CHAPTER 7
“Can you even believe that happened?” Annie was still giddy from the unexpected excitement at the benefit.
I, on the other hand, was distinctly displeased with the way things had turned out. I shouldn’t even have been going to the speakeasy tonight, but I could hardly back down now, not after I’d made such a stink about it to Annie.
“I can’t believe you still wanted to go,” she said. “Really Sadie, I think you’re coming around to this whole underground lifestyle. And with the way that Frankie couldn’t keep his hands off you, it could be a definite possibility.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, knowing now that Frankie and I were from worlds even farther apart than I’d thought. There was no way we could ever be seen together in public, at least not the public of my world. God, I hated society sometimes. Why did everybody else get to make all my decisions for me?
But even with my newfound disappointment, I couldn’t deny the way my blood was surging, like I had finally been awakened for the first time in my life, and it all started last night.
It was strange, I knew there’d been danger involved in the raid at The Roxy, but for some reason—Frankie probably—I never really felt like I’d been in any real jeopardy myself. The boys in blue seemed to only be firing into the air to scare everybody, but still, the bullets were real. Something terrible could have happened. Even so, I just knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to happen to me. Not that I hadn’t been scared mind you, I was, it’s just that I never knew there was a good kind of scared. A kind that made everything so much more exciting.
“Honestly,” Annie was saying. “I’m proud of you. I would have never thought in a million years that Sadie McKay would be the one telling me we should go out a second night in a row. To a speakeasy for goodness sake. Now let’s get a wiggle-on, we’re already so late.”
I sighed. If she told me one more time that she was proud of me for sneaking out, I think I would have screamed. It made me feel ridiculous, as if she didn’t even know me at all. Of course, I wondered if I even really knew myself anymore, but she didn’t have to rub it in every chance she got.
I guess she got the hint by my sigh because she quickly changed the subject. “So anyway, are you about ready to hear about my other guy yet?”
“You were serious about that? I thought you were just razzin’ me.”
She gave me a sideways glance. “Yes, I was serious about that. There really was another guy—an Adonis really—that I could not take my eyes off all night.”
“So, how come you ended up with that other guy then?”
She slumped forward like she couldn’t believe I wasn’t getting this already. “Because the other guy saved me from being caught by the police! I already told you that.”
“Yeah, but how come you ended up necking with him?”
“Well, to thank him of course!” By now she was positively exasperated with me.
I crinkled my brow trying to figure how one thing was related to the other. How was necking with someone supposed to be some kind of thank you?
I guess since I didn’t say anything, Annie must have thought I finally figured it all out because she started in about the guy again. “So anyway, I sure hope we see him tonight. This time I’m not going to chicken out. I’m going to go up to him right away and make him buy me a drink.”
I was a little stunned that she admitted she’d chickened out of something. In fact, I was a little stunned that Annie Cambridge had chickened out of anything. Especially when it had to do with a guy she had her eye on. At school, she was usually the one making all the boys blush. And me of course. Ugh, just thinking about blushing made me remember the embarrassment at The Roxy, and earlier tonight, all over again. I still don’t know how Frankie managed to stay so calm.
“Are you even listening to me?” she asked, stopping.
“Huh? Yeah, I’m just thinkin’ at the same time, that’s all.”
She got the weirdest look on her face. “You’re busy thinking about Frankie aren’t you?”
“Um, no,” I said.
She snorted. I wish I knew how she could make her snorts say more than I could say with entire paragraphs.
“Oh, you so are. Of course you’re going to fall for the first guy you see.”
“Hey!” I said.
“Okay, okay, he is one delicious lookin’ drink of water, I’ll give you that.”
I nodded. But the thing was, I knew he was so much more than just his looks. He could have taken every advantage of me last night in those tunnels, but he didn’t. He comforted me. He reassured me. Why would someone do that if they weren’t at least a little bit decent?
We’d finally made it to the new super secret joint, and Annie was already tapping out the ‘code knock’ the way she’d heard from her sister. I couldn’t help but wonder if Gabby would catch on to what Annie was doing, pretending that she was interested in hearing all the gossip and goings on at the speakeasies, when in reality she was grilling her for information on how to get in. So far, Gabby had been clueless, thank goodness. I guess she thought Annie was more innocent than she let on. Come to think of it, Annie really could make a fantastic actress someday, if she put her mind to it.
The door to this place was really rickety. I mean, the door had been rickety at The Roxy, but this was ridiculous. The bare wood was so worn I was afraid if Annie were to knock too hard, her whole fist would break through. It certainly wouldn’t be too difficult for the fuzz to come bustin’ in if they were so inclined. But this was the only other place that Annie knew the secret knock for. I cursed the stupid cops for picking the swankiest place in town to bust. I mean, geez, did they really have to pick that place? It had been so nice.
