Fumiko had been laying on her bed flipping through Life Magazine. It was her mother’s, she had gotten it imported from the States. That’s where she was from, her mother, born and raised in New York City. Fumiko dreamed of going there, to bad that wouldn’t happen any time soon. Plus, her english was terrible, no matter how many lessons her mother sent her to. She just wasn’t exactly the studious type. Fumiko wanted to have fun. She wanted to dance, drink and smoke like the flappers on the cover of the magazine she was looking through.

Fumiko raised herself from the bed, standing next to it stretching her arms above her head. She did a little dance to the bathroom sink, a nice jazz tune playing in her head. She plucked a water glass from the side of the sink and  filled it up with water from the tap. 

Dooo, do, do.

She hummed along with the tune in her head, alternately raising each shoulder to a secret rhythm. Fumiko had picked up the groove from some of the woman that had danced at dinner. She had gone with her parents, her father was some sort of very important business man. When her glass was full of water, Fumiko turned off the tap and was immediately tuned into the conversation her parents were having in the other room. 

“You can’t send her away.” Fumiko heard her mother plea with her father.

“It’s safer for her if she stays with your sister in Chicago.” It was her father’s reply. 

Send her away? Fumiko thought to herself. Why would they send her away? She asked herself another question she was not able to answer. She set the glass of water down on the counter and crept towards the door that divided herself and her parents. Fumiko cupped her ear and put it up to the door. She could hear her mother crying.

“You know it’s the best option.” Again, it was her father. 

Fumiko pictured him placing a hand on her mother’s shoulders, consoling her. When she dipped to the key hole that is what she saw. Both of her parents were quiet until a few minutes later her mother nodded yes and agreed with him. Fumiko watched as her mother moved two fingers under each eye, wiping away the tears. Her mother then moved towards the suite Fumiko was staying in. 

There were two suites on each side of a grand living room. Fumiko spun up and quick and rushed to bed. She hopped under the covers and closed her eyes, making sure her breathing was soft and even, as if she were sleeping. She could hear the knock her mother made on her door and then the handle turning and it opening. Her mother sighed, moved into the room and turned off the lamp Fumiko had not turned off yet. Her mother moved a piece of deep dark brown hair from Fumiko’s face and walked back to the door.

“I love you.”

Fumiko waited until her mother had left the room, closing the after her. She sat up in bed.

I love you too.

She said it silently, sadly. Fumiko didn’t understand what was going on or why her parents were sending her away. She looked around the London hotel room and thought about how tomorrow she would probably be told she wouldn’t be going home with her parents. All Fumiko could do was lay back down and try to get some sleep.

(¯`’•.¸*_*¸.•’´¯)

A knock came on the other side of Fumiko’s bedroom door. She was sitting on her bed, a book in her lap, a note pad on her side and a pencil in her mouth. A moment later, the door opened and Ruth, her aunt poked her head in the slit of the door and it’s frame. She gave Fumiko a gentle smile while Fumiko looked up from her books, giving her auth a wave, she took the pencil from her lips and put it down next to her on the bed. 

“Any plans with your friends tonight?”

Ruth asked her. Fumiko never let her aunt get on her about school work. Since moving to Chicago a few month sago, Fumiko decided she would be the perfect student. It would be one way to prove to her parents that she no longer needed to be punished for whatever she had done for them to send her to stay with Ruth. Fumiko was still quite confused about the move, the change and had convinced herself that she must have done something wrong. Something to shame her parents or displease them. For the first weeks or so, Fumiko attempted to get her answers from Ruth, but she was only met with the same thing her parents had said to her. That it was for the best and that this would be good for her. 

Chicago had grew on Fumiko, thankfully. At first she didn’t know how she would be able to stand it until her parents called for her to return home. Her english wasn’t the greatest. Well, it was okay, her mother was American, but mostly talked in their native language at home, but she knew it. Though, she wasn’t confidence in her english speaking, so she could communicate with Ruth, but at school it wasn’t as well. However, she was able to make friends. Her classmates thought she was adorable and were absolutely mesmerized with the fact that she was foreign. She was different and that made her special. Fumiko liked the attention. 

“Miko?”

At the nickname, Fumiko snapped back to reality with a smile.

Yes, friends. Lizzy is having over to her father’s downtown apartment tonight for a girls party. 

It didn’t hurt that Fumiko was now rubbing elbows with the rich and famous’ offspring at her prep school in the center of Chicago. Ruth was a widow, her husband died a few years ago, but they were very wealthy and that helped with making friends as well. 

“That’ll be nice.” Another smile from Ruth’s lips. “I’ll let you get back to your studies.”

An hour and a half later Fumiko had collected her overnight bag. She wore very simple close out of the house, but they would not be the same clothes she would be wearing when her and the girls went out. Lizzy’s older brother knew a speak easy the girls could sneak into to listen to his jazz band. She had left the house with a hug and a cheek kiss to Ruth who told her to be safe, but to also have fun. Aunt Ruth let Fumiko do just about anything as long as her grades were high. She told Fumiko to have fun with a wink in her eye as if she knew what the girls would be doing tonight. 

After a short ride with the driver to her friends house, a quick change of clothes and a dash of makeup. Lizzy, Fumiko and another girl, Frances were all piled into a taxi cab. Lizzy gave a fake address and when the cabby dropped them off they walked a block and a half to the 3rd street diner, which happened to have a band in the basement. 

The girls danced until they couldn’t and fell into a chairs. A waiter brought them a round of drinks, complimentary from a few young men at the bar. Fumiko and her friends laughed, winked a thank you and drank.

“Isn’t this just the bee’s knees!” Lizzy announced.

“Ab-so-lute-ly!” Frances replied.

It sure is! Everything is Jim!

Fumiko’s friends fell into a fit of laughter. The giggle water was getting to her too, she laughed with them. 

“Dear Fumiko! It’s Everything is Jake!” Lizzy corrected.

“But that was root tooting cute Fumiko!” Frances said with charm.

Fumiko let out a breath in relief that they were not laughing at her maliciously. They all sobered up quick from their fit of laughs when Frances gasped. 

“Flappers. Real…beautiful…flappers.”

Frances said as she rudely pointed across the room at the group that had just walked in. Indeed, there was a girl on each arm of each man that had just entered the party. Fumiko and her friends watched them cross the room. Their hair fashionably bobbed, their skirts above their knees short. One played with a rope of pearls around her neck as she leaned into her date, laughing at what he just said. It must have been funny. Flappers. That was one thing Fumiko absolutely loved about Chicago. She wanted to be one, she wanted to be the girl with the pearl necklace across the room. 

How they do….

Fumiko started, but didn’t finish. She didn’t have the words, only awe.

“Look at those men they are with. Real mobsters I bet.” Lizzie said next. 

Mobsters?

“Yeah Miko, criminals. You silly girl.” 

“Hey now Liz, you know my brother works for a Don in the Loop. They aren’t that bad!”

Flappers, criminals. The mob. The fabulous life. Fumiko was a star struck girl looking at the group across the room from them. She wondered….Fumiko wondered if she could be a flapper on the arm of a mobster. Or better yet, be a Flapper and a criminal. That’s when she decided she’d be taking a walk on the wild side. 

The rest was history!