Three colors. Blue, red, and yellow. Blue of the sky. Red of the freshly painted shed. Yellow of the summertime grass under her bare feet. The sun plays a losing game of hide and seek behind the sparse clouds. Slowly, she lowers herself onto her knees and then into a cross-legged sitting position. The shed door swings open and her best friend comes galloping toward her in a pair of cracked cowboy boots and a loose skirt. These were the days before they pierced their ears and fought over David, and just after they discovered the newspaper and its cruel way of revealing everyone's secrets. That is something a best friend would never do.
Allison gazes at her friend as she comes closer, and she raises her right hand to her right eyebrow to shade her eyes from the sun. The bright light sets her eyes ablaze with a brilliant blue, like the glow that emanates from the center of a campfire. Sara Ann leans in and gives her a kiss on her forehead. She closes her eyes and smiles.
My mom doesn’t know I left the house. Let’s make this quick, she whispers. Then she grabs Allison’s hand and they run toward the lake with fingers interlocked. Their tan legs shimmer as they sprint and jump over all the small rocks that lay in their path. Sara turns to look in Allison’s direction, and strands of her long blond hair stick to her lips. The birds perusing the ground for traces of food take hurried flight as they approach. Allison and her best friend run, run, run until the land stops and the water begins. But they never stop moving. They jump over the edge.
Allison thinks of this moment that took place forty years in the past, after the newspapers and David and pierced ears and after the wrinkles began to etch themselves into her forehead. She thinks of this, and pours another cup of coffee for the man sitting at the counter.
No comments:
Post a Comment