Kissing Kate (10 page)

“Or John Wayne,” I groaned. In ninth grade, Kate had dragged me with her on an absurdly bad double date to a Western film festival. It was torture.

Kate laughed. “Seriously. You could see all the chick flicks you wanted, one after another, with a huge bowl of popcorn and a box of Kleenex.”

For a while neither of us spoke. I thought Kate had fallen asleep—she did that sometimes, just dozed off in the middle of a conversation—but then I heard her roll over so she was facing me. “What about the physical part?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know.”

“It’s . . . kind of hard to imagine, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I mean, what do they
do,
exactly?”

Both of us were silent.

“It might not be so bad . . .” Kate started.

I stared through the dark at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe kind of soft? And just, you know, comfortable?”

“While at the same time wildly passionate and hot, hot, hot,” Kate said. She giggled. “I mean, come on.
You
know where everything is,
she
knows where everything is . . .” Her tone changed. “But see, that’s how I know I’m not gay. I’m not attracted to girls like I am to guys. I’m just not.”

“Well, yeah,” I had said. I’d felt confused, as if I’d been scolded for something I hadn’t done. “Same here.”

I thought of that now, and I closed my eyes. A whisper in my mind quickened my pulse:
Please, God, don’t let it be me.

 

 

 

Later, after Vanessa went home and we’d eaten dinner, Beth found me in the kitchen and stood around doing nothing until I looked up from my calculus.

“What?” I said.

She traced the pattern of the linoleum with her toe. “What’s a
lesbo?
”

I put down my pencil. “Vanessa shouldn’t have called you that.”

“Is it a bad word?”

“No. Well, sort of.”

“Why? What does it mean?”

“It’s short for
lesbian.
Do you know what a lesbian is?”

She nodded, then shook her head.

“A lesbian’s a woman who loves other women.” I picked up my pencil and bent over my work.

Beth shifted her weight to her other foot. “What do you mean, loves other women?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? If you’re a lesbian, then you love women instead of men. You’re attracted to them, you want to be with them. But you’re not a lesbian, Beth, so don’t worry about it.”

“Is it the same as being gay?”

“I
said
don’t worry about it.” I could hear how sharp my voice was. “Now leave me alone. I’ve got to finish this.”

Beth watched me for a couple of seconds, then turned and went into the den. Two minutes later she came back. “So how do you know if you’re a lesbian?”

“Jesus, Beth. How am I supposed to know? You wake up with a big, red L stamped on your forehead. You crop your hair and stop shaving your legs.”

She stared at me, and I gathered my books and stormed past her. My breathing felt off, as if not enough air was reaching my lungs. I paused at the bottom of the staircase, chest tight. I heard Beth’s footsteps, and I hurried up the stairs.

SOMETHING IS ON TOP OF ME
,
squishing me, and I jerk away so violently that I roll off the bed and onto the floor. I open my eyes and I see the bed above me, the covers sliding off in a tangled heap. But something’s not right. The sheets, why are they orange? And why are they so fuzzy?

 

 

 

 

I sat up, flipping on the lamp on my bedside table. At first I was too confused to think straight. Why was I in bed? Why wasn’t I on the floor? And then I realized—omigod! I did it! I had another lucid dream, and this time I stayed in it long enough to actually make things happen!

I looked down at my sheets, grabbing handfuls of the smooth fabric. How weird to dream of fuzzy orange sheets. But before that—it was coming back—I’d been dreaming something upsetting, something about being smothered. And in my dream, I pulled away so hard that I rolled off the bed. Although obviously I didn’t really roll off the bed, because here I was still in bed. But in the dream I looked up and saw those crazy sheets, which were so clearly
not
my sheets that I was jarred out of my “normal” dream into a lucid dream.

I wiggled my feet under the covers. This was huge!

Okay. So after I realized I was dreaming, I lifted myself up and floated around the house. God, was that wild.

Then I’d drifted downstairs and out the kitchen window.

And then—what next?

Oh.

I drew my knees to my chest, remembering the part about Kate and the deserted street. How she couldn’t see me even though I was right there in front of her. God. I spent most of my waking life trying
not
to think about her. Why did she have to show up in my dreams?

And then there was that weird part about my eyes, when I
thought
I woke up but was actually still dreaming. A false awakening—that was the term my book used. The author said it was a good thing, a way to prolong lucidity. Maybe so, but it was eerie.

I shivered. My closet door was open a crack, and I had the old urge to cross the room and shut it. As a kid, I had to check under the bed and in the closet at least two times before turning out my bedside light. Jerry thought I was crazy.

I padded down the hall to Beth’s room. She was curled on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other in a loose fist under her chin. Her lips were open and a tiny bit of spit glistened at the corner of her mouth. I loved her all the time, but I especially loved her when she was sleeping. She looked so innocent.

I brushed a piece of hair off her face. She didn’t move. I shook her shoulder, and this time she stirred under the covers. I stepped away and stole back to my room.

A minute later she tiptoed across my floor and swayed by the side of my bed. “Lissa?” she mumbled. “Can I sleep with you?”

“Beth,” I chided, although this was why I woke her up.

“Please?”

“Oh, all right.” I scooted over to make room for her, and she climbed in beside me.

“Want me to scratch your back?” she said.

“That’s okay. Just go back to sleep.”

