Pearl
24 Jan
Dear Future Man Friend,
Last night, I was a girlfriend.
The men wore trilby’s and suits. The women had feathers in their hair and strawberry soaked stains on their lips. Sing sing sing–of gramophone quality–shimmied into a smoky, golden room. The whole evening was dipped in sepia tones. Our costumes allowed us to leave Greece of 2010 outside and be entirely different characters in New York of 1925. The past always seems so much more decadent than the present.
So, spontaneously and with no co-ordination we gave each other new names and background stories.
There was Gus–the Mob Boss with his gold tipped cane. Bella Fontaine–a Hollywood Starlet–and her date Slick Ace–a politician with his fingers in all sorts of pies–whispered in a secret corner. There was Norman The Nuke–a physicist and Eva–the lesbian from Europe. There was Rose–a young gal from the South trying to make it in the big city. Holly–the belle du jour–was a high priced call girl.There was Richie, Tony and Micky Blue Eyes–all swindlers of the most notorious kind.
And then there was me.
Pearl.
The Boss’s girlfriend.
The title was given to me by a lovely girl who I hardly know. There were nods of enthusiastic agreement from the rest as she proposed my new identity. For the rest of the night as I would catch my alter egos reflection in a gilded mirror I thought to myself,
‘Imagine that? I look like the type that would be a girlfriend.’
(Not just any girlfriend,Man Friend, but a gangster’s girl. I love that. It’s so naughty.)
My cynical, jaded self would love to shrug this off as a silly game of make believe. But my never cautiously optimistic self wants to believe that if I look like a girlfriend, if I act like a girlfriend at some point I’m going to be a girlfriend.
Right?
Waiting for you with red lips and bated breath,
Hope
p.s You can call me Pearl in any era, Man Friend.
[Idea for this post has been stolen outright from Mr Peter deWolf.]
Beautifully written!
I like this theory – perhaps I need to look and act more like a girlfriend too if I actually want to be one!!!
Thief!
I love it.
Love. It.
Darling, it was divine. Much of that credit goes to you. You are indeed a pearl, there id no doubt about that. I love that this new name is part of the title of my novel. I love that I’ve always felt like pearl and now it feels like you are Pearl. We’re Little Pearl and Big Pearl. We’re a little excessive with the nicknames but, what can we do? There are so many facets to name!
Bella can have Ace But SLICK RICK is MINE!
Love Holly
x