Because I can’t not goof around with this Flapper Darcy AU some more:
Part II:
“It’s so….dry,” Darcy said, peering out of the train window at the New Mexico landscape as the train shuddered to a stop at the Puente Antiguo station. Everything was brown and brown and brown. Jane was still glued to her book. Behind them, a man started to laugh. Darcy turned curiously and looked at him.
“Not dry here, ladies. The wettest county in all of New Mexico,” he said, laughing, as he shouldered his suitcase away.
“Was he being literal or does he mean hooch?” Darcy said to Jane. “Jane!”
“Hmmm?” Jane said, looking up. She blinked. “Are we here?” she asked.
“Yes,” Darcy said, grinning. “You’d end up at the end of the line if I wasn’t with you, wouldn’t you?”
“This is a very good book,” Jane said. “All about the movement of the stars in the cosmos, although Fields gets the science all wrong…”
Darcy listened to Jane talk as they got their bags and walked to their boarding house. It was a dusty, one street sort of town. She spotted a drugstore, a movie theater, and a gas station. The attendant stood under an awning, smoking. He watched them as they walked by, eyes trailing Jane. She was too busy talking about constellations to notice. Darcy peered around. The side streets were dotted with wooden houses, bleached grey in the sun or painted white. It was so hot, she didn’t even see any dogs out walking. Beads of perspiration formed on Darcy’s neck and slipped down her back. She was going to need talcum powder. “That must be the barber shop,” she said to Jane, catching sight of a building with several men lingering outside. The men stared at them. Or Jane, Darcy thought, doing a quick survey and then looking away. Some men took a direct gaze as an invitation to get fresh, she’d realized. It was worse now that she’d bobbed her hair. They assumed she was fast. But she’d done it in anticipation of the new climate, thinking her hair’d be easier to care for. Also, in the hope that it would make her feel stylish. Instead, her curly hair puffed out sideways. Darcy had taken to tying it back with a scarf, purely out of irritation. Jane had absent-mindedly told her it made her look like a brunette Clara Bow, but Jane was just being nice, really.
“Selvig’s is supposed to be near the barber shop,” Jane said.
“Yup,” Darcy said. She felt eyes on them and looked sideways. There were six men standing around the barbershop porch. Not farmers, she realized. Their clothes were too clean and fashionable. A farmer didn’t wear flashy pocket squares. Odd in a town like this. You couldn’t get those suits here. One of them turned to stare at her. Darcy immediately looked away, but not before she caught a glimpse of a tanned face, dark eyes, and an unshaven jaw. He looked at her suspiciously.
“What is it?” Jane whispered.
“The man on the train said this was the wettest county in the state,” Darcy said.
“But it’s not,” Jane said. “What man?”
“It is if he didn’t mean rain,” Darcy said, shifting her eyes significantly. Jane nodded, glanced back, and immediately turned her head back.
“We’ll stay out of their way,” she said. “They’ll stay out of ours.”
Their new landlady, Mrs. Selvig, had come via a recommendation of Jane’s father’s. He’d written a hasty letter from Europe. Also, a scientific genius, he was busy organizing exhibits at a London museum. He and Mrs. Foster were to live abroad for the next several years. “There it is,” Darcy said, pointing to a faded sign on the house. It was down the street just across from the barbershop. It was an odd-looking house, with a commercial garage for cars, and the whole building was painted a strange rusty red, and had been added on to willy-nilly. They walked up on the porch. Jane knocked sharply. “Mrs. Selvig!” she called.
“Yeah?” a deep voice called from somewhere above. They looked at each other. Jane stepped off the porch and looked up.
“I’m Jane Foster!” she said at the voice.
“Edward’s daughter,” the voice said pleasantly. Darcy thought Jane’s expression turned pale for a second. She decided to join her. Darcy was curious by nature. She looked up. There was a large man standing on the roof above them, peering down. “I’m your new landlord,” he said. “Erik Selvig. Be right down.” Then he disappeared.
“Was he in his underclothes on the roof?” Darcy said, tilting her head.
“Yes,” Jane said. “He was. Drat! My father wrote Erik Selvig. Curse his penmanship!”
“Is that where you get it from?” Darcy teased.
Once they’d settled in, Darcy was delighted to find that there was a small, battered radio in her room. “I wish we could have brought the phonograph,” she said to Jane with a sigh. “And my records.” Jane’s room adjoined hers. There was actually a door between them. She thought her narrow room might’ve once been a hallway, but she was fine with it. She and Jane could talk at night.
“Too heavy,” Jane said. Darcy fiddled with the radio and then opened a window. The radio programme was playing “Tin Roof Blues.”
Darcy sat on the windowsill and listened to the music. “It’ll never rain here, will it?” she called.
“Probably not,” Jane said. “I don’t expect any rain will fall on us for the whole three months.”
“Nope,” Darcy said. The sounds of jazz drifted out into the night. She couldn’t imagine a place less like Virginia. Unless you counted the surface of the moon. The moon and the stars were uncommonly clear out, though. She tilted her head to peer up at them. “Nothing at all will fall,” she whispered to herself.