by Jaden Bleier

Portrait of a Season

frost on the frozen windowsill
slowly unravels the horizon
into ladders. in the cold

i dream of us in july,
world, a soft boiled yolk,

two butterflies circling into sky,
haze so thick you can see it
heavy over the park.

i want to know
small things:

how you sigh in the morning,
your favorite shade of green,
the scent of your shampoo.

lounging, the lampshade
in the liquid sunlight –
take, tempt, tenderly, thoughtfully –

summer is the season of indulgence
as the cup runneth over,

rain clouds approach
in soft footfalls trees recognize,
every moment another held breath.

while the world rustles,
cicadas sing through the showers
their sad sweet summer songs.

now the world remains gray,
and the wind blows again
against the frosty windows,

but one day the shadow
of a squirrel on a telephone wire
will cross with us
the yellow lines of the street
rabid with desire.

Powered by Froala Editor


Jaden Bleier is a writer currently based in Providence, RI. Her poems have appeared in Maudlin House, Wax Paper, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Stonecoast Review, among others, and have been awarded the Frances Mason Harris ‘26 Prize. Jaden enjoys spending her time in the sunlight with her cat Cora and her houseplants. You can find more of her work at  jadenbleier.com.

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


by Vincent Antonio Rendoni

Subject Lines from Democratic Fundraisers in an Election Year

vincent / i have nowhere left to turn / this is getting serious /

this story starts with my mother / we are losing / this is last call /

we are falling short / it’s urgent / listen up, vincent /

(american flag emoji) / you’re more powerful than you know / listen /

team / friends / fans / folks / fam / this is important /

i’d like to give you a call, personally / it’s a dark day /

you gave x amount in 2020 /will you give again /

he mentioned me by name / it’s a dark day /

there are no kings / nothing comes easy /

i have to be honest / it’s official / it’s agreed /

we cannot lose sight of who we are / breaking /

(two american flag emojis) / i need your help /

vincent / we need to know where you stand / just $25 /

massive / an important update / something’s not adding up /

you’ve got to look at this poll / just asking for $1 /

it’s time-sensitive / stand / we need to hear from you /

vincent / necesitas ayuda / I need to hear from you /

thank you / we’ve come a long way, friend / can you give more /

re: / the end of the world /

a huge setback / breathtaking /

we are just / on the cusp /

vincent / it’s urgent /

please

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


Vincent Antonio Rendoni is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Dead Chicano Mixtape (Red Hen Press, 2027) and A Grito Contest in the Afterlife (Catamaran, 2022), winner of the Catamaran Poetry Prize as selected by Dorianne Laux. His work has appeared in AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, and Pleiades. He lives in White Center, WA.

Powered by Froala Editor


by Angela Ramos

Greenhouse

bathtub water scalding and scented

with hot flowers,

tonka bean oil.

watching the sponge of my pubic hair

bounce back reluctantly

(or do I watch my pubic hair bounce back

like a reluctant sponge?)

when I raise my hips from the water.

watching the movement of periphery things

that don’t stir in the room but

in the lobe where Psychosis lives,

often idle and staring

until a sudden fit startles Him

back into existence,

selfish and hungry for my attention,

like a neglected boyfriend

or orchid.

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


Angela Ramos penned her first story, “Wally the Worm,” at age four and has been smitten with words ever since. She is also enamored with her two children, the woods, animals of all kinds, and the exquisite mess we each contain. Angela's work has appeared in a handful of publications including, among others, Main Street Rag, Sheila-Na-Gig, Sinking City, and Paper Darts.

