Kiss the Morning Star (17 page)

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” says Kat. She puts a hand on my arm to steady me, but I spin away. Sure, it’s not going to be easy talking to him. He’s upset, but even
that
is an improvement over silence. Isn’t it?

“It’s always a good idea,” says Zane. He pulls a tin of mints from his pocket and pops one into his mouth, then passes them around. I take a mint and laugh.

“This is crazy,” I say, and I hold the phone to Zane’s ear, as if it will mean anything to him. “My father’s voice—listen!” Zane listens obediently, raising his eyebrows at Kat.

She smiles and shakes her head. “Anna’s dad has had a hard time since her mom died. Hey, thanks,” she says, taking a mint and passing the tin to Seth. “This is the first time he’s really spoken much since the fire.” She reaches for
The Dharma Bums
, still clutched in my free hand. “I’m so glad you got this back, Anna babe. Now we can figure out where we’re going.” She flips through the pages rapidly. “Here, Anna, pick a spot.”

I dial my dad’s number. I feel certain that everything will be fine, now that we’ve got the book back, now that my dad has his voice back, now that I know that being with Seth isn’t what I really want. I put the phone up to my ear and stick my finger into the book.

“Um, Zane?” says Seth. He hands the mints back.

“Hey, Dad,” I say. “Yeah, I got your message.”

For a while it’s hard to focus on his actual words. I’m entranced by his voice. “Anna?” he says. “I’m worried about you, baby.”

Katy points to the spot on the page next to my finger and shows it to Zane. He reads out loud.

“‘…finally northern Washington on the farm of a friend in the Nooksack Valley…’”

“Wow,” says Zane. “That’s really weird that you actually chose the exact name of a place.”

My father keeps talking—my attention divides down the center into two boxes, like a split-screen movie. “I know things haven’t been easy,” my dad says inside his box. “I wasn’t there for you, Anna. I didn’t think about how vulnerable you were, and then when this trip came up…well, I trusted Kat. She’s always been a good friend, even without being a believer…”

In the other box, Zane is still reading the names of real places in northern Washington. “‘…The names like
Nooksack
and
Mount Baker National Forest
…’”

I shift my attention, letting my father’s words sink in. Wait, is he blaming Kat for all this? Because she’s not a believer? “It’s not that I blame Katy, not entirely,” he says, his voice undulating into the rhythm of one of his sermons. “Our world is immoral, and I know that influence is hard to resist, especially when you’re young…”

“Dad, it’s not like that, okay? This is not about me being led astray by the world.” I lower my voice, and in the other box, everyone looks away, although of course they’re listening, too. “I’m not
vulnerable
.”

“I’m still disappointed in you, Anna. The drugs, the…
experimenting
…but I blame myself, primarily. I wasn’t able to give you the kind of guidance you needed.” He goes on, and even though I’m listening to my father speak to me about my sex life—even as he trivializes everything I’ve started to accept about myself and my feelings for Kat, as he uses words like
misguided
and
naive
to describe my state of mind—I’m still amazed to hear him talking at all. It hurts—I feel terrible for disappointing him—but beneath that is so much relief that he even has the capacity again to be disappointed.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m not sure if I’m sorry for real or if I’m only sorry that he overheard.

“I want you to be happy, that’s all,” my dad says. “You’ll think about coming back home, like I said?”

“Okay, Dad. I’ll think about it.”

“I love you, no matter what.” He never says that—only my mom said that.

But I can’t say it back. I hang up, feeling strangely light-headed. “Hey, guys,” I say, and it’s like every emotion in the universe collides in a lump in the back of my throat. The boys exchange a look and go off to busy themselves with the fire.

“Kerouac says we’re going to the Nooksack Valley!” says Kat. She touches the side of my face, sweeps her thumb gently across the little spill of tears on my cheek, and I lean into her hand and close my eyes.

“He heard everything,” I say, the words sticking to the lump.

“Oh, babe.” She puts her other arm around me and draws me in closer.

“It’s okay, I think. Or it will be.” I whisper into her hair. There’s no way I’m going to tell her that my dad thinks she’s corrupting me. “He’s disappointed, I guess.” I take a deep breath and pull back so I can look her in the eyes.

