It gives me hope that in a few more years, I might be able to modestly impress someone with something more than my physical talents. Maybe even myself.
Leo watches the thin trail of smoke escape my lips. “You might as well tell us; Clara won’t be of any use to me until you’ve satisfied her curiosity. What’s happened?”
I yank the bedsheet, covering myself from waist down as heat prickles my face. I find the matter painfully embarrassing. “It’s only that I saw Nora Richardson today.”
“That damned woman,” Leo grumbles. He’s a good friend; he’s never met my former fiancée, but that doesn’t stop him from having the utmost antipathy for her on my behalf.
Clara is more circumspect. She steals the cigarette from between my fingers and inhales. “I thought the Richardsons moved away.”
“They only went on holiday.” I don’t take the cigarette back from Clara; I’m rather certain that I need something quite a bit stronger for this conversation. “Are you dry? I’m feeling a bit parched.”
“You’re a boozehound, as bad as Pops,” Clara accuses. “We’ve got a stash. Will cognac do?”
“I’ll get it,” Leo says, heaving himself up, but Clara lays her hand on his shoulder, as if to display her half-moon manicured fingernails, all lacquered in black and white.
“Let me be a good little wife for a change, Ace. I’ll get you both a glass. With ice.”
As she rises from the bed, both of us watch her go. There’s a reason she’s a movie star; when she’s in a room, you can’t pull your eyes away—especially when she’s as gloriously flushed and fleshy as she is now, swaying those ample hips of hers with every step.
Upon her departure, I raise an eyebrow at Clara’s uncharacteristic burst of domesticity.
Leo grins. “She’ll make any excuse to parade around naked.”
I’ve no doubt of that, but in this case, I suspect Clara intended to leave us alone. Leo must suspect the same, because he eventually asks, “Where the devil did you run into Nora Richardson?”
“On the street, if you can believe it,” I say, clenching my teeth against the memory and violently shoving Clara’s lacy pillow under my arm. Given my former fiancée’s gaiety, I may not have recognized her beneath that elegant hat today. The woman I intended to marry might have passed by me on the street without my having recognized her at all, but she was walking some horrible little dog on the end of a leash that got tangled round my leg. That’s when I had the shock of looking up to see her swollen belly. “Nora is pregnant, you know.”
“Pregnant?” Leo stares at me for a moment. Then he reaches for his drawers and pulls them on as if this revelation has ruined all his plans for the evening. The expression on his face is disapproving. “I see.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or punch him in the mouth. “It’s not mine, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m as certain as a man can be about that fact,” I reply, more irritated by the moment.
“Her husband’s baby, then?”
“Yes.” I hate to admit it, but I sense that every time I acknowledge reality it will help me put my past firmly behind me. “She tells me that she’s very happy with him. That she’s happier than she’s ever been in her life. And if she was lying, she’s a better actress than Clara.”
“No one is a better actress than Clara,” Leo replies, a touch defensively.
As if summoned by her name, Clara returns with two crystal tumblers full of ice and liquor. She hands me my drink, then sashays to Leo’s side so they can sip from the same glass. He pulls her into his lap and though they’re a comfortable tangle of limbs, they both turn to me, attentive.
In this moment, it strikes me that they’re both offering the kind of intimacy I craved, so why am I so reluctant to share my woes? “It’s really of no consequence. Or at least it should be of no consequence to me. I’m not even in love with Nora anymore …”
“Robert, I had no idea you were so sentimental,” Clara says, reaching to smooth my hair. “Whatever did this woman do to you?”
“She broke our engagement,” I say, hoping to prevent Leo from offering his less diplomatic assessment.
In that endeavor, I fail utterly.
“She skated around,” Leo seethes. “She got knocked up by one of her father’s drivers and married the chap.”
Clara is instantly and powerfully infuriated on my behalf, those expressive eyes of hers narrowing to dangerous little slits. “She did that to you, Robert? Why, the next time I see her, I’ll blister her ears good.”