Powered by Froala Editor


by R.J. Petteway

Oxytocin

I'm not saying
that I do
but if I did
I wouldn't say
There's a way a moon
moves between the start
and end
of your fingertips,
which is to say

Waves neither come
nor go
but they always taste
of salt
and thunder –
somewhere
between the start
and end of a fire
lies a story
that pairs well
with water.
And I'm not saying

But if I did,
I wouldn't say
There's a way I long
for rain
as long
as your fingers, wet
and reaching
for what's left
between the start
and end of me

Somewhere,
between moons,
I taste a kiss
that can only
be described
as somewhere
between home and thunder
between water and drowning
between the start
and end of a dream

Made only of breath
and salt
from the shadowed slopes
of your back

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


R.J. Petteway is a public health professor and poet. He lives in Portland, OR, where he sips dark roast and rocks Griffey Max 1 Freshwaters, rain or shine. Alum of UVA, Michigan, and UC Berkeley. Still represents The Ville. #FirstGen. His poems have appeared in both academic public health and traditional poetry journals, and have been recognized with a National Poetry Month Prize, a Paper of the Year Award, and a Pushcart Prize nomination, amongst other honors. You can find some of his other words/works at www.rjpetteway.com.

Powered by Froala Editor


by Lisa Corn

Limbo in Boca Raton

Edith Goldstein watched her neighbor, Helen, swim in circles for hours. Her small, round pool was caged in black iron to keep out the wayward urban alligators. Helen would kick and kick, and then when she needed a rest, clutch a floating bubblegum pink beach ball, upon which she rested her sunburned cheek. 

To Edith’s knowledge, every house on the block was home to either a widow or a wife waiting for her husband to die. Morbidity lost all meaning here. Weekly mahjong groups regularly traded players when one died; blue-haired ladies took up the charge when duty called. Local cemeteries tucked advertisements into mailboxes when new burial plots became available. Sometimes when Edith stayed in the house for too long, her neighbor across the street would check in and make sure she was still alive. When she went outside on Sundays to water her postage stamp of lawn they made eye contact, often, neither one flinching away. This was Boca Raton, there was nothing left to do but watch and wait.


Summers meant heat and grandchildren. Helen lounged in the sun. Her skin was already a playground for melanoma. She stopped coloring her hair a few years ago, around the same time she’d invested in a set of lawn flamingos. Across the street, Helen laid out on a plastic lawn chair reading her magazine; bare-breasted and glazed with pool water with only a towel covering her legs. Edith hoped that by the time her son and her two grandchildren arrived she would put on some clothes.

Edith knew nobody actually wanted to visit her. Her son fell prey to the misconception that people over the age of eighty were unable to tell when they were bad company. Aaron must have considered himself a good son, and on paper he was. He paid the maintenance fees for the semi-legal assisted living community and always remembered her birthday. Edith knew from afar he was trying to live up to, and surpass, his father. Her grandchildren, whom she did lovethough they were spoiled and without religionshe also loathed, as it was clear they saw her entire existence as a mere preface to their own. 


They came like a hurricane. One boy pushed the other out of the car. Aaron yelled at both of them. His second wife sucked the end of a cigarette. She was thirteen years younger than his first wife, the boys’ mother. His second wife’s breasts were a formidable rack of silicon. Edith looked back at Helen who still lay basking serenely and crisping in the high Floridian sun. Her deflated bosom wilted without any artificial scaffolding, and for some inexplicable reason, this comparison made Edith smile. The doorbell rang out through the small rectangular house where all sounds seemed to ricochet endlessly off the linoleum floor and the plaster walls. The boys barreled in. Each sported ridiculous haircuts and reluctantly presented themselves to Edith, who saw through their apprehension to their disgust.

Aaron had grown to look more like his father, with ample dark brows and the beginnings of saddlebag jowls. He even took on his father’s typical expression which was an inscrutable mixture of weariness and relaxation. Her late husband was kind and generous until the end. He was one of those men who didn’t become old until he retired. He fought in Korea and came home to work the same job for the next 39 years. Their marriage was consistent in its monotony. Throughout their 61 years together his body was an alien thing. She thought him sexless and he thought her frigid but neither of them ever made any motion to remedy the situation. In those days, that was the way of the world.

