The Lucky Ones (8 page)

“Yes, well, Dad wants to burn Dogwood to the ground, as you can imagine. But I don’t want any more of this back-and-forth.”

“You want a truce.” Cordelia let this information settle in with her. “But why?”

“It’s not practical,” Thom said simply, and sipped his drink.

“You’ll have a hell of a time convincing Charlie that’s a good reason.”

“That’s why I only want to talk to you.”

Cordelia nodded but did not reply.

“I’m sorry about your friend Max, by the way. I never thought he was right for you, but it’s ugly when a man distinguishes himself only to lose his backing and reputation over a thing like that. Aren’t many white men can fly a plane like he can.”

The mention of Max made Cordelia flush, but it wasn’t exactly embarrassment she was feeling. She was almost angry that Thom was thinking about Max at all. Then she noticed Thom’s eyes on her again, how they scanned the length of her dress when he thought she had glanced away. The memory of what they had done together returned to her, of Thom’s skin on her skin, that they had been naked and he had whispered her name over and over. A feeling of shame seeped into her belly, and she hoped that Max never knew what she had done with other boys before she knew him. When she felt fingertips against the skin of her arm, she almost jumped. But to her relief it was only Paulette at her shoulder.

“Phone call for you,” she said, before being absorbed back into the crowd.

Cordelia nodded. When she turned back on Thom, she found that though she ought to hate him, she no longer did. “You look like you’ve been spending too much time in the sun,” she observed. One of the bartenders had ventured in their direction, and she called out to him: “Carl, do you know Mr. Hale?”

Carl’s attention was being sought from every direction, but he did briefly glance at Thom and nod at Cordelia.

“See he pays for his drinks!” she yelled. In a voice neither hostile nor kind, she addressed Thom, saying, “It’s good to see you,” before quickly making her way to the back offices.

The lavender hour had come and gone, and Astrid was still arguing with Charlie in her head. She had been staring at the same page of
Vanity Fair
for as long as she could remember—it might have been two years—and meanwhile the onset of darkness had done nothing to cool the room.

“‘There’ll be no little forays into the city,’” she said out loud, pinching up her face and mimicking Charlie’s bossy tone. She went over to the phonograph and started Rudy Vallée again, conjuring in her memory the last time there had been a little foray into the city. It was the night—one of the nights, how many had there been?—when Charlie abandoned her so that he could play dirty with the Hales and she had been ordered to stay in. She had twisted Charlie’s man Victor’s arm until he drove into the city in pursuit of Cordelia and Letty and Billie Marsh, her stepsister. What a grand night that had been! The four of them traipsing from one speak to another, never paying for a drink and being lauded everywhere they went.

“That was the last time I remember being happy,” she sighed into the gilt-framed mirror by the enameled bar cart. But the phrase was heavy with melodrama, and she knew it wasn’t true. She had been happy in her sewn-together wedding dress, and she had been happy on the pleasure cruiser that she and Charlie had taken to sail through the Caribbean. She had been happy last night with Charlie, before she saw what a grubby business bootlegging really was. Once upon a time she had been good at forgetting all the miserable things in life, and it seemed silly that she couldn’t now rid her mind of that doleful man with the innocent children and the sad little speakeasy behind a pharmacy in the Village.

“Oh, hell, the heat is getting to you,” she went on, again to the reflection of her pretty, heart-shaped face. “Knock it off, darling, you’ll give yourself permanent lines.”

So she sashayed across the room, twirling on the old Persian carpets while Good Egg ran circles around her, picking an orchid from one of the potted plants and putting it behind her ear, telling herself she didn’t care what Charlie was up to and that it didn’t matter to her that her best friends were all out in the world, being romanced by new beaux and living very noteworthy lives. After that she felt a little sad and decided that a garden party was the only cure, and called everyone she could think of and told them to come tomorrow at three.

It was only when the final chords of “If I Had a Girl Like You” sounded that she realized that she’d come down with a bad case of cabin fever, and that she might preserve her sanity if she told Charlie’s boys that Cordelia needed her at The Vault. She straightened her silly dress and smoothed a fluff of yellow hair and headed for the hall.

