Speak Easy, Speak Love

by McKelle George

  A plan that lasted until the day she found a black flower pin under a church pew. Maggie had known a little about Hey Nonny Nonny because Father Francis was the pastor in the church in Nassau where servants of the rich white families came to worship. She’d seen him passing out those pins that morning and heard some of the adults whispering about a “masquerade.”

  He would have turned her away at the door if he’d recognized her, but she’d been wearing a mask and, at the cusp of fifteen, was tall enough to pass as older. She hadn’t even been thinking about singing. She’d only wanted to dance and have a good time.

  By dumb luck the girl who was supposed to open for the main performer hadn’t shown up, and Anna had taken to the stage and asked: “Any of you suckers know how to sing a ditty or two?”

  Margaret Hughes knew how to sing a ditty. And she was not timid.

  The crowd liked her young voice, and she did three encores.

  Afterward Anna, having guessed Maggie wasn’t as old as she seemed, made her a deal: Maggie could sing some nights and learn the business, but she would stay with Hey Nonny Nonny and out of trouble. Then, when she was twenty-one, Anna would help her get a good contract at a bigger venue. She’d even written to Maggie’s parents to ask if they thought Maggie’s salary was fair, and assured them Hey Nonny Nonny was a respectable establishment. That last part maybe stretched the truth, but it was hard to resist Anna Stahr.

  Maggie had answered her father’s last letter—How are you, my sweet girl?—with a vague telegram. She still hadn’t told them Anna had died, nor that she hadn’t been paid to sing for eight months. If her mother knew, she’d make Maggie go home. And if Maggie left now, she might never come back.

  “I’m good,” she whispered, half to herself. She blinked out of the past and focused on John again. “You think I’m good, don’t you? I’m not asking you to lie—”

  John held up a hand.

  Wondering if he was about to tell her she’d gone and stretched their familiarity too far, she clenched her teeth.

  “Of course I think you’re good,” he whispered. “Don’t— It’s fine. Let me ask around. Maybe you can sing a few nights as a special, to see how you like the clubs, then decide if you want a regular gig.”

  “Really? You mean it? On the level now.” She leaped at him, straight off the bed like a pouncing cat, but there was no surprising that boy. He caught her waist and stepped back, and instead of hugging him, she ended up sort of gripping his shoulders.

  Still not a bad position to be in, to her way of thinking, but tonight wasn’t about that. She let go of him. “Thank you. I mean it. You won’t regret it. I’ll do my best songs, and everyone will think you’re a whiz for finding them such a treasure.”

  His hands dropped from her waist. “Don’t you have a show to get ready for?”

  “You bet I do.” She skipped to the door. “I’ll be the one in the red dress. Don’t be late.”

  CHAPTER 10

  A STAR DANCED, AND UNDER THAT WAS I BORN

  Hero didn’t let go of Beatrice’s hand, for which Beatrice was profoundly grateful. Her cousin looked stunning, all of her short, amply curved form poured into a beaded black gown. Her mask was angled and trimmed with gold glitter, her red hair hidden under a gleaming black wig; she was dressed as Cleopatra. The geometry involved, from her cheekbones to the dip below her ankle, needed its own theorem. Beatrice knew from firsthand observation there was nothing under the dress but stockings (no room for anything else, not even a chemise) and two black garters; the sequined clutch she held contained a tiny peashooter pistol.

  Yesterday they’d gotten into the speakeasy through a secret stairwell that led to a door behind one of the bar shelves. This time Hero insisted they use the outside entrance for experience’s sake. She pressed a kiss to her fingertips and touched Anna’s face on the photo by the front door. “Wish me luck, Mama,” she said.

  The drive was lined with haphazardly parked cars. In the forgiving glow of dusk and a dozen porch lamps, the sordid state of the gravel didn’t seem so bad, the unruly weeds had the feeling of an enchanted garden. Everything seemed better and luminous. John was waiting for them by the cellar doors, looking sharp enough to cut in a black suit, his jacket collar flipped up. A fedora sat at an angle on his head; no mask. Maggie and Prince were both inside already, working. Hero hadn’t said when Benedick would arrive, and Beatrice had been too embarrassed with herself to ask.

