Sirens (28 page)

I opened the valise and reached inside, feeling for the journal, pulling it out and setting it on my knees, picking up where I left off.

September 10, 1921

When I’m not in the greenhouse, I’m at the beach. That’s the only place I can find it—peace. It’s the water. The way it stretches out to meet the sky.

September 17

Antonio’s all right. Lives in Brooklyn, knows his way around the plants, that’s for sure. We’ve started hanging out together for a smoke in the evening before he goes home, walking the beach. He’s younger than me, didn’t serve, but his uncle did. He’s got some ideas, Tony does.

That whole time back in ’20, while I was working for John, I thought I understood. I look back on what I felt then, and it makes me mad at myself. I never want to think that way again.

October 12

Talked to Pops. He could see what kind of money there was to be made, running booze. He said some funny things to me about how so many politicians got their start doing things not exactly on the up and up. That kind of stuff.

I didn’t want to say anything, but I know he still thinks that someday I’m going to be some big shot or other.

It ain’t happening, Pops. I don’t know what I want from life, but it isn’t being a big shot of any kind.

I just have to look around to see that lots of folks need help. Maybe I can find some way to help. Maybe this Prohibition thing is made for people like me to get rich and help others.

Like Danny Connor’s done.

October 22

Pops tickled about the money. Says he’s putting it away for a rainy day. Thrilled with me for getting him mixed up with it.

So. That’s when Pops got involved in the bootlegging. With Teddy’s help. I leaned back against the bench. I was weary, deep-down-in-my-bones weary, and sad. That, I’d never guessed.

Beggar man, thief.

I looked at my watch. It was almost one now. I didn’t want to read anymore at the moment. My world had already been turned upside down enough today. If I sat here another hour or so, then it would be all right to head on. The sun slipped between the leaves overhead and warmed the back of my neck, and irresistible drowsiness stole over me. I had to close my eyes, had to. I folded my hands around the journal and closed my eyes, just for a second.

The laughter of children woke me. That and a feeling that I was being watched prickling the back of my neck.

I swiveled on the bench, caught the retreating back, the blond hair in sunlight, and thought, Teddy? He vanished into the shade of the trees around a curve in the path as I sat frozen. Teddy. He was here.

My hands still clutched the journal. The nannies had returned with their charges, all gathered in their usual spot, the children running through the grass and shrieking in pleasure, scattering the birds and filling the air with happy noises. I adjusted my cloche and tucked the journal away.

As I lifted my head again, I saw Melody. She was up the path, about a hundred yards or so, sitting on a bench with her back to me as the path curved. I sat still and pulled my cloche lower over my eyes. I didn’t want her to know I was spying on her.

She was meeting her lover, I was sure of it. I looked up the path and down again, searching for the likely candidate. An elderly gentleman approached, leaning on a cane. A young man—but no, he walked right on by her, whistling, winking at me. Couples
strolled by arm in arm; a woman in a boa walked her dog; pigeons fluttered and dropped. No lovers. I turned back toward Melody.

She was staring at the children. Her head turned as her eyes followed one child in particular. A tow-headed boy who ran headlong across the grass, yelling at the top of his lungs, his legs pumping, his face lit with joy. He had to be about four, maybe five. He had a familiar look, an expression….

I put my hand to my mouth. I knew.

One of the governesses stood and stretched and called, and the boy ran to her, Melody’s face turning so that her eyes could track him. The boy reached his chubby arms up for a lift, and the governess hoisted him into the sky as he laughed; then she set him down again and took his hand to walk him home.

I pressed my fingers against my lips as they walked away, retreating, as Melody’s head turned so that she could follow them with her eyes.

Oh, poor Mel.

She rose from the bench and walked briskly away in the opposite direction, back toward the apartment.

Melody did not have a lover. She had a child. A child she’d given up. A child she could watch only from afar.

Melody, the flapper, who hid her mistakes behind a veil of pleasure. I felt the tears in my eyes. The reporter from
The
Times
had heard the rumors. Now I understood Aunt Mary’s concern: she wanted her daughter to give up the child, but Melody wouldn’t, not really. And good for you, Mel, I thought. Good for you for loving so fiercely. Melody had a child, and she couldn’t let go; her heart held on tight to the boy with blond curls who clung to the hand of a nanny, unaware his mother was only a few feet away.

And the father? Well. That was an open question.

And then…someone else greeted the nanny. Melody was long gone. Someone approached from the other direction and greeted the child with fatherly affection.

John Rushton.

John Rushton, who’d been so openly condescending toward Melody. Who treated her like she was his inferior. Rushton, who’d treated Melody like she was trash when he should have been looking in the mirror at the real villain, the villain who stole her heart, her future, and her child.

I felt nothing for him but disgust.

I sat still for a long time, until the sun tilted west and I knew I had to make my way across town or miss my opportunity. My heart broke for Melody. I despised Rushton. And Teddy—he’d known and had tried to help in his own way. This series of revelations was unexpected, so much so that I felt stunned.

But I stirred myself. Now I really had to go. My timing was critical.

I walked down the streets that were alive with midafternoon activity, feeling more nervous with every step. What if Charlie rejected me, turned me away, told me he couldn’t help? I had no other options.

