Heat
Warm rain pelted the two as they ran across the college’s concrete sidewalks and paved roads. The endless droplets that bounced off Marie and Zach seemed like a raiment of steam, rising away from their excited bodies. In matching oversized white t-shirts, a gleam beaming in their eyes, the pair sprang away.
Thirty minutes earlier, at the start of Humbert Love College’s ersatz Holi festival on the lawn of the campus’s main building (Love Hall), the pair had indulged themselves in stimulating conversation and delicious food. They were isolated at the far end of a catering table. A mesquite tree provided inadequate shade from the harsh heat. Helios flew uncovered.
Ouch. NOoooo!
Zach jerked his right hand to his eyes, causing a significant portion of chicken tikka masala to waterfall from the plate in his left hand and onto the grass. A slack grip has been the ruin of many a poor boy.
Are you a plant or are you a sun staring dork? Marie teased.
Everyone’s been lying to me all along. The sun isn’t orange like this incredibly amazing and delicious sauce. It’s the color of pain.
He set his noticeably lighter plate on the table and rubbed his eyes.
For the love of Radha and Krishna did you forge your transcripts to get into this school?
She grabbed a chicken cube off his plate, popped it into her mouth, and licked her fingers.
Ma’am you should question the transcript validity of the student organizers who littered Love Lawn with Ten Commandments and Jesus statues for a Hindu celebration.
She swatted the masala fool’s shoulder and pointed toward the bronze College Helping Horse mascot situated in front of the building.
Look. Those dinguses hung a Buddha banner on the horse. Oh God it’s tie dye.
Unfurling his fingers, a nauseating pulse knocking on his eyelids, Zach saluted the star in the sky— young men are, indeed, capable of learning new tricks. His gaze followed Marie’s tanned and manicured pointer to its target when he suddenly saw blue. The festivities had begun, and a rainbow haze shrouded Love Lawn.
Marie’s laughter rang out. Zach, whose face was covered in powder, pinned down the location of the joyful sounds. He grasped her shoulders gently. Her palms reached out to his chest; she stood tiptoe to speak into his ear, as the raucous crowd continued their powder bombing. Worry lifted her eyebrows and snuck into her voice.
Are you okay?
I will be. Right after this.
The Cheshire grin on his face, with its azure coating and shut eyes and small mouth with red lips and cute button nose and silly sizable confidence that teetered on the brink of arrogance, seized the red hot blood from her brain and thrust it below to her heart which redistributed the precious fluid to her abdomen and limbs and other parts of her body. But for the corporeal flux instantaneously taking place within her, Marie Sato would have noticed Zach Hernandez lifting his right hand from her shoulder immediately to hover over the small of her back while his left hand simultaneously wadded up the shirt above her other shoulder. Three syllables floated from his wide smile.
Excuse me.
The priapic flux in his veins impelled his lustrous forehead to the shirt he held firmly in his left hand. He reeled her in with his right, holding her loosely. His stained head rubbed wildly on her.
The statues and the banner Zach. They’re watching and judging! Marie shrieked and giggled.
The students in the middle of the lawn had not ceased their bombardment. Their positioning far from the crowd, flanked by the mesquite tree, and with vibrant particulates blocking the view of people and statues and banners, Marie and Zach were tucked away in the open.
Although stricken by a temporary absence of sight, his sense of touch more than made up for it. Warm puffs of breath caressed Zach’s neck and ear. An alluring scent blessed his nostrils. Marie’s smooth skin brushed against his knuckles under the shirt. The softness of her back entreated his hand to act as a buttress, bringing the two closer together. Zach remembered the result of a light grip, despite a popping candy explosion descending his throat and the stupefying intoxication of the free-flowing liqueur known as “Ai” or “Amor” affecting his faculties. Electric sensations overlapped emerging emotions. Then their shirt fronts connected. Even with the cotton barriers between them Zach felt something he had never touched so he gasped.
Sato’s hands reluctantly left Hernandez’s chest to rest on his sides as she grew restless. Later, she would claim curry was on his cheek, and she would declare sometimes, to bemused listeners, she couldn’t stand to let a good sauce go to waste. Darting at the vulnerable clean-shaven flesh, Marie’s tongue poked Zach.
He swore unending loyalty to Je-Bud-Rad-Kri if Marie could be with him always. When her tongue left its wet mark, his hands released her while his head pulled away. A sudden extrication.
The state highway leading southwest into Smila, Texas is walled by towering Mesquites and giant Texas Persimmons. White-tailed deer roam this forest, eating and repopulating, as per their natural state. Folks traveling southwest, from Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, minor cities, towns, unincorporated areas, any governmental unit or physical region inhabited by humans northeast of Smila, tend not to notice after dusk solitary bucks hooving the line between asphalt and earth. Bucks will shoot perpendicular through the liminal road the moment they spot drivers. Either a powerful force smites the buck or it remains untouched. In spite of his efforts to be smitten like the former, the boy possessed an uncanny similarity to the latter of Smila’s large-eared transient population.
Finally able to see from the powdered domino mask, Zach noticed Marie’s unchanged countenance tilted sideways. Just like his heart, hers was putting in overtime, pounding away to make a living, but she veiled what she would not reveal. The young woman fretted over her perceived blunder; had she been too forward?
