Bright Young Things

  Cordelia tried to smile at Jones as he stood to leave. Charlie turned and gave his sister a private wink. Cordelia pressed her lips together guiltily, thinking how quickly she‧d betrayed his trust. But he remained oblivious, and only picked up a silver pitcher, and began to pour iced tea into their glasses.

  “Oh, and Jones,” Darius said, just before his right-hand man stepped across the threshold and back into the house. “I am particularly worried about my daughter. I want one of my men with her at all times tonight.”

  “All right,” Jones replied, and was gone.

  “Don‧t look sad, Cord,” Darius said then, and she realized too late that she‧d allowed a frown to tug down at the corners of her mouth. “This is just part of our life here, but I shall see that you are kept safe. After we eat, what do you say you and I have a little target practice?”

  Cordelia nodded and tried to smile.

  “Good. Now. Let‧s have lunch together like a civilized family. It‧s these small rituals, you know, that separate us from the barbarians. What do civilized people do before a meal? They say grace together, don‧t they?”

  He reached out for both their hands, and after a pause, all three bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The oddness of asking for God‧s blessing beside Grey the infamous bootlegger did occur to Cordelia, but mostly she was glad for the few moments when neither her brother nor her father would be looking at her, because she knew the disappointment of realizing she would not be able to sneak away to Thom that evening was obvious on her face.

  21

  THAT EVENING, GIRLS IN POSH MODERN BEDROOMSagonized over not being asked out often enough. Young wives on Park Avenue either hoped their husbands would hurry up and get home, or else get home much, much later on, when the smell of other men‧s cigarette brands had faded with the night breezes. Downtown, Letty Larkspur sat in the company of her new pet, trying to feel comfortable in her borrowed dress, and praying it was good enough for the world she was about to step into.

  The dress was one of Paulette‧s, and they had picked it out together before Paulette went off to Seventh Heaven; it was sleeveless black crepe, with flutters at the midcalf-length hem and gold embroidery on the thick straps. Her dark bob cut across her face like the two wings of a blackbird, and her little mouth was a bright carnelian dot. When she‧d arrived in New York, her brows had been rather thick, but by now they were plucked to narrow arcs over her large blue eyes. She had never seen herself so pretty—and still she wondered if her appearance would be good enough to please a man like Amory Glenn.

  Good Egg, who had been running in circles, came to a sudden, fatigued stop near the old vanity table and laid her head on her mistress‧s lap. This made Letty relax some, and she turned her eyes to the ceiling, with its beige pattern of water stains and peeling plaster, and took several breaths. Someday, she knew this place and these petty fears of not being worldly or beautiful enough would seem very funny and faraway to her.

  In her head, she imagined lounging on a divan and giving an interview. It wasn‧t always easy, she would say languidly, reclining in the perfumed comfort of her rose-colored sunken living room. I was a cigarette girl in one of the speakeasies, you know, where I used sometimes to sing with the band.

  Letty looked into her own eyes now and batted her thick, dark lashes. “I lived in a tiny, odious place,” she began to say out loud, in a feathery tone that was an exaggeration of her own voice. “With three lovely girls, each talented in her own way, and my beloved Good Egg was with me even then, and she suffered through the indignities of that time right along with me …”

  Her monologue was interrupted by the sound of a horn—two auspicious blurts—and she pulled a wrap over her shoulders in a rush, kissed Good Egg, and made her way out the door and into the warm evening air.

  “Letty!”

  She turned to the sound of her name, and hoped that she did not look disappointed when she saw that it was not Amory Glenn but Grady, leaning against his old black roadster in the gathering dusk.

  “Hello, Mr. Lodge.”

  He took in a breath. “You look … beautiful,” he told her seriously.

  Her eyes darted up and down the street, afraid that Amory might catch a glimpse of her with another man and think that their date was off. “Thank you,” she replied curtly. “But what are you doing here?”

  If Grady winced it was slight, and he maintained his smile. “They told me it was your night off at the club … and I wondered if perhaps Good Egg needed a walk.”

