A.N. || Thanks to those who have reviewed or followed the earlier early chapters! A few thoughts from me before we dive in! Some feedback I got on the last chapter related to the swearing and if it was realistic to the era. I had actually asked myself the same thing and did a lot of research regarding slang and cursing during the time. Turns out my most favorite word that starts with an F is an antique and has been used in the modern sense since the mid-ninteenth century! Who knew - anyways my point is I do try to fact-check myself especially on dialect, but love that you guys are holding me accountable to it! My other thought is that I don't know if the narrator switches will come across as spastic. I envisioned them conveying the nerves of the first encounter, but would love to know how it comes off to you lovely readers. I went ahead and added identifiers to each section for clarity's sake either way. Anyways, I hope you life this, let's get these two kids talking, shall we?
Tilly
August 1, 1990
I had gone directly to my bedroom after dinner, defeated by my father's indifference and exhausted by the journey home. The sun had already set, but the air was still warm and stuffy in my room. It didn't seem that anyone had entered the room since I last left it. A western novel sat face-down on my bedside table, unfinished. I couldn't remember the specific plot, but I was sure it wasn't based on reality. In the months since I had last thumbed through it's pages, I had learned that real heroes weren't aloof like the cowboys in those books and that docile damsels-in-distress don't haphazardly find their way into the arms of a strapping cattleman and a happily ever after.
I started to unpack my trunk, but the heat sapped the motivation from me so quickly, I barely made a dent. Instead, I turned to my guitar case, and slipped the acoustic guitar from the plush insides. My mother sent me to piano lessons as far back as I remembered. As a child, my fingers couldn't reach a full octave and with every failed chord, my frustration mounted. On a family trip to Spain a few years ago, I had fallen in love with the street performers' guitars and serenades, and my overly-indulgent mother figured some music was better than none and surprised me with one only weeks later. My father hated it of course, insisting I only play outside to quiet my insufferable din. The guitar and I had passed many lonely nights together here and in Maine.
When I pried the window to the fire escape open, I unsettled a flurry of dust that made me sneeze. I propped my feet up on the railing, letting my skirts flow up past my knees. The relief from the heat and the music of the guitar sent my mind drifting, wondering what was to come in this next chapter in New York, when a voice came up from the alley.
The man— was he a boy?— no, he was a man, had a voice that seemed hoarse with overuse, but came through the still air confidently. He looked up and carried himself like there was familiarity between us. He did look vaguely familiar, I realized as I squinted over to railing. It was a face I couldn't quite recall but his wide, round eyes, wide smile and dark hair poking out of a faded gray cap flashed across the outskirts of my memory.
Curious, I asked a few questions of him, rapid fire, before deciding to confront him in person instead. I darted down the staircase in bare feet, grabbing my keys on the way down. I tiptoed across the kitchen, a room I rarely visited, and opened the backdoor to the alley.
Skittery
August 1, 1990
As I saw the doorknob turn, I bolted before it even swung open. After eating next to nothing for the last three days, I was running on adrenaline alone. I was halfway down the alley when I was surprised by the voice calling out, "Hey," followed by a lamer, more dogged, "Wait up!"
Tilly
He slowed to a stop after I called off and turned to watch me jog up to him. By the time, I caught up, the stitch in my side was more significant than I cared to admit. "Goddamnit, you are fast," I blurted it out.
Skittery
I couldn't help but smile. After all these years of watching her demure across Greenwich Village, she took the Lord's name in vain with her first words to me. My hand wandered to the back of my neck as a wave of shyness or propriety or whatever swept over me. I started to apologize but she spoke in the same moment. "Who are you?" She asked, not in the accusing way I was most used to people asking me that, but instead with curiosity.
Her furrowed brow and crossed arms projected a confidence that should have been ridiculous coupled with her bare feet and nightgown, but it wasn't. My heart was pounding out of my chest. "Sorry, I, uhm, sorry. I used to sell newspapers over in the square, so yeah, you, uh, you probably saw me there?" My sentence has ended in a question as I fumbled over the words. I tried to calm myself as she examined me skeptically, and finally, with a faint glimmer of recognition, she seemed to accept this as true.
"And you're sleeping back here?" She moved into her next line of question. She had a more intense, commanding energy than I ever would have guessed. She stared me down, unnerving but not unkind. It was easy to see here, up close in this alley, that this was not a girl anymore than she was a woman who often doubted herself.
