This was written for the fourth round of the Newsie Pape Selling Competition. I chose the Change Color Card (dramatic change in a character's life), and my prompt was the restriction, meaning I couldn't use any of the characters' names. Word Count: 2400; I couldn't believe it was a round number.
Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies, but I love them.
With a shudder and a lurch, the train tugs painfully out of the station. The dim, busy terminal is soon traded for the brightness of the morning sun, and he watches as the city fades away until it is nothing but a blip in the past.
At his feet rests the little carpetbag they'd found tucked away in a forgotten closet; it contains only a change of clothes, a few prized newspaper clippings, a Cuban cigar, and a battered pack of playing cards. He thinks about these things, forehead pressed against the glass of the window, and straightens himself. He pulls down a worn black Stetson over his eyes. These are the things he carries from New York.
"What if we leave?"
That had been his half-hearted attempt to save their relationship, which everyone had apparently deemed doomed from the start. If only they'd told him.
She had looked at him like he was stupid, a habit he noticed she had in common with her brother. "And go where?"
"Anywhere." Out west.
Her face said, "No, we are done, I've had enough of you, I'm not leaving, that's your pipe dream."
Her mouth said, "Maybe."
They had both known the truth: she would stay there. Leaving would do nothing for them; in fact, there wasn't a thing that could have helped them for a while now.
He had meant it though, meant it partially, at least. He was tired of the city, and even she wasn't going to stop him this time.
It takes a week to reach New Mexico, and it's like he's stepped into another world. It's dry and fresh, and he feels clean. The only buildings are a sparse patch nestled by the train station. He can see for miles, it seems, miles and miles in every direction.
It's everything he imagined and nothing like it at all.
He quickly finds work as a ranch hand, whiling away his time in the fields with the cattle and staring wistfully at the sky. He's alone here, among herds and the other distant ranch hands, and though he had been lonely in New York, this is a new feeling. The city had always been moving in some way, had always been alive and kept you on your toes. Not here. Here was quiet and serene, even in the day. Even in the day you could hear yourself think.
In fact, it's about all he has to do.
So when the opportunity comes to go on a drive, he jumps on it. He loves his horse, and he wants to see the country. At least he would have something to focus on besides watching the clouds and mending the occasional broken fence. It lasts four months.
They're a good four months. He makes better friends and spends all of his time beneath the New Mexico sky. In the mornings, they push the herds, stopping about midday, and at night they sing and laugh. They're a motley bunch, but friends nonetheless, and for the first time he feels like this could be home.
There's a letter waiting for him when he returns to the ranch.
This news comes to him from the rancher's daughter, a girl with a lovely round face and shockingly discerning eyes. She'd gone quietly about her work before, and it was the first thing she'd ever said to him.
He'd written to Brooklyn before he'd left, in a desperate time of loneliness, and he opens it, stunned it had been answered.
The response reads that all the boys are well. A few have moved on, either taking jobs elsewhere, and as for himself, he'd married his girl.
As bittersweet as it is, and as much as he likes New Mexico, it feels like his childhood, and he latches onto it. He writes back in the evening, saying that things have changed, and he tells about the drive. It feels friendly and cheerful.
He means it.
A week later, he's sitting on the porch of the house with a few of the other guys, finally part of the group, telling a story about his time in New York, when he notices the daughter. She's been sweeping the same spot for far too long.
Cautiously she glances sideways at him, but she adverts her eyes when she sees him watching her, slowly, as if she knows she's been caught but doesn't quite care. He goes on with his story. She hides her smile.
Those nights become more and more frequent. It turns into her leaning against the door, able to dart away quickly if needed but close enough that she's part of the group. Soon the guys disappear altogether, and it's just the two of them sitting on the porch steps.
She's a diligent worker, with a lean, toned body, and a long dark copper braid; she wears her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Sharp-tongued and strong-minded, she has a soft voice which isn't used often. He likes it when she does.
He meets her in town one day while running errands, and he offers to give her a ride home. She tells him no, but he can walk with her.
Underneath the setting sun, sky ablaze with every color imaginable, he looks at her and thinks, for the first time, that's she's surprisingly pretty.
There are three more cattle drives, and each time he looks forward more and more to coming home. Really the drives are about collecting more stories to tell.
However, he never seems to tell them. All his stories consist of dirty boys monging newspapers in the streets, which she drinks up eagerly. Every once in a while, she lets him see part of her world, the way things were before he arrived, and the lilt in her voice is captivating.
It's on after he returns from his fourth one that it happens. They're sitting on the steps, he with a rare cigarette in his hands, she telling him about the time she had chased down her lamb and gotten lost, when they hear her name called from behind them. Both turn, she rising to her feet instantly, to find the wrangler in the doorway.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asks.
She tosses her braid over her shoulder. "We were just telling stories."
"Telling stories." He snorts, hands on his hips. "Telling stories when there's still laundry to get done."
"And it'll get done. Just calm down and-"
The sound echoes. Time stops; maybe they're watching themselves in another world. Whatever it is doesn't feel real, and he doesn't know how to react. He just sits there in shock, mouth agape, watching the handprint darken on her cheek.
"Don't you ever tell me what to do again." And then the wrangler is gone, figuring she learned her lesson, and the two of them are alone on the porch again.
His mouth opens and closes wordlessly a few times before he makes a noise, but she jerks her head and shuts her eyes, signaling him not to say a thing. Bright and angry against the lightness of her skin, the red blotch marring her pretty face screams at him. If only he knew what to do. If only it hadn't have happened so fast, maybe he would have been able to react.
