The Lucky Ones

  Suddenly it was all so obvious why Lucien Branch had wanted to recast his Marie, and the obviousness made her pity Sophia even more. But then Sophia started toward her across the floor, her nostrils flared and her hand raised as though she might strike Letty, and Letty felt herself shrink inside. “I’m sorry,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Sophia enunciated the word as though she were interrogating it. “You planned this all along.”

  “I didn’t! I swear I didn’t.”

  “To think I trusted you. And you betray me—like this. Me, who taught you everything!”

  “But you see, it all happened so naturally…” The satisfaction that Letty had been basking in earlier was completely doused. It was impossible to go on feeling proud about her love for Valentine when the woman who was wronged by that love was standing right in front of her, especially when the whites of that woman’s eyes were tinged red. “And I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t matter so much to you in the end.”

  “Matter to me? How dare you presume to know what matters to me.”

  The anger that pulled at Sophia’s features aged her, too, and Letty remembered how many years were between them. That Sophia and Valentine had been married some time already, and that marriage was something that she herself knew nothing about. Letty tried to picture Valentine’s handsome face. She reminded herself that in a few hours she was going to meet him, at Frankie’s—their place. If she could conjure the sweetness that had bloomed between her and Valentine over the last few days, she thought, it would protect her from the mess she was now in. Even a whiff of that would do. But she couldn’t conjure it, not with Sophia looming over her.

  “You see, since you and Jack Montrose have your, uh, arrangement, I guess I thought perhaps it would be all right—that you might even be happy about—about me and Valentine.”

  “You and Valentine!” Sophia exclaimed contemptuously. Then she stepped back, exhaling like a bucking mare and lengthening her neck. “You and Valentine, an item?”

  “Yes—I mean—” Letty’s cheeks had begun to burn, and she was afraid Sophia’s gaze might actually harm her. It was so lancing that Letty longed to crawl behind the couch and hide. “I mean—I assumed he told you.”

  Slowly Sophia withdrew a cigarette from the pocket of her coat and lit it. Taking a first drag, she shrugged the coat off her shoulders and threw it over the couch. All the while she went on looking at Letty in that same excruciating way. “Yes, I suppose in his way he did,” she said eventually as she strutted over to the couch and sat down, crossing her legs with ladylike precision. “Letty, you little drip, you don’t really think I’m angry about that, do you?”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “Oh, yes.” Sophia nodded vigorously. “Very angry. Though angry doesn’t even really begin to describe it.”

  “But you just said—”

  “You nitwit! Not angry about Valentine. I don’t care what Valentine does. I haven’t since we were children. In fact, I’m always quite relieved when a little nothing like you comes along and distracts him for a while so that I won’t have to be always attending to his feelings.” Sophia hissed this final word and rolled her eyes as she put her cigarette out, into the couch cushion. “Oh, well, what’s this? You thought you were the first?”

  Letty hoped the tears would hold back just a few minutes. But of course that was a foolish wish. Another moment passed, and she realized that what she really should have prayed for was that Sophia would say no more on that topic.

  “Did he tell you he loved you?” she sneered. “Did he take you to Frankie’s?”

  This final bit was hurled with special bitterness, and Letty winced at its force. Meanwhile the notion of her and Valentine began to crumble. Slowly, at first, but once she began to think that way the whole structure looked flimsy, and she knew that Sophia was telling the truth: Valentine had done this before. He had swept girls off their feet by promising them the whole world; she had been a sucker for a story that was too good to be true. As she wiped the wetness away from her nose with the back of her wrist, she realized that she had been unbearably stupid.

  “No, my darling ingénue.” Sophia’s eyes softened, as though she knew she had struck the fatal blow and no longer saw any reason to tire herself out. “You can have Valentine if you want him. But he won’t want you long. He never does. He just likes a distraction now and then, and if there’s an opportunity for him to hurt me in the bargain, all the sweeter for him.”

  “I wasn’t the first.” Letty squeezed her eyes shut.

  “No. Not even the first this summer.” Sophia turned down the corners of her lips in an exaggerated frown. “But you know, unlike Valentine, I actually thought you were special. I knew you were better than the others. I was going to see that you didn’t get the usual bad treatment when his affection moved on.”

  Timidly Letty raised her eyes to meet Sophia’s, but she immediately regretted this act of courage. Sophia leaned forward, eyes narrowed, her sharp elbows propped against her thighs.

  “I was going to teach you to be a star,” she spat. “But you couldn’t wait! You had to have it all right now. You took my part, sugarplum. That’s what has me in such a temper.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes—oh. Oh, my. Oh, dear. Oh, no. That’s what I care about. That’s what I lay down on those casting couches for. That’s why I go to the parties. That’s why I laugh at all those tedious jokes the moneymen tell. It’s because the thing I most want, have always wanted, was to be in the pictures, and stay in them, forever. You. Took. My. Part.” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound, and she drew back her upper lip so that Letty could see her teeth.

