Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [117]
“What? No! You two should come downstairs and have a round with us,” Mary said. “It’s not that late.”
“Sure!” Daniel said.
“No thank you,” Alice said.
“Oh, come on,” Mary said. “Let us buy you a drink.”
“You’re acting a bit big for your britches,” Alice hissed at her sister, echoing their father’s words of a few weeks earlier.
Mary frowned. “Am I?”
With that, Alice felt guilty. What had her sister done to her, really?
“Let’s go downstairs,” Mary said.
Down below was the Melody Lounge, a dim bar with booths along the wall, where Alice had allowed Martin McDonough to kiss her right out in the open one night over the summer, considering it her patriotic duty, since he would be heading to Germany the following day, though after a moment she had told him to stop.
Alice looked toward the table where Henry had been sitting. Naturally, her sister wouldn’t deign to introduce her to their sophisticated friends. She saw that once Mary was formally a part of that world, Alice herself would be invisible to her. New York was hours away. Why hadn’t Mary told her?
“I really can’t,” she said. “I’m going home now.”
“Oh, Alice!” Mary said.
Alice ignored her. She turned to Daniel. “Please get my coat.”
He looked crestfallen, but he did as she said.
She stood there with Mary and Henry in silence until he came back. Alice burned with embarrassment when Mary caught sight of her own mink hanging on Daniel’s arm, though neither of them said a word about it.
Alice put the coat on. “See you,” she said to them. She moved toward the exit without waiting for a reply. The crowd had grown even thicker now. Every table on the dine-and-dance floor was filled, and people stood in any empty corner or patch of space. It was near impossible to move. Daniel followed close behind, careful not to lose her in the throng.
“You should be nicer to your sister,” he said loudly, trying to be heard above the hubbub of voices and music and clinking glasses.
“You don’t know the first thing about it,” she said, pushing past a group of men in heated conversation.
“No, you’re right. I don’t,” he said. “Slow down, I’ll walk you.”
“Walk me? I’m all the way in Dorchester,” she said, still moving. “And anyway, I live with my parents and I’m a good girl, so forget whatever it is you had in mind.”
She knew he had nothing of the sort in mind, but she was spoiling for a fight.
She went through the revolving door and he followed. Outside, the air was frigid. Alice pulled the fur coat tight around her waist.
“I meant I’d walk you to a taxi,” he said. “You’re bound and determined not to like me, aren’t you, Alice Brennan?”
She grinned with closed lips.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said. “I’m sorry for—well, I’m not quite sure what. I guess another date is out of the question.”
“That’s right,” she said. Then, a little quieter, “Sorry for spoiling your evening.”
“You didn’t spoil anything,” he said. “The night’s still young. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go back in there and find myself a pretty girl to dance with.”
“You ought to,” she said.
He smiled goofily. “Shoot, I hoped that would make you jealous.”
Daniel raised his arm to hail a taxi for her. She looked at him and thought that she would probably never see him again and she didn’t much care. She was eager to get home. But just as a cab pulled to the curb, Alice saw Mary coming out of the club.
Daniel didn’t notice. He had opened the back door of the taxi and now stood there awkwardly, with his hand on the car’s roof.
“You take this one,” she said quickly. She didn’t need him hanging about while she and Mary argued. “I’ll get the next one that comes along.”
“No, I insist,” he said.
“Really, look, there’s another pulling up now, and it’s going in my direction.”
“You sure?” he asked.
Alice nodded. They said good night. She let him kiss her on the cheek. Then she watched him climb into the cab and ride off down Piedmont Street.
Mary was approaching. Alice held her breath.
“What got into you back there?” Mary asked when she reached her side. “Why did