How to Recreate Flaming June, by Jessica Dylan Miele

Flaming June, by Frederic Lord Leighton (England) 1895

How to Recreate Flaming June
 
Step 1: Don’t look at Mia Waterage longer than you can think, Mia Waterage. This is before cellphones, before social media, before the internet has conquered your every thought, so if you want to gaze at her face, you have to actually be close to her. Or put a Kodak disposable in front of her, and you are not about to do that. Mia Waterage lives in your neighbourhood, at the end of the block in a house that is the supersized version of your wee little bungalow, even though you have two sisters and she is an only child. During the summer, you, your sisters, and three other neighbourhood kids spend almost every day at her house, because she has the underground pool. When school is in session, she ceases to exist, because she is three grades above you, and you have other problems to deal with.
 
Step 2: Wear your Jane’s Addiction t-shirt over top your swimsuit, and pretend like it’s because you’re still juiced up from seeing them live in concert. But really it’s because you are badly sunburned, and your chest looks like old wallpaper, coming off in strips and patches. Mia has been gone for four days, visiting colleges, and you spent that time obsessively perfecting a cartwheel in your bikini. Be the only person actually swimming in the pool, doing laps as ferociously as possible so that no one can tease you about your t-shirt. Mia is floating on her alligator raft, sweaty glass of diamonds and diet soda in her manicured hand, maple syrup hair so long the ends of it slip along in the pool like seaweed. 
 
When Mia’s mother comes around with more soda and pizza rolls, take only two pizza rolls, and be proud of yourself for leaving the rest for everyone else. Work your teeth around the hard dough as the hot concrete lip of the pool burns your butt, indigo dye from your shirt drooling down your leg. Overhear Mia talking to your sister, Fran. She is still floating on her alligator raft, but now she is sitting up, talking more animatedly than you have ever seen her. She is talking about a painting she saw in one of the dorm rooms. “It was so beautiful, I feel like I heard music when I saw it. There’s this woman, right? She’s in the deepest sleep ever, on this bench outside on a balcony, with this dreamy ocean view, and you know it’s sunset because of the way the waves catch the light, and you know she’s been out there for a long while because her cheek is all flushed. She’s got her legs all curled up, kind of tucked in close, and it’s like she’s making this crescent moon shape with her body. Her dress is this brilliant color that just–” Mia makes a sound like a bomb exploding as she spreads her hands wide. “It’s the most perfect orange colour, like eating an orange creamsicle at the golden hour in summer, while standing on a rusted fire escape.”
 
“Not orange like, an orange?” Fran asks, smirking behind her sunglasses. Her body was draped over an off-white, glittering seashell.
 
“Citrus orange is a morning colour,” says Mia.
 
“But a creamsicle? That doesn’t seem right,” says Fran. “It’s the fake version of an orange, right?”
 
“I didn’t say it was the colour of an orange creamsicle, I said it was like eating one. Like if this painting had a taste it would be bright and tangy, but also creamy and vanilla-y too. It’s like when you have ice cream at the end of a summer day, when you’ve been outside for so long you feel like the sun is still glowing on your skin, and you still feel so warm even as the ice cream is cooling you down.”
 
Step 3: Voice out loud how much you want an orange creamsicle. All the girls agree (except Fran). Make plans to migrate to Wegmans. Be cool when Mia gives you a dry t-shirt, and don’t smell it until you change in the bathroom. After you put it on, realize that it’s advertising University of Syracuse. Resist the urge to shout, “Hurry up!” even though the other girls are slug-slow getting ready to walk to the grocery store, especially your little sister, Cami. Offer to give Cami a piggyback ride, and let everyone think it’s because you’re so sweet. Have her say, “Yee-haw!” as you take off at gallop.
 
Wait until you return to Mia’s house before ripping open the packaging to your creamsicle. Try not to make “yum noises” and don’t eat it too quickly. Think of Mia’s painting and try to picture her perfect colour orange.
 
Don’t give Fran a dirty look when she refuses to eat hers. “I just don’t like sweets,” she says, and remember that it’s not your job to tell everyone she’s lying. 
 
“It’s not the golden hour anyway,” says Mia. “We should have waited until after 8.”
 
