So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,20

M to turn and look at me. Please look at me. Look at me.

“Next month we’ll meet somewhere different, but California keeps us,” he says over the pale brown moon of his shoulder.

California, keep us, I pray in Jesus’ holy name.

Bearish

My husband’s granddaddy felled the bear upon the rangy earth of Wyoming—the grassy compass back of that American square, a spread-wide book of glory. I flirt with Granddaddy for the memory, the bearskin rug. I tap the bear’s teeth and feel my fingernails echo. I stare into its nothing glassy-black eyes. I give the bear a Scottish accent. I am listening to an audiobook read by a man with a Scottish accent; the cadence of his voice is fuzzy paper crumpling and crumpling and smoothing out again. I take the rug home and lose my clothes, crawl naked under the hairy heft of it. Imagine the Scottish accent saying I am a bear too. You are. A female bear is called a sow. A group of bears is called a sleuth. I wait—stilly as the dead bear’s heart—for my husband to come home from work. When he finds me, I growl. I grunt and howl like Tom Waits. He loves Tom Waits. My husband pets the stiff black hair on the bear’s head. This is making up. You have a devastating personality, Dolly. Absolutely crushing, he says to me, deepening his dimples. I rise like the moon and open my slick strawberry mouth.

All That Smoke Howling Blue

The first thing Bo ever said to me was that I had a face like an alarm clock—resplendent enough to wake him up. He and his younger brother, Cash, ran a garage on the shitty side of town. My car was always busted. That’s how we met.

Since then, I’d been living with both of them—driving Bo’s old truck whenever I wanted and kissing Cash when Bo was at work. Bo knew about the kissing, I just didn’t do it in front of him. I slept in Bo’s bed most nights unless he really pissed me off. I loved them both equally. I used to make a peanut butter and jelly joke about it, but no one understood what I meant. Bo kept his shoulder-length hair slicked back and Cash kept his short. See? They were different.

Bo had been teaching the blue-eyed shepherd puppy to howl and that’s what they were both doing—sitting on the floor, howling at the ceiling. Bo was picking leftover bits of tobacco from his tongue and I reminded him again that he shouldn’t smoke in the house. My hair was scented with woodsmoke from the fire we made out back the night before. Bo stood and put his nose on my neck and sniffed me real good. I was at the stove stirring the baked beans.

“Mercy,” he said. Soft. It was the name my mama had given me and he said it a lot. It made me feel special how it got both meanings coming from his mouth. My name, a begging blue prayer. We kissed. Bo’s kisses were feathery, Christmas-sweet. Cash hungry-kissed like a soldier on leave.

Bo stuck the puppy underneath his arm and stepped outside. I watched the puppy through the screen, howling up at the sky. The puppy was licking Bo’s face.

Cash came through the front door and gently kicked my boots aside to make a path.

“I thought it was my night to make dinner,” he said, clinking a six-pack on the kitchen counter.

“You can tomorrow. I made fried chicken, potatoes and baked beans. Biscuits are in the oven. I got Bo to open the can since it scares me so bad when it pops,” I said.

“Well, at least he’s good for something, right?” Cash said, barely laughing.

“He’s out back teaching the puppy to be an asshole,” I said, pointing with the wooden spoon, careful not to drip.

“Will you cut my hair tonight?” Cash asked, taking off his ball cap and opening a beer.

“Why? You got a crush on some girl you want to look cute for?” I asked.

“Yep. Some girl named Mercy,” he said, smiling. I twinkled.

The sunset light ached at the windows. The puppy let out a brushy itty-bitty howl that went on forever. It kept right on crackling. I’m telling you, I thought it’d never stop.

Pink Bubblegum and Flowers

Sweet-sticky pink bubblegum in my mouth, blowing bubbles. Bored, peeking on the guys Dad paid to come over to rebuild the deck. My little brothers were in the living room playing some video game that made