CLARA
Clara sifted through the contents of her file on Deirdre Van Doren. “I don’t see why I have to go to the wedding.”
She and Parker sat around the expansive oak table in one of the Manhattanite conference rooms with Solomon, the private dick who had proven invaluable to Clara’s research on Deirdre Van Doren. The rumpled PI was actually a real swell once you got past that top layer of snark.
They’d been working for hours—it had been early morning when they’d started and now Clara could hear reporters chattering outside about which restaurant to order lunch from. Clara had forgotten all about food. She’d been subsisting purely on cup after cup of strong coffee.
“I know you’re not too keen on watching Lover Boy marry someone else tomorrow afternoon,” Parker said with a cruel grin. He wore a deep-burgundy suit today with a skinny blue silk tie. “But you’re just going to have to suck it up. Real journalists learn to put their feelings aside.”
Clara picked up a photo of Deirdre that Solomon had taken. “Not having them in the first place must make the job real easy for you, then.”
Solomon scratched his neck. Clara could tell he was getting annoyed—sitting here while she and Parker fought like children. Solomon had been tailing Deirdre for the past week on the Manhattanite’s dime, and doing a much better job of it than Clara and Lorraine.
Clara raised the picture, held it underneath the shoddy light from one of the lamps. Deirdre wasn’t doing anything incriminating in the photo, but the way she happened to be looking over her shoulder as she walked across the Barnard campus had a distinctly smarmy feel to it. It would be great for the cover of next month’s Manhattanite.
Provided Clara got enough evidence to write the exposé at all.
“Stare at that long enough and you’ll give yourself a headache,” Parker said, taking a swig from the coffee cup in his hand.
Clara ignored him and walked to the corkboard on the wall, which was quickly filling with everything from copies of old police records to notes Clara had taken on a napkin from that greasy diner across from Priscilla’s. She tacked the picture right next to her invitation to Marcus’s wedding.
Then she turned to Solomon. “Can’t we just tell Marcus what we know and stop the wedding?”
“I’m afraid not, doll.” Solomon put out his fifth cigarette of the morning in the ashtray and went straight for another.
He offered her a Lucky Strike straight from the carton—she doubted he knew what a cigarette case was, much less ever carried one. She gladly accepted. She was pleased when he failed to offer a gasper to Parker. She was pretty sure Sol liked him about as much as she did—which, at this point, was very little.
“We don’t have any real evidence that this Anastasia Rijn girl is Deirdre Van Doren,” Solomon said. “Nothing but your testimony and that of your friend Lorraine, who sounds a hell of a lot less credible than you.”
Clara wasn’t going to argue with that. Once upon a time she would’ve argued hard against the “friend” part … but now she felt okay about letting it stand.
“You’ve already told Marcus once and he didn’t listen to you,” Solomon went on, puffing out a cloud of smoke. Clara looked away—she’d neglected to mention to Solomon and Parker that Marcus had turned her over to campus security. It was far too embarrassing. “What makes you think he’s going to listen to you at his wedding? We need proof. We need it in a way that can’t be denied.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Parker said.
Parker withdrew a booking photograph of a skinny fellow with a dark, thin mustache from a manila folder. The man in the photo looked about twenty-five. “We found one of Deirdre’s old beaus, Benji Stafford, who did time for a con job she put on him. Benji has quite the grudge against Miss Van Doren, and he’s willing to testify to her identity in court. Sure, he’s an ex-con, so his testimony isn’t as credible as we’d like. But it’s all we’ve got—and it’s better than nothing.”
“That’s great. But what does it have to do with me?” Clara asked.
“We need you to smuggle Benji into the wedding as your date,” Solomon explained. “Benji’s the only one who can give us a positive, indisputable ID on Deirdre, and we need that to be able to arrest her without a confession. So we’re going to confront Deirdre before the ceremony.”
“First we’ll give her a chance to come clean,” Parker chimed in. “Our exposé will be that much better with a confession of guilt from the woman herself. And having Benji there should put the fear of God in her. We’re hoping that the sight of a familiar mug like his will put Deirdre in the mood to be as cooperative with the fuzz as possible.”
“Even if she doesn’t say a word,” Solomon said, “once Benji gives us our confirmation, my buddy on the NYPD will be able to arrest her before the wedding gets under way.”
Clara studied the picture of Benji and frowned. Even if Benji was innocent of that particular crime, his dark, flat eyes made her sure he was guilty of something. “And when do I get to meet this dream date of mine?”
“He doesn’t get into town until tomorrow morning,” Solomon said. “It’s the fastest he could come. We’ll have to pick him up at Grand Central and bring him straight to the ceremony. I’d much rather confront Deirdre quietly at her apartment today than arrest the girl in front of hundreds of wedding guests. But we don’t have much of a choice.” He reached his pudgy hand over to pat Clara’s. “It’s the best we can do, hon. Parker here will get his juicy story, and Marcus—well, he’ll be spared an ugly marriage.”
Clara crossed her arms. “Great. My date to the wedding of the man I love is going to be an ex-con named Benji.”
“Could be worse,” Solomon replied. “I once booked a con named Knifey McGee. His real name—I had the boys dig up his birth certificate to be sure.”
Clara picked up a copy of last month’s Manhattanite and pretended to flip through it for a moment, then met Parker’s pale green eyes across the table.
“Tell you what—get enough dirt on this woman tomorrow and you can consider the ‘Glittering Fools’ column officially folded.” Parker paused, letting the words sink in. “You’re too good a writer to spend all your time out gallivanting with those spoiled little rich kids anyway. You can write the exposé you’ve always dreamed of. Be a real journalist.”
