The man next to me tells me he’s excusing himself to the bathroom and I step into the aisle so he can get out. Across from me, a man and woman have just met, but have happily hit it off. She’s a musician and the man is already asking her to list off some of her recent albums as he takes dubious notes on his phone. Their bubbly mirth spreads across the aisle to me. It’s infectious. Calming. It helps. The bathroom man has left a puzzle piece space between me and who I can only assume is his wife, looking out the window. I tell myself I can look at my lock screen photo one more time before putting it away and once I slip it back into my bag, the woman next to me looks over.
“I couldn’t help but notice you looking at the picture of your little boy,” she says, sweetly.
“Oh! Yeah. It’s my first time away from him. He’s three. I’m trying to remain calm about it,” I say.
“We just dropped our son off. He’s shipping out soon. He can’t tell us where he’s going. I’m a wreck about it, but I’m trusting he’ll be fine. It’s all I can do. Trust,” she says.
“How old is your son?”
“Eighteen.”
“I cried myself to sleep last night because I’m not going to see my son for a few days. I can’t imagine dropping him off and not knowing where he’s going. That must be so hard. You’re strong!” I say.
“I don’t feel very strong,” she says, sniffing. The package of tissues the flight attendant gave me is sitting in my lap so I hand it to the woman. My wine buzz clicks on, soft.
“Well, you are strong. Mamas have to be strong. I’m trying too,” I say, laughing through my own tears as she slips a tissue out and hands the package across her husband’s empty seat, back to me.
“It’s good for your little boy for you to get away…for you to take some time to yourself,” she says.
“That’s what my husband says. My mom too.”
“But it’s still hard.”
“It is,” I say.
“What’s your little boy’s name?” she asks.
“Evan.”
“What’s your son’s name?” I ask.
“Quincy,” she says.
“Oh, I love that name.”
“I love Evan, too.”
We smile and shake our heads at one another, at ourselves, at our airplane tears. Our emotionalism. I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her how strong my own mother is and had to be after losing my sister. I want to tell her how strong Heather is for leaving her abusive relationship and raising her son on her own for so long. I want to hear about the strong women in her life, how we put one foot in front of the other even when it feels like the world’s most impossible task. I want to tell her that Amber was a strong woman too, she just hadn’t had a chance to keep going. I touch the locket around my neck, double-check that it’s properly pressed closed. I look at the woman’s profile, the haze and heavenly wonder of both the flat and fluffy clouds outside her window. The horizon, proof of the unfathomable sky.
The woman’s husband appears in the aisle beside me and I wipe my nose quickly and move so he can return to his seat. I smile over at the woman and she smiles too, our female secrets like mist, quickly and easily blown away by the mere presence of a man between us. I reach for the armrest, remember Bradley’s that’s not relaxing and let go. I finish my wine, read some more.
Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. 85 degrees. Winds 5 mph.
By the time we land I’m a little drunk. I text Bradley that I’m okay, that I made it, that I had wine. I ask if he and Evan are okay.
We’re fine! We miss you! Call me in a little bit! Have more wine if you need it!
I smile. All those exclamation points are turning me on. He knows exactly what to do. I love him so much. Oh, how I wish Amber had lived to meet Bradley. They would’ve loved each other. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what she’d be like now and think about how much she would love Evan, how much he’d love her.
Before we disembark, the woman by the window takes my hand and squeezes, tells me to enjoy myself. I tell her I’ll try my best, I tell her I’ll pray for Quincy, wherever he is, wherever he is going. And I pray it right then and there so I won’t forget. I’m so thankful Evan isn’t old enough to join the military yet, isn’t leaving me anytime soon. I still have time. We still have time. Anxiety itches at me as I double-check my phone to make sure I’d told my mom and Heather the right time. Maybe I should text them again. But no, I look up and see them. Waiting for me with a little white sign that reads WE LOVE CRYSTAL in fat pink marker. My eyes tear up, my face heats—because I’ve been thinking about Amber, because I’ve been so worried, because being a human is hard, because being a mom is hard and because I’ve missed them both so much.
“Aw, I missed you,” my mom says.
“I’ve missed you too,” I say.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Heather says.
“I’m so glad to be here.”
We step out into wisteria-summer air, walking to my mom’s car. And before we get in, Heather puts her hands on my cheeks and kisses my mouth. I kiss her back. I feel better. I prayed for Quincy to be okay, for his mom to be okay. Bradley’s okay, Evan’s okay, I’m okay. I have a pair of shark socks and a Braves cap in my bag for Heather’s son for later, a present from me—his Aunt Crystal who loves him so much. It feels good to be home. Small victories! Now this, this is relaxing. And Heather’s lips still taste like cherries or strawberries or pink or grape or blueberry or lemon or Dr Pepper. Girl-gravity.
Downright
Dolly smelled the sea. No. It was him. She hated his sexiness. How annoying. There he was smelling clean. Smelling blue. Celeste. Smelling like the sky and six sharp hours of puck-white sun. Kent, her husband Jed’s new friend from work. Jed had called on his way, asked if it were okay for Kent to come home with him. She’d heard Kent in the background. It was embarrassing. How could she say no? She’d met him a few times before—quick, meaningless. Like two leashed puppies passing on the sidewalk.
