Vixen (13 page)

The girls goggled. They looked at Clara with fresh eyes and began a succession of rapid-fire questions:

“Did you drink gin?”

“Did you meet any hard-boiled gangsters?”

“Did that rake Marcus Eastman try to seduce you?”

Before Clara could answer, Lorraine chimed in: “You should have seen poor little Clara—the whole point of going to a speakeasy is to get sloshed, and this one wouldn’t even touch the stuff! Must be traumatized from all the pig slaughtering back on the farm.”

“You might have been better off following my lead, Raine, considering what Marcus said about you,” Clara said.

That shut Lorraine up fast. “He said something about me?”

Clara took a slow slip of her drink. “Something about how if Lorraine feels the need to fake drunk, she probably fakes everything else, too.”

The girls giggled.

Lorraine looked as if she’d taken a bullet to the heart. She opened her handbag and withdrew a silver flask.

“Lorraine!” Ginnie, Betty, Helen, and Dorothy all
exclaimed. Which Lorraine clearly interpreted as disbelief—not as a warning that Mrs. Carmody was standing right behind her.

Lorraine laughed nastily. “Well, that little killjoy doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about!”

Mrs. Carmody pried the flask from Lorraine’s hands. “Girls, dinner will be ready in just a moment.” She smiled politely but kept her grasp firmly on Lorraine’s arm. “May I speak with you, please? Outside?”

Lorraine had the decency to look ashamed. “Oh, Mrs. Carmody, I’m so sorry—”

“Now, Lorraine,” Mrs. Carmody said. She handed the flask to Clara. “Dear, will you dispose of that? Discreetly?”

“Of course,” Clara said. She plucked a fanned napkin off a nearby table and wrapped it around the flask.

“But, Mrs. Carmody, it’s my father’s liquor!” Lorraine protested.

“That’s enough, Lorraine.” Mrs. Carmody led the girl from the room.

“I would
not
want to be her right now,” Ginnie remarked once Lorraine was gone. “Mrs. Carmody is the worst when it comes to social
faux pas
. She’s like the high-society Grim Reaper.”

But Helen didn’t seem to care at all. She looked at Clara with renewed curiosity. “Did
Marcus Eastman
really say that? To
you
? I am so impressed.”

Clara couldn’t believe it: Marcus was like Charlie Chaplin
to these girls—they were reduced to a bunch of drooling teenagers at the mention of him. “He’s supposed to be here tonight, too, but he’s late. When he comes, I can introduce you all, if you’d like.”

“Yes!”
the girls burst out in unison.

Just then, a fat little fellow in a too-tight tuxedo—Mrs. Carmody’s “man,” Archibald—stepped into the room and rang a silver bell. So pretentious. “Dinner,” he intoned in his fake British accent, “will now be served.” Then he bowed.

Ginnie and Betty linked their arms in Clara’s, leading her toward the dining room.

“Oh, Mother!” Ginnie exclaimed, spotting a heavyset woman who looked identical to her save for an uncountable roll of chins. “You must meet Gloria’s cousin!”

Clara curtsied. “I could have sworn you were Virginia’s older sister!”

Mrs. Bitman beamed, running a finger over her pearl necklace. “How sweet you are,” she said, with a heavy Southern drawl.

“Mother, we must invite her to my party next week,” Ginnie said, then added to Clara, “Maybe you can even bring Marcus Eastman!”

“Why, he would be a delightful addition to your party.” Mrs. Bitman grinned warmly at Clara. “Aren’t you a dear for thinking of him for my Ginnie?”

“Of course, Mrs. Bitman,” Clara said. “Marcus was saying to me just the other night that he longs to find a girl from
a family of quality, and Ginnie is obviously a young woman of real breeding and gentility.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Bitman said. “Though it appears that Pennsylvania is doing its fair share to add truth and beauty to the world.” She turned to a group of nearby guests. “Did you all hear? Miss Knowles here is trying to make a match between my Ginnie and Marcus Eastman. Certainly the type of gentleman caller I approve of!” A girlish
ooooh
rose up from the assembled mothers.