  “That‧s very kind, but—”

  Before she could finish her thought, a gleaming black Duesenberg limousine turned onto her street, blaring its horn before rolling to a stop in front of Letty‧s place. With its long, straight snout in front and the flamboyant curves over the tires, she couldn‧t help but experience a tiny burst of pity for Grady, who was always trying to win her affection, but who simply couldn‧t make entrances like that one. A uniformed driver stepped out and approached the awkward pair.

  “Mr. Glenn is waiting for you,” he announced, without meeting either Letty‧s or Grady‧s eyes.

  She glanced back toward Grady sadly. His face had fallen.

  “I thought you said you were going to stay away from Amory Glenn.”

  Before she could reply, she had to turn her white oval of a face away from him. “Are you jealous?”

  “No—no …,” Grady stammered and averted his gaze. “It‧s only that, as I told you before, he‧s not a good egg, and—”

  “What is this obsession with eggs, Mr. Lodge?” She moved farther away and tried to remind herself that she was about to enter the kind of richly appointed rooms she had only yet dreamed of, and that she should not be swayed by sweet writers who could offer nothing more than afternoon drives in beatenup old motorcars. “I can take care of myself,” she added.

  As she lowered herself into the red velvet backseat of the limousine, Amory Glenn met her eyes. Before either could say anything he passed her a long, slender glass filled with pale liquid.

  “Excellent choice of dress, Miss Larkspur,” he said, and clinked his glass against hers.

  At that moment, the name Larkspur stopped sounding theoretical to her and began to feel like her own. Larkspur connoted bejeweled fingers and feather boas and a constant state of having one‧s picture taken.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then lifted her glass to examine the pale bubbly liquid.

  “Don‧t you like champagne?”

  Not wanting to admit that she had never tasted champagne, Letty replied, “Of course.” Then she took a sip, and felt immediately pleasantly light-headed. “That doesn‧t taste at all like beer,” she exclaimed, before realizing that she had given herself away.

  “No!” Amory laughed, and signaled to the driver to start the engine. “I should think not.”

  A sense of having been blaringly foolish soured her stomach for a moment, but then she saw that Amory was not making fun of her.

  “The lady‧s a comedienne!” he declared to the driver, who nodded a little stiffly and proceeded down the tree-lined street.

  By the time they pulled up to the restaurant—the buildings were taller and straighter in this part of town, and the trees were manicured, but otherwise she had no idea where she was—the champagne in her glass was all gone, and with it her nerves, as well as any remorse over leaving Grady standing alone on the street. The doormen stood aside for her as she was ushered down a short flight of stairs and into the dim first floor of a townhouse. Every table was full and illuminated by candlelight, and though this was not how she would have imagined a fancy restaurant—she would have expected something far more vast, with potted palms and electric light and mirrors everywhere—the way they were greeted, with a subtle “Welcome to the Grotto, Mr. Glenn,” assured her that it most certainly was.

  Amory took one seat at a small table near the wall and allowed the maître d’ to pull back Letty‧s chair for her. Meanwhile, Amory lit a cigarette, propped his e
lbow on the table, and began surveying the room. “Thank you, Gene,” he said as the man arranged the seat beneath Letty. “Has my father been in tonight?”

  “No, Mr. Glenn.”

  “Excellent. We‧ll have a bottle of Pol Roger and a dozen oysters. For dinner, the lady will have escargots, I will have the steak, rare, with no starch of any kind.”

  “Very good.”

  “My father owns theaters,” Amory said, as though that explained something about his investigation into the elder Mr. Glenn‧s presence. “Someday, I will own theaters,” he added without elaboration.

  “Oh.” Letty nodded exuberantly as champagne was poured for them. They clinked glasses again.

