The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

by Genevieve Valentine

  And though she didn’t want to hash the idea out with Araminta in the middle of the street, Rebecca suspected that even if they could find all the others again, and their old house was by some miracle left open and empty and ready for them, she and Araminta would still be looking for a place to stay.

  Rebecca kept a weather eye out, in the way a middle child does. She suspected that some strange emancipation had just been forced on all of them and that whatever happened now, for once, would be of their own making.

  They had dreamed so often of a chance at freedom, and here it was. Awful, and frightening, but freedom.

  “We should find a room,” Rebecca said.

  Araminta glanced around. “A hotel room?”

  There was a certain sort of hotel that was safe for young women alone. They probably frowned upon girls who showed up with wool stockings full of money and asked for a weekly room at the minimum rate.

  “Maybe boardinghouses would be best,” she said. “Less odd looking.”

  Araminta nodded. “We should buy a newspaper and see which boardinghouses are advertising, and then maybe if there are any places where I can pick up a little work.”

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “Work?”

  Araminta smiled. “Well, surely someone in this city could use a girl who can sew?”

  Rebecca was surprised by Araminta’s ambition, which she knew was a little cruel—of all of them, Rebecca should have known better than to write someone off as dull just for being quiet.

  But here they were, and Araminta was smiling in the street despite having been run out of her house, and taking charge of herself, and making plans, even though her hands were laced and shaking from more than the cold.

  “Are you all right?” Rebecca asked. It was a dumb question, but she didn’t know what else to do.

  Ella would have known, but she and the twins would be a mile away by now; Rebecca was sure of that. Ella loved them all, but before she had been made a half-unwilling mother, she had been a dreamer. Rebecca remembered a little what she had been like before all the younger ones started going dancing, with her head full of plays and movies she’d never seen. Ella had spied against the nanny’s door so often her ear was practically shaped like a keyhole.

  Rebecca suspected that, at the bottom of things, Ella and the twins had only ever wanted a moment’s excuse to chase some dreamy foolish notions right out of that attic and disappear.

  “I will be fine,” said Araminta, squaring her shoulders, “as soon as we find a newspaper.” Then, quietly, “And maybe a meal, if we can afford one. I’m hungry.”

  Rebecca looped one of her arms over the other as they set off, trying her best to hide the lumpy stocking.

  “We can,” Rebecca said, and Araminta smiled as if they could cross it off the list of their troubles.

  Their first meal didn’t worry Rebecca. It was everything else that did.

  When Rebecca and Araminta turned onto Fifth Avenue again, they had to squeeze through a swell of people, their thin shoes slipping on the pavement as they tried to keep pace, and they held on to each other with white knuckles.

  (When they went out dancing, deciding who was cruel had been an academic exercise. Lou and Ella and the twins, and Jo, were a wall that protected you from harm.

  But now they were alone, and the world was full of strangers; now they were playing a numbers game.)

  • • •

  Ella and the twins were already across the street by the time they heard the first sound of the truck.

  Police, Ella thought wildly, and hissed, “Get down!”

  The three of them banked a sharp left and smacked to a halt against the nearest building.

  They stood in a knot, trembling, listening to the truck putting closer and closer to the back of the house.

  What a coward our father is, Ella thought, that he wouldn’t bring his daughters through the front door even for this.

  Ella glanced at the twins, who right now looked more like greyhounds than girls, and wondered if they had the patience to wait out the truck (knowing they didn’t, knowing that they’d have to act or ruin everything).

  “Ella,” Mattie said, without enough air to even support the word.

  Then Ella whispered, “Go,” and they were running.

  For a moment, behind them, the truck rolled to a stop with a grind of brakes—Ella imagined the driver watching them, and the horrible quiet of the idling engine, and terror overtook her.

  The first time the Kingfisher had been raided, Hattie and Mattie had had to grab her hands and drag her to get her moving into the tunnel.

  Strange, what time changes—now she ran so fast she outpaced the twins for a full ten seconds.

  (Ella wondered for a moment at the twins’ ability to shadow her around a corner almost before she had decided to take it, a mirror double pacing her as she fled, before she remembered that they were all dancers, and the twins were used to following.)

  When she finally stopped, the twins pulled up on either side of her, breathing steadily and in time with each other.

  Out of habit, Ella waited a moment longer for the others to catch up.

  Then, suddenly, it sank in that no other sisters were coming.

  They were parted, now, because Ella had been frightened and left them behind.

  “Oh God,” Ella said. She couldn’t breathe. “Oh God, what’s happened?”

  (I was selfish, she thought; I ran for myself.)

  “They’ll be all right,” Mattie said.

  Hattie said, “No one was alone.”

  That’s not true, Ella thought, remembering Jo shouting for them to run.

  Ella was already heading back the way they had come before the twins could catch hold of her elbows.

  “Father’s out for war!” said Hattie. “You’re crazy!”

  Mattie didn’t say anything; she only held on to Ella’s arm with one hand, so tight it hurt, as if she was looking for an anchor.

