Second Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2004)
Fiction
— Third Place
What
it Might Mean
By Sara Beth Jonassen
(continued)
There are skinny girls dressed similarly, flitting around the stage,
twisting their arms like snakes and smiling dreamily: the "other"
fairy spirits. But Ceres commands the most attention, produces the most
laughter, and engenders the most pride in me. There she is! Standing barefoot
on the stage that is a beachy island to all of us in the audience, arms
raised, face smiling — my big sister Joanna, Goddess of the Earth.
When she opens her smiling mouth to speak, I hope she won’t be diminished in size, like the dinky-skinny fairies flitting around her, I hope she’ll sound like earth and sun and wind and fire! And she does! —
“Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers,
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down...”
— her voice as large as the earth, as rugged as any wave-pounded island, as empowering (and terrifying) as our mother’s reprimand!
Here, offstage, at this theater-district diner, my big sister Joanna is not smiling. Not raising her arms. Is not inciting spirits to take shape, rise and dance. She looks hostile, distracted. She swallows three glasses of water, as if trying to put out a fire. She stares beyond my shoulders. When the burgers arrive, her plate is made empty first. The all-too-sudden emptiness of it makes me feel all-too-vacant inside, like I’m going to implode with vacancy. It consumes me with a hunger of the sort no food can begin to touch.
And I’m thinking, I don’t know why, about him, the chicken-shit rat-bastard. The man Joanna fell in love with years ago. Who teased her so much — walked naked in front of her, kissed her Lady Macbeth passionately — on stage, and then turned away from the presentation of her off-stage kisses. How beautiful she was after spending an afternoon with him, walking with that sexy swing to her large hips, that gorgeous "Ceres smile" on her lips, so possessed of her beauty, her womanliness, her power.
“I need a cigarette and I need it now,” Joanna says, with considerable hostility, rolling her eyes, nodding her head. She pushes up from the table, knocking over an empty water glass, spilling ice. “Ooops,” she says, smiling at dad. Embarrassed. Then glancing impatiently at me, her little sister. “You comin' with me or not?”
My big sister, Joanna. Ceres, Goddess of the Earth. The other fairies, the skinny fairies, with their frail, brittle-looking limbs, their generic pretty faces, they swarm around the island-stranded boatswain, like a fluttering pack of moths. But Ceres lays down her ample body on the stage, gathering up attention from one boatswain, one man, allowing him to dote on her alone, nibble some grapes off the bosom of her dress. Commanding him with the movement of one finger, the shifting of her hips, the coquettish laughter.
When it’s time to exit stage, my big sister, Ceres, Goddess of the Earth, rises, stands before the boatswain (who could fit himself three times over, it would seem, inside of her womanliness), raises one eyebrow, slaps her lap as if to summon a dog to heel. Then the boatswain jumps onto her shoulder and she carries him offstage like so much dirty laundry.
My big sister, then, stealing the show.
The small theater erupting with laughter, whistles, enthused applause.
The way the boatswain looked at Ceres, nibbling grapes pinned to her bosom. That’s the way he should have looked at Joanna — hungry for her lusciousness, her power, her light.
The way she threw the boatswain over her shoulder, like an inconsequential thing, like her pocketbook, he should have been taken away by her that way.
Him: whom I was ready to accept as a brother.
Him: Joanna’s soul mate. Him: bearded and charismatic, a fellow actor who recognized her immense talent. Him: who shared her love of Shakespeare. Him: who became animated when my big sister was in the room, who seemed compelled to be in close proximity to her. Him: who cuddled up to her, held her hand, walked about her naked, his penis flipping. Him: disingenuous, a flirt. Him: who explained to her, time and time again, that he was gay, could never love a woman that way, that even if he wasn’t gay, he wouldn’t be with her anyway. Him: who could never admit his weakness for Joanna, could never bring himself to tell Joanna that, if he were straight, she would be the woman he’d love the best, the mother of their children, his partner on the stage, his nurturer, goddess of the earth. Him: who couldn’t open himself to the possibility of even Joanna’s kiss.
Didn’t he know?
That venturing her kiss would be like splitting the very earth at its seams?
