The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (14 page)

Anna sat before a toilet table, wrapped in a robe, still damp from the bath. She tilted her head and purred as Clara brushed her hair until it shone, her scalp tingling. She needed to relax after sprinting from the station to her changing orchard, to the rat-infested bungalow, to Clara's house. Anna Blanc's engagement ball was no excuse for Matron Holmes to leave work early.

Clara waited on Anna like a devoted lady's maid, as both their personal attendants had been recruited to help with the ball. She tied back Anna's locks and cupped Anna's pale, tired face, examining her complexion in the mirror. “Hm.” With an arch look, she produced a pot of Princess Pat rouge.

Anna squealed. “Devil's paint!” She laid hold of it, unscrewing the top and sniffing the coral-colored cream. “Are you going to make me look like an actress?”

Clara's musical voice soothed Anna's nerves. “Better than an actress.”

Anna presented her pouty lips, and Clara brushed on the rouge ever so lightly. It tasted like wax. Anna's father would rage if he knew. Matron Clemens would make her wash her face.

“See. Now you won't have to be biting your lips all evening to refresh them. Just don't kiss Edgar. It will leave a mark, and you'll be found out.” They giggled.

Clara rubbed glycerin on Anna's arms and chest and whitened them with chalk dust, darkening her brows and lashes with walnut stain, piling her hair up on a Tournure frame. She helped Anna dress.

Clara oohed and sighed and led Anna to the full length mirror,
running her hands down Anna's bare arms. “You are a perfect vision of loveliness.”

“I do try.” Anna's hair towered, her silhouette made even higher by the plumes in her headdress. The gown swept low at the décolletage and swelled over her breasts. She turned to see the drape of her gown from behind, her tiny waist, a train pooling at her feet. She was, in a word, incandescent, like a Gibson girl dressed by Vionnet at the House of Doucet.

There was a knock on the door and Theo's voice. “You're very, very late. You've missed the receiving line.”

Anna glided into the ballroom, followed by Clara, followed by Theo, and they were promptly announced. Anna beamed. Everything was pink. The flowers were blush, the tablecloths grapefruit, the napkins carnation. The food was puce and cerise and coral. Most of the women, those who could arrange it, wore gowns in raspberry, salmon, melon, or mauve, and the men wore rose boutonnieres. Anna herself wore green, as she wanted to stand out.

It was a glittering affair, attended by all the important people. Half of the guests were strangers to Anna, some of them vulgar, all of them rich and invited at the discretion of Mr. Blanc for business purposes. Anna was busy fulfilling her obligation to dance with every jowly gentleman on her card. She barely saw Edgar, as he was similarly busy shaking hands with business associates and dancing with their dowdy wives.

A man from her card dragged Anna to the floor for a waltz, lumbering largely, in triple time. Anna bore his painfully exaggerated moves, trying not to make a face. Clara giggled at her from the arms of a man who had managed to secure pink tails on short notice. Anna sighed in relief when the musicians finally took a break and Edgar stole to her side. He dabbed his brow with a handkerchief. “This is torture.”

She gave him a teasing smile. “Don't you like balls?”

“Not when they are in my honor.”

“Surely you like dancing with all those women?”

He took her arm. “I like dancing with you.”

Anna harrumphed. “How could you possibly know? You've never danced with me.”

“I'd like to change that.”

“Good luck.” Anna glowered over at her father, who was sidling up to a woman. She raised her eyebrows. “Who's that lady?” The woman stood smoking a cigarette by a potted orange tree. She wore a pale yellow gown, painted with roses, in a style Anna had never seen. She was old, maybe forty-five, slender, and not wearing a corset.

“Now, she's a story.” Edgar lowered his voice. “Her name is Emma Summers. She's a piano teacher, and one of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the state.”

“Taffy!” Anna smiled.

“It's true. They call her the Oil Queen of California. She invested in oil wells, early on. Needless to say, she no longer gives lessons. She's selling 50,000 barrels of crude oil per month. She hires the men, buys the equipment, and is supervising the whole operation.”

Anna was intrigued. “Will you introduce me?”

Emma Summers was walking away when Mr. Blanc summoned Edgar with his eyes.

“Ah. Excuse me, darling. I'll only be a minute.” Edgar joined Anna's father by the orange tree where they whispered conspiratorially, sober and unsmiling.

Clara glided to Anna's side towing a pink satin train and a glass of blush champagne. Anna watched the men. “I really think the two of
them
should marry. They're always together.”

“They have business, dearest. It's not our world.” Clara took Anna's hand and held it.

“Women can do business. Emma Summers does business and has been very successful.”

Clara looked at Anna quizzically. “Emma who?”

As the musicians reassembled and began playing a waltz, something dreadful happened. Louis Taylor appeared at Anna's elbow looking tentative. “Good evening, Anna. Will you honor me with your
hand for a waltz?” He mooned at her with aching eyes, like a wronged but devoted lover. For once in her life, Anna wished that Mrs. Curlew-Taylor were there.

Clara spoke with all the venom of a rattlesnake cupcake. “Who let you in?”

He coughed and pulled an invitation from his pocket. “I was invited, and I believe this is my dance.”

