Beautiful Days (15 page)

Realization sharpened Cordelia's features. “You sent those men to follow me, didn't you?”

“What men?” Thom looked startled, but she couldn't be certain whether he was faking or not. “Did you see their faces? What did they look like?”

“You know them, then.”

“No, no—I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just warning you to be careful.”

For a long moment she held his gaze. Then she plucked the wafting cigarette from his fingertips, dragged from it, and, with her eyes steady on his, dropped what was left into his glass. His eyes went briefly to the ruined drink and then back to her.

“That's very kind, Mr. Hale,” she said flatly, exhaling. “But I wouldn't take your advice if you were the last man on Earth.”

With that, Cordelia turned and walked—shoulders back and head high, mindful not to trip on her perilous heels—into the room where her friends, and everyone else, were loudly going about their evening. She took a deep breath so as not to be overwhelmed by the stimulation there, the vivid colors, the red smiles of the girls and the white teeth of the boys, the music on the phonograph and the general din of glee.

“Where's Astrid?” she asked Victor, when she reached him.

“Over where you left her.”

Cordelia's eyes darted to the mattress where Letty and Astrid and Billie were surrounded by those ridiculous college boys, all in their blazers and pastel sweaters, jockeying for position to romance the girls. “Go get them, Victor. I'll wait in the car. It's not safe to stay—Thom Hale is here.”

He nodded gravely and went to do as she had instructed. It was possible that Thom came into the door frame and watched her swift departure, but she had no way of knowing, because her head was down until she reached the Daimler. Slumped in the backseat alone, she began to wonder if Thom had really meant to threaten her, or if some part of what he had said was sincere. Then she decided that either way it didn't matter. The whole night was ahead of her, and she didn't want anything from him.

Astrid was giggling when she spilled through the car door and into the backseat after Letty. “Whatever could have happened to excuse us leaving so dramatically?”

“Oh, just Thom Hale.”

“Really?” said Billie, squeezing in behind Astrid. “That's not good.”

“No, it's nothing,” Cordelia said carelessly. “Only I want to have a good time tonight, and it would be impossible with him there.”

“Right you are,” Astrid went on, as the car peeled away from the curb. “And it was clever leaving like that, with everyone wondering where you'd gone off to. Leave them wanting more, as Mummy always says.”

“To hell with men, anyway,” Cordelia replied.

“Amen,” Astrid seconded, throwing her head back and hooting with her hand over her lips like an Indian princess.

Letty gave Cordelia a private smile and reached out to squeeze her hand, and Billie leaned forward and instructed Victor where to go next.

After that, they never stayed in one place very long. They went up and down stairs, to tiny places with two tables, or vast halls filled with palm trees. Drinks came to them in chipped coffee cups or, at the places profitable enough to afford protection, fine silver-rimmed highballs. They went back to Seventh Heaven, where so much had already happened to Letty and Cordelia, and Letty's eyes scanned the bar hopefully. But her beau wasn't there, and neither was anyone else of particular interest, so they rolled on.

Later, at the bar of a hotel that was all black iron curlicues, Victor struck up a conversation with Cordelia—the topic of which is lost to history—and she momentarily forgot her friends. Letty was looking drowsy, and had rested her head on the bar as soon as they arrived. When Cordelia turned away from Victor, she saw Billie leaning forward to take Astrid's heart-shaped face in her hands and kiss her big, soft lips. By then everything seemed perfectly hilarious and inconsequential, so Cordelia laughed and turned to the bartender and ordered another round, and when she looked back she saw that they were still kissing. It was only when the drinks were served that their mouths parted and Billie took her hands off Astrid's waist. Then Billie raised her glass and toasted, “To hell with men!”

The girls' careless spree continued on through the veins of Manhattan a while longer, but Cordelia could not be sure how long, because by the next morning she could not remember the drive home. She only remembered putting her head down against the soft satin sheets and feeling dizzy and wishing that Max Darby liked dancing in nightclubs. But then a conviction came over her that the evening had been perfect just as it was, with Astrid and Letty and Billie at her side, and that there would be plenty of time for the pilot in her future. . . .