But her way was blocked sooner than she anticipated.

“I’m going out,” she said with expert blitheness.

Victor blocked her path, his arms crossed over his chest. She sensed that he had been standing there a long time already. “No, you’re not.” His voice wasn’t unkind, but he had something like a smirk on his face, and his stance was wide, as though he were bracing to physically prevent her from leaving.

“Oh,
come
.” Astrid smiled in her special plush way, and her posture loosened. There had been a night—the night she tried to cook Charlie a real meal, to disastrous results—when Victor had been assigned to watch her and they’d played cards and had champagne for dinner. It seemed to her that right before she’d laid her head on the big, ponderous dining room table and dozed off, he had said something just a touch flirtatious. Perhaps, she thought, he would still be susceptible to her charms now. “Remember what fun we had last time?”

“I remember how much
trouble
you got me in last time.”

“Oh, it couldn’t have been so bad, or why would Charlie have left me with you again?”

“He knows I haven’t forgotten.” The smirk was gone, and there was no hint of a joke in Victor’s dark eyes. They just stared at her, placid but unyielding, over that serious Roman nose. “He knows I learned my lesson about being bossed by a girl.”

“Well!” Astrid exclaimed, as she ducked around him.

Victor didn’t answer except by following her—he stepped lightly, but the wax floor in the ballroom was hard and there wasn’t much furniture there to absorb the echo. As she went through the billowy white curtains and down the big stone steps of the verandah, she hoped he would stay behind and watch her from the porch of the house so that she could be alone with her thoughts. But by the time the grass was under her bare feet and she was striding beyond the light that Dogwood’s high windows cast across the lawn, she feared he was no longer following her. For a while her pride won out over her curiosity, but when she reached the place on the lawn where the earth began to slope upward, she couldn’t stand it anymore, and she turned sharply.

There was Victor, not even five yards behind her. He had frozen, but there was something nimble about the way he hovered—he had the cautious watchfulness of an Indian tracker on the hunt.

“Oh!” she gasped, and then a cascade of laughter flowed through her.

He was trying to look stern, but her laughter disarmed them both, and a smile that began in fits and starts finally got the better of his face.

“I thought I’d given you the slip.” She winked at him, and the absurdity of her statement made them both chuckle.

“Miss Astrid, I’m sorry to say, your technique leaves something to be desired.”

“Damn! And I thought I’d been so clever.”

“You are very clever in some ways, but when it comes to not being noticed, you are a little…stupid.”

“Stupid!” Astrid put her fists against her waist and pouted theatrically. “Charlie would have your hide if he knew you called me names.”

“I’m pretty sure all Charlie cares about is that I don’t let you leave this property, whether by your own doing or ’cause the Hales want you.”

Astrid bowed her head and batted her lashes contritely. “Oh, dear, I see I
did
get you in some trouble.”

Victor’s slender shoulders rose and fell, and he turned his face away. For a moment Astrid watched him—though his hands were scarred and blistered, and he had the face of a tough, his tall, lean body was almost too thin, and you could see it, the way his work shirt was tucked into his denim pants.

“Well,” she went on, when she realized he wasn’t going to answer that. “I may have gotten you in trouble, but
you
very nearly got me killed! Sending a girl of my type to a place like that West Side tavern of yours.” Her tone was light and joking, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the name of the place that Victor had told her about, where the two men had put a bag over her head before stuffing her in a car.

“I know, I’m sorry for that.” He kept his gaze averted, and he spoke in a solemn tone that did not match her own. “I never meant for you to go there. Not without me, anyway.”

“Well.” Astrid clapped her hands, as though that would scare away the lingering moroseness. “I guess we’re square!”

Victor’s dark eyes met hers, and he nodded.

Astrid thrust her hand forward for him to shake. “Friends, then?”

“Friends.”

