"What a waste."
Kyra! I turn around, my beer all but gone now. There's a table with an umbrella sticking up from the center and it catches the light from near the door, throwing shadows into the corners, especially right up against the house. That's where she's sitting, in a deck chair, right where my blind spot would have been when I came outside.
My throat locks up.
"But it's pretty lousy beer, isn't it?" Dina asks. "No sin tossing it out."
Like I said: My throat locks up. I just stand there like an idiot.
Not Kyra; Dina. I could have sworn ... Just like in those dreams; getting them confused. I don't understand.
She's wearing a sleeveless blouse that's unbuttoned about halfway, enough that there's what appears to be endless acres of visible cleavage. I remember Kyra's lecture about the wizardry and illusion possible as regards the female breast, but that just leads me to Kyra's next move, which is a bad thing to think about right now. I don't need any more stimulation.
Dina's also wearing shorts, the kind with cuffs at about mid-thigh. They fit snugly, sleek against her hips. She has one foot on an ottoman, the other crossed over it, a sandal dangling from that foot as she jiggles it in unconscious accompaniment to the music in the house. Even unaware, she has better timing than Vesentine. She's not drinking beer. It's something else. Something with berries on the label. Wine cooler?
It clicks that I'm staring at her, which I shouldn't do, but it's so weird. Just a minute ago I was thinking of a scene in Schemata where Courteney has to come to a party like this, and now here's Dina.
"I didn't know someone was out here," I tell her. "I'm sorry." I head for the door.
"Just don't tell anyone you saw me."
"I won't." Yes, the sophomore slug will obey the commands of the Senior Goddess. For a split second I fantasize that I might actually talk to her, but then I remember the one time on the bus. When I accidentally touched her and she looked at me like I was a bug. A big, disgusting bug with too many tentacles.
As I open the door, I hear a familiar sound. Dina has knocked a cigarette out of the pack and is getting ready to light up.
"Please don't do that," someone tells her.
"What did you say?" she asks. And yes, she's talking to me.
"Please don't..." I should shut up. But I think of Kyra's mother and I just..."Please don't do that," I say again. "Don't smoke that."
She arches an eyebrow at me. It's a Kyra-ism, something that until recently I never would have thought was at all sexy. Such a fool.
"I have a friend whose mother died of lung cancer. It's a really bad way to go. And..."
The eyebrow is still arched. I'm fixated on it.
She sighs, which does simply amazing things to the body under the blouse. She breaks the cigarette in half and makes a show of tossing each half over the deck railing. "There. Happy?"
"Ecstatic." Does my mental control go beyond making her stop smoking? Dare I command her to dance for my pleasure? Sh-yeah.
"Do I know you?"
"Uh-uh." I shake my head vigorously, which is a mistake. I feel nauseated from the sudden motion and the reek of beer, which seems to have taken up permanent residence in my nostrils. I pull up a chair and sit down before I embarrass myself by falling down at her feet.
"You OK?"
"Yeah."
"You are a little young to be drinking." She favors me with a mock-severe look that I'm sure she intends to be maternal but I find nothing short of full-on erotic. That's it; I'm staying seated for the time being.
"So are you," I tell her. Which is true. No one here is twenty-one.
"What are you, an undercover cop or something?" She regards me with amusement in her eyes. So much better than contempt.
"I'm..." I had a pretty decent comeback on the tip of my tongue, but she tilts her bottle to her mouth and drinks. Her lips on the bottle. Her lips. On the bottle. God, I will never be able to stand again.
She finishes her swig. "Well? Are you?"
Only undercover with you, baby.
You seem to be thinking about getting under the covers with me, Miss Jurgens.
I do all my work undercover.
God. Where is that crap coming from?
"No, I'm the guest of honor. I'm the guy who hacked the school's grade computer." It comes out quick and easy and effortless, like all good lies.
She bolts upright in her chair. "Really? Are you serious?"
"No! No. It was just a joke."
"God, if you were the guy ... Half of them"—she jerks her head toward the house—"would want to kill you, and the other half would want to blow y—" She breaks off. "How old are you?"
Old enough, toots.
Mature in mind, young in stamina.
