The sky was ink and the stars were pinholes: white light bursting through in a magnificent sparkle. Below, in a field, fireflies mingled with the light of a film projector and the triumphant energy of teenagers out after dark. The field was a drive-in theater, the time was neither past nor future, but also it was both. It was nostalgia and it was hope; familiar faces and first kisses.
In the passenger seat of Andy’s convertible, Stacy rubbed her left palm on her skirt to rid it of sweat. She rested her forearm on her thigh and let her hand hover awkwardly, so it was wedged between the end of her and the start of the gear shift. In the driver’s seat, Andy’s eyes were on the movie. His right hand was in a bucket of popcorn. Stacy watched it — the hand, not the movie. What would it feel like? To have those fingers laced through hers? She thought, no, she knew, it would be the thing that completed her.
She looked at her hand, waiting there by the side of her thigh. Andy, she decided, hadn’t noticed it. She kept it there. This way, should he suddenly be overcome with a desire to feel her as much as she wanted to feel him, her hand would be there, ready. And then they’d be touching.
Andy plunged his hand into the popcorn again and brought it to his mouth. How adorable, she thought, he’s like a squirrel. She eyed the popcorn. Should she put her hand in at the same time as him? It may move things along.
No. She’d wait. It should happen organically.
Then there was motion — airborne commotion, really — above the screen. A thing hovered. It was cylindrical, like Saturn’s rings, with a bubble protruding upwards from its center. Beams of blueish-white light streamed down from it. It was a flying saucer, and it moved now, from above the screen to above the field. A chorus of adolescent screams broke through the humid air in frantic disharmony. Stacy whipped her head toward Andy, who stared forward, mouth agape. Stacy shifted in her seat. Was this real? An alien spacecraft was descending upon the very field where she was finally alone with Andy? Years later, she still wouldn’t believe it.
The thing traveled in fits and spurts, like it was looking for something specific. As it moved, the beams of light pouring out of it blinded whoever they landed on. People shielded their faces.
And then it happened. The thing Stacy would recall with crystal-clear, full-body memory for the rest of her days. Andy, who still hadn’t said a word, followed the thing with his eyes. As it swept over Andy’s car, the light went straight into him. It pierced through his pupils, and a scream barreled out of him like a wild horse. He flailed and threw the popcorn, sending buttered kernels everywhere.
And then, my god.
He grabbed Stacy’s hand.