Out of the Easy (6 page)

“Arguing about inventory? Doubleday has a lot more books,” I said.

“I know.” Patrick laughed. “Liquid confidence, I guess.”

“Yeah, you smelled like a distillery. And I didn’t appreciate you embarrassing me in front of him.”

“Well, what are you doing skulking around the store in your nightgown?” said Patrick. “And then you acted so weird, almost scared of us.”

“I had forgotten my book in the shop and came down to get it. You’re lucky I didn’t have my gun, especially after that comment about my hair.”

“For a girl who reads the society page as much as you do, I’m surprised you haven’t noticed that all the Uptown brats part their hair on the side now. It would look nice on you, flattering to the shape of your face. C’mon, it’s a new year. Time to reinvent yourself,” said Patrick. “Hey, I saw your mom at six this morning walking arm in arm toward the Roosevelt Hotel with some tall guy. Black suit. Didn’t fit him properly.”

“Did she see you?” I asked.

“No,” said Patrick. “The guy looked rough, but kinda familiar. You know who it was?”

“I have no idea,” I said, staring into my coffee cup.

EIGHT

January 2nd was always slow in the bookstore. People were too tired to go out or had spent too much money on holiday shopping to think about buying books. Patrick and I amused ourselves with one of our games. We’d give each other a choice of two literary characters, and we had to choose which one we’d marry. We played the game for hours, often howling with laughter when the choices were less than pleasing.

“Darcy or Gatsby,” said Patrick.

“Oh, come on. Can’t you do any better than that?” I scoffed. “That’s obvious. Darcy.”

“I just don’t see why women love him so much. He’s so uptight. Gatsby’s got style.”

“He’s not uptight. He’s shy!” I insisted.

“Look, here’s one,” Patrick said, motioning with his eyes to the window.

Droplets of rain began to fall on the sidewalk. An attractive girl with neatly styled auburn hair and a monogrammed sweater stood outside the shop, looking at the books in the window display.

“Romance,” said Patrick.

I shook my head. “Thrillers.”

The bell jingled, and the girl entered the shop.

“Happy New Year,” said Patrick.

“Why, thank you. Happy New Year,” she said. She spoke sprightly with an articulate cadence.

“Can we help you find something?” I asked.

“Yes, a book for my father.” She opened her purse and rummaged through. “I’m sure I put the slip of paper just here.” She began emptying the contents of her purse onto the counter. “Oh, how embarrassing.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find something you’d like,” said Patrick, setting the bait. “Perhaps a romance, like
Gone with the Wind
?”

She made a face. “No, thank you. Not really my cup of tea. I have nothing against
Gone with the Wind,
mind you. In fact, the author attended my college, and it would be quite sacrilege if I didn’t just love her.”

“Margaret Mitchell?” I said. “Where do you go to college?”

“I’m in my first year at Smith. Oh! Here it is.” She opened a small scrap of paper.
“Fabulous New Orleans.”

“By Lyle Saxon.” Patrick nodded. “Let me get it for you. The Louisiana shelf is right in front here.”

Smith. Northampton, Massachusetts. I had read about it in the library. It was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and, along with Vassar and Radcliffe, was considered one of the most prestigious for women in the country. And, unlike Louisiana, Massachusetts had no segregation.

The girl looked around the bookshop and took a deep breath. “That smell, I just love it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“And how lucky you are to work here. I could live in a place like this.”

“Actually, I do,” I said.

“You do? Where?” she asked.

“In an apartment above.”

“You have your own apartment?” The girl looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and intrigue. “Forgive me. I’ve been incredibly rude.” She thrust her hand out to Patrick. “Charlotte Gates.”

Patrick grinned at her stiff, official introduction. “Patrick Marlowe.”

“Marlowe. Yes, of course. The shop is yours.”

The girl wore cultured pearls underneath her round white collar. She was sophisticated, yet had a dash of boldness generally absent among the debutantes of New Orleans.

“Charlotte Gates,” she said, extending her hand to me.

I paused. “Josephine Moraine,” I replied.

Patrick coughed. I shot him a look.

“Josephine, what a lovely name. I’ve always loved the name Josephine, ever since I read
Little Women,
I absolutely adored Josephine March. Oh, but don’t cut off your beautiful brown hair like Jo March did. Yours is so lovely. I wish my hair looked attractive parted on the side like that. It’s all the rage, you know.”

“Jo, I mean Josephine, has always worn her hair parted on the side,” said Patrick, suppressing a smile.

Charlotte nodded at Patrick. “Some people are just born with style. Josephine is obviously one of them.”

This woman with an Uptown pedigree from an elite college had just paid me a genuine compliment. I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. Fortunately, Charlotte Gates continued to ramble.

“I’m majoring in English, and I still can’t get enough of reading. To work in a shop like this would be heaven.”

“Oh, sure, it’s heaven,” said Patrick.

Charlotte grinned. “Josephine, men just don’t understand, do they?”

“Not at all,” I agreed. “For example, Patrick asked if I would rather marry Gatsby or Mr. Darcy.”

“No, he didn’t! Who in the world would choose Gatsby over Darcy?” Charlotte caught on and turned to me. “Josephine—Ethan Frome or Gilbert Blythe from
Anne of Green Gables
?”

“Oh, Ethan Frome,” I said quickly.

“Out of pity,” said Charlotte, with an understanding nod.

“A bit,” I agreed. “But Ethan Frome had a hidden depth, something waiting to be discovered. And that cold, dark winter setting in New England. I thought it was beautiful,” I said.

