Part II
Voices. Hushed at first then growing louder, echoing. Then, a woman's cackle-like laughter and a slamming door. The enveloping darkness, growing even more dark by the moment.
Walking down a long, deserted hallway. Cold wind blow, coming from nowhere. Chilling and freezing shiver. Walking further, a small voice comes from behind. "Help me," it cries. Help who? Who's voice is calling? Who needs to be helped? "Help me," it calls out again. Who are you? Where are you? "Josephine," the voice says softly. "Josephine." No, you can't be. You can't be. I'm Josephine, I'm-
The wind blows again. It is even more icy. Shivering. Can't stop shivering. Suddenly a cold hand reaches out. It grabs. It is a man, his face in shadows. He is big and strong. He pulls. On the ground. Struggling to get away. Can't get away from his grasp, can't pull away. He is laughing. Laughing and humming. That song. That familiar song. He is overpowering. Can't get away. Crying. Crying. Shrieking in terror but nothing is coming out. Nothing. Struggling, can't wrench free from his hands. His huge, icy hands. He comes nearer. His laughing, his humming. The shadows fall from his face. His eyes. Those eyes! Eyes filled with the look of smug content and insanity..piercing...Panic. Filled with panic! Can't break free...can't get free!
She awoke suddenly, violently trembling. Her body was drenched with cold sweat, her nightgown clinging to her body. She was breathing hard, nearly panting. Her eyes searched the room, for a sign of her attacker. The same icy wind blew through her room and she pulled the blanket on her bed around her, clinging to it, her arms wrapped around her body.
It had all been a dream. It had been a horrible, freakishly real nightmare. Her mouth emitted a quiet, "Claudette," as she felt the same hollow pain in her chest that she had felt nearly three years ago. She felt the cold wind again and looked over to the window. She had left it open and the night was blowing chills into her room. Gathering the blanket around her and clinching it closed with her left hand, she slowly got out of bed and walked toward the window to shut it.
As her right hand reached up to close the window, she looked out once again at the moonlit city and thought again of the boy that had visited her a few hours earlier. She grimaced as she thought of his unashamed cockiness and the way she had let him into her private life by practically spilling out her life story to him, even telling him her real name. Those were intimate things she said to him, thoughts that she had but told no one. Why did she suddenly decide that it would be fine to tell this conceited, know-nothing street urchin the inner-workings of her mind? Why?
"When are you gonna learn, Josephine?" she asked herself in a whisper. That had settled it. She had made up her mind that she was not letting this kid into her world. She had her life and she had her plans. She wasn't going to let anyone interfere again. Things were going to be different this time. So, Mr. Spot Conlon could do what he would, but she wasn't going to care either way.
She closed the window and pulled the curtains closed. Gathering up her blanket around her once more, she trod over to her bed and lied down. She closed her eyes, tried to force all thoughts from her mind, and like so many other nights, told herself to sleep.
Two hours, 47 minutes, and 29 seconds later, her body finally obeyed.
~*****~
The next day, she and the rest of the girls were getting ready for the usual nighttime performance. She was standing at her dressing table, leaning over it to get closer to the mirror while she put a few touches of rouge to her cheeks. "Damn freckle," she said out loud, rubbing at a freckle at the end of her nose with her pinky.
"Hey, dontcha be dammin' that one freckle," spoke the girl standing beside her, Maggie, a native Brooklynite and full blooded Irish redhead, who was damming her own freckles under her breath while trying to drown them in powder. "Least ya ain't got a who face fulla 'em." Maggie O'Malley was tall and brazen, with flaming red hair and a loud mouth that matched her hair and spoke the slang of New York perfectly.
Lily laughed. "Maggie, you've lived in Brooklyn your entire life," she said, "did you ever hear of a kid named Spot Conlon." (Damn. She couldn't believe she had actually the thought of him appear in her mind, much less let it slip out of her mouth). She hated that she was thinking about him. She hated even more that someone else knew that she was thinking about him. She started to work on applying her lipstick so that maybe no one would notice the look of self-hatred on her face and begin asking questions.
"Yeah," Maggie replied, "shoah I'se hearda him. Ya live heah for twenty one years and o'coise ya hear of him. He's some kid whose some big shot wit da Brooklyn newsies up in dah north. He's like some king ta dem or something,' and all dah rest o'dem are like his liddle followas. He's some real big shot. Crazy, too, I heah. Everybody's afraid o'him. He beats poor suckas to wittin one inch o'der life if dey get on his bad side. E's got a real love affeah with da bottle, too, if ya know what I mean. Why do ya ask?"
