Bright Young Things (25 page)

For a long while she sat in the bath, and by the time the water had grown cold on her long, goosefleshed limbs, she decided that Thom had never really cared for her. He had never cared for her, and he had taken from her the lone person in her life who had fully embraced and protected her. She began to cry again, her tears streaming down her body into the bathwater. She cried for being so stupid, and she cried for the man who‧d lost his life, for the things she‧d known about him and the things she would now never know, and she cried for the carefree, privileged world that had been hers for only a few glorious weeks, and she cried for all the years no one had loved her and all the many future years when no one would love her again.

When her tears were gone, she got out of the bath and put on the robe her father had bought her so that she would be warm on cool nights. Everything was very stark within her, and when she went to the French doors and stood on the threshold of the balcony, she saw that the darkness at Dogwood was the same as it was everywhere else.

25

“WHERE‧D YOU GET THE FANCY DRESS?”

Letty‧s eyes were sealed shut, and short strands of dark hair were plastered to her face with sweat. The voice was Fay‧s, she decided after a moment. So she was home; that was something. But her head was foggy, and the skin around her left eye socket was terribly tender. After a moment, she got up the courage to open her eyes, but this proved to be an error.

“Ohhhh …,” Letty moaned. She flinched at the bright light and the sight of her three roommates, standing over her. They were wearing those festively colored robes, and their heads were all cocked at unfriendly angles.

Then the memory of her humiliation at the St. Regis came back to her, and she had to cover her face. Somewhere along the path home, she had found herself in a second-story speakeasy which looked down on a purple street, where an older gentleman with a well-tailored suit and bad teeth, who claimed to be a Vanderbilt, had bought her drinks. Later on, she had been relieved to find that there was enough gin left over in the icebox to put her to sleep. She was still wearing her new dress, although in its current wrinkled state, it didn‧t look nearly so glorious.

“Heard any rumors about the midnight gin thief?” Kate seconded. When Letty parted the fingers that covered her eyes, she saw that the brunette was holding up an empty bottle accusatorily.

“What happened to your eye?” Paulette put her hands over her mouth, as though it pained her to see her friend like this, but when she spoke again she, too, had a hostile tone. “Mr. Cole was furious you didn‧t show at work last night. He said you‧re not to come back—and he put me on Mondays, and took me off Saturdays, for having wasted his time with you.”

Letty rolled over and buried her face in the threadbare sofa‧s velvet cushions. Her stomach whined and churned. None of her roommates moved, and in the silence, she could hear Good Egg running circles around the couch. An image of Amory‧s friends staring at her as she stood on the stage at the St. Regis flashed in her memory like a knife.

“Did you make any money last night?” Fay asked.

“No,” Letty whimpered.

“Then you‧ll have to leave,” Kate snapped.

“What?” Letty rolled over and her eyes got wide. A cold panic was flowing through her body.

“Oh, honey, don‧t let the big blues well up, it‧ll just make it harder for everyone,” Fay said, in a not entirely unkind voice.

Letty‧s eyes shifted to Paulette, who had turned around to sit in a wooden chair by the wood-burning stove. For a while she wouldn‧t meet her friend‧s gaze. When she did, she lifted a delicate mauve chiffon evening dress with looping silver beading all over the bodice. In her other hand were a needle and thread, as though she had been trying to repair the garment. “Did Good Egg do this?” she said slowly, holding up the ragged, torn part of the skirt. There was a pile of similarly torn garments in a basket by her feet.

At the sound of her name, Good Egg came racing around again, a thundercloud-colored streak, and began wagging her tail furiously by Letty‧s legs. “Oh, dear …,” Letty said. “Oh, dear. Oh, Good Egg!”

Good Egg threw herself down at Letty‧s feet and gazed up guiltily with those almond-shaped eyes.

“I‧ll buy you a new one, I promise!” Letty wailed.

“With what money?” Fay placed a hand on her hip and widened her eyes.

“If Amory Glenn had paid me the thirty-five dollars …,” Letty began, but she trailed off when she remembered what the thirty-five dollars had really been for.

“Amory Glenn told you he‧d pay you
what?
Just to
sing?”
Fay hooted. “And you believed him,” she added, tsk-tsking.

