before proceeding to the opposite side to open my door. I felt like an heiress stepping out onto the curb, tucking my arm in his. Two women gawked at us from the sidewalk. They looked at Charles and then at me, studying me from head to toe, then whispering among themselves. I could read their eyes. Fraud. They knew I didn’t belong. I looked straight ahead, following Charles into the club.
I felt the urge to peek into the mirror on the wall to my left just to make sure I was really the woman staring back. Caroline and I had dreamed of dining at the Blue Palms a thousand times before. We knew a cocktail waitress who worked there on weekends. She’d recounted stories of the socialites and celebrities who poured through its doors. I followed Charles inside the dimly lit foyer, where chic-looking couples handed over their coats to stoic doormen.
Charles whispered something to the concierge at the desk, and he jumped up with a nervous smile. “Yes, so nice to see you again. Your regular table is waiting.”
I tried not to think about all the other women Charles had brought here before me. And there must have been a parade of them. Instead, I looked straight ahead as we followed the host down a dark corridor, lights streaming up from the floor like in the movie theaters I’d snuck into as a child. Scores of curious eyes looked out from tables all around us, wondering, watching. A band played a ballad onstage, and I kept time with the trombone with each step. One foot in front of the other. What if I trip? What if I embarrass Charles?
I felt a gentle hand on my waist, then warm breath near my neck. “I just can’t bear to sit down when this song is playing, can you?”
Goose bumps covered my arms. I knew the song, of course. “Stardust.” Caroline and I had listened to it at the record store dozens of times, until the shopkeeper had told us we had two choices: buy it or leave. Lacking the funds to purchase the record, we’d sulked our way to the door.
Charles held out his hand to me. “Shall we?”
“I’d love to,” I said, following him to the dance floor. I felt eyes piercing my back, but when Charles wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, my insecurities drifted away effortlessly.
“And you said you couldn’t dance,” he whispered into my ear.
“I can’t,” I replied. “You just make me look good.”
He shook his head. “You know,” he said with a serious face, “you’re really something, Vera Ray.”
Charles whisked me around the dance floor. His firm grasp and confident steps made me feel light on my feet, agile, as he dipped and twirled me. When the song ended, my cheeks flushed as he pulled me close. We stared into one another’s eyes for a moment.
“Let’s have dinner,” he said, just as the band started up another song.
We slipped into a private booth that provided a full view of the stage. The soft, tufted upholstery felt like a cloud to sit on, and with Charles by my side, the effect was otherworldly—at least, a world unfamiliar to me.
He ordered wine and rattled off a few selections from the menu to a waiter who stood before us with a crisp white towel folded across his arm.
“Have you tried oysters?” Charles asked me. “Caviar?”
I shook my head. Why pretend to have luxurious tastes when he knows I don’t?
“Good, then,” he said, turning to the waiter. “We’ll have both.”
Within moments, the waiter returned with a pewter bowl filled with what looked like shiny blackberries.
“Caviar,” Charles said, grinning.
I scrunched my nose.
The waiter next presented a platter topped with a strange array of mollusks resting on a bed of ice. A lemon wedge and an assortment of dipping sauces were artfully arranged on a second plate. I gulped.
“So,” Charles began, “you squeeze a little lemon on top, then pick up the shell, just like this. Then you let the oyster slide into your mouth.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
It occurred to me that all of this fancy food was quite silly. Why go through the trouble when you could have a fine ham sandwich? But I didn’t want to disappoint Charles. “All right,” I said skeptically. “If you say so.”
I reached for the plate and picked up one of the shells, eyeing the jagged texture and marveling at its sharp edges. My father, a fisherman, had brought an