Comes Love
“Window shopping?” A dignified voice announced the approach of a woman who carried herself with near-regality; she assumed a posture meant to imitate a casual lean against the creamy white railing–each wooden post strung with a flickering candle in a jam jar capsule to become its own miniature lighthouse–but the lackadaisy was merely a ruse, for only the glittering ruby tips of her fingers touched the balcony; she was the dutiful sentinel of the lively party that sprawled out on the lawn beneath her.
The reds, pinks, and golds of a sequined sea reflected off the captivated eyes and appraising expression of the man who’d already staked out his own claim of the balcony, but being no means as militant, he diverted his attention wholly and bodily to the newcomer with a creak of the white picket beneath his bent elbow. “Delivery,” He said through sunbeams, sweeping her figure with a wink and a grin, “Just arrived.”
She awarded him one incredulous chuckle, placing her hand on her hip.
“Say,” he continued, as she knew he would–he had that sort of smirk and sparkle in his eye that told you he was never truly done speaking, merely waiting for the right moment to continue. “You’re a real pretty gal. Do I know you?”
The remark was met with lowered lids and a puckered grin, one finger twirling through one singular golden curl, seemingly styled for this exact purpose. “Do you?”
“I only ask on account of it not being altogether too often I meet some pretty girl I don’t know.” He shrugged in a satisfied way, giving a theatrical snap of his paisley suspenders. “Or at least not a pretty girl I’m not willing to get to know a little better, eh?”
Her incredulity deepened, but her tone became quiet and velvet as she leaned in, arms pressed to her sides. “How very forward, so early in the evening.”
He mirrored the gesture, closing distance by shifting his weight to his toes, one arm folding behind his back in a balanced and rather chivalrous way. “I’ve got a wife here, see, and who’s to say what the old ball and chain would do if she caught me being cavalier with a little porcelain doll like you.”
“Ball and chain?” There was an admonishing look in her eyes, but still they seemed to beckon him to go on, as if somehow intrigued by his tale. “This must be some beastly woman you’ve yolked yourself to, Mr. Farley.”
“Abominable,” He reached out very suddenly and took her hand, an absurd (and entirely unbelievable) sadness washing over him. “You couldn’t hardly imagine how lonely a man gets, left without a sweetheart's soothing touch, for God only knows how long. He gets desperate, you know?” He wiped an invisible tear from his eye, and then caressed her arm as he let out a trembling breath.
She stared at him for a while. Not a long while, but compared to the time it had taken from the start of their conversation to turn into indecent propositions, it was a good long time. “Alright, Cecil.” She shook her head in defeat, backing out of his hold and retrieving, stashed in her bosom, a silver ring encrusted with three glittering stones. With an endeared, matronly sigh, she slid the thing onto her ring finger.
He fell backwards, a hand clutching his chest. “Nay, it cannot be…” His eyes boggled upwards, his soul rent with utter insincerity. “My lady wife… I did not, could not recognize you in such a state.” She folded her arms and awaited, knowing the show must go on. “And to think…oh, to MOURN that I would say such things to you… that I would come so close to betraying my sworn oath to you…”
“It was one song, love. I was informed of a lemon wedge shortage by the bartender, and so I took the ring off to cut more.” She tilted her head, and bit her tongue in her cheek as he fell to his knees, hands clasping the hem of her dress. “I was never under the impression you cared much for Clambake anyways.”
“DAMN it all! Cuckolded by citrus in my own home…I hope he treats you better than I ever could…” Some silence elapsed as the imaginary applause in his head dulled and the curtains to the performance were drawn. Sitting back on his heels, he removed his tearless face from its supplicant burrow in her garment, staring at the rosy satin in his clenched fists for a moment or two. “New dress?”
“Was, before you got your filthy paws all over it.” She took those same ‘filthy paws’ delicately in an outstretched hand as he rose to his full–slightly inferior–height. Pausing statuesque, she absorbed the warmth of a kiss inside the garments ruffled neckline before allowing her posture to mould into a bent arm offered against her midriff.
“You look lovely.” He observed her response for just long enough to match the color of her lipstick in his cheeks, then resumed his interrupted survey of the dance floor below. “What’s say I show you off in a prolonged search for the band leader, then spin you ‘round once some real music starts playing…”
“Alright,” she conceded with a smile, beginning a leisurely descent down the lighted staircase, “But I think I’ve already done you the service of locating your band leader.”
“Ah! not that one,” he squealed, alarmed, at a merciless pinch. An deceptively innocent face above him became suddenly very absorbed in the scenery. “I mean the band leader when the band leader has previous engagements.”
“Your boy, then?” Resuming a lazy eye contact to witness his nod, and then returning to her sweep of the lawn with a wider grin, she gave some bemused chuckle. “I’m afraid that won’t be much of a prolonged search either.”
A tall man near the bar cart was three-deep into eating lemon peels out of a decommissioned ice bucket, accompanied by another man in powder blue, who’d requested the former to “do something” with the produce, and seemed to have no intent on clarifying further to reverse the bizarre way the tall man had interpreted the statement.
She’d often laughed to herself at the thought that she was certainly the only thing that stood between her lover Farley marrying fervently Lemon Man and Baby Blue, and the look he gave the two was further conviction. “Your boy,” she repeated, as he quickened their slothful stroll to briskly close the gap between them.
“Well! Were ya feeling a little lonely being the only lemonhead in the room?” he beamed at Baby Blue, who puckered his lips as if he was the one chewing pith. “Spit that out,” he then directed at Lemon Man, who obliged with just as little question as he’d begun his unconventional feast with. “You boys wanna liven this place up? I think I might cry if I have to hear that old Victrola groan through one more song.”
“We assumed that’s what you were coming over here to do,” Baby Blue replied through a cocked brow, “Supposing you’re as literate as you are unpunctual, you’ll see the paper advertised Farley and the Runaways.” Lemon Man still held the bucket of peels in his hands, looking around in uncertainty as to what to do with them.
“Bugbear.” Farley shrugged, swiveling himself and his lady towards the dance floor. “It can be Lemonhead and the Runaways tonight–I’ll owe you one.”
“If I had a penny for every time I heard that,” Blue muttered, but straightened his hat on his head. “Put that down, get your horn, and find the old man. I’ll find the… other old man,” he instructed Lemon Man, who wavered between his too-many-options of returning the bucket to the bar or the ground. He decided on the former. Now with free hands, he waved off the departing couple.
“Somethin’ hot!” Farley called across twenty-something heads. Lemon man stuck his thumb in the air, and beamed wider than the purple moon just clearing the tops of the trees.
“You love those boys,” she noted fondly. He watched them until they were gone, even as he weaved his way expertly to the very center of the floor.
“They make life a party,” he responded with no hesitation, giving her a spin as the first few test notes were blown from the platform afar. “But you? You make it a song.”
“How very forward, so early in the evening.” Her tone was light, wafting playfully skywards, but there was no denial of a blossoming warmth in her face as the sound of a trumpet sent sparks into every sole, and the hostess and her husband were caught in dizzying twirls to a nothing can be done…