  “Ciao,” said Hero.

  John inclined his head. “Buona sera.”

  She tugged one of his ears, and he brushed her hand off. Hero would have lost that hand, Beatrice thought, if she’d been anyone else.

  The cement stairs were already lit, and at the bottom stood a burly man with dark skin and a scar through his eyebrow. Hero patted his massive shoulder. “Father Francis is the pastor at the church, but also one of our best bouncers. He and Papa served in the war together.”

  “Good evenin’, Miss Clark.” Father Francis had a faint brogue. He nodded at John. “Mr. Morello, good to see you at the Nonny.” He began to open the door, but Hero slapped his arm.

  “Francis! Is this how you do your job? Ask about our pins.”

  He cleared his throat. “Apologies. May I see your invitations, misses?”

  Obligingly Beatrice showed him the black flower she had pinned to her dress sleeve. The Paris number had worked after all, once Hero stitched a few seams—in minutes, while Beatrice watched in amazement. Beatrice rather liked the finished product. It was loose, with no waistline, almost as comfortable as trousers. She’d examined herself in the mirror and concluded she either looked like a sap or quite pretty. One or the other.

  “Very good.” Father Francis’s eyes creased with humor. “Password?”

  Beatrice glanced at Hero. “Sigh no more?”

  Father Francis held the door open. “Enjoy your evening.”

  Beatrice nearly stumbled when she walked in, hit all at once by the sudden shift in smell and sound; the spirit of the untrammeled. The wide, long room was draped in red and, in addition to the stage, the dance floor was large enough to fit more than fifty people, if they didn’t mind bumping elbows. The sides were lined with rows of plush booths, decorated with colored lights. The crowd, all masked, wasn’t too big, clearly a younger, poorer, odder sort. Like the jazz music that played.

  “Hey, look, it’s Hero!”

  A girl appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Hero’s arm and kissed her on the cheek. Her brown hair was bobbed severely; the kohl lining her eyes under the mask. “Well, aren’t you something tonight, all trussed up? Hey, Dan! Hero’s here!”

  A rugged-looking boy sauntered over and gave Hero an appreciative look. “Why, if it isn’t the infamous Hero Stahr. Who’s your friend?”

  “My cousin, Beatrice. She’s the smartest gal in the city. Someday she’ll be delivering your herd of blue-blooded babies, Marta.”

  “A lady doctor, what do you know?” Marta smirked.

  John was already moving away from them, heading for the bar. He didn’t even have to try for his foot-wide path through the crowd.

  Beatrice glanced at Hero, whose personal orbit did the opposite: inviting people in. “I’ll be back in two shakes,” Hero told her, adjusting her mask. “Meet me at the bar. Prince should be there.”

  Beatrice was more than happy to take advantage of John’s trail. He was already sitting and looked as festive as he had outside. Which was to say, not at all.

  “Already lose our hostess?” Prince appeared behind the counter, a rag slung over one shoulder. He wore a gray checked suit, but it was a touch too small for him, strained at the shoulders. As if someone had tried to make a copy of John but forgotten to say when.

  She shrugged. His eyes crinkled. “You look pretty,” he said, in such a sincere way she actually believed him. He put a squat glass in front of her, two-thirds full with bubbling golden liquid.

  “Oh, I’d better—”

  “It’s ginger ale.” He w
inked and plopped in a cherry.

  “Hello, troublemakers!”

  Beatrice saw the tic in Prince’s expression, his gaze glancing past her shoulder, before her cousin reappeared at her side. “Ain’t it the cat’s pajamas in here tonight?”

  “Where’d you run off to?” Beatrice asked.

  “I had to see if Ben’s classmate decided to show.” Hero flashed that ne’er-do-well gap at Prince. “Hey there, slim.”

  “Hey yourself.”

  “So can a girl get a drink?” Hero asked, propping her feathered mask on top of her forehead. A fine sheen of sweat covered the bridge of her nose. “Or at least a cig?”

  “Did you find him then?” asked Beatrice.

