Excerpts

1 Gloria They found the entrance exactly as instructed: just before the cracked sign for Malawer's Funeral Parlor, between the tailor and the barbershop, through the rusted gate, eleven creaky steps below street level. After they'd knocked precisely three times, a tiny slit in the boarded-up door slid open. "What's the word, doll?" One dark eye blinked at them. Gloria opened her mouth and froze. This was the moment she had practiced endlessly in front of her bedroom mirror: saying the secret password to be admitted into the hottest speakeasy in Chicago. So what if it was the first time she'd ever snuck out of her house, lied to her parents, or been in the city alone? Not to mention that her dress--which she'd bought only the day before--was so short that one gust of wind could turn her from flapper to flasher like that. "Come on, I don't got all night!" the Eye barked. Sweat began to bead on her upper lip. She could almost feel it caking the layers of her meticulously applied makeup and cracking the surface of her finishing powder. "Ouch!" Marcus, her best friend--who'd taken on the role of accomplice/chaperone for the evening--jabbed her in the side. "Just say it already!" Gloria inhaled sharply: It was now or never. "Ish Kabibble?" "Wrong. Now scram!" And just like that, the Eye disappeared. Gloria glared at Marcus. "You have got to be kidding me." "It was 'Ish Kabibble' the last time I was here!" he said. Steps below the street, the bluish night softened the harsh angles of his golden-boy features--his sharp cheekbones and jaw, the habitual smirk he wore--and made him look infallible. Trustworthy. Swoony, even. Gloria could see why girls threw themselves at him, of course, but her own relationship with Marcus was three parts brother-sister to one part sexual tension--a healthy, balanced equation for any male-female friendship. "You've been here a total of . . . wait, let me count--one . . . one. Once. Right, one time, Marcus. And that was merely because you paid your friend Freddy to take you." "Well, at least I've actually been inside," Marcus said, crossing his arms with a sigh. "Let me take you home." Home? A few miles away by car, only it felt more like a few thousand. Her father's gleaming Mercedes--sneaked from the garage after the family's driver went to bed--beckoned to her from beneath the streetlight. Maybe she should just return to the quiet, safe, boring tree-lined Astor Street that she knew so well. She could make it into bed scot-free by one a.m. and even fit in a few flash cards before her European history exam tomorrow. But wasn't that exactly what people always expected her to do? Make the safe, good-girl choice? No, she couldn't leave now, not when she was one door away from carrying out the first and only rebellious act of her entire life. She was already here. She just had to get inside. Gloria pounded on the door again. The slit opened up a crack. "You again? You got a choice chassis, kid, but if you don't go home to your daddy's this second, I'll call security--" "Wait. All I ask is one single clue." She pouted her brightly painted strawberry lips because, well, pouting always worked in the movies. "If I get it on the first try, we're in. If not, we disappear." The Eye squinted menacingly. "Does this look like some kinda party guessing game to you?" "I wouldn't know," Gloria said coolly. She could hear the band inside begin to play, its jazzy rhythms spilling out onto the street in muted tones. "I don't go to parties. And I save my games for men." The Eye glanced at Marcus. "This one's a real bearcat, ain't she?" "Glo? A bearcat? Ha!" Marcus said, laughing out loud. "Fine." The Eye rolled. "Here's your clue: It's a dirty deed you're too young to do." Marcus jumped in. "That's easy, it's--" "The girl's got to get it, or I shut this door in your face forever!" The phrase was on the tip of Gloria's tongue. Oh yes, her best friend, Lorraine, had written it in a note during biology yesterday: "Oh my gawd--Welda, my lab partner, was just suspended . . . she was caught in the bathroom during last wknd's dance with the CAPTAIN of the football team giving her a good--" "Barney-mugging," Gloria whispered huskily. Then she blushed, embarrassed to have said out loud the dirtiest term she knew for sex. The Eye's slit closed and the door opened. "Welcome to the Green Mill." It was as if she had walked right into the rebel side of heaven. A dense cloud of smoke hung near the ceiling of the windowless room--everyone seemed to be holding a lit cigarette. The smoke was shot through with dazzling beams of light from the stage, and from the sequined dresses and the crystal coupes of champagne. At the front of the room, a mahogany bar overflowed with debonair men in suits and tuxedos, nursing tumblers of amber liquid and puffing thick cigars. And in the plush green booths along the walls were more men, shifty-eyed