Vixen (30 page)

“So,” she said, “do you believe anything I’ve just said?”

“Not yet,” Jerome countered. Her heart plummeted.

She had to remind herself that whatever happened, at least she had given it a good try. “I don’t know what else to say. I just told you everything there is to know.”

“Not everything.” He stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray, then placed it on the floor. There was nothing separating them. “You haven’t told me what I should call you.”

He knew her name now. He knew her
real
name. What was he getting at? “Oh!” She let out a short laugh. “Gloria Rose Carmody.”

“Gloria Rose, Gloria Rose,” he repeated, as if tasting the
words in his mouth. “Now,
that
is a killer stage name. Next time you sing, that’s how you should be billed.”

“I doubt there’ll be a next time.”

“You have a beautiful voice, kid.” He stared straight into her eyes. “I would hate to see you give it up.”

“Then you need to keep teaching me.”

Jerome got up and moved closer to the window. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“You
know
why not,” he said. “You should find another teacher.”

“I don’t
want
another teacher!” She went to him. If she didn’t say it now, she never would. “I want
you
. That is what I want. That is what I came over here to tell you.”

Jerome’s eyes blazed as Gloria touched his shoulder. He stroked her hair gently, tilted her face up to his. “You can’t know that yet. You can’t know what that means.”

“Then show me,” she said, pulling closer. “Show me.”

He wrapped his arms around her. When their lips finally met, it was as if they had been waiting for this one kiss their entire lives.

CLARA

“Did you know that the Green Mill is named after the Moulin Rouge—the Red Mill—in Paris?” Clara said to Marcus, gazing at Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s
At the Moulin Rouge
. In the painting, a bunch of top-hatted men and well-dressed women sat around a table, while in the foreground, a goblin-faced woman seemed to be giving the viewer the evil eye. It was unnerving.

“Well, look at you, scholar,” Marcus said, nudging Clara.

“Consider me your personal tour guide.”

“I must say,” Marcus murmured, “I’d rather be at the Green Mill than the place in this painting. None of these people look like they’re having any fun at all.”

They were at a special exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. And it was quite a big event—bigger than Clara
had expected. The main exhibition hall was packed with so many people decked out in their finest that Clara would have wagered that all of Chicago’s elite were here, drinking seltzer and squinting at paintings.

Clara, too, was dressed to the nines, wearing one of the only valuable pieces she had managed to salvage from her New York stash. It was a boxy silk Chanel, and it had cost one of Clara’s beaux a small fortune. The skirt was almost too short to wear out in polite society, but Clara looked beautiful in its intricate black and bronze patterning, and beauty excused lots of things.

“Have I mentioned how incredibly gorgeous you look in that dress?” Marcus said again.

“I think that makes twelve times,” Clara said. “But who’s counting?”

A week after Gloria’s Green Mill fiasco, a week after Clara had met the ghost of her past face to face, Marcus had called, inviting her to this opening.

She’d eagerly accepted. Now that Clara had finally seen Harris Brown, the tiny sentimental part of her that was still clinging to his memory had been exterminated. She could move on with her life, full speed ahead. She could be around Marcus and not feel those endless questions nagging at her. She was free.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Clara asked Marcus now.

“You seem to be full of them,” he said as he pulled her toward a waiter holding a tray of shrimp.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He dipped a shrimp into the bowl of red cocktail sauce and popped it into his mouth. “Nothing. So what’s your secret?”

“It’s my dream to go to Paris and hobnob with all the literary expatriates.” She searched Marcus’s face for a reaction but couldn’t read his expression. He hadn’t been in touch with her all week—no phone calls, no house calls—and then this invitation had come, albeit at the last minute. Had Marcus spotted her talking to Harris at the Green Mill? Was that why he’d been absent? “So have you been?” she asked, sipping her ginger ale. “To Paris, I mean?”

“I’m thinking of taking a trip there next summer—all around Europe, actually.”

