Kissing Kate (11 page)

“Hi,” she said. “Is this the Supper Club?”

Six heads turned toward us, and six voices rose in greeting. Everyone seemed to be middle-aged, if not older, and everyone seemed alarmingly friendly, calling out “Sure is,” and “Hey there,” and “Sit down. Take a load off!”

Other customers looked our way, and the muscles at the back of my neck bunched up. The ride over had been more fun than I’d expected, and for a brief moment I’d wondered if this outing might not be so bad after all. But as everyone introduced themselves, I had to fight not to bolt. I knew it was wrong of me, but I felt embarrassed to be here. I did not want to grow up to be an over-the-hill lonelyheart.

“We’re real glad to have you,” said the man at the end of the table. Phil, I think his name was. “Starr, if you scoot over a tad, these fine people can get situated.”

Darlin squeezed past Starr and dropped into the one empty seat. “Whew,” she said, smiling and fanning herself with a menu.

Ariel pulled up a chair from a nearby table. “So,” she said, plunking her forearms on the table and addressing the entire group. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you all here tonight.”

Everyone laughed, Darlin the loudest of all and, in fact,
too
loudly. I pulled up a chair for myself and forced a smile.

“Just kidding,” Ariel said. “But really, I think it’s so cool that y’all do this, that you meet for dinner at all these different restaurants. You should ask Darlin for recommendations. She knows every single restaurant in Atlanta.”

“Ariel—” Darlin protested.

Ariel waved her off. “She does. It’s her job.”

“That right?” Phil asked. “What do you do?”

A woman wearing huge round glasses leaned forward. “Are you a food critic? I think it would be so fun to be a food critic.”

Darlin blushed. “It’s nothing, really. I run a delivery service for upscale Atlanta restaurants. Entrées on Trays?”

“Entrées on Trays!” said the man sitting across from me. “I’ve seen your menus. I’ve been meaning to call.”

“Well, please do,” Darlin said. She explained to the others how it worked, and they nodded and asked questions, splintering off into discussions of this or that restaurant.

As they chatted, I studied them from under my bangs. Phil, the man sitting closest to Darlin, was a big guy with a receding hairline and smooth, soft skin. On Darlin’s other side was Starr, who had bottle-blond hair and clumpy black eyelashes. Starr modeled for car ads; I knew because at one point she mentioned that Hooters had the best wings in the state and that her “boys” took her there whenever they finished a shoot. It wasn’t hard to imagine her in a bikini and high heels, draped across a glossy red Mustang.

Next to Starr was Shawanna, an older black woman wearing navy slacks and a white blouse. She held herself properly—chin up, spine straight—and I got the feeling that she didn’t quite approve of Starr, although she tried not to let it show.

And then there was a man who sold computers—Dave—and next to him a quiet man with tired eyes. I think his name was Scott. And finally the woman with the glasses. Her name was Gloria, and I could smell her perfume from across the table.

All of the members of the group seemed nice enough, but if so, then why were they here? What was wrong with them that they couldn’t find a date on their own?

I was ashamed of myself for being so judgmental, but still, I wanted to leave. Especially since Darlin, full into the swing of a lively sushi-versus-sashimi debate, seemed oblivious to my presence. Sure, she’d been nervous at first, but anyone seeing her now would assume she was one of the gang.

And that was as disturbing as anything else. I didn’t want to think of Darlin as part of this gang. I didn’t want to think of myself as part of this gang, yet here I was as well. I pressed my heels into the floor and edged my chair away from the table.

“Phil, you devil,” Darlin said, leaning forward in a way that revealed the tops of her freckled breasts. “Raw fish is not in the same category as oysters, thank you very much. Just because I enjoy my sushi does not make me the queen of love.”

Phil laughed, a broad guffaw that brought more stares from the other customers. “If you say so, Darlin. But I’ve eaten plenty of sushi myself, and it sets my fin a’spinnin’, if you get my drift.”

“Oh, you are
bad,
” Darlin said. She gave him a playful shove, and I winced. I glanced at Ariel, but she giggled along with Phil as if he were the funniest man on the planet.

“Y’all ready to order?” asked a waitress, stopping next to my chair and flipping open a leather pad.

