Lantern Light (Work in Progress)

Through the birches in the backyard they strung white paper lanterns for the party they threw in late August, and when dusk came in and the dark began to settle, the effect was sort of thrilling in its own simple way, the white warm orbs a reflection of the netted stars above, perhaps. Steady and unblinking, they hung amongst the rustling leaves, the edges blurred and beautiful—everyone who stood on the back deck with a beer in hand looked at them and paused for a moment to stare and gaze and comment. “How nice they look,” “how positively magical." And of course there was Clara Gibson in pale yellow, the dress scooped low in the back, the waist tied fast with a bow; she walked across the deck, the paper lanterns aglow in the dark behind her as she twisted her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, the way she often did. Her arms were thin and too long, but that seemed almost a part of her appeal, that uncertain length and litheness of her bones. Even so, that appeal wasn’t so much charm as much as you felt if you were patient, she might begin to unfold—a petal would fall loose first here and then there, finally offering up a narrow glimpse to the center.

Peter felt glad she had come, felt a little warm from the beer and because here was Clara striding across his back deck in the muggy August air and she would, at one moment or another, perhaps stand close to the hydrangea bed with her face lit by the nearest lantern. It had been years since, as children, they pedaled plastic boats at the cottage house their families once rented together; years since he pushed her into the cold lake for telling everyone he had got them lost along some weedy shoreline one morning; since he saw her kiss his cousin behind the tool shed with quick, closed lips. They bumped into one another in hallways now, chatted outside the cafeteria with friendly faces tipped with that look of knowing one another since childhood, but little else. Still, he was glad she had come.

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