Vee (2 page)

“Should I save you from the scary
rat?” she teases me.

“Distract me instead,” I suggest.
She tugs me into a darkened doorway so abruptly that I nearly lose
my balance. Her slender body is surprisingly strong. I feel her
warm breath caress my face. We are of a height and her lips hover
inches from mine.

“Better?” she whispers. Her mouth
comes down on mine and her hand slides under my jacket to cup my
breast and I forget everything but her. She pins me against the
wall and the hard corner of the new notebooks in my purse dig into
my ribs. I know what story I will tell on its pages. The story of
Vee.

Heart of
Glass

“Sherry?”

Vee looks at me askance, a brow raised. “Are you
sure you’re the same woman from your notebook?”

I flush. That me, the one she’d read about in the
coffee shop half an hour ago, was many years past.

“I didn’t think punk chicks liked
sherry,” she continues, resting her hand on the back of the leather
chair that faces the small fireplace in my apartment. The blue and
black polish on her fingernails is chipped, her hands reddened from
the chill walk home. Her legs in their raggedy fishnet stockings
have pinkened from their usual pale hue.

“Jack Daniels, then?” I try to
keep a straight face, but Vee’s laughter is infectious.

“I’ll try the sherry,” she says,
and I move into my postage-stamp kitchen. She follows and the snug
space seems smaller still. My hand shakes as I take the bottle from
the cupboard over the fridge and fetch two crystal glasses from
another. That kiss in the shop doorway has unsettled me. I want
more from her, but I don’t want to press. Tonight seems like a
dream.

“My grandmother gave me sherry
when I was a girl,” I say, trying to keep my mind from picturing
Vee in my arms again, but naked. I carefully fill the delicate
glasses. “She was a lady, never worked a day in her
life.”

Vee takes the glass I offer and sniffs it. “Not
bad,” she says. “I could pretend to be a lady.” She lifts her
glass, clinks it against mine. “To notebooks, and stories.”

The sherry is sweet on my tongue, but what I really
want is her sweetness again.

Vee looks at me from under her lashes as she sips
her sherry, a smile quirking at the corners of her lips. “What else
should I know about you?” she asks. “Do you have a collection of
opera records? Wear white gloves?”

“To my grandmother’s dismay,
neither.”

“She probably wouldn’t like me,”
Vee confides.

“That doesn’t matter. She’s long
gone.” I take Vee’s hand and her fingers twine with my own. “I
think you’ll like my record collection.”

Vee practically skips into the living room, pulling
me along. She tosses back the last drops of her sherry and sets the
glass on a bookshelf before dropping to her knees to peer at the
lowest shelf. My record collection is much reduced from my younger
years, but I kept all my favorites.

She pulls out a 7” single with a tattered cover and
I recognize it immediately. I’d been ashamed to own it, Blondie’s
hit single, ‘Heart of Glass’, thinking that my friends would doubt
my punk cred, but I loved that song.

Vee holds it out to me and my fingers close over the
heavy paper, feeling the familiar creases.

“Are you sure?” I ask. I’d
expected her to pull out my Iggy and the Stooges records, or my old
Clash imports that I’d saved for and taken so much pride
in.

“Of course,” she says. “Debbie
Harry is the bomb.”

“You’re losing your punk cred
now,” I tease. “You’d have been shunned to admit a love for Debbie
Harry after this song hit number one.”

Vee scoffs. “Then they wouldn’t know what they’re
missing. Play it, Alex. Please?”

I pull the dust cloth off my old record player. I
found it at a thrift shop, delighted at the cheap price and the
stacking spindle. It’s been awhile since I’ve played an entire
stack of singles.

The record drops into place and the arm swings over.
The crackle and pop of the first grooves come through the speakers.
I listened to this record so often that its quality has declined,
but the sound is familiar, like an old friend.

At the first tikka-tikka of the percussion, Vee
takes my hand again, tugging me to her. “Did you see Blondie in
concert?” she asks as we sway to the music.

