Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

certainly have been sufficient for a parlor. When she emerged, clean and wrapped in a thick terry cloth robe, Astrid was already asleep on the far side of the bed. Cordelia crawled under the blankets, laid her head against a pile of down pillows, and was dreaming before she could even begin to catalogue the great many notable things in her new bedroom.
    She slept a good long time, and when she woke, rested, the light of an advanced day was streaming in through the tall windows. She experienced a brief moment of disorientation while her eyes adjusted to the brightness. Astrid was still snoring softly on the other side of the bed, and a silver tray with a silver coffee pitcher and a platter of crescent-shaped pastries had been placed on the nightstand. The room seemed even more opulent in the noon light than it had the night before, and Cordelia exhaled a sigh of pure satisfaction. Then she snatched up the note that lay folded on the tray and experienced her first disappointment as the acknowledged daughter of Darius Grey.
My dear,
I‧m sorry, but business has called me away to Canada. I will return in a few days, and we will celebrate our reunion more properly then. I have told Charlie to look after you until my return—you will find that it is no light thing to be a member of my family, but I trust Charlie with my life and yours. Until I return …
Love,
Your father

8
    “WHAT‧S THE NEW GIRL DOING?”
    Unlike Paulette, the cigarette girl from Seventh Heaven, her roommates, Fay and Kate, had not yet embraced Letty‧s name. But even if new girl was a little bit of an insult, still it meant that Letty was new to someplace, that even if she was only here until she figured out where else to go, there was the chance she was on her way to belonging. The place in question was a basement apartment, dark even in the daytime and with a warped floor. It was filled with old velvet furniture, tasseled and threadbare, that had the air of having come from what Mother might have called “a house of ill repute.”
    After the fight with Cordelia and their expulsion from the Washborne, Letty had returned to the nightclub because it was the only place she could think of, and the nice girl who‧d helped her earlier in the evening had helped her again by taking her back here. She‧d slept a long time, and when she‧d woken up, she had three new friends to replace the one she‧d lost.
    Fay‧s hair was peroxided to a shade almost white, and Kate‧s was frizzy and dark, and they both wore mid-thigh-length kimonos around the apartment even though it was well past noon. Their hair and makeup, however, had been impeccably done already that morning, just after they‧d risen, as it had been the morning before, when Letty met them for the first time. Letty, who was lying facedown on a worn Persian rug with a magazine she‧d found in the bathroom, couldn‧t immediately think of a reply and was relieved when Paulette answered for her.
    “She‧s reading notices for auditions she‧s too shy to go try out for, and circling them for reasons she doesn‧t fully comprehend.” Paulette‧s voice was flat, and she spoke from the kitchenette without looking up from the coffee she was making. Her dark hair was already marcelled, and the crests of its wide waves gleamed in the afternoon light. Her lips were wine-dark and shiny, anchoring a slightly plump face, and she was as tall as Cordelia. The ceiling in the kitchenette was low like all the ceilings in the house, except a little more so, and her head almost seemed to graze its tin tiles.
    “Aw, why won‧t you go?” Fay took a seat next to Kate on the plum-colored velvet couch, with its faded and ripped upholstery leaking white fluff from the cushions, so that she could peer over Letty‧s shoulder. “Won‧t kill you, you know.”
    Letty glanced up at her and gave a diminutive shrug. “I will soon, just not yet,” she said. Paulette was right—she knew that she wasn‧t really going to go to