The Seven Year Slip

by Ashley Poston

My aunt used to say, if you don’t fit in, fool everyone until you do. She also said to keep your passport renewed, to pair red wines with meats and whites with everything else, to find work that is fulfilling to your heart as well as your head, to never forget to fall in love whenever you can find it because love is nothing if not a matter of timing, and to chase the moon. Always, always chase the moon.

That was my allure, right? That you didn’t need to worry about Clementine West. She always figured it out.

At least even in their tidy glass offices you could see them dissociating at 2:00 p.m. on a Monday with the rest of us.

My aunt used to say that you could live somewhere your entire life and still find things to surprise you.

“Let’s go chase the moon, my darling Clementine.”

I remember that dinner so well—the way you do when your brain sticks on a scene and replays

it over and over again years after, changing the details just slightly, but never the outcome.

“This one is Bertha.” I arched an eyebrow. “You name your knives?” “All of them.” Then he pointed over to his other knives rolled out on the counter and introduced them. “Rochester, Jane, Sophie, Adele…” “Those are just Jane Eyre characters.”

Just like there’s secrets in memoirs and confessions in novels, there’s a steadfast certainty to a good travel guide, you know?”

“Don’t you ever color outside the lines, Lemon?”

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” he asked, as if daring me.

See, darling? she would say. You can plan everything in your life, and you’ll still be taken by surprise.

And then I looked into his grayish-blue eyes, and I knew exactly how I’d paint them—I’d paint them like the moon. Layers of white, gradually growing darker, with shadows of blue.

“Do you need my safe word? It’s sassafras.”

“I tell them about a girl I fell in love with at the right place but the wrong time.”