The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

by Genevieve Valentine

  Lou had bought them that first year at the Kingfisher, when it was still just the four of them dancing and Jo was in love with Tom.

  “Once you’re out, don’t ever come back here,” Jo said, quietly, and left.

  She sat in the library a long time without bothering to turn on a light; there wasn’t much, just now, that she wanted to see.

  seventeen

  Some Sunny Day

  Lou was almost done packing by the time Jo came back to the room. The bronze dress Lou wore out dancing was draped over her bedspread, the only thing of Lou’s left.

  “I want to go out,” said Lou.

  Jo felt too empty to argue anything except, “It’s dangerous.”

  “I know. But the girls have been trapped like mice up here for two days, and this is the last time we’ll all be together for God knows how long. I want to leave off like we started—dancing.”

  The difference between now and when they had started was that they were no longer invisible. Their father’s suspicious eye was on them now, and he was determined to keep them unsullied goods in a busy market.

  But Jo was too tired to be frightened, just now, and Lou was right. Who knew when any of them might ever see her again?

  No. That didn’t bear thinking about.

  And under all that was something deeper and meaner and true; Jo wanted to see him, just once, before he was someone else’s husband, and gone for good.

  “Call them in,” Jo said.

  Jo had washed her face with cold water on her way back from the library—she had been flushed—and when she was alone she rested her fingertips on her temples for a moment, just to bring a little feeling back.

  The room filled with them, primly, as if they’d been prepared for a scolding.

  “All in, General,” said Doris, closing the door. She moved behind the younger girls, rested one hand on Sophie’s shoulder and the other on Violet’s.

  Then eleven pairs of eyes were fixed on Jo, and for the space of a breath she felt the impossible weight of protecting any of them, let alone all of them, and hated their mother for dying.

  “This is how things stand,” she said when she trusted her voice. “Lou is leaving us. She leaves tomorrow for Chicago, with a man named Tom Marlowe. You might remember him from the Marquee—he was the host there.”

  The silence was absolute. Jo could hear pigeons walking on the ledge, it was so quiet.

  At last, Ella ventured, a hint of poison in the tone, “Tom from last night?”

  “Yes,” said Jo, and pressed on quickly, “he was very taken with Lou at the Marquee, and didn’t like the look of the gentleman she was with last night, and so everything is already settled with Father.”

  A moment too late to be casual, Doris whistled and said, “Lord, you dodged a bullet, Lou. That other one’s a mummy.”

  “But you—but Father called us down in front of him,” Violet said, her voice shaking. Fear or anger, it was hard to say. “It was so awful.”

  You. Jo’s throat went dry.

  “He suspects us, from the papers,” Lou said. “Tom put him off the trail.”

  “Then he has a terrible way of going about it,” said Rebecca.

  Hattie and Mattie exchanged unconvinced looks.

  Sophie whispered, “Tomorrow? She’s going tomorrow?”

  Jo ignored it. Sophie wasn’t deaf; if she didn’t like it, that wasn’t Jo’s problem.

  “Doris will be seeing Sam Lewisohn again, since she was so keen on him the first time.”

  Hattie and Mattie, who were recovering from the first round of bad news, snickered and kissed their own fists with relish.

  Araminta blushed and whispered something to her, but Doris was grinning too hard to mind either the twins or Araminta’s advice about dealing with teasing.

  When the kissing noises died down, Doris said, “I liked Sam back when he danced, and I like him now.”

  “Yeah,” said Lily, “but he’s just some man.”

  “Hey.” Doris lifted a finger. “He’s just some man I like. There’s a big difference. You be nice.”

  “You said he hardly dances now!” moaned Rebecca.

  Doris flushed. “Well, at least he dances, and well enough for me. Who knows if this Tom fellow is any good at dancing, either? You’re a bunch of nosey parkers.”

  “You’ll have a chance to see for yourself,” said Jo. “We’re going out to his place.”

  A ripple of relief ran through the room.

  It was too loud, too happy; it was a gloss over an unspoken thrum of mutiny so sharp that Jo felt like someone had snapped a rubber band against her wrist.

  Lou hadn’t been lying about the girls being ready to bolt, if Jo tried to hold them. If she had said no tonight, they might well have sneaked out from under her, even after everything.

  Jo resented the undercurrent—as if she had chosen to give them a terrible father, and to be his envoy.

  “Enjoy it,” she said. “It might be the last time we go dancing for a while. It will be the last time we go out dancing all together. Tomorrow Lou leaves us. Doris won’t be far behind her, and then it will be Hattie and Mattie’s turn to be thrown to the wolves.”

  The murmurs rose, though Hattie and Mattie fell suddenly silent.

  “Cabs at midnight,” Jo said, to shut them up.

  The girls were gone like leaves.

  When they were alone, Lou said, “Don’t you want the girls to know you set me up with Tom?”

  “No,” said Jo. “I don’t want them to think I can pull more decent men out of a hat. He’s the only man I know.”

  “Nonsense. We know nothing but men.” But Lou frowned. “Jo, I want to be free of this house, but—what will happen to you?”

  “Get your dress on,” said Jo. “You should look good tonight.”