They shook on it, heartily, like men who had recently argued over baseball but have since come to their senses. When Astrid let go of his hand they turned and began ambling, not exactly in the direction that Astrid had been going before, but not back toward the house. A few stars winked hazily, and a muted quarter moon lolled somewhere above the black treetops. The grass was soft beneath her feet, and it dimly occurred to her that it might feel very sweet to lie down on it. Victor walked along next to her at an easy distance, and they didn’t speak. The cicadas and mosquitoes were saying plenty.

It was not until they had reached the stone patio surrounding the pool that she had any thought worth saying out loud. “You know,” she began philosophically, “all day I was thinking what detestable beasts men are.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yes.” Astrid nodded. She caught one of her hands with the other behind her back and turned her face up girlishly to regard the heavens. “In fact, I was trying very hard to hate you back there in the house, but that was a more difficult task than I had anticipated!
You’re
not beastly at all.”

He paused on the stone tiles—she could see his reflection in the pool—so she stopped to face him. A hot, dry wind picked up, pushing Astrid’s skirt around and the bodice of her dress against her skin. She smiled from the corner of her mouth. A light passed through his black pupils, and his long lashes lowered with his blink.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

Astrid dropped her lower, bee-stung lip. “Only this—” But she knew if she said any more she would burst out laughing. So she took a shy step in his direction and then, with a cat’s swiftness, put both her hands forward and pushed. She stared at him, suspended over the glassy surface, his face wide and flat with shock. Her mouth was buckled with a coming laugh, but before it had a chance to escape, he had grasped her arm, and then they were both falling, very slowly. It might have been a whole hour that they hung there, like constellations against the dome of the sky, smiling at each other, happy and dry, before the water hit them, enveloped them, and they were sinking into its cool quiet.

Then, suddenly, Victor had his arm around her waist and was dragging her back toward air. There was no utilitarian purpose for this, as Astrid was a strong swimmer, but she let herself be pulled, and when they surfaced she gasped and pushed her hair back from her forehead as he kicked and paddled the water to keep them afloat. Their clothes were heavy, and she could feel his heartbeat.

“Is that the kind of thing friends do?” He had meant it as a joke, but his tone wasn’t humorous, which changed the meaning of the sentence.

Her chest heaved under the sopping white bodice of her dress, which was now plastered to her skin, and her high, ringing laugh echoed off the surface of the water. She pushed away from him, took two long strokes to the side of the pool, and lifted herself up onto the cement ledge.

“See what happens when you go soft?” she admonished. For a moment she let her feet dangle in the water, watching Victor’s head and shoulders bob above the deep end. “I’m gonna give you the slip yet!”

Then she leapt to her feet and went running out across the lawn, cartwheeling once she had reached the illuminated circle that surrounded the house, and darting through the ballroom before anyone could see the state of her clothes. She did not wonder if Victor was behind her this time; she knew he wasn’t. It would be stupid of him to follow her, and she knew he wasn’t stupid. Anyway, once she had the drenched dress off her body and was safely buried in her second bubble bath of the day, she would have no need for monitoring. Milly, her maid, would tell him where she was, and then he could knock off for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile she would be relaxing, satisfied that she had enacted some small revenge on the men of this world. And if that thought wasn’t enough to put her to sleep, there was always that picture of Victor, how trusting and handsome he’d looked right before she pushed him over the edge.

8

AS SOON AS LETTY LEFT MANHATTAN, HER SHOULDERS softened. She had not been completely honest with her patrons about her reasons for going to White Cove—although of course it was
possible
that Cordelia and Astrid needed her and
mostly
true that neither of them was free to leave Dogwood to come into the city. If she had told Sophia and Val the real reason for going—that Mrs. Charlie Grey was having a spur-of-the-moment garden party, and Letty was desperate for a chance to be around old friends—she ran the risk that they would invite themselves along. The heat wave had yet to abate, and just about anybody would have jumped at the chance to go to the country and escape the stifling sidewalks. At first Sophia had frowned theatrically at the news, but then she’d insisted that Hector drive Letty.

“What a good friend you are to me.” Sophia had sighed happily. “I want to make sure you are always as comfortable as possible.”

