The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel

by Genevieve Valentine

  (He seemed like a stranger, just for a heartbeat; it was a comfort.)

  “Sir,” she said, “why did you ask me to come?”

  He huffed a laugh that rattled into a cough, and the nurse took a step forward, thought better of it, and hesitated.

  Jo waited him out.

  When he recovered, he took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you about my will,” he said.

  He turned his head to better fix his eyes on her, as if waiting for her to change her tune.

  She thought about all the money her father must have made in those years. The girls could make use of that sort of money—of any sort of money. If he was trying to apologize to family with his pocketbook, he wouldn’t be the first man to have tried and succeeded.

  But then she thought about all the money he had doled out to them one begrudging dollar at a time, and the money he’d been willing to take as payment for his daughters’ hands in marriage, and the money he had been willing to part with to lock them all in an institution, just for defying him.

  “I see,” she said.

  Her voice was sharp. It snapped on the “S.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want it to come to this, Jo. I don’t understand how you can stand there so cold, knowing what’s happened between us.”

  The nurse let out a breath.

  “I know what’s happened,” Jo said. “So do you. It’s why there’s a policeman downstairs. If you’re trying to get an apology out of me in exchange for my name in your will, then I’m only sorry you called for me at all.”

  Her father pulled his lips back from his teeth. “Josephine. What’s happened to you, that you speak this way to me?”

  Jo was trembling so hard she had to set her jaw against her rattling teeth.

  “Eight years of dancing at night,” she said, and tried to smile. “It does wonders for the constitution. Once you’re free to take it into the streets, there’s no telling what happens.”

  He blinked.

  “Eight years,” he breathed. “Eight years, you were defying me.”

  “I hope I was,” she said.

  It was too close to an admission. She breathed in and out, slowly; her throat was tight.

  There was a long silence. Jo refused to do so much as shift her weight until he spoke again. She had been too well trained to stand in her father’s presence to break those habits now.

  Her father closed his eyes.

  “And have you—are they all right? How is Ella, have you seen her?”

  Oh God, she thought, this was even worse. She could have hated him cleanly if he hadn’t been worrying over them; now it was all awful.

  “They’re well. Thriving. Now.”

  His expression hardened.

  “Well, I’m leaving my share of the business and my personal interests to van de Maar,” he said. “The full estate will go to him. I’ve signed the will already, it’s all sorted. What do you think of that?”

  And there it was.

  A will already signed, a decision already made, and this whole conversation with this news lying in wait, whenever he needed it to sting.

  She smiled thinly.

  “I think you must have been agonizing over whether or not I would come here so you could tell me that.”

  She passed the stricken nurse and made it to the door before she heard, “What will you do now?”

  His voice was softer now, and brittle, the voice of a man whose pride was slipping.

  Jo missed, suddenly, a father she’d never had. She wrenched the idea apart from the man as fast as she could, but still she ached.

  “We’ll be happy,” she said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “Good-bye, sir. I hope you feel better soon.”

  She turned and went into the hall before he could answer; suddenly, she was feeling weak enough to return to him if he called.

  Then, almost out of habit, Jo went upstairs.

  It was eerie to be there when no one else was. She’d never been near these floors when they were empty—they lived together, they left together, always.

  She moved in and out of their old rooms like a ghost. The dust had hardly settled, which surprised her. It felt as though she’d been away for ages.

  In each of the rooms there was a small thing that felt most as if it had been left behind. She picked them up, until there were more things than she could carry, and her arms were laden with ratted-out ribbons from dead pairs of shoes and empty tins of rouge and a music box that had long ago gone out of tune.

  On her still-made bed with its layer of dust, she rolled all the trinkets into the black dress she had worn a lifetime ago and tied the package closed with one of Sophie’s blue ribbons.

  There was nothing for Lou. Lou had left nothing to take. The room was as if she’d never lived in it.

  She stood still for a moment, until the grief passed and she could move.

  • • • • • •

  Van de Maar was waiting at the door to the study when she came down the stairs again; a document was unfolded on the desk behind him.

  “Have you reconciled?” he asked, half-hopeful.

  “No, sir,” she said. “He said the estate would go to you, and I understand.”

  He looked pleased enough that she thought about one last advantage, and added as though it was an order from her father, “I should take nothing but these mementos from our old rooms, and the letters from my sister.”

  He nodded, unsurprised, and a moment later he was returning from inside the study with three letters. One of them had never even been opened.

  Jo held her breath as he handed them over; when she took them, she forced a smile.

  “Thank you again for all you’ve done,” she said. “I’ll never forget it.”

  Her footsteps echoed in the foyer as if she was comfortable there, as if it had always been her home. Strange how things sounded, sometimes.

  Sergeant Carson was waiting for her on the front stairs and fell into step beside her as they walked out to the waiting car; he cast one dark look back at the door, as if wanting to make sure he had at least done something threatening, since he had come all this way.

  Jo felt the press of the package between her ribs and the crook of her elbow. Two dollars’ worth of cast-offs, folded so small that she carried it under one arm, weightless.

