Diva (4 page)

Something was seriously wrong when not even the Charleston could raise Clara’s spirits.

She’d spent hours doing the trendy knee-banging dance with her friends under the crystal chandeliers, trying to let the jazz pulse through her blood as it always had. Her friends whirled around her in their best glad rags—Coco in a gold-and-white Madeleine Vionnet and Leelee in a pink velvet dress that barely reached her knees. Most of the boys were in tuxedos, while Arthur had donned a pale blue suit. Clara could feel every pair of eyes in the ballroom peering toward her group.

But all she felt was fatigue and irritation.

She left the dance floor and headed toward her table. The Terrace Ballroom of the newly opened Roosevelt Hotel was
posilutely gorgeous, with its high ceilings, moldings, and large arched windows. A roaring band played on a makeshift stage beyond the gleaming dance floor. The crowd was adorned in their best sparkling flapper attire. The haze of cigarette smoke gave each flash of diamond earring or beaded purse a dreamy, fantastical quality. The party was good, it was perfectly fine: it was just like all the others.

And that was why Clara hated it.

She found her seat and returned to a love that never failed her: whiskey. Clara “borrowed” her friend Arthur’s flask and emptied it. She didn’t realize he was standing right behind her until he cleared his throat.

“All that liquid courage might not feel so nice come morning, Clarabella.”

“Morning? What’s this ‘morning’ you speak of, good sir?” Clara replied. These days, Clara stayed up until the sun just began to peek over the Manhattan skyline … and didn’t awaken until her hangover receded, which was usually not long before sunset.

She could admit it: She was trying to drink away her boredom. She’d grown so sick of it all—the women with their black spider-lashes and too much rouge, the way they manufactured every laugh, every smile, so that they forgot what the real things felt like. The men in their fedoras and debonair suits were exactly the same, but even less interesting. Maybe it was because they lacked the mascara and rouge.

But who was Clara to judge? She was no different in her
sleeveless Paul Poiret, a pretty number that darkened in tiers from sunshine yellow to burnt orange; more silver necklaces than she could count wound elegantly around her long neck; her perfect golden bob without a single errant strand.

She was the Flapper Queen once again. But now that was just another gilded cage.

“Clara, darling?”

She squinted across the table at her friend Julia Spence, Arthur’s older sister. One would never guess that the statuesque redhead was related to rakish, larger-than-life Arthur. Leelee, Coco, Arthur, and Clara’s old friend Nellie had settled into the other gold-cushioned chairs around the table.

“What is it, loves?” Clara asked.

“Are you all right?” Nellie asked, her usually joking expression serious.

“Never been better,” Clara slurred.

“You’re hitting the juice pretty hard tonight,” Coco observed. With her sleek, dark bob and flawless rings of black kohl around her exotically slanted eyes, Coco was utterly committed to being the most sophisticated modern woman in the room. Clara’s ex-roommate leaned close. “That new twit of Marcus’s doesn’t mean anything. She’s nothing but a cheap replacement for a custom Chanel like you.”

Not Marcus again. It had been weeks since their breakup, but the thought of his golden hair falling into his eyes after hours of dancing, his electrifying blue eyes, his stupidly adorable dimples—it all still pierced Clara’s heart as if no time
had passed at all. She downed the rest of someone’s glass of whiskey to dull the pain.

“They’re
engaged
,” Clara replied in a low voice. “After a
month
. If he’s able to fall for someone new so quickly, what does that say about his feelings for me?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” her other old roommate, Leelee, replied. “He fell for her because he’s heartbroken.”

I’m heartbroken, too
, Clara wanted to say. She hadn’t spoken to Marcus since Gloria’s debut at the Opera House weeks earlier. Marcus had already broken up with her by that point. Clara had thrown herself into writing her articles about Gloria and convincing herself that she wanted as little to do with Marcus as he did with her. That she was better off on her own. By the time Clara realized she’d been wrong, Marcus was already engaged.

She imagined telling her friends that she missed Marcus terribly, that she’d made a mistake … but what was the point of making herself even more depressed? Were her friends right—was this new girl just a rebound? But then why had he asked her to
marry
him? A rebound was a weeklong fling; marriage was forever. And Marcus had decided that he wanted to spend his forever with somebody else.

So really, what good was it to talk about it now?

“What’s done is done,” Clara announced. She gave them all a wicked smile, putting on her bravest front. “What we
really
need to talk about are those stiffs next door.”

Vicious grins appeared on her friends’ faces. “What did you have in mind?” Arthur asked.

Clara and her friends had come to the Roosevelt that evening solely to attend the event next door in the hotel’s finest ballroom: the Grand Ballroom. No one at
that
party would have to pretend to be clever.
Their
party was being thrown by the Algonquin Round Table—Franklin Pierce Adams, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and more of the most brilliant literary minds Manhattan had ever seen. There was even a rumor the Fitzgeralds were home from Paris and would make an appearance.

But instead of letting Clara’s crowd in, the bouncer had scoffed. “Only
real
press are allowed to attend this event, Miss Knowles. Not baloney spinners like you.”

Clara had flinched at that. So what if the
Manhattanite
was known more for its celebrity gossip than its hard-hitting journalism? She’d still done real, important work there.

Hadn’t she?

So they’d stormed off in a huff and crashed this less-than-classy party next door instead.

“Did you figure out a way to sneak in?” Julia asked now, casting a glance at the wall as though she could see right through it and into the exclusive world beyond.

“Why bring ourselves to the party,” Clara asked, “when we can bring the party to us?”

Moments later Clara, Coco, and Leelee were in the corridor, gathered around two servers who had been working the Round Table event. Clara had spied the men steering
carts piled high with covered trays toward the hotel’s front entrance.

