Diva (21 page)

“And Becky here is going to be my maid of honor,
of course
,” Lorraine said, looping her arm through Clara’s. “We’d love to try on a few dresses.”

Marguerite’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t have an appointment.”

“I know,” Lorraine said. “But I saw these beautiful dresses through the window and I just couldn’t resist! My fiancé, Renaldo, would just die if he saw me in one of these lovely creations. I mean, of course, he wouldn’t really die—he’s got to stick around for the honeymoon! We’re going to Paris, you know, and—”

Marguerite stared at Lorraine’s hand. “Where’s your engagement ring?”

Lorraine raised her eyebrows and seemed lost for words, but only for about half a second. “Where’s
yours
, you old maid!” She began to pace in front of the desk. “Do you have any idea who my father is? Clar—uh, I mean, Becky, can you believe the way she’s treating us? Why, if my father knew you
were being so rude, he’d buy this place right out from under you and you’d never work in this town again! He’d turn this shop into storage for his golf clubs, he’d—”

Clara left Lorraine to her tirade and wandered farther into the store, past more racks of dresses, and peered through a doorway into a circular room with multiple full-length mirrors. Sweet little lavender couches to match the walls were gathered around a platform where Anastasia now stood.

Marcus’s fiancée was even more beautiful in person than in her engagement photo. Her auburn bob had finger waves and framed her delicate cheekbones beautifully. Her eyes were a warm chestnut brown, the sort that inspired trust—a very handy trait for a con woman.

She was wearing a blindingly white monster of a dress. Ugh, was Marcus really going to let his bride wear something so unfashionable? Clara was pretty sure there was even a hoopskirt hiding under all that taffeta. Two women in suits cut like Marguerite’s, though theirs were respectively burgundy and dark brown, knelt on either side of Anastasia with pincushions in hand.

“Irene, could you raise the hem about half an inch on your side?” the woman in brown asked the other.

“Could I trouble one of you for a glass of water?” Anastasia asked in a French accent as light and feathery as the rest of her.

The woman in the brown suit rose and walked through the doorway past Clara. Clara glanced at her name tag as she
walked by:
Jacqueline
. Lorraine showed up beside Clara a few moments after Jacqueline left, and peered through the doorway. “Now we’ve got her right where we want her. How do we get her alone, though?”

“Let me worry about that,” Clara replied. “How’d it go with the dragon lady?”

“She’s picking out dresses for me. By the way, if anyone asks, my last name is Rockefeller.”

Clara rolled her eyes—of course that was the name Lorraine had used. “You ready?” she asked.

Lorraine nodded. “Let’s get this lousy quiff.”

Clara and Lorraine walked through the doorway. “Excuse me, Irene?” Clara said. “A lady named Jacqueline said she needed you for something.”

Irene blinked a few times. “I’ll be right back, dear,” she said to Anastasia.

As soon as they were alone, Lorraine and Clara approached Anastasia. The platform made the girl even taller than Lorraine. Not ideal for intimidation purposes, but what could they do? They had to rile Anastasia up before either of the bridal shop employees came back, which could happen at any moment.

So Clara cut right to the chase. “We know who you are.”

“Yeah, cut the accent, Deirdre!” Lorraine chimed in.

In the split second before Marcus’s fiancée remembered she was supposed to be an innocent ingenue, her eyes hardened and her mouth leveled into a thin line. Anastasia might have
looked like a porcelain doll, but there was clearly a layer of steel underneath the delicate surface. Then, like magic, the anger was gone. Anastasia looked from Lorraine to Clara in wide-eyed confusion without batting an eyelash. “I zink you must ’ave me meestaken for someone else. And you are not supposed to be ’ere.” She squinted at them as if she had forgotten her glasses and was trying to make out their facial features.

“
You’re
not supposed to be here!” Lorraine poked a sharp finger into Anastasia’s chest. “If he knew the truth about you, Marcus would never look twice at you, much less marry you!”

Anastasia stepped off the platform to get away from Lorraine. She clasped the material of her long veil in her hands as if it would somehow defend her. “I don’t know ’oo you are, but if you do not get out of ’ere I will call ze police! Irene, Jacqueline!”

