Ingenue (6 page)

As soon as Gloria finished singing, Spark stood and clapped. “That’s just great,” he said. “You’ve got yourself a job, doll.”

He couldn’t be serious. Both of her attempts at the song had been disasters. “Really, just like that? Don’t you have any other girls to audition?”

Spark lit another cigarette and shook his head. “We ain’t gonna find another canary like you. That was real fine.” He offered his cigarette case.

Gloria shook her head, still shocked. “No thanks.”

With his cigarette dangling from his lips, Spark made some notes on his clipboard. Then he removed a few sheets of paper and handed them to Gloria. “Here’s some paperwork. You can bring that along with you to rehearsal on Monday, one o’clock sharp. And in the meantime …” He took out his wallet and counted out a few bills. “Here you go.”

Gloria stared at the cash in her hand. “What’s this?”

“It’s money. Legal tender. You trade it for goods and services.”

She smiled. “I mean, why—? I haven’t performed yet. Or even been to a rehearsal.”

“It’s an advance. And there’s more where that came from.” Gloria stared at the money in his extended hand, still unsure whether she should take it. Spark grabbed her hand and closed it around the cash. Then he gave her a little push in the direction of the stairs. “Go on, get something to eat. You look like you could use a sandwich. Or two.” He turned away. “Have a nice weekend, kid.”

Gloria clutched the paperwork in one hand and the money in the other. Then she folded the bills and gingerly placed them in her purse. It wasn’t much—far less than her weekly allowance back at home. But New York was her home now—and this was more money than she’d had in weeks.

She smiled again at Spark, genuinely this time. “Thank you! You won’t be sorry!”

When Gloria walked out of the subway station, she made her way to the open-air market on First Avenue. She passed through the crowds with her head held high. Why? Because she had money in her pocket. She was a singer! Or at least … she was going to be. Zuleika Rose: the Ingenue of the Opera House.

A half hour later, loaded down with her purchases, Gloria turned toward Second Avenue and began the long walk home. It was wonderful to actually
buy
something instead of steal it. She felt happy and confident for the first time in ages.

And nervous.

Jerome would be happy for her, she was sure. He’d be proud she’d landed a gig so easily on her own. He’d be excited to see all the food she was bringing home and to know that the hard times were coming to an end.

She was about to cross Lexington Avenue when she noticed a flyer that had partially come free from a lamppost. Her own smiling face looked back at her. It was another one of those
LOST GIRL
flyers. Seeing two of them so close to her apartment was not a good sign.

She reached up to the top of the flyer and ripped it down. Before she stepped off the curb, she crumpled the flyer into a ball and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

That girl might have been lost once upon a time, but not anymore. She had money, a gig, and the man of her dreams.
Nothing
was going to spoil her mood.

LORRAINE

The bitch was leaving.

Lorraine leaned back against the wall of the office, her heart pounding. The entire time Gloria had been at the Opera House—from the moment Gloria shook Spark’s hand, right up until the minute her heels clacked up the steps as she departed—Lorraine had been glued to her small window into the barroom. When Gloria had passed on her way to the stage, she had looked directly at Lorraine, almost as if she could see her. She couldn’t, of course—it was a two-way mirror. Lorraine could see out, but Gloria couldn’t see in. That was the whole point.

Those eyes, though.

Gloria’s bright green eyes had unintentionally gazed into hers, and for a moment Lorraine had missed her former best friend. Gloria’s eyes were so shockingly familiar—the only familiar thing in New York, certainly—that it made Raine’s insides ache.

They’d had so many wonderful times together—getting Glo’s bob, passing notes in class about cute boys and haggy girls, going to the movies on the weekends and dreaming about what they wanted to be when they grew up. No other person filled that hole in Lorraine’s life. The memories were still sharp.

But even sharper—sharp enough to draw blood—were the memories of how Gloria had shunned Lorraine. Suddenly she’d been too good for Lorraine. So Lorraine had been chucked out into the cold by her best friend while Gloria partied with that two-faced wench Clara, Bastian, Marcus … everyone, really. And after everything Lorraine had done for her!

She’d obsessed so much about getting back at Gloria that it had become an elaborate fantasy—never to come true.

But now it had.

That had been the
real
Gloria out there. A too-skinny poor girl in last year’s dress, singing her heart out to an empty club. Or trying to, anyway. Much as Lorraine hated Gloria, she couldn’t help getting miffed at Felix’s erratic playing. Gloria’s face when she asked to start over was one of the most pathetic sights Lorraine had ever seen. It should have been hilarious to finally see Gloria fall flat on her face. But it wasn’t even amusing.

No, Lorraine couldn’t go soft because of some cherished memories.

She was a bitch. Gloria was a selfish bitch.

And that was the whole reason Lorraine was here, working for Carlito.
You reap what you sow
, Lorraine reminded herself, running her fingers through her hair and blotting at her forehead with a napkin. She needed a stiff drink, but she was working.