“Just let me be there to see it,” Leo says, kissing the top of her head with an audible smooch.
I cringe at the idea of my favorite brassy starlet accosting my pregnant ex-fiancée on the street. “I’d really rather you didn’t cause a fuss, Clara. Not on my account.”
“I’ll do it for my own reasons. She caused all that trouble the night I met Leo. The next morning all anyone could talk about was the brawl and sex show on the desk—nobody was talking about my movie.”
“The brawl was my fault.” It’s easier to admit in the presence of friends who are willing to defend my behavior, no matter how abominable. “I should’ve known better; the bastard took it out on her. I think he struck her that night. In fact, I’m sure of it. It kills me to think I gave him an excuse—”
“There’s no excuse for that,” Leo insists.
“What a beastly man,” Clara adds, hugging closer to her husband.
“Do you know she claims she wanted him to do it?” I blurt out, because I’m still bedeviled by the remark.
When Leo grinds his teeth and Clara’s eyes bug out a little bit, I’ve never been sorrier to have broached a subject in my life. Usually, one or the other of them fills a silence with laughter or witty banter. This time, neither of them rescue me from myself. I take a swallow of the cognac. It isn’t top-shelf, but it does the job. “We argued today. I think her husband is a brute—I think that he knocks her around. But she says he never lays a hand on her without her say-so. That it’s some kind of bedroom game between the two of them.”
Leo looks dubious. He’s likely to dismiss anything Nora—Mrs. Richardson, I remind myself—has to say about anything. It’s Clara who knits her brow in careful consideration, and perhaps a bit of sympathy for Nora’s point of view. “And what sort of bedroom games did you two used to play?”
“None. She was a virgin—at least, I thought she was—and as I intended to marry her …” Clara blinks in surprise, which rather offends me. “All appearances to the contrary, Mrs. Vanderberg, I am a gentleman.”
Fortunately, Clara never worries about offending me. “Well, there’s your problem. It doesn’t sound as if she wanted a gentleman.”
“No, I don’t suppose she did.” I swirl the liquor around in my glass, watching the ice melt. Clara hasn’t said anything that I haven’t said to myself before. I wonder if I’ve had the wrong idea about women all along.
“Her loss is our gain, isn’t it?” she asks, turning to glance at Leo.
Clara and Leo stare at each other, some manner of wordless discussion transpiring between them, and when she turns back to me, she drags both their hands atop mine. It’s a tender gesture and when I look into her eyes, then at Leo’s face, I see an opportunity present that has not been there before.
A tentative invitation.
A subtle shift between them as if to make room for me.
It is a humbling thing. A thing that a better, braver man would seize. But I have no idea how to cross the space that separates us and find a way to fit into their lives. I’m not like Clara or Leo, both of whom do whatever they like with complete disregard for public opinion. They’re splendid immortals who break and bend rules to suit them at their whim.
But as it happens, I am altogether too mortal.
CHAPTER
One
Sophie
SIX MONTHS LATER …
“Now, Miss Sophie,
you don’t wanna be starting trouble ’round here, do ya?” Hamilton asks me, removing his bellboy cap to scratch the wooly curls at his aged brow.
“Oh, horsefeathers!” I thread the posy I grabbed from the garden outside into his buttonhole so he’ll look dapper.
I can see that I make him nervous, but then again, I make most people nervous.
Anybody who wants to change things usually does.
“I’m not trying to cause any trouble, Hamilton; I’m just trying to improve things around here.”
Hamilton looks over his shoulder, a little bit relieved that the hotel’s elegant breezeway is empty and no one is waiting for the elevators who might overhear us. “I dunno, Miss Sophie. Maybe things’ll git better with the new management.”
By new management I suppose he means young Mr. Aster, the prodigal son, returned to the city to take over for his father, the cranky old Robber Baron who somehow bribed a few corrupt officials to make him an ambassador to China. Young Mr. Aster is rumored to be a shiftless wastrel who will assuredly run the Aster Hotel into the ground and as far as I’m concerned, it’s already halfway there. “He’s not new management. He’s been here six months and things haven’t changed a bit.”