“I‧m sorry, Letty,” Paulette said. “You have to go. The dog‧s ruined some of my nicest things, and anyway Clara needs a bed, and I told her she could have your place.”

“Clara
Hay?”

The three roommates nodded. Letty felt as though the Earth was falling away beneath her.

“But I‧ll pay you back … I‧ll give you all the money I have saved up now, as an advance on rent!” Letty pleaded, grabbing Good Egg‧s collar gently to make her quiet down. Sensing her mistress‧s urgency, the dog did pause, letting out a slight whimper, but continuing to wag her tail. “Please, don‧t put me out. I‧ll get a job. Good Egg will behave, won‧t you, baby? Won‧t you?”

“How much do you have?” Paulette asked.

Letty closed her eyes. After the money she had spent on the dress, that left … “Five dollars?” she said, as though it were a question. As the paltry sum hung in the air, she realized that it was too late for her. She didn‧t deserve to stay.

Fay sighed loudly. “Save your money, honey, and use it for the next train back to Kansas.”

“I‧m sorry,” Paulette said. “Clara‧s got a job, and you haven‧t, and I can‧t stick my neck out for you anymore.”

With the troublesome greyhound at her heels, Letty returned to her room and, trying not to cry, began to pack her things into the old duffel she‧d carried all the way from Union. The clothes she‧d brought from Ohio looked even drabber to her now than they had before. The dresses that Paulette had let her wear had felt like hers, but that had been only a temporary illusion. Friendship, she was beginning to see, could be awfully fleeting.

Before she could help it, she was thinking of Cordelia—but though the memory of her old friend made her sad, she found some strength there, too. She tried to do what Cordelia would have done—she unbuttoned the collar of her old black dress, pressed her straight black hair down over her forehead, and lipsticked her mouth. She bent and looked into Good Egg‧s eyes and whispered, “We‧re going to be all right,” even though her voice was shaking.

When she came back into the living room, her head was held high. The duffel bag over her shoulder was not, she knew, particularly ladylike, but she found that despite the trouble Good Egg had caused, the greyhound buoyed Letty‧s spirits and was rather elegant to boot.

“Well, I‧ll see you around.” Letty gave a wave and walked toward the door, with what dignity she could muster.

Fay closed the magazine she had been reading and let her features assume a mask of sentimental concern. “Don‧t fall in with any Amory Glenns out there,” she said, from the couch.

Without returning her comment, Letty left the apartment behind and stepped, as bravely as she could, onto the sidewalk. The day was clear and new, and she could tell how warm it was going to be once the sun got high in the sky. But that would only shine a cruel light on her hopelessness. There were little pink flowers on the branches of the trees, and people all around, and none of them seemed particularly interested in her or the rough way she‧d been treated the night before. They were all just going about their business, as though the girl with the helmet of black hair didn‧t exist.

“Wait!”

She turned and saw Paulette coming up the three steps to street level, offering her a weak smile with one corner of her mouth.

“Here,” she said. The fluttery black dress that Letty had worn the night Amory Glenn took her to the Grotto was scrunched up in her hands, and she quickly folded it into a neat square. “I want you to have this. It doesn‧t fit me anymore anyway. Really, it looked better on you. And this,” Paulette said, handing Letty a ten-dollar bill. She shrugged apologetically. “It‧s all I can spare right now.”

Good Egg sat down beside her on the walk, and looked up inquisitively at the taller of the two girls.

“I couldn‧t.” Letty set her lips together and shook her head. “I‧ve already cost you so much already.”

“Who cares?” Paulette said, throwing her arms up. “Anyway, we‧ll see—maybe someday you‧ll pay me back with interest.”

“Thank you.” Letty pushed the dress into her duffel and carefully placed the bill in her pocket.

Paulette bent and kissed Letty on the cheek. “Toughen up, honey,” she said with a sigh, and then turned and went back into the apartment.

“Well, Good Egg, where to now?” Her headache was ebbing, and there were still pink flowers on the trees, and Paulette had been kind, even though she probably didn‧t deserve to be treated nicely anymore. Letty bent on one knee and drew her hand along her dog‧s slender head. “I‧m glad I have you, anyway,” she said, and for a moment she shuddered, remembering how narrowly Good Egg had escaped the slaughter, and thinking what might have happened if Grady hadn‧t been there, with five dollars to give that beastly man.