and menacing even as they chewed on hamburgers and slapped down cards. And moving among all the men, flitting about in glittering flashes: flappers. That's what today's independent women called themselves, Gloria knew. As carefree and glamorous as if they'd been ripped straight out of a glossy fashion spread in Vogue or the set of some extravagant Hollywood movie. They were everywhere. Lazily dallying, dangling long cigarettes between their jeweled fingers, showing off their Charleston moves on the dance floor, and flirting shamelessly--all pouty lips and cocktails. With their fiery red boas draped over their bare shoulders, peacock feathers shooting out of silver headdresses, oxblood lipstick painted in perfect bows, and strand upon strand of creamy pearls, sequins, and rhinestones, they looked like exotic birds. And there was so much skin. More exposed skin than Gloria had even seen at the beach. She had never felt so out of place. At Laurelton Girls' Preparatory, she was the president of the Honor Society, an example for the rest of the girls. But here, Gloria was that poorly dressed, unwashed foreign exchange student from wherever--Arkansas, maybe--whom nobody bothered to eat lunch with. Her peach chiffon sleeveless dress, with its delicate lace on the shoulder and billowing skirt, was positively flapperesque in the store yesterday. Now it not only looked entirely too long, too plain, but pink, of all colors, in this dim lighting! She felt like a Victorian. She tried to locate Marcus--at least he could give her some consoling compliment he didn't really mean--but he was nowhere in sight. A tuxedoed waiter passed with a tray of mismatched teacups, coffee mugs, and glasses. "Do you have any water, by any chance?" she shouted over the music. He handed her a teacup, and she drank down the clear liquid in a single gulp. It wasn't until after she swallowed that a sharp burning sensation flooded her throat. She wheezed, and tears leaked from her eyes. Then she remembered why a spot like the Green Mill existed in the first place: so that people could drink. Illegally. She had been fourteen when the Prohibition began, so she'd never had alcohol and didn't know what she was missing. Now that she'd had her first drink--it tasted like a bottle of her ancient grandmother's perfume--she couldn't imagine why anyone would miss it in the first place. Until about two minutes later, when it hit her. Hard. Everything began to spin: the twirling dancers and swishing glasses and dazzling dresses. Gloria stood paralyzed at the edge of the dance floor, not knowing quite what to do with herself. Feeling and looking like she did, she certainly couldn't join the Charleston-crazed flappers, no matter how much she wanted to. She watched them enviously, their lithe bodies gyrating with blissful abandon in an almost reckless loss of control. Gloria swayed to the melody, trying to memorize the steps. Suddenly, she had the strange sensation that someone was watching her. From the direction of the tiny stage. It was filled by a group of black musicians accompanying the vocalist, who looked stunning in a skintight sequined scarlet dress. Gloria skimmed her eyes across the band: drummer, bass, trumpet, saxophone . . . His fingers never strayed from the keys, but the pianist was staring at her. Under the bright stage lights, his face seemed to glow with its own radiance. There was something sensual in the way he played, his entire body rocking back and forth, following his roving hands. His fingers struck the keys like lightning. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't look away. When he stopped playing, a flock of girls pressed in around her, blocking her view. Gloria elbowed her way toward the front of the crowd. "You spilled my drink!" one girl shrieked, holding her mug out in front of her as if it were a ticking bomb. Lustrous strands of pearls were haphazardly wrapped around the girl's swanlike neck. Gloria suddenly felt like a gawky ugly duckling. "I'm really sorry, I was just trying to find my friend--" "Do you even know who you're apologizing to?" asked another flapper, who was wearing enough black kohl around her eyes to scare a raccoon. "You just spilled Maude Cortineau's martini. You're lucky if she doesn't claw your face off right this second." Gloria had heard this name before. Allegedly, Maude had dropped out of school during her junior year and become the unofficial flapper queen of the Chicago speakeasy set. She fit the part--skin like a porcelain doll, in an opalescent taffeta dress that hugged her curveless body, and a jet-black sequined headband as a dramatic contrast to her wispy blond bob. "It's copacetic, beauts," Maude cooed, handing her glass to the mousiest girl in the group. She fingered a lock of Gloria's hair. "But Rapunzel here better let down her hair somewhere else next time. Somewhere far, far away. Tu