Diva

by Jillian Larkin

  “As soon as we bag Callum, my boys and I will head over to Forrest’s place. We’ll search it from top to bottom,” Hank said. He patted Gloria’s shoulder. “You’ve done good work here, Gloria. We’ll make sure Jerome makes it back to you safe and sound.”

  Once Hank and the other agents were gone, Gloria slouched into the couch cushions beside Marcus.

  Marcus let out a low whistle. “You really do know how to liven up an event. If you’re not getting ripped offstage by your fiancé, you’re singing for gangsters in a basement club or running away from home and living like a ragamuffin on the streets of New York. All I need now is for Lorraine to barrel in drunk and spoil things.”

  “Just like old times,” Gloria said. “Though I hear she’s staying sober these days.”

  “Well, we both know the booze was only part of Raine’s problem.” Marcus knocked his shoulder against Gloria’s. “Anyway, I’m glad we got all of this taken care of before the big event. I intend to have you by my side when I finally hang that golden noose around my neck—I mean, put a ring on my finger.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re my best friend. Always were, always will be.”

  Gloria swallowed hard. She could hardly believe it—Marcus, getting married. “You’re my best friend, too. And it looks like my detective days are over, so now we might actually get to see each other.”

  Marcus nodded. “And you’ll finally have a chance to get to know Ana. She wants to meet Jerome, too! She’s French—they’re all much more relaxed about that sort of thing over there.”

  Gloria tried to smile back at him, but she couldn’t fake it. Marcus was her best friend. Which was exactly why she had to risk hurting his feelings. “Marcus, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  He blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you even really know this girl? You got engaged so fast after you and Clara split.”

  Marcus scooted away from her. “You could’ve picked a better time to voice your concern, Gloria.”

  “I’m sorry!” Gloria placed her hands on his shoulders and stared directly into his eyes. “I was afraid of hurting you, and our friendship, by saying something. But now I know I wouldn’t be a real friend if I didn’t tell you that you’re making a huge mistake, and that you belong with Clara. So I’m asking: Do you still love her?”

  Marcus shrugged her off and stood, walking halfway across the room. “Why are you asking me about Clara? I’m getting married to someone else. Maybe you’ve mistaken the occasion here. Did you even read the invitation I sent you? Come to think of it, I don’t recall getting your RSVP. If you were hoping to have the filet mignon for dinner, too bad—we’re fresh out.”

  “Come on,” Gloria said, “don’t make a joke of this, Marcus. I’m serious.” Forrest had managed to dodge enough of her questions with questions—Gloria wasn’t going to let Marcus do the same. “It’s not too late to stop this. Not if you really love Clara.”

  Marcus looked down at the floor for a long time, breathing hard. When his blue eyes rose to meet Gloria’s, they weren’t angry anymore. They were sad, hurt, and so confused. He looked just the way he had when he’d come to visit Gloria in prison, right after he and Clara had split. God, he hadn’t gotten over their breakup at all, had he? He’d just hidden away in this new whirlwind romance so he wouldn’t have to think about his feelings.

  “I just don’t know, Gloria,” Marcus said softly. “I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But then she came to see me last week. I was so angry with her, at the lies she’d told me. She wouldn’t even apologize! And still I had to call security to make sure she left before I took her in my arms and kissed her right then.”

  “Wait, you called security on Clara?”

  “Not my finest moment,” Marcus said, chuckling. He paused. “I miss her so much, Glo. Nothing seems as fun, or interesting, or exciting without her. She just … makes life better, you know?”

  Gloria did know. “That’s what the people you love tend to do.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Clara doesn’t love me, though. She told me so.”

  Gloria took her black beaded purse off her shoulder so she could smack Marcus with it. She didn’t hit him hard—just hard enough to make her point. “Don’t be an idiot. Clara is so clearly in love with you—if she told you otherwise, it was for a reason, to protect you somehow. But that girl is sick with her love for you.”

  There was a flickering of something in Marcus’s eyes—hope?—but then it faded. “It’s too late now. We’re at my wedding! People came all the way from Chicago for this. I can’t disappoint everyone out there. Not to mention Anastasia. That poor girl … what would she do if I backed out now?”

