“Oh, sold some stock. Made a fortune on Canadian whiskey. Found out I’m actually a Rockefeller. You know how it goes,” Memphis said. In truth, he’d been saving his money for weeks.
Memphis tipped the headwaiter five hard-earned dollars, and they were shown to a decent table—not as nice as the ones occupied by the really rich folks who could afford to tip a lot more than five dollars or the famous folks who could just waltz right in and have a table put down for them beside the dance floor, but it would do. The rule in the nightclub was that you could bring in your own flask, but Memphis wanted to buy bootleg from the waiters. It was expensive, but it kept the money here in Harlem, and it made Memphis feel like a real swell to do it in front of his girl. He wanted Theta to see him not as a struggling poet sharing a bedroom with his little brother in his aunt’s house while running numbers for a Harlem banker, a fella trying to figure himself out as he moved along, but as a man in the know. A somebody. Like the kind of crowd she ran with on the regular.
The house band—Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra—kept the jazz percolating for a throng of dancers packed in so tightly it was a miracle anybody could move at all. Tuxedo-clad waiters twirled and danced between tables, keeping their heavy trays hoisted high above their heads without spilling a drop. There was even one enterprising waiter on roller skates. The whole atmosphere was one of a glamorous, anything-goes circus.
“When this band gets tired, the other band’ll take over,” Memphis said over the noise. “You never have to stop dancing. They’ll still be going strong come sunup. We can stomp all night long.”
“Let’s hope there’s no raid this time!” Theta shouted back.
“If it weren’t for that raid, we never would’ve met.”
“That’s true. But one escape is enough, don’tcha think?” Theta said.
A waiter swooped down and delivered their cocktails, disguised in teacups. “Here you are, Miss. Sir,” the waiter said, and Memphis could hear the subtle judgment lurking just under the courtesy: What’re you doing here with a white woman?
“Thank you,” Memphis said, making a point to be extra polite, even though it made him mad to do it. Like he was apologizing for some crime he hadn’t committed. Even now, as he sneaked a look around, he could see disapproval in the faces of some folks. But maybe if he became a great man, a respected poet, it would be enough to let them bend the rules. And Memphis was writing every day now. Already he’d filled a notebook with new poems. Like the one in his pocket he’d written especially for Theta.
Memphis kept stealing glances at her now as she watched the dancers, hoping she was impressed. The last time they’d been together at the lighthouse, Theta had said that everything was fine, but Memphis could tell it wasn’t. He was worried that it was him, that he wasn’t enough. It was part of the reason he’d wanted to make tonight special.
“Everything copacetic, Princess?”
“Everything’s swell,” Theta answered, but beneath the silk of her gloves, Theta’s skin prickled with a soft heat, and she tried not to panic. It’s nothing, she told herself and kept her eyes on the dance floor, and after several deep breaths, the prickling went away. But she’d been feeling it more and more—ever since that night in the theater when she’d been running for her life from the Pentacle Killer. Once it had even happened in her sleep. She woke from a nightmare about screaming horses running wild in the snow around a burning village to find that her palms were as warm as freshly lit coals. She’d had to shove them under the tap for a few seconds to return them to normal.
“Well, then. I guess I should give you this.” Memphis took the folded paper from his pocket and laid it on the table beside Theta’s glass.
“What’s this?”
“Anniversary present,” Memphis said. “Been working on it for a week now.”
Theta toyed with the edge of the paper. “Should I read it now or later?”