Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Author:Jeffrey Stepakoff [Stepakoff, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Published: 2010-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

LILY’S STAR

A whitetail buck browsed through the vines in the darkness outside the cabin and then moved on. Inside, pools of blue-green moonlight rippled along the floor and walls.

“Do you think if we lie here long enough the kudzu will come get us?” Jake wondered aloud. He lay on his back while Lily, spooned against him and propped up on an elbow, fed him corn soufflé with her fingers.

“Fear not, my darling. I will protect you.”

“Thank you. That gives me great comfort, O killer of the vine.”

“You don’t kill the kudzu. You can’t kill the kudzu. It’s like the moon and the stars. It is always there. You see, you have to make peace with kudzu.”

“I see. Befriend the vine.”

“Exactly.”

“You are wise beyond your years.”

Jake sucked soufflé off her fingers and kissed playfully up her arms, rapt with the scent and softness of her ruddy, glowing skin. She smiled teasingly and rolled atop him, continuing to feed him the sweet corn pudding and kissing him, first on his face, then his neck, and slowly along his chest.

“You realize you are going to kill me!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, but, mmm…what a way to go,” she said mischievously between kisses, her lips moving unhurriedly across his taut belly, moisture from her tongue lingering on him as she spoke. “They found them, surrounded by a mass of vines which had climbed on everything in sight—”

“—except, strangely and inexplicably, it had not touched their decomposing bodies. Because they had ‘befriended the vine.’”

Lily laughed as she kissed his body.

Jake loved this playful, fun, curious side of her, but where was she finding this stamina? he wondered. She seemed to be making up for all the time they had not been together like this. Trying to wrap the past, and perhaps the future, into the here and now. What she was doing now did something to him, and he gave himself over to her.

He stroked her hair as she came across a deep scar that started on his side, just above his hip bone. She stopped and traced the scar, which became deeper and broader across his lower back.

He pulled away a little and she could feel the entire tone change. She had stumbled across a ghost, and her touch had conjured the apparition. She knew instantly not to ask about it, but at the same time her lack of words left a void that promised to engulf this precious and newfound thing between them that he did not want to go. Jake lay back, and after a long moment, he spoke again.

“People listen to the reporters and they read the papers and they see the newsreels, but they don’t understand. They can’t. War is a private experience. And the longer you’re at it and the more you see, and the more you do…” Jake’s voice cracked ever so slightly. He paused for a moment, then continued, “The more private an experience it becomes.”

For the first time, Lily got a glimpse into what Jake Russo had been

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