So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,28

no one knew where, but I got lucky. Sat outside his house one night and he came home to get a change of clothes.

After I gave him the speech he got a real sad look on his face, sat on the front steps.

“Did he put you up to this? I don’t do business like that,” he said.

“No, he didn’t. I’m trying to help him out.”

“He don’t need your help. He needs to be a man,” Coot said. He brushed some dirt off his boot.

“You’re the last one on the list,” I said. I thought I might cry, but I swallowed it, made myself all right.

“I’ll tell you what. Fuck it. This is too sad. I don’t want no part of it,” he said, standing. He reached his hand down for me, pulled me up. He gave me a hug and it surprised me so much I couldn’t help myself from crying. Coot held me and held me there against his chest, went into his pocket and handed me a piece of torn brown paper napkin.

“He ain’t worth this, honey, I guarantee,” he said.

“How much money does he owe you?” I asked, sniffing. I pulled back, wiped my nose.

“He ain’t worth it,” he said again, softly. Coot was old enough to be my daddy and I bet he would’ve been a good one.

Dallas, Hot Knife, Black Ray, Coot, Johnny Step, Smoke

My eyes were red from crying when I showed up at Rowdy’s. He asked what was wrong. I told him nothing. PMS, girl stuff. The microwave beeped and he took out some leftovers from the night before when we’d cooked together and made baked spaghetti with fancy cheese on top. He pulled out the chair for me and asked if I wanted a glass of wine and I said yes. He’d just gotten out of the shower and smelled so good, like hotel soap and sunshine shampoo. I wanted to eat him up. His name was written in invisible ink on my list. I hadn’t crossed it out yet but I wanted to. Bad.

“I’ve been thinking maybe we should talk about us. Like, moving in together or something. You’re here all the damn time anyway and you know I love you, right?” Rowdy said, pouring wine and looking over at me.

“I love you too, Jack.” My breath shivered out. I’d said I love you, Jack, over and over again in my diary when I was sixteen, my looping high-school-girl handwriting sprawling across those pale blue lines. I’d said it in my head when I went away to college and again when I flunked out and moved back home to our little town and saw him working on the roof next to my parents’ house.

I got a nervous gut, letting those words out. I picked up my fork, crossed my legs underneath the table. He put the wineglass in front of me and sat down. I knew he might find out. I was sure one of those assholes would tell him what I did. But if he ever asked me I’d lie about it. That’s what I was thinking as I sat there looking at Rowdy’s smile. You should’ve seen it. That ignorant beautiful bastard’s face lit up the whole room.

Re: Little Doves

We want him to. Make love. Kiss us. Touch us. All of us. He is our leader and we’ve chosen him; he is our leader and he’s chosen us. Our love overwhelms and embarrasses us but we water it, grow it, nurture it and speak to it—this garden. We smoke hand-rolled cigarettes in a circle of succulents and rub sticky sagebrush and apricot mallow under our arms. We are safe and he does not hurt us. He is gentle and we can leave whenever we want. He tells us this. You can leave whenever you want, his breath bright with cumin and tea. His shirt and pants and beard and skin and hands scented with one of us, some of us, all of us. He calls us his little birds, his little doves. We do not call him God. He tells us this. Don’t call me God. I am not God. I am a man, his breath sugar-heavy with blood-red wine and honey. He calls us his little animals, his little doves. We do not call him Daddy. He tells us this. Don’t call me Daddy. I am not your Daddy. I am your lover, his breath blooming with cannabis and sandalwood. His shirt and pants and beard and skin