Kissing Kate

  “It really isn’t,” I said. “It’s just that I’m never going to make it if—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ariel said. She walked me to the door, then waved as I hurried to my truck. “Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

  I glanced back, ready to make some smart remark, and saw that Darlin had joined Ariel in the doorway.

  “Just remember to follow your heart,” Darlin said. She said it lightly, but her gaze was steady. “Take care of yourself, baby.”

  My retort dried up, and I turned away.

  CHAPTER 25

  I STOOD IN MY BATHROBE before the mirror. My skin was flushed from my shower, and I liked the way my hair looked when it was wet. Fuller, darker, and sticking up in interesting clumps when I raked my fingers through it. It was getting longer, too. My bangs grazed my eyebrows now, and the sides had finally grown out enough to shove behind my ears. I spied Beth’s mousse behind a bottle of lotion and pulled it out, weighing it in my hand. What the hell. I squirted an egg-sized pouf into my palm and smeared it into my hair. There—maybe now it would stay the way I wanted it.

  In my room, I slipped on my new shirt and a pair of faded jeans that hung low on my hips. I was fishing under my bed for my brown leather belt when the telephone rang. “Dammit,” I muttered. I scooted backward and reached for the phone. “Hello?”

  “Lissa, hi,” Kate said.

  My heart skipped a beat. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. Dad’s grilling some chicken and Mom’s complaining, as usual. Says he’s got the temperature too high, that the outside will be roasted before the inside has a chance to cook.” She snorted. “Now she’s saying we’ll all get salmonella and die in our chairs. Can you hear her?”

  I laughed. “Just barely.”

  “What about you? Getting ready for your big date?” She said it in a teasing way, as if she didn’t really care, but I knew she did. Otherwise, why would she call?

  “Finn’s going to be here in ten minutes,” I said. “But I can’t find my leather belt.”

  “The one with the silver buckle?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You can borrow mine, if you want. I could bring it over.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll figure something out.” I did not want Kate here when Finn picked me up. It would be too weird.

  “Well, have fun,” she said. “That’s all I called to say.”

  “Okay. Uh, thanks. What are you going to do tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Sit around, watch movies. Vertigo is on at ten o’clock.”

  “I love that movie.”

  “So come over and watch it. Blow Finn off.” Again that teasing tone, and when I didn’t answer, she said, “I’m kidding. You know I’m kidding, right?”

  “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to finish getting dressed.”

  “Yeah, well, dinner’s ready, so I’ve got to go, too. Wish me luck.”

  “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She paused. “You, too.”

  “Man,” Finn said, sitting across from me with his forearms on the table. “I am really hungry.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Our pizza should get here soon.”

  “Hope so. They usually don’t take too long.”

  We looked at each other, then looked away. This most recent exchange was one of several conversational dead ends we’d run into this evening. On the ride over we’d given in-depth coverage to the weather. Chillier than usual for this time of year, don’t you think? Yep, sure is chilly. And when we arrived at the restaurant, we had a brief flurry of conversation over what kind of pizza to order. Other than that, we’d both been as interesting as doorknobs.

  “How about them Braves?” Finn threw out.

  I raised my eyebrows. “How ‘bout ‘em?”

  “One large pepperoni and sausage,” our waiter announced, descending upon us with a golden-brown pizza. “Watch out, it’s hot. Anything else you need?”

  “No, thanks,” Finn said. “We’re fine.”

  I served Finn and then myself, and we went at it like we were starving. “Ow,” I said, fanning my tongue after burning it with the sauce.

  “But good, huh?”

  “Mmm. Delicious.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “So did you hang out with Ariel today?” he asked. “Talk about dreams?”

  He said it with a lilt, and I felt a stab of defensiveness. But then I remembered what Ariel said, about how Finn acted all mocking on the outside but was really just shy. He was probably just trying to find something to talk about.

  “We did,” I said. “It was fun.”

  “I bet. Ariel’s all fired up to unravel the mysteries of her subconscious, which, of course, is a huge load of psycho-babble. You don’t really believe that stuff, do you? That dreams are the windows to our souls?”

  “I never said I did.”

  “Then why bother analyzing them to death?”

  I stirred my Sprite with my straw. I let the straw go, and it kept spinning on its own. “I don’t know,” I said. “Even if dreams aren’t the windows to our souls, even if they’re just these random things, we still wake up thinking about them.”

  “So?”

  “So whatever meaning we give them is just as revealing as the dream itself. Maybe more so. It’s like that test with the ink blots. What’s that called? Where it says one thing about you if you think the blot is a flower, and something totally different if you think it’s, I don’t know, a spider or something?”

  Finn looked dubious.

  “Come on,” I said. “Haven’t you had dreams that felt really important for some reason? And by trying to figure them out, you figured out something about yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?”

  He tore off a piece of his crust. “Look. I’m not saying it’s bad that you believe in that stuff. I’m just surprised. I guess I saw you as more skeptical, that’s all.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. I guess I saw me as more skeptical, too. At least I used to.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s so much in the world I can’t even begin to understand. So many possibilities. I don’t want to rule anything out.”

