Beautiful Days

by Anna Godbersen

  For a moment she watched Cordelia from the quiet of the dim hallway, her shoulders thrown back, her narrow waist obvious in the slim trousers. Cordelia’s indifference shouldn’t matter so much, Letty knew. She might even have come to expect it by now. She longed, a little bit, for the Cordelia she used to know, the one she sat with by the radio, listening to tales from faraway lands, imagining the future. But mostly she felt betrayed.

  Charlie was coming in off the street with his hair of polished metal as she made her way to the entrance, but he didn’t notice her, and she didn’t bother to catch his eye. Of course it smarted to be leaving so soon, and with less celebration than she had hoped for. But she had spent all day learning the dances and expressions that would make a raucous audience follow her with their eyes, and she no longer needed her friends in order to be seen.

  Chapter 17

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AHEAD OF THE EVENT, THE rumor that a club called The Vault would be opening Friday night was circulating among all those who cared about such things. The beat cops knew, and had been duly taken care of, and many of them had already converted this windfall into new presents for their long-suffering wives. A few federal agents had even caught wind of the place—but they were a beleaguered lot, and those who did have the resources to take on such a joint were stalled by the knowledge that it would only result in a few misdemeanors, instead of hitting at the heart of the Greys’ operation. The gossip columnists had been tipped off, as had personalities worthy of appearing in gossip columns. Though revelers at speakeasies throughout the city craned their necks, hoping to catch a glimpse of the eighteen-year-old girl who was said to be in charge of this place, no one could say with any confidence that they had actually seen her.

  In fact, on Thursday night, Cordelia had gone to bed early for the first time in a week, in one of three rooms her brother had rented in the St. Regis. She and Charlie had stayed there for several nights already. Every day had been full of preparations for their club, and mostly they had been in the city too late to go home to Dogwood. Over the course of the week, Cordelia had found herself summoning all of the inner mettle she had accumulated during her stern Ohio upbringing. The obsessive attention with which she had once scanned days-old newspapers for any mention of a magical land called New York and a long-lost father named Darius Grey served her well now, as did the self-reliance she’d stored up to survive Aunt Ida’s withering comments and severe punishments. Not to mention the knowledge she’d acquired working in Uncle Jeb’s hardware store. The boys building out the stage and finishing the bar blinked at her, surprised, when she pointed out their shortcuts and told them how she wanted the job done, but they did not try to cheat her again. More than once she summoned an old trick of hers: looking into the eyes of men twice her age without flinching, as though there was nothing they could tell her that she did not already know.

  At times she seemed to be watching from outside herself as a far more assured young woman busily attended to a vast new world of responsibility. But on Friday morning, she woke up alone in the luxuriously anonymous hotel room and felt very much herself.

  No alarm was necessary; her eyes were wide open and her mind came alive a while before the sun rose. Out on the street she could hear delivery trucks, and she lay for a moment in the darkness listening to her heartbeat and wondering how she had come here, to this extraordinary point of living. Then she thought of Astrid, who would not philosophize, who would simply issue a quip and saunter on in the same remarkable direction she was always heading. Cordelia had already made her preparations. She now had only to rise and see about the results.

  So she left the bed and put on men’s trousers—not fitted like the ones her brother had had sent over from Henri Bendel’s earlier in the week, so that she could meet Roger Tinsley in style, but a well-worn pair that were loose on her, and which she rolled above the ankle—and tennis shoes and the pink chiffon blouse she’d worn the day before. In the wan electric light she applied lipstick. Then she wondered if lipstick was appropriate to her mission today, but Charlie knocked on her door before she could take it off, and after that she didn’t think of it.

  Even in the near darkness, she could see that her brother’s eyes were shining. Neither Grey sibling said anything. They walked past the guard who stood outside Cordelia’s room at all times and down the thickly carpeted hall.

