The Luxe (23 page)

T
HE AFTERNOON OF HER FIRST FULL DAY OF FREEDOM,
Lina was pleasantly overwhelmed by all the fine, varied things she might do with herself. She stepped out of her hotel on Twenty-sixth Street and headed toward Sixth Avenue, full of anticipation for what her brand-new life held. Now that she was possessed of such a life-altering sum of money, she hardly wanted to go on avoiding eye contact with her betters or please people besides herself. She wanted everything she did to be very grand.

She had spent most of the morning giving Penelope Hayes little details about Elizabeth and Will, embellishing where she thought it might make her new benefactress happy, although she had withheld her belief that the Hollands were poor now. Lina was becoming ever more mindful of how girls like Penelope wielded secrets, and now that she saw how valuable that piece of information might be, she wanted to keep it to herself a little longer.

In exchange for the information about Elizabeth and
Will, Penelope had given her some old clothing and jewelry. The dresses seemed like last year’s fashion already, but Lina could hardly complain. The plain black maid’s dress was in her past. She spent a good hour trying on her new clothes, eventually settling on a red dress with a Swiss dot pattern. Penelope had said that it was one of her favorites, but that everyone had already seen her in it last spring. The shoes that Penelope had given her, however, were entirely too small, and Lina was forced to resort to the old scuffed boots that she used to wear while running errands for the Hollands.

Lina glanced at her reflection in the window of a florist’s storefront on the corner of Twenty-sixth and Sixth and admired her silhouette in the red dress. It was very tailored and had been made for a different shape of girl, but still it looked good enough. Her upturned, freckle-splattered nose and her full lips were not what society called beautiful, of course, but she lifted up her chin and knew that she was pretty in a way. It was vindicating to see her skills for hair arrangement and beauty turned on herself.

Lina told herself that someday when Claire saw her little sister’s name in the society pages, above the name of Elizabeth Holland, then her angry dismissal from the Hollands’ home would seem fortuitous. Will would see her name, too, of course. She delighted in imagining how surprised he would be when he saw how high old Liney had risen. He would come
looking for her, his eyes shining with admiration, and tell her how much he had missed her. It was the Elizabeth Holland way to win a heart: Never go chasing after, always play hard to get. That was what Penelope had said.

Lina smiled at the reflection that seemed to be changing from moment to moment before continuing east on the street, passing the bonbon shops and tailors with their striped awnings, getting closer and closer to the old neighborhood as she went. Soon she was on Fifth walking south. She was in Elizabeth’s territory again, only a few blocks from the Hollands’ town house, but her former life as a servant girl seemed a world away. As she walked along the little park in Madison Square she saw the Dewey Arch, which had been so recently constructed for the parade, and its colonnade. Behind her, the tower of Madison Square Garden rose above the hazy tree-tops—she knew that Will had once or twice gone to sporting events there. Then she looked across the thoroughfare and saw the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which was one of the old places the Misses Holland used to go with their aunt to have afternoon tea. That’s what ladies did with themselves when there was nothing else to do, Lina remembered. She looked up at the white marble edifice, rising six stories up from the street with all of its little hooded windows, and considered it a sign.

Lina smoothed out the wrinkles of her red dress. The avenue was crowded with horse-drawn carriages and trolleys
and pedestrians in bowlers and waistcoats. She was on her way to have a simple tea, yet it felt like her very own debut. For the first time, she would be waited on instead of the other way around. She wondered briefly if she might even see Elizabeth there, perhaps on a break from one of her fittings at Lord & Taylor, which was, after all, only three blocks away. How shocked Elizabeth would be to discover she was no longer Lina Broud, ladies’ maid. She was Lina Broud—Carolina Broud—with five hundred dollars in her purse and her whole future ahead of her.

Lina darted out into traffic with her skirt pulled safely away from the filth in the street. She walked past the collection of carriages and bellboys that loitered at the entrance, and into the lobby. Her eyes darted across the deep carpets, and she breathed in the rich aroma of coffee and fresh-cut flowers, which she recognized from the few times she had been brought here before on some errand for the Hollands. She had even once caught a glimpse of the glass and gilt case in the tea room, where all the layered, colorful pastries were on display. She took a step in the direction of that room and saw one of the hotel clerks darting in her direction.

