Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part II

Chapter 106.2: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 106.2: 1968, Georgina

The cab was full of music. Music I didn't know, some kind of loud jazz. A trumpet, permeating everything.

I twisted the cloth of the nightgown's skirt, studying the little green flowers on it. They were yellow and green under the quickly passing streetlights. Sasha.

"Are you..."

Frankie's voice.

I turned to him, not hearing the rest because of the loud music all around us. It was suffocating me, somehow. Making it hard to breathe. My head dipped down, staring at my lap, at the flowers, my hands. So dark.

"Georgina?"

I heard that. Like words in the music, drowned out by the loud and proud trumpet. The opposite of us.

"Yes." Small words.

"Are you cold?"

Oh.

I shook my head, not wanting to speak. No small words I had to say would come out over the trumpet now, there was no way of contending with it. As I shook my head, the long blonde curls coming from my head twirled a little in the air. It set my heart to twisting, some unknown protest to them. A guilt.

"Okay."

I didn't return the word. No use. No use.

We were silent for a few moments, and in that silence came the sound of radio announcer talking about jazz, the evening's selections. It seemed to be a repeat show, because the times were not accurate. It was not 9 o'clock. It was early morning. Just reminding me where we were. What we were doing.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to realize it. Denying it.

A small tickle circled my knuckle, and like a soft lamb's skin the tickles surrounded my cold fingers. Squeezing just three of them, gentle and like a whisper. His hand. He held it there on my lap, then ever so lightly, I felt the other on my opposite cheek. With a roll as if the sound of a soft bell were captured in movement, he coaxed my head to lay on his shoulder. He must have thought I was drifting off.

I wish I could. But, even with the new saxophone bleating on, my thoughts were too deafening and powerful to deny. Returning, swimming under my blonde head, diving into my stomach and causing a sickness. Swirling, causing fear with abandon as if I weren't even a person.