Kissing Kate

  But that wasn’t fair. I actually wished I were more like Ariel in some ways, more willing to go ahead and be weird if I wanted to. Or not even weird—just less self-conscious. I hated how self-conscious I felt all the time.

  I took in Ariel’s sweaty face and sensed something shift within me. It took guts for her to keep reaching out to me, unencouraged and uninvited. Plus, and I needed to remember this, it wasn’t as if tons of others were waiting in line to take her place.

  And really, I knew that Ariel wasn’t so bad.

  She just wasn’t Kate.

  CHAPTER 15

  FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK, I couldn’t shake the thought that things between Kate and me were going to get patched up. I’d done a good and unselfish thing—I’d escorted Darlin on her date with the wild and crazy members of the Supper Club—and now I should be rewarded. Kate should call me.

  Anytime now, she surely would.

  So on Saturday morning, when Beth stuck her head into the bathroom and said the phone was for me, my heart sped up.

  “Who is it?” I said, pulling back the shower curtain.

  “I don’t know. Jerry answered.”

  Jerry would know if it was Kate, at least I think he would. But that didn’t mean he’d mention it to Beth. I turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and hurried to my room.

  “Hello?” I said. To Jerry I called, “I’ve got it!”

  “Hello, Lissa? It’s Ariel.”

  “Ariel.” I sat down on the bed, making a wet splotch on the quilt. “What’s up?”

  “Finn and I are going to IHOP for breakfast. Want to come?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “No line dancing, I promise,” she said.

  “I can’t. I just got out of the shower.”

  “So put on some clothes. Or come naked. Hell, Finn would love it.” She giggled. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay?”

  I opened my eyes. I could go with Ariel and Finn or I could sit in my room, waiting for a call that was never going to come. “Sure,” I said. “Why not.”

  The IHOP was a madhouse: kids screaming for juice, truckers eating platters of eggs and sausage, up-all-nighters staring bleary-eyed at their menus and laughing over nothing. There was a forty-five-minute wait to be seated, but Ariel knew one of the waitresses, and she squeezed us in at the next available table.

  “Friends in high places,” Ariel said. She shook her napkin into her lap. “I know everyone at Baskin-Robbins, too. You want a big scoop, you come with me.”

  “You want a big scoop, you come with me,” Finn repeated, lowering his voice and glowering. He switched back to his normal self. “You sound like you’re in the Mafia.”

  Ariel grinned. “You know it.”

  A five-year-old in the booth behind us whizzed a slice of orange at Finn’s head, then slid out of sight. Finn picked up the orange slice, reached over the top of the booth, and tapped the kid’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think you dropped this.”

  “George!” the boy’s mother said. “I told you to stop that!” Finn looked at me and arched his eyebrows. “You, too, Lissa. No more roughhousing in the booth, you hear?”

  I half-smiled, then returned to my menu. I shouldn’t have come. I felt dull and sluggish.

  “Y’all know what you want?” our waitress asked, setting a glass of water by each of our place mats.

  I shut the menu. “A short stack of pancakes and a small orange juice, please.”

  “Same for me,” Finn said.

  “Wimps,” Ariel said. She handed her menu to the waitress. “I’ll have the chocolate-chip waffle with whipped cream and sprinkles.”

  “Want any sugar with that?” Finn said.

  Ariel ignored him. “And a large orange juice. Thanks, Christina.” She propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her palms. “So. Guess what I’ve decided to be when I get out of school?”

  “A dentist?” Finn said.

  “No.”

  “A bunny rabbit?”

  “No, a dowser. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

  Finn turned to me. “A dowser. What’s a dowser?”

  I roused myself from my apathy. “Um, I’m not sure. Someone who finds things underground?”

  “Not ‘things,’” Ariel said. “Water. I’d use one of those Y-shaped rods and find water for people.”

  “Because so many people have lost their water,” Finn said.

  She rolled her eyes. “For wells, dummy.”

  “Oh, right. For wells.” He leaned back in his seat “Lissa, do you have a well?”

