Vixen

by Jillian Larkin

  Clara shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, tapping her hands against her thighs to the beat of the song.

  “You definitely didn’t have half as much fun on your date tonight as you would have had with me.”

  Clara playfully knocked her knees into Marcus’s. “And what if I did?”

  “Impossible,” Marcus said. “I want to hear exactly what happened. Step by step, blow by blow.”

  “I can’t. It really was … indescribable.”

  “Fine, I’ll describe it for you,” he insisted. “He arrived fifteen minutes early, smelling of his mother’s rose water.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Try again.”

  “Fine, his grandmother’s. Because he has a fetish for the way Gran smells and thought that was a good way to impress you.”

  She played along. “It was strong. I had to roll down the window.”

  “And he was wearing a tweed blazer. The first red flag for a bad date.”

  “The rose water was the first red flag.”

  “Oh, but you’d snuck a cigarette earlier, and you didn’t smell that until you got into the closed cabin of the car. And almost choked to death.”

  Clara held her hands up. “Guilty as charged.”

  “He drove like his grandmother, too. In fact, it was his grandmother’s car—a wheezy old Model T that she’s driven only on Sundays to get to church and back.”

  “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me. God forbid I should ever be caught dead in one of those.” Clara laughed and remembered how good it felt just to do that. “Besides, I have proof: I came home in a taxi.”

  “The taxi became necessary when the old tin lizzie broke down along the lakefront.”

  “Oh no,” Clara dismissed. “I don’t do lakefronts.”

  “I should hope not: Lakefront parking is so beneath you. But he wanted to get you alone in the struggle buggy—”

  “I’m not a backseat kind of girl, Marcus.”

  He looked offended. “You don’t need to tell me. Who necks in a car anymore? Not I, certainly.”

  “Why, Marcus, do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

  “Don’t insult me.” He stood, dropped his spoon, and said, “Come on, let’s dance.”

  “Here?” she asked hesitantly, looking around as if someone might be watching. Someone might be. But it wasn’t that. No, it was that she knew herself all too well. Being in the strong arms of this boy was begging for trouble. “I’m too worn out.”

  “Don’t be such a Goody Two-shoes. Come on!” He pulled her up to her feet just as “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” came on.

  How ironic, Clara thought, and was about to protest when his hands met her hips. She tensed up, her arms stiffening. “Marcus, I don’t know if this is—”

  “Shhhh,” he said, taking her hands and placing them around his neck. “Just relax.”

  Clara had never danced like this before, with anyone. At the jazz clubs and parties of New York, it was never about the dance itself but about how many men you could dance with in one night, flinging yourself from one pair of arms to the next. It was sweaty, out-of-breath, heel-clacking dancing. Comparatively, this was not dancing at all: This was being held.

  And for a moment, leaning against Marcus’s broad shoulder, Clara felt protected. Nothing from her past could harm her—no notes, no threats—while they were moving, together, to the tender longing of Marion Harris’s voice and the synchronized rhythm of their breathing.

  His face moved closer to her neck until she could feel his breath in her ear. “What if I were jealous?” he whispered, breaking the silence between them.

  The song had ended, and the record player emitted a soft pop every few seconds, barely audible in the calming patter of the now lighter rain against the windowpanes.

  Clara didn’t know what to say. If Marcus was jealous, she didn’t want to encourage it. Or maybe it was just a line that a playboy would easily pull out of his hat. She slid from his embrace.

  “I’m serious, Clara. I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said, his eyes darkening. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. You’ve had a hundred girlfriends, from what I’ve heard—”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.” Marcus paced the room for a quick second before turning back to her with sudden urgency. “And besides, I’m telling you how I feel about you now. The past isn’t important.”

  “Do you really believe that?” It was nice to think the past didn’t matter.

  “I believe in clean slates,” he said with conviction. “And I believe in being honest about my feelings.”

  “I appreciate your honesty, but—”

  “I don’t want your appreciation, Clara. I want you to tell me how you feel.”

