The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  He smiled too brightly, already transforming from my friend into his stage self, Marion-the-glamorous, the one who was never afraid and never doubted herself. Her shoulder rose in the slightest, most casual shrug.

  “It wasn’t me in that picture,” she said lightly, tweaking my chin with one satin-gloved hand. “It couldn’t be.”

  I have to give credit where it’s due. Marion’s almost as good a liar as I am.

  CHAPTER

  2

  I LEFT MARION-THE-GLAMOROUS to put the finishing touches on her ensemble and went back downstairs. Marion clearly didn’t want to face facts, but I could still keep an eye on that girl and make sure she didn’t cause any trouble.

  The flaw in that plan became apparent pretty quick. Duke, the bartender, who is no fan of mine even when Cal hasn’t left me in charge instead of him, yelled, “Where you been? I’m swamped here!” The customers were three deep at the bar and looking cranky. So, I hung up Cal’s top hat, slipped in next to Duke, and helped slosh hooch into our motley collection of glass tumblers, demitasse cups, and shot glasses inscribed with such slogans as VOTE DRY and BERTOLINI’S NATURAL HEALTH TONIC.

  A steady succession of humanity arrived in front of me, eyes eager and money in hand. There were fellas posturing in their fresh clothes and combed hair, girls cutting their eyes at each other from behind veils of chatter and laughter and smoke. Most of the early crowd had gone home to their wives and mothers, and the dandier folks had trickled in till the whole place was full up with the laughter and chatter of old friends meeting again and new friends just getting acquainted. By this time of night, they were beginning to look like stage-actor versions of themselves—voices too loud, expressions too big—and the hooch became a cloak to keep their duller selves carefully hidden.

  Close to the stage, Marion’s Red Feathers clustered around the little tables, clasping each other’s arms or drumming fingers in anticipation of her entrance. They’d fallen in a dizzy sort of love with Marion’s stage persona and came back to see her so often, I knew them all by name. One clerked at the bank a few blocks away; one was the son of a well-to-do jeweler; one made his money entertaining sailors in town for a night. All were members of an exclusive club that had no rules or fees, only an understanding, a wink, a red feather in a hat band to say “I’m one of you. We can be ourselves together.”

  The band started up a song that had played on the radio every other minute since Thanksgiving. The cornet called sharp and bright, and soon dancers followed, customers tossing their hats on tables and joining hands to wind their way to the open floor. Not that rich girl, though. I spotted her leaning over talking to people at the next table, that photograph in one hand and a drink in the other.

  Bennie Altobello, whose father supplied our bootleg hooch, and his friend Eddie Dwyer pushed their way through the current of dancers and bellied up to the bar in front of me, blocking my view of the girl. They were a mismatched pair: Bennie, dark-haired and solid and steady, and Eddie, freckled and wiry and probably voted Most Likely to Pick Your Pocket in school.

  “Hear you’re the boss tonight,” Bennie said, smiling his easy smile that always caught me off guard these days. I’d known him since that summer my mother first left me here, when we were both skinny thirteen-year-olds running around, getting in fights in the streets. But he wasn’t skinny anymore, and I hadn’t had to punch anyone for him in ages.

  I straightened my shoulders. “That’s right.”

  Eddie bumped Bennie out of the way, smoothing back his vivid red hair. “Does that mean you’re dishing out freebies to your old pals?”

  I glared at him. “There’s free water dripping off the roof.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Don’t be such a wet blanket, Mill.”

  “Don’t be such a pocket twister.”

  Eddie staggered around, pretending I’d shot him with an arrow straight through the chest.

  Bennie rolled his eyes and shoved him aside. “I’ll have a whiskey. And one for this bozo, too.”

  “What a guy!” Eddie clapped Bennie on the shoulder. “What a chief! What a solid gold—”

  “That’ll be a dollar,” I interrupted, so Bennie knew he wasn’t getting any special treatment either. He started fishing in his pocket, and I set out two glasses and started to pour.

