They headed toward the line of patrons entering the club. Most were older, in their twenties. Some even as old as thirty. Only about half were white. The rest came in all shades. There was even a couple from somewhere in the Orient. Each pair stopped before entering, chatting briefly with a bouncer who weighed at least three hundred pounds.
Closer to the door, the music grew louder, complicated with rhythms he’d never encountered. His fingers moved along with these new sounds, trying to pick out the notes he’d need to hit if he were playing along. Not that he ever would. It was one thing to dream of playing in an orchestra, which had ties to history and respectability and a connection to the world he was used to. There was no way he could set his hopes on playing in a place like this. The Thornes would toss him right out, and he’d be alone in the world.
They reached the bouncer. “You eighteen?” he asked.
“Yes.” Ethan offered the man some folded bills.
The man laughed, taking the money into a hand that looked like it could remove a head as easily as it could uncork a bottle. “Happy birthday, then.” He unclipped the velvet rope drawn across the double-wide door.
The music swelled and the boys stepped inside, passing a huge oil painting of a couple dressed to the nines, their brown skin burnished with tones of red and gold. Henry and Ethan headed down a staircase. The song ended and a ripple of applause reached them.
“Ugh, it feels like anything goes here,” Ethan said. “Which is to say, a perfect recipe for everything going wrong.”
Henry didn’t respond. He couldn’t. They’d reached the bottom of the staircase and now stood at the edge of an enormous room filled with round, candle-lit tables, a long bar lined with bottles and glassware, bustling cocktail waitresses, and waiters carrying trays of food and drink on their shoulders.
On the far side rose a stage flanked by red velvet curtains and pearly lights. Everything had seen better days, to be sure. But it was the biggest, brightest thing Henry could remember since before the Crash, and for a moment, he almost felt as if he were back in that old world, the one he’d lived in with his family before the influenza took his mother and sister, before his father … Henry stopped the thought in its tracks. Now wasn’t the time.
A group of musicians stood on one side of the stage, and the drummer kicked off a new song. Center stage, stepping down a wide white staircase with curving handrails, was Flora, looking paradoxically the same and yet so different from the way she looked on the airstrip. She smiled as she walked, but it was clear she couldn’t care less about the audience clapping and hooting on the floor below. A spotlight pinned her in front of a nickel-plated microphone.
“Something wrong?” Ethan said. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to your senses.”
“It’s not that. I just —” Henry shook his head. “The singer.”
“Not that it matters, but she’s not bad-looking out of that canvas getup,” Ethan said. “I’ll grant you that. Even if her dress looks like something that was in style twenty years ago.”
Henry didn’t care about the dress. It looked fine to him. More than fine.
Flora opened her mouth to sing and Henry swallowed hard. He’d never heard anything like her voice, which made him wish he had his bass in his hands, just so he could return the sounds, a mix of chocolate and cream, something he wanted to drink through his skin.
Once upon a time I dreamed
Of how my life would go …
He recognized the song: “Walk Beside Me.” But her voice nailed him to the floor. It made him feel as though something had slipped under his skin and was easing everything nonessential straight from his bones.
I’d span the globe, a lonely soul
Beneath the moon’s white glow …
“Cigarette?” A blond wearing a short red dress and a tray of Viceroys slung from a strap around her neck leaned in toward them, blocking Henry’s view.
On that day I saw you
It wasn’t love at first sight
But slowly, like a sunrise
You revealed your light
Henry craned around her as Ethan waved the cigarette girl away. “Your kind always says no to mine,” she muttered as she left. The maître d’ approached holding menus.
“Follow me, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s your lucky night. We have a table right up front by the dance floor.”
Henry had heard “Walk Beside Me” many times on the wireless. But he had never heard it like this, slow and tender. And the accompanying music was nothing like the orderly, upright way the Ozzie Nelson Band played it. This was something unsettling here, something unpredictable, as if some set of rules, both written and unwritten, was being shattered like glass. The awareness of it dampened his forehead and made his blood sing, raising all the tiny hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.