  She searched his pleading blue eyes for some flicker of insincerity, but they were unblinking. She didn’t want to hurt him. But she didn’t want to get hurt, either. Her wounds had yet to be stitched up; they marked her heart like unraveled dress seams. “I don’t know,” she said finally, shaking her head.

  “That’s bushwa, you do know,” Marcus said. “Why do I feel as if you’re lying to me?”

  “I’m not,” Clara said weakly, but it came out sounding like a lie. So many lies, she thought. When will they stop? “It’s just too complicated. You’re Gloria’s best friend, and Lorraine likes you—”

  “Forget about Lorraine. I like you, Clara. I’m smitten by you.”

  He touched her cheek then, and Clara leaned into his palm. She wanted so much to lose herself in his embrace—

  But she couldn’t. He doesn’t like me. He likes Country Clara.

  “You have to stop thinking about me like that, Marcus. For your own good.” Though she knew it was exactly the opposite. She wasn’t a man-eater anymore; she was afraid. She went to the door, opened it, and gestured for him to leave. “I’ll only cause you trouble.”

  He walked to her. Clara thought for a second that he was going to kiss her. But he stopped mere inches before her. “You already have.”

  A few minutes later, Clara heard Marcus’s car start up in the drive. She felt her heart tighten in her chest like a fist.

  As she was mindlessly rolling down her stockings, one got caught on her topaz cocktail ring and tore right down the front. Heat pounded through her temples. She took both stockings in her hands and tore them savagely.

  But she wasn’t finished. Nothing could stop this wild animal rage.

  Clara dumped the contents of her dresser out onto the floor: brassieres, scanties, satin tap shorts, stockings, garters, silk teddies—everything went flying, including three pieces of cream-colored paper. She picked them up, shredding the first, then the second, until they fell like scattered snowflakes across the pink carpet. If it hadn’t been for him, for his false promises and false hopes, she could have kissed Marcus, she could have been open to his affection.

  But her heart had been locked up, and he had kept the key.

  She was about to rip the last of the notes when she stopped: The photograph of her in New York fluttered to the floor.

  Out of breath, she picked it up. The last remnant, the only artifact of her previous life. Evidence of the only time when she had ever been truly happy, when life had been without beginnings or endings.

  She slipped it safely inside a pair of lacy red panties. She used to wear them beneath her favorite sheer red dress, which she had left behind in New York. She folded the underthings up, placed them back in the bottom of the drawer, and slid the drawer back into the dresser.

  She slowly swept the cream-colored scraps of paper into her cupped palm. Gathered in her hand, they were no more than flimsy fragments of fractured words—found, I, you, inside. She took them into the bathroom and dropped the scraps into the toilet.

  And then she flushed them away.

  LORRAINE

  Heart-to-hearts were not Lorraine’s thing.

  But that was why she figured Glor
ia had called, asking to come over, on a Saturday morning. Which, in theory, should have thrilled Lorraine: Hadn’t she been wanting her best friend back, or at least the opportunity to confront Gloria about all the secrets she’d been keeping?

  Of course, that had all been before Lorraine had kissed Bastian.

  Just admitting she’d done such a thing was difficult enough. Especially because her memory of the visit was so hazy. This was what she remembered: a sofa, a hand on her knee, a scratchy face against her cheek. Then that holy moment when their lips hovered on the brink of meeting.

  But their clothes had remained on, so nothing besides a kiss had really happened. And now that Gloria was coming over, Lorraine had to decide: to tell, or not to tell? But aside from the fact that Gloria was marrying a man who would potentially cheat on her, how would Lorraine explain her presence in Bastian’s penthouse? Gloria would not forgive her.

  This would throw their friendship over the edge of a cliff. But Lorraine had known Gloria since they were eight years old! Surely Gloria would feel more allegiance to her oldest friend than to some guy—even if he was her fiancé.

  Lorraine made up her mind: She needed to confess and be absolved.

  When the doorbell rang through the bright halls of the empty house, Lorraine ran downstairs to the foyer, calling out, “I’ll get it, Marguerite!” If Lorraine wanted to shout, she could: It was only her and the servants in the house this weekend.

