It Stings So Sweet (29 page)

He hesitates. “Leo and I don’t . . . it’s really of no consequence, Sophie.
It’s been over for months now, ever since I returned to the city.”

“Did something happen? Was
there an argument?”

“Nothing like that. Quite the opposite, actually.”

It pains him, I
realize. And that, in turn, pains me. “You said you’d been in love precisely one and a half times,
Robert. Was Clara the one or the half?”

The way he rubs at his cheek tells me I’ve hit a nerve.
“The half . . .”

When I realize he has no intention of explaining more, I guess. “You held
your heart in reserve because she’s a married woman?”

“Something like that,” Robert replies
softly. “But I say I was only half in love with her because it wasn’t her alone. It was the both of
them. I got from her what I couldn’t get from him, and from him what I couldn’t get from her. But how
long can that go on, really?”

“I don’t understand.”

“My strongest bond is with Leo,” he
says, his lips thinning with the admission. “But that’s not a sexual attraction. Meanwhile, I’m very
attracted to his wife, but that never became love—at least not the kind of love that binds a man
to a woman forever. What would I have done if it had?”

I lace my fingers through his, fighting
back my selfish relief so that I can better understand his complicated heart. “They couldn’t offer
you more?”

“They offered me more. I just didn’t take it. I’m the son of an ambassador. I live
in society. Hell, my family
is
society,” he says, knotting the coverlet in one of his fists. “What
sort of explanation could I ever give for such a relationship? No one can make such a thing work.
It just isn’t done.”

“How do you know if you didn’t try?”

He closes his eyes, as if the
conversation has exhausted him well beyond the exertions of our lovemaking. “My father reminded me
that I couldn’t be a worthless playboy and a dreamer forever, and the ambassador is always right. I
followed his orders and came back East to be a man and make a name for myself.”

“So you left
them. You left Clara and Leo?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

How can I answer a question like that,
for the man who has become my lover? Can I wish he did anything else? No, I can’t and I don’t. But
it troubles me deep in my bones. “I think if you find happiness, you ought to cling to it no matter
what anyone says about it.”

“You really
are
a radical aren’t you?” he murmurs drowsily. Then,
when I don’t answer, he says, “I couldn’t think of a way to make myself fit with them . . . and it’s
for the better, because if I hadn’t left Clara and Leo, I might not have found you.”

Why, what
a tender thing to say. It takes me utterly by surprise.

His eyelashes are fair like the rest
of him, but they’re the longest eyelashes of any man I’ve ever met. With his eyes closed they give
him an angelic appearance. I stroke his cheek softly and say, “But you and I hardly fit in each other’s
worlds either, now, do we?”

“No we don’t,” he admits. “But I
thank God
for you anyway because
I was drowning here before you . . .”

CHAPTER

Seven

“And you let him
go all the way
, Sophie?” Ethel asks,
catching me by surprise with her disapproval.

But even her wide-eyed censure can’t spoil my
mood. Still giddy, I fling open the window sash and smile at the city below. “More times than I could
count.”

“Sophie!” Ethel cries.

“What?” I settle myself on the window ledge to get a breeze.
“Aren’t you the flapper who has kissed a thousand men and claims to want to kiss a thousand more?”

Ethel puts her hands on her hips. “On our skimpy wages, I’d never get to go anywhere or
do anything
fun if I didn’t. But nobody looks up to me. You’re the one always telling us to stand up and
earn our own way.”

I make a sound of annoyance, glancing around our shabby room with its broken
closet door. In the corner, a basket overflows with laundry to be washed, hung, and ironed. Even
the flowerpots on the fire escape are chipped and cracked. “And what is it you think? That Robert
Aster’s my sugar daddy?”

“You got him to give all that money to Gertie. Don’t tell me he’s
given nothing to you.”

I count my gifts. Lingerie. A rose. Three lovely meals. And more pleasure
than I could stand. Even now, the traces of his touch linger on my skin and make me sigh a little.
And that makes me defiant. I turn on Irene who, up to this point, has appeared to be in shock.
Even now, she’s holding the iron up and away from the board as if afraid she won’t be able to press
her clothes without scorching them. “Well, Irene, aren’t you going to add your two bits about my pitching
woo with the boss?”

She gives a delicate shake of her head. “I’m just worried for you, Sophie.”

“I’m not going to end up like Gertrude!”

“No,” she says. “But you’re falling in love.”

“Horsefeathers.” It can’t last between us. I know that. Robert has already told me his plan.
He’s going to meet some girl from his own social circle and let her reform him of his playboy ways.
Let her reform him of . . . me. He’s going to marry her and show her off on his arm and make little
Aster heirs. He’s told me what to expect, but the sharp pain of the truth stuns me. “I’m not a fool,
Irene. I know better.”

