Kiss the Morning Star (20 page)

“It’s not even loaded. I promise, Anna.” She holds it out to me and spins the little chamber to show me it’s empty.

“I don’t care. Get rid of it, Kat.
Please
.”

“Fine, I was done, anyway.” She sets the gun down on the picnic table while she seals the plastic bag, then stashes both in her satchel. “There. It’s gone. Happy?”

“I meant get
rid
of it. For good.” I’m not happy, and it’s only partly because of the stupid gun. I stir the fire with a long stick, ducking backward as a shower of sparks flies up toward my face.

“Not gonna happen, Anna babe. It’s all I have left of my grandpa, you know? This gun is a part of practically every memory I have of him—holstered right at eye level when I was a little kid, or sometimes his entire belt would be curled up on top of the television cabinet, out of reach and so forbidden.” She taps her toe against the long cardboard box on the ground next to the table. “So. Should we put this cheapo tent up and see if it can keep us dry?”

I shrug. “Might as well, even though the bedding will probably be wet going in.” I’m tired of bickering. I’m tired of everything.

The rain incident not only ruined our things; it made us grumpy and short-tempered. Maybe it’s because we aren’t feeling well—both of us wake with scratchy throats and dull headaches—and maybe it’s because it’s hard to be homeless, even with a new tent. In any case, the mood lingers through several sticky, humid days of recuperating and lounging around camp.

“A motel room,” says Kat, “with laundry facilities.” She takes a bite of eggs and points her fork at me. “It could be your birthday present, babe. A shower, clean clothes, and a real bed.”

I pull the map of Washington out of the gigantic plastic zipper-bag marked MAPS. The bag bulges with our gathered geographies—an intricately folded collection of lines and squiggles and paths traced in yellow highlighter. I spread the map out on the picnic table and smooth my hand across it. “We could camp at this little state park on the coast south of Bellingham and play in the ocean. Maybe get a motel on the peninsula.”

Kat studies the map. “Ooh, look, we could drive down to the peninsula here and then take a ferry over to Victoria. It’s touristy, but it’s supposed to be really beautiful.”

“I’ve never been on a ferry. Or, like, on anything that went over the ocean.”

“What does Jack say?”

I dig through my bag for
The Dharma Bums
, relieved when I find it. “Here, you choose this time.” I hold the book in front of me, thinking about my birthday as the pages float by. Kat lets the whole book flap past without choosing a place.

“I’m nervous,” says Kat. “This is a big responsibility.” She laughs, and I flip back through the book again, more slowly. “I hope I don’t pick something stupid.”

At last, after two more passes through the book, she closes her eyes and plants her finger on a page. “I don’t know why this is such a big deal,” she says, giggling. “But it totally is.”

It’s a big deal, and Kerouac’s talking about chocolate. I read, “‘For some reason or other, a Hershey bar would save my soul right now.’” I raise my eyebrows at Kat.

And for a little while, we only need to worry about dessert.

Two Birthday Haiku from Larabee Beach:

I’m alone up here at the top of the sandstone cliffs, thinking about Kerouac and his writing, how it has grown on me. Even the parts that used to make me roll my eyes. I flip through a few pages of my notebook, and I’m surprised by how much poetry I’ve been writing—how much easier it comes to me now.

When I run out of words, I stare out over the ocean, the raw force that has sculpted these rough rocks beneath me—formed them into a work of beauty, entirely unique.

I wonder if it hurts, being carved out like this, one grain of sand at a time. I wonder if the rocks realize that for every part of themselves they lose, they gain something beautiful.

I’m eighteen years old. An adult. I lean back against the passenger seat and gaze at the ocean shore passing by my window. Of course there’s nothing new to feel; my birthday is just a number on the calendar—and a supposedly bad luck number at that. I laugh.

“What?” says Kat. She drives with one bare foot up on the dash, which makes me nervous. She reaches into the box of doughnuts between us and pulls out a powdered sugar-coated pastry, which she eats with both hands, using her knees to steer. God, I hate when she does that.

“What are you thinking about?” she says.

I tear my eyes off the road ahead and look at her. “My birthday. My bad luck birthday.”

Kat laughs, two pale smudges of sugar at the corners of her mouth. “It’s going to be awesome, Anna. I mean, it already is, isn’t it? We got to hang out on the beach, you touched a starfish…and it’s only getting better! Next up—Vancouver. Something important is going to happen there.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Birthdays always seem sort of anticlimactic, you know?” I flip through the last few entries in my journal, trying to distract myself from her driving. I remember what Seth said about writing a book and wonder if anyone would ever want to read anything like this.

“Do you feel eighteen?”

I shrug. “I feel older, actually. Way older.” Will I ever catch up to how old I really feel?

“Reincarnation, baby. You’re totally an old soul.”

“I don’t know. I mean, when Jack is talking about reincarnation, it sounds like the most natural thing ever, like of
course
we have lots of lifetimes. Of
course
it’s going to take us a few lifetimes to get there, to nirvana or whatever.” I watch the ocean out my window, the endless rolling waves. “But…then I think about souls, and how complicated it would all get to keep track of, and it just seems absurd.”