“Does he hate me now?” She bites her bottom lip, and I know how much it would hurt her to know. I feel another twinge of guilt about what happened with Seth.

“Of course not, Katy. He loves you like a second daughter.” I sigh. “I wonder how he found his voice back.”

Kat squeezes my hand. “The same way you did.”

“Am I different?” I think maybe yes, but maybe no.

“
So
different,” says Kat. “Don’t you remember when I had to do your homework for you because you were such a zombie you couldn’t remember the numbers from the math problem long enough to copy them into your notebook? Every day it’s like you’re waking up, like I see a little more of who you used to be.” She grins. “Maybe your dad just needed a little waking up, too.”

The fire flickers, and we all settle in quietly to watch the flames. Frankie produces a big jug of red wine, and we pass it around in a nice, comfortable quiet.

“Acid is so awesome…” It’s Zane who speaks at last, breaking our companionable silence.

Kat laughs. “Well, you guys can do all the acid you’d like, but count us out.”

“Why?” says Zane. He and Seth exchange a quick look.

Kat twists her hair for a moment. “Okay. Well, you know how we’re doing this dharma bum thing, right?”

Zane nods. I watch the firelight dance in Katy’s eyes. Sitting here, warm and happy, I feel like all the pieces of the puzzle are already in place. It doesn’t matter to me, at this moment, whether or not God is real. It doesn’t matter what happened with Seth, or the situation with my dad, or any of it. And Katy is beautiful. I want to kiss her, right now, in the flickering warm light from the fire. In my mind I entertain thoughts that would make me blush if I weren’t already flushed from the fire and the wine.

“It’s like…everything is so perfect right now, with you guys, like you are perfect little dharma bums yourselves, right down to that jug of wine. And I don’t want it to change.” Kat draws her feet up into the chair, wraps her arms around her knees. “Plus, it’s time for us to move on. I can feel it. We’re headed up to northern Washington, to the Nooksack River. We’ve been here too long.”

She feels exactly the same as I do. I close my eyes.

“I am empty and awake,” I say aloud, and the words fall like drops of water, like pearls off a string broken loose on the dance floor, hitting the floor one by one and rolling, rolling across the room, seeking the unexplored corners where lovers are twining and shy girls sit curled around themselves waiting for the pearls to arrive, one by one, into their empty hands.

I open my eyes again, and the campfire wavers in front of me. Everyone is silent, staring into the flames.

“Um, so, Kat? Anna?” It’s Zane, breaking the silence again. He sounds nervous.

I smile. The smile grows and spreads across my face, and I wonder when was the last time I smiled like this, so wide it almost aches.

Kat is smiling, too. “What is it, Zane?” Her words come out like a song.

“Are you guys okay?” he asks.

We both nod, and Zane looks relieved.

“It’s just…there was acid in those mints we all ate. I thought…I thought you knew. I mean, I had just said that we were going to trip, and nobody said anything really, so I handed it out, and you all took some, and…I really wasn’t trying to be a jerk, I promise.” He looks pained.

Kat looks thoughtful for a moment. “Well, I did kind of wonder why suddenly everything seemed sort of…
deep.
” She laughs.

“
Meaningful
,” I say softly. My smile remains.

“Is this your first trip?” Seth says.

I roll my head to one side slowly, thinking about the question. “I wonder what it would be like to spend your whole life like this,” I say. “I mean, I don’t think I’d want to, but I wonder if this is how the shaman feels?”

“Well? Is it your first trip?” Seth is talking. To me.

“What?” I’m vaguely annoyed that he’s asking me this question again and again. Shouldn’t he just know the answer? Katy knows. I turn to Kat and give her a grateful smile, but she’s turned away from me, in deep conversation with Zane. Inside my brain, I hear a little click—a switch is thrown, and like a train car following the tracks, I feel myself veer off to one side and plummet downward, underground. I sink into my chair and cross my arms across my chest, trying to hold in the feelings.

“I asked you if you had tripped before.” Seth doesn’t seem to realize that he has said the same thing like fifty million times.

“Look at them over there,” I say, my voice dark. “Looks like they’re about to hop into bed together.” Seth chuckles nervously. I scowl.

