SHE LIKED DRINKING in parking lots, that was his favorite thing about her. They’d go to the liquor or a bottle of wine, or a box of wine, or sometimes even champagne, or other times a random assortment of those small, single-serving, airport-sized bottles of whatever they kept at the counter. And then go to park and just hangout next to the trunk, or maybe pace around the lot, and they’d get drunk. She said it made her feel like she was in high school, and he knew exactly what she meant. He’d hated high school, hated all the people who loved it and missed it and pined for those days, but also kind of loved trying to recreate things high school and had never before drank out of a cooler in his trunk, outside the automotive repair entrance of a Walmart, but he liked when they’d get back in his car and make out a nd dry hump, and maybe she’d slide her hand down his pants and jerk him off a little or she’d grab his hand and slide it under her shirt, or up her skirt, but they wouldn’t go all the way because they ever voiced that aloud. He liked it because he’d never been a teenager, and also because they didn’t have to say that’s what they were doing. He liked feeling like what he assumed it would have been like to be in high school love.
Some nights they’d go to this strip mall just outside of town where the main establishment was this huge Chinese buffet that they always talked about going to but never did. There was a small place around the side of the building that, on Wednesday nights, hosted Keno, and then on Fridays, Bingo. They’d drink in the parking lot and then go in and play Keno, or Bingo, depending on the night, with all these people they’d never seen anywhere else in town. He’d wonder where they’d all come from, and he liked that about it, too.
They’d go and she would always bring this little elephant pin. She’d keep it in her pocket and then as soon as everything was ready to start, she’d take it out and ask him to pin it on her, and it would feel like attaching a corsage, or at least what he’d assumed that would have felt like, if he’d gone to a dance in high school and ever attached a corsage before.
All those times, they never won anything, but it was still fun and seemed worth it. He told her once that it didn’t seem like much of a good luck charm, since they’d never won anything, not once, but she just shrugged her shoulders and smiled. She didn’t agree or disagree, didn’t try to argue.
***
THE FORECAST CALLED FOR RAIN, 100% chance, but outside their window was a blue chalkboard of a sky, wiped clean. He’d never heard anything predicted with such certainty; he thought how he’d looked outside at downpours while listening to reports of the likelihood of rain, the possibility. It looked, felt, like the first or last days of a long summer. The beginning or end.
They’d had a picnic planned, but cancelled. He watched out the window, unsure what to hope for. Unsure what outcome was the underdog, whether to root for or against.
He pulled the blinds, got in his car, drove. He wanted the expanse of sky to open up above him like what he was looking for.
A novella.