Grady—she had forgotten about Grady. Suddenly all Letty wanted was to be in Grady‧s car, going to some special little place he knew, where perhaps they served cocoa. She stood up and began walking fast down the street. He‧d told her where he lived as they were driving past it, and though she hadn‧t been paying much attention, she distinctly remembered him referring to it as his “garret on Bedford.”

By the time she rounded the corner to Bedford, she was almost skipping, Good Egg dashing along at her side. Why hadn‧t she better appreciated that gentlemanly manner with which he treated her before, when it was right in front of her? Surely he would still be willing to help her in any way he could.

As she walked down the street, she craned her neck to look up toward the little hooded windows on the top floors, through the leafy trees, and so she heard Grady‧s voice before she saw him.

“There you are m‧lady!” he called. “How I‧ve missed you.”

Letty paused in her tracks, glancing around for him, a smile already blossoming on her lips. At first she couldn‧t locate him, but then she caught a glimpse, halfway down the block, as he hurried down a stoop and bowed to open the door of a handsome cream-colored car. That was the gesture she most associated him with—that courtly swoop. Suspenders held up his striped slacks, and his collared shirt was rolled to the elbows. She took a few more eager steps in his direction, raising her arm and opening her mouth to call out his name.

But before the sound rose up through her throat, she saw that it was not her he had been addressing. The car door was not being held open in anticipation of her approach. It was being held open, rather, for a woman in a swaying, peacock-colored silk dress coming to stand on the curb in her pretty leather heels. Her lips were painted a very bright pink, and her shoulders were covered with a royal blue shawl as though she were going to the opera. Her red hair had been heated into shiny waves, the way Paulette did hers, except there was something even more fine about the way Grady‧s lady friend‧s hair caught the light.

Letty‧s shoulders went slack, and her heart dropped. She watched Grady gently rest a hand on the woman‧s forearm and lean in to plant a kiss on the skin of her cheek, just to the right of a cluster of pearls and diamonds that dangled from her earlobe. There was something so smooth and comfortable about him, and she marveled that he had seemed so nervous and boyish whenever they had spoken at the club. But it didn‧t matter. She had been foolish to think he would want to help her, when she had held herself so preposterously high. She was only glad that he hadn‧t seen her standing there, pathetic under the weight of that old duffel bag.

But before she managed to slip away, Good Egg recognized him, and let out a friendly bark.

Letty would never know if Grady saw her before she turned round. The surprise and mortification that followed that sound were all she could think about for several blocks, as she fled that pretty redbrick street where her last little embers of hope had burned down to ash and blown away.

26

THE LIGHT ON THE SIXTEENTH FLOOR OF THE ST. REGIS was very good, and Astrid took advantage of it to contemplate the lovely robin‧s-egg blue wallpaper in their suite. Her thoughts were all over the place, and she began to wonder at the relative simplicity of her name, with its four up-down syllables, especially when compared to her mother‧s. But perhaps by the time she was her mother‧s age, she might have a string of surnames, too—that was an unromantic notion, but one she regarded as more or less inevitable, especially that morning, when her head hurt and the whole world seemed rather blah.

Her mother sat only a few feet away from her, on the twin bed next to Astrid‧s, her dark hair wrapped up in a towel and her shoulders resting against the gold brocade upholstered headboard. In between them stood the room-service cart, laden with breakfast things. Astrid was trying to eat a soft-boiled egg out of an eggcup, but it no longer held any interest for her.

“What a drab breakfast,” she said, looking down accusatorily at the half-consumed yolk.

“Eat it,” her mother replied, without glancing up from the society column, which she was currently reading. It was Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh‧s standing order, at all the hotels in which she was likely to take occupancy, that the papers arrive for her open to the society pages, folded so that she would not have to read any actual news before her delicate retinas were good and ready. “Who knows when we will be able to buy another,” she added darkly.

“I think we should go to the Egyptian section of the Metropolitan,” Astrid said, throwing off the covers and standing up barefoot on the soft carpet. She was wearing what looked like red pajamas with the St. Regis name sewn into the breast pocket, but upon closer inspection it proved to be a bellhop‧s uniform. Although she did try for at least five seconds or so, she could not remember how she had come to wear such a thing. “And then afterward go for watercress sandwiches at the Plaza.”