Flora moved on to the chorus.
I may have dreamed before you
Of how my life should be
The only thing I want now
Is for you to walk beside me
Beneath her voice, a skinny young bass player plucked a steady rhythm, holding her on a sturdy web of notes. For some reason, Henry immediately hated the man, his mustache, his pompadour, his trim tuxedo, the way he looked at Flora as though she were a thing he owned. The music picked up a notch, taking Henry’s pulse with it as the song traveled back to the main melody, now with the full band. It was a conversation with a piano, a guitar, a saxophone, two trombones, and a pair of twins playing trumpets that turned the reflection of the chandeliers overhead into movable stars.
Henry felt as though he’d dived deep into the water of Lake Washington on a hot day, braced by the coolness of it, knowing he’d have to surface to breathe. He was vaguely aware that next to him, Ethan was saying something and gesturing with the menu.
“Beg pardon?” Henry said, unable to take his eyes off of Flora.
“I was saying,” Ethan said, his voice edged with something sharp, “I ordered you a gin fizz and a rack of ribs with collard greens on the side. This place is supposed to be the best, if you like that sort of food.”
It took Henry forever and a day to process Ethan’s words. It was as though his mind was forcing him to untangle the letters, as though they were unspooling from a knotted ball of twine.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“What’s with you?” Ethan asked, his expression dark. “The eating had better be good because this music does nothing for me. And this club is a shambles. It’s worse than her dress.” He flicked his hand toward the stage, and his gesture extinguished the candle burning on their table.
Henry looked again at the gown, wondering what Ethan could see that he couldn’t. Under the spotlight, the sequins followed Flora’s curves in places he wanted to touch. And the club, well, it had seen better days, but what place hadn’t? Ethan and his family might not have felt the full weight of the hardship that had afflicted most these long eight years, but it was never far from Henry’s mind that he was one friendship away from nothing.
A waiter set down their order and leaned in to reignite the candle, and Henry focused on Flora, hoping she’d see him too. The moment the flame caught, there was a flash of recognition in her eyes, a quick stiffening in her shoulders, the slightest break in her voice. She looked away, and Henry leaned back in his seat and forced himself to breathe.
Ethan’s voice cut in. “I suppose that’s the thing with real life. It has a way of not living up to the one you imagine.”
Henry downed his drink so he wouldn’t have to reply. As far as dreams went, his imagination had never conjured anything as powerful as the hold Flora’s voice had on him, and the only thing he could do was sit still and swallow it whole, trying not to feel Ethan’s disapproval too sharply.
AFTER the show, Henry stood in the alley outside the club and rapped on an unmarked door while Ethan, m
aking no effort to hide his mortification, turned to face the street. No one answered. Henry waited a minute before knocking again.
“Come on, Henry.” Ethan glanced back over his shoulder, his car key in hand. “You can’t afford to get yourself into trouble. Let’s get out of here before that happens. At best, you’re going to make a fool out of yourself. At worst … at worst, this might be the stupidest idea you’ve ever had. We’re not writing an article about her. Not now, not ever. Nothing justifies your curiosity here. Let’s go.”
Henry had just raised his hand to knock one final time when the door opened and the emcee, a tall man with front teeth gapped wide enough to hold a nickel, burst out.
“Club’s closed, gentlemen,” he said. Stripped of his tuxedo jacket, he crossed his muscular arms over his chest, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Ethan took a half step back, leaving Henry by himself. Henry stammered, and the man laughed and shook his head, as if he’d seen the same scene unfold a thousand times before. “Her name is Flora, but it’s Miss Saudade to you. She’s my niece. She doesn’t date the customers, especially not turkey-necked white boys who only have one thing on their minds.”
