Listen to me, he says. I want to take off your clothes. He looks out the window at that huge cheese ball moon hanging there so sad in that big black sky.
No I say.
Why not? You’ll like it. We’ll just sit here in the moonlight naked. It’s a good night for it.
He’s right about that. It’s hot. Too hot. I’d like to take off my clothes but he’s just so, well, old. Why would I want to sit with him in the backseat of his T Bird naked looking at the moon? I like the car and all, but he has a grey mustache, just like my grandpa. I haven’t sat naked with any boy since Jimmy and I played doctor that time, let alone one with a grey mustache.
Maybe we could go swimming in the creek after, he says.
After what? I say.
You know.
No I don’t.
Well, if you don’t know I can’t tell you.
I like the idea of going swimming, letting the cool water slide over my naked body. I like that feeling, just floating downstream in that green water to where the tree overhangs the creek. That water is the color of my sister’s ring, Emerald, she said. She got it out of a Cracker Jack Box. It was real pretty, shiny and glowed in the dark. I could pull myself out there under that big tree, lie on the bank, smell the stars, think about my sister’s ring. She’d be 15 now, three years older than me. If she wasn’t dead that is. I wish she was here to tell me what to do. I miss her.
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This is a fabulous voice! I immediately get a sense of a real (and compelling) character here. And of her world. The details of the Cracker Jack box ring are wonderful. More!
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