Bernice Pt. 5

A Story by Simon Eckman

continuation

I was guessing that if I wore myself out running around the town the whole day that I would be too exhausted to feel like I wanted to cry. Dee and I traipsed about the back alleys of the old brick buildings, built in the early 1900's. They were mostly empty now, the blocky letters which identified each building seemed as though they were hieroglyphs to this age, the intended use of the abodes long abandoned. The smell of fresh laundry, in dryers in the apartment complexes, wafting out of exhaust pipes, from the other side of the alley. No sign of anyone else.

We walked to a building we knew particularly well, and looked around for anyone who could be watching. We opened the screen door first, then the wooden one, it made a chunky sand-papery sound as it slid open in it's rain swollen frame. We walked up from the shaded and somber first floor, dust was drifting aimlessly in the light. We went into a hallway that was full of the decor of another era. We walked slowly, each footstep making a creak on the neglected wooden floor. Dee open a door on our right side.

This was our secret place. Our hidden annex. No one else knew about this. The room was perfectly preserved as though sealed away in a time capsule. There were two ancient, sturdy upholstered chairs. Each had a high, ornate back and four sturdy legs, each ending in a clawed foot. In between the chairs, there was a masterfully crafted coffee table, upon which sat a crystal ashtray, blue colored glass like an antique Mason jar. The curtains were frilly, like doilies, and allowed for enough light to enter the room, fully illuminating it. The light at this time made it seem like we lived in the South, about the time of the Civil War, two ladies wilting from the summer heat, sheltering ourselves inside, I imagined Dee fanning herself with one of those fancy fans. I lit up a cigarette. I was holding it in the way I practiced, attempting to look cute and ladylike and distinguished.

"Don't let that smoke come towards me," Dee said, waving her hands about her hair.

"Okay sorry, I'm almost done with it anyways."

"You better be. If my Mom smells smoke on me I'm gonna get slapped," She laughed as she said this.

"Dee who do you like at school?"

She looked at me puzzled for a second. Then she said,"Joey. I think he's cute, but I never talked to him. Mr. Johnson sat him next to me in homeroom all year but he must be shy or something."

I knew who she was talking about. Joey was one of those quiet kids, that rarely speak up even if the teacher calls on them. He was attractive, straw colored hair, a pointed nose, and brown eyes. He seemed kind of distant in classes, like he was in another world; his body just a temporal vessel for what was within. Wiry and hunched over his desk, heavy with some unseeable weight or tiredness.

"Maybe you could call him up and ask him out?" I puzzled her.

"How about you can him and asked for me?"

"Okay," I said, "As long as you dial the number."

'It's a deal," Dee said, "I've never been on a date before though. What could we do?'

"Go to a movie, or maybe just a walk in the park if you don't have the money."

"Okay, well let's just hang out here a bit longer, then we can go to my house and call him," Dee said, then added, "And Bernice, who do you like at school?"

I pictured faces in my head, real and imaginary. Names that seemed from movies I'd seen, books I'd read, not people I'd met. I looked down at my spent cigarettes, butts from times before when we were here, they littered the ashtray and coffee table, in a pattern that seemed almost planned, familiar.

"No one really," I told her.