Step 4: Decide to eat another orange creamsicle the next day, this time with just Mia. Wait until after dinner, just when the sun is starting to melt. At the last minute, leave her t-shirt at home, even though you’ve been meaning to give it to her. When you get to her door, holding the two creamsicles in their silly, crinkly white packaging, wipe your sweaty upper lip with your arm. When her dad opens the door, stutter pathetically as you explain why you’re back at his house so late in the evening. Feel your upper lip sweating even more. 
 
Smile when she comes downstairs, but don’t compliment her on how nice her freckled shoulder looks peeking out of her oversized shirt. Try to act like you don’t care all that much, even if all you can get out is, “Here,” as you hand her the cold treat. Join her when she laughs at how silly you’re acting, and latch on to the delighted gleam in her eyes when she realizes why you’re here at the orangest part of the day. “Let’s go up to the water tower,” she says, and you let her lead. 
 
When you sit, force yourself to be still with loose limbs, even as the wet grass seeps into your jean shorts. Listen to her talk about college. Hope she doesn’t ask you what you want to major in or anything like that because you haven’t even started high school, and you don’t want to remind her if she has forgotten how young you are. Start to feel as if she is talking you from a great height, like she is a goddess on a cloud. Accidentally let out a squawk when she touches your bare arm. “I’m so glad we’re doing this,” she says. Finally unwrap your orange creamsicle as the sky morphs into a palette of deep orange and gold. For one glorious, tangy, vanilla-scented moment, all your feelings of self-consciousness fall away, and you are simply tasting your creamsicle and beholding the magical radiance of the last light before nightfall. 
 
Step 5: Scour the neighbourhood for rusted fire escape stairs. Don’t tell your mother when you ride your bike all the way to the city, and rejoice when you finally find an old rusty staircase behind a crumbling brick building, its iron steps spiraling downward into the alleyway. Beg Fran to drive you back there that evening so that you can take a whole roll of pictures, but refuse to tell her why. Offer to give her anything she wants, and stay cool when she says, crossing her arms across her chest, “You have nothing that I want.” Remind her that you know all her secrets, like how she drove around with Carlos Vivavattine last Thursday night instead of going to the movies with Heather.
 
Step 6: When you get your rusted staircase pictures developed, tape your three favorites onto the wall. Neither the sky at golden hour nor the taste of a creamsicle can be captured on camera, but spend some time mixing paints to try to capture the colour forming in your head. Then, throw those mistakes away and be embarrassed that you ever created such amateur splooshes.
 
Create a 5X5 grid featuring a spectrum of oranges created by mixing red and yellow in various ratios, adjusting the base oranges with white and black. Stop going to Mia’s pool every day. Be brave and pencil a sleeping body shaped like a crescent moon. Start over. Study the position of your hands in the mirror. Ask Cami to put on a dress and study its creases and folds. Convince her to try on every dress she owns, and then decide that the most suitable dress is the first one she tried on. Smell the chlorine in your sister’s hair as you help her zip up the dress. Agree to go swimming with her the next day, but stay in your room, learning how to paint, instead.
 
Step 7: Finally create a painting you are halfway satisfied with. Be sure that the painting is complete the same way you know when you are finished with a run, or swimming laps. After washing your paintbrushes in the bathroom sink, slip into your bed for a nap. 
 
Forget to comb your hair when you walk over to Mia’s house to gift her the painting. Freak out when you see the outrageous shadow of your bedheaded hair. Knock on the door, but softly, and hope that no one answers. Take in the look of pity creasing Mia’s mother’s forehead when she tells you that Mia isn’t home. Present your painting as if you are delivering a package you’ve never seen before. Say, “This belongs to her,” then run away as fast as you can. 
 
Wait for Mia to come to your door to tell you how much she loves her gift. Practice the tiny, half-smile you will give her as you say, “So, you liked it. I thought you would.” Wait all summer. Resume practicing your cartwheel, but this time slather every inch of your skin with sunscreen.
 
Step 8: End up at Syracuse University, even though Mia went elsewhere. During your first week, find Mia’s painting at the college bookstore. Buy 8 posters and hang them all in your dorm room, so that you can see a Flaming June everywhere you look. Buy creamsicles for all your friends, because you don’t want to eat them by yourself. Be self-righteously surprised when your roommate requests a room transfer after living with you for only six weeks, and assume that it’s because you are openly gay. Years later, think about all those Flaming Junes, and how there was little space to hang anything else. Remember the rolled up tube in the corner of the room, still sealed. Try to guess what artwork your first roommate would’ve put up on her side of the room. Fail at looking her up online, because you only remember her by her nickname, Lolly.
 