Lily realized that she had revealed herself and must now save herself from any further embarrassment. "Well, you know, yesterday," she quickly and nonchalantly as possible said, "he sent some of his 'subject' in here to say that he wanted to see me. And I'd never heard of him before then, so I didn't go. So, um, you know, I was just wondering what kind of arrogant little thing he was."
"Yeah, dat shoah sounds like Spot ta me," Maggie answered. "Always getting udder people to do his biddin' while he just sits on his liddle throne an' waits." She paused to hold a hairpin in her mouth while her fingers twisted a curl. She took the pin from her mouth, pinned the curl and then said, "But ya should feel special. It ain't everyday dat Spot comes a'visitin. And it ain't jes' anyone dat he visits when he does. He's quite a charma I heah. A real ladies man, if ya use da toim 'man' loosely. Every goil in the da whole city is eidder in love wit 'em or scared of 'em. He gots himself a new goil every week. Hey, Lil, maybe you'se dah pick o'dah week."
There was a knock at the door and both girls looked toward it. A voice boomed out, "Two minutes, girls!"
Maggie looked at Lily and said in a hushed, dramatic voice, "Showtime!" She then pinned her last curl in place, while Lily put her foot up on the chair to fasten the buckle on her right shoe. Both grabbed their feathers and hurried out of the door.
~*****~
It was halfway through their second song when Lily finally looked up into the balcony and had a pair of stormy blue-gray eyes meet her own. She nearly stopped singing to gasp at the realization of who it was. He was sitting alone, quietly, and without his usual tribe of boys around him. Although she managed to keep singing, she however, did not manage to not trip over her own foot. It was just a slight and almost insignificant stumble, but it took everything she had to recover from it and keep in step.
As she continued dancing and singing, she felt her cheeks burn with the embarrassment of someone noticing her stumble. They burned even more when she thought about the owner of the pair of stormy-blue eyes noticing her stumble.
During the instrumental part of their number, when the band played and all she had to do was a few easy kicks and a little skirt shaking, she managed to inch her way over to Maggie. "Maggie!" she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "Guess who's here...the King of Brooklyn!."
Maggie looked surprised and stifled a giggle. "Seems His Majesty took a fancy tah ya." she whispered back, grinning.
Lily rolled her eyes. Throughout the rest of the song and the next, she managed, somehow to keep going. Step, step, kick. High kick. Shimmy. Arms up, arms down. All the while, she felt his eyes on her. Watching her every move, never leaving her. Burning into her skin. She was thrilled when the third number was finally over and she could just stand in once place, while the wild applause nearly shook the theatre around her. She, along with the rest of her ensemble, smile and waved, and blew kisses to a few of the audience members. Just before they were about to walk off stage, she let her eyes wander over to and meet the blue-gray ones in the balcony again. The smile faded from her lips as she let the gaze linger. While still continuing to wave enthusiastically, she cocked her head, bit her lip, and looked at him quizzically. She then let the smile that was tugging at the corner of her mouth play over her lips as she nodded toward him, and then looked away. A few seconds later, the girls all walked offstage together. Maggie came up behind Lily and nudge her with her elbow. "Hey," she said, "what'd I tell ya? I told ya, you'se the pick o'dah week!"
Lily rolled her eyes and scoffed in distaste. "I'm not anybody's pick of the week, much less his. I am not going to be another notch in Spot Conlon's belt. He can just forget about it!"
Maggie laughed. "Yeah Lil," she said, walking away, "shoah ya won't, whaddeva you say."
Lily was in disbelief and stopped in her tracks. "Hey!" she called out to Maggie, "What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm serious! I am not falling into his little trap. I'm smarter than that!" She paused. "I mean it, Maggie! I won't!" Maggie just kept walking, waving goodbye over her head to Lily as she went towards the dressing rooms. Lily stood in place, her feet almost bolted to the ground as she milled over what Maggie's words could have mean. "Don't you do it, Josephine," she said to herself, under her breath, "do you go and let that atrocious boy have his way with you." As she stood there, she began to feel more and more like a fool for even letting him cross her mind again. She could feel her cheeks start to burn and redden with the embarrassment of it all. "Oh, bloody hell!" she said out loud, and balled her hands into fists and stamped her foot on the floor. A determined look came across her face as she spun around and instead of going into the dressing rooms with the other girls, marched angrily up the stairs to her room.
~****~
Hours passed. Day turned into evening, and evening turned into night. Lily sat on her bed, still fully dressed, with her arms crossed over her chest. Her feet tapped a nervous rhythm on the floor. Her eyes remained fixed on her open window. She was waiting for what she thought would be the inevitable. She was waiting for Spot Conlon to make his high and mighty appearance in her window.
