In this queer historical thriller from a New York Times bestselling author, society girls try to find a murderer in a city filled with secrets and stunted by shame. Perfect for fans of Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Robin Talley’s Everything Glittered, which is out September 24th 2024.
It’s 1927 and the strict laws of prohibition have done little to temper the roaring 20s nightlife, even in the nation’s capitol. Everyone knows the booze has never stopped flowing, especially amongst the rich and powerful, and seventeen-year-old Gertrude and her best friends Clara and Milly are determined to get a taste of freedom and liquor, propriety be damned.
But after sneaking out of the Washington Female Seminary to visit a speakeasy, they return to discover that their controversial young headmistress, Mrs. Rose, has been murdered.
Reeling from the death of her beloved mentor, Gertrude enlists her friends in her quest to clear Mrs. Rose’s reputation, while trying to keep her own intact. But in Prohibition Washington, it’s difficult to sidestep grifters, bootleggers, and shady federal agents when investigating a murder. And with all the secrets being uncovered, Gertrude is finding it harder and harder to keep her attraction to her best friends hidden.
A proper, upscale life is all Gertrude has ever known, but murder sure makes a gal wonder: is all that glitters really gold?
Chapter 5
The cold hits me first, even before my fingers feel the strain from clinging to the ledge. My coat is sturdy wool and trimmed in fur, but my legs are clad only in sheer stockings, and the wind is whipping past, finding every inch of vulnerable skin. I lower my chin into the chill as Milly clambers out awkwardly alongside me.
Crack.
The sound only lasts an instant, and my face is still clenched against the chill when I realize my best friend’s elbow has just slammed into my nose. That’s when the pain comes, too.
I twist into the wind and grit my teeth to quiet the scream bubbling in my throat. Anyone could’ve heard that crack.
When I risk a glance behind me, Milly’s gotten a tighter grip on the ledge outside our dorm room window and her elbows are folded back in front of her where they belong. I’m glad she didn’t fall, but my throbbing nose is less certain of its opinion. I want to rub the soreness from it, but we’re two stories off the ground and both of my hands are busy clinging to the ledge alongside her.
I crane my neck to look down at the street below. I don’t see anyone. Haven’t heard any shouts, either.
We haven’t been caught. Yet.
“Watch it!” I whisper-hiss, my frozen toes digging into the recess in the cold brick wall.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Milly whisper-hisses back, her crystal headpiece still somehow pinned neatly over her hair. Milly always stands at the height of fashion, even when hanging off the side of a building. “I didn’t mean to!”
Then she lets out a soft giggle. A second later, I do the same.
Tonight, I’ll ignore the ache in my nose, and the chill that’s biting through my stockings and turning my fingers blue.
Milly dips her chin to peer at the windows on the faculty hall and gives me a confident nod.
Time to let go.
The old library is dark and curtained, the party over and the mess tucked away, but the balcony outside it will be as hard, rough, and cold as ever. If we land wrong, we could break a kneecap or crack our heads on the coarse balcony floor. But now that I’m here, hanging in the wind, suddenly, I’m not afraid anymore. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if our window ledge were a foot or so higher.
We’re not cloistered into our finishing school walls any longer. Out here, the world is wide open all around us. The cold air swells with possibility.
I let go of the ledge and land, too quickly, on my feet, my toes in their stockings curling back to cushion the blow. Before I can straighten to my full height, a thunk sounds beside me. When I turn, Milly’s sprawled out on her heinie, her skirt up past her knees, her crystal headpiece flapping off her head.
I’ve seen Milly with no skirt or headpiece of any kind more times than I can count, but I look away to be polite, though there’s no way she’ll miss my silent laughter as I fluff out the fringe on my new shawl and hold out a hand to help her up.
She stumbles to her feet, glaring, and snatches a fallen hairpin from the ground, thrusting it out at me without a word. I keep my giggles to a minimum while I get her headpiece back in position over her curls, and we bend to retrieve our shiny shoes and beaded handbags from the gray terra-cotta floor.
Now comes the hard part. We’re one level off the street, but getting down shouldn’t be difficult, thanks to the sturdy oak tree. The problem is the ancient double-globe lamppost on the opposite side. We’re safely in the dark here on the balcony, but that old lamp shines straight onto the tree, and it’s bare in wintertime. People walk out at all hours on Dupont Circle, and there are always motorcars trundling this way and that, and sometimes horses, too. There’s no telling who’ll be looking skyward.
