Vixen Page 3

  Aunt Bea’s smile vanished. “There is no use pretending with me, young lady. We both know I am doing you the biggest favor of your life by taking you in.”

  Clara almost spewed her coffee. As if slaving away for prissy Gloria and Aunt Bea were a favor to Clara. “You talk as if I were a stray dog—”

  “At this point, my dear, you are little better than one.” Aunt Bea lowered her voice to almost a growl. “I know all about what happened in New York. Everything.”

  Clara felt something tighten in her stomach. What had really happened to her in New York was Top Secret—no one besides her roommates knew. Not even her parents. The booze, the jazz, the men, getting thrown into jail—that was all common knowledge. But the Cad … well, her roommates would never tell anyone. A city sister’s oath. Surely her aunt was bluffing. “Aunt Bea, I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”

  “Don’t be smart with me, Clara. I know all about the arrest, and your night in the New York City penitentiary.”

  “Oh. That.” Clara breathed a sigh of relief. Not that her jail time was something she was particularly proud of, but at least Aunt Bea didn’t know her darkest secret.

  “It is no small matter,” Aunt Bea said with a wave of her hand. “Gloria, my Gloria, knows nothing of your year of sin. And I fully intend to keep it that way.”

  “As do I, Aunt Bea,” Clara said. “I fully intend to leave my ‘year of sin’ in the past.”

  “You can’t fool me that easily. A leopard doesn’t change her stripes.”

  “You mean spots?”

  “I mean what I say!” Her aunt placed her teacup in its saucer with a shrill clatter.

  “But I have changed. I mean, just look at this outfit!” Clara protested, referring to the pink blouse that was buttoned up to the base of her neck.

  Her aunt cleared her throat. “I certainly hope your behavior is not as cheap as that blouse. If it is, I have no qualms about putting you on the first train out of here.”

  “You mean, back to my parents’ house?” Clara asked hesitantly.

  “I mean,” Aunt Bea said with a calculated pause, “to the Illinois Girls’ School of Reform. A boarding school for ‘lost girls’ such as yourself.”

  Clara put a hand to her chest. “Surely you can’t be serious, Aunt Bea!”

  “I already have your parents’ instructions. They have given a deposit to the headmistress, guaranteeing your place at any point during the year. That is how serious I am.” Her aunt selected her words as if they were bonbons on a silver platter. “Of course, you can avoid this fate by helping to ensure that your cousin Gloria turns from Carmody to Grey as smoothly as possible. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Clara wasn’t entirely sure what her aunt meant by all this marriage business—hadn’t the engagement been finalized? And had her parents really paid in advance to send her to a reform school without even telling her? How could they? Clara was about to further question her aunt, but she felt the contents of her stomach roiling—coffee, whiskey, cigarettes, train food. If she didn’t escape within the next 8.2 seconds, it would end up all over the Persian rug beneath her feet.

  She quickly excused herself, sprinting out of the room and up the grand staircase, dashing into a room that was marked with a golden G on the door—Guest?—and took a deep breath. Now she was feeling better.

  Until, that is, the blitz of carnation-pink everything actually caused her to gag. The room reeked of rose water and French soap and looked like a life-size dollhouse. The quickest scan of the room confirmed that G stood for Gloria: An essay on Great Expectations, with an A+ marked in red on top of the desk; a silver hairbrush and a pair of pearl studs atop a crystal tray on the vanity; and on the nightstand, a gilt-framed photograph of cherub-cheeked Gloria gazing adoringly at a blandly handsome man, whom Clara could only assume was Sebastian Grey. If her stomach hadn’t already began to settle, Clara would have lost it all over this pink hell.

  She slumped down on the pink tulle bedspread, feeling overwhelmed.

  Already in this new place, this new city, her Manhattan self—the one she had taken such pains to create from scratch—was slowly slipping away. And though she was reluctant to admit it, perhaps there was something to be said for that. Would taking a break from playing the Fearless Flapper be such a bad idea? Maybe it was the key to finally getting the Cad out of her head. For good.

  She would prove Aunt Bea and her parents wrong. Of course she could change! But it would require her to create a whole new role for herself. She would have to improvise as she went along. If this were a play, how would her character be described?

