Beryl pulled a pair of blue jean cut-offs over her damp bathing suit, and dumped her towel into the back of her pick-up truck. Bleached strands of her hair dried in the sunlight while heavier clumps brushed the back of her neck like dreadlocks. Her cheeks and forehead were bright pink, and already she could feel the familiar tingle on her shoulders.

Towering above her, the quarry wall reflected the white sunlight like a large gray mirror, broken with several crags and weeds. The dirt was chalky and dry; it collected onto everything so that her floorboard was dusted with gray grit and littered with tiny rocks. Yards away, Paul and others were still stepping out of the swimming hole, which looked like a big blue sleepy eye. Beryl watched them, shading her eyes with her hand.

Everyone called out good-byes in a cacophony that echoed against the quarry wall. Beryl waited for Paul to run and climb into her truck. She maneuvered around the bumpy gravel road with grace. She knew every bump and dip so well that she could brake and steer around while gazing at a plane in the sky, or even the stars or moon at night.

The quarry was best at nighttime. The stars seemed brighter there, and on a full moon night the water glowed so that everyone could see each other’s faces. The blue moonlight would wash over the brooding mountain cliff, and somehow all the grit resembled glitter. The rocks became unpolished gems, shiny moonstones. Beryl liked to float in the water and stare up at the stars while moving her arms so that she swayed around on the surface. When she did this she felt like she was flying around in outer space. All she could hear would be the hum of the water in her ears, and she imagined that was what the universe sounded like, once you were out there in the vacuum.

Paul seemed to be uncomfortable, and Beryl was stirred from her daydreams after he flipped through the radio stations twice and gave up. He shifted around unsteadily in his seat. She could tell he was a little too drunk by the sleepy look in his eyes. Beryl sympathized with his awkwardness and pressed the first tape she could grab into the deck. Neil Young started singing “Heart of Gold” raspily over an acoustic guitar. She fished around for her cigarettes, and filled the truck with a cool, minty smoke until she could roll the window down.

She looked over at him, and his eyes were closing as if he were being rocked to sleep by the movements of the truck. Beryl had not been drinking. It was too hot, too early. While Paul stared at the dashboard with half-closed eyes, Beryl watched the hills stand in the distance as everything closer swirled by. Every time she looked at the grass it looked greener than ever before. Cows grazed around or waded in ponds so still in the heat they resembled decoys.

Trees shaded over the country road that led to Paul’s house and made a flashing contrast of shadows and light wash over the car. Beryl knew to turn after the white silo broke the skyline and somehow connected the brilliant green grass to the pale blue sky. The peeling paint of Paul’s house came into view, and behind the house the sun was beginning to turn the sky pink.

Paul hesitated and looked over at Beryl with a sleepy smile. Beryl gathered him up in a friendly hug. His head relaxed against her shoulder and he felt heavy leaned against her.

“Beryl, do you remember that time over at Shea’s farm, when we drank beer out on the blanket by the bonfire?”

Beryl smiled to herself, dreamily thinking about the fire spitting sparks against the sky, making her feel so warm and crisp in her flannel jacket, on an October night. “Yeah, I remember,” she said, almost to her herself.

“I remember something almost happening, but it didn’t,” he said softly. She did remember. They had lain on the blanket as sparks swam among the stars and beer tainted their burps and giggles. He had rolled over and hugged her, giving her a kiss on the mouth. But she had smacked her lips and vocalized a friendly smooch, defying the romantic mood. Everything else was there but her heart. She had sat up, folded her legs against her chest and felt the toasty warmth of her boots with her hands. Paul had stayed rolled over on the blanket. He hadn’t moved and his dark curly hair was drawn like a curtain over his face. She had looked back at him and nudged his shoulder, but he just lay there like a dead dog.

“Yes, I remember.” Beryl pulled away and rubbed her hand through her tangled hair. An orange beam of light fell through the truck and actually made Paul’s sleepy eyes twinkle with golden flecks.