The door creaked open, sounding as rickety as it looked. I crossed my fingers that the hinges wouldn’t snap right off. Once we were inside though, it was a different story. The music was pulsing just as it had been at The Roxy. The girls were up on stage and it looked like the same sort of crowd. Word had obviously spread that this was the new place de jour. Thank goodness. I was getting worried that it would look like Sam’s place had after the tunnels last night, and that was certainly not the scene I was interested in finding ever again.
Annie flashed the guy at the door her famous smile and got us right in. Of course, the hiking of our skirts a few blocks before we got to the club probably didn’t hurt either. Once the door was shut behind us, it was as though we were almost back in the same place as last night, just a little less fancy. I scanned the crowd, not admitting to myself who I was looking for, but Annie figured it out right away.
“I’m sure he won’t be here yet,” she said. “Remember how late he showed up last night? You’d already had three or four drinks before he even stepped foot in the door.”
“Whatever do you mean?” I said, decidedly looking straight ahead.
She just rolled her eyes. “C’mon, I know just the thing to make you feel better.” She grabbed my elbow and started tugging me toward the drink bar.
“Oh no. No way. I am not going to go through the hell that I’ve been through today ever again. No booze for me.”
Annie shrugged. “I just wanted to get you something that would make you feel like yourself again.”
My shoulders relaxed a little. After the way the liquor made me act last night, there was no possible way she could be speaking of more booze.
“Hair of the Dog, please,” Annie said. “And a Gin Fizz for me.”
“Are you seriously drinking more liquor?” I asked, amazed that she could even think about the stuff after last night.
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t have nearly as many as you. You were downing them like they were Sunday school punch.”
“Well,” I said, putting one hand on my hip, “if someone had let me in on the secret that they were full of booze, maybe I wouldn’t have had so many.”
Annie just chuckled a little, still proud of herself for getting me loopy without my knowing. I
tried to glare at her but it was something I had never been good at. I’m pretty sure I just ended up looking constipated.
She handed me this weird concoction that looked kind of like watered down tomato juice except that it had foam on the top, which the sight of did my stomach no good.
“What?” Annie said, again with the eye batting.
“There is no way I am going to drink this. What’s in it anyway?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Mostly juice, a little spice,” she said, turning away from me to scan the crowd. She lifted her deliciously decadent looking drink to her lips, “…an egg,” she finished quietly, her eyes darting around the room.
“Wait. Did you just say an egg?”
She turned back to me. “What?” Blink blink. Blink blink.
I sighed. “Did you just say an egg?”
“Oh egg, um yeah. The protein is good for the hangover or something. Just try it. I swear it’ll make you feel so much better.”
I eyed it carefully, now seeing the off colored lump at the bottom of the glass. I couldn’t help but think that there was no way this was going to make me do anything other than upchuck again.
“Sadie, really. Just try it. It totally worked for me.”
“You’ve tried it?”
“Sure, plenty of times.”
The funny thing was, she was pretending not to, but she was completely watching me out of the corner of her eye. It was feeling almost like a dare.
I sniffed the drink. It smelled mostly like tomato juice, although oddly, a little like bread too. When I put it up to my lips, Annie turned to full on stare at me.
“What?” I asked, my lips dangerously close to the pinkish looking foam floating above the blood red drink.
“Oh… uh, nothing,” she said, looking away again.
And that’s when I did it. I took a sip. And… it wasn’t all that bad, a lot like tomato juice. The thing that surprised me though, was that it was fizzy, which seems unbelievably hideous, but really, it wasn’t too bad. After a couple more sips, I think the fizz was actually making my stomach feel a little less gurgley.
As I was drinking, I had been staring hard into the glass, making sure that egg didn’t surprise me. When I looked up, Annie was staring at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed. “You actually did it,” she said.
“Yeah, of course I did. You said it wasn’t so bad.”
“I totally lied. When someone handed me one of those puppies, I never had the nerve to actually go through with it.”
My mouth dropped open.
I had done something that Annie was too scared to do. Of course I was tricked into it, but still. I beamed her a smile. “Huh,” was all I said and took a deep breath. I chugged the rest, egg and all. And I only gagged for a moment.
I slammed the glass down on the nearest table and scanned the crowd, just like Annie had been doing before I drank the ‘Hair of the Dog.’ Of course, I was only pretending too, just like she was, and inside I was doing a little victory chant while she continued to stare at me in awe. I had surprised and impressed Annie Cambridge. Maybe I was turning over a new leaf after all.
So I was feeling pretty good about myself, but then, there he was. My heart raced. It was so stupid, I wasn’t even anywhere near him yet and it was going crazy already. I tried to breathe evenly but it was hopeless, especially after he spotted me.
I’d had a pretty good idea that he didn’t find me disgusting, especially after our most recent dance, but I still wasn’t prepared for that beaming smile. He wasn’t even sneaky about it either, like he was embarrassed to know me, which I always assumed people were when they were around me. Nope, that smile was all for me and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the looks on the other girls faces as he made his way toward me.
And somehow the fact that I was going to tell him that whatever this was between us had to stop and could never amount to anything, flew right out of my head.