Vixen (12 page)

As Clara gazed at her makeup-free face in the mirror, she felt a surge of nerves.

Tonight’s dinner—a gathering of pompous debutantes and their mothers—was all about crossing your well-bred ankles and sounding enthusiastic about country club croquet tournaments and recent betrothals. Normally, this kind of gathering would bring out the worst in her. But it was still better than being on the farm. Plus, if Clara was going to create a new life for herself here, she had to take the party seriously. This would be her first opportunity to show off the New Clara in Chicago. Clara the Good Girl. Clara the Saint. Clara the performer.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t take a shot of liquid courage first. She opened her undergarment drawer, dug
around, and retrieved the unassuming pink sock with the white-eyelet border that hid her flask of gin. She uncapped it and threw her head back.

But midswig, she stopped.

If Clara was going to commit to this new version of herself, she would have to get through the night sober.

The grandfather clock struck eight and was immediately echoed by the insistent ring of the doorbell. There was no time to muse. She swiped on a coat of black mascara and a dash of bright pink lipstick—a girl had to cross the line somewhere—before hurrying downstairs.

Aunt Bea was stationed in the doorway of the salon, policing incoming traffic. “Why, there you are, my dear,” she said. Clara knew her aunt would approve of the blousy pale blue dress, with its delicate floral pattern and waist-cinching belt. She had borrowed it from Gloria’s closet. Without asking. “I must say, you look lovely.”

“Certainly not as lovely as you.” Clara hinted at a curtsy, and proceeded into the next room, Aunt Bea following close behind.

Circling about the room were the mothers and daughters of Chicago’s most important families. The girls looked exactly as Clara had imagined: thin and pale, with blank expressions, and wrapped up like gaudy Christmas presents in colorful frills and bows and lace. It was almost shocking to see girls actually looking their age—
sans
vamp makeup and
vamp attitudes—clinging together awkwardly, acting like the schoolgirls they were.

Then there were their mothers, larger and stiffer versions of the girls themselves. The mothers gathered into groups, each trying to upstage the others with flashy diamond-encrusted baubles and equally flashy laundry lists of their daughters’ accomplishments.

“Ladies, ladies!” Aunt Bea singsonged. “I want to introduce to you one of our guests of honor this evening, my niece, Clara Knowles, who will be staying with us for an indefinite length of time.”

They all openly inspected Clara, as if she were a mannequin on display.

“Where is the
other
guest of honor?” a voice trilled out.

“Oh, you know our Gloria,” her aunt began, turning to Clara with a flush of panic that only Clara saw.

Clara leaped right in. “She’s on the phone long distance with that darling fiancé of hers,” she explained. She added in a stage whisper: “He’s away on business, but not even his work can keep those two apart!” The women smiled wistfully.

Clutching Clara’s arm, Mrs. Carmody cleared her throat. “Why, yes—you know young love!” She croaked out an entirely fake laugh. “Now hold on to those appetites, ladies. Wait till you see what our chef, Henri—imported directly from l’Hôtel Plaza Athénée—has whipped up for you!”

The room fell into a pleased chatter, and Aunt Bea
stealthily guided Clara into the hall. “Why didn’t Gloria come downstairs with you?”

Clara honestly had no idea. But as she looked into her aunt’s worried face, she decided that this was the perfect opportunity to play the responsible older cousin. “Would you like me to lasso her for you?”

“Thank you, dear.” Aunt Bea gave her a frightening smile. “And don’t be afraid to use an actual lasso if need be.”

Clara dashed upstairs, relieved to get away from the gawking. She knocked on Gloria’s door.

No response.

She knocked harder, then tried the doorknob. Locked. Finally, she knelt down and peered through the keyhole. Not only was it dark, but a sharp breeze stung her eye.

The window was open.

It wasn’t possible. No girl would be so harebrained as to sneak out of the house on the night of her own deb dinner. Though Gloria
had
been acting strange since last night.