Step 9: Speedwalk the city streets of Portland, Oregon, at night, as you try to tire your mind. Ache for sleep. Keep your head down as you walk, going over the same scenario in your mind. See yourself getting on a plane with Andy in five days, off to London where you will walk past the bronze statue of Joshua Reynolds, step inside the Royal Academy of Arts, and finally see Flaming June in person. Debate with yourself whether its ethical to go. Replay again the night Andy raised his hands, as if in surrender, swearing that he wanted nothing more than your friendship. And yet, wrestle with Andy’s age (17 years older), and the spring in his voice when he let you know the hotel room has only one bed. Concentrate on how many nights you stayed up with Andy, listening to his stories, tears in your eyes from laughing so hard. Then zero in on his anger, how he turned on that waiter one night for no reason at all. See yourself in a foreign country with a man who is more than a hundred and fifty pounds heavier than you. Pull your phone out to text Andy, and simultaneously see yourself in London once more, about to witness Sir Frederic Leighton’s actual brushstrokes. Due to a hasty, ill-fated breakup, Andy is actually your roommate, and his name is the only one on the lease. For so many reasons, it would be easier if you just went. Wonder what led Flaming June’s woman to fall asleep on the bench. Where was she coming from? Had she not been able to sleep in her own bedroom? How long had she been asleep before the painter happened upon her?
 
Put your phone back in your pocket.
 
Hear someone call your name, and question your sanity. Look up. See Mia Waterage’s face, her smile, her swan-like neck, her slender arms open for a dancing, overjoyed hug. Break apart from her embrace to look at her face once more, then pull her back into a tight squeeze. Mia Waterage. Breathe her in. She smells like sandalwood and vanilla.
 
Step 10: Let her fast words rain over you. Concentrate on what she is telling you, and ignore your wooziness. Don’t tell her about your insomnia, but admit how tired you are when she invites you back to her apartment. She lives in southeast Portland, near the posh Hawthorne district, which is just about the most incredible thing you’ve ever heard. Imagine! Two Penfielders meeting up all the way across the country. Love her convoluted story of how she ended up on the west coast, involving an acting experiment in L.A.. Worry you sound crazy when you explain your living situation. Wish she would hurry up and tell you her relationship status, even though she already has you like a kitten claw hooked onto a pant leg.
 
“I still have your painting,” she tells you. “I’ve taken it everywhere. I never got a chance to tell you how much it meant to me. I kept waiting for you to come back to the pool.”
 
Say, “I kept waiting for you to come over to my house.” Feel sick about how honest and vulnerable you are being. Reach for some levity. Say, “It was pretty rough before texting was invented.”
 
Back at her apartment, wait on her couch while she fetches your painting. Tell her she can take as long as she needs, because although you are excited that Mia Waterage loved your painting after all, think of a million other things you’d like to be reunited with, other than that thing you made at age fourteen. Remember how you didn’t know how to show where the light is coming from; remember how crowded the face was, how her wormy lips were all the way onto her chin. 
 
Automatically pull the blanket over your legs. Take in its orange color, and wonder if it was a gift, or if she bought it herself. It’s softer than you expect, like how cotton candy is supposed to feel. Catch yourself cataloguing the colour, comparing it to Flaming June’s orange. It needs rust, and also a teensy bit more mustard.
 
Step 11: Fall. You have been hovering above yourself for far too long. Fall into yourself, and feel yourself all the way to the ends of your toes, fully immersed in your skin. Let go of everything that was causing your body unease. What you need to is perfectly doable, and will take rest. Relax your muscles, slow your breathing. Sink your body a touch lower into the couch. Apperceive the moment Mia enters the room, while keeping your eyes closed, your head so blissfully resting on your bare arm. Feel how she fixes you as she adjusts the blanket, her lips brushing your forehead in a way that makes you feel flush all over. Fall deeper, then deeper still. Surrender to the gentle pull of the moment, the sweet, languid tide of sleep.
 
Jessica Dylan Miele

Jessica Dylan Miele is a writer and librarian living in Portland, Oregon. Lately she has gotten into paddle boarding. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines including Gravel, Gingerbread House, and Buckmxn Journal. You can find her on Substack @JessicaDylan.