Installement three (NOVELLA)

1979 - full moon in July. There are two young lovers sitting just miles from the Pennsylvania line on the hood a rust red 1971 Buick Riviera. They are crazy about each other. The kind of crazy where the sun comes up but all they see is the light in each other’s eyes. The kind of crazy where every second is an eternity while they are waiting to get back to the place where they glue their bodies together and feverishly discover the dimples on each other’s skin. The kind of love that fairy tales preach of and parents warn of. They are dangerous for each other, and they know it. They feed off of it. You see, Dan just enlisted in the service and Mary has long since been dating another man. A family friend that got down on one knee and promised her the world on top of a diamond so big it could light up the sky. The fire is part of the attraction - the possible danger at what could happen if they were discovered - my oh my, it just makes every kiss taste sweeter than the last, because every fruit tastes better when it is forbidden.

“Mary, baby, what is it you see when you look at the sky?” He asks as he runs his smooth hand under her light blue skirt to tickle her thigh. She laughs the way pristine girls do, but she is not so pristine when she takes a big sip of the Thunderbird keeping them company tonight. She is not as pristine as everyone would like the think, and that is just how she wants it to be. That is just how Dan makes her feel when he comes by the park to pick her up in his battered old car.

“I see some white dots. That is all they are. People call them stars and I think that implies they have a beauty to them that is deeper than what you see on the surface. Really they are just big balls of gas lighting up the sky,” she says, hiccupping her way through the last bit. Dan thinks it is just so cute how his girl - who has more money than the Beatles have fans - knows about these kinds of things. It’s just so cool how she can talk schooling and take back some Thunderbird like a champ. He gets a little sad then, because he knows it won’t last. It can’t last. This is his summer of love before the day comes when he is rushed off to a camp that houses only men and breaks him into submission so he can get enough cash to get out of this place. He secretly hopes that Mary will go with him - somewhere else, somewhere far from where her parents can plan out her life and his own mother can inflict her anxiety on him. He doesn’t tell Mary this, because as bad as she wants to be, he knows she is good and loves that dirty diamond ring. He knows she likes the big houses and fancy bathrooms that are so extensive they have one of those things that wash your ass. He doesn’t understand why anyone would need one, because a rag and a shower always served him just fine, but he supposes that if he had the money for a fancy bathroom he might have one, too. The truth is is that he knows she wants him and he knows she wants him only because she shouldn’t have him, but it keeps the nights sweeter when he has her skin between his hands. This is love, he thinks, taking a little too much to drink, and before he can continue with the point that he was going to make she leans over and does that nibble thing to his neck that he just can’t get enough of.

But tonight, as bad as he wants it, he won’t let himself have it. He can’t have her tonight because he wants it to be more than just a few week fling. He wants her every night, and when he is away he wants letters that she would write while waiting, slightly heartbroken, for him to come home. He was always a romantic. He moans as her teeth nick his skin and her breath falls hot around his ear.
Stop it, he tells himself. You just stop it right now, because this can’t go on. This shouldn’t be happening here or now. There shouldn’t be a man waiting for her to be his when she is out here with me letting me in.
“Mary.”

She doesn’t stop. She presses her hand against his crotch. Now the Thunderbird is kicking in. God, she feels so good, but he knows it has to end or begin. This middle space won’t work for him.

“Mary, stop. We need to talk.”

She giggles and presses her hand harder still.

He is throbbing and she is sweet and the night is young and they are, he thinks, in love. Why the hell not? Why, because it is wrong and this is going to be a heartbreak even if they don’t stop here and no one will come out on top. He comes from a broken home and the last thing he needs while sweating with a million other men in the hot sun while he scales a wooden wall to build his muscles to alright is to think of her here, like this, on this night. Then to think of her wrapped up with another man in between sheets he could never afford while that guy bears into his girl. He shudders and the moment is lost.

“Mary. We can’t do this anymore,” he gasps.

She stops. Her face is still near his neck, but she is still. He can feel her breathe and god he wants her so bad. He wants to throw her to the ground and rip off her blouse and taste every honey she has. He just wants her so damn bad.