  “You know, we don’t, actually. We’ve got a water pipe, although sometimes we misplace it . . .”

  Finn laughed. I was pleased despite myself.

  “Okay, fine,” Ariel said. “But in Vermont and Connecticut there is a big business of well digging, and dowsers do really well. Ha! Well, get it?” She slapped the table. “Anyway, it would be a great way for me to stay in touch with Mother Earth and all that. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?”

  “How do you become a dowser?” I asked.

  “That part I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “But how hard can it be?”

  Finn and I looked at each other across the table.

  Ariel launched into a pro/con analysis of metal dowsing rods versus wooden ones, stopping for breath only when Christina arrived with our food. Christina served Finn and me our pancakes, then placed Ariel’s waffle before her with a flourish. On top of the waffle she’d squirted a whipped cream smiley-face, with a cherry for the nose and two chunks of pineapple for the eyes. “Thought I’d have a little fun with it. What do you think?”

  Ariel clapped her hands. “Christina, I love it.”

  The five-year-old peered at Ariel’s waffle over the top of the booth.

  “Jealous, aren’t you?” Finn said.

  “Let me know if you need anything else,” Christina said. She winked and headed to the kitchen.

  “I think we should say a blessing,” Ariel said.

  “I think we shouldn’t,” Finn said.

  Ariel held out her hands, one to each of us. When neither of us responded, she held them out farther, fingers wiggling. Finn groaned and took one hand. Reluctantly, I took the other.

  Closing her eyes, Ariel chanted, “Thank you, Inanna, for the bounty you have spread before us. When we eat of this food, we eat of your body. Amen.”

  “Who’s Inanna?” Finn said.

  “An ancient goddess from Mesopotamia,” Ariel said. She cut off a bite of waffle and popped it into her mouth. “People prayed to her by baking these special cakes which they placed on her altar. They called them ‘cakes from heaven,’ and when they ate them, it was like they were eating Inanna’s own body.”

  “Clever,” Finn said.

  “Like communion?” I asked. My heaviness, without my realizing it, had begun to lift. “You know, when you eat the body of Christ?”

  “Exactly,” Ariel said, pointing her fork at me in approval. “Do you go to church?”

  “I used to go with Kate sometimes. When we were in junior high, her mom would make us go.”

  “Is Kate Catholic?”

  I shook my head. “Presbyterian.”

  “Grape juice, huh? If you’re Catholic, you get wine.”

  “So, Ariel,” Finn said, “how can you be a dowser when you get out of school? I thought you were going to be a priestess. Won’t Inanna be mad?”

  “Finn, Finn, Finn. Always hiding behind that sarcastic wit of yours.” She reached across the table and clasped his face between her hands. “Inside there is a joyful little boy, just waiting to get out. Set your joy free, Finn. Set it free.”

  “You’re getting syrup on my cheeks,” Finn said.

  I laughed, spurting orange juice back into my glass.

  “She laughed,” Ariel said to Finn.

  “So she did,” Finn said.

  Ariel cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, heavenly day.”

  CHAPTER 16

/>   AT ENTRÉES ON TRAYS THAT EVENING, Ariel and I had fun. Nothing phenomenal, nothing earth-shattering, but fun. This time Ariel got the privilege of delivering Mrs. Gladstone’s pasta with asparagus tips, and when she got back to her car, she went on about what a truly troubled woman Mrs. Gladstone was. It was the first time I’d heard her be the slightest bit grouchy, and I enjoyed it.

  “Did she mention her soon-to-be-fragrant urine?” I asked, holding down the talk button on the walkie-talkie.

  “She nibbled on the asparagus while I was there. She was practically orgasmic.”

  I laughed, then pulled into the Fish Market’s parking lot. “Gotta run,” I said. “Over and out.”

  At 9:15, we met at Darlin’s to turn in our money and equipment. Ariel brought tempura from Ichiban’s, so I hung out with Darlin and her for a while instead of heading straight home.

  “So-o-o?” Ariel said from her perch on the kitchen counter. “Are we Supper Clubbing it again this week? They’re going to Portofino. Best pesto in town.”

