Just fine? I dug my fingernails into the upholstery of the chair. How can everyone be so dismissive about a lost boy? A child of three is missing, and no one cares. I buried my face in my hands, feeling Lon’s warm, moist hand on my shoulder a moment later.
“I’ll make some calls in the morning,” he said, trying to console me.
“In the morning?” I cried, looking up at him. “I beg your pardon, but couldn’t you call tonight?”
Lon shook his head. “All the offices are closed, darling,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
I nodded.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get you upstairs. You can relax there.”
I stood up hesitantly, dabbing a crisp cloth napkin against my cheek to blot a fresh tear. Lon held out his hand to me, and I took it reluctantly. He gave it a suffocating squeeze as he led me through the restaurant out to the lobby. I saw the elevator ahead. Servants weren’t allowed to use the guests’ elevator, with its ornate trim and shiny brass knobs. But I’d stepped inside it before, the first time I’d been a guest of the hotel. With Charles. I’d ended up in a bed of soft down. The bed where Daniel was conceived.
Four Years Prior
Charles picked me up at seven. A week had passed since he had exited the dance floor in such a hurry, ushered away by his prickly sister. I’d thought of him every day after that, particularly in the evenings, after my shifts at the restaurant, when the apartment was quiet. That night, I slid into the front seat of his Buick. It smelled of finery—leather; good, sweet-smelling tobacco; and cologne. “Hi,” he said, grinning. I felt my heart race faster the moment our eyes met.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers sent a chill down my neck. A good chill.
“I’ve missed you, too,” I said. “How’s your mother?”
“Much better,” he replied. “Pneumonia. The doctor was able to catch it just in time.” He tilted his head to the right, peering deeper into my eyes. “I’ve been feeling terribly, leaving you at the dance hall like I did.”
“Don’t think of it,” I said. “Your family needed you.”
He shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t have killed my sister to be a little kinder. Don’t be offended by her, though. That’s just Josie. She disapproves of every girl I’ve ever taken out.”
“Oh,” I said, looking at my lap.
Charles inched closer to me. “That came out wrong,” he said. “I don’t mean to imply that she disapproves of you, Claire. She’s just, well…”
“A snob?”
He smiled playfully. “Why, yes.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
He stepped on the gas pedal and turned the car into the street. Nobody I knew had a car. I relished the sound of the engine and the jazz playing on the radio. “Why don’t we head over to the Cabaña Club? We could grab some dinner, and maybe try our luck with dancing again.”
“I’d love that,” I said, pressing my cheek against his shoulder.
Seattle looked glorious from inside the Buick, its windshield like a pair of rose-colored glasses blurring the world outside into a lovelier place. From my comfortable seat, I did not see the shadowy apartment buildings where dozens of poor families I knew dined on stale bread, nor did I notice the trash-strewn alleys where young children played jacks, unattended, while their mothers, as mine had, worked late into the night in the homes of the city’s elite. Instead, I let myself dream about what it might be like to live in Charles’s world, a place where life was handed to you, pressed and polished, on a platter.
Charles pulled over to the side of the road, leaning across the seat to peer out my window. I didn’t mind him hovering so close.
A Closed sign hung over the door of the club. “Rats,” he said. “Well, how about we just head over to the hotel instead? It’s a beautiful night. We can have dinner on the balcony of my parents’ suite.”
“Your parents’ suite?”
“Yes,” he said. “They do a lot of entertaining there. Father uses it a few nights a week when he works late and needs quiet. Or when he’s had it out with Mother, which happens more often these days.”
“Well, I guess,” I said shyly.
Charles drove to the entrance of the hotel, just a few blocks down the street, pulling the car into the circular drive, smooth as