She swirled the martini in her glass, made the right way with vermouth and gin. The one olive moved with the tiny waves she was creating. The speakeasy was close to her rented room, not the most posh place she'd ever settled for a drink, but not the dingiest, either.
Looking around, she could see that it used to be a nice building. The mirror behind the bar was large, framed in by carved wood showing angels in relief. This wasn't the type of place one would find many angels these days. She looked at her own face in the mirror, too large and too close for comfort. The lady looking back at her had short dark hair, in the latest style. Her eyes were large, brown, almond shaped though she wasn't of Asian descent. She could make men melt with those eyes. She tried not to.
She looked back down into her drink, contemplating the state her dead husband had left her in. The Roaring Twenties were certainly roaring right past her doorstep. The only thing exciting about her life in the last ten years had been the mild shock of realizing she could actually pay her bills this month. She'd lived in ten boarding houses in as many years, worked as a secretary, a church pianist, even in a few factories just to get the rent paid on what was always one room with a tiny sink, bathtub covered in plywood and used as a dining table, and a bed shoved into the darkest dingiest corner.
She saw the gentlemen enter, heard them laughing and carousing. This obviously wasn't their first stop of the night. The tallest one caught her eye immediately. He had her thinking of things she hadn't even thought of when her husband was alive. Before him, before she'd settled down and become the lady that her parents had expected her to, she'd had many dreams. Many fantasies of what a big powerful man like that would be like. What would life be like if he took her home with him? How would things change for her then? She probably would find something exciting in that life, more exciting than just getting by.
She looked up again, pulling herself from her reverie. Her eyes accidentally caught his in the mirror. She wondered briefly, stylish businessman, or gangster? Did it matter? She decided it didn't. Sexy was sexy, and there was no doubt about this man's appeal. He had broad shoulders, brought out more by his perfectly tailored zoot suit. The suit was perfect. The darkest gray pinstripe she'd ever seen, and the fedora matched perfectly, dark grey with a dove gray band.
He moved through the room as if he owned the place. Maybe he did. Some of the wealthiest men in any given city were running speakeasies these days. He moved straight toward her after their eyes made that brief contact. Her heart fluttered up her throat, like a butterfly trying to escape her chest cavity as she saw him getting closer.
He leaned around her left shoulder and knocked on the bar once to get the barkeep's attention. The bartender looked at him and nodded before turning to pour the man three fingers of scotch, neat.
The simple fact of his nearness was having more affect on her than the three martinis she'd downed tonight. She looked up at him slyly, keeping her lashes lowered. He took his glass off the bar and turned toward her, settling his back against the polished wood.
"Hello." Just one word, but it shot through her like twenty-five dollar whiskey. His voice was deep and pure, the way men sounded in her dreams. He leaned into her and waited patiently for her mind to gather and expel a response.
"Hello, Handsome." She was surprised at the even sound of her own voice, happy that she hadn't faltered or squeaked. She blinked up at him, finally feeling a bit of a buzz inside for once in the last ten years.
She wondered if she had the courage to withstand a night of getting to know a man, after all these years of only conversing with the bottom of a glass. He smiled a slow, easy smile under his jauntily tipped fedora, apparently happy with her simple response.
He surveyed the room for a moment like a king overseeing his servants. His gaze landed on her again and he winked as if they were sharing conspiratorial thoughts. "What brings you into my place this evening?"
She shivered a little, loving the drift of his honeyed whiskey voice down her spine. "Trying to trade the lonely for regret, I hear it's easier to drown."
"Well, God bless the lovely liar who told you that one. None of it drowns, it all floats, the drinking just helps you float along with it." He nodded once to punctuate his declarations.
"Sounds like you're a man who's tried to drown a few of his own demons once or twice." She said, hearing the tiny slur in her voice now.
