Ted Weesner, Jr.
She was blue between the toes. I checked before our flight.
She was blue between the legs. Hard to miss with her balanced atop a USAir
toilet, another shade of blue waiting to swirl electrochemically beneath our
seat. I was the only one who knew,
a fact I held dear. Glimpse us on the street — holding hands, sometimes
skipping — figure we had it all figured out. Secretly you might hope to see
us die. In spectacular fashion — shot from the sky in our floating hot-air
balloon, taken out by a boy, his collie, a new .22. A trip, we decided, a trip!
That would right our wrong, correct what no one else could see. Her old friend,
a dreadlocked trustafarian, offered to share his piece of Costa Rican beach.
Minutes out of the plane’s lavatory — she exited first, I waited, basking — we were
fighting again. Battling at the baggage claim. Quarreling in the cab. Then we
were tracing the coast, white sand yawning beneath a bluff. We shut right up.
This had been her idea all along: the proper body of water would reset our
magic. Her skinny pal Stan met us at the door. The gaunt frame and waist-length
locks—matted, coppery, roped—they seemed not to square. His bungalow was
smaller than expected, requiring he sleep on the couch while we procreated
silently, toothlessly. Behind our closed door we smelled him brewing morning
coffee, the mandatory silence working wonders. Still, she was blue. How I loved
the blue! How I wished that blue ill! As always, she exited first. When I got
to the kitchen, Stan was pouring a stream of cream into her deep mug and she
was watching. They looked up; I may as well have barked. I lay a hand on her
hip. She stepped aside. Hand falling. The three of us, we walked the beach. For
a cadaverous man with mushroom-scented shag he knew so much about local flora.
She listened closely. I followed suit. On a rocky point, he proposed a swim,
shedding his ridiculous laughing skull t-shirt. She dropped her sundress.
Underneath: a canary-yellow bikini bound around maliciously milken skin. I was
another brand of white, blotchily so, requiring I remain clothed, sit on a
rock, supervise. They bobbed in the phosphorescence, paddling far enough out
that their words became abstract. Just a murmur beneath the waves. They took
their time and finally she left the water after him. Dripping mercury, I
believe. Stan and I gawked as she knotted her hair. Armpit flashing: blue. The
skinny bastard missed it. Alas, dinner on his porch. Stan flambéing some local
predator fish he’d speared with cloudy anis-flavored liquor. We were sipping
the same. Sun hovering over moaning water. Rail-thin Stan narrating a
convoluted story about his brother the fighter pilot. He took Stan up one night
in his F-16, both of them tanked. A dozen times they crisscrossed a moonlit
field, close enough to make cornstalks bend. Stan had announced: he was not
coming down. Yet here he was. Stan. For dessert he served us oranges doused
with rum. She said she was tired. I trailed her to our room. Hoping to see
things blue. Her skin tasting of salt, but then she nodded off. At dawn I
reached an arm across our bed. Empty. Crept to the porch. Seagulls divebombing.
Sun peeking over, riptide ripping. There they were, laid out on a vast beach
towel. Nightgown bunched at her hips. Coils of hair flowing out, unfurled to
the sea. Stan was in the blue. Me? I was drifting overhead, waiting for the
shot.
Ted Weesner, Jr.’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, The
Cincinnati Review, The Boston Globe, Glamour, Memorious, and Gastronomica, as well as on NPR. His story “Tuscaloosa” was a Best
American Notable selection. His play, “The King Size,” was a
finalist for the Prague Playwriting Contest, and was produced there in
2009. A recipient of the PEN/New
England Discovery Award, two Somerville Arts Council grants, an award from the
St. Botolph Club, and a residency at the MacDowell Colony, he teaches writing
at Tufts and the Museum School in Boston.
This story appeared in Sakura Review III.
