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Harold burst in, closing the door behind him and holding it shut. “How did you find out?” he growled, grabbing her arm.

“I t-told you. I g-got it from your—”Advertisement

His hand tightened around her arm. “Stop fooling around and tell me how you know! Norma’s threatening to leave me thanks to your little party trick. I demand a public apology to clear my name.”

She felt woozy and sick, the aftereffects of her object reading. It was like a mean drunk followed by the worst hangover you could imagine. Harold Brodie wasn’t a charming, good-time playboy, she now realized. He was a cad and a coward. The last thing she was going to do was apologize to somebody like that.

“G-go chase yourself, Harry.”

Dottie and Louise pounded on the door from the other side. “Evie? Evie! Open up!”

Harold let go of her arm. Evie could feel a bruise starting. “This isn’t over, Evangeline. Your father owes his business to my father. You might want to reconsider that apology.”

Evie threw up all over Harold Brodie.

“Evie?” her father prompted now, bringing her back to the moment.

She rubbed her aching head. “It was nothing, Pop. I’m sorry you caught hell for it.”

He didn’t take her to task for saying hell.

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At the station, her father left the engine idling long enough to see her to the platform. He tipped the porter to take her trunks, and made sure they would be delivered to her uncle’s apartment in New York. Evie carried only her small plaid valise and a beaded handbag.

“Well,” her father said, glancing down at the idling convertible. He passed her a ten-spot, which Evie tucked into the ribbon of her gray felt cloche. “Just a little pin money.”

“Thanks, Pop.”

“I’m no good with good-byes. You know that.”

Evie forced a devil-may-care smile. “Sure. It’s jake, Pop. I’m seventeen, not seven. I’ll be just fine.”

“Well.”

They stood awkwardly on the wooden platform.

“Better not let the breezer leave without you,” she said, nodding toward the convertible.

Her father kissed her lightly on the forehead and, with a final admonishment to the porter, drove away. As the Lincoln shrank to a point down the road, Evie felt a pang of sadness, and something else. Dread. That was the word. Some unknowable, unnameable fear. She’d been feeling it for months, ever since the dreams began.

“Man, I got those heebie jeebie blues,” Evie said softly and shivered.

A pair of Blue Noses on the next bench glared their disapproval at Evie’s knee-length dress. Evie decided to give them a real show. She hiked her skirt and, humming jauntily, rolled down her stockings, exposing her legs. It had the desired effect on the Blue Noses, who moved down the platform, clucking about the “disgrace of the young.” She would not miss this place.

A cream coupe swerved dangerously up the road and came to a stop below, just narrowly missing the platform. Two smartly dressed girls stepped out. Evie grinned and waved wildly. “Dottie! Louise!”

“We heard you were leaving and wanted to come see you off,” Louise said, climbing over the railing.

“Good news travels fast.”

“In this town? Like lightning.”

“It’s swell. I’m too big for Zenith, Ohio, anyway. In New York, they’ll understand me. I’m going to be written up in all the papers and get invited to the Fitzgeralds’ flat for cocktails. After all, my mother’s a Fitzgerald. We must be related somewhere.”

“Speaking of cocktails…” Grinning, Dottie retrieved what looked like an innocent aspirin bottle from her pocketbook. It was half-filled with clear liquid. “Here. Just a little giggle water to see you through. Sorry it couldn’t be more, but my father marks the bottles now.”

“Oh, and a copy of Photoplay from the beauty parlor. Aunt Mildred won’t miss it,” Louise added.

Evie’s eyes pricked with tears. “You don’t mind being seen with the town pariah?”

Louise and Dottie managed weak smiles—confirmation that Evie was the town pariah, but still, they’d come.

“You are absolute angels of the first order. If I were Pope, I’d canonize you.”

“The Pope would probably love to turn a cannon on you!”

“New York City!” Louise twirled her long rope of beads. “Norma Wallingford will eat herself to bits with envy. She’s sore as hell about your little stunt.” Dottie giggled. “Spill: How’d you really find out about Harold and the chambermaid?” pqdm.com