Bright Young Things

  The full meaning created by the combination of the words Fifth and Avenue had not completely dawned on Letty, but driving up that fabled street in a polished black limousine, her eyes shining and her head relentlessly rehearsing the words to the songs in her repertoire, she began to take in something of its power.

  Her nerves were getting worse, but the genteel rectitude of the passing landscape did calm her some. For a while, she managed to put away entirely her frightened anticipation of that moment just before she was to step onstage. Then her attention was drawn by the face of a large and elegant building of stone, so tall that she could not make out the top from her vantage within the car. Several liveried doormen moved briskly back and forth beneath an overhang of looping wrought iron and white frosted glass. Beyond the ornate exterior, piles of luggage waited on brass dollies inside a lobby of glistening marble and gilt edges. Then the car door opened, ending her reverie.

  “Here we are, miss,” the chauffeur said.

  “Where?” She tried not to appear surprised as she scooted toward him.

  “At the St. Regis, miss.” He stood back and averted his eyes.

  “Oh.”

  She stepped out of the car tentatively and for a moment stood, unsure and wobbly in her high heels, on the wide sidewalk. She supposed that she had imagined Amory‧s party would take place in a club, but she tried to look as though this was precisely what she had anticipated. “Thank you,” she added, and then, reminding herself to maintain a sophisticated gait, she made her way toward the hotel. She managed this for twenty strides or so, but once she was inside, she realized she had no idea where the dressing room might be or where in this vast hotel Amory was waiting for her, and she began to panic.

  “How can I be of assistance to you, mademoiselle?” The voice, coming from over her shoulder, was honeyed and composed.

  She turned and found herself looking up at a tall man in a tailored black suit, with a trim, old-fashioned mustache. He was neither friendly nor unwelcoming exactly, and he kept his hands behind his back when he spoke.

  “Yes …,” she began. “I am here for a party.”

  “A party, mademoiselle?” He smiled patiently. “Whose party are you attending?”

  “Well, I‧m not attending, exactly. I‧m a singer, you see. I‧m performing at a party to be hosted by Mr. Amory Glenn—”

  “Ah, Mr. Glenn‧s party.”

  The man glanced around and quickly placed a hand on her shoulder. He guided her away from the elevator bank, past the grand curving staircase, toward a nondescript door in the corner of the lobby. They walked down a long hall and up a flight of stairs, which opened onto another hall. The lighting there was poor, and she wondered for a moment if she should demand to see Amory immediately—it was all a little shabby, she thought, and not nearly his style. But then, in his businesslike manner, the man led her to a door that opened onto a small but perfect space. Inside was a real dressing room, with an armless, upholstered chair and a mirror ringed with frosted bulbs and a vanity table littered with makeup of all kinds, and she realized that it was only that this hallway was not for public viewing.

  This was how the starlets got in.

  “Mr. Glenn said he would come visit with you before you go on. In the meantime, is there anything I can fetch you?”

  The thing to do, she knew, would be to make a list of demands. But she couldn‧t right then figure what they might be; the notion that she was about to enter her own dressing room had buoyed her into new realms of contentedness.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Do ring if you change your mind. My name is Ernest. I am the concierge of this hotel—you can ask the front desk for me.”

  When he was gone and the door shut behind him, she closed her eyes and did a twirl. The floor was softened by a burgundy-colored Persian carpet, and several beaded and feathered costumes hung on the wall. But that vanity—it was like an altar. Besides makeup brushes and tints, the table before the mirror was occupied by a large polished silver urn filled with ice and a green champagne bottle with gold foil on the neck. There was another door, presumably through to the stage, from which she could hear the faint noises of a gathering—the band playing unobtrusively as people mingled and talked. She could just imagine the vast room, men moving their wives across a dance floor, rumors of various theatrical productions floating in the air.

  Some minutes later, the door to the stage opened, and Amory came in wearing a tuxedo, his hair brilliantined and his cheeks ruddy.