That did stir up some guilt inside Letty, and now, riding comfortably in the back of the O’Dells’ town car, it hurt her a little to think how generous Sophia was, even when Letty couldn’t stop her mind from returning to what Sophia may have done with Jack Montrose, and then Letty would have to wonder if she was hurting Valentine by not telling him about it, and the confusion rose up and started to overwhelm her again, and she was glad that she was speeding through the suburbs away from The Apollonian.

As she began to walk up the slope toward the west lawn she saw Good Egg, and her relief was complete. The greyhound was trotting along beside a boy whose face she could not quite make out, and when she spotted Letty she paused for a moment with her snout in the air. She woofed once in greeting and then came down the hill at a gallop.

“Hello, girl!” Letty exclaimed as Good Egg leapt up, almost embracing her with her long legs.

Once girl and dog had greeted one another, Good Egg began to walk back toward the boy, as though leading Letty to him. As they approached, Letty recognized Grady’s boyish features, and she smiled widely. He was wearing a loose-fitting white suit that made him appear more like the scion of one of the old White Cove families than the city scribbler she’d originally gotten to know. Meanwhile, Good Egg ran ahead and did a few laps around Grady’s legs.

“I think she remembers you,” Letty called out.

“Could that be possible?”

“It was only a few months ago.” Good Egg was panting, and her head swung back and forth as her chocolate eyes went from Letty to Grady. “Plus, you saved her life.”

“It was you who did that. I was scared witless and wouldn’t have known what to do if you hadn’t been there.” Grady glanced at Good Egg, as though to apologize for bringing up a painful memory. “You look lovely,” he went on, in the slightly choked voice that people use when they are saying things they cannot help.

“Oh—thank you.” Smiling at the compliment, Letty looked down on the navy-and-white striped tank dress that hung off her narrow shoulders. Her first choice had been rather more girlish, but Sophia had told her that you never know who you’ll meet or what will happen when you leave the house and that a more sophisticated frock was preferable. Now she was glad she’d taken the advice. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you more the other night. Sophia fell ill—Sophia Ray, that is, the actress, with whom I am studying these days—”

“I know of Miss Ray, of course,” Grady interrupted.

“Yes, well, once I knew she was ill, I had to go to her.”

“Naturally.” The sadness was back in Grady’s eyes, and Letty realized that the newspapers had run photographs of her dancing with Laurence Peters at dawn, and that it was probable that Grady knew she had not spent the entire evening acting as nursemaid. “Well, I suppose you want to see your friends,” he said, rather conclusively.

They began to amble toward the tent, where young men and women dressed in white idled under the protective shade of the tent’s white arc. Milly was circulating with trays of drinks, and Astrid was standing at the middle of a circle of boys who looked like they might be off to college in the fall, all of whom were listening attentively to the story she was telling.

“There you are!” It was Peachy Whitburn, her strawberry-blond hair parted sharply on the left side, wearing a sleeveless, high-necked dress of ice blue. She did not exactly smile when she saw Letty, and for a moment Letty was reminded of the second time they’d met, and how Peachy had seemed to have forgotten the first time, and wondered if she wasn’t going to pretend not to know her now. But then she reached out for Grady’s hand and met Letty’s eyes directly. “Ah, the famous Letty Larkspur.”

“Oh, I don’t know about famous.” Letty shifted awkwardly in her high-heeled shoes.

“Well, what would
you
call someone whose name appears in the paper every day?” Peachy returned, as though Letty had said something very simple.

Before Letty could think how to reply, the person standing just behind Peachy turned around. “Letty, there you are!” Billie Marsh, Astrid’s stepsister, exclaimed. She gave a roll of her eyes in Peachy’s direction and then, putting her arm around Letty, went on: “You won’t mind if I steal her, will you? I haven’t seen her in
ages
. Good! I didn’t think so.”

Before either Peachy or Grady could reply, Billie drew Letty away from them and into the tent. Billie’s hair was as dark as Letty’s and shorter, too, though she wore hers slicked back from her face and tucked behind the ears, which gave her a rather Spanish aspect. She was wearing wide-legged navy trousers and a white blouse that might have been feminine if it hadn’t been two sizes too big for her.

