Lies in White Dresses

by Sofia Grant

  June had thought of hiring caterers—Mrs. Swanson had given her the name of a caterer who did wedding receptions for some of her clients who remarried the minute their divorces went through—but the prices were sky-high. They wanted more than two dollars for a plate of chicken and scalloped potatoes that would cost all of a few cents to make!

  “I’ll be happy to come with you to the florist,” he said hastily, when she didn’t answer immediately. “I know that lilies are traditional, but my mother loved roses—yellow were her favorite. Surely, they can make arrangements that incorporate both. Oh—and has anyone discussed the pallbearers?”

  Pallbearers—June hadn’t even thought of that. “Will you and your brother be serving as pallbearers?”

  “Absolutely. I suppose it wouldn’t do to have my father . . . no, definitely not. Let’s see, there’s Arthur, and Jimmy—Francie’s son—and Margie’s husband, Roy.”

  “I should be writing this down,” June said in a panic. “I’ll never remember everything.”

  “Leave it to me,” Charlie said. “In fact—you can leave everything to me, if you like. This is what I do for a living, after all—we cater events all the time. Besides, sitting idle will only remind me that . . . well.”

  But June couldn’t leave it to Charlie. Francie had given her the responsibility, the job, and without it she couldn’t possibly justify the room and the clothes, and the pay Francie had promised her. And besides, she’d worked so hard to try to make it the way Vi would have wanted. How could she explain to Charlie that, though she had known his mother for barely a day, she had come to matter deeply to June? That she felt Vi’s loss in her heart?

  “But you can’t change it,” she said miserably. “I mean, I know you can make it fancier, and nicer, but—but she loved that house and I know when you see it you’ll understand. I found some of her old schoolwork in the back of a cabinet, I saved it for you, and she drew a picture of the view from her room and it’s almost the same as it is today, only the tree is taller and . . . and there was a cat. A little striped cat. And the way she was talking about her childhood that last night”—oh God, why had she said that, the last thing he’d want to be reminded of was his mother’s last night—“you could tell she missed how simple it was here, with the mountains and the fresh air and the garden. If you put up a tent, if you bring in fancy caterers, it will be completely different. It—it might as well be in the city.”

  “June—June, please don’t cry,” Charlie said in alarm, offering his handkerchief.

  “I’m not crying,” June said, but she took the handkerchief and swiped angrily at her eyes, ruining the makeup Alice had insisted she let the Elizabeth Arden girl try on her at the store’s cosmetics counter.

  “I’m sorry I upset you—I’m sorry I stepped on your plans. It was thoughtless. I was only trying to make it easier on you—”

  “I don’t want it to be easier!”

  Someone poked their head in the lounge, then quickly disappeared. June was mortified; who else had heard her outburst?

  “I don’t know how to do easy,” she repeated quietly, getting up from her chair. “Nothing is easy. In my life, the only thing that has ever helped was hard work. Good night, Charlie.”

  Charlie had hastily pushed back his chair. “Please, June, don’t leave—”

  “I need to get Patty,” she said, and ran out of the room.

  As she hurried up the stairs without looking back, she felt her face burning. That’s what she got for thinking she could pull off mixing with people like the Meekers; she’d made a fool of herself and made a grieving man feel even worse.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid—when would she ever learn?

  Chapter 37

  Virgie

  Virgie watched Mrs. Samples race up the stairs, leaving Charlie Meeker with a gobsmacked look on his face, before he walked out slowly past the security desk without even saying goodbye to Mickey.

  Virgie was standing behind the draperies in the library, where she’d hidden after she’d gone to clear away the sherry things and seen Mrs. Samples and Mrs. Meeker’s son talking. She was almost positive they hadn’t noticed her, and while she hadn’t been close enough to hear everything, she’d seen enough—the way Mrs. Samples leaned toward him, for instance, and kept adjusting her skirt to show off her legs. It was obvious to Virgie that Mrs. Samples was trying to distract him, like Rita Hayworth in Gilda—and it was working too, because he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  Virgie knew that men could be dumb; a pretty lady they weren’t married to was at the root of many of the divorces that took place in Reno. And Charlie Meeker was rich, despite the old clothes he was wearing and the beat-up truck he drove. Maybe he was an eccentric, like Howard Hughes. No wonder Mrs. Samples was flirting with him—she probably planned to swindle him out of his money!

