Chap. 4
All This Fire in the Air
The summer heat was heavy in the air. It was as if the night were filled with longing, with the heat and moisture of longing. And the longing for Colleen that Sweet Pea felt was stronger because of its secrecy. It was the same with poetry, the mysterious lines always make the deepest impressions in your heart. Sweet Pea awaited her muse. It was Tuesday night, her parents had left for Bible study at the church. Feigning a headache, Sweet Pea had stayed home, had stayed for her rendezvous with Colleen. The crunching of the gravel under the wheels of Colleen's Jeep, sent Sweet Pea's heart hammering with anticipation. To the front porch Sweet Pea raced, the screen door banging behind her like a firecracker. She stood on the steps as the Jeep drove up, came to a stop, and Colleen shifted into neutral and yanked on the lever of the parking brake. With a wide grin and a bottle of wine in one hand, Colleen dismounted the Jeep. Sweet Pea ran up to her; all day she had thought of that kiss... Even after their mouths had parted, Sweet Pea kept her eyes closed tightly, savoring that kiss. Wishing that she could hold that kiss on her lips for ever.
Colleen laughed at her.
"You are hopeless," she said.
"Hopelessly in love," Sweet Pea declared.
"Stop it!" Colleen chuckled.
"Or," Sweet Pea said, "you have bewitched me with a wicked spell. Hecate also had a key."
"Yes, she did. But you can tell I'm not she - no dogs are howling."
"But," Sweet Pea whispered in Colleen's ear, "this bitch is in heat."
Colleen grabbed Sweet Pea's breasts and kissed her, biting her bottom lip.
"My key," she said, "will open the gates of heaven for you."
Sweet Pea's hands were reaching for Colleen's breasts...
"First," Colleen said, teasingly twisting away from her lover, "we drink the sacramental wine."
"But, I've waited all day to taste the salt of your skin."
"And, I've had a long hot and dusty ride out here from town," Colleen said. She held the bottle aloft: "It's chilled."
"All right," Sweet Pea said. "I'll get some glasses."
Pop! went the bottle as Colleen released the cork.
"Next," she shouted after Sweet Pea, who had entered the house, "I'm gonna make you pop for me!"
"Promises, promises!" Sweet Pea shouted back.
She entered the kitchen, but stopped suddenly in the hot, motionless air. Somehow, Rocket's chair seemed to be in her way. It was pushed in and the kitchen was as orderly as always. Her mother kept it that way. Yet, somehow the spaces seemed smaller now. She reached out and touched the back of the chair. Rocket's chair. Lightly, her fingertips lingering on the wood, touching what once had been alive. What once had been...
When she returned, she had two glasses; but they were not for wine.
"You're such a heyseed!" Colleen laughed. "Don't you have any wineglasses?"
"No," Sweet Pea replied with a heavy, sad tone.
"That's all right," Colleen said, not quite perceiving that her lover's strong melancholy was only superficially related to the wrong drinking glasses. "These will do in a pinch."
They sat on the porch swing and sipped their wine.
"So," Sweet Pea said, the sense of depression still haunting her, "we'll have only a month together."
"Yes," Colleen said. "I must return to campus before Labor Day. I have two more classes, and my thesis to complete. Summers go by so fast."
Sweet Pea was silent.
The crickets were singing like angels. And the lightning bugs were in their full glory, many were high in the trees across the road. It seemed as if it were Christmas with the thousands and thousands of flashing lights.
"It's hard to believe that in two weeks or so, they'll go dark," Colleen said.
"They'll disappear like you," Sweet Pea observed.
"That's not fair," Colleen protested. "And do you really want to spend this precious time talking about that? There's nothing we can do about it."
Sweet Pea turned from Colleen to contemplate the lightning bugs; far off behind the trees, heat lightning illuminated the sky with a brilliant yet ghostly flash.
"No," Sweet Pea replied. "The days are only what we make them."
"And the nights go only where we take them."
"Kiss me," Sweet Pea whispered. "Kiss me, or I shall surely die from wanting you."
They joined. Colleen's tongue felt like a delicate little butterfly, but Sweet Pea could feel its magic. Strong magic. Sweet Pea's skin where Colleen touched it tingled just as if static electricity arced. The same power that lit the distant clouds. If only she were those clouds. If only. Clouds.
Oh, the heat lightning flashed more, magic arcing in the abeyant atmosphere. It seemed to stretch from the distance, reaching out for them. Reaching out to touch them with a passion-spell. Somewhere, far off, a storm was raging.
[contd]