The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel

by Genevieve Valentine

  (He’s the enemy, she thought.

  She thought, He’s a survivor, and tried not to admit she understood how deep it went.)

  “Well,” she said, “sounds like you’ve kept busy.”

  It must have been his turn not to answer, because he only said, “You, too, with eleven at home.” Then, more quietly, “I can’t believe they were your sisters.”

  “What, you thought we were a circus act?”

  He gave her half a smile, but his eyes were serious. “I hadn’t thought about it. Now . . . I guess he must have locked you up something terrible.”

  “I guess he must have.”

  Her throat was dry from the drink.

  “Well done,” he said.

  He was too close all over—standing too close to her, asking questions too close to the mark. She didn’t want to answer him. She didn’t know how.

  He was like a song she’d heard years back, played again in a quiet room; there was no telling if the song was any good, or if she only remembered it fondly because of the person she’d been long ago, when she heard it first.

  She passed him the bottle. He rested his fingertips on hers longer than he needed to before he took it back.

  She licked her lips and frowned at the floor just past his feet. His footprints were outlined in the dust, except for the point of his shoe past his toes. He danced heel-heavy, for balance.

  “Was that dinner party an engagement party?” He was watching her closely now. “Are you supposed to marry that man who was beside you at the table?”

  She set her teeth and met his gaze. He was too close, much too close. She was practically against the wall as it was; everything smelled like dust and whiskey, and she could hardly breathe.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So what will you do?”

  It was the impossible question, but she was exhausted, and angry, and he was here and too close to ignore. She leaned in.

  “I don’t want to talk,” she said.

  Her voice cracked, but he was moving to meet her; then he was kissing her, so all she could think about was his hand against her neck, the sharp smell of alcohol (he must have dropped the bottle), his mouth on her mouth.

  Then it was the bed; then it was the little puff of dust from the bedspread, his hands and his mouth and the sounds he made when she curled her nails into his back, because she needed to hear some other sound than the words pressing against her mouth, words she didn’t dare say.

  • • • • • •

  “How much is he paying you?”

  It was the first thing she’d said since he’d kissed her.

  Tom frowned at her, exaggerated. “Is this some kind of pillow talk? I have to say it’s not my favorite.”

  “How much is he paying you?”

  He sighed. “More than enough for information like that. Enough that it feels like hush money. Why?”

  So you can pay what you owe us for thinking you could solve any problem you made, she thought.

  “We get four dollars a month,” she said. “It’s all we have in the world.”

  For a moment he seemed on the verge of sympathy, but she didn’t go on—there was nothing to say—and the moment passed. Instead, he kissed her shoulder, the inside of her elbow, her collarbone.

  (He struck such a balance between manners and selfishness, always; even in bed he had taken precautions, and she still couldn’t guess for whose sake.

  His body was so warm.)

  She closed her eyes, set herself against this. She couldn’t give in.

  The madness was over. She was herself again, and there were sisters at home, and there was work she had to do.

  He slid one hand across her stomach.

  She caught his wrist, set it back on the bed, her fingers just brushing his skin.

  She looked him in the eye and said, “I need a favor.”

  • • • • • •

  Tom drove her straight to the back alley after dawn. There was no point in playing coy any more about where she lived.

  The ride was silent; everything had been silent after she’d asked for the favor and they’d fought.

  (“Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?” he’d shouted, after he’d stopped saying no, no, no; after he’d stopped trying to explain as he would to a child that what she was asking had risks.

  “No worse than being trapped in that house,” she said, buckling her shoes. “No worse than that.”

  If he thought she could be frightened into seeing the comforts of staying quietly at home, he’d picked the wrong fight.)

  But either he felt guiltier than he let on, or he really loved her, because finally he fell silent and fastened his tie, and went downstairs to ask that his car be brought around.

  From time to time, on the drive home, he looked at her as if he was hoping she might change her mind. Jo knew what that meant.

  It meant that, against his own wishes, somehow, he must already have agreed.

  After he’d turned off the car, she asked quietly, “How many men have you killed?”

  He said, “Two.”

  “Would you do it again, if you could go back?”

  He looked at her as if the question surprised him, but he nodded.

  “It was me or them,” he said.

  After seeing him in her doorway, ready to betray them, sure he could rescue them later, she was beyond surprise at what he would do in his own interests.

  It was such a terrible answer to be satisfied with, but these were desperate times; sometimes you had to pick and choose your vices.

  He didn’t kiss her. After the favor she’d asked of him, she wasn’t surprised, but as she closed the door she could feel its absence in the way he looked at her.

  Jo crept onto the third-floor landing just in time to hear the knock at the front door, and the butler scrabbling to answer.

  Lou was sitting on the windowsill in their room, smoking a cigarette. She had upended a little tin compact, and a pile of butts balanced in a mountain inside it.

  “Big show,” said Lou, without turning around. “You had the girls worried.”

  (Lou had been her first and only; her very first friend in the world.)

  “Promise me something,” said Jo, her voice stuck in her throat.

  There was no hesitation. “Anything.”

  “When they ask you, say yes.”

  Lou turned to her, her frown washed out in the dawn light against the red corona of her hair.