Her mother gave her an unamused look, and Astrid pulled her sleeping mask, which had been high on her forehead, keeping her hair away from her face, down over her eyes, blindfolding herself so that she wouldn‧t have to see the older woman. Fixing her hands at her waist, Astrid thrust one foot forward and bowed, just like the Little Tramp might have done. When her mother made no response—no spoken one, anyway—Astrid sighed and turned toward the window, ripping her sleeping mask off and dropping it on the floor.

“Pick that up,” her mother said.

“No,” Astrid replied. They both knew someone else would.

Astrid pursed her lips, and peered over the windowsill at Fifty-fifth Street below. For a moment, she entertained herself by imagining that if she dropped down, the red awning over the front entryway would save her from her fatal fall, and she would be bounced back upward toward her suite, where her mother meanwhile would have been scared into behaving like the lady she had been brought up to be.

“Don‧t be a headache, darling,” her mother said before taking a noisy sip of coffee. “I already have a mean, throbbing one, and it‧s all I can handle, really.”

“Who was that British man?” Astrid diverted the conversation, a touch cruelly, since she knew perfectly well it had smarted when his attention switched from mother to daughter.

“Spencer Gridley,” her mother replied blithely. “Though apparently he is no one at all, since the society column has not marked his arrival on these shores, much less in this hotel.”

“Have they mentioned
our
arrival?” Astrid asked in her softest, most innocent voice. “In this hotel, I mean.”

This time her mother did not respond, except by ruffling the papers, and Astrid, who wasn‧t sure why she was playing such an absurd game, decided she would go to the Metropolitan by herself. There could be no objection to that, since after all, it was free. She crossed the room and was on the threshold to the adjoining sitting room, when her mother exclaimed, in quite a changed tone, “Oh, my.”

“Whatever could it be?” Astrid replied ironically as she turned to face her mother. “Spencer Gridley‧s a lord, as it turns out, and now he‧s seen us on our
wuhst
behavior.”

But her mother didn‧t answer her. She only draped the broadsheet across the coverlet so that Astrid could read the headline on the front page:
GREY THE BOOTLEGGER ASSASSINATED IN L.I. HOME
, it said, and then just below, in slightly smaller type, WHITE COVE NEIGHBOR MRS. DULUTH HALE SAYS SHE WILL PROCEED WITH TONIGHT‧S GARDEN SOIREE.

Astrid craned her head back and turned her face at an indifferent angle.

“Well?” her mother went on breathlessly. “Aren‧t you going to say something? How horrid!”

“He drank too much,” Astrid said flippantly.

“I might say the same of you …,” her mother replied, bringing the paper closer to her face, her eyes darting over the details. “Well—they say he‧ll be buried tomorrow. You must go immediately, darling.”

“I certainly will not.” Astrid lowered her chin and tried not to be interested in the article her mother was now devouring.

“You‧re right,” her mother said, extending an index finger but not glancing up from the paper. “You must have a new black dress. We‧ll go to Bendel‧s and charge it to old Harrison. He won‧t have thought to cancel my account yet. Now that I think of it,” she went on, brightening considerably, “we ought to get you a complete little wardrobe, so you won‧t have to go back to Marsh Hall at all. Nothing extravagant—two day dresses, two for night, a smart little jacket, a cardigan, two sets of heels, two flats, hose, under things, a hat—three at most. Then you can take the train back to White Cove to attend to Charlie, and—”

“No!”

“Astrid, don‧t be ridiculous!” She slapped her hands against the coverlet in emphasis. “You may think this sort of opportunity will come every month of your young life, but as your mother I am here to tell you, that will sadly
not
be the case. He‧s about to inherit quite a fortune—and a man never forgets the girl who stands beside him in troubled times.”

“Well, I‧m afraid I don‧t like him anymore” was Astrid‧s haughty reply.

Her mother cleared her throat and took a long time folding up the newspaper. Once she had put it aside, she gave her daughter what was probably intended as a compassionate look. “Who was she?”

“What?”

