Torrie & Jo || early evening
Bowditch Whites do not attend events whose invitations come printed on specialty cardstock. Invitations, in fact, are nearly a laughable concept in the frame of her upbringing. The children of the five families that make up their clan travel from home to home like vagabonds, shuffling and trading places at random and at will until sometimes it's unclear just who is a cousin, who is a sibling, which child belongs to what family. In a place like that, there is no need for invitations. If there is a fire and a fiddle and an open cask, come all ye who seek abandon. She has never attended a ball, never attended any kind of event where the tables have linens and the meals have courses. None of these facts make her wary of the evening ahead-- quite the opposite. The prospect of a wholly new experience is thrilling beyond measure. It's been a long time since she felt excitement over something. Her days are spent in darkness, seeking the dead. It is a relief to know she can still feel this kind of thrill.
Besides the novelty of a wholly unique experience, Jo is eager for other things the night may bring. A chance to see inside the belly of the beast. To see the faces of the men who betrayed her husband's trust and sent him to his grave. The faces of the men responsible, too, for Teagan's cruel exile. These wicked puppet string pullers who sit in their pillared palace, clinging desperately to their nominal power as if there is still a place in this world for paper-filers, minutes-keepers, brunch-takers, pressed-suit-wearers, law-abiders. As if this world has not become a savage place for savage creatures. These weak things know that they could not survive in between the teeth of this city, so they keep their heads up its ass instead. She is ready to spy them, to look at them with her cottonmouth eyes and let the venom burn in her mouth. She hopes they will see in her the cold, sharp fate that awaits them when their castle finally crumbles.
She has chosen a dress that shimmers like the droplets of water that bead in the cracks of the mildew-black brick of the tunnels, twisted her hair into mussed curls, and donned an aggressive pair of Louboutins that she picks across the tracks in on her way to Rainey Street. She gathers her gown to keep it from dragging the puddles, and she moves just as easily in spiked pumps as she does in thick boots as she finds her way to the station. She climbs up from the tracks to step onto the platform, and as she makes her way across the cement her heels click softly against its surface.
When she reaches the stairs she stops, waiting at the bottom for Torrie to emerge from the dark and meet her. She leans back against the cool cinderblock of the subway station staircase, drawing out the gnarl of dried galangal root she tucked behind her ear and popping it into her mouth to chew. It tastes like dirty ginger. She smiles around it when she hears the sound of Torrie approaching from the tunnel, knowing in the dark the sound of her gait, the tempo of her footsteps.
"Our chariot awaits us, mwen chanteuse," she purrs. "Perhaps we should make a drinking game for the evening. A drink for every time we spy an American flag pin on a lapel. A drink for every time the tunnels are spoken of as if they are a third world country. A drink for every time a councilman sneaks to the bathroom to powder his nose."