Lit

For three long, hot months, Elise was on fire for the man. He’d made no move but had engaged with her endless flirting. They’d become work friends after learning they lived in abutting neighborhoods, which made the fact that she knew where he lived, and that it was across the street from the birthday party she was attending that night, not so strange.

Elise welcomed a surge of heat when she saw the man round the corner. She pressed herself harder against a tree and fumbled with a lighter and flame-threatening breeze. She hated cigarettes but had bummed one from a stranger outside the party. Cigarettes would always be the best reason to be lingering alone in the dark.

“Do you think we have enough dirty dishes to run the dishwasher tonight?”

Elise’s head snapped up at the voice. It did not belong to the man like she’d expected: Fancy meeting you here, or what a coincidence, or simply a Hey, you. This was the voice of a woman trailing behind him, a dog on a leash trailing behind her.

“If it’ll make you happy, I’ll make some right now. Ice cream?”

“What would make me happy is if you took Mango around the block one more time. She didn’t poop.”

The man took the leash, kissed the woman on the forehead, and skipped back down the front steps of their house.

Time and opportunity were back on Elise’s side.

The nights had gotten darker, and their house was well lit with the curtains half open. She had a clear view of the woman in the kitchen putting on gloves, soaping up a sponge.

Elise had been laying her groundwork all summer. If she played this right, she’d have him hooked. She took a few steps, readying her play-cigarette, and looked back at the house, at the woman bobbing her head as she rinsed dishes.

She was singing to herself. The man was whistling. Maybe it was the same song.

Their dishes, she thought, then the thought stuttered, half-formed, into the next, their dog, then their song.

The man rounded the corner, out of sight.

Elise turned away, an effort that stripped off the warmth the man had inspired and walked back. Her sundress did nothing to help her. She hadn’t yet pulled her jackets from the box at the top of her closet.

Facing the raucous house party, Elise couldn’t bring herself to walk back inside. She felt too dangerous, like a lit cable seizing on the ground, shooting sparks at anyone who was stupid enough to get close.

She handed the cigarette to a new stranger, or maybe the same one—the world looked different with the haze of summer lust washed off.

Walking home in the dark, she asked herself if she had enough dirty dishes to warrant running the dishwasher. She didn’t. She never did. Instead, she would run the hottest bath she could tolerate. It would be a season for self-sustaining heat.