"Hello, Margaret," Clara said as she entered the hallway outside her father's office. It was January 2nd, and Clara was still tired from the trip to New York. She was also treading lightly around her father, whom she had broken the news to about Jimmy's marriage the night before. He wasn't thrilled that Jimmy married Angela without talking it over with him first. So she was a smidge anxious about being summoned to his office.

Clara badly wanted to tell her father he had to pick a path-either Jimmy was his son, or he wasn't. Because right now the damage of this wishy-washy nonsense was adding up fast, and Clara's stomach had grown an acidic knot that never went away.

"Hello, dear. Do you know why we have been asked?" Margaret asked from the chair where she waited.

"No. I wish I did."

Eddie brought the women into the office and then sat down himself before Nucky began speaking. "I'm sure you are wondering why I've summoned you here. I want to throw a party. A large one, the last weekend of January. 1920 was a transformative year, and I'd like to memorialize it and welcome in a new year of peace and prosperity. Clara, you and Eddie have done this before and can show Margaret the ropes. I want a small dinner party here in the suite, and then a ball at Babette's with entertainment, dancing, a supper, and maybe a breakfast."

"Of course," Clara replied with a practiced smile. Enoch Thompson's parties were legendary, but behind the ease of perfection lay endless days of work. Days Clara would prefer to spend writing or otherwise engaged. Clara groaned internally at the thought of the million small details which would consume her coming hours. "Well, we are going to have to quickly formalize the guest list so we can start issuing the invitations and personalizing the VIPs."

"I want to invite everyone. The state government, the federal government, local government, society people, Chicago, and the New York contingent. Let's invite the Yacht Club circle as well."

"Wives, or?"

"You and Margaret, so wives. Invite Jimmy, and whomever else you think from Atlantic City."

Yes, I think I will, Clara decides.

"Please spare no expense on clothing, you two. I want you two to be the best-dressed women on the planet that night."

Clara led Margaret into a small file room. "This is where we keep the invitation lists." Clara starts pulling file folders. "Fun people are socialites, athletes, artists, or entertainers Father has met and liked or would like to know. The other lists are pretty self-explanatory. The pencil marks are by order of importance. Eddie usually updates those, but if you have information, flag it. There's no limit, really, on how many we invite to the party. I'm thinking no more than 24, though, for the dinner in the suite."

Clara stops and calculates. Margaret and Father, the Rothsteins (whom the party was being held to impress, she assumed), Angela and Jimmy, Richard, herself. That's eight. Probably a good idea to invite the Commodore and Gillian as a show of unity. Ten. She should invite Uncle Eli and Aunt June, but they were rather heavy furniture at dinner parties, and she'd have enough to do to keep the dinner moving without them. They could come to the party only. She'd invite Lansky and Luciano, though, and if they came without dates that pushed her to twelve. Eddie Cantor and a songstress date would get them to fourteen but provide some brightness and life to the dinner. Everyone liked dining with celebrities.

"We need to pick five political couples. I'm thinking Mayor and Mrs. Bader, the governor and his wife, and some judges and spouses, but I'll confirm with Father. Then we'll need to work with the Ritz for catering the dinner." Clara stops and thinks. "Father is going to want to impress, so I think we'll start with lobster canapes, then have cream of something soup, poached salmon in aspic, timbale de foie gras with roasted apple, lamb chops with potato croquettes and asparagus, if we can get any, and then just a watercress salad with cheese crackers. For dessert, simply cake and ice cream I think. Do you think that will suffice?"

Margaret nodded. "I never knew planning these events was so involved."

Clara grinned. "Neither does Father. Now, let us talk about the menus for supper and breakfast, the dressing rooms here and at Babette's, who will work the doors, and the entertainment. I think we should try for Eddie Cantor as the master of ceremonies, two orchestras for dancing, and a few singers. For decorations? Maybe a winter garden theme? Let's turn Babette's into some sort of floral fantasy. That should be expensive enough to make Father happy."

Nucky made a point of being in the suite for dinner, so Clara could let him know how preparations were coming. He was thrilled with the Winter Garden idea, and specified the supper should be continuous from one to four, which would be far more expensive and more complicated for Babette's staff, but was considered the fanciest ball supper option. Bullion, Lobster a la Newburg, chicken croquettes and peas, green salad, and more ice cream and cake made up the supper menu. And champagne. So much champagne. Breakfast would consist of more champagne and begin service at five, but simply feature scrambled eggs with bacon and rolls.

"Eddie can see to all the alcohol we need. I want our guests to get anything they want," Nucky said when she finished laying out the initial plans.

"So for the dinner," Clara said. "We have ten open invitations for dinner. I'm assuming the governor, Bader, and whom else from the government?"

