Vixen (6 page)

Gloria was hungry. She focused on cutting her crab-stuffed mushroom into tiny pieces, avoiding eye contact with everyone at the dining room table. She could feel all their judgmental stares—her mother’s, cousin’s, and fiance’s—burning a hole through her bob.

The events of the afternoon had transpired as follows:

She arrived home from the barber, sneaking in through the kitchen, where she surprised her mother, who was busy evaluating the dinner menu.

Her mother’s scream at Gloria’s appearance deafened every living creature within a twenty-block radius of their house.

Mrs. Carmody then ordered the maids to call for a wig maker, whereupon Gloria suggested they build a bonfire in
her mother’s tomato garden so that she could not only burn the wig, but also every corset in the house.

This prompted her mother to threaten to cancel dinner with Bastian, to which Gloria replied: “Why don’t we just cancel the wedding while we’re at it?”

And then her mother slapped her. Hard.

This would all have been unpleasant but entirely tolerable, even expected, had Country Cousin Clara not suddenly intervened. The girl pertly suggested that Gloria be sent to her room. Gloria had
never
been sent to her room before! The absolute
gall
that girl had—Clara was worse than Gloria’s own mother.

And now here they all were at the dining table, nibbling appetizers and faking civility like one happy family. What a bunch of top-shelf hooey.

Bastian had yet to say a word. He just glowered as if he were going to lunge across the table, knock aside the Venetian glass vase of white tulips, and strangle her with his bare hands. Weirdly, that thought was kind of exciting—she had never seen him this
heated
before. In the past, he’d always been so stable, so predictable. So dull.

Why had she ever found him appealing? Sure, on the surface she was just a prim prep school girl, but she had hidden depths. Did Bastian?

Probably not. He’d been the same way since the day they’d met at the Art Institute of Chicago’s annual gala.

Tired of making awkward cocktail conversation, Gloria
had slipped away from the party, wandering around and eventually finding herself in an empty side gallery, filled with a new collection of Impressionist works.

Gloria had been lost in a small Degas pastel of a young woman bathing when a deep voice pierced the silence of the room. “She has your hair.” Gloria had turned. “Only, yours is much more beautiful.”

The young man was staggeringly handsome, charming, and—as it turned out—from one of Chicago’s oldest and most impressive families. Her parents
definitely
approved.

Their romance unfolded over the summer: Bastian wooed her and Gloria let herself be wooed. After all, he was everything she was supposed to want in a man. Plus, every other Chicago girl longed for him, which only made him more desirable. At the end of August he proposed on his father’s yacht, against the backdrop of a glorious Lake Michigan sunset, and their engagement was soon announced in the Chicago
Tribune
—just in time for the first day of Gloria’s senior year.

But they had nothing in common. They rarely spoke about anything other than what Bastian wanted to discuss—finance, politics, other boring things. And perhaps most importantly, when he kissed her there was no
heat
. The kisses were soft, simple pecks. Where was the fire? The passion? When Lorraine spoke about Frenching boys, she made it sound so … 
marvelous
.

Would Gloria ever feel marvelous about Bastian? Would
she ever feel faint when he walked into a room, the way she’d felt when she’d seen Jerome Johnson?

Gloria looked around the table. Time to break the ice. Maybe she could shift the focus to Clara, who at the very least could
bore
them all to death.

Gloria rested her knife delicately along the edge of her plate. “So, Clara, what have you been doing with yourself since graduation? You’ve been out of school since last June, right? Almost four months.”

Everyone turned to Clara expectantly as she froze, her fork suspended in midair. “Um, let’s see, I’ve been—”

“Why don’t we let your cousin enjoy her dinner in peace tonight?” Mrs. Carmody said with an air of discomfort. “She must be awfully tired after such a long journey.”

Gloria waved her hand. “She just came off a luxury train, not a wagon train.”

“Gloria Carmody, where are your manners this evening!”