No one responded. The waitress shifted her gaze to a neighboring table, where four college guys flirted with another server. She turned back and sighed. “Excuse me. Ex
cuse
me?”

“You guys,” I said.

“Oh,” Ariel said. She raised her voice over the din of the conversation. “Hey, is everyone ready to order?”

The waitress stood there as the others discussed drinks and appetizers, salads versus soups. I could read her thoughts by the way she held her mouth, and I smiled apologetically.
I’m not really with them,
I wanted to say. She stared right through me. I mumbled my order and handed over my menu.

Later, after Darlin downed two Peach Fizzies and everyone else had drunk their fair share of wine, beer, and, in Starr’s case, tequila shooters with slices of lime, Phil suggested a line dance.

“We’ll cut the rug with the Boot Scoot Boogie,” he said, slapping the table and standing up. “What do you say, Darlin?”

Darlin tilted her glass and drank the slushy remains of her drink. “Oh, why not,” she said. “Come on, girls!”

Ariel pushed back her chair, along with Gloria and a giggling Starr.

“What the hell,” said Dave, lumbering to his feet. Scott shrugged and followed.

Shawanna and I were the only ones who stayed seated.

“I never have been good at those things,” Shawanna said, fidgeting with her necklace. “You and me—we can just watch, right?”

Darlin sashayed to our end of the table. “Lissa, honey,” she sang. She beckoned me with her finger.

“Come on, you two,” Ariel said.

“You go ahead,” I said.

Ariel clasped her palms. “Please?”

I waved her on, and Shawanna gave me a grateful smile. Together, we looked out at the dance floor. Dave was surprisingly graceful as he sauntered forward and stomped his foot, and Starr had this thing going with her hips that was an absolute riot, as Darlin would say. And Darlin herself was having a blast, swishing her skirt and shimmying when she did her quarter-turn. My chest loosened. From twenty feet away, I found it easier to feel tolerant of them all.

Burl, eat your heart out,
I thought.

And then there was Ariel, who knew every step perfectly. She and Scott grinned as they moved in sync: heel to toe, heel to toe. I watched with grudging respect, realizing that she didn’t have to work at acting natural, she just
was
. Or maybe it was just that she was as much of a misfit as the rest of them, so of course she felt right at home.

But that wasn’t fair. I actually wished I were more like Ariel in some ways, more willing to go ahead and be weird if I wanted to. Or not even weird—just less self-conscious. I hated how self-conscious I felt all the time.

I took in Ariel’s sweaty face and sensed something shift within me. It took guts for her to keep reaching out to me, unencouraged and uninvited. Plus, and I needed to remember this, it wasn’t as if tons of others were waiting in line to take her place.

And really, I knew that Ariel wasn’t so bad.

She just wasn’t Kate.

FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK,
I couldn’t shake the thought that things between Kate and me were going to get patched up. I’d done a good and unselfish thing—I’d escorted Darlin on her date with the wild and crazy members of the Supper Club—and now I should be rewarded. Kate should call me.

Anytime now, she surely would.

So on Saturday morning, when Beth stuck her head into the bathroom and said the phone was for me, my heart sped up.

“Who is it?” I said, pulling back the shower curtain.

“I don’t know. Jerry answered.”

Jerry would know if it was Kate, at least I think he would. But that didn’t mean he’d mention it to Beth. I turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and hurried to my room.

“Hello?” I said. To Jerry I called, “I’ve got it!”

“Hello, Lissa? It’s Ariel.”

“Ariel.” I sat down on the bed, making a wet splotch on the quilt. “What’s up?”

“Finn and I are going to IHOP for breakfast. Want to come?”

I closed my eyes.

“No line dancing, I promise,” she said.

“I can’t. I just got out of the shower.”

“So put on some clothes. Or come naked. Hell, Finn would love it.” She giggled. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay?”

I opened my eyes. I could go with Ariel and Finn or I could sit in my room, waiting for a call that was never going to come. “Sure,” I said. “Why not.”

 

 

 

The IHOP was a madhouse: kids screaming for juice, truckers eating platters of eggs and sausage, up-all-nighters staring bleary-eyed at their menus and laughing over nothing. There was a forty-five-minute wait to be seated, but Ariel knew one of the waitresses, and she squeezed us in at the next available table.