On the other side of the house, in the turret bedroom, sleep was not to be so easily had, even after dawn began making herself known in the pink margins of the sky. It was around then that Charlie burst into Astrid's room. At that hour even the rowdiest Manhattanites were in bed, and Astrid had changed into her nightgown and put her hair up in curlers.

“Hey! What do you think you're doing?” she cried out. At this point she was still feeling delightfully drunk and silly, and she went on in a good-natured voice: “We're not married yet, mister. If my mother knew you came to my bedroom late at night like this, she'd sic our private detectives on you, I'm sure.”

“Damn right we're not married yet.”

He was standing at the end of her bed, and he seemed at that moment much taller and blockier than he had before. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows so that she could see his forearms, which made her excited and angry at once. The silliness drained from Astrid's face once she'd read his posture, and she pushed herself up against the pillows and squared her shoulders for what was coming.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded in a decidedly colder voice.

“I told you to stay put.”

“If you have to, tell me to stay put on a night when nothing is happening. Not on a night when my friends are all going out to have some fun. It's been such a long time since I've had any fun.” Here she paused pointedly, and gazed up into his angry brown eyes. Before speaking again, she focused on her cuticles and affected a careless tone. “Anyway, I can't see
why
it matters so much to you what I was doing tonight.”

Charlie sighed and put his hands on the base of the bed frame, leaning his whole weight against it and hanging his head. “I run a business. The situation changes every day, every minute. I'm sorry if I haven't been as sweet with you as you like . . .” He trailed off and stepped back from the bed and turned toward the window. It was perverse, Astrid knew, but she never wanted him to kiss her so much as in these moments, when his back was to her and he seemed almost exhausted by the roller-coaster ride they took each other on. The muscles of her face relaxed, and she raised her arms toward him. He never saw this gesture, however. He spoke before she did, turning his face slightly—she could see his slab nose in profile, but his eyes didn't go as far as to reach her. “Maybe it was a dumb idea, you moving in here so quick.”

The air went out of Astrid's lungs, and her arms fell onto the silken coverlet like a slap. “Maybe,” she replied venomously.

Charlie heard the change in tone and matched it. “What did you think you were doing out there? Cordelia was so tight she had to be carried to her room. Have fun, if you want. Don't go to every joint in town and dance with every fellow there. Don't kiss your sister.”

A little gasp escaped Astrid's lips, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to disguise the giggle that followed, because she had forgotten the part of the evening when Billie kissed her. The kiss hadn't been
real
, of course—it hadn't meant anything, the way it meant something when Charlie kissed her. It was only that they were having such a perfectly wild night and everyone was watching them, and when a girl gets watched like that, she begins to feel that she is the prettiest sight around, and wants nothing so much as to put her lips to her own reflection. “Oh, Charlie, don't get so sinister, you are so unappealing when you are sinister like that! Anyway, Billie is my
step
sister.”

“Victor told me—” His voice was filling up with rage, and he had to break off, as though he couldn't bear what he was about to say. He paced in an angry circle at the foot of her bed. “Never mind. You know what you did, and it's not how I want any wife of mine acting in public. Do you hear me?”

Astrid narrowed her eyes and iced her words. “Yes, Charlie, I hear you.”

“You do?” He stopped pacing and his face became briefly pliant and patient. But it was too late for Astrid—she had passed over the border into the land of fury, and would not be coming back no matter what he went on to say. “Good,” was what came out of his mouth, though she was barely listening anymore. “Because I got a lot on my mind and I don't have the time to keep you in line at night. The Hales, they're throwing all they got at us. Tonight they vandalized the club. Luckily I had some boys there, working, they had only taken a break for dinner, they got back before too much damage was done. But the message is clear enough. I don't know what comes next, though I know it's something, and that I'm not going to like it. Anyway, I'm sorry if I've ignored you, but you know I'll make it up to you.”

“Oh, that's all right.” Astrid crossed her arms hard over her chest. “I wouldn't want you to put yourself out.”

“No, but I—” Before he could finish his sentence, Charlie caught on. His eyes blazed as he realized Astrid wasn't going to come back around to sweetness. “Oh, damn you.”

“Damn me? Damn
you
! If you think it was all too hurried, me coming to live with
you
, perhaps it was all too hurried us getting engaged!”

“You think so?” he spit back.

