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"Holy smokes A friend of yours?"

Mabel shook her head "She terrifies me I’ve never worked up the nerve to say more than hello and ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’ She lives here with her brother" Mabel pursed her lips knowingly "Well, she says he’s her brother They don’t look a thing alike"

"Her lover?" Evie whispered, excited

Mabel shrugged "How should I know?"

"These ca-stemmed red roses Theta stifled a yawn as she ripped open the envelope on the card

" ‘A rose for a rose With my dearest affections, Clarence M Potts’ Oh, brother!" Theta shoved the flowers back at hiirl, Eddie Just toss the card first, or you’ll be in hot water"

"Oh, you can’t throw those roses away They’re the bee’s knees!" Evie blurted

Theta squinted at her "These steht, and he’s had four wives I’ to walk the middle aisle and be wife nuold diggers, but not e, right?"

"Mabel Mabel Rose"

"Nice to aze on Evie "And you are?"

"Evangeline O’Neill But everyone calls --just not before noon" She produced a cigarette froht it, which he did "Thanks, Eddie"

"Evie’s staying with her uncle, Mr Fitzgerald," Mabel explained "She’s from Ohio"

"Sorry," Theta deadpanned

"You said it--and how! Are you from New York?"

Theta arched a thread-thin eyebrow "Everybody in New York’s from someplace else"

Evie decided she liked Theta It was hard not to be taken by her glamour She’d never known anyone in Ohio who lived on her own terms, wore silk men’s pajamas into a public lobby, and could toss a dozen roses like they were a cup of Autoirl?"

"Guilty"

"That ," Theta said on a streaht"

Evie thrilled at the thought A Ziegfeld show! "I’d love to"