Jackie laughs. There’s something magical about it—her eyes are vibrant, her dimples flashing. “You’re a good teacher.”
Jackie spins again. This time she turns inwards, and all at once she’s pressed tight against Claire’s front. Jackie’s arm is over Claire’s shoulder, her other hand pressed slightly to Claire’s upper chest. In her attempt to teach, Claire has inadvertently taken the man’s position. It’s unfamiliar to be the one holding Jackie’s hand, to have her own land on Jackie’s waist, but the strangeness of it feels equally good. A natural extension of her altered state.
Having never touched Jackie beyond a light hand on the arm, her sudden closeness is more potent than the marijuana. Jackie is warm, and Claire can feel the pliant softness of her body under the negligée. She can smell Jackie’s shampoo over the smoke. It makes her want to lean forward and bury her nose in Jackie’s hair.
Thankfully Jackie moves just far enough away to curb that impulse. She follows the moves that Claire lays out and picksthem up in a heartbeat. Their height difference is oddly perfect. Claire is used to needing to compensate for Pete, making herself smaller. Now she’s leading the dance, and her height is an advantage. Jackie doesn’t step on Claire’s feet—her bare toes jive perfectly with Claire’s stockinged ones, kicking and moving in tandem to the album’s next cheerful song.
Claire doesn’t feel self-conscious at all.
There’s not much floor room to work with in the conversation pit. When a particularly wide spin trips Jackie up, taking Claire with her through their linked hands, Claire only just manages to catch herself on the couch and stumble down onto it. Jackie hits the floor, but she’s laughing all the while.
“There, see,” Claire says breathlessly, straightening up to sitting, “wasn’t that a ball?”
“As promised,” Jackie says. She’s out of breath too, even more so than Claire. After a moment she climbs up onto the couch, settling on her back and twisting until her head is set in Claire’s lap.
Claire’s breath catches. Jackie does it thoughtlessly, settling onto Claire’s legs and draping her own feet over the opposite side of the couch, but now Claire can’t think of anything else.
“I can’t believe you picked the steps up so quickly,” Claire says. Jackie’s head feels heavy, but the last thing she wants is for her to move. It feels as if a treasured cat has chosen Claire’s legs to sleep on. “I thought you said you didn’t dance?”
“I said I didn’t danceanymore,” Jackie says. She grabs the joint again—it’s just a little stub, now. It’s a wonder that she hasn’t burnt her fingers on it. “I used to go to plenty of school dances before I left home.”
Claire can hardly imagine Jackie so young, dancing the night away in some gymnasium. “I bet all the boys fought over you.”
Jackie snorts. “And why would you say that?”
“You’re smart. You’re beautiful,” Claire says simply. “You’re a catch. Any man would be lucky to have you.”
Jackie pauses mid-inhale. The joint drifts away from her mouth. Her eyes are set somewhere on the ceiling past Claire. When she exhales, the smoke rises lazily past Claire’s face. Claire can feel it brushing her skin as if Jackie has trailed her fingers there.
“Men have no interest in smarts, in my experience,” Jackie finally says, handing the last of the smoldering stub to Claire to finish off instead. “You’re quite handsome yourself, you know.”
Claire has been getting better at inhaling without coughing, but this time she fails. The paper singes her fingers, and she almost drops the ash onto Jackie. “What? No, I—I mean, I’m not—compared to you? You’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever met.”
It’s barely a coherent sentence, but Jackie doesn’t seem to give it much thought. She reaches up to touch her finger to the tip of Claire’s nose. “That doesn’t detract from your handsomeness.”
That tinyboopfeels like the funniest thing that’s ever happened in Claire’s life. She giggles, dropping the remains of the joint into the ashtray. Everything feels floaty, like the couch she’s sitting on is made of clouds.
The feeling intensifies when Jackie catches Claire’s hand from the air and intertwines it with her own, running her thumb over Claire’s palm until it tingles.
If Claire had thought Jackie’s head in her lap was unprecedented closeness, this is another level entirely. It isn’t brief—Jackie continues the motion, a rhythmic and repetitive rubbing against Claire’s palm. She seems entirely focused on it. It gives Claire the opportunity to take Jackie in, observing the little things she hadn’t noticed before. She has a small scar on her chin. She consistently paints her toes, but not her fingers—they’re bare and natural. The hair on her arms is much thickerand darker than Claire’s. It suits her. Claire wonders, lazily, what it feels like. The texture of it. If any of the other hidden places of her body are the same.
She can also see the edges of Jackie’s tattoo from this angle. It’s more than just a tree branch—it looks like it could have flowers on it, but Claire can’t see the whole thing.
“Your tattoo,” Claire says. “What is it?”
Jackie makes a small noise. She’s still tracing Claire’s hand. “This is going to sound strange.”
“How so?”
Jackie is quiet for a time. Her thumb continues its path around Claire’s palm.
“It’s an acacia,” Jackie finally says.
She lets go of Claire’s hand, turning her wrist so that Claire can see it properly. Inked onto Jackie’s skin plain as day is a branch of familiar, puffy flowers. It’s realistic, too—it could have come right from the tree in the middle of their cul-de-sac. There’s no color to it, but Claire can imagine filling in the lines with bright yellow paint.
Now that Claire has a frame of reference for what Jackie’s skin feels like, the curiosity burns ever hotter. Would it feel different to the rest? Her fingers seem to tingle in anticipation of finding out.
“Why did you get it?” Claire says. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known to have a tattoo.”