Clara felt her heart flutter. She had more or less forgotten about her own career—she just wanted to help Marcus. Only … what would Marcus think if she exploited his personal life for a story? He’d always wanted her to write about something serious, but she doubted he meant himself and his personal life. He’d be hurt enough once he knew the truth about Deirdre. What would an exposé like this do to him—to them?
Clara winced. There wasn’t a them anymore.
And yet she still felt she owed him something. “Parker, I don’t think I can do this to Marcus. I’m already going to ruin his wedding day. Do I really need to make things worse by showing up with an ex-con?”
“What makes you so sure he’ll even care?” Parker asked with a sneer. “I think he’ll be focused on the girl he’s marrying—not an old flame who always seems to want what she can’t have. When you were with him it was me, and when you were with me it was him. If I didn’t think this exposé would sell a heap of magazines, I’d tell Marcus he was better off with the lady criminal.”
Clara’s face flamed red. She glanced at Solomon, but his expression remained utterly blank as he lit yet another cigarette.
She pointed a finger at Parker. “A real man wouldn’t ask a woman he cares about to pretend to be an ex-con’s date at her ex-boyfriend’s wedding.”
Parker leaned back in his chair and gave her his best film-star smile. “That, my dear, is why I’m asking you. I’m over”—he looked Clara up and down—“ ‘us.’ Do you know how many women I turned down in the hope that you might come around? Real women, too, not immature girls still hung up on boys stupid and gullible enough to get themselves engaged to con artists.”
Clara stood in silent shock for a moment. How dare he! But then her lips twisted into a smile. “Well, I’m so sorry to have deprived the women of New York of a prize like you for so long. I hope none of them mind that you take longer primping in front of the mirror than they do.”
She turned to Solomon. “I’m sorry you had to witness this. I’m usually quite the professional.”
Then she flung the copy of the Manhattanite she’d been holding straight at Parker’s head.
One thing Clara loved about New York: It had endless sidewalks for a girl with too much on her mind to wander.
After she’d left the Manhattanite offices hours before, Clara had thought about going home to Brooklyn. But the lonely anonymity of the crowded city streets suited her frame of mind far better than an empty apartment. Here, among the thousands of people who walked the streets, Clara felt invisible. Hidden. The wind bit at her cheeks, and the fall leaves were scattered across the pavement in beautiful shades of reds and oranges and yellows. In a way, the colors reminded her of home—before New York, before Chicago. Home with her parents, when her concerns were so few and her life was simple.
Clara pulled her coat tighter around her waist, passing by shop windows full of furniture and clothing, and a bakery with the scent of freshly baked bread wafting through the door as customers entered and left.
Then and there, on the street, she made a vow. Marcus had been set on Clara’s going to college before she pursued her writing career. At the time it had made Clara feel like he wasn’t confident in her abilities. But now she knew that even the best writers in the business admitted that there was always more to learn.
She left the crowds crammed outside the string of theaters on Broadway, moved a few avenues east, and turned onto Park Avenue. She passed upscale shops and stopped walking when she found herself outside Sherry’s Restaurant. Bushes flanked the restaurant’s entrance, softening the skyscraper’s appearance. She knew that inside there was a huge ballroom with crystal chandeliers and enough linen-covered tables to seat hundreds.
A lifetime ago, she’d attended a charity gala there with Marcus. He’d only just found out that Clara had been keeping her job at the Manhattanite a secret from him. Marcus had still wanted to make things work with her.
She stood across the street from the entrance, letting the memories of being in love with Marcus fill her body and soul, warming her on this cold fall day.
And then, out of nowhere—
One of the large double doors opened, and Marcus and Deirdre walked out and stood under the entrance’s red awning.
At first, Clara was light-headed at the coincidence. Then she remembered: Not only was Sherry’s the site of the beginning of the end of Clara’s relationship with Marcus, it was also where Marcus and Deirdre’s rehearsal dinner was taking place.
Clara crouched behind a bush and peeked around the side. Marcus was devastatingly handsome in a traditional tuxedo. His hair was Brilliantined, and a handkerchief that matched his eyes peeked out of his pocket. Clara could remember the way the Brilliantine mingled with his spicy cologne, how she would practically taste it on her tongue when she kissed his neck.
Deirdre’s coppery hair was expertly curled and pinned away from her face with diamond barrettes. She wore a sleeveless deep-green velvet gown. The top was sheer, but it became opaque at just the right point on Deirdre’s chest to remain respectable enough for the tables of old society biddies inside. The girl was positively glowing. And why wouldn’t she be? Half the Eastman fortune was about to be hers.
Marcus lit a cigarette and held it to Deirdre’s to light it. His hand lingered on her tiny waist as he did so. “I hope tonight hasn’t been too painful for you,” Clara could dimly hear Marcus say.
“Painful?” Deirdre gave a charming little laugh. “I adore your entire family. Your fazzer ees so kind and welcoming, and your muzzer ees beautiful! Zough zat ees not so surprising, you being as wonderful as you are.”
He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m glad you like them. They’ll be your family too soon enough.”
Clara looked away as the two leaned in for a big Hollywood kiss. Even though she’d heard the truth from Deirdre’s own lips, it was hard to believe someone so seemingly lovely was a con artist. And Marcus looked so happy.
She was beginning to understand what Marcus saw in his fiancée. Through all her lies and sneaking around, when was the last time Clara had remembered to tell Marcus something as simple as how wonderful he was?
As soon as she heard the door creak closed, she stalked away from the restaurant. It wasn’t fair—she should be the one standing across from Marcus on Saturday, telling him how much she loved him and how happy she would be to spend the rest of her life with him.
Instead, she’d show up to the wedding with a former criminal as her date, and would work her hardest to ensure that Marcus’s bride-to-be would be walking out in handcuffs rather than walking down the aisle.