  She waited for the door to close behind him before checking to make sure the way was clear, and then she hurried up the stairs after Mrs. Samples. Instead of going to Mrs. Oglesby’s room, Mrs. Samples hurried to her own room and slammed the door behind her.

  What was she up to, and why was she in such a hurry? Virgie let herself into the supply closet next door as quietly as she could and pressed her ear to the wall, hoping Mrs. Samples had gone to make a call before she went to get Patty—perhaps to tell her accomplice she’d found a new mark.

  Pressing her ear to the wall, she did hear voices, but one of them was a man—in her room!

  “It’s none of your business,” Mrs. Samples was saying. She sounded upset. “Hidden safely away and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

  “Yes, it is my business!” The man was obviously trying to keep his voice down, so he didn’t get caught, but Virgie could tell he was very angry. “You made it my business when you ran. You took off without one goddamn word—what was I supposed to think, June?”

  “You need to leave now,” Mrs. Samples said, her voice quavering with fear, which surprised Virgie—she would have expected her to be tougher. “Otherwise I’ll scream.”

  The man had to have come in through the window—he never would have gotten past Mickey, who was the most serious of the guards and a medical student too. There was a fire escape that ran the length of the third floor; Virgie had used it herself ever since she’d gotten big enough to climb the magnolia tree whose branches grew close to the fire escape.

  She could hear the man crossing the floor to the window. “You know what I want, and I mean to have it,” he said. “Remember what happens when you make me mad. I can’t be responsible for what I’ll do if you don’t come to your senses.”

  Mrs. Samples didn’t reply. Moments later Virgie could hear the man moving along the catwalk, the creak of the iron. Soon after she heard the sound of the window being lowered.

  And then, crying. It was muffled, and it didn’t last long, but Mrs. Samples was obviously rattled.

  Virgie sat down on the floor to think, her legs crossed, her back against the wall of the closet. So she’d been right—Mrs. Samples had a partner whom she had double-crossed. He didn’t know she no longer had the ring, and she was bluffing—probably trying to buy more time to try to get it back.

  But the crying . . .

  Virgie had overheard a lot of women cry as she went about her business in the hotel, and she’d become something of an expert on the subject. There were the gusty, ragged sobs that marked the early days of the guests’ stays, when they could still barely believe what was happening. Then there were the bitter, angry tears—and sometimes things being thrown against walls—as their fate sank in.

  But Mrs. Samples’s crying wasn’t either of those: she sounded like she’d given up hope, like all was lost. For a second, Virgie felt almost sorry for her.

  What if she needed the money for something? Like an operation to save her sister’s life—or to pay off her father’s gambling debts so he wouldn’t get thrown in the lake with his feet in a bucket of concrete?

  Or maybe someone had been kidnapped.
Back when Virgie used to get in trouble for sneaking out, before she got better at it, her mother had once said, “What if you’d been kidnapped?”

  At the time, it had seemed ridiculous; her mother should have known that Virgie was way too smart to let something like that happen. But most people went through life not paying attention to what went on around them, which sometimes led to them getting robbed and killed. Her mother, for instance, always had her mind on so many other things, anybody could slap chloroform over her mouth and drag her away.

  What would she do then? Virgie wondered. She imagined a note being shoved under her door; it would have letters cut out of the newspaper and pasted together to make words and would say something like If you ever want to see your mother again, bring $1000 in unmarked bills to the oak tree on the hill at midnight. No coppers!!

