The Clear Blue Sky - Evan Morgan Williams
They always remembered how cold. It was the one story they could tell together, husband and wife, laughing as they completed each other’s sentences: how cold it was. How the sun dropped behind the Tetons early and left the sky so blank and blue. And cold. Good thing they had each other to keep warm. On the patio behind the tavern, Paul and Emily danced in each other’s arms. The piano, a weathered upright, stood unused against the wall. Paul and Emily were alone. They danced in the cold.
Grit rolled beneath Paul’s soles. Flecks of yellow granite crumbled into powder beneath his heel. Emily, wearing a blouse too thin for cold, too city-slicker for Jackson Hole, pressed close to him. They danced to keep their bodies warm.
The waitress, probably a college girl on a summer job—because that’s how it always was in Jackson Hole—came out to wipe the tables. Her hair was loose, and it got in the way of her work, and she flipped it back, but the breeze came up, and her hair got in her face again. The girl’s breath made a cloud that vanished quickly in the dry air. Paul watched her. Emily was watching too. The girl closed the piano lid and draped a tarp over it, and the tarp rustled in the breeze, and Paul and Emily danced to no music, but they had been doing that for a long time.
“So, Paul...” Emily said.
Paul gazed at her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes.
She said, “Do you remember our first dance? I’m asking you. The first time. Do you remember?”
Paul did not answer. Emily hummed a tune. Paul did not know it.
“Well? Do you remember?”
“I remember it was cold.”
“What else do you remember?”
He remembered all of it. He said, “How do I answer that?”
“You tell the truth. You tell the truth to your woman, whom you love.”
“Listen, you remember as well as I do, and that should be enough. I have you here now, and that’s what matters.”
She said, “Of course you don’t want to talk about it. And, yes, I do remember. We danced for just one song, and then I played the piano for you and Kimberly. And you danced with her, not with me, the rest of the night. It was her last night of the summer. I drove her to the Trailways depot the very next day.”
“Well, I don’t want to reminisce right now.”
“I do. I remember. My hands were cold, and I was the girl alone. Kimberly was dancing with you. You’re the one who set her off on that ballroom dancing jag. That’s how it was.”
“Do you tell me this to wound?”
“Ah, so it hurts.”
“No, not really.”
“Ah, so you’re a tough guy now.”
“No.”
“I played that very piano right over there, and you danced with her. The middle C has a broken key. Did you know it was my print dress she wore? She wore it better, anyway. Too girly for me. I gave it to her. She hugged you in my dress. Do you know what it’s like to watch that? Everyone else was watching too. We were all tired, ready to go back to the condo and flop, and we were cold, but Kimberly didn’t want you to leave. She wanted you to dance so long. She loved you. She wanted to fuck you, Paul. She loved you so. She has probably wondered ever since about you and her. It was a time she needed you to love her, and you didn’t. Don’t you wonder about that time? You can tell me, Paul, ten years out. Don’t lie to yourself, you do wonder about it.”
Paul gazed at her blue eyes. He did not say, “What makes you think she and I didn’t fuck?” Instead, he said, “I thought this was supposed to be our story.”
“Oh, it’s definitely our story, Paul.”
“Then it’s already known, right? We can stop telling it right now.”
Emily said, “We should get someone to play.” She turned to the college girl. “Excuse me. Can you play that thing?”
The girl shook her head. The piano was already tucked beneath its tarp where it belonged. The girl was blowing out candles on the tables. Most of the candles had already died in the breeze. The girl flipped back her hair.
Paul said, “I remember that you played something by Cole Porter, right?”
Emily said, “Begin the Beguine, honey.”
“Okay…”
“108 bars without a repeat.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
They danced. His lips touched her warm hair. He said, “I remember she was always late for her shift.” Paul felt Emily’s shoulders tighten. He said, “She would hurry up the steps to the patio and tie her apron, and she would turn, her skirt swinging around, and her hair swinging around. She’d say in her accent, ‘Do I look all right?’ And she smelled like peppermint. Her hair smelled like god-damn peppermint.”
