Lies in White Dresses

by Sofia Grant

  “I’m sure your daughter is a lovely girl,” June said hesitantly. “I believe we saw her leave, actually, but is she . . . that is to say, she seems very young—”

  “Virginia has been babysitting since she was ten. She’s a very responsible girl. And she charges just twenty-five cents an hour.”

  “There’s no need to decide now,” Francie said. “Let’s see how Patty is doing when we’re ready to leave. Perhaps a nap would do her good?”

  “I’m not sleepy,” Patty protested, though she looked ready to collapse, her dress wilted and her hair in tangles from the drive.

  “Vi, let’s see June to the suite, and then you can come to my room with me,” Francie suggested. “We’ll let June and Patty get their rest, and you can help me settle in. Mrs. Swanson, could you send some lemonade up? And perhaps a cookie or two?”

  “Tea and sherry are served in the lounge at five,” Mrs. Swanson said. “There’s no service to the rooms, I’m afraid. Breakfast and lunch are to be taken in the dining room only, and dinner requires reservations by noon. There will be a sign-up sheet here every morning but Saturday, when no dinner is served.”

  “How wonderfully civilized,” Francie said. “Not having to cook or do dishes for six weeks might just make this ordeal worth it.”

  Chapter 6

  Did you see her looking around the suite? It’s as if she’d never seen anything like it before.”

  Francie and Vi were reclining in a pair of green club chairs that flanked the fireplace in Francie’s room, their feet up on the matching ottomans.

  “She probably hadn’t,” Vi said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a lampshade made from cowhide before. And I can’t imagine how she’ll sleep with a painting of some poor fool about to be gored to death hanging over the bed.”

  “How do you know the bull wins the fight? My money’s on the cowboy.”

  “And that suitcase,” Vi continued. “Practically falling apart, and all she had were those four sad dresses. Thank goodness we’re the same size—though I had to beg her to borrow one of mine.”

  “But she had twice as many clothes for Patty.” Francie, who’d been forced to learn embroidery as a girl, had examined the fine handwork and lavished June with compliments after she admitted that she sewed Patty’s clothes from her mother-in-law’s hand-me-downs.

  “What kind of man lets his wife walk around in rags while he does whatever he pleases?”

  “We don’t know that,” Francie scolded. “And besides, she won’t be his wife for much longer.”

  Despite the house rules prohibiting food in the rooms, they’d found an electric teakettle already filled with water and a selection of teas in an alabaster box. Francie had brewed a pot of lichee black tea and they were sipping lazily as the sun sank over the river, the view as magnificent as Clyde had promised.

  “I don’t mean to sound like June, but this is one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in,” Vi said. “Do you know, even on our honeymoon Harry refused to book a suite. He said it would be a waste since he didn’t plan to get out of bed the entire time. And he kept his promise—had me calling for room service three times a day and got crumbs everywhere.”

  “He feels guilty,” Francie said. “That’s why he got you a suite.”

  “Actually, I arranged for the suite,” Vi admitted. “I didn’t tell you before, but he booked me a single in the new wing, the cheapest rooms in the hotel. I called back and said he’d made a mistake. Mrs. Swanson doesn’t remember, but she was more than happy to switch it. I doubt Harry even looked at the bill.”

  “Oh, Vi, I wish you’d started standing up for yourself ages ago.”

  “At least I am now.” Vi’s expression grew serious. “Did you notice that June unpacked two short-sleeved dresses—and yet on the hottest day so far this year, she was wearing sleeves down to her wrists?”

  Francie didn’t comment on Vi’s change of subject. “She was, now that you mention it.”

  “And there were faded marks on the side of her neck. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more of them under her clothes.”

  “Do you think that’s why she was so reluctant to stay with you?”

  “Maybe. Though I think it was mostly just shame. I doubt that girl’s got enough money to see her through the week.”

  “I’d like a word with her husband. At least Harry never beat you.” Something occurred to Francie. “He hasn’t, has he? You’d tell me, dear, wouldn’t you?”

