Tens
Part I
Preface:
During the 1920s and 1930s, a small circle of super-rich families, like the Vanderbilts, Astors, and du Ponts, made a seasonal migration up and down the East Coast, following the social calendar as if it were a sport. They wintered in lavish Palm Beach estates or on private yachts off Florida, then rode luxury trains north to spring in the Carolina resorts like Pinehurst, summered in Newport, Rhode Island, or Bar Harbor, Maine, and gathered for autumn horse races in Maryland or New York. This constant movement wasn’t just about escaping the weather; it was about being seen in the right places among the right people, reinforcing their social dominance along the Eastern Seaboard.
~Frederic C. Jaher, The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History, University of Illinois Press, 1973.
Tens
I. Jacksonville
(William, boarding The Midnight, 1929)
He was not a man who startled.
Money does that
flattens the nerves,
sands the rough edges off surprise.
But when she stepped off Radiant,
he startled.
She was small.
That was the first thing.
Small as a cigarette case,
small as the wrist he would later circle
with thumb and middle finger
with room to spare.
Black hair pinned but fighting loose.
Brown eyes that had already seen everything
and still found something funny.
She bought a paper.
The newsboy grinned like she’d tipped him a gold piece.
Maybe she had.
He offered a light.
She didn’t need one.
She took it anyway.
“You’re not from New York,” she said.
“Buffalo,” he said.
She smiled.
That smile.
He would think about that smile
from Jacksonville to Palm Beach,
from Palm Beach to Atlantic City,
through three state lines and one sleepless spring.
She climbed back aboard.
One small foot on the stair.
Then gone.
He stood on the platform
like a man who’d forgotten his own name,
which he had,
just for a moment.
The porter called.
The engine hissed.
William walked back to The Midnight
and lit a cigarette of his own.
He did not know yet
that he had just become
the kind of fool
who follows a ten
up the whole east coast.
II. Moving North
(William, alone, somewhere off the Georgia coast)
The car sways.
It always sways.
Mahogany and brass and the low
growl of steel on steel.
He pours two fingers of Scotch.
Drinks it in one.
Pours another.
She is not here.
He knows she is not here.
But the berth is wide
and the sheets are cool
and the dark is the shape
of a very small woman
with very long hair.
He closes his eyes.
She is beneath him.
No.
beneath is not the word.
She is fitted to him,
small as a key in a lock,
small as a breath held too long.
Her black hair spills across the pillow
like ink dropped in water.
He gathers it in his fist,
not hard.
Not as hard as he wants to.
Her mouth opens.
“You followed me,” she says.
Not a question, a slow smile
“Pull harder.”
He says yes.
He says it twice.
He says it into her throat,
her collarbone,
the impossible small of her back.
He pulls harder.
She laughs that laugh.
The one from the platform.
The one that costs more than his car.
But here, in the dark of The Midnight,
it costs nothing.
It is just hers.
Just his.
Her legs wrap around him.
She is so light he could lift her
with one hand.
He does.
She gasps.
“Tens,” he says.
He has never called her that.
He has never said her name at all.
But here, in the sway of the car,
it is the only word he knows.
The train hits a switch.
He wakes.
The sheets are twisted.
His heart is a wild thing.
The berth is empty.
The Scotch is still half-poured.
But his hand
his hand still remembers
the weight of her,
which was no weight at all,
which was everything.
He lies in the dark
and watches the ceiling
and wonders
if a dream can count
as the first time.
He decides it does.
He decides it must.
Because the other option
that he will never touch her at all
is worse than any dream.
The Midnight sways on.
Georgia.
South Carolina.
North.
He does not sleep again.
to be continued…Part II the Breakers to Atlantic City
More from White Rabbit Musings and Mark Crutchfield
White Rabbit Musings is my labor of love. This publication is reader supported. All articles will remain free domain, however if you would like to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a book. Thank you so very much for reading. I appreciate your time.
Love this Dorie!
I felt fully immersed into 1920's elegance with a hint of noir.
The sensory and visual details are so vivid and through me straight into what feels like a cinematic piece!
Beautiful writing and can't wait for the next episode and to see more of Tens!
Great name BTW- a name that feels like it has a whole back story in itself.
This felt as if I was transported back to that era . It seems like eons ago and , yet, it’s in living memory. So strange how time moves on and washes away the traditions of the past . Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed reading your post.