In Dolly’s kitchen, Kent held out his hand for her to shake.
“Oh,” she said with a crinkle of disappointment at his formality. She shook it and smiled.
“My wife Vale is coming by a little later after she drops the kids at her sister’s,” he said.
Kent reminded her of Jed and that’s what was sexy about him. They were both in pressed Oxford shirts and dress pants but she preferred to think of them smoking in dirty Carhartts, bending down and stretching up, fixing broken things. She preferred thinking of Jed as the tobacco farm country boy he was, not the man he’d become. They’d been in love since college, but that didn’t keep her from wondering how Kent touched his wife. Vale. Dolly had never met Vale and tried to picture what kind of woman Kent would be married to. She knew they had three young sons. Just like that. One two three. Dolly and Jed had a ten-year-old girl, a six-year-old boy, and one amethyst-colored betta fish trapped in a glass bowl next to the junk mail on the counter.
Dolly loved Jed and his friend was sexy, that was all. So what. She’d made a cheesy chicken casserole because that’s what she was making anyway and didn’t change it when Jed called on his way home. Their kids were at sleepovers. Dolly was a little drunk already, on her second glass of wine. She’d just pulled the casserole out of the oven. Kent leaned against the counter. Jed clinked around in the fridge for beers.
“Your sons…what are their names?” she asked Kent and forgot as soon as he said them. There was an M at the beginning of one of them, a Y at the end of another, and one of the names dripped from his mouth and spilled on the floor—never made it to her ears.
The kitchen was torrid. July in the South was ungodly. She fanned herself. The rattle of the amber locusts out back? Apocalyptic. Jed opened Kent’s beer and his own and stood next to her, looked over. He pushed away and led Kent to the garage, to show him things.
They were gone. Dolly texted her sister.
what if I left Jed and took the kids and came
and stayed with you?
Her sister wrote her back quickly.
WHAT?!
i said WHAT IF. calm down.
Is something going on?!? CALL ME.
i’m fine. i’ll call you later. busy right now.
Dolly deleted the messages and turned her phone off.
Kent came back to the kitchen without Jed. Told her Jed had gone to the bathroom.
“How long have y’all lived here?” he asked, looking around.
“I hate small talk. I asked you your boys’ names earlier but to be honest, I didn’t even listen. I still don’t know them. Even if you put a gun in my mouth and threatened to blow my brains out of the back of my head, I couldn’t tell you,” she said, finishing her wine.
“All right. That’s all right,” Kent said. A tender cowboy.
“I know it may seem like I’m being rude but it’s our house, right?” she said. A tetchy cowgirl.
“Absolutely.”
“Jed’s taking a shower?” she asked, knowing it already. She heard the water turn on. It annoyed her how he always took a shower when he came home from work, no matter what. He took one in the morning, he took one in the evening. He had no smell. “I’m being rude. He’s being rude. Why did you want to come over here again?”
“You come off like a bitch, but no worries…I think you’re interesting,” Kent said, drinking. Dolly poured more wine, hopped up on the counter.
“Okay, so do you think I’m pretty? I think you’re sexy…handsome. Isn’t this a betrayal to tell you that in my husband’s home? Isn’t this the worst possible thing I can do?” she asked. He stood closer to her and she touched his tie. Slipped it between her fingers as she drank. Her nose inside the glass like that made her feel underwater. Like she was the one in a fishbowl. She blew tiny bubbles into her wine before putting it down.
“You’re pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“Even prettier than you think you are,” he said.
“Fuck off. I think I’m pretty.”
“Sure you do.” And he winked.
“Everyone lies all the time. No one on this Earth wants to tell or hear the truth anymore,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears and she drank again. Finished her glass in a gulp. Drunk drunk drunk. “Don’t tell your wife about this. Most people can’t handle…anything.” She undid the knots, shoved off a little boat of anger in her heart. Climbed inside, hoisted the sails. Didn’t look back.
“Tell her what?” he asked. He was standing so close to her. So close. She spread her legs a bit and he stood in between them. Her stomach, a rabbit. She could feel his breath on her face.
“Any of this,” she whispered.
“Any of what?” he whispered back.
The shower was still running—a storm from another room. Rain behind the door.
“Don’t tell him any of this,” he said, nodding to the bathroom.
“Any of what?”
He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. Smushed it to one side, then the other. Did it again. Harder. Smeared her lipstick.
“I don’t tell anyone anything,” she said, closing her eyes.
“Me either,” he said, putting his beer on the counter next to her. The dripping cool of it, wet relief against her thigh.
The shower was still running—a tempest—the shower was still running when Kent slipped his thumb into her mouth.
“Who even are you?” he asked and pulled his thumb out, put his hand on the back of her head. She tilted—a crescent moon. She was all lit up like Ursa Major, the great she-bear. He kissed her neck.