“What have you got there?” Clara asked with a sideways glance.

Both men raised their eyebrows. They looked Clara and her girlfriends up and down. Oh, this was going to be eggs in the coffee. “Just some food,” the blond one replied, bashful.

“We can see that, honey,” Coco purred. “She was wondering what
kind
of food.”

“Um,” replied the other, a brunet with glasses, “shrimp, cucumber sandwiches, assorted cheeses …”

“Oh, I
love
cheeses!” Leelee exclaimed with a giggle. “Especially when they’re assorted.”

“Sounds much tastier than what they’ve got in the Terrace Ballroom,” Clara said, working hard not to slur. “The Round Table party—now,
that
seems like a classy bash.”

The blond chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it, doll face. Pretty soon all the guests are heading downtown to ride a
yacht
around the Hudson. We were just taking these hors d’oeuvres out to the car so we can meet the captain at the dock before the guests arrive. Some life, am I right?”

Coco gave him her most beautiful smile. “That sounds completely jake! Our girl Leelee has never been on a
yacht
before. Have you, Lee?”

“What is that? Is that some kind of boat?” Leelee asked, her already large eyes even larger with feigned wonder.

“What would Leelee do,” Clara said, touching the blond lightly on his wrist, “to go for a ride on an actual boat!”

“We’ll never know,” Coco said sadly.

The two waiters looked at one another. “Actually, the captain’s an old buddy of mine,” the brunet said. “So maybe there’s a way to find out.…”

While Leelee followed the waiters to a convoy of Packards parked at the curb, Clara and Coco dashed back into the ballroom to gather the gang. They could only locate Julia and an amused Nellie.

“It’s even swankier than we thought!” Clara exclaimed. “There’s a yacht!”

“A yacht whose captain just happens to be a mutual friend of
our
new waiter friends!” Coco added.

Nellie grinned. “Fantastic! Maxie and Arthur heard that they’re planning to bring fireworks on the yacht, too. Because, really, what’s a yacht without fireworks?”

“No …,” Clara and Coco said with barely suppressed glee.

“Arthur and Maxie are out with some boys who know how to make ’em work right now,” Nellie confirmed. “It should only take them another minute or two to convince those boys that we are
far
more deserving of fireworks than the stuffy old birds next door.”

Clara and Coco leaned toward one of the arched windows,
through which they could see the paved courtyard with its marble fountains and decorative vases of roses. Maxie stood silently laughing while Arthur gesticulated madly in front of two young hired hands in coveralls. A stack of wooden crates sat on the ground between them.

Clara’s smile grew. “Let those dreary literary types enjoy their party. I can’t wait to see their faces when they realize we stole the most exciting part of their evening right out from under them!”

Even as she spoke, she knew the prank wouldn’t dim the sting of the earlier rejection. Deep down, Clara knew that bouncer had been right. She wasn’t a
real
writer. She wrote biting but meaningless stories that only pleased people as boring and empty as Clara had become.

If you want to write, write about something that matters
, Marcus’s voice rang through her mind.
If you want to write trash, then find someone else to love, because I won’t be waiting around
.

Ever since Clara had written about Gloria and had seen what an effect a real story could have, she had wanted to write about more than catty fights between teenage heiresses.

Clara had thought about asking her editor if she could switch to writing something else, but she was sure he’d say no. Parker bragged to everyone who would listen about how Clara’s column had helped to make the
Manhattanite
the most popular gossip rag in town.

Maybe her articles about her cousin had been a fluke. Maybe salacious drivel was all she was really capable of. And
yet Clara was beginning to realize that she wanted to go to college, where she could hone her skills. She wanted exactly what Marcus had wanted for her. He’d been right about everything, and she couldn’t run into his arms and tell him so because his arms were full—with another girl.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. Standing next to her was easily the handsomest man in the room. He wore a tan pin-striped suit and a pale blue tie. Even with a healthy dose of Brilliantine, the soft waves in his dark brown hair were visible. His strong jaw was the sort a girl always wanted to run her hands over, and his bright green eyes oozed intelligence and charisma. Most girls would consider Parker Richards, the young and attractive editor of the
Manhattanite
, one of the biggest catches in town.

But those girls weren’t fresh off losing the loves of their lives. And Parker Richards also wasn’t
their
boss.

“Coco and Julia, you go find Leelee and the boys waiting outside. And Nellie, you go tell Arthur and Maxie the plan, and invite their new friends, too. We don’t want to burn the yacht down trying to set those fireworks off on our own. I’ll meet you out there in ten.” Clara turned to Parker. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“What are you and that gang of hooligans up to now?” Parker asked, squinting through the arched windows.

“Well, we couldn’t get into the Round Table party next door, so now we’re stealing their food and their yacht. And hopefully some fireworks.” Just then, she heard a loud
boom
.
She looked to see Arthur, Maxie, and Nellie running through the courtyard with crates in their arms, smoke wafting in their wake, and what looked to be hotel security guards running after them.

“Looks like the fireworks are a go,” Clara said.

Instead of congratulating her on what a fantastic
Manhattanite
column this would make, Parker shook his head. “Clara, that’s a terrible idea.”

Clara’s anger was sharp and immediate. She jabbed a finger into Parker’s chest. “I’m doing exactly what you wanted! You said if I wanted to work for you, I needed to dance on tables and lead toasts with my flute of champagne! Or don’t you remember? ”

A few guests looked in their direction.

Parker straightened his tie and took a step back. “Yes, but you’re talking about theft, Clara. Theft from people who
matter
. Your articles helped keep that cousin of yours out of prison! Now’s the time to be careful with your reputation—you should be trying to
impress
the folks at that other party, not rob them.”