“Sorry I couldn’t save you earlier, darling; those two are punishingly dull,” Billie said as she went about fixing drinks for them.

“Oh, but—Grady is all right, isn’t he?”

“He
used
to be—I was really rather impressed when he dropped out of Columbia and started lurking around the Village. But now that he’s back with Peachy I’m afraid I’ve given up all hope. Or he has. Or something. He’s well on his way to entrapped.”

“That’s too bad,” Letty said before she could think to guard her disappointment.

Billie handed Letty a drink and regarded her over the rim of her own. “Why the long face, doll? Aren’t you coming from some fabulous party or other?”

Letty colored and averted her eyes. “I’m fine, really, just a little tired. There
have
been a lot of parties. But this is a nice one, isn’t it? So many people came, and Astrid invited them only yesterday…”

“Yes, well, you know how infectious Astrid can be. When she gets a notion to do something gay, she’s like a magnet: No one can stay away.”

“Who are all those boys?” Letty jutted her head in the direction of the small crowd that surrounded Astrid.

“White Cove boys, some of them home from school for the summer. That tall blond with the pink face is Beau Ridley, the senator’s son.
Never
turns down an invitation to a party—complete and utter boor. He’s famous for his practical jokes, or at least he’d like to think he is. Have you heard the one about him bribing a hansom driver to lend him his horse, and then a bellhop at the Ritz to let him take it up the service elevator? A lot of broken glass that night, and naturally his father had to pay through the nose to keep it all hush-hush. But Astrid enjoys those sorts of antics, I suppose.” Billie rolled her eyes and sniffed her julep. “The other four are all the same story but with different names.”

The corners of Letty’s mouth curled up, and she felt a little braver just knowing that Billie was her friend. “Where’s Charlie?”

“Up at the house, I gather. Everyone is on high alert today, it seems.” She tilted her head in the direction of the bodyguard on the edge of the tent, the one named Victor with the slender frame and the prominent nose. “Plus when he was down here before, Astrid kept avoiding him, and I think he got a little sick of it.”

“And Cordelia?”

“She went on one of her moody walks. That business with the Darby fellow has got her down, I think, though she’s not really talking about it.”

“Well,” Letty said with a sigh, “it’s good to see you, anyway.”

“Drink up, dolly.” Billie raised her class to clink it against Letty’s. “Then you’ll tell me what ails you.”

For a few minutes they stood by the table quietly observing the twenty or so well-heeled young people mingling in the shade. Then Astrid caught sight of the newest arrival and called out to her. “Letty, darling, when did you get here? How I’ve missed you—come
here!
”

A yellow sheaf of Astrid’s hair had fallen over one eye, and her hand was extended demandingly toward her friend. Letty paused and glanced at Billie, but Billie only nodded, encouraging Letty to go mingle. Taking a few steps forward, Astrid grabbed her hand and pulled her in.

“Boys, this is Letty Larkspur, who was maid of honor at my wedding! Letty, these are the boys. Don’t bother learning their names. They all dress the same anyway, so it’s impossible to know which name goes with which face.”

All the boys laughed loudly at this, as though a putdown from a girl like Astrid was a kind of honor, and then they all started asking Letty questions about herself in their funny, fancy accents. After that the party continued to go around like a carousel. The heat mellowed, and the sun got big as it sank toward the horizon. Just as Beau Ridley, or one of his look-alikes, was asking if he could get her another julep, Letty spotted Cordelia sitting a ways off from the party, on slightly higher ground, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Yes, thank you.” Letty waited until the fellow had gone off to the table, and then she walked out from under the tent toward her friend.

“You looked like you were having a good time.” Cordelia’s hair was down and didn’t appear to have been brushed that day; it streamed over her shoulders and over her sleeveless midnight-blue chiffon dress.

Letty sat down next to Cordelia. “Nice to have my mind off things,” she replied after a time.

“What things? You were so excited when you left for the city.”