Clara loved Marcus so much. And yet she was about to do something that would make him never want to speak to her again.
LORRAINE
Lorraine was sure the Eastman-Rijn wedding was the reason words like swanky and elegant existed.
Tramp though Deirdre was, it was kind of a shame such a gorgeous event was destined to go down in flames before it even began. It would be like that time Lorraine had dropped the latest issue of Vogue in the bathtub while she was still flipping through the ads in the front.
Melvin whistled. “What do you figure they spent on candles alone?”
Lorraine shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about it. I’m all for extravagance, don’t get me wrong. But spending a fortune on sticks that are just going to melt? That’s just applesauce.”
Though as Lorraine looked around the ballroom, she couldn’t deny the romantic, almost ethereal effect the dim lighting and hundreds of candles had. The candlelight bounced off the coffered ceilings and onto the enormous arched mirrors that lined the walls. The white linen canopy set up on the sleek wooden platform at the end of the aisle and draped with wisteria glowed with some sort of inner light.
Lorraine grabbed Melvin’s hand and pulled him deeper into the crowd. There must have been at least a hundred and fifty people milling around the rows of cushioned gold chairs, and probably twice that were still munching on hors d’oeuvres in the lobby downstairs. Lorraine had spied her own parents talking to Mr. and Mrs. Eastman in the lobby when she and Melvin had arrived—exactly why she’d hightailed it upstairs. She’d have to suffer through dinner with her mother and father later—she didn’t want to give them more opportunities to bore her than necessary.
Lorraine smiled with approval at the sight of her pink lips and rouged cheeks in one of the mirrors. The low lighting made her look positively angelic. She looked around for Gloria. She hadn’t spied her old friend yet, and she wasn’t sure what she’d do when she did. Hide? Say hello? Apologize for everything, and ask if there was any way they could possibly start over?
She recognized more than one gorgeous heiress from the pages of society magazines, or from passing by them on campus at Barnard. Sure, they never actually stopped to speak to her, but … who cared about a silly little detail like that.
“Sabrina! Hello!” Lorraine waved to a girl she recognized from her European History class, who was sipping from a champagne flute. Her father was some oil magnate. Or was it steel? The details were always so confusing.
“Do you know her?” Melvin asked.
“Of course,” Lorraine replied, waving even harder. “She’s one of my dearest friends.”
Melvin coughed. “But she’s ignoring you … and now she’s walking away.”
Lorraine’s shoulders slumped as Sabrina shot her a confused look, then continued across the room. “Oh, that’s just a game we play. She pretends to ignore me, I pretend to ignore her … hysterical, don’t you think? That Sabrina is such a hoot.”
Just then, another girl passed them by—Lorraine had to stop Melvin from stepping on the velvet train of the blonde beauty’s dress. The bodice was completely covered with intricate gold embroidery, and Lorraine was instantly envious.
The girl was hanging on the arm of a handsome fellow in his mid-forties. He wore a midnight-blue double-breasted suit. He laughed uproariously and squeezed the blonde closer to him.
“You see the man in blue?” Lorraine whispered. “That’s Senator Jimmy Walker—people are saying he’s going to be our next mayor. He’s also sugar daddy to just about every chorus girl in town.” She pulled Melvin away from that couple before he could react. “Oh, and there’s Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt! Doesn’t she look beautiful? Gloria, hello!”
Old Reginald Vanderbilt, heir to the family’s railroad fortune, stood beside his new bride and smoked his pipe. His raven-haired wife wore a royal-blue satin gown that dipped scandalously low in the front and back. A pin inset with diamonds was fixed to the front of the dress and Gloria Morgan wore a necklace and earrings to match.
“I think you look beautiful,” Melvin said, surveying Lorraine’s pale green silk charmeuse gown.
Lorraine smiled. It was the most formal dress she’d ever worn, and it had the longest hemline she’d worn since puberty. It was sleeveless and was embroidered with gold thread. There were deep aqua panels on each side, and a seashell-shaped gold pin gathered the fabric before it draped into a train in the back. Lorraine hadn’t expected to love the long Callot Soeurs number as much as she did when she’d tried it on in the store, but it made her feel like some kind of mermaid princess.
Even Stella Marks, one of the Laurelton girls who’d tortured Lorraine after she’d made a drunken scene at Gloria and Bastian’s engagement party, had gushed about how much she loved the dress when Lorraine and Melvin had arrived in the ballroom. “I wish I had one just like it,” Stella had said.
Lorraine had given Stella her brightest grin. “For your sake, Stella, I wish you did, too. Then you wouldn’t be wearing that puke-colored monstrosity.”
“Thank you,” Lorraine said to Melvin now. “You don’t look too shabby yourself.”
To think Melvin had said no when she’d first asked him to come today! “I told you I don’t want to get caught up in any more of your wild shenanigans, Raine,” he’d said.
“This isn’t anything like that!” she’d replied. “I just … I’d like you to come. With me. I’ll have to deal with all these Chicago bluenoses, and it’ll be nice to have a friendly face around. Plus I bet you’ll look absolutely dapper all dressed up.”
She’d been right. Melvin’s traditional tuxedo with its too-wide lapels wasn’t going to start any fashion trends, but at least it fit. He was even wearing some classy silver cuff links that his grandfather had given him when he graduated from high school. Lorraine had been surprised—Melvin was from Wisconsin; she hadn’t thought anything classy existed there.
“Raine—” Melvin began, the candlelight doing his cheekbones and strong chin all kinds of favors.
But Lorraine saw two more familiar faces over Melvin’s shoulder, and she knew them from more than just the society pages. She pointed toward the entrance to the ballroom. “What do you know? Clara and her editor are here to put their plan into motion.”
