The Diviners (The Diviners 1)

Sam grinned. “Back of a chair.”

“You stole it?”

“Let’s just say I borrowed it for the duration of my stay.”

“I oughta tell Uncle Will.”

“Be my guest. Of course, then you’ve gotta explain what you were doing here at a speakeasy in Harlem at eleven thirty in the PM.”

Evie opened her mouth to give Sam an earful just as the tuxedo-clad emcee stepped to the microphone. His white shirt was so stiff it looked bulletproof. “And now the Hotsy Totsy presents the Famous Hotsy Totsy Girls dancing that forbidden dance, the Black Bottom!”

The orchestra launched into the jazzy, uptempo dance tune. With a loud whoop, the young and beautiful chorines strutted their way across the stage. They swayed their hips and stamped out a hard, quick rhythm with their silver shoes. With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling—an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it.

The piano player called out to the girls, and they shuffled forward, hips first. They crooked their fingers and everyone raced onto the dance floor below the stage, caught up in the dance and the night.

Theta sat at the table, alone, behind an inscrutable cloud of cigarette smoke, watching. Henry had started up a conversation with a handsome waiter named Billy, and she wondered if he’d be coming home tonight. She watched the spoiled debutantes getting their kicks by coming uptown to hear jazz in forbidden clubs, just to make their mothers fret. She watched the bartenders filling glasses but keeping their eyes on the doors. She watched the lonely hearts mooning over the fellas who, oblivious, mooned over other dolls. She watched a fight break out between a couple who were now sitting in miserable silence. She watched the cigarette girls smiling at each table, extolling the health benefits of Lucky Strikes or Chesterfields, whichever company paid them a little more. She watched the girls dance onstage and wondered how old they’d been when they started. Had they been dragged from town to town on the circuit from the age of four? Had they lain awake on fleabag motel floors, then made the rounds of booking agents the next morning, half-dead from exhaustion? Had any of them made a daring escape from a small town in the middle of the night? Had they changed their names and their looks, becoming someone completely new, someone who couldn’t be found? Did any of them have a power so frightening it had to be kept locked down tight?

A good-looking fella with a fraternity pin on his lapel stepped in front of Theta’s table, blocking her view. “Mind if I join you?”

Theta stubbed out her cigarette. “Sorry, pal. I was just leaving.” She grabbed her wrap and Evie’s purse and went in search of the ladies’ lounge.

Memphis had finished his rounds for the night. On his way through the Hotsy Totsy’s kitchen, he pocketed a few cookies for Isaiah, then set off to check out the action in the club. A drunk girl whose curls drooped from dancing called to him as he passed: “Oh, boy—get my coat, will ya?” She dropped a quarter in his hand.

“Do I look like I work for you? Get your own damn coat.” Memphis tossed the quarter back, and it fell at her feet.

“Well, I never…”

“And you never will,” Memphis grumbled. Off the hallway was a sitting room with club chairs and Persian rugs where couples went to neck or smoke. Memphis walked past a petting couple and settled into his favorite chair to read.

“Do you mind?” the man called.

“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.