Bright Young Things Part 6

Cordelia nodded and followed him into the adjacent study, which housed a polished desk, a marmalade-colored rug with a geometric pattern on it, and a black telephone.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said as Jones disappeared.

"Darling, it's me. I hope I didn't wake you ..."

"No, not at all." The sadness she'd felt over Letty faded at the sound of Astrid's voice, which reminded her that she did in fact have a friend with whom to delight in this new, rich world. Anyway, had Letty believed Cordelia when she'd finally told her about Darius, she might have been waking up here now, too. "Though I'm still in my slip, which it seems I've slept in."

"Oh, dear, did I just make Elias walk in on you like that?"

"Yes!" Cordelia couldn't help but giggle as she pictured how Jones had blanched at the sight of her. "Do you think he'll ever forgive me?"

"Forgive you! you! Darling, I'd put money on that being the most exalted moment of his day." She snickered. Darling, I'd put money on that being the most exalted moment of his day." She snickered.

"It's going to be a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"They're all going to be beautiful days from now on. Which is why I'm calling, as it happens. Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Then come have lunch with me at the club, won't you?"

"Isn't it a little early for a nightclub?"

"The country club, silly."

"Oh." Cordelia fidgeted with her hem. Of course, the White Cove Country Club-she'd read once that the Greys were not members, because someone else supplied the club's liquor, but naturally all the other wealthy families in the area were. "Yes, of course. Should I tell Charlie?"

"No!"

The swiftness of Astrid's reply startled Cordelia, and she wondered if she had done something wrong. "But I thought you loved him?"

"Oh, yes, I love Charlie and Charlie loves me and everyone knows it," she replied in a breezy, childlike voice. "Only-I'm not in the mood for him just now."

"All right."

"So avoid Charlie on your way out, and try to get Danny, you know the young one, the guard you fooled the night of the party, to drive you ..."

Cordelia cracked a smile and then remembered that Astrid couldn't see it. Few of the small houses in Union had telephones, and Aunt Ida's certainly didn't. It was new for her and a little peculiar, having a casual conversation like this with someone's disembodied voice. "I'll see you there in an hour?"

"Perfect, darling. Bisous, bisons!" Bisous, bisons!"

"Bisons," Cordelia replied, though she didn't know what the word meant. Cordelia replied, though she didn't know what the word meant.

An hour later, when the long-lost daughter of Darius Grey, whom everyone was dying to catch a glimpse of, walked onto the terrace luncheon room of the White Cove Country Club, Astrid Donal was already ensconced in a corner table with a particularly good view of the green. Like everyone else under the blue-and-white-striped awning, which s.h.i.+elded the round tables, Astrid was wearing white-a crewneck sweater and an A-line skirt-and a wide straw hat drooped over her pretty face.

Beside her was Billie Marsh, her stepsister, who was a student at Barnard College in Manhattan, and who usually favored darker shades but had that afternoon complied with the unspoken dress code of the place by donning white slacks and blouse. She had not, however, bowed to the tradition stating that women who smoked should do so discreetly; her pack of Chesterfields sat on the table in front of her. Her dark, mannishly cut hair was slicked behind both ears, and her eyes were covered with small, perfectly round black sungla.s.ses. These two girls did not, at a glance, appear to be members of the same family, and it was possible, given the lives their parents had led, that they viewed every domestic arrangement as more or less temporary.

"That can't be her," said Billie, exhaling a cloud of smoke, in a voice devoid of shock that implied of course it must be.

There was a chorus of porcelain teacups being placed back onto porcelain saucers. The din of conversation fell to silence and then rose back to a low hum. Astrid's big eyes sailed to a tall girl approaching the Marsh table in a red boatneck dress that was loose in the middle but clung lightly to her hips. Astrid had seen that dress on Cordelia yesterday at Bergdorf and had told her new friend she really ought to have it. The thing just fit her too well. But the cut was a rather audacious choice for an inst.i.tution as old and formal as the White Cove Country Club, and the color put her completely afoul of many decades of tradition.

"How brave," Billie commented.

"Yes," Astrid replied, just before Cordelia came into earshot. "That was one of the first things I noticed about her."

A moment of awkwardness ensued, in which Cordelia appeared perplexed about the right way to greet them, but then Astrid lifted up her arms to bring her new friend in for a kiss on either cheek.

"Cordelia Grey, this is my stepsister, Billie Marsh." The girls shook hands. "She insisted on meeting you."

"Charmed," said Billie.

"Yes, exactly," Cordelia replied and sat down.

"I'm starving," Astrid said. "Can we order, please?"

For a moment they turned to their menus, but then Astrid noticed that Cordelia was looking over her shoulder at all the people uttering low murmurs and covering their mouths were their hands.

"They're staring at me," she whispered.

"Yes." Astrid slammed her menu closed. "Ignore them, darling. They are quite shocked that you wore red. We dress in white for the club."

"You've performed a public service, really," Billie elaborated in her usual dry tone.

"True." Astrid signaled the waiter. "Everyone will have something to talk about at dinner."

"They all want to meet you, you know." Billie put out her cigarette and smiled. "I'm not the only one."