"Fourteen are already accounted for?" Nucky asked.

Clara recounted the guest list. "Why the hell are you wasting a dinner invitation on Harrow? If you wish to include him, a party invitation is more than sufficient," Nucky snapped.

Clara met her father's eyes levelly. "Well, I thought this dinner, and this party, was to show how well you run Atlantic City and celebrating the return to normalcy. The papers are still full of stories of how veterans struggle, veterans with far less," Clara took a breath so that her actual emotions weren't evident in her voice, "serious injuries than Richard's. But in Atlantic City that doesn't happen. In Atlantic City, Nucky Thompson employs such a veteran, the man becomes part of his daughter's and surrogate son's (because that is how almost everyone still views Jimmy, Father, no matter what nonsense is going on) inner circle, and he is literally honored with a seat at the table. Because that's the sort of peace and prosperity you bring to your city."

Nucky stared at his daughter for a moment. "Well, isn't it fortunate for me that you inherited your mother's face and my political instincts. That's a brilliant bit of stagecraft that never occurred to me." He had a bad habit, he knew, of viewing her as a twelve-year-old girl, and not a woman who would turn twenty-three this year. It also occurred to him that Clara was quickly becoming a woman good at getting what she wanted. He had stopped her from joining the women's communication wing of the Army in France during the war, but only by calling in multiple favors. She had still left college, taken a pregnant Angela Darmody, and settled in New York to work for the War Department. When she returned, he assumed she'd make the marriage he asked of her, and settle down as a society wife. He assumed she would move away from her childish insistence that Jimmy was her brother. Instead, she's developed a career, and still clings to Darmody. She'd adopted Harrow as the mascot of their little group. It's all still childish foolishness, he knows, and Clara's inherent good sense will lead her to soon settle down with a rich man who can keep her in the comfort she was raised in. Until then, he thinks, her political instincts should be cultivated and he should keep an eye out for a husband who will enjoy a wife capable of political plotting.

*********************************************************

Madame Jeunet had outdone herself, Clara thought as she looked at her reflection in the store mirror. Her father had bought her plenty of beautiful dresses before, but the heavily beaded blue-green dress was the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned. With each step or movement, it subtly changed colors, ranging from a light blue to a deep green depending on how the light caught the bugle beads. Even better from her father's perspective, it looked and was extremely expensive. It's the dress only the daughter of a very wealthy man would wear. She doesn't even want to think of what cleaning it and storing it will entail. Margaret's gold and peach dress looks and is even more costly. It's the beadwork, Clara knows, that makes it so expensive.

"Si beau si frais," Madame Jeunet murmurs as she supervises the pinning and Clara struggles to stay completely still. "You will need special undergarments. Your everyday underpinnings, so sweet, they do not work with such a beautiful gown."

Madame Jeunet had supplied the wardrobe Clara required for appearances as Enoch Thompson's daughter since the store opened not long after they moved into the Ritz. The shop owner was always carefully ingratiating, but also managed to work sly barbs into her endearing patter. Clara looked at the straps of the plain white silk brassiere visible while the alterations lady kept pinning. "Whatever you think, Madame," Clara answered in reply.

Later, Clara undressed in front of the mirror in her room and considered her incredibly plain underthings. Modern, yes, Clara had abandoned corsets and layers of underthings when she went to work during the war. But other than, she thought, not so different from the underthings she wore as a schoolgirl. Madame Jeunet carried lovely things, but Clara had always eschewed them thanks to Lucy buying one of every item in the store and then wearing them around the suite (although Lucy wearing them was better than when Lucy chose not to wear them). The only lingerie Clara bought from La Belle Femme were pajamas, which she loved and which felt sure none of her father's mistresses were using as a tool of seduction, or specially designed things meant to be worn with certain dresses. As Clara tried to picture the things she'd like to buy, she realized it felt wrong to use her father's money to buy things she was buying because she wanted to look seductive. The realization of why she wanted more sophisticated lingerie knocked her back a bit, but then she thought, well, best to be prepared.

The next day she walked down to the corner of Atlantic and South Carolina streets, where Atlantic City's only major department store, M.E. Blatts, was located. Since she was buying with her own money, she couldn't afford La Belle Femme. Clara waived off the saleslady, a pretty redhead about her age, and wandered the lingerie department trying to decide what she wanted. She picked up a black merry widow but thought she'd feel like an actress playing a part trying to wear it. A white brassiere and tap pants she considered looked like everything else she already owned. A red lacy step in looked disconcertingly like something Lucy would wear.

"Well, hello, dear. What a pleasant surprise!" A bright, modulated voice said from behind her. "I would have thought these were the kinds of things you purchased at La Belle Femme."