  Finn held my gaze, then slowly nodded.

  Later, when he walked me to my door, he tried to kiss me. He leaned forward, very gentle, but I felt his breath on my lips and pulled away. He blushed and wrapped his arms around his chest, hiding his hands beneath his armpits.

  “No,” I said, “it’s not—”

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “Finn, wait. I really like you. I think you’re great.”

  “But you just want to be friends.” He turned toward me, daring me to disagree.

  My face got hot. “It’s not . . . it’s not what you—”

  “Yeah, well, it never is.” He got in his car and turned on the motor. “See you around.”

  I waited until his tail lights were no longer visible, then reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys. But I didn’t go inside. I climbed into my truck and drove to Kate’s, as perhaps I’d known all along I would.

  CHAPTER 26

  “OH, NO,” KATE SAID. She giggled. “The weather? You talked about the weather?”

  “For, like, fifteen minutes at least. We decided conclusively that it was cold out—which, interestingly enough, we already knew, since the heater in his car didn’t work and we shivered all the way to the restaurant. Smiled and shivered and talked about the damn weather.”

  Kate hid her head in her hands. She was already in her pajamas, and I’d had to toss pebbles at her window to get her to let me in. We’d tiptoed to the kitchen, where she snagged some Oreos from her dad’s hidden stash, and then we’d padded upstairs to her room.

  I grabbed a cookie and leaned against the side of her bed. “It wasn’t all bad, though. I mean, he’s really a nice guy. Once we got to Fellini??
?s, things got better.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “And the pizza was great. Sausage and pepperoni.”

  “So you got a good meal out of it, anyway.” She glanced at my face and said, “Just kidding. That was mean.”

  I twisted open the Oreo and balanced the two halves on my knee. “He tried to kiss me.”

  Alarm flicked in her eyes, although I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been watching for it.

  “Oh, yeah?” she said.

  “Afterward, when he dropped me off.”

  “Huh.”

  “I didn’t let him.”

  She wet her lips. “Why not?”

  My heart thumped, but I didn’t back down. “Because I didn’t want to. Because if there’s anyone I wanted to kiss—”

  She stiffened.

  “—it would be you.” The split-open Oreo was still on my knee, the cookie-half next to the icing-half. A wink. And as I stared at it, something inside of me shifted and came dislodged. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but it would. And I’m not going to pretend everything’s normal again just because you can’t deal with it.”

  “Excuse me?” she said. Her cheeks flamed with color. “I can’t deal with it? I’m the one who called you, I’m the one who came up to you after we fought—”

  “Yeah, and you’ll talk about anything but that night, anything but what actually happened. And if I happen to stand too close, God forbid, you pull back like I’ve got rabies or something!”

  She glanced at the door. “Lissa—”

  “What? You’re worried your parents will hear us?” I lowered my voice, while at the same time hating myself for doing it. “All you care about is what people might think. And I do, too. Of course I do. But what we have . . . what we did . . . I’m not giving it up just because it’s not normal, whatever that is.”

  Kate looked like she was about to cry. I stared at my lap, at the stupid Oreo balanced on my thigh, and brushed the two halves to the floor.

  “I wish you could just forget about it,” she said. “Why can’t you forget it ever happened?”

  “Because it did happen, and it was wonderful. At least until Rob and Ben showed up.” I took a breath. “I don’t . . . I’m not trying to make things hard. It’s just . . . God, Kate. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever known.”

  She plucked at her pajamas. She didn’t speak for several seconds, and when she did, her voice was barely audible. “I broke up with Ben,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “It was me, not him.”

  I remembered how he looked that day by her locker, how desperate he was for her attention. “What are you saying?”

  “He didn’t fool around with Alice Spradling at Terri’s party. I made that up.”

  “Then why did you . . .”

  “I don’t know. I just did.” She drew her knees to her chest. “Because when he kissed me . . .”

  My mouth went dry.

  “You already know,” she said. She wiped at her eyes. “God. Why am I being like this? Why am I acting like such an idiot? It’s just that this stuff between us . . . It scares me, Lissa.”

  “It scares me, too. But we can’t just ignore it.”

  “We can’t?” She lifted her head and kind of laughed. I didn’t. She stopped smiling, and when she spoke, she spoke to the floor. “Ben’s a nice guy, but when he kissed me, nothing happened. Okay?”

  I gazed at her. In the past, Kate had been the confident one. The leader. This time, I led the way. I leaned over and touched her face. I kissed her, and her lips opened against mine. She tasted like icing, like a summer night and a swirl of bright color.

  And then her hand was on my shoulder, pushing me away. “Don’t,” she whispered.

  I didn’t listen.

  “Don’t!”

  “Kate—” I touched her leg, and she tensed up. “But you said—”

  “I can’t. I just . . . I can’t.”

  “Kate, why are you being this way? You said you felt it, too. You said that. And if it’s what we both want—”

  “It’s not what I want.” She lifted her head. “I’m not like you, Lissa. I’m not a fucking dyke, all right?”