  “The Grotto is something of a favorite haunt among show-business people. Why, right over there is the actor Valentine O‧Dell.” Amory pointed, and Letty‧s eyes went to a corner table, where an immaculately polished man in a white dinner jacket was surrounded by a table of ladies, all of them vying for his attention. Letty‧s breath almost stopped to think that she was in the same room with the Valentine O‧Dell, and for a moment she longed to be back in Union so that she could giddily relate this miracle to her sisters. His features were just as straight and glistening as they‧d seemed on the movie screen in Defiance, although she had always imagined him to be tall, and in person his stature was rather more like that of a jockey. “It appears that Sophia Ray is not with him tonight. They‧ve been together since they were children on the vaudeville circuit, you know.”

  “Sophia Ray! What a thing it would be to dine in the same restaurant as her …”

  But perhaps Letty had sounded a little too starry-eyed and provincial, for Amory abruptly changed the subject. “Forgive me—would you like a cigarette?”

  The picture of what Letty‧s older sister would have called “the kind of woman who smokes” rose in her thoughts, and she paused briefly, her lips parted and hesitant. But then she heard herself say, “Yes.” The other girls in the apartment teased her for not smoking—especially since she spent most nights hawking the things—and she was just beginning to feel rosy all over, and rather important for sitting where she was sitting, and she didn‧t want to be gauche now. Besides, that was her old self—it was the Haubstadt in her that objected to smoking, and she wanted to leave that behind. She was Letty Larkspur now.

  In fact, the sight of the slender white cylinder between her fingers was emboldening. And though the taste was not so subtle as the champagne she had been drinking, and though it was uncomfortable on her throat, it caused her to be lightheaded in two ways now. She smiled calmly and sparklingly, as though to say in a rather deep and sophisticated voice, Do go on, Mr. Glenn.

  “How do you like the champagne?”

  “Much better than beer!” she repeated the joke, and it was even funnier this time, and they both laughed loudly.

  “Yes, well, theaters”—he paused after the word, giving it emphasis and letting the makings of a smile hover on his lips—“are our business, as I was saying, and before we go any further, I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

  “A favor?” The word sounded a little tawdry, and for the first time since they had entered the restaurant, she felt a touch skittish. She thought of Grady and the concerned expression he had worn when he saw the limousine, and was glad he was not there to hear the word favor on Amory‧s tongue.

  “Yes. You see, I greatly enjoyed seeing you perform the other night. You are far better than their regular singer”—here he bent toward her and let his hand brush hers—“but I suspect you know that already.”

  Letty blushed and slowly raised her eyes to him over the wide rim of her champagne glass. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “You‧re welcome.” He paused to adjust his cuff links and glance around the room. “I think your future on the stage is very bright.”

  “You really think so?” she asked, in the feathered voice of all ingénues.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Letty straightened in her chair, and glanced at the other women in the room, who reclined rakishly and shot pointed smiles at the men who lingered in the shadow of the bar. Were any of those women current stars of the stage? Did they have any idea that a girl with a future was among them?

  “And I know perfectly well that in a year or two, you will not deign to consider a little … a proposal like the one I am about to make you.”

  Letty swallowed. “What‧s that?”

  “I am throwing a party for a good friend of mine, at one of the better establishments—frequented by many show-business types—and I was wondering if you would … if you might be willing … if you would honor me by considering doing your act there.”

  “My … act?”

  “Yes—well, I know I‧ve only heard you sing one song. But whatever songs are in your repertoire. Ten of them, say. And perhaps a little shimmy.” He shook his shoulders to demonstrate. “I will pay you thirty-five dollars—”

  “Thirty-five dollars!” Her mouth dropped open and her eyelids sunk closed with the thought of all the new dresses and all the jewels she could buy with that. Or she could live sparingly and not work, and begin going to auditions every day.

  “Really, you are worth much more, I know that. Naturally. But the people who will get a chance to see you—if I were your manager, for instance, I would advise you to do it, even if it paid nothing at all … but I am a humble patron of the arts, and I have only a friendly stake in your future.”