Anxious and impatient, she stood up and began to pace. Back and forth, back and forth, the laps undertaken at a quick speed. She suddenly stopped and faced the window, expectantly. No Spot. Angered and anguished she flopped back down on her bed with a frustrated "Aarrrgh." Her head in her hands, her feet began to resume their nervous tapping. "No!" she said out loud to no one, jumping up from the bed, "you can't do this! You've got to do something else! Anything!"
Her eyes desperately searched the room for anything, anything that would keep her busy and take her mind off of the seemingly endless waiting. A book...no. She couldn't sit still for a single second, much less focus on words and storyline. Her eyes suddenly fell upon her desk and the drawer that held her journal. Yes. She would write.
She quickly walked over to the desk that faced the wall, sat in the chair, and pulled out the drawer. Out came the journal, her pen, and a bottle of unopened ink. She opened her journal, flipping through it for a clean page. She then opened the jar, smelling the distinct smell of writing ink and dipped it in the ink. With the pen in left hand, and her head in her right, the pen began to fly across the page. Scratch, scratch, scratch - words were falling from it as they flowed from her mind into her fingers and onto the page. What she wrote was almost a manifesto: a redeclaration of her plans, her aspirations, a vow to not let herself get involved with this "kid," a list of reasons why she couldn't. She chastised herself for letting him into her life the previous night and reinforced determination and courage for resolving to be done with him. As she wrote on, she became complete oblivious to everything except her pen, her paper, and her words. She was so lost in her work that she almost did not hear the footsteps on the fire escape.
As she heard the soft patting, it felt as though her ears were being pricked. She listened further. Footsteps. And then she felt him. She felt him come into the room and his presence overtook her. Without lifting her head, but putting her pen down carefully, she said, "Hello, Spot Conlon."
"Hey, how'd ya know it was me? How'd ya know it ain't somebody else?" he asked.
She turned around in her chair to face him. Instead of betraying herself by telling him that she felt his "presence" upon her as he entered the room, she instead used a more logical answer. "You came in through the window. You're the only one who does that. Anyone else would have used the door."
Spot looked surprised for a moment and then recovered quickly by shrugging his shoulders. "Well, yeah," he said, "I'se gotta make me entrance." He walked over to her bed and flopped down on it, putting his hands behind his head and leaning against the headboard.
"Sit down, why don't you," Lily muttered under her breath.
"Well now," Spot said looking around, "dis is some nice place you'se got heah Lil- I mean-Jo. Real nice. How long ya had it?"
"Um, well," said Lily, still marveling at the way he had just barged in and taken over the place like it was his own, "it hasn't always been this nice. I, mean, I used to share it with another girl. She was younger than me and a bit of a slob. A real flirt too. You had to walk into the room with your hand over your eyes cause she always had some man in here doing who know what at any given time."
"So, where's dis goil now? Did ya get enuff o'her or somethun' and toss 'er and 'er stuff out da windah?" Spot asked.
Lily laughed. "No, I didn't toss anyone out of the "windah." Mabel left about three months ago. She got married, if you can believe that. But I suppose if any man had enough money to trap Mabel, her new husband did. I don't know if she even liked the poor man nearly as much as she liked his pocketbook and his four hundred thousand a year."
"So she married dis guy she didn't like? Crazy broad."
"Excuse me, Conlon, but it's not like she had many other options. A girl has got to eat. And no matter how hard you try, you can't eat love. In my line of work, a girl's only got three choices: She can marry, marry rich, and get the hell out of here, or she can stay here, live in the theatre and dance her feet off for the rest of her life, or she can starve. When you think about it, there's really only one choice. You can't stay here because one day your good looks and hourglass figure will leave you. Everything will sag and your kicks won't match the height they had in your glory days. So, after a few years you're nothing. And you can't starve out on the street because you'll die. So, it's either marry a man with the right amount of 'pocket change' or get busy dying."
"Hey, dat ain't true." Spot had risen from his reclining pose and was not sitting erect and on the defense. "You'se ain't nobody's slave. You'se can leave, can't ya? Get outta dis place, do somethun' else."
"Like what?" Lily countered.
"Well, like.." Spot searched his mind and the room, hoping the answer to her question would present itself, "like..like. well, I dunno, but der's shoah somethun out der."