Ugh! Stop it!
"I'm a sophomore." Sounds better than "fifteen," for some reason.
"Oh. Oh, wait a sec. I do know you. You ride the bus with me, right?"
Ah, busted. "You don't ride the bus."
She nods, takes another sip. Oh, Lord above. Her lips on the bottle. The working of her throat...
"Someone told me you were some kind of genius. Is that true?"
Huh? For once, I'm well and truly flabbergasted. Who's talking about me? Especially to Dina Jurgens? How does my name get brought up to her? Have I crossed over into an alternate universe or something?
"A genius? Not really. I mean, a genius is someone with an IQ over one-forty." I'm still holding the beer bottle, and my grip is precarious as my palms begin to sweat. I lean over to put it on the table, and I get an eyeful of long, smooth, tanned leg.
"Someone told me," she goes on, oblivious to my drooling, "that you messed with Sawyer's head. I had a friend in her class last year, and she told me that this freshman just shut down the whole class one day."
"Oh. The Tortoise Blight thing. Yeah. That was me."
Something amazing happens. Something so magical and mystical that it makes me reconsider the existence of not just God but also any of the usual subdivine helping spirits, such as Cupid and Uriel and the Silver Surfer: Dina Jurgens laughs. She laughs full and loud and honestly, her head thrown back, gracing me with the sweep of her throat. I flash briefly into fantasy-land, my lips tracing a route down the smooth skin of her neck, into the hollow of her throat, then further, and I think I'll have to sit here until sunup.
"Oh, that was priceless!" She wipes tears from her eyes. "I couldn't believe it when she told me about it. She said it was like you had the whole class in the palm of your hand. Like you were running the show."
"Really?" I was there and I don't remember it being like that.
"And I'll never forget: She said to me, 'This kid, he must be the smartest kid in the freakin' school. He's smarter than the teachers. He had everyone in the class agreeing with him, and we didn't even know what he was talking about.'"
She puts down her empty bottle and reaches into the shadows, from which she conjures another. She twists off the lid, raises it to her lips, then stops, smirking as she gazes at me. "Or are you going to tell me not to do this, either?"
Not a chance in any hell dreamed of in any theology. I shake my head.
"Want one?" she asks.
Again, a head shake.
She drinks. I watch. Seems like a fair deal to me.
Chapter Fifty-One
I'D LIKE TO SAY THAT I TALK with her, but the truth of the matter is that she talks. I just listen and watch.
She talks about people as if I should know who they are, and I guess I probably should. Just from context, I can tell that these are the crème de la crème of the school, the masters of the top clique of the senior class. In my usual willful ignorance of all things social, I have no idea who they are. If I did, I'd be getting a lot of prime gossip material right now. As it is, I know who's doing whom, who's pretending to do whom, and who swears she never, ever did that with him, but it's useless information to me. I don't have any faces to put to the names or actions.
But it'
ll be useful information for Schemata. Change the names, tweak the truth, and it's good background for the kids in Courteney's class, a way to make them more rounded, more three-dimensional. I file it away, hoping I'll remember all of it later.
"What about you?" she asks finally. "Who're you here with?"
"Cal."
"Cal?" She gets an expression on her face like I've just offered to dip her hair in pig sweat.
"Yeah. Cal Willingham."
"Oh. Oh. Him. Yeah, he's a lacrosse guy, right? Wrestler?"
"Yes." Wow. Me she knows as a genius. Cal she has to think about.
"You came with him? Are you guys ... you know?" She waggles her hand, wrist limp.
"What? No. Jeez."
Dina shrugs. "OK. Whatever. Just wondering why you didn't come with your girlfriend."
"I don't have a girlfriend."
"Really?"
Now this is just getting stupid. This is starting to edge into unreal territory. I'm discussing my lack of a love life with Dina Jurgens? Stuff like this does not happen to guys like me.
More to the point, why does she sound so surprised that I don't have a girlfriend? I mean, even my mother doesn't act surprised. Sorry, yes. Surprised, no.
"Why don't you? Have a girlfriend, I mean."
I'm saving myself for you. I stifle a giggle. Sad, funny, and true all at once.