After they had left the Green Mill, she had slumped in the backseat of Marcus’s car with her eyes closed, presumably blacked out, for the entire ride home. At breakfast this morning, Gloria had stared blankly into her bowl of oatmeal, her face as pale as the lumpy gruel. Clara had assumed she was just overwhelmed by it all—she had felt the exact same way when she started going out in New York. But now …

Clara couldn’t help thinking of that black jazz pianist, the one Gloria had danced with at the Green Mill. The way
Gloria had looked at him, the way his hand kept dropping to her hip, the starry glaze that had sparkled in her eyes—it all spelled trouble. And the kind Clara knew all too well.

Aunt Bea was waiting nervously at the bottom of the staircase when Clara came back down. “Is something wrong with her dress?”

This was the moment, when her aunt was at her most vulnerable, to win her over for good. Once that trust was established, the threat of reform school would have no real weight anymore.

Clara made a quick decision.

“Aunt Bea, I have some bad news. Your daughter is not in her room.” She waited for her aunt to gasp before continuing. “You go and search for her,” Clara instructed, taking command of the situation. “Inquire with the waiters, check to see whether all the cars are here, unlock her door. I’ll take care of the guests—they won’t even notice her absence.” She watched her aunt’s face contort, shifting from confusion to panic. “And don’t worry,” Clara added, giving Aunt Bea’s hand a firm squeeze, “I’ll call the
Tribune
and tell them not to send the photographer.”

It quickly became clear that Gloria was nowhere in the house or on the grounds. Mrs. Carmody rearranged seating plans while Archibald sent in a fresh round of hors d’oeuvres.

By the time Clara rejoined the party, the house was overflowing with guests. A year before, Clara’s instinct would have been to shamelessly flirt with the good-looking waiter in the white tuxedo while nibbling the caviar canapés he carried. But the new Clara had responsibilities. Instead, she would have to curry favor with this witless battalion of girls and their fat mothers.

“So you’re Gloria’s cousin,” the leader of the pack began. She was an angelic-looking girl, complete with dimples and blond ringlets. In her pink dress, she looked like a half-chewed wad of chewing gum. “How long are you planning on staying with the Carmodys?”

“At least until I don my bridesmaid’s dress at Gloria’s wedding—which I’m sure you already know is the main reason I’m here,” Clara said. The girls murmured and shook their curls. “You girls must be the ones selected to compete in the Chicago beauty pageant that Gloria told me about.”

Clara worried she was laying it on too thick, but the pink one tittered and asked, “Why would you say that?”

“Why, because you are all such
beauties
!” And by beauties, Clara really meant:
Have you ever heard of this revolutionary product called lipstick? Because you might want to try it out
.

But no matter: Each girl beamed as if Clara had offered the compliment just to her. In New York, Clara would’ve crushed them under the heels of her Mary Janes like the sugary rainbow Necco wafers they resembled.

This was way too easy.

“Believe it or not, we are just her friends from Laurelton Prep,” one of the girls said, hiccuping. No girl with that unfortunate sallow complexion should be caught dead near the color yellow.

“Oh, Gloria has told me
so
much about you!” Clara said. “You must be—”

“I’m Virginia—but you can call me Ginnie—and this is Helen, Betty, and Dorothy—but you can call her Dot, or even Dottie.” Ginnie made these introductions as she must have learned in etiquette class, leaving a two-second pause between names so each girl had time for a short curtsy. “Will you be joining us in school?”

“I graduated last year”—a lie, since Clara had skipped most of her senior year—“from high school in Pennsylvania.”

“Oh, I have a cousin who goes to Macy Plains School!” Betty (the blue one) chirped.

“I have one who goes to the Grier School!” Helen (the peach one) exclaimed.

“My family all goes to school … here!” Dorothy/Dot/Dottie added. “Not everyone has the grades for prep school!”

Helen turned to her. “Dot, what are you talking about? You go to Laurelton Prep with us!”

Dottie laughed. “Oh, of course! Silly me!”