There was an unspoken rule that women needed to look their very best when there was a danger of running into an old flame. And boy, was Clara abiding by that rule. She wore a sleeveless floral-print silk voile dress. Beads and sequins dotted the print and caught the light beautifully. A beaded belt sat low on Clara’s hips, and she wore a long pink beaded necklace. Gold heels peeked out from under the dress’s long, artfully uneven hem.
Parker wore a gray pin-striped suit with a matching waistcoat. In his pocket was a delicately folded green handkerchief, which matched the color of his tie. A gray bowler hat covered his dark, wavy hair.
The two of them stood with two middle-aged men, neither of whom was dressed formally enough for a wedding. One was overweight and dressed in a tweed suit. Half his shirt was untucked under his jacket. The other was a nondescript fellow with wrinkled worry lines crawling across his forehead, wearing an equally nondescript brown suit.
Despite the fact that Clara and Parker were possibly one of the best-dressed couples at the wedding, neither looked happy. They seemed to be in the middle of an argument.
“C’mon,” Lorraine said. “I smell trouble.”
Melvin allowed her to pull him toward Clara and Parker. “That could just be the potpourri. There’s one crystal bowl too many of that stuff here, if you ask me.”
“What’s the rumpus?” Lorraine asked once she reached Clara and Parker.
But they were still in heated conversation. “It’s all up to you,” Parker said to Clara. “There’s no one else. You have to stand up when they ask and accuse her.”
“I can’t do that!” Clara exclaimed. She was getting into a lather. “I can’t cause a scandal and ruin Marcus’s big moment!”
Lorraine cleared her throat loudly—Clara and Parker finally looked at her. “Cause a scandal? That sounds like my cue.”
“You must be Lorraine,” the overweight man standing with them said. “I’m private detective Leonard Solomon”—he gestured toward the man beside him in the brown suit—“and this is Lieutenant Robby Skinner.”
“Well, my, my.” Lorraine reached out to shake their hands, incredibly flattered that they knew who she was. Clara probably bragged about having a friend as intriguing as Lorraine all the time. “Nice to meet you, gentlemen. So what are you two talking about?” Lorraine looked back and forth between Clara and Parker. “And where’s that hard-boiled character you were supposed to sneak in here?”
Clara let out a heavy sigh, looking close to tears.
“Benji missed his train,” Parker explained. “And now Clara’s going to have to accuse Deirdre during the ceremony.”
“Except I can’t.”
“Except you have to,” Parker fired back. He smoothed his dark hair and turned back to Lorraine. “Without Benji, we’ve got no one to identify her. The police won’t arrest her without a positive ID.”
“So what will you do?” Melvin asked.
Parker shrugged. “Hope that Deirdre will slip up when Clara confronts her in front of all these people.”
“She’s a hardened criminal, Parker,” Clara said. “I don’t think a roomful of senators and socialites is going to scare her.”
Lorraine nodded. “She is a pretty tough cookie.” She glanced at Clara. “You said he was a tall, skinny guy, right?”
Clara nodded.
“Have you got a picture of him on you?”
“I do,” Detective Solomon said. He opened his black leather briefcase, pulled out a thick manila folder, and withdrew a booking photograph. “Here’s Benji.”
Lorraine studied the photo: The skinny man had beady brown eyes and dark hair, a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his long nose. She turned back to Melvin. “Take off your glasses!”
His face scrunched up. “But you’re always telling me not to!”
“Just this once,” Lorraine replied. Melvin reluctantly took his glasses off and put them in the pocket of his jacket, and Lorraine tried not to cringe. Melvin’s poor eyesight really was a blessing—for his face.
She looked at the photo again: In it, Benji was wearing a newsboy cap. Lorraine plucked Parker’s bowler hat off his head, eliciting an angry “Hey!” from him. She ignored it and started banging the hat hard against her knee.
An older woman in a lavender suit walked in on the arm of her son and stared at Lorraine questioningly.
“Love your suit!” Lorraine called, still thwacking the hat against her leg. “What is that, Chanel?”
The woman shook her head and hurried away.
Once the hat was shapeless, she plopped it on Melvin’s head. It mostly hid his flaming-red hair. “Perfect,” she said.
Clara looked at the photo as well, with a small, wondering smile on her face. “He has a mustache and a mole, though,” she said, referring to the picture.
Lorraine fished around in her gold, shell-shaped purse. “I can fix that!” She withdrew her black eyebrow pencil.
Melvin stepped backward when she aimed the pencil at his face. “You’re not even going to ask my permission first?”
Lorraine threw her hands up. “This is a life-or-death situation, Melvin!”
“No, it’s not!” Melvin replied. “Why would you even say that?”
She paused. “Okay, but a friend of ours, the man Clara loves, is about to ruin his life. Are you really going to let him do it, knowing you could’ve done something to help?”
Melvin stared at her with his tiny brown eyes for a few seconds, then sighed. “Oh, fine.” He held still so Lorraine could draw a thin mustache above his lips and a mole on his left cheek. It didn’t look too bad, if Lorraine said so herself.
It was clear from Parker’s face that he didn’t agree. “That’ll never fool anyone.”
“Not unless she’s blind,” Solomon agreed.
“But that’s just it,” Lorraine replied. “She basically is! Clara and I saw this girl up close. She squints; she’s nearsighted.”
Clara nodded in confirmation. “She’s right. Vain girls never wear glasses.”
“If we keep Melvin here far enough away, she won’t be able to be sure he’s not this Benji jamoke,” Lorraine said. She looked at the others, ready to receive her praise for coming up with such a brilliant solution.
Solomon took the photo back and glared at Melvin. “Even if she thinks it’s him, the moment he opens his mouth, she’ll know the truth. Benji has a serious Southern accent.”
