A Soul's Kiss (2 page)

The rumble of the approaching school bus cuts off my reflection. The bus’s gears shift down as I shift up into a jog. I’ve been on the bus when the driver has pulled away leaving behind a kid who was racing to catch it. I don’t want to be that kid today. If I have to ride my bike three miles to school I’ll miss first hour for sure. I ramp it up another notch as the stupid yellow monstrosity huffs to a stop and swings open its door. Three neighborhood kids I rarely speak to take their sweet time, thank you, thank you, and trudge up the steps. I make it and I’m not even out of breath. The driver closes the door practically on my heels and I fall into my usual seat as the bus lurches forward, spewing diesel fumes.

*  *  *

I’m in first hour English, last row, last seat, before the tardy bell rings. The bus ride smudges in my memory under a growing headache.

The seat next to me is vacant. Rashanda’s seat. Rashanda is the token black kid in our English class and my very best friend. I can get away with teasing her about it because we’ve been best friends since first grade. Her dad is white and her mom is half African American so technically Rashanda is a quadroon, a word we learned last year when we had to read
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
for extra credit. Sometimes I call her a silly quadroon whenever she does something peculiar, which is pretty often. She has some persistent health issues so she’s at the hospital a lot. I worry about her all the time, but she tells me not to. Everything will work out, she says. She trusts God, she says, and so should I. I still worry.

There’s a weird feeling about today. Like the stars aren’t lining up right.

Mrs. Brown’s student teacher is waiting for the bell to ring so she can click
enter
on the computer and finalize the attendance. She stares at Rashanda’s empty seat and then at my desk, but not exactly at me. She looks oddly sad, but maybe that’s because she started teaching the class this week and it’s not going too well. Junior English is a far cry from Junior Honors English. I was in the Honors section last year with all my friends, but I couldn’t fit it in my schedule this semester.

There is the usual pre-bell ruckus going on with half the kids not even in their seats. A bunch of girls are knotted into a whispering frenzy near the front of the classroom. Their heads turn one by one to look back here. At me? Maybe they’re staring at my black eye. I guess I didn’t use enough cover-up. They whisper some more and then file down Tyler Dolan’s row.

A couple of the kids that sit around Tyler are making a fuss over him, reaching a hand out to tap his arm, nodding their heads in unison. The girls join in the conversation. Tyler’s freckled face holds a deeper blush than usual, almost as red as his hair. I like Tyler; he’s one of those guys I’ve known all my life, but usually take for granted. He held a door open for me last week. Last year, before I got my driver’s license, I missed the bus and he walked me all the way home.

He looks so uncomfortable with the attention he’s getting. There is something seriously wrong. With all the noise in the large room I can only make out a couple of phrases. Expressions of sympathy.

Mrs. Brown gathers her things like she’s going to leave the student teacher to fend for herself today. I hope she doesn’t go too far away. Some of these jerks wouldn’t think twice about harassing Ms. Gardner to tears. Suddenly I feel overwhelmed by those possible tears, like I’m somehow connected spiritually to a whole range of emotions present in the room.

The tardy bell rings and Mrs. Brown stands up. That’s all it takes for some of the kids to find their seats; others have to be herded, hushed, and hovered over. When Mrs. Brown is satisfied that everyone’s attention is focused she turns the reins over to Ms. Gardner and leaves with a final scowl at two boys in the front.

Sometimes the bell also is a signal for me and Rashanda to go into the storage room at the back of the classroom. Since our seats flank the storage room door, we’re responsible for passing out the classroom set of grammar books that we use once or twice a week. It only takes a few seconds to grab a couple armloads of the tattered manuals and distribute them to our fellow classmates. Groans and grimaces follow. Hardly anyone likes to learn about fragments and participles and gerunds.

“Today we’re going to cover the use of apostrophes,” Ms. Gardner says. I figure that’s my cue and I stand up. Without Rashanda I’m on my own. “Tyler, would you mind getting the books from the storage room?”

Well, that’s nice. I’ll have some help and maybe I can find out what’s up with him.

The classroom erupts into the customary whining and moaning as I slip into the dusty storage room. The long center table is covered with stacks of materials for the debate team instead of the grammar books. The shelves are crammed with thirty copies each of various novels, plays, and classics.