comprends?" "Oh no!" Gloria's hands shot to her head. The inconspicuous French twist--which she'd obsessively secured with only a million bobby pins--had come undone, and her long, wavy locks were loose. She realized that each and every one of the girls was bobbed. Blond or brunette, straight or crimped, it didn't matter--their hair was cut short. She might as well have showed up wearing her gray and white school uniform and called it a night. Humiliated, she ducked toward the back of the club and the only refuge: the powder room. En route, she had to pass through a group of men at the far end of the wraparound bar. As Gloria took a step closer, she saw that these were no ordinary men. Blue pin-striped suits, tilted-up fedoras, clouds of cigar smoke: These were most definitely gangsters. She recognized one of the men from the tabloids. Carlito Macharelli, the twenty-year-old son of one of the mobsters who owned the place. With his bronze skin and oiled black hair, he looked almost exotic. Gloria met his steady gaze and felt a damp chill creep over her. She almost thought he was about to say something. In the powder room, Gloria gazed into the mirror. Her reflection seemed faraway and blurry. This is what drunk must feel like, she realized. She found a few bobby pins in the bottom of her purse and pinned her hair back as tightly as she could. She would have to hold her head like a statue for the rest of the night, but it would do. Then she readjusted her breast-flattening bandeau brassiere--essential for achieving that boyish flapper figure, but it was cutting off the circulation in her upper body--and fixed the smudge of kohl that had started to bleed onto her cheeks. Now she was ready. Or at least, as ready as she could be. Fighting the surging tide of the crowd, Gloria stumbled to the bar, grabbing on to an empty stool as if it were a life raft. She closed her eyes, relieved. The only thing calming her was the feathery tranquility of the band's song, wafting through the room like a sad summer breeze: The world is hungry for a little bit of love, As the days go by. Someone is longing for a pleasant little smile, As you pass him by. Some heart is aching, some heart is breaking, Some weary soul must droop and die; The world is hungry for a little bit of love, Even you and I. The singer's buttermilk alto sank deep into Gloria's skin. The song was one of her favorites. Gloria's voice lessons were strictly limited to operatic arias, but whenever her mother wasn't home, she turned on the family's brand-new radio and sang along with the latest popular tunes. Even though she'd only performed publicly for school events and the occasional society party, Gloria was overcome with a fierce longing, wishing it were her up there instead, soaking up the spotlight's beam. "Hey, no sleeping allowed at my bar!" Gloria's eyes shot open. The bartender was leaning over the long mahogany counter, his face inches from her own. "And beauts are no exception to that rule." Something about his wild shock of hair, the shade of a dull penny, against the crisp white tuxedo made him seem more like a cartoon character than a real person; strangely, she felt she could trust him. "I wasn't sleeping, I was listening." She forced a half-smile. "In that case, there's no dry listening allowed at my bar." He tapped the bar like a drum. "What'll it be?" "Um, how 'bout a . . ." Gloria hesitated. What did a proper flapper ask for in a bar? She was used to ordering a cream soda at the movies. Besides, hadn't that one accidental drink been enough? "I just came here for the music." "That right?" He mopped at the bar with a rag. "If you enjoy the music so much, tell me the name of that singer, and your drink is on the house." Gloria's stomach churned. After the eyelock she'd had with the pianist, she couldn't bring herself to glance at the stage again, though she could hear the sharply struck notes from the piano rising above the clamor of the crowd. "I'm Leif, by the way. But everyone calls me . . . Leif," he said, raising his chin. Gloria forced a little laugh. "How come I don't recognize you?" "Because," she confessed, "it's my first time here." "A virgin!" "No! I said it's my first time here." "Right. A virgin." "Just because I'm new doesn't mean I'm a virgin!" she said, raising her voice as the blasting music came to a sudden halt. A roar of laughter rose from the crowd. Gloria felt her face grow hot. Would people notice if she crawled underneath the bar stool? She couldn't have felt more humiliated. "You just earned yourself that free drink," Leif said, chuckling. "Though you should know, for next time, that her name is Carmen Diablo. And her accompanist is the best piano player this side of the Mississippi: Jerome Johnson. They say he's the next Jelly Roll Morton." Excerpted from Vixen by Jillian Larkin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.