“Speaking of plans, you don’t have any for this evening, do you?” Elsa asked.
Ivy swept her black bangs to one side. “I don’t know. Do I?”
At the corner of Eighty-First Street, they waited for autos and cabs to pass. Half a dozen sparrows perched on the street sign, watching. A smile tugged Elsa’s mouth. “We’ve been invited for dinner with Archer and a friend of his. And when I say ‘invited,’ I mean begged. Practically coerced. At least he promised that dancing won’t be part of the evening. It’s a weeknight after all, and everyone has work in the morning. But as Archer says, we still have to eat. Shall we go?”
“Is this the same Archer Hamlin who dressed up as the mummy of King Tut for that Halloween party you took us to last fall?”
“The same. And his friend played the role of Lord Carnarvon.”
Ivy laughed. “I’d love to go out tonight. Friday I’m busy with the Battle of Brooklyn event, anyway. Where are we going?”
“The Ritz-Carlton.”
Ivy turned to Elsa and gaped. “I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to breathe the air in front of that place, let alone eat their food.” She may have a graduate degree from a prestigious all-girls school, but what she couldn’t fund herself was provided by scholarships and a personal benefactress. Ivy had never been wealthy.
“We wouldn’t be paying, they would be,” Elsa said as they hurried across the street to their hotel-apartment complex, the Beresford. The doorman greeted them each by name as they entered.
“I don’t know,” Ivy murmured. They crossed the lobby to the elevators and waited for one to open. “It sounds thrilling, but I wouldn’t fit in with the Ritz crowd.”
“You got that right. I consider that to be one of your finest qualities.”
The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside and requested their floor from the operator. Once the door opened on their floor, they thanked him and headed down the corridor. Ivy still looked thoughtful. Ever since illness stole her family when she was only fourteen, she’d earned her own way by becoming a widow’s companion and personal secretary. She would never spend gobs of money on a gourmet dinner at a fancy hotel restaurant when she was already paying for dining room meals that came with living in a Beresford apartment.
Honestly, Elsa didn’t fit in with the Ritz crowd, either. She’d been to the Ritz, and to The Plaza, and to Hotel Astor, most often as a guest attending with her parents the debutante balls of her peers. She never danced, of course, but it wouldn’t do to declinethe invitations. And so she’d sat on the edge of those parties, her back flawlessly straight, while her parents waltzed with the rest. Those nights would have been torture without her cousin Lauren there to keep her company.
“We don’t have to go.” Elsa unlocked the apartment door and waited for Ivy to enter before she closed and locked it behind them. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“I wouldn’t if you were with me.” Ivy hung her purse on a hook on the wall, then propped a fist on her hip. “To tell you the truth, I’ve always wanted to see what all the fuss was about the Ritz. And you and I don’t pay?”
“Not a dime.”
“But what would I wear?”
Elsa smiled. “I’ll help you choose.”
Inside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel foyer, Elsa untied the silk scarf she’d worn to protect her hair. Archer and his friend, Percy Osborne, had picked her and Ivy up in Archer’s white Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible, which made for a windblown twenty-minute ride.
From the foyer, they passed directly into the Palm Room, where potted palm trees soared beneath a glass ceiling. At the far end of the room, an orchestra played from a gallery.
“Well, this is the berries. I knew I wouldn’t be fancy enough for this place,” Ivy whispered as she tucked her own scarf and dark glasses into her purse. Couples sat at small tables, drinks in hand. Judging by their formal dress, they’d be heading to the theater, opera, or Ziegfeld’s Follies tonight.
“You look stunning, as always,” Elsa told her friend. Ivy’s sleek black bob was a striking contrast to her perfect creamy complexion. The curvy figure beneath her sheath dress may not be the current fashion, but she was oblivious to the admiration shedrew. “And if by ‘fancy,’ you mean entitled, arrogant, and grossly wealthy, then fancy is not a trait you ought to aspire to, anyway.”
Archer laughed. “That’s a bleak picture of our set, isn’t it?”
Elsa didn’t enjoy being lumped together with the people who frequented the Ritz. “Let’s call them our parents’ set, then, but not ours.”
“And yet here we are,” Percy quipped, “right along with them. Would you prefer a hot dog from a pushcart in Central Park?” His brown eyes sparkled behind round tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
“I gather you’ve neverhada fresh hot dog in Central Park.” Ivy twisted a rope of beads around one finger. “They’re delicious!”
Percy huffed. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Archer chuckled and led the foursome through the Palm Room and Oval Restaurant, then up two flights of stairs to the outdoor Roof Garden. Heads turned, ever so slightly, as people noticed Elsa’s limp and then pretended not to.
By the time they reached their round table for four, Elsa’s leg ached, and her breath came quicker than it should. It was a silent throbbing that whispered to her,You’re different. You’re weak.You’re a burden to be cast off as soon as you slow them down.
She stuffed the voice into the dark corner of her mind from which it had escaped. Laughter rippled from a table nearby, and she glanced at the two couples enjoying some joke she’d missed. She wondered if they’d left children home with a nurse or governess, as her parents had so often done, or if they’d sent them off to boarding school for the fall semester yet. She wondered if they ever thought of the little ones when they were out of sight, or if it was only children who longed for a ray of warmth from their parents.
