Chapter 8: Black and White



Velma's story started with a photograph. It was an old black and white picture, torn and yellowed, curling up upon itself with age. But Roxie could still see the faces of two teenage girls, smiling up at her like ghosts from a distant past. Her fingers traced the lines of their soft forms, musing.

She knew she could just ask Velma any minute now who the girls were and what they had to do with them, but for now, she just wanted to imagine, to read their stories in their harshly beautiful faces.

The girls looked very much alike, standing arm-in-arm in makeup and scant showy costumes that both gave them the impression of being much older than they were. They both had raven-black hair cut in short bobs and tough weathered faces.

One of the girls was slightly taller, with a face that had the slanted green eyes, broad cheekbones, and prominent chin of a cat. She was striking, and even through the tint of the photo, Roxie could feel those green eyes blazing right through her. But such a ghostly aura hung around her that Roxie might as well have been gazing into the eyes of long dead royalty.

But it was the other girl who caught Roxie's eye, the shorter one whose amber eyes glowed like the setting sun when she smiled. It was a smile that even any outsider could tell you didn't come around very often. Roxie was looking into the eyes of a younger Velma Kelly.

"This is a picture of you and Veronica, isn't it?" Roxie said, surprised she could find her voice. But from the moment the words came out of her mouth, Roxie knew they were wrong. Back when she used to worship the ground they walked on, she had seen the other half of Velma's sister act, and she looked nothing like the girl in the picture.

Velma laughed darkly. "If it were, I would've burned it by now. No, these sad Janes here are me and the damned closest thing to a real sister I ever had." Velma slipped into silence, eyes glazed as if she was lost inside herself, and Roxie reasoned, she probably was.

Roxie felt a sudden need to press for details, to know everything there was to know about the girls in black and white who smiled as one.

"I didn't know you had another sister."

"I didn't," Velma said briefly.

This was going to be harder than Roxie had thought, but she'd get it all out of Miss Kelly yet, even if she had to pull it out of her, thread by thread.

"Who is she?"

Velma's eyes flickered mournfully, still staring into something that wasn't there, almost as if she was unaware of Roxie, sitting there beside her on the velvet couch, trying to hold the gaze of those lost eyes. Then she spoke.

"She was Vera Ryan, the only friend I ever had in this goddamned city. Her real name was Verity, but the name wasn't for her. She also had a sister named Chastity, poor whore. Me and Vera used to do all kinds of crazy things, and we never gave a shit about truth or purity. It was all just a load of baloney, and damn if we both didn't know it all along."

Velma had lit up a cigarette and took a long drag on it. Roxie had a wild urge to knock the thing out of Velma's hand; she hated it when she smoked. But she resisted, and Velma went on.

"By the time we were seventeen, we were singing and dancing at every juice joint we could gimp our way into, getting so bent we could hardly drag ourselves home at night, and sleeping with a different lucky cake eater every night. Who was gonna tell us that we were wrong to live life? Why should we give a damn about truth, honesty, and class when we were free? And we were good. The audience loved us, and we never stopped loving them. Why should we have cared that we were a bunch of sluts when life was never better for us? We were just the daughters of dirt-poor immigrants. Where else did we have to go?"

Velma paused. Her eyes were blazing, and she was rigid with indignant anger.

"I'll tell ya', Roxie," she went on, for the first time giving a sign she actually remembered she was there, "she was the only thing that kept me from getting on a train outta here the first chance I got." The fire in her eyes had died into embers.

"But you keep saying, she was like, like, well... You can't mean that she..." Her voice died in her throat.

Velma's face went painfully taut, and she merely nodded as if the words cost her too much. Finally, the words came rolling slowly out of her mouth, painstakingly slow, as if she were speaking to herself more than she was to Roxie.

"Vera Ryan has been dead for a long time."

Roxie didn't know what to say. What could she say? She felt a strange sorrow for the girl who stared fiercely at her through the black and white. She felt as if she'd known her in a way, even when she was just a faded figure in a frayed photograph.

Roxie decided she didn't need to say anything at all. She moved hesitantly closer to Velma, and put an arm around her shoulders, afraid that any moment, the other woman would shrug off her embrace and find another excuse to move away, to be alone.

But she didn't. She let her head rest on Roxie's arm, closing her eyes tightly. Her long black eyelashes licked her bloodless cheeks, the small flood of tears sending rivulets of black dancing down her face.

Roxie could hear her heart beating, a sound foreign and comforting at the same time. She could feel the slender muscles in Velma's neck and shoulders, caressed every one as her companion's heart slowly relaxed in her chest. Just Roxie being there was enough.

After a while, the other flapper sat up and dabbed her face with Roxie's handkerchief. Then, after drawing in a breath, Velma Kelly started her story at the very beginning.

Many thanks to Rachael for betaing this chapter. I can only hope it didn't hurt your eyes too much! OK, I don't normally do this, because I think it's very annoying when people beg for reviews, but PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! I might not be able to update for a while, because my bff is coming in from Virginia to visit on Saturday, and almost right after that I'm going on vacation. However, reviews will make me try very hard to get another chapter up before Saturday...;) And all ye be warned, the next chapter contains very overly dramatic material that will either make you laugh or cry, depending on your personal take on angst.