  Clara Knowles (18): Sweet-as-pie and innocent-as-a-lamb farm girl, with aspirations to be a humble schoolteacher, comes to the big city for the first time. Country mouse. Wide-eyed and naïve.

  Didn’t all the movie magazines say that reinvention was the secret to a “new, improved you”? Perhaps that was the ticket: reinvention. She would leave behind her seedy New York ways, her lost love, her tarnished heart, and don the hat of a Chicago society girl like her cousin Gloria. Out with the old Clara, in with the new.

  And God help anyone who got in her way.

  LORRAINE

  Lorraine had watched her best friend, Gloria, pace frenetically beneath the red and white barbershop pole for the past ten minutes. Frankly, she’d had enough.

  “Glo, calmez-vous!” Lorraine caught her friend’s petite shoulders, bringing her to a jolting halt. “You’re acting as if you’re going in for surgery!”

  “At least they’d put me under if I was,” Gloria whined.

  “A true flapper shows more guts than that!” Lorraine said, steering Gloria to the door. “If we hang around out here any longer, they’ll start to think we’re a couple of streetwalkers.”

  “They’d only think that about you, Raine.”

  “Because I’m the only one who’s dressed like an adult,” Lorraine said. “Now let’s go!”

  A bell clanged as the girls entered the shop. A long row of men—cheeks covered in marshmallowy lather, suits covered in black smocks—gawked at them in the mirrors that stretched along the wall. Lorraine watched as Gloria’s sea-green eyes widened in panic at the realization that she had just set foot inside a men’s salon.

  Just then, one of the lathered-up men raised a hand and began to wave.

  “Speak of the devil! Well, two devils.”

  “Marcus?” Lorraine called out. “Is that you?”

  Before Lorraine had cajoled her father’s secretary into booking the appointment, she had done her best investigative work to find out that a certain Marcus Eastman was scheduled for a haircut on October fifth at 2:30 p.m. She had then booked Gloria’s appointment for October fifth at 2:45 p.m. sharp.

  “Quelle coincidence!” Lorraine continued, trilling in mock surprise.

  “‘Quelle coincidence’?” Gloria repeated. “Really, Raine?”

  Lorraine gave a little wave to Marcus. “The best coincidences, I always say, are the ones you prepare for.”

  Lorraine had nurtured a huge crush on Marcus for years—the type that actually felt as if her heart would be crushed by her rib cage whenever she saw him. She sought out every opportunity to run into him—whether it was convincing Gloria to crash his baseball game, or dragging Gloria over to his house so he could help with her (already completed) mathematics homework. Marcus had yet to come to the realization that Lorraine was the One, and that their (prospective) fairy-tale romance was a classic fit for the Chicago Daily Journal’s Wedding Section. Lorraine blamed Marcus’s almost incestuous relationship with Gloria.

  But now that Glo’s diamond-encrusted hands were officially hands-off, it was Lorraine’s great opportunity to make Marcus at last recognize how simply fabulous she herself was.

  Pretending to ignore Marcus, Lorraine sat Gloria down on a banquette along the wall. “Now remember, nobody’s forcing you to do this. You can always come back another day after—”

  “I can?” />
  “Well, not really. But imagine that you have a choice here.”

  “You’re right, I can’t live another day with my hair like this,” Gloria said, twisting her long coppery braid around her finger. “I’m sick of being my parents’ perfect little girl.”

  It was frustrating to hear Gloria complain about a life most girls would die for. With her peaches-and-cream beauty, immaculate grades, and angelic singing voice, Gloria had always been that girl, the one other parents wished their daughters could be like. But Glo also defied the principles of girl jealousy—it was nearly impossible to hate her. Gloria made life feel like a glass of champagne: sparkly and festive and luxurious. And she was completely unaware of how guilelessly charming she was.

  That is, she had been until Sebastian Grey had come along. All of Chicago was celebrating their engagement as if it were some Hollywood movie, complete with ball gowns and horse-drawn carriages. Boring.

