Vivian kept her smile in place as she gave her wrist a gentle tug, and to her relief he let her go. If he hadn’t, she would have had to tell Honor that there was a boy who needed someone to teach him some manners. “You’re sweet to ask, baby, but I can’t dance unless I’m on a break,” she said, letting him down easy, her eyes darting toward the bandstand.Bea had just finished a number and was heading back to the dressing room for her break. “Maybe another time? I’m gonna be running my feet off all night with this crazy crowd.” She pretended to give them all a stern look, one hand on her hip, while they grinned and chuckled. “Can I get you boys anything else?”
“You got a phone number?” one of them asked.
“Can’t have a number without a phone,” Vivian said honestly. She blew them a kiss. “See you boys later.”
She dropped her tray off at the bar. “Back in a jiff,” she called to Danny when he would have pushed another round of drinks toward her, and she scurried off toward the dressing room before he could tell her to stop.
Bea was just handing a cold, wet cloth to Alba, who was lying back with her feet propped up. Vivian’s heart stuttered. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Swell,” Alba muttered, blowing out her cheeks as she laid the cloth over her forehead. “Just got dizzy, is all. This whole having a baby thing is a mess, let me tell you. I don’t think I can work much longer, and God knows what’ll happen to us then. Babies ain’t cheap.”
“We’ll help you out,” Bea said, going to her dressing table and kicking off her own shoes so she could stretch out her ankles. “And I’m sure Honor’ll give you your job back once you can work again. She’s not the sort to make a stink about a girl having a baby just because she doesn’t have a fella to go with it.”
“Thank God for that, because everyone else in the world sure is.” Alba closed her eyes with a sigh. “Either of you gonna tell me why you’re circling each other like alley cats tonight? It’s not anything to do with Pearlie, is it?”
“You tell me, Bea,” Vivian said, crossing her arms. “Did you talk to him?”
“Talk to who?” Alba asked, opening one eye. She glanced nervously between them.
Bea’s jaw clenched, and her expression was hard as she met Vivian’s eyes in the mirror. “Abraham,” she said at last. “Vivian’s got some wild idea that he had something to do with those letters.”
“What? Your Abraham?” Alba sat up fast, then just as quickly lay back down, one hand over her mouth. “What?” she asked more quietly after swallowing rapidly several times. “That’s crazy, Viv. Pearlie and Abraham got along great. And if he’d been involved with those letters, he’d have been involved with… with what happened to Pearlie. That’s not possible.” She glanced at Bea. “Tell her.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Abraham so well,” Bea said, twisting around to look at Alba as she fiddled with her lipstick.
Alba shrugged, an awkward motion since she was still lying down. “Like I said, he and Pearlie got along swell. So I saw him around.”
Vivian felt like someone was tying knots in her stomach. “So you didn’t ask him about the necklace?”
“What necklace?” Alba interjected, trying to sit up again.
Bea sent an irritated look in her direction. “This one,” she said through clenched teeth, touching the gold locket at her throat. “Viv’s got some idea that it’s like a necklace someone had to give up when they got one of those letters.”
Alba’s eyes were wide. “Did you ask him about it?”
For a moment, Vivian thought Bea wasn’t going to answer, and when she finally did it was hard to tell whether she was more irritated with Vivian or Alba just then. “I did. He said he got it at a pawnbroker.” For the first time, Bea hesitated. Then she nodded sharply. “He even told me which one.”
Vivian let out the breath she’d been holding. “Then that’s actually great news, isn’t it? We can go talk to the pawnbroker and see if he remembers who brought it in.”
“He might not be able to tell you,” Alba pointed out, rising onto her elbows. “Legally, I don’t think they can say. Especially if you tell him it mighta been stolen.”
“Alba, isn’t your break just about done?” Bea snapped, clearly out of patience. She shoved her feet back into her scarlet shoes, tying the ribbons with sharp tugs.
“Probably, but things aren’t gonna be pretty if I stand up just now. If anyone asks for me, will you tell them I’ll be out as soon as I’m steady?”
“Sure,” Bea said, standing so abruptly her chair almost toppled over. She caught it just in time. “I need to be back on the bandstand in a minute anyway. You coming, Viv?”
Vivian was surprised that Bea would ask for her company when she was still angry. But Bea clearly had something she didn’t want to say in front of Alba.
“I should, I’m not even supposed to be on a break right now. Need anything?” she asked, turning toward Alba, who was still stretched out on the room’s tiny sofa.
“For five more months to be done,” Alba muttered. “No, I’m fine.”
When the dressing room door was closed behind them, and they were engulfed once more in the noise of the dance hall, Bea put a hand on Vivian’s arm to keep her where she was. They stood there, in the corner just to the side of the bar, their eyes fixed on the crowd.
“Abraham was all cut up about what happened, Viv, you’ve got no idea,” Bea said at last. “He even… he even thinks he knows how the letter writer found out about the money. He didn’t want to tell me, but I could tell something was fishy, the way he was acting. And finally he let it out.”
Vivian waited while Bea took a shuddering breath. She didn’t want to push, not about something like this.
