By the YU Writers’ Guild
Editor’s Note: Each month, the YU Writers’ Guild accepts submissions for a short story following a specific theme. This month’s theme was “an exercise in description” featuring stories set in a specific location. Members of the club voted on a short story to be featured in the YU Observer. For the month of December, “Cranberry Sauce” written by Aliza Billet was selected.
Your chest is bare but I don’t notice,
just like I don’t yet know that I’m supposed to hate my thighs.
The wide, clear pool feels like all there is to the world
as the two of us splash each other under the summer sky.
Our high happy voices paint the air,
a prism of shades expressed aloud:
Magenta from the tie-dye we did yesterday,
Chartreuse because you read it in a book.
I’m in your arms and it means nothing,
because we’re eight and playing guessing games and
it’s good to have a friend
I can taste the syllables in aquamarine
as I comb through the rainbow to guess at your mind.
Fuchsia like the flowers we planted last week,
Charcoal like your kippah on the poolside table,
Gold like the sun as bright as our futures.
Every wrong answer earns a dip in the water,
and I come up for air laughing harder each time
“Do you give up yet?” you challenge,
and I want my own turn, so I have to concede.
“The answer was cranberry sauce,” you cackle,
and it doesn’t matter that it isn’t a color,
because we’re eight and playing guessing games and
today, cranberry sauce is the funniest thing in the world
Now it’s my turn and your dips begin to pile:
Royal blue, like my Hogwarts house,
Sparkly pink, like the chipped polish on my toes,
Mango sorbet, in case I copied you with food.
But then your eyes widen and I know you’ve got it
when you call out my favorite color, and I prepare to flip you,
to signal that you’ve won
When you pop up and shake your hair out like a dog,
I’m already thinking of the prettiest words:
amber, lilac, ochre — they mold and fold so nicely in my mouth.
But suddenly, the sliding door screeches on its track.
A shadow shoves its head into the sunlight.
“Inappropriate,” it calls our game, because boys and girls can’t touch.
The ugly word becomes an ugly color perched on my ugly cheeks.
The cool pool now feels frozen while the sun burns my flushed face.
My arms are like dead weights that couldn’t hold you if they tried,
because we were eight and playing guessing games and
somehow that was wrong.