“Yes!” The scream that followed was instinctual and loud enough to hurt both their ears and probably to be heard in the far reaches of the house. Charlie stepped back and assessed her. He seemed to be wondering if she was serious or not. In fact, she had no idea whether she was serious, but she held his gaze, and lifted her chin, and did her best impression of a girl who wasn't going to back down.

Was she angry with Charlie because he'd ignored her for days, or because he was spoiling the end of a perfectly frothy evening? Was it because she had been ready to do something frighteningly grown-up with him, and he had been too dumb to know? All the emotions she'd experienced since moving into Dogwood—that nasty sensation of being left behind, the boredom, the wanting—flooded her insides, clamoring at her that she should hold her ground.

“All right,” he replied darkly. “Well, all right.”

She pulled her engagement ring off her finger—this hurt, and not just because the knuckle was slightly swollen. She thought sorrowfully of the night he'd given it to her, and how proud she'd been to wear it. But he was already halfway to the door, and she didn't flinch when she said, “I'll take my things back to Marsh Hall tomorrow.”

By the time the door sounded behind him, she had turned on her side and buried her golden head in the pillow in a vain attempt to sleep.

Chapter 14

CORDELIA WOKE UP LATE WITH A DULL ACHE IN HER forehead and a scratchy throat. Letty must have already risen, or at any rate there was no sign of her in the Calla Lily Suite. If the two girls had spoken before falling asleep the night before, Cordelia couldn't remember it. She couldn't remember falling asleep at all. When she rose and went to the vanity in the dressing room, she saw the kind of girl she'd always hoped to one day meet in New York City: a bit gaunt in the face, but with a bright loveliness in the eyes that suggested that the mind behind them contained all manner of stories. And however weather-beaten she was from the late night, there was a great contentedness springing from deep inside her. That was Max, she thought. She had seen him in her dreams, and they had been orbiting each other like two celestial bodies. Outside, the storms had broken and sunshine had returned to White Cove, and she stood in front of the mirror in her slip, and shivered at the memory of the way she felt when he turned his gaze on her.

“Len, I'll have breakfast on the verandah,” she said as she breezed through the kitchen. She had scrubbed her face clean and pulled the black tunic that she liked to wear by the pool on over her slip, but otherwise she was in the exact state she'd been in when she awoke. Her hair still smelled faintly of smoke. She liked the idea that the experiences of the night before were still on her skin and in her hair, that every tiny inch of her was being formed by the places she'd been. That she couldn't quite remember those places—at least the last one—did not trouble her. Billie could remind her, she supposed, or maybe the newspaperman who had been buying her old-fashioneds would oblige her with a record of events in his column.

Music came from all the trees—a symphony of birds and insects—and someone was splashing in the pool.

“There you are, miss.” She turned and saw Len, carrying a glass of juice and a plate of fried eggs on a lunch tray.

“Thank you, Len.”

“Might want to read the papers, Miss,” he said, and placed a folded gray broadsheet beside her breakfast.

“Thank you,” she replied, although she did not immediately do as he'd advised and open the paper, and instead nibbled at a piece of bacon thoughtfully and listened to the sounds of the afternoon and wondered when she would next see Max, and under what circumstances, and what great fun it would be to show him off. Perhaps he would be her date for her own club's first big night.

With a lazy stretch, she spread open the newspaper. Her eyes were drawn straightaway to the words
Max
and
Darby
. A subtle electric charge passed through her body when she saw in print the name that she had been thinking to herself over and over again, and she sat up straight in her chair, the better to read some news of him. The story above it was run in a larger font—it concerned an investigation into a fire in Rye Haven two days ago—but nothing held any interest for her besides the small column in the bottom left-hand corner. Then she realized what it was about, and her heart went silent.

THE WILD NIGHTS OF A BOOTLEGGER'S DAUGHTER
was the headline, but below that, in lettering that was only slightly smaller, it said
MAX DARBY SHOOTS DOWN RUMORS, DENIES KNOWING MISS GREY
, and below that, in quotation marks,
“SHE WAS JUST A GIRL I HELD THE DOOR OPEN FOR.”