"I had no idea I was supposed to wear white." A cloud of confusion lingered briefly over Cordelia's brow, and then she shrugged, and the light came back into her eyes. "But I am always happy to be of service, and anyway, didn't you say you were starving?"

"Yes!"

They ordered bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches and iced tea, and enjoyed being watched by the staid old members of the club, who were so obviously pleased to be scandalized. Their food arrived, and as Astrid began to eat with her hands, she felt her contentedness soaring upward to its high point of the day. Each bite was salty and crunchy and fresh, and she had a new friend who was really such an interesting person-and she'd had no one interesting to talk to in a long time-and she was glad for having successfully avoided Charlie. Plus, she'd lured his sister to the club where it was a point of pride for him not to go.

He had lied to her-it was subtle, but she was sure of it, because Cordelia and he had crossed paths at a nightclub on an evening she distinctly remembered him saying he was doing nothing, just a little business. Last night, when she and Cordelia were out with Charlie's gang, it had been confirmed for her-Danny, the youngest of Grey's men, kept apologizing for some scene he'd made at Seventh Heaven, and saying that really, it was all Charlie's fault. Which Astrid was sure it was. Though she was not particularly put out about the lie, she felt that a girl should always return even the smallest transgression with a day or two of cold shouldering, to make her fellow wonder what is wrong and to remind him that he should try extra hard to please her. Yet none of that seemed particularly bothersome to Astrid now. The day was fine and clear, and when Billie finished her food and lit another cigarette, it seemed to punctuate the slow-moving pleasure of the day.

But in another moment, Astrid's contentedness shriveled away to almost nothing.

"h.e.l.lo, dears."

On the other side of the low stone wall that demarcated the edge of the luncheon room stood the third Mrs. Marsh, wearing jodhpurs and a black velvet riding hat. Her mouth was smirking, and the expression she wore seemed to suggest she was terribly pleased with herself. A few feet behind her stood Luke. Astrid's throat constricted. There was that same incongruity to his appearance as the other day-the hard, ropey body and the sweet, sad lashes-and she found she liked looking at him now just as much as she had then. The sun was very bright, and she was glad that she had to squint, which somewhat obscured the flirtatious face she might otherwise have made.

"Whom do we have here?" Astrid's mother asked.

"This is my new friend, Cordelia Grey." There was a kind of pride in Astrid's voice when she said it, but she could not bring herself to smile. "This is my mother, Virginia."

"Ah, the the Cordelia Grey!" Mrs. Marsh said grandly, and then she stepped forward and extended her hand to grip Cordelia's. The older woman's eyes burned with fascination, a kind of voyeuristic interest that might have irked Astrid at another time, except that Astrid was having a hard time not gazing past her at the handsome boy in denim, and he was having a hard time not reciprocating. The skin under his eyes was delicate, and his black hair kept flopping in his face when he tried to avert his gaze from the young Miss Donal. Cordelia Grey!" Mrs. Marsh said grandly, and then she stepped forward and extended her hand to grip Cordelia's. The older woman's eyes burned with fascination, a kind of voyeuristic interest that might have irked Astrid at another time, except that Astrid was having a hard time not gazing past her at the handsome boy in denim, and he was having a hard time not reciprocating. The skin under his eyes was delicate, and his black hair kept flopping in his face when he tried to avert his gaze from the young Miss Donal.

"We have all heard about you, you know," Virginia Marsh continued. "What a wonder that you have been returned to your father. You'll have to come over and visit. We-my husband and I-love to entertain."

"Thank you," Cordelia replied.

"This is Luke, my riding instructor."

Billie lit another cigarette. "I wouldn't think you'd need lessons, Mrs. Marsh."

"One can always be more perfect." Astrid's mother moved her body so that she eclipsed her daughter's view of Luke, an act that flooded Astrid with irrational sorrow. She didn't want anything particular from the boy who had once walked her pony for her, except that she found his eyes so nice to look into, and she wanted to go on doing it and not think of anything else. He was just like summer, and she loved summer. If she had any wish, it would be to live a lifetime of summers. "And Luke is such an excellent instructor."

"Yes, he must be." Astrid inclined herself so that part of the riding instructor's face was again visible, and she let her fluffy blond hair fall girlishly across one cheek. "You'll have to give me a lesson one of these days," she added, and for extra measure gave Luke a slow, flirtatious wink.

Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh stiffened and reached for the young man's hand. "He's quite busy, dear. We'll ask for the club to a.s.sign you someone else. You do do need the discipline." need the discipline."

Then the elder lady turned on her heel and went striding forward across the green, pulling the handsome young man after her, as though he were an accessory. Astrid simmered-she couldn't stand stand her mother. Her desire for the young man to turn back and look at her one more time was almost equal to her desire for her mother to twist her ankle right then, in the bright sunlight, with all of the White Cove Country Club watching. But Virginia Marsh didn't falter, and when Astrid forced herself to stop gaping at their receding figures, she noticed that her new friend was pus.h.i.+ng back from the table. her mother. Her desire for the young man to turn back and look at her one more time was almost equal to her desire for her mother to twist her ankle right then, in the bright sunlight, with all of the White Cove Country Club watching. But Virginia Marsh didn't falter, and when Astrid forced herself to stop gaping at their receding figures, she noticed that her new friend was pus.h.i.+ng back from the table.