  A familiar fake laugh from nearby caught my attention, and I glanced up to see our waitress Olive dodging away from a sweaty male customer’s grasping hands. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes looked ready to kill. My fingers tightened on the whiskey bottle, itching to smash that customer with it, but Olive met my gaze and gave her head a little shake. As she’d told me before, she didn’t need a white girl to fight her battles.

  “You ever dance, Millie?” Bennie said as he reached for his drink, bringing my focus back to him. His fingertips brushed against mine on the damp glass, and I quickly withdrew my hand, pretending his touch hadn’t sent an electric zing straight through me. He wasn’t the only one to make me feel that way, after all, and Olive was still looking in our direction, her deep bronze shoulders held straight as a queen’s.

  “Why you want to know?” I said, shoving Eddie’s drink across the bar without looking at him. “Your date taking too long in the john?”

  Bennie laughed, making his warm brown eyes spark. “Maybe I just want to find out if you got two left feet.”

  “From what I’ve seen, you might want to worry about yourself.”

  Bennie splayed a hand flat against his chest and lifted his chin. “I’m an excellent dancer.”

  “Oh, really?” I raised my brows. “Is that what the ladies tell you?”

  Eddie guffawed. Bennie’s grin faltered a fraction. “Maybe you should judge for yourself.”

  I blew a strand of black hair out of my face and saw Olive moving on to another table, turning her back to us. I rotated my dish towel inside a damp glass and let a smile slide across my lips. “Maybe I already have.”

  Bennie angled closer. “And what did you decide?”

  My smile expanded slowly. “That I’m glad I’m not your date.”

  Bennie blinked. I gestured over his shoulder with the glass. A girl with red hair as fake as my mother’s used to be stood behind him, arms crossed under an ample chest. I recognized her from the school I went to before Ursuline; we had not been friends.

  “I came here to dance,” she said in a pouty baby voice. That much hadn’t changed since primary. “When you gonna spin me, Bennie?”

  Bennie gave me a sheepish look and led his girl away toward the dance floor, with Eddie and his own date close behind. Miss Buxom shot daggers at me over his shoulder, and I offered her a toast with the empty glass in my hand.

  I glanced at my new wristwatch Marion had given me for Christmas and carefully rubbed a spot of water off the face. Two more minutes until the show. The band blared a final note, and a bright light shone on the stage. Only then did I realize I’d forgotten an important detail. I shot a black look toward Duke, who studiously avoided my eye. I’d bet anything he’d remembered and neglected to tell me on purpose.

  With Cal gone, it fell to me to announce Marion.

  I caught a glimpse of Marion’s red dress beyond the doorway to the back hall. She needed an audience primed to receive her. I couldn’t let her down.

  I adjusted Cal’s jacket on my shoulders and plopped her top hat back on my head. I’d heard her spiel enough times to know it by heart. I just had to be her for a few seconds. I just had to lie.

  * * *

  Talking on the stage felt like a train was rushing by me, and I had to jump into the boxcar and grab hold or die. I said Cal’s words and winked where I was supposed to wink. People laughed where they were supposed to laugh. Maybe not as loud as for Cal, but nobody slunk out the back of the club either.

  Right on cue, I swept my arm toward stage left. “I give you the beautiful, the enchanting, th
e in-com-parable . . . Miss Marion Leslie!”

  Applause burst from the audience as our star performer stepped out of the shadow and into the silvery spotlight. We passed each other, trading places, and Marion squeezed my hand before I disappeared back down the steps into the dark.

  Marion posed in the center of the light against Lewis’s piano, like a statue of a Roman goddess if statues wore red-sequined gowns. Somebody let out a wolf whistle, and Marion wagged one white-gloved finger at the crowd, teasing, chastising. More whistles came from around the room. Marion tossed her head back and beamed, soaking it in.

