10.17.06

rosy fingered dawn

The air of the living room was still stifling despite the flickering whiteness of snow touching the windows with its grubby fingers. The dry heat came from the heater they had received as a gift, wrapped up in a bow, as she had been, her friends around her drinking apple martinis and laughing at what a wonderful idea it had been. Now the silent hum of its electricity kept her up at night. It suffocated her by drawing from the air its comforting humidity.
She drew herself out of the bed, uncurling herself from Rene�s embrace. His mouth open, he had the pink lips of a choirboy. With the back of her hand, she brushed the blond strands away from his eyes, smiling. Such a boy. When they made love, he laughed; his face blushed red from laughter. It was like a new game.
Now in boxes in her mother�s home there would be announcements printed on cotton, curled and buried in rice as if cuttings waiting to sprout. There would be files of bills, letters, invitations, just now beginning to gather their warm coats of dust.
In the stillness of the night, the little Christmas tree was still flickering. Its light was reflecting off of the champagne bottles they had left there on the floor, now sticky with foam. As she carried these to the kitchen, Melissa thought of how her father had stretched each year to put the simple star on their Christmas tree. The old lights would start to dance only slowly, glowing and pulsing warmly onto their little brown upturned faces. �It only works if you put it up Papa,� they had said.
She wanted now the warm cocoon of humidity that would embrace her like her glossy skinned aunts who ran their hands over her face and pinched her bottom and breasts. With them was always the smell of oil with plantains frying, which was the same as her uncles talking loosely before dinner in their undershirts with her father. Outside, she would sit with the other excited children, all with sugarcane in hand and the sun beaming almost directly at their round cheeks. This way they too cooked slowly. What was then better than mashing the cane between your teeth and feeling the juice drip down your sticky fingers to your bare thighs?
Melissa gingerly stroked the brown skin of her stomach. The boxes were still out. There, in a corner, her mother�s cast iron cooking pan, so heavy that she said you knew you cold cook well if you had strong arms as she did. The bouquet then, boxed and floating in a sea of gauzy tissue. They had paid two hundred dollars to have the moisture sucked out of it, to have it taken apart and pieced back together just like a real flower.
His parents had smiled awkwardly; their present wasn�t in the box. �We couldn�t think of what to get you,� they said. He laughed then, held her shoulders, told them it was all right.
The kitchen was still bare and as Melissa tried to make a cup of coffee, she had to wash one of the dirty cups in the basin for her drink. The new percolator burbled in the darkness. Flicker of lights, bubble of steam hissing into the glass carafe, rising warm nutty smell.
In the fridge, she found eggs, brie, milk, juice and honey. Lying there hovering over everything else was to top layer of their cake, which had probably already become so hard that it could hurt. The fluffy little clouds of frosting would now be like tiny teeth tearing against your mouth while the blue-eyed bride and neat-suited groom watched on. The milk as it disappeared into the dark of the coffee was like a whisper.
There was another thing. Before they had gone to bed Melissa had found a lock of hair, tied in ribbon thrown on the floor. She hadn�t known then what it was, whose it was and had tucked it into the small pocket of her nightshirt for safekeeping.
It was hers.
The hair of her christening, softened with oil everyday, bound with lace and brushed gently each night while lying in a pillow at her mother�s lap.
The mug stung a little as she walked again to the space before the tree. Still outside it was snowing, and against the dry heat, she surrounded herself in the mist of the coffee. Warm, she laid it on her stomach, watching it rise and fall with her breath. The aurora of the Christmas tree had become a warm slow flickering too against her skin, like and exaggerated sunrise. It was too early.
�Melissa?�
It was still night and Ren�, clutching the covers beside him, had found nothing to hold. She stood to meet him, leaving the comfort of her drink on the floor. Looking at him, she wanted to brush back his hair from his eyes with her fingertips.
�Did you get restless again tonight?�
He came up behind her, kissing her neck and winding his arms around her waist.
�Are you all right?�
Rene burrowed his fingers under Melissa�s nightshirt, and suddenly she felt a shock of coolness across her stomach.
He voice vibrated twice in the hollow of her throat.

shi-ou-sama at 8:20 p.m.

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