There she is with goddamn shaky Noel and a camera that costs a thousand dollars. Noel wasn't always shaky; that came later. When I first met him, he was top of the heap. Now he's shaky — big deal. I told her not to take any pictures, but does she listen? No. Sometimes life isn't art; sometimes it's just shit that happened or is happening right now and not all of it needs to be on black and white film from a camera that costs more than my car. I'm not sure what makes me crazier: goddamn shaky Noel or a camera that never stops clicking.

So now we're a foursome, and we're taking a walk to see where it happened. Winslet walks in front with Noel, and I'm next; Sandi is her divorced mom, and she follows me. Sandi told us where it was, and it seemed a better idea than sitting on the porch with nothing to do. But Winslet brings the camera, and my stomach isn't feeling so good; I know some things need to just be. If we were home, Noel would work on Winslet, and Sandi would take a nap, but I'm like the combustible element in this autumn equation: something needed to happen. "Let's take a walk, and I'll show you." That was Sandi. Winslet ran inside for the camera. "Okay," I said, but I knew it wasn't.

The first thing heard is "a little sightseeing?" and none of us say any words back, but Winslet looks as if she wants to. Winslet has no censor, see, and the first syllables that form when she opens her mouth are the ones that come out. "Shut the fucking door," she told me in the morning. I watch her carefully to be ready and cover with a joke because there's maybe nine of them and four of us, and we're out of our element.

They are playing cards outside, fanning themselves with TV Guides, and because their skin is black and ours isn't, we live in different worlds within the same neighborhood. The fire is theirs; it doesn't belong to us. Winslet is wearing the shortest cut-offs you ever did see and that camera around her neck. I say hi under my breath, and Noel asks Winslet if he can open her film or do anything for her. You can smell it from here although it's days old, maybe a week, and the people in the lawn chairs just stare and fan hot air, shaking their heads.

We cross the street and a boy goes by on a bicycle; he's probably six or seven. My stomach turns circles. We shouldn't be doing this. Sandi sucks on her lower lip and watches her toes wiggle in their sandals as we cross over. She's on the outside now; this thing between Noel and Winslet has to play itself out, but Sandi understands Noel will be gone soon, and I'm just the extra component. Sandi knows I wish she wasn't here, no offense. But Sandi likes me. I smile, and she stops biting her lip for a second. Sandi is alone and lives through Winslet, and Winslet lives through the camera lens. Maybe we all live through Winslet. None of us are happy, and maybe this is a way to see something worse so we know how good we have it — all that in a false smile.

"Tourists." We're across the road, but I hear them. I turn around, and a woman edges out of the screen door, speaking to the people splayed in lawn chairs. Her name is Brenda, but I don't know that yet. The yard is enclosed; two dogs yelp, and it's hard to hear. Somebody laughs. She is older, maybe forty, and her skin is like smooth paint. I watch her; she sees me, and now I lag behind. Brenda talks to the yard people, and there is another laugh. Her voice is like a wilted flower too long in the sun; maybe she's from the south. Walking here was like walking through the south — it's not like our side of the neighborhood — everyone was on a porch with a dog, and everyone said hi like it was the most natural thing in the world. They were the only real smiles I saw all day. But the people in the yard don't smile at all; the weight of the fire is theirs to bear.

Winslet dumped Noel some months back, but they are trying the friends thing on for size, and suddenly it's Labor Day weekend, and he's sleeping over. I know he's not having sex with her because I asked Winslet, and even though she was angry with me for asking, she told me no. "Friends sometimes sleep in other friends' beds," she said, but I've never slept in Winslet's bed. I don't bring that up though. I can't let on that I am chained to her love, because if I do I will disappear like smoke, and I have no one else in this world to talk to. A real dilemma, this, because I sometimes wish she were two people, so I wouldn't wonder if my small heart makes the friendship even smaller. This kind of thinking, Winslet tells me, will lead nowhere.

I also know someone else is trying to love Winslet. I know because on the walk over she uses a new word not once, not twice, but three times. "I believe everything is impermanent," she said when I told her she might be doing wrong by photographing the remains. I asked her where she found the word, and she revealed in whispers this someone new. It is his word, and Winslet is becoming that person — framing the new stranger in a certain way — letting him develop her. It is his word, but it's not Winslet's. The Winslet I know keeps journals with acid free paper and documents every new experience through a lens. I hope the new person hasn't gotten into her pants yet, but it can't be too far off if she's using his words.

And there they are: four twins, skeletons, a rubble driveway between each, set on a little skid of a road. The fire must have licked the bent tips of the single tree on the far corner. The boy on the bicycle is back, and he does a wheelie in the middle of the street. We're across from them, and my stomach does little flip-flops. "Sixty-two in eight," he says, and I cover my ears. Everything smells like a cigarette does when someone puts it out in a toilet. Sandi asks the little boy what he means by that, but she knows, we all know. Sixty-two in eight. The houses are charcoal rubbings, and the fence around the tiny front yard on the near corner, its once green wax melted clear down to the twisted metal, is covered with notes and flowers and stuffed animals.