Lorraine waved him off. “The man’s name is Benji. How serious could his accent be?”
“Serious enough,” Parker said. “But Clara’s going to do all the talking.”
“What?” Clara asked, incredulous.
They all looked up when they heard the sound of strings. The white-suited wedding band was seated next to the canopy and was starting to warm up. The guests took this as their cue to take their seats.
Lorraine walked toward the aisle with the others trailing behind her. Her plan was good, she knew it was—even if no one else thought so. Plus, it wasn’t like they had time to come up with anything else.
It was now or never.
GLORIA
Forrest mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief and used his other hand to offer Gloria his gold-plated flask.
“Here, kid. You look like you could use it.”
Gloria took in the stately wedding guests crowded around them in the Plaza’s marble-floored lobby. The debutante on her left fingered the feathered skirt of her peach gown and confirmed to a reporter that, why, yes, they were real ostrich feathers. On her right was a crowd of Marcus’s old prep school friends from Chicago, enthusiastically discussing Babe Ruth’s latest home run. The stately room—with its high ceilings and countless tall windows bordered by gold curtains—was packed to the gills with a rainbow of wedding guests dressed in the finest clothing that money could buy.
When Marcus asked Gloria to be his “best girl,” Gloria had expected to wear the same flouncy dress as Anastasia’s bridesmaids. But instead, Marcus had commissioned a black silk halter dress with a white lace bodice. There was a black bow at the center of the bodice and a line of black buttons beneath it.
Gloria took a swig from the flask. She and Forrest could’ve filled a novel with all the tabloid pieces that had been written about them. But they were practically invisible in this sea of New York and Chicago royalty.
“You don’t look so great yourself,” Gloria replied, handing back the flask. Since she’d met him, Forrest had never looked anything but perfectly groomed. But now he was a sweaty mess. His nervous fidgeting had quickly loosened his pomade-tamed dark hair into unruly waves. Sweat dotted his brow, and he constantly tugged at his dark green silk tie.
Gloria tried to let the booze relax her, but it wasn’t working. She could barely focus on the snooty guests crowded around them or the crystal chandeliers hanging above. When a waiter offered her a finger sandwich, she thought she might be sick.
When she recognized a gaggle of Laurelton Prep graduates, she tilted her head downward and hoped they wouldn’t see her. They didn’t, but she did hear her name:
“I wonder where Gloria Carmody is,” Anna Thomas said, twisting her unfashionably long brown hair between her fingers. “Do you think she got a job in another gin joint?”
“I doubt it,” Helen Darling said, and slurped at her lemonade.
“She’s probably off getting arrested again with her colored boyfriend,” Amelia Stone said. “Remember the way we used to look up to her? It’s positively embarrassing to think of it now.”
On another day Gloria might’ve been offended by their barbed words. But now all Gloria could think of was Jerome, and how Forrest’s sadistic father had him locked up God knew where. Pembroke had refused to say anything about what he’d done with Jerome—only that he was alive. Alive was not necessarily synonymous with safe or unharmed. She couldn’t stop imagining Jerome’s soft brown eyes widened in terror, or his normally deep voice pitched in a cry for help that no one would hear.
“Where is Pembroke now?” Gloria asked Forrest.
“In the far right corner, by the vase of lilies,” Forrest replied immediately. His eyes hadn’t strayed from his father for a moment since they’d arrived at the Plaza.
Gloria peeked over the many wide-brimmed hats and delicate headdresses. Pembroke stood as he always did, silent and imposing with his hands folded behind his back.
He wasn’t playing the servant today—his black tuxedo was of finer quality than half the guests here. His black bowler hat pitched low over his eyes and made his garish scar less obvious, but Gloria could still feel his stare. When Pembroke made eye contact with Gloria, his lips peeled back to reveal a smile that was more of a sneer.
Gloria tugged on Forrest’s sleeve. “Come on, I’ve got to join the wedding party.”
They made their way through the crowd and under the domed ceiling of the Plaza’s Palm Court. Large tables were already set up with place cards and more silverware than one person could ever need for the reception that would follow the ceremony. Gloria and Forrest walked between the columns and began to climb the steps.
“You don’t have to go with your father,” Gloria pled with Forrest under her breath. “You’re a better man than he is.”
Forrest refused to look at her. “I have to help him. He’s my dad.”
“Yeah, well, your dad is holding my fiancé hostage. And I doubt he got that scar rescuing small children.”
“He’s not a good man, I know,” Forrest admitted. “But without him, I’m just another poor boy—no mansion, no musicals, no shot to win the heart of Ruby Hay worth.”
“But you were planning to leave him,” Gloria said when they reached the second floor of the hotel. They walked quickly past the entrance to the ballroom, where several men and women mingled and smoked cigarettes. “You wanted to run away to Paris with Ruby,” she whispered. “What happened?”
He gave her a bleak smile. “You happened, Gloria. How am I supposed to leave now, knowing you’ll probably turn my father over to the feds before my boat’s even left the harbor? I owe everything I have, everything I am, to my father.”
They reached a long hallway. Gorgeous landscapes and portraits of women in elegant gowns hung between the doors. Gloria stopped walking and leaned against the wall. Her bare arm brushed up against the rough texture of the painting behind her. From here she could see the ballroom entrance to their right and the stairs beyond it. Pembroke was nowhere in sight. “What happened between you and Ruby? She said you two were planning to elope when you were younger.”
Forrest stopped as well and leaned on the wall beside her, a gold candelabra sconce right above his head. “We were seventeen,” Forrest said in a dreamy voice. “Even before she was onstage, a spotlight seemed to follow Ruby Fredericks everywhere she went. I could hardly believe my luck, that a girl like that would even notice me, much less love me back.”