"Well, Spot Conlon," Lily said, rising from her chair and walking across the room to the window, "when you find something, be certain to tell me what it is. God knows I'd like to know." She looked out on the moonlit city again as she had time and time before. It hadn't changed. It was still the same dirty brown hustle-bustle place, trash lining the streets and a desolate soul on every corner. But somehow, the moonlight gave it a new charm, a new glow. It cast shadows so that one look beyond the eyesores and somehow made the city seem infinite. It was almost as if it really were place she had dreamed of, the place that made all your wildest dreams come true. Maybe it was like Spot said. Maybe there really was something else, maybe the city had more to offer her than she knew about.
"No," she thought, "it's just the magic of the night. It casts its spell on the city and on me. Now I'm standing here dreaming of all that could be with this kid in my room behind me, and I've forgotten my vow to not get involved. Hell, when are you going to stop doing this, you silly girl. When are you going to start using your brain? You can't do things like this anymore."
"No, I can't," she said softly to herself.
"What's dat?" asked Spot over her shoulder, "What can't ya do?"
Damn, she had been so lost in her thoughts that she'd nearly forgotten he was still there, sitting on her bed, infiltrating her world.
"Oh, nothing," she said turning around. "So, what is it that you do anyway? I mean, besides becoming a regular in the balcony and climbing through my window every night?"
"Me?" he said, "well, ya know in da mornin' I sell papes, da evenin' edition too. Sit around da docks, keep me boys in line. Take care o'any problems if I need tah. Eat. Sleep. Have a liddle fun every once in a while. Dah usual."
"Ah, must be exciting," Lily mused.
"Ah, it's ok. I mean, it ain't as great as ya gig, but I'se gots a little jingle in me pocket and a shirt on me back" he replied.
"Oh, don't fool yourself. Aside from the room, the attention, and pleasant little gifts from admirers every once in a while, it's rather rotten. I mean, between the tiresome dance routines we've got to pull off three times a day and at rehearsals and fending off the entire male population of New York that wants to get under your skirt, it starts to take a toll."
"Hey," Spot said, "anytime you'se got enuff, you can leave dis place an' I'll teach ya how tah be a helluva good newsie. I bet you'd be a natural."
Lily laughed out of the silliness and impossibility of her becoming a newsie. "Oh come on Conlon, I'm not a kid anymore. Hell, I'm twenty years old, and you're what..well how old are you?"
"Seventeen, but me birthday is in a month," he said.
"Right, you're seventeen. You can still do anything you want. I'm twenty - that's marrying and settling down to raise a family age. And look at me, I'm not married and I have no family. All I've got is this. My only hope is to keep dancing and hope some nice, rich man notices me and decides I'd make a lovely wife before I get too old and too ugly to continue. So, I'm sorry, but the newsie thing is a trifle bit out of the question."
"Hey, don't you'se be knockin bein a newsie till ya done tried it," Spot said, with an offended and hurt look on his face.
Lily sighed. She was tired and frustrated with her life and the fact that there really was, for the moment, no way out for her. "Look, I'm sorry, but.."
Spot interrupted her, "And ya ain't eva gonna get ugly. You'se too pretty for dat." Lily hadn't noticed before, but he was standing only inches from her face. He picked up a stray lock of her hair that had fallen and brushed it out of her eyes. "And ya know," he continued, "you'se even more pretty when ya's all agitated like dat."
Lily looked up into those blue gray eyes. He was moving closer to her. She knew what he was going to do. Something within her stirred, and her heart pounded within her chest. She could feel her breaths quicken as the excitement mounted. Suddenly, a voice in her head screamed to her, "No! What the hell are you doing? Wait! Stop! Don't!"
"Spot," Lily whispered to him, "I really don't want you to kiss me."
Lily wasn't sure if he hadn't heard her or if it was just his a product of his arrogance and strong will (probably the latter, she thought), but either way, he did not take heed. Instead, he cupped her jaw in his left hand and tilted her face up to meet his as he leaned in and their lips met. It was soft at first, his let his mouth slightly graze hers before he paused and then kissed her full force, wantonly and deeply.
When the kiss ended, Lily pulled back and gasped. Her mouth open in shock at what she had just allowed to happen, but she was even more surprised buy how much she had enjoyed it. Embarrassed, angered, and her pride injured, she raise her hand and slapped him across his left cheek.
Spot recoiled from the sharp sound and the stinging pain he was now feeling. He raised his hand to his injured cheek. "How dare you," Lily spoke, words meant to convey the injustice he had just done to her, "how dare you do such a thing. Don't you know that-"
But Spot did not let her finish. He abruptly pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, harder this time. Lily's first instinct was to fight - to push him off of her. But neither her heart, nor her body had any desire to do such, so she abandoned her resolve. breathed a deep sigh, and then melted into him. She threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him back with the same intensity and passion with which he was kissing her.
~****~
To be continued in Part III.