“Friends in high places,” Ariel said. She shook her napkin into her lap. “I know everyone at Baskin-Robbins, too. You want a big scoop, you come with me.”

“You want a big scoop, you come with me,” Finn repeated, lowering his voice and glowering. He switched back to his normal self. “You sound like you’re in the Mafia.”

Ariel grinned. “You know it.”

A five-year-old in the booth behind us whizzed a slice of orange at Finn’s head, then slid out of sight. Finn picked up the orange slice, reached over the top of the booth, and tapped the kid’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think you dropped this.”

“George!” the boy’s mother said. “I told you to stop that!” Finn looked at me and arched his eyebrows. “You, too, Lissa. No more roughhousing in the booth, you hear?”

I half-smiled, then returned to my menu. I shouldn’t have come. I felt dull and sluggish.

“Y’all know what you want?” our waitress asked, setting a glass of water by each of our place mats.

I shut the menu. “A short stack of pancakes and a small orange juice, please.”

“Same for me,” Finn said.

“Wimps,” Ariel said. She handed her menu to the waitress. “I’ll have the chocolate-chip waffle with whipped cream and sprinkles.”

“Want any sugar with that?” Finn said.

Ariel ignored him. “And a large orange juice. Thanks, Christina.” She propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her palms. “So. Guess what I’ve decided to be when I get out of school?”

“A dentist?” Finn said.

“No.”

“A bunny rabbit?”

“
No,
a dowser. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

Finn turned to me. “A dowser. What’s a dowser?”

I roused myself from my apathy. “Um, I’m not sure. Someone who finds things underground?”

“Not ‘things,’” Ariel said. “Water. I’d use one of those Y-shaped rods and find water for people.”

“Because so many people have lost their water,” Finn said.

She rolled her eyes. “For wells, dummy.”

“Oh, right. For wells.” He leaned back in his seat “Lissa, do you have a well?”

“You know, we don’t, actually. We’ve got a water pipe, although sometimes we misplace it . . .”

Finn laughed. I was pleased despite myself.

“Okay, fine,” Ariel said. “But in Vermont and Connecticut there is a big business of well digging, and dowsers do really well. Ha!
Well,
get it?” She slapped the table. “Anyway, it would be a great way for me to stay in touch with Mother Earth and all that. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?”

“How do you become a dowser?” I asked.

“That part I don’t know yet,” she admitted. “But how hard can it be?”

Finn and I looked at each other across the table.

Ariel launched into a pro/con analysis of metal dowsing rods versus wooden ones, stopping for breath only when Christina arrived with our food. Christina served Finn and me our pancakes, then placed Ariel’s waffle before her with a flourish. On top of the waffle she’d squirted a whipped cream smiley-face, with a cherry for the nose and two chunks of pineapple for the eyes. “Thought I’d have a little fun with it. What do you think?”

Ariel clapped her hands. “Christina, I love it.”

The five-year-old peered at Ariel’s waffle over the top of the booth.

“Jealous, aren’t you?” Finn said.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Christina said. She winked and headed to the kitchen.

“I think we should say a blessing,” Ariel said.

“I think we shouldn’t,” Finn said.

Ariel held out her hands, one to each of us. When neither of us responded, she held them out farther, fingers wiggling. Finn groaned and took one hand. Reluctantly, I took the other.

Closing her eyes, Ariel chanted, “Thank you, Inanna, for the bounty you have spread before us. When we eat of this food, we eat of your body. Amen.”

“Who’s Inanna?” Finn said.

“An ancient goddess from Mesopotamia,” Ariel said. She cut off a bite of waffle and popped it into her mouth. “People prayed to her by baking these special cakes which they placed on her altar. They called them ‘cakes from heaven,’ and when they ate them, it was like they were eating Inanna’s own body.”

“Clever,” Finn said.

“Like communion?” I asked. My heaviness, without my realizing it, had begun to lift. “You know, when you eat the body of Christ?”

“Exactly,” Ariel said, pointing her fork at me in approval. “Do you go to church?”