A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald

by Natasha Lester

  ‘What adventures have you been having, my dear?’ Mabel Whitman asked when she bustled into the drawing room. ‘New York seems to agree with you; you look like a different woman.’

  Evie laughed, gratified. ‘I’ve been shopping.’ She pirouetted to display both the shoes and the dress and then sat down again. ‘I bought a dancing dress too,’ she said. ‘I’d love to wear it out one night. If I’m able to stay in New York.’ She proceeded to tell Mrs Whitman about her meeting with Mr Childers and the disastrous test.

  ‘Don’t give up on Mr Childers yet,’ said Mrs Whitman. ‘He might be the kind of person who looks for possibility over performance.’

  She’d just finished speaking when Thomas walked into the room. He kissed his mother on the cheek and greeted Evie formally.

  Mrs Whitman smiled at her son. ‘I was saying to Evelyn what a shame it is that Charles won’t be here until tomorrow. I’d wanted Evelyn to go out and meet some young people.’

  Evie looked at Mrs Whitman in surprise; she’d been saying no such thing. It was the first time Evie had heard about Charlie not arriving today. So much for her fancy of treating herself to a night of dancing.

  ‘I thought you could take Evelyn with you tonight and show her the city,’ Mabel Whitman continued.

  ‘Oh really, I’m fine,’ Evie said. ‘You don’t need to –’

  Her protestations were cut short by Thomas. ‘Of course. We’ll leave after dinner.’

  As he left the room, Mrs Whitman said, ‘Now your shoes and your dress will have the outing they deserve.’

  Chapter Five

  Evie stood in her bedroom, staring at her new rouge, powder and lipstick. Did she dare? Ladies’ Home Journal was no help. Its advice on makeup use was ‘don’t’.

  She sat down at the dressing table and opened the powder first. It looked the easiest to apply. She dabbed a little on her nose. Too little; she couldn’t tell the difference. She patted on some more. Better. Then the rouge. She brushed what she thought was a small amount on one of her cheeks, then examined herself and almost jumped back in horror. She looked like she’d spent too long in the sun. She wiped at it with her hand, but the wiping only made her cheek redder. Perhaps she should just take it all off. She ran the water and was about to wash her face when she stopped. What had she decided that afternoon? To not give up. And here she was, ready to consign cosmetics to the same fate as the sewing basket. She looked in the mirror again. Her cheek had settled to a gentle flush. It looked almost the way she’d hoped it would. Before she had any more time to think, she rouged the other cheek and applied a little lipstick. When she’d finished, she was taken aback. She looked different. Not quite older, but as if she knew more than she really did. If only that were true.

  Then she slipped on her new dress, which was daringly black. A sheer overskirt, decorated with amethyst-coloured embroidered flowers, fell to a few inches above ankles, enough to show off her new shoes. A sash draped around her hips, tied in a rosette at the side and then fluttered down her leg. The cap-sleeved bodice was also embroidered and Evie knew that was all she needed for decoration.

  But as she walked down the stairs, Evie worried that she might have taken things a step too far with the cosmetics and the shorter skirt. What if the Whitmans thought she was fast? She had no idea what the rules were for well-brought-up young ladies in New York and she had no one to ask. It would be good to meet some people her age, as Mrs Whitman had suggested. It would be nice to have one friend in New York whom Evie could ask about the subtleties of lipstick.

  When she stepped into the hall, Thomas was waiting. To her relief, he didn’t recoil as if afraid to be sullied by her brazenness, nor did he laugh at her as if she looked like a clown. She hoped that meant she’d got the rouge right and that he wasn’t just too polite to show his appalled reaction. He looked good, and Evie was glad to see he was wearing a tuxedo, rather than a tail-coat, which perhaps meant they were going somewhere fun. She felt a flutter of excitement at being escorted out into a New York night by such a handsome young man.

  He ushered her to a waiting cab. ‘We’re going to Chumley’s.’

  ‘Chumley’s?’ Evie couldn’t decide from the name if it was the kind of place she was hoping for.

  ‘In the Village.’

  Evie knew her question would sound gauche but her curiosity got the better of her. ‘A speakeasy?’

  Thomas nodded.

