Clair of The Big Apple
“Goodbye, goodbye!” Clair caught up her skirts and leaned dangerously far out the train window, clasping her hat to her head as she strained for a last glimpse of her family. She waved and waved until the station and three shabbily-dressed figures were far behind. At last, Clair flopped back into her seat, brushing damp brown curls from her face and knocking her pretty white sunhat from her head in the process.
“Pardon me, but is this your hat?” Clair turned and stared at the handsome young man standing in the doorway of the compartment, swaying gently with the movement of the train. In one gloved hand he held her hat.
Clair blushed. “Oh, yes! It must have fallen off.” She gratefully accepted her sunhat and plopped it unceremoniously onto her head, slightly askew. The young man smiled politely and turned to go.
“Oh please, won’t you stay?” Clair asked impetuously, gazing at him with wide-set hazel eyes. “I haven’t anyone to talk to!”
The young man turned, looking both surprised and pleased. “If you wouldn’t mind…”
“Of course I don’t! I asked you, didn’t I?”
The handsome young man grinned in a very ungentlemanly way. He looked oddly young when he smiled, and Clair realized he couldn’t be more than a year or two older than her. He settled himself into the faded red velvet chair across from Clair’s. “My name is Thomas.”
“Clair. It’s a dreadfully prim, plain name, isn’t it? Are you going all the way to New York, or planning to stop along the way?”
“I think it’s a fine name.” Thomas smiled warmly. “I live in New York, as a matter of fact. I’ve been away on business in Chicago. What about you?”
“Oh, I don’t live in New York, but that’s where I’m going!” said Clair cheerfully. “I’m hoping to get a job as a reporter for the Times. If not, I suppose I’ll have to go back home…” she sighed.
“But where are you from?”
“Oh! Just a small town in Mississippi. Very boring. What’s it like, living in such a big city?”
The two companions chatted gaily for the remainder of the uneventful trip, and soon became fast friends.
Clair stepped down from the train with her one small bag and looked around the noisy, crowded platform in bewilderment. She had nowhere to go, no one to take her in.
“Clair?”
She turned and smiled with relief at her friend. “Oh, Thomas, thank goodness! Do you think you could-“
“No problem,” Thomas reassured her. “I know just the place for you to stay!”
“Thank you ever so much, Thomas. I don’t know what I would have done without you,” said a grateful Clair, happily accepting the keys to her new room. “I’m glad I could help,” smiled Thomas.
“Didn’t you say your apartment isn’t far from here? Maybe we’ll see each other around.”
“That’s right, but I’ve got a better idea. How about I stop by in a month or two, just to see how you’re getting on?” asked Thomas.
“That would be wonderful. Are you sure you can’t stay for a cup of coffee?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m going to be-“ Thomas stopped and glanced at his watch. “Oh hell, I am late for work! Goodbye!”
“Goodbye! Take care of yourself, Thomas.”
“The same to you!”
A Month Later
Clair stared down at the hateful slip of typewritten paper with stinging eyes. The lines of indifferent black print blurred together as hot tears began to gather in her eyes.
A knock at the door startled her out of her misery. Clair leapt to her feet, swiped at her eyes, and began to pick her way through the untidy room to answer it.
“Oh. Hello, Thomas.”
Hello, Clair!” said the young man cheerfully. “I came, just like I promised. How have you- Hey, are you alright?”
Clair broke down and began to sob. “No, I’m not! The Times just sent me a rejection slip and I don’t have any money left and there isn’t anything to eat in this whole god-forsaken apartment and my best dress has a tear in it and I can’t bear the thought of going home with nothing to show for all the time I’ve wasted here and going back to being little ole me, stuck in a tiny, boring village I don’t care two-pence for and I don’t have the money for a train ticket anyway and the weather is miserable and everything is just horrible!”
“Clair…” said Thomas helplessly, grey eyes troubled. “I’m so sorry.”
He hugged her tightly, feeling Clair’s thin shoulders shaking. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be just fine, sweetheart. I promise.”
Sincerely,
A Writer
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