“It’s my pleasure,” Clara said. Gentleman caller? Seriously? Had Mrs. Bitman grown up on a plantation? Probably. In the hall, Mrs. Carmody was once again directing traffic, her face now as white as her pearl earrings.

“I do hope you seated your niece near us!” said Ginnie as she passed Mrs. Carmody. “She’s the berries!”

“Yes, the kitten’s purr!” Betty added.

Mrs. Carmody looked at Clara with warmth in her eyes for the first time since her arrival. “Clara, why don’t you sit in Lorraine’s spot, which is closer to the other girls? Since she won’t be joining us.”

“My pleasure!” Clara said, then was carried past Mrs. Carmody into the dining room by a crush of chattering girls.

Clara had seen this room before, of course—it was the largest room on the ground floor, but one that the Carmodys rarely used. Mostly it sat empty, dark and full of dust and heavy furniture lurking in the shadowy depths. But now it had been transformed.

Shutters Clara hadn’t known were there had been thrown open, and all the heavy furniture had been taken away. In its place were a dozen round white tables, each surrounded by nine finely wrought white chairs. In the center of each table was a gaudy explosion of flowers—gladiolas and tulips, zinnias and hydrangeas, phlox and carnations and roses and more. A few flowers might have been nice, but these big piles of blossoms? Tacky. Clara looked away.

But everywhere she looked, it got worse. The walls had been draped with swags of pastel bunting, and on each wall hung charcoal portraits of the couple laughing or dancing or having fun of some sort: doing things they would never have done in real life. Worst of all, in the center of the room stood a giant ice sculpture of—could it be? Clara winced—yes, icy figures of Gloria and Bastian Grey atop what looked like a big glass box. A skyscraper? A cake? Who cared.

How much money had Mrs. Carmody squandered on this circus of awfulness? Didn’t she realize how desperately
nouveau riche
it was to be so showy?

Clara swallowed and excused herself from her new “friends” to go to the powder room. But really, she just needed a moment to herself.

She closed the door and leaned back against it, breathing easy for the first time in an hour.

It had been a blessing in disguise that Gloria had gone missing, otherwise Clara might not have had the opportunity
to win over this crowd. And Lorraine, too—Clara owed her—though, seriously, what
was
the girl thinking?

As sheltered and shallow and irritating as these girls all were, they made Clara miss her best friends back in New York.

She left the bathroom and was about to descend the stairs, when she was intercepted by Archibald. “A note arrived for you, Miss Knowles.”

When she saw the handwriting on the envelope, her entire body turned as icy as that sculpted Gloria in the dining room. “Who gave this to you?”

Archibald shrugged. “Just a messenger boy, miss. One of the maids signed for it.”

“Thank you.” She took the envelope, dread dropping swiftly into her stomach.

The ghosts of the past were supposed to
stay
in the past, not haunt her in the present. The only question was: Which ghost was this? And what did it want from her?

With quivering fingers, she pulled the cream-colored paper out of its gold-foil-lined envelope. The inky black letters stared up at her.

I’m coming for you

LORRAINE

Every flapper knows that a fashionably late entrance must always be matched by a fashionably late exit.

Unfortunately for Lorraine, her exit wasn’t by choice. But so what? The last thing she wanted to do was waste her precious time faking pleasantries with all those dumb Doras from prep school. She could barely stand them during the school day—they were the type of girls who shared a passion for those prudish Jane Austen books, in which the promise of a sexless marriage always tied a girl’s problems up with a neat little bow, and then everyone had tea.

Lorraine hated bows.

What had she done wrong except show up in a fabulous outfit, take out a flask (as if no one in the room had ever seen one before!), and add spark to the dull conversation?
Mrs. Carmody should be
thanking
her, not banning her from dinner! If Lorraine’s own mother had known (or cared), she would have been indignant! Maybe. And maybe even on Lorraine’s behalf.