  I drew back as if I’d been slapped.

  “I didn’t mean that,” she said quickly. “It’s just . . . why do you have to argue with me all the time?” She raked her hand through her hair. “God. Just because I don’t want to kiss you—why does that have to change everything?”

  Tears burned in my eyes as I got to my feet. My face scrunched up and a sound came out of my throat, but even then I didn’t leave. I stood there, waiting for her to stop me, and only when she looked away did I realize she already had.

  CHAPTER 27

  THAT NIGHT I DREAMED that Kate leaned over in the middle of history class and whispered that we should both take our shirts off, that it would be fun. I went along with it, but as soon as I pulled off my shirt, the entire class started laughing.

  “It was a joke,” Kate said.

  I woke up with puffy eyes. I drew my quilt around my shoulders and tried to push everything out of my mind, but my fight with Kate kept playing in my head. And what destroyed me, what made me feel raw with shame, was that the things Kate said—that she wanted only friendship, that she wasn’t “like” me—were the same things she’d been saying ever since that night at the gazebo. I just hadn’t wanted to listen.

  I kicked off the covers and sat up, squinting against the light. My clock said 11:33 A.M. Was that possible?

  I put my feet on the cold wooden floor. My body felt shaky, and I almost crawled back beneath the sheets. But I didn’t, because beneath the hurt and embarrassment, there was a small place inside of me that said no. I thought of Darlin, how she’d taken charge of her life when things had gotten hard, and my resolve strengthened. I had to move on.

  I grabbed my school directory from the drawer of my nightstand and flipped through the pages until I came to Kimberly Thomas. Before I could change my mind, I took a breath and punched in the numbers.

  “Hello?” Ariel said after the second ring.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s Lissa.”

  “Hey! What’s up?” She sounded glad to hear from me.

  “Nothing much. I was . . . I was wondering if you might want to hang out or something. Go get some coffee.”

  “Sure. When?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Now?”

  I nodded, then realized that she couldn’t see that over the phone. “That’d be great. Java Jive’s?”

  “Sounds good. And you can tell me about your date with Finn.”

  I closed my eyes. Until this minute, I’d honestly forgotten about that part of the night. But it was all part of the same thing, and that’s why I was calling Ariel in the first place. “Yeah, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Ariel listened while I told her about dinner with Finn. She stirred her mocha latte and spooned swirls of whipped cream to her lips, and when I got to the part about Finn kissing me, she paused with the spoon still in her mouth. “He did?” she said. She looked a little stunned, but then she took out the spoon and tried again. “He kissed you? That’s awesome!”

  “Wait,” I said. “I pulled away.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not attracted to him, not like that.” I fiddled with the napkin dispenser, then set it down. I stared at my hands. “The thing is . . . well, the reason I called you . . . Shit. It’s not even that big a deal. I mean, it is, but . . .”

  “What?” Ariel said.

  I held myself still. “I think . . . I might be gay.”

  She laughed. “Because you didn’t want to kiss Finn? Poor guy. I don’t think he’s heard that one before.” She stopped laughing when I didn’t join in. She touched my arm. “Lissa?”

  “I’m not joking.”

  She studied me. “Kate?” she said at last.

  I nodded.

  “Does she know?”

  “She know
s. And she doesn’t—” My throat closed, and my shoulders started to shake.

  Ariel’s hand tightened on my forearm, and then she scooted from her side of the booth to mine. She put her arm around me. I would have thought my tears were all used up, but clearly they weren’t.

  “Kate’s really stupid,” Ariel said softly, “if she’s willing to give you up.”

  “You don’t think it’s weird? Abnormal?”

  “What, that you like a girl? I think you’re weird and maybe a little abnormal, but not because of that.”

  I reached for a napkin and blew my nose. “Great. Thanks.”

  “I like weird,” she said. “But Lissa . . .”

  I crumpled the napkin in my palm.

  “Just because you’re into Kate . . . well, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay. Although it’s okay if you are. But if that’s what’s worrying you . . .” She sighed. “God. It shouldn’t be so hard to talk about this stuff. All I’m saying is maybe you’re gay or maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re bi. Or maybe it’s totally a Kate thing. Maybe you’d want to be with her whether she was a girl or a boy.”

  I blinked. I didn’t know if what she said made things better or worse.

  “Have you liked other girls?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, see?”

  “Yeah, but Ariel . . .” I pushed myself up so that I was no longer leaning against her. “There was this party. And Kate and I both got a little drunk . . . Well, she did. I didn’t. And . . . I don’t know. Things happened. And for the longest time, I tried to tell myself that it didn’t mean anything, but it did. It does. And I’m sick of shoving those feelings away.”

  A funny expression crossed Ariel’s face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing. I just . . . I know what you mean.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, yeah. Kind of. Although it’s nothing compared to what you’re dealing with.” She gnawed on her thumbnail. “It’s just that I’m not, like, totally depressed that things didn’t work out between you and Finn.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like I said, it’s nothing like what you’re going through. But when I said how excited I was for you two . . .”