"Is there a law that I have to have one?"
"Well, excuse me for taking an interest." She swigs from the bottle. "Just wondering. I mean, high school is such a bullshit place. It's a little more tolerable with someone else, though."
I goggle at her. Did Dina Jurgens—Senior Goddess, Homecoming Queen, Lady of My Dreams, etc.—just say that high school was a bullshit place? That's like Kyra talking. Not someone who has every conceivable advantage. "I guess you're right." I don't know what else to say to that.
"Well, then go get yourself a girlfriend!" She says it sternly, again with the maternal thing. She's just not good at it, though. Her version of maternal is the antithesis of motherly. Unless you're Oedipus. But let's not go there.
"It's not that easy."
"Oh, right. The mystery of women." She chuckles. "Just find someone who's cute and you like and tell her she's cute and you like her. It's not brain surgery. You can handle it."
"It's really not that easy." I say it more quietly. I'm starting to get uncomfortable, but not for the same reason that I don't want to stand up.
"It's exactly that easy. I'm not saying find someone and propose to her. Just find someone who's cool and funny and likes you and you can have a lot more fun."
"I can't do that." Now I'm mumbling. It's only because we're sitting pretty close to each other that she can hear me.
"Why not?"
I don't say anything. I won't. This has gone far enough already.
"Come on, why not? I'm a girl and I'm telling you—"
"No one wants to be my girlfriend, OK?" I say it too loud, loud enough to shock her, really shock her, to the point that she looks a little scared for a second. Scared of skinny little me.
"I just told you to ask—" she starts, calmly.
"It doesn't matter. I'm..." Ah, damn. Don't do this. I sigh and wipe my palms on my jeans. How did I get to this? I'm alone on a gorgeous night with the most beautiful girl in the world, talking about sex, and I get to this point. Is this my hidden mutant power—the ability to screw up absolutely any decent situation?
"You're what?"
I shake my head.
"Come on."
"I'm not ... like them. "
"Like who?"
I wave in the direction of the house. "Them. The guys that..." The guys that you hang out with, I almost say. "The guys that girls like."
"Which guys are those?" Her voice, soft.
"The big guys. The athletes. The good-looking guys. I'm skinny and I'm ... not like them."
"What, you think you're ugly or something?"
She says it innocently. So innocently that I want to smack her, which surprises me, a rage that boils up and then vanishes so quickly that all that's left is rage-residue, like the stuff left in a pot after the water has boiled out.
"I do own a mirror," I tell her with all the sarcasm I can muster.
She shakes her head. "Girls are such dopes sometimes. We mature faster, but we can be just as stupid. You know what you are?" I know I'm a bunch of things, but I don't know which one she's going for, so I shake my head. "You're like a ... what do you call it—the thing a caterpillar goes into."
"A chrysalis?"
"Yeah." She leans forward, the blouse spreading open a little bit, glory hallelujah. "I know how it is. You get these shallow chicks, and they see that you're not all pumped up and buff like some of those morons in there. Or your skin's not clear. Or whatever. But they don't get it. That's all like the chrysalis. That's what you go through before you become the butterfly. Guys like you are the ones to watch for."
She's leaning very close to me. I think about her advice. I want to tell her that she's the one. She's the girl I want for my girlfriend. But that would be stupid. She has a boyfriend. He's in college. That much even I know.
She pats my knee. I flinch, overpowered by the sudden, massive wave of arousal. I had thought I was as aroused as I could be. Wrong.
"Don't let 'em get you down," she says, unaware of my flinch. "Someone's gonna understand and appreciate you. It'll happen. Trust me."
You're the most beautiful creature on this planet or any other, I want to say to her but don't.
And why? Why don't I say it? I think back to all the things in my life I've wanted to say but didn't. Things I wanted to say to the Jock Jerks who torment me, to Cal, to my mother and my father, to Kyra, and to Bendis. And why didn't I say them? Because I was afraid? Because I thought they would make my life worse? How much worse can it get?
Kyra would say it. Kyra would say anything because she's fearless. But I'm no noble Indian warrior. I'm not—
You have no guts.
No kidding.