Still, in the days that follow, I wonder if she’s right.

Robert
and I play out each fantasy in my journal, one by one. He takes me to Coney Island late one night;
we swim nude at the beach in the frothing waves. Another night we play a card game that leaves me naked
and ready to do his bidding. Following that, I dress up in a frilly maid’s uniform and pretend to
steal the silver from his room, a crime for which I’m exquisitely punished. And after a spirited night
in which he introduces me to a vibrating gadget popularized by Dr. Freud for the treatment of hysteria,
Robert falls asleep in my arms.

Watching the moonlight play on his closed lashes, something
happens to me.

I want to know him; truly know him. Wondering over each object by his bed, I
make up little stories about each one, saddened that I should have to guess about anything in his life.
I want to know how he looked as a little boy. Who taught him to ride a bicycle. Who tended his
first skinned knee. I want to know how old he was when he smoked his first cigarette. When he kissed
his first girl. When he did something for which he holds regret. I wonder how he got the jagged scar
near his elbow and it seems a terrible tragedy that I’ve missed all these moments of his life.

All I want to do is be with him so that I don’t miss another . . .

It’s my night to close the boutiq
ue, so I turn off most of the lights and draw the curtain
that tells customers to come back in the morning. I’m just about to pull white linen sheets over all
the counters to keep dust from settling onto the delicate garments, when someone says, “Don’t do that
yet.”

Startled, I look up to see Robert in the doorway wearing a tuxedo. He looks like a swell,
neatly coifed, perfectly handsome, his smile as white as his shirt, which is fastened with mother-of-pearl
studs. He’s an elite man of society. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a man look so dapper.

It makes
my insides flutter just to look at him.

“What are
you
doing here, Mr. Aster?”

“It
is
my
hotel,” he reminds me with a grin. “And I’m buying you a dress. Surely there’s something in the boutique
you’ve had your eye on? Choose anything and don’t look at the price.”

I’m more than a little
flabbergasted. “Why?”

“Because you’ve never been drunk and I’m taking you to a juice joint.”

As I stand there stammering, he comes up behind me and touches me with a freedom I’ve never
allowed any other man. There isn’t a breath of space between the moment he grabs me and the moment my
body comes alive for him. I hear myself sigh, wanting his hands everywhere, but I say, “Getting drunk
in a speakeasy isn’t one of my fantasies.”

“Well, it should be.”

I sigh again. “I’m afraid
I have other plans. There’s a lecture at the Civics League tonight on world peace.”

“I did
my part to secure world peace during the Great War . . .”

“You can’t secure peace with war.”

“If only someone had told the President,” he says with a chuckle. “Well, I hate to be the cause
of bloodshed in some obscure nation because I took you away from a meeting, but come out with me
tonight and I’ll do my best to make it up to the world later.”

“You haven’t heard the full
list of complaints I wrote up yet. I think you’re taking advantage . . .”

He laughs. “Oh,
hell
. Give me your list. I promise I’ll read it. As long you let me get you all dolled up. What about
the golden gown with the sequins and fringe?”

It’s the most expensive and glamorous gown in
the shop. It comes with long black gloves, a feather boa, and matching headdress. I worry it won’t
fit, but once he’s stripped my clothes off and put me into it, the gown hugs me tight, baring my shoulders,
arms, and back.

That’s a lot of skin.

It’s so short the tops of my stockings are likely
to show when I walk, but when I look from the mirror over my shoulder to see him staring, I can’t
imagine wanting to wear anything else. “You like it, don’t you?”

There’s banked heat in his
eyes. “It makes me want to burn everything else you own.”

“That’d leave me nothing to wear
to work.”

“Nudity has never bothered me,” he says, giving me a little spin. “In fact, by the
end of the evening, I expect to have you naked and screaming my name.”

Well, I can’t say no
to that, can I?

He takes the list of complaints from me, glancing at it while I get my shoes
on and comb my hair under the headdress. Then he gives me a moment to powder my nose before taking
me straight out through the lobby where the bellboys, with posies in their lapels, watch with wide
eyes. I don’t want them to start doubting me, but right now, the only thing I can see is Robert Aster.

On the street, his driver helps us into the back of his Rolls-Royce limousine and we’re off
to Harlem. But when Robert leans in to kiss me, I say, “I’d like to talk about wages.”

He groans,
burying his head against the feather boa round my neck. “You’ve the most peculiar notions about
how to arouse a man, Miss O’Brien.”

“Given the way you’re panting in my ear, I’d say my methods
are working.”

He chuckles.

He’s indulging me and I’m happy to take advantage of it. “Do
you know that the women who work for you make half the wages of the men doing the same jobs?”

He pulls me tighter against him. “We pay the going rate for female employees, don’t we?”

He’s got me there.

