Fine clothing eased many pains. Tonight’s dress was a year old but a new favorite: rich yellow silk, embroidered with a thousand tiny pearls across a sheer bodice that rose almost to her throat. She seldom wore dresses with much décolletage, as, on her, low necklines had little to say. In back the dress dived eloquently toward her waist, and the skirt’s narrow drapery fell to just above her calves. With it she wore stockings clocked in the French fashion, caring not a jot that few Americans had yet embraced the style.
“Made in Mayfair,” she confided, flinging yet more discretion out the window like a prewar corset. “More or less.”
Julia’s smile deepened as she qualified her frock’s provenance. She was sworn to secrecy but couldn’t wait to share the compliment with Christophine. Technically her maid and housekeeper, Christophine was infinitely more dear than that, less a lifelong employee than something between a sister and an aunt. And she was a blur of talent with needle and thread; she’d modified this very dress just yesterday to pass an idle afternoon. She’d adjusted the neckline, tapered the hem, and added a thin undulating trail of satin down one hip, which caught the light when Julia moved. The effect was subtle and surprising, and she adored it. How glorious that this stranger had noticed. Who was she?
The turbaned woman said her name so quietly that Julia had to watch her lips to catch the words: Eva Pruitt. They spoke of fashion lightly, as one did, plumbing each other’s interests and tastes. Talk soon spiraled into cries of “Yes!” about the latest marvels out of Paris and Milan. Julia began to itch with curiosity. Was this regal beauty simply another avid patron or something more? She finally had to ask: Was she a model or perhaps even a designer herself? To her surprise Eva Pruitt said she adored fine clothes and indulged when she could, but no, she had no connection to the fashion world. She was a writer.
Julia blinked. She took pride in her ability to spot writers in a crowd. They were usually as obvious as artists. She had seen at once that this party was full of writers, as Pablo had promised. It was only left to learn which carousing fellow might be the young Fitzgerald, and if indeed that was Dreiser slumped in the velvet armchair, lost in Scotch and all that melancholy. Was the remarkable Miss Millay about, perhaps in another room? But Eva Pruitt’s placid beauty had fooled Julia. She was nothing like the woman writers Julia knew in London, who were either fashionably unkempt in trousers and their lovers’ bowlers or unfashionably so—dowdy in indifferent hats and ancient frocks.
“You too?” Eva asked. She gazed at the Salome Julia cradled against her waist. Curiosity swam in her eyes. “One of yours?”
Julia could almost hear the great Wilde’s mirth at this confusion, but not, unfortunately, the witticism that would follow. She fumbled for some fraction of the cleverness the moment deserved, until she saw the gleam in Eva’s eyes. They shone droll and mysterious, as if she had laid a tarot card on the table and it was Julia’s turn to interpret it. Perhaps there was no confusion, only a riddle. Some kind of merry enigma beckoned from Eva’s sphinxlike smile.
Julia felt her calves tense for balance, as if she’d been buffeted by a sudden thrilling gust. Had she found, so quickly, her first author? Or rather, had this extraordinary woman found her?
Like most restless females prowling most parties’ smoky rooms, Julia was on the hunt. Her quarry, however, was not men but writers, preferably poets. She was a printer, proprietor of a small press devoted to finely printed limited editions. Few in New York knew of her private Capriole Press, but that would soon change. Once she was settled, she would announce herself with a suitable splash.
Julia wavered. She might be hunting for prospective authors, but writers were forever hunting for publishers. It was a subtle game. Tempted as she was to declare herself, she needed to know more about Eva Pruitt, and any other writers she might yet discover tonight, before showing her hand. Better to hold her cards close for a little while longer.
Julia shook her head. No, not a writer. “But I know someone who fancies a go at detective stories.” She intended to feign a glance about, as if Willard Wright, the sole (thus far) author she knew in New York, lurked somewhere amid the room’s stew of chatter, but found she could not drag her eyes from the flawless face watching her in return.
“Everyone’s a writer these days,” Eva said. “Pablo collects us.” She eyed Julia as if she were the more exotic creature. (She was not.)
Julia asked what kinds of things she wrote.
Eva smiled. In a soft, conspiratorial lilt, she said she’d recently completed her first novel. Like every other writer in the room, Eva said, she was hoping to catch a publisher’s eye. Pablo had been sweet about it; he’d promised to put in a good word for her with his friend Arthur Goldsmith. That Arthur Goldsmith, her gaze confirmed. The eminent publisher. She lifted her hand to show two crossed fingers.
Julia mirrored the crossed fingers and dropped her voice to an equally private register. She asked Eva what her book was about.
Shifting her gaze to the open door of the bookcase between them, Eva began to describe her novel in slow, thoughtful spurts. It was drawn, she said, from her experiences working at Carlotta’s—a cabaret, she explained when she realized Julia did not recognize the name. With each languid sentence, an entrancing