No fair.

At least Spark had done a decent job with the script Raine had prepared for him. No major mistakes. Gloria didn’t seem to suspect a thing.

At that exact moment, Spark’s head poked through the doorway.

“What?” Lorraine asked, her voice sharp as he pulled the door shut.

“I did it like you told me, boss. Even gave her the money.”

“The advance,” Lorraine replied. Carlito thought offering an advance to Gloria would give them a little extra insurance—no way a desperate girl would pass up free money. “It was for food,” she said. “I know skinny is the fashion right now, but no one’s gonna wanna watch a rail shake it on the stage.”

“Just seems weird to pay her when she ain’t done any work yet.” Spark sat down in a chair and loosened his yellow bow tie.

Lorraine nodded. “What’s weird is you,” she replied in a monotone. “I’m surprised she didn’t take one look at your mug and go running.”

“Ha! I was nervous for a little bit there. That girl seems like a sharp tack.” He leaned his bony elbow on the arm of his chair. “Those certainly were some screwy questions. What did they mean?”

She scowled at him. “None of your beeswax. Go polish something.”

Lorraine leaned back in her chair. She
should
have been ecstatic. Wasn’t her plan—okay, well, Carlito’s plan—coming together exactly the way she’d wanted?

“Someone’s gotta get the club ready to open, anyway.” Spark walked out, whistling “Downhearted Blues.”

Lorraine pulled out a pad of blank telegram forms. She uncapped a pen and sat with it poised over the paper. She thought for a moment, then wrote:

GLORIA HERE. STOP.

WHAT NEXT?

She frowned, ripping the form into pieces and tossing them away. Carlito had instructed her never to mention Gloria by name, in case the telegram was intercepted. She needed some kind of code. That was how the Mob normally did it, right?

She started writing on a new form.

THE BIRD IS IN THE CAGE. STOP.

Lorraine tore that sheet up, too. Who knew whether Carlito remembered their last conversation at the Green Mill as well as she did? She sighed and started on yet another fresh form.

I GOT IT SORT OF. STOP.

Good enough. She reached for a manila folder and slipped the form inside.

Out in the barroom, Spark was polishing the black sconces on the walls. Lorraine walked up to him and bopped him on the head with the folder. “Make sure someone takes this over to Western Union right now.”

Spark nodded, and then he was gone.

Lorraine rubbed her temples as she tried to remember everything she needed to do before the club opened for the night. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Gloria. She’d seemed so sad, so pitiful. Whatever else she could say about Gloria Carmody, Lorraine couldn’t deny that the girl had always had charisma and a sense of fun—something that had been sorely lacking in the second semester of Lorraine’s senior year at Laurelton Girls’ Prep.

Without Gloria around, Lorraine’s classmates had stopped speaking to her. The photos from Gloria’s engagement party in all the newspapers only confirmed what her classmates had always thought: Lorraine was a drunken quiff. And when Lorraine did receive notes at school, they said things along the lines of
No one cares what you look like, Lorraine, so why do you still bother with ten pounds of war paint? Tramp
.

“ ’Scuse me, Raine, coming through,” called a busboy wearing the customary white shirt and black pants. He was carrying two trays full of highball glasses. She realized she was standing right in front of the door to the kitchen.

She jumped out of his way and straight into Ruby, the new waitress. “My foot!” the brunette yelled, hopping up and down on one high-heeled shoe.

“Sorry,” Lorraine mumbled. She noticed Rob across the room near the steps, lugging his bass case toward the stage.

There—getting the band set up! She knew
that
was on her to-do list.

She walked over and lifted one end of Rob’s bass. “Here you go,” she said.

Before they’d taken two steps, though, she became lost in her thoughts: What were Gloria and Jerome living on? Gloria had looked so excited when she got the job. As if she were thinking,
Hooray, I finally have enough money to buy a can of tuna!
Even after months of practically living on the street, Gloria hadn’t lost that dippy charm she had. Always so hopeful. Always so naïve.

That was when Lorraine forgot where she was going. She banged the end of the bass against a chair, then dropped it. The strings thrummed in deep alarm.

Rob stopped in his tracks. “Dammit, Lorraine! What the hell are you doing?”

“Don’t you dare swear at me!” Lorraine yelled back. People were staring. She needed to pull herself together. This was only the first time she’d clapped eyes on Gloria since she’d arrived in New York. She was going to have to see that perfect face of Gloria’s plenty more times before this mission was over.

“I’m gonna go see how Vinny’s doing,” Lorraine announced. She cringed at the whispers filling the room as she climbed the steps.

Outside in the alley, Vinny was alone, presiding over a line of women and a few young men. A small table with a cash box, where he would place each guest’s $2.50 cover charge, stood next to him.