  Gloria thought back to when she’d run away with Jerome. There was hardly anyone in her life she hadn’t disappointed by choosing her life with him. “Marcus, sometimes disappointing people is just a part of life. Just because you’re afraid of letting some people down, that’s no reason to marry a girl you don’t love! This is your life you’re gambling with. You should do what will make you the happiest.”

  “Do you really—”

  The door’s crystal knob turned and a man with dark golden hair peppered with gray stood in the doorway. Even pushing fifty, Mr. Eastman cut a very handsome figure in his tuxedo.

  “Come on, Son, we’re waiting on you to begin,” Mr. Eastman called. “Oh, hello, Gloria!”

  Marcus wiped the hopeful expression off his face and, without another word to Gloria, marched after his father down the hallway.

  The first thing Gloria noticed as the bridesmaids went down the aisle to the band’s wedding march?

  They were all so tall.

  They were also all willowy blondes Anastasia had probably met at Barnard. The girls walked down the aisle of the ballroom toward the linen canopy in their pink sleeveless dresses. Fabric roses dotted the dropped waistlines of the dresses, and rows of flounces formed the skirts.

  Every few seconds, a flashbulb went off. Gloria couldn’t imagine how many reporters were in attendance, though she could pick out at least a dozen photographers sitting in the rows of gold chairs. Some faces Gloria had only seen in magazines—senators, socialites, even literary bigwigs like playwright Marc Connelly and Ruth Hale, who had helped to get women the vote. Then there were Gloria’s old sort-of-friends from Chicago—witless Ginnie Bitman (now witless Ginnie Worthington), for example, who sat in the front row with her new, bored-looking husband on her arm.

  The bridesmaids held the same white lilies that were in pale blue vases all over the ballroom. The bouquets were all tied with blue ribbons that matched the vases. A long stretch of white linen paved the girls’ way down the aisle, and Gloria couldn’t help thinking it was a waste of such beautiful fabric if people were just going to walk on it.

  A full, white-suited orchestra sat beside the platform and played a slow, jazzy version of the wedding march with ambling piano and silky horns. The candlelight bounced off the enormous mirrors on the walls and the crystal chandeliers above onto the guests, bathing them with a hushed glamour.

  It wasn’t exactly the sort of wedding Gloria would’ve wanted. Gloria didn’t need crystal or designer dresses or enough candles to light every Christmas tree in the city come winter. But the feel of it—something quiet yet utterly sophisticated—appealed to her. It reminded her of a gilded version of the underground speakeasy world where she and Jerome had first met.

  As the last of Anastasia’s bridesmaids neared the platform, Gloria stepped forward and whispered in Marcus’s ear. It was speak now or forever hold her peace—and she wasn’t too good at holding things in these days. “You need to fight for love, Marcus. Nothing wonderful in life comes easily. That’s why I’ll suffer anything to be with Jerome. And I know you’d do the same for Clara.”

  As the wedding march swelled in the background, Gloria’s mind filled with memories of her own beloved fiancé: the first time she’d seen Jerome playing at the Green Mill, their first kiss, running away to
gether to live in New York and almost losing him, that night at the Opera House when he’d proposed. What was it he had said to her the night they boarded the train and left Chicago behind them? Oh yes: It won’t be easy. Easy is over with.

  And it certainly hadn’t been easy. Mobsters. FBI. Evil fathers back from the not-so-dead. But fighting for love with Jerome was worth it—it always had been and it always would be. After watching Forrest turn his back on Ruby and Marcus do the same to Clara, Gloria was even surer of her love for Jerome. Men like Forrest and Marcus seemed to have everything—money, charm, good looks. But what was any of it worth without true love? The other trials Gloria could take. But a life without Jerome? Never.

  Gloria absently felt for her engagement ring around her neck and pulled the necklace out from under her dress. She held her ring and prayed that Jerome wasn’t in danger, wherever he was.

  She glanced back at Marcus. Her closest pal since she was little. She had to stop him from making the hugest mistake of his life.

  CLARA

  Marcus was getting married—to somebody else.

