Emily drives me home in her father's Electra , we cross over the Connecticut river, moving away from an evening of drinking spiced rum and cider, in a yellowed field at the Sadie Hawkins Disco and Bonfire.
The interior of the Buick is dank with our warm breath and the smell of wood smoke hangs on our clothes. Emily drives the beast with exacting precision, correcting any divergence from our path with a gloved hand. Her copper-green eyes watching the road, eye line following the painted white stripe, touching on the browned out reds and yellows of the fallen leaves at it's side. Emily is looking for a divergence in the path, we hook arms in this act, a studied skill, focused and objective. In all truth, I am almost as good.
At the dance we wear our autumn best. The three brown leather buttons of her camel hair coat were left unfasten in the chill, her light colored khakis tucked into black muck boots. The pockets of my wool peacoat, darker than it's indigo color, hold a number of black ink pens, a flip notebook and a small metal flask filled with whiskey, in case conversation became a mire. A lucky rabbits foot, underneath the silky fur is a rigid cured stump tired with it's digging claws nested in the fur, a reminder of the cost of fortune.
It is early November, and by this time, we are in the low numbers of morning as she pulls off the side street, and creeps the car into my driveway. Emily movedy a covered hand, depresses a toggle and cuts the headlights to the car. She lets the engine idle. There is a mixed message in these actions.
I turn my head to look you in the face. I am ready pass a goodnight between us, and notice your seatbelt is...somehow, already off.
I surmise that the evening is not over, as of yet, imaging that any moment the automatic locks engaging, their chromed stick heads all in synchrony hunkering down, stuck fast in the door wells. Even though we have been driving across the flat of the valley, the car is not warm, only blowing lukewarm air against our exposed skin.
The car idles, her gloved hands resting on the steering wheel, eyes not searching but only taking in the dark of the yard.
“Tell me something you love." requests.
My hand is on the door handle but I am not in a rush to release it's hold. I move my fingers to the condensation forming on the window and draw a line.
I respond quietly, “You’re playing with me."
This may have come out as a soft growl.
“The answer to that question is arbitrary. What is there to say?”
She doesn't look away from the yard.
“No joke,” she says to me.
Her hands are covered in a pristine set of pink leather gloves. The is the snapping creak as her small hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter, as if to gain leverage.
“One thing. Right now, before you leave my car.”
“There is the toast, half melted butter, with strawberry jam,” I said.
“Got it,” she said.
“Give me something else. Something good.”
“I’ve got nothing,” I say.
“Not one thing?” she turns her face to look at me as she asks.
“No. Not one thing,” I said.
“I have five things I can pop off the top of my head.” She tells me.
“Start the list superstar,” I say.
But, for the first time, she struggled and took her hands in their pink gloves off the steering wheel.
I slunk down in the bucket seat. My right hand went to my call and brought it down over my eyes.
"Okay, well that is that." I said and moved the door latch, broke the encapsulation, and let the night air enter the cabin.
"Wait." She asked, and presented to me a folded piece of Crane cardstock held between two fingers. I plucked it from her hold, not asking about it's origin, and moved to outside the Buick.
The car door closed itself, slowly and with satisfaction.
Emily restarted the engine, engaged the transmission and rolled down the side street, waiting until she was at a distance before switching the running lights on.
In a diminishing girlish hand, one full of tired flourish, running the full width of the card she wrote.
"Your full name (crease in the folded paper) is my funeral pyer."
16:36 - Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023
Recent entries:
My profile
Archives
Notes
Diaryland
Random
RSS
others:
hardynova
laywithme
bluelights
allnitediner
bootygrrl
yellowglove
sugarcane
playground
orinna
chumpchange
bluechicken
tigerbody
thecity
might
dent
caterwaul