“Why, though?” Gloria asked. “You’re a charmer, Forrest, and you’re not too horrible to look at, either.”
Forrest frowned as the memory slipped away. “I was poor. And to people in Ruby’s world, that was all that mattered.”
Gloria could understand that. Even if Jerome had been white, her family never would’ve accepted her love for a penniless piano player.
“She said the money didn’t matter to her,” Forrest said. “But it did, in the end. Money kept her from running away with me, and sent her straight into the arms of that block of wood, Marty. I was so angry with her at first. But then I realized I couldn’t blame her. I had expected her to walk away from everything she’d ever known. All the little comforts she’d grown so used to would be gone.”
Gloria flinched at the heavy sadness in Forrest’s voice. Ruby wasn’t as blameless as he claimed, Gloria didn’t think. Giving up a life of comfort—that was exactly what Gloria had done to be with Jerome.
“I didn’t know my father back then—he left my mother when I was only seven. All I knew was that he was a shady businessman, that my mother expected better of me. But Ruby left me, and my mom died not too long after. I didn’t have any brothers and sisters—my whole life it had just been my mom and me. I’d never been so alone.”
His voice broke on the word alone. Gloria’s heart twisted.
“I had no choice but to track Dad down. I found a few of his letters that Mom had never given me, and went to the return address. He took me in, brought me into his insurance business.
“I didn’t have much of a head for the work—numbers and I don’t get along so well. Which is why I didn’t realize until it was too late that my father was engaged in ripping off thousands of people.”
So Forrest was innocent. And he’d only sought out his father because he’d been backed into a corner. Gloria knew from experience that desperation had a way of glossing over red flags where money was involved.
Gloria looked over at the ballroom entrance and saw that everyone milling around it had gone inside. “We’d better get going.” She walked fast down the hallway, her heels sinking into the fluffy peach carpet. “Is Pembroke even your father’s real name? ”
“It isn’t, but I’m not planning on telling you what it really is.”
“Is Forrest Hamilton your real name? ”
“Yes. Hamilton was my mother’s maiden name.”
For some reason it made Gloria feel better that she knew Forrest by his real name. “So Pembroke got caught?”
“Only after he’d illegally made enough money to buy this hotel a dozen times over.” Forrest gestured at the chandeliers they passed under and the crystal doorknobs that probably cost more than some people’s houses. “When the cops came to arrest him, we fled across the country and made new identities for ourselves. I convinced my father that we could hide on Long Island. Ruby was in Manhattan with her new husband, and I wanted to be close by while I became the man she needed me to be.”
“She needed you to be a criminal?”
“She needed a man who could take care of her.” Forrest’s expression grew hard. “The feds never came looking for me—they just wanted my dad. So I could pretend to be a high roller and disguise my father to keep him safe. I invested in shows, laundering his money, all the while hoping Ruby might recognize my picture in the newspapers. Eventually she did, and she showed up at one of my parties.”
The two of them stopped outside the last door on the left, room 219. Gloria knocked and looked back at Forrest while they waited.
A smile had appeared on his face when he mentioned Ruby, but it dissolved as quickly as it had come. “I can’t leave my father to the authorities, though, not now. If it’s got to be one or the other, I’ve got to leave Ruby behind.” He let out another world-weary sigh. “She probably would’ve changed her mind at the last second anyway. Dad’s right. She’d regret ruining her career for a punk like me.”
“You’re not a punk,” Ruby said, surprising him. “Just an idiot.”
Ruby stood in the doorway of room 219, looking stunning in a deep-purple sleeveless gown. Flowers were embroidered in silver thread all over the dress’s bodice. A rhinestone headband held Ruby’s luxurious waves in place.
“Ruby, what are you doing here?” Forrest asked. He glanced anxiously down the hall in the direction he and Gloria had come.
“Don’t worry, I think we lost him when we came upstairs,” Gloria said, following Forrest into the room and closing the door behind her.
They walked into the parlor of a luxurious suite, complete with a gold chandelier, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a grand piano in the corner. There was a brown velvet couch in the center of the room with two matching armchairs on either side. Marcus sat on the couch in his tuxedo. His golden hair was slicked away from his face and showed off his sculpted cheekbones.
Somewhere along the line, Gloria’s best friend had shifted from a prep school rake to a devastatingly handsome man. His golden skin glowed with a fading summer tan, and long, sooty lashes framed his arresting blue eyes. But when he grinned and his dimples sank into his cheeks, Gloria was still able to see the boy who’d first taught her how to sneak out her bedroom window.
He rose from the couch and hugged her. “You’re finally here! Agent Phillips said he hadn’t heard from you since yesterday, so I offered to let him and his men wait for you in here. And then another agent brought Mrs. Hayworth in just a second ago. I loved you in The Girl from Yesterday, by the way,” he said to Ruby. Then he leaned in close and said in Gloria’s ear, “Something go wrong with that bureau business of yours?”
“Maybe for a minute,” Gloria said. “I think it’s all on track now, though.” Marcus sat back down and she sat beside him.
Burly men in black suits stood by the windows. They had the bored, slightly angry expressions Gloria had come to associate with FBI agents.
“I’m glad you were finally able to pull this off,” Hank said. Special Agent Hank Phillips sat in one of the chairs. The handsome FBI agent sported his usual five o’clock shadow and skinny tie. He gave Gloria a half-smile. “Took you long enough.”
Gloria looked back to Forrest, who clutched both of Ruby’s hands in his own.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Forrest tucked a dark curl behind Ruby’s ear and she leaned into his hand. They fell into each other’s arms and Forrest held her tightly, whispering, “Ruby, oh, Ruby,” over and over.