  At that hour there were few cars on the road, and they drove out of town in a silence that was dense with anticipation. It was the first time Cordelia had been without a bodyguard since the night the club was vandalized, and it was comforting to sit with her brother in the cool dawn, away from the noise, and know that she was safe. Later there would be plenty of noise, so she let herself be lulled by the jostling of country roads and enjoyed the quiet. In Rye Haven they stopped for gasoline, and Charlie bought them cups of hot coffee from the breakfast joint next to the filling station. After that, it wasn’t far to the place where they left the car by the side of the road. It was a short walk through the woods to the water. There was a fisherman’s shack there, and Charlie borrowed the absent man’s rowboat, and they glided out across the still water as the first orange hue began to emerge along the horizon line.

  The morning had not advanced enough, however, that a boat somewhat offshore would be visible if its lights were off; a few such vessels—she knew, even though she could not see them—were out there in the mists. She also knew an estate called Avalon was close by, where Thom Hale was probably sleeping the sound slumber of all slippery, unscrupulous boys. Whenever she thought of the place, she thought of swaying in Thom’s arms on the outdoor dance floor with a pistol in her garter, and what a seamless job Thom had done of appearing to care for her.

  Presently she heard shouting at a nearby pier. She and Charlie both turned in that direction, as what looked like a whale’s back breached the glassy surface. The shouting intensified, and they began to make out through the gloom the men who stood by many cases of contraband, waiting for the hatch to open. As soon as it did, a hurried transaction began—men strained to hand the cases down to outstretched arms. Cordelia sipped her coffee and breathed in the muggy, brackish air. It was a smell she would remember for the rest of her life.

  “Wait for it,” Charlie whispered.

  Someone on the pier lit a cigarette, a tiny flair against the lightening sky, and the next thing Cordelia knew was that sirens were echoing off the water and several large vessels turned their big flood lights at the same time.

  “This is the Coast Guard,” a man announced with the majestic vibrating authority of a bullhorn. “All crew are to come up from below. Any weapons, leave them behind. We are seizing your ship under suspicion of rum-running. Any property destroyed at this point will be punishable by law.”

  “Is that your friend?” Cordelia whispered to Charlie, as the ripples from the speedboat reached their flimsy bark.

  “Yeah, though I don’t know if I’d call him a friend. More an ally. We’re on the same side, I guess you’d say.”

  “Do you mean you paid him?” Cordelia asked.

  “He’ll get plenty of glory for this, just wait. And he didn’t get any money from me today, but that’s not to say I don’t pay him lots of the time.”

  More of the Coast Guard fleet swarmed the pier, and Charlie and Cordelia went on watching from a distance as one by one, little figures emerged from below the surface with their hands raised. The grand house behind them remained silent, but Cordelia knew, with a burning satisfaction, that Thom and his father were up there watching in the dark, furious at the interruption of their business. No deliveries would be made from the Hales’ stores today, and those speakeasy proprietors and bon vivants who had remained loyal to them even after Charlie’s campaign would suffer tonight. The Hales would probably be able to pass off the proximity of the illicit alcohol seizure to their house as coincidental—but their supply routes would be interrupted on one very significant night, and probably for days to come.

  “Revenge is
ours,” Charlie said, lifting his coffee cup toward Cordelia.

  “Long live the house of Grey,” Cordelia replied.

  Several of the papers ran late editions with banner headlines proclaiming the presence of a German submarine in Long Island Sound. The accompanying articles contained little information, although one described the location of the raid as “within spitting distance of the estate of Long Island businessman Duluth Hale.” Much greater space was given to the photographs, which included shots of grinning Coast Guardsmen holding up seized liquor, several weapons that were taken from within the vessel, and views inside the submarine itself.

  These editions weren’t on newsstands until mid-morning, and didn’t reach the doorsteps of suburban subscribers until around noon, where even the finest residences, because of the proximity of the raid, were eager to hear the story. Everyone at Marsh Hall had been warned that Astrid was uninterested in news regarding Charlie Grey or anything at all having to do with bootlegging, and so the late edition was thrown away without her seeing it, and it was not until her erstwhile fiancé called on the main house line that she heard of the early-morning doings less than a mile from her home.