Voices. Hushed at first then growing louder, echoing. Then, a woman's cackle-like laughter and a slamming door. The enveloping darkness, growing even more dark by the moment.
Walking down a long, deserted hallway. Cold wind blow, coming from nowhere. Chilling and freezing shiver. Walking further, a small voice comes from behind. "Help me," it cries. Help who? Who's voice is calling? Who needs to be helped? "Help me," it calls out again. Who are you? Where are you? "Josephine," the voice says softly. "Josephine." No, you can't be. You can't be. I'm Josephine, I'm-
The wind blows again. It is even more icy. Shivering. Can't stop shivering. Suddenly a cold hand reaches out. It grabs. It is a man, his face in shadows. He is big and strong. He pulls. On the ground. Struggling to get away. Can't get away from his grasp, can't pull away. He is laughing. Laughing and humming. That song. That familiar song. He is overpowering. Can't get away. Crying. Crying. Shrieking in terror but nothing is coming out. Nothing. Struggling, can't wrench free from his hands. His huge, icy hands. He comes nearer. His laughing, his humming. The shadows fall from his face. His eyes. Those eyes! Eyes filled with the look of smug content and insanity..piercing...Panic. Filled with panic! Can't break free...can't get free!
She awoke suddenly, violently trembling. Her body was drenched with cold sweat, her nightgown clinging to her body. She was breathing hard, nearly panting. Her eyes searched the room, for a sign of her attacker. The same icy wind blew through her room and she pulled the blanket on her bed around her, clinging to it, her arms wrapped around her body.
It had all been a dream. It had been a horrible, freakishly real nightmare. Her mouth emitted a quiet, "Claudette," as she felt the same hollow pain in her chest that she had felt nearly three years ago. She felt the cold wind again and looked over to the window. She had left it open and the night was blowing chills into her room. Gathering the blanket around her and clinching it closed with her left hand, she slowly got out of bed and walked toward the window to shut it.
As her right hand reached up to close the window, she looked out once again at the moonlit city and thought again of the boy that had visited her a few hours earlier. She grimaced as she thought of his unashamed cockiness and the way she had let him into her private life by practically spilling out her life story to him, even telling him her real name. Those were intimate things she said to him, thoughts that she had but told no one. Why did she suddenly decide that it would be fine to tell this conceited, know-nothing street urchin the inner-workings of her mind? Why?
"When are you gonna learn, Josephine?" she asked herself in a whisper. That had settled it. She had made up her mind that she was not letting this kid into her world. She had her life and she had her plans. She wasn't going to let anyone interfere again. Things were going to be different this time. So, Mr. Spot Conlon could do what he would, but she wasn't going to care either way.
She closed the window and pulled the curtains closed. Gathering up her blanket around her once more, she trod over to her bed and lied down. She closed her eyes, tried to force all thoughts from her mind, and like so many other nights, told herself to sleep.
Two hours, 47 minutes, and 29 seconds later, her body finally obeyed.
~*****~
The next day, she and the rest of the girls were getting ready for the usual nighttime performance. She was standing at her dressing table, leaning over it to get closer to the mirror while she put a few touches of rouge to her cheeks. "Damn freckle," she said out loud, rubbing at a freckle at the end of her nose with her pinky.
"Hey, dontcha be dammin' that one freckle," spoke the girl standing beside her, Maggie, a native Brooklynite and full blooded Irish redhead, who was damming her own freckles under her breath while trying to drown them in powder. "Least ya ain't got a who face fulla 'em." Maggie O'Malley was tall and brazen, with flaming red hair and a loud mouth that matched her hair and spoke the slang of New York perfectly.
Lily laughed. "Maggie, you've lived in Brooklyn your entire life," she said, "did you ever hear of a kid named Spot Conlon." (Damn. She couldn't believe she had actually the thought of him appear in her mind, much less let it slip out of her mouth). She hated that she was thinking about him. She hated even more that someone else knew that she was thinking about him. She started to work on applying her lipstick so that maybe no one would notice the look of self-hatred on her face and begin asking questions.
"Yeah," Maggie replied, "shoah I'se hearda him. Ya live heah for twenty one years and o'coise ya hear of him. He's some kid whose some big shot wit da Brooklyn newsies up in dah north. He's like some king ta dem or something,' and all dah rest o'dem are like his liddle followas. He's some real big shot. Crazy, too, I heah. Everybody's afraid o'him. He beats poor suckas to wittin one inch o'der life if dey get on his bad side. E's got a real love affeah with da bottle, too, if ya know what I mean. Why do ya ask?"
