Read Online The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine - Free Book Online Page A

dark.” Then he frowned. “Is it no good?”
    â€œOh, no,” she said. “It’s lovely. I could hardly tell.”
    The first thing she felt was a sharp stab, a sudden loss.
    The second thing she felt was relief.
    By the time she got back to the table, Jo had hold of herself. The future had narrowed until it was only Lou and Ella and Doris waiting for sips of champagne so they could cool off for a moment before going out to dance.
    It was lucky. It was the luckiest strike in the world she hadn’t had a chance to get carried away over some boy. If dancing was going to go to her head, she’d sit things out until she was less foolish.
    Two weeks after that, Lou sat out a waltz with her. Doris was at the bar, trying to get a drink out of Jake with what looked like a presidential address, and Jo and Lou were alone.
    â€œGo on,” Lou said. “That milk truck is never coming back.”
    Jo had never mentioned him. Still, no surprise Lou had seen. They kept sharp eyes out for each other.
    â€œIt’s probably not a good idea,” she said.
    She had to keep control of herself. Everything depended on her.
    Lou frowned. “You might as well dance,” she said. “Unless you want to sit here and get old.”
    She wondered if Lou was being cruel or kind. With Lou you could never tell.
    (Jo had kept a canvas bag packed, just in case one night she got up the nerve to be free.
    Long after Tom disappeared, Jo kept the bag, a reminder that a Hamilton girl should never take a man at his word.)
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    Jo didn’t dance much after that.
    Even in those first wild years she spent out dancing, with Lou and Ella and Doris, she’d never danced like they had, a T-strap seared onto the tops of their feet like a brand. She’d never gone so wild for a dance that men started to remark, or that she’d lost track of what time it was.
    She’d never gone overboard, except the once; she didn’t dare get taken off guard again.
    Sometimes a girl would drag a young man to the table and say, “General, you must dance, truly, he’s divine.”
    Jo would give in for a waltz, and they would say he must have been something if she was willing to break her rules and dance.
    It got easier just to have rules that never broke.
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    Once, Rebecca asked the others if they thought Jo was just embarrassed because her dancing wasn’t very good.
    â€œWatch it,” said Lou.
    No one asked after that. Lou was the other sister not to be crossed.
    Lily had asked Jo for a tango once or twice, with no luck, but Lily had a feeling Jo was holding back. Jo could teach the lead perfectly; you didn’t come by that by accident.
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    Jo hadn’t danced at all in three years.
    Every night they snuck out, the sisters slid on their spangles and their pearls and their sequined headbands, a tumble of girls against the two good mirrors.
    (“Sophie,” Hattie snapped, “those are my good shoes, you sneak!”
    â€œI need them! The colonel stepped on the others.”
    Three of them groaned.)
    Jo, who put on her lipstick in the reflection of her bedroom window, felt that sometimes, even this close, her sisters were like a foreign country whose language was always changing before she could learn it.
    All night they beat feet with this fellow or that, and Jo waited quietly in the corner, keeping an eye out, just in case.
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    It was only ever when they pulled up in front of the Kingfisher that Jo felt she was home.
    It was home when the men raced out to greet them, five men escorting the girls across the pavement, ready to offer in case any of the princesses wanted carrying.
    It was home when Jake had a tray of drinks ready as soon as they took a seat. (Lou gave him a smile that sent him pink at the temples.)
    It was home when the girls buckled their shoes and slid their bangles up their arms