AUGUST TO AUGUST by Linda McMullen
SHORT STORY
WHEN YOU ARE UNWILLING TO COMMIT TO A LOVE YOU RUN A GREAT RISK. AUGUST, 1994 Jane’s horse soared as Lance’s descended: she was perched atop a decorous gray with a blue saddle and a spray of pink roses cupping the horn, while he sat astride a fading black with a faintly ferocious expression. Her hair was loose and bounced against her narrow shoulder blades as the horse raced through the circling sunset. He almost changed his mind. “Jane –” He hadn’t meant to sound like that – a puckish Errol Flynn alighting on Olivia de Havilland’s windowsill – but there it was, hovering in the air between them. She flashed a smile. “Do you remember the first time we came here?” Lance fumbled for the obligatory yes. State Fair, seven years ago, when Jane was still in braces and he had just gotten his license. But their merry-go-round spun on.
“I remember,” she said. She girlfriend?” hummed the first few bars of “In Jane, channeling her namesake the Air Tonight” – she was a little Miss Austen, had said, archly, “I’d flat – but that Phil Collins moment be honored.” was one for the ages: Lance had been skinny and The swirling fair lights – sardonic – but redeemed himself The back of his neck sweating – with a runner’s physique and a The Agnes in Davidlyrical tenor, and a passion for the Copperfield-serenity in her eyes. English language that bordered His gamboling-puppy on the obscene. He had gotten clumsiness: “Do you want to… several invitations to successive um…go steady?” Even at the time, Sadie Hawkins dances, and had the expression was twentyfive years out of date; a fragment of his teenaged ego had fizzled, hissed, dissolved. “I mean, do you want to – make Everyone loves to read it official?” Worse. Finally: “Will www.BooksNPieces.com you be my Click for full rates
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