Vixen (9 page)

Gloria snatched the rouge out of Clara’s hands and furiously applied some. Her cheeks were rounder than Clara’s, whose face had narrowed from her hungry days in the city. Gloria still looked like a little girl.

After what seemed like an hour, Gloria turned to Clara. “I know my mother invited you here to help me with the wedding and everything. Which I appreciate. But I already have my own friends and my own life here, and a very important fiancé who doesn’t need to be bothered with every little thing I do. So what I would appreciate
more
is if you’d mind your own business and not help me at all. Except, perhaps, to decide what flavor of frosting I want on my cake.”

Clara was taken aback by this sudden outburst. It almost made her admire Gloria, seeing that there was something burning beneath her cool diamond-encrusted exterior. And, given her own past, Clara knew this spark all too well: It was a ticking bomb, waiting for the right moment, and the right person, to set it off. She decided right then that she would
help Gloria find the fiery release that she herself had once found. Even if she had to light the wick herself.

“Then I hope, dear cousin, you can have your cake and eat it, too.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you witty. Now can we go?”

“Oh, lor—I mean, rats! I forgot my purse!” Clara exclaimed.

“Ugh! You’re going to make us late! And we won’t be let in after twelve-thirty!”

Clara sprinted down the hall and into her own room. In the dark, she groped for her handbag, which lay right where she’d left it on her dresser. As she picked it up, she felt something fall to the ground. Her cash. She flipped on her vanity mirror’s light. It was then that she saw that what had fallen was
not
money at all.

She picked up a small piece of thick cream writing paper, folded lengthwise. Where had it come from?

Tentatively, she opened the note. Scrawled in elegant black cursive were three words:

I found you

Clara inhaled sharply.

Suddenly the shadows in her room seemed alive, spinning her into their web of darkness. She ran to the window, looking out, but no one could have climbed to the top floor of the
house without someone’s taking notice. It didn’t make sense. She had only left her room for a few minutes. Who had put the note there? One of the servants? Or had someone been in the house? And most importantly, how had whoever it was found her?

Clara froze, the note sticky and hot in her palm. There was someone there, hovering on the other side of her door, listening in the slit of light, as the light grew wider and wider and wider and—

“Clara! I thought you’d been murdered, you were taking so long.” It was Gloria. And she was fuming.

Clara hid the note behind her back. “Sorry, I had forgotten to pack money.”

Gloria let out a huff of impatience. “We don’t
need
any dough. Men buy you drinks.”

“Really? I had no idea. How polite of them. Oh! I must spritz on some perfume!” Clara spotted a bottle of Chanel No. 5 on her dresser, the nearest distraction, and picked it up with her free hand.

Gloria glared. “I’ll be waiting in my room. For approximately one more second.”

After Gloria stormed out, Clara unfolded the note again. Surely it was just a prank played by one of the servants. Or Marcus! Egged on by those scheming, devious girls! She stuffed the note into the back of her underwear drawer and slammed it shut.

Still, a cold, damp sweat had settled at the small of
her back and was rapidly inching up her spine. Deep down, Clara knew the note was not a joke. It was the exact opposite—devastatingly serious. She spritzed the Chanel perfume into the air before her, walking through it and out the door. The mist settled onto her skin, the top floral note masking the darker ones that lay hidden beneath.

LORRAINE

Lorraine was furious. “Horsefeathers! We can’t just stand around like this! It’s not a school mixer!”

The group was perched, stiff and unmoving, at the edge of the Green Mill’s dance floor. They’d made it past the door smoothly (password:
Sugar Daddy
), but why were they all being such Mrs. Grundys? Raine was ready to drink and dance! Gloria, on the other hand, was gazing dreamily at the stage as if she’d never seen or heard live music performed before. Clara eyed the bar like a little girl scandalized by all the naughtiness grown-ups did in private, and Marcus … well, it didn’t matter
what
he was doing. He was a complete sheik, the sort of keen guy a girl could get dizzy over.

