Guests After A Wedding: Ladyairplane
GUESTS AFTER A WEDDING
The sun set on that joyous occasion. The bride and groom had long since departed but the guests were lazily draped across the cool lawn. We were enjoying the yellow green tint the setting sun had caused to seep across the sky.
I am sipping on old leather, my back is turned against the dark glass patio sliding door. It is night. Parachutes of heavy soft cloud unfurl their fluffy legs as your soft cricket symphonies accompany me into the moonset. This music, this dance, this procession of dreams tastes of summer and cut grass and the way the breeze blows. Summer plays via a one hundred and twenty piece insect orchestra, swooning and serenading us under violet blankets of night. The sticky heat of the day has turned to a cool breeze and I decide to find my missing pair among the crowds.
I push through the people,cutting through the wind like it's ocean deep. It pulsates like another heart beat and I feel like I'm in slow motion. I spot her towards the white picket fence,coppery hair dusted in the pink flower clips she always wore. She told me that red heads weren't allowed to wear pink but she always went against that. I didn't mind what color she wore. She always looked like a princess to me.
I can’t seem to be able to feel anything. The deep music is doing the breathing for me; it pushes and pulls its melody and pumps my bloody heart full of ice water.
You’re absolutely beautiful. What if there was a place like that place in my head. Part Honolulu, part Brisbane, part Seattle, part Manila, where chandelier music drips constantly into my ears as I run through your parent’s backyard in bare feet. Sand gets everywhere and things chirp at me in the darkness.
I reach her end of the long backyard and grab her by the hands. She smiles as I twirl her around before planting a kiss on her nose.
"Come with me." I whisper in her ear.
"What?"
"Come with me."
She picks up the hem of her sun dress and runs in the same direction I'm taking. We rest under a weeping willow tree where the white picket fence lets out to the beach. a stucco beach house rests not far from us.
I am just a visitor but I really want to stay here; I honestly wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. My friend,the groom,has given me a skeleton key to the guest room for the rest of the week and sometimes I creep down the hall like a thief and steal across the front yard to meet her in the shadows. She has pretty eyes but I can never hold her gaze. Sometimes we walk on the shore and cut our feet on seashells. And her dad has a boat. But I've never touched one and he'd have my head if I wrecked it.
We stood like strangers on the beach till it was way past midnight. The chalky moonlight beat down on our sunburned shoulders. The twilight deepened and I wanted to drink it. The wind and the boats talked things over together. A murmuring spray washed in and surrounded us knee-deep in a sparkling monotone, fizzing in the eventide swirl. The moon flowers opened their white trumpet blossoms and she picked one of them and held it to her nose.
I pushed it into her hair instead.
"I like it when you wear flowers in your hair."
The look on her face suggested she'd start glowing like a firefly any moment. I loved it when she looked like this.
I blushed again and she kissed me.
"I like it when you say that." she said,her voice sweet like sugar.
The wind whipped through our hair and we cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. A ring of silver foxes crept in the shadows. Almost ominous,since I knew she was leaving in the morning and when she did,this place would seem less beautiful.
"Let's take a walk." I suggested. "You can see the stars better over this way."
"I hope you're not vexed with my leaving." Her face looked genuinely sad.
Her saying it didn't help. I wanted her to stay here with me forever. I knew she was coming back but emotions can't be tamed with fact.
I fondled the ring in my pocket,wondering if I should ask her tonight. Perhaps when she returned from London.
"The stars are clearer out here. away from the house lights." She said dreamily. My hands had been in my pocket up until now. She touched my wrist and nudged my right hand into hers. I instantly felt ten degrees warmer. It's silly how they do this. A female can make you feel either like a knight or a puddle. I was a puddle.
We cooled our heels on the rail of a rusty observation deck. The sound of a distant acoustic guitar drifted from somewhere across the bay, where folks sat around a blazing bonfire, laughing and hooting and eating slices of watermelon, spitting seeds out ten feet or more.
"Somebody's having a party." I commented.
"Mmm smells good." she sighed. Her toes were painted sea foam and when she dipped them in the sea,I thought she might just turn into a mermaid and swim away.
"How long will you be away?"
The atmosphere hung heavy with the scent of an approaching thunderstorm and romance glimmered in a western shower of stars. She looked at me with those Ocean Eyes. I can’t remember where they came from, but she had the eyes, and I said to myself,
“The sun rises and sets in those eyes.”
She loved it when I told her that.
"I'll be back in next summer." She said plainly,gripping my hand tighter. She looked at me pleadingly. "Wait for me?"
"As long as there's stars in the sky,my lady." And I meant it.
I stood up and held her hands in mine. I didn't need to ask because my eyes did that for me. The music of the spheres collaborated with the rushing rhythm of the evening tide. Swish-boom-crash our feet moved to the beat. I twirled her around and her skirt ballooned and spun like a pin-wheel. I dipped her back and she responded by kissing. It was a rare kiss. A special one. And I drank deep from it. Like she was a tall glass of water and I was desperately parched.
I watched her drive away from the seaside house that night,the stars leaning down as if to kiss her as I had. I went straight to bed regardless of it's pointlessness. Even if I couldn't sleep,bed was a more comfortable place to lie.
I lay there,turning the ring over in my palm,thinking about our dance and our kisses.
How there would be more. And how…
Next time we met. We wouldn't be guests at a wedding. It would be our wedding.