This is an excerpt from a short story I'm working on... Enjoy.
Everyday during the summer we skipped down to one of the docks off Lake Junaluska. Our favorite dock stretches only five or six feet from a grassy trail lined with magnolia trees and a single weeping willow perched smack in the center of them, directly in front of the half-rotten wooden boards. A cherry-stained gazebo sits a couple yards behind that woeful willow. It was our favorite spot. Charlie picked it out. He said the irony of the scene fit perfectly for summer days. In the mornings the magnolias represent beauty and bright life beneath the beating sun. Their flowers reflect the penetrating light and color the undisturbed water with their soft pink hues. The lonely willow tree predicts the impending afternoon storms, its stringy green tendons flapping with the wind, lapping the rippling lake.
The sun shone relentlessly those warm midmornings as we dangled our legs off the pier, my toes tickling the chilly green water. Lake “J” swallowed Charlie’s ankles. He was several inches taller than me. He’d kick some water up onto my legs when I got too hot so I wouldn’t have to bend down to scoop some up myself, hold my balance just right so I didn’t tumble right in with the murk. I’d rub the water up from my knees, onto my sizzling thighs, and scoop up the rest of the trickling droplets to give my arms a drink. We’d spend an hour or so just sitting on that dock, catching up and talking like we didn’t see each other nearly every day, know the patterns of the freckles on our respective backs. Then the wind would slowly pick up, the sun cowering away from fresh ripples on the water’s surface. But it wasn’t cause for alarm until the willow tree lapped at the water, smacked it with his spindly tentacles. That’s how we knew to retreat toward the gazebo. He warned us every time with no more than a few minutes notice. We’d snatch up our towels, snacks, and sunscreen, whatever we’d brought with us that day, and hit the sanded benches in the gazebo just before the first sprinkles fell. Dark, threatening clouds covered the sky, laying shadows across the footbridge in the distance, a slow veil cast down from the mountains. Sometimes we’d wait out a quick shower. We’d see it start over Chambers Mountain to our right, sweep over the dam and make its way toward us. It’d linger ten, maybe fifteen minutes then trail off beyond Pilot Mountain on the other side of the lake. Sometimes the wind raged furiously, sending the rain pelting through the open sides of the gazebo. Thunder rocked above, shaking the ground. These storms would last at least an hour. And I wouldn’t have to go home for lunch. Charlie’d spread out our towels on the dirty floor and we’d lay there in silence, side by side, staring up at the elaborate woodwork of the ceiling. In later weeks he’d hold me. Eventually he kissed. Before the end of that summer we’d make love as long as the storm forced us together. The wind whipped the rain across our saturated limbs, mingling with sweat, surging an incomparable intensity through our veins. I longed for those days. Said a prayer every night: “Dear God, please bring an almighty storm tomorrow around noon. Amen.”
Maybe I should have prayed, “don’t ever let it end.” Now I wish I had.
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