  Vi laughed. “Oh, Fran, you don’t need to worry about that. I suppose I should be grateful, really. The worst thing Harry is guilty of is a wandering eye.”

  “And a wandering pecker.”

  “Francie!”

  It was Francie’s turn to laugh. “If we can’t say what we please here in Reno, then where can we? They say girls dance on tables in the nightclubs, that they gamble at the poker tables alongside the men. Just think of it—we can carry on like a couple of drunk sailors, and no one back home will ever know.”

  “Well, still—it’s a bit shocking to hear that sort of language come out of your mouth. If I had a nickel for every time you threatened to wash Jimmy’s mouth out with soap!”

  “But I sort of enjoyed saying it. It felt quite freeing.” Francie grinned. “Pecker. Prod. Ding-dong!”

  “Please!” Vi shrieked, covering her ears with her hands. “I don’t think I can bear it.”

  “Oh, fine, I’ll save it for when I’m smoking cigars and drinking whiskey and whatever other trouble I can find. But seriously, dear, it does feel good to be able to talk about things we never talked about at home, doesn’t it?”

  Tentatively, Vi took her hands away from her ears. “I’m not sure I like where this is going . . .”

  Francie took pity on her best friend. After all, even if this wasn’t the first or even the fifth girl Harry had taken up with, it was definitely the first one he’d left her for. Arthur, on the other hand, had been apologizing for his trespasses for nearly two decades now. She’d had plenty of time to get used to the idea, even if she’d never accept it. Dear old Arthur—he’d given her the best he could, and if that love was never quite enough, at least it kept her from having to feel the loneliness that seemed to follow Vi around like a kicked dog.

  “Vi,” she said hesitantly. “If you ever did want to talk about it—if you ever needed someone to listen—I wouldn’t tell a soul. You know that, don’t you? Because I couldn’t bear it if—”

  Vi snatched the napkin from her lap and dabbed at her eyes. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “If I start, I’ll never stop. And since you’ve promised me dinner at the Sky Room, I really must hold myself together.”

  “All right,” Francie said quietly. Every time she’d tried to talk to Vi about her sadness, she’d been rebuffed. She wished she could breach the wall Vi kept around her, convince her that only good could come from unburdening herself. The truth was that she had a secret too, and she longed to finally share it with another living soul. Vi was the only person Francie trusted, not just because she’d take her secrets to her grave, but because Vi would see past the shocking facts and understand that Arthur was no monster, that he was decent in nearly every way.

  Life wasn’t fair. Good people suffered. But that wasn’t news; Francie had seen the proof too many times. When Francie’s mother died two days shy of meeting her first grandchild. When the boys returned from the war and so many of their friends didn’t. When Alice had been born and the nurses whisked her away, refusing to look at Francie until the doctor came to examine the baby and told her, with as much concern as if he were weighing a calf, that her daughter had a condition called fibular hemimelia. “She’s lucky,” he’d said, after explaining that Alice’s left leg would always be several inches shorter than her right. “At least her foot is only mildly deformed.”

  People could be as unkind as Fate herself, which was why a friendship like theirs was so precious. Sometimes Francie thought there was nothing she couldn’t endure, as long as
she had Vi.

  She reached out and took Vi’s hand. “Not one more tear tonight. But just wait until I get you as drunk as a skunk one of these days.”

  This was an easy threat to make because Vi almost never touched a drop of liquor—but Vi surprised her today. “If I ever do take a drink, it’s not me you need to worry about.”

  Francie wondered if Harry knew just how close to disaster he’d come.

  Chapter 7

  Virgie

  After dropping off Willy’s magazine, Virgie took the back stairs to her room to avoid passing by the lobby. Whenever possible, she liked to conceal her comings and goings from her mother.

  Virgie’s room was in the basement. When her mother had first bought the Holiday with the money from her divorce, when Virgie was only a baby, they’d moved into the maid’s quarters behind the kitchen, where Virgie slept in her mother’s bed and then, when she got bigger, on a cot. As the hotel began turning a profit, her mother had expanded into what had been the morning room, remodeling the space into a roomy apartment. But Virgie still slept on the cot until her tenth birthday, when her mother finally allowed her to move to the basement.

