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"My most memorable kiss happened during a sunset a lot like this,” Alberta said, her voice almost a reverent whisper as she settled down near the trunk of the old sycamore tree to watch the sun sink behind the distant trees and hills.
The wistful non sequitur caught Hetty off-guard. She looked down to see her companion reach out and pluck at a blade of grass, momentarily forgetting her incorporeal form. Her fingers slipped right through it.
Alberta sighed.
Hetty made a noncommittal hum as she adjusted her skirts in order to sit down beside her. Looping her arm through Alberta's, she ran her fingers across the velvet of her sleeves, tracing an idle path across the brocade pattern of its trim while she gazed up at the darkening sky. The deep blue blanket of night tucked a vibrant riot of pink, yellow, and orange into the horizon while the first few stars of the evening glittered above it all. It did look rather breathtaking, she had to admit.
"Kisses between Elias and myself were infrequent and entirely unremarkable. And I certainly don't recall any with such a picturesque backdrop.”
Their duty-bound union held little attraction between them, after all. She'd struggled to feign any sort of enthusiasm, while Elias regarded her as an impediment to his more…lecherous impulses. They made it work, at least in the sense that they produced children as expected of them and made a formidable pair in the realms of the beau monde and business. But passion, at least for each other, certainly never factored into any of that. Kissing Elias felt like trying to light a wet match.
“Was he the only one you ever kissed?”
Hetty was glad for twilight's gentle veil that masked the deep blush she knew heated her cheeks.
“No…” she admitted with quiet reluctance.
Alberta perked up immediately, her eyes alight with the prospect of new gossip, even if it was quite a few decades old.
“Oh, girl, you can't just leave it at that!” she said, scooting in closer. “Tell me everything!”
“Oh, there's hardly anything to tell…and you didn't tell me what made your kiss so special. I assume it wasn't just a remarkable sunset?"
Alberta gave her a sidelong glance, her lips pursing before she shook her head, acquiescing to Hetty’s redirection with a roll of her eyes.
“Okay. Fine. We were in this souped up Tin Lizzy, waiting for it to get dark enough so we could run some moonshine across the state line. There was this thick grove of trees that made the perfect hiding spot, ‘cuz from the road you really couldn’t see anything. Pretty little place that overlooked a valley and a river. We'd been flirting with each other for weeks, and I guess the between the scenery and the excitement…" She trailed off, apparently lost in her memories for a moment before she suddenly shook with a bawdy chuckle. "‘Course the sunset and that kiss weren't the only things that were memorable about that night, if ya know what I mean.”
“Oh, Bertie, never change,” Hetty laughed. She started to look over at Alberta, but caught the keen, sharp look in her eyes and immediately averted her gaze to an old rosebush in desperate need of pruning.
"Oh no, little miss, you're not off the hook just yet."
She scowled at that and grumbled with a small huff, "Perhaps change a little, actually."
"Uh uh! Quit avoid the subject and dish!"
"It's rude to kiss and tell and there truly isn't much to tell," she said, her voice lilting upward with the lie it held. She sat up a little straighter, waving her hand dismissively as she tried to exude an air of prim defiance.
Still, the mere thought of that particular interlude, that brief yet euphoric spell before it all fell apart, softened her entire bearing. And Alberta clocked it right away.
“Oh, there's definitely a story there. You're getting all starry-eyed just thinking about it! C'mon," she wheedled, "tell ol’ Bertie all about it!”
Hetty sighed, her grin faltering as she looked across her back lawn, once a lovely, lavish garden, now faded and overgrown. The first few fireflies were beginning to dance above the tall grass. Their dim glow glimmered in the shadows, just out of reach as they blinked in and out of view…much like many of her memories of that time.
Alberta changed tactics, her voice mellowing as she quietly asked, “So…who was it? Must've been someone awfully special.”
“A painter. My father commissioned portraits of each of us and…” she said, twirling her fingers around the fringe that lined Alberta's coat. "…and I fell in love."
“Ooo, an artist. That is romantic.”
"Of course, unbeknownst to me, my father was already in negotiations with my great-uncle to marry me off to one of his unfortunate sons…" Her tone soured as she recalled the machinations that occurred over whiskey and ledgers, her hand and heart traded on contract.
Alberta wrinkled her nose. Hetty didn't speak of Elias all that often but all the ghosts understood it wasn't a romance for the storybooks.
"Never mind that jackass. Back to this painter that's still got you blushing all these years later. Must've been good. It was good, wasn't it?"
“It was marvelous,” she admitted. "Our dalliance was short lived, but it was possibly the happiest I ever felt during my life."
She closed her eyes, trying to recall her beloved's voice and smile, now a faint echo and hazy figment she couldn't entirely trust to be precise any longer. Counting back through the decades, she alarmed herself with just how long it had truly been. At least twenty years prior to her death and then all the many years ever since.
She envied her descendants. Having a photograph taken had still been a something of an event for most of her life. And now the youngest generation of Woodstones had so many possibilities available to them that could capture their images and their voices on occasions both momentous and mundane.
Not that she imagined she would've been permitted any such keepsakes had they been available to her…
"I'm sorry, Hetty," Alberta said, sensing the shift in her mood. "I didn't mean to upset you by prying…"
She swallowed back a sigh and shook her head, her smile rueful. "No, no. It's just…I'm realizing it's been so long I only really remember the joy our brief little trysts brought me. The emotions are still there. The tangible feeling of being kissed, however? It's so faint I hardly recall it anymore."
She lifted her fingers to her lips, as though she could still summon the sensation if she just focused hard enough, but it was for naught. Early into her marriage, she forced herself to try not to think of it anymore, to be more practical. Clinging to such sweetness hurt too much once the bitter grip of reality wrenched her away from her daydreams.
She perhaps had been a little too successful in the endeavor.
“Anyway, it was quite clandestine, always tucked away in a shadowy corner of the studio where hopefully no one would notice us for a few brief stolen moments. It certainly wasn't very scenic,” she murmured, her fingertips still hovering over her mouth, as though they could mask the melancholia that tinged her voice. "But it was indeed simply…wonderful. I only wish I remembered it better."
Alberta looked at her for a long moment, a thoughtful expression on her face, before she reached up and pulled her hand away.
Hetty tilted her head at her, curious, as she pressed their palms together and intertwined her fingers with hers…and then slightly gasped when she slipped her arm around her waist to pull her near.
Confusion gave way to realization as Alberta's steady gaze dropped to her lips and then back up again. This time she looked at her with a question in her eyes. She could only manage to nod in acquiescence.
And so, in the quiet hush of twilight and as fireflies floated around them like little bursts of starlight, Alberta kissed her.
Hetty closed her eyes and leaned into it, determined to remember this kiss better, to memorize the soft brush of lips upon her own and the melodic hum as Alberta squeezed her hand and deepened the kiss.
She remembered the euphoria but…oh my, she realized she'd forgotten about the butterflies. Or the way a kiss could make her heart feel like it was glowing and how that burst of sweet joy felt like it couldn't be confined to the mere limits her body. She'd forgotten how a truly good kiss was really a euphoric medley of physical and emotional sensations.
They smiled at each other when they parted.
"Do you remember now?"
She nodded and looked up at the evening sky, now a vivid blend of purple and blue, before she rested her head on Alberta's shoulder. “I do. Thank you.”
“Anytime, darlin’. Anytime.”