“You must have been very close to her to smell her shampoo. What else do you remember? I’ve never heard this tidbit before.”
Paul looked at the college girl picking up the salt-and-pepper shakers and putting them on a tray. The girl might have been singing. Paul thought he heard music. The girl was young and pretty. He did not say, “I remember feeling stunned at the perfection of my life.” He said nothing.
Emily said, “Well, I remember something. The owner gave her the best tables, and the patrons gave her the best tips and followed her with their eyes. You don’t remember that, do you? You wouldn’t, stuck in the kitchen.”
“Sounds like a girl thing to remember.”
“And what if Kimberly and you had stayed together, Paul? Do you ever wonder about that? Or is that a girl thing too?”
“I don’t think about that.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“Okay. Maybe she and I would have been like you and me.”
“So, you do think about it.”
“No.”
“We’re interchangeable. We’re just women.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You could have had that life, Paul, but instead you have this life, with me, and that other hypothetical life feels warm and alive, while this life brings you pain sprung simply from the fact that this life is not that other one. The grass is always greener. So you see what you and I have to look back on, Paul: I was not your one true love. We had summer jobs in Jackson Hole. I can say that much. I wore an apron and kept my hair loose and smelling like peppermint too. But you don’t remember me. I played the piano while Kimberly and you danced the fucking night away.”
“Jesus Christ, Emily.”
And they danced. Paul spun Emily around.
There were no more tables to clean, and the college girl sat by the light and read from a thick book and waited for Paul and Emily to leave. She probably didn’t care. The longer they stayed, the more she would be paid. She drew herself a sparkling water. She put on a thick cardigan and wrapped it close.
The sky turned deeper blue, and the blue was broken up by the first stars.
Emily said, “I don’t get that. Night comes so early here.”
“It’s the Tetons blocking out the setting sun. Everything’s in shadow now. The evening has a long way to go, but we don’t have the direct sun anymore.”
“I still don’t get that. I didn’t like it then or now. It’s always too cold.”
“Well, that’s a difference between me and you. Welcome to the Rockies.”
“Don’t go looking for differences. You actually seem to like looking for differences. Do you suppose we’re even dancing to the same song, Paul?”
And they danced. Paul dipped Emily, then brought her up.
She looked at him. Blue eyes. She said, “Why didn’t you love her when you had the chance?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Why, Paul?”
“I did love her.”
“I knew it!”
“But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do know, Paul. I stole you away.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I stole you, didn’t I? I wanted you more. You were too nice to hurt me by saying so. She was too nice, too. So why don’t you say that now? All three of us would be happier. She went back to England, then I stole you away.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“No. That’s not it at all.”
“So, what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
And they danced.
“Be a man.”
“This is being a man.”
“That’s what you have to tell yourself now that you’re stuck with me.” Emily began to cry. Her familiar warmth. Her familiar tears. Paul could smell them on the front of his shirt.
“Stuck with you? You’re not exactly making a strong case for yourself.”
“I don’t have to make a case for myself. I have you now and forever, and I’m so god-damned happy.”
“I’m just saying that you were the right one and that’s why it’s worked out.”
“But Paul, you’re not supposed to have feelings for anyone but me. Just by saying I’m the right one and it’s worked out, that isn’t enough. Big deal. Gee, I’m so glad to know that I ‘worked out’ for you. That’s so romantic, Paul.”
There was no music. Paul wanted to sit down.
“She loved you. She still loves you.” Emily wiped her eyes. “This was a total mistake to come back here. I want to go home.”
Paul said, “We are home.”
And they danced. Paul thought about the aspens turning late-summer yellow, the older ones being the first to turn. He said, “We were twenty-two, and we—”
“I just want to know one thing. Why me?”
“You already know. You’ve always known.”
“I want to hear it again.”