It was a sweltering night. A few of the bobbed, fringe-covered young women waved feathered fans in front of their perfectly made-up faces. Lorraine didn’t even look at the men
—that
was how distracted she was.

“Hi, Rainy Day,” Vinny said as Lorraine lit her cigarette. “What brings you out here?”

“Just making sure everything is copacetic. What’s the password tonight? Spifflicated?”

Lorraine gasped as she noticed the smug grins that suddenly adorned many of the flappers’ faces. She thought she had been whispering, but apparently that hadn’t been the case.

Vinny groaned. “Not anymore, it’s not. You think you can watch the door for a minute? I’ve got to let ’em all know we’re changing it.”

Vinny ducked inside.

“You gonna let us in?” a girl with black hair asked with a smile. “We know the password.”

“Shut up,” Lorraine snapped.

“Or what?” the girl asked in an annoying tone.

“I’m not even going to deign to give you an answer,” Lorraine said, taking a drag of her cigarette and staring the girl down. “I eat girls like you for dinner. No, for breakfast! I could skin you and wear you as my fall coat!”

The girl looked shocked and stepped away, turning and whispering to one of her friends.

“Come back here!” Lorraine shouted. The rest of the line was watching, but what did she care? “Open up your purse.”

The black-haired girl raised one thin eyebrow and was about to protest, but then her friend—another girl around the same age, maybe seventeen or eighteen—pinched her and the girl opened the clasp of her purse.

“That’s more like it,” Raine said, spotting exactly what she was looking for. A flask. It shone as brightly as the dozens of pairs of earrings the flappers were wearing, brighter than all their necklaces and bracelets combined. She pawed it out and took a swig.

“Hey, that’s my—”

“Your mouth is as big as the house I grew up in!” Lorraine said, swallowing the cheap vodka and burping. “And I grew up in a mansion. Here.” She passed the flask back to the girl. “Thanks.”

“You going to let us in now?” the girl asked, hopeful.

“Nah,” Lorraine said. “We don’t allow outside hooch in our joint. Against house rules.”

Vinny returned and gave Lorraine’s hand a much-appreciated squeeze before she went back inside. She took out a cigarette and lit up as she walked downstairs.

Lorraine was glad to see that everyone was too busy to pay attention to her and her screwups. The band launched into a number, and people began filing downstairs behind her. She watched a group of girls dance the Breakaway together. They were a pretty bunch—a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette, all in dresses with exquisite, Egyptian-looking patterns. Their laughter mingled with the band’s upbeat piano and saxophone. Had she, Gloria, and Clara ever looked like that?

Clara
. She sighed. Thinking of Clara also meant thinking of Marcus, and Lorraine tried to think of him as little as possible. Where was he now? Already in Manhattan? Lorraine knew now that she had been wrong to fall for an idiot like him in the first place. If she saw his swoony blue eyes at school in the fall, she had no idea what she’d do. Vomit? Keel over? Slap him?

Cecil walked over and gave Lorraine a glass of ice water. She gratefully pressed the cool glass against her cheek.

“The boss wants you to come talk to him at the bar,” he said.

Lorraine swallowed as she followed Cecil. A few days after she’d started working at the Opera House, he’d told her a story about a waiter who’d mixed up orders a few years back. The boy had lost a hand, Cecil had said. He wouldn’t tell her precisely how.

Lorraine slid onto a stool next to Puccini. When he turned to her, his cheeks were rounded into a jolly smile.

At first glance, Puccini looked almost as friendly as Vinny did when he wasn’t performing his bouncer duties. Puccini was a short, overweight man wearing a fedora and an easy smile. But unlike Vinny, no matter what expression was on Puccini’s face, his eyes remained empty black holes.

Puccini took off his hat and laid it on the bar, then pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his sweaty face and neck. His thin mustache left plenty of room on his face for his wide, creepy smile.

He pointed toward Lorraine’s water glass. “I could use something like that myself,” he said. His voice was oddly pleasant—almost musical. “Vodka on the rocks, and another for the lady.”

Puccini was the last man in the world Lorraine wanted to drink with, but she didn’t dare say so. She held her glass of vodka to his. “What are we toasting?”

“Our new songbird,” he said as their glasses clinked. “Spark told me you hired a real canary today.” He drank the vodka down in one gulp. “Can’t wait to hear her sing. You know, that’s why they call me Puccini—I love singing so much.”

Lorraine blinked. “Oh, I just thought that was your name.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Giacomo Puccini is one of the greatest artists who ever lived. You’ve really never heard of him?”

She shook her head, setting her mostly full glass back on the bar.

“We’re gonna have to teach you some culture, young lady,” he said. “What about Carlito? You hear anything about him lately? ’Cause I need to have a talk with him.” Puccini gripped her wrist tightly. “I might have to let him know that his little recruit is screwing with my kitchen, busting up my band’s expensive instruments, and giving away my passwords. Is that what you want?”