his breath.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Ray nudged the kid aside, tearing off another long sheet of foil. His body did this work every night without prompting. “Be in by eleven.”
Luke pushed his boundaries like a teenager.
“Okay, noon at the latest. You need me to help you finish closing up tonight?”
Ray ripped another piece of foil down the metal teeth.
“I suppose you got the Burnham girl waiting on you?”
Luke just shrugged but his face said everything his mouth didn’t.
Ray remembered her as a pretty young thing, not too skinny like some of them.
Curvy in all the right places.
She reminded him a little of...
Bud’s wife.
Ray turned his attention elsewhere, pulling on a pair of gloves and grabbing a fistful of ground sirloin. He stuffed it into the grinder and turned the handle—it was the old-fashioned kind, like most everything in the shop his mother had left him—coaxing the grayed, pallid flesh back to life, red rivers flowing onto a new Styrofoam tray.
Reprocessed, refreshed, and repackaged, it would be ready for sale again tomorrow, like the regurgitations of a mother bird.
He couldn’t express how much he hated it, the fetid smell of meat. Even fresh, it had a pungent, rank odor that clung to him night and day. But it was all he knew, all he’d ever known. He wasn’t like Luke...or Bud.
He never got lucky.
He never won anything.
He never got the girl.
But he could pinpoint the moment his life had merged onto this particular path, could see it shimmering behind him like a distant mirage he was traveling away from instead of toward.
There was a time when love had made everything so fine. The girl was an angel, hair like corn silk and skin like sweet cream. She was heaven in his arms and when she wrapped her long, satin limbs around him that first time during their sophomore year in high school and whispered his name again and again, he was both lost and found.
That summer glittered in his past like a distant star.
She had been his entire universe.
They had made all the usual proclamations of young love—forevers and stolen kisses in the back of Ray’s pickup, the light of a harvest moon turning the red truck bed to quicksilver.
She had given herself to him, had promised with more than her lips, with far more than words. He could still feel her in his arms, arching, sleek as a cat, a smile curling the corners of her irresistibly kissable mouth.
He wanted her, maybe more today than he had then, knowing now what he had lost. His hunger burned. Whenever he saw her now, everything in him went still, as if any movement might provoke the pure appetite coiled in his belly to spring.
The truth was simple—he was a coward. He had been too afraid to claim her then and he lacked the courage of his convictions to do it now.
Time had eroded the space between them.
The distance was unbridgeable.
Besides, he had thought she was his.
Had believed the lies her heart had told.
He’d never gotten down on one knee, hadn’t approached her formidable father for her hand, but he had asked for her heart. On a bed of soft pine needles with chipmunks amassing a stockpile of nuts for winter around them and egrets sailing from tree to tree, he had given her his grandmother’s ring—not an engagement ring exactly, but the promise of something more. It was too big but he’d slipped it on her finger anyway and asked, “Will you?”
She had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, murmuring, “I love you, Ray,” against his lips before they came together in the deep, dusky greens and browns of the forest and she called out his name and clung to him, the fierce cry in her throat rivaling the wild eagle overhead.
He didn’t realize until later that she hadn’t really answered his question.
She wore the ring around her neck for him, but he’d noticed it was
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Ray nudged the kid aside, tearing off another long sheet of foil. His body did this work every night without prompting. “Be in by eleven.”
Luke pushed his boundaries like a teenager.
“Okay, noon at the latest. You need me to help you finish closing up tonight?”
Ray ripped another piece of foil down the metal teeth.
“I suppose you got the Burnham girl waiting on you?”
Luke just shrugged but his face said everything his mouth didn’t.
Ray remembered her as a pretty young thing, not too skinny like some of them.
Curvy in all the right places.
She reminded him a little of...
Bud’s wife.
Ray turned his attention elsewhere, pulling on a pair of gloves and grabbing a fistful of ground sirloin. He stuffed it into the grinder and turned the handle—it was the old-fashioned kind, like most everything in the shop his mother had left him—coaxing the grayed, pallid flesh back to life, red rivers flowing onto a new Styrofoam tray.
Reprocessed, refreshed, and repackaged, it would be ready for sale again tomorrow, like the regurgitations of a mother bird.
He couldn’t express how much he hated it, the fetid smell of meat. Even fresh, it had a pungent, rank odor that clung to him night and day. But it was all he knew, all he’d ever known. He wasn’t like Luke...or Bud.
He never got lucky.
He never won anything.
He never got the girl.
But he could pinpoint the moment his life had merged onto this particular path, could see it shimmering behind him like a distant mirage he was traveling away from instead of toward.
There was a time when love had made everything so fine. The girl was an angel, hair like corn silk and skin like sweet cream. She was heaven in his arms and when she wrapped her long, satin limbs around him that first time during their sophomore year in high school and whispered his name again and again, he was both lost and found.
That summer glittered in his past like a distant star.
She had been his entire universe.
They had made all the usual proclamations of young love—forevers and stolen kisses in the back of Ray’s pickup, the light of a harvest moon turning the red truck bed to quicksilver.
She had given herself to him, had promised with more than her lips, with far more than words. He could still feel her in his arms, arching, sleek as a cat, a smile curling the corners of her irresistibly kissable mouth.
He wanted her, maybe more today than he had then, knowing now what he had lost. His hunger burned. Whenever he saw her now, everything in him went still, as if any movement might provoke the pure appetite coiled in his belly to spring.
The truth was simple—he was a coward. He had been too afraid to claim her then and he lacked the courage of his convictions to do it now.
Time had eroded the space between them.
The distance was unbridgeable.
Besides, he had thought she was his.
Had believed the lies her heart had told.
He’d never gotten down on one knee, hadn’t approached her formidable father for her hand, but he had asked for her heart. On a bed of soft pine needles with chipmunks amassing a stockpile of nuts for winter around them and egrets sailing from tree to tree, he had given her his grandmother’s ring—not an engagement ring exactly, but the promise of something more. It was too big but he’d slipped it on her finger anyway and asked, “Will you?”
She had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, murmuring, “I love you, Ray,” against his lips before they came together in the deep, dusky greens and browns of the forest and she called out his name and clung to him, the fierce cry in her throat rivaling the wild eagle overhead.
He didn’t realize until later that she hadn’t really answered his question.
She wore the ring around her neck for him, but he’d noticed it was
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