Diva

by Jillian Larkin

  Clara smiled at Lorraine and looked back at the woman: Marguerite, her name tag said. “My best friend, Julia, here is about to get married!” Clara exclaimed. “It’s so exciting.”

  “And Becky here is going to be my maid of honor, of course,” Lorraine said, looping her arm through Clara’s. “We’d love to try on a few dresses.”

  Marguerite’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t have an appointment.”

  “I know,” Lorraine said. “But I saw these beautiful dresses through the window and I just couldn’t resist! My fiancé, Renaldo, would just die if he saw me in one of these lovely creations. I mean, of course, he wouldn’t really die—he’s got to stick around for the honeymoon! We’re going to Paris, you know, and—”

  Marguerite stared at Lorraine’s hand. “Where’s your engagement ring?”

  Lorraine raised her eyebrows and seemed lost for words, but only for about half a second. “Where’s yours, you old maid!” She began to pace in front of the desk. “Do you have any idea who my father is? Clar—uh, I mean, Becky, can you believe the way she’s treating us? Why, if my father knew you were being so rude, he’d buy this place right out from under you and you’d never work in this town again! He’d turn this shop into storage for his golf clubs, he’d—”

  Clara left Lorraine to her tirade and wandered farther into the store, past more racks of dresses, and peered through a doorway into a circular room with multiple full-length mirrors. Sweet little lavender couches to match the walls were gathered around a platform where Anastasia now stood.

  Marcus’s fiancée was even more beautiful in person than in her engagement photo. Her auburn bob had finger waves and framed her delicate cheekbones beautifully. Her eyes were a warm chestnut brown, the sort that inspired trust—a very handy trait for a con woman.

  She was wearing a blindingly white monster of a dress. Ugh, was Marcus really going to let his bride wear something so unfashionable? Clara was pretty sure there was even a hoopskirt hiding under all that taffeta. Two women in suits cut like Marguerite’s, though theirs were respectively burgundy and dark brown, knelt on either side of Anastasia with pincushions in hand.

  “Irene, could you raise the hem about half an inch on your side?” the woman in brown asked the other.

  “Could I trouble one of you for a glass of water?” Anastasia asked in a French accent as light and feathery as the rest of her.

  The woman in the brown suit rose and walked through the doorway past Clara. Clara glanced at her name tag as she walked by: Jacqueline. Lorraine showed up beside Clara a few moments after Jacqueline left, and peered through the doorway. “Now we’ve got her right where we want her. How do we get her alone, though?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Clara replied. “How’d it go with the dragon lady?”

  “She’s picking out dresses for me. By the way, if anyone asks, my last name is Rockefeller.”

  Clara rolled her eyes—of course that was the name Lorraine had used. “You ready?” she asked.

  Lorraine nodded. “Let’s get this lousy quiff.”

  Clara and Lorraine walked through the doorway. “Excuse me, Irene?” Clara said. “A lady named Jacqueline said she needed you for something.”

  Irene blinked a few times. “I’ll be right back, dear,” she said to Anastasia.

  As soon as they were alone, Lorraine and Clara approached Anastasia. The platform made the girl even taller than Lorraine. Not ideal for intimidation purposes, but what could they do? They had to rile Anastasia up before either of the bridal shop employees came back, which could happen at any moment.

  So Clara cut right to the chase. “We know who you are.”

  “Yeah, cut the accent, Deirdre!” Lorraine chimed in.

  In the split second before Marcus’s fiancée remembered she was supposed to be an innocent ingenue, her eyes hardened and her mouth leveled into a thin line. Anastasia might have looked like a porcelain doll, but there was clearly a layer of steel underneath the delicate surface. Then, like magic, the anger was gone. Anastasia looked from Lorraine to Clara in wide-eyed confusion without batting an eyelash. “I zink you must ’ave me meestaken for someone else. And you are not supposed to be ’ere.” She squinted at them as if she had forgotten her glasses and was trying to make out their facial features.

  “You’re not supposed to be here!” Lorraine poked a sharp finger into Anastasia’s chest. “If he knew the truth about you, Marcus would never look twice at you, much less marry you!”