“Anna,
look.
I don’t need any more proof than that right there to know that there has got to be a God.
That
is pure divinity.” She points at the sun, the clouds filtering the light into long, radiant fingers. “Or if there isn’t a God, does it even matter?”

“Beauty is truth?” I could believe that.

“Truth, beauty,” says Kat. “And I need ten dollars for the ferry.”

By the time we get to Port Angeles, there’s only one more ferry sailing to Victoria that will allow us to get back that same night. It will leave us with approximately forty-five minutes on the island and will cost us close to thirty dollars each way.

“No way.” Birthday or not, I’m not spending sixty bucks for us to spend less than an hour in Canada. That’s not even enough time to get something to eat. As if we could afford it.

“We’re going.” Kat stands firm at the ticket booth. “This is my gift to you, and you’re going to accept it. I want us to do something different, something completely out of character. We can act like tourists.” She pouts comically, and it makes me ache to see how cute she is with her lip stuck out like that.

“Katy…” I don’t want to go. Everything feels dark and wrong somehow. “What are we even going to do there?”

“Most of the shops are open late,” says the girl behind the ticket booth. She taps her black-painted nails against a stack of brightly colored brochures. “Or if you’re not really into shopping, you could go see the wax museum, which is awesome, very spooky, in my opinion. Or for your birthday, well, I don’t know how you feel about this kind of thing, but—” She smiles like a conspirator and leans in close to us through the window. “Last time I was there I got my fortune told by a palm reader, and it was
so amazing.
Like
everything
she said was completely true. It was crazy.”

“Anna babe, let’s do it!” Kat jumps up and down while she pays for our tickets.

“A palm reader?” I wrinkle my nose. “Probably a scam,” I say, but my voice betrays my curiosity. Katy and I went through a big palmistry phase once, devouring a fat book on the subject that Kat found in her dad’s bookshelves, poring over our futures and pasts in the lines wavering across our splayed hands until we felt certain of our grand destinies. I haven’t even glanced at my palms since my mother died. Still, my birthday list includes a plan for the future, so…why not?

“Totally not a scam,” says the girl, handing us our boarding passes. “It’s weird because she doesn’t seem like a real fortune-teller, but you have to go. Her name is Renata, and she, like, freaked me out. Look for the neon hand; you can see it from the pier.”

The sky has darkened considerably, and once we’re on board, the wind off the water is biting cold. I’m happy to have my coat and a knit hat to keep my ears warm, but even so, when the rain starts pelting us, we head inside to the cafeteria.

As we stand in line to pay for food, the ferry pitches so violently that I actually have to grab hold of a post to keep from falling over, and even the crew member who takes our money gets wide-eyed and says, “Whoa, it’s never been this rough before!”

“Well, that’s comforting,” says Kat, as the room lurches back and forth.

We squeeze our way along the passage toward some tables and chairs. “Kat, what’s going on? Why is it so crazy?” I peer out the little window. “Look at the waves. How long is this ride?”

She shakes her head. “Like an hour and a half? It will be okay, Anna. These ferries go back and forth in all kinds of weather.”

“But they sometimes sink, you know. I’ve read about it.” I look at the carton of chocolate milk on my tray—the poppy seed muffin and the foil-wrapped pat of butter—and I feel vaguely ill. “What if we sink?”

“We’re not going to sink, Anna.”

“But we could.”

“We could do a lot of things, Anna. I mean, if something bad is going to happen, then it’s going to happen whether or not we worry about it beforehand.” But she doesn’t touch her food, either; instead she twists her hair into pigtails and breathes in through her nose and blows out slowly from her pursed lips.

I push my tray away and fold my hands in front of me. I look like I’m praying, but I’m only thinking. “Are you ever scared of dying?”

Kat tips her head. “I was scared when the grizzly was about to maul us.”

“He wasn’t going to maul us. He was so beautiful.” I was afraid then, too, but not for myself. “I think I’m more afraid of other people dying,” I say.
Like you
, I don’t say. “The thought of my own death never used to bother me, but lately it’s starting to. I think it’s all this uncertainty about…what comes next.” I open my hands. “I feel unfinished.”

“I’m okay with dying,” says Kat after a small pause, “but I’m a baby about pain, so I hope it’s quick.”

I shudder. “Like that stupid gun.” Up until Kat pulled that pistol on those guys in Sage Creek, I had never even seen one in real life, not even a hunting rifle. “A gun is like an accident waiting to happen.” Like playing with fire.

Kat rolls her eyes. “I told you, Anna. I’m a good shot. My grandpa was a
police officer.
He taught me excellent gun safety before he passed away.”

I’m not convinced, and worse, now I’m angry, on top of being afraid. We sit for a while in a tense, strained silence, and still the boat heaves and rocks; even the crew walks around gripping the rails and looking mildly concerned. Kat opens a book but doesn’t turn pages. I take my journal out, and it sits on my lap, unopened. The sky is nearly black.

