The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel

by Genevieve Valentine

  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 the 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.

  When she took his hand, he held it too tightly. She pretended not to notice.

  On the dance floor Tom slid into the line of dance just behind Sophie and her man. For a moment Jo thought dismally, Now there are two witnesses, but shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first time she’d danced with Tom, and besides, he was practically family.

  The embrace felt natural as always, but even since last night there was something heavier about it, something resigned and older, so that she could hardly hold up her arm, and her hand in his hand was shaking.

  The wail of brass carried over the rest of the music, and when the singer started, she sounded the same melancholy note as the trumpet had.

  “I waited all night for this,” he said.

  She said, “Don’t.”

  “You know,” he said quietly, “I thought about going straight after I met you.”

  She thought about the question she’d asked him in the car on the way over, the look on his face as he nodded.

  “I figured you must have liked me all right as I was, to keep dancing with me even after you’d worked things out.”

  He was giving her more credit than she’d ever given herself.

  “But I never stopped thinking about it,” he said, “even after I got run out of New York. I knew the best thing I could do was raise myself in the world, and that if I really worked to be worth something, then I’d have something to stand on if I saw you again.”

  She couldn’t answer him; she curled her fingers into a fist on his back.

  “And it’s a good thing, too,” he said, all false cheer, “because look how useful my work has been to you.”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  The word must have been too raw, because he pulled her closer, his fingertips pressing into her ribs so hard that she could feel the seam of her dress.

  (No one could see them in the crowd, no one would know, they were safe for one minute more.)

  She felt as if her feet were sticking to the boards, as if at any moment she would sink into the floor.

  “I can make myself love Lou,” he said after a moment. “She’s a sharp girl. I could love her, if that’s what you want of me.”

  The singer had given up singing, and the trumpet was crying the last notes. Jo rested her head on his shoulder, just for a heartbeat, like she had when she was a girl.

  Then it was his turn to hold his breath, to squeeze her hand, to almost forget to stop dancing. They swayed for a beat after the song was finished.

  At last Jo said, “Don’t.”

  She gave herself a count of three before she tensed and pulled away. Tom watched her as she stepped back, sharp-eyed and hungry.

  It made her nervous. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “If I had known last time how long it would be, I would have gotten a look in, that’s all.”

  “Cut it out,” she said, crueler than she meant. “Tomorrow you’re taking Lou to Chicago.”

  “I’ll come back when she’s settled in,” he said. “Where will you be?”

  Jo didn’t want to think about that.

  “Go find Lou,” she said, and slipped through a crack in the crowd back to her table.

  Araminta was watching her with wide, keen eyes. “How did it go?”

  “He holds on too tight,” Jo said. “We’re leaving.”

  Araminta looked disappointed, but she was already reaching for her shoes as Jo held up her hand like she was snatching a moth from the air, and the exodus started.

  • • • • • •

  Lou or Doris brought up the rear, making sure no girl got left in the crush.

  They’d have to pick another girl to hang back, Jo realized, now that both of them were leaving.

  Rebecca could do it. She kept her head on straight. But she was still so young. One of the twins, maybe, but at any moment they’d be called downstairs, too.

  “Ladies,” said Tom at the doorway, with a glance at Jo as she passed. “Thank you for a beautiful evening.”

  Jo didn’t listen for what he said to Lou.

  She went on ahead, had her hand out for cabs before she was off the stoop, summoning one and another and another.

  The girls poured out the door, the tops of their heads smoking in the cool evening air, leaping into the cabs.

  Hattie and Mattie sat pointedly with Ella, and when everything was sorted Jo found herself in the cab with Lou and Violet and Araminta, Araminta’s eyes trained on Jo as if expecting a revelation.

  “So this will be the last night we’re all together,” said Violet finally.

  It must have been inconceivable to Violet, Jo realized, that things would ever change.

  Violet had grown up in this glass world. She’d known about the dancing since she was old enough to keep time; for her, there had been no other life than the cage and the dance. Now everything was falling to pieces, one sister at a time.

  Lou sighed, said to Violet, “I wish I could take you with me.”

  “Write to us in three months,” said Jo, “and see if I don’t offer to send her wherever you are.”

  Violet laughed. “General, you’re not serious.”

  “Who knows,” said Jo. “I might have the money for a train ticket that day.”

  Violet sat back and stopped asking questions.

  Araminta said, “You should let me fix that dress, Jo. It’s an all right color, but so old-fashioned. If I lowered the waist and took up the skirt it would do wonders.”

  Jo said, “And what use do I have for a sharp new dress?”

  “Oh, who knows,” said Araminta. “You never know when you’ll need something nice.”

  “There’s nothing I need,” said Jo, and turned to the window.

  Soon Violet and Araminta and Lou were talking about this dancer and that one, laughing at an awful partner Violet had landed with (“You should have seen it, he’s a menace, I could have lost a toe!”), comparing the bandstands at the Kingfisher and the Marquee.

  “I miss their champagne,” Lou said. “The Marquee’s is so sweet you get sick.”

  “The dancing tonight felt so sad, mostly,” Violet said. “I liked Tom all right, though.”

  “I like him all right, too,” said Lou.

  Jo curled her hand a little tighter in her lap, as if to keep warmth in.

  None of them mentioned what would happen to Lou in the morning.

  • • • • • •

  When they got home, they
slid through the alley and padded up the stairs, disappearing into the attics like ghosts caught out.

  Jo, who came in first, glanced into the kitchen to make sure none of the staff was awake and that all the lamps were out.

  All was well, and they climbed the stairs, as quiet as they could be.

  Their father’s study was one floor above them, and neither light nor noise reached them in the kitchen dark; even if his office light was on, even if his door was open to catch some little sound, there was no telling from the back roads they took. There was no warning.

  For all Jo knew, no one else was awake in the house.

  eighteen

  THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE

  Jo woke to the sound of Lou fastening her trunk.

  It wasn’t quite sunrise. Jo watched gray creep over the ceiling for a little while before she said, “Good morning.”

  Lou looked up. “Good morning,” she said carefully. “I’ll be done in a second, and then you can get some shut-eye. I tried to be quiet, I just couldn’t sleep.”

  She moved back and forth to the dresser, twisting her hands. “I think I took one of your pomades—I’m sorry. I’d try to get it out, but the trunk’s so full I might never find it. I didn’t realize how much I owned—you’d think we own so little, but it gets so crowded.”

  Jo watched her.

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as I have some money, I promise,” said Lou, “it’s just that it would take me forever to find, and I don’t want to be late because I’m repacking everything and then maybe something awful happens and I can’t go, so I’ll just buy you a new one as soon as I can.”

  “It’s fine,” Jo said to the ceiling.

  “Jo, why did you give Tom to me?”

  The question came fast and sharp, as if Lou had been waiting for Jo to say something, anything, and have out with it already.

  Jo didn’t look away from the ceiling.

  “You don’t give people to other people,” she said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Jo.”

  Jo looked over. Lou was resting stiff-armed on her trunk, watching Jo, looking as though the words were being ground from her.

  “I’m not stupid,” Lou said. “I know how you felt about him. You loved him something awful. You were one dance away from running off with him, once.”