“Can we at least make an effort to
pretend
we belong?” Raine asked.

“Why don’t I take Clara for her first real drink, and you two go dance,” Marcus suggested, placing his hand on the small of Clara’s back.

“No! I mean—” Lorraine fumbled. What
did
she mean? She could almost swear that Marcus had been
genuinely
flirting with Clara all night. The way his hand had rested on Clara’s back—a little too comfortably and a tad too long—went far beyond the call of duty. He almost seemed to be deriving pleasure from the touch. Lorraine should have known better than to assign a man to do a woman’s job. She would have to steer Project Send Clara Home all on her own. “I mean, it’s only appropriate that
I
go with her instead. We wouldn’t want any of the eligible men to think Clara was taken.”

Clara waved her hand. “Oh, but I’m not here to meet men—”

“Why not? Do you have some secret fiancé back home that we don’t know about?” Lorraine hoped Marcus would laugh, but instead he seemed to eagerly await the answer.

“I’m here to help with Gloria’s nuptials, not my own matrimonial prospects,” Clara said, glancing toward the bar. “Besides, I have no interest in … consuming illegal substances.”

“But it’s mandatory!” Lorraine cried. “Alcohol is to the Green Mill as milk is to your cows.”

“What cows?”

Lorraine burst out laughing. “You’ve only been away
from home for a week and already you’ve forgotten your beloved cows?”

Clara twisted her gold bracelet uncomfortably. “Oh no. It’s … um … if you’ll excuse me …”

They all watched her dash off to the powder room, clearly humiliated.

Lorraine burst out laughing, pleased at her handiwork. “Well, we all know what side of the Prohibition she’s on.” Lorraine stepped onto the dance floor, pulling Gloria with her. “Come on,” she pleaded, “we can do the Charleston.”

Gloria groaned. “Oh, Lorraine, you don’t know the Charleston.”

“Do so,” Lorraine said, swiveling her hips along to the music, trying to remember the moves. “Violet taught me during physical fitness class last week.”

Lorraine hated Violet, but the girl had her uses. She had been boasting to everyone with ears how she’d mastered the steps of the Charleston. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” Violet had said between exercises.

Miss Wilma had blown a whistle, and the girls had had to run a lazy circle around the gymnasium. But even that hadn’t stopped Violet from talking.

“It’s all the rage, you know,” she’d said. “I saw it in New York.”

Later, near one of the water fountains, Violet had put on a demonstration. She started twisting her feet. “Just pretend
there’s music!” she told the assembled girls. The twisting was slow at first and then became faster.

“It’s like the Jay-Bird!” Lorraine exclaimed, nearly recognizing a dance move she and Gloria had practiced almost nightly a year before.

“No, it’s better,” Violet insisted, her legs moving so swiftly, her feet kicking forward and backward at such a rapid pace, that Lorraine could only watch in awe, wondering how someone so ungainly could move so nimbly. And all without music.

Unfortunately, they’d been interrupted by Miss Wilma before Violet could finish. “Girls! That’s not what I call a water break!” she hollered. “Stop that immoral writhing and give me twenty jumping jacks.”

Now Lorraine was trying to re-create Violet’s moves and show Gloria what the Charleston was all about. “Here’s how you do it,” she instructed, kicking out her legs and trying not to fall on the floor. Around her, dozens of other flappers were doing the very same dance, only slightly more naturally than she was. From a few feet away, Marcus watched them and laughed.

“I don’t know,” Gloria said doubtfully. “You look a little … spasmodic.”

“Oh, please! I’m doing it perfectly.” Lorraine threw her arms up into the air and shouted, “Who’s dry now, Chicago?” It was what she imagined a true flapper would say, a sticking-it-to-the-drys who supported the Prohibition.

“I think I’m going to take a break from the Charleston,” Gloria said, still watching Lorraine. “At least until I can figure out how to do it right.”

“Right, shmight,” Lorraine said, out of breath. “It’s all about having fun.”