Her breathing grew steady, and her small body warmed her side of the bed. I pulled the quilt around the two of us and tried to recapture my earlier excitement.
I did it,
I told myself again.
I had a lucid dream.

It didn’t have quite the same punch.

Still, the knowledge of what I’d done stayed with me. Like an underground stream. A promise.

CALL ME,
KATE HAD SAID
. And I wanted to. I dialed the first six digits of her number, then clutched the phone for what seemed like forever, finger hovering above the 2 until the system disconnected.

I was desperate to talk. Didn’t she know that? Didn’t she know how much I missed her, how much I missed just hanging out with her? Didn’t she miss it, too?

She used to say I was the only person she really trusted, that she could tell me things she had never told another soul. Like the fact that she peed in her pants when she laughed too hard, or that she hated to wear sandals because she thought her toes were too hairy. Hobbit feet, she called them. And once she told me how she could hear her parents having sex from her bedroom, even with the door shut and the stereo on. “It’s just
wrong,
” she said, lowering her voice even though no one was near.

I’d laughed and said she should be glad her parents had sex, period. And I reassured her about the other stuff, too, reminding her that everybody had some weird body thing they were embarrassed about. “Anyway, your toes are perfect,” I told her.

She leaned against me. “You’re so full of it, Lissa. You know that, don’t you?”

But now Kate had Ben, who, to tell the truth,
was
pretty full of himself. Like that night at Rob’s house when he stood on top of the pool table and proclaimed that he was the ruler of the universe. Yeah, he was drunk, and yeah, he was kidding, but still, it takes a certain arrogance to say something like that in the first place. And the cigar. God. High school guys should not smoke cigars, just as high school guys should not attempt to grow facial hair. Give it a rest.

That was the night Kate and Ben first hooked up, after the guys started smoking cigars and after Kate and I fled to the gazebo, laughing, to escape. We made fun of how cool they thought they were, and how Rob, the first time he inhaled, practically coughed up his entire lung. “And Ben,” Kate scoffed. “I’m sorry, but lose the ponytail, okay, guy? He looks like one of those investment bankers who wears his hair long to make a ridiculous stab at being hip. You
know
he’s going to grow up to be some suit-wearing asshole who talks on his cell phone all the time.”

“While smoking a cigar,” I added.

By the end of the night, Kate and Ben were falling all over each other on the sofa while the others played quarters and I stood by myself at the door. She didn’t notice when I left. And even though almost a month had passed, it still made me feel alone.

 

 

 

Wednesday night, Ariel and I met at Darlin’s for our big date. Our group date. Jesus. I felt resentful despite my resolve to make the best of it, and Ariel’s enthusiasm only made matters worse.

“Excited?” she asked as she rapped on Darlin’s door. She wore a pale blue dress that probably came from a thrift store, and her hair was held back with sparkly butterfly clips. She actually looked good in a hippie-chick kind of way, and I wondered if I should have worn something besides jeans and my gray sweatshirt.

“I hope she’s not too nervous,” she went on, her fingers flitting down the front of her dress. “I mean, not that there’s anything to be nervous about, but . . . you know. It’s always hard meeting new people.”

Her eyes widened as if she’d said more than she meant to. An awkward silence hovered between us, and finally she knocked again on the door. “Darlin? You there?”

Darlin opened the door. She wore a flowing orange dress and orange sandals, and her face was heavily made up. “Well, ladies?” she said. She picked up her skirt with one hand and twirled around.

“You look great,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ariel said. “I love your dress.”

“Well, I aim to please,” Darlin said. “Orange is the color of communication, you know. Lets people know you’re feeling social.”

“Really?” Ariel said. She fingered her own dress. “What about blue? What does blue mean?”

“Navy blue hints at mystery, but a light blue like yours indicates playfulness.” Darlin brushed a speck off Ariel’s shoulder. “You look delightful, my dear.”

“Why, thank you,” Ariel replied. As we got into Ariel’s car—Darlin in the front with Ariel, me in the back—she asked, “What do you wear if you’re not feeling social? Black?”

“Heavens, yes. Just think of those dreadful New Yorkers.”

“Yeah?” She kept her tone innocent. “What about gray?”

“Well, now. Someone wears gray when she’s not sure what she’s feeling—isn’t that right, Lissa?” She caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Only I suspect that most people who wear gray have a secret spot of orange hidden within.”

“Oh, definitely,” I said. I said it sarcastically, and Ariel and Darlin laughed.

At the Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon, where the singles’ group was meeting, Darlin’s bravado disappeared. She drummed her fingers on the car door and said, “Now, girls, really, I am so honored to be out with you. Why not make it a girls’ night out—my treat? The Cheesecake Factory’s not five blocks down the road.”

“It’s just a bunch of people having dinner,” Ariel said, releasing her seat belt. “If it helps, imagine them all in their underwear.”

Darlin snorted. “Gracious, Ariel, I most certainly will not. What if they imagined me in
my
underwear?”

At which point I couldn’t help but do exactly that. Ariel must have, too, because she looked at me and giggled.

“
Girls,
” Darlin said. She burst out laughing and leaned back against her seat. “What in heaven’s name have you two gotten me into?”

Inside, it was cool and dim. Bowls of peanuts sat on every table, and empty shells crunched under our shoes as we followed the hostess through the restaurant. From a silver jukebox blared the chorus of “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places.” The hostess led us to a table in the corner, and Ariel stepped forward.