We Start Fires

[2]

Audrey thinks that the dinners would be better if they were silent, even though she hates silence more than most things. They might as well be silent. For all of her father's nattering and her mother's bare-minimum interjections and purposeful lack of eye contact, nothing's really getting said, anyway. She uses the small, round potato on her fork to make a figure eight through her gravy. Instead of watching her parents not-really-try to rebuild a collapsing bridge across the Gulf of Table Cloth, she tunes in to the soft mumbling from the radio in the family room. The Family Room. Audrey grins a little into her roast. Really, it's where her dad goes to watch SportsNet in the evenings and where they hang her piano certificates.

She can't tell what's playing on the radio, but by the quality of the soft, intimate voices, it's something on Good Ol' CBC Radio One. There's a flash of an image in her mind's eye: herself, in victory curls and half-stockings, kneeling in front of the radio as it warbles out an episode of The Shadow, or Little Orphan Annie, or something like that. Her father is hidden behind a newspaper with a headline about the war. Her mother's taking an aspic out of the fridge. She can see the little vegetables bouncing around in the green Jell-O mess.

Perhaps she wrinkles her nose, because all at once she's back at the dinner table and her father's asking her if the gravy's burnt.

"No, Dad. It's great. See?" And she puts the soaked little potato into her mouth and she chews it and she swallows it and she smiles and she tastes cardboard. But that's not new. He smiles at her and says something else, but she doesn't particularly care, so she doesn't listen. Instead, she fixes her eyes on the wick of the candle in the middle of her dinner table and thinks about Half-Stocking-Audrey and her evening in front of the family radio.

***

Jonny's fingers smell like lighter fluid and it is rocking his world right now.

He cups his hands around his mouth and nose and inhales. Snatching up the big stick lying discarded next to him, he shifts a few logs around. Part of the expertly built tent of kindling and firewood collapses, puffing out a quickly dispersing cloud of red sparks. It's been raining non-stop for the past week-ish, and this is the first clear night they've had in a while.

They're in Maggie's backyard, crowded around her fire pit. They wear jackets. It's fall. Real fall. Second-summer hit two weeks ago, so they're in the clear. Maggie's head is tucked neatly into the space between Dev's jaw and shoulder, and it belongs there. He holds her right hand in both of his, and plays with her first and middle fingers - pulling them apart and together again, forwards and backwards. He's actually in the middle of a conversation with Carter, so Jonny doesn't think he knows he's doing it. Maggie doesn't stop him. She might not notice, either.

"No way. No way, dude. Impossible." Carter is shaking her head and trying to spread a runny piece of fire-hot Caramilk onto a graham cracker with her fingers.

"Why don't you believe in me, Carter Jeanne Penning? Why? CarterJeannePenningWhy?" Dev whines, taking Maggie's whole hand and flopping it around in Carter's direction. Carter's wince is rehearsed.

"Fuck Jeanne. Also, you're out to fucking lunch if you think we could pull that off."

"Oh, hell yeah, we could totally pull it off," chimes Maggie from the cave of Dev's collarbone. "I mean, we'd be immediately arrested and sent to prison, but we could pull it off. I can rock a jumpsuit, but I've got a head full of cream puffs that haven't seen the light of day. So."

Jonny shakes his head mournfully and sighs. "What a waste. What are we talking about?"

"Welcome back, Space Cadet," Carter salutes with chocolate-smeared fingers. "This idiot thinks we could do the empty old Independent in Parsonville."

"The one on the main drag?"

"That's the one."

Jonny sniffs. "Yeah, we could probably do it."

"Thank you." Dev throws his arms into the air and Maggie almost tumbles off the bench. In the next second, Dev is hastily ducking as Carter lobs a pinecone at his head. Jonny grins, and sits back in his lawn chair. His quadriceps relax. He hadn't noticed they were gripping.

"Okay," Carter placates, "I'm gonna switch up the hypothetical here, 'cause yeah, sure, maybe we could do it. But that place is way too close to the shoe store and the little ... what's it called? The little drug mart that's right there on the corner? Doesn't matter. Point is, that's actual profit loss for these folks, danger of injury, really serious legal repercussions-"

"Bad News Bears," Jonny pipes in.

"- Exactly."

And here's the thing: Jonny agrees. Like, really, truly agrees. Last thing his mom needs from him is a juvie trip, and he's got a scout coming to see next Thursday's soccer game. But also his fingers are itching and he's thinking about how fast all that insulation would go up and he feels a rush of disembodied adrenaline course through him. His blood is vibrating. He shivers, covers his mouth and nose with his hands, and breathes in.

"You okay, man?" Maggie's looking at him, and it feels the same as when his mom asks him if he's high and she already knows the answer.

"I'm good, Mags. Cold fingers. I vote no to the Independent. It'd be sick, but too risky." Jonny shrugs and shoves two marshmallows in his mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Dev acquiesces. He waves his hands around his head like he's physically fanning the idea away. "I was mostly kidding. If anyone else has any ideas, I'm all ears."

"Hot-Pack Boxers," says Jonny without missing a beat.

Maggie's "Jonathan" clashes with Carter's simultaneous "...what?"

"My idea. You asked. Like, those hot-packs you crack and put in your gloves in the winter? But boxers. Just imagine the walk to school in February."

Jonny sits back again and watches the others switch gears and discuss with increasing passion. He's content to watch to the chaos for a bit. He'll interject when they need more gasoline. But he can still feel his heart beating in his fingertips, and Maggie's still looking at him a little sideways.

***

beat beat beat beat beat beat this one's insides run fast yes. the rhythm like a bellows like a drum like the tick tick tick of the gas furnace it is exciting. its hearth breathes in its own emptiness. it wonders if this one can feel it too. maybe it is still too far away but it has wandered past the brush and down the dirt drive and out where the Boundary makes it stop so it can listen to the beat beat beat beat beat beat. they must be coming soon yes it is very good at waiting. no harm in looking. no. no harm in looking maybe even touching.

***

For the third time this week, Audrey wakes to a sharp pain in her fingers, standing in someone else's pitch black kitchen and holding a smoking match.