Marcus came forward and hooked his arm through Gloria’s. “Come with me, Glo, so we can have a toast to our girl Clara’s new look.”

Gloria snatched a teacup from a waiter walking by, downing its contents without missing a beat. “You two go have fun. I think I’m going to watch the band for a while,” she said, drifting away from Marcus and Lorraine.

Gloria had been acting noticeably strange since the night began. Lorraine had attributed it to nerves, but usually when Gloria was nervous, she talked a mile a minute; tonight, however, she’d barely uttered a word.

Either way, there was no time to worry about Gloria now. This was Lorraine’s moment to have Marcus alone. She took his hand and pushed through the gaggles of flappers until they landed at the bar. Marcus immediately ordered them both martinis. There was something innately seductive when a man ordered a drink for you—Marcus
had
to be interested in her on some subliminal level.

Except for the fact that he had his eye on a willowy blonde at the end of the bar.

“I feel as if I’m on the beach in Cuba,” Lorraine shouted over the music. She held her cool glass up to his cheek.

“What are you doing?”

“It looked as if you needed to cool down,” Lorraine said.
That sounded seductive, right?

Marcus smirked, clearly not picking up on her flirtatious vamping. Did he not see that she was wearing her “naked dress”—the flesh-toned one that ended in shimmery layers like a mermaid’s tail, leaving very little to the imagination? He was acting as if she were dressed in a potato sack. She needed to say something,
anything
to draw his attention.

“So, Marcus, what do you think the speakeasy scene will be like when we get to New York?”

This time she caught him. His head snapped around. “We?”

She hadn’t meant to let it slip. Not here, not now. But according to Freud’s
Psychopathology of Everyday Life
—which she had self-consciously listed as her favorite book on her Barnard admissions application—perhaps it was her subconscious kicking in. What better time to plant the seed in his mind: the two of them, Chicago castaways, together in New York.

She leaned in closer. “I have a secret to tell you.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “I
love
a good secret.”

Just as Raine was about to reveal to him what no one else besides her parents knew, someone rammed into her from behind, sending her tumbling into Marcus’s arms. She looked up into his deep blue gaze, their faces millimetres
apart, and she couldn’t stop herself: She leaned in and kissed him.

Their lips barely touched before Marcus pulled away. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I …,” she mumbled, mortified. She hadn’t expected such a reaction. “The gin must have gone to my head already.”

“Since when did you become such a lightweight?” His tone was biting, cutting right to her heart.

She forced a laugh and playfully slapped his arm, but the damage was done. How could she have been so stupid? So rash? Marcus would never look at her the same way again, now that he knew she carried a torch for him.

Could the situation get any worse? Lorraine turned and grimaced. Of course it could: Clara reappeared. “What did I miss?” she asked, sliding between them. “You two look as if you’ve just been to a funeral.”

“All the more reason for another round of drinks.” Marcus beckoned the bartender.

Clara raised a hand in protest. “Marcus, I made myself perfectly clear—”

Marcus made a shushing gesture, putting his finger on her lips. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to turn down a drink from a gentleman?”

“Don’t you know it’s impolite to disregard a lady’s wishes?” Clara flagged down the bartender with a flick of
her hand. “I’ll have a seltzer water, please. With a wedge of lime.”

Lorraine was appalled. She had just made a complete fool of herself, and here Marcus was already turning up the charm with this apple-knocker as if nothing had happened!

Just as she was about to give up and go find Gloria, a tall man in a white tuxedo approached Marcus. Despite the fancy getup and slicked-back dark hair, he looked no older than eighteen. “Eastman!”

Marcus smiled broadly. “Freddy Barnes! Great to see you, old boy!” He pumped the man’s hand.

“Haven’t seen you outside of school since I trounced you in that doubles game last summer,” Freddy said. “Where have you been? People aren’t supposed to forget their high school buddies until the first year of college.” To Lorraine and Clara, he said, “Eastman used to be the ultimate guy’s guy, but nowadays …”