  ‘Even after sharing a flask of whiskey with you in a tree, I can’t quite imagine the Vice-President of the Whitman Bank at a speakeasy.’

  ‘But Chumley’s is the cat’s pyjamas.’

  Evie saw that Thomas was smiling at her and she laughed. ‘You’re teasing me. “Cat’s pyjamas” is not something Mr Thomas Whitman would say.’

  ‘No, but Tommy Whitman might.’

  They rode the rest of the way in a companionable silence. When they stepped out of the cab, Evie felt sure that Thomas was teasing her again. They were in the middle of a residential street lined with townhouses. There was no sign of dancing or illicit drinking.

  ‘That’s Edna St Vincent Millay’s house,’ said Thomas. He indicated a three-storey red-brick townhouse that was so narrow it looked as if it was made for dolls, rather than people.

  Evie had obviously misunderstood Thomas’s intentions. Instead of going dancing, she was being taken on a tour of Greenwich Village, and although she felt a little silly, she couldn’t help being struck by the thought of St Vincent Millay being able to write so beautifully while living in a space so small. For all its vastness, New York seemed to compress its people, geniuses or otherwise, into very tight spaces. Unless of course you were a Whitman and could afford a mansion.

  Suddenly Evie heard the call of a saxophone coming from somewhere. Thomas led her to a nondescript two-storey town-house on the opposite side of the street and, without knocking, opened the door and motioned for Evie to step inside. She hesitated at first, not used to walking into strangers’ homes without an invitation, but if Thomas thought it was all right then she supposed it must be.

  They went up one set of stairs and down another. At the bottom, they were most certainly not in a private residence. It was a square room with a bar in the centre and a crowd of people dancing and drinking. The walls were papered with the jackets of books; Evie could see F. Scott Fitzgerald’s name on one cover, beside William Carlos Williams, Willa Cather and, of course, St Vincent Millay. Fireplaces created from old forges sent out a heat that probably wasn’t needed given the number of people crammed into the room, but which had the effect of making all of the women remove their capes, revealing a backless dress here and a raised hemline there. The noise was exhilarating: jazz music, laughter and uninhibited conversation rose to the ceiling, along with a haze of cigarette smoke. Evie put a hand on the wall to steady herself. To have lived for so long in a world where nothing happened that was different from the previous day, week, even year, and to now be in a place where every single thing was new and unexpected was making her feel dizzy.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Thomas asked as he waited for her to move off the bottom step.

  Stupidly she blurted out, ‘When the biggest excitement of one’s week has been the delivery of a new Ladies’ Home Journal, a first outing to a speakeasy is a bit overwhelming.’

  Thomas didn’t laugh at her. ‘We can leave if you prefer. But I thought you might like to meet some New Yorkers.’

  Evie smiled. Thomas was proving to be very perceptive. And here she was in a speakeasy. Her whole body wanted to join in the gaiety; she could always hold onto the wall to balance herself if she needed to.

  ‘Tommy!’ someone called.

  Thomas ushered Evie over to a booth where a man and a woman were sitting. ‘Lil, Leo, may I present Miss Evelyn Lockhart,’ he said and Evie found herself being welcomed by a chinking of crystal tumblers that certainly weren’t supporting the Volstead Act.

  She was pulled into a chair by the woman, Lil, who had the eyes of a cat and
the cropped black hair of a movie star. ‘Welcome to Chumley’s, Evelyn.’

  ‘I’m Evie. Not Evelyn.’

  Lil laughed and swallowed her drink, and Evie found that Thomas or Tommy or whoever he was in a speakeasy on a New York night had put a drink in front of her.

  She raised it in his direction. ‘Thank you.’ She sipped. It was gin. A deliciously warm and prohibited gin.

  ‘So you decided to come out instead of working late tonight,’ the man – Leo – said to Tommy. ‘That must make Miss Evelyn Lockhart a very persuasive woman.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t persuade him at all. He’s only brought me here on his mother’s orders,’ Evie replied.

  ‘If only my mother would order me to take beautiful women out dancing, life would be grand,’ Leo said.

  Evie laughed. ‘Thanks for the compliment. I’ll try not to be a nuisance.’