“Who was the girl?” The third Mrs. Marsh sighed patiently and pushed back the covers, turning so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor. “And did you catch him with her, or is it only an intuition?”

Astrid hung her head. A sheaf of blond hair covered her face. “Gracie Northrup.”

Her mother groaned. “Gracie Northrup? Her grandfather was a
peanut
farmer.”

“I know,” Astrid wailed into her hands. “I mean, I didn‧t know, but what does that matter? It‧s only—there he was, on
top
of her!”

“Oh, dear. Oh, there, there,” her mother cooed, taking Astrid by the hand and pulling her daughter so that they were sitting side by side on the bed. “He‧s a lousy cad, dear, but they‧re all like that. Don‧t worry—you‧ll get used to it, and you‧ll get yours. There. Do cry a little, it will make you feel better, but don‧t rub your eyes
too
much; they‧ll get red and leave wrinkles.” Astrid‧s mother sighed and brushed her daughter‧s hair with her fingers. “Cry a little, and then we‧ll go to Bendel‧s, all right? We‧ll get you the things you need for your wardrobe while we remain in the city, and if you want—
only
if you want—we‧ll get you a very smart black dress to wear tomorrow,
if
you decide to go …”

“I don‧t
want
to,” Astrid blubbered into her mother‧s satiny shoulder.

“And no one is saying you have to! But come, darling, really, you will feel so much better once you are wearing something feminine and new …”

There were a few sobs left in her, and she let them out, punctuating the final one with a hiccup. “All right,” Astrid said eventually, wiping the moisture from her wishbone cheeks. “All right, let‧s go to Bendel‧s.”

“Good girl,” her mother replied, clapping her hands.

They dressed and crossed Fifth Avenue, where they were taken to a private room, and over several hours they selected precisely the items that Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh had suggested earlier: two dresses for daytime, two for night, a cropped jacket, a long cardigan, two pairs of heels, two pairs of flats, various undergarments, a cloche, a sunhat, and a beret. Plus a black crepe dress with pleated skirt and wide boatneck, and a broad-brimmed black hat with a velvet band and several gleaming black feathers. Astrid‧s mother had been right; the Marsh account had not been suspended. Afterward, they had lunch at the Colony and charged a bottle of white wine and two orders of lamb chops to Harrison, as well.

When they stepped back onto the street, Astrid felt a little dizzy but also distinctly refreshed. The afternoon sky had begun to pale, and she caught sight of an afternoon edition hanging from a newsstand. There was a large picture of Darius that was at least a few years old—he was standing on the terrace at Dogwood in a summer-weight white suit, with his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyes squinting in the sun, and a half smile on his face. Below that, there was a smaller picture of Charlie in his green roadster, and beside that was one of Cordelia, unsmiling, stepping out of a limousine in front of the Plaza and looking straight at the photographer. Some irreverence went out of the afternoon for Astrid when she saw that picture of the girl she had begun to think of as her best friend.

“Oh, let‧s take a cab, don‧t you think?” her mother said, already moving to hail one.

“Yes,” Astrid agreed, though they were only a few blocks from the hotel and she suspected the walking might do her good.

She could scarcely remember her own father—he had still been at West Point when he and her mother had married, and then he had perished somewhere in France during the Great War, although she‧d never been told much about it. “He died in a ditch,” her mother had said unceremoniously some years after the fact, when a young Astrid had woken up during a cocktail party, having had a dream about him. From photographs, she knew that he was handsome, and blond like her, but that was all. She suspected it was different for Cordelia—Cordelia had dreamed of meeting her father her whole life, but as soon as she had, he‧d gone away.

The poor girl must feel like she had no family, which was just how it had always been for Astrid, and suddenly she disliked herself for being such a brat.

“Astrid!” her mother shouted, a little too loudly, as she stepped into a cab.

“I‧m going to the funeral, after all,” Astrid told her as she climbed in after her mother.

“Oh, that‧s wonderful, darling.” Her mother crinkled her eyes in Astrid‧s direction, the same way she used to when Astrid was young and had performed well doing jumps with her pony at the White Cove Country Club while Narcissa and Cora Phipps were watching. “Remind me to call the florist‧s when we get back to the hotel and have a big arrangement sent over!”