch. She searched for a distraction and found one.

Had it always been there? She’d spent so many nights at the St. Regis roof. Coming-out parties and wedding celebrations, fetes for spring and fetes for fall. Never on any of those nights had she noticed the small, arched door frame on the far side of the room, nor the hand-painted sign above it. She murmured an excuse to her friends and glided through the shaking bodies. As she left the circle of chandelier light, she began to make out the letters.
PHILOMENA
, the sign read,
CLAIRVOYANT. PARTICULARLY PROPHETIC IN MATTERS OF THE HEART & STOCK MARKET
.

“You probably weren’t expecting anybody tonight,” Astrid said as she pushed through the thick purple curtain and into a dimly lit room that smelled of incense and cigarettes. “Not with things so fizzy out there.”

“On the contrary—I was expecting
you
.” The accent was vaguely European but impossible to place. Slowly Astrid’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and she made out a woman sitting cross-legged amid many tasseled pillows. Her body was wrapped in layers of Oriental-patterned fabrics, and her hair was done up impressively, a winding structure of braids and beads. With a mercurial smile she announced, “I am Philomena,” and gestured for Astrid to sit. Then she quickly added: “Four dollars for the reading.”

“Oh, yes, right, of course…” Astrid plucked a bill from her garter and handed the clairvoyant a five.

“Thank you.” Having tucked the bill away, Philomena returned to her lyrical manner. “Close your eyes, dear, and take a breath.”

Astrid did as she was told.

“I want you to forget your troubles and open yourself to the mysteries.”

“All right.” Though Astrid wasn’t quite sure what this meant, she tried to sound cheerfully obedient.

“Give me your hand.”

When she offered up her palm, Astrid cracked one eye and saw the furious concentration with which Philomena immediately began attending to the lines of her flesh.

“Ah,” she began. “I see you are already a lucky one. You have traveled far. You have been much admired. You have married a wealthy man.”

“Yes.” Astrid couldn’t help but slump a little at this reference to Charlie.

“It is a great love…” Philomena traced a line along Astrid’s palm. “But also a rocky one, no?”

“Yes.”

“He is brash and ambitious but sometimes seems incapable of correctly handling a delicate flower like yourself.”

“Yes.” This time it sounded almost like a whimper.

“It is never easy to love a powerful man.” Philomena chuckled. “Believe me, child, I know.”

“No.” Astrid swallowed. “It isn’t.”

Now the clairvoyant’s tone changed. “But what’s this?”

“What’s what?” Astrid’s eyes got big. “What is it?”

“You will have
two
great loves.”

“I will?”

“Yes… But only one will do you good. The other, harm.”

“Which one? I mean, my husband or—or—the other one?”

Philomena’s eyelids fluttered shut, and she curled Astrid’s fingers back over her palm. Several seconds passed like this, with her lids rising occasionally to reveal that her irises had rolled back. Out in the main room the bass drum sounded, shaking the floorboards. Suddenly she released Astrid’s hand, and her head drooped forward.

“It has not yet been written,” Philomena pronounced wearily. She rose from the pillows and walked across the room, where she poured herself a glass of water from a pewter pitcher and drank it in one swift gulp. “Either way,” she went on in a distant voice as she gazed off at nothing, “your life will be a storm.”

“But what should I do?”

Philomena took two languorous steps toward Astrid and sank down beside her. “You’ll need money. Do you have money?”

Astrid was about to protest that she didn’t have any of her own, but then she remembered Grandmother Donal’s gift and smiled. How silly of her to have forgotten the gift, but how perfect that it should be there, waiting, for just this moment. “A little.”

“Good. For another dollar, I give you stock tip!”

Hurriedly, Astrid produced another bill. Philomena took up both her hands and closed her eyes, and Astrid did likewise. “Put everything you can in the Marietta Phonograph Company, guaranteed to triple in three months!”

“Really?”

“Yes, my dear. Philomena knows all.”

“Oh, thank you!” Astrid kissed the woman exuberantly on either cheek. “How
lucky
I was to find you.”

When she stepped back into the party, she was met with the same chaotic swirl. The psychic’s dark room and soothing cadence seemed like a dream, but they had lifted Astrid’s spirits. She knew what Charlie would say about psychics—that they were a lot of hokum—and she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. But the woman’s advice was like a pretty bedtime story, the moral of which was that she was not so trapped as she had felt before. Her life would be a storm, the woman had said, and there would be too much love rather than too little. Well, would she want it any other way?

