CAMINA.

By M. M. Kaufman

I can’t stop looking at her. Since my wife greeted Camina at the door, I haven’t blinked. Camina’s hair is in a loose braid hanging over her shoulder. Her perfume is the same. I can smell it a hundred feet away on the patio. Her white cotton dress billows around her knees as she spins to show it off for my wife.

Camina’s husband catches the front door before it closes on him. He is sunburnt and puffy. Day drinking on his boat. I would have been out there with him normally. Before Camina became what she is to me. I wouldn’t trust myself to be alone with her husband now. He waves to my wife and walks straight down the hall to me. I am grilling kebabs.

I give Camina another studying look where she stands in the kitchen with my wife before I turn back to the flames. A hot rush floods my skin and I set my beer down to steady myself. Camina’s giggle dances over the sizzling of the steak. My wife has made her laugh. Camina’s husband slaps me on the back and for a moment I think I am going to throw up.

Over dinner, Camina’s husband tells joke after joke and Camina laughs loud and slaps my wife’s knee. That laugh. Hearty and deep. I watch that hand as it retreats from my wife’s exposed knee, marked with goose bumps.

Camina has long, smooth fingers. I look down at my own hands. My knuckles are thick and my hands dry. I put my hand under the table cloth and run my fingers over my inner thigh. Why would a woman want to feel that, I ask myself.

Camina’s husband says my name loud as if this is not the first time he has said it. I look up to see everyone staring. Camina’s heavily shadowed eyelids drop at the outer edges in a way that suggests pitying concern. Camina’s husband snaps his fingers and I blink and say, Deja vu.

That is not a complete lie. Seeing Camina this way, at my house, at theirs, over our dinner tables, she is often the way she is tonight. She is—on. Something about her glows. Something about her makes me feel like a gray-brown moth. I see her light reflect off my wife’s wide eyes. I am burning myself against the heat of something I can never experience.

Camina’s husband explains what has happened in his fantasy football league. Camina and my wife roll their eyes in unison. Camina stands up and presses the front of her skirt and I am in a cloud of her perfume. I breathe deep and hold it in. The scent of my downfall.

Camina links arms with my wife and they walk across the patio. After they’ve stepped through the sliding glass, my wife tilts her head onto Camina’s shoulder. Camina says something and my wife laughs, deep from her belly. My vision blurs with wet heat.

I stand and lean over the grill. I stir the coals, bring up smoke, and cough. Camina’s husband offers to take over, if I want to put up the food. I like Camina’s husband. I wonder what he did to get a woman like Camina. I wonder what he did to lose her. I carry the tray of leftovers kebabs back into the kitchen and drop them on the island.

There is a toilet flush and smothered laughter. A deeper laugh and a higher pitched one. The door creaks open and there is a soft padding sound. It is my wife tip-toeing up the stairs. The faucet turns off and on then the door flies open and boot heals clip across the hall towards me. I can see her without turning around. Camina has presence.

I take a breath and turn. I am going to do it. I am going to say it. I have practiced these words a million times in my head. My wife is still upstairs and Camina’s husband is watching football videos on his phone outside.

As I open my mouth, I suck in air in a way that makes me choke.

I am bent over retching and Camina is here rubbing my back. The tip of her braid brushes against my red, puffy face. This is not how this was supposed to happen. Camina is so close I can taste her breath. I have never been so close to her before. My ears are ringing and my heart feels as if it is beating out of rhythm. I can’t help but wonder, Is this how she makes my wife feel?

I stand up and stumble away from Camina. Maybe the truth is too much for me. I haven’t revealed I know anything yet. There is still time for me to walk back out to that patio and into benign ignorance. I do not have to confront Camina and my wife. I do not have to do anything.

I get my breath back and straighten up.

M.M. Kaufman lives in New Orleans where she earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop. She holds a BA from Agnes Scott College and is a Fulbright Scholar for her time teaching in Indonesia. Recently she accepted the position of Managing Editor at Rejection Letters, as well as continuing her work with The Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival. She has work published with Slush Pile Magazine, Memoir Mixtapes, Tuck Magazine, The Normal School, Hobart, Shift, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, and Orangeblush Zine. Kaufman is currently at work on her first novel. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com. (She/Her.)