“How original of you.” But then, realizing that sounded snotty, she added, “To get it all out of your system before you get tangled up in the Ivy?”

“I have nothing I need to get out of my system. Do you?”

“Um, simmer down, Columbia.” She linked her arm in his. “Besides, I’m jealous. I’ve only been as far as—” She stopped herself before she said the obvious.

“As where?”

“As here, I was about to say. Chicago.”

“Are you sure about that?” He removed her arm from his and dramatically turned toward her. “No detours in between?”

“I don’t know what kind of detours you mean, but—”

“Clara Knowles, I didn’t expect to see you here!” That high-pitched squeal could belong to only one person. “Why, Ginnie, what a surprise!”

“My father is on the museum’s board of trustees,” Ginnie said, blinking her close-set brown eyes.

Clara had leaned in for a cheek-brushing kiss when Ginnie spotted Marcus and practically pushed her off to one side. “Marcus! I didn’t even—I thought you weren’t—” Ginnie stammered breathlessly, twisting her hair around her finger.

“Lovely to see you again, Virginia.” He took Ginnie’s hand in his while she fanned herself with her other hand. “Actually, we were just talking about you.”

“You were not!” Ginnie snatched her gloved hand back and clapped both hands together with glee.

“We were,” Clara confirmed, happily playing along. “We were just discussing how lovely your high-tea party was the other week, and how sorry we both were we had to leave so abruptly—”

“On account of Clara’s delicate stomach,” Marcus reminded Ginnie.

“Food poisoning,” Clara said, grimacing. “It really was the worst.”

Ginnie wrinkled her nose. “Really, you don’t need to say any more! I’m just so happy that you’re feeling better!”

Marcus placed a hand on Ginnie’s arm and whispered loudly, “We suspect it was Mrs. Carmody’s undercooked salmon.”

Ginnie giggled. “It was so sad you had to leave before the clown arrived.”

“Buster Keaton?” Marcus asked.

“No, Daddy couldn’t book him,” Ginnie said, staring dumbly at Marcus. “But wasn’t that so sweet of you, Marcus, to escort Clara home?”

“
So
sweet.” Clara took a fresh drink from a tray passing by and gulped it down—sparkling cider.
Ugh
. She wished it were champagne.

Suddenly, Ginnie looked from Marcus to Clara and back again, pursing her lips in thought. “Are you two here … 
together
?”

Marcus said, “Yes.”

“No,” Clara said simultaneously.

Marcus and Clara locked eyes for a brief, tense moment.

“I invited her, yes,” Marcus said. “As my date.”

“So you
are
here together!” Ginnie gaped, growing more excited than jealous.

Clara felt herself blushing. “I guess so.”

“But Gloria’s not here, is she?” Ginnie asked, her face suddenly serious.

“No, unfortunately she couldn’t make it,” Marcus said, looking past Ginnie now, as though scanning the crowd for someone.

“Because she’s still grounded?” Ginnie made a big show of looking in both directions. “For singing at that seedy
black
place?”

“You could say that,” Marcus said coldly. He patted Ginnie on the back and gave her a little push. “Again, it’s been
so
lovely to see you, Ginnie!”

They made their way toward Van Gogh’s lonely
The Bedroom
. But before they could reach it, Marcus had to say hello to half a dozen couples. The girls seemed to know him and gave Clara a cold eye, and the boys were all like Freddy Barnes—young, rich, and not yet out of high school. In fact, Freddy was at the center of a bunch of them.

“I say, Eastman,” he said as they walked past. “This is the second time I’ve seen you with that bird. You two been nesting?”

“You are as witty as ever, Freddy,” Marcus said. “Which is to say, not at all.”

Freddy bowed toward Clara and said, “I’m just teasing. We’re all happy to see Marcus here settle down. After he quit student government and disappeared, we feared vile Ginnie Bitman—”

“Tedious Ginnie Bitman!” one of the other fellows chimed.

“Nightmarish Ginnie Bitman!” another added.