Lily realized that she had revealed herself and must now save herself from any further embarrassment. "Well, you know, yesterday," she quickly and nonchalantly as possible said, "he sent some of his 'subject' in here to say that he wanted to see me. And I'd never heard of him before then, so I didn't go. So, um, you know, I was just wondering what kind of arrogant little thing he was."
"Yeah, dat shoah sounds like Spot ta me," Maggie answered. "Always getting udder people to do his biddin' while he just sits on his liddle throne an' waits." She paused to hold a hairpin in her mouth while her fingers twisted a curl. She took the pin from her mouth, pinned the curl and then said, "But ya should feel special. It ain't everyday dat Spot comes a'visitin. And it ain't jes' anyone dat he visits when he does. He's quite a charma I heah. A real ladies man, if ya use da toim 'man' loosely. Every goil in the da whole city is eidder in love wit 'em or scared of 'em. He gots himself a new goil every week. Hey, Lil, maybe you'se dah pick o'dah week."
There was a knock at the door and both girls looked toward it. A voice boomed out, "Two minutes, girls!"
Maggie looked at Lily and said in a hushed, dramatic voice, "Showtime!" She then pinned her last curl in place, while Lily put her foot up on the chair to fasten the buckle on her right shoe. Both grabbed their feathers and hurried out of the door.
~*****~
It was halfway through their second song when Lily finally looked up into the balcony and had a pair of stormy blue-gray eyes meet her own. She nearly stopped singing to gasp at the realization of who it was. He was sitting alone, quietly, and without his usual tribe of boys around him. Although she managed to keep singing, she however, did not manage to not trip over her own foot. It was just a slight and almost insignificant stumble, but it took everything she had to recover from it and keep in step.
As she continued dancing and singing, she felt her cheeks burn with the embarrassment of someone noticing her stumble. They burned even more when she thought about the owner of the pair of stormy-blue eyes noticing her stumble.
During the instrumental part of their number, when the band played and all she had to do was a few easy kicks and a little skirt shaking, she managed to inch her way over to Maggie. "Maggie!" she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "Guess who's here...the King of Brooklyn!."
Maggie looked surprised and stifled a giggle. "Seems His Majesty took a fancy tah ya." she whispered back, grinning.
Lily rolled her eyes. Throughout the rest of the song and the next, she managed, somehow to keep going. Step, step, kick. High kick. Shimmy. Arms up, arms down. All the while, she felt his eyes on her. Watching her every move, never leaving her. Burning into her skin. She was thrilled when the third number was finally over and she could just stand in once place, while the wild applause nearly shook the theatre around her. She, along with the rest of her ensemble, smile and waved, and blew kisses to a few of the audience members. Just before they were about to walk off stage, she let her eyes wander over to and meet the blue-gray ones in the balcony again. The smile faded from her lips as she let the gaze linger. While still continuing to wave enthusiastically, she cocked her head, bit her lip, and looked at him quizzically. She then let the smile that was tugging at the corner of her mouth play over her lips as she nodded toward him, and then looked away. A few seconds later, the girls all walked offstage together. Maggie came up behind Lily and nudge her with her elbow. "Hey," she said, "what'd I tell ya? I told ya, you'se the pick o'dah week!"
Lily rolled her eyes and scoffed in distaste. "I'm not anybody's pick of the week, much less his. I am not going to be another notch in Spot Conlon's belt. He can just forget about it!"
Maggie laughed. "Yeah Lil," she said, walking away, "shoah ya won't, whaddeva you say."
Lily was in disbelief and stopped in her tracks. "Hey!" she called out to Maggie, "What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm serious! I am not falling into his little trap. I'm smarter than that!" She paused. "I mean it, Maggie! I won't!" Maggie just kept walking, waving goodbye over her head to Lily as she went towards the dressing rooms. Lily stood in place, her feet almost bolted to the ground as she milled over what Maggie's words could have mean. "Don't you do it, Josephine," she said to herself, under her breath, "do you go and let that atrocious boy have his way with you." As she stood there, she began to feel more and more like a fool for even letting him cross her mind again. She could feel her cheeks start to burn and redden with the embarrassment of it all. "Oh, bloody hell!" she said out loud, and balled her hands into fists and stamped her foot on the floor. A determined look came across her face as she spun around and instead of going into the dressing rooms with the other girls, marched angrily up the stairs to her room.
~****~
Hours passed. Day turned into evening, and evening turned into night. Lily sat on her bed, still fully dressed, with her arms crossed over her chest. Her feet tapped a nervous rhythm on the floor. Her eyes remained fixed on her open window. She was waiting for what she thought would be the inevitable. She was waiting for Spot Conlon to make his high and mighty appearance in her window.