I lean over and put my sherry glass next to the
record player so that I can put my arms around her. The heavy toes
of her combat boots bump against my thin leather boots, and our
knees touch.

“Once or twice,” I say, taking the
lead and sending Vee into a twirl, away and then back. She giggles
and staggers against me. Her body is warm, soft yet angular where
her hip bones show against the light fabric of her miniskirt. She’s
perfect. I want to kiss her again, but fear I’ll come on too
strong.

Vee moves to the music, draping her arms around my
neck. She leans in until our foreheads touch and I’m looking into
her grey eyes, the lashes dark and long, dusting over her cheeks as
she blinks. Her pale skin is flushed and her Monroe stud glints in
the light of the lamp. Her lips are pink where the violet lipstick
has worn off. I could look at her forever. But looking won’t be
enough.

Her mouth is soft under mine and she parts for my
tongue. We come to a halt, though the music still plays. She tastes
of the sweet stickiness of sherry, and a hint of the coffee we had
earlier. I don’t want to let her go.

“Put on another record,” Vee says,
her words breathy against my lips. “A long one.”

Birdland (I)

We haven’t been dating long, and already Vee and I
are sticking too close to home. It’s too easy for me to pick her up
after work when the bookstore closes, too easy for us to make
dinner and drinks here, watching late night TV, or having sex. Not
that I mind. But I’m already a bit of a shut-in.

“We should go out tonight,” I say
to Vee when she comes over, having had the early shift at the
bookstore. She flops into the cracked leather chair in front of the
small fireplace, putting her feet up on the arm.

“Where to?” She sounds eager, and
I’m glad. Maybe she too has been feeling the urge for
change.

“Do you like jazz?” I come out
from the kitchen with a glass of water, and Vee looks at me upside
down, her head on the back of the chair. She wiggles her
eyebrows.

“Don’t know much about it. Punk’s
more my style. And indie rock.”

“That’s settled then. Put on a
nice dress-” she’s in her work uniform still, and it just won’t do-
“and we’ll go.”

“A nice dress?” Vee sits up
straight. “Not opera gloves too, I hope.”

I come round to stand in front of her, and tweak her
nose before giving her an affectionate kiss. She pulls me down onto
her lap and I very nearly spill my water.

“What will you wear?” she asks,
her breath tickling my neck. I’m in my usual dark skirt and top. It
will do for what I have planned.

“I’m wearing it.”

“Change your shirt,” she says.
“Something lower cut.” She waggles her eyebrows again. “For
me.”

I slide off her lap and she follows me into the
bedroom, darting around me to open the closet. She flicks through
my dresses, and I wonder what she’s thinking of. Right near the
end, tucked away, is a long, flowing black lacy dress, and she
pulls it from its hanger. I’d worn it to a party or two back in the
80s, when Goths and Depeche Mode were in fashion. I’m sure I meant
to wear it again, or get it altered, or something, but it’s sat in
the back of the closet, waiting.

“This will be perfect.” Vee shucks
her black trousers and shirt, showing off her bright blue boy-cut
underwear and matching bra. She pulls the dress over her head and
pokes her arms into the sleeves before tugging it down and into
place. She twirls. “What do you think?”

It’s a bit too large, but it suits her. “I love
it.”

She grins, then turns back to the closet, pulling
out a clingy, burgundy top with deeper cleavage than I usually
wear. I think that was from a Christmas party a few years ago. Why
I keep these old things around, I just don’t know. She thrusts the
shirt at me.

“Try it.”

I change shirts, and she looks at me critically,
twirling a finger. I oblige her and turn.

“Perfect.”

Vee tugs on my hand as we weave through the crowd in
Times Square, pulling me through a gap I hadn’t seen. Once out of
the crush--there’s some sort of kids movie promo with bright
characters and music--her pace slows. We hook arms as we stroll
down 49th Street, past the church of St. Malachy’s, a beautiful
artists’ church easily missed by most. It doesn’t have the same
presence as St. Patrick’s, right on a corner. I pause by its open
door. The scent of beeswax and incense, a staple of most Catholic
churches, is one of my favourite smells in the world, even though
I’m not religious.