  I propped myself against the wall beside Frank, who always stayed close to protect Marion during her show in case her adoring fans—or a rare drunken heckler—got any funny ideas. Marion held up her hand, palm to the crowd, and they hushed. Every movement was routine; I’d seen each one before, both onstage and when Marion practiced them in the mirror, but the crowd ate up the performance like it was the last olive in the jar. They tilted and pushed forward, chairs scraping on the floor.

  Marion turned her head sideways, toward the piano, and lowered her gaze to a spot on the floor, as if she was almost too shy to continue. But when Lewis played the opening notes on the piano, Marion looked up suddenly at the audience again, turquoise eyes sparkling wetly in the spotlight, red lips parted. There was a soft gasp across the room.

  Then she began to sing, soft and sure and sultry.

  Someday he’ll come along

  The man I love

  And he’ll be big and strong

  The man I love

  She dragged out the notes, putting a catlike growl on the word big, and winked at someone at the Red Feather Boys’ table.

  And when he comes my way

  I’ll do my best to make . . . him . . . stay

  Some in the crowd giggled. Some sighed dreamily. Others looked at their friends with big goofy grins on their faces, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  He’ll look at me and smile

  I’ll understand

  Then in a little while

  He’ll take my hand

  Marion stretched out a graceful arm, this time toward Lewis at the piano. Marion’s lashes flashed. Her breath caught, and her eyes locked on Lewis as she sang. A blush crept up the back of Lewis’s pale neck into the neatly trimmed line of brown hair, and his long fingers fumbled a note. He bent over the piano and quickly found the thread again. I glanced at Frank, and we both suppressed a laugh. How much longer was it going to take for those two to figure out they liked each other?

  Marion released her hold on Lewis and turned back to the rest of the audience, and I looked for Blondie’s table near the front. It was easy to spot, with the way the Uptowners spread out their chairs, cocky enough to take up every inch of space they could. Their fur coats hung on the back of the chairs and pooled on the floor. As the person who mopped the floors every night, I could say with certainty those coats were getting wrecked. One of the girls was even doodling something on a piece of paper instead of watching the show. Then she shifted to the side, and I saw Blondie perched so close to the edge of her chair she was in danger of falling off. Her mouth was open, her ring-bedecked fingers curled against her lips as if to stop herself from crying out.

  My stomach tensed. Was this girl about to cause a scene? We didn’t have hecklers often, and when we did, Frank’s retribution was swift. But such scenes ruined the show for Marion. No matter how much applause she got afterward, and no matter how she pretended nothing rattled her, I’d seen her tears in the dressing room after. And in my experience, cruel words stung whether you wanted them to or not.

  I edged closer, fists clenched, and Frank looked over, a question in his eyes. Was there something he needed to handle? I shook my head. Not yet.

  I turned my gaze to Marion. The song was almost over. The seduction in her eyes didn’t waver. Her voice didn’t falter. Had she seen the girl?

  And so all else above

  I’m dreaming of

  The man I love

  The moment the applause began, Blondie stood up, wobbled a bit, and grabbed the table with one hand to steady herself. The drink in her other hand sloshed, and some of it splashed onto the floor.

  Marion bowed her head, seeming to soak up the admiration, but her gaze darted to the right, toward the rich kids’ table.

  Blondie’s date touched her arm, but she shrugged him off. She stood there, staring, and for one long moment, Marion stood still and stared back.

  I thought I knew all of Marion’s expressions, thought I’d seen them all so often I knew what she was feeling just by looking. But I had never seen this particular expression on her face before. It was like love and longing all tangled up with hate and pain.

  The piano launched into the next song in her set, but Marion was still frozen and missed her cue, something that almost never happened. Lewis looped to the beginning of the verse again, and this time Marion blinked and shook her head, trilling a laugh.

  “Lewis, honey, play it just one more time, and I promise I’ll get it right. This crowd! You’re so distracting! Look at you, all dressed up for New Year’s Eve!”