Tyler shuffles in and looks at the table and then the shelves.

“I don’t know where they are,” I say. “They’re usually on the table.”

He gives a little hoarse grunt like he’s trying to clear his throat, but doesn’t say anything. He scans the bottom shelf. I do the same on the other side of the cramped room. If we take too long I don’t want to think of the teasing we’ll get when we come out, you know, like:
What were you two doing in there? How long does it take to make a baby? Zip up, Dolan
and worse, gross stuff either whispered or, because there’s a student teacher, yelled.

“Ah, here they are,” Tyler breathes out the words like he’s talking to himself.

“I’ll help,” I say, but he’s already piling the whole set against his chest. He rises from a squatting position and two books slip to the floor just as another kid, Jason Phillips, frames the doorway.

Jason catches about a dozen more of the paperbacks as they flop out of Tyler’s grasp.

“Got ’em,” Jason says. He waits while Tyler retrieves the ones from the floor. I stand there like an idiot, my eye throbbing again and a sudden thirst sticking my lips together.

“I can help, too,” I say. My mouth is so dry that the words must sound like crackers on sandpaper. “It’s my job anyway.”

They rudely ignore me and Jason says to Tyler, “Sorry about your stepbrother. I hope he makes it.”

Tyler nods with his whole book-laden body; his freckles melt into another blush. I wish I knew what the problem was. I didn’t even know he had a stepbrother. What could have happened that’s making everyone be so sympathetic? Did he get killed in the military or something? I try to ask these questions, but my breath skips past my vocal cords and no sounds come out.

I watch them leave. How stupid am I going to look coming out of a small dark room empty handed? I’m half tempted to stay in the storage room until Ms. Gardner starts talking and all eyes will be looking forward. I reach into my pocket for a breath mint, pop it into my mouth, and relieve the parched taste. I almost collide with Tyler as he comes back in to toss the extra copies on the table.

“Oops,” I say as I jump out of his way. I smile and crush myself against the shelf with my hands flung out at my sides like I’m avoiding a steamroller. I have a sudden impulse to be funny, to say something to cheer Tyler up, but he doesn’t even look my way. I don’t blame him; I haven’t been as friendly to him in the past as I should have been.

He touches the top book and mumbles my name, a signal, I suppose, that he hasn’t left a book on my desk. I still cannot speak. I pick up the book and follow him out, the corners of my mouth drooping to match his shoulders.

Class is a bore yet speeds by in a flash. When Jason and Tyler get up to collect the books at the end of the hour I stay glued to my seat. I can’t seem to make myself move. Oh well, I’ll let the boys do it. I push the grammar book to the edge of my desk and watch Tyler frown as he stares at it. His lips form an o, but no sound comes out. His face reddens and he avoids my eyes, as if I’m not even here.

When the bell rings, a couple kids linger to talk to Tyler so I join the tight group and listen.

“So what happened, exactly?” one girl says. “I heard it was a really bad car accident.”

“Yeah.” Tyler keeps his head down.

“I didn’t even know Keith was your stepbrother,” another kid says.

“Me neither,” I chime in, finally able to speak though my words sound distant, my voice hollow. I wonder which Keith they mean. I can think of three in our grade.

Tyler looks my way, then up at the ceiling like he’s blinking back tears. He answers the kid, “Yeah, my mom and his dad got married when we were six and seven. I mostly just see him on weekends, but, you know, after ten years it’s like we’re brothers.”

I reach my hand out to give him one of those consoling pats on the shoulder, but a girl swings her book bag up and around and bangs it against my chest. I feel more than a little embarrassed as I dance back a step. She doesn’t even say
excuse me
or anything. Instead she asks, “Is Keith in as bad a shape as the girl in our class?” She swings her head in the direction where Rashanda and I sit and my heart skips. I think she means Rashanda, but then she says, “Jessica, right? Jessica Mitchell?”

That can’t be right. She must have Rashanda confused with me. I try to correct her, but again I am breathless and can’t form the words.