She stands up, shaken. She has never been denied. She has never been pushed away. She grabs the bottle, takes some down and hands it to Dan. He takes the largest single drink he has ever had. This hurts. It shouldn’t hurt, because it has only been a month, but damn - it was one hell of a month. The liquor burns his throat - he welcomes the pain. Mary walks away - only a few feet - and stares into the sky.

“Just large balls of gas,” she says. The reality that the end they both wanted to pretend didn’t exist was finally upon them was hitting her. Now she knew that Dan changed her, too. She would never be the same. A tear falls - just one, because her mother told her it was improper to cry. “We don’t even have magic to believe in anymore.” She turns her back to Dan and shakes her head.

Dan takes another drink - the bottle is gone now. He feels good and he feels bad. He walks over to Mary and puts his arm around her shoulders. He wants her so bad, and he knows now it is a want he will never fully have. He can’t live his life only having half of the heart that made his whole. He repeats that this is for the best inside of his head, even though he secretly thinks this is the worst thing he has ever felt. Now is his time to be strong, though. Now he gets to play the part of leading man.
“Come on, Mary baby, let’s go for a drive. Let’s take up what is left of the night.”

He leads her to the car - his hand lightly touching her center back. He is telling himself to keep this more friendly and less encompassed with the fire that burns. How do you act like a friend when all you have been is a lover, though? How do you turn the dial back? Time kept ticking and they kept kissing and, lost in their dream and each other’s heat, the summer ran away from them and now they have to go back to June and pretend, somehow, that it never went down this road. That they never saw each other naked and vulnerable. At least the game is just for the night, Dan thinks, because he knows that after he drops her off at home he will never see her again. No, this will be the last time her sweet smell of daisies and orange spice fill up the interior of his car. This will be the last time his summer girl spreads her energy around him and chokes him up in all of the pretty little things she does when she thinks she is being bad.

Dan sighs and opens her door. She places her hand on his chest and looks up at him with those chocolate eyes that bring him to his knees. He won’t buckle this time, he thinks. But damn, man, she is standing there so pretty under the moonlight and her face is begging me for a kiss and oh, god, what am I ever going to do without this? He touches the side of her face and tucks her hair behind her ear.

“I am going to take you the long way home,” he says as he walks away.

Mary looks down at the ground again, the only place her eyes can seem to find, and sits down on the brown seat, tucking her feet underneath her. She has never been denied.

Dan gets in the car, turns on the engine and lets it purr. He loves the way a car sounds when it starts - it soothes him with the raw power of mechanics. The radio blasts out Zeppelin’s new power hit “All of My Love,” and Dan nearly loses his nerve. He loves this song, but right now the thought of it is breaking his heart. He turns the dial down. Mary doesn’t object - she was more of a disco girl.
The song hums low in the background, the only noise besides the crickets outside. The silence is awkward, but as the yellow lines drift by in the side mirror they both realize that the conversation would be worse. Mary keeps her eyes on those yellow lines - backwards, she thinks, they have this whole thing backwards. You are a child growing up to believe that when you finally grow up the world will be great. You can’t wait to get older, to fall in love, to drive a car - all of these little tasty things they tease you with and you, suckered in, eagerly wait for. Then you get there and it just isn’t that good because love isn’t free, as you get older your face starts to wear an wisdom you aren’t quite comfortable with, and every car eventually breaks down. Now I am older, she thinks, and I want to be young again. I want to be far away from these choices that will some day be recollected to an audience who doesn’t really care - I want to be far away from status and society. I just want to be with him, but I know I never could.

She thinks these things and gets lost in the song. The song she never really cared for, but now knows she will love until her days end. She will love it in that heartbreaking way that turns a girl into a woman. She will buy the record and listen to it from time to time, when she is alone and free to cry or scream. She will remember the summer night, the hopeless talk of stars, and Thunderbird. She will feel the warm wind comb her hair as she focuses helplessly on passing yellow lines.

She knows she will never be the same.

That is when something big and dark runs in front of the car. That is when Dan screams and the brakes screech and the alcohol that blurred his senses takes revenge on their consumption.

There was no one on the road except that old Buick Riviera, but if there were, if the owls that watched could talk, they would have spoke of a loud crunching noise and a car that spun in circle until it landed against a large pine tree that sat 20 feet off the road. They would have spoke of the sound of breaking glass.