Clara swallowed hard. “Maybe we should all just—”

But then Lorraine lunged at Anastasia and pried the long veil from her hands, yanking it straight off her head. Several bobby pins clattered to the floor. “Not so cocky without your veil, are you, tramp?” Lorraine spat. “Clara, catch!”

Lorraine threw the veil at her. Clara caught it, bewildered. “Lorraine, what are you—”

“You geeve zat back right now!” Anastasia growled, and ran straight at Clara.

Clara took off, running around the room with Anastasia chasing her. She threw the veil back to Lorraine, laughing. This was definitely one way to intimidate a girl.

They tossed the veil back and forth a few more times, taunting Anastasia. The girl was enraged as she ran back and forth between them like an angry little poodle desperately seeking a favorite chew toy.

After a few minutes, Lorraine ran with the veil toward a door marked
ONLY USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
, and Anastasia followed. “Here you go,” Lorraine said, handing the veil back to Anastasia. As soon as she started to pin it back on, Lorraine caught the train of her wedding dress and pulled the enormous skirt straight up over her head.

And, yes, there
was
a hoopskirt underneath.

“Que faites-vous!”
Anastasia screamed, her shrill voice muffled by the taffeta skirt now covering her face.
“Lâchez-moi! Lâchez-moi maintenant!”

Lorraine bunched the hem of the skirt in a wad over Anastasia’s head, reaching on her tiptoes to make sure Anastasia couldn’t punch it open with her fists. “Open the fire door!” Lorraine called to Clara.

“What!” Clara exclaimed. “Are you insane? We’re supposed to get her to admit the truth—not kidnap her!”

“I’m not going to kidnap her. We’ll probably never get another chance to talk to her,” Lorraine replied as she fought a squirming Anastasia, who was kicking and screaming, trying to tear away at the dress. “Now
open the fire door
!”

Of course she was going about it all wrong—it
was
Lorraine, what else could Clara expect—but she also had a point. Clara wrenched the door open and the room filled with the
urgent, ringing sound of an alarm. Lorraine pushed Anastasia into a deserted alley behind the salon, letting the door close behind them.

They stepped out onto dirty gray bricks; the back of a beige stone building faced them. Anastasia’s screams were even more grating now that Lorraine had let go of her skirt. Half of it fell down, back to her ankles, while the other half hung stubbornly over her face.
“Chiennes! Dingues! Salopes!”

Clara didn’t know French, but it was clear Anastasia was calling Clara and Lorraine every nasty insult she could come up with.

“You make sure she stays put!” Lorraine said, and left Clara the lovely deed of holding Anastasia by her arms. Clara could only pray the skirt didn’t slip all the way back down. Anastasia was definitely the sort who would resort to biting if necessary.

Lorraine walked back to the door and pulled off one of her green pumps. She jammed it through the door handle and big hasp. The shoe would keep the shop ladies out of the alley for now, but it probably wouldn’t hold for long.

Lorraine hobbled back, trying to keep her shoeless foot off the grimy brick street. She didn’t care about practically kidnapping a woman or setting off a fire alarm, but heaven forbid her stockings get dirty. “All right, we need to make this girl talk,” she said, “and this is the way it’s done in the movies!” She pulled the skirt completely away from Anastasia’s face.

The con woman narrowed her brown eyes and looked back and forth across the alley, searching for help.

“No one’s coming for you, so you might as well listen to what we have to say,” Lorraine said. Anastasia scowled. “Now, you’re going to call off your wedding to Marcus.”

“And why would I do zat?”

The woman
did
do a fantastic French accent. Clara felt a tickle of doubt in her stomach. What if Solomon had been wrong? But she pushed it away. Solomon was the best PI in New York—he wouldn’t have gotten where he was without some sharp eyes.

“Because if you don’t, we’ll expose you,” Clara said.

“Zere is nuzzing to expose!” Anastasia yelled. “You are both just
ravisseurs diaboliques
!”

“How
dare
you!” Lorraine raged. “I don’t even know what that means, but I am
highly
offended.”

