It is nearly midnight. The logs pop as I take my poker and stir up the coals once more before the flames die out altogether. Once enough embers are glowing, I hastily add another log to the fire. If the fire dies out, the evening is over. The sparks cascade heavenward and light up the surrounding fireside area. The light from the newly flaming log is enough to enhance the view I have of Michael. He is sitting directly across from me, and Gene has told me that Michael really likes me. I was fifteen at the time and not quite sure what that really meant.

It was my duty each evening at dusk to get a fire going in the common pit outside of the reservation desk of my family’s campground. As the night wore on, customers would come and go, just chit-chatting, or perhaps checking up on their kids who were likely sitting out there with me. Marshmallows were always available, and on occasion, someone would bring the required Hershey bars and graham crackers for s’mores.

By about ten each evening, any younger kids and any other campground guests would trickle back to their tents to go to bed. We always had guests who stayed for longer periods of time, and many for the entire summer. The teenage children of these guests were my inner circle. Michael’s family were summer residents.

Looking through the flames, I could see his long blonde hair shadowing his face. His bangs would separate in the middle and his eyes would mirror the flames that danced between us. As the summer wore on, Michael’s designated seat would move clockwise around the circle changing every few nights so as to not look suspicious. After about two weeks, his seat was right next to me.

The innocence of this nightly ritual is long lost, but the memory of the first kiss is still sharp in my mind’s eye some twenty five years later. Soft youthful lips. Hands not knowing where to go so they remain at our sides. A brief kiss, then it is time once again to give the dying embers a stir so that another log can pile on to warm the midnight sky as sparks cascade heavenward.