Delancey Stewart - The Glittering Life Of Evie Mckenzie

Evie smiled. He had no idea how comfortable she was with just those types of people, and clubs would be nothing new to her. Her boyfriend, Roger, was the owner of a speakeasy on the east side, and she’d had a short interlude with another club proprietor, too. Despite the fact that she was only eighteen, and a sheltered debutante, Evie had a wealth of experience in just the types of situations Tobias was looking for. ‘I think I could manage it.’

Tobias stopped muttering and stared, surprise raising his eyebrows high. ‘All right. Let’s try ‘er out. Write me a column – something juicy that will get people’s wheels spinning; something you’d have to be an insider to know. Five hundred words? I’ll give you a week.’

‘But I shouldn’t put my name on it?’

‘Put a name on it, sure. Just not your real name. Got me? And if I were you, I wouldn’t mention this to anyone. You’d be surprised how people quiet down around you if they think you’ve got an agenda.’

Evie nodded slowly as she thought about what she was being asked to do. ‘What about payment?’

Tobias regarded her with amusement sparkling in his eyes, his head tilted to one side. ‘Drivin’ a hard bargain?’

‘No, I just believe that I should be compensated for my work. I came here looking for a job, sir. Not a hobby.’

‘Of course you did.’ Tobias stood up. ‘This one’s a trial run. If it works out, we’ll give ya fifty cents a column.’

Evie tried not to react. Though fifty cents was not a lot, it was also more than she’d ever made doing anything, and it sounded a lot like freedom to her. She gave Tobias a curt nod to let him know that would be acceptable.

‘All right, kid. Good luck.’ Tobias waved her off, and Evie picked up her bag and let herself out, her smile growing wider as she made her way through the noisy offices and back down to the car, where Buck waited.

‘Well?’ he asked.

She jumped up and down and squealed. ‘I have a job, Bucky!’ Then, as a thought crossed her mind, she stood still and made her voice small. ‘Please don’t tell Daddy.’

‘Should I even ask why, Miss Evie?’ Buck opened the door for her and they drove back up to the McKenzie home on the Upper East Side.

‘It’d probably be better if you didn’t.’

‘Oh dear.’

*****

‘Hello, darling.’ Evie’s mother had a knack for waiting just inside the door when Evie arrived home. Evie suspected that she could probably hear the car coming up the street. It wasn’t exactly quiet.

‘Mother.’ Evie couldn’t help but grin as she came inside. The chill March air clung to her coat and Buck pounded his hands on his thighs behind her, seeming to send puffs of cold off of him in clouds.

‘You look pleased.’ Mrs McKenzie looked worried as she said it, her lips pulling into a hard straight line and wrinkles appearing between her eyes.

‘And that makes you look worried,’ Evie said, hanging her coat. ‘I am happy, Mother. You should be happy, too.’

‘Why are we happy today?’

Buck passed them, heading for the kitchen, and Evie watched him go. He was a good friend to her. ‘No reason, Mother. It’s just a lovely day and I’m happy.’

Mrs McKenzie’s face relaxed. ‘Well, then I’m happy too.’ She turned to fuss with some things arranged on a shelf in the entry. As her hands moved over the shelf she said, ‘Evelyn, the Whites are coming for dinner. Please be ready at seven.’

‘That sounds lovely.’ Evie climbed the stairs to her own room, smiling at the thought of spending an evening with Roger. He had been at Yale for his last semester, but managed to return to the city almost every weekend to see her and to check in on his business. Evie sat on the edge of her bed, excited to tell him about her new job. But as she turned it over in her mind, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to. Mr Tobias had suggested that she couldn’t tell anyone. She sighed. It seemed Buck would be her sole conspirator, as he so often was.

Evelyn pulled open a book for school and tried to lose herself in Roman mythology, but found that her mind wouldn’t stay on her studies. As a new student at New York University, she felt she had a lot to prove – especially to her mother. But today she couldn’t focus. She was too excited. She pulled out a notebook instead, and began trying to think of a clever pseudonym for her column.

Chapter Two

Tug

Elizabeth ‘Tug’ Hadley leaned across the bar top, her gaze sweeping the small space before her. PJ and the boys were playing in the corner, their little trio throwing out notes that just a few years ago would have sounded cacophonous. Jazz had swept the city. The club was just beginning to fill up, and the little tables in the far corners held couples on dates, off-duty policemen and single men just looking to relax and unwind after a long week. To Tug, it was all perfect.

Ever since Roger and Chuck had asked her to manage their club, she’d felt like her life had found its rhythm. She would never be a debutante like her best friend Evie – not now, anyway – and her parents didn’t have enough money to quietly ignore her like Janie’s. No, she would have to be a different kind of woman altogether. The kind who made it on her own.

There had been a time when the idea of working at all would have been abhorrent – if not to her, then to her mother who essentially told her what to think about the world. Mrs Hadley had spent Tug’s childhood setting in place a fragile scaffolding that would allow her daughter to climb much higher than her own social standing had allowed her to do. She’d raised Tug to believe she would one day open her door to find the world delivered to her on a silver platter.

But those days were long since gone. Tug’s mother had taken Tug’s future with her when she’d left, and what Tug needed more than anything was for someone to believe in her ability to change, to redefine herself.

And Roger and Chuck had given her a shot.

‘You okay, Chuck? I’m going down to finish setting up our little experiment downstairs.’ Tug turned to the lanky blond man leaning across the bar top.

Chuck handed a drink to the red-cheeked man sitting alone at the end of the bar and shot Tug a smile. ‘I got it, Tug. You go ahead. I’ll be fine.’

‘I think Roger’s back. We should see him in a bit, so I want to make sure things are perfect.’ Tug pulled on her coat as she talked.

She cared what Roger thought. About her efforts at his club. And about her, too. It was pointless, really, and she knew it. She told herself every night just how ridiculous her crush was. But it didn’t seem to make a difference to her heart. Roger White was handsome and kind, successful and smart. He was exactly the kind of man she’d been raised to marry. And he was practically engaged to her best friend. ‘Let’s make sure we keep everything spic and span.’

‘I always do.’ Chuck sighed.

*****

Tug climbed up the stairs and let herself out onto the street, glancing around out of habit. The club, a small speakeasy called Evie’s, had been raided a few times since she’d been managing the place. But they’d never run into any real trouble. And part of the reason for that was the clever system Roger had worked out to drop the liquor off the shelf at the quick pull of a switch. The downside to his system was that the bottles dropped a full story into the basement below the bar, shattering on impact. The basement had never been discovered by the authorities, since it didn’t physically link to the building under which it sat. And according to public record, the building where Evie’s operated had no basement. Tug suspected that oversight had been achieved by Roger’s ability to charm people and to grease official palms when needed.