  ‘Here’s to beautiful nuisances.’ Leo, who was as blond as Evie and handsome to boot, tilted his glass at her.

  Rather than looking away and blushing as she might have done in Concord, Evie said, ‘And here’s to me meeting more of the scoundrels that my mother warned me were lurking on every street corner in Manhattan.’

  Leo fell back against the booth as if she’d shot an arrow through his heart. ‘I’m no scoundrel.’

  ‘I think she’s called it right, Leo,’ said Thomas.

  Lil sighed. ‘Unfortunately, scoundrels are my favourite men of all.’

  Evie had to sip her drink to stop herself from gasping aloud at what Lil had said. Her mother would need the smelling salts.

  The band began to play again, loud and hot and full of excitement. Evie’s shoes shifted under the table like showgirls ready to dance. But no one at their table moved, yet.

  The men began to talk together so Evie turned to Lil and tried to think of something they might have in common. ‘You must know Alberta then?’

  ‘Can’t say I do. Should I?’

  ‘Thomas’s, I mean Tommy’s, fiancée.’

  Lil tapped Tommy’s arm. ‘Tommy, Evie says the reason we haven’t seen you for a while is because you’ve been busy proposing to a girl named Alberta.’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ Evie was horrified at the thought of sounding like such a gossip. ‘I thought Lil would know Alberta because …’ Her voice vanished under the boom-di-boom-bang of the drum; it was just as well, as she couldn’t remember whether Thomas had actually proposed to Alberta at the dinner party or not.

  ‘Alberta is back in Boston,’ Tommy said unconcerned. ‘I didn’t propose to her. Lil hasn’t met her because I’ve never brought her here.’

  ‘Does your mother know?’ Evie pushed her glass away. She had to stop drinking. It was making her impertinent.

  But Tommy smiled. ‘Yes. I think Mother was pleased.’

  ‘Alberta. She sounds like a snob anyway,’ said Leo, and Evie felt as if the world had somehow tipped when Tommy replied, ‘She was actually.’

  ‘Besides, I don’t think Tommy’s in any danger of dying a lonely old bachelor. Break open the ribs of any Upper East Side girl and you’ll find a heart beating Tom-Tom, Tom-Tom,’ said Lil. ‘Of course, Tommy’s oblivious to it, or he pretends to be, which is all part of his charm.’

  Tommy laughed at the shock written plainly across Evie’s face. ‘You look as if Lil had just said I was a Yiddish butcher.’

  ‘Everyone seems very different in New York.’

  ‘Stay any longer and you’ll be different too,’ Lil said, and it sounded like a promise.

  Leo stood up to dance with a woman who actually asked him to join her. Evie was astounded. Then she looked at Lil. ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked.

  Lil grinned. ‘Leo and I aren’t an item. We’re just friends. Both too committed to fun and variety.’

  ‘Oh,’ Evie said, wondering what it would be like not to think about marriage at all. ‘Your parents must be a great deal less conservative than mine.’

  Lil laughed. ‘That’s why I live by myself in a boarding house around the corner. Because they’re probably just as conservative as yours.’

  A boarding house? What freedom, Evie thought. It was almost impossible to imagine.

  ‘Let’s go dance,’ Lil said.

  Evie shook her head, preferring to watch for a while. She didn’t want to look like the unsophisticated Concordian she must seem. As Lil stood up, Evie saw that she was even taller than Evie and that she didn’t try to hide it as Mrs Lockhart always suggested Evie should, because apparently tall girls were unfeminine and intimidating to men. Not here. Evie saw several men turn their heads to follow Lil’s sashay into the centre of the room, and one of them immediately asked her to dance. It was like watching a carousel spin, the way the men danced with Lil. One would survive a few short turns only to be replaced by another, and then a new man would come cutting in. Lil laughed with them all and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to settle on any one partner.

  After a short time, Leo held out his hand to Evie. ‘It’s the only way I’ll forgive you for calling me a scoundrel.’

