The train lurched along sleepily across the Californian landscape. Spot Conlon was asleep, with his arms crossed and his legs stretched out under the window. His cap was pulled low over his eyes and his knapsack was tucked between his hip and train car wall. David Jacobs was also asleep, though not as blatantly, as his head lolled against the back of his seat and his open dime novel slipped into his lap. Jack Kelly was definitely not asleep.
Jack was agitated, unable to get into a comfortable position, as he shifted his weight, tapped his foot and ran his hand through his hair. If there had been a window with a fire escape, Jack was sure he would have jumped through it by now. Instead he was left to sit still, a skill he had never quite mastered in his twenty years.
"Kelly. You either read that letter, or I will take it from you." Spot gritted out. The man didn't move his hat, his eyes were probably still closed but his mouth was set in that familiar Brooklyn scowl.
Jack stared down at the sealed envelope across his knees, addressed in a neat lettering he had only seen twice since he had left the city. She had only written twice. Two letters, really just a string of words that were angry and sad. But this letter was hefty, more than one sheet, maybe even three. Jack nervously slide a hand through his hair again and fidgeted with his resting hand, a slow tapping against the envelope.
"Kelly." Spot growled again. Jack sharply took in a gasp of air and nodded to himself. She hadn't written him this year, not since her bitter Christmas note, almost three months before. With trembling hands, the cowboy braced himself before prying open the envelope letting three full sheets fall into his lap.
A nervously pleased laugh escaped the man. His fingers danced along the three full sheets, reverently stroking and thumbing the corners like he used to handle the morning papes. The first sheet was dated almost a month before and Jack warred with an intense desire to write the girl back before even reading it, desperate to stay in her good graces.
Spot kicked his foot out, smacking his foot into Jack's knee with enough force that Jack growled. He knocked his knee back against Spot softly, as he picked up the first sheet.
February 10, 1903.
My dear Jack,
I burst from needing to tell you of my night at the Arion Masquerade Ball. And I can't help but feel if you were here, you would have been at my side, you would have known the story as it unfolded in front of us. By the same token, I can't help but sense that if you were still here in our fair city, none of the dream would have happened as it has.
Do you remember when we would sit upon the steps of the Castle and you would tell me tales of cowboys out west? Dreams so peculiar that I never truly believe their truth, but you always told truth by improving and it was just the way your voice struck me that made the stories real. I worry this might become that kind of story for you, so fantastical it can't be true. But you know me, and my improving of truth never did match yours.
"You had talents elsewhere, charming girl." Jack whispered at the letter.
Settle in love, for I've got a yarn for you filled with lights and dancing, birds and whispers, champagne and stolen whiskey, everything you could imagine.
I had never seen it before, never paid much attention to Madison Square before this night.
Did you ever sell there? Have you ever seen it?
A clock tower rises out from the bare branches of the winter trees, and it is so tall the steeple pierces the night sky. On the outside, it's a city building nothing different than the World or tilt your head up and see a steeple the likes of Trinity Church. Riding up to it did lend it a bit more magnificence, with the glow of the lights and the bustle of the carriages and the finery of all those people.
It reminded me of the opera house, or any part of Broadway, where the people bustle in that overwhelming way. But I have grown use to the bustle and stepped into it as a fish might swim into water. Inside is where all the brilliance of the night came alive. A cavernous hall lay before me, under twinkling glass light orbs, as if man found a way to trap the stars. Is this like the stars you've told me about in the west? Does it feel like this, to be bathed in light so brilliant it feels like the sun in the middle of the night?
The floor was as wide as the East River, a band and the Arion Society sat on a platform ready to perform. Benches rise, like the ones sometimes in the squares for the boxing matches, but so much bigger and sturdier looking. Then there are boxes, reminding me of Irving Hall but grander than even those.
I was in one of the finest dress I've worn yet. Finer than anything from the dances of the shore, the nights at the opera, everything. The material draped and fell around my chest, my hips, my knees, glittering with a golden sheen of lace and feathers. With much of my neck and shoulders exposed as is the present fashion and a mask hiding my face with peacock feathers and a fierce green. The feathers were at my insistence and Casey is so far along with child, she didn't have the patience to deny me. Imagine how fitting to be masquerading as a bird, while behaving as one. Thomas thinks me brazen.
"Everyone thinks you brazen." Jack muttered to the letter, his lips settling into a smile as he could hear the words on the paper spoken with just the slightest tilt of the girl's head. As if she questioned how anyone could find her anything.
"What's she done now, then?" Spot muttered sleepily.
"Nothing. Yet." Jack replied. His eyes trailing down the letter trying to read it all at once as well as one word at a time.
I'm pulled along by Elizabeth, to the dancing. Have you ever been to the kind of dance with dance cards? It seems so formal, so stiff for such a thing as dancing! It's such a blessing the boys were all in the city from Princeton, I knew the first three fellows on my dance card quite well enough by now. During the third dance, a ridiculous cat walk, I spotted the first bird. I have been spotting them all over for months now. Birds disguised as house servants, hidden away in trees, tucked in the shadows, but a bird is never very far away these days.
Firecracker, the one with vivid red curls, was up in one of the boxes. She was giggling and chatting to an older gentleman with a top hat and plain white mask. Then a single feather fell from somewhere else, near the benches where an audience sat and observed us. A dull gray feather, but the kind that I believe is much like the whistling. The dance pulled me to the other side of the vast hall, near the platform the band Is settled on. As the melody dwindled down, my dance partner led me to a seat and charmingly got me a glass of champagne.
