4/11/11

Untitled
By Kelsey Comes


She ran ahead through the empty parking lot, leaping over the small curb that designated the difference between sidewalk and asphalt, landing on concrete skimmed with sand, and surveying the blackness of the beach in front of her.

“There’s no fence!”

She stood a few feet past the parking lot, letting the sand damp from spray or cold from the chill or maybe both squish in between her toes until it hurt a little. By then, they had caught up with her, and the two pairs walked toward the tides, she and him in front and the other two lagging. They were more distant than they thought. She and him reached the edges of the waves while he told her about his love of astronomy and she ensured that astronomy wasn’t all that Libra horoscope mumbo-jumbo. No, that was astrology. The broad shoulder-pads of his jacket awkwardly bunched around her neck as she reached for the fine, thin layers of her goldenrod dress’s train, gathering them just above her knees and gripping the knot of silk and chiffon firmly in her hand. She did not want the gown that so beautifully flew behind her when she ran and spun and walked, so perfectly hovered above the floor once she took her shoes off, to be spoiled. He told her that reddish star was called “Beetlejuice” and about how Orion’s belt reminded him of his grandmother. She asked why as she gently waded into the water and left him on the dry side of the waves’ cadence. They admired the way the stars were uniquely visible this night.

He had dipped her on the dance floor earlier, taught her to twirl outward from him and then spin back in, how to dance with his hand on her hip and her other in his other. She had never been dipped before. He told her to plant her feet, lean back, trust him and she shrieked in delight as his hand caught the curve of her back. She apologized for her lack of grace, and he bantered that she had surpassed his ability to tutor her in dance any further.

She turned from admiring the sound of the black water in which she stood to see where the other two were. Their silhouette was vaguely discernible up higher on the sand, and she guessed they were probably freezing, but sheltered through some combination of his jacket and her scarf. The sharp wind flushed her cheeks to a rose pink that would have been a romantic complement to her simultaneously green and ingot eyes, if he could have seen them. She agreed as he oded the grandeur of the stars, offering to show her the StarWalk app on his phone that identified the stars as the camera viewfinder sought them out. He stepped closer to the border of sea and land, and she joined him there, leaning over his shoulder to see the phone screen that connected the dots of constellations and labeled stars. Her feet were cold now, out of the water.

Suddenly, a rogue wave assailed their calves. Her skirt was still safely stowed in the knot in her fist, but his left shoe and pant leg bore the brunt of the attack. He jumped back, and would have cursed but remembered who he was with and instead let fly incoherent exclamations. She laughed the laugh of someone sharing a mutually entertaining moment and stepped back to the water, relishing the way warmth paradoxically returned to them as she reentered it.

“Oh now you’re all wet and I feel bad for making you come down here! Just one more minute.”

She looked at her feet in the water. She looked out into the indistinguishable, huge potentiality of the meeting of sky and water. She looked at the white foam on the waves. She looked back at him looking at her looking. For a moment, she looked like she wished he could go back without her, that the other two could go too, and they could all interest each other until she was done gazing at the blackness, exulting in the warmth of the water, the softness of the sand, the consistency, the way she seemed to look.

Instead, her feet went icily, painfully numb as they trudged up the sand back to the car, the other two lagging behind.


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Kelsey prefers words over numbers (Jason Mraz), love over condemnation (Jesus), and warmth over cold (California).