“Good afternoon, Miss—” he began, but stopped himself suddenly. He looked from her dress to her feet and then to her face. Lina, who a moment before had been so full of excitement, was suddenly overwhelmed by self-consciousness.

“Are you a guest of the hotel?”
“No,” Lina admitted a little sadly. “I’m staying in the West Side Inn, on Twenty-sixth Street….” She trailed off when she noticed that the man was again looking at her feet. She looked down—her dress was still pulled up the way she had carried it to cross the street, and so her old scuffed boots were completely on display. The clerk made a motion to one of the other clerks, who was wearing the same burgundy uniform, and then the second man approached.

She looked around her and realized that the other ladies strolling through the lobby were accompanied by chaperones or their own servants. She wondered at herself for thinking she could pass, so easily and so soon, for a society girl. The first clerk was looking at her and whispering to the second, who shot another distasteful look at her shoes.

“Excuse me,” the second clerk said. “Are you meeting someone here?”

“No,” she replied miserably.

“Then we are going to have to ask you to leave,” the first said, adding a sneer that was entirely unnecessary, as he had already made Lina feel her place quite acutely.

If she could have made herself disappear forever right then, she would have done it, just to be out of the glare of those two clerks’ dismissive faces. Lina backed toward the door and the red dress rustled around her legs as she ran into the street. She was going to follow Broadway, where it crossed
Fifth, carving out a triangle-shaped block. To take Fifth would only be to remind herself how foolish she had been. She was moving so quickly she could hardly see, and so the man’s chest was doubly shocking when she smacked into it.

“Pardon me, miss.”

Lina recognized the man she had collided with immediately, but it took her a moment to believe that he was actually speaking to her in so polite a tone. It was the Lord & Taylor boy, the one whom Claire had called handsome the other day. The one who was hired to sweet-talk ladies. As she had just been so painfully reminded, she was not a lady at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. He was wearing a light beige collared shirt under a brown silk vest, and his jacket was thrown across his arm. He was better-looking than Lina had thought before, which didn’t help the matter of her not having anything to say in the least. Instead she stared stupidly into his hazel eyes. “You probably think it’s rude of me to speak to you this way. But you look very familiar. Maybe I’ve had the pleasure of serving you at Lord and Taylor’s department store?”

Lina’s smile was instantaneous. There was at least one person in the world who didn’t take her for a lowly servant.

“Or maybe I’ve seen your portrait in the papers?” The Lord & Taylor boy was smiling now, too. He had a long nose and an almost downy layer of hair on his chin, and he was
much taller than Lina. “Maybe a mention of you attending a ball?”

She shrugged evasively. After being turned away from the hotel, she felt she had to be very cautious not to misstep. But she couldn’t end the moment. Being taken for a lady, and by someone so gracious and handsome, felt too nice to just turn away from.

“Well, you can’t be all alone? Are your parents still at the hotel?”

Lina looked back at the white marble building and was glad to see neither of the two clerks who had so recently shunned her. “Oh…no. I’m staying here by myself.”

“You look so familiar…” he said again, turning his head to look at her sideways.

Lina couldn’t help but continue to smile her wide, happy smile. “I’m a mystery, I guess.”

“Well, would you mind if I thought about it a little more? Over a drink maybe?”

Lina felt herself blushing and wished she could stop.

“Oh, I know it must seem improper, but you wouldn’t be the first society girl I’ve shown other parts of town. And I promise to have you back in one piece.”

“It’s not that,” Lina said, feeling uncomfortable again and at a very great risk of revealing her real identity. “It’s that I’m spoken for already,” she explained, remembering Will and
how this transformation was all for him. Or perhaps not
all
for him, but certainly most of it.

“Oh, that’s all right.” He smiled rakishly. “It’s only for an afternoon, and I promise not to tell anyone about it.”

Lina thought of Will again, and wished that he were there courting her instead. But she also wanted this gorgeous moment of being mistaken for a fancy society girl to last a little bit longer.

Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw a floor covered by sawdust and walls plastered with newspaper. Barmaids younger than she traversed the floor, going from table to table with mugs of beer. There was a fat female vocalist in the corner singing “Old Folks at Home,” which was familiar to Lina from the warblings of her sister. Although it was still afternoon outside, the scene inside the saloon made her feel like she’d stepped into the middle of the night.

“Pretty different from Fifth Avenue, isn’t it?” her Lord & Taylor boy asked.

Lina nodded, although she was suddenly worried that she had made a mistake. She had become aware of the fact that she hadn’t eaten all day, and was feeling a little light-headed. More important, all the money that Penelope had
given her was tucked into the silk purse under her arm, and here she was perched on a bar stool in the Bowery, which was famous for its groggeries, pawnbrokers, brothels, and dangerous characters. “What did you say your name was?”

“Tristan Wrigley.” His light-colored hair grew back a little wild from his head, and when he smiled at her it was with an energy that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “And yours?”

“Carolina Broud,” she answered. She liked the way her full name sounded aloud, and smiled to herself. She only wished she had thought to expand her surname as well, so that she could claim to be
Carolina Broudhurst
, or
Carolina Broudwell
.

“You’ll forgive me if I keep staring at you.” Tristan motioned to the barkeep, and before long two mugs of dark beer appeared before them, with froth spilling over their rims and onto the unfinished wood of the bar. “It’s just that I’m sure we’ve met before, but I don’t recall the name Carolina Broud….”

“Well, I haven’t been out so very long.” She took a gulp of the beer and wasn’t sure if she liked it. She had never had beer—only occasional sips of Will’s whiskey—and it tasted like something gone bad. But she remembered one of the kitchen girls telling her that when there was no food to be had, a stout and a smoke was almost as good. So she took another pull and said, “I must look like a lot of girls.”

“Not a bit.” He gave her the smile again—it wasn’t like
any smile Lina had been the recipient of. It gave her a warm, pleasant feeling, and also a little stab of guilt. “You’re a mighty pretty girl, Miss Broud.”

“Don’t get any ideas, Mr. Wrigley,” she warned him. “I told you I’m spoken for. He’s seeking his fortune out West, but that doesn’t mean that—”

“Oh, I get it,” Tristan replied lightly. He winked at her, and she thought she saw something almost Will-like in his eyes. “Your fellow doesn’t have enough money to make your folks happy, so he’s gone out to make some pennies and then win your hand with them.”

Lina was flattered by the little story he had just told her, and wished it were true. She blushed, and he seemed to take this as his cue to change the subject.

“So, I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before.” Tristan turned on his stool and surveyed the long room, with its low tin ceiling. “See over there, the fellow in the plug hat?”

Lina followed his gaze and saw a medium-size man with a mashed nose and close-set eyes. He was sitting at a table, surrounded by women who struck Lina as almost as well dressed as she. “The ugly one?”

Tristan snorted. “That’s Kid Jack Gallagher. Killed a man in a bare-knuckled match only two weeks ago. It was a long fight, and his opponent was unbeaten. Well, before that, of course.”

“If he’s a murderer, why are all the pretty ladies fawning over him?” Lina looked at the women fluttering around him.

“Those aren’t pretty ladies. Those are whores. And they’re fawning because he has prize money to burn.”

“Oh.”

Lina watched as Tristan lifted his mug and threw his head back. Slowly, all the beer disappeared from the glass. He looked at Lina with half-wild eyes. “You want to try that?”

Lina smiled. She’d always liked a challenge. She threw her head back and drained the beer in several chugs. She was sputtering when she came back up, but the beer was gone.

Tristan motioned again to the bartender. “Have another,” he said when they arrived.

“All right, then,” Lina replied, looking down into her second beer. She was beginning to feel very light-headed indeed, but she was finding Tristan’s impression of her as a society girl gone bad to be completely irresistible. And anyway, she couldn’t go home to be by herself just yet. Not to that room on Twenty-sixth Street with the ancient wallpaper and the air-shaft view. “If you insist.”