Well, that isn’t entirely true. They just haven’t changed for the better. Whereas the ambassador arrived each morning at precisely eight o’clock, doffing his top hat to important guests and scowling at everyone else, his son usually stumbles into the lobby after carousing all evening, then sleeps in late as a lollygagger.
Of course, every girl in the hotel strains her neck trying to get a glimpse of the new boss, whether he’s sober or stumbling drunk and unshaven. This is because the younger Mr. Aster has a bedazzling smile. Even I find his dimples disarming. One morning, he made a wrong turn into the boutique and grinned with such wattage that I nearly stumbled blind into the counter.
But I’ve got my senses about me now, so I show Hamilton where to sign.
“You heard what happened to Gertrude, didn’t you?” I mimic the harsh nasal tone of Mrs. Mortimer. “‘We won’t tolerate immoral women who flaunt their depraved and wicked behavior.’ That’s what she said before giving Gertie the sack. And we both know Gertie didn’t make a baby all by herself.”
Hamilton ignores my petition to stoop down to haul luggage onto the shiny brass cart. He’s done this job half his life, but at his age, it’s getting harder for him to manage the parcels. He won’t accept help if I offer, though, so I wait until his back is turned to drag the heaviest trunk closer. Suppressing an unladylike grunt, I use my free hand to give the iron-banded chest a good yank trying not to slip and slide on the marble floor in my heels. I keep arguing all the while. “It isn’t right to fire Gertie for something that isn’t anybody’s business.”
“I’m awful sorry about Miss Gertie,” Hamilton admits, “Still, it ain’t right for folks like us to be running ’round with petitions and starting a fuss. You’re a smarty, you are. Always got your nose in a book or writing in one. But can’t you ever behave like other girls your age, Miss Sophie?”
“I do!” I protest. “Other girls … like books.”
Of course, I have to fight a blush, because the book I intend to spend the evening with is my own private diary, in which I write wild, untamed thoughts that have nothing to do with being a smarty …
“You should let a fella take you to see the latest Clara Cartwright film.”
Oh, cruel temptation! Miss Cartwright is my favorite movie star. Something about her confidence just makes me want to sing. But I can’t let Hamilton distract me from the task at hand. “I’ll go when I can afford it, and not with a fella, thank you very much, because I can pay my own way. Of course, I could pay my own way a good deal more often if there were fair wages around here. What about you, Hamilton? You make three dollars a week less than every white bellhop and now they’re shaving off another because of your age.”
Hamilton frowns. “I don’t load the luggage as fast as I used to, Miss Sophie.”
“But you’ve still got to load them, don’t you? And I’ve never seen you take a day off work, not in all the time I’ve been here.”
Hamilton gives a rueful smile. “You’re gonna git yourself fired if you keep on, but you sure is a girl with gumption.”
“What a very nice compliment,” I say, pressing the pen into his gloved hand. “If you promise to keep it quiet, I’ll leave this petition with you to think over. We’ve got somebody from every department except for the bellboys. If we all speak with one voice, the big shot will have to listen.”
The next morning, Mrs. Mortimer tells me to report to the boss, and my heart sinks. So this is it. I’m getting the sack. And even the supercilious elevator operator knows it. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Miss O’Brien?” he asks, shutting the elegant doors carved with the Aster family crest, then pulling the grate closed behind me like a prison door.
I clench my pocketbook in my hands. “At least I’m trying to keep food on the table for your child, Mr. Underwood. You oughtta thank me.”
He stiffens at my frankness. “There’s no way to know the baby is mine.”