  As inheritances went, she thought, this was enough.

  • • • • • •

  At home in the little studio above the Marquee, Jo opened the letters from Lou as if they would crumble.

  The first one had obviously been written for their father’s benefit, in case he felt like reading something out loud for the amusement of the others—the language didn’t even sound like hers. “Beautiful sunsets.” “The sweetest hotel, with fresh lemonade.”

  It was a treacly travelogue of the first stage of their journey to Chicago that could have been written by anyone, except Lou.

  (She had an image of Lou sitting at the writing desk in some lovely hotel room, taking laughing dictation from Tom, pacing slowly behind her and rattling off a letter that sounded like it came from a brochure.)

  The second letter, after another long and effusive ode to pleasantries, eventually sounded a little more like Lou: quick sketches of the people she was meeting in the neighborhood, with just enough to tell Jo some of what she really needed.

  Jo knew to read “meeting” as “working with” and could already pick out the alderman who would be giving Lou the most trouble, based on Lou’s mention of his twice dropping by for tea.

  As landlords go, wrote Lou, you could ask for nicer, but I’m determined to stay on good terms, and I’ve already been bringing my own touches to the place.

  Jo couldn’t imagine, unless it was bullet holes in the plaster.

  At the end there was a little bit of sighing and missing them all, some general scolding of the girls, and a little singing of Tom’s praises.

  It stung, but still she read that section twice, looking for
any evidence of love. She couldn’t tell. Lou had a way of putting things that could mean whatever you most hoped or feared, just to draw you out.

  He’s very clever, Lou wrote, and shows every sign of being a loyal partner.

  The last letter, the one her father hadn’t bothered to open, was the most honest. Lou had gambled, rightly, that by then their father wouldn’t bother going through his daughters’ mail.

  And on the third page, this letter had a few sentences tucked into the middle of an extremely long paragraph about shopping for dresses that their father would never have been able to force himself through.

  Chicago isn’t the town for us—too many deliverymen, not enough dancing. You haven’t written me. It’s not like you. I don’t know what to think, I can’t sit still here from wondering what’s going on. Tom and I are going to hit the road soon, I don’t know where to, we keep changing our minds—if you get this, please, please hurry and let me know you’re all right.

  I am, I promise; Tom takes good care of me, for your sake.

  Something Jo had noticed—no matter how tired you were, some things could still keep you up all night.

  twenty-seven

  THE SONG IS ENDED

  (BUT THE MELODY LINGERS ON)

  Jo’s gifts were a second Christmas.

  Each girl exclaimed over the thing chosen for her—“Exactly what I would have taken, this stupid thing,” Rebecca said, carefully winding the music box—and didn’t ask too many questions about Jo’s visit there. (That was good; that had been half the point of bringing them back in the first place.)

  The sisters were so impressed with the getaway that Doris insisted on mailing Ella’s paste-gem earrings and Hattie and Mattie’s matching peacock-feather headbands all the way out to their apartment in Hollywood.

  “They deserve their trophies from that lion’s den,” said Doris, and nobody argued.

  It was as if the mention of it jogged their memories, because a moment later Rebecca asked, “How did he seem, when you spoke to him?”

  “Ill,” Jo said. Just because the worst was over didn’t mean the facts were less important.

  “Did he ask about us?” Violet’s eyes were the size of saucers.

  “He did. He seemed happy that we’re all well.”

  Violet smiled, and Jo remembered that she was still young enough to hope that he would wake up one morning and become a father.

  Rose took her tango-postcard souvenir to the bar, to show her new friend Martha. Jo was beginning to suspect that Martha held some appeal for Rose besides someone to talk to between sets.

  She must have been getting more in the habit of letting things happen on their own, because Jo’s only real worry about Martha was that Lily wouldn’t like her, if it came to that.

  For her part, Lily seemed supremely unconcerned by it. She slung her souvenir pearls around the neck of her shirt and slipped into the arms of a young man for a Charleston. (The way she dressed was still a scandal, but a little scandal was good for business.)

  When they were alone, Doris turned to Jo. “How was seeing him, really? How is he?”

  “Not good. He’s very ill. It will be the last time I see him.” It was half regret and half relief to say it out loud.

  Doris nodded, her brow furrowed. “I know I shouldn’t be sorry, but I guess you can’t help it when it’s your own blood. I cried when I found out about Mother, too, and I only saw her four times in my life. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d seen him.”

  “You’d have tried to understand him,” Jo said, “and there’s nothing doing.”

  Doris seemed content, but Jo’s skin was crawling, and when Sam came back she asked him for a dance just to be moving for a little while, just to feel the floor under her feet and know she was there.

  • • • • • •

  A week later, Jake showed up at the Marquee.

  It was early enough in the afternoon that the man at the door called her from the studio to meet him, and Jo came down barefaced and with her short hair still in tangles.

  “I’ve been thinking of a change,” Jake said. “Is there any chance you’re hiring?”

  “You might have to go ten rounds with Henry,” Jo said, smiling, and folded her arms.