Anxious and impatient, she stood up and began to pace. Back and forth, back and forth, the laps undertaken at a quick speed. She suddenly stopped and faced the window, expectantly. No Spot. Angered and anguished she flopped back down on her bed with a frustrated "Aarrrgh." Her head in her hands, her feet began to resume their nervous tapping. "No!" she said out loud to no one, jumping up from the bed, "you can't do this! You've got to do something else! Anything!"
Her eyes desperately searched the room for anything, anything that would keep her busy and take her mind off of the seemingly endless waiting. A book...no. She couldn't sit still for a single second, much less focus on words and storyline. Her eyes suddenly fell upon her desk and the drawer that held her journal. Yes. She would write.
She quickly walked over to the desk that faced the wall, sat in the chair, and pulled out the drawer. Out came the journal, her pen, and a bottle of unopened ink. She opened her journal, flipping through it for a clean page. She then opened the jar, smelling the distinct smell of writing ink and dipped it in the ink. With the pen in left hand, and her head in her right, the pen began to fly across the page. Scratch, scratch, scratch - words were falling from it as they flowed from her mind into her fingers and onto the page. What she wrote was almost a manifesto: a redeclaration of her plans, her aspirations, a vow to not let herself get involved with this "kid," a list of reasons why she couldn't. She chastised herself for letting him into her life the previous night and reinforced determination and courage for resolving to be done with him. As she wrote on, she became complete oblivious to everything except her pen, her paper, and her words. She was so lost in her work that she almost did not hear the footsteps on the fire escape.
As she heard the soft patting, it felt as though her ears were being pricked. She listened further. Footsteps. And then she felt him. She felt him come into the room and his presence overtook her. Without lifting her head, but putting her pen down carefully, she said, "Hello, Spot Conlon."
"Hey, how'd ya know it was me? How'd ya know it ain't somebody else?" he asked.
She turned around in her chair to face him. Instead of betraying herself by telling him that she felt his "presence" upon her as he entered the room, she instead used a more logical answer. "You came in through the window. You're the only one who does that. Anyone else would have used the door."
Spot looked surprised for a moment and then recovered quickly by shrugging his shoulders. "Well, yeah," he said, "I'se gotta make me entrance." He walked over to her bed and flopped down on it, putting his hands behind his head and leaning against the headboard.
"Sit down, why don't you," Lily muttered under her breath.
"Well now," Spot said looking around, "dis is some nice place you'se got heah Lil- I mean-Jo. Real nice. How long ya had it?"
"Um, well," said Lily, still marveling at the way he had just barged in and taken over the place like it was his own, "it hasn't always been this nice. I, mean, I used to share it with another girl. She was younger than me and a bit of a slob. A real flirt too. You had to walk into the room with your hand over your eyes cause she always had some man in here doing who know what at any given time."
"So, where's dis goil now? Did ya get enuff o'her or somethun' and toss 'er and 'er stuff out da windah?" Spot asked.
Lily laughed. "No, I didn't toss anyone out of the "windah." Mabel left about three months ago. She got married, if you can believe that. But I suppose if any man had enough money to trap Mabel, her new husband did. I don't know if she even liked the poor man nearly as much as she liked his pocketbook and his four hundred thousand a year."
"So she married dis guy she didn't like? Crazy broad."
"Excuse me, Conlon, but it's not like she had many other options. A girl has got to eat. And no matter how hard you try, you can't eat love. In my line of work, a girl's only got three choices: She can marry, marry rich, and get the hell out of here, or she can stay here, live in the theatre and dance her feet off for the rest of her life, or she can starve. When you think about it, there's really only one choice. You can't stay here because one day your good looks and hourglass figure will leave you. Everything will sag and your kicks won't match the height they had in your glory days. So, after a few years you're nothing. And you can't starve out on the street because you'll die. So, it's either marry a man with the right amount of 'pocket change' or get busy dying."
"Hey, dat ain't true." Spot had risen from his reclining pose and was not sitting erect and on the defense. "You'se ain't nobody's slave. You'se can leave, can't ya? Get outta dis place, do somethun' else."
"Like what?" Lily countered.
"Well, like.." Spot searched his mind and the room, hoping the answer to her question would present itself, "like..like. well, I dunno, but der's shoah somethun out der."
