Fonnie sat down on top of her oversized travel trunk and waited. She let the jewels her mother had given her fall from palm to palm, and tried to stop her hands from shaking by imagining them as sturdy iron scales tipping back and forth in slow, controlled movements.
Hundreds of people pushed past on their way to board the ship she had disembarked from two hours earlier. Fonnie tried to avoid their curious stares. She could almost hear them wondering what this girl, obviously not a citizen of Morocco, and clearly not married, was doing sitting alone, right there in the middle of Tangier's busiest sea to rail transportation hub. Back home, women were making great strides, beginning to work in factories and making it on their own while their husbands were overseas. Still, even in America, a woman traveling without a "chaperone" was something of an oddity. The thought sent a crimson flush of frustration up her neck and across her pale, freckled face. A strand of bright orange hair loosened itself from her chignon and fall down into her eyes. Grimacing, she tucked it back behind her ear.
Though a picture of what was really happening had begun to form in her mind, Fonnie told herself she would give her fiancée ten more minutes to find her. And then what? She knew no one here but Leland, and he had disappeared sometime during disembarkment. A sense of panic spread beneath her skin—alternating currents of cold and hot blood coursing through her veins and beginning to swirl.
She tried not to think about the day she left home, only a few weeks prior, but her mind flooded with images anyway. She saw her father: drunk as usual, as angry as she'd ever seen him, shouting from the top porch steps that she'd better not even try to come back—that if she eloped, or whatever she and "that spoiled tomcat" planned to do, she would be nothing but a cheap, loose woman in his eyes. He had looked so ridiculous there, shirtless, red-faced, veins bulging his neck and temples as he hurled arcane terms like "loose woman" at her in an attempt to shame her into staying. And yet, as they drove off in Leland's shiny '46 Ford, ostensibly leaving the dusty squalor of her childhood behind forever, she could see the hurt on her father's face. The deep lines created by worry, the inflamed skin of his cheeks reddened by sour mash whiskey. He hadn't always been a tyrant, and in his gentler moments it had occurred to her that under different circumstances, perhaps those not involving dependency on a dying mill industry, he could have been a good man. As it was, he had come to seem like a man trapped inside of himself. And he had trapped Fonnie's mother, too.
But sitting alone, penniless, and hungry in a station 4,000 miles from home, Fonnie had begun to wonder if she hadn't simply walked into a more elaborate, yet no less confining, trap of her own. The crowd had thinned substantially, and most of the people still in the station were there to see loved ones off. Fonnie knew that Leland had had enough time to find her—that if he were in the station, he would have come to meet her by now. Still, she decided to take one last look around the dock.
The ship's massive whistle bellowed, signaling its preparedness for departure. Fonnie watched as the young sailors pulled the thick wet ropes up onto the deck, removing the last connection between the ship and the dock. Just then, a man in an impeccable white linen suit walked out to the ship's hull. Leland wore only the finest clothing, his wardrobe, just like the rest of his life, financed by his father's mining fortunes. It was his father who had financed their trip to Morocco so that Leland could begin to make a few connections of his own within the industry. In that moment, a series of memories flooded her mind. Their evening meals in the ship's dining room wherein she had been, admittedly, entirely underdressed and he had seemed embarrassed to be associated with her. The way he had found all sort of reasons to leave her alone for hours at a time—multiple trips to receive telegraphs, including one he took in the middle of the night. His sudden inability to find his way around the ship, explained with only the words, "Sorry, I got lost." And finally, the suggestion that Fonnie go ahead and disembark while he made sure the dining tab was covered. It was clear to her now: at some point, during the long journey across the Atlantic, Leland had changed his mind about sharing a life with her. As for leaving her in Morocco, he could have taken her back to the United States, but then he wouldn't have been able to enjoy the company of the tall blonde in a blue silk dress accompanying him at the ship's prow.
Standing on the pier, watching the man who had brought her so far from home sail back there without her, Fonnie felt something shift in her psyche. It was as if some part of herself separated, and moved up a little higher into the air. She had the distinct sense that she had grown taller, more circumspect. Many people, she realized, would have become hysterical at such a moment, but in her, it seemed, the opposite was happening. Minutes before she had been a massive, flood-swollen river, overflowing the banks and crashing into boulders; now, all of a sudden, everything went still. The water froze in place.
Slowly, Fonnie turned and walked back to the place where she left her trunk. Her mind felt completely blank, her body, vaguely numb. As she turned the corner, she saw that the trunk was gone. It came as no surprise.
The ship had moved out into the water now and Fonnie felt her body moving her toward the sandy area about a quarter of a mile away from the dock. The small patch of beach was a natural oasis amidst the industry of the shipping hub. Her legs and arms felt tired and heavy so she lowered her body down and sat with her knees tucked in. Fonnie reached into her pocket and pulled out the bridal jewelry again. Her mother had given her the jewelry the morning Fonnie left and she remembered now the way her mother's eyes were wet, but full of understanding. She would be the one to break away, to get out of Aiken, South Carolina and live a better life—and most importantly, a life lived on her own terms. Fonnie wondered if her mother would have supported her decision to leave had she known her daughter would end up stranded. And immediately, she knew. Yes, this is what her mother wanted for her—the opportunity to make a ridiculously bad decision, reevaluate the situation, and find a way to turn it to her own advantage. It was all part of being free.
Fonnie looked down at the jewelry again, then put each piece on, carefully and with a kind of daughterly reverence. She was supposed to have worn it at her wedding ceremony, at the beginning of her life with Leland. This, she thought, would be a different kind of ceremony—a different kind of beginning. Pulling the necklace clasp shut, Fonnie wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them in close to her chest. The fear hadn't left her, but it was beginning to be give way to excitement. After a moment, Fonnie stood up, shook the sand out of her skirt, and turned back toward the station, a new plan forming in her mind.