Vixen

by Jillian Larkin

  “In that case, there’s no dry listening allowed at my bar.” He tapped the bar like a drum. “What’ll it be?”

  “Um, how ’bout a …” Gloria hesitated. What did a proper flapper ask for in a bar? She was used to ordering a cream soda at the movies. Besides, hadn’t that one accidental drink been enough? “I just came here for the music.”

  “That right?” He mopped at the bar with a rag. “If you enjoy the music so much, tell me the name of that singer, and your drink is on the house.”

  Gloria’s stomach churned. After the eyelock she’d had with the pianist, she couldn’t bring herself to glance at the stage again, though she could hear the sharply struck notes from the piano rising above the clamor of the crowd.

  “I’m Leif, by the way. But everyone calls me … Leif,” he said, raising his chin.

  Gloria forced a little laugh.

  “How come I don’t recognize you?”

  “Because,” she confessed, “it’s my first time here.”

  “A virgin!”

  “No! I said it’s my first time here.”

  “Right. A virgin.”

  “Just because I’m new doesn’t mean I’m a virgin!” she said, raising her voice as the blasting music came to a sudden halt.

  A roar of laughter rose from the crowd. Gloria felt her face grow hot. Would people notice if she crawled underneath the bar stool? She couldn’t have felt more humiliated.

  “You just earned yourself that free drink,” Leif said, chuckling. “Though you should know, for next time, that her name is Carmen Diablo. And her accompanist is the best piano player this side of the Mississippi: Jerome Johnson. They say he’s the next Jelly Roll Morton.”

  “Jerome Johnson,” she repeated to herself. “I knew that.”

  “Sure you did. So, what’ll it be?”

  “She’ll have a dirty martini.” The voice, filled with cigar smoke and Southern privilege, came from behind her. She turned. He was startlingly handsome, with slick salt-and-pepper hair and eager eyes.

  “So confident for a man who knows nothing of my taste,” she said, keeping her eyes glued to Leif as he shook her martini. After a minute, he strained the liquid from the shaker into a mug, added a spear of olives, and slid it across the bar.

  As she picked up her drink, Gloria caught the man glaring strangely at her hand. “Would you like the first sip?” she asked, thinking maybe that was polite in speakeasies.

  He frowned. “I think that privilege has been reserved for somebody else.”

  Then she caught the focus of his gaze and felt the blood drain from her cheeks. On her left hand sat an enormous diamond and platinum engagement ring. She had forgotten she was wearing it! But even worse, she had forgotten she was engaged. And if her fiancé, Sebastian Grey III, saw her now, the engagement would be called off. Immediately.

  Bastian.

  Gloria took a huge gulp of her martini, wincing as the strong, salty liquid slid down her throat. Getting sloshed wouldn’t change the fact that Bastian was a proclaimed leader of the Prohibition’s “Dry Camp.” Or that he condemned speakeasies and all they represented: flappers (“floozies”), bootleg liquor (“Satan’s H2O”), black jazz (“voodoo tom-tom witchery”), and yes, barney-mugging (well, Gloria and Bastian avoided this topic altogether).

  Of course, none of this had really mattered before tonight. She had always overlooked Bastian’s conservative values because he was at the top of the “B List”—the unofficial ranking of Chicago’s most eligible bachelors. (The formula was high-level calculus. Among the variables were x = wealth, y = industry, a = estates, b = family, c = swooniness, d = education, and q = size of his [ego, trust fund, etc.].) Bastian was also a blue-blooded import from the British royal family (how distant in relation, nobody really knew), and therefore about as close as one could get to Chicago aristocracy.

  But, Gloria rationalized, she had six months before her diamond turned from promise to vow. She twisted off her ring and slipped it into her purse with an uncomfortable laugh.

  Salt-and-Pepper gave her newly bare hand a squeeze. “I know what’ll look better between those little fingers of yours.” From the inside of his suit coat, he retrieved a silver cigarette case, which he flipped open like a traveling salesman.

