So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,56

you’d let Coach Cahill take it. (And take it and take it.) You blasted Hole’s “Violet” and dressed like Dominique Swain from the Lolita movie—milkmaid braids, high-waisted shorts, and saddle shoes. Went to his house on Halloween night and saw his red-haired full-moon pregnant wife in a fuzzy white sweater with a black cat on it. She was handing out little brown and gold foil candy bars and crinkly packages of chalky, pale sweets. She invited you girls around back where Coach Cahill was flannel-shirted, a little beer-buzzed, splitting wood. Your actual virginity wasn’t lost in that moment, but it may as well have been. You wanted to slam yourself against the handle of that ax, use his baby-animal-soft shirt to wipe at the sticky blood between your legs. When you used their bathroom you looked at your panties and saw a bloodstain in the shape of Africa, like you had willed yourself to bleed for him. You imagined learning how to navigate the tight hallways of his house in the dark, running your teenage fingers along the nubby walls, feeling for the light switches. In high school he never touched you. Not even once. Not even accidentally. In the suite, there are two spacious rooms separated by a door, but will either of you close it? There is one king bed in the bedroom and a pull-out double sofa sleeper in the living room. We won’t need two beds, but that’s the only room they have left. We can leave the couch a couch. You will want to smoke in here, but you won’t do it. The two of you will go out for tacos and beers with limes, buy a hard yellow box of organic cigarettes, go to a dark park and share one. He will say it’s not bad for you if you share. You will tell him you made up a new word: clandestiny. Secret destiny. The two of you were clandestined to be together. You can flick through cable channels you’ve never heard of on the thirty-seven-inch LCD television while you try to distract yourself from thinking about your boyfriend at home, flossing his teeth, Coach’s kids asleep in their brightly colored bedroom, the nightlights glowing their hair. His wife up late watching romantic, foreign movies with her knitting and warm, red wine. You won’t use the microwave, iron and ironing board, hairdryer, or coffeemaker. You will use the small humming refrigerator for alcohol and teeth-gritting fruits you won’t eat: berries black, straw, and blue. You will not use the phone or the alarm clock. You won’t even use the free wireless. You will leave your phone in your bag. You will zip your heart into the mesh pocket of your suitcase, close it so it can hatch new, in reverse—paling from hot-pink to ecru. Sadly, no, you won’t be able to sleep in this room. Not after all that sweating. Not after he throws his arm across you while he snores, softly. Satisfied. Before you check out at eleven you will go to the window above the grumbling air-conditioning unit and shove the thick, rough curtains back to look out and see the wet flowers torn up from the hard rain, the strong, short, summernight storm. We will slip the receipt beneath the door and that small flutter will startle you. You will think it’s a bird and beware! Birds in rooms are bad luck. Nevertheless, we hope you enjoy your stay! Part of you will. The part that won’t? It will not leave you. It will stay and stay and stay.

Room 1 Rate Information

$189.99 per night plus taxes – Starting 08/08

$189.99 USD Total before Taxes*

*Local Taxes will apply.

Two Cherries under a

Lavender Moon

The produce section sprinklers hissed on, sending the cool mist into showers across yellow pattypan squash, snake-green zucchini and wild, dirty, white-tasseled scallion ends. Astrid and Henry were standing with their hands gripping their cart handles. This is how they met. It was eleven o’clock at night. They both palmed their three-pound green-globe cabbages. Henry waited patiently as Astrid bagged hers; she moved to the mushrooms as he bagged his.

“The cabbage is on sale. The sign doesn’t say it, but if you tell the cashier she’ll ring it up for you,” Astrid said to Henry over her shoulder.

No one else was in the produce section. Two aisles over, a young man was waxing the floor with a noisy machine.

“Oh! Oh, thank you!” Henry said. Astrid was excited by his excitement and he