Tilly
I watched him stare at his shoes and shuffled his feet, as he stuttered, "Yeah, it's just, you know, I don't normally do it, it's just tonight." His shoulders hunched forward into a defensive position, and I felt myself soften towards him instantly.
"It's alright, I won't tell anyone. Why don't you walk me back?" I invited. He looked up, sheepish and his soulful eyes looked much younger than the body they were connected to. He had a white, collared shirt (or at least the remains of one) tucked into his waistband. His undershirt in desperate need of a wash though it seemed liable to dissolve in soapy water, and it was stretched across a sinewy shoulder muscles. Years of carrying newspapers had made their impact. Despite his broad chest, his face looked strained with hunger. He gawked as I held my arm out, expecting him to take it and come back to my house with me, which he did with uncertainty.
"Do you sleep back here a lot?" I asked, but he only shook his head no. "Honestly," I stopped walking until he looked down at me, instead of straight ahead. I restarted and continued, "Honestly, it's alright, I won't tell anyone. I would tell you to come in and sleep in the house, but truth be told, I'm on thin ice at is, but I can at least get you some food. Are you hungry?" I asked.
Skittery
The pangs in my stomach beat out my pride when she offered me food and I said yes so quickly that I blushed afterwards, but still she smiled. There was the sweetness I had seen from a distance I thought as she bent down to unlock the fruit cellar behind her backdoor. She opened the doors, taking care not to drop the heavy metal doors. She walked down the stairs and beckoned me to follow.
It took all of my self control to not salivate on the cold cement floor as I looked around the small stone room. The shelves were laiden with melons, strawberries, broccoli and carrots, veal cutlets and bacon, and glass milk bottles. My eyes fell hungrily on the pile of loaves of sourdough bread that looked like the ones my mother used to make. Before I could decline, she'd placed two loaves in my arms along with a jar of honey and a butter dish.
"Let's see, let's see, what has Ida got in here. I'm sorry I can't cook you anything, I don't really know how to," she chirped as she scanned the shelves, before taking a bottle of milk and a handful of peaches as well. "Let me grab you a knife," she started, "Promise you won't use it to stab me?" She said sternly before cracking a lovely smile.
Before I fully formed an answer, she had darted back into the house. I followed her out of the cellar, and it took most of my self control not to dive into the food instantly. I distracted myself by gingerly shutting the cellar doors she seemed to have forgotten about.
She burst back outside with a pillow and sheet in her arms, but no knife. "Here, I got you these, and if you want to sleep in that wagon, that's ours and no one is going to be using it tomorrow until 8am. In this heat, I'm sure you'll be up with the sun anyways, if you don't mind? Again, I do apologize that I can't invite you inside, with this awful, awful heat." She babbled on, filling in the silences I had gapingly created. I trailed behind her as she shaped the pillow and sheet into a nest in the bed of the wagon. "Is this alright?"
Finding my voice, I stammered "Thank you, ma'am. This is, this is so kind. Why are you doing this?"
"Don't call me ma'am. It's Tilly." She stuck her hand out with such bravado, I laughed even through my nervousness.
I took her small but surprisingly calloused hand in mine, and said, "Saint Tilly, it's a joy to meet you."
"I need to go back inside before anyone notices I'm out of bed, but I hope I see you again," she paused, waiting for me to fill in my name.
"Milo." I offered my given name.
Tilly
"Good night Milo, good luck out here." I turned to the door as he settled into the wagon out of sight. Checking over my shoulder, I all but collided with my father's chest in the kitchen. He grasped my arms hard in his large hands as he pulled me inside. I checked over my shoulder, it didn't seem he has seen Milo. The door slammed behind me and I saw Milo's head pop up above the well of the wagon.
My father shook me, just once, but hard, so I snapped my head and attention back to him. "Things are going to change around here for you, Tilly. You don't get to wander around the alley like a tart in your nightgown. Your la-di-da life is over, do you understand me?" His face was inches from mine and his words dripped with bitterness. I stayed still, imagining I was anywhere else and wishing it would be over. His voice raised, "I said, do you understand me?"
I nodded, and as he loosened his grip, I bolted straight to my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I had left the window open, and walked to close it. I saw the boy ripping the loaves of bread into bite-sized pieces and dipped it in the different jars I had given him. Only then did I realize that I had forgotten the knife I promised. He was eating so fast it seemed like he thought someone was going to take it away. As if he sensed my eyes on him, he turned his gaze up to the window. I waved goodnight silently and shut off the lights.