Clara had to bite her cheek to prevent herself from laughing at this round of boarding school name-dropping. They
all blinked at her expectantly. “I went to public school in Mount Lebanon,” she admitted. “But during my freshman year, Scott and Zelda rented a cottage right down the road from my house.”

This was true—only, Clara had been on Martha’s Vineyard for the summer, not in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Why would the Fitzgeralds bother with Pittsburgh? But she figured if she was going to lie, she had to lie big.

“Wait! The Fitzgeralds?” Ginnie exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “You mean Scott
F
.? He’s the cat’s whiskers!”

“Pos-i-lute-ly!” Clara said.
Though it is F. Scott, you dimwit
. She beckoned the girls closer. “They threw such outrageous, loud parties! One night, my father called the cops on them. And guess what the cops found?” The girls waited in eager anticipation. “Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you this—”

“Tell us! Tell us!” they squealed.

“They found an
orgy
. Right on the back lawn! And Zelda was only twenty!” The girls all gasped at hearing such a dirty secret about the most notorious debutante of all. The deb who’d gone completely flapper.

Clara knew exactly who these girls were: Their version of rebellion was hearing the word
orgy
—whether they knew what it meant or not—right under the noses of their mothers.

“Did you actually meet them?” Ginnie whispered.

Clara was about to dive into some made-up details when the noise in the room dropped to a hiss.

Lorraine had entered the salon.

And oh, what an entrance it was! With her dark, smudged eyes and black false lashes, she looked like a scary sorceress. She was wearing a sleeveless white frock, decorated at the bottom with a wild red geometric pattern that called attention to its knee-baring length. Atop her head was a sparkly black cloche hat, a thick fringe of stick-straight bangs peeking out, and draped carelessly around her shoulders was a shiny black mink stole.

It was obvious she was tipsy. Lorraine pushed past Archibald at the door and staggered into the room, her rhinestone bangles and fake pearls clinking and clanking and her pointy-toed red high heels clacking.

“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in,” Ginnie said under her breath.

Betty agreed. “My mother would never let me out of the house looking like that. Not that I would even try such a stunt.”

Helen snorted. “Lorraine, always good for a laugh.”

“You know what they say,” Dot said. “Laughter is the best medicine.”

Oh no
, Clara thought as Lorraine made a beeline straight for her. Everything she needed to know about Lorraine had been revealed last night at the Green Mill. A girl that desperate to be the center of attention could never be trusted.

“Fancy meeting you here,
mes chéries
!” Lorraine double-cheek-kissed each girl in the circle, pausing when she got to
Clara. “I take it you all have met our new addition, straight from the pumpkin patches?”

“You are so … amusing, Lorraine,” Clara said.

“Where is the guest of honor?” Lorraine asked, casting her gaze around the room.

“I’m right here.”

“Ha. I mean Gloria. The
real
guest of honor.”

Clara sipped her lemonade. “I thought you would be able to tell us. But it’s clear you don’t know anything more than we do.”

Lorraine’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

“Clara was just telling us about Pennsylvania,” Betty said.

“Oh, I know! Isn’t it just horrid? Can you imagine going to a
public
school, where everyone is the unwashed child of a farmer or factory worker? It’s just simply beyond imagining!” Lorraine laughed. “We had to take her shopping the second she arrived, just to get her some proper clothes, poor thing.”

“Since Lorraine is
obviously
the expert in that department,” Clara said, motioning to Lorraine’s zany dress.

Lorraine ignored her. “You should have seen this one last night,” she said.

“Oh, I didn’t see you at the country club dinner dance!” Dorothy exclaimed, her mouth filled with some type of puff pastry.

Lorraine snickered. “No, we were at the … oh, it’s too big a secret.”

“Tell us! Please,” the girls begged.

“If you promise not to tell a soul,” Lorraine ordered. Which Clara knew meant they should tell as many people as humanly possible. “We went to the Green Mill. Me. Gloria. Marcus Eastman,” Lorraine said, snatching a glass of seltzer with lime from a waiter. “And Clara. She came, too.”