The girls peeked over the tops of their menus. Four tables over sat a heavyset man with a very full mustache and the smug air of Wall Street success. “The one who looks like a walrus without a zoo?” Evie asked.
“The same. He’s one of those chumps who wants to feel like he’s young and exciting. Probably got a wife and three brats up in Bedford and thinks we’ll show him a good time. Oh, he’s looking at us. Smile, girls.”
Evie flashed her teeth, and the older man raised his glass. The girls raised theirs in reply. The man blew a kiss and motioned for them to join him.
“What now?” Evie asked through still-smiling teeth.
“Now it’s really showtime.” Theta knocked back her champagne and let loose an enormous belch that drew disgusted stares from people nearby. “Nothing like a good glass of giggle water to help a girl’s insides!” Theta said loudly and patted her stomach.
Across the floor, the older man’s glass hung in midair. He looked quickly away.
“He’s scandalized!” Evie said on a giggle.
“Now he can go home to his wife in Bedford and we can enjoy his grape juice in peace.”
“How’d you get so smart?”
“Hard knocks,” Theta said. She and Evie toasted and sipped the man’s champagne.
Mabel signaled for a waiter. “Could I have a Sloe Gin Fizz, without the gin?”
“What’s the point of that, Miss?” the waiter said.
“Tomorrow morning,” Mabel said.
“If you say so, Miss.”
“How’s Henry making out?” Theta asked, craning her head. Several tables away, Henry lounged in a chair wearing an expression of beautiful, bored elegance as he listened to the man with the parrot.
“He’s not really your brother, is he?” Evie said.
Theta smirked. “Now you’ve done it. People will talk.”
Theta was so deadpan that it took Evie a second to realize she was kidding.
“How did you meet?”
“On the street. I was starving, and he gave me part of his sandwich. He’s a real pal.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t the two of you…?”
Theta narrowed her eyes and blew out a thin stream of smoke. It felt to Evie as if she were weighing her answer. “We just didn’t go for each other. He may not be my real brother, but he feels like one to me. I’d do anything for him.”
Henry sauntered toward them and Theta scooted over to make room.
“What did I miss?” he asked. “Say, where did the champagne come from?”
“Lonely walrus,” Evie explained and giggled. She was already feeling a little tipsy, more from excitement and optimism than from the champagne. She liked Theta and Henry. They were so sophisticated—not like anybody she’d known back home. She hoped they liked her, too.
“You’re just in time. We’re about to make a toast,” Theta said.
Henry raised his glass. “To what?”
“To us. To the future,” Theta said.
“To the future,” Henry, Evie, and Mabel echoed.
The orchestra segued into a hot, sensual number, and Evie leaned her head against Theta’s shoulder. “Don’t you feel like anything could happen tonight?”
“It’s Manhattan. Anything can happen at any time.”
“But what if you met the man of your dreams tonight?”
Theta blew out another plume of cigarette smoke. “Not interested. Love’s messy, kiddo. Let those other girls get moony-eyed and goofy. Me? I got plans.”
“What plans?” Mabel asked. A waiter had brought pate on toast, which she ate with delight.
“Pictures. That’s the future. I hear they’re gonna start making talking pictures.”
Evie laughed. “Talking pictures? How awful!”
“ ’S gonna be swell. When my contract’s up, I’m heading to California with Henry. Right, Henry?”
“Anything you say, beautiful.”
“I hear they have lemon trees, and you can pick ’em right off and make fresh lemonade. We’ll get a house with a lemon tree in the backyard. Maybe even have a dog. I always wanted a dog.”
Evie wanted to laugh, but Theta seemed so serious, and even a little sad, so she just choked back her drink instead. “Sounds ducky.” She clinked glasses with Theta. “To lemon trees and dogs!”
“Lemon trees and dogs,” Theta and Henry said, laughing.
“Lemon trees and dogs,” Mabel slurred, her mouth full.
Evie leaned forward, resting her chin on her upturned palm. “What about you, Henry?”
“Me? I’m going to write songs for the pictures. Real songs. Not that gooey bushwa Flo Ziegfeld likes,” Henry drawled.
“To real songs!” Evie toasted. “Mabesie?”
“I’m going to help the poor. But first, I’m going to eat every bit of this.” Mabel swooned. “Heavenly.”
Theta cocked her head. “What about you, Evil?”
Evie turned her glass around slowly on the table. What could she say? I’m going to stop having nightmares about my dead brother. I’m going to let the past stop haunting me like a vengeful ghost. I’m going to find my place in the world and show everyone what I’m made of. She’d felt it from the moment she stepped off the train at Penn Station, a sense that she belonged here, that Manhattan was her true home. “This probably sounds silly….”
Henry let out a loud, dramatic laugh, then shrugged. “I just wanted to get it out of the way, darling.”
Evie grinned. Oh, she liked them both so much! “Ever since I got here, I’ve had the craziest feeling of destiny—that whatever is supposed to happen, whoever it is I’m going to be, is waiting just around the next corner. I want to be ready for it. I want to meet it headlong.” Evie raised her glass. “To whatever’s around the next corner.”
“I sure hope it’s not a car bearing down,” Mabel joked.
“To the good stuff just out of sight,” Theta echoed.
“To Evie’s destiny,” Henry said and touched his glass to theirs in a satisfying chime.
Evie paused, her glass in midair. “I don’t believe it. Of all the gall!”
“What’s eating you?” Theta asked.
Evie slammed her glass down, sloshing champagne onto the tablecloth. “Theta, take my purse. It’s got twenty bucks in it. You might need it to bail me out.”
“For the last time, what is it?”
“Sam Lloyd,” Evie hissed. She marched over to where he stood, leaning against a marble column, talking up a blond with a red Cupid’s bow mouth.
“Excuse me, Miss.” Evie sandwiched herself between them.
“Hey!” the girl objected, but Evie stood firm.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“What am I doing here? I come here all the time. What are you doing here?”
“Who’s she—your mother?” the blonde said in a voice so high it could break glass.
Evie turned. “I’m from the health department. You’ve heard of Typhoid Mary? This fella’s got enough typhoid to start his own colony.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Holy smokes!”
“You said it. Just to be safe, you might want to burn those glad rags you’ve got on. In fact, you might wanna burn them on principle.”
“Huh?”
Evie raised an eyebrow at Sam. “Why, Sam, she’s charming.” Evie turned back to the blonde, leaned in close and whispered, “You see that fella with the mustache over there?” Evie pointed to the walrus man. “He’s so rich he could buy Wool and Worth’s and still have enough left over for a steak dinner. Why don’t you go get him to buy you a drink?”
“You on the level?”
“And how. He’s a real Big Cheese. Trust me.”
The girl smiled. “Say, thanks for the tip, honey.”
“We Janes have to stick together.”
The girl looked worried. “You gonna be okay with his… typhoid?”
“It’s okay,” Evie said, glaring at Sam. “I’m immune to what he’s got.”
Sam watched the alluring blond wiggle her way toward the walrus man and shook his head. “Anybody ever tell you your timing is lousy, sister?”
“Where did you get that dinner jacket? It looks expensive.”
Sam grinned. “Back of a chair.”
“You stole it?”
“Let’s just say I borrowed it for the duration of my stay.”
“I oughta tell Uncle Will.”
“Be my guest. Of course, then you’ve gotta explain what you were doing here at a speakeasy in Harlem at eleven thirty in the PM.”