Cordelia's face fell as her eyes moved feverishly over the following paragraphs. There was no real story, of course. A few anecdotes from last night filled the first paragraphs, all of which came from the newspaperman who had bought her drinks. He made it sound like every one of her nights was like that. It was not until she turned to page eight that she found anything about Max. Apparently there had been rumors of a romance, based on the sighting at the Plaza, and the newspaper ran the photographic evidence alongside a more thorough denial from Mr. Darby of their having anything to do with one another. “
I never read the papers, so of course I didn't recognize the young lady, but I was raised to open the door for a woman when I can
. . . .”

“Oh, you idiot,” she said out loud, as mortification engulfed her.

She folded up the newspaper with two decisive gestures and put it back on the table as though that could make the whole thing go away. In a matter of seconds she had gone from feeling very tall and impressive to very small indeed; humiliation and hurt warred within her for prominence of place. Briefly, she tried to convince herself that maybe the situation wasn't as bad as it seemed. Maybe he had simply panicked upon being called for comment, and maybe he wouldn't read the column and find out that she'd been running with flappers all night. Maybe in a little while the phone would ring, and he would apologize, and they would go dancing, someplace where they were sure not to be photographed.

Foolish as Cordelia felt right then, however, she was not fool enough to really believe that. She had seen enough of Max to know that everything he did was full of intention. If he had told a newspaper that he had no idea who she was, and had merely opened a door for her, then he meant not to see her again. Cordelia wrapped her arms around herself and gazed out on the soft expanse of lawn, the dogs of loneliness gnawing at her heels.

“Cord!” her brother called from inside the house. She twisted in her chair, a hint of a smile emerging on her face through the sadness. Her brother was here, as he always would be. So she had gone chasing after a boy who flew shiny airplanes—that was a mistake, but she was still here, among people who cared for her. Among a strange kind of family that happened to be the only people she could trust.

“Out here!”

“Cord!” His feet clapped against the floor of the ballroom, echoing against its empty walls. He came through the double glass doors and onto the verandah with an intensity that surprised her. When he stopped, it was with a fist against his hip and a seething in his eyes. She blinked at him, unsure what he was about, but hardly getting the reassurance she had been expecting. “How do you feel?”

“Like hell,” she replied weakly.

“Gin will do that.” He was tapping his foot and his eyes were boring into her expectantly.

Cordelia pushed herself up in the chair, suddenly self-conscious of the rather sloppy way she'd put herself together, of her smoky hair and the shadows under her eyes.

“You were a wreck last night.” He exhaled hard through his nostrils. “Do you even remember coming home? Do you have any idea how much manpower I lost last night trying to find you?”

She blinked again and tried to make her brain work, so that she could know why he had been so keen to find her last night. “Well, I was at all the places one might expect!” she said with a brassy smile. “You see even the gossip columnists found me,” she added, waving her hand in the direction of the odious newspaper.

“That's not funny.” His face was so stony that for a moment she couldn't help but find it just a touch amusing. She knew better than to laugh, however. “I needed all my men last night. More than that, I needed not to worry that it was
you
they were after.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

It did now occur to Cordelia that she might have been more careful after being followed the other day, but Charlie himself had taken her out drinking right afterward. And Billie had been so enthusiastic yesterday—there would've been no saying no to her. Going into the city hadn't seemed so foolish at the time, but her head hurt too much to explain. All she could manage to do was stare back at him blankly.

“The Hales, of course.” He threw up his hand in exasperation.

“What happened last night?”

He let out a long, raspy sigh and cast his eyes out toward the trees as though he wasn't sure he could trust her with the story.

Cordelia's palm rose to cover her mouth and her chest tightened in anger. “Does this have something to do with your burning their warehouse?”

“How did you know—?” He broke off and brought his fist down hard on the metal table, which shook, the fork clattering against the plate, the yolks of the eggs quivering in their whites. She was relieved he didn't push her to answer that, but a wave of shame passed over her nonetheless. She knew how it would sound if she said that she had been told about the warehouse by Thom Hale. “Yes, probably. It happened earlier the night you were followed.”

“The Hales retaliated, then? How did you know it was them?”

He shook his head. “They didn't try to keep it a secret. Anyway, I knew something was coming, what with the damage we've done to their business. But don't forget—it was them that declared war, not us.”

Cordelia nodded gravely. The happy cloudiness she'd woken up to had been cut away now, and her mind was racing with the several dark turns of the afternoon. “What can I do?” she asked, making her brown eyes wide and serious.