Requited affection demands prompt response and commitment, neither of which the nineteen-year-old Hernandez had the stomach for. The sweetness he experienced earlier became cloying, even though he ached for Sato. Paradoxes aren’t just thought experiments—they’re as real as tortoises, very fast runners, and arrows.
Something other than courage struck Zach’s noggin. Marie, his coeval, exhibiting a preternatural sight capable of identifying a small clear enemy of dust from seven hundred yards, saw it before it hit him. A drop of water. She pushed forward.
Let’s go to your dorm. Clean yourself up there then we’ll go to my place and watch that movie you mentioned. The one with Pacino chasing De Niro.
Marie switched from a nonchalant expression to her comeliest smile. Her doe eyes settled him down. She knew he lived in the newly constructed residential commons at the southeast end of campus, so her hand took his, guiding him to greener pastures. They left the animated celebration.
What’s the name of your place again?
Watt.
Huh? The name of your dorm.
A hint of doubt appearing. A pause.
Watt. Shit sorry. I mean it’s Aurora Watt Residential Commons. Named after that big publisher from the 70s. Our residential advisor mentioned it a hundred times during orientation. That and safe sex. Ah. Um. I mean—
Oh! Her kids are still living off that massive trust fund she set up I guess. They finally got around to honoring mommy. Why are you looking at me like that you goof.
How do you know this stuff?
He felt his fingers being entwined by hers.
The same few names pop up in a big city. I’ve lived in the Smila suburbs since I was a little girl. In a place called Blossom Bank. My aunt and uncle always bring up the Watts the Wilsons the Loves the Gables and the big daddies of em all the Smiths. Smila is named after them you know. Their ancestor. Sumthin Smith. He set up the Smith Land Company. Smith Land Company. They changed it from an ih to an eye sound to make it read like smile. You’ve seen the whole You’re In Smila Smile from the billboard near the city limits. No? Anyways. You can’t build anything here without going through them. A Smith has chaired the company and been on the city’s board of commissioners since the eighteen hundreds.
She noticed he bumped into her repeatedly. After a minute, he dropped the pretext and closed the distance between her arm and his.
The place I’m from probably has families like the Smiths. I don’t watch the news. My mom and I talk about our day at dinner and that’s it. I hope I can be someone like Sumthin.
Who’s sumthin?
That Smith guy you mentioned. Sumthin Smith.
She stopped while staying connected to him. A chortle escaped.
Something Zach. Something. Say it with me. Something.
Cmon you made it sound like a biblical name out of the Old Testament. Like God made Sumthin steal Job’s sheep or covertly put rocks in his shoes every morning. A dude from the eighteen hundreds would definitely be named that.
Since it was late Friday afternoon, most Love students had strutted off campus to seek out or make their conception of the eponymous surname in overpriced shiny bars down College Street or darkened house parties on Fraternity Row or popular clubs Downtown that were a decade from seediness. Stragglers walking by Herman Gables Performance and Events Auditorium, which was erected near the commons, saw a beautiful young woman bent over in laughter holding hands with a strange young man whose upper face was covered in blue and whose bemused eyes only took in his partner. Those passersby would have then noticed stygian clouds ferrying across the firmament, preparing to unload their cargo, and scurried away for their terminus.
A serene pause in conversation ensued, and Marie and Zach silently made it to Watt. Ostensibly. Thumping occupied their eardrums. He pulled out his student ID and held it to the digital lock stand. The lobby doors opened, and they entered slowly.
Where are the stairs?
To your right. The elevator is—
What’s your room number?
3F49.
Bet I’ll beat you there.
Light steps beyond the self-closing metal door leading upward. Heavy footfalls in pursuit. Unrestrained shouts and gleeful jabs directed toward each other’s physical ability. Deep panting by the entrance for the third floor. They reached the end together. He pressed his index finger into her haunch.
Give me a second to wash up. Stay here. My roommate Bob is messy. I’ll be out in a second. Cheater.
Her palm smacked his rear.
Nice catching up. Nice jiggle too.
His ridiculous wink served as a reminder for her.
Go on Blue Sun Man. Get the stuff you. Uh. Need. My roomie is with her boyfriend for the night.
Hernandez used his ID again and slipped through the wooden door. Bob Wen raised the peace sign at him from his PC without looking.
Good evening.
Hey Bob.
Zach navigated their shared pigsty. He scooped up his laptop with its two external speakers and shoved it into his empty backpack. In the bathroom they shared with next-door neighbors, he scrubbed his face. Neither did he bother to change clothes nor look out the window.
I’m going out tonight. I’ll probably be back in a few hours. See you Bob.
Adios amigo.
He stepped out and closed the door. A bored Sato awaited him. Her face lit up, then tilted sideways once more.
Nice to see we’re still matching. Did you get everything?
You bet your sweet ahh. Yes. Bet you can’t beat me to the lobby.
They zoomed away. Another tie.
It’s raining heavy.
We’ll make it. You’re it!
One of them believed the other had picked up barrier contraceptives for an overnight stay. The other thought the laptop and speakers were needed for a movie night.
They left the protective edifice and braved the sultry deluge.
