The Diviners

“A little. But I’ll be just fine,” Memphis shot back, along with his widest smile. He opened his book. The man swore under his breath and called him a name Memphis didn’t like. Memphis stayed put, and after a moment, the couple left. Alone in the room, Memphis lost himself to the pleasure of the book.

“Let’s dance,” Sam said.

“With you?” Evie scoffed. “Just so you know, I left my money with Theta for safekeeping.”

“Come on, doll, I’ll be as good as a Boy Scout.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Feel that rhythm, kid. Doesn’t it work on you?”

Evie looked in the direction of the dance floor. A crowd of flappers, lost to the booze and the beat, were tearing it up. Evie wanted to be in the thick of it. To let herself go under the lights.

“One dance,” Evie said and dragged him toward the gyrating crowd. Sam pulled Evie into a waltz. His hand was warm at the small of her back.

“What are you doing?” she said as they twirled softly in place.

“Going against the grain,” Sam answered.

“Maybe I like going with the grain.”

“You? I don’t see it.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Evie yelled close to his ear. It was hard to hear over the orchestra and the dancers.

“We could work on that,” Sam said, pulling her into a twirl. He was a good dancer. Graceful and quick-footed, he knew how to lead without being overbearing. On the dance floor, at least, they were swell together.

“You smell good enough to eat,” Sam said so close to her ear that it made the skin along her jaw buzz.

“Just like the Big Bad Wolf,” Evie murmured.

“Say, about that ghost business—does your uncle believe in that, or is he just making a buck?”

“How should I know?” Evie asked. She didn’t want to think about Will just now. “Why? Do you believe it?”

Sam forced a smile. “Man’s gotta believe in something.”

He twirled Evie around and around under the lights.

Mabel had gone to the restroom and returned to an empty table. A minute later, she’d been corralled into dancing with a fella named Scotty who had managed to step on both of her feet three times and who insisted on calling her by the wrong name. Now she sat at the table vacated by the others listening to him prattle on about stocks and bonds and finding the right sort of girl to take home to Mother. She guessed the right sort of girl was not the daughter of a Jewish socialist and a society girl turned rabble-rouser.

“You’re a swell listener, May Belle,” Scotty said. His tongue was thick from Scotch.

“Mabel,” she corrected. She squinted in the club’s atmospheric glow and allowed herself to pretend this boring idiot was Jericho. Out on the floor, Evie danced with Sam—and after swearing to deck him.

“Why, you’re just like…”

“A sister,” Mabel finished for him.

“Exactly so!”

“Swell.” She sighed. The Scotty fellow continued rambling, making Mabel feel smaller and plainer. Her dress was all wrong; she looked like she was auditioning for a Christmas pageant somewhere. She was tired of being overlooked or compared to someone’s sister or passed off as a sweet, harmless girl, the sort nobody minded but nobody sought out, either. How had she allowed herself to be talked into this misery? It was different for Evie. Evie was born to play the role of carefree flapper. Mabel wasn’t. In nightclubs or at dances, she was out of her element. Just once, she’d like to be the exciting one, the girl somebody wanted.

“Isn’t that right, May Belle?” the idiot said, finishing some painful thought about fishing or motorcars, no doubt. He clapped her on the arm a little hard.

“That’s it,” Mabel said, getting up. She tossed her napkin on the table. “No. That is not right. I don’t know what you just said, but whatever it was, I’m pretty certain it was pure hokum. I don’t want to dance. I don’t want to hear about your plans for a summer house. I am not your sister. And if I were your sister, I’d have to tell people you’d been adopted as an act of charity. Please, don’t get up.”

“I wasn’t,” Scotty said.

Mabel marched up to Evie and tapped her on the shoulder. “Evie, I want to go home.”

“Oh, Mabel, no. Why, we’re just getting started!”

“You’re just getting started. I am finished.”

Evie stepped to the side with Mabel. “What’s wrong, Pie Face?”