The boys sat in front of the blank television screen and ignored the fruit Edith had set out. She asked them each questions about school and sports to which they replied with one-word answers. The new wife looked at Edith like a puppy with four broken legs. She played with the ends of her bleached hair and spoke to Edith in a loud, slow voice. 

“You live here all by yourself? That’s phenomenal.” The second wife said with a bright white smile. Edith nodded. One of the boys asked if she had a computer and sulked at the answer. Aaron asked only about her health, which was the same as it always was. He went out to check his messages on the carphone and Edith saw him pace on the sidewalk without any urgency before finally getting in the car. The second wife kept talking but all Edith could watch were the hard, plastic breasts that strained the buttons of her leopard-print blouse. She had the urge to get up and squeeze one. Mostly, she missed the way her breasts felt when she was younger. 

“We’re ordering sandwiches,” she told Edith and made sure to sound out each syllable. Edith had no trouble hearing, but at that moment she wished she did. Aaron stepped back in and looked at his watch.

“Can we go to the beach?” The younger boy asked. The older one was snooping in the kitchen. Aaron kept looking behind like someone was coming to rescue him. He suggested his mother take a nap. What Edith knew he really meant was “go die.” Her husband was the glue that held her and Aaron together. After his unexpected death, she no longer held any importance for her son. Edith was forced to accept that her life now was to be examined in retrospect. At times she felt like she was walking backwards into her own grave. 

“There’s a topless old lady out there,” The older one yelled, his voice filling the house and escaping through the open window. She was thankful that most everybody in the neighborhood had some degree of hearing loss. Edith leaped up with a speed that garnered praise from the second wife. She pushed the older boy away from the sink. His brazen scrutiny corrupted Helen’s body, reducing her to the narrow perception of a petulant child.  

Edith felt a flicker of ownership over her. The glances and silent “hellos” had built a small yet solid connection. Lunch came and the boys fought through most of it. The younger one threw a slice of brisket that no one could find. Aaron talked about his job, which Edith then understood was the largest part of his life. He paid no attention to everyone’s ignorance regarding municipal bonds and discussed them until the food was finished. The boys changed into their bathing suits and asked to sit in the car. Edith supposed that even in the baking heat, the hot car was a better place than visiting with their grandmother. 


Aaron was never good at goodbyes. He acknowledged that he would try to see her more often but left every promise open-ended. He struggled to find the right way to say that he wouldn’t actually return for another year. He dug into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out his wallet which overflowed with receipts and exclusive membership credit cards. He gave her thirty-four dollars for no apparent reason and said a hollow “I love you,” which when said without affection sounded like another language to Edith. She walked him out to his luxury station-wagon. The boys waved from the open windows of the back seat. The second wife hugged Edith and she finally felt her engorged speed-bump of a chest. Aaron and his family pulled away and sped around the corner leaving a trail of gray exhaust as the only proof they had been there at all. Edith looked down her block and squinted. The color of the houses was an assault on her senses. The stucco bungalows were painted alternating bright pink and blue, like some ludicrous baby shower had erupted. She never saw herself living in a pink house and so she lived in a blue one. Under nearly every one of these roofs lived an old woman like Edith, who as a young woman had set loose their progeny upon the world and now was forced to live in this technicolor purgatory, in all likelihood, by the very person they created. 

Back in the house, Edith spotted the lost slice of brisket under the sink. She gripped the edge of the counter to get her bearings as she stooped down and stood up again. She dropped the limp meat into the wastebasket by the door. Beyond the trapped mosquitos in the screen door, she saw a still-naked Helen sitting upright and seeming to look straight at her. Edith pushed open the rusty door and walked in a straight line over her little cement patio to the edge of what had become her world. Helen replaced her entire backyard lawn with plastic grass drilled into the ground. The hyper-pigmented artificial turf was an impossible green against Edith’s own yellowing patch of earth. The toes of her taupe orthopedic shoes touched the verdant border of their two universes. 

