The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(22)

I’ve seen enough of my mother’s marriage to my stepfather, how she tiptoes around him and the money he controls, to value independence over all else.

“You aren’t that old,” Rafael adds almost as an afterthought.

I snort. “I will expire from such flattery.”

He laughs. “I doubt you’re the sort who would tolerate flattery. You seem like a woman who wants to cut to the heart of things.”

“And you deduced this from what, an hour or so in my company?”

“You forget, I also witnessed your little speech with Will. You know what you want, and you clearly aren’t afraid to go after it. If you were the sort of woman who wanted to play by society’s rules, you’d be married to some impoverished British lord like so many of your set. But you’re not—you’re sitting in the carriage across from me, and your fingers look like they’re just itching to pick up that notepad beside you. I don’t like people wasting my time. I’ll do you the same courtesy of not wasting yours.”

Well.

The carriage comes to a stop.

“Good day, Miss Harrington.”

I can’t muster a response beyond a quick nod, and then I’m standing on the curb outside my home, watching his elegant black carriage trundle down the street.





Seven





Anyone who is anyone in New York society—plus several hundred others who would never make Caroline Astor’s guest list—is crammed into the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria on Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Third Street, which for the evening has been transformed into the Palace of Versailles. When Hearst called me into his office earlier today to ask if I was planning on attending and if I could cover the ball for the Journal, I agreed with great reluctance. After all, I hated society when I was part of it; writing about the society beat seems even less interesting. But considering the expense Mrs. Cornelia Bradley-Martin reportedly undertook for the fete this February evening—four hundred thousand dollars spent on eight hundred guests—and the more than three years of economic depression the country has experienced leading up to this culmination of excess, the more I glance around the room, the more I see a story demanding to be told.

I can hardly fault the Bradley-Martins for doing what so many others have done—throwing around their immense wealth in an attempt to buy their way into New York society—but this is another level of extravagance.

The guests were instructed to come in costume dressed as royalty from the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth century, and the normal absurdity of these events is only magnified by the occasional—and inevitable—wigged Marie Antoinette gliding past. For her own part, Mrs. Astor has chosen to dress as Mary, Queen of Scots.

I’ve no doubt that tomorrow the papers will report this to be the most opulent ball New York society has ever seen. After all, where do you go from here?

I was raised among privilege, but this display could best be described as gauche by my mother. And still—she and my stepfather are somewhere in this crush. After all, the only thing worse than throwing a party filled with such vulgarity is missing out on the opportunity to judge and condemn it.

What will the Journal readers say when they open the newspaper and read this story? The ones working twelve hours a day, six days a week, their children holding down jobs as well. I think of the young newsboys standing on street corners, many of them orphans, selling the very papers that will cover this story to support themselves and their families. How angry will this party make the people, considering the wealthiest one percent of Americans hold as much money as the bottom fifty percent?

Mrs. Bradley-Martin has reportedly said that the ball would help stimulate the economy by giving so little notice that everyone was forced to have their costumes designed locally rather than having them made in Paris, but I think the city’s residents would have rather had the four hundred thousand dollars instead. More likely, Mrs. Bradley-Martin wishes to dethrone Alva Vanderbilt from the position she’s held for over a decade as reigning queen of the most famous ball New York City has ever seen. It looks like she’ll succeed, too. The papers have spoken of little else for weeks now, the impending party gaining national attention and notoriety.

I take a turn around the room, writing down a few notes before slipping the pad into my reticule. There’s an advantage to attending these sorts of functions as a journalist rather than as a young girl expected to make a good match, freedom in the ability to see without needing to be seen.

In truth, I lacked the beauty and the fortune to make a splash at an event such as this one. My features have never been particularly fine, nor have I embraced the love of fashion as so many in this set have. The dowry my father left for me before he died was adequate, my stepfather’s addition to it satisfactory, but neither my pale blue eyes, blond hair that could never be described as golden, nor my purse were fine enough to draw the notice of a prime catch. And truthfully, having lived on my own with my aunt for a few years now, I can’t quite countenance why women are so eager to put up with men and all of their peccadilloes.

“Grace.”

I whirl around at the sound of my name in a tone I’ve heard since childhood.

My mother and stepfather stand before me, dressed in elegant costumes. We last saw one another at Christmas, and I wait for a rush of emotion, but am as always left with the sensation of crossing paths with an acquaintance I have not seen for several months.