The woman I will know soon as Brenda walks down the middle of the road with two small children. "Going to the store?" asks the boy on the bike, and he's off to beat her down the block. I stare as she passes. I want to ask if it's true, sixty-two in eight, but before I can she says to me, "Just a little boy playing with his mama's stove. That's his bear there." And I see it, fur peeled back to its marble eyes, tied to the fence with all the stuffed animals. Pinned to each of the ragged bears and worn dogs is a handwritten note in crayon — children's wishes. The other animals are from the fire department; they are shiny and don't belong here anymore than the four of us. The scorched bear is real like Brenda is real. I have to lean against a wall. The woman called Brenda reaches the corner and makes the turn. So much love stuck in such small houses, I think.

Winslet has the camera out, and she's focusing, and I scream at her, "You can't, you can't. It's sacred ground. Let it go." Winslet doesn't turn her head, but her shoulders rise, and she speaks into the camera. "If you don't want to be here, leave." And I say, "But it's sacred ground. It's not ours. You shouldn't take pictures. What's gone is gone." Sandi looks at me with the sorry eyes, and I realize for the first time what her eyes mean. "It's wrong," I say and walk up the block, the smell of burnt love strong in my nostrils. Sandi says something to Noel, but he's busy unwrapping film and holding Winslet's bags, whispering in her ear. Winslet says to her mother, so I can hear, "He's doing it on purpose."

My head is spinning; I keep walking so I don't throw up. Winslet promised we would go to the movies afterward, but I don't think we're going now; I get angry about that too. Winslet's camera goes click click click, stuttering echoes down the street. I want to turn and tell her again. I want to take all the cameras away from her face and kiss her until she surrenders to me, and her hair falls down my cheeks. You can't capture what is sacred and you never ask me to sleep in your bed: these are the things I want to tell her, but I just walk. I really don't want to let her out of my sight in case Noel tries to kiss her behind a tree, but I need to be far enough away so I can't hear the click of the camera or smell the scent of burnt teddy bear; I think I will always know both.

The boy on the bicycle skids to a stop and points to a white house with a side yard surrounded by a fence; a laundry line crosses from tree to tree. "That's where they chain the retarded boy when he wants to come out and play. We throw crabapples at him sometimes." And the tears come and clean the dirt off my face. "The pretty white girl's on one of the porches, you know." I close my eyes, and the boy on the bicycle rides away. I walk until I reach the iron shoulder of the road, woods on either side of the dead end, and sit my sorry ass down, crying until there's nothing left. Winslet says my heart is too small, and I have to love someone else. I have to let go too.

Sandi is there soon, and she says Winslet is finished and wants to maybe hike in the woods. I shake her off. Sandi says, "Let's go, Winslet wants to walk." I tell her I don't do everything Winslet wants like everyone else, and Sandi smiles. She knows I'm lying because my eyes cross when I do, and they are crossing like crazy. I am glad the sun is going down; in the dark, you can't see my eyes.

Winslet in her fashion shoes. Winslet with a camera that costs a thousand dollars. Winslet treading on sacred ground. Winslet spending her love again and again, moving from one Noel to another like she's trying to get love in focus. I'm too close, I think. I am too close to be in focus. I have nothing to offer but surrender.

My friends are gone, and I am alone on the side of the road. The only path I know home goes near the fire zone. I am afraid, but my feet take over, and I am walking before I know it. The undergrowth on either side of the road is thick, filling with night noises. One of those fuzzy little dandelion wishes floats toward me, and when I move out of its way, it circles back on the wind and follows me for damn near half a block.

I reach the house where Brenda lives. Only a few people are in the lawn chairs, and they are saying good-night to each other. Brenda is in the backyard with the milk she bought at the store, and she opens the gate for them as they leave. "Did you see my wish?" I ask her. She looks puzzled, holding the gate for me. I sit on a lawn chair. Brenda hands the milk to one of the little girls, and they run giggling around the back. It is so dark, and lightning bugs make little fires in the corners of my eyes. Brenda tells me her name. She is older than I am, and maybe the little girls are hers, and maybe they're not. Brenda takes my hand, and we walk into her house.

The living room is small, but I don't get a good look because Brenda leads me into a bedroom that is even smaller, filled to the ceiling with books and plants. I stand in the middle and try and count the number of ways this bedroom is different from Winslet's. I don't see any cameras, and suddenly everything is wet and bleary.

Brenda holds me close and asks if I'm crying about my wish. I spill my damn guts. I tell Brenda: "I'm guilty too. I want to capture everything that hurts and let go of nothing. I want to wear fashion shoes and own the right records. So much love in such a small heart. A beady little heart. Won't let go. Can't let go," but I know she doesn't understand a word. She smiles and asks me, "When was the last time you came?" I don't have an answer, but I feel what Brenda feels against her stomach, and I am ashamed.

"It's a favor. Friends do friends favors when they're down," she says, and when I sit on the bed, Brenda sits next to me. "He lived. He's in the hospital. I saw him the day before yesterday. He just wanted to play with his mama's stove, pretend he was a big person. His name is Roger. He'll have scars for a long time." Her hand is in my lap, and I tell her I should find Winslet in case something happens. Brenda kisses my temple. "Sometimes you just need to feel something real."

And when I wake up, the house is empty, but the street outside is noisy with kids. I drink the milk Brenda bought at the store and sit outside, fanning myself with a TV Guide. Brenda comes around the corner and holds my hand. "Nothing stays around forever; you need to be still while everything changes just to catch your breath," Brenda says. I want to tell her I'm tired of being still, but I don't dare. "Looks like rain; could have used it last week," she says, and I nod and wait for water to come down from the sky.

-end-