Helen waved her over and smiled, but her eyes were a mystery behind thick black sunglasses that swallowed her face. Edith stepped over lawn flamingos that were the same shade of pink as the house. Helen unlocked the metal cage around the patio and took slow, shaky steps towards the little pool. A little red pepper hung on the door, which Edith remembered from her seventy years living in the Bronx among the other immigrant families. The Italians always had a cornicello hanging on the rearview mirror to ward off the evil eye. The minute Helen opened her mouth it sounded like home.

“You’re telling me your grandson’s never seen a pair of tits before?” Helen asked. She bobbed up and down in the crystal water with a jocular expression. Edith nodded and sat on the edge of the lawn chair where Helen was sunbathing. She took off her massive black sunglasses revealing freckles from decades of sun damage and a large scar on the left side of her nose where some scalpel-happy dermatologist had cut deep into the tissue. The scar alluded to what her skin might have looked like when it was younger. It was a solitary island of taut, creamy rose among the leathery folds of her face. Edith hiked her linen pants up to her knees to cool herself. It was the only part of her body she could bear to see.     

“No one coming to see me. I never had any babies.” Helen declared with a hint of pride. Edith fanned herself with a magazine. The rotating fan did nothing more than push around the heat. Her son and his family would be at the beach by now probably setting up folding chairs and burning themselves on the sand. Even though their visit had been the one she had been waiting for all year, sitting with Helen made Edith the happiest she could remember. Despite the fact that both of them were to live out their years in the same peninsular, tropical limbo, Helen seemed not merely at peace but hopeful. Edith forgot what hope felt like.  

“Come join me,” Helen said. Edith looked down at her bare calves. She couldn’t remember being naked in front of anyone other than her doctors and her late husband. She could have stepped across both of their lawns and tried to find something to swim in, but a part of her felt like if she left Helen’s yard she would never return. Edith was on the threshold of something other than death and she didn’t dare look back. 

She peeled off her ill-fitting blouse and pulled it over her head. She let her elastic pants fall to her ankles. She unhooked the bent underwire brassiere which poked into her ribs and let her chest expand with breath. Edith looked down at herself and saw the myriad ways gravity had rearranged her form. She stood in the light in front of Helen with nothing between them, her spirit more naked than her body. Helen saw her and didn’t look away. Edith could see that Helen did not share in the repulsion the world had with their bodies. They could stand in each other’s presence without the diffidence corporeal hatred seemed to demand. 

The water was tepid. It reminded Edith of when her mother took her to the public baths when she was a little girl. She felt the weight shift off of her swollen joints. Helen paddled towards her until Edith felt the radiant warmth of her body. She reached out and held both of Edith’s hands. They both had thick, green veins rope over tendons and sit below paper-thin skin. Looking into Helen’s eyes, she felt released from the omnipresent sense of imminence that plagued her every waking moment. She forgot her son, his second wife, his spoiled children, and her late husband. Helen inched closer until their thin lips collided with each other, clumsily at first, and then with an innate tenderness that Edith scarcely knew she possessed. Eighty years of memories could not match this single moment of desire, Edith thought. They wrapped their arms around each other and let their bodies touch. She wished she had crossed over the astroturf years ago. Since she had arrived in Boca, Edith had been expected to die but in Helen’s arms, she was just as alive as she was at any age. There was no liminality in death. All those married years of chronic disinterest made sense at last. She was incontrovertibly free from every expectation, not a single person was left to care. At a stage in her life when no one listened, Edith realized she answered to nobody. After a lifetime without passion, here was her introduction. 

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


Lisa Corn is a writer based in Los Angeles and NYC. They received their BFA in Writing from Pratt Institute and have worked at “Saturday Night Live,” interning in the film and script departments. Later, they served as an editorial coordinator and script consultant at BBC Studios/Britbox and are currently working at Disney+ in content planning. Their comedy and fiction have appeared in such publications as Reductress and The Plentitudes. Their scripts have been honored by Screencraft, the Nashville Film Festival, and the Austin Film Festival.