Finally she turns to him. He can't differentiate between her pupils and her irises, but her eyes are incredibly clear and hard. For a moment, he wonders if this is how it was with the Mysterious Long Island girl, so composed and intimidating. He flicks his ashes onto the ground, if only to have something to do.
"You shouldn't let him do that."
She scowls at him. "Who are you to be concerned with what I do?"
The way it cuts and stings isn't what he expected, and he looks her up and down, the way she's holding onto her opposite arm, how she bites her lip; he thinks that her whole face and neck are red now. Dozens of thoughts and emotions race inside his brain; he feels like a coward for just sitting there, hurt from the way she snapped, sick from the way she took it. Eventually he settles on one.
He loves her.
He doesn't go on the next cattle drive, instead being one of the few to stay behind and help on the property. It's no where near as exciting, but he doesn't mind.
In some ways, it feels like things have changed. They spend just as much time, if not more, together, but she seems more distant. It's as if she's not actually looking at him; or maybe she is, and she's just seeing everything. She would do that.
In the evenings after dinner now, they take walks along the creek, ambling about to no particular place, and slowly, as if not wanting time to pass.
It's on one of those evenings that he gathers up his courage. With a deep breath and no other thought in his mind, he reaches over and takes her hand, small and a bit calloused, but gentle nonetheless. "Why do you stay?"
She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't lace her fingers with his either. "What do you expect me to do?"
He shrugs, not knowing quite how to answer. "I wouldn't do that."
"You should have gone on the drive," she says after a long pause. And then she tightens her grip.
But he hears her actually saying, "I know."
"What do you think you're doing?"
She's staring up at him with an almost frightened expression, hands poised to push him away if needed. He has her wrapped in his arms, thumb moving across her cheek; he couldn't imagine turning it colors.
"Tell me to stop and I will."
"You shouldn't be doing this," she whispers. She really whispers, "I want to, but if he found out, we'd be in trouble."
Chest rising and falling heavily, she does nothing to stop him, so before he realizes what he's doing, he has his lips pressed against her own. She doesn't quite kiss back, but it's better than anything he's ever experienced.
He pulls away to find her eyes closed, smiling behind their lids, and her lips parted as if she doesn't want him to stop. When they open, he can barely make out the difference in color, and she hums quietly.
"It scares me to leave him," she says. She means, "I'm trying."
"I know."
It's another cattle drive later, and he's been there almost six years. He wishes he'd gone sooner.
He misses his boys, with their sharp accents and patchy clothes, often swearing like sailors. He misses Saturday poker nights and trips to Sheepshead. But now he has new boys, ones who smell like cows instead of muck, who have dusty pants and bandanas, and who say, "Much obliged." He has Friday trips to town and talks around a fire. He can see the stars.
Rocking them gently back and forth, he's sitting on the porch swing, his arm draped easily over her shoulders, she tucked into his side. They're not speaking, but it's a good silence. She plays lazily with his fingers.
"I told my father I didn't want to marry him."
He kisses the back of her knuckles. "What about me?"
She smirks up at him. "When I get a better proposal than that."
By the fall, they're married, and her father was so tickled she'd chosen him that he had given them the ranch as a wedding gift. He doesn't take over immediately, as neither party wants that, but he looks forward to it in the future.
They take their honeymoon in New York, if only to visit one last time. It's the farthest she's ever been on a train, and, for the whole ride it seems, she bounces around. More than anything, she's excited to meet the boys of his stories, to see her fabled newsboys come to life. It's the first thing she wants to do when they arrive, and it's with much convincing that he gets her to agree to check-in to the hotel and do that in the morning.
He can't call them boys anymore—not when they're grown, some married, a few bigger than him, some sporting facial hair. At least, not technically; but no matter what, they're his boys. She takes to them immediately, and loves every minute of it. Most of the boys of his time are gone, but some of the older ones remember him from when they were younger.
For the first time, he gets to meet the Mysterious Long Island Girl, now the Mysterious Brooklyn Wife, who sits with her and tells stories from the way she knew things, while her husband, still wearing a plaid shirt halfway unbuttoned and new red suspenders, sits back in a richly upholstered chair and smiles, crystal glass of lemonade in his hand. He has his porcelain tub now.
When they leave after two weeks, it's a bittersweet departure. He didn't remember the city being this suffocating and dirty, and for that matter, he can't wait to get home; but even after all these years, it's where his best friends are, and he still loves them. Nevertheless, he wants his wide-open sky and wooden fences.
They all say goodbye at the train station, as opposed to the last time when he'd been on his own. The Mysterious Brooklyn Wife tells them, "Come back soon, when you can see the baby."
"The baby," they both shout, and her husband smirks.
Almost hanging out the window, she waves to them, and it's only after they've faded away that she closes the window and sits down beside him. She sighs, and he pulls her to him.
On the floor rests their carpetbag, the one they brought on board; it's filled with a change of clothes, two ticket stubs from their day at Sheepshead, a few more Cuban cigars, a tin of cookies and sandwiches for lunch from Tibby's, a newspaper from every day they'd been there, sea shells from Long Island, and a photograph of them all together. In the storage car, there's a set of China from Long Island. He thinks about these things, chin resting on top of her head, and smiles. He pulls his familiar black Stetson down over his eyes. These are only some of the things he carries from New York.