then fiancé Bastian about her affair with Jerome back in Chicago?
“She’s okay, I guess,” Lorraine replied, fuming.
Melvin shook his head. “Don’t worry, Raine, I still think you’re prettier.” Lorraine brightened a little at that.
She felt that oh-so-familiar twinge of jealousy when she looked at Gloria’s glamorous cousin. Tonight Clara wore a red-carpet-worthy dress of sapphire tulle. The torso was decorated with Egyptian motifs made of iridescent sequins, and the semisheer skirt fell to her knees. Her blond bob was swept off to the side and pinned back with a blue-feathered hairpin.
Lorraine pushed her envy away. It would be one huge understatement to say that she and Clara had had their differences in the past. But if Raine was going to save Marcus, she’d need Clara’s help. When she had spied Clara from the bar she’d known it was a sign. She and Clara were meant to drag Marcus away from that gold-digging roundheel.
Now she just had to convince Clara of that.
Lorraine tugged on her arm. Clara frowned. “Not now, Lorraine—Gloria’s still singing.”
“This is important!” Lorraine insisted. “Come on!”
Reluctantly, Clara allowed herself to be led between twisting and turning couples and under the waiters’ silver serving platters. But her narrowed blue-gray eyes showed that she didn’t like it one bit.
Lorraine smiled while she marched through the crowd with Clara. No one whispered behind their hands as Lorraine passed or cut angry glares in her direction. They didn’t notice her at all! Once upon a time Lorraine had loved being the center of attention. But now it felt so nice to be free of the shady reputation that clung to her like some kind of disease in the city. Here the only looks she got were from the women who admired her dress and the men who admired everything else.
This was what Lorraine hoped it would be like at Barnard, once she’d secured Marcus’s friendship and the popularity that would come with it.
Finally, Lorraine followed a white-suited man with coffee-and-cream skin through a swinging white door into a bustling kitchen. It didn’t seem like the kind of kitchen that would be in a person’s home: Several men assembled cucumber sandwiches and shrimp cocktails on a wide steel table while others squirted delicate twists of whipped cream onto decadent miniature chocolate cakes to prepare for the dessert course later on.
The men were all black and acted as though Lorraine and Clara were invisible. They didn’t even look up when Melvin shuffled through the door a few moments after Clara and Lorraine, dusting the remains of a deviled egg off his coat.
“Scram, Melvin, this is a private conversation!” Lorraine yelled at him.
“But I don’t know anyone else here—”
“Can’t you socialize for once in your life instead of just mooning after me all the time?” Lorraine glanced at Clara to find her scowling. Was she actually getting angry on Melvin’s behalf? “You can talk to Becky,” Lorraine said more gently. She looked behind Melvin, confused. “Where is Becky?”
“She wouldn’t come in—she said we probably shouldn’t be in the kitchen.”
Lorraine chuckled. Shouldn’t be in the kitchen! Becky and her jokes. “That girl is hilarious.”
“So out with it,” Clara said impatiently. “Marcus? In mortal danger?”
“I know you’re still in love with him,” Lorraine said, hoping to see a crack in Clara’s cool mask.
“I’m over him,” Clara replied. “Completely. Besides, he’s getting married.” She watched Lorraine’s face. “As if you didn’t know! Don’t tell me that you’re trying to destroy him, too? Haven’t you ruined enough lives?”
“No, no!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Becky, the blond girl out there—she’s my roommate at Barnard. I’m enrolled at Barnard now, did you know? It’s a—”
“College, Raine; we all know,” Clara said, rolling her eyes.
“Anyway, Becky says that the woman Marcus is marrying isn’t really who she says she is. She’s little better than a common criminal. A grifter! A cheat! A liar! A …” Lorraine paused and tried to think of more insults.
“Hmm … that sounds an awful lot like you.”
Lorraine waved her hand in the air, then paused to pick up a miniquiche from one of the nearby platters. “The old me, maybe.” She popped the hors d’oeuvre into her mouth. “But that was so a-month-and-a-half ago. I told you, I’ve got new leaves! ”
“Yes, yes, you’re an absolute tree, Raine,” Clara said with a sigh. “Go on.”
“This girl, she’s bad news. She’s only marrying him for his money! ”
Clara dug through her sequined clutch. She withdrew a cigarette from a silver case. “So what am I supposed to do? Break them