Dolly looked up at the ceiling before closing her eyes again. God will hate me for this. God hates sin, but God can’t hate me. She wanted Jed to walk out of the bathroom and catch them. She wanted Vale to come to the back door and press her hands against the screen in order to see them better. She wanted Loretta Lynn to sit at her kitchen table with a guitar and write a three-chord song about this.
Poor Jed turned the shower off. She heard him step out and walk down the hallway to get dressed. He was humming something he made up, nothing she recognized. What was happening was so shocking and fresh, it had her craving something to root her. Something comforting. Familiar. But no. Kent smelled like water and her body was water. There they were being water together. His mouth, a tributary. He kept kissing her. Hummed on her neck. A duet. This buzzing chorus. She was sticky-summer-dizzy and letting herself be awful. Downright lousy.
You Got Me
Lowell called me woman. Woman, when’s the last time you had your oil changed? Woman, have you seen my hat? I called him Low.
Low had a cowboy heart. I would’ve married him simply for how his body slicked over when he played pool. The clacking of those pool balls was the soundtrack to our relationship. And how he’d say rack ’em and somehow make it the dirtiest, sweetest thing I’d ever heard.
We knew each other, hung out before. This was different. This time we spent four consecutive, frothy, slippery days together. Late nights hushed into early mornings without either of us noticing. Woman, I’m fixin’ to go to the gas station, he’d said, putting his hat on. It was Saturday afternoon. He never came back. I didn’t call.
Saturday night.
Sunday.
I didn’t go to his favorite bar because I knew he’d be there—slicking over, shooting pool. Saying rack ’em to some girl who wasn’t me.
Monday.
Tuesday.
I thought about calling him but didn’t. I went to work and came home. I had dinner with a man I didn’t like. A man who said terribly generic things like: I love music. I swear I about had to stop myself from dying right there at the table—from rolling my eyes back as far as they would go, from letting my body slam down as hard as it could and crash-clinking the silverware to the floor.
Wednesday.
Thursday.
I drove past Low’s house, saw his truck out front. I didn’t slow down. My whole body hurt. I prayed for rain—a purple-blue tempest, lightning slicing sky.
Friday.
I went to The Willow because he’d be there. I got a beer and leaned against the doorway. Watched him. I listened for a screeching feedback sound when he locked eyes with me, like we shouldn’t be that close to each other anymore and even the walls of that bar knew it. The fuzzy Hooker’s green felt of that pool table knew it. I mouthed fuck you slowly, sipped his favorite beer. His face flashed, he raised his eyebrows and put his pool stick down. Told his friends he’d be just a sec.
“Woman, did you cuss me?” he asked, leaning.
“You walked out on me before anything got good and started.”
“You’re mad I left first? You didn’t call me,” he said, shrugging slow. His friends kept shooting pool. I tilted to watch them and didn’t feel anything.
“You didn’t want to be called,” I said.
“Well you got me now, woman.”
Low took my beer and finished it. I listened for the hooves of his cowboy heart galloping toward me and I heard them. Or maybe it was a dump truck rumbling by, or a train, or the thickening thunder of that storm I was praying for.
What I’m saying: I beat him in a game of pool and let him take me home. What I’m saying: I let him take everything.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
ACT I
SCENE I
(A living room. CAITRIONA and ADAM, married, sit on a couch together. Her legs, thrown over his. ADAM is smoking a cigarette. Light music is playing. Mozart. It is raining, intermittent grumbles of thunder. It is their house. They are alone. Half-empty glasses of wine are on the table next to them. A half-empty bottle too.)
CAITRIONA
(flirtatiously, tipsily)
I was reading about Mozart’s starling. That’s the only reason I showed up! I got obsessed with learning all I could about birds, but I was very new to birding. I was embarrassed. I only knew robins and crows. Blue jays. I couldn’t tell phoebes and mockingbirds apart until you. They’re both gray!
ADAM
(pats her leg)
You did just fine.
CAITRIONA
I still can’t believe I married the guy leading the birding tour. What an unbelievably nerdy thing to do. Your binoculars and vest. It was ridiculous!
ADAM
(flirting back, putting his hand to his heart in feigned offense)
I’m offended.
CAITRIONA
(sweetly swats at Adam’s leg, readjusts herself)
You are not!
ADAM
(shakes his head)
You’re right. I’m not.
CAITRIONA
I thought you were generic because you said the peregrine falcon was your favorite bird. They’re the fastest. It’s too easy. How lazy of you.
ADAM
(laughing, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table)
You’re forgetting the common swift. They fly for ten months straight, never touching land. Besides, you’re very judgmental. But don’t get me wrong! It’s sexy on you.
CAITRIONA
So, okay. It’s your turn. Judge me. What’s something I do that drives you crazy?
(CAITRIONA leans over, pours more wine in her glass, more wine in ADAM’s. CAITRIONA rests against the couch again, drinks.)
ADAM
You ask questions like this. Really. You’re always pushing to get a rise out of me. You live for danger.
So We Can Glow Page 17