  Lorraine was happy for Gloria, but …

  She’d always been Gloria’s one and only—they did everything together. But after Gloria started dating Bastian, she began to cancel her weekly movie dates with Lorraine—a tradition for years—because she “couldn’t get out of” a country club dinner or the latest gathering with Sebastian’s fellow bankers. And then she wasn’t allowed to go with Lorraine to society parties because Sebastian didn’t approve of her being “surrounded by roving bachelors.” If Gloria was already slipping out of her life now, what would happen after she actually got married? Lorraine feared she would be left without a best friend. Completely alone.

  The week Gloria and Bastian got engaged—just before their senior year began—was the week Lorraine bobbed her hair. She was the first member of their class to go through with it, clinching her place as baby-vamp-in-residence. Lorraine could perhaps see a correlation between the events (the engagement came first, the bob came after), but so what? It had given the girls something else to talk about besides Gloria’s fat diamond. Gloria didn’t always have to be the one in the spotlight, did she?

  Still, she and Gloria were like sisters, and Lorraine could sense that something wasn’t quite right. Why else would Gloria be so determined to cut her hair, knowing full well Bastian would disapprove? Lorraine knew that, as her best friend, she shouldn’t let Gloria go through with the bob. But another, more sinister part of her was driven to push Gloria just to see what would happen.

  “You’re not the only one brave enough to have your hair bobbed, Raine.”

  “You couldn’t be more right,” Lorraine agreed, patting Gloria’s hand. “But I’m also not the one who has to sit in the same room tonight as your fiancé, your mother, and, lest we forget, your freak show of a cousin.”

  “Ughhhh, don’t remind me!” Gloria groaned, slumping deeper in her seat.

  “What is the princess ughing about now?” Marcus walked over to where the girls sat, whipping off his smock and jutting out his newly shaven jaw. “Ladies, what do you think?”

  “Not as if you had anything there to begin with,” Gloria teased.

  Marcus bent down so his cheeks were at her eye level. “Go ahead, you know you want to feel.”

  Gloria caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. “Oh, Marcus, could you be any more of a cake-eater?”

  Lorraine watched and felt a pang of jealousy. Why did Gloria get to have both Bastian and Marcus? Wasn’t one enough?

  “You’ve got to feel this, Raine,” Gloria said, taking Lorraine’s fingers and guiding them across Marcus’s jaw. “Baby smooth, right?”

  It was a simple movement, really, but Lorraine felt as though she were about to explode. She was touching Marcus! And he was letting her! Zing! Marcus blinked his beautiful, long lashes in her direction as she felt the cleft of his chin—so sturdy and square. Her stomach flip-flopped.

  “Well?” Marcus asked.

  “So … so … smooth,” Lorraine said.

  Gloria snorted. “Marcus can’t risk giving Alissa a stubble-burn tonight.”

  Lorraine sat up straight. “Alissa—Wait, Alissa Stock? That blond freshman who got her wiggle on with half the football team? What happened to Sybil Quince?”

  “Where have you been? That was weeks ago,” Gloria said.

  Marcus ran a finger along the inside of his collar. “Sybil threatened to kill me after she heard about Muriel Trethewey.”

  “How many girls do you date?” Gloria said.

  He shrugged. “My dance card is full.”

  To Lorraine, this news was about as indigestible as her mother’s egg salad. She knew Marcus had a reputation for being a playboy, for breaking girls’ hearts left and right, but there was no way she could compete with the Alissas of the world. Lorraine, after all, wasn’t a quiff. She didn’t sleep around. She only had eyes for one guy: Marcus.

  Raine’s thoughts were interrupted by François, le Barber Extraordinaire, waddling over to where they sat.

  “Oh, mon dieu.” He pursed his lips and exhaled a very French pfffffffff. “Dîtes-moi: Is le female illiteracy rate on ze rise? Or did you choose to ignore le sign that says men’s barbershop?” He gave Gloria’s braid a tug and she yelped.

  “François, you don’t remember me?” Lorraine asked, fluffing her bob.

  He twisted his black handlebar mustache. “Ah, mais oui!” He leaned in and gave her a fond bisous-bisous on both cheeks. “You are looking like—how do you say?—one hot tomato!”

  Lorraine beamed, thrilled to be complimented in front of Marcus. She pointed at Gloria and said, “She’s here for the bob.”

  “With those finger waves?” Gloria said, her lower lip quivering.

