Last call at the nightin.., p.3
Last Call at the Nightingale, page 3
But Ms. Huxley only grinned. “Tell Danny your next drink is on the house, then, smart girl, and forget you saw anything out here. I’ll see you around.”
Vivian squared her shoulders to walk past those silent, suited men and down the long hallway, and she kept her chin lifted as she paused at the door to the main room, letting the music from the bandstand wrap around her senses, familiar and reassuring. They were playing a foxtrot, the dance that almost anyone could be halfway decent at, and the floor was crowded with couples. That meant the bar was emptier than usual, so Vivian made a beeline for Danny. The sideways look he gave her while he finished up with another customer told her immediately that he knew something had happened, even if he didn’t yet know what.
“What’s the word from Hux?” he asked as soon as the other patrons were far enough away.
“That my next drink is on the house,” Vivian said, forcing a playful smile as his eyebrows shot up, though it took more effort than she wanted to admit.
“You’re learning to play it pretty cool, kitten,” he said, his eyes lingering on her for a moment before he turned back to the rows of bottles and glasses.
Vivian shivered as soon as he looked away. “Did you see where Bea ended up?”
Danny’s hands were busy pouring, but he gestured with his chin. “Back at work.”
Vivian’s bravado lasted until she met her friend’s eyes across the crowded dance floor. And then it slowly began to crumble as she remembered the animal smell of the alley, the blood on the dead man’s shirt, the cigarette burning a hole through those stupidly expensive pants of his. Vivian hadn’t been lying when she said she had seen dead people before. But tonight was the first time she had been face-to-face with one who had been murdered.
For a moment she felt like she was going to be sick, and she quickly gulped down half of the drink Danny handed her. Even from a distance, she could see the warning shake of Bea’s head. She didn’t want to have anything more to do with whatever had happened in that alley, and Vivian knew she should be putting it behind her too.
Forget you saw anything out here, Honor Huxley had said, her cold smile unreadable.
Vivian held back another shiver. Whatever had happened, it was nothing to do with her.
“Danny, find a girl a partner, will you?” Vivian looked over her shoulder to give him a smile. “I need a dance something awful.”
“Feeling jittery, kitten?”
She was, her whole body tingling with nerves, but she would never admit it. “Just like this song, is all.”
Danny knew all the regulars, and they knew him; a moment later, a stylish young man with tidy brown hair and a forgettably handsome face was beaming at her as the band slid seamlessly into a quickstep. “Up for a spin, doll?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Vivian tossed back the rest of her drink, unconsciously imitating Honor Huxley’s slow smile as she put her hand in his. “I hope you can keep up.”
Forget you saw anything out here.
Whatever had happened, it was nothing to do with her.
FOUR
New York was a city of streetlights now, puddles of gold breaking through the shadows, leaving the spaces in between even darker than they used to feel. Factories sent clouds of smoke sweeping across the sky, even at night when they were shut for a few hours. Soon their workers would stumble, yawning, in to work.
Maybe there were parts of the city that fell quiet at night, but there was never silence in the New York that Vivian and Bea walked through. Music drifted out from restaurants and clubs, from the speakeasies that were written up in society columns instead of tucked into alleys. The wealthier the patrons the louder the laughter, because folks that rich didn’t need to time their lives around the factory bell and could afford to drink and eat and dance late into the night. The streets were filled with people, even as the moon rose and sank and the stars tried to push through the grimy sky. There were always people singing and laughing, people calling for cabs in slurred voices, people crying for help from the shadows.
Their steps took them straight home, to the crowded, teetering buildings wedged too close together, west and south of Central Park, where Vivian and her sister could just afford two rooms and there was sometimes a little hot water in the shared hallway washroom. The noise changed here, to the sound of too many people with too many troubles living too close together.
Vivian knew what it sounded like when Mr. Mulligan across the way had too much to drink, knew the pitch of his sobs when he hadn’t had enough. She could tell the difference between the cry of Mrs. Thomas’s youngest baby and Mrs. Gonzales’s oldest. She knew the sounds of arguments and lovemaking and shady deals and desperate pleas for more time, more money, more kindness, more everything. They were the sounds of home.
“Night, Viv,” Bea said. She had two more blocks to walk until she reached home; the girls blew goodnight kisses as they went their separate ways. Bea’s brothers and sister would be asleep, all tucked into one bed where they shared covers and dreams, only hours to go before they needed to be up for what school they could manage to squeeze into their lives. Mrs. Henry would be waiting for her oldest daughter, unable to sleep until all her children were safe at home.
As Vivian climbed the stairs of her own building, she knew where the steps rattled and creaked, the spots to skip over if she didn’t want Mr. Brown’s mangy dog to wake up and start yapping his head off. She knew the sound of stylish Will Freeman’s snores, and smiled to herself as she tried to imagine what jaunty new outfit he would have managed to cobble together for himself that week.
And she knew what her own home would sound like if her sister were asleep, peaceful and oblivious and uncritical.
Vivian paused with her hand on the knob, listening. A deep sigh, the creak of a chair, the snip of scissors.
She scowled at the ugly wood of the door. Florence was awake.
