Club Storyville (11 page)

Eyes instantly watering, my urge to cough was out of my control, and I reached for the water, realizing I had been the punch line of a joke before it had happened.

“Setting liquor on fire burns some of the alcohol off,” Ariel explained as I blinked back tears, regretting my decision to try to be worldly and sophisticated and whatever else I was desperate to make her see in me, and not regretting it at all. Because, just before she took her glass back and lifted it for another drink, the slightest hint of a smile flashed across Ariel’s lips, and it was the first time I had seen her smile all day.

O
n down the line, Ariel asked a passing steward for the time and our location, and when he told her it was almost eight o’clock and we were closing in on Hiwassee, she raised the shade again.

Toward the front of the train, I could just see the colors starting to spread across the land as Ariel ordered us more drinks to give us good reason to linger at our table. When the cars before us curved suddenly southward, though, I realized why she had declared I would want to be on the western side at sunset.

Passing the open spaces of rural Virginia, only the occasional farmhouse springing up from the Earth, a thousand colors painted themselves on the trees and green crops, like a work of art coming to life against the rocking of the train, a lullaby of sorts that tempted me into a dangerous sense of serenity, as if I could be at ease in Ariel’s presence.

Convinced I felt her eyes on me, I turned my head, but not quickly enough to catch her. Ariel’s eyes on the window, it was like they had never abandoned the hues that deepened over the field. It was an ongoing lesson I just had to accept - if Ariel didn’t want to be caught, she wouldn’t be. So, though I knew she had looked, that her gaze had been on me only moments before, I had no proof but the sensation of her on my skin.

N
ot long after the sun was done putting on its dazzling performance, Ariel and I went back to our cabin to settle in for the night. Removing her jacket the instant we were back inside, Ariel pulled out a magazine, so I dug through my bag for the latest Agatha Christie I was so happy to have gotten my hands on upon its release.

Sitting across from Ariel to read, though, I found nothing pleasant in more mystery or in murder, and longed for the worn copy of “Mary Poppins” I had thrown into my suitcase at the last moment because it always brought me comfort to read, but that I was too embarrassed to take out.

“Is something wrong?” I was surprised when Ariel noticed I was more absorbed in worry than in the story. Book held before me, I thought I was doing a decent job pretending. Of course, it occurred to me as I looked up at her, it might have been beneficial to actually turn a page every once in a while.

“No,” I shook my head.

“Do you need something?” she asked, and I needed all sorts of things, some that made sense, others that didn’t, but I knew those things went beyond the depth of Ariel’s question.

“No, I’m fine,” I uttered.

“Something different to read?” she offered, glancing toward the book that, in light of being found out, I had abandoned next to me on the seat.

“No,” I shook my head, the red cover fueling my anger as I looked at it. Why, I wondered, did I ever waste time in such pursuits? Staring into sunsets that would change nothing. Reading fiction that had no consequence on real life, the present, or the future.

In fifty years, who would know Agatha Christie? Hercule Poirot? Miss Marple? Who would remember Mary Poppins?

Thinking of Nan, dying, hopefully as slowly as possible, back in Richmond, I knew what she would say if I asked her those very questions. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she would laugh. ‘What point is there to anything of beauty? Who remembers Shakespeare? Who remembers Michelangelo?’

“It’s been a long day,” Ariel said in Nan’s place, because she was there and Nan wasn’t, and, soon enough, both would be gone. “We should get some sleep.”

W
hen she insisted I take the top berth half an hour later, with a sigh of acceptance that Nan had put her in charge instead of me, I climbed the ladder and tried not to crack my head on the too-close ceiling.

“All set?” Ariel asked, and, nodding, I watched her walk to the door to double-check the lock, before flipping off the light.

Darkness falling over the space, for a moment I was blind to her, to everything, but at the rustle of fabric against fabric, I squinted harder until the moonlight leaking around the edges of the shade revealed the form of Ariel in her nightgown. Having seen the robe before, on rare occasion in the halls of Nan’s house, but never what lie beneath it, the thin sleeveless fabric that sculpted Ariel’s body seized my senses.

