She Takes the Stage

     Amid scattered applause the singer took the stage. Her red lipstick shone in the pool of stage light set off against her clear ivory complexion and hair the color of October fallen leaves; somewhere between red and brown. A shimmering green sequined dress clung to her and held the collective gaze of the small subterranean nightclub's patrons. She clutched a Pomeranian under one arm, the microphone stand in the other. Her voice started out a husky whisper but grew resonate and had the depth of an underground river. She sang:

We met in the cool breeze of spring.
walked along the quay and the riverside
went to cafes and talked the day and evening away
we watched the stars all night.
in the morning
you said you could love me all year through.

In the summer we spent all day at the ocean-side
drank in saloons and danced and swayed
passing our way; we watched the stars shoot through the sky.
And you said
you would love me all the year through
 

In the autumn the wind chilled and blew
but we were warm together, I held tight to you.
and there were stars in our eyes.
and you were loving me all year through.
 

Then the days grew quick and the nights never-ending
because you had left me,
oh why, oh why?
You had said the stars had fallen from my eyes.
 

and you said you would love me all year through
and you said you would love me.....

      She finished, her last breath was like a sighing wind beneath a bridge. She let the microphone topple over, held her dog tightly and left the stage. Before she left through the service exit behind the stage she donned her chameleon skin green hat with the ostrich feather. Ava de'Fleur the famed French singer promised herself never to sing the song again as she walked off into the New York night.

The Green Hat 2

     They sat in the barely lit bar. Quiet, staring forward at the bottles of liquor and there own reflections in the chipped and smoky mirror.  The hat sat mutely between them.  Louise played with her earring and held her drink with her other hand.  Charlie was feeling the effects of the adrenalin rush and was shaking thumb-nailing the label from his beer.  The bartender eyed them from the other side of the bar cleaning glasses with a rag.  "You know if we were married I would divorce you." Louise was the first to break the silence.  They were the only ones in the dive and the silence clung to them. 
      "I will take it back in the morning" Charlie said shaking his head. "I don't know what got into me."
       “We could be arrested for fuck sake." Louise said and turned to look at Charlie. He had a hangdog expression and she knew he was sorry, but what did he expect.
       "You didn't exactly stop me Lou." his sorrow turning to anger.
The bartender looked up; more to see if they needed fresh drinks than at their raised voices.
       "You fucking grabbed me, look at my arm Charlie." she raised her bare arm and there four purplish red marks where his fingers gripped her arm.
       "Shit Lou, I am so sorry." his anger being no match for hers he groped for an answer " I just don't know it must be the city’s getting to me. There's so many fucking people, they are everywhere. I mean just think of it the city is crawling with people above ground below ground there's no escaping them."
       "So you steal an ugly fucking hat, no you make me steal an ugly fucking hat?"
        " I don't know Lou maybe I’m going nuts."
She started turning her earring in her ear again. "What are we going to do with this thing?” Louise nodded toward the hat.
        "I will take it back tomorrow."
         "You can’t do that they will want to charge you or call the police or something."
        "I'll just say we were frightened by the fight."

The bartender moved from behind the bar and a french song came on the jukebox. Louise couldn't remember the name of the singer but she loved the song. It was something very romantic and melancholy about two lovers breaking up.
         She saw how much Charlie was beating himself up and decided to let it go for now. Besides it had been exciting and she had never seen this side of Charlie even after being together for over a year- she just wasn't sure how to react.
        "Come on Charlie, shall we?" She took the hat and placed it on in the same rakish fashion as before at the shop. She held out here hand; he smirked, took a sip of beer and started to twirl her around.  They danced tightly pressed to each other for the entire song Charlie indulging in her dark eyes and she in his tight grip around the small of her back.  He dipped her and before she was up he met her lips for a long full kiss as he turned her and did it a second time. 
The song ended and Charlie and Louise's world only consisted of each other breathing.  Louise dizzy from the dance and even more from the kiss noticed a man over Charlie's shoulder looking directly at her.
  "So- you have the hat." he said.

The Green Hat

           The hat was green and glowing like a dessert under glass in a roadside diner. The color of neon jell-o made of felt with an ostrich feather sticking out of the slightly darker band.  The brim was wide and round and stiff; twice as large as a manhole cover.  “I have to have that hat". Louise laughed as they walked by the brightly lit window.

       Taxis whooshed by on the damp street and the air was cooler now.  Louise had Charlie's arm and was hugged up against his shoulder.  "That's just your style Lou, Come on lets see how much it is."

  "You know I was kidding right?" Giving Charlie a wry smile.
  "I know I just want to see you in it. It will be funny". 
    A little bell rang as the entered the small shop. They specialized in designer hats that all looked to be too asymmetrical to wear or too heavy or just too plain ugly.  Charlie approached a tall thin woman with a bright orange bob haircut behind the counter.  The lady looked up from her accounting pushing her bifocals back up her beak like nose.  "Yes, can we help you?" The lady drawled in a think French accent.

     Charlie trying not to crack up said “Why yes Madame, can we perhaps see that beautiful green hat on display there."
     The sales lady slinked her sinewy body  from the behind the counter bringing a key on a long sparkling chain with her.  Her long red dress clashed violently with the green of the hat as she removed it from the case, she looked like a Christmas decoration gone horribly wrong.  She held it out in her thin long arms at full length to read the price tag. Clutching the tag with one talon like hand she read. "Oui, this one is a Calvaconte, from Italy very nice" Charlie couldn't help to peek at the price tag.

     The green saucer of the brim actually shimmered like chameleon skin; the color wasn't as bad removed from the glare of the display case neon light.   The clerk placed the hat on Louise's head at an rakish angle that divided her face diagonally. "Oo-lala, tre bein, this hat it suits you very well." the clerk squawked.

