Speak Easy by Melanie Harlow Read Free Book Online

about where those ledgers might be—and worse, where they might end up. Angel had probably taken them, but why? Daddy was sunk if he turned them over to the Prohibition Bureau.
    He could go to jail. And I’d be on my own with the girls for years.
    Shoving that predicament from my mind, I walked back to the store, focusing on a more immediate problem: I had nothing to wear to a place like Club 23. Two Sunday dresses hung in my closet, but neither was what you’d call smart, and I certainly didn’t want to walk in there looking like a girl on her way to mass. Also, I didn’t want Enzo to think he’d bested me—he’d taken me by surprise, of course, but I wanted him to know I couldn’t be broken so easily.
    Later that afternoon I approached Bridget as she rang up a purchase for a customer. Behind her, the boys were stacking empty boxes in the stock room and then knocking down their cardboard tower with glee.
    “Would it be all right if I left a bit early today?” I asked when the customer had gone.
    “Sure, I have Martin here.” She smiled at me. “Go do something fun. It’s Saturday.”
    Right. “Uh, I need a little bit of money from my tip envelope. Is your door open?”
    “Should be. How much do you need?” She glanced behind her. “Thomas! Don’t shut Charlie in that box, he’ll suffocate!” While she rescued her youngest child from his brothers, I snuck up the stairs before I had to explain why I was taking every penny I had.
    #
    My closest girlfriend was Evelyn LaChance. She still lived with her parents too, and their house was only a couple blocks from ours. Evelyn attended nursing school with me, but during the summer she helped out at her family’s bakery. On Saturdays, she only worked mornings, so I walked to her house and found her in the bedroom she shared with her twin sister Rosie, folding laundry and stacking it in neat piles on her bed.
    “Hey, I was just thinking about you,” she said. “Want to go to the movies tonight?”
    I perched on the edge of the dresser. “I would, but I actually have plans.”
    Her plump mouth formed on O. “A date? With who? Where?”
    I winced. “Don’t call it a date. With Joey. To a place called Club 23.” I wondered how much was wise to tell her. I was dying to divulge the entire story about kissing Enzo in the boathouse, but I didn’t see how I could without revealing the rest. “It’s for my father…he has business there.”
    She hugged a folded pair of white bloomers to her chest. “God, you’re lucky. Joey’s so handsome.”
    “You think so? He drives me crazy with his big mouth.”
    “Mmm, that mouth drives me crazy too.”
    I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll put in a word for you, but right now I need you to help me find something to wear.”
    She tossed the bloomers aside. “Let’s go to Hudson’s. Rosie’s working.” We walked to the streetcar stop and caught a crowded car heading downtown. I kept my purse clutched tight to my side, since I’d stuffed the entire envelope, fat with small bills and change, inside it.
    Rosie worked at the cosmetics counter at J.L. Hudson’s department store on Woodward. Even at four in the afternoon, her face was painted-on pretty, crowned by curly locks of golden blond hair cut fashionably short. They were twins, but it always struck me how different they were—in both looks and demeanor. Where Rosie was long-legged and slender, Evelyn was almost as short as me, with a rounder face and thicker middle. She wasn’t unattractive, just plain—but any girl could look plain next to Rosie, who was as tart as she was beautiful.
    “Tiny has a date tonight,” Evelyn announced breathlessly. “With Joey Lupo, going dancing at Club 23. She needs help finding something to wear.”
    “No kidding.” Rosie tilted her head, like she might be seeing me in a new light. “Club 23, huh?” Glancing at the huge clock on the wall, she nodded. “I’ll take my break now and help you out. God