Emboldened by the dark, or perhaps the lingering effects of the alcohol, I felt no haste to look away, watching instead as the fabric swirled around her, clinging tightly, and the tendrils of hair fell against Ariel’s neck as she pulled the band free.

Hypnotized as I was, I didn’t even have the sense to turn my head when she caught me looking.

The finally cool cabin suddenly too hot again, Ariel’s eyes held mine, and, as she moved toward me without blinking, I thought she would teach me something else worth learning, reveal more than a glorious sunset from a southbound train and her ability to hold hard liquor.

Outside the door, there were so many reasons for her not to, but, inside the cabin, inside myself, all I wanted was for her to touch me, to kiss me again, to make me worldly in ways only she could, and, by the time she was mere inches away, my body trembled with the anticipation of her.

Instead of coming to me, though, Ariel dropped suddenly from view and I heard the creaking of the berth below as she settled into her own space, leaving me alone and aching for something I only understood in theory.

“Goodnight, Ariel,” I whispered, because I wanted her name on my lips, the only part of her I could feel any time I chose.

“Goodnight,” her voice was a rasp against the uncertainty in the room, in the trip entire, in the distant relationship holding on by a single thread between us that I knew would unravel the instant that thread died and Ariel moved on.

T
he soft rocking of the train, the occasional click-clack of the seams in the tracks below us, lulling me to sleep like an infant, I awakened a woman with Ariel’s hand trailing up my arm as she crawled onto the thin mattress over me. Her lips meeting mine again – finally - I clutched to the body that pressed me deeper into the world and elevated me from it at the same time.

Though I didn’t know what to do, my body understood instinctively what it wanted from her, arching against her, holding her closer, head falling back as Ariel’s lips moved to my jaw and down my neck, going places I wanted so badly for her to go, despite knowing I shouldn’t.

Barely breathing, barely able to endure the ache she produced in me, I couldn’t fathom how anything could feel that way, even as I felt it, how a sensation could take me over so completely. Our bodies coming together, I didn’t know where my own sense of touch ended and the feeling of Ariel began.

A
t several long blows from the train’s horn, I woke again. Alone in the top berth, the ceiling black above me, Ariel out of sight below, I lay between worlds for a moment, trapped somewhere between fantasy and reality, not sure which of the two was more authentic.

Chapter Eleven

I
f Richmond was insufferably hot, New Orleans was the tenth ring of Hell. Its oppressive heat leaked in through the doors and tightly-sealed windows before the train even pulled into the station, hitting me in a wave of nausea and weakness as I stepped out onto the platform, and trying my resolve to do what Nan asked of me.

“Let’s get some water,” Ariel said at once, tugging me and the suitcases I wished I didn’t have to carry inside the station and up to the counter in the diner. Making me drink the entire glass against the protests of my stomach, she didn’t give me time to fully recover before we were out in the sweltering heat again to suffer some more.

In my head, I had the name of Nan’s friend - Desmond Caster - and, somewhere in my shoulder bag, an address from when Nan knew him. A part of me wanted to go straight there, despite the late hour, to find Mr. Caster, hand him the strange wooden box, and get right back on a train bound north, where the heat suddenly seemed tolerable. Showing up at a stranger’s house without warning in late evening was no way to make a good impression, though, which was the kind of impression I assumed Nan would want me to make.

Ariel had chosen our boarding house because it was near enough to the address Nan had given us to walk from one to the other, and I was already dreading the days to come, imagining how I would boil inside my clothes, despite the thin materials I had purposely chosen.

There were also effects, I realized each time Ariel pressed her fingers to the small of my back to redirect me, or brushed my elbow to make sure I was still following her, of dreaming the impossible. Such invasive fantasies dulled the present, sucking interest from reality like a vacuum cleaner pulled dust from carpet. Knowing better than to want what I couldn’t have was the key to happiness, I knew well, but, whenever I glanced Ariel’s way, what I couldn’t have was all I could seem to want.