  Lorraine nervously opened the front door with a bright grin. “Good morning!” she said, about to give Gloria a kiss on the cheek.

  Then she took in Gloria’s pale, sleep-deprived face. Her sea-glass eyes were dulled, with puffy purple smudges beneath. Even her skin was pasty, her burnt-orange hair almost dirty. “Glo, you look positively—”

  “Ruined!” Gloria cried out, her lower lip trembling.

  “I was going to say tired.” Then the crying began. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey there, waterworks!”

  “I don’t know what to do!” Gloria wailed, the tears streaming out of her eyes and all over Lorraine’s silver silk kimono. “I’ve made a mess of everything!”

  “That’s impossible. The Gloria Carmody I know couldn’t make a mess if she tried.” Lorraine ushered her inside. Lorraine never really noticed how empty the house was until someone like Gloria showed up. Ever since her sister, Evelyn, had gone off to Bryn Mawr last year, the house had felt too big and too cold. “You are going to tell me everything, but first let me get you some coffee. How does that sound?”

  “Sure,” Gloria said with a sniffle, wiping her nose on her celery-colored sleeve.

  “Go sit in the sunroom. I’ll be back in a second.”

  In the vast kitchen, Lorraine instructed Marguerite, the head housemaid, to make a strong pot of coffee and to slice two pieces of that lemon meringue pie with the graham cracker crust. Lorraine was on a faddish Hollywood eighteen-day diet, but nothing calmed a girl like comfort food, so she figured she could depart from the diet for the fourth day in a row to help Gloria in her time of need.

  What a lucky break!

  Now Lorraine could prove that she was the devoted best friend, provide a shoulder to cry on, and shower Gloria with unconditional love and attention. That way, when the time came for Lorraine to confess her own mess, Gloria would be quick to side with her.

  She found Gloria where she had sent her, sitting droopily on a chintz-cushioned bench in the solarium. It was a pretty room, all glass walls and wrought-iron benches and great big leafy things that Lorraine had tried and failed to learn the names of—a tree was a bush was a plant, as far as her brain was concerned.

  Marguerite followed her in with the tray of coffee and pie and placed it on the table in front of the girls.

  “Mmm, I feel better already,” Gloria said, surveying the pie. She seemed calmer, though the crying had left her cheeks blotchy.

  Lorraine handed her a fork. “Now spill.”

  “Whatever I am about to tell you, promise not to judge me?” Gloria said, scraping up a dollop of meringue.

  “Consider this the no-judgment solarium.”

  “Keep in mind, I didn’t keep this from you because I don’t trust you—of course I do! You’re my best friend. I guess it was just”—Gloria let out a deep sigh—“if no one else knew, it was as if it weren’t really happening.”

  Gloria then launched into a minor epic about the Green Mill and Jerome Johnson. The story had all the makings of a racy romance, but it ended up much tamer than Lorraine had imagined. Or, to be perfectly frank, had hoped.

  “Glo, you can tell me,” Lorraine said, licking her fork. “What is really going on between you and Jerome? It’s a little hard for me to believe he just gave you this job.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The man has piano hands, Glo,” Lorraine insisted.

  Gloria slouched down on the cushioned bench, squeezing a pillow against her chest. “Okay, so he’s touched me—”

  “I knew it!”

  “But in a completely professional way.”

  “Say no more!” Lorraine exclaimed, tucking her knees beneath her on the bench and bouncing a little. “I mean, do say more. Say everything.”

  Gloria poked her. “Raine, I’m being serious. It’s not like that. He’s tough with me—sometimes a little too tough.”

  “That’s an obvious indication that he likes you. Men who don’t know how to deal with their feelings channel them into meanness,” Lorraine explained, thinking of how Marcus behaved toward her. “No matter how old or mature they may be.”

  “But can I tell you something daring?”

  “More daring than the fact that Jerome is black?” Lorraine said, breaking off a piece of the thick pie crust.