  Anastasia stepped off the platform to get away from Lorraine. She clasped the material of her long veil in her hands as if it would somehow defend her. “I don’t know ’oo you are, but if you do not get out of ’ere I will call ze police! Irene, Jacqueline!”

  Clara swallowed hard. “Maybe we should all just—”

  But then Lorraine lunged at Anastasia and pried the long veil from her hands, yanking it straight off her head. Several bobby pins clattered to the floor. “Not so cocky without your veil, are you, tramp?” Lorraine spat. “Clara, catch!”

  Lorraine threw the veil at her. Clara caught it, bewildered. “Lorraine, what are you—”

  “You geeve zat back right now!” Anastasia growled, and ran straight at Clara.

  Clara took off, running around the room with Anastasia chasing her. She threw the veil back to Lorraine, laughing. This was definitely one way to intimidate a girl.

  They tossed the veil back and forth a few more times, taunting Anastasia. The girl was enraged as she ran back and forth between them like an angry little poodle desperately seeking a favorite chew toy.

  After a few minutes, Lorraine ran with the veil toward a door marked ONLY USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, and Anastasia followed. “Here you go,” Lorraine said, handing the veil back to Anastasia. As soon as she started to pin it back on, Lorraine caught the train of her wedding dress and pulled the enormous skirt straight up over her head.

  And, yes, there was a hoopskirt underneath.

  “Que faites-vous!” Anastasia screamed, her shrill voice muffled by the taffeta skirt now covering her face. “Lâchez-moi! Lâchez-moi maintenant!”

  Lorraine bunched the hem of the skirt in a wad over Anastasia’s head, reaching on her tiptoes to make sure Anastasia couldn’t punch it open with her fists. “Open the fire door!” Lorraine called to Clara.

  “What!” Clara exclaimed. “Are you insane? We’re supposed to get her to admit the truth—not kidnap her!”

  “I’m not going to kidnap her. We’ll probably never get another chance to talk to her,” Lorraine replied as she fought a squirming Anastasia, who was kicking and screaming, trying to tear away at the dress. “Now open the fire door!”

  Of course she was going about it all wrong—it was Lorraine, what else could Clara expect—but she also had a point. Clara wrenched the door open and the room filled with the urgent, ringing sound of an alarm. Lorraine pushed Anastasia into a deserted alley behind the salon, letting the door close behind them.

  They stepped out onto dirty gray bricks; the back of a beige stone building faced them. Anastasia’s screams were even more grating now that Lorraine had let go of her skirt. Half of it fell down, back to her ankles, while the other half hung stubbornly over her face. “Chiennes! Dingues! Salopes!”

  Clara didn’t know French, but it was clear Anastasia was calling Clara and Lorraine every nasty insult she could come up with.

  “You make sure she stays put!” Lorraine said, and left Clara the lovely deed of holding Anastasia by her arms. Clara could only pray the skirt didn’t slip all the way back down. Anastasia was definitely the sort who would resort to biting if necessary.

  Lorraine walked back to the door and pulled off one of her green pumps. She jammed it through the door handle and big hasp. The shoe would keep the shop ladies out of the alley for now, but it probably wouldn’t hold for long.

  Lorraine hobbled back, trying to keep her shoeless foot off the grimy brick street. She didn’t care about practically kidnapp
ing a woman or setting off a fire alarm, but heaven forbid her stockings get dirty. “All right, we need to make this girl talk,” she said, “and this is the way it’s done in the movies!” She pulled the skirt completely away from Anastasia’s face.

  The con woman narrowed her brown eyes and looked back and forth across the alley, searching for help.

  “No one’s coming for you, so you might as well listen to what we have to say,” Lorraine said. Anastasia scowled. “Now, you’re going to call off your wedding to Marcus.”

  “And why would I do zat?”

  The woman did do a fantastic French accent. Clara felt a tickle of doubt in her stomach. What if Solomon had been wrong? But she pushed it away. Solomon was the best PI in New York—he wouldn’t have gotten where he was without some sharp eyes.

  “Because if you don’t, we’ll expose you,” Clara said.

  “Zere is nuzzing to expose!” Anastasia yelled. “You are both just ravisseurs diaboliques!”