FIVE
Florence only glanced up briefly as the door swung open before looking back down, her fingers still busy with needle and thread as she attached glass beads to the hem of a dress with nearly invisible stitches. In front of her, three trays of beads in different shapes and colors were laid out. Their single lamp was drawn close, illuminating her work and leaving the rest of the room in shadow. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes.” Vivian eased the door shut behind her so it wouldn’t wake any of their neighbors and locked it, proud of how calm her voice sounded. The last thing she wanted tonight was an argument with her sister. “Couldn’t that wait until we’re at the shop tomorrow? You’ll ruin your eyes sewing in this light.”
“Beads are as much by feel as by sight, you know that. And it needs to be finished before opening tomorrow. Mrs. Parker’s coming to pick it up first thing.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be finished until next week!”
“The Parkers changed their plans. They’re leaving town tomorrow, and Mrs. Parker wants the new dress to take with her.”
“And is Miss Ethel paying you extra to finish it at home?”
“You know she’s not,” Florence said, her voice unruffled as she stitched another circle of beads into place. “It doesn’t matter. At least it gives me something to do while I wait for you to stumble in.”
“I don’t stumble, Flo, and it does matter,” Vivian said, kicking off her shoes and tossing her purse down on the table where Florence was sewing. “It’s flat wrong for her to make you do extra work without pay, and you know it. God, I want to just march down there and—”
“And what?” Florence asked sharply, looking up again. “Get both of us fired? Take a job at the Palmolive factory instead? You’d hate that even more. The one good thing they taught us at the home was how to sew, and—”
“And dressmaking is respectable, and we need all the respectability we can manage,” Vivian finished for her, slumping into the chair across from her sister. “But it isn’t fooling anyone, you know. Anyway, why are we arguing about Miss Ethel?”
“Because you’d rather do that than argue about how late it is and what you’ve been doing all night,” Florence said, setting down her needle as she looked her sister up and down. Her forehead creased in concern. “What happened tonight?”
Vivian handed Florence the scissors before she needed to ask. “I went out dancing, of course.”
“I know that. I mean what happened that upset you?”
Vivian scowled, a pang that was equal parts gratitude and anger thumping through her chest. Somehow, Florence could always tell when something was wrong with her little sister. When they were children at the orphan home, Florence knew when Vivian had a night full of bad dreams, even if she didn’t say anything in the morning, or if Vivian had been in trouble with one of the nuns, even if Florence hadn’t seen it happen. It made Vivian furious that she was somehow so transparent. And it soothed the places that had been rubbed raw by a childhood where no one ever quite wanted them. “Nothing upset me.”
“Some man got fresh with you?”
“I like it when they get a little fresh, Flo,” Vivian said, trying to make her sister blush and feeling spitefully glad when she succeeded. “And if I don’t like it, I know how to make them stop just fine.”
“All right then, don’t tell me.” Florence leaned back, setting down the scissors and rolling out her neck as she yawned. The lamplight gleamed across the long braid of dark hair that hung over her shoulder. In the morning she would unbraid it and pin the wavy coils ruthlessly back. Florence hadn’t said anything the day Vivian had come home with her own hair, true black and stick straight, bobbed like a Hollywood starlet. She hadn’t said anything about it in the two years since, either, and her stubborn, disapproving silence made Vivian want to scream. “You should get to bed.”
Vivian sighed. “I’m wide awake. You sleep, I’ll finish this up,” she said gently, reaching out to slide the pile of fabric from her sister’s grasp.
“It’s almost done,” Florence protested, though she didn’t try to hold on to the dress.
“Good, then I won’t mess it up too badly. Call it my penance for all the booze I drank tonight.”
“I don’t like it when you talk that way.”
“I know. That’s why I do it.” Vivian turned a cheeky smile on her sister as Florence rolled her eyes and stood, stretching and rubbing the small of her back. She waited until Florence had opened the door to their bedroom—the only other room they had, even more sparsely furnished than the main room—before adding, “I love you.”
Florence’s sigh was so quiet it barely traveled across the space between them. “I love you too, Vivian.”
Vivian waited for the click of the door, then pulled the lamp closer and bent over her work. There was no reason to tell her sister about the dead man at the club. Florence’s disapproval was already a headache without a body to justify it. And Honor Huxley was clearly a woman who could handle things on her own.
Vivian’s stockinged feet tapped out a quiet Charleston beat against the floor. There was no need to tell Florence anything at all.
* * *
The clatter of the stove jolted Vivian out of sleep. She lifted her head off her arms with a groan, rubbing her eyes as the room came into slow focus. “What time is it?”
Florence glanced over from where she was making coffee. “Six thirty. Did you mean to sleep out here?”
“Of course not,” Vivian muttered, running her fingers through her hair. “I fell asleep after I finished the dress, is all.” Vivian gestured at the neatly folded bundle, yawning so widely that her jaw popped. “Mrs. Parker had better be thrilled with that thing. I don’t even want to think how many beads are on there.” She watched as Florence unfolded a corner of the dress, rubbing the silk between two fingers.