“I try to love you, but I’m getting blown away,” Neil Young sang. Beryl clicked off the player and smiled at Paul with only half of her mouth. Paul fingered the door latch, cocked his head first at her then swung it toward the door. Beryl thought then that this was one of those pivotal forks in the road, the point at which lives can either go in one direction or the other.

Paul’s lawn was tall, and stalks of grain brushed against her shins and made them itch. Her toes collected the subtle wetness of the grass, as if combing a head of hair that never really dries. They walked around to the back porch, where they had an unobstructed view of the sun as it pulled down the sky in a swirl of colors.

Beryl settled into a plastic chair and Paul landed on the porch swing and steadied it with his heavy legs. “Let me ask you this then. If you remember that night then why do you act like nothing happened?” Paul said, and looked at her face carefully. “You just think on that for a second,” he said, and he stood up quickly to go inside.

Beryl raised her eyebrows to no one. It would have been easier if he had let her answer in the moment. Now, left to ponder about her answer, her mind went blank and instead chose to speculate on his reasons for asking.

He returned with two cold Steel Reserves, and held one out to her.

She accepted the beer with a nod and asked, “What was I supposed to do?”

“Well, surely that would’ve been obvious. You only give me all these hugs…”

“So?”

“…and tell me you love me. We spend so much time together. I wonder how you never expected me to kiss you.”

Beryl laughed nervously and took a long drink form her beer.

“Hell,” Paul said, “I wonder why you pulled away.”

“It was unexpected. I didn’t know how to react. It didn’t feel right, and that’s all I know.”

Paul stared at his beer. He had not opened it. For the first time that evening, Beryl noticed the cicadas chanting in rattle-like crescendos.

“Look. Just because…” Beryl lost her words for a moment, as she watched Paul look up from his beer with sad eyes. She felt her arms turn hot, and her heart began pumping adrenaline like poison. “Just because I love you… it doesn’t mean I want to kiss you, or anything.”

“And why the hell not?” Paul asked quietly. The sun had slipped away and pink clouds were turning pale and silvery as the sky darkened. Beryl finished her beer, turning it up and closing her eyes to feel the bubbles burn down the back of her throat and cool her stomach. Paul still sat staring at his unopened beer, but as she raised herself up to let herself in the house she heard a click and fizz.

Inside, the house was warmer than it was out on the porch. Beryl wiped the layer of sweat from her sunburned forehead. She had come to get another beer, but she had also come to get away from his questions, from his sad eyes. She felt angry. She heard the back door open.

“So it’s all about sex, is it?” Beryl said. “You just can’t be happy with me until you get into my pants. Look at you pouting and moping around. It’s pathetic.”

Paul looked stunned, and he set his beer on the counter heavily. “No, that’s not it,” he said loudly. “That’s not it at all.” Beryl crossed her arms. “Well, okay so that’s part of it, but that’s not all.” With that Beryl spun around and went to the refrigerator for another beer. “I want all of it. What do you think? You think just because I’m a man I only want your body?”

Beryl laughed and shook her head. “I don’t want any of that.”

“How do you know if you don’t try?” Paul said.

Beryl held her beer with both hands as Paul walked closer. So this is it, she thought, what could be wrong? As he walked closer to her cautiously, she only wanted to burst out laughing. The bottle was cold and wet against her hot hands. That look in his eyes seemed so comical. She felt cruel and foolish for wanting to laugh at the sincerity pooling in his blue-green eyes. His lips were pale pink and full, but she didn’t want to touch them. She reached out to stop him, to press her hand against his black cotton t-shirt, or maybe just to touch his chest. With a loud crash she realized she was standing in a puddle of fizz and broken glass, with Paul only an inch from her face. She closed her eyes. His lips tasted bland, but his tongue was bitter with beer.