"Well, Spot Conlon," Lily said, rising from her chair and walking across the room to the window, "when you find something, be certain to tell me what it is. God knows I'd like to know." She looked out on the moonlit city again as she had time and time before. It hadn't changed. It was still the same dirty brown hustle-bustle place, trash lining the streets and a desolate soul on every corner. But somehow, the moonlight gave it a new charm, a new glow. It cast shadows so that one look beyond the eyesores and somehow made the city seem infinite. It was almost as if it really were place she had dreamed of, the place that made all your wildest dreams come true. Maybe it was like Spot said. Maybe there really was something else, maybe the city had more to offer her than she knew about.
"No," she thought, "it's just the magic of the night. It casts its spell on the city and on me. Now I'm standing here dreaming of all that could be with this kid in my room behind me, and I've forgotten my vow to not get involved. Hell, when are you going to stop doing this, you silly girl. When are you going to start using your brain? You can't do things like this anymore."
"No, I can't," she said softly to herself.
"What's dat?" asked Spot over her shoulder, "What can't ya do?"
Damn, she had been so lost in her thoughts that she'd nearly forgotten he was still there, sitting on her bed, infiltrating her world.
"Oh, nothing," she said turning around. "So, what is it that you do anyway? I mean, besides becoming a regular in the balcony and climbing through my window every night?"
"Me?" he said, "well, ya know in da mornin' I sell papes, da evenin' edition too. Sit around da docks, keep me boys in line. Take care o'any problems if I need tah. Eat. Sleep. Have a liddle fun every once in a while. Dah usual."
"Ah, must be exciting," Lily mused.
"Ah, it's ok. I mean, it ain't as great as ya gig, but I'se gots a little jingle in me pocket and a shirt on me back" he replied.
"Oh, don't fool yourself. Aside from the room, the attention, and pleasant little gifts from admirers every once in a while, it's rather rotten. I mean, between the tiresome dance routines we've got to pull off three times a day and at rehearsals and fending off the entire male population of New York that wants to get under your skirt, it starts to take a toll."
"Hey," Spot said, "anytime you'se got enuff, you can leave dis place an' I'll teach ya how tah be a helluva good newsie. I bet you'd be a natural."
Lily laughed out of the silliness and impossibility of her becoming a newsie. "Oh come on Conlon, I'm not a kid anymore. Hell, I'm twenty years old, and you're what..well how old are you?"
"Seventeen, but me birthday is in a month," he said.
"Right, you're seventeen. You can still do anything you want. I'm twenty - that's marrying and settling down to raise a family age. And look at me, I'm not married and I have no family. All I've got is this. My only hope is to keep dancing and hope some nice, rich man notices me and decides I'd make a lovely wife before I get too old and too ugly to continue. So, I'm sorry, but the newsie thing is a trifle bit out of the question."
"Hey, don't you'se be knockin bein a newsie till ya done tried it," Spot said, with an offended and hurt look on his face.
Lily sighed. She was tired and frustrated with her life and the fact that there really was, for the moment, no way out for her. "Look, I'm sorry, but.."
Spot interrupted her, "And ya ain't eva gonna get ugly. You'se too pretty for dat." Lily hadn't noticed before, but he was standing only inches from her face. He picked up a stray lock of her hair that had fallen and brushed it out of her eyes. "And ya know," he continued, "you'se even more pretty when ya's all agitated like dat."
Lily looked up into those blue gray eyes. He was moving closer to her. She knew what he was going to do. Something within her stirred, and her heart pounded within her chest. She could feel her breaths quicken as the excitement mounted. Suddenly, a voice in her head screamed to her, "No! What the hell are you doing? Wait! Stop! Don't!"
"Spot," Lily whispered to him, "I really don't want you to kiss me."
Lily wasn't sure if he hadn't heard her or if it was just his a product of his arrogance and strong will (probably the latter, she thought), but either way, he did not take heed. Instead, he cupped her jaw in his left hand and tilted her face up to meet his as he leaned in and their lips met. It was soft at first, his let his mouth slightly graze hers before he paused and then kissed her full force, wantonly and deeply.
When the kiss ended, Lily pulled back and gasped. Her mouth open in shock at what she had just allowed to happen, but she was even more surprised buy how much she had enjoyed it. Embarrassed, angered, and her pride injured, she raise her hand and slapped him across his left cheek.
Spot recoiled from the sharp sound and the stinging pain he was now feeling. He raised his hand to his injured cheek. "How dare you," Lily spoke, words meant to convey the injustice he had just done to her, "how dare you do such a thing. Don't you know that-"
But Spot did not let her finish. He abruptly pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again, harder this time. Lily's first instinct was to fight - to push him off of her. But neither her heart, nor her body had any desire to do such, so she abandoned her resolve. breathed a deep sigh, and then melted into him. She threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him back with the same intensity and passion with which he was kissing her.
~****~
To be continued in Part III.