  She was actually starting to enjoy this new role—alluring flapper—so why stop now? “Butt me,” Gloria said as he planted a cigarette between her lips, torching the end with a sleek silver lighter. She inhaled deeply. Her throat burned and she coughed uncontrollably.

  “Whoa, easy does it there,” he said, gently patting her back. “Cough any louder and your fiancé will hear you.” Gloria smiled weakly. “You know what they call a woman who smokes?”

  “A (cough) hussy?”

  “I was going to say a smoke-eater. It’s nicer.”

  “What if I’m (cough) not such a nice (cough) girl (cough cough)?”

  “You can’t fool me. You’re the nicest tomato in this joint. Cash or check?”

  Her head felt filled with smoke. Which one meant now and which meant later? “Cash?”

  He pecked her on the cheek and disappeared into the crowd. Gloria pretended to smoke her cigarette as she surveyed the room. Scantily clad girls chatted with men in every corner, exchanging witty repartee over drinks, over song, over nothing. The Flapper Way was all about style, the way a hand moved or a chin was thrown back in laughter or a girl sipped a drink with a dark smile and a sidelong glance at her date. It was about peering into someone else’s eyes and letting the hot jazz say what words did not. Could not.

  Gloria left her drink and drifted toward a dark corner, trying to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. She wished she could find Marcus. She wished she could crawl into her own bed—

  Wait. What was wrong with her? This should have been the best night of her life—she had consumed illegal drinks in a notorious speakeasy! Flirted with a highly unsuitable man! Smoked! (Well, sort of.) But still she couldn’t shake the feeling of being an outsider. She would be shunned by her parents and Bastian if they found out, and yet she had also been shunned by Maude and the very flapper girls she so desperately wanted to be like. If only her best friend, Lorraine, were here—she would know exactly what to do and how to act.

  Suddenly, Gloria felt a wave of body heat beside her. She didn’t dare turn around, but she didn’t need to. Somehow, she knew exactly who it was.

  Holding a cigarette were those same strong, dark fingers that had darted out to sting the piano keys. Up close, he smelled of sweet tobacco and Brilliantine. How she wanted to take those hands, press them into her cheeks, and …

  What had gotten into her? This was a strange man she was thinking about. A black man. She was white; she was engaged; she was—

  “Why weren’t you dancing?”

  She was startled by his earthy, rich baritone voice. “What?”

  “My music not good enough for you to dance to?”

  “No! I mean, your music is”—her heart was beating so loudly, pulsing through her entire body, that she wondered if he could feel it in the sliver of space that separated them. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  As she met his soulful eyes, she wanted to—needed to—say something else (only what?), but the sudden impact of a heavy hand on her back sent her wheeling around.

  “Glo, where the heck have you been? I’ve been searching all over for you!”

  “Marcus?”

  He examined her critically as if he hadn’t seen her in years. “Are you sozzled?”

  Before she had a chance to turn around again, Gloria knew Jerome Johnson was gone. Back into his underground world of blues and booze, leaving her to face the only person in that room who knew who Gloria really was: president of the Honor Society, varsity tennis player, debutante daughter of Beatrice and Lowell Carmody. Good-girl, private-school-virginal, soon-to-be-married Gloria Carmody.

  “I’m ready to go home,” she muttered, pulling Marcus in the direction of the door.


  “What happened to you?” he asked. “You seem … different.”

  “Oh, please, you left me for something like five minutes.” But truthfully, she knew it might as well have been a lifetime. Something was different about her, something terrifying and transcendent, but she couldn’t say what.

  As they made their way across the dance floor, she spotted him again out of the corner of her eye. Jerome. He was at the edge of the stage, his arm around the waist of a gorgeous black girl in what looked like a silver negligee. They were laughing, and the girl enthusiastically planted a kiss on his cheek.

  Gloria couldn’t bear to watch for another second. She pushed her way through the hordes of flappers and waiters, past the booths of gangsters, past Leif at the bar, past the goon at the door, who smirked as though amused. She tumbled outside and inhaled hungrily, filling her lungs with the crisp autumn air.