  “Astrid.” Charlie spoke hurriedly and without the faintest hint of apology. Her breath shortened upon hearing his voice for the first time in a week, just as familiar to her now, as though nothing had happened. “Have you seen the paper?”

  The butler had brought the telephone into her old bedroom, where she was getting dressed for what she knew would be a very full sort of night, crammed with detours and antics and beautiful, strange characters. It was going to be the kind of night you go on talking about forever. Of course, a girl always remembers what she wears on such occasions, which is why her favorite dresses were laid out on her bed, so that she would have time to make the proper selection.

  “No, Charlie, those papers are trash,” she replied distractedly as she rummaged through her makeup tray for a tin of gunmetal gray eye shadow, “which I certainly am not, which you would know if you ever paid any attention.”

  Testing the eye shadow on her full upper lid, she waited for Charlie’s reply, but instead heard the muffled sound of a hand covering a receiver while something else was said nearby.

  “Is that all you wanted to know?” she snapped, when she realized she was being ignored.

  “That and why you left your engagement ring at Dogwood.”

  “Did I leave it?” she answered coolly. “I suppose it didn’t suit me quite so well anymore.”

  “I’ll get you another, then.”

  “Charlie, I—”

  “Only I don’t have time for that right now. Right now I need you to stay at Marsh Hall. I’d rather you were at Dogwood, but if you’re going to be difficult, just stay where you are. It’s for your own good, you hear?”

  “Ooooo!” she growled, the sound originating from someplace deep in her belly and rising shrilly when it reached her tongue. Without thinking, she threw the eye shadow tin at the vanity mirror. Her honeyed reflection wobbled with the impact, the sharp points of her cheekbones and the dark centers of her eyes turning temporarily blurry. “You beast!”

  “What did you say?” Charlie shot back.

  “I called you a beast! How dare you—how dare you—” But she could not think of a way to ask him how he dared try and leave her out of the biggest night of the summer on some flimsy safety pretext. “How dare you try to cage me!”

  “Oh, come off it,” Charlie went on, “this ain’t some old novel.”

  Astrid would have liked to hurl his words back at him, but before she could think of a rebuttal, the line got muffled again. “Charlie Grey, you’ll not ignore me!”

  “Just stay there!” Charlie yelled, taking his hand off the receiver. The sudden loudness of the voice, and the realization that others were with him, wherever he was, infuriated her more.

  “Fine,” she said and she put the phone down hard.

  The impact shook the vanity, and her reflection blurred again. When the blurriness passed, she saw how the tension in her face—the crease between her brows, the tightness of her usually pliant lips—made her look older, and she hated Charlie for it. The club was Cordelia’s club, really, and Cordelia was still her best friend even if Astrid couldn’t stand the sight of her brother, and anyway she didn’t need any justification to show up at a place where everyone was planning to be that night. Several phone calls had come in that morning already, from girls she’d gone to school with, and boys she’d once kissed at dances, regarding The Vault and whether or not she could get them in. She stared at her reflection a while longer, willing her forehead to soften and eyes to get moist and mysterious.

  Once her blood had cooled, and she had begun to feel more like that fresh girl she knew she was at heart, she ran a brush over her fluffy yellow hair, gathered her diaphanous dressing gown around her slim body, and left her bedroom behind.

  “Where’s Billie?” she asked the butler after she told him that she was done with the phone.

  “In the library, miss,” he said. Astrid whisked by him in that direction, where she found her stepsister below twenty feet of bookshelves, surrounded by potted ferns, on a puckered leather chaise with her face covered by a copy of Madame Bovary in the original French.

  “Billie, you’re coming to the opening tonight, aren’t you?”

  Billie removed the book and regarded her sister. “Don’t you know me at all?” she replied in her flat, amused way.

  “Good.” Astrid smiled, hovering over layers of Persian carpet. “What do you say we get dressed early and make a whole day of it?”

  The corners of Billie’s mouth flexed. “As you wish.”

  Astrid smiled back, and twirled around. “I’ll be ready in an hour . . .” she called out as she strode back toward her room. “Tonight we’re going wild!”