  Her shoulders danced a little as she closed her eyes, inhaling the warm smokiness of the room and imagining the moment just before stepping onstage, and how many songs she had, and whether she would need to learn a few more before then. “Th-thank you so much, Mr. Glenn!” She had forgotten about the cigarette between her fingers, and when she moved her hand suddenly, a long trail of ash fell onto the table. “Oh!” she giggled, and brushed it away. “Oh, Mr. Glenn, I‧m so grateful.”

  “Good,” he said, lighting her another cigarette. “Then you‧ll do it?”

  “Of course! It couldn‧t be more exciting!”

  “Yes, I suppose it couldn‧t.” Amory smiled. A waiter arrived with a large plate of oysters, and her escort wasted no time in dressing them, his fingers moving officiously over the plate of ice and damp, shelled creatures. Then he lifted one up and brought it to her lips.

  “Thank you,” she managed, swallowing. Letty knew exceptionally little about the sea, but she supposed that was what it tasted like.

  “How do you like it?” he asked.

  “Well, they‧re nothing like hot dogs!” she said, using the same joke again and inspiring the same laughter. By then everything in the room had become blurry and golden, and she mused that if Cordelia could see her now, then she would never dare to call her foolish. Letty Larkspur knew how to see to her own interests. The way Amory looked did not even unnerve her so very much anymore, and she had begun to think that, according to the natural order of things, she should be accompanied by a man as handsome as he.

  By the time his limousine returned her to her door, all her expectations had become gloriously elevated.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening, Mr. Glenn,” she said as she backed up demurely.

  “I will send the car for you tomorrow, before the show,” he replied, as he straightened his collar. “Be ready at seven?”

  She nodded and waved and turned for her door. The air at that hour was fresh, and the streets were glinting with moisture as though there had been a few episodes of summer rain while she was deep in a restaurant, eating oysters and drinking champagne, just like people in movies did. For Letty Larkspur, New York was brand-new, and so was she.

  That night she had learned something that every pretty girl making a go of it in the big city learns at some point or another: In New York there is always something to look at, but it is all infinitely more interesting through a window in the backseat of a limousine.

  But Cordelia—who, back in Union, had a year on Letty in school, a few inches in height, an
d many more forbidden words that she‧d taught herself to sound natural saying—was now several steps ahead in understanding how fraught a privileged view can become. She sat on a tapestry spread over the grass on a rise above the white tent on the Dogwood estate, her legs bent upward and covered by the flowing skirt of her black sequined dress, watching the scene before her. Under the glow of the tent‧s many tiny electric lights, partygoers laughed and swayed to the music, the girls’ eyes darting about, the boys making advances.

  The young lady of the house was not interested in them, of course. Her father had already retired, and Charlie was off playing billiards in the house, and Astrid had not shown at all. However, she was not alone. Per her father‧s instructions, Danny had followed her all night and was standing just behind her, his hand resting on his belt, which Cordelia knew held a gun.

  While her mind returned again and again to the dock where she knew Thom was waiting, there was no more restlessness inside her and no more desire to escape. Not since the end of lunch, when she‧d practiced shooting with her father. She hadn‧t felt like saying much—and it seemed that he hadn‧t, either—and they‧d fired off rounds in silence for what felt like hours. When they were through, he showed her how to properly clean a shotgun and then a six-shooter, and when she had brushed and oiled the latter to his satisfaction, he put the pistol in her hands.

  “I want you to have that,” he‧d told her.

  “You do?” She‧d looked down at the gleaming barrel, the shiny wood grip, the solemn trigger.

  “It was my first gun. The first that was really mine, not on loan, not grabbed in a pinch. I bought it from an Italian I used to know, in the old days, when I was just starting to run liquor.” He‧d given her a serious, intent smile. “You may find it strange, my dear, but I trust you completely. Charlie, too, of course—but his gifts are different than yours. I don‧t expect you to understand it yet, but in time you‧ll see.”

  They had been standing by the pool, in the noonday sun, and she had blinked rapidly several times and wished that she really were trustworthy. It was at that moment that she began to regret sneaking off with Thom last night, and as the minutes passed, her regret only grew.