  “Ah, my dear, how charming you look!” he said before planting a kiss, fragrant and a little wet, on her cheek. She tried not to blush at the intimacy of the gesture. “Now, isn‧t this tops? Didn‧t I say I would give you a start? A real dressing room, in one of New York‧s swankiest places, and a room of connoisseurs about to learn of your many talents …”

  “Yes, Mr. Glenn, it‧s all wonderful!” Letty‧s big blue eyes darted around. “Only—I‧m a little nervous. I didn‧t practice with the band at all, and I—”

  “Have you had any champagne?”

  “No …” She paused and bit her lower lip. “I‧d rather not, before I—”

  “Oh, come, we must toast you! You are about to be made a star.” And then, with a pop that rattled her down in her core, he opened the bottle and filled two flutes. His dark eyes followed her hawkishly until she sipped. Some of her anxiety did ebb with the drink, and she sipped again and gave him a smile. “See, nothing to worry about. After all, had you practiced the night you got up on the stage at Seventh Heaven?”

  “Well, no …” Letty averted her eyes and hoped that revealing her fears that way wasn‧t too amateurish.

  “The band here is very good. They‧ll follow you. Just improvise, my dear, be spontaneous and free. Listen to your audience, and give them what they want.”

  He made a broad gesture, and she felt for a moment as though she were in the hands of a very talented director. She nodded trustingly.

  “Here.” From the wall of costumes, he took a silver headdress with little shimmering, pearl-encrusted dangles and fixed it so that it sat in the middle of her forehead; she glanced in the mirror at her large, shadowed eyes and the gem of a mouth, and she thought that she did finally look like a girl who could star in her own show. “Now, haven‧t I gotten you everything you could possibly desire?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Glenn!” she exclaimed, turning toward him, her eyes round.

  “Then how about a kiss?”

  The corners of her mouth fell, and her eyebrows rose toward the straight dark line of her bangs. But before she could say anything, he had gripped her with both hands and pressed her to his body as he covered her lips with his. She was too shocked to tell him to stop, but the kiss was over before she really knew what was happening.

  He stepped back from her, and in a very different tone, he said, “Now fix your lipstick; it‧s time to go on.”

  She turned toward the mirror and did as he said. That kiss was different from how she‧d imagined her first kiss would feel—but she tried to let the peculiarity just pass. Instead, she imagined the sensation of being onstage—basking in the gaze of a whole room, under a spotlight, holding their attention with her performance.

  “Are you ready?” he said once she‧d stepped away from the mirror.

  She nodded, though her nerves had grown brittle again.

  “Good. Now—I will introduce you, and once you hear applause, you may step out on stage and begin your act.”

  If she could have managed a smile, she would have given him one, but her face was too paralyzed by nerves to change its expression even slightly.

  “Knock, ‘em dead,” he said, and went out through the door.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her face against the door frame. Amory was speaking, though his words were too muffled to make out. By now, her pulse had grown almost feverish. The only two words she understood were the ones spoken loudest: “Letty Larkspur!” Applause followed momentarily, so she filled her lu
ngs with as much air as possible and stepped through a dark, curtained space and onto a blindingly lit stage.

  23

  THE DAY HAD BEEN THE HOTTEST OF THE SUMMER YET, and at sunset it was still warm enough to swim. Astrid had spent its final blue hours beside the Marsh Hall pool, which was set somewhat beyond the house, between a pair of white stucco bungalows and two rows of tall, thin cypress trees. She had let the sun brown her skin and wondered whether she should explain to Charlie what she had erroneously believed, or just let it go unmentioned and try to be sweet to him all the time. Now, as the sky gave over to the pyrotechnics of dying light, she did a lazy back crawl, listening to the chirping of birds and the gardeners talking somewhere not far off, and watching the pink clouds drift.

  “Nice evening, isn‧t it?”