The words came out before Gloria could hold them back: “I must have left them in the barbershop, Mother.”

“If only your father were here!” Mrs. Carmody said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. Then she turned to Bastian. “Mr. Carmody
would
be here if he weren’t traveling so much for business.” She glanced at Gloria’s hair. “Although perhaps his absence is for the best. He would be appalled to see you like this, Gloria.”

Bastian smirked. “What a wise woman you are, Mrs. Carmody.”

Actually, Gloria
was
thankful for her father’s absence. The last thing the dinner table needed was another conservative, old-fashioned, disapproving man. “Clara?” she said a bit sharply, turning to her cousin once again.

Clara fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. “Oh, my recent activities don’t make for terribly interesting dinner conversation, I’m afraid.”

“Nonsense!” Bastian chimed in. “We are all ears.” He cupped his hands on either side of his head and turned on his movie-star smile.

Gloria knew this was his way of being “silly” and “charming.” His brilliant teeth were bared, a bit of white sleeve peeked from the dark cuffs of his suit, and his eyes were bright with merriment. But Gloria knew he was mocking her.

Mrs. Carmody tittered.

Gloria wanted to punch them both. Instead, she watched Clara blink a few times and start to speak: “Golly, let’s see. Primarily, I have been … helping my father in the church and my mother on the farm. I
most
enjoy waking at four-thirty a.m. to milk the cows. I find it both physically rigorous and emotionally intimate. It’s just me, the sunrise, and the cow. And the glory of a hard day’s work.”

Gloria almost snorted her water. She waited for Clara to start laughing and say she was only joking, but her cousin didn’t crack a smile.

“That’s not the only thing I enjoy, of course,” Clara added.

It was a wonder the girl could speak at all, what with her blouse buttoned up so high. It was easily the ugliest blouse Gloria had seen in ages: yellow, dripping with lace, and with a tall, stiff collar that even her grandmother would have sneered at. “I also love the volunteer work I do in the pediatric ward of the local hospital.”

“Pediatric ward?” Gloria repeated. Was this girl serious?

“Sick and dying children,” Clara said, narrowing her eyes. “You’d be amazed at how many children take ill and just waste away. I tend to them as they give up the ghost.”

“Why, Clara, I had no idea!” Gloria’s mother said, her expression a mixture of shock and delight.

Gloria stared her cousin down. “What about for
fun
, Clara? Don’t tell me you’re really that saintly.”

“Oh, hardly. Sometimes during weekends I take my favorite nag, Ginger, out for a ride.” Clara paused and frowned. “Seeing you, Gloria, only makes me miss her that much more.”

Gloria cocked her head. “And why is that?”

“Because Ginger is the exact same color as your hair.”

“Perhaps, Clara, when you came here, Gloria should have taken your place in the country,” Bastian suggested, pushing his dark hair back off his forehead.
He certainly is handsome
, Gloria reminded herself. “Your exemplary lifestyle could have prevented this … this …”

“This
what
, Bastian?” Gloria asked. “I’m dying to hear what improvements you think
country life
could work upon me.”

Bastian pounded his fist on the table. “This … 
atrocity
!”

Gloria wanted to scream. Did Bastian think he was her fiancé or her father? She glowered at her cousin’s cherubic little face. But wait, wasn’t Clara’s golden, baby-fine hair remarkably shorter, too? Didn’t it look like—well, a grown-out bob? “If you think
my
hair is such an atrocity, Bastian, then what do you think of Clara’s? It’s barely longer than my own.”

Mrs. Carmody dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “I think it’s time for the main course,” she said, signaling the family butler, Archibald.

Bastian glared at Gloria. “I’m not talking about Clara—”

“It’s all right, Bastian—Gloria has a point,” Clara chimed in, shyly tucking her hair behind her ears. She seemed nervous for a moment, but then a visible calm washed over her face. The corners of her lips rose.