  “Ariel,” I said. I glanced at Darlin, expecting her to blush and say that maybe she’d go again, but only if I came, too. Which maybe I would, if they begged.

  But Darlin smiled and dipped a chunk of fried zucchini into the soy sauce. Her red fingernails looked like pieces of candy. “Oh, girls,” she said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Darlin, why not?” Ariel said. “Didn’t you have a good time? And what about Phil? It was so obvious he liked you. I thought you liked him, too.”

  “I liked him just fine,” Darlin said. “As a matter of fact, I spoke with him just last night.”

  “You did? Did he ask you out? Are you going?”

  “He asked, but I declined.”

  “But . . .” Ariel shook her head. “You don’t have to go out with Phil if you don’t want to, but that doesn’t mean you have to quit the whole group. Lissa and I will go with you if you don’t want to go alone. Right, Lissa?”

  “She said she doesn’t want to,” I said.

  Darlin patted Ariel’s leg. “Baby, I’m glad you encouraged me to go last Wednesday. It was a good thing. But I watched Phil and the others, and you know what I realized? I’m not like them.”

  My face got hot. Darlin had found the others wanting, just as I did, but hearing it said out loud made me feel bad.

  “With Burl, it was all about how I could please him,” Darlin went on. “All those plates of hors d’oeuvres? And heavens, Antiques Roadshow week after week? Those folks in the Supper Club, now, they know how to go about making themselves happy. I’ve got to learn that all over again.”

  I stopped chewing. She didn’t look down on them. That wasn’t it at all.

  “I still don’t understand why you have to quit the group,” Ariel said. “Why can’t you hang out with them while you figure out how to make yourself happy?”

  Darlin laughed. “Gracious, Ariel. Give me time. Right now I need to do some good old-fashioned soul-searching, and believe me, that’s a big enough task for anyone.”

  I looked at Darlin, her face pale with powder, her lips full and pink. She met my gaze, and it was as if she could tell what I was thinking. That maybe I needed to do some soul-searching, too. Something passed between us, and she reached over and squeezed my hand.

  Later, as Ariel and I walked to our cars, Ariel said she didn’t want to go home yet. She was going to Java Jive’s for a latte—did I want to come?

  The night air smelled like rain, and it was just chilly enough to need a jacket. I wrapped my arms around my ribs and convinced myself that despite Darlin’s good example, searching my soul wasn’t something I had to do this very second.

  “Sure,” I said.

  It was drizzling by the time we got there, and Ariel and I dashed from the parking lot to the shelter of the coffeehouse. Inside, Ariel shook out her hair. “Brr,” she said. “I hate getting water down my collar. Feels like icicles.”

  “What I hate is water inside my shoes,” I said. “How clammy your socks get.”

  “Uh-huh. I love it when it rains in the summer, but when it’s cold out, it just makes everything icky.” She weaved through the eating area, which was full despite the late hour. “Hey, today was a good day, wasn’t it? Even though Darlin’s giving up on the Supper Club.”

  “She’s not giving up,” I said defensively. “She’s just . . . doing things her own way.”

  Ariel glanced at me. “I guess,” she said. “All I meant was that I had fun with her tonight. I wish we could hang out more.”

  I felt embarrassed, as if I’d overreacted. “Well, we still can,” I said. “It just won’t be with the Supper Club.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” She perked back up. “And this morning at IHOP—that was awesome. Finn’s great, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, he’s a nice guy.”

  “And isn’t he cute? In a James Dean kind of way, all tough edges and sensual mouth. God, he would hate it if he knew we were talking about him!”

  We found an empty table by the window and shrugged off our wet jackets.

  “I take it y’all are going out?” I asked.

  “Who, me and Finn? Nah, we’re just friends. Anyway, he likes brunettes, remember?”

  It took me a second, and then blood rushed to my cheeks. I could feel it. When I finally spoke, it was to say the only thing I could think of. “So, uh, what happened to his hand, anyway?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Does it bother you?”

