field
Birdie flew across the highway. Her reds and yellows lit up the night.
“It was you.”
She flew past an unremarkable diner off the turnpike. Girls in gowns and boys with loose ties sat on their cars and ate burgers. A hard girl with soft hands kissed her date between bites. A loud boy hooted and hollered for his buddies.
“Nah, it was you.”
She flew through a quiet neighborhood with tall, similar houses. Past a kid taking out the trash and a band playing in their garage.
“You gave me an opening.”
By the dark windows of a school and the chain-link of a track field.
“Bullshit.”
By the farmhouse at the end of the world. The lights on, never sleeping.
“You made a face.”
Past the duplex with one porch. A mother getting home from work chatting with a father on his way out.
“So? You kissed me.”
She parked in her field under a sky full of stars.
“Because you gave me a face!”
Her reds and yellows guided our hands in the dirt. A new patch, far from the corn, where something could grow.
Sandro patted the earth down and his hands echoed across the farmland. “You said, ‘Man, I love sandwiches’ and you smiled.”
“A smile’s not a face. I smile.”
“You don’t. Not like that.”
“Still. You made the first move.” I emptied a water bottle on the mounds and he inspected the remaining seed. “Apple?”
“We’d know if it was an apple, though, right?”
“Maybe watermelon.”
“I hate watermelon. Too much work.”
“Ridiculous.”
I washed his hands with my second bottle and he washed mine. He dried his palms on my sweater and we walked back to Birdie.
“Mom wouldn’t have given me watermelon. She hated it too.”
“It’s not an aggressive fruit. What’s there to hate?”
“She thought it was a waste of time. And you’re an aggressive fruit.”
“I handed you that. Don’t be proud.”
I turned Birdie off and we hopped up into her truck bed. Opened our whiskey/Coke and settled into our pillows. He pulled the quilt over us and I found my spot under his arm.
I could see the mounds from the truck and I wondered how many gifts I had left from her. How much my mom still had to teach me.
“I think I would’ve told her. About us. Me.”
“Really?”
“She probably knew before I did.”
I listened for the highway. Something my mom would do. She thought the sounds of the traffic echoing across the field were like waves. Growing up, she told me there was an ocean on the other side of the trees. I just needed to listen for it.
“I used to cry a lot. At night. She’d take me for these long drives in Birdie to calm me down. We’d always end up here. In her truck. In our field.”
“That picture on your nightstand.”
“Yeah. She’d run her hands through my hair and talk to me. Always made me feel safe.”
He sipped from the bottle. Sandro had perfected the ratio of whiskey to Coke. I was just happy I didn’t have to pretend to like beer anymore. I took the bottle and drank.
“I think she’d be real proud of you, Bash. I wish I knew her.”
I capped the bottle. “She would’ve loved you.”
“Why?”
“She was a sucker for boys. Said men are their best when they’re little. Before the world gets to them.”
I rubbed my bracelet and could feel her. Watching me. Always watching me.
“After she died, I wasn’t happy with who I was. I forgot the kind of person she wanted me to be. That I wanted to be. And you reminded me. She would’ve loved you for that.”
Somewhere along the road, somewhere on our trail, something changed for me. It was different. I was different. It’s like I got a second chance to become a person. As if I’d made all the right choices these past four years and was allowed to be a better Bash. And that’s all I ever wanted. To be better than I was.
I won the competition with myself.
Sandro dropped the remaining seed into my jacket pocket and rubbed my chest. “How long you think they’ll take to grow?”
“We have to find out what they are first.”
“What about when we’re gone?”
“Del will check in on them.”
“What if they die?”
“We’ll try again.”
“What if we die?”
“Then we don’t have to worry about it.”
“What if...” He stopped. I could feel his worry. He would always worry. That’s just who he is. One of the thousands of things I get to know about him. “I say that a lot. What if?”
“Not too much. It’s no anywho.”
“Anywho?”
“You didn’t know? You’ve got a few catchphrases, baby boy.”
“I do not. You’re just around me too much.”
“No, I just pay attention.”
He chuckled. “You know, I thought this year would be easy. Had it all mapped out. I’d get my cast off, go to every fifth party I’m invited to, and moonwalk my way to graduation.”
“That’s a very Sandro approach.”
“I hate variables. What-ifs. I like knowing what happens next.”
“I know what happens next.”
“How?”
“Well, I’m psychic.”
“Oh, you never mentioned.”
“You don’t know me at all, Miceli.”
We laughed. He almost spit up the drink.
“Shit. So, what happens? What’s next?”
I grabbed his big, hairy hand and put up his index finger. “June. We graduate. Go to Six Flags. See too many movies and grill every Friday.”
I put up another finger. “July. We live on the beach. Get tattoos, maybe I pierce my nipple, and we shoot some Roman candles off at Wildwood.”
“Fuck you. AC or bust, bitch.”
He smiled. I raised another finger. “Then August. We go camping with Del, maybe Lucy invites us to her dad’s place in the Poconos.”
“Then we move away.”
I could feel a shake come and go in his hand. I raised another finger. “September. I drive you and help you unpack. You repay the favor. We talk on the phone. I tell you about my roommate’s weird-smelling microwave. You join a shitty a capella group.”
He laughed and raised the last finger himself. “October. I start riding a bike everywhere and some sorority chick gives you HPV.”
His smile made me smile. I raised my own finger. “November. Thanksgiving break. We come back.”
“And Christmas. And winter break.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’ll go quick.”
“And you won’t forget about me?”
I laughed. I thought he was joking. His face was serious. “Sandro.”
Forget him? Forget Sandro?
I took off my prayer bracelet and slid it onto his wrist.
I could never forget Sandro Miceli.
He smiled. Leaned forward and unclasped his chain. It was cold on my neck, but his hands were warm. I’d given him my warmth, I think.
I rubbed his shaved cheek. “And we’ll always talk.”
“Yeah?”
“’Course.”
“Good. We talk well.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“But what if we run out of things to talk about?”
I shrugged. “We’ll start over. From the beginning.”
“From the top?”
“And we’ll see where it goes.”
He nodded. “We’ll see.”
I laughed. “We’ll see.”
I felt the edges of his smile. The best thing in my life. Those dimples and lines. I could spend all night touching that smile. He took my hand and kissed it. We got close and stared at the stars. He ran his hands through my hair and I closed my eyes. Safe. Quiet.
The air was warm and I could feel summer coming. Sandro and I would have a summer together. What came next would come but summer would live again.
My ear against Sandro, I could hear summer’s heartbeat.
In our field, I could hear the ocean.