25
“WHERE?D YOU GET THE FANCY DRESS?”
Letty?s eyes were sealed shut, and short strands of dark hair were plastered to her face with sweat. The voice was Fay?s, she decided after a moment. So she was home; that was something. But her head was foggy, and the skin around her left eye socket was terribly tender. After a moment, she got up the courage to open her eyes, but this proved to be an error.
“Ohhhh …,” Letty moaned. She flinched at the bright light and the sight of her three roommates, standing over her. They were wearing those festively colored robes, and their heads were all cocked at unfriendly angles.
Then the memory of her humiliation at the St. Regis came back to her, and she had to cover her face. Somewhere along the path home, she had found herself in a second-story speakeasy which looked down on a purple street, where an older gentleman with a well-tailored suit and bad teeth, who claimed to be a Vanderbilt, had bought her drinks. Later on, she had been relieved to find that there was enough gin left over in the icebox to put her to sleep. She was still wearing her new dress, although in its current wrinkled state, it didn?t look nearly so glorious.
“Heard any rumors about the midnight gin thief?” Kate seconded. When Letty parted the fingers that covered her eyes, she saw that the brunette was holding up an empty bottle accusatorily.
“What happened to your eye?” Paulette put her hands over her mouth, as though it pained her to see her friend like this, but when she spoke again she, too, had a hostile tone. “Mr. Cole was furious you didn?t show at work last night. He said you?re not to come back—and he put me on Mondays, and took me off Saturdays, for having wasted his time with you.”
Letty rolled over and buried her face in the threadbare sofa?s velvet cushions. Her stomach whined and churned. None of her roommates moved, and in the silence, she could hear Good Egg running circles around the couch. An image of Amory?s friends staring at her as she stood on the stage at the St. Regis flashed in her memory like a knife.
“Did you make any money last night?” Fay asked.
“No,” Letty whimpered.
“Then you?ll have to leave,” Kate snapped.
“What?” Letty rolled over and her eyes got wide. A cold panic was flowing through her body.
“Oh, honey, don?t let the big blues well up, it?ll just make it harder for everyone,” Fay said, in a not entirely unkind voice.
Letty?s eyes shifted to Paulette, who had turned around to sit in a wooden chair by the wood-burning stove. For a while she wouldn?t meet her friend?s gaze. When she did, she lifted a delicate mauve chiffon evening dress with looping silver beading all over the bodice. In her other hand were a needle and thread, as though she had been trying to repair the garment. “Did Good Egg do this?” she said slowly, holding up the ragged, torn part of the skirt. There was a pile of similarly torn garments in a basket by her feet.
At the sound of her name, Good Egg came racing around again, a thundercloud-colored streak, and began wagging her tail furiously by Letty?s legs. “Oh, dear …,” Letty said. “Oh, dear. Oh, Good Egg!”
Good Egg threw herself down at Letty?s feet and gazed up guiltily with those almond-shaped eyes.
“I?ll buy you a new one, I promise!” Letty wailed.
“With what money?” Fay placed a hand on her hip and widened her eyes.
“If Amory Glenn had paid me the thirty-five dollars …,” Letty began, but she trailed off when she remembered what the thirty-five dollars had really been for.
“Amory Glenn told you he?d pay you what? Just to sing?” Fay hooted. “And you believed him,” she added, tsk-tsking.
“I?m sorry, Letty,” Paulette said. “You have to go. The dog?s ruined some of my nicest things, and anyway Clara needs a bed, and I told her she could have your place.”
“Clara Hay?”
The three roommates nodded. Letty felt as though the Earth was falling away beneath her.
“But I?ll pay you back … I?ll give you all the money I have saved up now, as an advance on rent!” Letty pleaded, grabbing Good Egg?s collar gently to make her quiet down. Sensing her mistress?s urgency, the dog did pause, letting out a slight whimper, but continuing to wag her tail. “Please, don?t put me out. I?ll get a job. Good Egg will behave, won?t you, baby? Won?t you?”
“How much do you have?” Paulette asked.
Letty closed her eyes. After the money she had spent on the dress, that left … “Five dollars?” she said, as though it were a question. As the paltry sum hung in the air, she realized that it was too late for her. She didn?t deserve to stay.
Fay sighed loudly. “Save your money, honey, and use it for the next train back to Kansas.”
“I?m sorry,” Paulette said. “Clara?s got a job, and you haven?t, and I can?t stick my neck out for you anymore.”
With the troublesome greyhound at her heels, Letty returned to her room and, trying not to cry, began to pack her things into the old duffel she?d carried all the way from Union. The clothes she?d brought from Ohio looked even drabber to her now than they had before. The dresses that Paulette had let her wear had felt like hers, but that had been only a temporary illusion. Friendship, she was beginning to see, could be awfully fleeting.
Before she could help it, she was thinking of Cordelia—but though the memory of her old friend made her sad, she found some strength there, too. She tried to do what Cordelia would have done—she unbuttoned the collar of her old black dress, pressed her straight black hair down over her forehead, and lipsticked her mouth. She bent and looked into Good Egg?s eyes and whispered, “We?re going to be all right,” even though her voice was shaking.
