Flirtinis with Flappers (10 page)

"Excellent." Sam grinned. "Glad to hear it. I adore hearing about couples who are deeply in love and not using one another for sex and financial stability."

I frowned. Wow, that was a brazen jab at Louise and her choices. Who did he think he was, anyway?

"Jealous much, darling?" I couldn't resist asking.

Sam glanced around the room, as if checking to see if anyone was paying attention to us. But the only people there were sidled up to the bar, mesmerized by their illegal gin and tonics. He turned back to me, grinning wickedly, and leaned in for a peck on my unsuspecting lips. I let out a cry of outrage.

"Hey, you can't do that!" I scolded, even though there was a part of me that couldn't help but be delighted. Truth be told, the quick brush of his lips was enough to light up every nerve ending in Louise's body. Kind of pathetic, when you thought about it. Yet also secretly delicious.

"I am Sam. I can do anything."

"Well, I am Louise. And you can't kiss me."

"I just did, baby." He grinned again, flashing a row of pearly white teeth. How did he manage to keep them so bright when laser whitening wouldn't be invented for decades?

"Well, it won't happen again."

"We'll see about that. I'm pretty sneaky, you know. I might just steal a kiss from you when you're not looking. Maybe at the party tonight, even."

"Uh, party?" There was a party? Tonight? Was this something I should know about?

A high-pitched female voice interrupted. "Of course, silly!" I whirled around, and my eyes fell upon a real-life flapper girl. She was about five-one, with jet-black bobbed hair, dark raccoon-rimmed eyes, a powdered white face, and little red bow lips. She wore a loose-fitting tunic dress with a dropped waist and unlaced boots on her feet. How utterly adorable! She looked exactly like Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago.

"Well hello, Daisy," Sam said, looking more than a bit disappointed. "Nice to see you again."

The little black-haired bombshell shot him a glare and then turned to me. "Louise, I've been lookin' everywhere for yah. Where
have
you been hiding?" she asked, grabbing my arm and pulling me away. Away from Sam. I couldn't help but glance back at him as she dragged me across the dance floor. He'd folded his arms across his chest and was watching me with an amused smile. When he caught my eye, he winked. I shook my head and turned away.

"Where are we…?"
I began to ask the flapper as we reached the other end of the ballroom.

Daisy stopped walking and released her hold on my arm. "Away from Sam, of course," she said. "I know you think he's the cat's meow and all, Louise, but you gotta stop letting him kiss yah like that. Especially in public. You finally got a decent fella. A daddy with dough. You wanna mess that up because you're carrying a torch for some ragamuffin like him?"

"I—" I wasn't sure how to respond.

"You wanna be a showgirl forever? Then you go pet Sam. In fact, you go on and have a petting party for two in his struggle buggy. Or do yah wanna live the life of luxury? The one we always talked about all these years? Then stay with the big cheese, Louise. He may be a flat tire, but he's got the rubes."

"Uh…"

Daisy laughed, probably at my pathetic attempt to be articulate when I hadn't the slightest clue what she was discussing.

"Okay, okay. I'll stop beating my gums," she apologized. "Butt me." She looked at me expectantly.

"Wha…?" Butt her? What did that mean? I was so lost it wasn't even funny.

"Hello? Anyone home?" she said, waving a red-nailed hand in front of my face. "A ciggy? You got a ciggy?"

Oh.
Butt
me. As in a butt. A cigarette. Bleh. Talk about remedial Slang 101. Even I should have figured out that one.

"Oh. No. Sorry."

She shook her head, as if gravely disappointed in my lack of tobacco. "Wait here."

I watched as she walked over to the bar and started talking to the bartender. She was a little sprite who couldn't stand still for a millisecond, bobbing her head to some inaudible beat. Her nasal voice echoed through the nightclub. In short, she was exactly what I always imagined a flapper to be like. Almost scarily stereotypical.

Daisy skipped back over to me a moment later with a pack of Lucky cigarettes in her hand. She opened the box and held them out to me. I shook my head.

"Why on earth not?" she asked, lighting hers. I coughed at the plume of smoke she exhaled. With present-day USA practically making smoking a capital crime against humanity punishable by death, I hadn't been around a smoker in a while.