Powered by Froala Editor


by Melissa Darcey Hall

Gioia & Odette

Gioia and Odette meet in the girl’s bathroom near the science classrooms. Gioia lights a cigarette, her thumb still clumsy and hesitant on the flint wheel, while Odette approaches the cleanest mirror and pulls out a pair of tweezers from her pocket. 

“Did you see Arden’s outfit this morning?” Odette asks, pulling out two thick eyebrow hairs in one pluck. 

“Horrible.” Gioia coughs, a thin veil of smoke crawling out of her mouth. 

Gioia hasn’t seen the outfit, but she doesn’t need to. Last week, Gioia and Odette decided they didn’t like Arden. She’s one of those girls with a perfect life, who’s wealthy and always smiling. She’s one of those girls everyone adores—teachers, peers, parents. Universal admiration makes for poor character. Someone has to dislike you. There are plenty of people who don’t like Gioia and Odette. 

Odette looks closer at her reflection in the mirror. She spends a lot of time assessing her features—the too-wide nose, the too-small chin, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Her eyebrows are getting too thin, but she can’t resist the deliciously sharp pain of the pluck. She enjoys sulking in her own created despair, meting out self-inflicted punishments she’s decided she deserves.

She plucks a single hair from the widening space between her brows. A current like an electrical zap runs through her nerves and her arm hairs stand at attention. She nicked some skin that time. As she presses a finger against the dot of blood, she eyes Gioia, who exhales a long stream of smoke.

“You’re going to set off the fire alarm,” Odette tells Gioia.

“Who cares?” Gioia shrugs. “It’s not like my mom’s driving down here for another meeting with the principal.”

Gioia’s mom works nights at a bar and spends her days at home either asleep or on the couch watching reruns of Sex and the City. The school counselor reminds Gioia on a too-frequent basis that she is the apple, her mom is the tree, and it’s up to her how far she falls. Gioia imagines a bruised green apple, desperate to roll away from the tree but incapable of moving. 

“Mine might,” Odette says.

“You think so?” 

“No.” Odette shakes her head. 

Odette’s parents are getting a divorce. For the last six months, her parents’ sole focus has been equally dividing valuables—the BMW, the cutlery, the credit card with ten thousand miles; everything but Odette. 

Gioia takes one last drag, inhales slowly. As she exhales, she lifts her chin, launches smoke like a cannon, and watches it float towards the smoke detector.

*

Gioia and Odette almost look like sisters if you don’t concentrate too hard, which most people don’t. The cashier at CVS tells them they should treasure these years. 

“I have a sister, only I haven’t spoken to her in ten years because of an argument. And you know what? I don’t even remember what we were fighting about,” the cashier says. She’s a sad-looking woman with dark purple half-moons under her eyes and wiry gray hairs that refuse to play nice with her dark brown locks.

“We’ll never stop talking to each other,” Gioia chirps, and Odette leans her head against Gioia’s shoulder.

They play along with the cashier, but they know it’s better to be friends than family. 

“You can’t choose your family, which is why everyone hates each other,” Gioia says, pulling a chip from the Doritos bag. “When I’m eighteen, I'm never talking to my mom again.”

Odette nods. She agrees with the theory, even if it doesn’t explain what happened to her parents. They had chosen each other once, and now they had changed their mind.

“You and I are different.” Gioia smiles. 

Sometimes, it’s like Gioia can read Odette’s mind. 

Odette tugs a Bonne Bell Lip Smacker out of her pocket. She’d slipped it into her jeans when Gioia was talking to the CVS lady.

“Got you something,” she says, and tosses the lip balm to Gioia. It’s Gioia’s favorite flavor: Dr. Pepper. She loves the faint red stain it leaves on her lips, the cherry scent with a spicy bite.

Gioia and Odette liken themselves to Aladdin, from their favorite Disney movie when they were kids. They stole out of necessity. Never anything extravagant; just the essentials, just enough to survive. Neither of them has a job, Gioia’s mom never has cash to spare, and all of Odette’s parents’ money is going to the divorce lawyers. 

