Just as the first set was finishing, she noticed Alba at the bar, grimacing like someone who was trying not to be sick. She was speaking to Danny, looking apologetic; he gave her a nod and a comforting pat on the shoulder, jerking his head toward the dressing room.
Vivian watched her go, something tickling at the back of her mind. Something about the day they had gone to help Alba pack up.
She glanced at the bandstand. Bea was crooning her way through “What’ll I Do,” and couples were dancing with their cheeks pressed close together. The song was almost over. Vivian hurried toward the dressing room, wanting to beat her friend there.
She found Alba wiping her face with a damp napkin. A sharp, sour smell filled the air. “You all right?” Vivian asked.
“Never better,” Alba said sarcastically, then sighed. “Ignore me. I’m fine. This is just no fun.” She leaned over Bea’s dressing table to reapply her lipstick. Glancing past her reflection, she saw that Vivian was still watching her. “Need something?”
“Yeah, I do,” Vivian said. She bit her lip, not sure how to say whatshe needed to. Finally, she settled on, “I noticed that you like to draw, Alba. I saw your sketches when we helped you pack up.”
Alba’s hands stilled for a whisper of a moment, then she capped the lipstick with a decisive click and pressed her lips together to smooth out the color. “Yeah, I do. Is that a problem?”
“It might be,” Vivian said quietly. “Because you had kind of a distinctive style of sketching. And I’ve seen something like that pretty recently.”
Alba set down her lipstick and turned around slowly. “Oh?”
Vivian could hear the sound of applause through the door as the song finished. Alba didn’t move, and neither did she. “You ever drawn a hemlock plant before, Alba?”
The silence in the room crackled as they stared at each other.
“Well?” Vivian asked. But she had to catch her breath to say it. Alba’s silence had stretched out long enough to be its own answer. “We’ve only got a few seconds before someone comes through that door, so you’d better start talking.”
Alba looked away long enough to scoop up a lighter and a package of cigarettes from Bea’s dressing table. She lit one with shaking hands. “Have you told Beatrice?” she asked at last.
“Told me what?”
They both jumped. Bea was just closing the door to the dressing room behind her, her sharp brows pulled together in a frown. “Everything all right in here?”
“Of course it is,” Alba said quickly, at the exact time that Vivian answered, “No, it’s really not.” They both stared at each other. Alba’s eyes were blazing, and there was sweat across her forehead.
“If you don’t want to tell her, I’m happy to do it for you,” Vivian said coldly.
“Tell me what?” Bea insisted, glancing between them. “What the hell is going on?”
“Alba has something to tell you about those letters,” Vivian said, not turning to look at Bea. She didn’t want to take her eyes off Alba. “See, yesterday I finally saw one that had been written and sent weeks ago, and it looked nothing like the ones Pearlie and Florence got.”
“Who’s Florence?” Alba asked, but Vivian didn’t bother answering.
“It was typed, not written. And it had a curious sort of signature. Someone had drawn a hemlock plant at the bottom. And a little bird told me recently that there’re rumors of some new operation popping up around where we live. Apparently, they’ve got a thing for poisons, and they’ve got a little bit of style to go with it. So they like to use a little drawing just like that, a hemlock leaf, as a calling card.”
“What does that have to do with Alba?” Bea asked, her voice shaking. Vivian looked at her friend at last. Bea’s brown eyes were wide and wild. She knew exactly where Vivian was heading with this. But she didn’t want to believe it.
“A little drawing just like the ones she does,” Vivian said gently. “She’s not denying it. Are you, Alba?” she added, turning back.
The three women stared at each other, none of them speaking for a painful moment. They could hear the music, a sultry, eerie tango, slinking under the door along with the heat from the dance floor. The cigarette between Alba’s fingers was still burning, ash tumbling toward the ground, the glowing tip closer and closer to her fingers.
“I thought you loved Pearlie,” Bea said, her voice cracking.
Alba gave her a pitying look. “Don’t be stupid. He was a fun time, and so am I. It didn’t need to be anything more than that.”
“Tell me what happened, then,” Bea said, her voice growing louder. Vivian put a hand on her arm to remind her where they were, but Bea shook her off. She took a step closer to Alba. “You were working with them, too? You the one who got Pearlie mixed up in all this?”
“No.”
“What happened to my uncle?” Bea was practically yelling.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bea, it was Pearlie the whole damn time, okay?” Alba’s voice cracked out like a whip, like poison, like a tray of crystal glasses smashing to the ground and leaving stunned silence in its wake. “I was just along for the ride. Your precious uncle was the one sending people letters and robbing them blind.”