"Where's Miss Grey going?" Billie asked as Cordelia strode purposefully away.

"I haven't the faintest."

Cordelia, too, was heading out into the suns.h.i.+ne, on light feet, toward the realization that New York, for all its millions of souls, was just a small town like any other. Because there, standing on the gra.s.s by himself, a cigarette between his fingers, gazing out toward the golf course, was the boy with coppery hair who had said such pretty things to her the night she'd fought with Letty.

"I'm sorry I left so quickly the other night, before I even got your name," she said when she was a few feet from him.

He turned to face her. His lips parted in surprise, and then he smiled. "I kept hoping you'd show up somewhere."

"Did you?"

The air was warm out in the suns.h.i.+ne, and any remaining self-consciousness over wearing the wrong color to a country club evaporated with the appreciative way his eyes lingered on her. He inspired that whir of agitation in her stomach just as he had at the nightclub, although now she knew that it had nothing to do with her first taste of alcohol and was entirely to do with him.

"Yes, I've thought of nothing else. In fact-"

"Thomas!"

They both turned at the sound. A slender woman whose face was obscured by the brim of her white hat waved from some distance away on the green.

"Now you know," he said as he lifted his arm to wave back at the woman in the white hat. "Though everyone calls me Thom. I hope you aren't disappointed-it has always seemed rather common to me."

"Thom." She nodded, pondering the sound of the name. "I don't like you any less, now that I know."

He smiled at that.

"Thomas!" the woman called again.

"My mother," he explained with a look of patient irritation. "I don't care for golf particularly, but I told her I'd accompany her today. I suppose I ought to go do as I promised ..."

"Oh." Cordelia smiled bravely and hoped that there was nothing on her face to betray how dismayed she would be to see him walk away, maybe forever, with no guarantee of another meeting. "I hope you enjoy the day. Good-bye."

"Wait," he said, although neither had budged from their position. "Can't I see you again?"

She could not help the smile spreading across her face. "Yes."

"Tomorrow?"

She nodded and bit her lip.

"I'll pick you up at six. Where do you live?"

"Do you know where Dogwood is?"

The shade of his eyes darkened almost imperceptibly. When she first met him, she'd thought his eyes were green, but now she saw that they looked almost brown when he was under a different light, or in a different mood. She supposed he probably knew who the proprietor of Dogwood was, and perhaps he was intimidated by the notion of taking a bootlegger's daughter out. But if this was the case, still he did not waver. "At six then?"

"Yes, only-" She broke off, wondering if Charlie would have to accompany her as a chaperone. "Only, pick me up on the road in front?"

"Thomas!" his mother yelled a third time.

Thom grinned and bowed forward to kiss Cordelia's hand. "Until tomorrow then," he said before stepping backward.

Even after she turned, she knew that his eyes remained on her. She could almost feel the delicate pressure of his gaze on her shoulders. As she crossed the emerald gra.s.s-drawing a streak of red against a background of blue sky and white clouds-she realized that he was not the only one watching her. All those white faces floating above white-clad bodies, under the awning or out on the green, moved so as to get a better view of her. By the time she had returned to the luncheon room, the Marsh table had already become the most talked-about table of the afternoon-and she began to sense that they weren't just interested in the color of her dress.

"Do you know who that boy is?" Astrid asked as Cordelia took her seat. There was an excitable, incredulous quality in her voice that warned Cordelia of a weightiness on the other end of that question.

"His name is Thom." Cordelia took a sip of her iced tea and winked at her friend. "But I don't think I want to know anything more about him just yet."

Astrid's eyes glittered and one of her eyebrows went upward, but in the end she only smiled and obliged her friend. She knew something about troubled love, after all, and she was not about to get in the way of Cordelia making her own mistakes, much less having her own fun.

10

"LET ME DO THE TALKING, AND IF HE ASKS YOU ANY questions, just look pretty and try not to seem too bright, okay?" Paulette whispered as she hustled across the floor of Seventh Heaven.

"All right." Letty was just a step behind her, but she was distracted by how different the nightclub felt before it was open, when there was still light left in the day filtering in through those high cathedral windows. There was something drab about the scuffed plank floors and the little round tabletops with no candles on them, but the scene contained an air of promise, too, of the glamour and gaiety to come after sunset.

"Oh, Mr. Cole!" Paulette singsonged, putting on a sweeter voice than she used around the apartment.

Letty recognized the small man in the tuxedo right away, from when she'd come here with Cordelia and the Washborne girls.

"Yes?" he replied crisply, glancing up from a pile of papers that were spread out at the corner of the bar.

"Mr. Cole, this is the girl I was telling you about. Letty Larkspur. Isn't she divine?"

Mr. Cole's eyes s.h.i.+fted indifferently from Paulette to the pet.i.te girl in her wake. "She's short."

"We'll get her some high heels," Paulette replied brightly.