  But even as she climbed the steps back to the street, the faint cascade of the first notes followed—“All Alone,” a tune Gloria knew well. She found herself humming along as Marcus draped her coat over her shoulders. The melancholy music warmed the night air, and she could tell that something had begun to shift inside her, something unstoppable. Her life felt brighter now, more valuable than before. Even the piano seemed to be playing just for her.

  CLARA

  Clara had been staring covetously at the same outfit on page forty-six of Vogue for the past ten minutes. (Jeanne Lanvin Robe de Style, black silk taffeta tier, peacock tail embroidery.) Not as if this dress—or anything revealing that much leg—was something she’d be wearing once her train pulled into Chicago Union Station. Which was exactly why she was trying to mastermind a plan to sneak onto one bound for New York City instead. No matter that her ticket was one-way—no refund, no exchange—or that she didn’t have enough cash to make the transfer legally …

  Legal had never stopped her before. In fact, legality had always been the last thing on her mind—until she ended up in jail back in Manhattan. But she’d been bailed out, so really, what was one more time?

  No. She had to look on the bright side: At least she had gotten out of staying in Pennsylvania with her parents (which was a different sort of jail). They were the reason she’d run away to New York City in the first place, during her senior year of high school—to leave behind everything she’d known: her family, her worthless high school diploma, her “good Christian” values. She couldn’t bear living in a place where the girls got excited about the prospect of a church mixer, after pledging their chastity and swapping pie recipes.

  The month she’d spent back in Pennsylvania—after her parents found her and dragged her, by her triple strand of pearls, back to their farm—had been the worst of her life. She could barely get out of bed in the morning, let alone put on lipstick. It wasn’t that she cared so much about being ridiculed and ostracized in town; more that she couldn’t face the idea of defeat.

  So when her parents proposed she stay with her aunt Beatrice in Chicago to help plan her cousin’s wedding, she agreed.

  Now Clara gazed out the window at a nauseating stretch of cornfields whizzing by. The only noteworthy sight for miles had been one sweaty, muscular farm boy, his tanned arms bulging as he thrust his hoe into the field. He’d been pretty, but probably as dumb as the soil he worked. To think that only a month before, she would have looked out of her Bank Street apartment window to find well-dressed businessmen hailing taxis with their leather briefcases while bohemians lounged on the stoops, debating the artistic fad of the moment and chain-smoking.

  What were her roommates, Leelee and Coco, doing this very minute? The girls would probably be meeting up for a lunch break in Washington Square Park, Clara imagined, sitting outside and gossiping about last night’s dates and parties and adventures. Clara couldn’t bear it: The intoxicating, madcap swirl of urban life would continue, with or without her. Even though she knew, deep down, that a break from the city was probably for the best. After all, that year had nearly ruined her.

  What she would do for a smoke right now. Kill, she thought. She took out her case: one cigarette left and two hours to go. The train ride from hell. At least she had her flask of gin, securely tucked into her favorite red garter. She’d have to drink it in the bathroom; unchaperoned young ladies getting tanked on trains was frowned upon. Mostly because it was illegal.

  Clara rose and made her way up the aisle. Most of the seats were filled by chubby businessmen absorbed in their Wall Street Journals. But then, a gift from heaven, Seat D20: an absolutely striking young man, with strong features, dark eyes, and dangerous-looking lips. He was reading the paper. She slowed her pace and sent a smoldering stare intended to burn a hole through his sports section. But he didn’t so much as glance up. Ugh, men! They were so naïve.

  “Whoops!” she exclaimed, stumbling and chucking her cigarette directly under his seat. As she bent to pick it up, she squeezed her arms together slightly to amp up her cleavage. Crouching at his feet, Clara looked up at him. He was even more gorgeous from this angle. “It seems as though my cigarette has fallen underneath your seat. Would you mind terribly retrieving it for me?”

  “I don’t mind retrieving it for you,” he said, bending down so that his face hovered mere inches from hers. “But I do mind you putting something that filthy in your mouth.”

  “It was my last one, so I have no other choice.”

  “You must want it badly, then.”

  “Unless, of course, you have something better to offer me?”

