The Diviners
Evenings, Evie and Mabel went downstairs to the Bennington’s shabby dining room and sat beneath its sputtering lights to drink egg creams and plot their great Manhattan adventures. When Mabel had to help her parents at a workers’ rally one evening, Evie took the liberty of calling on Theta and Henry in their flat. Henry had met her at the door wearing a smoking jacket over a pair of baggy Moroccan pants worn with an unbuttoned tuxedo shirt. It was clear at a glance that he and Theta couldn’t be related—his freckled fairness was a stark contrast to her dark, smoky looks—but it was also clear by the way they were with each other that they were not lovers, only dear friends. Henry had raised an eyebrow at Evie as he leaned against the door frame and said, in his long, slow drawl, “I don’t suppose you’ve come about the leak under the sink?” Evie had laughed and promised to chew enough Doublemint gum to fix it and Henry had swung the door open wide with a grand “Entrez, mademoiselle!” Theta lay on a velvet fainting couch wearing her silk men’s pajamas, a peacock-patterned scarf tied dramatically around her head. “Oh. Hiya, Evil. What’s doing?” The three of them had knocked back shots of gin stolen from a party Theta had been to at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and made up silly songs that Henry picked out on the ukulele, and no one complained that Evie was completely tone-deaf. Then they played cards until the wee hours, and Evie crawled home to Will’s apartment just ahead of the morning sun with the feeling that everything was possible in Manhattan and that a great adventure lay ahead of her—just as soon as she slept off the night.
Now the first hints of red and gold limned the treetops in Central Park and an Indian-summer sun shone over Manhattan. Evie, Mabel, and Theta, outfitted in their fashionable best, boarded the crowded trolley for an afternoon jaunt to the movies. The three of them raced to the back and squeezed into a double seat, talking excitedly.
“Evie, how is Jericho these days?” Mabel asked and bit her lip. She tried to seem casual about it, but she had absolutely no poker face, and Evie knew she must be dying inside.
“Who’s Jericho?” Theta asked.
“My uncle’s assistant,” Evie explained. “The big blond fellow.”
“He’s absolute perfection,” Mabel said, and both of Theta’s pencil-thin eyebrows shot up.
“You goofy for him?”
“Yeah?” Theta appraised Mabel coolly. “What you need is a visit to the barber, kiddo.”
Mabel clamped a hand protectively over the braid coiled at the back of her neck. “Oh. Oh, I don’t think I could.”
“Well, of course, if you’re scared…” Theta winked at Evie.
“Yes, of course. Not all of us can be brave,” Evie tutted, patting Mabel’s hand.
“You don’t have to, Pie Face,” Evie said, batting her lashes.
“I’ll have you know I’ve faced down angry mobs at my mother’s political rallies and walked on picket lines. I’m certainly not afraid of the barber!” Mabel sniffed.
“Fine. Let’s put some dough on it. I’ll pony up a buck if you bob your hair today.”
“Two dollars,” Evie chimed.
Mabel paled. But then she tilted her chin just like her society-born mother. “Fine!” she said and signaled the trolley driver to stop.
Mabel glanced nervously at the Esquire Barbershop window, with its ad proclaiming WE BOB HAIR! LOOK LIKE THE STARS OF STAGE AND SCREEN! along with a drawing of a beautiful flapper in a feathered headdress.
“Mabesie, that style would be swell on you,” Evie said. “Jericho would adore it.”
Theta touched up her lipstick in a store window. “Even a scholar’s got eyes, kid.”
Evie brushed her hand across an imaginary screen. “Just picture it: You breeze into the museum as a whole new Mabel—Mabel the Enchantress! Mabel the Flapper! Mabel the Hot Jazz Baby!”
“Mabel Who Better Make Up Her Mind or We’ll Miss the Picture,” Theta added.
“I’ll do it.”
“Attagirl!” Evie said. She pushed Mabel toward the barbershop. Evie and Theta hurried to the windows and pressed their faces to the glass to watch. Mabel spoke to the barber, who ushered her into a chair. She looked nervously in the girls’ direction. Evie waved and gave her a winning smile.