It was a long enough walk that I had plenty of time to worry. I stopped in front of the Algonquin and tugged on the ends of my gloves. Well. We’ll see just what Charlie O’Keefe thinks of me now.

CHAPTER 37

Lou

So, Detective. Now you see the point, don’t you? No? Then keep listening, sweetheart. Remember what I said about coincidence?

That afternoon, after my night in the Algonquin suite, I saw her.

“Hang on a minute, Sam.”

I turned right around in the backseat. I figured she wouldn’t notice me watching her through the Packard window. ’Cause there she was, like right out of a nightmare, standing in front of the hotel with a suitcase in her hot little hand.

I couldn’t help it; my eyes got watery, and my throat sported a lump the size of a baseball.

I’d spent a night in the suite instead of going back to the mansion after a long day of shopping. Danny had sent Sam to fetch me out of the hotel. Sam made it clear that I needed to get a move on, Danny wanted me home.

That was so unusual that as soon as I saw her standing there I was sure Danny was moving her into the suite in the Algonquin in my place.

Okay, so maybe he was putting her there so he could come in and give her the business over Teddy, or maybe she’d gone there to see Charlie. But carrying a suitcase? That meant only one thing, the green-eyed monster yelled in my head. Danny was starting something with Jo, and the baseball in my throat grew to the size of a watermelon. And then darker thoughts began to tickle my brain.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Sam. “And can we take a drive once we reach the island? I want to walk on the ocean side. Put my toes in some real ocean water.”

“Mr. Connor, he said—”

“I know, Sam. But I need a walk, first. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”

“Sure, Miss Louise.”

Good old Sam. Little did he know what I was conspiring, there, in the backseat of the limo.

Yeah, I know, Detective, but like I said. Thinking ain’t the same as doing.

CHAPTER 38

JUNE 6, 1925

A woman in the 1920s “knows that it is her American, her twentieth-century birthright to emerge from a creature of instinct into a full-fledged individual who is capable of molding her own life. And in this respect she holds that she is becoming man’s equal.”

—Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, “Feminist—New Style,”
Harper’s Monthly Magazine
, October 1927

Jo

I made my way through the grand lobby, feeling smaller with every step. I was not here under Louie’s wing; the valise I’d borrowed was worn; the dress I’d chosen, a longish dark gray shift with a dropped waist, was about a year out of style. No one was looking at me as near as I could tell, but I felt as though every eye followed me, disapproving, reading my intentions, whispering behind gloved fingers.

How much more disapproving they would be if they knew what I was about to ask of a single young man.

I stopped at the entrance to the Rose Room. It was clear that Jacques didn’t recognize me.

“Yes?” he asked, with barely a glance up from his worksheet.

“A table for one, please.”

“You are here for lunch?”

“Tea. And something to eat.”

He looked me up and down, his eyebrows raised in disdain, then escorted me to a table, leaving me at once to attend to other matters.

Charlie was in his usual spot, but I couldn’t see him well, as I’d been seated at the far side of the room and two fat pillars stood between the Round Table and me. I ordered tea and cakes and kept my eyes and ears open; I couldn’t afford to have Charlie slip away.

I worried that I was there too late, but after finishing what I’d been served I saw that I’d eaten too quickly.

“Anything else, miss?” the waiter asked.

“No,” I answered.

“I’ll bring the check straightaway.”

Then I would have to leave. Long before I could get to Charlie. “Wait,” I said. “I’d like some soda water.”

He nodded, looking troubled, then leaned forward. “We don’t allow alcohol here, miss,” he whispered.

“What?” I was stunned that he’d thought I wanted a drink.

“In case you’ve got a flask.” He pointed at my leg, and I realized he thought my long skirt might hide a garter with a tucked-in flask. Asking for soda water was the cue, as Melody had told me.

I pulled myself upright. “I have no flask,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

His eyes widened, and he said, fast, “Sorry, miss. It’s just, you know.” He nodded his head toward the Round Table, again populated by all men, who again were jovial and, I wagered, drinking alcohol. “We’re not supposed to let it happen, but there are certain types who can get away with…” His voice trailed off, and he left to fetch my soda water.

“Certain types.” I had a clear feeling that “certain types”—men—could get away with just about anything. But that a woman alone was suspect. Despite the suffrage, despite the rise of the flapper, despite the fact that women could work, could live independent lives, despite our being able to fling off corsets and adopt comfortable clothing, despite all our modern conveniences, not much had changed for women. Melody, in her rant of a couple of weeks earlier, was right. Nothing had really changed.

Melody had to give up her child. Louie had to give up her soul. What did I have to give up?

In a way, I realized, Pops had the right idea. Marriage, a good marriage, was still the only option available to girls like me. Ma, Aunt Mary, they’d made their marriages their careers. For a girl who didn’t marry, at least not straight out of high school, what other prospect was there?

Something shifted in me in that moment. I’d always been so sure that if I thought something through I’d be right, and I’d always thought I knew which side to choose—the right side. But everything came in shades of gray. Everything and everyone. The guys Teddy met and lost in France. The immigrants with their dreams just off the boat. Pops and his desire for riches. John Rushton and his brother. Melody and her child. Lou and Danny Connor.