I can’t imagine how Gertie could have lost her head over such a man because I hate him all the way from the tilt of his cap to the rows of shiny buttons on his uniform. “You know bloody well whose baby it is and if you’d only used precautions, like I told you both to do—”
“Well, it’s all spilt milk now, isn’t it, young lady?” he asks, cheeks ruddier than usual as he works the manual controls that take us to the top of Aster Tower. “Gertrude’s out of a job, you’re about to be out of a job, and given the mischief you’re making around here for Mr. Aster, you’ll likely take a few of the staff with you.”
Mr. Aster. The reminder of the playboy millionaire who holds my fate in his hands makes my knees shake. I should take a seat on the posh velvet bench or steady myself against the brass handrails, because if I lose my balance and crack my head open on the marble tiles, the pretty bastard is likely to charge me a fee to clean up my blood from the floor.
At the thought, I hold my chin up high, because I’m going to give the man an earful before I go.
In fact, I walk into his office spoiling for a fight.
Gallingly, Mr. Aster welcomes me with a bright smile, as if summoning me like a naughty schoolgirl is the highlight of his day.
He’s a big man; you don’t realize it at first, because everything about the Aster Hotel is big, too, and this office is no exception. He’s dwarfed by the giant Art Deco sunburst on the wall, wrought in polished brass. And sitting behind the massive walnut desk with its curved, geometric legs, his broad shoulders are effectively masked. If I don’t think about it too much—his size, his wealth, and the fact that he has all the power here—I might be able to stop my knees from knocking. I remind myself that he’s nothing to admire or fear; just a callow capitalist who stiffs bellboys of their hard-earned wages and puts pregnant shopgirls out onto the street.
“Good morning, Miss O’Brien,” he says. “Please have a seat.”
I sink down onto the oversized chair in front of his desk, straightening my dress over my knees and removing my cloche hat as Mrs. Mortimer didn’t even give me the chance to take it off this morning before sending me upstairs.
With blond hair slicked straight back, an aristocratic nose covered with freckles, and long lashes that frame hazel eyes, Robert Aster is something to look at. I’ll give him that. Then again, it’s always the people who are blessed with an abundance of everything who never seem to worry about taking what little the rest of us have got.
“Miss O’Brien,” he begins. “How long have you been working here?”
“Two years, sir.”
We both know what’s coming and I wish he’d just get on with it.
“Has Mrs. Mortimer been your supervisor all that time?”
“No, she was promoted just a few months before you came to work here … and the pinch-mouthed harpy has
been lording it over the rest of us ever since.”
There. That ought to move things along.
To my surprise, he laughs. “You’re very young, aren’t you?”
He must be almost thirty years old, but I won’t have him thinking he can treat me like a child. I sit straighter, so that my spine doesn’t touch the chair. “I’m twenty-one.”
“And not a day over, I’d guess. As it happens, there’s been some discontent amongst the employees of the hotel. Some whispers of an organized protest. It was brought to Mrs. Mortimer’s attention that you might be one of the agitators.”
The way he says it, with such an air of amusement, gets my dander up—as if a fair Irish lass could never have thoughts in her head beyond the frilly things in the boutique. But before I can make a sharp retort, he sets a number of items on the desk where I can see them. Pamphlets from the Civics League, the Humanist Society, and the Birth Control Federation. A few flyers for talks that I wanted to attend in the coming weeks. My books. And, most incriminating of all, the leather-bound journal of my secret thoughts.
“You ransacked my locker?” How naive I was to think ordinary courtesy might shield me from the ruthless types like him, men who own half the city.
“I didn’t, no,” he says, quickly. “Mrs. Mortimer took it upon herself to go through your belongings looking for evidence of suspicious activity.”
A flash of temper overtakes me, and I cross my arms over myself. “She had no right. I keep a change of clothes in my locker, too, and ladies’ undergarments and a few nickels for fare. I’ve a right to some privacy and security, don’t I?”
Mimicking my posture, Mr. Aster pretends to consider the merits of my argument. “I don’t suppose you hold with the notion that the locker room is in my hotel and only afforded to you by courtesy, therefore you ought not use it to store anything you’d be distressed for someone else to find?”
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