  Jake shrugged. “If that’s how it’s done, I can adjust to new methods.”

  She laughed and motioned for him to follow her. “I’ll show you the cellar,” she said, “and when Henry comes, he’ll find a place for you.”

  “I promise not to fall in love with Araminta, if that helps my case.”

  Jo cast a look over her shoulder. “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” she said.

  It was half a joke, but he looked at her a moment too long before he said, “You’re right.”

  She showed him the cellar. He whistled low as soon as she opened the door, and again when he saw some of the wines she held in reserve, and as he peered at labels they discussed salary, hours, and availability.

  “I’m able to start this minute, actually,” said Jake.

  That was a surprise. “What happened at the Kingfisher?”

  “Change of management,” said Jake, in a tone that indicated it wasn’t worth being safe from the police under whoever had bought out the Kingfisher.

  So when Henry came in to set up, Jo introduced them, and had the satisfaction of seeing that Henry wasn’t the type to pull rank, and Jake didn’t seem inclined to make him.

  When she came down a little later, with red lips and her hair properly pomaded, it gave her a startlingly pleasant feeling to see Jake behind the bar, stacking glasses and wiping off bottles.

  She decided she must have been so pleased because she was trying to build something she could really live in at the Marquee, and every little bit helped.

  If he smiled at her when he saw her, she didn’t dwell on it. There was no future there.

  Jake was just looking for someone to love, and another broken heart was the last thing she needed.

  • • • • • •

  When the others appeared on the stairs that night, Jo’s happiness seemed almost complete.

  The place was packed, and Ames could hardly contain the energy on the bandstand. Parker had been and gone (which was just how she liked Parker), and Carson had stopped by for a drink and never left; he was eyeing the dancers now as if deciding whether or not to risk it.

  After every song, the applause resounded. Success, Jo thought as she took the stairs to meet her sisters.

  Doris was urging Sophie and Violet over to one side of the stairs, and Rebecca and Araminta were helping each other off with their winter coats and bickering about something, and Rose and Lily stood holding hands and silently daring anyone to think ill of them.

  It had been nearly four months since their escape, and they had changed so much that it always took a moment of worrying that things were wrong before she remembered everything was fine, and then happiness rose and warmed the tips of her fingers.

  I can live with this, Jo thought, if this is as good as it gets.

  Sam smiled and kissed her cheek and headed for the bar to pick up the first round. The younger ones barely waved as they ran straight for their table to fasten their shoes and get to dancing.

  (Most of them had adjusted well to their new situations—Sophie, who floated through life, seemed to have forgotten the house completely—but Rebecca and Araminta and Violet had fallen back into the habit of carrying their shoes in one hand until they were safe inside and ready to dance.

  “It’s to preserve the shoes,” Rebecca said when she caught Jo looking.

  But Violet only said, “I don’t feel right unless I carry them,” and there was nothing Jo could do about that but understand her.)

  Doris always lingered a moment longer than the others, standing beside Jo and looking out at the room as if admiring Jo’s work.

  Jo was grateful above everything else that Doris had sent Sam one night to look for a serious woman with dark b
rown hair, just in case Jo was somewhere in the city and looking for them, too.

  “I got a letter from Ella,” said Doris.

  (Only Ella ever wrote; Hattie and Mattie were too busy doing what they had been made to do.)

  The letters got thicker every week; Ella was finding work left and right.

  The pack of them had already been to see her as the sweet young sister in A Summer Affair, and the camera loved her even more than her dancing partners had.

  At home, Jo tore out magazine pages that mentioned what Olivia Bryant was filming or had a snap of her standing outside the Brown Derby in a satin dress, throwing the camera a look. It was silly to collect clippings, like something Violet would do in secret, but it didn’t stop Jo from collecting stacks of Photoplay knee-deep.

  “ ‘I’m up for a bigger part next,’ ” Doris read. “ ‘Cross your fingers I get Jane Bennet!’ ”

  The twins were in even more places than Ella, because they danced so often and so well—they had been in Cinescope and Flapper, and Featuring THE BRILLIANT BANNER SISTERS could sometimes be seen crawling in tiny letters on a movie poster at the cinema down the street.

  Doris read, “ ‘The studio wants them to have some real roles soon, but only Mattie seems to want to—Hattie is happy to dance and have it over with.’ ”

  “Imagine my surprise,” said Jo, and Doris laughed.

  Then Sam was coming back, and Doris was tucking the letter carefully into her evening bag and joining him for the Charleston.

  (Jo had expected a change of habit in Doris, but no amount of romance had succeeded at getting her on the dance floor for anything slow.

  “Lord no!” Doris said when Jo asked if she ever felt the need for a nice, sweet waltz with Sam. “I’m married, not dull.”)

  Jo gave Henry one waltz with Araminta. It surprised her as much as it surprised him that Araminta was willing to dance with him (Araminta wasn’t fond of men being too in love with her), but his blond head and her dark moved so smoothly and close around the floor that Jo wondered if Araminta was doing Jo a favor, or if Henry really had made the cut.