“I know. That’s not what —” The words clogged his throat. “I — we were at the airstrip yesterday. For an article. I wanted to say hello. I wondered if I might —”
The man exhaled, uncrossed his arms, and grabbed the doorknob. “Much as I am a fan of publicity, I don’t believe a word you’re saying. There hasn’t been a white newspaper that’s written about the likes of us unless some sort of arrest was involved. You wouldn’t have any proof you are who you say you are, would you?”
Henry looked at Ethan, who had such proof in his pocket. Ethan, stubborn as ever, shook his head.
“Just as I thought,” the emcee said. “How about you make yourself scarce before I pound you into a pudding.”
“But —”
The man slammed the door in Henry’s face.
“Cripes! There you go,” Ethan said. “I knew I should have talked you out of this ridiculous business. My parents would be apoplectic at the thought of you coming here. Nothing good can come of this, Henry. You’ll thank me later.”
He turned on his heel. “Are you coming?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yes.” Henry felt a crack in the ground open between him and his best friend. He wouldn’t say another word about Flora to Ethan.
I’ll come every night, he thought. Every night, just to listen. He had to. He’d focused on being useful and dutiful and respectable for so long. He couldn’t do it. Not when it came to this girl, this music, even if it wasn’t something Ethan could understand.
FINISHED for the night, Flora sat in her small dressing room, holding a tall glass of lemonade against her forehead. The stage lights were always so hot she felt like something out of an oven after a performance, and nothing was better than something cold, tart, and sweet to drink. As she lowered the glass to sip, she tried not to think about that one moment in her performance … the moment she lost control.
Focus on what went well, she told herself. Your club was full. No fights broke out. The tax inspectors didn’t drop by with their notebooks to count the bottles of liquor.
Probably no one even noticed the ruined note — well, no one but Grady, who’d no doubt bring it up with her later, thinking he was doing her a favor. He was that way with her. Because he was older, he considered himself her teacher, her protector, and her superior. He could be a real jackass.
She blamed the boy, though. The one from the airstrip. The one doing the article on the plane. Henry or Ethan. She wasn’t sure which was which. Either way, he wasn’t the sort she usually saw in the Domino, which was perhaps why he stood out in his tuxedo, his eyes glittering in his white face. It needled her that she couldn’t ignore him during the show. Usually, she looked over people’s heads. The audience couldn’t tell the difference.
This time, though, it was as if some force had lashed her gaze to his. The moment of connection felt the way it did the instant the wheels of her airplane touched ground. There was a solidity, an inevitability to it, as though her body had been built for it, even if she wanted only to be back in the sky. It had never happened before. Never. But it was over and done. He wasn’t the Domino type, and surely he’d gotten what he needed for whatever article he’d planned.
Flora shivered and set down the lemonade. She had no business looking twice at a white boy, or he at her, especially if he was the sort who felt entitled to take what he wanted. She’d seen it happen before, sometimes with the waitresses, sometimes with the cigarette girls. Deep in her center, a sense of danger planted itself. She trusted — she hoped — the feeling would disappear.
To let in a bit of air while she waited for Grady to come fetch her (as if she were a child), she stood on a low bookshelf and cracked open the high window, the only one in the whole club that hadn’t been bricked shut. Sherman was scolding someone in the alley. Not the authorities. With them, he was nothing but honey, smiles, and free cocktails. Whoever it was, he was handling it. Flora smiled and jumped off the shelf. She took one last sip of her lemonade, letting the ice rattle in the glass. Then she felt ready to call it a night, and maybe feed the cat, poor thing, and then eat some of that chocolate cake Nana had made.
Right on cue, Grady knocked and stuck his head inside the door.
“Time to go,” he said, as if she might not have realized. Jackass.
“Fine.” She put on her gloves and felt better, more grown-up than girl.
“Let’s feed you some supper at Gloria’s,” he said, referring to the all-night diner that served their people. “A little sustenance for my girl.”