“You?” He snorted and stepped back from the table. The way he fixed his eyes on her was new, critical, almost the way Aunt Ida might have looked at her. “You can start waking up before noon, for one thing. You can take your one assignment seriously. I want to open the club as soon as possible, this weekend if we can manage it, and you haven't done a single thing. Jones and I have been doing everything for you.”

This bruised her and she crossed her arms over her torso again, trying to think how to respond.

“You've been spending all your time with that damn hot-dog pilot. Lot of good that will do us—you being seen around with a teetotaler.”

“Well, I won't be seeing him anymore.”

“That's something,” he said, but the news only made him look angrier. It seemed to remind him of a whole other category of sins. “Where's your head been, Cord? I thought you wanted to be part of the family.”

“I do!” With his last breath, her father had declared her an equal heir to the family business, and now she wanted nothing more than to make good on his edict. “I was only out last night to learn about speakeasies, to be seen, to get attention for our place.” Charlie gave a slight nod, acknowledging that this might be partially true. Emboldened, she straightened and continued: “I
did
bring in the musical act for the first night.”

“What?” Charlie narrowed his eyes, almost as though she'd called him a bad name.

“The musical act. For opening night.” His expression did not change, so she added, more tentatively this time, “Letty?”

There was a long minute when he didn't do anything. Then his lip drew back on one side and he moved his head so that he was staring down at her from a skeptical angle. “I'm fighting a war here, Cord. The Hales want to take everything Dad worked for. They want to knock us out. I've got men injured—men who followed me even though they're old enough to be my dad. Meanwhile, you got this one simple thing to do. And you tell me—what? That you're going to bring people into a new nightclub with some little girl from Ohio who has never been on the stage in her life?”

“But she's good! You said it yourself.”

“Cord.” Charlie shook his head and turned his eyes toward the ground. He laughed mirthlessly and said, “Maybe I had the wrong idea with you and this club.”

The elegant table, the expansive verandah, the strong sunlight on the rolling lawns, all appeared soft and a bit pathetic to her in the wake of this comment. She knew what she looked like, lazing about as morning turned to afternoon, and she despised herself for it. From somewhere in the recesses of Cordelia's mind a memory emerged—her father, looking at her with such pleasure and pride, and telling her that she was like him, that she was clear-eyed and unsentimental, that she knew when to let go of dead weight. They had been standing in the hallway, and they had both been happy, and she had believed him for no other reason than that he said things with such authority that they stamped out doubt.

“No—no . . . you didn't have the wrong idea at all.”

“No?”

She sat up straight. “Charlie, I can do this. Just give me one more chance.”

A panting briefly interrupted their conversation, and she turned to see Letty's dog Good Egg loping up the hill. Behind her, wrapped in a white robe, was Letty. Cordelia's shoulders tightened, and she swallowed hard. “I'm the girl for this, Charlie,” she said, meeting his gaze and holding it.

Charlie wagged his index finger at her, as though he were her parent and not her sibling. “One more chance. No more running around with flyboys, all right? And if you go out to do family business, fine—but two bodyguards go with you at all times.”

Without smiling, he turned on his heel and went into the house. Cordelia closed her eyes, tipped her head against the chair's back, and groaned, quietly, so that no one else would hear. The sun was very bright—it warmed her bare calves as she waited for Letty to make it up the hill—and strong enough that it was difficult to see.

As Letty came up the hill she saw Charlie standing on the verandah in shirtsleeves and seersucker trousers, and while his presence might once have made her shy, or persuaded her to take the long way around to avoid him, today she didn't mind him being there. Charlie was now not so much a frightening figure to her as he was the boy who had first suggested she sing at his club. And after last night, she felt even more at home at Dogwood.

It had been her intention to wake early and rehearse again but she had been up so late last night with the girls, and they had drunk so much gin. Her thoughts were scattered and a low throb emanated from her forehead. The swimming had helped, but she still didn't see how she was going to remember the words to any of the songs. But going out had been worth it. They had been to so many places and were treated like very interesting people at every one of them, and she had never felt so much a part of Cordelia's gang, or like Billie and Astrid were her true friends, as she had during their carousing.