Tomboy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud

Author:Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Promenade Deck

RMS Queen Mary

Cabin-class swells gossiped with Sazeracs or Pimm’s Cups balanced on their arm rests, judging strollers in the glassed-in promenade’s social parade. Not a one of them had a single idea of the bombshell in my pocket as I passed their tattling chats.

Coach and Tommie were “odd girls,” “lavenders,” “twilight lovers.”

“Friendly sisters,” Momma used to say when she was being nice, or just “funny” when she wasn’t.

Why had I been surprised? Was I? I hadn’t been looking at things directly.

I thought of Rivka and our now long-gone roommate Sweetie. The two of them shared a room. There were great emotions between them. But Sweetie left Rivka for Mac, my editor. That didn’t last long.

People thought I was funny too, because of the way I dressed, maybe because I was a tomboy. Tommie herself implied I might be.

But I wasn’t exactly like Tommie or like Rivka.

Then again, I wasn’t in the habit of analyzing myself. Everything in my life so far had been about surviving. I hadn’t given much thought to love. I couldn’t. There wasn’t room for it yet. But this picture overturned things.

I crossed the promenade foot traffic over to the glassed-in rail, pretending to admire the view. I got out the picture, held it low, where I could put it back into my pocket in a hurry.

What anybody would see in this photograph was romance. Maybe Tommie and Coach were in love, maybe not. But, in this picture, they were happy, flirty. They worked together on tennis, lived together, for eight years. And yet they also had this romance. A picture like this could sell a lot of perfume. Or cause a brand of perfume to be banned.

God, why’d I take it? This was theft, illegal. When Tommie found it missing, Frank would tell her I did it. I had to return it to the box. I knew it was special. I’d taken something meaningful to Tommie. I was the thief of her memory.

But even that idea threw me. I wasn’t sure I owed her loyalty. Because she’d lashed out at me, and Frank had booted me from the suite, I didn’t know where I was going to sleep tonight, where I’d be allowed to eat. Obviously not at Tommie’s table at the Lady Jane dinner. I didn’t even know where I’d go to the toilet or wash myself up.

Pat’s original ticket would put me in a men’s four-bed berth. I couldn’t go there.

Maybe Tommie would override her awful brother, but maybe not. She didn’t seem the type to bother. She’d climbed the ranks, moving up over her childhood poverty. She’d gotten hers so now she probably didn’t care what anybody else got.

I’d met so many people like this since moving to The City. Back in the Hooverville camps, folks chipped in. Well, some folks. Remembering Momma, I had to admit that wasn’t so accurate either, just cheap sentiment. Poor folk and rich were alike in their flaws and gifts.

“Hello Pat.”

I slipped the picture into

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