Genev

The blue jazz cried out into the shiny streets. I say it was blue because I could hear it as a distant echo as I approached. It was a kind of quiet saddness, a small blue voice. I had had to take a rather crowded public bus and I tried to tell myself that it would somehow be good practice for the plethora of posh people all pushed into the small confines of the smokey club. The bus was crowded, but quiet. A girl read Dorothy Parker, while an old woman slept close to her. I remembered a customer from the cafe that day. I think he had tried to ask me out, but I was still not really sure what he was trying to do. He was shy and awkward. That will be me, I thought. That night it was inevitable that society and I would stumble over eachother. I made every effort to draw attention to myself. I wore my rarely seen dark blue slip dress, the tiny straps revealed my henna arms. The swirls and twines of henna tatoos wound around my hands and gradually disipated to my shoulders. For some strange reason I felt archaic, like some ancient statue with my emotion permanently revealed. All else was elegant, the slip dress barely touched the ground. I had had to lift it up a little as I climbed from the bus. I even wore my mother's small amber neclace, the one that held captive a tiny prehistory embodied in an insect.

I took a gulp of cold norhtwestern air and walked into the club. The people were as I imagined, elegant and luminous, a sweaty sea of Versace and fancy drinks. I pushed through the maze of elbows and shoulders until I found one empty seat at the bar. I thought about drinking and since I rarely did and I was sitting at a bar I decided to order a martini. If nothing else I could eat the olive. My hands trembled as I drank. I was glad that it was dark and no one in the room could see my nervous disposition.