“It’s late,” she said, although she was famished just thinking of the cake. “And I might be coming down with a cold. It made my voice break during ‘Walk Beside Me.’ ” That was to keep him from saying anything about the flaw in her performance, or worse, trying to kiss her.
Grady’s face fell. “You should just let me take care of you.” He pulled her close. “You need taking care of.”
“It’s kind of you to offer, and I do appreciate it,” she said, trying not to breathe in his heavy cologne. “But not tonight. Please.”
“Let’s get you home,” he said. She took the arm he offered, wishing he didn’t hold her so tight. It made it hard to walk.
“On second thought, considering how I feel, I’ll ride with Sherman.” She dropped his arm.
“Flora,” Grady said. He looked more irritated than hurt. She gathered her things in silence. Then she went to find her uncle.
ONE morning, when she was a newly minted second grader, Flora stood over her nana’s bed. She wasn’t supposed to wake her grandmother, but a small, scared part of her wondered whether Nana had gone to heaven in the night. Flora watched carefully until she saw her grandmother’s chest rise and fall under the quilt. The relief at the sight felt as sweet as water on an August afternoon.
Perhaps she would stir if someone made the tiniest noise. Flora whistled, clapped, and stomped her foot. Just the one time. Then she stood as still as a statue, hardly even daring to breathe. Even so, Nana lay on her back, her chest rising and falling, a little quicker now, but still her eyes stayed closed. Flora moved closer to the bed. And then, like lightning, Nana’s hand shot out from under the covers. Her papery fingers gripped Flora’s wrist, and one of the old woman’s eyes popped open.
“Caught you.” She grinned and pulled Flora under the covers. It was the softest thing, and Nana was warm and cozy, the way she’d always been when Flora had bad dreams. But bed was the last place she wanted to be. Charles Lindbergh was going to land his Spirit of St. Louis in the city and visit Volunteer Park later that morning. Flora’s school was going. It was her first field trip, and she was to take lunch in a pail and to wear her second-best dress, and there was a chance that Mr. Lindbergh wou
ld stop and shake some of the children’s hands. She aimed to be one of those children, knowing that if her hand touched his, it would be a blessing on her that meant she’d learn to fly a plane and be up there in the blue sky herself.
“Why so squirmy?” Nana said. “And heavens to Betsy if your feet haven’t been carved from a block of ice. I’m shivering from my toes to my teeth!”
“Nana,” Flora said. “It is time to get up.”
“Oh, but I thought I’d keep you home from school today,” Nana said. “There’s laundry to wash. All of Uncle Sherman’s underclothes. And so many socks to mend. You’d think they were aiming to join the hallelujah choir, they’re so holey.”
“But Nana!” Flora sat up.
“Oh, and the last of the pickling,” Nana said. “I know how you hate the way it shrivels up your hands and makes your eyes water, but it has to be done.” She sat up next to Flora and turned the girl’s face toward hers. “Where should we start? Socks, britches, or cucumbers?” Flora was too stunned to speak. “My goodness it’s a lucky thing your jaw has that hinge on it, or we’d be scraping your chin off the floor.”
She pulled Flora in closer and started laughing, and that’s when Flora knew Nana was teasing.
“Let’s start with the britches,” Flora said. “There are only thirty pairs, after all.” It was Sherman’s bachelor notion that he’d do less laundry if he had underthings for every day of the month. It worked, in a way: Nana did all of his wash.
“On second thought,” Nana said, sliding Flora out of bed, “I think we had better pack you a pilot-size lunch.”
While Flora ate a bowl of porridge, Nana’s practiced hands heated the iron, straightened Flora’s hair, and smoothed it into a pair of braids. Then she buttoned Flora into her dress, put the pail in her hands, and shoved her out the door.
“You say hello to Mr. Lindbergh for me,” she said. “I packed an extra square of gingerbread in case he looks hungry.”
The Game of Love and Death Page 4