  A wave of almost nauseating anxiety passed over Virgie, imagining her mother tied up and terrified in some dark warehouse. Virgie would have to do exactly what the kidnappers said, because her mother would never have the courage or skill to escape. She’d find a way to get the money, even if she had to steal it herself—and then, the minute her mother was safe, she’d hunt the kidnappers down and turn them over to the authorities.

  Maybe Mrs. Samples hadn’t kidnapped Patty after all. Maybe she actually had two kids—twins, even! There was no loyalty among thieves, and if Mrs. Samples was in the habit of double-crossing her accomplices, they might have taken one of her kids to hold for ransom, and then she would have had to steal the ring to get the money to get her back, but she’d trusted the wrong person and now she had to figure out how to keep from getting beat up and find the ring and sell it so she could pay off the kidnappers, who were probably threatening to take Patty too.

  As she got to her feet, Virgie marveled at the mess Mrs. Samples had gotten herself into. People who said crime didn’t pay were wrong—every day, creeps with any brains got away with all kinds of things. With her training, Virgie could probably commit all kinds of crimes and never get caught. But given how complicated a life of crime turned out to be, she figured she’d made the correct choice in staying on the right side of the law.

  Chapter 38

  Francie

  The directions Helen had given Francie took her over the river and through an industrial area to a neighborhood crammed with square little houses with tiny front lawns. It reminded her of the neighborhoods that had sprung up across the bay from San Francisco to house all the factory and refinery workers in the early part of the century.

  Laundry hung on lines in backyards, while men chatted in driveways and children played in the streets. Cooking smells spilled out from open windows, and mothers rang dinner bells calling their kids home. The taxi driver dropped her off in front of a little yellow house with a brown shingle roof and a porch crammed with old chairs and a rusting icebox, and as Francie went hesitantly up the walk, an old dog lifted himself painfully from a blanket near the door and shook, his rheumy eyes watching her warily.

  “Are you a good dog?” she asked, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps. “Or are you planning to bite my head off if I come any closer?”

  “He’s deaf,” a voice called from behind the screen door. “And I’m not sure he’d understand you anyway, but he won’t bother you. Too old and he’s lost too many teeth.”

  A second later the screen door swung open and there stood Helen, barefoot and wearing a colorful peasant skirt and silver bracelets on both her wrists. In her free hand, she held both the neck of a violin and a lit cigarette.

  “Welcome!” she said. “It’s the maid’s day off, so excuse the state of the house, won’t you?”

  Francie laughed uneasily at the joke, picking her way across the porch boards that groaned beneath her feet. As she pressed past Helen, she caught the scents of sandalwood, sweat, and liquor.

  “You play the violin too?” Francie asked, taking in the living room. It was tidier than the outside—or at least cleaner. Someone kept the floors swept and the place dusted, but the room was jammed with furniture and books stacked on tables and paintings leaning against the walls—and a beautiful, polished black piano.

  “Fiddle, actually—I’ve joined a little bluegrass group. Just for fun—I’m no good at all, not yet, anyway. Get you a drink?”

  “Maybe a little of whatever you’re having—pour light, though, because I’ve got dinner with my soon-to-be ex-husband tonight and I need to keep my wits about me.”

  Helen threw back her head and laughed. She’d worn her hair loose today, and it cascaded down her back, streaked here and there with silver. She had the sinewy arms of a washerwoman and no hips at all, but her kohl-rimmed eyes sparkled with life and her smile was hard to look away from, the end of her cigarette stained the same red as her lips.

  “I hear you—the last time I got drunk around my ex-husband, I ended up knocked up and he stole my car. Take a seat there on the settee—I don’t let Rex up there, so you won’t get fur on your clothes.”

  “How long have you been divorced, again? I know you told me the other night, but it was a bit . . .”

  “Yeah, Gwin’s isn’t good for your memory. Two years, give or take.”

  “So you’ve got a child at home?”

  “Oh no, honey, I took care of that. My first two are my pride and joy, but they’re grown and on their own and now I do whatever I want.”

