The Morning After Chapter : 1

The tense, angry voice caught Claire’s ear. “In plain words, this is blackmail. Do you realize that?”

Claire set her coffee cup down carefully on the yellow breakfast plate and glanced at the yellow wall of her kitchenette. That was the trouble with this apartment. Her kitchenette adjoined the living room of Rubye, night club hostess, and she could hear everything that went on, whether she wanted to or not. But the place was within walking distance of downtown, so she kept on living there

“So what?” Rubye’s voice came lazily, and Claire could picture her lounging back on her green divan, her green eyes half closed, her hair a black fan above her white face.

“It just happens that I won’t stand for it,” the man replied.

A familiar note in the voice rang an echo in Claire’s mind. That phrase, “It just happens,” belonged to— It couldn’t be!

“How did I get here, anyway?” the man’s voice went on.

Claire felt her heart tighten and grow still. It was his voice. It was.

She had no right to listen. She rose and started for the living room, but she heard Rubye laugh, a malicious chuckle.

“Doesn’t matter how you got here,” she pointed out. “Your problem is how you’re going to get away. You can’t walk haughtily down the street at eight o’clock in the morning in a full dress suit. Your fiancée wouldn’t like the publicity.”

“So that’s your game. If I don’t pay your price, you’ll drag my fiancée into it.”

“Exactly, my Social Register friend. And if I know that stiff-necked father of hers, this little scandal will blow your chances of marrying the girl sky-high.”

Rubye’s voice changed abruptly. “Snap out of it, fella! Come across. You’ll never miss the money.”

Claire walked into her living room and stood there, her brown eyes sparkling, her cheeks a brilliant pink. She felt her head throb, felt her whole body begin to vibrate with anger.

“Why should I care?” she asked herself. “He owns half the real estate in New York, and I’m just the publicity director for the Bride’s Shop in West’s Department Store. And if I don’t get some better publicity pretty soon I won’t be even that.”

It was ridiculous to tremble like this. You didn’t fall in love with a man you had spoken to only twice. Not when you were nineteen years old and had been on your own in New York for three whole years. You had to know the answers. You had to know that a man like James Harvey Nash marries a girl from his own social world. If you didn’t—well, you ended up like Rubye in the next apartment.

“Anyway,” she sighed, “what can I do?”

She opened her wardrobe door, and there, hanging mistily white and shimmering in the early light, was the white bridal dress and veil she had brought home the night before. She had tried, vainly, to get from it some inspiration for a publicity stunt.

She heard the echo of Rubye’s words: “Your fiancée wouldn’t like the publicity.” Publicity.

An idea crashed over Claire, leaving her high-pitched with excitement. Why not? she asked herself excitedly. Why not try it?

She ran to the kitchenette and listened. “The newspaper men will be here in a few minutes,” she heard Rubye say. “I told them that James Harvey Nash had a story for them. I didn’t say what kind. You can still get out of this if you’ll give me that money.”

“Do your worst,” the man replied. “I won’t be held up.”

Claire ran back into her bedroom. Quickly she tore off her house robe, donned the white satin dress, found white satin slippers, touched her cheeks with powder and drew the soft white veil over her head. She went to her easel in the corner, penciled a message in soft black crayon, then rolled the paper into a scroll and tied it with a satin ribbon.

She walked into the hall, down to Rubye’s door, and rang the bell. The next moment the door was flung wide.