  • • •

  Hattie and Mattie slid into the taxi opposite Jo and Lou. Their matching shoes were clutched to their chests, and two identical pairs of wide eyes gleamed in the dark.

  “Who has Father chosen?” Hattie asked.

  “Has he told you yet?” Mattie said.

  Jo shrugged. “As soon as I know, you’ll know.”

  “But he won’t make us marry anyone we don’t like, will he?”

  Hattie said, “We’re not like Doris and Lou. We’ve never met a man we’d want to have around.”

  “We want to go on just as we are—”

  “—and you can’t just let him—”

  “Quit it,” said Lou. “Like she doesn’t have enough to handle without you two squawking at her about things she can’t help. Pipe down.”

  (Lou had never contradicted her in front of the little ones; a general needed a united front.)

  Jo wondered what Lou was thinking now, besides that she would soon be out from under their roof forever.

  Maybe Lou really thought there was something Jo could do, as if she was just waiting for the full moon to turn them all into swans and throw open the windows.

  The twins settled into a tense silence.

  Jo looked out the window and counted the streets as the numbers on the buildings dropped, falling closer and closer to zero on the way to the Marquee.

  Autumn was coming, and the sidewalk was just cold enough that they all danced on their stocking feet over the pavement and up the stairs, where the burly doorman couldn’t help but smile back at the chorus line of grinning faces pressing into the doorway.

  When they went in and down the first hallway, she didn’t look up the stairs.

  Just before the man at the second door opened it, Jo wished Tom wouldn’t be there, that he and Lou had already left, so she could stop half-looking for him.

  It was better just to know he was gone.

  It was dangerous to care for him; there were some rules that never broke. />
  • • •

  Never tell a man your name. Never mention where you live, or any place we go. Never let a man take you anywhere; if you take one into the alley to neck, tell one of your sisters, and come back as soon as you can.

  Never fall for a man so hard you can’t pull your heart back in time.

  We’ll leave without you if we have to.

  • • •

  Their effect was almost as impressive the second time; though they didn’t have much, the Hamilton sisters knew how to wear what they had.

  When Tom made his way through the crowd, he smiled at Lou first, but his gaze stuck on Jo, even as he leaned in to accept Lou’s kiss on his cheek.

  Jo frowned at him.

  He blinked, remembered himself, and smiled around at the rest of them as he returned Lou’s kiss lightly.

  Jo looked at the bandstand. The singer was just finishing a waltz. Araminta would be sorry.

  “Let’s get you all to the table,” he said, and even as they walked the edge of the dance floor the little ones were pressing him with questions and loaded statements about what Lou was like.

  (Mattie said, “She’s awfully clever,” and Hattie said, “Even if she can’t waltz worth a penny.”

  “Better you than me,” said Rebecca, with a doleful look over her glasses.)

  Rose and Lily were shaking his hands, assessing him in stereo, and Araminta was peering at him as if looking for flaws in a gem.

  Jo hung back a little behind the others.

  She didn’t want to be close to Tom, and there were eleven girls who had to be counted.

  • • •

  He danced with Lou first, a Baltimore, as the others gathered in little knots to discuss him.

  “He seems like a real gentleman,” said Araminta.

  Rebecca frowned. “He seems like a crook.”

  “We only know crooks,” said Lily, and Rose laughed.

  Sophie said absently, “As long as Lou likes him,” and smiled out at the floor.

  Doris, oddly, didn’t have a thing to say.

  No one asked Jo what she thought of him. No one had talked to Jo since they reached the door of the Marquee.

  Seeing them gathered at their table with their backs all turned to her made her want to crack open the emptiness she carried with her and leave it for them to clean up.

  On the other hand, she didn’t have much to say about Tom, so tonight it was for the best.

  He danced next with Violet, who was visibly youngest, and Jo wondered if he was trying to work his way up the chain by age.

  She wished him luck; in their glad rags and painted faces, it was hard for most men to tell them apart, even if he was a ringer. If he thought he could pinpoint them all based on guesswork, he’d have a night of it.

  But that wasn’t his game, Jo realized a moment later—he was cleverer than that.

  The song he’d asked Violet for was fast enough that it didn’t look suspicious for a man of thirty-five to be dancing it with a girl of fourteen.

  Jo gave him credit for his strategy.

  After Violet he asked Sophie, who had been whispering with Rose until Tom held out his hand to ask. But Sophie accepted at once, apparently thinking him neither too young nor too handsome to dance with.

  Poor Tom, Jo thought, and bit back a smile.

  By then the girls were scattering. Jo watched as men claimed them all for the waltz—except Lily, who claimed Violet, and Doris, who couldn’t be pulled into a waltz with a meat hook.

  As soon as the other girls had cleared out, Doris slid into the booth beside Jo.

  “Thanks, General,” she said, glancing out at the dance floor. “For what you did with Sam, I mean, so I didn’t have to talk to Father.”

  “The fewer of us who have to talk to Father, the better,” said Jo.

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Doris pulled a face. “You wonder what he must have been like when Mother met him. I’ve always hoped he was better back then, but everything I remember of how he froze the life out of Mother just makes me think he was always going to be rotten. When we were kids he scared me, and now . . .” She sighed.