For a moment there was an unmistakable look of longing on Florence’s face, but when she saw Vivian watching she dropped the cloth abruptly and turned back to her task. “You did a good job with the beading. Go wash, and for God’s sake put on something decent. I can’t believe you let strangers touch you when you’re wearing that.”
Vivian bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything. She had found her dress in a secondhand shop and made it over herself to match the newest fashion. But it wasn’t worth arguing.
“Coffee will be ready when you’re respectable. I’m heading out to the market.”
“We have to be at the shop at eight.”
“I won’t take long.”
Florence had already brought in a bucket of water from the building’s common washroom and left it in the bedroom. Vivian poured a basin full of water, then stripped out of her dress, brassiere, and drawers, rolling her stockings down carefully to avoid snagging them, since she wouldn’t be able to afford a new pair for a couple of months. The water was frigid, and she scrubbed with a flannel until her skin was pink and tingling.
Her clothing from the night before was stiff with perspiration and smelled of smoke, so she wrapped up in Florence’s dressing gown—her own had finally finished falling apart a few months ago and been turned into a curtain in the main room—and washed her dress and stockings in what was left of the water before hanging them over the creaky metal footboard of her bed. She took her time with the washing, careful of the spangles on her dress, but that meant she had to dress quickly or risk Florence returning and finding her still not ready for work.
Hemlines had been creeping up for two years. It was a style that Vivian loved and her sister detested, but working at a dressmaker’s shop meant they both had to be fashionable at work, though not too fashionable or customers would think they were getting above themselves. Miss Ethel, the shop’s owner, preferred her seamstresses and shopgirls to look a little conservative—to counteract what she clearly believed were the loose morals of any girl without a family supporting her in the city—so Vivian pulled a simple cotton skirt and sailor sweater over her underthings. There was no makeup or jewelry permitted at work, so all that was left was to run a brush over her bob until each sleek black hair fell into place.
By the time Florence returned, clad in a skirt and pretty blouse, the felt hat that she had trimmed herself perched on her tidy head, Vivian was seated at the table once more, sipping black coffee and wishing they could afford sugar.
“You look pretty today, Flo,” Vivian said. “That shade of pink always looks nice on you.”
Florence paused in the middle of unpacking the groceries and glanced over. “You look nice too.” She glanced back at the groceries and grimaced. “I hate to ask, but—”
“Are some of those for Mrs. Thomas?”
Florence nodded. “I don’t mind buying things for her,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. “Really, I don’t. She has an unreasonable number of children to provide for. And I’m grateful for everything she did for us.”
“We’re both grateful. But she’s also mean as a cat and doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.” Vivian finished her coffee and stood. “I’d rather you not talk to her, anyway. You’ll be upset for the rest of the day if you do.”
“I don’t know how you deal with her,” Florence said, sighing as she handed over the basket of Mrs. Thomas’s groceries.
“I ignore her. That’s what you have to do with about three-quarters of the people in this world.”
“Well, my skin’s not as thick as yours.”
“I know.” Vivian stood beside her for a moment, then leaned over to press her shoulder against her sister’s. Neither of them were particularly affectionate with the other—the nuns at the home had frowned on too much touching or hugging—but that much at least she knew Florence wouldn’t flinch at. “Will you pack sandwiches? I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Vivian slipped on her shoes and tucked her purse into the basket, which she needed two hands to carry to Mrs. Thomas and her unreasonable number of children, ranging in age from five to twenty-five. Most of the older children would be out at work, though the oldest two had five children between them now and lived next door to their mother. Mrs. Thomas had married a second time ten years ago, and the second round of children that resulted had left her even sharper and more sullen than she had been when she’d had no husband around at all. Vivian had to steel herself before she knocked on the door.
“Whoever it is, you can let yourself in if you ain’t too proud, I’ve got my hands full in here!”
Vivian poked her head around the door. “Only me, Mrs. Thomas. Florence picked up some groceries for you and asked me to bring them by.”
Mrs. Thomas was ladling out oatmeal to six children, four of them her grandchildren, who were crowded around her table. Regular thumping and clattering tumbled out from the other rooms, punctuated by shouts for someone to get more wash water, as the other members of the family tried to get ready for the day without tripping over each other.
“Well, put them by the stove, then,” Mrs. Thomas snapped. “I hope there’s milk in there, the babies have been asking for it since yesterday.”
“Two bottles, bought fresh not even an hour ago,” Vivian said, forcefully cheerful as she unpacked the groceries. “And some apples too, do you want me to cut those up?”
“What, do you think we’re so poor we can’t afford teeth? They can eat them whole.”
Vivian passed out apples to the six children, who were quarreling among themselves, while Mrs. Thomas continued to complain.
“And don’t think I don’t know why you’re the one coming by, instead of that sister of yours. Looks down on me, she does. Thinks she’s better than me, in that fancy shop of hers with those fine clothes she makes, and me trying to keep food on the table for my children and my children’s children while she resents buying a few groceries…”
“The fancy shop doesn’t belong to Florence any more than the clothes do,” Vivian said dryly as, without being asked, she began to make a new batch of coffee. “We both work there, as you know. And neither of us mind the groceries.”