  The crowd tittered as if she’d spoken to each of them individually. Blondie, as if freed from a spell, turned and shoved her way through the people filling the long, narrow room. From my spot on the floor, I lost sight of her, but when I looked back at Marion on the stage, her eyes still traced the girl’s path.

  CHAPTER

  3

  I SLIPPED BETWEEN the tables in the same direction the blonde interloper had fled. Olive grabbed my wrist as she passed me with a tray of empty glasses. I felt that same zing from her fingers against my skin as I had with Bennie, making me pause.

  “What was that about?” She gestured toward the stage with her precarious tray. Nobody in the crowd seemed to guess anything was amiss, but Olive’s golden-brown eyes noticed everything. She could always tell which customer would try to skip out on his tab and which needed to be rushed to the bathroom before he heaved up a mess on the floor, and she always appeared with a fresh handkerchief the moment anyone shed the slightest tear.

  But now wasn’t the time to explain. “That’s just what I’m gonna find out.”

  I spun away out of her grasp and found Blondie right where I figured she’d be—nursing a drink at the bar. Wasn’t that where they all went? Home base for the sad and discouraged.

  I elbowed my way into the space next to her and propped against the bar. “Rough night?”

  Her gaze swept over me, taking in my tailcoat, my white shirt, my top hat as if really seeing me for the first time. No matter what she’d known about this place before she got here, she hadn’t been prepared . . . or hadn’t believed. She turned back to her drink and took a slug of it. “What business is it of yours?”

  “Gotta keep the customers happy.” I winked, turning so I was parallel with her, my wrists on the bar next to hers.

  Her face in the smoky mirror behind the bar went all high-hatty again, nose in the air. “You didn’t care about that before.” She swiveled toward me, drink tilting. “You said you didn’t recognize him. You said he wasn’t here. Obviously you were lying.” Her words slurred a bit as she waved her glass toward the stage. Marion was barely visible from this angle, but her voice purred another song over us.

  “I don’t owe you information,” I said. “A lot of people in here have secrets. We don’t go around handing them out to strangers.”

  “Strangers!” Blondie gave a sharp, bitter laugh and knocked back another large swallow of her drink. Her eyes met mine over the rim. “He was still in New Orleans the whole time.” She jabbed her finger down on the bar. “Right here. And not one word.”

  So she’d definitely known Marion in a past life, in a place with richer blood and fatter pocketbooks than here. A surge of j
ealousy rose up in my chest. She’d known him before I did, knew a whole side of him I didn’t. Even if I got his true self, that other part was still inside him somewhere. I’d seen it when Marion looked at her from the stage.

  “Why are you looking for him anyway?” I narrowed my eyes and clenched my fist against the bar. “What do you want with him?”

  “I just—” She looked down at her handbag and picked at a loose bead. “I thought . . . maybe . . . if I talk to him . . .”

  She looked so lost and sad all of a sudden, I almost felt sorry for her. But Marion didn’t want to talk to her. He’d made that much clear.

  “Listen,” I said, making an effort to gentle my voice, “if he’s gone all this time without getting in touch, he has his reasons, don’t you think? Maybe you should let him be.”

  The girl curled into herself, hugging the drink against her chest. “I wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t want to see me.” Her eyes blazed with anguish, with regret. Who was she and what had happened between her and Marion?

  The questions hovered on my tongue. Marion had only told me the barest information about his life before he came to the Cloak and Dagger a year and a half ago. He was sixteen then and had been sleeping on a bench until Cal caught him nodding off in one of our booths and asked him if he needed a bed. When he told us his name was Marion Leslie, it came out trembling and new, a wobbly colt of a name. We didn’t ask him about his old one.

  Cal, who knew a thing or two about runaways, had given him a job busing tables and found him a place to rent at Bennie’s grandmother’s rooming house. Marion and I had become fast friends, especially once I gave in to his wheedling to try on dresses for him at the Maison Blanche department store, since he couldn’t do it himself. He’d treated me to coffee and a slice of pie in the store’s restaurant, and not long after that, he’d given up mopping with me and started singing on our stage.