  Lorraine’s eyes widened. Her own haircut was of the ordinary variation—straight and slick. “Are you sure?”

  “How’s the big cheese, Sebastian Grey the Third, going to feel about that?” Marcus asked. “He’s always struck me as the king of the prigs.”

  “Well,” Gloria said, eyeing her long red locks in the mirror, “if I am going to sin, I may as well sin badly. I mean, boldly.”

  “Come on, Rouge, let us make your daddy très miserable.” François threw a black smock around Gloria’s neck and pulled her toward the back of the shop.

  Lorraine and Marcus were left alone together. This was her chance to prove that she could fill Gloria’s place once Gloria was married. Or even better, be something more than Gloria ever had been. And she could reveal her big secret. It was so big, even Gloria didn’t know. As of 11:57 a.m. (or 11:59, if you didn’t include her attack on the mailman), Lorraine had been accepted at Barnard College. Which was the sister school of Columbia University. Which was where Marcus was studying next fall.

  If only he weren’t flipping through a magazine as if she weren’t even there.

  She moved closer, crossing her legs so that her kneecaps (“most underused erotic body part” according to Jazz Baby Magazine) were exposed. “Bastian is going to put her under house arrest when he sees that bob.”

  “Yeah, what a prune pit,” Marcus said, not bothering to look up.

  “I didn’t have to worry when I got my hair bobbed.” Lorraine selected a red lollipop from a jar on a side table and unwrapped it. “I was actually the first girl in our class to do it.”

  “You must have been trying to prove yourself to someone, then.”

  “Well, not so much to prove”—she paused, popping the lollipop into her mouth—“as to please someone.”

  At that, Marcus finally raised his eyes. “And did it? Please him?”

  Clearly, pulling the lowest card in every girl’s deck—jealousy—was the only way to up her game. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  Marcus leaned in closer, removing the lollipop from her mouth. “So there was kissing, then?”

  Lorraine could feel her pulse quickening as she stared into his bottomless blue eyes. “I—I—I—”

  He stopped her stammer by planting the lollipop back in her mouth. “I’d better go check up on Gloria.”

  Lorraine’s heart
plummeted. One second she could have sworn he was flirting with her, and then he couldn’t get away from her fast enough! She couldn’t figure it out: She’d spritzed herself with the Fragonard perfume her father had brought her from Paris, and she was wearing her little black Patou day dress. Everything was perfect. Or was it?

  Perhaps it was the setting. A barbershop wasn’t particularly sexy. Certainly not the right place to reveal herself. When she told Marcus that she loved him, everything had to be Just Right. Mood lighting. Good music. It Girl dress.

  Lorraine got up to join Marcus. “Better make sure the princess is still alive,” she said.

  François was busy snipping the finishing touches into Gloria’s hair when Lorraine approached. He swiveled Gloria around so that they had a full view of her. “Voilà! C’est magnifique, non?”

  Gloria’s hair swept across her forehead like a crinkled autumn leaf, billowing over one sea-green eye before delicately ending in a soft edge along the line of her jaw. She blinked at them with wide, apprehensive eyes. “Oh no, do I look like a boy?”

  “More like a movie star!” Marcus whistled.

  Lorraine glimpsed her own bob in the mirror and nearly cried. How was it that she suddenly looked like a dowdy Joan of Arc and Gloria looked like a doe-eyed starlet?

  She pushed her jealousy away. It wasn’t Gloria’s fault that her hair turned out so smashing, right? Lorraine kissed her best friend’s cheek. “You look like the bee’s knees, darling!”

  “You’d better not be lying,” Gloria said, standing up from the chair.

  François brushed the stray hairs off her shoulders. “Even if they were, is too late now.”

  “C’est vrai,” Gloria said. “All we need now, François, is a little bathtub gin to celebrate your masterpiece.”

  “Since when do you drink gin?” Lorraine laughed. “Wait, since when do you drink, period?”

  “I mean … hypothetically speaking.”

  Lorraine caught Gloria shooting Marcus a furtive glance. It was the look she gave to her confidants, a look that said, Only you know my secret. There was nothing Lorraine hated more than being kept on the outside of a secret. Well, nothing she hated more than being kept on the outside of a secret that included Marcus.