Just then, Clara heard banging on the fire door and looked at Anastasia. They didn’t have much time. “We know what you’re doing,” she said quickly. “You’re only marrying Marcus for his money. Just admit it!”

“But I love Marcus,” Anastasia whimpered.

“The only thing you love is lying, you filthy … liar!” Lorraine said, shaking her fist.

“Stop trying to play us like you do everyone else,” Clara said. “I know all about you,
Deirdre Van Doren
.” Anastasia’s brown eyes widened just a fraction and gave Clara the courage to keep going. “About your record—the burglaries, the
assault charges, how you’ve tried to swindle about a dozen other beaus before Marcus came along. If you confess now and break your engagement to Marcus, we’ll let you leave gracefully. You don’t want to get arrested
again
, do you?”

“Yeah!” Lorraine said. “Throw yourself upon the mercy of the court!”

But the woman wouldn’t budge. “I ’ave no idea what you are talkeeng about. Now un’and me!”

More banging on the fire door. “Listen, Deirdre, I write for a little magazine called the
Manhattanite
, maybe you’ve heard of it? If you don’t call off that wedding, I’m going to write an exposé, and everyone in New York, including Marcus, will read it. And I’ve got plenty to expose—believe me.”

Anastasia stared at her in silence for a moment. Was she going to come clean, admit the truth? But then she made a move to run away and Clara and Lorraine caught her by her arms. “You are assaulting me!” Anastasia said. “I will call ze police!”

“Go ahead and call them!” Lorraine said, digging her sharp nails into Anastasia’s bare arms.

If the police came and saw this scene, who would they believe? The dignified young woman in the wedding dress, or the two girls who’d dragged her from her fitting and held her hostage? It had been foolish to come here like this.

They’d tried intimidating Anastasia, they’d tried reasoning with her … what else could they do?

Then Clara had an idea.

“Lorraine, let her go,” Clara said, taking a step away. She looked at Lorraine over Anastasia’s shoulder and mouthed,
Trust me
. Lorraine hesitantly stepped back as well.

“We must be mistaken,” Clara said, her voice eerily calm. Lorraine opened her mouth to object, then closed it before speaking. Clara continued: “You look like someone else. We’re really sorry. We’re just going to run away now.”

Clara opened her handbag and withdrew her silver cigarette case. “Before we go, though, could I offer you a Gauloise? It’s the least I can do to make up for this whole mix-up.”

Anastasia stared at her for a moment, squinting, then relaxed. “I could use a cigarette after all ze stress.”

Clara lit the cigarette for her and watched as Anastasia inhaled. “Good smoke?”

“Mmm,
oui
,” Anastasia replied, and took another puff.

“Aha!” Clara said, clapping her hands. “That’s a Lucky Strike! A real Frenchwoman would know immediately that that isn’t a Gauloise! Those French cigarettes taste like tar buckets!”

“Gotcha!” Lorraine called triumphantly, as though she’d had any idea of what Clara had been doing. “Who’s the
raveesur diaboleek
now, eh?”

As though someone had flipped a switch, the girlish distress slipped right off Anastasia’s face. She didn’t look scared, happy, angry, or anything else—the woman was utterly blank. A fanciful, girly name like Anastasia no longer fit her. They were looking at Deirdre now.

The con woman stood up straighter and crossed her arms. She shrugged and gave a menacing little laugh. “Oh, fine, it doesn’t matter,” she said in an unaccented voice that was about an octave lower than it had been before. “No one will believe you two idiots, anyway.”

Suddenly the fire door banged open against Lorraine’s shoe, which fell to the ground. While Lorraine ran for her shoe, Deirdre pointed at her and Clara. “Zey are robbing me!” she cried in her thick fake accent.

“Stop, thieves!” Marguerite called out. She, Irene, and Jacqueline stepped out into the alley. Even little old biddies like them would catch Clara and Lorraine if they didn’t get out of here now. “The police are on their way!”

Police? Clara turned to Lorraine, who was still stumbling into her high heel.

“Run!” Clara shouted.

LORRAINE