So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,1
for poison, never knowing. We feed our babies with these bodies and offer our bodies to the men we desire and the men take and take and take and we give and give and give. We are handmaidens and helpmeets and neither of those things. We are created in the image of a God who can be both man or woman or neither. No empty vessels; we are achingly full, spilling over. And when we die, our souls pour out like water.
The Great Barrier Reef Is
Dying but So Are We
Minnie and her husband Adam were unusually quiet on their way home from the theatre. Adam was the actor, the star. Adam had to kiss his costar Caitriona during the play because it was in the script.
“Did you want something to eat?” Adam finally asked.
“I don’t care,” Minnie said, staring out the window.
“Chinese? Greek? Maybe a burger?” Adam asked, pointing to the restaurants as they passed them.
“Well, too late now. There they go,” Minnie said, fussily flicking her hand and waving to the restaurants, their signs. Shadows of people. Lurking. Waiting. Too hungry or too full.
“I can go back,” he said, tapping the brake gently. Slowing.
“Nope. I’ll eat something at home.”
“Are you angry with me?” he asked as he let off the brake, gunned the car forward.
It was late. A Thursday night hinting at a stormy early morning. As they’d walked out of the theatre, the sky had been a black-violet dream. The diamond stars, out just long enough to evoke wonder, were now hidden with the moon.
Minnie went into her purse, felt for the cool chunk of rose quartz in the little zippered pouch. Right there next to the earrings she had taken out after they got too heavy. Right there next to her three favorite lipglosses. The colors made her hungrier. Grape. Tomato. Peach.
“I’m going to practice downstairs when we get home. I mean, sorry if you need to sleep, but I need to learn this piece,” she said. Minnie played cello in a string quartet. She was playing a wedding tomorrow night. Her best friend, Stella, one of the violinists, had composed a new arrangement of a Nat King Cole song for them to add to their repertoire. It was the summer wedding season and the next four weekends were booked.
“That’s fine. I understand,” he said.
She wrapped her fingers around the crystal, loving the weight of it. The flats, the points.
“I know you get upset sometimes when I have to kiss Caitriona—”
“It’s your job, right?” Minnie snapped.
“Yes. It is my job, but I don’t want you to be upset—”
Adam spoke softly, came to a full stop at the sign before turning right. They were ten minutes from home.
“What does her mouth taste like?” Minnie asked, looking over at him.
Adam made a noise. Not a sigh. Something wearier.
“Minnie, I don’t taste her mouth. It’s a stage kiss. It’s a totally different thing,” he said.
“I know what a stage kiss is,” she said.
“Okay, then you know it’s not like a sexual thing. We are pretending to be lovers. Caitriona plays my wife. That’s all.”
Minnie’s stomach growled so loudly it hurt.
“But the two of you dated before, so it’s not all pretend,” Minnie said, using air quotes around pretend. She was effectively annoying herself and could only imagine how Adam felt about her at that moment. He probably wanted the car ride to be over like she did. Adam ran a yellow light, which endeared him to her. She could never be attracted to a man who would stop as soon as a light turned yellow.
“Twenty years ago, Minnie. Cat and I dated twenty years ago and we didn’t even sleep together. You know this. We’ve been over this. It’s exhausting,” Adam said.
You’re exhausting is what he meant. And she’d never believed they hadn’t slept together anyway.
* * *
Adam and Caitriona had dated in the nineties and that was what made Minnie the most jealous. Caitriona had known him then, when Minnie hadn’t. There was a picture of them Minnie had pinned to the walls of her brain, couldn’t untack it even when she tried. Adam, with a red-plaid flannel tied around his waist, his black-framed glasses not unlike the pair he wore now. Caitriona, next to him in her flowered Doc Martens and ripped jeans. They were at a Pearl Jam concert and Adam was smoking because he smoked back then. Caitriona was wide-mouthed, surely laughing at something Adam had said. Adam was funny in the nineties and Adam was