  “No, I . . .”

  “Because I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “No, I know. I was . . . I was just curious.”

  Her mouth stayed tight, but by the time the server had taken our orders, she appeared to have let it go. Only now, neither one of us could think of anything to say. It was easier over the walkie-talkies.

  She drummed her fingers on the table.

  I fiddled with the saltshaker.

  “Oh, man, I had this crazy dream last night,” she said at last. “Want to hear it?”

  My heart sank. Dreams? Again?

  “Never mind,” she said, scanning my face.

  “No, it’s okay. Let’s hear it.”

  She looked at me, gnawing on her thumbnail. She wiped her thumb on her sleeve and dropped her hand to her lap. “Well . . . I dreamed I was upside down, hanging off the bottom of the planet. There was no one else around, just me, dangling off this giant blue and green globe.” She kind of laughed. “Weird, huh?”

  The server arrived with our drinks, and I watched as Ariel dumped sugar into her mocha latte, stirred it in, and licked a glob of whipped cream from the spoon.

  “So what do you think it means?” I asked.

  “God, don’t ask me.” Again, she laughed. “That I’m all alone in my own little world?”

  My face must have registered how awkward I felt, because she gave me a funny look and said, “I was joking.” She grabbed a third pack of sugar. “Although my mom would beg to disagree.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She hates my hair. She hates my nose ring. She thinks I look like a tramp. Or an alien, depending on her mood. Last night it was a tramp, just because I was wearing this totally normal black camisole. I mean, it wasn’t trashy or anything. ‘Don’t you even want to fit in?’ she kept saying.”

  I cupped my hands around my coffee. She was telling me too much.

  “It used to really bug me when she’d yell at me,” Ariel said. “I’d think maybe there was something wrong with me, you know?”

  “But . . . not anymore?”

  “Nope. I could care less if I fit in, because—aha! Aha! Because I am on the earth, but not of the earth! That’s what my dream meant!” She smacked the table. “Shit. Am I well-adjusted or what?”

  I gave her a weak smile. I thought of her expression when she called me over to sit with her last week in the cafeteria. The only other person at her table was Finn, and it was a big table.

  “God, dreams ar
e cool, aren’t they?” Ariel said. She spooned up a sip of her drink. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could dream things on purpose? Whatever you wanted, just set your mind to it and make it happen?”

  My stomach got all fluttery. I opened my mouth, then closed it. Then I thought about how much Ariel had shared, and how little I’d given in return. “You mean . . . like lucid dreaming?”

  “What’s lucid dreaming?”

  The fluttery feeling grew stronger. “It’s what my book is about. The one you saw.”

  Ariel drew her eyebrows together.

  “On my dashboard? That night at Darlin’s? The guy who wrote it taught himself how to control his dreams.”

  Ariel put down her spoon. “Holy cats. Does he tell how? Have you done it?”

  “Well, there are a lot of different methods,” I said. I fingered the edge of the table. “I’ve, um . . . I’ve tried a couple of them, just for the hell of it, but nothing’s really happened.”

  She looked so fascinated that I almost wanted to tell her the truth: that something had happened, a huge something. But I didn’t.

  “Tell me what you’re supposed to do,” Ariel said. “I read this one book where this guy would look at his palm during his dreams, and that would make him realize he was dreaming. I’ve tried, but I can never remember to look at my hand.”

  “Yeah, a lot of the methods have to do with remembering to do something when you’re asleep,” I said. “Like, if you see any writing, you’re supposed to make yourself look at it more than once.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’ll probably be different the second time around. Instead of saying ‘mouse,’ it’ll say ‘elephant,’ or whatever. And then you’re supposed to think, ‘Wait a minute—that can’t be right.’ And hopefully you’ll realize it isn’t right, and you’ll figure out you’re dreaming.”

  “Look for writing,” Ariel said, as if ticking off an item on a list.

  “Or you can look at a watch. Or a clock. Same concept.”

  “Isn’t it interesting how dreams shift around like that? How things change before you know it, and nothing’s what you think it is?”