✨stockings✨

✨stockings✨

Okay, so this made me want to write about stockings, but then I got inspired by that one scene from Brooklyn (2015) and my own grandparents and here we are. 

A 1930s Everlark 🌹:

1938

The only reason Katniss agreed to the Friday night dance was because Prim had promised to do all her Saturday chores if she’d come. “Mama won’t let me go unless you come,” her sister had pleaded, crawling across their shared bed, hands folded together. “Please please please, Katniss?”

“I hate those dances,” she argued, shoving her sister off her notes. “Plus I have an exam next week that I need to study for. Why can’t Mama take you?”

Prim looked aghast at the suggestion. “I can’t take my matka to the dance! I’d be the laughing stock at school! Katniss, please? I’ll do all your Saturday chores and take care of Babcia all night instead. Please?”

She likely would have gone without the promised bribe, but if Prim was offering to batter out dirty rugs and polish their mother’s silver and deal with their strict grandmother for a whole Saturday evening, then Katniss wasn’t going to bypass it. So here she sat in her church’s basement, huddled in the far corner where the girls with no dance partners sat, counting down the minutes until 9 o’clock.

The room was crowded with kids from the neighborhood, excited to congregate together without total parental supervision watching over them, and she saw Prim near the band with some fellow she recognized from church, her head thrown back in laughter. The guy’s face was a bit too close to her sister’s neck, but Prim would never forgive her if she stepped in and played matka. Katniss crossed her arms and sighed, slinking down in her seat.

Sixty-seven minutes to go.

“Not much for dances?” a boy next to her asked, causing her to jump. He hadn’t been there a moment ago.

She frowned. “Am I that obvious?”

“Most girls over here are scoping the dance floor for fellas. You, on the other hand,” he said, eyeing the clock, “keep checking the time. Got a hot date or something?”

Her cheeks flushed at his forwardness. “Gee, you talk to all the girls you’ve just met like that?”

“No,” he smiled, leaning closer to her, “but I think it’s important to make sure I’m not stepping where I shouldn’t be stepping. So is there a lucky fella? Or are you free to dance with me?”

Katniss gave him a hard look, amazed at just how forward this guy was. She hadn’t been asked to dance often, but she’d seen the bashful way boys usually asked Prim and Leevy. They were never as forward! She sniffed the air. “Why would I tell you such a thing? I don’t even know your name.”

“Peeta Mellark,” he said, holding his hand for her to take. Katniss lightly grabbed his fingers, gave a halfhearted shake in greeting, and put her hand back in her lap. “What’s yours?”

“Katniss Everdeen.”

“Everdeen?” he frowned. “That don’t sound Polish. Are you crashing this dance, too?” She tried her best not to notice how his blue eyes seemed to twinkle in the church’s poor lightning when he smiled at that.

“That’s because it isn’t. My mother’s Polish, but my father wasn’t.” She checked the clock and held back another tired sigh. Only five minutes had passed.

“Time would go faster if you danced,” Peeta suggested teasingly, leaning back in his seat. “I’d be happy to fill that time.”

Her fingers drummed on her knees, considering his offer. She still had an hour left of this thing and he wasn’t wrong about time moving faster if she was doing something.

“Okay,” Katniss agreed, holding her hand out. “One dance and you leave me alone for the rest of the night.”

He hurried to stand and grabbed her offered hand, bowing dramatically at the honor. She rolled her eyes and told him to move it along, before she changed her mind.

They walked to the dance floor just as the band was starting a new song. It was a swing tune, one the whole room cheered to as couples started to sway to the rhythm. It took Katniss a moment to pick up the new steps, unfamiliar with this particular dance, but with Peeta’s laughing encouragement, she was soon dancing and laughing along with him. He shook his hands to the side as the gentlemen in the talkies did and spun her around until her head spun. He even convinced her to take center floor with him as they kicked and stepped to the beat, the couples around them cheering around them.

Before Katniss knew it, they had danced four more times together. He didn’t ask if she wanted to stop after that first one and she didn’t bother to deny him as he kept pulling her back for more. Her hair was a bit disheveled now, her curls coming loose due to the room’s humidity and her own movements, and her feet hurt in her heels, but it’d been awhile since she’d had this much fun. Prim was never going to let her live this down.

Finally, the priest announced the band would be playing one last song, even though it was past 9 now, because they’d all been such a great group tonight. It surprised her, how fast time really did go by when she wasn’t sitting in the corner, pleading with the clock to move faster.

The band started one last time, crooning a slow ballad. Couples paired up and she saw her sister on the other side of the room with the same guy as earlier. Were they serious, she wondered, Prim and this guy? Peeta’s hand on her lower back pulled her back to them, their bodies pressed together now. She rested one hand on his shoulder, realizing just how tall he was as she looked up at him, his smile causing something in her to flutter, and she smiled back. Peeta smelled nice, she noticed, pressed against him so close now. Like fresh baked bread and a seasoning she couldn’t place. Dill maybe? His body felt warm against hers, but she welcomed it, despite how hot she was after all the dancing.Their hands laced together as the music swept through the room, couples spinning slowly to the tune.

“This is nice,” he said near her ear. “Glad you said yes, Katniss Everdeen.”

“It is,” she agreed, deciding it wouldn’t be a bad thing to rest her head on his chest. The other girls were doing it and well, Prim always said these dances were for meeting fellas.

“Hey, Peeta?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Hey, Katniss?” he asked in return, that smile of his still there, looking down at her.

“What’d you mean when you asked if I was crashing this dance?” It’d been bothering her since about their second dance. “Are you crashing?”

He laughed and spun them around. “Does Mellark sound Polish to you?”

“Well, no,” she frowned, not even thinking of that when he introduced himself. “I guess I just figured you were like me.” She couldn’t be sure, but it felt like he pulled her closer. Not that she was complaining about that.

“Both parents are German,” he said, his cheek pressed on top of her head. “As hard German as you can make them, really strict, you know?”

“So what were you doing at a Polish dance, then? Don’t the Germans have their own dances?”

“Oh yeah” Peeta said, laughing, “We do, but I like coming to your dances. They’re more fun and well, I really like Polish girls.”

Katniss tucked her face into his shirt to hide her blush. “German boys aren’t so bad, either.” If it was at all possible, his smile grew.

“I’ll take you to one, if you’d like,” he promised. “You can see for yourself how much more fun your dances are.”

“Are you asking me out on a date, Peeta?”

“Would you say yes if I was?”

Katniss bit her bottom lip. “I would, yes.”

He spun them around one last time before the song ended, resting his forehead on hers. The music had stopped, the couples around them breaking apart, but Katniss and Peeta stood there, still holding on to each other. “When can I take you out?” he asked. “Please say soon?”

Glancing over at Prim, who had clearly noticed where she was and giving thumbs up in approval, Katniss smiled. “You free tomorrow night?”