“Yes.” Down at the party the music had grown louder and faster, and Beau Ridley had arrived at the edge of the tent. He was standing there with a julep in his hand and confusion on his face. “I am still. Only…they’re so different from the people where we’re from.” A sigh worked its way through Letty’s whole top half. Meanwhile, Astrid had come alongside Beau and was saying something to him through coy, twisted-up lips. With a little laugh, she removed the julep from his hand and shook her head at whatever he was saying. Then she grabbed for Billie and lit out across the lawn with her stepsister in tow. “They’re just awfully sophisticated, is all.”

“What are you two talking about?” Astrid demanded gaily as she approached.

“How sophisticated the Valentine O’Dells are!” Cordelia called out. “Seems all that sophistication has gotten Letty down.”

“Well, they can’t be more sophisticated than
we
are.” Astrid shot Billie a glance as though for confirmation.

“Can’t be,” Billie affirmed as she sprawled on the grass before Letty and Cordelia.

“And you like
us
fine!” Astrid handed Letty the julep and, oblivious to the possibility of grass stains, arranged her white poplin skirt over her long legs.

“But none of you are quite so confusing,” Letty protested shyly as she sipped her drink. “I feel like I
should
be Sophia’s friend. My whole life I’ve wanted to be just like her! But now that I see how she really is, I wonder…”

“Is she acting better than you?” Cordelia demanded. “Because if she’s acting better than you…”

“That’s not it.” Letty shook her head. “I saw her…and this big important fellow Jack Montrose…and they…”

Astrid gasped dramatically. “
No!
”

“And meanwhile, Valentine is so good and kind, and he seems to have no idea…” As soon as she said the name Valentine, her eyelids got heavy and color burst on her cheekbones.

“Oh, dear.” Billie’s wry smile cracked open one side of her face. “So Sophia is cheating, and Valentine is giving you swoony eyes?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly…”

“He’s an actor; he
wants
you to love him,” Billie went on, ignoring Letty’s demure vagueness.

“You’re worried because a married man is flirting with you?” Astrid laughed and leaned back on her lean arms. “You’re there to meet movie people, darling, not for moral instruction! Let the O’Dells take you to their parties, and so
what
about the flirting? Sounds like Sophia is making eyes, or worse, with plenty of fellows. Show business folks are used to following different rules, you know.”

“All you have to do is remember that you’re there because you can sing better than any of them,” Cordelia put in.

“Yes, and if they don’t get you in pictures, they’ll introduce you to someone who will.”

“So keep your chin up and laugh it off and down the hatch and et cetera, all right?”

“All right.” Letty shook her drink so that the ice rattled against the glass. “Now it’s Cordelia’s turn.”

“Oh, no.” Astrid reached for Letty’s glass and took a long sip of the julep. “None of that! What’s got Cord so gloomy is what’s happened to Max, and there’s nothing to say about it till she sees him again.”

“But—” Letty began to protest.

“She’s right.” Cordelia inhaled significantly and shook her hair off her shoulders. “There’s nothing to do till I see him. And maybe that’s just what I’ll do. Only let’s sit like this for another hour or so first, can we?”

“Yes,” said the other three at once. So they went on sitting on the rise and watched the guests under the tent as the blue sky ripened in the afternoon. They laughed about what had been said already that afternoon, and what might happen yet, and were happy to leave challenging things until later, when the sun went down and the air wasn’t quite so thick.

Charlie had been adamant that neither Cordelia nor Astrid was to leave Dogwood, even with bodyguards, so when the party started breaking up, Cordelia asked Grady for a ride to the Old Oyster Town filling station and ducked in the backseat while they went through the gates. With the events of the last few days, she had forgotten about leaving the Marmon there. But once she’d waved to the old man in the office and was steering the coupé in the direction of Manhattan, she realized that she could not have planned her escape better. The leather seats were hot from the day, and the sky was tinged lavender. She rested her elbow on the window and felt the breeze in her hair as she went over the Queensborough Bridge. When Max came out of the church on 145th Street, he had no trouble spotting her. She was leaning against the hood of the car, and she was the only white girl on the block.