Later by Leigh Rastivo
The sun sets on September eleventh—it has to. Raw pink catches light in the lavender sky over the Naval Station in Puerto Rico, then it all dims to cadet blue. Earlier, before seven that morning, Jane invites Sam to watch the sunset with her later, to celebrate their anniversary. She sits on the bed like a girl, cross-legged on their quilt, tugging laundry from a white heap beside her and snapping it into shape. Sam knows she watches the crisp, silver hairline at the back of his neck as he dresses in his khaki uniform. Except for his pant legs shushing and the mechanism of his brass belt buckle jingling, the room is silent.
Sam turns and sees Jane fold one side of his briefs backward, then the other, exposing the crotch. She places the creased underwear on the bed. From under the wash pile, Jane pulls out a picture frame. She pushes it over the quilt at Sam. Sam takes it and turns away. His back to her, he studies it, fingering the inlaid frame, light wood in dark, the kind he knows she knows he likes. In the picture, he is about fifteen, longhaired and rib thin, his face crispy—sunburned— except for the white lines on each side of his mouth, arching from his nostrils to his dimples.
“Remember?” Jane asks.
Sam glances at her as she rolls towels into cylinders and balls his socks into pairs. She is more freckled-faced now—her pale skin dividing against itself every year; but her hair is still the wild mess he loved. He knows the day of the picture: a day in July when he rides his bike the five miles between his house and Jane’s. Jane answers the double doors in a tank top and cutoffs, the phone balanced on her creamy shoulder, veiled in her frazzled curls. She points to a stack of books beside the door and keeps yapping while he stacks them in his bike basket. He rides to the library—another two miles on that damn rusty bike—returns her books, and then rides home, humming some Beatles happiness. He only wears that goofy grin on his face—he forgets to use lotion or wear a hat— so the love smile becomes etched into his face. His sister giggles about his blazing skin and snaps this picture of him with her Polaroid with the intent to share with Jane and the other popular girls. Later, when his mother sees, she moans I hate that Jane, as if Jane were the sun. Later still, Sam’s face seems to molt. He has four different skin tones at once, all flaking for weeks. Jane tells him he looks blotchy.
“Remember how you loved me?” Jane asks now, retrieving another pair of briefs from the pile, arranging them neatly.
He does. Jane is adorable back then, this flame-headed creature who walks the halls of high school with him, snapping her gum when he’s trying to kiss her.
“Sunset tonight?” Jane asks him now.
“I have a dinner meeting.”
They have battled about this for weeks—his long days at the Command, her insistence that he come home earlier, and sit beside her in the black iron chairs on their seaside porch, watching a sunset or two before he gets orders off the island. When will they again live in a concrete box the color of a creamsicle? When will they have such a view? The shimmying palms, a buzz in the mangrove, the Caribbean Sea blinking at a neon sky. Evidently, it’s a goddamn honeymoon but Sam is never there for it.
“Do you think I’m out having fun?” Sam asks.
“I think you can afford one sunset.” Jane flattens his undershirt against her torso, holds it there with her chin, creases it, folds it in half, stacks it, pats it, and grabs another pair of briefs.
“When was this photo taken?” Sam gently tosses the frame towards her. Such an arrogant gift, this old picture of a love for her. It lands oddly on its side near the waning heap of unfolded wash. Sam turns for the door. He hesitates.
In ninety minutes, Sam will be in his office, watching the news. The first far off footage comes at him, and the tower seems to sift down like a sandcastle, to just whisper to dust. Later, with the constant watching, Sam will know that whisper is really a roar. Now Jane twists his briefs and pulls from both ends. Her forearms quiver. Before he goes, Sam hears the smallest snap from inside the waistband, but the fabric doesn’t give or tear yet, and there is work to do elsewhere. Sam leaves. He has a little more time to think there’s a little more time.
Artist’s Statement
The stories that come to me tend to fixate on the undercurrents in relationships, particularly those that lurk beneath the idealized “white picket fence.” My writing is also haunted by the class disparity beast, just like my childhood was.
Leigh Rastivo is a fiction writer and essayist. She has earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Fiction Writing from Bennington College, taught writing as an Adjunct Professor, and been accepted at the Under the Volcano international residency where, this January, she will present and hone two novels (one literary and one speculative) before casting them into the world.