Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1925

N ow, this is a whole new level of fake." Shivering against a stiff breeze, Lauren stood with her roommates in front of a Fifth Avenue mansion several blocks from where Elsa had grown up. She hadn't come to this Halloween party because she thought it was a good idea. She'd come to make her cousin and Ivy happy.

And by the looks on their faces, they were enthralled with the spectacle before them. The front lawn was buried in sand and adorned with a canvas pyramid and a sphinx made of what appeared to be papier-maché. Guests ambled about, some of them abandoning socks and shoes to feel the grains between their toes. Lauren and her father had not gone to the St. John estate today because the staff were setting up for a private event. No doubt it was nothing like this.

"What could be more fitting for Halloween than mummies, right?" Ivy's red-lipped smile shone beneath clustered lights casting a desert glare over the yard. It was past Lauren's bedtime, but the scene was as bright as midday. "Remember, you're here for fun, not work."

"That's a good thing, too," Lauren teased, "because there is nothing genuine about this." Live music blared from inside the mansion's doors. The melody was "Old King Tut," a popular song that made the pharaoh out to be an old man rather than the teenager he'd been when he died. She doubted anyone here cared about that fact.

Elsa hooked her arm through Lauren's and squeezed. "It's a genuine party, and I genuinely hope you'll enjoy yourself, despite any historical inaccuracies. At least the masses are excited about your field of study."

Lauren couldn't deny the pervasive enthusiasm. Products from Palmolive soap to Egyptian Bouquet Talcum Powder to King Tut Lemons to Egyptienne Luxury Cigarettes and more all claimed some connection in order to capitalize on the trend. Popular songs included "Moonlight on the Nile" and "Mummy Mine." Even the current colors available in women's fashions were named with Egyptian inspiration. Among the favorites were amulet, sand, beetle, Egyptian red, blue lotus, faience, sphinx, papyrus, cartouche, camel's hair, and mummy brown.

"I've yet to see a bird-themed party half as lively as this one," Elsa went on. "Archer said they brought in more than a dozen truckloads of sand for tonight." Archer, Elsa had mentioned earlier, worked as a preparator at the American Museum of Natural History, crafting wax flora and fauna from molds to match the native environments for the African displays. His parents were hosting this event. "What do you think, Ivy? Has the New-York Historical Society inspired anything like this?"

"Every Fourth of July," Ivy said. "No sand or sphinx, of course, but our Revolutionary New York tours always sell out. Our most devoted patron hosts a party where George Washington and his troops make an appearance in full uniform, right down to the bayonets. If I'm invited next year, you're both coming with me, I warn you."

"I'd love to," Lauren told her. "Do you suppose you'll be inducted into the Daughters of the American Revolution by then?"

Ivy's smile sagged. "I sincerely hope so. Still working on finding all the necessary paperwork."

Lauren offered a word of encouragement, aware of how important this was to her. Having lost her immediate family, it made sense that Ivy would want to join a lineage society to more firmly connect her to her roots. "Well, you're in the right place with the NYHS for genealogical records, at least."

Elsa agreed. "Oh, look at that." She pointed to a shining path resembling a river winding around the corner of the house. On it was a float made to look like a barge, bearing a woman wearing a simple white gown, black wig, heavy kohl around her eyes, and a gold headdress.

"Don't tell me that's Cleopatra," Lauren said.

Elsa laughed. "More or less. That's Archer's younger sister. Apparently she's the queen of the party. Honestly, I don't see how it would be worth it to wear that flimsy getup in this weather just for show. Come on, let's go in."

Music pulsed through Lauren as they entered and handed their coats to the butler. Potted palms edged the great hall. Across black-and-white-marble tiles, belly dancers performed to beating drums and a clapping audience.

Lauren couldn't hope to fit in with this crowd, and she didn't mind that. Most people here looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, the ladies wearing rolled stockings and sleeveless shifts tiered with beaded fringe. The men wore suits, and, for the most part, silly expressions their mothers would have been ashamed of.

During a break between dance numbers, Lauren, Elsa, and Ivy moved to the ballroom, where musicians played "Cleopatra Had a Jazz Band." Another canvas pyramid rose from the center of the floor.

"I'm looking for Archer." Elsa craned her neck. "I'd like to introduce you to him."

The song ended, and as people applauded for the musicians, Lauren spied a pair of men approaching the pyramid tent. One wore the drab linen garb of an archaeologist, the other a tuxedo and top hat. "Howard Carter and his benefactor, Lord Carnarvon?"

Elsa squinted through her spectacles. "Probably."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the man dressed as Carter announced. "We are about to enter the tomb of King Tut-ank-hamun!" While the band struck a moody chord, he opened a flap to the tent, and both men disappeared inside. Moments later, they emerged, looking dazed.

"Such wonderful things!" Carter said with outstretched arms.

Then the man dressed as Lord Carnarvon slapped his cheek as though to kill a mosquito and collapsed to the floor.

"The curse of Tutankhamun! Stay back!" Carter cried and dashed from view.

Lauren bit her tongue to keep from pointing out that Lord Carnarvon had not died of an infected mosquito bite until months after the tomb's opening.

Ivy stood on her toes to see what came next. "Oh, Lauren," she whispered. "You're going to love this." A coffin on rubber wheels rolled out of the opening, its decoration so ridiculous that Lauren laughed along with everyone else.

The lights dimmed, except for a beam directed on the coffin. The music stopped. Knocking and moaning sounded from within the box. With a creak, the lid opened, and a linen-wrapped hand snaked out.

As the rest of the body followed and staggered to its feet, Lauren congratulated herself for not breaking into a lecture on how real mummies had been wrapped with arms and legs bound up with the rest of the body. She did, however, whisper to Ivy, "I'll bet that your patrons who dress like colonial soldiers at least get the uniforms right."

"Down to the last button," Ivy confirmed.

"Who dares to disturb my slumber?" the mummy growled, ignoring the man lying at his feet.

"Oh my goodness, that's Archer," Elsa said, clearly amused by the Halloween joke.

He stumbled around the circle of guests, asking one after another, "Was it you?" When he came to Elsa, he took her hand in his wrapped-up mitt. "It was you!" he declared.

Laughing, she played along. Light gleamed on her golden-bronze finger waves and bounced off her glasses.

"Then you're bound to me for eternity—or at least for one dance!" The band struck up the King Tut fox trot, and the mood in the room swung from ominous to hilarious. But when Archer attempted to pull Elsa onto the dance floor, her smile dropped.

"Be a sport, doll," Archer whispered through his wrappings.

"I can't." Panic flared in Elsa's voice. "Not in front of everyone."

With mounting urgency, Archer persisted, and Elsa shook her head. He might not understand her rejection, but Lauren did. She could practically feel the anxiety radiating from her cousin. Everyone was watching them now. The band replayed the same opening measures, waiting for the couple to take the floor and open it to the rest of the group. Ivy might think the gesture romantic and hope that Elsa would change her mind despite her limp, but Lauren knew better.

Elsa refused to move.

The awkward moment teetered on the brink of something sharp and painful. Lauren couldn't let that happen. Never would she have imagined that she, an assistant curator of Egyptian art for the Met, would King-Tut with a stranger swaddled in strips of bedsheets to a song that mocked a civilization she respected.

With a deep breath, Lauren swallowed her pride. "Come on, Tut. Let's boogie." Laughing at the shock and delight on her roommates' faces, she whisked Archer—and the attention that came with him—away.