“Just because every other hotel in the city abuses the women who work for
them doesn’t mean you should, too. You can change the policy.”

“I’m flattered you think so,
but my father—”

“The boutique makes more money for the hotel than the florist shop or the cigar
stand. Yet, as a sales
girl
, I make half the salary of any sales
man
at any counter in the Aster Hotel.
I’m paid less than the men who work fewer hours or are still in training. Does that seem fair?”

“You’ve certainly earned a raise,” he says with a suggestive wag of his eyebrows. “At the very
least, your paycheck should reflect the extra hours of service you’re putting in for me . . .” When
he sees my shocked expression, he adds, “You didn’t think I forgot
that
fantasy, did you?”

I’m stunned, remembering an errant scribbling in the margin of my journal about a girl willing to sell
herself to men. The blood drains away from my face as I realize what he must think of me. And how
aroused I am in spite of it. I have to shake myself to keep my wits about me. “I was only using myself
as an example. I don’t want a raise unless you’re willing to give one to every woman who works for
you.”

“Are you aiming to be the most expensive mistress I’ve ever had?”

I don’t want to
laugh, but I do. “Don’t do it for
me
; do it because it’s the right thing.”

He arches a brow.
“Why should you care why I did it, so long as you got what you wanted in the end?”

“Because
I think you’re something special, Robert Aster, and I don’t want to be proved wrong.”

He blinks.
His devil-may-care smile falters. His mouth opens as if he’s going to say something of import.
Then the car pulls up under the neon sign over the club and the moment is gone.

The chauffeur
comes round the side and helps us out. There’s been a light summer rain and it smells wonderful steaming
up from the hot pavement into the night air. A few drivers honk their horns and swerve round
Robert’s limousine as he escorts me to the club. The entrance to the speakeasy is in the back, where
an iron door bars our way. Robert taps a secret knock, a peephole slit opens, and once the bouncer
sees we’re the sort he wants to admit, the door swings open.

Inside, we’re hit with a wall
of jazz and glimpse scantily clad showgirls on stage, all tall and lithe. The dancers wear pasties on
their nipples and their breasts glisten with perspiration under the hot stage lights. The flimsy feathered
skirts on their hips hide nothing from the mirrored floor, and the men hoot and holler, “Get
hot, get hot!”

The place is filled with men in tuxedos puffing on cigars and women in sequins,
pearls, and feather boas, just like the one I wear. In my glittering golden gown, I must look like
I’m one of them, but this isn’t my world. It’s too shiny and gay.

Robert’s hand closes over
mine as he guides me to a table, his ease in this atmosphere of revelry helping to calm my nerves.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

A little thrill goes through me. I know that I wrote about parties,
but not this kind, and I can’t think that he means to push me onto the top of the grand piano
and make love to me here. The truth is, I don’t know and it’s exciting not knowing. “Am I going to
like it?”

He clears his throat as we approach the best table in the house. “It’s going to make
you weak in the knees . . .”

That’s when I see my surprise.

Beyond a sea of white-jacketed
waiters, the contours of a beautiful woman in red emerges from the haze of smoke. She puffs out
the long end of her cigarette holder, then smiles like the movie star she is.

It’s Clara Cartwright.

Glamorous. Glorious. Gorgeous.

Her red dress hugs every curve, black kohl lines her dramatic
eyes, a crimped bob frames her face, and ruby earrings dangle from her ears.

I’m dazzled.

She enchants me such that I nearly overlook her bemused companion, a man of rugged good looks
and a slightly world-weary air. This must be Clara’s husband, because the moment he spots us, he jumps
to his feet and embraces Robert like a long-lost brother. They clap each other on the back, shake
hands and then clap each other again.

Eventually, Robert stoops to give Clara a peck on the
cheek, which she receives as her due. With a champagne coupe dangling from one hand, she studies me
curiously. “Who’s the smarty?”

“This is Sophie O’Brien,” Robert says, holding a chair out for
me. “You’re going to love her. She’s an anarchist.”

What an introduction!

But before I
can deny it, Clara’s eyes light up. “Oh, Robert. You found me an anarchist to interview for my new
film on Sacco and Vanzetti? You’re the bee’s knees.”

I slide into my chair, laughing nervously.
“I’d be quite interested in a film about that travesty, but I’m afraid I’m just a reformer, not
an anarchist.”

Clara snaps her fingers. “
Rhatz!
”

Robert grabs a program from a passing
usher and pays a nickel for it. “Don’t let Sophie fool you with that adorable laugh. She’s a dangerous
radical.”

He’s teasing me again and I glare at him, but Clara reaches out with lacquered nails
to give my hand a squeeze. “Well, we love danger and radicals, don’t we, Leo?”

Her husband
lifts his glass in salute. “Especially danger.”