We need to get into that tree and out of it again as fast as we possibly can. Any passerby could see us skirting along the branches and call the police. Or, worse, Mrs. Rose.
A delicious mix of fear and fervor crawls down my spine as I check to make sure the sidewalk is empty before I move toward it. It’s difficult, clambering over the wide stone railing in my short dress, and even without anyone below, I can’t help but worry about displaying my bloomers and garters to the cold outdoor air.
When I reach the first branch, I perch carefully to test its weight. It holds firm, so I move on to the next branch, then the next. Forward and over, forward and over, never slowing or looking down, until the trunk is inches from my outstretched fingers.
A patch of rough bark snags my stocking, and my toes nearly slip. It’s a fight to regain my balance, but soon enough I’m braced against the sturdy trunk. I can feel a small rip in my heel, and I move carefully to keep it from widening. I wish I’d thought to tuck a spare stocking into my handbag. We’re heading to a speakeasy, after all, and intact stockings are a must.
Milly will’ve brought one. She thinks of everything.
She’s coming along behind me, the lamplight playing over her round, frowning face as she creeps forward across the branch. Her lower lip is tight between her teeth, and there’s worry in her bright eyes.
I reach out a hand, but before she can grasp it, her foot slips on the rough patch and she plunges straight through the barren branches, her eyes wide and desperate.
I lunge, wrapping my legs around the trunk and twisting back, shoving my arms under hers. My back screams, my stockings and skin shredding against the bark. Milly’s legs churn wildly in the air, but she isn’t falling anymore.
We work together, me heaving up, her pushing down in one swift motion. A moment later, we’re both nestled safely amid the branches.
My breaths come out in fierce, noiseless pants. Someone must have seen that. Or heard it. But there’s no sound from below.
We begin creeping down the trunk. I’m about to ask Milly about those extra stockings when the sound comes from above.
I peer up through the skeletal brown leaves.
A figure is leaning out a window above us. Looking down.
I keep silent and still until my eyes focus in the darkness and I recognize the oval-shaped face peering down.
It’s Clara. Her short brown hair falling in a disheveled halo, her lips parting rhythmically as she makes the sound of a bird’s song.
Not a bird. A nightingale.
My heart flies to my mouth as our eyes connect. Clara’s leaning out the window on her elbows, pointing to the street.
That figure I saw, moving in the alley. Running.
What if he’s here? What if he’s seen us, and he—
I twist my head, and I see them.
Two figures, crossing the circle, nearing P Street. Twenty yards away and getting closer. But neither one’s running, and there’s no sign of any guns.
Instead, a man ambles toward us in a raccoon-fur coat, his head tilted back in laughter, a woman’s hand tucked into his arm. She’s laughing, too, with a cigarette clasped easily between her fingers.
I suck in a breath. It’s our headmistress, Mrs. Rose.
I don’t recognize the man at her side. He certainly wasn’t at the faculty party. An old homburg sits angled on his head, tall and straight with a wide black ribbon, like the one my father wore years ago. On this man, though, the hat doesn’t look old-fashioned at all. Everything about him, in fact, seems perfectly current, from his high, sharp cheekbones and rosy peach skin to the soft, easy smile on his lips.
Mrs. Rose has never mentioned any man.
I can’t think about that now. If she catches us stealing away, it won’t matter who she’s with, or how many hours I’ve spent by the fire in her office.
Leaving the seminary without a chaperone is strictly forbidden. Climbing out the window must’ve been so inconceivable the board didn’t even bother to specify it in the rule book. If we’re caught, the expulsion will be automatic and instantaneous.
I’m not sure which to dread more. The punishment, or the disappointment in Mrs. Rose’s eyes.
The man leans down to say something into her ear, and she laughs again, her long, pale neck arcing in the pool of light from the streetlamp. The jewels in her ears glitter. She’s wearing a plush fur stole over her coat, with the Spanish fringe of her shawl dangling loose around it.
Her laugh tonight isn’t like any I’ve heard her utter before. Mrs. Rose is always calm. Composed. Gentle. Tonight, her laugh is open, friendly, and brash.
I never could’ve imagined describing Mrs. Rose as brash.
“Those people tonight, dear God,” she’s saying to the man in the homburg, lifting the cigarette to her lips. I’ve never seen her smoke. Women teachers at our school aren’t allowed, though Mr. Farrel smokes through every Latin lesson. I leave his classroom each morning smelling like a furnace. “Parties are the most horrendous part of this job. If I hadn’t been coming out with you afterward, I’d have thrown myself into the punch bowl.”
