Candy’s screeches followed her down the hall.
Stella poked her head out of her room. “What’s going on? Another cockroach in the shower?”
“Candy’s having a bad day, I guess.”
Stella laughed. “What else is new. Hey, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I got kicked out of Katie Gibbs.”
Stella’s hand flew to her chest. “What? When?”
“Yesterday.”
Stella held out her arms and pulled Darby into them. “My dear girl. You don’t deserve that. What can I do?”
An unexpected lump formed in her throat at her friend’s kindness. Stella had tried to look out for her, from the very beginning. Darby couldn’t get any words out to answer.
“Come with me.” Stella led her up the stairwell and opened the door to the sky terrace. Back when the Indian summer was in full swing, girls in ruched one-piece bathing suits would gather on warm afternoons, but this morning all was quiet. Darby plopped down on the nearest chaise longue and looked out into the distance, where the Chrysler Building stretched into the sky, bright and gleaming. Being up so high above the city made her troubles seem less dramatic.
Darby filled Stella in the best she could, ending with a reenactment of Candy’s horror when she’d dribbled in her sink. “That was fun, I have to admit.”
“You’re not the same girl you were before.”
Darby shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”
“No. You’re a grown-up now.”
“Wait’ll my mother finds out. I’ll regress to an infant.”
“Why?”
“No refund. She put her heart and soul into me improving my lot in life as a Gibbs girl, and I couldn’t even last two months.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, Esme wants me to work in the club and for the two of us to try singing together, like an act.”
Stella squinted, whether from the idea or the bright sun, Darby wasn’t sure. She shouldn’t have brought up Esme’s name.
Darby pulled her robe tight around her. “I wish my father were alive.”
“Were you close?”
“We got on like crazy. My mother doesn’t understand me at all, not that she tried very hard. We don’t have much in common.” The sun shone on Stella’s hair, highlighting the gold strands among the auburn. “She would have loved to have you as a daughter. You’re pretty and stylish, like her.”
Stella fiddled with the rhinestone bracelet on her wrist. “Pretty only goes so far.”
“All I know is I’m headed for deep trouble. My mother hates failure. She got so mad at my father when he got fired. Even when he was dying, she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with him.”
“She does sound like a pill. Why did he get fired?”
“Something happened at work. His boss said he was too nice.”
“Too nice?”
“He was innocent, in a way. Trusted everyone, I guess.”
“Your mother seems to have very high standards.”
“You got that right.” Darby sat upright and swung her legs to the side. She was done feeling maudlin. She had to come up with a plan, decide her fate. Whether it was defying her mother or managing Esme, there was no more time to wallow in self-pity. “I have to figure this out.”
Stella reached over and patted her knee. “Don’t think too far ahead. That’s my go-to remedy in a time of crisis. Do something this morning that will make you happy.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Pop down to the diner with me and have an egg sandwich? Buy a new lipstick?”
Something that made her happy. Darby smiled.
“Thanks. But I think I know what will do the trick.”
Sam took Darby’s hand as they entered Washington Square Park. She’d found him in the kitchen of the Flatted Fifth, grinding spices in a mortar, and hadn’t had to say a word. He saw the look on her face, took off his apron, and together they walked west while she told him the story of her meeting with Mrs. Tibbett, stopping only to buy two coffees at a corner deli.
She took a sip to conceal her delight at the nonchalant way he’d taken her hand. As if they had been together for a while and did this kind of thing every day. Like she was his girl.
“How did you feel after you found out?” he asked. He’d taken the news easily, thoughtfully, without any of the awkward gestures of Maureen or the sweet pity of Stella.
“Panic. Then relief. I was happy not to live through another eight months of secretarial accounting and pretending to answer the phone.”
“Okay. So it’s a good thing. What’s next for you, then?” He stared over at the fountain, where a man with a guitar sat playing, surrounded by girls wearing blue jeans and tight tops that would have sent Mrs. Eustis into a tailspin.
What if she’d read this all wrong? Sam might be relieved she was out of his hair, and hoping she’d be on her way to Ohio on the next train out.
“Mother will want me to come home so she can torture me for letting her down.”
“And what do you want?”
Darby cocked her head. She’d never been brave enough to seriously consider the question until now.
For seventeen years, she’d done what others wanted. Her mother had been so brittle with rage that Darby hadn’t dared to speak her mind. Mr. Saunders’s presence hadn’t helped the situation, and she’d slowly tucked her real self inside, like a turtle being poked by a stick.
“I owe my mother a lot of money, to pay back the tuition, and I feel very guilty about that.”
He looked down at her. The guitar player strummed something in a minor key and sang about lost love. “That’s not what I asked you, though.”
“Right, but that’s a big part of it, what I should do versus what I would like to do. And Esme is very excited. I saw her in the elevator when I was on my way here. We couldn’t talk for long because Mrs. Eustis got on at the next floor, but Esme said she was working on some scheme, that she had my back.”
“What’s Esme’s scheme involve?”
“She wants me to work at the club and sing with her, try to get some gigs.”
“Typical Esme.”
Darby laughed. “I know, but I like the way she doesn’t let anything or anyone hold her back. I could use more of that myself, I’ve come to realize.”
“For now, leave that all be.” He touched her chin lightly with his index finger. “What do you want?”
Her love of books had stayed the same, no matter if she was a Barbizon guest or a Gibbs girl. “I want to work with words, with writing. I met a girl at the Barbizon who works in publishing, and that sounded like fun.”
“If you want to work with words, I have no doubt you’ll make it happen somehow.”
The simple conviction of his delivery brought tears to her eyes. “So you don’t want me to go back to Ohio?”
“What?” He tossed his coffee cup into a nearby trash can in an easy arc. Darby did the same but missed by a foot.
“Oops.” She picked it up and dropped it in. “I thought you might be tired of me hanging around and wouldn’t want me working at the same place you do.”
He took the scarf from his neck and looped it around Darby’s, pulling her in closer to him and kissing her on the lips. “No. I don’t want you to go back. But the whole point here is that you decide what you want. Do you want to stay?”
“Yes.”
And she did. Her first decision, made on her own, was that New York would be her home. The second was that she’d find Charlotte as soon as she got back from London and charm her way into a job. If she had to work waiting tables in the meantime, that would be fine. And one day she’d repay her mother.
“I think I know what I want,” she said.
Sam didn’t ask her to elaborate, just kissed her again. “And I want to watch you get it.”
“Should be a crazy trip, I must warn you.”
“I like crazy. Do you mind if I come along for the ride?”
She swallowed hard. “I would love that.”
“Good. Because I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New York City, 2016