Earlier in the evening the soirée on the St. Regis roof had been to celebrate the arrival from Europe of Franklin Otis, whom everyone called Junior—the youngest son of the oil-fortune Otises and, as it happened, Astrid’s second cousin—but by two
A.M
. the party had doubled in size, and nobody could remember why they had come in the first place. When Cordelia returned from her suite, the wrought-iron elevator stopped for a moment and she remembered that she shouldn’t have left the roof without Victor. She had been missing Max and wanted to ring White Cove to see if there had been any messages. But there hadn’t been any messages, and now she was caught in the elevator alone, with nowhere to go and a stranger about to get in with her.

The doors drew back, and her shoulders relaxed. Claude Carrion’s wasn’t the most welcome face she could imagine at that moment, but she knew he wasn’t an agent of Coyle Mink.

“Well, Miss Grey.” As he ambled into the elevator, he finished tying his tie and his crooked smile shot up to the left.

“Mr. Carrion.” Though she returned the smile, she tried to keep her voice cool and detached. “Where are you coming from?”

“Would you believe I find stories in the strangest places?” he drawled.

“Yes.” Cordelia kept her shoulders back and her eyes on the elevator doors as they slid shut. “I’ll bet you do.”

“In fact, I just heard a story that pertains to you, my dear, and I think congratulations are in order.”

“Oh?” The skin of her ears prickled. She knew right away it was going to be about Max, and though some part of her didn’t want to trust Carrion or show him what she was feeling, how much pleasure she would derive just from hearing Max’s name in
any
story, she couldn’t wait for him to tell her whatever it might be.

“Yes. Everyone’s talking about that li’l stunt Max pulled this morning.”

“And?”

“And it seems one of those people is rich. Somebody has agreed to be his new patron. They are putting a lot of money behind him. He resumes training at the airfield tomorrow. Seems your boy won’t be kept down, no matter what’s said of ’im.”

Cordelia sucked in breath. “It’s a lot of money, then?”

“Rumored to be quite handsome. If I told you the figure, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Who is it?”

Carrion shook his head. “Anonymous.”

“Oh,
tell
me.”

The columnist laughed—two big blasts of hilarity—and shook his head faintly. “No, I mean the donor is anonymous. Perhaps they don’t like the idea of sponsoring a Negro, but they certainly like the idea of sponsoring Max.”

Before she could make him tell her more, the elevator doors opened onto the roof, and the sound of a horn section in an uproar met her ears. Anyway, all her teeth were showing between her freshly painted red lips, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of saying anything very sensible. “Thank you, Mr. Carrion!” she gushed, a little stupidly, as though he had done it.

“You’re welcome,” he replied grandly, as though he, too, felt responsible for the change in Max’s fortune.

“Cor
delia
!” They both turned to a happily shrieking voice, rushing at the elevator. Letty was still wearing the polka-dotted dress, but her shoes had disappeared. She was already reaching out for Cordelia’s arm as she dashed toward her. “Where have you been?”

“Just placed a call to Charlie. Have I missed anything?”

“No, but it’s not as fun without you.” She covered her giggle with the back of her hand and caught her breath. “I hope you’re being nice to Claude,” she said, shifting flirtatiously on her bare feet. “We must
always
be nice to Claude.”

“Any complaints?” Cordelia arched an eyebrow in the columnist’s direction.

He picked up her hand and kissed her wrist. “It has been a pleasure.”

“Good-bye, then,” Cordelia said.

“Good-bye!” Letty echoed happily. The night had gotten to her, and Cordelia was almost surprised by her petite friend’s strength as she pulled her back to the dance floor, where they found Astrid in the midst of trying to teach Victor how to quickstep. His expression seemed to indicate that he wasn’t sure he ought to be dancing with his charge, but his arms and legs were following her instructions.

“Come on, darling, you’ve never shown
me
how to quickstep!” Cordelia quipped, cutting in.

With an apologetic nod, Victor withdrew to a nearby wall, and Astrid—who seemed to have had a good deal of champagne—laughed a bubbly little laugh and hiccupped and replied: “At least now I’ll get to teach someone who isn’t
utterly
hopeless!” Astrid rested her arm along Cordelia’s back and lifted her opposite hand and issued a lazy wink. “You be the boy, but I’m going to lead, all right?”

“All right.”

By the time they went gliding onto the dance floor, Letty had been taken up by Junior Otis, who’d been following her with his eyes for some hours already. He was grinning, now that he finally had her in his arms, and though Letty was answering his questions with a sweet expression on her face, Cordelia could tell, even at a distance, that she was hanging back from him. Like Cordelia, her thoughts were half-elsewhere, though she was content to spend some hours amid music and happy, shouting people. Outside there was danger and uncertainty, and Cordelia—and Letty and Astrid, too, it seemed—had learned to want things that were complicated and came at a high price. But in the meantime, before the check came due, there were far worse places to be than the St. Regis after midnight with your best friends.