The man in the homburg laughs again and pats her hand where it’s tucked into the crook of his arm. It doesn’t seem to be a lingering, romantic stroke, though. More of an amused, friendly tap.
“Careful,” the man says. “You’d run the risk of ruining your spectacular shawl.”
“If needs must!” Mrs. Rose replies, her cloche hat tipping backward as she chuckles. “Sad as I’d be to part with it. Would you believe I wore it in front of those ladies tonight? Nearly gave that old Patterson biddy a heart attack.”
The man laughs again. These two seem to laugh together quite a bit. “Truly? You wore a knockoff Spanish shawl in front of Thomasina Patterson?”
“Oh, I’m past caring what any of those women think. They wrote me off the moment I dared to suggest their school acknowledge the dawn of the twentieth century. To hear them talk, you’d think I was stalking from room to room with a pair of kitchen shears each night, bobbing their granddaughters’ hair as they sleep.”
I dig my fingers into the tree trunk and stretch the toes of my left leg down as the man laughs again. I want to get a better look at him. There’s something about the way he and Mrs. Rose are leaning in toward each other. It’s so comfortable. So familiar.
“Watch what you say,” he tells Mrs. Rose. “I’ve seen a few of your colleagues out at the East Room around this time of night. Some may be passing us on their way out as we speak.”
“Oh, no, the whole lot of them’s fast asleep. You should’ve seen those teachers dragging themselves out of the party, nodding off on their feet. The parents, too.”
“Tired from the excitement of sipping fruit punch and chatting about bonds?”
“I wish they’d talk about bonds. In New York, all the party talk was about money, and I was used to it. Could chat about commodity markets until the cows came home. But here, no, with these parents, it’s all who’s in line for which first assistant secretaryship, and who spoke out of turn to which justice at so-and-so’s dinner party, and who’s building a new mansion well beyond his means, and what a scandal it all is.” She lets out a barking laugh, and I think again of that word. Brash. “None of them would know scandal if it bit them in the toe! Every party here’s a competition for who can make the dullest conversation.”
“My dear Jessica.” The man takes another puff on his cigarette. I didn’t know her first name was Jessica. How did I not know that? “One would think you were new to our lovely capital.”
Mrs. Rose’s answering laugh is so sharp I flinch.
My foot slips. Cracked leaves crunch sharply underneath, and I have to grab the trunk to keep from falling, my gloved hand landing against it with a stinging slap.
It’s the slap that makes Mrs. Rose’s head jerk toward us.
I shrink into the branches, willing myself to turn the same shade of gray as her stole. The wind whips past me, but I can’t shiver.
She saw us. She must have.
“Something wrong?” the man asks her.
I dart a glance up toward the building, but the window is empty. Clara’s gone back inside. I’m glad. When Milly and I are expelled, at least we can spare Clara the same fate.
Mrs. Rose hesitates. Finally, she turns back to the man. “No. Nothing.”
“Must’ve been the wind. Shall I escort you to the door?”
“Better not. Lucy’ll be waiting up. The dear girl never sleeps.” Mrs. Rose says something more, but they’ve passed the corner of the building, and I can’t make out what they’re saying anymore.
Neither Milly nor I move. Not for a long, excruciating moment, and another after that.
The voices of Mrs. Rose and the man fade away to nothing. Then comes a small, faraway motion that might be the seminary’s front door opening and closing, or might be nothing at all.
Finally, when it seems enough time has passed and then some, I exhale, my heart pumping fiercely.
The branch below me shudders. Milly’s climbing down.
I reach out to help, and soon we’re both crouched on the cold brown grass outside the dining room, past the lamplight. Clara comes quickly afterward, making the entire descent look positively easy, and the three of us duck behind the tree to brush the broken leaves off our coats, wipe away one another’s lipstick smears, and strap on our shoes. Milly gives me her extra pair of stockings and holds out her coat to shield me from the street while I struggle out of my torn pair.
Her cheeks are flushed as we start down the sidewalk, heels clicking on the pavement. Clara’s face is pale with fear, but she manages to smile as she loops her arm through mine, and Milly links elbows with me on the other side.
I answer with a bright smile and the startling realization that after everything—the near fall and nearer expulsion, the scrapes burning along my thighs, the lingering questions about that man and Mrs. Rose—I’m still bubbling over with delight, from my carefully perched headband to my fashionably pinched toes.
It’s time to put as much space between us and the Washington Female Seminary as we can. Our night can finally begin.
