The End

One of my more experimental autobiographical pieces:

The End (Part 1)

The road ahead curved into the night as two friends leaned in, loving the nearness of one another—something needed to be said but both were waiting to hear the words in the sound of the other’s voice. Mac drove with one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other free to change the radio station and shift the gears but never to hold Liza’s hand. She wished for that. She wished for a lot of things at seventeen. In the fog and moonlight, the windows down and the wind whipping her hair around her neck and face, she was full of impulse and joy and asked Mac to pull the car over into the grass along East Fork. She loved the smell of honeysuckle and told him so, loved the way the flower’s pestle can be pulled through its body from among the petals, the color of vanilla pudding, out the end, bringing with it one glistening bead of nectar. She loved him, she thought.

They left the gold, box-like Honda running and picked some of those magical flowers from the bush on the side of the road. Laughing and breathless, they got back into the car, muddying its old carpet, and drove off. Liza would write about that one day, tell it as part of her love story with Mac, she thought.

I did think that then, and sometimes I wonder if I made Mac stop and collect honeysuckles with me just so that I could write about it. Maybe, but it wasn’t long before I really did have something to write about.

A few weeks after the honeysuckle drive-by, he took me on a picnic. After I had slid into the front seat, I noticed a little wicker basket between us, filled with honeysuckles. I loved their smell and told him so; he said he knew, and I can’t remember how that made me feel. I was hot and worried about the sweat that was beading above my upper lip.

We had made a bet during the basketball madness of March: whoever predicted the most winning teams on their bracket would take the other person out to dinner in April. I won, and we were both surprised. And before May and short sleeves, I was called, picked up, and picnicking with a boy. He had done some preparation (I remember the individually wrapped turkey sandwiches), but I don’t think either of us were ready for what we both wanted—first love.

On the edge of the lake, we spread a blanket over patches of grass and dirt and gravel. I masked my nervousness with questions or short monologues punctuated by laughter, and Mac fought off the geese that approached our claim of land in the public park. Geese, turkey sandwiches, and humidity hardly make for a romantic evening, but we didn’t know.

I’m not sure why, but after finishing all the food in the blue and white cooler, I suggested that Mac and I sit back-to-back, leaning against each other until we were done talking and he was ready to take me home. I think it had to do with those sweat beads again and my certainty that they were the reason Mac kept shifting his gaze between my eyes and lips. I felt more comfortable without him staring at me; he was probably relieved to talk into the night air.

After that night, there was coffee and prom and ice-cream and his home and dinner and the movies, but we never dated. During our senior year of high school, my confusion about the fact that he never asked me to be his girlfriend turned to hurt, and then, to anger. It was hard to be friends, and graduation was a relief. We stopped talking when we moved to different cities to start college, but when we both returned home for Christmas break, he called and asked if we could get coffee. “Definitely!” I couldn’t wait. At the end of the evening, he gave me a Christmas present—it was honeysuckle lotion. I didn’t say anything accept thank you, searching his eyes for the meaning behind the gift. He looked away, and I watched some lighted airplane in the sky.

*****

Mac brought me back a painting from his trip to Jamaica the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade. It hangs in my bathroom. Two trees, rooted in a river bank, lean in towards one another. They are black against the orange and pink sky. A yellow ball suspends above the horizon. Sometimes I think it’s setting—sometimes, rising.

I invited Mac to my apartment for dinner at the end of last Christmas break. After a couple years, it was time to catch up. I looked forward to seeing him but took down the canvas he gave me for the night.

Mac leaves Liza’s small apartment, still a little hungry—he didn’t have seconds of her homemade lasagna, because he’s lifting with the guys, trying to lose some weight—it’s not that he didn’t like it though, it was really good. He’s surprised that as he opens his car door he thinks about the time he put a basket of honeysuckles between the two front seats because he knew Liza loved the smell of them. He felt stupid then, and now. She had moved on. Why couldn’t he? Maybe I should just call her and invite her to coffee—as a thank you for dinner? Did she really mean that she hopes we don’t go so long again without talking? She still laughs the same way and just as often.

Mac realizes the next exit is his. The strip of road to get off the highway curves around a large, grassy mound, causing him to lean towards the empty passenger seat

I’ve tried to write his next thought—the one where he realizes he loves Liza—but I can’t live in that moment before sunset—beautiful, before the sun drops and all is dark.

When I hang the canvas back up the next morning, it slips off the nail in the wall, landing face down on the floor.

I’m staring at the frayed edges of the coarse cloth, pulled taut around the wooden frame.