  “Jo, what did you do?”

  It was impossible to explain—it was pulling the first brick out of the levee that would bring the waters down.

  Jo said, “Promise me.”

  Lou didn’t answer.

  In the early morning, the house was so quiet that they could hear their father’s voice and Tom’s floating up from the hall as they went into their father’s office.

  “And, sir,” Tom was saying, “while I’m here, I wanted to ask—that is, I don’t want to presume, but if your daughters are courting—”

  Their father laughed. “An ambitious businessman, I see. It would depend, of course. They’re traditional girls, you know. None of this running around with men. They’re looking for homes, for real homes. You understand.”

  Tom said something in a low voice that must have been encouraging. (Jo wondered if he was too embarrassed by her father to say it any louder.)

  Lou stood slowly, dreadfully.

  “You did this,” she said, so low she could hardly be heard. “You went out last night just to see him. You’re leaving all of us.”

  “No,” said Jo.

  Lou took a step forward, her index finger jabbing the air, little attacks.

  “You made us all promise, Jo. No men, ever—never go home with a man, no matter what he tells you. Now look what you’ve done—this man who betrayed us—this man who thinks nothing of turning his back on you—”

  “I’ll waive my fee,” Tom said. “Call it a dowry.”

&
nbsp; Lou stopped, horrified past words.

  From downstairs, their father cleared his throat. “Well, that’s—a show of good faith. You’re an enterprising young man, I’ll say that much. I suppose there’s no harm in seeing what the girl in question has to say about it. Which of my daughters did you mean?”

  Tom said, “Louise.”

  sixteen

  ME AND MY SHADOW

  Of all the sisters, Lou was the most contemptuous of tears.

  They were a weakness; Jo had taught them that much, and Jo didn’t like them in front of her, but Lou despised them happening at all. The girls who ran to Ella were careful not to cry if Lou could hear; they’d catch a sharp remark if she ever knew they’d given in.

  But once, when things had been too awful to bear and the music was slipping through the walls, Lou had gotten an angry, disbelieving look, and burst into tears.

  It had been almost ten years, but it was hard to forget, and Jo could see Lou’s tears were threatening now.

  “Jo,” Lou said. “Jo, what have you done?”

  Jo entertained the idea of letting Lou find out on her own, just to make her sorry for doubting, but that was petty and dangerous. This wasn’t a punishment; Lou couldn’t look at it that way.

  “It’s only to get you out of here,” she said, shucking the black dress. “Tom knows a place in Chicago that needs a hostess, some members-only club where men go with their mistresses when they’re trying to look rich and respectable.”

  Even through her confusion, Lou looked wary of a place that sounded rough to manage. (None of them had patience for an unruly dance hall.)

  “It’s just about keeping an ear to the ground,” Jo said. “This place is where the chief of police goes, so you’re safe on that count, and it pays plenty to get you in a good way, living on your own.”

  “But, Jo—”

  “I’d have gotten Jake for you if I could,” Jo said, “but this chance came, and I took it.”

  Lou flushed a little at the temples, right where Jake flushed if you talked about Lou.

  Jo pulled on the gray dress and smoothed her hair. “You’ll be out of the house as soon as Father can get rid of you,” she said. “If he’s as desperate as I think he is, that shouldn’t be long. He’ll send you off to Chicago with Tom, and you’ll start a life there.”

  Lou’s expression was split between despair and hope; she looked like a different person.

  Jo said, “It’s the best I could think of for you.”

  Lou shook her head.

  “This isn’t right,” she said. “It should be one of the others first. We’re all in danger.”

  Jo said, “I chose you.”

  Lou’s eyebrows sank down her face, and her mouth was tight beneath her welling tears. “Jo—”

  “Don’t,” Jo said.

  There was a little quiet, and Jo watched Lou measuring things out, narrowing her questions, trying to decide what else she needed to know.

  (They looked the same, Jo thought, when they were trying to think their way out of a problem. It was the only time they looked alike.)

  Finally Lou said, “What if Father insists we have a courtship before we go to Chicago? We don’t know what he’ll say. What if he insists we get married? What if I actually have to marry him?”

  Jo shrugged. “You could find worse men.”

  “But I know. You and he were—what if he wants to—”

  “Lou,” Jo said. “Tom won’t insist on anything like that. This is a favor he’s doing for me.”

  Lou narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  There was no answer Jo could give. Even if Jo knew Tom’s reasons for sure (and there was no telling any more, everything now was a series of gambles), the words to name his reasons were trapped in her throat, prisoners of the last seven years.

  Best to let things like that lie. These were uncertain times.

  “Josephine,” their father called up the stairs. “Please come down, and bring Louise.”

  Lou startled and looked around as if their father had been listening. After a moment, she moved to her closet and grabbed for a suitable dress.

  Jo smoothed her skirt, wondering why she was bothering. It didn’t matter now what she looked like.

  “Fix your hair before we go down,” she said to Lou. “You’ll scare someone.”

  Jo didn’t ask what Lou had decided. She watched Lou scramble into a dress (a deep brown that suited her), comb through her hair with her fingers, rouge her cheeks, and guessed how Lou’s decision had gone.

