It took time for our eyes to adjust. Wayne pulled out his lighter and held it in front of us. We followed single file, holding hands.
I liked holding John’s hand. It felt right. I mean, it was weird that he was nineteen and I was only fifteen, but I didn’t feel younger—not too much younger, anyway. He turned to warn me about a ditch in the ground. He was taking care of me, and I wanted him to.
We set out a sheet, each taking a corner. White, it arched like a sail before hitting the ground. Wayne laid out cigarettes, a lighter, and a bottle of wine. We drank out of the bottle, passing it around. Boone’s Farm strawberry.
Wayne put his arm around Willow, and before I knew it they were making out again. They lay down together, stretched out across the sheet. In the darkness it was hard to see, and I tried not to look, but Wayne’s white T-shirt moved like a glow-in-the-dark toy.
John and I sat side by side, Indian style, not facing them. We took turns sipping the wine, and then John stood, the wine bottle in one hand, my hand in his other. We walked away from Willow and Wayne, saying nothing.
It was quiet. We were alone. And it occurred to me again that I didn’t really know John. He seemed nice and all, had those trusting eyes, but really he was a stranger. He could hurt me, and it would be my own fault. And I could hear my parents saying, “Didn’t we tell you not to talk to strangers?” My brother would say, “You’re an idiot.” And the worst part was, I knew they’d be right. I mean, what was I doing there? No one but Willow knew where I was, and she was way too distracted to notice me or my absence. For all I knew, John could be a madman, an ax murderer, or a serial killer. But for some reason, with no apparent legitimacy, I trusted him, trusted myself to know he was kind. He put his arm around me, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was looking at me. I knew that if I turned my head toward his, he’d kiss me. Completely aware of something pulling inside me, a force I had not experienced before, I faced him. He pressed his lips on mine, and I felt their warmth.
Gently, he guided me down so that we lay on the wet grass. He breathed in deeply and kissed me again, lips parted, and our tongues touched. For a moment I got lost in the swirling, lost in the movement, but it wasn’t long before I came to and wondered if he thought I was a good kisser. I wasn’t even sure he was a good kisser, but it felt nice, so I relaxed again and assumed we were doing it right.
John moved his hand, and I was afraid he’d try to do something else. I mean, I was OK up until that point but I wasn’t ready for more. He seemed to know that because he didn’t even try.
He turned onto his back. “Aren’t the stars amazing? Art in the sky.” He raised his arm, pointing his finger to the sky as if it were a brush and he were the artist. “See the three stars together, the ones in a row?”
I wasn’t sure I knew what he was looking at, but I said yes anyway.
“Those three stars are the belt of Orion. He’s the sun god. The destroyer of darkness.”
“How do you know that?”
“My mother’s a fortune-teller. She knows things about the stars, the sun, and the moon.” He waved his arms as if he could hold the sky, encompass it all. “When I was small she told me stories of gods and goddesses. The stories took me away from the fighting. My stepdad was always fighting with someone about something.”
“Where’s your mom now?”
“She lives in Shreveport. My stepdad’s the kind of guy that sits around drinking beer in a white T-shirt all day. No job, no interests. A real piece of work, the asshole sits around all day watching television and spends the money my Mama earns.”
He moved closer to me and whispered in my ear. “Artemis was the goddess of wild animals, and she fell for Orion.”
John raised himself up on his elbow to look at me, and it felt like something inside me was acknowledged and opened. I envisioned myself touching him, tracing the lightning bolt, a zigzag up his arm.
“The problem was,” John continued, “that Artemis had a brother named Apollo, and he didn’t like that his sister had fallen in love.”
I listened as John told me how Apollo wanted to destroy Orion and how he did.
“When Orion died, Artemis was real sad. She put his dead body in her chariot and brought him to the sky. She found the darkest place so that his stars would shine the brightest.”
“That is so sad,” I said.
“Love never goes right, anyway.”
“How can you say that?”
“That’s how I see it.”
“Not me.”
“You’re sweet.” He kissed me smack on the lips. “You’re special, too. A goddess, right here on earth,” he said, and wrapped me in his large arms. We lay there quietly for some time before he looked back up at the sky. “You believe the sun god lives up there?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean, I believed in God, but not necessarily a sun god. I thought there was one God who could do it all. But I decided then that I loved people like John. People who believed in magic, people who told stories. So I said, “Sure, why not?”
I recognized in John a tortured soul, lost but journeying toward light. I mean, he wasn’t miserable or anything, but he wanted the world to be a certain way, and it wasn’t. So when I say tortured, I really mean disappointed. Disappointed in the ugly ways of the world.
He pulled me close to him and I closed my eyes, preparing for what would follow. I felt fear and desire, the mix a pleasure so deep and delicious it was difficult to catch my own breath. When his lips touched mine, I was brought to a new place, a place far away and my very own. I felt free and yet connected. Captivated by what I believed was his goodness, his spirit, I wanted to be a part of his world.
After a few minutes we stopped kissing and even though my face hurt, raw from kissing for so long, I reached for him, wanting more, wanting this journey to last forever. Opening my eyes, I put my hands through his hair and found his mouth.
Across the night sky, stars—vast as possibility.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Once upon a time, there was a girl who was enchanted by a boy who drove a Porsche. The boy handled his car up hills and around sharp curves like a young man who knew what he wanted.
“I love this car,” he shouted over the engine, as he pressed the gas pedal all the way down.
The boy washed his car every day with a soapy towel, reached his arms across the hood, caressing the doors, massaging the windows.
When he started the engine, the boy sang out in joy while he grabbed the stick shift and released the clutch and pulled out onto the open road. Clear blue sky above, he drove, flooring it, designer sunglasses covering his face.
His white Porsche was fast—faster than tradition or feeling, faster than sorrow or pain. And the boy loved his car, and the roar of the engine, and how swiftly he could move, almost fly.
The girl was wild about this boy who drove a Porsche. One sunny day she asked him, “Why this car?”
“Are you kidding?” he sneered, and his eyebrows met in the center of his forehead like two caterpillars convening.
The girl saw the boy was annoyed. “But there are other nice cars,” she persisted, draping her body along the exterior of his Porsche.
“Not for me,” he answered, looking away.