Putting on the Ritz

Chapter Twenty-Three - Olivia

Olivia felt her heart beat faster and harder enjoying the excitement that surrounded her. Couples and small groups sat in garden chairs strewn about the perfectly manicured lawn. They talked and laughed, smoked and drank, and Olivia could feel the enjoyment permeate the air around her.

She would normally have found a garden party rather dull, but this particular party was not the usual type she would have normally attended. Most notably was the aroma of gloriously fermented potatoes, or what a less romantic person may call vodka, emanating from her glass as well as many of the glasses around her. The hemlines at this party were also exceedingly shorter than any garden party she had attended in the past, and the bust lines far more revealing. All this combined with the new and exciting guest list, caused Olivia's vodka spiked adrenaline to rush.

Of the gusts there were a few attendees from her inner circle, most notably Mr. Caldwell, but there had also been the illusive and mysterious Mr. Slate as well. Olivia had kept her eye on both parties, the former of which had acquired her the gin she now held. She had been able to captivate him for some time, but before she could make her way back in his company, he was in deep conversation with a gal unfamiliar to her. Oliva had then averted her attentions to finding Mr. Slate, who had been linked in arms with another gal Olivia had not met, but he too had risen abruptly and went to that same girl in Lawrence's company.

Olivia, making mental note as to acquaint herself with the girl who had somehow captivated both of her targets, then decided to turn her attentions elsewhere, as she was not the type to sit still and patiently wait.

She walked up to a somewhat short young man that was fumbling with a cigarette case, while holding a similar glass to Olivia's. In a typical garden party, at least one her mother was in attendance of, she would not have been able to walk directly up to a man she had not yet been introduced to. But this party, while under the pretense of a garden party, was certainly not typical.

To Olivia's credit, the man looked at her, taking her all in by sweeping his eyes over her hair donned with a feathered headband right down to her strap pumps. "Care for a smoke?" He asked her in deep voice tinged with a foreign accent.

"Butt me," Olivia replied, wishing she had one of those long cigarette holders that little-miss-blonde-finger waves had been using while she sat on Lucian's lap.

"What's your name, doll?" the man drawled as he removed a second rolled cigarette from his case.

"Livvy." Olivia, who had experienced a small taste of the wild night life of Chicago, had at least learned that the types of men, such as the one before her, would find any formal variation of her name, stuffy. She was slowly morphing herself into one of the women who would otherwise be smoking from a long holder, one step at a time.

"And you are?" she brazenly asked the man.

"Al." Al passed her the cigarette, which she placed between her full lips. "Al Bernardi."

They were silent as he leaned in with a match to light Olivia's cigarette. She could smell the remnants of a musky cologne through the scent of smoke and alcohol on his breath. Once her cigarette was glowing red and smoke emanated in front of her eyes, he lit one for himself.

"Thank you for the ciggy." Olivia took an exaggerated drawl and pushed down the urge to cough. "How do you know Lucian?"

"I might ask you the same question. How does a green little bird, such as yourself, end up at a fete of Mr. Slate's?" He spoke slowly, and steadily with his slight Italian accent.

It did not go unnoticed by Olivia that Al had referred to Lucian as Mr. Slate, but she knew that this man was not, in any way, a proper gentleman, and so her curiosity to his relation to the mysterious man only flamed further. He looked just the part of the Italian gangsters that the papers and gossip columns alike scripted with his double breasted and overly large suite jacket and fedora. Going on this notion alone, along with Olivia's intent on piquing his interest, she replied, "Lucian and I met at 1914, heard of it?"