Paul thought about this. He said, “Once upon a time, there was the clear blue sky. Around four o’clock, the sun dropped behind the western mountains, and the deep shade caught us by surprise. We should have known. And with the shade came the cold. We should have known that, too. We were the only ones on the patio anymore. Kimberly had gone back to England by then. The rest of the gang had gone back to school. My arms held you close. There was music, and I didn’t see how time could end, although this was summer in the Rockies, where the ending was, by late August, clearly on its way, if one chose to notice the cold on one’s skin, the change in the flicker’s call, the drift in the edges of the aspen leaves from green to gold. You remember how it was. We didn’t want to leave, but to stay past August was like watching time fly away.”
Paul heard the grit beneath his hard heels. This was not music. They were not dancing. He was grinding grit. Happily ever after.
The girl read her thick book and drank her water, and it was almost gone.
Emily said, “That makes absolutely no fucking sense, Paul.”
The air was cold. The night was cold. It was all cold. They had forgotten the cold. They had forgotten hating this town, Jackson Hole, wearing their thin city clothes and being so cold. Keep dancing. In the cold. On the cold granite stones. To no music. Emily will tug against you. She will hold on. It’s not about the past anymore, it’s you and your wife, on the latest battle ground, the latest way you don’t understand each other, the latest way you don’t fit each other’s dreams, the latest way you aren’t living happily ever after.
The college girl set down her big book. She was watching them.
Paul thought, She has no idea.
The girl said, “Excuse me. I have to close now. Sorry. I really have to go home.”
Paul said, “That’s all right.”
“It’s just that I’m on a bike, and it gets so dark so early.”
“It certainly does.”
The girl said, “So are you guys like, in love, or something?”
Emily said, “Oh yes. In love, or something. That’s exactly what we are.”
Paul said, “Some name for a bar. ‘The Clear Blue Sky.’ I always thought so.”
The girl said, “At least it’s hopeful. It has a hopeful ring to it.”
Paul said, “Of course you have to say that.”
The waitress buttoned her sweater and went inside. The patio lights went down.
Emily whispered, “That wasn’t nice.” She leaned in tighter.
He said, “Sorry.”
Emily said, “‘Sorry’ does it?”
“Of course it does.”
Paul and Emily finished their dance. They twirled. His knees had become sore from dancing on the hard stone.
Emily whispered, “Say her name.”
“What? The waitress?”
“Say Kimberly’s name.”
“I’m not saying her name.”
“That’s better.”
“We need to leave, Emily.”
“Where should we go, Paul? I mean, where did you and she go when you—”
“I don’t suppose it really matters, does it.”
“Where did you do it?”
He did not say anything.
“Come on. Jackson’s a small town. Everyone knows a good place. I’ll go in and ask the girl…” She pulled away.
“No, you won’t.” Paul took Emily’s wrist. She let him pull her in. He held her close and said, “Listen. She and I never did it. Never went anywhere. But let’s go to the high rocks over the Snake. That would be a good place. It may be cold, but the rocks will still be warm.”
“All right. Let’s go there. You know the way?” She wasn’t crying now. Her beautiful eyes.
“I think I remember the way. I’ll take you to my spot.”
“Our spot.”
“Sure.”
They went inside to pay their tab. The girl had locked the register. She unlocked it for them.
“Good night,” said Paul.
“Good night,” said the girl.
Paul watched the girl watching them go.
Originally accepted for publication, but never published, by both The Coil, the online magazine of Alternating Current Press, and Litro Magazine, in the 2010s and 2023, respectively.
Evan Morgan Williams is the recipient of a 2024 Oregon Literary Fellowship. He is the author of four collections of stories: Thorn (BkMk Press, 2014, winner of the Chandra Prize), Canyons (2018), Stories of the New West (Main Street Rag Press, 2021), and The Divide (forthcoming, Cornerstone Press, 2026). Williams has published over 75 stories in literary journals including Kenyon Review, Witness, Zyzzyva, and Alaska Quarterly Review. He holds an MFA from the University of Montana (1991). A proud member of the Deaf/HOH community, he is retired after 29 years of teaching in a public school.