This whole unfortunate situation could have been avoided had Gloria been there. Lorraine didn’t know whether she was more upset because Gloria had left her to suffer alone with those cows, or because Gloria had disappeared. So unlike Gloria. Or rather: So unlike the Gloria she used to know. Her best friend had withheld yet
another
secret from her, and Lorraine knew that when individual secrets began to add up, total deception was not far away.

Now she had to wait outside for her driver to pick her up.

Ugh
. She would have driven the spare car herself if the party hadn’t been the show-up-with-a-chauffeur sort. It would take him a while to get here, so she went for a stroll. Around the side of the house lay the perfect English garden—rows and rings of flower beds and fountains and, at the edge of the greenery, a wall of towering cypresses.

It should have been peaceful. But Lorraine was in turmoil.

From the direction of the house came the clatter of dishes and the faint laughter of girls. She couldn’t imagine any of them saying anything funny—except maybe some little snubs between the country club debs and country mouse Clara. And even that joke was growing stale.

Because Clara was sharper than she appeared. Oh, she pretended to be sweet as blueberry pie, batting her lashes
over those big doe eyes as though surprised by everything she saw. Then she’d open her mouth and make a comment that cut like a knife. She was sharp, that Clara was. And charming. In the short time Lorraine had been at the party—she winced a little at the memory—it had become clear that Clara was charming everyone. She had totally won Mrs. Carmody’s favor by being a boring good girl.

Just like Lorraine used to be. There had been a time not that long ago when it would have been Lorraine who became the party favorite, Lorraine who effortlessly charmed society’s elite, Lorraine whom the boys looked for and longed to talk with.

But something had changed. And now Lorraine was being outwitted by dim little hicks like Clara, her best friend was pulling away from her, and she was alone.

She almost felt ashamed—maybe she
was
a little too flashily dressed, and maybe it
was
too much to flash her flask.

A loud burst of applause pealed out from the house.

Could Lorraine help it if she was driven to be stylish? To be daring where others were content to wear their mother-approved frills? Some women were naturally bold, and society responded only with jealousy and spite. Lorraine
was
that bold woman. Mrs. Carmody and her clique were the other sort. And that was their problem, not Lorraine’s.

At least the night was crisp and clear and warm. She removed her fur stole and walked along the garden path. At the far end, she thought she spotted the tiny bud of a firefly’s
light, flickering on and off. As she drew closer, she realized it wasn’t a firefly at all, but the lit end of a cigarette. And the person smoking it looked vaguely like—

“Well, well, well—look who it is.”

That privileged accent was unmistakable.
Oh, Marcus
, she thought,
you and your impeccable timing
. “I thought you had a boys’ night tonight.”

“Yes, we were playing cards, but Christian got sick all over his jacks and that ended things early.” Marcus was draped in twilight shadows. Dressed in a white shirt and a dark suit, his hair slightly disheveled, he looked the part of the sexy rake in some movie like Valentino’s
The Sheik
, lurking outside the palace while his harem squeals.

“It seems as if we’re both in exile tonight,” she said, strolling calmly toward him.

“For now,” he said, taking a deep drag from his cigarette. He nodded toward the house. “Though I don’t think I can avoid the debs much longer.”

“Don’t you mean they can’t avoid you?”

“I think you’re talking about yourself.”

“I’m clearly not a deb.”

“I could tell by your skimpy outfit,” he said, dropping his cigarette onto the lawn and crushing it with his heel.

“Why, Mr. Eastman, I didn’t know you had a thing for girls who cover up.”

“No, you’re right, Miss Dyer, I much prefer scantily clad harlots like you.”

At that, Lorraine gently slapped his cheek.

As she pulled back her hand, he firmly caught hold of it, and her mesh handbag fell to the ground with a loud clunk. Neither of them moved. Lorraine could have stayed in that position for hours, staring fiercely into his eyes, the scent of his cologne mingling with the tangy autumn air.

When he finally knelt to pick up her handbag, Lorraine was tempted to kick him down onto the wet grass, jump on top of him, and roll him into the mulch. But then last night’s awkward, rejected kiss at the Green Mill came to mind.