"I'm, um, trying to quit," I said. "Those things will kill you, you know."

Daisy looked at me as if I had just said I thought rabid, man-eating bunny rabbits were going to take over the world. Which I guess I understood. Back then, supposedly no one knew that inhaling an unknown mixture of toxic chemicals on a regular basis could damage your body in any way, shape, or form.

"You're off your trolley, Louise," Daisy muttered. She took a deep drag and exhaled in my face. My eyes started to water. Nice. "If anything, ciggys are good for you. Help you lose weight." She patted her flat stomach. "You've seen the ad, right? 'Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.'"

I shook my head. As much as I would have liked to, there was no way I could start citing surgeon general warnings or tell her I'd rather be fat than die of lung cancer. Guess history had to figure out the smoking thing on its own.

"Anyhow, let's blow this juice joint," Daisy suggested. "I know of a much classier place down the road."

I debated whether I should go with her, then thought, why not? After all, the more people I hung out with, the more chance I might be able to discover which of these suspects was actually Nick Fitzgerald in disguise.

Wouldn't it be funny if
Daisy
were Nick? I mean, there was no reason he couldn't have jumped into a girl's body, was there? If Special Agent Rogers could live as a rat—

But nah, Daisy had the vernacular down way too well. There would be no way Nick would have mastered twenties-speak so quickly, even if he was good with languages.

I followed Daisy over to a shiny black Ford and got in the passenger side door. It had a leather interior, and the top was down, even though it was about twenty degrees out. She turned the key, put the car in gear, and we were off down the street, bouncing and swaying from side to side. Not much shock absorption in these things, evidently. The wind whipped through my hair, and I grabbed at the dashboard to avoid being thrown from the car. My stomach started to go twisty again, and I hoped our destination really was just down the street. After all, throwing up two times in one day would not be good for Spy Girl here.

"
Argh
!"
I cried, as she swerved to avoid a car that had, for some reason, stopped smack dab in the middle of the road. Man, she drove worse than her
Great Gatsby
namesake, and I hoped there was no husband's girlfriend to run over, 'cause I sure wasn't going to play Jay. I had enough to deal with in the next few days without agreeing to go down for a murder I did not commit.

"Oh, I brought your costume for tonight, by the way," Daisy said, taking her eyes off the road to look over at me, much to my dismay. I grabbed onto the door handle as she turned back to the road, just in time to avoid smooshing a freaked-out squirrel. If they required driver's licenses back then, hers would surely be revoked for reckless endangerment. I wondered how many gin and tonics she'd tossed back before getting behind the wheel. Guess there was no breathalyzer or drunk driving laws to worry about.

Which just left that whole death-and-dismemberment thing.

Wait a minute! Her words sank in, and suddenly, I was more afraid of her words than her driving ability. And that was saying something!

"Costume?" I repeated. "Uh, what costume?"

"Yeah, you know, for the party," she said, shaking her head, as if in disbelief of my stupidity. "What's with you today, Louise? You're doing your act at nine, remember?"

I swallowed hard. Oh God. I had an act? An act I was performing at nine? An act I was performing at nine in front of real live people at a party?

Talk about being screwed.

"I, um, actually am not feeling well," I said, placing a hand on my stomach. "I don't know if I'll be able to go on tonight."

Daisy laughed. "You slay me, Louise. You really do. Of course you're going on."

"But I think I'm sick. I threw up earlier."

"You'll feel better after a few mint juleps."

"But—"

Daisy yanked at the steering wheel, dumping the car with a screech on the side of the road. I nearly toppled out of the door.

"Seriously, you are a crappy driver!" I cried, rubbing my arm angrily. I was going to be black and blue for a week.

"And you, Louise Rolfe, are a showgirl," Daisy retorted, wagging a red fingernail at me. "A showgirl with a show tonight. No, not only a show. A show at the swanky home of movie producer Don Wags. And I, your best friend in the whole world, will not allow you to miss your opportunity to show off in front of him." Her gaze softened, and she reached over to squeeze my shoulder. "I know you're nervous, honey, but you'll be swell. I promise."