  Clyde walled off a corner of the basement that had decent light coming in a window well, tiled the floor and lined the walls with beadboard. He’d installed a wall of shelves he’d picked up secondhand from a law office that was being demolished, and her mother bought her a bed with a painted headboard and matching desk. Virgie finally had a place to display the treasures she collected and her Nancy Drew books, and a good hiding place for her journals and savings. On rainy days her room smelled faintly of onion skins and mildew, but it was a small price to pay for a place of her own.

  Once inside, she turned the deadbolt and began preparing for her babysitting job. She would be watching a four-year-old in Room 302, the largest suite in the hotel. Mother said that two cousins were staying there, in a voice that implied she didn’t approve, but she refused to explain why. The ladies were going to the Sky Room for dinner and so Virgie knew they would probably be gone for hours. Ladies who could afford the Sky Room sometimes paid Virgie extra. One time a lady gave her a crisp five-dollar bill after her four-year-old vomited on Virgie’s sweater.

  She checked her babysitting kit, a collection of toys and games she stored in an old tackle box that Clyde had given her. In the compartments meant for lures were jacks and marbles and pipe cleaners, while the large compartment held coloring books and crayons and scratch paper and the dolls that Virgie had outgrown ages ago. Four-year-olds were more interesting than babies, but they were also fast-moving and curious and didn’t have a lick of sense. Virgie would have to be vigilant.

  Up on the third floor, things were quiet. The ladies who booked suites tended to keep to themselves, though they could be demanding. Mother said that the richer people were, the more they expected to be waited on, but the flip side was that they rarely damaged anything or tried to sneak guests upstairs.

  Room 302 was next to the third-floor supply closet, which Virgie sometimes used for eavesdropping, pressing her ear against the wall it shared with the suite. There was another closet directly below on the second floor, and once, when Virgie was eavesdropping there, she had overheard a guest in the adjoining room arguing on the phone with her husband and learned a number of fascinating things. Virgie already knew the basics about sex from a book she’d found in the library, but the guest was telling her husband all the ways that he wasn’t very good at it, including some shocking claims about what he did before and during the act, as well as another thing they did that apparently involved him licking her between her legs. Virgie couldn’t imagine why he would do such a thing and was certain she’d misunderstood, but she’d written it all down in her diary anyway.

  Virgie stood outside the door for a moment, listening for voices, but all was silent. She knocked and a skinny older lady in a fancy blue dress answered the door.

  “Well, hello there. You must be Virginia. I’m Mrs. Carothers.” The lady had a friendly smile and short dark hair like Jean Simmons. She wore pearl earrings and a matching necklace, a gold wedding ring, and on her other hand, a ring with a giant red stone surrounded by two rounds of diamonds. Virgie couldn’t help staring at it—she’d recently cut out an article from one of her mother’s magazines and pasted it in her notebook, about the most romantic engagement ever: Norma Shearer’s movie executive boyfriend called her into his office at MGM and presented her with a tray full of rings and told her to choose whichever she liked. She ended up choosing one that cost the unimaginable sum of nineteen thousand dollars—and it wasn’t even as big and fancy as Mrs. Carothers’s ring!

  Virgie realized that Mrs. Carothers was waiting for her to reply. “Yes, ma’am. And that must be Patty I hear in the other room?”

  “Oh, yes. Her mother’s just finishing getting ready—won’t you come in?”

  Virgie entered the room, casing it the way she had learned from the Post’s Junior Detective Corps manual that Wally Heard, the hotel chef, had given her. Virgie knew all the rooms at the Holiday Ranch like the back of her hand, since they had been her nursery, her playroom, her kindergarten back when her mother had done much of the cleaning herself. In fact, she had probably played on this very same floor.

