The Spark

My mind keeps traveling back to that night at Stillwater before you married your tragic princess. The two of you were there, down on the other side of the bar, the long end of the L, down at the bottom end. I was with my husband, and I was wearing one of my new dresses. It was blue with a tropical floral pattern spilling down from the bodice into the skirt, uninterrupted by a waistline, sequins sewn around the neckline sparkling onto the shoulders it kept falling off of.

I felt your eyes before I saw you. I imagine that’s when your wife’s jealousy developed strong roots–she had to notice your eyes devouring me from across the room. I remember looking up from my beer and the joke my husband was telling, that golden light dancing into me through all of the chatter and across all that space filled with all of those people who don’t matter. Did I brush up against you when I floated down from my barstool to the ladies’ room? Did you smell my perfume, one you didn’t know to associate with me? I can still feel the electricity crackling in the air between us. And I remember that you called the next day, that I took a detour from my errands to come see you for the briefest of moments. That exquisite kiss under the lintel of your front door. Maybe I should have started counting silver then.