  It was the best offer any of them was likely to get, and Lou wasn’t stupid.

  The other girls peeked out from their open doors as they passed, but they seemed so surprised to see Jo back that none of them so much as opened her mouth.

  Tom and their father were in the study; apparently Lou didn’t merit the parlor for so small a thing as marriage. There was a decanter on the desk, and one empty glass in front of each of the men. No provision had been made for Lou and Jo—naturally, they didn’t drink.

  “Louise,” Father greeted them. “I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is Tom Marlowe.”

  Jo hadn’t known his last name before.

  “Mr. Marlowe,” Lou said, and held out her hand for him to shake.

  Tom rose, searching her face as they shook hands, looking for a sign that she knew what was at stake.

  He must have found it; he smiled.

  Jo didn’t know where to look.

  “Mr. Marlowe is a business associate of mine,” their father said. “He came by last night and was quite taken with you, though I don’t know if you met properly then. Josephine, you remember Mr. Marlowe.”

  “I do,” she said, glanced at Tom, felt like the room was closing in around them.

  “He’s asked my permission to court you, Louise,” their father said. “I trust you’re amenable?”

  Naturally, Jo thought; just as he’d trusted Lou would be amenable to van de Maar, before Tom had put ready money on the table as a gesture of goodwill and smuggled Lou right out from under him.

  This was what Jo hadn’t known—how much their father valued Louise.

  After Lou’s stonewall showing at the dinner party, Jo had gambled on “not much.” Their father must have known that was a nonstarter and figured that in desperate times, something was better than nothing. Now he was letting her go to someone for less than a tenth of what a wife was worth to van de Maar.

  Jo had gambled and won.

  Lou glanced at Jo, then stared at their father as if the whole thing were only now coming clear, as if she realized for the first time what sort of man Jo had been keeping away from the rest of them.

  Jo understood. Even now, with the outcome she’d put in motion herself, she felt as though she was trying to keep back an avalanche. She thought how impossible even a waiting game would be now, and was glad Lou wouldn’t see what happened if Jo failed.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lou. “I’m amenable.”

  When she looked at Tom, Tom smiled, the genuine camaraderie of two people sharing a gallows joke.

  Lou returned it. It was the first real smile Jo had seen from her in a while.

  “Well,” their father said, “that’s nice to hear. Tom?” He poured the two glasses of liquor and toasted to Tom, with an absent gesture to Lou before he drank.

  Tom glanced at Jo over the rim of his glass, just before he drank.

  Their father set the glass down with purpose. “Now, why don’t you two go on to the parlor and I’ll have the cook send something out for lunch?”

  “Lovely,” said Lou.

  As Tom and their father stood up, their father leaned across the desk, stone-faced. “Marlowe, I don’t believe in extended courtships. It keeps things uncertain that shouldn’t be so.”

  Tom glanced at Lou and nodded, the picture of a serious suitor. “I understand, sir. She’s a swell girl; if she thinks well of me, I hope to be taking her back to Chicago with me before long.”

 
“As do I,” their father said. At the idea of a speedy courtship, he’d managed a smile. “Come with me into the parlor. Jo, thank you, you can go back upstairs. I’ll speak with you later about last night.”

  As they passed Jo, Tom glanced at her sidelong and extended a hand to shake good-bye. She was too slow meeting him; he brushed the tips of her fingers, just skimmed her skirt.

  A moment later they were gone, their voices filling the hall, fading as they turned the corner into the parlor. Tom said something Jo couldn’t hear, and all the way from the parlor Lou’s laugh echoed.

  Jo wasn’t surprised. Tom had that effect on a girl.

  • • • • • •

  On Jo’s way up, Rebecca opened the door. She was only visible for a moment; when she saw Jo was alone she closed the door again, and the whispers began.

  The whispers would spread—these girls could walk through walls—and within the hour all ten of them would know that Lou was downstairs with some man, and Jo had abandoned her.

  Their bedroom was quiet and bright white without Lou in it. Jo went to the window—she needed air, suddenly.

  In the morning light, Eighty-Fourth Street looked fresh and busy and open, as if leaving room for the wonderful something that could happen any moment.

  Jo stared at the hats of the passersby, gripped the sill until her knuckles went white.

  • • • • • •

  Twelve P.M. The upstairs maid brought the lunch trays. Jo’s was set for only one; Lou was still in the parlor with their father and Tom.

  One P.M. Jo went into the library to calm her nerves with the atlas.

  One thirty P.M. She gave up. No matter what page she looked at—Russia, China, Mexico, Iceland—she thought of Lou on the road to Chicago, Tom showing her how to drive, the two of them laughing about their clever escape.

  She was too restless, too uncertain, to speak to Ella or Doris. She was waiting for word from Lou or a summons from Father—anything that would put affairs in order.

  Jo needed a new hobby. Araminta and Sophie remade dresses by hand; Jo should take up sewing. That was useful, and it made the time go faster.

  Two P.M. Someone knocked at the door, the timid tapping of someone afraid to face her. (One of the little ones, then.) She didn’t answer; there was nothing to say.