The CVS manager comes outside to remind them of the sign: NO LOITERING. 

“Go home already and stop squatting at a drugstore,” he says, his hands swatting the air. 

“Calm your nuts, Steve.” Gioia rolls her eyes. “We’re going.”

Steve is always harassing them. It’s annoying because, even though he’s only a few years older than them, he thinks he can boss them around like every other adult. He’s barely 21 years old, and he still lives at home while attending community college part-time. Other than legally purchasing beer, there’s nothing he knows about life that Gioia and Odette haven’t already figured out.

Gioia and Odette walk through the strip mall, NO LOITERING signs hammered to the stucco walls every hundred feet. Their bodies are used to walking long distances. They spend afternoons after school walking anywhere but home. To CVS. The skate park. The Sam Goody with the STORE CLOSING sign.

Today, they walk to the park and collapse into the hard earth, the grass anemic from the drought, and play Life Lines. They invented it a few years ago, and it’s still their favorite game. It passes the time, doesn’t cost a thing, and gives them an excuse to fantasize about a future they otherwise couldn’t imagine.

“You will meet a tall, rich stranger,” Gioia starts, her finger gliding down Odette’s open palm. “You’ll live in a gigantic mansion and have three dogs and go to Spain every summer.”

Odette inspects Gioia’s palm and tells her she, too, will meet a tall, rich stranger. Only this one will take her to Japan, to Hawaii, to Greece. They’ll eat lobster for dinner, tiramisu for dessert. 

“And you’ll only be 22, so you’re not ugly and wrinkly with boobs down to your knees and a butt like a dried apricot,” Odette says. 

Their predictions are always the same, but it excites them every time.

“Any day now,” they reassure each other. Soon, someone will notice them and take them away from here. 

*

Gioia and Odette wait outside the grocery store. Not the one closest to their house, but the supermarket downtown, near the state university. It’s busier, making it easier to blend in and avoid the attention of store managers or police or nosy old ladies who love to tell them to put some clothes on.

Gioia takes a drag from her cigarette. Her third of the day. Odette’s been counting.

“No one smokes cigarettes anymore. You’re going to become one of those ladies with a hole in her throat,” Odette says.

“What are you, a doctor? It’s safer than that acid you took last week.”

Odette rolls her eyes. It was a one-time experiment. The tiny square of paper looked harmless: gossamer thin and pale pink, just like the curtains hanging in her bedroom window. It dissolved almost instantly under her tongue. Odette waited for something to happen—an epiphany, a spiritual awakening, for every inch of her body to vibrate with emotion—but it only made her feel like she had the flu, sweaty and irritated with that empty-stomach nausea. 

“Stop being so moody,” Gioia says. She pinches Odette’s arm and kisses her cheek. 

Odette smiles and presses her cheek, damp from Gioia’s chapstick-waxy kiss, against her shoulder, as if to preserve the kiss forever, like pressing flowers in a journal.

Odette can never stay mad at Gioia, which is part of her frustration. Recently, she’s noticed how muscular and taught Gioia’s legs are; the delicacy of her collarbones; her small ears. Odette wants to reach out and press her fingers against the sharp edge of Gioia’s collarbone. She doesn’t know what this means, incapable of distinguishing jealousy from admiration from sexual attraction. 

Gioia is prettier than Odette, with her shiny, bouncy hair and full lips. Odette’s nose is too big for her face, her eyes round as globes, and her hair frizzy and wavy. Even though Odette is smarter than Gioia, it doesn’t matter. No one cares, especially when no one wants to listen to what you have to say. 

Odette has things to say. She’s read Anna Karenina and Frankenstein and Kierkegaard. She could talk for hours about her Marxist interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Last year, she wrote an essay arguing Romeo and Juliet’s downfall had nothing to do with love, but with their diminishing worth in a capitalist, production-focused society. Their refusal to obey the orders of their parents and prince meant they were no longer valuable. Odette spent hours on the essay and her teacher gave her a C with the comment, this doesn’t answer the assigned prompt! 