Finally Ruby pulled away. “You let me walk away once—I’ll be damned if I let you do the same thing. I love you, Forrest. Let’s forget the past and start fresh in Paris.”
“Only if you brought what was promised,” Hank cut in sternly.
Ruby stepped away from Forrest and picked up the fat leather binder of papers sitting on the coffee table. She handed it to Hank. “It’s all in there, Agent Phillips. It’s not Forrest, it’s his dad. He’s alive—the two of them faked his death.”
Ruby looked back at Forrest and gestured toward the binder. “I was scared when we were kids, but not of being poor. I mean, that was part of it. But mostly I was afraid to leave everything I knew—of losing my parents and friends from my life forever. But now all I’m afraid of is losing you again. I don’t care about your money or anything else, Forrest, I care about you.”
Gloria leaned her head on Marcus’s shoulder and tried not to cry. She felt exactly the same way about Jerome, but wasn’t sure she’d ever put it as clearly as Ruby just had.
But Forrest paled and his eyes narrowed at Ruby. “I trusted you! ”
Hank set the binder on an end table, rose from his chair, and approached Forrest. “You were right to trust her. Special Agent Hank Phillips.” He extended his hand, but Forrest refused to shake it. “Listen, if everything checks out according to what Mrs. Hayworth has told us and you agree to be a witness against your father, we can reach a deal whereby you serve no time.”
“I can’t believe this!” Forrest exclaimed. He turned to Ruby; he didn’t look angry so much as desperate. “You ran out on me once, and now you’re sending my father to jail? How could you betray me again?”
Ruby put a hand on either side of his face. “No, this time I’m giving it all up for you,” she said calmly. “I’ve already told Marty I’m leaving him.”
Forrest raised his hands to cover hers. “What about your career, and the money?”
“I don’t care about any of that! All I care about is you.”
Forrest stared into her eyes for a few long moments. He looked pained and elated all at once. “But he’s my father,” he said, his voice tight.
“He’s a dangerous thug who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. The only reason anyone could call you a criminal is because he forced you to become one. You don’t belong with him. You belong with me.”
“My father’s been there for me all these years, Ruby. Unlike you. Now you want me to repay him by selling him out to the feds? All so I can go to Paris with you? How do I even know you won’t just run off on me again when we get there?”
“I won’t, I promise I won’t,” Ruby said fiercely. “I’ll be happy as long as we’re together. Please, Forrest.”
Forrest was silent for several moments. Then his face crumpled. He jerked away from her. “Maybe you’d be happy, but I wouldn’t. Not knowing that my father is rotting in a cell and that the woman I love is the person who put him there.”
With that, Forrest stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Ruby gasped and rushed out after him.
Gloria looked at Hank. “Aren’t you going to go after them?”
Hank flipped through the binder Ruby gave him. “You heard Mrs. Hayworth—Forrest’s father is the fish we really want.” He pointed to a page in the binder. “I knew there was something shady about that butler of his. Callum Morrison pulled off the biggest insurance scam this decade—I didn’t recognize him with the scar. And I didn’t even know he had a son.”
Gloria put two and two together: Callum Morrison was Forrest’s father’s real name. Not Pembroke.
Hank pulled a silver pistol from the holster on his hip and checked the bullets in the cylinder. Then he nodded to the men standing by the windows. Immediately the other agents checked their guns as well. “We’re going after him.”
“What about Jerome?” Gloria asked, her voice breaking a little. “Pembroke said he had Jerome somewhere. I got you your information. You owe it to me to find him!”
“As soon as we bag Callum, my boys and I will head over to Forrest’s place. We’ll search it from top to bottom,” Hank said. He patted Gloria’s shoulder. “You’ve done good work here, Gloria. We’ll make sure Jerome makes it back to you safe and sound.”
Once Hank and the other agents were gone, Gloria slouched into the couch cushions beside Marcus.
Marcus let out a low whistle. “You really do know how to liven up an event. If you’re not getting ripped offstage by your fiancé, you’re singing for gangsters in a basement club or running away from home and living like a ragamuffin on the streets of New York. All I need now is for Lorraine to barrel in drunk and spoil things.”
“Just like old times,” Gloria said. “Though I hear she’s staying sober these days.”
“Well, we both know the booze was only part of Raine’s problem.” Marcus knocked his shoulder against Gloria’s. “Anyway, I’m glad we got all of this taken care of before the big event. I intend to have you by my side when I finally hang that golden noose around my neck—I mean, put a ring on my finger.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re my best friend. Always were, always will be.”
Gloria swallowed hard. She could hardly believe it—Marcus, getting married. “You’re my best friend, too. And it looks like my detective days are over, so now we might actually get to see each other.”
Marcus nodded. “And you’ll finally have a chance to get to know Ana. She wants to meet Jerome, too! She’s French—they’re all much more relaxed about that sort of thing over there.”
Gloria tried to smile back at him, but she couldn’t fake it. Marcus was her best friend. Which was exactly why she had to risk hurting his feelings. “Marcus, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Do you even really know this girl? You got engaged so fast after you and Clara split.”
Marcus scooted away from her. “You could’ve picked a better time to voice your concern, Gloria.”
“I’m sorry!” Gloria placed her hands on his shoulders and stared directly into his eyes. “I was afraid of hurting you, and our friendship, by saying something. But now I know I wouldn’t be a real friend if I didn’t tell you that you’re making a huge mistake, and that you belong with Clara. So I’m asking: Do you still love her?”
Marcus shrugged her off and stood, walking halfway across the room. “Why are you asking me about Clara? I’m getting married to someone else. Maybe you’ve mistaken the occasion here. Did you even read the invitation I sent you? Come to think of it, I don’t recall getting your RSVP. If you were hoping to have the filet mignon for dinner, too bad—we’re fresh out.”