She pushed him away slowly, and looked down at her feet. Glass had scattered like beads. “Don’t move,” she said, and grabbed a dishrag from the counter behind her. Crouching down, she wiped the shards away from Paul’s feet. His toes curled up and down, and she saw blood seep from tiny cuts. “I’m sorry,” he said. Looking down at her own feet, she felt the paper-thin cuts and picked a small glass thorn from her foot. Blood slowly flooded from the wound. Paul lifted her up out of the glass and she limped over to the couch. She heard his footsteps around the house until he returned with peroxide and towels. “I have no gauze, no bandages,” he said. He sat on the opposite end of the couch and gently cleaned her feet.

“Do you think I’ll need stitches?” Beryl watched his careful movements.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t know. I’m drunk, Beryl. I’m sorry.”

“Jesus,” she breathed and reached for a towel and the peroxide to wipe Paul’s feet with. She laughed, and then he laughed. “You’re not that drunk,” she said. “I’m the one who dropped a beer on our feet.”

“Well, it was my fault,” Paul said.

A quiet spell wrapped around them with its awkward tentacles. Beryl sighed and dropped her towel on the floor. Paul was still holding her foot in his towel firmly.

“Don’t you see now, Paul?” He looked up at her and stared. “It’s an omen. We both got hurt.”

Disgust spread across his features. “What are you talking about? I kissed you, and you kissed me back. It was great!” he looked confused and embarrassed, and tried to hinder his own expressions.

“And we both got hurt. We broke apart like glass, and now we’re both bleeding. And I’m bleeding more.”

“You’re crazy.” He slid out from under her feet and placed them on the couch. Then he left the room and retreated to the porch, slamming the door behind him.

Beryl rubbed her palms on her closed eyes and over her forehead. She imagined herself with Paul: drinking strawberry wine on the faded gray porch, lounging with full bellies in a sun-flooded field, breaking flowers from stems for each other, hugging his soaked body at the swimming hole, walking through a forest while leaves fall around as if the trees were dripping sparks of fire. She saw herself resting on her elbows, listening to him try unsuccessfully to play her favorite songs on the guitar.

All these things had happened.

She tiptoed to the back door, and leaned in the doorway, hesitant. Paul was staring out at the purple bruise on the horizon caused by the city lights. The outline of his face glowed with a blue sliver of light.

“I don’t care anyway, Beryl.”

“I never meant to lead you on.”

Paul let out a bitter scoff. Beryl sat down beside him on the swing. The crickets made high notes on their glockenspiels, and tree frogs played along with their xylophones. The swing creaked back and forth like a metronome. Beryl pulled her feet up and examined her wound; in the blue light, her foot looked unreal, like a ghost’s foot.

She admired the way the amber ring on her finger found a way to sparkle in the washed-out light. Her grandmother had given it to her, and she remembered her grammy’s words: “Beryl, when I was young I took off this ring, looked at the moon through it, and saw your grandpappy. I knew right then and there I’d marry him, because they say you’ll see the face of your one true love if you look at the full moon through a piece of amber.”

As Paul sat silently beside her, beryl pulled the ring from her finger and moved it around to see the flecks of light shining from the air bubbles. Perhaps there was some otherworldly wisdom to a drop of tree sap from billions of years ago, from when dinosaurs fought and fed beneath exotic pines. Now the sap had solidified to become a plastic drop of sunlight, or a tiny golden sage.

She lifted the ring to her eyes, and searched for the moon the way one does with a telescope. The fuzzy void turned to an orange static, and she felt as though she were looking right into the embers of a fire. She adjusted the amber but only saw a kaleidoscope of color, until she tried looking beyond the amber, dulling her eyes. A form morphed into shape quite suddenly, and left her with the feeling that her eye had somehow evolved. A profile emerged from the burning puddle, and she recognized her own tall brow, her turn-up nose, and her small chin. She pulled the ring away and saw the full moon, so calm and serene at its radiant post.