When she came back into the living room, her head was held high. The duffel bag over her shoulder was not, she knew, particularly ladylike, but she found that despite the trouble Good Egg had caused, the greyhound buoyed Letty?s spirits and was rather elegant to boot.
“Well, I?ll see you around.” Letty gave a wave and walked toward the door, with what dignity she could muster.
Fay closed the magazine she had been reading and let her features assume a mask of sentimental concern. “Don?t fall in with any Amory Glenns out there,” she said, from the couch.
Without returning her comment, Letty left the apartment behind and stepped, as bravely as she could, onto the sidewalk. The day was clear and new, and she could tell how warm it was going to be once the sun got high in the sky. But that would only shine a cruel light on her hopelessness. There were little pink flowers on the branches of the trees, and people all around, and none of them seemed particularly interested in her or the rough way she?d been treated the night before. They were all just going about their business, as though the girl with the helmet of black hair didn?t exist.
“Wait!”
She turned and saw Paulette coming up the three steps to street level, offering her a weak smile with one corner of her mouth.
“Here,” she said. The fluttery black dress that Letty had worn the night Amory Glenn took her to the Grotto was scrunched up in her hands, and she quickly folded it into a neat square. “I want you to have this. It doesn?t fit me anymore anyway. Really, it looked better on you. And this,” Paulette said, handing Letty a ten-dollar bill. She shrugged apologetically. “It?s all I can spare right now.”
Good Egg sat down beside her on the walk, and looked up inquisitively at the taller of the two girls.
“I couldn?t.” Letty set her lips together and shook her head. “I?ve already cost you so much already.”
“Who cares?” Paulette said, throwing her arms up. “Anyway, we?ll see—maybe someday you?ll pay me back with interest.”
“Thank you.” Letty pushed the dress into her duffel and carefully placed the bill in her pocket.
Paulette bent and kissed Letty on the cheek. “Toughen up, honey,” she said with a sigh, and then turned and went back into the apartment.
“Well, Good Egg, where to now?” Her headache was ebbing, and there were still pink flowers on the trees, and Paulette had been kind, even though she probably didn?t deserve to be treated nicely anymore. Letty bent on one knee and drew her hand along her dog?s slender head. “I?m glad I have you, anyway,” she said, and for a moment she shuddered, remembering how narrowly Good Egg had escaped the slaughter, and thinking what might have happened if Grady hadn?t been there, with five dollars to give that beastly man.
Grady—she had forgotten about Grady. Suddenly all Letty wanted was to be in Grady?s car, going to some special little place he knew, where perhaps they served cocoa. She stood up and began walking fast down the street. He?d told her where he lived as they were driving past it, and though she hadn?t been paying much attention, she distinctly remembered him referring to it as his “garret on Bedford.”
By the time she rounded the corner to Bedford, she was almost skipping, Good Egg dashing along at her side. Why hadn?t she better appreciated that gentlemanly manner with which he treated her before, when it was right in front of her? Surely he would still be willing to help her in any way he could.
As she walked down the street, she craned her neck to look up toward the little hooded windows on the top floors, through the leafy trees, and so she heard Grady?s voice before she saw him.
“There you are m?lady!” he called. “How I?ve missed you.”
Letty paused in her tracks, glancing around for him, a smile already blossoming on her lips. At first she couldn?t locate him, but then she caught a glimpse, halfway down the block, as he hurried down a stoop and bowed to open the door of a handsome cream-colored car. That was the gesture she most associated him with—that courtly swoop. Suspenders held up his striped slacks, and his collared shirt was rolled to the elbows. She took a few more eager steps in his direction, raising her arm and opening her mouth to call out his name.
But before the sound rose up through her throat, she saw that it was not her he had been addressing. The car door was not being held open in anticipation of her approach. It was being held open, rather, for a woman in a swaying, peacock-colored silk dress coming to stand on the curb in her pretty leather heels. Her lips were painted a very bright pink, and her shoulders were covered with a royal blue shawl as though she were going to the opera. Her red hair had been heated into shiny waves, the way Paulette did hers, except there was something even more fine about the way Grady?s lady friend?s hair caught the light.
Letty?s shoulders went slack, and her heart dropped. She watched Grady gently rest a hand on the woman?s forearm and lean in to plant a kiss on the skin of her cheek, just to the right of a cluster of pearls and diamonds that dangled from her earlobe. There was something so smooth and comfortable about him, and she marveled that he had seemed so nervous and boyish whenever they had spoken at the club. But it didn?t matter. She had been foolish to think he would want to help her, when she had held herself so preposterously high. She was only glad that he hadn?t seen her standing there, pathetic under the weight of that old duffel bag.
But before she managed to slip away, Good Egg recognized him, and let out a friendly bark.
Letty would never know if Grady saw her before she turned round. The surprise and mortification that followed that sound were all she could think about for several blocks, as she fled that pretty redbrick street where her last little embers of hope had burned down to ash and blown away.