Lights All Night Long by Lydia Fitzpatrick

Author:Lydia Fitzpatrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

She drove home a different way, on a road that followed the pipeline. There was a fence now, the pipeline unfurling behind it, and Ilya thought of his arm and how it had quivered. He imagined the pipeline curling toward him, a long silver finger, and he felt another jolt of fear, but then it curved away from him across a flat stretch of water.

“That’s Weeks Bay,” she said. “Cam took me fishing out there when I was little. You can’t go now ’cause of the pipeline.”

The refinery was on the other side, its lights long on the water, and Ilya imagined the fish, swimming all night long in the brightness. He wondered how they’d adapt to it, whether their eyes would shrink from the light until they’d turned into a different species entirely.

It wasn’t until they’d pulled back into the Masons’ driveway that Ilya thought to ask, “What about J.T.?” and as he asked the question, he imagined J.T. watching them kiss through the bus windows. He imagined J.T. at school on Monday, marching down the hallway toward him.

“What about J.T.?” she said.

“I thought he was—”

“He’s my cousin. My actual cousin. He’s the only one that knows about my mom besides the Masons. And you.”

“That’s good news,” Ilya said, and Sadie laughed and this time he leaned in and kissed her.

That night his email to Vladimir was a long one. Ilya told him about the party, about kissing Sadie, about her adoption and her mother and that J.T., that miracle of high school muscle, was her cousin and nothing more. He asked Vladimir what it would be like tomorrow, whether he could assume that she would kiss him again, or whether it might be a discrete occurrence. Any suggestions, he asked, for where to put my hands when we kiss? And he smiled because he could hear what Vladimir’s answer would be: Down her pants, durashka. He told Vladimir about the pipeline, about how he’d actually touched it and that the oil had sounded like blood does in your temples. His whole body was throbbing with the night, with the excitement of it, and then there it was again: the blinking cursor, Vladimir’s life. I heard about the arraignment, he wrote. Please, he wrote, please don’t say you did something you didn’t.

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