  That much from Mattie was strange—the twins needed so little reassurance outside each other—strange enough that Ella actually did stop and turn.

  For the first time Ella could remember, Mattie’s mask had cracked. Her eyes were serious and scared and the size of dinner plates, and she was looking to Ella, not to Hattie.

  Hattie must have seen it, too, because she let go of Ella to stand closer to her twin.

  “Stop being such a ’fraidy,” Hattie hissed. “You look ridiculous.”

  Ella knew what it really meant (Are we twins or not?), and from Mattie’s guilty flinch, she did, too.

  “I’m only saying we shouldn’t go, that’s all,” Mattie said, dropping Ella’s arm and turning to Hattie at last. Ella could feel the little flicker going out.

  “Who should we send to look, then,” asked Ella, “the police? I don’t think they’d do very much against Father, and we don’t even know yet why we had to run. Suppose he’s put the cops on us himself, for dancing? Good luck trying to explain that.”

  “Don’t say we can’t go dancing,” Hattie breathed. “You can’t be serious.”

  Ella couldn’t imagine. Dancing was a dangerous game, but it meant that at night, at least, they knew what to do with themselves.

  Mattie went pale, but still she shook her head. “We’ve waited twenty years to get out of that house. Why would we ever go back?”

  “Because maybe your sisters are afraid,” Ella said. “Maybe they’re scared and alone, and looking for us.”

  “Well, Doris had the little ones in hand,” said Hattie, “and Rebecca had a sackful of money. The only thing she’s looking for is a bank.”

  Ella smiled despite herself. “Then she’ll do all right, and whichever of the other girls managed to stay close to her will benefit from her prudence and quick thinking.”

  (She hoped Rebecca had rescued
Araminta, and Lily and Rose; the last she’d seen of the younger girls, they were half-falling down the stairs to be free, without a thing in their hands.)

  Hattie and Mattie looked momentarily chastised and glanced down at the silver shoes each of them carried in one hand.

  “I don’t know,” said Mattie. “If I had to choose again between a pile of money and a decent pair to dance in—”

  “I’d still choose these,” Hattie finished.

  “Only because you never saved a nickel in your life,” said Mattie.

  “Because someone keeps making loaded bets with them!”

  Their faces were a matched set again, and Ella felt equal parts disappointment and relief.

  “Well, I don’t have one thing to my name,” she said, “and if we’re really going to go out dancing somewhere, we’d better make it count the first time. No one likes a mooch who comes back to the table.”

  “You have your face,” Mattie said. “Helen of Troy managed plenty with hers.”

  Ella gave her a circumspect look. “Just the outcome I’d hope for,” she said.

  (Though if that’s what it came to, she had no trouble picking the path of least repute and shacking up with a fella for money; their father had wanted nothing better for them, and this way, she was more free to choose.)

  “We need to pick a real bee’s-knees place tonight, then,” said Ella. “Somewhere we can be seen.”

  Mattie pulled a face. “By whom?”

  “By the sort of men who enjoy throwing money at pretty girls,” said Ella.

  Mattie and Hattie froze and looked at each other.

  “You can save the dowager faces,” Ella said. “We’re not in a position to be dainty.”

  They had started walking, at some point; ahead of them was an enormous lawn ringed with trees, big enough to run out of sight in all directions.

  Ella realized it must be Central Park. She’d always wanted to see it.

  (Before this, she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the chance to explore beyond the walls.)

  The twins approached it nervously, looking around, overwhelmed by the open space.

  “We’ll go to the Swan tonight,” Ella said. “They had photographers.”

  “In this?” Hattie said, at the same time Mattie said, “Ella, you can’t be serious.”

  “If we can convince someone at Bloomingdale’s to start us a line of credit for the house,” Ella said, “we’ll try to get something decent to wear.”

  A nice fat bill would serve their father right for thirty years of miserly catalogs.

  “Then we’ll go to the Swan and look pretty like our lives depend on it,” she said. “We’ll make what we can of it, and pray it’s not the Funeral Parlor Supper Club once you get in the doors.”

  The twins gave her blank looks—of course, she thought; they’d never been to the cramped little club from years ago.

  The only other three who would know that joke were scattered through the city somewhere, missing and frightened and maybe alone.

  Ella composed herself.

  “Are we looking out for anyone, there?” Mattie ventured.

  Ourselves, Ella thought, but that was too theatrical a thing to say, even for her.

  Looking for the other girls tonight was too soon. They were all smart enough to find their feet, but if their father was as terrifying as he seemed (Jo’s screams had curdled Ella’s blood for a reason), then doing something too soon might get them in more trouble.

  Until then, she couldn’t worry about what had happened to Jo, or run through the city in a panic about the others. (Had Lily and Rose even made it out of the shadow of the house?) She had to look out for the two sisters who were with her now, who had the faces of two flappers in a Cinemascope and matching silver shoes that weren’t yet worn out.

  They had to go somewhere for the night—there would be no camping out in this cold. They knew how to look like they belonged to a dance hall, by now.