Accepting the fact that I would only know greater and greater longing and unhappiness as long as I was exposed to Ariel even more each day, I clutched tightly to the handle of my suitcase, hoping our time in New Orleans would go quickly to minimize the pain, even as I was grateful Ariel was with me to tend to the things I knew little how to do, such as hiring a car to drive us across the city.

S
ettled an acceptable distance from Ariel in the backseat, the breeze through the windows was somewhat soothing as I watched the buildings go by, so different from those of Richmond. Curving around corners, some with rounded edges, some with triple layer porches, many with the brightest colors I had ever seen on a street front, the buildings of New Orleans made it look like another world entirely.

Crossing a main street, large, ornate houses lined both sides, but, though some of the distinctive features I’d seen followed us once we started down the streets on the other side of the main road, most of the buildings stopped trying to impress. As they became smaller and more run-down, the queasiness of my stomach multiplied and I longed to tell the driver to turn the car around and go back to the neighborhood of lights and striking architecture.

Then, I saw the people - standing outside of buildings, sitting on porches, walking along the streets, despite the heat and darkness that had started to fall - and that was when I was sure Ariel had made a mistake, or that the address Nan had given us was off by years.

“Are you sure this is where you want to be?” the driver spared me from having to ask the question.

“If the address is right, this is right,” Ariel returned, looking ahead between the seats, and the driver said nothing else before coming to a stop just past the streets with all the shops and people.

Glancing up at the name of the boarding house, painted on a small wooden sign hanging above the front steps, I was as certain as the driver we were in the wrong place. When he asked Ariel again, though, she assured him we were where we were supposed to be with some irritation, so I kept my own questions to myself as the driver pulled our bags from the trunk and carried them to the edge of the old Victorian’s porch.

“Do you need me to stick around?” he asked, eyeing the front door with palpable distrust, and, though it seemed like a very good idea to me, Ariel assured him we didn’t, waiting for him to drive away before making a move.

Watching our ride go with trepidation, I wondered what we would do after being abandoned in the wrong neighborhood. Shoulders squared, though, Ariel did the only thing left to do, raising her hand to knock on the door, not surprised in the least when it was answered by a colored man whose smile flickered at the sight of us.

“Can I help you ladies?” he questioned carefully.

“I hope so,” Ariel responded. “I’m Ariel Brandt. I reserved a room.”

Expressive, dark eyes widening in response, the man’s gaze looked especially bright in the light from the porch.

“Yes, of course, Miss Brandt,” he made an effort to smile again. “I’m Buddy Williams. You can call me Buddy, of course. Come in, please.” When Ariel leaned down to grab her suitcases, he rushed to take them from her. “No, no, now, let me take care of those. Please, go on inside. I’ve got fans going. It’s not bad at all in there.” Picking up Ariel’s luggage, he nodded us through the door, and Ariel’s hand on my side was both pressure and crutch as she guided me across the threshold and into a world where we had no right to be.

Setting Ariel’s suitcases inside the door, Buddy went to retrieve mine, and my eyes swept the room as we waited, trying to find what made the place different. The old house well-kept, its only distinguishing features were striped wallpaper that gave it a rather European look, the chandelier that looked like it was hand-crafted of no more than blocks of wood and mason jars, and the framed picture of a man I didn’t recognize behind the desk, who didn’t look all colored, but was at least halfway.

After bringing our things in from outside, Buddy closed the door behind us, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat off his neck.

“Did you ladies just get into town?” he asked as he stepped behind the desk.

“We came right from the station,” Ariel replied, and Buddy gave a slow nod, as if he was weighing the answer against the thoughts inside his head. Dropping his eyes to his guest book for a moment, his thick thumb tapped a heavy rhythm against the paper, and I could see Ariel’s name beside it in neat print.

“Are you still unsure how many days you’ll need?” Again Buddy’s question sounded careful. Glancing up with guarded eyes, I wondered what he saw in us, two white ladies standing in the front room of his boarding house.

“We shouldn’t be here long.” It sounded as if Ariel was trying to reassure him, and I waited for her to clear up the misunderstanding, for them both to come to their senses, for Buddy to tell us where to find a proper boarding house, and for Ariel to ask him to call another car hire to take us back to the other side of the mansion-lined road.