  Surprised, she rolled over, splashing noisily in the water. Billie was sitting on one of the white lounge chairs, wearing a Roman-striped swimming cape and a white turban over her dark hair. She had arrived on the deck without Astrid‧s noticing and had apparently been there long enough to get comfortable.

  “It is,” Astrid said, before ducking backward into a somersault. She enjoyed that sensation of being underwater, the outside world muted, and when she came up she decided that if she wasn‧t alone, then she wasn‧t going to be able to enjoy swimming anymore, really. By the time she emerged from the pool, Billie had rested her head back against her chair, her eyes closed, with that vague, calm smile of contentment that comes easily in the fine weather.

  “All yours, darling,” Astrid said as she pulled a white French terry cloth robe with yellow piping over her navy blue tank suit.

  Billie remained in a posture of utter relaxation, as she advised, “I wouldn‧t go up there if I were you.”

  Astrid, who was trying to get a bothersome amount of water out of her ear, hardly acknowledged Billie. As she walked away across the grass, her damp, bare feet sinking into the blades, she let the comment stray from her consciousness. Discovering that Charlie was not a cad after all had left her feeling pleasantly drained, and she had a heightened sense of the perfection of the day thus far. There was the buzzing of mosquitoes somewhere, and the flash of a firefly now and then.

  She was just coming up the hill toward the house when she heard something crashing, followed by an eruption of loud, angry voices. She hurried the rest of the way, through the library with its leaded windows and the big front foyer, and out onto the gravel drive in front. The big cream-colored Studebaker was parked at an angle, as though someone had driven it from the garage in a hurry; its canvas top was down, and the backseats were full of luggage. Midway between the door and the car was a pile of broken glass and what looked to be the shards of a waist-high, blue-and-white Chinese vase that had stood, as long as she could remember, on the second-floor hallway, beside its identical twin.

  The driver-side door of the car opened, and Luke stepped out, wearing a rather shamefaced expression. Astrid‧s lips parted, but before she could react to his presence, the second blue-and-white vase crashed through a glass window above, soared briefly in the air, and then erupted in tiny pieces on the gravel. There was a shriek of feminine fury, followed by a low bellow of male aggression, and she heard her stepfather yell, “Get out!”

  Behind her on the stairs were hurried, thudding footsteps, and then her mother appeared, running in a loose-fitting, V-neck apricot chiffon dress, her face taut with rage.

  “Oh, good, Astrid—there you are,” she said. Without pausing to take in her daughter‧s expression, she strode outside toward the Studebaker. A few seconds later, Harrison Marsh II came down the stairs, his face boiling and red; like his wife, he did not bother to glance at Astrid as he passed through the threshold.

  “Get out!” he screamed again as he dashed onto the lawn.

  “You couldn‧t pay me to stay here!” the third Mrs. Marsh spat back.

  “Someone will have to pay you,” he returned, his voice growing crueler as it became quieter. “A woman like her doesn‧t live cheap, young man,” he added, addressing Luke.

  “Sir, I—”

  “Shut up, Luke,” the lady of the house interrupted, hoisting up her shoulders and trying to repin her straw cloche, which had become slightly askew during the fighting. “I always hated those vases,” she said to no one in particular. “Astrid, come. We‧re leaving.”

  Astrid paused on the front step, the terry cloth robe open—she had not been able to find the tie when she had gotten ready to swim—and her short, damp hair clumping to her neck. She stared at the three people on the drive, each wearing their own wretched expression, and felt a little ill. “Where are you going?” she said eventually.

  “To the St. Regis. We‧ll stay there until I decide what our next move is—Europe or … I don‧t know.”

  “You don‧t have to go, Astrid dear,” her stepfather said, his voice quieting some as he turned to face her. He was sweating profusely and wiped his forehead with the white-and-green handkerchief he carried. A moment later, Astrid‧s heart dropped—she realized it was the bandana she‧d taken from Luke the day before, and that it must have been the cause of the fight. “Your mother‧s gone entirely hysterical, I‧m afraid. I don‧t know that you should be under her care. You can stay on here as long as you want.”