The chair I felt blissfully at one with a few moments ago has now become a prison—a torture device designed to keep me a captive to this vision of betrayal. The weight of my own treachery dwindles as my mood plummets—in my heart I was always true to her, I’m sure of it.

Kat is laughing at something Zane is saying; I can’t hear them above the noise of blood pumping in my ears. The fire at my feet suddenly shifts and grows, looming ominously with its fiery tongues, and the sulfurous light it casts on Zane’s face makes me draw back in horror and amazement.

“He looks like a demonic lion.” I don’t intend for anyone to hear, but then I realize that I’m actually making a scene, that those words were louder than I meant them to be. Still, I’m unable to stop myself from screaming when Zane’s wild mane of hair seems to grow thick and lustrous around his face—thick, unwieldy yellow hair with tongues of fire interwoven.

Everyone stares at me. “Anna?” Kat leans closer, and I squeeze my eyes shut in case this grotesque vision transforms Katy’s beauty into something evil as well.

“I can’t look at you, Katy Kat! I can’t bear it!” I cover my eyes tightly with my hands.

Arms wrap around me; voices croon into my ears.

“Hush, hush, hush…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay…”

“It’s beautiful…”

“It’s okay, it’s beautiful, hush, hush, hush…”

Their soothing refrain melts into a swishing sound—wind fluttering through poplar leaves, and Katy’s lips brush lightly across my fingers pressed tightly against my eyelids; all of the molecules shuffle back into their proper order again, and I dare to look up at Kat.

Her face is as radiant as ever, and although her eyes are black holes and the edges of her face glow with a tiny corona, the hideous phantasmagorical scene of a moment ago appears to be gone.

“I’m okay,” I say. My voice is a thin little wisp. I feel stupid. The bad trip girl, the one who freaked out and thought the sky was falling.

I force a laugh. “You totally looked like the devil,” I say to Zane. “Like a cross between the devil and a lion.” Saying it out loud seems to steal the power away from the image, but I notice the dark shadows from the firelight that gather underneath his eyes and in his hair, and I shiver a little.

He smiles, but he shakes his mane a little and says, “Whoa. What if I
am
the devil and a lion?” and then he roars and dances. He paws at the air and stalks like a lion creeping through the veldt, and I shiver at the predatory look in his eyes. I feel myself unraveling again, the edges of my sanity nothing but ragged loops of string, getting shorter and shorter.

“STOP!” I cover my eyes again.

“Let’s go for a walk, Anna,” says Kat, and I peel myself up from my chair to follow her through the darkness. She leads and I stumble behind, fixing my eyes on the beam of her flashlight, which sweeps ahead of us and draws the dark in close around us. I reach out one hand and get a fistful of her shirt.

Kat laughs. “WHOOO! WHOOO!” she hoots. “Do you remember that owl, when we were kids?”

“I wanna go now, Katy. Can we? I want to get away from that lion creep who is trying to take you away from me.”

“Me? You think Zane is taking
me
away? What about you and Seth?”

The ground beneath my feet is moving; I’m sure of it. She doesn’t know. She can’t know. No. The ground isn’t moving, not exactly. It’s more like…like I can feel the movement of the earth itself, like the slow rotation of the planet is suddenly accelerated. Or maybe I’ve actually slowed down in time enough that the movement of rotation and orbit just
feels
fast. I stop in the middle of the small dirt path and lie down, pressing my ear to the soil. The sounds that greet my ear are so ancient, so massive, I know I must be listening to the formation of rocks, the slow trickling of underground rivers, the blind squirmings of creatures far below the surface.

“I can hear the metamorphosis.”

Kat stops in the trail and turns, shining her light on me.

“You can hear
what?
”

“The metamorphosis. Of the rocks. Of the earth.” I roll over onto my back. “Of myself.”

Kat sits, cross-legged, near my head. “Are you going to turn into a big grasshopper or something?”

“Seriously, Katy, there are things I need to say.”

“Yeah.” I can hear her breathing, and then she whispers, “There are things I need to hear.”

I don’t know how long I lie there without speaking, but I’m fairly certain it’s long enough for us to become sedimentary rock formations here on the trail. I want to tell her, mainly because I want her to reassure me. I want to tell her because I want to tell her everything, but I can’t. These secrets could start with a trickle, but what if they become a torrent and crack us apart?