The Ballroom

“I have to say, the lemon really comes through.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I thought so too.”
“Great minds think alike.”
“We ought’ to toast to tonight. You don’t get many great nights like this. Salut, Margaret.”   

"Salut."           

They softly tapped their glasses against one another’s, each taking a sip of their respective drinks. Jo and Margaret, both twenty-three, Jo brunette, Margaret a powder blonde, sat in cushioned chairs around a round marble table. The heat of the speakeasy, mingling with the strong stench of fresh-cut cigars, hazed about around the two women, encapsulating them in a dreamy cloud of midnight indulgence. Jo glanced up at Margaret, whose eyes had drifted back to the polished oak of the bar.

“Cat got your tongue?”
Margaret’s eyes refocused, and she seemed to be pulled from whatever she’d been thinking of. “Hm? Oh, no. I’m just rather drowsy. It is very late, isn’t it, Jo?”

Jo took another sip of her drink, the crisp citrus complimented like pink and brown by the gin. Jo and Margaret were the drinkers of their time, seasoned around the different clubs- though they were not ones to stay the night at a man’s house, or vice versa. They much preferred the company of each other, and had for many years.

“It is. Shall we leave?”
Margaret shook her head from behind her glass.
“No, I’d like to stay. Would you rather go?”
“I’m anywhere you are.”
Margaret smiled at this and fixed her dress on one shoulder.

“I’m going to go fix up my eyes. I can feel the makeup threatening to run,” said Jo. Margaret nodded, and Jo stood up, making her way to the powder room tucked into the corner of the club. She creaked the door open and stepped inside. She admired her face in the mirror and dabbed at her undereye with her ring finger. Reaching into her purse and retrieving a small dish of black polish, she brought it to her lips and gently spat into it, combining the two with a small brush. She coated her eyelashes with the black liquid, holding her little finger underneath to protect her carefully manicured complexion. She returned to where Margaret sat, and, in a moment where they went unnoticed, took her hand in hers and lightly brushed it with her fingers. Margaret smirked and took another sip of her drink- an impulse movement she made when she had nothing to say.

____________________________________________________

“Mom?”
"Yes?”
“Why didn’t you answer me and Davey when we called you?”
“I was just thinking of something.”
“What was it?”
“Nothing. It was a very long time ago, before you and Davey were born.”
“With Dad?”
Jo paused for a moment.
“Yes. Speaking of which, can you tell him that a letter arrived for him earlier?” 

“When will dinner be out of the oven?”
“Soon, darling.”
“How much longer? It’s taking  ages!”

Jo looked down at her hands as she lifted another plate from the sink and scrubbed at it slowly, methodically. She stared out the window at the snow coming down, the sound of Elvis briefly silenced.

“Mom? Mom?”
She looked back up, transferring the plate to a towel on the counter. “It’ll be done soon. And change that radio station.”

The little boy flipped the radio dial and walked out of the kitchen as a slow swing tune flowed through the air.