SIX
June 1953
It was a busy night at the Kingfisher Club. The music was fine, and everywhere around Jilo couples danced.
Classes were over. Jilo had her diploma in hand, a hell of a lot of good it looked like it was going to do her. Still, she wanted to celebrate. Kick up her heels a bit. She’d even managed to coax Mary out to the club by loaning her an orchid-colored rayon-satin dress Mary had been admiring for two years. The two had arrived together, but they were barely across the threshold before the men descended on sweet, demure Mary like ants on a church picnic.
Jilo sat alone nursing a bourbon.
Every so often, Jilo caught sight of her friend. Each time Mary flitted by, she seemed to be in the arms of another fellow. Jilo was glad Mary was enjoying herself, but damn.
Wasn’t she pretty enough? Jilo cast an eye around the teeming room. She wasn’t vain, but she knew she looked as good as many, if not most, of the other women in the club. Mary had done a fine job on the McCall’s pattern dress Jilo had paid her to sew. Ice-blue chiffon, a respectable scoop V-neck with beaded lining, the shape echoed by the darting around her tiny waist. She’d done spins before the mirror, loving how the skirt flared up. She wanted to take it out on the floor and show it off. But here she sat without a single taker.
Dammit, she felt pretty, but she couldn’t get more than a smile and a nod from any of the passing men. The next time Mary swung by with her umpteenth gentleman, Jilo couldn’t help but feel a little bitter.
A tall fellow in a well-cut suit drew close to Jilo’s table. She raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders. She smiled at him and—God help her—batted her eyelashes. For a moment it seemed he would say hello, but then he froze in his tracks, gave her a quick nod, and turned sharply away. Her eyes fixed on his shoulders as he bounded off like some kind of scared jackrabbit.
“Oh, you’re a pretty one all right,” a man said from behind her, seeming to read her thoughts. His voice was deep and rich. The speed with which the other fellow had taken off suggested this newcomer might be a bit dangerous. “That isn’t the problem. I’d even say you’re beautiful when you aren’t scowling at the whole damned room.” The way he spoke, slow, the vowels a bit too long, gave his words an exotic flavor. A picture of the speaker rose in her mind’s eye, a picture that unleashed a swarm of butterflies in her stomach, and equally ticklish sensations in lower regions.
She kept her eyes on the receding back of the last man to reject her. She wanted to turn and look at her new companion, but she feared that her Cupid would be the Kingfisher Club’s equivalent of a winged serpent. She felt a little ashamed of herself. She’d been sitting here for an hour hoping and praying a man would approach her. Maybe she was being shallow? No, she realized, she wanted a taste of magic, just once in her life, and she knew it was pretty damn unlikely that the man speaking to her was some kind of prince. She just wanted to stretch the mystery out for as long as she could.
“No, the problem is that you scare half these fellows to death. That’s why you aren’t dancing.” She sensed his approach. A finger traced along her forearm, sending a tingling sensation through her.
She felt her heart thud in her chest, and in spite of herself, she turned to face him. The image she had held in her mind was put to shame.
Smiling down at her was the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on. His hair was trimmed close to his skull, not all slicked back like most of the men here wore theirs. The light in the club was dim, so she couldn’t quite make out the color of his eyes, but she thought they were a clear brown, maybe hazel. His nose was straight. His lips full, the lower one a tad more so than the upper one that curled a bit beneath a well-defined philtrum. His chin strong and with a cleft. “And the other half?” she asked, though her mouth had gone dry.
His nose crinkled up, followed by a raise of his eyebrows. “They just know they’re not man enough to handle a woman like you.”
Feeling herself flush, Jilo lowered her eyes and took a sip of her sour mash, her lips puckering at the taste. She only looked up after she had set the glass back on the table. “So who the hell are you?” she asked.
His eyes lit up, and he leaned in like he was about to confess the darkest of secrets. “I’m the man who’s going to ask you to dance.” He pulled back and lowered his eyelids. “When I’m good and ready to, that is.” He placed his hand on the chair she’d been saving for Mary. “May I?” he asked. But he pulled the seat out and joined her before she could say no.
As if she would say no.
“Aren’t you scared of me, too?” she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
“A little, but I kind of like that.” He slid his hand over toward hers, the space between them not even wide enough to accommodate a sheet of parchment.
Jilo burst out laughing. At him. At herself. “Shit.” She swiped up her whiskey and downed what was left.
“That’s no way for a lady to speak,” he said.
Jilo returned the glass to the table and cast an eye over her shoulder in each direction. “I don’t see any ladies here.”
His hand shot out and caught hers. “I do. Right here.” He turned her hand over, tracing his finger along her palm like he was some kind of sideshow fortune-teller. “You can try to pretend otherwise, but you’re a good girl.” He released her and leaned back, eyeing her like he was surveying her. “I might even go so far as to say ‘respectable’ if you weren’t sitting here by yourself sucking on that swill.”
“I’m not as respectable as you might think.” Her mind flashed to how it had felt to have Lionel on top of her, inside her, rutting for his pleasure alone. The way sex with him had always left her feeling disconnected from her own body. On the outside, watching from a corner of the room. An unloved convenience. A hole where he could spill his seed. The thought of Lionel cut through this new man’s glamour. “Did you borrow that tie?” she asked, the devil in her trying to drive this man away before he could drive her out of herself, too. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this place. Pushing away from the table, she reached out for her purse.
“Stay,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I’ve done to upset you, but that wasn’t my intention.” If he’d so much as blinked, she would have given in to the urge to flee, but he sat perfectly still, watching as she decided. She let her bag slip back down to the table.
He waited for her to relax in her chair before he spoke. “Maybe it wasn’t something I’ve done. Maybe it’s what the fellow before me did.” He raised his eyebrows. “Hmmm? You should tell me, ’cause I’d hate to chase you off before I get that dance.”
“Then you better get to asking,” she said, but her urge to flee had already dissipated.
The band wrapped up the fast swing it had been playing, and began another, a sentimental one that drew the couples closer. He stood and held out his hand to her. “I was only waiting for a slow dance.” A naughty smile curled his lips, and she felt a matching expression form on her own face.
The band played “The Very Thought of You,” though their version featured a few improvisations she’d never heard on the radio. The handsome stranger held her close and swayed to the music.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said, nearly ready to kick herself for ruining the moment.
He leaned in. His breath felt warm on the sensitive skin on her neck. He whispered into her ear. “Guy,” he answered, though the way he said the name, it rhymed with “bee.”
“Guy,” she said, leaning back. “What the hell kind of name is Guy?”
At that very moment Mary swung by them with another beau. At least this one was a repeat. “Jilo,” Mary called out while passing, “this place is wonderful.” She laughed. “And I don’t even know how to dance!”
Guy and Jilo came to a dead stop on the dance floor. “What the hell kind of name is Jilo?” he demanded, though she could see a spark of laughter in his eyes.
“Oh, shut up,” she said and laughed, expecting him to start dancing again. But he didn’t. No. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, and her knees gave way beneath her. It didn’t matter though, he held her tight. She closed her eyes, and reached up to link her fingers behind his neck. Fire passed down her spine, returning the strength to her legs. Then she felt his body begin to sway again, her own slipping easily into his rhythm.