  The terrible smile Sophia was wearing made Letty feel precisely three inches tall. In the handful of beautiful days when she had existed only in Valentine’s adoring gaze and in an imaginary future where he brought her roses every night, and they lived in charming garrets and read each other poems before they fell asleep, she had forgotten that she could feel this way. But that sense of her own insignificance had never really gone away. It had just been lurking, waiting for the right moment to remind her that she was nobody.

  When Sophia stood up, she did so in a slow, showy manner, making her way to the door with exaggerated elegance. On her way to the door she snatched her coat by the neck like a naughty kitten. Letty remained as she had been, frozen in one spot, watching Sophia’s mannered movements. At the door she paused and let her eyes pan up and down Letty’s figure, and Letty realized how ghost-like she must have appeared in her white robe and with her pale skin.

  “You see,” Sophia went on grandly, “I’m a real star; my light will never go out. Watch your step, honey.”

  Then abruptly she was gone. Letty was quaking like a mouse the cat has got in a corner. The room was the same—there was only that burned spot on the pink suede, and what did that matter? The costume was still hers. But she no longer felt proud about any of it, and the idea of standing in front of a camera, with dozens of people breathing around her in the dark, seemed frightening rather than exciting. She had gotten the part of Marie by playing opposite Valentine, the man she was in love with. But they hadn’t been in love. That had just been a lie too lovely for her to see through.

  At first she thought she was imagining the laughter. But when she peeked her head out of the dressing room, she saw that it was real—Sophia was standing with a cluster of women Letty had met briefly while she was being fitted for her costume. They were from the hair and makeup department, and though they had been mostly kind, Letty had not bothered to learn any of their names. She had been too overwhelmed with her new life to think about much at all, and she’d acted under the vague belief that a star should not interact with the staff. But Sophia was smiling and talking to them like old friends. Then the woman in the formless black dress and the tight bun glanced up and saw Letty, and her laughter got louder, so that it was obvious what they were a
ll laughing about.

  23

  THE SKY WAS A PERFECT ROBIN’S EGG BLUE; THE clouds hung in it like cotton balls and the air smelled of fresh-mown grass. Astrid drove with a sure hand, and her magenta silk scarf billowed in the breeze. She realized how well she was driving and knew that it was a dream—in waking life she required a chauffeur. No, she told herself, don’t wake up. But it was too late—she had realized the fiction of her dream, and by now she could hear the rain.

  By the time she lurched forward from her bed she knew that the rain wasn’t real, either. It was the drumming of fingertips against the windowpane, soft enough that it might have been one of nature’s midnight noises. But it wasn’t. A fearful light passed over her eyes as her mind came out of sleep and she comprehended the unknown presence outside her window. Then she realized that it was Victor, come to save her.

  Her white nightgown billowed around her body as she tiptoed to the window, and she couldn’t wait to pull back the curtain so that she could see him clearly. There he was, stock still and returning her stare with a steady, open gaze. Just looking at him was a better escape than her dream.

  “Are you crazy?” There were so many other things she might have said, but she wasn’t accustomed to making big, romantic pronouncements. Usually boys made them to her. The fact that she could still quip made her feel that her life wasn’t quite so desperate as it seemed. She placed her cheek against the window’s frame, to cool her skin.

  He blinked, reminding her how beautiful his lashes were. “It’s possible.”

  “They’ll kill you.” She shook her head. “Really, it’s a wonder they haven’t already.”

  “Charlie doesn’t know. I wouldn’t be here to talk if he knew. For some reason, though, he reassigned me—I’m not your bodyguard anymore.”

  “I know.” She rolled her eyes toward the far side of the room, indicating the door and the man who waited on its other side. They both thought about that man and what he would do if he found them here, like this, and drew closer, although she kept part of the window firmly between them. She could see that out beyond his shoulder the world was dark and velvety, and for a moment she allowed herself to believe that she could go anywhere in it. “How did you get up here?”

  He glanced ruefully at the long fall to the grass below. “I guess love makes a man do some dumb things.”

  “Charlie hit me.”

  Victor winced as though he himself had been hit. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head and went on in a hushed, pitiable tone. “Whatever happened at the police station—he actually thinks it’s my fault. He says I told a Fed what happened the night he killed Coyle Mink’s man. He says they know something only I could know. And I didn’t tell anybody about that.”

  “You told Letty and Cordelia.” He said this quickly, and it was so out of place in their conversation that she stepped away from him. It hadn’t occurred to Astrid that Charlie might be right about there being a rat—that it could have anything to do with her—and the notion that Letty or Cordelia might pass on information about her was ridiculous. When he saw her blanch, Victor went on: “That night. At the hotel. You told them. I was coming back from putting the flowers in a vase, and…”

  The night teemed with insects, but they could not compete with the sudden buzz of apprehension at her temples. “I didn’t know you heard that.”

  Her voice had risen—was it because he’d kept something from her? Because he was acting strange?—and he placed his hand over her mouth. The gesture put her spirit in revolt. A man had already hit her once that day, and in retaliation she sunk her teeth into his palm. He kept on staring into her eyes just as steadily, as though he didn’t feel the pain. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed.