       Louise turned and looked into the gold framed mirror and thought right away how wrong she was about the hat. It made her look sophisticated and as she modeled the hat for herself and Charlie she thought, I look almost mysterious as she pulled a dark lock of hair from behind her ear. Like a movie starlet from the 30's or 40's. 

      Just as Louise was reluctantly taking the hat off.  A bell attached to the door rang and a man in a white dress shirt and dark suit pants pushed his way in.  His hair was wild and shirt stained and stretched over a large belly, his face was red and unshaven; his bulbous nose even redder. Running his hands over his wild grey, head the man shouted at the clerk "Mimi you bitch, you cheating bitch!" the man continued to yell like this but in an incomprehensible drunken french. Mimi the clerk wasn't backing down and didn't seem to mind that Charlie and Louise were there.

       "Who are you talking too? You louse! You drunk?" Mimi shrieked.

     Mimi went right up to him and jabbed her bony finger into his chest and backed him into a back room. Where there was a loud clatter like a table being overturned or a book case falling. Charlie and Louise looked at each other.

     "Should we do something?" Louise said

      "No, let’s just get out of here".

      Louise started to take off the hat but Charlie grabbed her arm hard and said "Come on lets go!  Take it." 

They hit the door with a bang and the little bell rang wildly as they were out of the shop and heading down 42nd street.

   

Charlie and Louise

     The dim light shimmered off the wine glasses in the soft murmur of the restaurant.  Candles swayed and flickered revealing all the depth of Louise's deep mahogany eyes.  After clinking glasses they took there first sip of wine and settled down after their toiling commutes.  A faint smile on Louise lips appeared when she noticed Charlie smoothing out the red and white checked table cloth.       "What are you thinking"? Louise said lightly to Charlie.
       "Oh nothing, this place always puts me in a sentimental mood"
Louise laughed she knew his habits; she always liked when he delved into his past.
        "Did you ever go to camp as a kid Lou"?
         "No not really, school trips mostly- my parents were too cheap to send us all."
        "Yeah my parents didn't see the point. I did go on one class trip once; we went to this place way upstate for three or four days with my Sixth Grade Class, just been thinking about it lately."

       Charlie took a big sip of wine. "I remember this place in the woods. There was this little stream surrounded by pine trees and I remember feeling such peace there. Maybe it was the quiet of the pine needles that covered the ground or the sound of the stream. But whenever I could I would break away from the group and just sit on the slope of the bank watching the water splash on the rocks and roll by. I must have spent hours there on that trip.  My classmates and teacher thought I was up to something or maybe that I was just nuts."
         "No argument here." Lou said with a warm friendly grin but regretted joking as soon as she said it. She knew for some reason he had turned uncharacteristically serious. “I’m just kidding honey."

          "I know, its just when I was there, remember I was just a kid at the time, the one person who knew what I was up to was one of the counselors of the camp. Her name was Sunny and I thought I was in love with her."

        "From the first day we were assigned counselors according to what activities we wanted to do.  Sunny was in charge of the environmental biological nature portion so I knew we would be skulking through the forest and allowed to get as dirty as we wanted; so I immediately signed up." Sunny was just that; bright- I mean smart she knew everything about all the flora and fauna of the stream and surrounding woods. She was also bright like when I saw her there was like a halo around her or something, like the air around her was lighter, more bright."

         Charlie stopped and was staring at the orange-yellow flame of the candle. “You know Lou, I think what made me really feel special about Sunny was that she didn't question my sitting around watching the stream apparently wasting my time; she actually understood it."

         Charlie snapped his gaze back up to Louise the candle's flame dancing in her eyes. "Lou that's how I feel about you now. But do you know which you are?”

         "What do you mean Charlie?" Louise said.

          “Guess who you are.”

           She just looked at him her head turned a little and touched her earring.

           “You’re both Lou- you’re both."

Louise and Charlie

     Louise pulled her dark hair back from her flushed face as she made the closing doors of the packed subway. A bead of sweat made the long journey down the curve of her back and she puffed out the front of her airy blouse "Whew." she said out loud.  Charlie was meeting her at the subway at 42nd street from there they had dinner plans at her favorite Italian restaurant. She was running late and tried to text him but of course there was no service in the tunnel.
     Charlie unloosened his tie as he navigated the churning sea of people that was 42nd street. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead making his fair hair stick to his brow. He looked through the crowd of people to see if maybe Louise had gotten there but was met only by hundreds of anonymous faces. Charlie loved New York after moving there two years ago but the sheer amount of people still bugged him out occasionally. Masses of people like rapids of rivers moved toward him; guys in business suits like him just trying to get home, women on cell phones and in high heels, homeless shuffling with downcast eyes or crazy eyed and babbling heads thrust into the sky.

      Louise made her way up the grinding escalator her last trek up from the underground for the day and into the somewhat cooler air of the corridors of Manhattan.   She checked her phone for service and texted Charlie; "At the Subway."  She watched as tourists stood and gawked at the Chrysler building or like morons risked their lives waiting in the middle of the street, Taxis bearing down on them, for their relatives to snap a photo. All that for a crumby picture, she thought.  I wonder if Charlie and I were to go to Paris would we dangle from the Eiffel Tower just for a souvenir picture, or stand in front of bulls in Barcelona, maybe walk-up and pet a lion on safari in Africa. "Charlie would and I would have to stop him." she thought with a kind of pessimism.  “I must be hungry; I am getting mean." she sighed to herself.

     Charlie made his way through the streaming crowd. “I can't do Italian tonight Lou."

      She put a hand on her hip puffed out her blouse with the other and blew a lock of hair off her face.  She turned her eyes up at him and Charlie recognized that look as one that was usually reserved for his more gross transgressions and grievous misconduct.

       "Italian it is." Charlie said.