Summer Stars

It was the summer of my fifteenth year when I discovered the fireflies in the forest.

I had snuck out of the house late one night, when the moon was high and the mosquitoes had long since swarmed around the harsh glare of our porch light. I remember looking out of my window and seeing all those stars winking at me, taunting me, calling me out into the night. I felt something in my blood stir, and I felt too big for my skin. Without pausing to think, I slipped on my well-worn sneakers and crept out of the creaky screen door. I felt something inside me loosen slightly as I wandered in the night air, the slight breeze ruffling my straight, brown hair. Nothing beat a summer night in Louisiana, when the heat was oppressive and soothing all at once.

I meandered through the sugarcane field behind the house in the direction of the forest, the damp air enveloping my skin like a thick blanket. The mice and snakes that made their home in Daddy’s field hadn’t scared me for a long time and they certainly didn’t that night. Stopping on the edge of the forest, I peered in as far as I could. Little lights bobbed up and down somewhere deep in the lush, green foliage. I had never been in the forest at night, and I could feel a certain recklessness settling in my limbs.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward into the trees.

I pushed through the wild growth, unsure of my destination. I found myself following the bobbing lights in the distance. Every branch, every leaf blended with the last one, and I had no idea where I was going. Somehow, I was never scared. That night, I was invincible. That night, there was no one from the bank calling the house every other day, there was no hovering mother, there was no hard-nosed father; there was only me and the sounds of branches crunching underfoot and my quiet breathing.

Times had been hard for awhile for us. Daddy’s modest sugar business was getting forced out by the larger co-ops. Mama and Daddy kept acting like nothing had changed, as if I couldn’t tell. Sometimes I heard them talking late at night. Daddy was missing payments on the land and the house; the bank had started calling several months back. Mama was considering taking the secretary position for Mr. Blanchard, a lawyer in town; Daddy didn’t want her working. There was an almost tangible tension coiling around the house, slowly strangling us each day.

Even before our money problems, there was something clawing at all of us. Mama never gave me a moment’s peace. If my shirt wasn’t too low or too tight, my jeans were, or my shorts were too short. I couldn’t listen to any of the radio like the kids I went to school with listened to, either. Daddy said the programs and music on the radio weren’t appropriate for a young lady, and Mama said they weren’t Christian. I wasn’t allowed to talk to boys, not even at church on Sunday. I couldn’t wear make-up or style my hair the way the gorgeous women in the fashion magazines hidden in my closet did. The older I grew the tighter and tighter they clung to me. The added air of tension of recent months was suffocating me.

But there in the forest that night, I felt free as a bird.

Before I realized how far I walked, I found there was only a small barrier of trees left between myself and the lights. A tingling began in my toes and traveled quickly up to my arms as I pushed through the last bit of green between me and the light. My breathing sped up in anticipation as I stepped into the light.

I could feel my insides freeze as I exited the trees. The lights I had seen from a distance weren’t merely lights, but fireflies, hundreds—no, thousands—of fireflies. I was surrounded by them on all sides. They swirled and swarmed, all moving separately but seemingly as a single unit. Their lights reflecting off of my skin gave me an ethereal glow. This must be how stars feel. I felt like I would break from my skin at any moment and take off on the wind, and I wondered what it would be like to join the community of light before me. My breath had all but stopped as I shakily explored the gathering place of these magnificent bugs.

The fireflies paid me no mind as they buzzed merrily around me. I felt too loud, too large, too clumsy, as if I were intruding on their sacred space. I stopped walking once I reached what appeared to be the middle of the swarm. They twisted and whirled around me, and I felt a sense of home I had never experienced. As I watched them spin and rise and dive, I realized what it was that made them so glorious: They were dancing.

Tears stung my eyes as I observed in awe what I had missed before. Of course they were dancing. It was all too powerful and graceful, all of them moving in perfectly choreographed lines, waves, and circles. Mama and Daddy didn’t like dancing. As far as I could tell, they never even tried it, which meant I never had either. That seemed insignificant at the time; I followed their movements with my heart, and I had a burning desire to join them. I closed my eyes and let the air around me move me. I twirled and twirled with my hands high in the air and my nightgown flying around me.

As I spun round and round, I heard the music. Mixing with the melodic hum of the fireflies and the swaying of the trees, there was the faint sound of music that boomed loudly from the dance halls Daddy drove past without a second glance—Zydeco. The accordion and fiddle rose and fell with the sounds of the forest. The washboard and guitar matched the beating of my heart, and I felt myself let out a wild laugh as I spun faster. I had heard the music blaring from the dance halls before, and I had seen the men and women dancing hot and fast, closer than my mother and father had ever been. A rush passed over me as I imagined a man dancing with me, spinning me hard and pulling me flush against his chest like I had seen before.

In those few moments, the forest was alive not only around me, but in me. The music was in my blood and the light pressed closer than my skin. I was fierce and lovely and this was never going to end. I finally understood why my parents did not allow music or dancing. And, just for a second, I understood why my mother got on her knees every night and prayed a rosary, hands clasped tightly around ruby beads and eyes shut tight.

