The Diviners (3 page)

They passed a horse and buggy on its way to one of the farms just outside town. It seemed quaint and out of place. Or maybe she was the thing that was out of place here.

“Evie,” her father said in his soft voice. “What happened at the party, pet?”

The party. It had been swell at first. She and Louise and Dottie in their finery. Dottie had lent Evie her rhinestone headache band, and it looked so spiffy resting across Evie’s soft curls. They’d enjoyed a spirited but meaningless debate about the trial of Mr. Scopes in Tennessee the year before and the whole idea that the lot of humanity was descended from apes. “I don’t find it hard to believe in the slightest,” Evie had said, cutting her eyes flirtatiously at the college boys who’d just sung a rousing twelfth round of “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” Everyone was drunk and happy. And Harold came around with his flattery.

“
Hello, ma baby; hello, ma honey; hello ma Evie gal,
” he sang and bowed at her feet.

Harry was handsome and terribly charming and, despite what she’d said earlier, a swell kisser. If Harry liked a girl, that girl got noticed. Evie liked being noticed, especially when she was drinking. Harry was engaged-to-be-engaged to Norma Wallingford. He wasn’t in love with Norma—Evie knew that—but he was in love with her bank account, and everyone knew they’d marry when he graduated from college. Still, he wasn’t married yet.

“Did I tell you that I have special powers?” Evie had asked after her third drink.

Harry smiled. “I can see that.”

“I am quite serious,” she slurred, too tipsy not to take his dare. “I can tell your secrets simply by holding an object dear to you and concentrating on it.” There were polite chuckles among the partygoers. Evie fixed them with a defiant stare, her blue eyes glittering under heavily kohled lashes. “I am pos-i-
tute
-ly serious.”

“You’re pos-i-tute-ly lit, is what you are, Evie O’Neill,” Dottie shouted.

“I’ll prove it. Norma, give me something—scarf, hat pin, glove.”

“I’m not giving you anything. I might not get it back.” Norma laughed.

Evie narrowed her eyes. “Yes, how smart you are, Norma. I am starting a collection of only right-hand gloves. It’s ever so bourgeois to have two.”

“Well, you certainly wouldn’t want to do anything
ordinary
, would you, Evie?” Norma said, showing her teeth. Everyone laughed, and Evie’s cheeks went hot.

“No, I leave that to you, Norma.” Evie brushed her hair away from her face, but it sprang back into her eyes. “Come to think of it, your secrets would probably put us to sleep.”

“Fine,” Harold had said before things could get really heated. “Here’s my class ring. Tell me my deep, dark secrets, Madame O’Neill.”

“Brave man, giving a girl like Evie your ring-ski,” someone shouted.

“Quiet,
s’il vous plaît
-ski!” Evie commanded with a dramatic flair to her voice. She concentrated, waiting for the object to warm in her hands. Sometimes it happened and sometimes it did not, and she hoped on the soul of Rudolph Valentino that this would be one of those times it took. Later, she’d have a headache from the effort—that was the downside to her little gift—but that’s
what gin was for. She’d numbed herself a bit already, anyway. Evie opened one eye a slit. They were all watching her. They were watching, and nothing was happening.

Chuckling, Harry reached for his ring. “All right, old girl. You’ve had your fun. Time for a little sobering up.”

She wrenched her hands away. “I
will
uncover your secrets—just you wait and see!” There were few things worse than being ordinary, in Evie’s opinion. Ordinary was for suckers. Evie wanted to be special. A bright star. She didn’t care if she got the most awful headache in the history of skull-bangers. Shutting her eyes tightly, she pressed the ring against her palms. It grew much warmer, unlocking its secrets for her. Her smile spread. She opened her eyes.

“Harry, you naughty boy…”

Everyone pressed closer, interested.

Harold laughed uncomfortably. “What do you mean?”

“Room twenty-two at the hotel. That pretty chambermaid… L… El… Ella! Ella! You gave her a big wad of kale and told her to take care of it.”

Norma moved closer. “What’s this about, Harry?”

Harry’s mouth was tight. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Evangeline. Show’s over. I’ll have my ring back now.”

If Evie had been sober, she might have stopped. But the gin made her foolishly brave. She tsk-tsked him with her fingers. “You knocked her up, you bad boy.”

“Harold, is that true?”

Harold Brodie’s face was red. “That’s enough, Evie! This isn’t funny any longer.”

“Harold?” Norma Wallingford.

“She’s lying, sweetheart.” Harold, reassuring.

Evie stood and did a little Charleston on the table. “That’s not what your ring says, pal.”

Harold grabbed for Evie and she squeaked out of reach, grabbing a tumbler from someone’s hand. “Holy moly! It’s a raid! A Harold Brodie raid! Run for your lives!”

Dottie had grabbed the ring and given it back to Harry. Then she and Louise had practically dragged Evie outside. “Sister, you are blotto. Let’s go.”

“I remain unflapper-able in the face of advuss… advarse… trouble. Oh, we’re moving. Wheee! Where are we going?”

“To sober you up,” Dottie said, tossing Evie into the freezing fountain.

Later, after several cups of coffee, Evie lay shivering in her wet party dress under a blanket in a darkened corner of the ladies’ lounge. Dottie and Louise had gone to find her some aspirin, and, alone and hidden, she eavesdropped as two girls stood before the gilt-framed mirrors gossiping about the row Harold and Norma had gotten into.

“It’s all that awful Evie O’Neill’s fault. You know how she is.”

“She never knows when to let well enough alone.”

“Well, she’s really done it this time. She’s finished in this town. Norma will see to that.”