  Using the tips in the manual, Virgie had trained herself to notice only what was different. The telephone had been moved as far as the cord would reach, to one of the built-in shelves, as had the bowl of wax fruit, probably to keep them out of Patty’s reach. A lightweight sweater was draped over the arm of one of the chairs, and an empty teacup rested on the table next to it. On top of the little table under the mirror was a large black alligator-skin purse with a gold buckle.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Virginia. I just need to use the bathroom quickly, and Mrs. Samples should be out shortly.”

  Virgie nodded in response.

  She didn’t have to wait long before a much younger woman came out of the small room, leading a little girl by the hand. The woman was wearing a beautiful shimmering green dress with tiny sleeves that barely covered her shoulders and a full skirt that danced around her legs as she walked—but her stockings had runs in them and her shoes were old and scuffed, the heels worn down, with the leather coming off. Her only jewelry was a tiny gold cross on a thin chain. She wore no makeup, but she had a pretty face.

  The stockings and shoes were a mystery that bore further scrutiny. Virgie wondered if this was what had caught her mother’s attention—that or the fact that there was such a large age difference between the two women. Although Flossie had cousins that were young enough to be her children, so maybe it didn’t mean anything.

  “Oh, hello,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. Wen—Samples, and this is my daughter, Patty.”

  “Hello,” Virgie said, not missing the woman’s slip of the tongue. Interesting. She seemed nervous, too.

  She and Patty gazed at each other. Virgie liked the looks of the kid—serious, with hair as unmanageable as her own, the kind that probably drove her mother crazy.

  “She’s had her dinner,” Mrs. Samples said, “and she’s tired from our trip, so she’ll be ready for bed. I usually sing to her when I put her to bed. Maybe you could, if you know some songs . . . ?”

  What kind of question was that? “I know lots of songs, Mrs. Samples.”

  “Shall we be going?” Mrs. Carothers asked, emerging from the bathroom with a freshly powdered nose.

  “Just a second,” Mrs. Samples said, leading Patty into the bathroom. When they walked out a moment later, Patty’s curls had been dampened to coax them into behaving.

  Mrs. Samples knelt and kissed Patty’s cheek. “Be good for Virginia.”

  “Why?” Patty asked.

  “I’m going to have dinner with Mrs. Carothers.”

  “Why?”

  Mrs. Samples stood. “We’d better leave now,” she said worriedly, “before I change my mind.”

  “All right, then,” Mrs. Carothers said. “Goodbye, Pa
tty. Goodbye, Virginia.”

  After she closed the door, Patty gazed up at Virgie with eyes as round as silver dollars.

  “They sure were in a hurry, weren’t they?” Virgie said—just as Patty started to wail.

  Chapter 8

  Francie

  All better, dear?” Francie asked when the driver dropped them in front of the Mapes Hotel. She had a feeling that the cab driver Mrs. Swanson had summoned had overcharged them and figured he was paying her a little something for the referral. No harm in that—Francie admired any woman who ran a business, something she’d sometimes wondered if she might like to try.

  “Yes, much, thank you.” June had confided when they got in the cab that she’d never left her baby with a stranger before—had barely left her at all, Francie surmised. June’s husband apparently refused to be left alone with her, and she had no family back in Roseville.

  A doorman in a red velvet jacket held the door open. “Madam,” he said with a slight bow. Francie caught Vi’s eye and winked as she slipped her arm through June’s and they walked in together.

  The lobby was breathtaking, with red carpets on the polished marble floors and heavy silk drapes. Beautifully dressed men and women came and went from the entrance to the casino, as the sounds of laughter and slot machines drifted out.

  They took the elevator to the twelfth floor, where the doors opened directly onto the large dining room lined with windows on all sides. Tuxedoed waiters moved smoothly among the tables carrying trays, while busboys discreetly swept crumbs from the tablecloths and whisked away dishes. The distinguished-looking maître d’ looked up from his post at a polished wood stand with a welcoming smile. But most impressive of all was the view from the large windows on two sides of the room, the neon lights coming on in the purpling twilight as the moon rose in the sky, and the dark band of the river winding as far as the eye could see.

  “I—I don’t think I should be here,” June said, hanging back in the elevator.