  Clara’s only plan to stop him had more than a few flaws.

  And she was sandwiched between “Benji” and Parker.

  Could this wedding possibly get any worse?

  “Just look at that jailbird standing up there with good, decent society like Marcus,” a woman’s voice whispered. “I’m surprised she’s not on the arm of that Negro boyfriend of hers.”

  Yes. It could. The old women sitting behind her were gossiping.

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t cause some kind of ruckus,” another lady scoffed. “She’s already tarnished the Carmody name enough. She doesn’t need to bring the Eastmans down with her.”

  Clara studied Gloria, who was standing next to Marcus and looking beautiful in a black-and-white number with buttons down the front. She was whispering something in his ear. What was she saying?

  “We’re lucky she didn’t try to smuggle a gun in here! I heard she had a whole room of them in that Harlem hole she was living in.”

  “I hear she does have a gun,” Lorraine whispered just loud enough for the row behind them to hear. “And that gossipy old ladies will be the first to go.”

  That shut them up in a hurry.

  Lorraine caught Clara’s eye, and Clara couldn’t help but smile. Then her gaze drifted to Melvin and the smile faded into a frown. A nervous frown.

  His eyes were squinted into slits—the boy was nearly blind without his glasses. He looked ridiculous with his obviously drawn-on black mustache and his clashing red hair peeking out from under a hat that looked like a car had run over it. Clara had to hope Deirdre was as vision-impaired as Melvin, or they would most certainly be in trouble.

  Clara turned her attention back to the processional and ran through each unsavory fact she’d learned about Deirdre Van Doren in her mind. She could only hope it would all be enough to rip Marcus away from the quiff for good.

  The old biddies in the row behind them started up again. “Marcus looks so dapper—though not as happy as a groom should, eh?”

  “Young men always get cold feet. And this was a short engagement. I hear Bea Carmody and her bridge ladies didn’t even have enough time to change the dates of their annual retreat so they could attend. Thank goodness—avoiding that ruined woman at parties has become such a chore. Marcus got engaged right after he broke things off with … oh, what was her name? The Carmodys’ cousin who had that affair with Harris Brown and abandoned her baby?”

  “Clara Knowles. Or was it Cara? Don’t recall. Anyway, she lost the baby. The scandals in that family … Marcus dodged a bullet, getting away from that one.”

  The ladies’ voices drifted away as Clara focused on Marcus. He stood in the center of the platform beneath the canopy with Gloria and his groomsmen gathered behind him. His crystal-blue eyes were narrowed, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his sculpted face. He smoothed a hand over his already perfectly slicked golden hair and tugged a little at his white bow tie. Marcus’s dimples were nowhere to be seen—he didn’t look happy, he looked scared.

  Suddenly Marcus’s eyes fixed on hers. It was hard to be sure at this distance—she was seated in the middle of a crowd of hundreds—but Clara swore she could feel the warmth of Marcus’s gaze on her. Why had she told him she didn’t love him anymore? Raine had been right. That night, in his dorm room, she should have told him the truth: that she was still head-over-heels, madly, truly, deeply in love with him.

  Friends? No thanks. She wanted to be his girlfriend.

  But now some other woman was going to be his wife.

  Marcus continued to look in her direction. Was he just surprised to see her? His eyes held a lot more than surprise, though—Clara could see hurt, confusion … and yet his mouth turned up the slightest bit at the corners. His eyes were bright in a way Clara hadn’t seen since he had come to pick her up at Grand Central at the beginning of the summer. When the first words out of his mouth had been “I love you.”

  Could he still love her?

  She tore her eyes from Marcus’s and glanced back at Lorraine and Melvin. Melvin whispered something in Lorraine’s ear and she laughed. The old Lorraine wouldn’t have looked twice at a boy like Melvin, especially when he was wearing that silly disguise. Seemed like Clara wasn’t the only one who’d learned a thing or two about love since she’d arrived in New York.

  Beyond them sat Solomon and Lieutenant Skinner, both looking bored by the festivities. Sol was heinously underdressed in his tweed suit, but it was probably the finest outfit he owned. Clara just hoped he would be able to make it through the ceremony without sneaking out for a smoke.