Dina grins at me. Kyra ... She's inside my thoughts, where I really don't want her to be right now. Because here I am with Dina, with Dina, for God's sake! Why can't I get Kyra out of my head?
"You're..." I say, but then lose my nerve. I can't do it. No guts. Only now she's looking at me, curiosity and expectation in her eyes. I ransack my cache of lies, stories, and obscure facts, looking for something I can use to end the sentence gracefully, safely, neutrally. No kidding.
"What?" she asks, tilting her head so that a perfect cascade of pure blond washes down into my field of vision.
"You're the..." My throat closes. My hands twitch. Her eyes widen, and now I can't stop myself. "...most beautiful ... most beautiful creature on this planet or any other."
She stares at me, and I try to figure out how to extricate myself from this particular predicament. I need to get up and get away fast, before she laughs at me or calls out for a muscle-bound moron to stuff me into a trash can somewhere. I can't get out of here on my own. I'll have to call home, wake up Mom, get her to pick me up. Oh, God, I'll be the lovesick pussy momma's boy who had to have his mommy pick him up from the party...
"That's very sweet," she says. She's being polite. Polite to the screwy, geeky sophomore.
My throat opens up again. I can breathe. "I'm ... I'm sorry," I tell her. "I shouldn't have said that."
"Why not?"
"You probably hear stuff like that all the time."
"You think so?"
"You've got, like, a million friends," I blurt out. Might as well go for broke. "You're the most popular person in school."
And she laughs. But not at me. Not even at me. She's just laughing a sad little laugh, a knowing little laugh. "You know what people tell me? Do you want to know?" I bob my head. "The girls I hang out with ... They tell me I'm pretty and I'm so lucky to be a natural blonde and they wish they had my body. And at first it sounded great, but after a while you hear the jealousy in it,
as if it's my fault somehow that I have blond hair or good boobs. And the guys...I like to look in people's eyes, and guys just stare at my chest and I know they're watching when I walk away. And they're always trying to get into your pants, and even a compliment ... I mean, they're just looking to get some, looking to score."
Then why dress like that? Why make it so we can't help looking at you? I don't get it. I don't understand.
Maybe I don't like guys who are drooling idiots. Kyra's voice, in my head, so strong and real that I can't hear anything but. What's happening to me?
"I'm sorry." I'm mumbling now, ashamed, but I make myself look into Dina's eyes. "I didn't mean—"
She's confused, and then she realizes what I mean. "I didn't mean you . Your compliment was so sweet and so real. I can tell you're not like the others." She reaches out and takes my hand to reassure me.
But I am! I want to scream but don't, and this time I will not say it. But I know that I am just like the others, that I want her so badly I would reach into my chest and pull out my own heart for her, that I've stroked her with my eyes more times than I can count, caressed her in fantasies without number. I meant everything I said to her, but I meant everything I didn't say, too. And if she didn't look like this, if she didn't dress like this, it might be a different world and a different story. If she didn't look so perfect, maybe...
I'm caught in a crossroads. I'm paralyzed. Her hands, holding mine, burn and burn and burn. I'm helpless and lost and I don't know what to do or say. My brain's too full and my body's off on its own. I just can't handle this.
And then it happens.
She leans in more and there's a little tilt to her lips, a little smile, almost like Kyra's magic grin, only without a piercing. But almost the same.
But no ring. No ring. It's missing.
She kisses me. Her lips on mine. I freeze solid, but I thaw fast. It's just a chaste little kiss, a favor, a boon from a Senior Goddess, lips on lips, but nothing more, and then it becomes something more, and I think of coal smudges on my lips, black lipstick pressed between us, but this is Dina, right, not Kyra, why Kyra, stop Kyra, and then somehow Dina's got my mouth open using her mouth, which is soft, the lips firm and moist, but red, not jet black. She tastes sweet. Like sugar and something else. Alcohol, I guess. Beer. Wine. Can I get drunk from kissing someone who's drunk? I feel drunk. My head's spinning, but in a good way. She's still holding my hand, and now she moves it, and now I'm doing more than just kissing a Senior Goddess. It's a little bigger than my hand, and full, and heavy, and somehow strong. Is this...? Is this how hers would—