“Come on,” Gloria said, “don’t make a joke of this, Marcus. I’m serious.” Forrest had managed to dodge enough of her questions with questions—Gloria wasn’t going to let Marcus do the same. “It’s not too late to stop this. Not if you really love Clara.”
Marcus looked down at the floor for a long time, breathing hard. When his blue eyes rose to meet Gloria’s, they weren’t angry anymore. They were sad, hurt, and so confused. He looked just the way he had when he’d come to visit Gloria in prison, right after he and Clara had split. God, he hadn’t gotten over their breakup at all, had he? He’d just hidden away in this new whirlwind romance so he wouldn’t have to think about his feelings.
“I just don’t know, Gloria,” Marcus said softly. “I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But then she came to see me last week. I was so angry with her, at the lies she’d told me. She wouldn’t even apologize! And still I had to call security to make sure she left before I took her in my arms and kissed her right then.”
“Wait, you called security on Clara?”
“Not my finest moment,” Marcus said, chuckling. He paused. “I miss her so much, Glo. Nothing seems as fun, or interesting, or exciting without her. She just … makes life better, you know?”
Gloria did know. “That’s what the people you love tend to do.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Clara doesn’t love me, though. She told me so.”
Gloria took her black beaded purse off her shoulder so she could smack Marcus with it. She didn’t hit him hard—just hard enough to make her point. “Don’t be an idiot. Clara is so clearly in love with you—if she told you otherwise, it was for a reason, to protect you somehow. But that girl is sick with her love for you.”
There was a flickering of something in Marcus’s eyes—hope?—but then it faded. “It’s too late now. We’re at my wedding! People came all the way from Chicago for this. I can’t disappoint everyone out there. Not to mention Anastasia. That poor girl … what would she do if I backed out now?”
Gloria thought back to when she’d run away with Jerome. There was hardly anyone in her life she hadn’t disappointed by choosing her life with him. “Marcus, sometimes disappointing people is just a part of life. Just because you’re afraid of letting some people down, that’s no reason to marry a girl you don’t love! This is your life you’re gambling with. You should do what will make you the happiest.”
“Do you really—”
The door’s crystal knob turned and a man with dark golden hair peppered with gray stood in the doorway. Even pushing fifty, Mr. Eastman cut a very handsome figure in his tuxedo.
“Come on, Son, we’re waiting on you to begin,” Mr. Eastman called. “Oh, hello, Gloria!”
Marcus wiped the hopeful expression off his face and, without another word to Gloria, marched after his father down the hallway.
The first thing Gloria noticed as the bridesmaids went down the aisle to the band’s wedding march?
They were all so tall.
They were also all willowy blondes Anastasia had probably met at Barnard. The girls walked down the aisle of the ballroom toward the linen canopy in their pink sleeveless dresses. Fabric roses dotted the dropped waistlines of the dresses, and rows of flounces formed the skirts.
Every few seconds, a flashbulb went off. Gloria couldn’t imagine how many reporters were in attendance, though she could pick out at least a dozen photographers sitting in the rows of gold chairs. Some faces Gloria had only seen in magazines—senators, socialites, even literary bigwigs like playwright Marc Connelly and Ruth Hale, who had helped to get women the vote. Then there were Gloria’s old sort-of-friends from Chicago—witless Ginnie Bitman (now witless Ginnie Worthington), for example, who sat in the front row with her new, bored-looking husband on her arm.
The bridesmaids held the same white lilies that were in pale blue vases all over the ballroom. The bouquets were all tied with blue ribbons that matched the vases. A long stretch of white linen paved the girls’ way down the aisle, and Gloria couldn’t help thinking it was a waste of such beautiful fabric if people were just going to walk on it.
A full, white-suited orchestra sat beside the platform and played a slow, jazzy version of the wedding march with ambling piano and silky horns. The candlelight bounced off the enormous mirrors on the walls and the crystal chandeliers above onto the guests, bathing them with a hushed glamour.
It wasn’t exactly the sort of wedding Gloria would’ve wanted. Gloria didn’t need crystal or designer dresses or enough candles to light every Christmas tree in the city come winter. But the feel of it—something quiet yet utterly sophisticated—appealed to her. It reminded her of a gilded version of the underground speakeasy world where she and Jerome had first met.
As the last of Anastasia’s bridesmaids neared the platform, Gloria stepped forward and whispered in Marcus’s ear. It was speak now or forever hold her peace—and she wasn’t too good at holding things in these days. “You need to fight for love, Marcus. Nothing wonderful in life comes easily. That’s why I’ll suffer anything to be with Jerome. And I know you’d do the same for Clara.”
As the wedding march swelled in the background, Gloria’s mind filled with memories of her own beloved fiancé: the first time she’d seen Jerome playing at the Green Mill, their first kiss, running away together to live in New York and almost losing him, that night at the Opera House when he’d proposed. What was it he had said to her the night they boarded the train and left Chicago behind them? Oh yes: It won’t be easy. Easy is over with.
And it certainly hadn’t been easy. Mobsters. FBI. Evil fathers back from the not-so-dead. But fighting for love with Jerome was worth it—it always had been and it always would be. After watching Forrest turn his back on Ruby and Marcus do the same to Clara, Gloria was even surer of her love for Jerome. Men like Forrest and Marcus seemed to have everything—money, charm, good looks. But what was any of it worth without true love? The other trials Gloria could take. But a life without Jerome? Never.
Gloria absently felt for her engagement ring around her neck and pulled the necklace out from under her dress. She held her ring and prayed that Jerome wasn’t in danger, wherever he was.
She glanced back at Marcus. Her closest pal since she was little. She had to stop him from making the hugest mistake of his life.