Charlotte perked up. “It was set in Massachusetts, you know. And it’s quite cold and snowy like that right now.”

“It sounds lovely,” I said. I meant it.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Perhaps Josephine should consider Smith, then,” he said with a snicker. “She doesn’t seem interested in schools in Louisiana.”

“Stop it,” I muttered.

“Are you applying to colleges?” Charlotte leaned over the counter. “Oh, Josephine, do consider Smith. It has a wonderful literary legacy. In addition to Margaret Mitchell, there’s a promising talent named Madeleine L’Engle who graduated from Smith.”

“Smith? Oh, I don’t know,” I said.

“Why not? You’re obviously an accomplished woman, practically running a publishing business and living on your own in a unique and decadent city like New Orleans. So many eccentric characters, I can’t imagine what you’ve experienced here,” she said with a wink.

“We have some interesting people at Smith too. I’m part of a new group on campus,” continued Charlotte. “The Student Progressives. We promote opportunities for minorities and women. Perhaps you heard about the Amherst fraternity that lost their charter because they pledged a negro? We wrote to our congressmen and picketed.”

I had heard about it. Cokie showed me the article in the paper. Several colleges out East supported the Phi Psi chapter in their decision to invite a negro into the fraternity. Smith was one of them. I was elated, but couldn’t talk about those things with most women in the South.

Charlotte leaned toward me over the counter and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Let me just tell you, I have no interest in knitting argyles. And all of those little books about domestic servitude? Straight into the trash.”

Patrick erupted with laughter and pointed at me. “She tried to convince my father not to carry those booklets in the store.”

“Of course she did,” said Charlotte. “She’s a modern woman. Josephine, you really should consider Smith. Let me send you some information.”

Charlotte took down the address of the shop and talked nonstop about Smith, the campus, the professors, and how she knew we’d be joined at the hip if I were in Northampton. Charlotte was a member of both the fencing and flying clubs at Smith and even had her pilot’s license. We chatted for an hour until she had to meet her parents at their hotel.

“I know this is last minute,” said Charlotte, “but my aunt and uncle are having a get-together tonight for my parents. They live Uptown. I’d just love if you’d both come.”

“Uptown?” I blurted.

“Oh, yes, I know, they’re ridiculously stiff. But come, and we’ll have a good laugh at everyone. Do come!”

Me? At an Uptown party? My mouth hung agape.

“Sure, we’d love to,” said Patrick, handing Charlotte the book she had purchased for her father. “Just give us the address.” While Charlotte scribbled down the address, Patrick motioned for me to close my mouth.

“See you tonight!” Charlotte hurried out of the store, smiling and waving from the wet street.

“Are you crazy? An Uptown party?” I said.

“Why not? I think you’re the one that’s crazy,
Jooosephine,
” mocked Patrick. “Since when?”

“Well, Josie is nearly short for Josephine and Josephine is so much more . . . I don’t know.”

Josie sounded like a cheap nickname. Why couldn’t Mother have named me Josephine?

“Seems like you’ve made a new friend,” said Patrick. “I like her. She’s smart.”

Charlotte
was
smart. She even knew how to fly a plane. She was also witty and fun. And she seemed to truly like me. Actually, she seemed impressed with me. A twinge of happiness bounced around in my chest. Charlotte lived across the country. She didn’t know about Mother, Willie’s, who I was, or what I came from.

“She sure was giving you the hard sell on Smith.”

“Yes. It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Who knows, maybe I would like to go to Smith,” I told Patrick.

“Yeah, well, I’d like to go to the Juilliard School, but I don’t see that happening either. But in the meantime, what a great idea you had to part your hair on the side.”

I wadded up some paper and threw it at him.

NINE

Patrick left to pay his respects to the widow Vitrone and make a deal on Proust in the process. I pushed the book cart among the aisles, shelving the new titles we had taken in last week. Patrick did the buying and pricing. I did the organizing. It had been our system for years. I slid the new romance by Candace Kinkaid into place.
Rogue Desire.
How did she come up with such bad titles? Creating bad titles could be a fun game for Patrick and me . . . or maybe even me and Charlotte.

Why couldn’t I go to Smith? I had made nearly all A’s in high school and took the College Board Tests because they seemed fun. True, my extracurricular was limited to cleaning a brothel and spending time with Cokie, not exactly something you’d put on a college application. But I had a lot of experience from working in the bookshop and, on average, read at least 150 books per year. I was fairly well versed in all subjects.

What would the girls from high school—the ones with two parents and a trust fund—say when I ran into them at Holmes department store? “Oh I’m sorry, I’m in such a rush,” I’d tell them. “You see, I’m off to Smith in the fall and I’m just here picking up my monogrammed sweaters. Why, yes, Smith
is
out East. I just didn’t find the curricula of the Southern schools compelling whatsoever.”

I couldn’t wait to receive the information from Charlotte. I planned to start a list with all my questions and would go back to the library to read up on Smith.

The bell jingled as I was reaching up to the top shelf. “I’ll be right with you,” I called out. I dusted off my palms, straightened the dip in the front of my hair, and stepped out to help the customer.

“My apologies, I was—”

I jerked to a halt. Cincinnati leaned up against the shelf in front of me, cigarette dangling from his mouth. The black suit jacket hung large on his slender shoulders. His handsome had gone rotten, like bad fruit. His gray eyes were still thin slits and now matched a silvery scar across the bridge of his nose. He stood staring for a moment, then stepped closer.