Alma’s mischievous grin returned. “I knew I liked you. Now. What are you all talking about over here with your heads bent together like pieces of the same dreary puzzle?”
“Ghosts. Demons. Murder. As one does at the city’s best nightclubs,” Henry said.
Alma choked on her sip of Evie’s bourbon. “I would say don’t stop on my account. But you can stop on my account.” She shuddered, then turned toward Ling again. “Ling. My, that’s a pretty name,” she purred. “How come I haven’t seen you before? Why has my very good friend Memphis not bothered to introduce us?”
“You better stop now,” Memphis chided playfully under his breath.
“I already got one grandmother, Memphis. Don’t need another,” Alma answered in kind through smiling teeth.
“Alma!” one of the chorines shouted, waving wildly. “Get your crown! We’re on!”
“You don’t need to tell me when we’re on—I know when we’re on, Minnie!” Alma shooed Minnie away with a flick of her fingers. “Time to shake a leg.” Alma took the red carnation from her dress and plopped it into Ling’s empty cup, enjoying the matching blush that rose in Ling’s cheeks. “Hope you enjoy the show.” Alma winked, then raced up to the stage just as the band broke into a fast-paced number. Ling watched in awe as Alma danced, all arms and legs and joy. Freedom in motion. For a moment, Ling was envious. But then Alma executed a series of steps, tapping out a complex rhythm with toes and heels, and Ling knew that even if she had never had infantile paralysis, she’d never be able to own a stage like that. There was a word for Memphis’s friend Alma: mesmerizing.
“She’s good. She’s very good,” Ling said, eyes trained on Alma’s shaking hips.
Henry looked from Ling to Alma and back again. His mouth slid into a sly smile. “Oh my.”
Jericho accidentally brushed against Mabel. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Mabel said, and she realized, with sudden clarity, that it was. In fact, for the first time in years, being this close to Jericho didn’t make her stomach quiver or her cheeks flush. It was liberating, like the breaking of a spell.
“How are you, Jericho?” she asked brightly.
“Fine, thank you. How are you?”
“I’m swell!”
“Well, that’s good news.” He was smiling at her, head cocked, as if he could tell she’d changed. For the first time, she had the upper hand. “I’m headed upstate tomorrow.”
“Oh? Where?” Mabel was a little disappointed that she’d just developed her not in love with Jericho anymore muscle and wouldn’t have a chance to flex it.
“Jake Marlowe’s mansion. He’s asked me to take part in his Future of America Exhibition. I leave tomorrow morning.”
“You’re going to be living in the house of the enemy?” Mabel blurted, her voice going high.
Jericho sighed in irritation. “He’s not the enemy.”
“Tell that to his workers.”
Jericho glared. “It’s more complicated than black and white, good and evil. Don’t forget: Jake Marlowe saved my life once upon a time.”
“And for that you owe him your blind loyalty?”
“Okay. You two crazy kids,” Sam said, laughing nervously. “Tell me the truth: What have you both got against fun? Was it a childhood trauma? There is no prohibition against fun. Yet.”
Jericho stood, pushing his chair back. “You’re right. And since it’s my last night here, I’d like to have some of that fun. Evie, would you care to dance?”
Evie glanced nervously at Mabel.
“You don’t need my permission,” Mabel said. “Oh, honestly. Go.”
“Well, maybe just one dance,” Evie said.
“On second thought, boo to fun. Really. Best to just stay in and read dead German philosophers,” Sam said, watching them go. “Me and my big mouth.”
Mabel sipped her soda water and gazed out at the dance floor. Evie and Jericho looked good together, the fancy Diviner and the golden god. For just a moment, the old hurts flared; Mabel tugged at her skirt, feeling plain and too earnest and out of place in this world because she was out of place in this world. But not in Arthur’s garret in Greenwich Village. She had a sense of purpose there, and as much as she loved her friends, she couldn’t help feeling angry that they could come up here and dance and drink while there were miners and their families living in tents. As for Jericho, well, he was no Arthur Brown.
Mabel gathered her belongings. “Sorry. I’m suddenly very tired. Tell Evie I said good-bye, will you?”
“Sure. I’ll, uh, tell the giant you said good-bye, too,” Sam said.
“Don’t bother,” Mabel said.
On her way out, Mabel passed Papa Charles. He strolled through the club looking dapper in his crisp white dinner jacket, a white rose in the buttonhole of his lapel and his hair slicked back, one of his ever-present cigars wedged between his thick fingers. He moved from table to table, welcoming his patrons, before stopping at Memphis’s table.
“Evenin’, Memphis. You enjoying the show?” Papa Charles said with a tight smile.
“Just saying hello to some friends of mine, sir.”
“Evenin’, everyone,” Papa Charles said, all charm. “Memphis, we have some business to attend to. I’ll expect you in my office. Five minutes.”
“Uh-oh. Dad’s sore,” Sam said under his breath once Papa Charles had walked away.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Memphis said.
“Everything copacetic?” Theta asked, concerned.
“Guess I’ll find out.” Memphis looked longingly at Theta. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t do that here in the club with everyone looking on. The bright young things drinking away their night at the next table kept casting sidelong glances at him and his friends as it was.
Theta leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Meet me at our lighthouse later.”
And Memphis didn’t care about the people at the next table or what Papa Charles was going to ask him to do so long as Theta was with him.
Papa Charles’s chauffeured Chrysler Imperial rolled through Harlem’s neon-drenched streets, past the swells in their tuxedos, the dames in their furs and pearls out for a night of jazz and dancing. After a few blocks, the car stopped in front of the Cotton Club, one of the crown jewels of Harlem nightlife, where Manhattan’s elite came to hear the best of the best and buy overpriced, forbidden booze from the owner and premier bootlegger, Owney Madden. But the Cotton Club had a strict color line—most of the staff and entertainers were black; the clientele was white. Memphis had never been inside, but he’d heard the place was even decorated like a plantation.
So why the hell was Papa Charles bringing him here?
“You know Owney’s boys won’t let us come in. They got a color line,” Memphis challenged.
“Not when it comes to healing, they don’t.”
Memphis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You brought me here to heal? Who? What for? Why are—”
“Memphis, Memphis: Just follow my lead and everything’ll be fine.”