Gioia scans the occasional shopper approaching the grocery store.

“What about him?” Gioia asks, pointing at a short, floppy-haired college-aged man wearing a sweatshirt with UCSD embroidered across the front. 

Gioia is good at assessing the threat level of men. Her mother has brought enough of them home for Gioia to consider herself an expert. She knows when a man is angry enough to throw a punch, and when he’s in a good enough mood to take a joke.

Odette nods, and Gioia approaches him. She runs through the pitch they’ve already tried on three men.

“We’re trying to buy some wine for a dinner party we’re going to, but we left our IDs at home and we don’t have time to go back. Would you be able to buy it for us? You’d be a lifesaver.”

The previous men laughed and shook their heads. But Gioia and Odette have done this before, and they know all it takes is for one man to agree.

“You cops?” the man asks.

“What?” Odette laughs. “Of course not. We promised our friends we’d bring wine, and we don’t want to ruin the entire evening. You could come, maybe.”

The man runs his hands through his hair. 

“Okay, sure. I guess. What do you want?”

“A cabernet,” Gioia says, handing him a twenty-dollar bill. 

Gioia has read enough wine bottles her mother leaves piled in the recycling bin to string together an order that makes her sound like an expert. She hands the man the twenty-dollar bill, and he disappears into the store.

When the man returns, fifteen minutes later, he pulls the bottle of wine out from one of his grocery bags and says, “So, you said there was a dinner party?”

“Yeah, but our friends just canceled. So, we’re actually going to head home now,” Gioia says, taking the wine bottle. 

She slips the wine into her backpack and zips the pocket shut. Her shoe laces are double-knotted, her hand ready to reach for Odette’s if she decides it’s best for them to run.

“Oh,” the man says. “Wanna hang at my place?”

Gioia and Odette exchange glances, each daring the other to make the call; to agree to this strange man’s request and prove that, so long as they are together, nothing bad can happen to them.

“We’ll pass, but thanks for the offer,” Gioia says, and Odette sighs, grateful for Gioia’s response.

“How about your number?” he says, looking at Gioia.

“Sure,” Gioia says and shrugs. She creates a contact in his phone. 

“I’m Odette,” Gioia says, and then points at Odette. “And that’s Gioia.”

“I’m Josh,” the man says.

Gioia and Odette walk across the grocery store parking lot in the opposite direction of the man. The bright light of the sunset forces their heads down to observe the concrete. 

They head to the reservoir, small but mostly abandoned because of its sulfur odor. The water is thick with algae, impossible to determine what lurks beneath the surface. When they reach the reservoir, they pass the wine bottle back and forth.

“Did you really give him your number?” Odette asks.

“No,” Gioia says, and takes a sip of wine. “I gave him yours.”

Odette’s face warms. “What? Why would you do that?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Maybe not for you. Now I have to deal with him. Besides, I’m not the one he wanted.”

Odette takes a swig of wine, forcing down the bitter mouthful that tastes more like soggy wood than cherry.

Gioia leans to wrap her arm around Odette’s shoulder, but Odette turns away from her.

“That’s not true,” Gioia says. “Did you see his sweatshirt? I’d bore him. But you could give him a run for his money.”

Gioia waits for Odette to turn around. She knows she will; knows exactly what to say to comfort Odette. 

“This tastes like shit,” Odette says, turning back toward Gioia. She pours the wine into the dirt and laughs. 

Gioia pulls Odette into a hug. Odette’s body is warm and her hair smells like roses. Even when Odette changes shampoo, years in the future, Gioia will always remember the musky honey scent that floated like a cloud around Odette’s head, the only aroma that will remind her of home.

*

Gioia and Odette lead Trevor to the reservoir, his hands tied behind his back. Even when it’s two against one, Gioia and Odette know better than to trust a boy with two free hands. 