  On Clara’s left, Parker sat beside the Manhattanite’s top photographer, his pencil poised over the notepad in his lap. Some people could be happy being married to their careers.

  Clara just wasn’t one of them.

  The crowd turned as one to watch Deirdre, or Anastasia, walk down the aisle. She wasn’t wearing the same dress she’d worn that day at the bridal shop—Lorraine might have ruined that one beyond repair. But really she’d done the con woman a favor.

  This dress was a sleeveless ivory satin gown with a cluster of handmade cloth flowers at one hip. It had a V-neck, and the skirt was made of tiers of elegant lace. Deirdre’s light gray feathered headdress covered most of her bob. A veil lined with even more lace flowed from the headdress and draped onto the floor. She walked on the arm of Marcus’s father—she’d probably fed Marcus some sob story to account for her absent parents. Ugh, that girl made Clara sick.

  The crowd filled with appreciative whispers as Deirdre walked down the aisle, everyone remarking how gorgeous the bride looked. Deirdre smiled widely at Marcus when she reached the platform. Come on, Marcus; just back out on your own so I don’t have to do this to you.…

  “Dearly beloved,” the minister said in a deep, booming voice, “we are gathered here today to join Marcus Edward Eastman and Anastasia Juliet Rjin in holy matrimony, which is commended to be honorable among all people, and therefore, is not to be entered into lightly, but solemnly and only after serious thought.”

  “Amen,” Lorraine murmured.

  “Into this holy partnership these two now come to be joined,” the minister continued. “If any person objects to this union, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

  Clara fiddled with her wedding program, twisting it until it tore. She took a few deep breaths but couldn’t help grimacing at what she was about to do. She just had to hope that Marcus would understand. She waited, her heart rattling in her chest, for Melvin to make his move.

  After a moment of silence, Clara nudged Melvin hard in the side.

  “Oof!” Melvin sprang out of his chair, pointed at Deirdre, and bellowed, “Tarnation!” in the most absurd Southern accent Clara had ever heard.

  Guests all around them looked at Melvin in surprise and began whispering to each other, filling the room with noise. “How’d he get in here
?” a mustached man whispered to his date.

  “He looks like he escaped from the carnival,” the brunette replied.

  Melvin looked at Clara with desperation in his eyes. This was as far as his part was supposed to go.

  Clara stood beside Melvin and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, I have something to say.” She patted Melvin’s arm. “Hold your horses for a moment.”

  The whispers around them doubled in volume. At least half the people here knew who she was. Getting tangled up in scandals in New York and Chicago didn’t exactly make for anonymity.

  But the only person whose reaction Clara cared about was Marcus. His blue eyes were enormous; his mouth gaped open.

  The boy was dumbfounded.

  “I object,” Clara said, causing more than one wedding guest to gasp. A woman whipped out a feathered fan and began flapping it in front of her face as though she might faint. “Marcus, I don’t believe you can love that woman—Anastasia or Deirdre or whatever her name is.”

  Clara nudged through the row so she could stand in the aisle. She’d been sitting in the eighth row of guests. Not a bad seat if all you wanted to do was watch a wedding—but Clara couldn’t have this kind of conversation with Marcus from a distance.

  She rushed closer to the platform, careful not to trip over her dress. She couldn’t get the courage to climb up onto the platform. Plus she was a little scared of what Marcus’s fiancée might try to do to her if she did. So she stopped just in front of the platform. Clara ignored the stunned gazes of the wedding party, Deirdre’s affronted scowl, Gloria mouthing What are you doing?, and the weight of the hundreds of eyes on her back. Clara couldn’t look at or think of anyone but Marcus, not if she was really going to go through with this.

  “If I let you marry that viper beside you,” Clara said to him, “not only will you be making the biggest mistake of your life, but so will I.”

  “Why, you—” Deirdre began, her dainty hands clenching into fists.

  Marcus held up a finger to shush Deirdre. “The minister said it himself: This is the part where people are allowed to speak. So what exactly are you saying, Clara?” he asked. Marcus’s eyes were bright again, and he looked like he was fighting a smile.