  Chapter 18

  LETTY HAD KNOWN PLENTY OF MELANCHOLY IN HER seventeen years, but melancholy had no hold on her when she woke up at Dogwood on Friday morning, even after she realized that another night had passed without her oldest friend bothering to inform her of her whereabouts. Tonight is my first night onstage, she thought with a smile. On her way into the city her sense of wonder mounted, and by the time she disembarked the wound of Cordelia had shrunk to almost nothing. Instead her attention was grabbed by the whimsical angle of the hats on the women who were filling the train, clusters of shopping bags in tow, for the return trip to Long Island, and the sound of a solo violinist on a nearby platform, and the faint smell of car exhaust mixed with hot dogs.

  The glowing sign at the theater that bombastically announced the Paris Revue greeted her like the warm expression of an old friend. As she went in through the side entrance, a heavy young man with a kind, soft face held the door for her.

  “You one of the new chorus girls?” he asked.

  She nodded and turned to smile at him as they advanced up the stairs.

  “I’m Sal.” He offered her his hand.

  “Are you in the show?” Letty asked.

  It was dark in the stairwell, which had been painted black a long time ago and was papered with well-worn posters and notices, but light enough that she could tell he was giving her a twitching sort of smile.

  “What do you play?”

  “I’m the fat man, of course!” he said. Letty drew her brows together and wanted to tell him that he wasn’t really so fat as all that, but then she saw the lunatic light in his eye, and knew he didn’t mind.

  “Do you make them laugh?”

  “Oh, I’m a dangerous sort.” He gave a ghostly flourish of his stubby fingers and bulged his eyes. “Grown men have choked to death laughing over the things I do!”

  “I’ll watch myself around you, then,” she replied with a giggle. They had arrived on the second floor, where a hall led to the women’s dressing room on one end and the men’s on the other.

  “No, no, you need not worry about me! I’m made of jelly beans.” He grasped his rotund middle
in a goofy way that made her want to laugh again and leaned forward conspiratorially, as if to tell her a secret. “The one you need to worry about is Lulu.”

  “Lulu?” Letty whispered back, biting her lower lip. “Who’s Lulu?”

  “You haven’t heard of Lulu yet? Don’t let that on. Lulu’s the diva who sings the big numbers, and she despises it when people don’t know who she is.”

  “Is she very mean?” Letty returned his smile and opened her eyes wide with exaggerated innocence.

  “She tortures all the new girls, so be warned!” It was possible, she thought fleetingly, that he was drunk, for he had a way like Union’s town drunk, in whom any ordinary event could cause fits of laughter. But Letty knew that she herself was not drunk, and in Sal’s presence she was finding everything funny, so perhaps it was just his way.

  “Is she terribly vain and proud?” Letty went on, matching Sal’s near hysterical tone.

  “Is who terribly vain and proud?” A tall woman with white-blond hair was leaning in the door frame at the end of the hall, wearing a Chinese-style robe. Beyond her, Letty could see girls rolling down panty hose and taking curlers out of their hair.

  Letty giggled again, and answered her. “Lulu!”

  “Oh, Lulu.” She cleared her throat and arched one of her thin brows. “Well, I guess you don’t know yet that I’m Lulu.”

  “Oh, no no no! We must have been talking about some other Lulu!” Letty said quickly and absurdly, waving her hands as though that might clear the air of her gaffe. Her cheeks were red and her stomach had dropped, but Sal didn’t seem the least embarrassed—he was snickering into his big, meaty hands.

  “Get out of here!” Lulu barked at him, although it seemed possible that she herself was smiling. “Stop trying to get the kid in trouble.”

  Sal gave a low, courtly bow, and reached for Letty’s hand, which he kissed once very properly, and then thrice more with a voraciousness that suggested he might soon begin to eat her fingers. It tickled, and she had to swallow another laugh as Lulu reached out, sweeping Letty under her wing, and bringing her into the women’s dressing room. “Lesson number one, my dear, never trust funny men. They don’t even know what they mean half the time, and even if they did, they’d say anything for a laugh.”