valley girl//interlude

Fresh water pours from her short coils, down the etches of her brown face and the smooth

shape of her body, until each drop reaches the perfect pearl blue of the pool, again. As she steps

along the warm dark sand of the lake, her hair shrinks tightly up the back of her nape, and her

cool bare skin misses the usual lasting touch of salts from the brackish creek in her backyard.

“And to think I learned what a ‘skinny dip’ was only last week,” she whispers, seemingly

to the trees, beautiful green canopies, as she bends to reach her only piece of clothing.

The midsummer heat veered her off the highway, the flat country road becoming a hazy

desert of dirt and dust, where she caught a shimmer. It was a mirage her body drank with

gratitude, slipping off her bright orange and deep purple silk dress to eagerly submerge in these

new waters.

The fever of the naked sun blankets her dressed and decent body, her warm skin drying

off any traces of her secluded detour.

While tires burning rubber, casting spins of dust, have been mere, far-off whispers,

nothing is still about the valley's depths. The wind kisses her feet as she takes each step, brisking

the fields of grass growing tall to dance with her skirts, the precious petals of wildflowers and

daylilies painting the sky, reminiscing the vivid colors of spring. Now, it all burns, every critter

escaping the day, and she catches them all buzzing past as her humanely pace sloths against the

swiftness of nature.

Walking the main highway again, she mourns the trolley – albeit the bones of one – that

trudges between the mountains. Here, between it all, the world seemingly stretches forever, the

earth scooping this land like small hands cupping a drink of spring water. Her thin sandals

thicken with the weight of frustration and many more miles to go.

Coughing to a stop, an exhausted red pickup rumbles beside what the driver assumed to

be a lone woman and not a familiar face. The usual gust of dirt from the road dusts her lower

legs, and her heart drops at the first vehicle to settle where she stands. Taking a brave breath, she

peers through the passenger window, her hand shading her sight from the glare of the outside.

Amidst the darkness casting over the driver's seat, she, too, recognizes the man curiously leaning

towards her, his large hand tight on the wheel as though the truck might continue roguishly down

the road before the two could speak.

Except, neither says a word, the two baking beneath the afternoon rays of the summer

sun.

At this moment, his great aunt would pinch his dark broad shoulder and remind him that

he was catching flies keeping his jaw open wide for so long. Her dress hangs from the halter

resting on her neck, draping like the curtains in his childhood home on the plot of land that has

withstood for generations, all which he could count on his two calloused hands. Licking his lips,

he goes to ask her a simple question, a harmless concern, but she manages to interrupt their

stillness first.

“I know you.”

“Yes,” he nods, swallowing sweet humid air. “Downtown every Sunday.”

“You play.”

“So do you,” he adds, his face glowing with heat. “Sing and dance, too.”

She smiles, the memory enrapturing them both.

Cicadas near and far perform a harsh chorus, the sound filling the space between them.

“You live around here.”

He chuckles in disbelief by how much she says and doesn’t ask.

“Yes,” nodding again, dragging a hand down his rough chin. “Just between these two

mountains.”

“You know your way around.”

“Sure do.”

He tilts his head towards the empty seat beside him. “Where you headed?”

“It’s Wednesday,” she trails, her feet softly shifting in place.

His thick eyebrows shoot upwards, knowing just what she meant.

“I heard you talking about it a while back, and I wanted to see for myself,” she adds,

approaching the truck.

He leans across his seat to open the door for her.

“Is where I’m headed now.”

Once she slips into the truck, her sweat quickly seeps into the polyester seats and she

readjusts her already sticky skin. As soon as the old thing revs back into swift motion, her curled

body pours out the lowered window and her hair loosens against the harsh push of the wind. The

rhythmic lull of the aging pickup nudges her eyelashes gently closed, the rays of sun getting

caught into them like the glimmer of crystal.

With a hitched gasp, she becomes alert, her body unable to fight against the gravity as the

truck ascends the mountain. The blue of the sky has gone orange and pink, fiery and wild. She

stirs in her seat and a pain bites along the right side of her neck where had been asleep. Teasing

her hair, she looks towards the driver and notices his calm, yet exhausted, stare up the now

concrete highway.

Looking beside the two of them, she notices the deep basket of green oval fruit.

“Have you had one of those?”

Their eyes meet.

“Papaya?”

He smiles, his full lips biting back a laugh.

“Not quite,” he says, turning the wheel to guide the truck off the main road and onto

another dirt path.

Winding further up the brush, the pickup spits out onto a clearing overlooking the valley.

A bonfire burns brightly ahead, and the young man quickly nestles the pickup among

countless, seemingly wayward and abandoned, vehicles. The truck lulls loudly asleep, sticky and

smoky air quickly flooding in through the open windows. A gust of sound drapes over their still

bodies, fingers wrapping around door handles yet unable to leave this moment.

His eyes are bright, like the soft ground had caved in and exposed all of its rawest secrets,

his gaze spectacularly alive, whispering stories not his own. She wants to consume them all.

The truck shakes as it’s hit with a barrage of fists. A small group, in dress shirts and long

skirts dripped in pale pastels, laughs brightly past, snickering with mischief, and the infectious

joy bleeds into the tension inside the pickup.

He leads, leaving the safety of the car, and entering the familiar warmth of the

mountaintop bonfire. She, too, leaps out and floats along with the crowd, pulsing with the music

of drums and strings. At the heart of the bodies, the musicians stay hot beside the flames, the

bongos and congas competing in rhythm and sound, and dancers and singers color the scene with

waving fabrics and songs of a distant lullaby.

Her hand finds safety in the nook of his arm, he glances back, face full of life, and he

swiftly takes her in his hold. He goes to dance with her, to intertwine, to continue where they left

off, but her feet plant into the lush grass and soil, a smile begging to go about her own way.

Apologetic, his hands release her, and she retreats to the band of ever-changing instruments and

players.

The grasp of familiar hands caress at his body as he watches her melt into the fire, her

ecstatic and tactful drumming on the cajon, a spark on the lively song between the flames. His

face rests in the hold of another girl, one of the culprits shoving at his truck. He then joins the

innerworld of the crowd, shoes kicking off and arms soaring towards the burning sky.

As the sun sleeps behind them on the west mountain, the vast valley swallowing it whole,

the bonfire grows with nudging legs on the same instruments, logs hauled to stretch and sit, and a

worn path of grass towards the overhang.

Behind his wide-toothy grin, his eyes desperately search for her help in his huddle of

people in pastels. Suddenly, purple cloth flickers in the corner of his eyes, almost like she had

heard him, and she returns to her spot, the one that is always there beside him.

“And what’s this?”

Looking into her brown eyes, again, the pools of the earth locked in her face, he

discovers how she pulls him into some serene place, an interlude away from the world.

“Moonshine,” he says, his smile full and white.

As she peers into the shimmering drink in his glass, his gaze shifts from the great

mountain facing them to her shoulders sticking out like peaks as she leans closely beside him. He

opens his mouth to speak before a bellowing call shakes the gathering, the echo rippling sharply

through the wood.

The sky is pierced by the song and he sprouts on the log to look across the horizon. He

searches for the sound, one that sprung from soles in the soil, up beautiful legs. One nurtured in

the stomach, pouring from the heart, and escaping the lungs. The cry pulses hauntingly through

his body, as it has since the summer solstice.

Every head faces the overlook, but he glances back again to see a smile growing on her

perfect lips.

He finds himself to be the boy who answered her call.