  “Not yet.” Hero fanned her face with her hand, and Prince slid her a red-orange cocktail. “He’ll break my heart if he doesn’t show. I am done in for this one.”

  Prince glanced up to examine the ceiling. “You’re done in twice a month.”

  “This time it’s real,” Hero said matter-of-factly; adding, at Prince’s skeptical look, “Haven’t you heard of love at first sight?”

  “Maybe at first dollar. How much has he got?” Prince countered.

  “Well, how should I know?”

  “I bet you do. Down to the plugged nickel.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t be such a wet blanket, Prince. It’s making me anxious.” She downed her drink.

  Beatrice glanced between her and Prince. “But . . . I assumed . . . you and Prince seemed so close.”

  “Oh! Oh, definitely not. My goodness, that would be like kissing my brother.” Her head cocked in consideration. Prince raised an eyebrow at her. “If I had a brother.”

  “Is that him?” John interrupted. He lifted his cigarette, pointing toward the dance floor. “If it’s not, then he’s got some competition.”

  The wood floor was packed with frenetic dancers. Beatrice had been forced to learn to dance at Miss Nightingale’s. Basic waltzes. The fox-trot. Not . . . this. The Charleston. She knew what it was; she didn’t live completely in a glass vial. She just didn’t know how to do it. It looked like walking, but in one place, and fast, feet kicking forward and backward, arms swinging with abandon. Frankly, the ten or so dancers on the floor looked foolish, as if they were caught in the middle of falling and falling and falling.

  One boy, however, did not. Claude moved with grace, his rhythm lazy yet precisely on beat. He was comically good-looking, with wavy brown hair and the sort of face that begged to be bronzed and put in front of an academic hall. Hero couldn’t keep her eyes off him.

  Claude grinned at her, spun on his heel with deliberate slowness, and pointed to the floor space next to him.

  “Is he one of yours?” Uncle Leo arrived, swaggering. He landed a wet, noisy kiss on Hero’s head. To judge by his shining cheeks, he was already several drinks in. “Got a pin, all right, but I know I didn’t give it to him.”

  “Hmm.” Hero’s hand fluttered by her throat.

  “That’s him,” said Prince.

  “Damn. I hate being summoned, but I can’t stand it anymore. Bye, Papa. Stay out of trouble, you hear?” She kissed his cheek.

  When she tried to wipe the residue lipstick off, he waved her away. “Leave it, sweetheart. This way it looks like the girls still like to kiss me.”

  Laughing, she leaned over to give Prince an affectionate chuck under his chin. “Save a dance for me, honey.” She sauntered off, waving and blowing kisses at friends as she went.

  “Wow,” said Beatrice.

  “Yes,” Prince agreed, watching her retreat. He glanced back at Beatrice with a half smile. “Wouldn’t it be awful to be in love with Hero Stahr?”

  “How about a dance with an old man?” Uncle Leo asked, taking Beatrice’s elbow.

  “As long as you aren’t worried about the state of your feet,” she said.

  “My dear, I’m as drunk as a glass of lemonade in July. I won’t feel a thing.”

  Beatrice danced happily with her uncle and poorly with another boy who stuttered and said, “Say, k-kid, you’re a pretty girl and ain’t got a dance p-partner, say, it’s a shame!” When she returned to the bar, Prince was too busy making himself useful to talk with her—she’d begun to suspect this was what he did, and everyone relied on him to do it—so she found her own fun at the back booths, where people were playing euchre, poker, and bridge. Betting with pennies and candies, nobody took it seriously enough for it to be called proper gambling.

  That didn’t mean a girl couldn’t play to win.

  After several rounds the gentleman across from Beatrice set down his hand and laughed. “There’s only so many times a man can suffer defeat. What do you say to a dance, Lily?”

  The girl on Beatrice’s right couldn’t drop her cards fast enough. “Yes, please!”

  “An excellent game,” the man said as he pulled out Lily’s chair. “You’re a terrifying cardplayer.”

  Alone, Beatrice gathered up the cards, her mask on the table by her elbow.