  The crowd was moving to the music with a contagious combination of heel kicks, arm crosses and knee knocks. Evie joined in as best she could, and was glad to see that while dancing classes at the Ladies’ Academy had most certainly not taught her this particular style, they had at least given her a sense of rhythm. She had a couple of false starts, which to her relief Leo did not laugh at; instead he showed her what to do, and she was soon matching him kick for kick. The song got louder – ‘Toot, Toot, Tootsie’ – and Evie started laughing as Leo twirled her around.

  Leo pretended to be hurt. ‘Is my dancing really so funny?’

  ‘No,’ said Evie. ‘But I can’t decide if my mother would be more horrified about me dancing to a song in which the man is asking for a kiss, or about the possibility of him ending up in jail.’

  ‘Keep dancing like that and we’ll all be asking you for a kiss,’ said Leo, and Evie couldn’t believe this was happening in real life, to her, rather than in the pages of a novel hidden between the covers of a magazine.

  The song finished, another girl Leo knew cut in and a tango began, forward and back across the floor. Evie decided to watch from the safety of her seat. As she sat down she spotted Tommy and Lil amid the dancers and was unable to move her eyes away from them, straight-backed and with arms held aloft, engaged in a sultry battle. The impeccable posture that Evie and Charlie had once mocked served Tommy well in such a dance, and he moved with grace. For a moment, Evie saw a flash of what all the lovesick girls on the Upper East Side must see when they looked at Tommy.

  He caught Evie watching him and he smiled at her over the top of Lil’s head. His smile lit up her insides in a way that surprised her and made her wonder how she could ever live somewhere like Concord again.

  All too soon, Chumley’s was closing its doors.

  ‘But I don’t feel like going home,’ said Evie.

  Lil raised one eyebrow at Tommy. ‘Did you get an invitation to the party tonight?’

  ‘I did,’ he said.

  ‘Then we’ll show Evie one of the sights of Manhattan.’

  The four of them squeezed into the back seat of a taxi together, in a blaze of liquor and laughter. The driver had to ask them three times where they would like to be taken as he couldn’t hear anything sensible among the noise. At the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Second Street he let them out, complaining of his aching head.

  ‘Let’s get a wiggle on!’ Lil called as she set off along Fifth Avenue.

  The sidewalks were quiet now, the stores closed until morning. But the street was busy with taxis taking young people up and down town as if night was not a reason to sleep but was just another serve of time to be consumed leisurely and at length like a good glass of brandy. After a few blocks, Lil stopped outside a palace that was obviously the scene of a party, judging by the cars parked on the sidewalks like vagrants, obstructing the way, and the music and laughter pealing through the windows.


  ‘In you go,’ said Lil, nudging Evie towards the front door of the enormous house.

  ‘In there?’ said Evie. ‘But I haven’t been invited.’

  ‘Let’s go together,’ Tommy said, and held out his arm.

  She slipped her arm through his and felt the warmth of his body beside hers. She was surprised at the clutch she felt in her stomach when she touched him; no one, not even Charlie, had ever made her feel like that. She glanced up at him but he didn’t seem to notice anything as he walked up the steps.

  Several people nodded at him as they went in through the front door. Evie barely noticed, because the scene around them was as astonishing as seeing the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time and understanding that man could make something so grand. In this case, the grandeur was there for one private household to enjoy, rather than for the benefit of many, and Evie wasn’t sure if she was impressed or horrified at the extravagance. She was staring at a three-storey art gallery hung with Rembrandts and Titians, the space larger than a public art museum and more gilded than Versailles.

  Evie assumed the house was the sight Lil and Tommy had wanted her to see until he pointed to her left. ‘There,’ he said.

  Evie turned to see a woman, someone she recognised from the newspaper and the Ladies’ Home Journal. A Vanderbilt? Yes. Evie was in the Vanderbilts’ infamous mansion.

  The woman was wearing a dress covered with thousands of tiny electric light bulbs, stitched to the fabric by hand as if they were sequins or beads. All the bulbs on the dress were illuminated. It was as if falling particles of luminescence from a firecracker had dropped onto her dress and still shone there. Evie had never seen anything so striking: a woman aglow, the brightest point in the room.

  The woman saw Tommy and smiled. He held up his hand as if to say, I’ll be there in a minute, but someone claimed the lady’s attention and Tommy quickly guided Evie back to the front door.