The Lady in Blue

The thing is, it really wasn't my fault. I swear on everything I own. (Which is nothing as of right now, but it's the thought that counts right? Right?) Really though, it was all Frank and his dumb bride. I swear. It's because of them I'm stuck as this bodiless ghost for the rest of eternity.

But really, don't let them tell you anything other the truth, because the truth is what I know. They're lying to you! How does that make you feel? Cheated, huh? Well I know the feeling, especially from him. But I'm getting off track here. Ignore what you've seen in the papers and the news reels because this is what really happened.

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Putting it simply, I don't belong in California. I don't care about the sun and Hollywoodland and pictures and flappers. All I care about is sitting at home in my tiny, New York apartment and reading contemporary books and looking at contemporary art. The sun was too bright and everyone was too happy to move forward in the way things were and no that's not how things should be going. I must be the only person under 50 who was totally for prohibition.

But yet, here I am, squished next to my sister Charlotte and her fiancee Thomas as we go cross country to see Thomas' cousins. How I agreed to come on this trip with my sister, I have no idea.

I stare blankly at the passing scenery; desert and sand and sand and desert. The same thing I've been seeing for the past few hours.

“Will we be arriving soon?” I ask to no one in particular.

“Very soon,” Thomas says from the seat next to me. He turns around to smile at me.

I smile sarcastically back at him. He tries to hard to get me to like him. The thing is, he's no good for my sister. Even before this whole flapper thing, my sister broke the rules. She didn't care. God save me if I had tried to pull the things she did. My mother screamed at me for being how I am in general, the thought of what she would do to me if I were to be, oh I don't know, caught kissing a boy I wasn't supposed to be having relations with, ha, I'd be skinned alive and thrown to the dogs.

Getting back to the point, Thomas is too boring for my sister. I think of loud noises, the scratchy sounds of the gramophone and jazz when I picture my sister, not some conservative momma's boy who has the looks and the personality of a beige, bland wall.

But maybe that's why she likes him so much. She used to be seen with the wild and crazy guys; the "party animals" so to speak. After my father died a year and a half ago, something changed inside my sister. She became more quiet; the guys that used to hang around started coming around less and less until they were only faces in my memory. The jazz went from being so loud that her door would shake on it's hinges to a little bit of noise in the background. Almost like if you weren't listening for it, you wouldn't even know it was there. I think she needs someone who isn't as faced paced as she is; someone who could calm her down and her keep her from being arrested for wanting to vote or whatever was on her mind every other day.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on him. I look at the side of Thomas' head in next to me; his fingers are entwined in my sisters'. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye and her entire face glows. Thomas looks at her and the same expression crosses his face. It makes me sick.

I stare out the window again. This desert and sand is really starting to get on my nerves. I sigh loudly.

“We'll be there soon,” Charlotte says, turning around in her seat to face me fully. “Aren't you excited?”

I give her my typical are-you-kidding-me look. “No,”

Charlotte laughs, bubbly and sweet; a laugh I haven't heard in a long time. “It’s California! You’re not ready for the sun?”

“No,”

“The beaches?”

“Definitely not,” I break away from my sister's gaze.

“What about the alcohol?” She waggles her eyebrows at me, and I feel like we've had this same conversation previously.

“Charlotte!” I whisper-yell. Does she not realize you can't say things like that anymore? She could be jailed!

Thomas must be thinking along the same lines as me, because he jumps forward in his seat to glare and ‘shhh!’ Charlotte laughs loudly again, pushing her flapper hair out of her eyes.

“Alright, ok, I'm sorry.” She pulls a serious face and stares at us.

Thomas bursts out laughing next to me and suddenly I'm laughing so hard that tears are streaming down my face and we're all gasping for air and holding on to each other. An older couple glares at us from their seats and this fuels the fire.

“D-Did you see t-their faces?” My sister manages to choke out.

I grip her arm as another set of the giggles takes over and I can't even breathe. Maybe this trip wasn’t going to be as horrible as I thought.