“Don’t you worry about that,” Matthew said. “She and I had a very frank talk. I told her you’re my wife, and we’re madly in love, and I won’t hear a bad word against you. This invitation is her way of making amends.”
I looked up at the house. Hannah was no longer on the balcony, but her watchfulness seemed to linger, casting a shadow over our conversation. It’s good news, I told myself. It means Matthew stood up for you, and Hannah’s accepted the marriage. Who knows? She might even insist we go shopping and buy me the trousseau and jewelry I’d told Matthew I didn’t really need.
In the distance, I saw Marjorie approaching, moving with the graceful ease of a dancer. Her dress and hair swirled in the breeze.
“Lovers’ spat?” she called out cheerily.
I dropped the arms that had been folded across my chest and squeezed Matthew’s hand. “Wonderful news,” I gushed with fake enthusiasm. “We’re moving to Lakecrest.”
“Yes, Mum told me.”
I tried not to show my irritation. Why did everyone else seem to know about my new living arrangements before I did?
“The party’s breaking up, and some of us are going downtown to hear a new band,” Marjorie said. “Want to come?”
I looked hopefully at Matthew. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to escape into the lights and noises of the city. To put Lakecrest behind me.
“Oh, let’s,” I pleaded.
Matthew shrugged. “You know I hate nightclubs.”
Marjorie’s smile to me was unexpectedly warm. “Forget my fuddy-duddy brother,” she said. “We’ll have a lot more fun if he’s not along.”
“Go on, Kate,” Matthew urged. “Time you girls got to know each other better.”
Despite my apprehension about spending time with Marjorie on my own, I knew I’d be a fool to say no. Showing her I was game for a good time might win her over, and I’d need all the friends at Lakecrest I could get. I kissed Matthew good night and said I wouldn’t stay out too late.
Marjorie laughed and linked her arm with mine. “Don’t wait up!” she called out to Matthew as we headed to the front drive. She leaned into me and whispered, “Feels like breaking out of jail, doesn’t it?”
“Poor Matthew. He promised your mother he’d stay till everyone’s gone.”
“Dependable old Matts,” Marjorie said. “Always doing his duty.”
“The burden of being the oldest child, I guess.”
“Oldest?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it Matthew who’s younger?”
Marjorie gave me a strange look. “We’re twins,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
I mumbled something about being forgetful as I blundered through the same disorientation I’d felt when Mabel Kostrick told me about Cecily. Content inside our private cocoon, Matthew and I had barely spoken about our families and our pasts. It was jarring to realize the man I’d married was still a stranger, and I wondered what else I didn’t know about my new husband.
Marjorie seemed on the verge of quizzing me when we were waved over by a group of people huddled by a gleaming Rolls-Royce. Marjorie made rushed introductions—I forgot most of the names immediately—and we crammed inside.
Throughout the drive to Chicago, everyone competed to be the most outrageous, while I giggled shyly and pretended to look shocked. When we pulled up at the Pharaoh’s Club, my heart sank. Blanche would be there. The coat check wouldn’t be busy in the middle of summer, and she’d be eager to talk about the wedding and my meeting with Matthew’s family. I imagined the reaction of my new companions, these privileged men and women who talked about their family yachts and who did what in Newport, when I introduced her as my cousin. They’d roll their eyes, exchange snobbish smirks.
In a split-second decision I’m ashamed of to this day, I slipped behind Marjorie, hoping Blanche wouldn’t see me. But she did. I caught a quick glimpse of her surprised expression and instantly hated myself for snubbing her. But I didn’t go back.
To block out my guilt, I drank more than I should have. It was easy to lose track of exactly how much I’d had, with glasses of spiked lemonade appearing in front of me seemingly by magic and being refilled without my asking. A hazy sense of well-being flooded through me, and Marjorie flashed me a radiant smile from across the table. She was enjoying herself—I was enjoying myself!—and whatever frostiness there’d been between us had melted in a blaze of alcohol and jazz. She leaned over to say something, and the man on the other side of me reached out for her hand, begging for a kiss with a slurred tongue, and I laughed as his elbow tipped a drink into my lap. It was all so funny, and I couldn’t understand what Marjorie was talking about, except it was something to do with Matthew, and that made me laugh even harder. What would he think if he could see me now?
I dabbed the drink from my dress with a napkin, and when I looked up, one of Marjorie’s friends was standing above me.
“Would you like to dance?” Dark-haired and ruddy-cheeked, he was nicknamed Boots, for reasons no one had explained.
“All right,” I laughed, feeling emboldened by the liquor coursing through me but unsteady on my feet as soon as I stood up.
Boots was too polite to comment on my stumble as he led me to the dance floor. If he wasn’t the most graceful dancer I’d ever partnered with, at least he didn’t step on my toes.
“Matthew’s a lucky man,” he shouted, but the music was too loud to have a real conversation. We wove through the crowd, backward and forward, until I began to feel dizzy. I looked toward our table. Marjorie was sitting in a man’s lap, one of his hands wrapped around her waist. George? Joe? All I could remember was that he owned his own plane and bragged about having met Charles Lindbergh.
Marjorie was an image of glamorous perfection, leaning forward as he lit her cigarette. But her beauty had a reckless edge, a trigger for dangerous emotions. The man’s lips hovered by her neck, and her eyes caught mine, issuing a silent challenge. Was she ordering me not to tell her brother? Or daring me to?
Boots spun me to the left, and I ended by flopping awkwardly into his chest. He pressed his hand harder against my shoulder blades, where my dress stuck uncomfortably to my back, and pulled me close. His jacket brushed against my stomach.
“I’m tired,” I said loudly over the music, wanting him to hear me. I felt flushed and uneasy, but he didn’t loosen his grip. His breath blew hot and bitter against my cheek.
“You’re a real doll,” he whispered, and then his tongue flicked against my earlobe.