When she woke up her head was throbbing; another long night at the Estate leading to an excruciating morning back in Dalston. The sun seeped through cracks in the curtains, stinging her eyes. She could faintly taste orange-flavoured vomit in the back of her throat. As she sat up, her alarm began to wail, the sounds of KC & The Sunshine Band flooding her ears. She switched it off and headed to the shower.
It was all a blur, the shower, brushing her teeth, putting on clothes, eating breakfast, and saying goodbye to Francis. Or did she even speak to Francis?
"Lil!" Francis yelled out the front window.
"Yeah?" Lillian asked, spinning back around still in a sleepy daze.
Francis frowned. "You're not gonna say goodbye, then?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize."
They stared at each other for one very awkward moment. Francis nodded, "Well, I'll see you later Lil."
"Yep."
Lillian buttoned up her jacket as she walked down Carlisle Road. It was about to start pouring, she would need to pick up her pace. Buildings flashed by, none piquing Lillian's interest. Perhaps today was a bad day for getting to know the neighborhood.
In the three months since she had moved in with Francis, she had scarcely seen anything other than the Estate and the flat where they lived. Maybe cabin fever had set in, for Lillian could no longer stand the sight of the tiny space in which she occupied. She was alone almost the whole time she had been there, all of Francis' promises of building a home together falling through when her mother became ill.
An inoperable tumor in her brain, Francis' mum Delia had been reduced to a quiet, pallid, withered away old woman. It was a far cry from the big, brassy "Mumma" Lillian grew up around, but times change, and everything becomes a far cry from the usual. Living across the pond in Flint, Michigan, Delia Hawkins was always a rosy-cheeked, affable, yet saucy working woman. She may have been one of the only working women in that particular neighborhood, in fact. Delia had made a living as a popular engineer in England and had been hired by General Motors as a consultant. She had one of the nicest homes in the nicest neighborhood, but insisted on sending young Francis to public school in order to show her the flipside of their good fortune. At this public school, Flint Elementary – Ms. Thompson's fifth grade class, Francis met Lillian Edwards.
Lillian had not changed much from her younger self. A chubby, aggressive, over-compensator, Lillian fell in love with Francis immediately. Francis, or Francey as Lillian had been calling her at the time, was, while not particularly loquacious, a happy and easygoing child who fed Lillian's need for an audience. Lillian was an only child who lived with two grandparents in an almost exclusively senior citizen-occupied neighborhood. She wanted to entertain her elders so badly, but a mixture of partial deafness and the Edwards family's tendency to disregard anything of a showy nature, left Lillian unheard. Francis had two older brothers who had moved off to college before the Hawkins' trip to America and with her thick English accent making her target of the other rich kids' jokes, Francis had been quietly desperate for someone to latch onto.
"S'cuse me Miss!" A voice called from behind Lillian. When she turned, a mustachioed man in brown cords and a heinously ugly green turtleneck was gripping her wallet.
Lillian's eyes opened fully and she snapped to attention. Running over to the man, she snatched her wallet away. He didn't seem to notice though, and smiled sweetly.
"Thank you kindly, Mister…?"
"Ah, Moon, Howard Moon," He said holding out a hand.
She took it and shook it cordially, but she was still a bit shaken from almost losing all of her money and forms of identification.
"So your accent is quite different, you're an American?" Howard asked, tilting his head interestedly. Before she could respond, he then pointed to the wallet. "I see your wallet is shaped like a drum, you like music?" he was now smiling a little harder.
"Um, well yeah, most people do, and yeah I'm American," Lillian looked up at the sky, clouds had completely obscured the sun, and moisture was thick in the air. Beside Howard was a small shop with Nabootique spelled across the top. "This your shop, Harold?"
"Uh, its Howard actually, and why yes it is! If you'd like I could show you around and well since you're a music fan I could show you some of the records we've got, lots of-"
"Okay, got it, c'mon Henry, it's about to start raining," She said, entering the store.
"It's Howard…" He mumbled, following her in.
The Nabootique was small and cluttered, one half comprised of second-hand clothes and costumes, the other an assortment of records and seemingly useless trinkets. The walls were a dark purple shade and covered in old advertisements from Life magazine. This would've seemed like a hip place to shop, if it weren't for the shoddy look of everything and the stench of Chinese food and patchouli.
As unimpressive as the shop was at first, an old advertisement for neckties featuring Stan Getz got Lillian excited.
"How much for Stan?" Lillian asked, pointing to the wall it hung on. Howard perked up.
"You like Jazz?" He asked, with a forced smoothness in his voice. He leaned against the wall below the ad.
"Uh, yep… How much for Stan's ad?" She repeated, making an annoyed face.
"Oh, well for a fellow Jazz lover, name your price."
"Hm, a pound," She answered quickly, pulling out a bill.
Howard's face showed shock. "A pound? For Stan Getz, I think he's-"
"Look Hagaroth, I was being generous with my pound. If ya don't like it, I don't need it," She said, putting the money away.
"It's Howard, and a pound is fine," He smiled again, trying to find something else to talk about. "Um, I wonder would you be interested in perhaps accompanying me on a, well, um..."
He struggled to find the words. Lillian had an amused, yet slightly embarrassed look on her face. From behind him another man appeared, this one looking much younger and resembling a mixture of David Bowie, Zooey Deschanel, and a bluebird.
"I think what my man here is trying to ask is if you'd go with him to one of his real pathetic Jazzy group meetin's. But I think we both know the answer to that is no, because jazz is for boring old men, and you don't seem to be one of them at all." He winked at Lillian, who stared blankly.
"Um, riiiight, if I could just get my Stan Getz and go…."
"What ya leavin for? You haven't even told me where you got those boots at yet." The second man said, pointing at Lillian's snow boots. "Ya know, I always said to myself 'Vince, we gotta make snow boots in the summer a look. But who could pull off such a bold move?' Obviously you've just showed me who could!"
Lillian disregarded Vince, "When's jazz club meet? I work up at the Estate on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday."
Howard straightened himself up. "Ah yes, we meet Monday nights at 7:30. Can I pick you up?"
"No Hogwarts, you can't. I'll meet you there," Lillian said pulling the advert off the wall.
"It's Howard—"
"I know, I'm just teasing you." Lillian said, walking away from the two obnoxious shopkeepers.