MAD FLIGHT

The drive after dance class that night was a mad flight home. She felt reckless, giddy—she took all the back streets at breakneck speed, making only the briefest pauses halfway through the intersections where there were stop signs. She had all the windows rolled down, and each time she accelerated and braked from corner to corner, the warm night air rolled over her in great, slow waves. When she got home, she caught sight of herself in the mirror by the front door. Her face was flushed and her shaggy hairline curled in damp tendrils. Zeke was standing over his bed folding his laundry, turning socks right-side out, picking off the lint, and rolling them into neat little balls. She clambered onto his fur bedspread and wrapped her shimmering skirt around her knees. He stopped in the middle of what he was saying and stared at her.

“I can’t remember what I was saying,” he said.

“Maybe you got distracted by the bed,” she teased him.

“I don’t understand you, Seely. Sometimes I think you’re trying to hurt me.”

Her face fell. “You can’t believe that, Zeke.”

He shook his head ruefully. “What am I supposed to think?”

And before she could say anything more, he added coldly, “Maybe you’d better go now and let me get some sleep.”