Elizabeth is at my side again, chattering about how well Grayson Williams dances. I think Grayson tends to have two left feet, or be too busy trying to captivate me with some outrageous story or another. I think had I never met you, I would think he told stories well, but knowing you. I know how a story can be told. I sip at my champagne and before I know it, the bubbling substance is gone.
"Slow down." Jack sighed, warning the girl. He closed his eyes. He had reached the end of the first sheet and he stilled remembering and imaging. His Laces in a dress of silk and gold with feathers and curls. Champagne gone, he knew her cheeks would be pink and her eyes would be sparkling under the trapped lights. She would be laughing. His memory always remembered the laughing, the smile, the joy of her happiness seeping back to him.
David stirs dropping his dime novel. Jack's eyes pop open as he stretches out to pick up the novel and shuffle to pick up his second sheet. The first line stops him again.
Jacob is next on my dance card.
Jack feels the stab of jealousy, he had been waiting for the name to appear in the story. Audrey had not been anywhere without her constant companion in months, or so it seemed to Jack Kelly. Every letter or news of Miss Audrey Alexandra Kai always mentioned Jacob Henry Canterbury. Even the papers mentioned the two together, in connection, the gossip could be heard even in California. No one had described Jacob, no one had told Jack if the boy was handsome and tall or mute and plain. But Jack imagined him, every time he read his name as someone he could soak.
Childishly, Jack skipped the next paragraph where he knew that Audrey might describe in detail some of Jacob Henry Canterbury. The man didn't want to know about him, didn't want to spoil his bliss at finally receiving this letter from his girl. Or from the girl that used to be his, a panic rumbling in his stomach.
I did a jig, like the one Spot taught me at the papers Christmas party so long ago. When Matches appeared at my elbow, the next name on my dance card. Well, the next name he claimed to be his own. Nicholas Milton, a name so quaint that I almost believe it could be his. Matches flirts with me shamelessly, feigning an interest, to hide our conversation. He's looking for a man, a politician that might have some information. He describes him, portly stout, a ginger mustache, a black mask with white stripes like a zebra. And here my night of seeking secrets began.
I found the politician, being introduced by Grayson Williams, who of course knew him. I made polite conversation with the politician's wife, while eavesdropping on the men's conversation. It took me another quarter of an hour before I found another bird, giving them the update on the Senate seat as I had heard it. A choir girl, who looked unnervingly familiar even behind her pearl mask, whispered about a society invitation list for an Astor event. That took me some more time and it was nearly midnight before I found a Vanderbilt, well actually a George Sands, the son of the formable Anne Harriman Vanderbilt introduced to me by Jacob. This introduction soon led me to an Astor.
Audrey described the dress or the masks or the drinks of each of these members of society. Jack smiled at how easily she slipped from Knickerbocker to Knickerbocker. Smiling at bankers and railroad bosses, to laughing with politicians and birds. She'd stop every so often to question Jack's knowledge of the news, reference a piece by Denton in the Sun or page 9 of the Evening World. Jack snorted at the news. He read papers every day still but the papers in California weren't the same news as the papers in New York and he ached for the writers he knew and the familiar words in a good headline.
Greedily, Jack picked up the third sheet.
I danced, I drank. At some point, Jacob drank a fine whiskey and let me steal sips from him. As ladies, you know, don't drink anything but champagne. I danced with George Sands, and met another young lady, I forget her name but she does work with the Children's Aid Society. This young lady spends time at Lodging Houses teaching the boys things like reading, arithmetic and history!
Did you, as a boy, ever sit in these lessons? I never thought of it before, I knew there were lessons. We all did, of course, but I never attend a lesson. When I joined Spot in Brooklyn, I already knew how to read. I never was one much for sums, but I can count pennies and nickels. I never thought of the lessons. Did Spot go to lessons?
I have decided that I might be able to join the cause, work with the Children's Aid Society. I could spend time in Brooklyn and Manhattan and see the newsies. The boys I miss so much it aches.
Jack laughed at the discovery. Of all the places and all the things in the world, Laces went to a ball to discover her talents as a bird in society and how she might take up philanthropy.
Convincing Thomas and Critter should be easy, if I discovered it from a society lady. Critter just yesterday came calling, and for the first time in forever, didn't scold me. He praised me. Critter O'Connell praised me, for my efforts at the ball. He thought me helpful and well behaved. Jasper even sent a feather. A single red one. I think this means he will deliver this letter, I might even merit getting your next letter.
The birds must know how to get you a letter in California. Your last letter arrived after your Christmas letter, so I am sure it shall find you. How do they know when you move? Is this just the path everyone going out west takes? Does no one go straight to Santa Fe? Have you gotten to see the sun there, yet?
Jack cringed as if he had been struck by the words. He knew she didn't ask because she believed he was in Santa Fe, she asked to remind him of an unspoken promise he made.
Remember Critter has decreed I am not to receive your letters. Send at least two, if you send any at all. I cannot promise that I will stay on my best behavior besides Critter rarely goes back on his word. I am not to receive any letters from you, out of his presence.
Write soon Cowboy.
Forget me not, your Laces.
Jack stared at her final words, the way she curved her L and let her e run into her s. The man was sure if he never went back East he would never forget her, she was forever part of him. Without deciding to, Jack Kelly started reading the letter again.
Author's Note: I have noticed that for some reason links don't show up in the text of my author's notes. So if anyone is looking for the first 9 stories of the Sunny Days Saga. They are not posted on FF Net, they can be found at Sunny Days .Com.
I appreciate the wonderful feedback! And delight that anyone is still reading this at all, when I fell off the face of the planet. Fingers cross I finish it soon enough.