“She does?” Mrs. Carmody asked.

“Yes. Except, my intention was never to look like a flapper, of course,” Clara explained. “I cut my hair off a few months ago in order to donate it to charity—so that a natural wig can be made for a woman who has lost her hair due to illness. The children at the hospital inspired me.” With a smirk that only Gloria seemed to notice, Clara swigged a mouthful of milk.

“What a good Samaritan you are, Clara!” Bastian said. “Truly a model for us all!”

Was no one else sick of this girl? Gloria wanted to tell her
cousin a thing or two about charity, but she couldn’t risk any further punishment. Both her mother
and
Clara would be watching her, and she was determined to sneak out to the Green Mill again.

She had to find some way to return—if only to prove to herself that she had no interest in Jerome Johnson. That she’d been moved by his music and nothing more. Her attraction to him—if it was that!—had clearly been a result of the booze. And the taboo color of his skin. And how insolent he’d been. And those roving hands …

“Yes, Clara, you are indeed a model for us all,” Gloria said. “My fiancé is right, as always.”

“Well, I don’t know about
always
,” Bastian said with mock humility, sitting up a little straighter. “But certainly very often.”

Men are so easy sometimes
, Gloria thought. All they need is a little coddling and they’re eating out of your hand. Which gave her an idea.

She didn’t have a natural spark with Bastian the way she did with Jerome. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t
make
one, right? After all, every fire had to start with dry wood.

Gloria listened and laughed but remained silent all the way through the canapé of anchovies, the cream of celery soup, the asparagus tips
au gratin
, the
boeuf bourguignon
. By the time everyone was devouring the last crumbs of their red velvet cake, she had devised the perfect plan: She would seduce her own fiancé.

Gloria and Bastian sat at opposite ends of the silk love seat in the drawing room. The rest of the dinner party had retired, leaving the couple to themselves.

Just sitting there, Gloria felt restless. The heavy brass chandeliers above her head seemed to weigh on her. The dust from the pleated taffeta curtains made her skin crawl.

“You seem so far away over there,” she said, sliding over to Bastian and settling against his muscular body. She crossed her legs so that the tops of her knees were exposed. “There. That’s much better.”

“We’ve been sitting with each other all night, Gloria,” he said, readjusting himself to accommodate her weight as she leaned against him.

“But I couldn’t do
this
to you before.” She placed her hand on top of his, which rested on his thigh. His hands were almost twice the size of hers. As she slid her fingers between his, the dark hands of another man crept into her mind. The long fingers that had tickled the keys and taken her breath away.

She tried to rid herself of the image. She had every girl’s
dream man
sitting beside her. Smart, successful, and well-bred. This was the man she loved. The man whose diamond ring she was again wearing.

Gloria let her hand glide across Bastian’s thigh. “I wish you wouldn’t be so mad at me,” she said softly.

“I’m not
mad
at you, Gloria. I’m just perplexed.”

“But I bobbed my hair for
you
, Bastian. As a surprise.”

He snorted. “Why would you do a thing like that?”

“I thought you would find it sexy.”

“You should strive to be respectable, Gloria, not sexy,” Bastian said. “I hate to see you be like all those
other
girls. Those indecent, dime-a-dozen flappers who do nothing but get intoxicated with a different man every night of the week.”

“But Bastian, I’ve never had a drink in my life!”
Lie
. “And besides,” she said, leaning her cheek into the curve of his neck, “you’re the only man I want.”

Double lie
.

Gloria tried to find something in his eyes to reassure her that this, their engagement, was the right decision. She kissed him, softly at first and then with more passion. Bastian followed her lead, his lips gliding to her neck as he lightly cupped her breast with his palm.

“I wish we could spend the rest of the night alone,” she said.

She could see his eyes ignite with the promise of something he’d never quite considered before. “But, sweetheart, may I remind you that your mother is upstairs? I don’t see how that is possible.”