Vixen (40 page)

“You knew what?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “I just learned for sure what your answer will be to my question, that’s all.” He tapped her hand. “It’s so obvious, really, that I don’t even need to bother to ask.”

“Ask what?” Clara was confused. Happy and confused and scared. She stared down at her hands. They just looked like hands. A little wet, maybe, from messing about with the bathwater. “Marcus, just take your bracelet and leave me be. Please.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“Does it even matter what I want? You already know everything there is to know. There’s nothing left. I have nothing left,” she said, her eyes fixed on the bracelet.

“Look at me, Clara,” he said.

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He gently caught her chin with his finger, raising it so that she was staring straight into his eyes. “I want you to look at me.” There was a dreamy cast to his eyes, like the sky seen through wispy clouds. “Now, was that so hard?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me again, not after the other night—”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“But why? To see me in my shame?” She swallowed a sob. “You finally got what you wanted: To see Country Clara made the victim of a scandal. To send her running out of Chicago. That was the plan, wasn’t it? When I first arrived?”

Marcus looked ashamed. “It was. Originally. But that was before I knew you. I don’t want that anymore.”

“So what do you want now, Marcus?”

He smiled in a maddening way and took her wrist again in his hand. “I want you. Clara, will you”—he paused, his finger poised on the clasp of the bracelet. “Will you move to New York with me next summer? After I graduate.”

“What?” Clara sprang up from the bed. She wished more than anything that she weren’t dressed in a towel. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Clara,” Marcus said, exasperated, “if I don’t act now I may never see you again.”

“Did you not hear what Lorraine said last night? Don’t you know what this means for my reputation in Chicago? New York? And, frankly, everywhere?”

“I don’t care what you did or didn’t do before me. I just care about you, now. I love you. I’m in love with you, Clara,” Marcus said, pulling her back down to the bed so that she was practically sitting on his lap. “I had some time to think about everything. And the thing is, when I imagined what my life would be like without you, well … I didn’t see anything at all.”

There was so much to say that Clara felt nearly paralyzed. She ran into the bathroom and wrapped herself in a flannel robe.

“Do you remember meeting me, for the first time, in this room?” Marcus asked when she came back. “How could I forget?”

“I remember thinking there was something different about you—something just beneath the surface, a veil of mystery waiting to be lifted. It made me want to kiss you, right then and there.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, stroking her hand. “I am a gentleman, after all.”

She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him. “What if you don’t like me … the real me?” she asked
nervously. “What if, when I’m myself, you no longer want me?”

“I’ll always want you, Clara.”

“But how do you know?” she asked. “How do you know for sure?”

“How about this?” Marcus asked, sitting upright. He straightened his cardigan and stuck out his hand. “We’ll start from scratch. Hello. I’m Marcus Eastman. Who are you?”

Clara laughed. “Oh, Marcus. Come on. Don’t be silly.”

“I’m serious!” he said. “Introduce yourself. Your real self.”

Clara was about to laugh again, but then she realized that this was exactly what she wanted: a fresh start.

“My name is Clara Knowles,” she said, placing her hand in Marcus’s.

He shook it vigorously. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Knowles.”

“Likewise, Mr. Eastman.”

They both started laughing and fell backward on Clara’s bed.

“There’s only one problem,” Clara said in all seriousness, still holding on to Marcus’s hand.

“What’s that?”

Clara ran her fingers through his thick blond hair and across his cheek. This was it—the moment when she would take the biggest risk in her entire life. Which was saying a lot. She grinned. “How am I possibly going to wait till next summer?”

He just laughed. “It won’t be too long.” He kissed her.

“The next time you kiss me,” Clara said, “the next time we kiss—it will be in Grand Central Station. I’ll have come in on the overnight train.”

“Your hair will be pushed up into a wide-brimmed hat. I won’t recognize you at first.”

“But then I’ll pull off the hat, and I’ll shake out my hair—”

“Like a starlet in some terrible movie.” He made a face.

“In a fabulous movie, thank you very much. That’s when you’ll see me on the platform. At first, you’ll be struck speechless. I’ll break into a run and throw myself into your arms, and you’ll swing me around, and I’ll kick up my legs and everyone else will turn and stare, jealous of us and of our love.”

“My God,” Marcus whispered. “Clara Knowles, I do believe you’re a romantic.”

And suddenly she knew it was true. She
was
a romantic. When had that happened?

“Do you still want me to undo your bracelet?” Marcus asked.

“If it’s all right with you, Mr. Eastman,” Clara said, “I think I’ll keep it on for good.”

LORRAINE

Sitting at home and moping was not an option. Going out to the newest speakeasy, called Cloak & Dagger,
was
.

Even if Lorraine had to go by herself.

She figured it was preparation for Barnard—surely all the girls there were so confident that they could go stag all over the city and no one would even bat an eye.

She had her driver drop her off at a run-down Italian restaurant off State Street. Her friend Violet had written out the instructions on the back of a missal she had in her purse, and Lorraine followed them exactly: Walk to the back of the restaurant, bypassing all the couples; push through the double doors as if you belong, then charge through the tomato-splattered kitchen, ignoring the cooks; turn left at the far wall, stride past the reeking garbage bins,
and go straight up to the large, scary-looking man in front of the metal door.

“I’m here to see a man about a dog.” Lorraine tried to growl, only the noise came out more like a whimper. The man—who was dressed all in black—gave her a quick once-over, then let her in without a word.

Cloak & Dagger was cozier than she had expected: a small, dark room, lit by what looked like a thousand little votive candles in tiny glass spheres. A winding iron staircase led up to a second-floor wraparound balcony. Tucked into the far corner of the room was the bar, but it was more like a very tall desk. An even taller man—the bartender—slouched against the desk, smoking a cigarette. A scratchy jazz record played in the background, and a few couples on the minuscule dance floor were moving as slowly as the winding curlicues of smoke rising from their cigarettes.