“Clearly, words fail us,” Freddy said. “But we feared for his manhood with that chunk of lead.”

“As you can see, my manhood is intact. Now, if you’ll excuse us.” Marcus’s hand at her back steered Clara away. “Those guys,” Marcus said. “What a laugh factory.”

“I didn’t know you were in student government!” Clara said.

“I was impeached. It’s too tragic to dredge up now.”

“Well, if you ever need a girl to stand by your side as you’re dragged through the mud, I think you could do a lot worse than Ginnie Bitman.”

“Really? I don’t know. She may well be the worst of the worst.”

“In other words, exceptional. And perfect for you.”

He placed his hand over his heart. “My boyhood dream: fulfilled. Ginnie Eastman.” Then he cleared his throat. “And what about you, Clara? Who’s your pick?”

“Oh no,” Clara laughed. “I don’t have a litter around me like you do, with little Ginnie and her friends all wagging their tails.”

“But you do have some bigwig New York politicians. What would you call them?”

Clara froze. So he
had
seen her and Harris that night. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

She peered up into Marcus’s honest face—there was no anger there. No, he looked wounded. He
liked
her. This beautiful boy liked her. She was not going to allow Harris Brown to ruin her life again—once was enough.

Clara took a deep breath. “What you may have seen the other night: It wasn’t how it looked.”

“A man like that kisses you and it’s not how it looks? I’m not stupid, Clara.”

“Of course not. But there’s more to it, and I—”

“Why,
there’s
my little troublemaker,” a woman cooed, appearing out of nowhere and putting her hands all over Marcus, fussing with his jacket and his tie.

For a middle-aged woman, she was attractive. Her platinum-blond hair was piled up in a pretty bouffant, and she looked elegant in a floor-length black lace gown. She seemed weirdly familiar. With a shock, Clara realized this was Marcus’s mother. She had his forceful self-confidence and spoke in a distinctive breathless rush, emphasizing words with a jab of her cigarette holder.

“I’ve been looking
all
over for you! I wanted to introduce you to Mr. Kent, remember? On the board of trustees? He practically owns half the real estate in New York, so he could be a
very
useful connection for you next year.” She finally noticed Clara. “And who is
this
darling little thing? Don’t tell me you are Beatrice’s
niece
? The one Marcus has been going on and
on
about?”

“Guilty as charged,” Clara said. The longer she was in Chicago, the more people wanted to meet her. It was nice to feel wanted. “And excuse me for saying so, but it’s obvious whom Marcus gets his good looks from.”

“
And
she’s a doll?” Mrs. Eastman said to Marcus. “Well, excuse
me
for saying so, but ever since
this
one over here was a little boy, I always thought he was in
love
with your cousin Gloria—they were
so
attached at the hip. But then when she got
engaged
—”

“Mother!” Marcus protested. “Really, please stop—”

“And you just
dropped
into my boy’s life like an
angel
falling from the sky,” she continued. “I just had this
feeling
about you two. This cosmic feeling.”

“Oh, Mother,” Marcus muttered.

“Maternal instincts are the best instincts,” Clara said, smiling. This woman was wild, and charming. Clara liked her enormously.

“They may not be the
best
, but they are always right,” Mrs. Eastman said, straightening Marcus’s bow tie while he fidgeted. “Now, don’t mind
me
, I’ll leave you two
alone
to enjoy my exhibition. Well, not
my
exhibition, I’m only on the
board
. Oh, look, there’s Betsy von Tipper—I hear she’s having an
affair
with her
dentist
. Betsy!”

Marcus and Clara watched her dash off to cheek-kiss a woman in a purple gown that looked like a Persian rug.

“Wow,” Clara said, “your mother is—”

“A face stretcher?” Marcus offered.

“Marcus, that is not a nice thing to say about your own mother! I was going to say the cat’s pajamas.” Lillian Eastman might have been a little overwrought, but she was certainly more interesting than most other women her age. “So what did you tell her about me?” Clara asked. “I hope only good things.”