A rustling in the trees across from me stopped me in my tracks. My heart rate increased painfully. The fireflies were beautiful and mysterious, but they couldn’t protect me from whatever wild animal was waiting to spring at me.

My body stiffened further once the animal emerged from the brush, revealing not a beast, but a boy. He stood up straight and brushed himself off before striding towards me, a small smile on his lips. I wiped at the sweat gathering on my forehead and shifted nervously from foot to foot. I had never really talked to a boy my age before, but it seemed as if that were about to change. He stopped in front of me, his sandy hair falling into dark green eyes.

He wiped his hand on his jeans and held it out to me, “John. John Labauve.”

I slowly reached a hand out and placed it in his palm. “Cherie Gauthreaux.”

“I know who you are,” he replied, grinning. “We go to the same school.” He slowly released my hand, never taking his eyes from mine. My cheeks flamed and I ducked my head as I noticed how thin my nightgown was. “I saw you dancing,” he said. “You looked beautiful.” My eyes shot to his, and I suddenly didn’t feel as shy anymore.

It was the summer of my fifteenth year when I first kissed a boy.

We lay in the undergrowth watching the fireflies dance overhead for what felt like hours. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes he even held my hand. Mostly we just listened, and when we did, we heard a whole symphony being conducted by the trees around us: The fireflies buzzed in harmony with the chirping of the crickets, and the wind whistled a soft melody with the stars, the Zydeco swelling around it with a grace I understood with my heart alone. I could have sworn I heard Mama’s soft French, “Notre Père, qui es dans les cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié,” drifting along on the breeze.

“You know what they’re doing, right?” John asked once, pointing to the swirling lights above us. “That’s how they mate. Isn’t that incredible?”

It was much later when John and I parted ways. The fireflies had finally grown tired and were starting to dissipate, and the far-off music had ceased. We stood up, brushed the leaves and dirt from our clothes, and silently walked in opposite directions.

I stumbled and noisily trampled my way out of the forest. I didn’t trust my eyes, so I let my feet lead the way. I had more faith in everything that night than I ever had. I hadn’t gone too far when I heard branches snapping and crunching loudly from somewhere behind me. I turned around in time to see John almost fall over as he pushed his way to where I was. He was out of breath, and his hair was matted to his forehead. I thought he was the handsomest boy I had ever seen.

“I thought you were beautiful before I saw you dancing in the forest,” he told me in a rush of breath. “In fact, when I first saw you in school last year, I thought you were the most perfect girl I ever saw.”

His kiss was soft and warm, and it tasted of salt and spice.

I must have floated back to my bedroom on a cloud, because when I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t remember how I got there. I bathed quickly before dressing and going downstairs to find Mama cooking grits in the kitchen and Daddy reading the paper. I gave them both a kiss on the cheek and took my place at the table. After breakfast, I helped Mama with the dishes, and everything seemed exactly the same as it always did. It was enough to make my heart break a little.

But that August I saw John walk up to the same school bus stop I used everyday, and I felt whole once more. My heart gave a painful thud as he walked toward me, grinning that same grin that made me want to rush back into the forest and dance until I was old and tired. We stood in silence as we waited for the school bus, and when it got there he sat next to me. He took my hand when we were sure no one was watching and held it all the way to school. At lunch, he sat next to me on a picnic table outside and split a bologna sandwich with me. After school, he walked me home. We fell into a routine after that day, which we repeated until the next August when I moved away.

John and I had a year and a summer together. We turned sixteen together, learned to dance like the grown-ups together, and loved together. We never tried looking for the fireflies again; they were there in every gaze, every touch, every kiss. We were so young then, and carefree to the brink of naiveté; we were our own eternal summer night. John and I should have known that everything ends eventually, stars fade and even fireflies die. When the bank foreclosed on Daddy’s land and the co-ops swallowed his business, he and Mama and I moved several towns down the bayou, where Daddy got a job at a sugar mill. I started a new school, made new friends, and life raged on. John and I wrote to each other sometimes. He said he wanted to marry me someday, said he saw the fireflies in his backyard one night and knew it was a sign.

John and I never did get married. I heard he moved North for a little while before returning home to take over his father’s butchery. I went off to college after high school, much to my parents’ horror. Mama spent every night for a month before I left praying an extra rosary just for me, and Daddy started setting money aside for me, which I didn’t know until the day I left. Before I stepped onto the bus, Mama pulled me into a tight hug; I couldn’t remember her ever hugging me before. She gently placed her ruby rosary in my right hand and stepped back, wiping at her eyes. Daddy came forward then, our identical blue eyes locked, and pressed a wad of neatly folded bills into my other palm. “You take care of yourself, baby girl.”

Daddy died several years later in an accident at the mill. Mama joined him just one short year later. Neither of them got to see me get married or have children or grandchildren. When I grew old and tired, my husband and I moved to a small home in front of the same forest that was so dear to my heart. The night we moved in, I sat on the porch swing after praying my rosary in soft French, hands clasped around ruby beads and eyes shut tight. I sat for the longest time, looking out into the trees. It was Louisiana summer night, with the smell of rain hanging in the air.

It was the summer of my seventy-fifth year when my heart danced once more with the fireflies in the forest.