  He pulled her up from the floor. “I hope you like it unfiltered.”

  They walked down the cramped aisle toward the next car. Clara paused at the door so that they were pressing against each other for lack of space. As he flashed her a knowing grin, the cleft in his chin suddenly reminded her of someone else.

  Him. The boy she’d left back in New York. The one she had so surely (and tragically) fallen for. The one who was responsible for—

  “I’m glad we agree there’s only one way to make a cigarette truly worthwhile,” Seat D20 whispered into her ear, his hand reaching up toward her blouse. Clara intercepted it just as the train went over a large bump. He stumbled backward. “I shoulda known you were the type of girl who likes to play rough,” he quipped, approaching her again.

  A wave of disgust rose through Clara’s body. Back in Manhattan, she never would have shied away from being naughty with a handsome stranger. But that was then. Now she needed a break from her old life. From boys, those disgusting, horrid little creatures who had the ability to toss her heart in the air and then smash it into the ground. Now D20 seemed repulsive. She didn’t even know him. Or was it herself she didn’t know?

  “I guess I’m not the type of girl you thought I was,” she said. Then she slid out of his grasp and walked away.

  Clara stood in the middle of the foyer with two suitcases and an open mouth. She hadn’t visited the Carmody estate since she’d been a little girl—she didn’t remember it being this palatial. She could fit her entire Greenwich Village block inside this mansion and there would still be room left over.

  As she waited for her aunt to come downstairs, she walked along the wall, checking out a series of boring portraits that ended in a large gilded mirror. Clara caught a glimpse of herself and winced. Her face was a bare canvas: no kohl around her eyes, no scarlet lips, no fake fringe of lashes. Her blue-gray eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, with a smudge of bruised purple beneath each of them. Her honey-blond hair hung thin and dull, blending into her complexion, which was the wrong kind of pale—not Botticelli porcelain, but pasty and sallow. She hadn’t realized how hard this past month had hit her.

  Anger surged in her throat, and she quickly averted her eyes. Her ex-boyfriend—if she could even call him that—was probably off laughing over drinks at the Waldorf, not giving Clara a second thought. And here she was, shipped off and baggy-eyed and still thinking about him. This needed to stop. Now.

  “Clara, dear, is that you?” Her aunt was
at the top landing of the grand staircase. What was she wearing? She looked as if she’d been swallowed by a beast made entirely of dark ruffled crinoline.

  “Aunt Bea, hi,” Clara said in her sweetest tone. “It’s so good to see you!”

  Aunt Bea swept down and gave her a chaste tap of a hug. As she pulled away, her eyes carefully scanned Clara’s face. “Why, my dear, I barely recognize you. What a … woman you’ve become.”

  “I’m only a year older than Gloria.”

  “And yet, interestingly enough, she’s the one getting married,” her aunt replied. It was a barb intended to sting, Clara was sure of that. “You must be exhausted after your long journey. Claudine, Gloria’s maid, will unpack your luggage for you and—”

  “No! I’ll unpack it!” Clara practically shouted. She didn’t know what would be worse: the maid finding the bottle of gin or her diaphragm. Not as if she planned on using the latter. “I mean, I would prefer to do it myself,” she said.

  “Of course.” Her aunt raised a suspicious eyebrow. Clara guessed her parents had told Aunt Bea almost everything, but she wasn’t entirely sure. “Why don’t we have some tea while we wait for Gloria to come home? It’s the perfect opportunity for us to get reacquainted.”

  Her aunt led her down an endless hallway into a mahogany-paneled drawing room. A table was set with an elaborate spread of tea, coffee, pastries, and a variety of finger sandwiches, with a maid waiting to serve them. Her aunt, uncle, and cousin were New Money, that much Clara knew. And New Money, as opposed to those who had been rich for decades, had a tendency to put everything—including themselves—on display.

  Her aunt beckoned for Clara to sit beside her. “Tonight I will be hosting a small dinner party for Gloria’s fiancé.”

  “Oh yes, I’m excited to finally meet him,” Clara said. “Since I’m here to help plan their wedding, of course.”