I watch Tyler’s face scrunch into a red knot like he’s going to correct her, but then he shakes his head no and says, “Concussion, I guess. He should recover completely. But he broke his leg.”

A concussion and a broken leg sound pretty serious to me, and yet it isn’t as bad as “the girl” in our class? I turn and stare at Rashanda’s seat. Kids from the next class period are wandering in and someone sits down in her seat. I bolt from the room and pat my pockets for my phone. It isn’t on me.

I see Carrie, a girl in my social studies class, and call out, my lungs finally working, “Hey, Carrie, can I borrow your phone a sec?” She totally ignores me and walks around the corner.

Then I see Kayla. She’s headed for Tyler who is being mobbed by a bunch of kids near the drinking fountain. She won’t ignore me, I’m sure. I come up behind her as another girl asks her if she knew that Keith Mullins was Tyler’s brother.

I stop short. Huh? Keith
Mullins
? The senior who is friends with Michael Hoffman? The guy I was in a car with yesterday? I could have been in that accident!

And then somebody else swings a book bag at my chest. On purpose.

It’s like they can’t see me.

I land on my back, the breath knocked out of me. I need a doctor with a set of those shock paddles.

I feel like a flipped turtle flailing away to right itself, and nobody is coming to my aid. Not even chivalrous Tyler. Kayla is steps away and as soon as I get some air in my lungs I gasp a plea. “Kayla, hey.”

“She can’t hear you,” someone says, kneeling down next to me. The voice is familiar. I can’t decide if I’ll be elated or deflated if it’s gorgeous Michael Hoffman coming to my assistance again. A hand takes mine and pulls me up. The bell rings and everyone scatters to class, a few of them, no doubt, facing detention for reaching the limit on tardies.

“Thanks,” I say, brushing off my butt. I have that funny feeling like I’ve forgotten something. Where are my books? Did I remember to bring back the drama script? I pat my back pocket, uncertain. I need to go to my locker before next hour, but now it’s too late.

“You’re welcome. How do you feel?”

“Okay,” I say and finally look at the angular face of tall, dark, and handsome Keith Mullins. Keith Mullins! “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

Keith’s eyes flicker back and forth from my right eye to my left eye. One of his eyes is more dilated than the other. He has a bump on his forehead that his hair partially hides. We spend an uncomfortable moment evaluating one another, alone in the hallway.

I remember something and say, “I heard you broke your leg.”

“I did. It’s in a cast, slung up on some kind of contraption.”

“What?” The tender tissue around my eye protests the scrunching I’m giving my forehead. “Huh? What are you doing here? Weren’t you in a car accident?”

Tyler steps out of room 236 and crosses in front of us to head to the boys’ bathroom.

“Tyler, look, it’s Keith.” He completely ignores me.

“He can’t hear you,” Keith repeats, almost like a chorus. “Or see you. Us, I mean.”

“Tyler!” He doesn’t even look back as the door swings shut. I stare hard at Keith. “What do you mean he can’t hear us or see us?”

“Do you remember the accident, Jessica?” he asks.

What accident? My head hurts so much for a moment that I think I’m going to puke.

Tyler comes out of the restroom and walks by us again, closer this time. I hear him say my name like a prayer, “Jessica.”

“What, Tyler?” I answer.

Keith snorts. “He’s got such a crush on you,” he says. “I sure hope you don’t die.”

“Gee, thanks, that’s nice.” When I turn back Keith is gone, the flap of the boys’ bathroom door my only clue. Tyler has vanished into his classroom, too, and I’m left wobbling in the middle of the hallway.

Maybe I should go puke. I pull open the door to the girls’ washroom and walk in. I stop inches before passing the full length mirror on the side wall. What did Keith mean? Why can’t anyone see or hear me? I thought people were being mean or ignoring me today, starting with the bus driver. But if they can’t see me . . . I step forward and look at my reflection. Head to toe, there I am. I can see myself: yesterday’s clothes, yesterday’s black eye, crappy hair, five pounds to lose, a couple of pre-menstrual blemishes, no shoes. Huh? I close my eyes. It feels like I have shoes on. I open my eyes. Bare feet. Yuck, bare feet in a public bathroom. Have I been barefoot all day? Maybe I’m dreaming.