So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,38

plane—flew out of Seattle rain into Nashville rain with the high, bright smell of desert sage drying me out, burning and burning.

Dark and Sweet and Dirty

DARK: She wore a red dress, black tights, and crazy gold ankle-strap heels on their first date. A perfect outfit for drinking almost-too-strong IPAs and playing Big Buck Hunter with Clint, the guy she worked with at the camping store. They’d both turned twenty-one that summer, both home from different colleges until the fall semesters started. Their bearded, soft-bellied fathers worked together, too—associate pastors at the Baptist church on the corner. Their lives Venn diagramed, and there they were in the shaded area as friends–question mark who tried not to touch each other too much.

She pulled her last big chug of beer from the bottle. Clint held up his fingers, ordering two more. She looked at him, at the video game screen, him, the video game screen. The bar door bell was tinkling as people walked in, as people walked out. Belle & Sebastian started playing, and she didn’t feel right shooting things when Belle & Sebastian was playing. Too calm, too soothing. It didn’t match up, so she put the gun back. She felt guilty about lusting over Clint. It was lazy, like cold French fries. It was because he was standing there in no socks with his skinny little ankles and skateboard sneakers and she just wanted a boyfriend.

He had the gun now and he was cocking and shooting and cocking and shooting at the screen. “I’ve never had coffee,” she blurted out and stepped over to him. He turned and lifted his eyebrow.

“You’ve never had coffee?” he asked when his turn was over.

“That’s not so weird, right? Lots of people haven’t had coffee, I guess. It’s one of those things that everyone assumes everyone has and loves all the time when really, lots of people haven’t had it,” she said.

“Wow. You’ve thought about this a lot. Like, you’re defensive about it,” he said. And it was so honest, it brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away and drank some more of her beer. She stood straighter because she wanted to look prettier. She wanted to look so pretty that he’d get stupid about it. She wanted to light herself up like pretty incense and let her pretty smoke float around and up and hover over them.

“I’ve just never had coffee,” she said softly. He picked up his beer.

“I hurt your feelings?” he asked, bent his head down and talked to her like she was a small, shaking puppy he’d brought home from the shelter. She kept expecting him to pet her. She wanted him to pet her.

“Kind of, but I know you didn’t mean to.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry I called you defensive,” he said. He kissed her cheek and she wasn’t expecting it; his scruff, the sharp-swish of his face was against hers. The wet night was steaming up from the summer ground, she could see it from the window. She could feel it getting dark. Darker.

AND

SWEET: His parents weren’t home and Clint said he’d make her coffee, but it might not be that good. And wouldn’t she rather have it from a real coffee shop instead of a coffeemaker in his kitchen?

“No. I’d rather have it here,” she said, slipping off her shoes and wandering around the kitchen and living room. His mom was the type to have those colorful drippy candles, scented volcanoes bleeding down thick glass bottles. She felt a headache coming on from sniffing them, so she stopped. And there were pictures of Clint all over the place because he was an only child. Two on the mantel taken right before and after his baptism. The long sleeves of his white gown stuck to his arms like petals.

“Here, Pioneer,” Clint said, handing her a hot mug. She held it to her nose and smelled cinnamon. “I put all kinds of stuff in it. My mom makes hers sweet. My dad drinks his black. I figured since you’re a girl…” He half shrugged and touched the point of her elbow. She said thank you. He finally told her she looked pretty. That her dress reminded him of the flowers in Texas. “Clematis texensis,” he said and she loved how his mouth moved when he said it. So much, even the tender skin underneath her eyelids twinkled. She tapped his black-jeaned hip with her free hand.

“I believe in this. I’m not some pissed-off preacher’s kid. Are you?”