Anna dropped her eyes to her card, and there, written in English, was the name, Louis Taylor. She paled. Not only had her father invited the faithless peacock, he expected her to dance with him. Mrs. Curlew-Taylor must have a lot of money for Anna's father to do something so cruel and so desperate. Anna turned to Clara, eyes full of despair. “Edgar couldn't possibly have agreed to this.”

As Clara was shaking her head, Theo Breedlove grabbed Anna from behind and twirled her onto the dance floor. He waltzed like a prince. “You looked like you needed to be rescued.”

“Can't you take him out back and beat him?”

“Isn't that Enid Curlew's job? From what I hear, she's good at it.”

“Yes, but where is she?”

“Maybe she doesn't like his company.” They glanced over to where Louis stood and saw Clara winding up for a violent sneeze. On the exhale, she dumped pink champagne on the crotch of Louis's trousers. He stood frozen as it dripped down his legs like a toddler's accident. Theo grinned. “She's a darling, my wife.”

A smile returned to Anna's lips. She blew Clara a kiss. “What would I do without her?”

Police chief Nobel Singer still had all his hair and the lean body of a younger man. He entered the ballroom grinning as if it were a parlor full of his favorite cousins. Beside him, Officer Joe Singer took in the colored room with raised eyebrows. He wore a tuxedo better than he wore a frock.

The Singers were hailed by a graying man with salmon pâté in his mustache. They sauntered over to say hello. “Evening, Mayor,” the chief said, and made a gesture of dabbing his mouth.

The mayor quickly reached for a pink cloth napkin and smeared the salmon pâté. “Ah. Thank you.” He slapped Joe on the back. “Didn't expect to see you here, my boy.”

The chief donned a serious expression. “A man's been bothering the Blanc girl. I told Christopher I'd bring Joe along to handle him if he shows up. We've been walking the grounds.”

“Is he a threat?” the mayor asked.

“Maybe not.” The chief laid a hand on his son's shoulder. “But I view it as another opportunity for Joe to see how business is done.”

Joe's smile dimmed. He knew how their business was done. The mayor tugged on one handle of his mustache and smiled. “Well, that's one way to get your son an invitation. How are things down at the station?”

“Hunky dory,” the chief said.

Joe laughed. “Don't you believe it. He's not around much since you made him chief. You'd do better asking him about his golf game.”

The mayor chortled. “I know all about his golf game. I'm his golf partner.”

As the men laughed, Anna waltzed by in the masterful arms of Theo, whirling in tight circles, her lovely shoulders bare, her lips blushing, her lashes dark with walnut stain. All three men were sucked into her vortex.

“Now there's a girl who makes me wish I were twenty years younger,” the mayor said.

Joe took in this vision of a girl, this tended, unattainable, spun-sugar girl dancing like someone out of a storybook. As make-believe as she seemed, something about her was familiar, and he searched his mind for an association. He wanted to place her in rags by a hearth, like a Cinderella.

Or in a matron's uniform.

His freshly-shaven jaw dropped. It was the aloof, tattletale matron whose shoes he had sprayed with whiskey and undigested corn.

“Oh, my Lord. Is she a friend of the groom or the bride?” Joe asked.

The mayor and the chief shared an amused look. The chief licked his lips. “Joe. She
is
the bride.”

Joe's large eyes popped. “That's Anna Blanc?”

His father grinned. “It could be difficult to guard a girl if you don't know who she is, Son.”

The mayor slapped Joe on the back. “I'll make sure you get a proper introduction. Just don't fall in love.” He hailed the man with the tray of pâté.

Chief Singer excused himself and charmed his way around the room with a grin and a glass of grapefruit punch. Joe went to work guarding Anna. He barely took his eyes off her, and only partly because he was paid to watch her. He kept asking himself why a renowned beauty, engaged to one of the richest men on the West Coast, would lie about her name and get a job at a police station. He studied her person for a clue the way he studied a dodgy witness—examining her expression, the set of her jaw, the way her eyes moved beneath those feathered lashes, her impossibly red lips, her bare shoulders…

He never spoke to her and maintained a discreet distance, but, for her security, he never stood more than ten feet away. Once, she caught his eye and gave him a dazzling smile. He laughed at her. She didn't recognize him. She made a dignified toss of her slighted, pretty head and went on dancing.

Periodically, Joe scanned the room for signs of the stalker. He caught Edgar Wright staring at him. Joe nodded and raised his glass, but Edgar didn't smile. Joe sipped his strawberry punch and assessed the unfriendly man. He looked like what he was—an East Coast society dude. He had style, looks, old money, and, apparently, an attitude. Joe felt sorry for him. Poor Mr. Wright was marrying Matron Holmes.

A flock of ladies, pretty ones, too, flew up to fawn over Edgar, and Joe saw his winning smile. He felt less sympathetic, and went back to watching Anna spinning around bare-shouldered with her feathers and her old money and nouveau riche partners.

When he next scanned the room, Edgar was watching him again.
This time, the man glared. Joe lifted his eyebrows, and blew out a whistle. In between handshakes, banter, and dance steps, Edgar Wright was watching Joe watch Anna.