  “How dare you!” Lorraine raged. “I don’t even know what that means, but I am highly offended.”

  Just then, Clara heard banging on the fire door and looked at Anastasia. They didn’t have much time. “We know what you’re doing,” she said quickly. “You’re only marrying Marcus for his money. Just admit it!”

  “But I love Marcus,” Anastasia whimpered.

  “The only thing you love is lying, you filthy … liar!” Lorraine said, shaking her fist.

  “Stop trying to play us like you do everyone else,” Clara said. “I know all about you, Deirdre Van Doren.” Anastasia’s brown eyes widened just a fraction and gave Clara the courage to keep going. “About your record—the burglaries, the assault charges, how you’ve tried to swindle about a dozen other beaus before Marcus came along. If you confess now and break your engagement to Marcus, we’ll let you leave gracefully. You don’t want to get arrested again, do you?”

  “Yeah!” Lorraine said. “Throw yourself upon the mercy of the court!”

  But the woman wouldn’t budge. “I ’ave no idea what you are talkeeng about. Now un’and me!”

  More banging on the fire door. “Listen, Deirdre, I write for a little magazine called the Manhattanite, maybe you’ve heard of it? If you don’t call off that wedding, I’m going to write an exposé, and everyone in New York, including Marcus, will read it. And I’ve got plenty to expose—believe me.”

  Anastasia stared at her in silence for a moment. Was she going to come clean, admit the truth? But then she made a move to run away and Clara and Lorraine caught her by her arms. “You are assaulting me!” Anastasia said. “I will call ze police!”

  “Go ahead and call them!” Lorraine said, digging her sharp nails into Anastasia’s bare arms.

  If the police came and saw this scene, who would they believe? The dignified young woman in the wedding dress, or the two girls who’d dragged her from her fitting and held her hostage? It had been foolish to come here like this.

  They’d tried intimidating Anastasia, they’d tried reasoning with her … what else could they do?

  Then Clara had an idea.

  “Lorraine, let her go,” Clara said, taking a step away. She looked at Lorraine over Anastasia’s shoulder and mouthed, Trust me. Lorraine hesitantly stepped back as well.

  “We must be mistaken,” Clara said, her voice eerily calm. Lorraine opened her mouth to object, then closed it before speaking. Clara continued: “You look like someone else. We’re really sorry. We’re just going to run away now.”

  Clara opened her handbag and withdrew her silver cigarette case. “Before we go, though, could I offer you a Gauloise? It’s the least I can do to make up for this whole mix-up.”

  Anastasia stared at her for a moment, squinting, then relaxed. “I could use a cigarette after all ze stress.”

  Clara lit the cigarette for her and watched as Anastasia inhaled. “Good smoke?”

  “Mmm, oui,” Anastasia replied, and took another puff.

  “Aha!” Clara said, clapping her hands. “That’s a Lucky Strike! A real Frenchwoman would know immediately that that isn’t a Gauloise! Those French cigarettes taste like tar buckets!”

  “Gotcha!” Lorraine called triumphantly, as though she’d had any idea of what Clara had been doing. “Who’s the raveesur diaboleek now, eh?”

  As though someone had flipped a switch, the girlish distress slipped right off Anastasia’s face. She didn’t look scared, happy, angry, or anything else—the woman was utterly blank. A fanciful, girly name like Anastasia no longer fit her. They were looking at Deirdre now.

  The con woman stood up straighter and crossed her arms. She shrugged and gave a menacing little laugh. “Oh, fine, it doesn’t matter,” she said in an unaccented voice that was about an octave lower than it had been before. “No one will believe you two idiots, anyway.”

  Suddenly the fire door banged open against Lorraine’s shoe, which fell to the ground. While Lorraine ran for her shoe, Deirdre pointed at her and Clara. “Zey are robbing me!” she cried in her thick fake accent.

  “Stop, thieves!” Marguerite called out. She, Irene, and Jacqueline stepped out into the alley. Even little old biddies like them would catch Clara and Lorraine if they didn’t get out of here now. “The police are on their way!”

  Police? Clara turned to Lorraine, who was still stumbling into her high heel.

  “Run!” Clara shouted.

  LORRAINE

  “Well, that didn’t work out as planned,” Clara said with a nervous glance out the window.

