Mile-markers

He let the engine die and let the ticking of the engine settle as he waited in the driveway.

It had been awhile since he had last seen her...but she had been branded in him in an indelible fashion.  The years were like mere minutes and he felt the slight heat rise inside of him as he anticipated her arrival.  The clenching, anxious moments...what the hell...he needed to just relax.

She pulled open the door to the large beachside home and exited in a blur of white and the scent of sunburn and tanning lotion.  She mouthed the word "hi" and got into the seat of the jeep, pulling a pair of sunglasses off her head and nestling them on her face.  She looked at him...like waiting, like she had just seen him versus last seeing him months ago, and she implored him to start the car and drive.

He did.

The sound of the engine and the uptick in the roar of the wind allowed them to be silent...the noise of traffic, the sound of seabirds....the acceleration to the speed limit left them without a need to fill the void of the silence...only when he stopped at the stoplight was it suddenly quiet.  He could smell the potions of her...it smelled of a summer night, full moons and fireflies.  It was pine, sap, sand and salt. If he would ever find a candle that captured this scent he would fill his house with it.  A breeze lit up and the scent disappeared.  She looked at him through her sunglasses.  Her hair was tousled, a bit disrupted...he had seen that before...just never with her fully clothed.

A Pete Yorn song played on the radio.

He pulled into the Corolla Village Barbecue...the lot was filled and noisy.  He found a place where the jeep would fit, tilting on one side, the crushed shell driveway slightly white against the backdrop of the evening.  He stopped the car, turned the keys off and got out.

Dinner.

Dinner was sublime.  The smoke of the mesquite, the scent of the rub...the hustle of the kitchen.  It was noisy inside, the crush of people and sweet tea balanced on waitresses' trays...they ordered brisket and beans, Coronas and sides of water.  They shouted over music and over patrons...they talked with their hands and every so often their hands collided and it was like a fork stuck into a socket...he almost had to withdraw it just to realize they had touched.

It was if no time had happened...no time had spooled...that her perfect magnetic part of her continued to exist and was the exact polarity that attracted his...nobody wanted to mention it...they just let it sit out on the table like the unused spoon.

At one point she had asked what he was thinking...he shook her off...no need to go there.  This was a dinner...not a date...not something promising...rather, it was just a meal.

They walked out of the restaurant...they jostled slightly against each other in a dangerous glance of bodies that were exceedingly familiar.  Or had at least been once.


On the car ride home, up the main drag, they passed the mile markers heading north.  It was dark, the ocean to the right of them, and now and again a white streak of lightning pierced down.  To the left was the last remnants of sunset.  It was a between time.

It was how he imagined them...between the storm and between something dying...between the thunder and the evening-tide.

She fiddled with the radio, found a song and sat back.

The sky was dark black and burnt orange, depending on the direction.

He pulled into the driveway, where she was staying.

She leaned over, a quick kiss, smelling of barbecue and the salt of an evening...in a minute she was gone.

He was parked so that he could see the Atlantic, and it was dark water with darker skies.  Again a quick bulb of lightning parted the sky and for a moment it made him forget the bit of blackness that was soon to return.

It happened anyways...it always did when she departed.