“You’ll never guess what I can do,” Evie said brightly as they finished a round of “If You Knew Susie.” “I’ll give you a hint: It’s like a magic trick, only better.” Ronnie paused his fingers on the strings of the ukulele. She had their attention now, and she liked it. “I can read secrets from just any old thing. Boop-boop-a-ding-dong… ding-dong.”
Theta swiped Evie’s glass and sniffed it.
“Really, I can! Here.” She reached over and grabbed a girl’s earring, ignoring her protests. For dramatic effect, Evie pressed the earring against her forehead. For a moment she hesitated—what if she heard that horrible whistling, like she had with Ruta Badowski? But the second she thought that, the more determined she was to take that image from under the bridge right out of her mind, and soon the earring gave up its confessions. “Your real name is Bertha. You changed it to Billie before you moved here from… Delaware?”
The girl’s mouth opened. She clapped in glee. “Well, isn’t that just the berries! Oh, do something of Ronnie’s!”
Evie went from person to person, grabbing up little tidbits, getting better as she went. “Your birthday is June first and your best girl’s name is Mae.” “For dinner, you went to Sardi’s and had the corned beef.” “You have a parakeet named Gladys.”
“Say, that’s swell—you oughta have an act, kid!” Ronnie the ukulele player said.
“I will have an act!” Evie said loudly, letting the gin do the talking. “I’ll turn my living room into a salon, and every night, people will come up and I’ll tell them what they had to eat. All the columns will write me up. I’ll be the Sandwich Swami.”
Everyone laughed, and their laughter tucked itself around Evie like the warmest of blankets. This was the best city in the world, and Evie was diving right into the thick of it now. Within the hour, she’d gotten a read from about a dozen objects, and she was positively woozy. The hour was late—or early, depending on how you read it. Some fella had wrapped his striped tie around her head and tied it off in a half bow. Mabel had fallen asleep on the sofa. The hostess had left a tray of sandwiches balanced on Mabel’s stomach, and from time to time a partygoer would stagger by and steal one. Near her feet, a passionate couple embraced in a never-ending lip-lock.
Henry settled next to Evie. “Say, sugar, that’s some party trick you’ve got. Tell me the truth: You were a magician’s assistant.”
“Uh-uh,” Evie said, grinning.
“Well, how did you learn how to do that?” Henry pressed. “Have you always been able to…” He put his fingers on her forehead and mimed reading her thoughts, making Evie laugh. She was drunk enough to tell him the truth, but some tiny voice inside told her not to. The evening had been so perfect. What if it turned sour, like the last party?
“A lady never tells,” Evie slurred.
Henry seemed like he was on the verge of asking her something else. Evie could feel it. But then he got that smirk again. “Of course she doesn’t.”
“Do you want me to tell you your secrets, Henry?”
“No thanks, darlin’. I love living in suspense. Besides, if I told myself all my secrets, I’d lose my mystery.” He raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips like John Barrymore in Don Juan, and Evie felt she’d made the right call.
She giggled. “I like you, Henry.”
“I like you, too, Evil.”
“Are we pals-ski?”
“You bet-ski.”
Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. “I’m embalmed.”
“Potted and splificated?”
“Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night.”
“Whatever you say, baby vamp.”
“Theta.” Evie waved a finger in Theta’s general direction. “You didn’t let me tell your secrets.”
Theta wavered for a minute, but she was too drunk to say no. “Here ya go, Evil,” she said, passing over an onyx bracelet shaped like a jaguar. “My birthday is February twenty-third, and I had one of those limp sandwiches in the kitchen for dinner a million hours ago.”
Evie squeezed the bracelet and felt an overpowering sensation of sadness, and a trace of fear. She saw Theta running in the dead of night, her dress torn and her face a wreck. Theta was afraid, so very afraid.
Evie had to let go. When she opened her eyes, Theta was looking at her strangely, and all Evie could see was the other Theta, the scared girl running for her life. “S-sorry. I couldn’t get anything,” Evie lied.