“We shouldn’t have come.” I can’t help it. My stomach roils.

“Shut up.”

“Don’t be mad, Katy Kat.” I’m making everything worse. “I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. I’m just scared. And…it’s my birthday!” The ferry rolls underneath us, and I smile a grim smile while gripping the edge of the table. “And if we die, I really don’t want to die with you mad at me.”

Kat sighs. Her face twists into a dark frown. “I can never stay mad at you, Anna babe. Even if I want to.”

That doesn’t make me feel better. I want to make things better between us somehow, but I can’t figure out how to get back to the way it was before. Like when we first started driving, the way it felt so good to be solid and real. Now I feel like I’m suffocating.

“I think I’ll feel better up on the deck,” I say, standing up. “Fresh air, you know?” Maybe if I can see the ocean, feel the rain on my face, it will be okay. “You coming?”

Kat lifts an eyebrow. “Apparently.” She throws her food into the garbage can and follows me outside.

We cling to the rails running along the side of the cabin. The ferry pitches back and forth, and I clench my index finger between my front teeth and bite down, hard. The sky and the ocean are all one flat wash of gray—a fine spray of mist in the air underneath the lash of fat raindrops and bitter wind. I can’t breathe. Wasn’t this supposed to be fun?

“Shakespeare died on his birthday!” I have to shout over the wind and the rain.

“You’re not going to die, Anna!” says Kat. Still, I see the way her hands grip the rail for the rest of the trip. The ferry shudders under the barrage of waves.

At last we reach the dock in Victoria, and I sway, still wobbly from the rough ride. We pass through customs quickly with a wave of our passports, but the well-dressed woman in line ahead of us turns back and rolls her eyes. “It takes like five seconds to get into Canada,” she says, “but of course going back home takes forever. I always end up getting my stuff searched. Seriously, do I
look
like a terrorist?”

I shake my head and smile, but it’s one more thing to worry about. My hand presses tight against the pocket where I keep our passports. Katy’s already walking toward a neon hand in a window up ahead.

I hang back, uncertain, pulling my arms tight across my chest. Victoria is still covered in a smothering murk, and the sky looks threatening. All the Americans seem to be here for the shopping; they move in droves, loaded with bags, clambering with all their heavy packages into the tiny carriages pulled by athletic boys and girls on bicycles.

“Anna, come
on.
” Katy doubles back for me and tugs on my hand. “I have some questions about the future,” she says, lacing her fingers through mine.

I worry about the answers.

I expect the fortune-teller’s shop to be dimly lit and mysterious, but it’s bright, clean, and modern—not a scrap of moody fabric or archaic symbolism to be found. A young woman wearing a dark tailored suit and red high-heeled shoes stands beside an empty, glass-fronted counter that looks like it might have been a bakery case as recently as this morning.

“Hello!” The woman smiles brightly, setting down her pencil on top of the counter and extending her hand. “I’m Renata. What can I do for you two?” She has a light accent that I can’t identify. Her dark hair is pulled back and knotted in a professional-looking configuration at the nape of her neck, but stray curls escape in reckless spirals around her neck and ears.

Kat nods to her, businesslike. “You read palms, then?”

“Yes, I read palms, the Tarot, tea leaves, some aura work….” The woman ticks the items off on her fingers quickly, like a waitress naming salad dressings. There is nothing about her that feels the least bit mysterious or occult.

I smile nervously. At times like these, my voice seems to retreat, a tiny seed hidden away in the center of a prickly casing. “Um, how much is it?”

Renata waves her hand dismissively, her fingers laced with glinting stones. “Fifteen dollars American is fine,” she says. “For each of you, of course.”

Kat gives me a look, and I hand her a twenty. Too much, too much. I clear my throat, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. The bright lights are dazzling. “Should I, um, show you my palm?”

“Oh. Have a seat. I’ll be right over.”

The only seating is a little round table with four metal chairs, like you might find in an ice cream parlor. Renata moves to one of the chairs and perches on the edge, smiling serenely. I drag my right hand away from its grip on my backpack and hold it out to the unlikely psychic, who takes a cursory glance.

“You are a very logical person,” Renata says, looking into my eyes. “You think things through carefully.” She keeps the same passive smile on her face, her eyes never straying from mine. “Even when things get very difficult, and they have been very difficult already, you keep yourself together, all your feelings locked away, sometimes to the point of making yourself seem inaccessible to others.” She turns to Kat. “You see this reserve in her, right?”

“Well, sure,” Kat says. “But, I mean, anyone can see that.”

Is that true? Am I really so guarded that a perfect stranger can pin me down with one look? I stare at my hand, which is still sitting faceup on the table, my fingers curled in now as though they are hiding something precious. I raise my eyes again to meet Renata’s. “Don’t listen to her. She thinks just because she’s known me forever that she knows everything about me.”