  Lorraine peeked out from underneath her oversized black felt hat. “Sing it, sister.”

  They’d probably be sitting in the big house right about now if Clara hadn’t thought to run straight from the bridal salon to a street vendor. They’d hastily bought disguises—the hats, for one, as well as feathery white shawls—and worn them into the diner across the street from the shop.

  Now they could sit by the window and keep an eye on the police cruiser parked outside Priscilla’s without worrying about the fuzz spotting them. The diner was a greasy sort of joint with stuffing bleeding out of half the red booths, and smudged windows.

  Deirdre stood in front of the shop, talking to two police officers. Marcus’s fiancée twisted her veil nervously in her hands, leaning on Marguerite for support. The old hag of a shop manager patted Deirdre’s shoulder and pulled a handkerchief from her suit pocket. Lorraine guessed bitches like them had to stick together.

  “Thank God that woman doesn’t know who we are!” Clara said. “Otherwise she’d be giving our names away to the cops!”

  Lorraine gave a little laugh. “Um, yeah! By the way”—she paused and put on a smile—“you didn’t happen to grab my purse, did you? Because I might have forgotten it. In the bridal shop. With all of my identification inside of it.”

  Clara’s gray-blue eyes widened. “Raine, how could you do something so—”

  “Don’t worry, Clara, I know just the guy to go back there and get it for us. A total, um … sheik. Well, maybe a sheik-in-training.” Lorraine stood and headed toward the pay phone in the corner of the diner. She spoke to Clara over her shoulder. “He’d do anything for me!”

  Melvin already looked silly in his lumpy gray sweater vest, wrinkled red button-down, and checkered bow tie. But carrying Lorraine’s alligator clutch as he walked into the diner took him to a whole new level of ridiculousness.

  Lorraine waved him over. “Poor thing,” she whispered to Clara. “He’s desperately in love with me. Says if I don’t kiss him, he’ll die! Can you believe it?”

  Clara rolled her eyes. “Hardly.”

  “Hmmph.” Lorraine watched as Melvin approached them. So maybe he’d never said those words exactly to her … but no reason for Clara to know that.

  Melvin held the clutch low against his thigh, trying to hide it. But he was so awkward about it that he made the purse even more obvious. A little girl eating an ice cream sundae pointed as he passed. “Look at the man with the purse, Mo
mmy!”

  A woman in a frumpy day dress didn’t look up from her issue of the Queen. “That’s nice, honey.”

  “I never should’ve believed this was just about a purse,” Melvin said, and slouched in the booth beside Lorraine. “There are cops in that dress shop! Things are never simple with you, Raine.”

  Lorraine frowned. “Simple? Who likes simple!”

  Clara extended her hand across the table. “We can’t thank you enough. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced—I’m Clara Knowles.”

  “Right, from Forrest Hamilton’s party. Melvin Delacorte.”

  “I really can’t tell you how much we appreciate this. I hope we didn’t pull you away from anything important.”

  “Oh no, I was just working on my art history paper on Millais.”

  Clara clasped her hands to her chest. “I love his Ophelia painting!”

  “I do, too!” Lorraine had never noticed what a sweet smile Melvin had. Or maybe he just didn’t smile that way around her. “His depiction of the flora around the river is just amazing.”

  “I always thought Ophelia was the best part of Hamlet—much better than Hamlet and all his I-have-to-do-something-but-I’m-too-depressed-to-do-something hooey,” Clara said. “Make up your mind!”

  “Ah, I always like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern best. Every good story needs its double-crossing spies,” Melvin replied.

  Lorraine looked at them. Clara wasn’t trying to seduce Melvin, was she? He wasn’t her type, but still—the girl did have a habit of stealing men right from under Lorraine. Not that Lorraine wanted Melvin, of course. She just didn’t want Clara to want him.

  Besides, it wasn’t like Lorraine didn’t know that painting, too. It was of a dead girl floating in a river. What was so amazing about that?

  Clara nodded at the purse. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble?”

  “No, it was actually really easy,” Melvin explained. “I just told them that my cousin, recently released from a sanatorium after having been jilted at the altar, has a penchant for attacking brides.”