  “Why are you sorry?” She exhaled sharply through her nose and turned her cheek to him. “I’m the one who bit you,” she acknowledged, without a hint of apology.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you from seeing something so awful. I’m sorry to put you in danger. I’m sorry I can’t keep away.” He pushed strands of dark hair back from his forehead. “But I love you.”

  She frowned and stared over his shoulder. The sky over the Sound had a mauve lining—light from bootleggers’ boats, probably. Maybe Charlie’s own people. After several silent seconds, she came to the same conclusion he had. “All right, you love me,” she admitted, with a bitter toss of her head. “What is there to do about it?”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “What?”

  “Now.”

  Her body relaxed away from the window. For a moment she hesitated there between his pretty words and the room behind her, which was the way back to everything she knew. “I can’t come with you,” she said as she stepped forward into his arms. Her eyes sank closed and she breathed in the smell of him, his skin and the soap he shaved with, which had already come to seem nice and familiar to her. All day she had longed for this smell, and known it would muck up her whole life.

  “Because you don’t love me?” For the first time a crack emerged in his steadiness.

  “I do,” she murmured.

  “Then we have to go, right now. It’s too dangerous to stay. If Charlie suspects any little thing—if he caught the slightest whiff of my being here now…” His heart had begun to beat erratically; she could feel it through his shirt. In the same rushed way, he continued: “If you come with me now, I can make you safe. I will keep you safe forever and never lie to you again.”

  “Lie to me?” She drew back, covering her sheer nightgown with her arms. “What lie?”

  “Astrid, don’t you see? I told the Feds. I’m an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “What?” Before she could help herself she was throwing up her hands, hitting his chest. It was a good thing he got his hand over her mouth again, otherwise surely she would have screamed to wake the whole house. She struggled against him a long time. It was only when she felt the energy seeping out of her limbs that she stopped. His hand remained over her mouth until she turned her wounded eyes up at him. “Is that why you told me you loved me?”

  “God, no.” Victor shook his head. “This is the worst thing for the investigation, for my career. I can’t help it that I love you.” He shrugged. “I just do.”

  “Oh.” She drew a little back from him, thinking. “How could I go away with you? Charlie would find us, wouldn’t he? And then…”

  “Trust me. I can protect you. But it’s too dangerous for you here, and for me, too. I thought they’d keep him for longer, and it would give us a chance to get away. I was wrong, and—I’ve only made it worse. Please, Astrid, let’s go now.”

  “I can’t go without saying good-bye to the girls! Anyway, you’re right, if Charlie hasn’t killed you yet, he doesn’t know…”

  “But Cordelia does. She’s figured it out. And it’s only a matter of time till she tells her brother.”

  Astrid’s eyes darkened. “Cordelia wouldn’t do that.” Once she’d said it out loud, she knew that it was true.

  “Are you sure?”

  As she became aware of Victor’s nervousness, his sense of their precarious position, she herself grew calm. With all the tumult of the afternoon, she had forgotten the good advice she’d been collecting, the map she’d been making of her many options. Anyway, it was rather more interesting now that she knew her secret lover had a badge. “I’ll come with you, Victor, but not yet. I have a little money of my own, you know—my father’s mother gave it to me when I married. And that woman, Madame Philomena, at the St. Regis—she told me where I could put it, in the stock market, to make it bigger. She said it would triple in three months.”

  “That doesn’t matter, money; it’s—”

  “It matters to me, darling! You don’t know how much I love pretty things, and I’d hate to think what a strain it would be for you, trying to get them on a policeman’s salary.”

  Victor took a breath, and from the sound of it, she would have thought the air
was full of icicles. “I’m not sure. If he knows the things you’ve said to me, the things we’ve done—” He broke off, and she knew that he couldn’t bear to think what her fate would be if Charlie knew that she had been kissing another man.

  “Don’t worry.” She gazed up at him and let her fingernails graze his shoulder. “I can control Charlie. He’s angry now, but he never stays angry long. I have him wrapped around my finger, you see, and I’m a really top-notch liar when I want to be.”

  For the first time that evening, Victor looked away from her. Strands of his black hair fell down over his eyes, and he cursed, too low for her to discern the actual word, only loud enough that she knew he was angry and he didn’t like what she had suggested.

  “That wouldn’t be wise.”

  “Trust me.”

  He cursed low again. “I had better get out of here.”

  “Yes, you had.”

  With his index finger he traced the line of her chin. “Happy birthday.”

  “Oh! You’re right! It must be past midnight by now…” She giggled faintly at how unlikely it was for her, of all people, to forget her birthday. “I guess I’m a grown-up now.”

  “Well.”

  “Well.” She released him and stepped back. As soon as she was no longer touching him, however, her fear returned. An emptiness crept through her, and she wished she hadn’t insisted on staying here another day. She wished she was with him, any place but here, and that she could curl against his chest. “But Victor?”