“What are you stopping for, Alex?”
Vee asks. She looks puzzled and I realize we’ve never gone into any
churches together. There’s always too much else for us to
do.

“It’s St. Malachy’s,” I reply. Vee
steps into the doorway, letting go of my arm. She takes two steps
up and peers into the narthex, and past it, into the sanctuary
itself. I follow her.

The interior of the church is dim, the pews mostly
empty. I don’t even want to whisper, for fear my voice will
carry.

“Beautiful,” Vee says in a hushed
tone. We stand there a few minutes more and I breathe deeply of the
cool, scented air. I haven’t been here in years, choosing to stay
out of the crush of Midtown, full of tourists gaping at the
billboards of Times Square.

Vee takes one last look, then descends to the
sidewalk. I motion for her to wait, and I drop a few dollars into
the donation box. I retrace my steps and join her.

“Generous of you,” she remarks as
we stroll toward our destination. I shrug.

“Only for that church,” I say. I’d
gone there many times when I was younger, craving a break from the
frenetic atmosphere of Broadway, needing a moment’s quiet. There
were too few places in New York for that.

Vee nods and takes my hand. The toes of her combat
boots peek out from underneath the lace hem of her dress, and I
love that her blue-streaked hair is the only splash of colour. It
suits her, feels dramatic, yet almost ethereal with her pale skin.
I have a dark trench coat over my blouse and skirt, and my knee
high boots are black as well. We’re a Gothic pair tonight.

“We there yet?” Vee asks, looking
around as we cross 8th Avenue.

“Almost.”

“Where are we going? Are you going
to tell me?”

“The Birdland, of course.” One of
the most famous jazz bars in the world. I love its white
linen-covered tables, the bar area with chrome and leather seats,
and its low stage. I always feel like I’m stepping back in time, as
if Louis Armstrong might appear on stage. The Birdland was a night
out to be savoured.

We walk up to the club, understated with its black
vertical sign and curtained windows. You might miss it if you
didn’t know what you were looking for. Inside, I pay our cover and
we give our jackets to the coat check girl. A waiter leads us to a
table near the back. We’re a bit early, but I never want to miss a
song. Plus it gives Vee and I a chance to chat before the
performance. The club is strict about no talking during the
performance; they even have little signs on all the tables and at
the bar, asking for quiet. I wish more places did that.

Vee’s voice is hushed, even though the evening’s
entertainment has yet to begin. A piano waits onstage, its black
lacquer gleaming under the low lights.

“Who are we seeing?” she asks,
leaning close, her warm breath ghosting over my cheek.

I can’t remember their names, not
with Vee so close, distracting me. “A French pair,” I whisper back.
“They have a repertoire of classic
chanson
.”

“Oh.” Vee doesn’t look overly
enthused, but I hope that will change. I clasp her hand under the
table and her thumb strokes my fingers. I press my thighs together.
This morning, she’d stroked me just as gently, teasing me until I
was desperate, and her touch now takes me back.

“You’ll like it--trust
me.”

The waiter comes to take our order and I request a
bottle of champagne. When he goes to fetch it, Vee asks, “What are
we celebrating?”

“A night out. Spending time
together. Listening to chanson deserves champagne, don’t you
think?”

“I’m easy.” Vee grins and I want
to kiss her right then, but the club is beginning to fill and I’ve
never been one for excessive displays. So I squeeze her hand and
her grin widens.

The waiter returns with our champagne and
ceremoniously pops the cork, filling our glasses before placing the
bottle into a pewter ice bucket.

“Santé,
mesdames
,” he says, though the French
sounds awkward in his Long Island accent. “Are you ready to
order?”

We order our meals and he retreats. I lift my
champagne flute. “To music.”

“And the French,” Vee adds,
clinking her glass against mine.

The champagne fizzes on my tongue, dry and a bit
tart. Vee’s lips pucker slightly, but she takes another sip. “I
could get used to this.”