Smoking - Camilla Basham

I stand alone in the corner watching the door. Singing a happy song in my head to drown out the snickers and laughter directed my way. “How long can you withstand torture, Ruthie?” an inner voice interrupts. And I have a feeling that voice isn’t referring to just this night. “No more.” I answer back. It’s obvious he’s not coming: no first dance, no first kiss.

I pass two of the mean girls smoking in the corner and leave the sweaty gym to the strains of some mushy generic love song and giggles from some other girls who will no doubt grow up to be total bitches (sorry God). I hear the metal door slam shut behind me just as the chorus kicks in. Now the only sounds are the crickets and the distant rumble of the oil refineries. The only light besides the full moon is from a windowpane a good hundred yards past the rice field. I hike up my dress kick off my Mary Janes for the last time and follow that light towards Will’s house. A breeze delivers the scent of honeysuckle to my nose and a chill to my bare arms. About twenty yards into the already flooded rice field the sky opens up; lightening sizzles the air and I feel raindrops the size of buckshot pelting my falling hair, the occasional warm crayfish hole squishing between my toes.

I stare at that light the way MawMaw, when she forgets to take her medicine, stares at the test pattern on the TV screen long after the station signs off for the night: half disappointed, half hopeful. I make it to Will’s windowsill and see the light is coming from his kitchen, so I tap, but no one answers. I walk around to the back to an opened kitchen window and hear the faint sound of a radio playing somewhere inside. The sheer curtains dance in the breeze and I put my lips to them and whisper, “Will.” In the air a familiar smell, an out of place scent. It reminds me of the time my brother took me dove hunting against my will and I hid behind sand bags in the marsh covering my ears as he pumped away at the falling birds overhead.