Tens
Part II
III. The Breakers
(December 1929)
The ballroom is a wedding cake
someone forgot to stop decorating.
Gold leaf. Crystal drops.
A ceiling painted with clouds
that never rain.
She is here.
Of course she is here.
He knew she would be here.
He followed the migration
like a homing pigeon with a bad memory.
She wears silver.
Sequins? Beads?
He cannot look at her dress.
He cannot look away from her dress.
She is small as a thimble
and twice as bright.
“Hortense,” he says.
“Tens,” she says.
“Tens,” he says.
It tastes like something he dreamed.
The orchestra plays something slow.
Something with violins and a lie
about forever.
He asks.
She says yes.
Her hand fits in his
like it was made there.
Like God himself measured.
They step onto the floor.
She is so close.
Too close.
Not close enough.
Her waist under his palm
is exactly the size he remembers.
The dream was not wrong.
That is the terrible part.
The dream was not wrong.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“You look pale.”
“Fine,” he says.
“The train,” he says.
“Long trip.”
She laughs.
That laugh.
The same laugh.
It travels from her throat
to his chest
without crossing space.
“You followed me,” she says.
Just like the dream.
Exactly like the dream.
He stops breathing.
“I followed the weather,” he says.
“Palm Beach is warm.”
“Liar,” she says.
But she says it softly.
And she does not step away.
She turns under his arm.
Once.
Twice.
Her black hair swings out
like a curtain closing on a play.
Most women had short hair these days.
She didn’t.
When she comes back to him,
her brown eyes are level with his mouth.
She is so small.
How is she so small?
How is she so much?
“You dream about me,” she says.
Not a question.
He says nothing.
The violins saw back and forth.
Someone laughs across the room.
Ice clinks in a glass.
“I know,” she says.
“The way you look at me.”
“Like you’re trying to remember
something you never lived.”
The song ends.
He does not let go.
She does not pull away.
For one second
one impossible, heat-drunk second
he thinks:
“I could kiss her here.
Everyone is watching.
No one would stop us.”
But the band starts again.
And she steps back.
And the moment is gone.
He watches her walk away
silver beads,
black hair,
that impossible small back
and knows without doubt
The dream was only the beginning.
The real thing
is going to kill him.
IV. Atlantic City
(Spring, 1930)
This hotel is a wedding cake too.
They are all wedding cakes.
White marble. Salt air. Palms in pots
like nervous guests.
She found him first this time.
He was leaning on the balustrade,
smoking, watching the dark
where the ocean should be
but wasn’t yet.
“William.”
Just his name.
No hello. No how are you.
Just his name, in her mouth,
like she had been savoring it.
He turned.
She wore blue tonight.
Something that caught the moon
and threw it back.
Her hair was down.
He had never seen her hair down,
Without jewels or a headpiece of some sort.
It fell past her shoulders,
past her waist,
black giving stark contrasts to her blue dress.
“Tens,” he said.
And then, because he was a fool,
“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“Neither should you.”
She stepped closer.
One step.
The terrace was wide.
It did not feel wide anymore.
She smelled like gardenias.
Or maybe that was the night itself.
He could not tell anymore.
Everything smelled like her now.
The train. The ballroom. The air.
“Palm Beach,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Jacksonville.”
“Yes.”
“Atlantic City.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been following me for months.”
“Yes.”
She tilted her head.
Those brown eyes.
Bourbon. Crystal. The bottom of a glass
he kept reaching for.
“Why?” she said.
He should have said something clever.
Something light.
Something a man says
to a woman in blue
on a terrace
in April.
Instead, he said:
“Because I dreamed about you
before I ever touched you.
And when I woke up,
you were still there.”
She did not laugh.
For once, she did not laugh.
She reached up.
She had to reach up.
She was so small.
Her hand touched his face.
Her palm against his jaw.
His heart stopped being a heart
and became a fist.
“Show me,” she said.
“What you dreamed.”
He kissed her.
Not carefully, not gently.
Not the way he kissed other women
in other ballrooms
in other years.
He kissed her like a man
who had been dying of thirst
and just found out she was water…
And her water was real.
Her mouth opened.
Small. Hot. Perfect.
She made a sound, not a gasp,
not a sigh,
something in between,
something he had never heard before
and would spend the rest of his life
trying to hear again.
His hands found her waist.
The dream was wrong.
She was smaller.
Lighter.
Warmer.
Real.
Her fingers twisted in his lapels.
She pulled him down.
He went.
He would always go.
The ocean remembered to exist.
It crashed somewhere below.
He did not care.
The moon remembered to shine.
He did not notice.
There was only her mouth.
Only her breath.
Only the small sound she made
when he lifted her,
just slightly,
just enough to feel
how little she weighed,
how much she cost him already.
She pulled back.
Just an inch.
Her lips were wet.
Her eyes were dark.
“William,” she said.
“Tens,” he said.
“We shouldn’t,” she said.
“No,” he said.
Neither of them moved.
The ocean crashed again.
The palm fronds whispered
something scandalous.
She smiled.
That smile.
The one that cost more than his car.
The one that cost more than everything.
“We’re going to make a mess of this,” she said.
“We absolutely are,” he said.
She kissed him again.
And again.
And again.
The terrace door opened.
Someone coughed.
Someone left.
Neither of them turned around.
When he could move, he swung her up
easily in his arms.
Carried her through the gardens
To his room. Damn the eyes.
The dream needed to become
Reality.
To be continued…Part III Montauk Manor
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Am loving the atmosphere this piece creates, both between the characters and the overall ambience.
It's a story that pulls you right in.
Wonderfully written, Dorie. Looking forward to more.
I am embarrassingly attached... to the palm fronds whispering something scandalous. XDD I swear I heard that leafy gossip and went, yeppppp, the terrace has chosen chaos too.