Party Under the Lilac

by Joanna Rose

      The party was crazy late, getting to that point. From where I sat outside, the ratty little beach house seemed to shake and rock. Shouts of laughter, music, all the doors and windows open, made the outside quieter, darker. A huge silent moon made everything black or white. I sat underneath a broken line of picket fence that was overgrown with ragged, ancient lilac. I sat in the funny shadows of lilac and fence, breathing in the cool air, smoking the joint I'd stolen from somebody's backpack.
      Alice came to the front door and stood in the open doorway, the light behind her, the light shining through the bottle of white wine she held by the neck. Her shirt was see-through, hanging over her cutoffs.
      She stepped out onto the porch, and then down the stair, off the porch. She lifted her long hair off her neck for a moment, wandered out into the little patch of yard, toward where I sat. I sat very still. She stopped, swayed, changed direction, went to the corner of the beach house and leaned against it in the full light of the full moon. I put the joint out.
      Evan came to the door. He looked around. He stepped out into the yard, looking around. Looking at Alice. He put his hands in his back pockets and went to the corner of the beach house, walking slow and easy and a little drunk. Maybe pretty drunk. He had no shirt, and his arms and shoulders had moonlight on them.
      "Hey," he said.
      Alice laughed, and said, "Hey."
      "What are you doing?" he said.
      "Spinning," she said. Laughing.
      She took a cigarette out of her shirt pocket and seemed to be looking for matches, maybe a lighter, in the same pocket. It was a big shirt, like a man's shirt, and with the bottle of wine in one hand and the cigarette in the other hand, and with the shirt being so big, she couldn't seem to get ahold of any matches.
      "I accidentally drank too much," she said, and Evan said, "You love that, when you drink too much."
      Alice smiled, at Evan, at the sky. Drank out of the wine bottle. She looked at the cigarette in her hand.
      "I don't have any matches," she said.
      "That's O.K.," Evan said. "You smoke too much, too."
      Alice laughed, she just kept laughing, drunk, having fun.
      "Who are you to say I smoke too much?" she said.
      Now Evan laughed, his lazy little laugh.
      "It's what you always say," he said.
      She looked at the cigarette, and then threw it out in the yard. Toward me.
      "Excess," she said.
      She drank from the bottle. He took it from her and didn't drink.
      "So," he said. "What else do you do too much?"
      He moved closer to her, and leaned his hand on the wall of the beach house behind her.
      He said, "Do you fuck too much?"
      I held my breath.
      Alice said, "No."
      "Why not?" he said. "You have a husband. Doesn't he fuck you all the time?"
      Neither of them moved, and neither did I, although if I could have, I would have. My foot was going all pins and needles.
      Alice took the wine bottle back and tipped it up and drank like it was water.
      Then Evan took the bottle and he bent down and set it on the ground. He stood up, standing closer to her. Almost no moonlight between them.
      "Well?" he said.
      "I'm not going to talk to you about my marriage," Alice said.
      She sounded happy and drunk and there was music in her voice.
      He kissed her then. It was long and still and neither of them moved, kissing. I wiggled my toes. Then Evan put his hand in her hair at the back of her neck and his other hand to her waist and he pressed into her, against the beach house, and one of them moaned, Alice, I think.
      Their faces parted, inches apart, and I could only really see Alice's face, in the moonlight. Evan laughed, that little laugh, and he kissed her again, and his hips moved into her. Her hands on his waist, and then her hands on his blue-jean ass.
      He kissed her neck, kissed the front of her throat, his mouth touching her skin soundlessly, and he unbuttoned a button of her shirt. He kissed her mouth. His hands touched the front of her shirt, her stomach, then her breasts, touching through the pale cloth. He stopped kissing, looked down at his hands on her breasts. She leaned her head back, her throat long and open to the moon. Her arms fell to her sides. She put her hands flat on the beach house wall behind her.
      She said, "Jesus, Evan."
      He laughed.
      She said, "I'm dizzy."
      He said, "Open your eyes."
      She did. She looked at the sky. She looked at his face. His hands moved on her breasts, and she leaned her head back again, shut her eyes.
      "Jesus," and this time it was like breath.
      "Open your eyes," he said.
      His hands moved to her cutoffs, under the shirt, and I heard her zipper. He put one arm around her waist, kissing her again, his other hand in the darkness between their bodies. Alice's hands flat on the wall behind her. Her fingers spread apart. Evan whispered something, and Alice laughed like a little cry. Maybe a hiccup.
      He said, "You're wet."
      Kissing her.
      He said, "You're easy."
      She said, "You are."
      He said, "Can I fuck you?"
      "No," she said.
      And then they moved together, his hand moving, his hips, and Alice pulled her face away, her eyes closed, tears, maybe sweat, wet on her face.
      Saying, "No."
      Saying, "Please."
      Saying, "Oh."
      When they stopped moving, Alice's legs started to give, and Evan laughed and caught her, held her pressed against the wall of the beach house, steadying her. He kissed her face, her mouth, small silent kisses, Alice's hands on his bare shoulders. Her breathing slowed. He moved apart from her, moonlight between their bodies again, and he reached into the moonlit space between them. He zipped her cutoffs.
      After Alice went back in to the party, Evan picked up the wine bottle. He came out into the yard, and at the picket fence he stopped and peeked in at me. Then he ducked in, under the low branches. He set the bottle down. He knelt down next to me, smiling his sleepy-eyed smile.
      "That's so sweet," I said.
      "What is?" he said, reaching for my hand, taking my hand, and pressing it against his hard cock inside his blue jeans.
      "The way you zip their pants back up," I said.

Joanna Rose is a bookseller at Powell's City of Books in Portland.
This is her first time in print.