Club Storyville by Riley Lashea Page B

sun was done putting on its dazzling performance, Ariel and I went back to our cabin to settle in for the night. Removing her jacket the instant we were back inside, Ariel pulled out a magazine, so I dug through my bag for the latest Agatha Christie I was so happy to have gotten my hands on upon its release.
    Sitting across from Ariel to read, though, I found nothing pleasant in more mystery or in murder, and longed for the worn copy of “Mary Poppins” I had thrown into my suitcase at the last moment because it always brought me comfort to read, but that I was too embarrassed to take out.
    “Is something wrong?” I was surprised when Ariel noticed I was more absorbed in worry than in the story. Book held before me, I thought I was doing a decent job pretending. Of course, it occurred to me as I looked up at her, it might have been beneficial to actually turn a page every once in a while.
    “No,” I shook my head.
    “Do you need something?” she asked, and I needed all sorts of things, some that made sense, others that didn’t, but I knew those things went beyond the depth of Ariel’s question.
    “No, I’m fine,” I uttered.
    “Something different to read?” she offered, glancing toward the book that, in light of being found out, I had abandoned next to me on the seat.
    “No,” I shook my head, the red cover fueling my anger as I looked at it. Why, I wondered, did I ever waste time in such pursuits? Staring into sunsets that would change nothing. Reading fiction that had no consequence on real life, the present, or the future.
    In fifty years, who would know Agatha Christie? Hercule Poirot? Miss Marple? Who would remember Mary Poppins?
    Thinking of Nan, dying, hopefully as slowly as possible, back in Richmond, I knew what she would say if I asked her those very questions. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she would laugh. ‘What point is there to anything of beauty? Who remembers Shakespeare? Who remembers Michelangelo?’
    “It’s been a long day,” Ariel said in Nan’s place, because she was there and Nan wasn’t, and, soon enough, both would be gone. “We should get some sleep.”
    W hen she insisted I take the top berth half an hour later, with a sigh of acceptance that Nan had put her in charge instead of me, I climbed the ladder and tried not to crack my head on the too-close ceiling.
    “All set?” Ariel asked, and, nodding, I watched her walk to the door to double-check the lock, before flipping off the light.
    Darkness falling over the space, for a moment I was blind to her, to everything, but at the rustle of fabric against fabric, I squinted harder until the moonlight leaking around the edges of the shade revealed the form of Ariel in her nightgown. Having seen the robe before, on rare occasion in the halls of Nan’s house, but never what lie beneath it, the thin sleeveless fabric that sculpted Ariel’s body seized my senses.
    Emboldened by the dark, or perhaps the lingering effects of the alcohol, I felt no haste to look away, watching instead as the fabric swirled around her, clinging tightly, and the tendrils of hair fell against Ariel’s neck as she pulled the band free.
    Hypnotized as I was, I didn’t even have the sense to turn my head when she caught me looking.
    The finally cool cabin suddenly too hot again, Ariel’s eyes held mine, and, as she moved toward me without blinking, I thought she would teach me something else worth learning, reveal more than a glorious sunset from a southbound train and her ability to hold hard liquor.
    Outside the door, there were so many reasons for her not to, but, inside the cabin, inside myself, all I wanted was for her to touch me, to kiss me again, to make me worldly in ways only she could, and, by the time she was mere inches away, my body trembled with the anticipation of her.
    Instead of coming to me, though, Ariel dropped suddenly from view and I heard the creaking of the berth below as she settled into her own space, leaving me alone and aching for