“You don’t get to touch,” Odette says.

“Maybe if you’re good,” Gioia smiles.

Trevor nods, walking down the path as instructed while Gioia and Odette follow behind him. He will do whatever Gioia and Odette tell him. It’s why they chose him for this experiment. He’s a studious boy who sits at the front of the classroom in first period chemistry. His hand shoots into the air anytime the teacher asks a question. But more importantly, his face reveals every emotion and thought, and when Gioia accused him of staring at Odette for too long during a lab, he blushed and stammered an incoherent response.

“He’s obsessed with you,” Gioia told Odette, and Odette basked in the warmth of attention for days. She doesn’t like Trevor, but she likes to be liked.

They stop at the bottom of the path where the reservoir sits. The path stretches into a patch of dirt like a stage, with the chaparral serving as a backdrop. To the left, the reservoir is still and murky.

“You got the money?” Gioia asks. 

Trevor nods and hands them $20. 

Gioia goes first. She lifts her Rolling Stones t-shirt over her head and tosses it on the ground. She doesn’t listen to the band, but she likes the print—the red tongue lapping at her chest. Crumpled on the ground, the Cupid’s bow of the top lip presses against a rock, as if sucking on it. She unhooks her bra, a faded purple underwire with inch-thick padding that could hide iron nipples in the dead of winter. Gioia only now realizes that, without the illusion of her pushup bra, her breast size might disappoint Trevor. 

But there’s no turning back. She’s not about to let Trevor think she’s some inexperienced loser. The bra slides down her arms, and she stands before him, topless. She watches Trevor watching her; likes the way his eyes widen, pupils dilate, and lips fidget.

Gioia smiles, nods at Odette. Odette parrots Gioia, stripping off her shirt and bra. Neither of them has made it this far with a boy before. They’ve gotten close. They met up with Josh from the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. After texting Odette half a dozen times, she worried he’d get angry if she didn’t respond. That he’d find her and hurt her. Or, worse, sigh and say, never mind when he found he was talking to Odette, not Gioia.

So, Odette agreed to hang out at his place, but only if Gioia could come. Josh had frozen margaritas ready when they arrived, and insisted they sit on either side of him on a ratty leather couch that sank in the middle. No matter how much Gioia and Odette tried to shift in their seats, they kept sliding toward Josh.

They let him kiss them, which felt electric and exciting. But his hands were rough as he grabbed at each of their bodies, gripping and pulling at their limbs like a butcher preparing an animal for slaughter. When he stood and nodded toward his bedroom, Gioia and Odette stiffened. 

“Come here,” he said, his voice low and demanding.

“Give us a minute,” Gioia said. 

As soon as he disappeared into his bedroom, Gioia and Odette fled the apartment. They didn’t stop running for several blocks. Odette blocked his number before he could text her some cruel thing, and they never visited the downtown grocery store again.

Now, with Trevor, Gioia and Odette stand like statues, shoulders pressed back. Trevor is nothing like Josh. Trevor is putty in their hands; the rabbit to their wolf. Josh, on the other hand, was the wolf. 

The wind starts, and their nipples harden. Trevor grins.

“Can I feel them?” he asks Odette.

“Why?” Odette asks.

“Because I want to,” he says. But it almost sounds like he says “I want you.” And that’s almost the same as “I love you.” 

Gioia wants him to say he loves her. Even if he doesn’t mean it. Just hearing the words, however meaningless when lumped together, would be enough. 

Odette wants him to say he loves her. She knows it might not be forever, that love can mutate into hate, but she doesn’t care. “I love you,” just once, would be enough.

They untie Trevor’s hands, and stand a few feet before him. Gioia and Odette close their eyes and wait.

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor


Melissa Darcey Hall is a writer and high school English teacher in Southern California. Her work has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, Baltimore Review, no tokens, Nimrod, and elsewhere.

Powered by Froala Editor