  Gloria blushed. “Lorraine!”

  “Well, someone had to say it!” Was Gloria really going to ignore the biggest issue of all? “I’m not blind, you know. What would your mother say if she ever found out?”

  “Nothing, because she never will,” Gloria said, kneading her hands. “I know it makes absolutely no sense, but I’m really attracted to him. I can’t help it. In a way I’ve never felt about Bastian.”

  The inevitable mention of Bastian made Lorraine squirm. “Not even in the beginning?”

  “No. There was never the same spark, I guess you could say.” Gloria frowned. “Not like the one I feel when I’m around Jerome.”

  Lorraine had felt a spark from Bastian. Their kiss had been electric. She picked up her coffee and gulped it down. “Ow!” she cried as the liquid scalded her throat. She wagged her burned tongue. “For crying out loud!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I always tell Marguerite not to make it très … hot! Why is it so hard to follow the rules? I mean, instructions.” Lorraine daintily set the cup down, trying to regain her composure. “I’m sorry—continue. Bastian. I thought you were so in love with him. All those times you called me, after your dates. And coming into homeroom starry-eyed …?”

  Gloria looked down at her empty hands. “I was in love with the idea of him—with the whole checklist. Not actually him. But really, it was an arranged marriage from the start—he never loved me, even when I thought he did.”

  Lorraine narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m just a business deal he signed off on, Raine. A deal he made with my parents! They’re getting divorced, and my mother thinks it will save our name, or some hokum like that—”

  “Back up: Since when are your parents divorcing?”

  “Since my father had an affair.” Gloria stabbed her fork into the pie. “I swear to God, if Bastian ever touched another girl, I would get a gun and shoot him dead. And the girl, too.”

  Lorraine winced. “But, Gloria, you aren’t exactly the picture of fidelity, fantasizing about a black musician—”

  “Fantasizing and doing are two different things, Raine. I thought my father was a decent man. I thought Bastian was a decent man. But now I’m not so sure.”

&n
bsp; This was Lorraine’s big moment—it was now or never. Gloria had to know the truth. If she had already turned against Bastian, wouldn’t knowledge of the kiss (described, of course, to make Lorraine look like the victim of his forceful advances) only confirm these suspicions?

  “If that’s the case, then you should know something,” Lorraine began slowly, picking at her cuticles. “This is hard for me to tell you, because the last thing I want to do is sound jealous.”

  “Jealous of which—the arranged marriage or the black musician?”

  “Jealous of—of—” The confession was on the tip of Lorraine’s tongue.

  But she knew that girls were like elephants when it came to men: They never forgot. If Gloria went through with the marriage, every time she kissed Bastian, she would automatically think of Lorraine—and she would never trust her again. So Lorraine might as well say au revoir to their friendship—now, when it was getting back to what it once had been and always should be: the two of them curled up on the cushions together, taking turns at baring their souls.

  No. She wanted Gloria back. Best friends before boy-friends. Always.

  “Jealous of none of the above!” Lorraine announced. “I’ve just been feeling left out, Glo, as if you’ve been deliberately excluding me from your life. The Green Mill with Marcus was one thing—”

  Gloria’s brow furrowed. “Oh, God, that was the beginning of the end.”

  Lorraine needed to lay on the guilt. “You know I would have never let this happen to you had you not hidden it from me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Raine—”

  “Because you know I’ve never hidden anything from you.”

  “I know you haven’t,” Gloria said. “I really am so sorry. I shut you out when I needed you—but now I need you more than ever. I have no one else.”

  “So now I have to ask the difficult question.” Lorraine eyed Gloria’s mammoth diamond. “What have you decided to do?”

  Gloria fell back against the cushions. “I don’t think I have a decision to make. I’ll be Mrs. Grey before I know it, whether I like it or not.”

  If Gloria meant to go through with that loveless marriage, Lorraine certainly wasn’t about to stop her. She’d have her best friend back for good. “You and I both know that’s the wisest choice, at the end of the day.”