  And inside, there were men who’d pay money for the company of the right girl.

  There were girls who needed money enough to be company.

  “We look for them tomorrow,” she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. “Tonight, we’re going out.”

  • • •

  Rose and Lily were close enough to Ella and the twins when the truck came rattling past that, if they wanted, they could have followed them.

  It would have been the smart thing to do. It would have been second nature; they’d been taught young how to follow well.

  They reached the other side of the street in time, and watched Hattie and Mattie and Ella become three little shapes in pale dresses huddled in the shadow of a building, coiled in terror and ready to run. Two brown heads and a blond one were turned in the same direction.

  Rose and Lily saw where they were headed, could have joined them before they ran—there was time, still, to catch up with them, and run all together to wherever it was you ran when there was nowhere to go.

  Ella would be kind to them, and maybe even the twins would be, and they wouldn’t have to worry about being in this wide, snarled city all alone.

  But it was the first time they had been outside in the daytime without a nanny keeping watch; it was the first time they had been without orders coming down from Jo and could do as they chose.

  They didn’t move.

  (It was terrifying, but here they were, and they were together.)

  It was the first time they had been alone with each other outside their little room, and for the first time they were running hand in hand, like twins.

  Without a word they linked their fingers tighter, angled their path away from all the other girls, and ran as if they would never stop.

  twenty-two

  After You've Gone

  The first night at the Marquee nearly killed Jo.

  As much as pulling things into line had been her stock in trade for twelve years, and despite how used she was to proving herself at night to a room of four hundred people, one way or another, Jo realized that the stakes were very different when you were pretending to a throne.

  “Funny, I haven’t heard much about you, Miss Renaud,” Ames the bandleader said warily when she introduced herself that first afternoon.

  He was younger than her father, but enough older than Jo that when she folded her arms and raised her eyebrows, unimpressed, he seemed surprised.

  “That’s too bad, then, I suppose,” she said, “because I know you like foxtrot right after Charleston, and that one of your trumpet players goes a little sharp on ‘Forgetting You,’ and that I’d just as soon keep you, and that you charge more than any other bandstand in the city, and that while Tom’s away, I’m the new management.”

  After a second, his expression changed, and he said, “Did you want to talk about the contract?”

  “It would send me over the moon,” she said, and at last, his face slid into a smile.

  • • •

  When the band had left rehearsal for dinner, Jo pulled Henry aside.

  “I’ll need a dress,” she said, trying as hard as she could to sound as if it had just occurred to her. “I simply haven’t a thing worth wearing.”

  • • •

  Henry knew someone who could carry a message to a shoe store on the Lower East Side, where there was a woman who couldn’t risk stopping by a speakeasy in full daylight but who had impeccable taste.

  Can’t dress myself worth a damn. If you could send help to the address the gentleman mentions, will save me from being a laughingstock. Jo.

  Two hours before the door to the Marquee opened, a nervous girl appeared at the front door, carrying a flat dress box.

  She couldn’t have been older than Sophie; Jo pushed down a pang.

  “Oh,” said the girl, “I’m—is this—?”

  “I’m
Miss Renaud, yes.”

  The girl tried a smile.

  This is what it looks like when a girl is new to the vales of the wicked, thought Jo.

  She wondered if they’d looked like this, she and Lou and Doris and Ella, the first time they went out dancing.

  She took a breath. “Come in, then,” she said, and managed a smile. No sense in looking standoffish. She’d need to dress herself, for as long as this lasted, and she had to at least look like she knew what she was doing if anyone was going to buy it.

  But the dress Myrtle had chosen was just Jo’s size, and the netting beaded gray and gold was finer than anything Jo had ever worn, cut high across the collarbones so that her neck looked almost elegant. Little gold earrings danced just beneath her earlobes, the screws in the back two reassuring points of pain.

  “Myrtle said you seemed like the practical type,” the girl ventured, setting down a pair of black shoes, “but that if you want anything that’s actually stylish, just send word.”

  They had a sturdy heel, but the T-strap was embroidered in gold, and when Jo put them on they fit like a fairy tale.

  Araminta would love them.

  The girl peered at her. “Do you—are they all right?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Elsie,” the girl said, with the air of someone who wished she’d thought up something fake.

  “Elsie, they’re perfect. Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you? Did you want to stay for the dancing? You’re my guest.”

  “Oh, no, not tonight,” Elsie said, glancing at the door a little wistfully. “I have to get home. I don’t like being out after dark much. My mother would worry.”

  “Of course,” Jo said. “Can’t have that.”

  • • •

  The Marquee opened for business at ten in the evening.

  At nine fifty-five, Jo was ready to have a heart attack. Her new shoes weren’t sturdy enough to run in, not like catalog shoes, and her dress made too much noise, and if anyone thought she was a fraud, this would be the last mistake she ever made.

  “I don’t suppose Tom had some sort of marshaling call ahead of the doors,” she said as she took a last tour of the room. The floor was spotless, the chairs aligned on the grid, the bandstand setting up and tuning. “Any wise things he used to say?”