Small Acts of Sex and Electricity by Lise Haines

Author:Lise Haines
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Published: 2006-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

twelve

I have no affinity for the afterlife. No desire to play with its rolling energy as Jane did. She treated death like a boy inside a tire at the top of a steep road. She stood in his path, unflinching, taunting his friends to let go of the rubber rim.

I’ve never liked cemeteries. But Jane and I doubledated once at the cemetery where we would later bury Franny. When we were teenagers, Jane had this thing about fixing me up. Sometimes I think she just wanted a group around, but if she made plans for the afternoon or evening, there was typically some guy for me. The friend of the boy she was dating. Or someone she thought of dating but had changed her mind about. Or just a nice guy because she said that’s what I needed. An all-weather type. An anorak. I couldn’t work out her sense of meteorology.

She always wanted me to go with her to the volleyball nets at Butterfly Beach, to burger places—sites where boys congregated. Though I was only a couple of inches shorter than she, I felt dwarf-like when they signaled with their barely-fed expressions. And they did, they always signaled to her with their eyes or hips, cigarettes low in their mouths—classic boy stuff.

There were the beach dates. I was offered Cokes and cones from take-out windows for the price of a boy’s sandy lotion and sweat. At the far end of the blanket, Jane and her date. She had ease. Her whole body looked relaxed and she kept those guys jumping up and down in the sun. She laughed off anything she didn’t want. If she wearied of a boy’s attentions, she ran into the ocean. For the movie dates, she convinced me to keep my glasses at my family’s rental. In case I wanted to make out, she said. Otherwise, they’ll steam up. I sometimes thought I could make her happy, even temporarily. We double-dated and knew the back rows of movie theaters. The comedies drove me crazy, especially the physical ones with pratfalls and punches. I think some of those boys considered me sullen or standoffish, not realizing I was nearsighted. But there were a couple boys I liked in the bunch she procured. I knew they weren’t designed for me, but I thought about them later. Tom Rainer came ready-built, for a purpose. And I turned him over in my mind for a while. I don’t mean years, but I thought about him. And then, when we buried Franny, the chauffeur we had, he leaned against that exact mausoleum, or one just like the one I remembered, as if there were a circular, repetitive quality to events that we’re supposed to get.

......

Jane’s boyfriend Nate was the one who suggested we go to the cemetery. Maybe he wanted to please her. I was fourteen then, Jane fifteen. I didn’t mind going that much, I said. She said it would be like breaking into like a Masonic Lodge or a country club.

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