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I am talking with my sister when I first notice you. I don't know what it is that causes me to look up, but I am grateful I do.
We are sitting at a small table with my sisters best friend and their guys of the week, right up against the stage, in the corner. You are shifting in and out of the light, creating an effect that leaves you all the more mesmerising. As I watch you I feel my thoughts slow, it is almost like everything in my body stops what it is doing, just so I can focus on you.
You have rich dark curly hair with just too little pomade that the humidity of the club is making some wild whips fly free. You have a strong sharp jaw that appears a deep caramel in the warm light. You are possibly the same height as me, or even shorter as it is hard to tell while I am still sitting down. I want to stand up and find out. You have shed your coat leaving your fine form in a deep navy suit, moving with a slim strength that I am certain I am not imagining. I feel a jolt, a warm fuzzy rush strait to my stomach, as you take a sip of your hooch with a firm, broad hand.
I am beginning to feel a little light headed, my lungs not filling up with quite enough air. It is the most curious, novel sensation. I have never felt this before. Not for the boys who held my hand on the walks home from school. Not for the actors my sister and her friends fawn over, magazine clippings all over bedroom walls. Not even for the young man sitting to my left, whom I suppose my sister intended to entertain me tonight.
All of a sudden I feel immense sympathy for the swooning ladies in my mothers romance novels, always fainting at a charming smile. Oh dear god, I hope I don't faint. I can't think of anything worse than if you look at me and I faint.
I take a sip of my drink, a futile attempt to calm down as I am not used to the burn of the alcohol that cuts through my cocktail, and try to think of what I should do next. Shall I simply approach you, stand up, walk over, introduce myself, start conversation? It seems simple when I think of it like that, and it is common of young women now days, but I have never done this before. Nor anything remotely similar. All hand-holding has been with the most innocent of childhood intentions. The number of dates I have been on can fit on one hand, all chaperoned. I have never attended the necking parties my sister has started frequenting since our arrival in New Orleans, not necessarily out of any conservation regarding virtue, rather a strong case of the nerves. In fact this is only my second outing to a speakeasy in total, invitations from my sister newly accepted in order to spend some of the hush money I have started receiving since my coming out, and I am yet to gather the constitution to accept the offers to dance with anyone.
Perhaps that is the most reasonable solution to my situation. I shall remain seated and with more luck than I have ever possessed, you will see me from across the room and fancy yourself a dance. Feeling only moderately foolish I take a fortifying breath in and tilt my profile towards you in a manner my mother has said will show off my most desirable angle, and pray harder than I ever have in my life that you will look my way.
~
You didn't come out tonight with any particular intensions, more so out of a familiar desire to keep busy, keep moving. That abruptly changes the moment you see her.
A pale, redheaded beauty, with a sharp nose and awkward lanky limbs poking out of her ritzy French dress. Her short bobbed hair is wavy and tangled like she forgot to set it before leaving the house. Her rounded jaw slopes down into a long smooth neck, absurdly reminding you of an egret or cottontail, something wild yet vulnerable. She shifts her head to the side causing one dress sleeve to slip elegantly down, exposing a hint of collarbone. You feel your jaw clench. You have never wanted something more in your life.
Studying the table she's sitting at you judge that she's out with girlfriends and by the way she fiddles with her napkin, shifts her weight in her seat, its her near enough her first night out. On her right is a dame maybe a few years older, plainer on the eye but with a similar nose and build, her sister you'd bet. There's a taller grim looking fella sitting on her left, a flat tire from the look of it, and if you're lucky she wont spare him a paper on a rainy day.
Since getting back from enlistment you've had your share of skirts in the back row, floozies who slip out the next morning. Hell for a while there it was anyone who got a couple drinks down you. So you are confident with the moves, the swing of conversation that leads to a dance, the dance that leads to a nightcap, the nightcap that leads to clothes on the floor and a couple hours where you don't have to think. Don't have to think about anything let 'lone remember.
The trouble is you don't think all that's gonna get you very far here. This babe looks like she will spook at the lines you usually drop on a flapper in a watering hole, and besides you have the queerest urge to romance her. There's a nagging sensation in the back of your mind that tells you if you pick her up the way you know how, let her be another dilly dally half remembered the next day, not only will you regret it, you will hunger for her with a greed that wont be stated for the rest of your life. With the way the light reflects off her auburn hair, pearly skin, soft dress, she looks like the closest thing to an angel you're ever gonna see. Not that you think anything, angelic or no, could get more beautiful than her. That angel, living beauty, she don't deserve no clumsy rough and tumble with the likes of you. No she deserves the berries, the whole nine yards, and for the first time in your life you are filled with the motivation to be that for someone.
Polishing off the rest of your drink, you decide the best plan of attack will be to gather all the wits your mama never said you had, put on all the charm you've spent countless nights perfecting, and be the real southern gentleman. The bees knees of New Orleans, try with all your might to sweep this angel off her feet.
Weaving between tables, chairs, bodies, you make your way over to her. When she is but a handful of paces away you breathe in deep, deeper than any trench, and reach out to brush the arm of the woman you are gonna make your wife.
~
"S'cuse me sweetheart, my name's Merriell. I couldn't help but notice you from over by the bar, 'n' wanna know if you fancy a dance?" The sudden Louisiana drawl startles Eddie out of her conversation, and she looks over her left where it appears there is a man asking her sister to dance.
Although Eddie has been dating since before her coming out, her younger sister Gene, who has always been more sheltered, more the quiet good girl, has not and this is evidenced by the blush rapidly deepening on her cheeks and the jump of her arm where the man touched her.
Eddie has seen Gene dance at their mothers soirées, luncheons and evening affairs, where the daughters of the hostess are expected to dance with the guests and keep room for Jesus between them. On the singular previous night since Genes coming out that Eddie has managed to get her into a club, she has been asked by a few guys to dance. This usually involves a lot of spluttering on Genes end, before a polite decline that leaves the guy either shaking his head in disappointment or trying his luck with one of the other girls at the table.
Now however, there is no such muttered apologies or flushes of embarrassment. Instead her sister is staring up into this mans eyes, looking rather as stunned as a foal nibbling a sugar cube for first time. Gene reaches out and puts her hand in the one the man has offered out to her. As he guides her out her chair, she speaks in a voice Eddie never would of thought would come out of her shy little sisters mouth.
"Eugenia, but you can call me Genie, or Gene if you like. I ain't never danced with a fella before so you might have to show me how."
"Oh Gene, its gonna be my pleasure boo."