The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [128]
“See what fun they’re all havin’,” O’Hara said loudly, “and all courtesy of yours truly.”
“But there are no drinks on the table,” she said, surprised, “only cups of tea.”
O’Hara winked broadly. “Sure and it’s O’Hara’s special tea they’re drinkin’,” he said in a loud voice as the head-waiter whisked them to a corner table.
“Can I get you something, sir?” he asked with a smile.
O’Hara looked at Missie and said, “We had champagne the last time we met, so why don’t we make it a habit?”
“Why not?” she replied recklessly. Life felt good today, and anyway it was time for a celebration. She was going to be a Ziegfeld girl and make a hundred and fifty dollars a week. She told herself she would be doing it for Azaylee, but a secret part of her was enjoying the idea of being Ziegfeld’s new star. And she wouldn’t be in the least bit sorry to see the back of Rivington Street’s grinding poverty, except for Rosa, of course, and Zev … Zev! Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh.” She gasped. “I completely forgot. I was to meet Zev Abramski at eight o’clock.”
“Zev Abramski?” O’Hara repeated, puzzled. He frowned as she explained that she saw him Sunday nights at the Ukrainian café.
“We just have supper together, it’s very simple,” she explained quickly. “I mean, it’s nothing like this, like you and me having supper here tonight. He’s just … just Zev Abramski,” she finished lamely.
“And what might you and he have in common, then?” he asked jealously. “Maybe you owe him money and he takes you out as a form of repayment?”
Missie’s eyes flashed as she leaned across the table toward him. “How dare you, Shamus O’Hara,” she whispered angrily. “Zev Abramski is a fine man and an honest one, and besides, we have a lot more in common than you think.”
She sat back, thinking sadly of Zev, waiting for her at their table at the café, and hating herself for forgetting. I’ll explain it all to him tomorrow, she promised herself, and I’ll make it up to him next week; I won’t forget again. She looked at O’Hara smoldering on the other side of the table and laughed.
“Whenever we meet, we fight,” she said. “It must be your Irish temper.”
“Sure and it’s not me Irish temper,” he boomed, banging his fist on the table so that the cups jumped. “It’s your pig-headedness in not marrying me.”
“I’ll bet if I did marry you,” she teased, “we would fight every night. You would still see things your way and I would see them mine. You would probably keep me locked up in your fancy house and expect me to cook and clean and bear your babies, just the way they did in the old country.”
She laughed at his shocked face as he said anxiously, “Missie, I would niver do that! I’m a man of principles, and even though they don’t extend to the selling of hooch, I’d niver treat me wife like that.”
She sighed exaggeratedly. “What a pity you’re not going to get a chance to try.”
O’Hara groaned and poured more champagne. “Give a man a break, Missie, will you? I leave you struggling in Rivington Street and a couple of months later, you’re a different girl.”
“I am?” she asked, astonished.
“That you are, Missie,” he replied solemnly, “but I still want you for me wife.”
“Ask me again in a year’s time,” she said suddenly, “and I’ll give you an answer.”
He took her hand and held it tightly. “One year?”
“One year,” she promised.
He smiled and said happily, “It’ll be the longest of me life.”
“Oh, no,” she replied, sighing happily. “This time, it won’t be.” Because for her, this time the year promised to fly by.
At twelve o’clock the next morning Madame Elise accompanied Missie to the New Amsterdam Theater. The auditorium with its gleaming gilt boxes was dark and mysterious; the safety curtain was covered with dozens of colorful advertisements for pomades and potions, sheet music, stores, and