  “Now you like boats?”

  Doris laughed. “I told Sam about that. He said for the honeymoon we can boat it over to the Continent, so the joke’s on Father. I can’t wait. Can you believe none of us has ever seen a boat?”

  Jo frowned. “Doris, I’m glad you like Sam Lewisohn. I really hope he’s as nice as you think. But what if he’s not? Father must have picked him for a reason. And he was willing to think of a wife who’d never seen anything of the world. What’s to keep him from turning into Father?”

  Doris thought it over. “Nothing, I suppose. Though it was his mother who arranged to have Sam at the party, it wasn’t his idea, so at least he’s not guilty of that. It’ll be her I’m up against once we’re married, that old dowager.”

  It sounded like a brush-off, but after a moment Doris sighed, sitting back in the booth, and Jo realized she was still considering the question.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Jo, “it’s hard to get a worse situation than our house. Run while you can. I just—I don’t know how you’ll protect yourself if anything happens, once you’re on your own.”

  “I’ll manage. I’m not as dumb as I look, Jo.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Jo said. “I only mean some people turn cruel on you when you least expect, and it trips you up, that’s all.”

  Doris shrugged. “From all I remember of Sam, he was a sweet boy. I hope he stays sweet. But I guess you can never tell how a man’s going to end up.”

  “No,” Jo said, watching Tom’s dark head and Sophie’s blond making tight turns in the tide of dancers. “I guess not.”

  • • •

  By two in the morning Tom had danced with almost everyone.

  Still left to go were Araminta, who had no room on her schedule since the waltzes had filled; Hattie, who hadn’t been back to the table since they arrived; and Jo, whom he hadn’t asked.

  They were all making the most of their last night of freedom. The twins were dancing hardest, their Charlestons looking more like a call to war than a dance. Judging by the glare Jo got whenever Mattie came back to the table to touch up her bloodred lipstick, the twins were none too happy that Jo hadn’t extricated them all from the house before it was their turn on the block.

  When the band took their break, the girls made their way back to their tables, glittering amid the smoke.

  “Oh Lord,” Rebecca moaned, “my feet are dead. One more dance and my legs will fall off.”

  “It’s because you don’t lift them up,” Sophie said. “You have to stay light or your ankles will give before the night’s over!”

  “Easy for you to say,” Mattie chimed in, “you’re four inches shorter. Rebecca’s practically a tree.”

  “Oh, shut it,” said Rebecca.

  “Hey,” called Lily to Lou, “you owe me one, before you go off and get married.”

  “She’s too busy getting all her dances in before she’s stuck with only one man,” said Araminta (pretty shrewdly, thought Jo, for someone who tended to the romantic).

  Lou laughed and ran her fingers through her hair, sending the curls wilder. “No harm in that,” she said. “He’s doing his share of dancing, you know.”

  “There’s someone whose feet really are falling off,” said Violet. “Trying to get all of us in one night! He’s batty.”

  “Hasn’t danced with me,” said Araminta, taking a pull from her glass of champagne.

  “And he hasn’t danced with the General,” Violet said.

  “She should take her turn,” said Rebecca. “He’s good at it. And funny!”

  “And he doesn’t say anything out of place,” Sophie put in. “None of that love stuff.”

 
“No,” said Jo, “I don’t suppose he would.”

  There must have been something in her tone, because Lou glanced over at Jo before turning to the twins.

  “The bows on my shoes are a big tangle. You’ve got to help me before the music starts.”

  It wasn’t a moment too soon; the music started while Hattie was fixing Lou’s second shoe. Then they grinned and rose and tripped away like a line of chorus girls in a flick, leaving only Araminta and Jo behind.

  They sat together often, just the two of them. Araminta wasn’t a big talker, but Jo felt a little soft toward her, out of the younger ones—the same way she’d felt about Doris, when it was just the four of them going out.

  There was something to be said for countless hours watching the same dance floor, commenting on this dancer or that one.

  Jo suspected sometimes that Araminta guessed how much Jo loved dancing and was just too kind to mention it.

  Araminta’s day would come too, to walk down the stairs and be matched with someone their father thought suitable, after meeting him five minutes in the parlor.

  That man would probably be the richest of all, Jo thought, watching her profile as Araminta assessed the floor. Araminta was beautiful and sweet, with large, sad eyes and a serious mouth; a beauty of the old kind, the sort Jo remembered seeing on magazine covers back when she was a child.

  It was a beauty their mother must have seen right away, to give her a name so out of fashion, fit only for a princess in a tower.

  Of course, princesses in towers got rescued. You never heard of a dragon succeeding before St. George did. You never heard of the prince coming through the briars only to find a pile of bones.

  “Jo,” said Araminta.

  Jo looked up and saw Tom standing in front of her. He had his hand out; he must have asked her to dance.

  “Oh,” she said. She wrapped one hand around the edge of her chair. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. It’s getting late.”

  “Go on,” said Araminta. “He’s practically family.”

  That was the problem.

  But Jo stood up and brushed her skirt back into place, and said to Araminta, “I’ll be back in a minute,” as if she was reminding herself.