Clara looked to the exit, hoping they could sidle their way out.
“My dear Oliver!”
A skinny older woman snapped her head in between them, blinking hard at Oliver. Her dusky fur, which hung loosely over her shoulders, was the same color as her hair, and the overall effect was that of a posh ferret.
Oliver opened his mouth to reply, but the woman spoke first. “Mr. Campbell and I were wondering if you were going to appear. Where have you been gadding about these days, and with whom?” She peered at Clara. “I get my answer right off. You are an artist, I’m guessing.”
“How did you know?” asked Clara.
“The smudge of something on your cheek and on your hands. We’ve been worried about our Oliver, slumming in the Village.” She chuckled. “Oh, ignore me, I’m being a silly goose.”
Clara swiped at her cheek and glared at Oliver.
“Now, Oliver, my dear nephew, we must see you more often up in Rye.” She droned on about an upcoming race at the yacht club while Clara fumed. Finally, the woman sauntered off.
“Why didn’t you tell me I had paint on my face?” Clara growled. “Bad enough I’m not dressed correctly.”
She turned to go, but he took her hand and pulled her up a small staircase to where the organ sat. The organist was packing up his music and barely regarded them before slipping away.
She stomped away from Oliver, staring down over the balcony.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for making you feel awkward. That wasn’t my intention at all. I just wanted you to see this place. To share it with you. I wanted to impress you with the room. Not the people.”
“Oh, please. You’re one of them. Why bother pretending to be a poor poet?”
“I’m not pretending anything. I don’t want to be known for this.” He gestured out over the crowd. “I want my work to stand on its own.”
“Why poetry?”
“Why art?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Because I have a passion for it and I can make money doing it. Or so I thought.”
“What’s got you stuck?”
“I don’t have connections. I can’t seem to break in.”
“And I can’t break out.” He looked dejected, beat. “I’d rather be like Walt Whitman, a workingman, than an overeducated twit who loves verse.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Your idea of being a workingman is taking off your clothes in front of a bunch of artists.”
“If that means I can meet people like Levon Zakarian and Sebastian Standish, then yes. Unfortunately, that crowd doesn’t let in outsiders easily. Especially not guys like me.”
He had a point. They were a caustic, judgmental bunch. Herself included.
Oliver touched her hand. “I loved watching you teach. I never know what you’ll say or do next. You’re brimming with confidence, and that’s not something you see every day in a gal. Do you happen to be in the market for a muse?”
She tried not to smile. “They tend not to come to very good ends, you know. Artists are a fickle lot.”
“I can hold my own.”
“Can you?”
He leaned in and kissed her. Having never been kissed before, she was eager to see what the fuss was all about.
They were about the same height, and at first it felt strange, like kissing a mirror image, but he pulled her to him and explored her mouth with his tongue. It was glorious, the sensations and the wetness of their mouths, the quiet moans. The warmth of his touch was all too accessible through the thin fabric of her dress.
But her mother’s admonition to be careful, spoken in a hushed voice up in Clara’s bedroom the evening before her trip east, stuck in her head. She pulled away, laughing.
He looked hurt.
“I’m not laughing at you; that was marvelous,” she said.
“Then why laugh?”
“Because I’ve never met anyone like you before. You are so beautiful.”
His mouth turned down. “You keep saying that.”
“It’s the truth. You belong with some pretty little child, one of my witless students, perhaps. Not with me.”
“Why don’t you see us together? I can help you.”
She regarded him. “What do you want from me in return?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He kissed her again, pulling away just as the heat began to build. “Say, there is one thing.”
“I knew it.”
“Will you go to the May Ball with me tomorrow night?”
Clara imagined showing up on Oliver’s arm, returning to the scene of last week’s humiliation with her head held high.
And said yes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
May 1928
Clara had planned on wearing her nicest frock to the May Ball, a sensible two-piece crepe de Chine, the same one she’d worn to the exhibit a little over a week ago. But that morning, Oliver rang her apartment and offered to buy her something special. “My first role as muse,” he’d said with a laugh. She considered his offer. The tepid reception at the Campbell Apartment still rankled Clara, and tonight she wanted to shine, to show Mr. Lorette and Levon and the rest of them that she was someone to be taken seriously.
A new dress would help.
She’d expected a trip to Wanamaker or Lord & Taylor, but Oliver brought her to a small shop on Fifth Avenue with the name PEGGY HOYT on the window.
Clara steeled herself before entering. Peggy Hoyt was a marvel at gown design, far beyond the reach of any starving artist. Peggy Hoyt gowns got mentioned in the social columns of the newspapers with regularity. The women who wore them were all dolled up in diamonds and smug smiles, knowing they counted in the world.
To her surprise, there were no dresses in sight. It was as if they’d stepped inside someone’s dark, quiet living room, with thick silk curtains and a rose-covered chaise angled toward a marble fireplace.
A middle-aged woman wearing a simple black suit appeared from a back room. She greeted Oliver warmly and offered a kind smile to Clara. “Miss Hoyt sent her apologies, but she’s in Paris this week. I told her I’d take good care of you, though.”
“You’re too kind, Mrs. Fletcher, and Clara and I appreciate your accommodating us on such short notice.” Oliver was quite the man-about-town, comfortable in his own skin and as elegant as Mr. Campbell. No wonder he’d been rejected by the hard-nosed poets of Greenwich Village as a dandy. A dire mismatch of personality and profession.
Mrs. Fletcher guided Clara to the back of the shop.
“You have the perfect figure for a Peggy Hoyt dress, I have to say.” She began pulling gowns from a rack. “Long and lean.”
Clara shook her head. “I’m far too tall. I doubt any of them will fit me.” When she was sixteen and still squeezing into too-small clothes, as there was no money to replace them, she’d stolen a pair of stable hand’s overalls to work in the vegetable garden. The freedom of movement exhilarated her, as did the fact that she could finally take a deep breath without feeling pinched in the waist. Until her mother had caught sight of her and howled like a coyote and Clara retreated inside to change.
Mrs. Fletcher responded with a reassuring smile. “We’ll find the right thing, don’t you worry. In fact, there’s one gown in particular that I think will look smashing on you. Here it is.”
She held up an aquamarine silk with a chiffon overlay embroidered with copper-colored thread. The threading extended in a peacock feather design from just below the waist to the hem of the dress, where gold and silver beading formed the eyes of each feather. A similar beading adorned the neckline, rendering a necklace superfluous.
Clara prayed for it to fit. It did, the inner lining slipping over her hips with ease, the hem brushing just below her knees.
“It’s perfect.” She’d been holding her breath since spying it in Mrs. Fletcher’s arms, and her voice came out in an unladylike exhale.