At dusk, we hop over the creaky wooden steps and sprint across the gravel to Tenth Avenue. We skip in the middle of the street, across the train tracks, and climb over the black wrought iron fence into the cemetery. We each find a new headstone to read, shout names, dates, and epitaphs across the warm night air. We imagine the lives the dead led, wonder what they left undone. When a big rig rumbles by, we lie flat on the dry grass, press one ear to the earth, and listen for lingering heartbeats. A bug crawls in Larissa’s ear. She squeals and squirms, says it’s time to go. Joanna’s flip flop gets stuck on the fence. She tweaks her ankle and limps all the way home.

Tias won’t let us inside with our grave-dirty clothes, so we play in the hose until the water runs clear and the yard is full of puddles. We lie on the concrete slab, still warm from the setting sun, until the desert breeze dries us off.

After dinner, we sneak Jolly Ranchers from Tia’s stop smoking stash and use cherry or grape to paint our lips, lemon and sour apple to force a pucker. We stay up late, listen to love song requests on KJMB with the volume low. We record our favorites on a blank cassette, pause when the deejay talks or plays a commercial. We pretend to be Gloria or Cynthia or Sheila whose boyfriend or husband or lover has called in her special song.

Our bedroom in Blythe isn’t real. Tio hung curtains from the ceiling around where the dining table should be. Our doorway is strands of beads. We always waltz through, let them drip over our shoulders and clack clack behind us like applause. Brothers got doors that lock to play with their Star Wars action figures and talk about what boys like best. They don’t know we’ve listened outside their window from the shade of the giant salt cedar trees. Maribel wonders if being a boy would be better.

Joanna says she learned to kiss from watching her brother and his girlfriend on the front porch through the gap in the living room curtains when she was supposed to be asleep. She grabs a pillow and shows us how they smashed faces together and moved from side to side, like a slow song played for them too. We take turns practicing on our pillows. The rest of us share what we saw on a movie or behind the gym at school or in the back seat of the bus. We perfect our technique until Tias yell “Ya! Time for bed.”

We lie arm to arm, stare up at the water stain on the ceiling that spreads from the dusty chandelier like a wilted brown flower, and whisper the names of who will be our first kiss.

The next night, we climb into the back of Tio’s pick-up and fight over who gets to sit on the wheel wells as he drives along the bumpy dirt road. Delia and Elisa win, stretch arms along metal and ignore the road behind. The rest of us stand against the cab, let the wind blow our hair back, and watch the road ahead. We squint into the darkening. “Cottontail!” “Lizard!” “Dead bird!” At the canal, we all fish with tangled line on flimsy sticks and try to spear frogs.

“Tastes just like chicken,” Tio says later when he grills the legs and drowns them with hot sauce. Only Maribel tries one. The rest of us eat boiled hot dogs with ketchup, sip Sunny Delight from our red plastic cups.

On Sunday night, we sit by the fire pit in the front yard with untwisted wire hangers and burn marshmallows. No chocolate. No graham crackers. Just charred gooeyness to scald the roof of our mouths.

We don’t know this Memorial Day weekend will be the last one we’re all here. Can’t imagine we’ll get too busy in high school next year with debate team and swim team, soccer and softball. Wouldn’t believe the next day will be the last time all our families are together.

So we keep stuffing sugary blobs into our cheeks, smacking mosquitos on our bare legs when they dare to land. The moonlight peeks through the leaves of the mulberry trees, creates ghostly shadows on our faces that shift as the fire fades. We compose our own epitaphs out loud. We stare up at the stars, listen to the darkness until our necks ache, and wait for one to fall. 

“I’d wish for a skateboard like my brother’s.”

“I’d wish for world peace.”

“I’d wish for a giant swimming pool with a high dive.”

“I’d wish for a boyfriend.”

“I’d wish we could always be right here.”

Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is obsessed with food. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and is an Annenberg Fellow at University of Southern California. She is a Macondista, creates drama with Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop, and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit. Her flash fiction has been included in Best Small Fictions 2022. You can read her other stories and essays at tishareichle.com.