  Helen winked and handed Francie a tumbler with an inch of amber liquid in the bottom. “That’s the last of the good stuff, so enjoy. I’m going to have to beat someone else at poker before I’ll be drinking top shelf again.”

  Francie took a sip and nearly spit it out. “It’s . . . strong,” she said, her eyes watering.

  “That’s twenty-five-year-old scotch,” Helen said, swinging a leg over the piano bench as though she was mounting a horse. “As my father used to say, it’ll put hair on your chest. Okay, I’ve gone through the music and I think we’ll have a nice variety. I kept everything that was in a minor key because, you know, people like the sad stuff for funerals, but I threw in some of the others that I thought might work. Like this.”

  She began to play, a lilting piece that started in the upper registers before being joined by a theme that echoed the first, her fingers dancing across the keys. She made it look as easy as dusting a shelf, humming to herself here and there, and then she stopped abruptly and looked over her shoulder.

  “Like that? Or too cheerful?”

  “Oh, no . . . I think it’s lovely. If we have too much sad music, everyone might spend the whole day crying.” Vi would hate that, Francie thought. “Did you happen to see the Schumann Arabesque in there? That was Vi’s favorite. She used to come over and ask my daughter Alice to play it for her, but I’m afraid Alice doesn’t have half your talent.”

  Helen shuffled the pages and held her hands suspended over the keys for a moment, then brought them down gently and began to play.

  It was as though someone else entirely was at the keys. The familiar notes glided from the beautiful instrument, melancholy and haunting, and Francie closed her eyes and remembered an afternoon years ago, a few days after Christmas. Vi was hosting a New Year’s Eve party and had come to borrow two of Francie’s silver trays, but when Francie told her Arthur had taken the children skating, she accepted a glass of mulled wine and they curled up in front of the Christmas tree, the room dark except for its twinkling lights. The Arabesque had come on the radio—Gina Bachauer had recorded it in Philadelphia—and Vi had exclaimed, “An angel must be playing it just for me!”

  But how could Helen have known? Because she played as if Vi was whispering in her ear, sharing her wishes and dreams. When the music finally ended, she held very still until the notes faded completely away.

  Then she turned to Francie with a smile. “Would you mind turning the pages for me on this next one?”

  “Sure,” Francie said. “I used to do it for Alice. I’m not the best at reading music, but—”

  “You don’t ha
ve to be,” Helen said. “I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

  Francie set down her glass and took her place next to Helen on the bench, her ample hip against Helen’s slender one, fine linen against India cotton. As Helen began to play again, Francie could feel the music rising through the bench and into her body. She breathed Helen’s scent and felt her foot shifting on the pedals, and she had to concentrate to keep her place.

  When Helen nodded, Francie had to reach across her to turn the page, and Helen’s breath raised the fine hairs on her bare arm. Francie had the peculiar feeling that her body had aligned with the music, that her heart was beating in time. She almost didn’t notice when Helen trailed off, her left hand playing the last few bars as she turned to Francie.

  “What’s wrong?” Francie asked. “You were playing so beautifully . . .”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Helen said softly. “Nothing at all.”

  And then she leaned in and kissed Francie on the lips.

  Her breath was sweet with liquor, and her lips were soft and warm, and for a split second the shock of the moment kept Francie immobilized—and then she leapt off the bench, nearly falling as she backed away. She touched her lips, the kiss lingering there like a burn.

  Helen got up too, her face stricken, the sheets of music falling to the floor. She bent to gather them, stacking them haphazardly, then dropped them on the bench where they slid to the floor again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I thought—you must think I’m—”

  “I didn’t think anything at all!” Francie said, though that wasn’t true. She realized she’d been watching Helen from the moment she saw her playing at Gwin’s; there was something about her that had made Francie want to know her, to learn her secrets. She wasn’t like anyone else Francie had ever met—with her bare feet, her long unruly hair, this little house that she lived in with no one but an old dog for company—but how could she have thought that Francie was . . .