Evie waited till she heard them leave, then moved to the mirror. Her mascara had left big black splotches under her eyes, and her damp curls drooped. Her wretched headache was really kicking up its heels in earnest. She looked as messy as she felt. She wished she could cry, but crying wouldn’t help anything.

Harold burst in, closing the door behind him and holding it shut. “How did you find out?” he growled, grabbing her arm.

“I t-told you. I g-got it from your—”

His hand tightened around her arm. “Stop fooling around and tell me how you know! Norma’s threatening to leave me thanks to your little party trick. I demand a public apology to clear my name.”

She felt woozy and sick, the aftereffects of her object reading. It was like a mean drunk followed by the worst hangover you could imagine. Harold Brodie wasn’t a charming, good-time playboy, she now realized. He was a cad and a coward. The last thing she was going to do was apologize to somebody like that.

“G-go chase yourself, Harry.”

Dottie and Louise pounded on the door from the other side. “Evie? Evie! Open up!”

Harold let go of her arm. Evie could feel a bruise starting. “This isn’t over, Evangeline. Your father owes his business to my father. You might want to reconsider that apology.”

Evie threw up all over Harold Brodie.

“Evie?” her father prompted now, bringing her back to the moment.

She rubbed her aching head. “It was nothing, Pop. I’m sorry you caught hell for it.”

He didn’t take her to task for saying
hell
.

At the station, her father left the engine idling long enough to see her to the platform. He tipped the porter to take her trunks, and made sure they would be delivered to her uncle’s apartment in New York. Evie carried only her small plaid valise and a beaded handbag.

“Well,” her father said, glancing down at the idling convertible. He passed her a ten-spot, which Evie tucked into the ribbon of her gray felt cloche. “Just a little pin money.”

“Thanks, Pop.”

“I’m no good with good-byes. You know that.”

Evie forced a devil-may-care smile. “Sure. It’s jake, Pop. I’m seventeen, not seven. I’ll be just fine.”

“Well.”

They stood awkwardly on the wooden platform.

“Better not let the breezer leave without you,” she said, nodding toward the convertible.

Her father kissed her lightly on the forehead and, with a final admonishment to the porter, drove away. As the Lincoln shrank to a point down the road, Evie felt a pang of sadness, and something else. Dread. That was the word. Some unknowable, unnameable fear. She’d been feeling it for months, ever since the dreams began.

“Man, I got those heebie jeebie blues,” Evie said softly and shivered.

A pair of Blue Noses on the next bench glared their disapproval at Evie’s knee-length dress. Evie decided to give them a real show. She hiked her skirt and, humming jauntily, rolled down her stockings, exposing her legs. It had the desired effect on the Blue Noses, who moved down the platform, clucking about the “disgrace of the young.” She would not miss this place.

A cream coupe swerved dangerously up the road and came to a stop below, just narrowly missing the platform. Two smartly dressed girls stepped out. Evie grinned and waved wildly. “Dottie! Louise!”

“We heard you were leaving and wanted to come see you off,” Louise said, climbing over the railing.

“Good news travels fast.”

“In this town? Like lightning.”

“It’s swell. I’m too big for Zenith, Ohio, anyway. In New York, they’ll understand me. I’m going to be written up in all the papers and get invited to the Fitzgeralds’ flat for cocktails. After all, my mother’s a Fitzgerald. We must be related
somewhere
.”

“Speaking of cocktails…” Grinning, Dottie retrieved what looked like an innocent aspirin bottle from her pocketbook. It was
half-filled with clear liquid. “Here. Just a little giggle water to see you through. Sorry it couldn’t be more, but my father marks the bottles now.”

“Oh, and a copy of
Photoplay
from the beauty parlor. Aunt Mildred won’t miss it,” Louise added.

Evie’s eyes pricked with tears. “You don’t mind being seen with the town pariah?”

Louise and Dottie managed weak smiles—confirmation that Evie
was
the town pariah, but still, they’d come.

“You are absolute angels of the first order. If I were Pope, I’d canonize you.”

“The Pope would probably love to turn a cannon on you!”

“New York City!” Louise twirled her long rope of beads. “Norma Wallingford will eat herself to bits with envy. She’s sore as hell about your little stunt.” Dottie giggled. “Spill: How’d you really find out about Harold and the chambermaid?”

Evie’s smile faltered for a moment. “Just a lucky guess.”

“But—”

“Oh, look! Here comes the train,” Evie said, cutting off any further inquiry. She hugged them tightly, grateful for this last kindness. “Next time you see me, I’ll be famous! And I’ll drive you all over Zenith in my chauffeured sedan.”

“Next time we see you, you’ll be on trial for some ingenious crime!” Dottie said with a laugh.

Evie grinned. “Just as long as they know my name.”

A blue-uniformed porter hurried people aboard. Evie settled into her compartment. It was stuffy, and she stood on the seat in her green silk-satin Mary Janes to open the window.

“Help you with that, Miss?” another porter, a younger man, offered.

Evie looked up at him through lashes she had tinted with cake
mascara that morning and offered him the full power of her Coty-red smile. “Oh, would you, honey? That’d be swell.”

“You heading to New York, Miss?”

“Mm-hmm, that’s right. I won a Miss Bathing Beauty contest, and now I’m going to New York to be photographed for
Vanity Fair
.”

“Isn’t that something?”

“Isn’t it, just?” Evie fluttered her eyelashes. “The window?”

The young man released the latches and slid the window down easily. “There you are!”

“Why, thank you,” Evie purred. She was on her way. In New York, she could be anyone she chose to be. It was a big city—just the place for big dreamers who needed to shine brightly.