James
Short Story
Elizabeth Courtney
Senior Writing
March 11, 2009




I guess it never occurred to me that the only place I’d like to be, other than dead was in the arms of one person. I was always the girl who liked being alone, who liked, flying solo. I am not suicidal, no, hardly, but I have indeed found myself deeply in love with one man, a type of love that makes life seem pointless without that individual at least within arms reach. He was spontaneous and adventurous and not entirely right for me, but that didn’t stop me.
The tight pins hurt my brain as momma shoved them in farther. “You ought to blow em’ away tonight Anna.” As she spoke I grimaced. I wanted nothing more than to be free. The war had just ended and women were just as ready as men to return to society’s regulations. Girls my age didn’t date. We simply waited for a suitable youthful man to whisk us away. But, for some reason that didn’t call to my free spirited mind. That was not what I wanted one tiny bit. An entire generation of men had virtually died in the war leaving a cluster of us girls’ men less, I didn’t quite mind not having someone to order me around.
I pulled up the long black tights and dizzily walked over to the vanity. I was at the gentle age of eighteen, a local jazz lounge played honey melodies to my ears every other night as I danced for a modest amount of money. My momma didn’t like it very much but we had nothing and dancing was my only source of some kind of lack of restriction. I looked up at my glowing, uneasy face in the burnt and tortured mirror. My long brown hair was now atop my head in tight ringlets. The rouge that dusted my cheeks made the melancholy smirk on my face appear to give way a tad. I looked up at ma, her face worn and incomprehensible.
I walked six blocks to the Beignet Lounge in the hot heat of that blistering southern sun of July. It had been eight months since the war had ended. The lounge was placed amongst the lively downtown district. It was laced with red brick along the ground and had a large sign positioned above the large aqua blur french doors. The paint was peeling and scraps of it lay on the rusted sidewalk underneath my feet. As I passed through the doors at around three o’clock I winked at Bobby as he called after me. “Hey Baby!” I laughed aloud at his apparent enthusiasm. The night continued on like dragging lulls. I danced, smiled, teased, my way into hopeless stranger’s hearts. I felt the fire of freedom when I moved about the stage but something was empty in my life. I just kept thinking of how New Orleans never smelled so sweet the days after the war ended. It was at a time when life comes and life goes and you are lucky to have a ration of bread on your plate at supper, but life was still begging us to escape. Things are slow.

The evening was falling and the last few gents were sitting wide eyed and groggy as we flashed our saucy skirts around. A sudden entrance caught my eye and a group of young men collectively walked inside the lounge. Lengthy and concrete, he amused the h*** out of me. He staggered in and politely tipped his hat. He took a seat and his mysterious eyes fell on me. My lungs gasped for air and my heart was running so fast it kept tripping. He was the most striking man I had ever seen. The epitome of my entire existence fell into his stare. What was going on? I was always quite good and ignoring strangers’ gawks, h***, sometimes I didn’t even make eye contact. His eyes however, made me weak.

The music whispered its goodbye and I warily stepped off stage and hesitantly scuttled back to the dressing room. I was going back to reality, d**n.
It was no more that twenty minutes and I was walking down the teasing and twisted alley ways of the city heading towards home when I heard a voice, “You really are something.” It called. It was so yielding and pure that my eyes froze in their sockets and I shifted my head to see him standing there like a sad, lonely dog. I gazed in curiosity at the all too familiar outsider. “I beg your pardon, I, I don’t think we have met…” I choked out. He looked at me and smiled a warm glazed fire of a grin. “I’d remember a face like that; it’s somethin’ a man cannot forget.” He explained in great detail that he had been in the war and had not gone out for awhile. His friends had made him come into the club where I danced. He stared blankly and confidently confessed, “And, I thank God for it, you are with out a single doubt the most amazing thing I have ever seen” He had a russet skin tone and as he talked I noticed that he obviously came from some money. His clothes were neatly tailored and he looked just absolutely too ideal. He soared above my height and frightened me. But for some odd reason I didn’t care, I rather liked this fear for some reason. It was fresh, like a new dew drop on a crinkled old leaf. I then quaintly explained that I needed to be on my way home, as much as I wanted to stare at him forever I knew it was too perfect to be true. I would have bet my life that alcohol had poisoned his mind, making him delirious and hectic. As I turned I could feel his glowing smile on my back. I told him over my shoulder that I’d see him again, completely insincere. I rushed home feeling weightless and spent the rest of the night creating a picture of his dark eyes and that smoldering voice in my mind.

The sun leaked into my room as I blinked and shook off the sleep that still overwhelmed my body. A grin was plastered enduringly onto my lips. I floated down to my humble kitchen and kissed my father on the forehead. His eyes twinkled unusually and his long southern voice broke the still silence of morning “What has gotten in to you Anna?” I smiled at him and quickly ate the oats and milk, same thing I had every single morning for the last few months. This morning, it tasted particularly bland. “Oh nothing, jus like the sugar cotton candy clouds are atop my head and Satan’s breath heating up the earth again, I love this weather pa, that’s it and that’s all.” I breathed. He gazed at me, suspicious of a flaw in my tale. I gaped at the crimson red cherry cup placed aside my bowl in contemplation. I worked again tonight and all I could wonder was if he’d be there waiting. The day passed on, like time always does. I got myself together and hurriedly pranced out the door. It was one of those days, the ones where you swore God made for perfect bliss. I had left early just so I could taste the heat upon my lips and dance through the sunlight. As I swayed, people watched. They gazed at me, this curious young girl skipping with an unpredictable sense of self about her. I couldn’t help but giggle. And, through all this delight a single face plagued my mind. I saw him. I was indeed wearing my hair a little looser today, I felt a little more liberated. I turned the corner and astonishment raged through my heart like a boat trudging upstream. Right there, next to the old marquee, and peeling pant of the chaffed doors, sitting so very inconspicuous, my stranger was waiting for me, on a bench, right outside the Beignet Lounge.

I glanced at him and then back to the entrance and then back to him. His hat was tipped down and a sly grin made itself home on those chiseled lips. “James Esposito. I’m nineteen and just got back from the war, I am from Penne, Abruzzo Italy and I know that I could make you the happiest girl in the world and I am willing to die trying” he took my hand and I felt my bones tremble. “I have whatever you could want and I want to show you things that startle you and take you places you’ve only dreamt of…” I kept trying to think but there came a point where my heart stopped that thinking. I squeezed his hand and nodded my head. Sometimes adventure knocks and your heart answers.