Clara turned and smiled, and performed air cheek kisses with Gillian. "Lucy rather ruined the idea of buying lingerie at La Belle Femme."

"Ah, yes. I could see how that could be so."

"Also, I think I'm too old for my father to cover my lingerie bill?"

Gillian tilted her head and looked closely at Clara. "You were always such a funny little thing. Is it because you don't want Nucky paying for lingerie you are buying for another man's titillation?"

The heat rose so quickly in Clara's face that it felt like the onset of a fever. She could feel her cheeks turning blazing red.

"No need to blush, dear. You are certainly a grown woman. All women have desires." Clara looked around, hoping a gas leak or other disaster would destroy the store and save her from this moment. Gillian looks at the red step-in Clara's holding and continues, "this, however, is tawdry and doesn't look like you. Unless the gentleman likes tawdry? In which case, I think black stockings."

Clara suddenly pictures Richard's impeccably neat tie and the way his shoes also look like he just had them polished. "No, he doesn't like tawdry. I mean..."

"Yes, I think I see what you mean," Gillian's eyes are dancing and Clara knows in her bones this will come back to haunt her. "Tell me what you want."

Clara calms herself with a deep breath. "All of my things look like they belong on a Catholic schoolgirl."

"Some men like that, dear."

"Not any man I'd be interested in," Clara said in an even voice.

Gillian nods and turns her attention to the racks. Soon, Clara, piles of lingerie, and Gillian are sequestered in a changing room. Gillian quickly pulls items on and off Clara, clucking as she goes. Clara doesn't particularly like being touched, or people being in the room while she changes, but a childhood of being around Gillian has made her accept that Gillian is going to do as she sees fit, and that includes adjusting Clara's bosoms or correcting loose straps as Clara tries on different bits of lingerie. It also means she watches as Clara changes.

"You remember, I brought you here to buy your first grown-up underthings," Gillian says, holding up a delicate light blue step-in.

"I remember. You taught me how to roll my stockings on. I never tear mine taking them on or off because of that."

"I've always admired how committed you've remained to your friendship with James," Gillian said, and nodded that the delicate blue step in Clara was wearing was a must buy. "But I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

Clara made eye contact with her in the mirror as she changed into a brassiere she couldn't quite figure out. "None of this, none, is for Jimmy. I'm so happy he and Angela are married."

Gillian moves behind her to tie the laces of the complicated brassiere and smiles at Clara in the mirror. "Well, whomever this is for, you look like a present waiting to be unwrapped. I should have thought to take you again to show you how to buy more sophisticated things, but, well, the war..." Clara nods. The war, and the very occasional letters only Clara received. The idea that Jimmy wrote someone but it wasn't Gillian...Gillian's anger had been white-hot, and Clara knew it because when she would see Gillian she was more polite than ever.

***********************************************************

Unlike Jimmy and Angela, whose move was apparently going to take weeks and require lots of effort from everyone, Richard moved into his new place in one quick car trip. He still wasn't sure how he ended up with it. A friend of Clara and Jimmy's from school's grandmother had a tiny, one-room cottage behind her house which she wished to rent out, but only to someone she knew. Clara Thompson and Jimmy Darmody vouching for him meant he counted, and he was freed of the awkward encounters that came with living in a boarding house. When arrived home, there was mail in his door. The envelope was thick, and he recognized the careful script on the envelope. There were two cards inside.

Mr. Enoch Thompson

At Home

On Saturday, the twenty-ninth of January

at ten o'clock

Babette's Supper Club, Atlantic City

Dancing Entertainment

The favour of an answer is requested

The Ritz-Carlton, Atlantic City

Some sort of party, he assumed. The next card was handwritten and read:

Mr. Enoch Thompson

requests the pleasure of

Mr. Richard Harrow's

company at dinner

on the twenty-ninth of January

at eight o'clock

The Ritz-Carlton

On the back of the dinner invitation, it was written:

"Dear Richard,

Please come! Who else will dance with me without stepping on my feet, or keep me from fighting with Charlie Luciano over the soup course? Jimmy and Angela will be there, so we shall manage to have fun. I can't get you away from the table for dinner, but I have a plan for supper and breakfast.

Affectionately,

Clara "

He ran a fingertip over her handwriting. He wished he knew why Clara was so nice to him. Was it pity? The only time he thought he saw pity on her face was while he was trying to eat at the Automat, and even then she'd mostly just acted like nothing was wrong.

But he could still clearly see the revulsion on her face the morning he terrified Emily Schroeder. Her friendship might be real, but that look reminds him, as if the vast differences in their lives didn't, that all they would ever be is friends. He'd have to go to the library first thing in the morning. He didn't know what "at home" meant, and he had no idea how to write his response to Clara's invitation.