  “You look in need of an adversary.” Just like that, the seat across from her became occupied again. Her new opponent wore a mask that covered the entire top of his head, fittingly equipped with horns, a garish masterpiece that looked like the product of hell’s finest festival, leaving only a sharp chin available for inspection. His voice carried a manufactured country accent.

  But beneath the mask were eyes the color of mud. The color, more precisely, of being late for class when it was raining outside and slipping and seeing your best shoe coated in slick nasty brown and the obscenity that came out because the day was awful and everything was ruined.

  However, if Benedick wanted to pretend he’d achieved anonymity with his mask, far be it from her to stop him from making a fool of himself. In fact, it might turn into the highlight of her evening.

  “I’m afraid we need another two players,” she said blankly.

  He swept the cards into his hands with dexterity, shuffling a few times. “Cribbage? Gin? Svoyi Koziri?”

  “I know gin.”

  He dealt, set the deck between them, and flipped the first card up. Beatrice examined her ten cards in silence, calculating her options and the percentage odds of reaching each option. She drew from the deck and discarded.

  “What are we playing for?” he asked, and took his turn. It really was incredible. His voice was all but unrecognizable. Perhaps he should take to the stage if his writing never sold.

  “A winner’s bet?”

  “If you please.”

  She shrugged at her humble earnings. “A nickel or two should suffice, unless you want more. I don’t foresee you winning.”

  The smirk that appeared would have given him away if she hadn’t already known who he was. “I’m penniless, alas. If I win, I want a dance. If you win, I’ll give you a kiss.”

  “I don’t suppose it occurred to you I might not want your kiss.”

  “If you don’t want it, you can give it back.”

  She glared, flustered. Too late she drew without thinking. She could have used the seven of hearts, but she missed it. This was why sparring with him, and his prettily turned words, was so frustrating. Like using a bow and arrow against the wind. “If I win, you go away,” she said.

  “Done.”

  She concentrated on her hand, refusing to let herself get drawn in by conversation again. Not that he didn’t try. Her dogged silence seemed to amuse him. He barely looked at his cards, and her confidence grew.

  Until she laid down a king and he swiped it immediately. “Poor choice, Lady Disdain.”

  “What did you call me?”

  He put his discard facedown. Her stomach fell. “I win,” he said.

  Beatrice stared at the set of jacks and royal run of diamonds he displayed. She cleared her throat. “Well. So you have.”

  He stood and held out a hand.

  Very well.

  Perhaps she could step on his toes five times and make it look like an accident. She placed her ha
nd in his. A small shock went through her arm all the way to the bone. Revulsion no doubt. “Do you title all the strangers you meet with insulting characteristics?” she asked as he led them onto an unoccupied space of the floor.

  “Only when it’s very obvious.”

  Her hand tightened on his. As they sashayed through the first step, she landed pointedly on his foot. Except for a missed beat, he didn’t react. He just twisted his ankle and set it back.

  “Try to let the man lead, hmm?”

  “I wasn’t—”

  But she must have been because his hold on her waist tightened, and then she was not leading and felt the difference.

  “At first I thought you must have learned I was disdainful from someone else,” she said. “Benedick Scott perhaps?”

  “Who’s that?” he asked, all innocence.

  “You must know him.”

  “I don’t, believe me.”

  “Lord Loquacious, they’d call him.” They were dancing, she realized. As long as she let him lead, she actually did all right. He was irritatingly graceful, and this, even more irritatingly, didn’t surprise her.

  “Describe him, won’t you? Maybe I’ve seen him.”

  She was tempted to say he was beyond description—the only truthful response that question warranted—but lurking within his request was the monster of opportunity. “He’s Prince’s little pet,” she said after a pause. “The speakeasy’s mascot. Quick on his feet, entertaining and whatnot, but not much substance underneath. He wants to write, I hear, but he’s too much a snob for it. The upper class think some skill they acquired in an expensive classroom can pass as art, but they haven’t got anything real to say. They don’t understand the world outside their social circle.”

  By the time she finished, his grip was painful, but she pretended not to notice. Below the mask his mouth was a grim line.