Chapter 1
July 15, 1925
It’s strangely soothing when everything goes wrong all at once. A bit like being in the eye of a cyclone. There you are in the middle, watching the chaos spin around you, knowing you can’t do a damned thing but wait out the wind.
Today, the winds have been particularly harsh.
“I’m tired, Sadie,” Ted told me, only minutes ago. I’d barely finished my vichyssoise when he took my hand from across our usual table at the Montpellier Tea Room and said he was tired. Tired of my moods. My moping.
But I was tired, too—of his lies and waiting for him to make up his mind. I never intended to fall in love with a married man twenty years my senior. What a mistake. I can almost hear Mama’s voice in my head now:Sadie Frances, what did youthinkwould happen, getting wrapped up in a thing like that?
I pick up my teacup and take a shaky sip. My rouged lips leave their imprint on the rim. A scarlet scream. I’m proud I didn’t cry when Ted shattered my already fragile world into pieces. I only stared at him in disbelief as he broke my heart with cool indifference, then left me here, alone, with a tab I can’t afford.
I didn’t cry at Mama’s funeral three weeks ago, either, come to think of it. Although the ache of missing her has grown deeper by the day.
“Miss Halloran?” Miles, the headwaiter, appears at my side, an expectant look on his face.
I open my handbag, eyeing the five-dollar bill inside. I hope it’s enough for the tab. I’ve lingered too long, alone at this table. I don’t belong here, not among Kansas City’s upper crust. I haven’t belonged for years. “I suppose you need me to leave.”
“No, not at all. There’s a lady over by the fountain. She says she knows you. She’d like to join you if that’s all right.”
I turn to look. A woman dressed in immaculate white lawn lifts her head, and I recognize her at once. My eldest cousin. Louise. She of the spotless manners and the glorious wedding at Our Lady of Sorrows and the three perfect blond children who came after. Louise is the last person I want to speak to right now. I wonder how long she’s been sitting there. How much of my humiliation she’s seen.
“Yes, Miles. You can have her come over.” I sit up a bit straighter and dab my lips with my napkin. Louise’s cloying gardenia perfume arrives before she does.
“Sadie!” she gushes. I rise to greet her. She kisses me on each cheek, then folds into Ted’s vacant chair. She’s just had her hair done. It lies in freshly set waves along her jawline, two shades lighter than my own dirty-dishwater blond, though our eyes are the same bright, crisp green. Thorne eyes. “Howareyou?” she trills. “It’s been far too long.”
It hasn’t been long at all. I saw her at Mama’s funeral. “I didn’t realize you were a member here,” I say, drinking down the last dregs of my tea.
“Oh, it’s more of Toby’s thing. He comes here with his doctor friends. We joined late last year.” Louise fans herself with the menu card. “This heat. Can you believe it?”
I shrug. “It’s July.”
“I saw Ted on the way in,” she says, placing her gloved hand over mine. “How are your wedding plans coming along? If you still need someone for the invitations, you can use my engraver.”
I recognize the catlike smile on Louise’s face—the smile that tells me she already knows what’s happened. For a moment, I consider lying. Pretending I’m still engaged, even though we never set a date. How could we, when Ted never signed his divorce papers? I look down at the diamond he gave me at Christmastime. Fifty-eight stair-step facets, cold and bright as a winter day. At least I’ll be able to pawn the ring. Generous of him to let me keep it. I can only imagine the jewels he’ll give his wife as an apology.
“There isn’t going to be a wedding, Louise.”
Louise’s mouth drops open in an exaggerated O. “Surely that’s not true!”
I barely refrain from rolling my eyes. “I’m afraid so.” I pick up my empty cup and silently curse myself for drinking my tea too quickly.
“What happened?”
“The very thing all of youtoldme would happen. Don’t pretend to be surprised. And please don’t be smug about it, either.”
“I’m sorry, darling.” Louise squeezes my hand. “Truly. But it’s for the best. The scandal ...”
“Yes. The scandal.”
“Well. There’s hope. You’re still young.”
I choke back a laugh. “Am I?”
Louise raises her hand to signal the waiter. “Could we have two mint juleps, please,” she whispers when he reaches the table. “Heavy on the mint with mine, if you know what I mean. And don’t try to tell me you can’t do it, dear.”
“More tea for me, please,” I say to the waiter, motioning to my empty cup. “Onlytea, thank you.”