Lorraine liked this mellow, sultry atmosphere. No one seemed to care much about anyone else. With one or two martinis in her, she could forget why she was here alone in the first place: because her life, as she knew it, was ruined.

Her parents had come home after two weeks away and had spoken to her just long enough to tell her they’d read about her behavior in the gossip columns, were grounding her until she graduated, and furthermore, weren’t speaking to her. Nor were any of her friends.

She casually strolled toward the bar. Unlike the Green Mill, this place was thinly populated. But she didn’t miss the
drama of a crowd. No more trying to please others. No more Gloria. No more Bastian. No more … anyone.

She needed to drown her sorrows in something pretty and brightly colored and alcoholic. Maybe even something pink. She took off her mink capelet and draped it over a tattered stool.

“You’re breaking my rules,” she heard the bartender say over the music. Lil Hardin’s voice was singing something sultry.

The bartender was lean and muscular, in a tight sweater vest and stovepipe-narrow trousers. He looked dangerous and appealing. Lorraine was sick of pretty boys like Marcus and privileged, snot-nosed brats like Bastian. She needed someone new and different who would think
she
was new and different. Someone lean and muscular and wearing stovepipe-narrow trousers.

“I thought places like this didn’t have rules,” Lorraine said. The bartender’s eyes were depthless and dark. “Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were here to flirt with me.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“Not at all,” he said, leaning slightly over the bar, “unless we’re talking about your dress.”

“I don’t remember giving you permission to look at my dress,” Lorraine said with a coy smile. She was wearing a brand-new Jeanne Lanvin—shipped from her mother’s
personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman. It was mostly sheer, nude netting, with burned-out velvet flowers rising up the center. “You never told me what rule I’m breaking.”

He lined up four shot glasses on the bar. “Don’t worry,” he said eventually, pouring a clear liquid into the glasses. “I’m only teasing.”

He pushed two across the bar toward her. “There are four. Two for each of us.”

Lorraine squinted at him, uncertain.

He laughed. “I’m sorry—would you rather I pour you a big glass of milk?”

His mockery was childish—she knew it was childish—and yet it got under her skin. She didn’t want him to think she was a little girl. Yes, she was a teenager, but—“Cheers to …?” she asked, raising a shot glass.

“To finding each other!” he said, clinking his glass against hers. He downed both shots in a second.

Lorraine followed suit. “A chaser would have been nice,” she said, wincing from the burn.

“I have the perfect thing in mind.” He winked, then called to a man smoking alone in the corner. “Frank, take over for a sec? We’re out of lemons.” He stepped out from behind the bar and took Lorraine’s hand. “Come on,” he said.

Lorraine felt the alcohol slither through her body like a hot snake. She clung to the bartender’s hand as if they were a couple. What was his name? She forgot. Or maybe she had never asked. She thought he was leading her to a far table,
but he passed it and pulled her into the dark, to a door she hadn’t noticed.

“In here,” the bartender said, hitting the door with his shoulder. It opened onto a cramped storage space stacked high with boxes of corn, beans, tomatoes, and peppers.

“I don’t see any lemons—”

“I found the lemons I’m looking for right here,” he said, squeezing her shoulders as he pushed her against the wall. “Just relax.”

He kissed her before she could make a move, and his hands felt their way down her back, all the way down, until he reached the top of her thigh and pulled her leg around his.

Lorraine pushed him off and slid away. She’d had enough. Kissing a man only reminded her of when she’d kissed Bastian, and of all the kisses she would never share with Marcus.

The bartender stepped back. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“I forgot my wrap,” she said.

She had to get out of this place, but she’d left her capelet on the stool. She probably had about two minutes before the bartender followed her out. She spotted her capelet where she had left it, draped over a stool at the bar, and immediately went toward it.

But a man in a fedora, sitting at a table against the wall, snatched it up first.

“Hey!” she cried. And then she saw the man’s face under
his hat. He immediately seemed familiar—and strikingly good-looking, in a dark way—though she couldn’t quite place him. But she knew those gray eyes from somewhere.

Still, she was in no mood for games, especially when it came to her fur.

“I’m not about to beg for it, but I’m not about to freeze to death outside, either,” she said, her hand outstretched.

“Where you running off to?” he said, exhaling a steady trail of smoke.

She crossed her arms. “Somewhere hotter than this joint.”

“You don’t like it?”

Lorraine didn’t know where this conversation was going, but it was better to play Sophisticated Flapper than Silly Little Girl. “I mean, I’ve seen better.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, putting out his cigarette in his half-empty drink. “Because I own this joint. So now you’re obliged to have a drink with me.”

Lorraine was about to protest, but then she realized she was dealing with a gangster.

“Fine,” she said, sliding clumsily onto the bench next to him. “One drink.” That phrase sounded familiar: She remembered saying it to Bastian before they’d gone up to his apartment.

The bartender walked back into the room. He glared at her but didn’t come over, probably because she was sitting with his boss.

“Two martinis,” the gangster called out. And a few moments later, a tray was set on the table in front of them.

“I know you,” he said to her.

“I doubt that.”

“No, sure I do. Your name is—”

She took one of the glasses and swigged a mouthful.

“—Lorraine.”

Just hearing her name roll off his tongue gave her chills. This was the guy who had come up to her the night of Gloria’s debut, after Marcus had rejected her and Gloria had accused her of spilling the gravy to Bastian. Who’d been kind, giving her his beautiful handkerchief.