I sighed. Nervous didn't begin to explain it. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't sure what would happen to the known universe if I messed up this act. What if Louise was destined to go to Hollywood after being discovered at a party by this Don guy? There was no way he was going to discover her when she was me. I mean, I sang like Ethel Merman on helium and danced as gawkily as Baby in
Dirty Dancing
—pre-Patrick Swayze's dance lessons. Not to mention the fact that I didn't know any twenties tunes.

Then again, I had been queen of karaoke back in college…

Daisy reached into the backseat and pulled out a beautiful beaded black dress. She handed it to me, and I fingered the long black fringe. It looked like something out of
Chicago.
Or something Satine would have worn in
Moulin Rouge!

And that gave me an idea…

The whitewashed home belonging to Don Wags, movie producer and party host, rose tall and proud against the shores of Lake Michigan. I stared at it, somewhat in awe. It was an utter monster. Bigger than your stereotypical twenty-first-century McMansion, for sure. In fact, I'd bet my iPad mini there had to be fifty rooms, at least. (And you can be sure I don't make iPad mini bets lightly.)

Outside, an array of white sparkly lights climbed the majestic oak trees and wrapped around squat rosebushes. Inside, every room was ablaze with light, and tinny, cheerful jazz drifted out of the house, effectively soundtrack-ing the night like a Busby Berkeley flick. In fact, the whole thing was like something out of a movie, and I couldn't believe I was witnessing it all in real life.

At least two dozen shiny black automobiles with ostentatious hood ornaments were parked alongside the long circular driveway. A few looked abandoned, as if the drivers, in their extreme haste to let the party games begin, had just killed the engines without any regard for where they'd actually left their cars. Parallel parking, it seemed, had yet to be invented.

"Here we are!" Daisy exclaimed, yanking the steering wheel to one side and landing half on the front lawn. But I didn't care about lousy parking skills at the moment. I was too grateful to have survived the trip all in one piece. Even though a hideous car accident might have been more fun than my upcoming debut.

Would they buy my pathetic act? Or would I be lynched, revealed as the fraud I was? I sank into my seat, suddenly not wanting to go inside.

"Get a wiggle on," Daisy scolded as she hopped out of the car and into the night. "We're already late."

We were "already late" because we had already wasted the entire afternoon bar-hopping. My first full day in 1929 Chicago and I could already pen my own Zagat's guide, thanks to Daisy. Of course, unlike her, I was swigging soda the whole time. No way was I going to allow myself to get tanked and say something stupid to give my twenty-first-century self away. Daisy, on the other hand, had nothing to give away, evidently, and she drank accordingly. I couldn't believe the five-foot-nothing was still standing after the amount of gin she'd poured down her throat.

I grabbed my costume and exited the car. Walking toward the house, Daisy and I passed a myriad of people, lounging, dancing, drinking, and smoking on the front porch, as if they didn't have a care in the world. Kind of crazy, since it was about twenty-two degrees out, and half of them had evidently forgotten to bring their coats. Alcohol heated the blood, I guessed. The men all wore smart tuxes, and the women had on loose-fitting party dresses of white, beige, and black, all light and chiffony and not at all appropriate for winter. Many wore felt caps or straw hats on their bobbed heads, and almost all held cigarettes placed in long, elegant holders in their well-manicured hands.

"Hi, Louisey," one of them slurred gaily as Daisy and I stepped onto the porch. "Yourha missin' a great pahhhty."

"Ab-sho-lute-ly," chimed in the curly redhead next to her. "Itsha truly mah-velous event."

Wow. I shook my head. Wasted. You'd never know from this scene that liquor was technically illegal. It was fascinating what an utter failure prohibition turned out to be. Made a girl wonder what would happen if they just ended the war on drugs in the twenty-first century.

I studied the crowd. Those lazy, drunken, thirty-something-year-old guys leaning against the wall probably had been soldiers overseas just ten years before, risking their lives to fight for their country. And the women could have been nurses at the time, angels in white, bandaging and comforting their wounded and dying men. Or they could have been back home…making, um, rivets? Or whatever random war thing that Rosie the Riveter chick made to help her boys overseas. Though technically she might have been from World War II—my history was decidedly weak. 

In any case, these partygoers certainly weren't necking and dancing and drinking and smoking a decade ago. It was almost as if the war had scarred them so much that they'd blocked it from their minds and adopted a sort of extreme opposite hedonism to deal with the memories.