  “Don‧t be absurd,” Astrid‧s mother snorted. “She‧d sooner die than stay in this stuffy old house. Come dear, it will be fun, just like when you were small and we lived at the hotel. Don‧t you remember?”

  Astrid did remember; it had not been fun. At the St. Regis, she had not been allowed to have a pet or run in the halls after an incident that involved waking up one of the Mrs. Astors, whose townhouse was then under renovation, from an afternoon nap. Avoiding all their eyes, she walked forward—the gravel hurt her soft, bare feet, but she didn‧t think much of that—toward the garage, the great front doors of which Luke had left open.

  “Astrid, don‧t be a headache, now!” she heard her mother yelling. When she didn‧t turn around, her mother groaned in irritation and started barking orders at Luke.

  In the garage—a separate building with a glass roof that seemed large enough to house airplanes—all was quiet. She sighed and pulled her robe around her, turning the small collar up to warm her neck. Astrid opened the door of the red Marmon sports coupe, which her stepfather had given to Billie for her twentieth birthday, and slid into the driver‧s seat. She had operated an automobile only a few times, with Charlie on the lawn at Dogwood, and she did briefly consider the possibility that now was not the time to test her solo skills. But then she saw that the key was already in the ignition, and her desire to be far away became too great to bear. The part she‧d played in the drama made her ill.

  “Astrid Donal!” her mother shrieked as she drove past.

  But the motor was loud, and she concentrated on staying off the grass. She was not particularly strong and was trying hard to keep a firm grip on the wheel; she stalled out just before she reached the low hedge fence, but by then she knew that stopping would involve a great deal of yelling and that her mother would demand to know what she had been thinking. She managed to restart the engine and to turn onto the drive that ran along the cove.

  A mile or so of country lanes separated the entrances of Marsh Hall and Dogwood, and if any local residents had happened to go out for a leisure drive or else been returning early from the city that afternoon, they would have been treated to the sight of one of the more promising socialites of the coming generation, wrapped in a knee-length robe, apres-swim, cursing like a galley cook.

  The car stalled more than once, and on several occasions she believed herself destined to land in a ditch. But somehow she managed to stay on the road and eventually arrive at the tall, iron gates of Dogwood.

  “Miss Donal!” Danny said, stepping forward from the guardhouse. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, quite,” Astrid replied, running her fingers through her hair, so that the strands went straight back from her for
ehead. She put on a wide smile. “Only, there was such a scene at home, and all I want is to change out of these clothes and have a cup of tea with the magnificent Greys, and maybe not go home for quite a while.” She batted her eyelashes. “Won‧t you let me in?”

  Danny grinned and went to push back the gate. She drove the car through the allée of lindens, but it soon proved too much of an incline for her. The Marmon came to a rest just off the drive, on the grass, and she ran up the rest of the lawn and into the house. She was relieved to be here, far from the world where people married to accrue old names and money, at a place where people earned their own keep, whatever that meant.

  “Charlie!” she called as she ascended the main stairs, her arms wrapped tight around her waist, her feet moving at a quick jog. She stumbled on the last step, stubbing her toe, but the pain did not then seem relevant to her. “Charlie!”

  But no one peeped his head out to see who it might be, so she continued toward Charlie‧s room. When she pulled back the door, she knew immediately that he was inside. She could smell him. But her relief quickly curdled, for she knew someone else was there with him, too.

  “Charlie?” she whispered.

  The curtains were pulled, casting the whole room in a rather shabby light. He did not hear her right away, even though she had crept forward and was now standing not far from the big brass bed. He wasn‧t facing her, and all she could see was his white trousered legs and naked torso bearing down like an animal. The other person was invisible to her, but she knew that it was a girl, by the feminine whimpers she emitted.