"That I have." He replied, nodding again. He looked her body up and down, taking in the slim black dress. She'd added the jet beads herself, after making the dress from one of her husband's old suit jackets. The thousands of jet dangles hid the men's fabric well enough that no one would guess she couldn't afford to buy new clothes. The jet would have been too expensive to buy, as well, but she'd made a deal with the owner of the last place she'd rented to help in her tailor's shop for a few scraps and bits now and again.
His eyes lingered on her legs as he perused her form. She paid him back in kind, letting her eyes assess his expensive, well tailored suit and the muscular form beneath it. Whatever this man was in the world now, he had the look of someone who'd grown up on a farm. He had the kind of body one only gets from working long days in the heavy summer sun, throwing bails and plowing fields. When their eyes met again she had the notion that maybe this would all be much more direct than she'd suspected. He seemed to be reading her vibes right, after all. She could see the heat in his eyes and she was certain he knew she wanted him, too. He wasn't a man who seemed like he'd miss that kind of thing.
As he sipped his scotch, she her martini, they both drifted into their own thoughts. Those floating memories and emotions. Those things that could not be drowned, no matter how much rotgut was poured upon them.
His head snapped up like a dog sniffing a meal. He grasped her wrist and thrust both their glasses onto the bar, nodding at the bartender who was bustling any evidence of alcohol into a hidden cupboard. The bar was left covered in only water, tea, and the remnants of people's evening meals, the speakeasy becoming instantly a dingy restaurant. Still, it was not a wise place to be found by the police.
She happily followed him from the tiny building. He wound them out a rear entrance that must have taken them underground as they came up through a cellar like door two streets from the door she'd entered into earlier that evening. She giggled quietly, feeling a rush at the thought that they'd barely escaped capture for illegal deeds.
He took her hand and rushed her toward a building, looming up the surprisingly clean alleyway. "My name is Robert. I do not like it shortened."
Her giggling ceased at the seriousness of his tone, but the mild excitement and the smile remained, flitting about her features like candlelight. "Zoe." She pronounced it "zo" like her mother had, though she knew enough of the world now to realize that most people pronounced the final letter.
He didn't let go of her hand as he led her up the fire escape of a very luxurious apartment building. The fire escape alone was such a rare thing that she knew right away he must be better off than she'd even first suspected. His hand was work roughened and large, engulfing her tiny fingers in his grip.
Her dark edges were beginning to fray, she could feel her mind open to the possibilities of this night, of the world, bit by tiny bit. She followed his clanging steps up the fire escape, not fearful for a virtue she no longer had. Nor was she wondering what the neighbors might think, were they to look out and see a fairly young woman, for she was only twenty-seven today, going up the stairs behind their rich neighbor.
The gentleman, Robert-she reminded herself, looked back at her, his smile conspiratorial again. "A nightcap?" He asked, opening a tall window on the landing they'd come to and stepping through.
"Oh, yes." She replied, her voice now sounding like that of a young girl to her own jaded hearing. There was a lightness she'd never possessed in that tone.
He let go her hand and she missed his touch immediately and immensely. She sat in one of his upholstered armchairs and slicked her hands down the outside of her thighs, craving touch even if only that of her own hands.
He placed his fedora on a shelf, his overcoat on a hook by the door. He moved fluidly over to the small wet bar squirreled away within an innocuous looking globe. His movements seemed to take over the space, leaving no where for her eyes to rest but on those broad shoulders, that dark, dark hair, and those piercing black eyes. She had a moment to wonder were they blue or brown? Or merely black as they seemed? And then another drink was in her hand, this one, she found, made with infinite more skill and much better liquor.
He sat in the chair just next to hers, facing her slightly, watching the view out the big windows with half an eye. She noticed he never stopped monitoring his surroundings, waiting for trouble.
They drank in silence, neither had much need for words on this dark, wet night. The rain hadn't been coming down for hours, but the air itself was still heavy with moisture, the cobbles glistening on every street. He watched through the watery panes and she watched him as he did so. She had already memorized his strong jaw, the widows peak of black hair that made him look like a silent movie star.
