Kissing Kate (17 page)

“Try this,” Sophie said, passing a light pink shirt over the top of the door.

“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t mind the style—it was a V neck with short sleeves—but the fabric was clingy and the cut was snug. Not my kind of thing.

“Just try it,” Sophie said.

I sighed and slipped it over my head. I looked at myself in the mirror.

“Well?” Sophie said.

I hesitated, then opened the door.

Sophie’s expression went soft. “Oh, honey, that’s the one.”

I walked to the full-length mirror at the end of the narrow hall and turned sideways. The color went well with my skin, and the way the shirt hugged my body made me look curvy and slender at the same time.

“Wow,” Beth said, coming up behind me.

I bought the shirt, as well as a necklace Sophie spotted at one of the jewelry carts in the middle of the mall. No teddy bears this time; this one was an antique-y looking silver chain with tiny blue stones inserted between the links. From the middle dangled a larger stone that rested in the hollow of my throat. It cost $22.99.

“It’ll go with your new shirt,” Sophie said. “Chokers are perfect for V necks.”

While the vendor punched the price into the cash register, Beth fingered a different necklace, one made from a thin leather cord strung with funky purple beads. I watched her for a couple of seconds, then counted the money in my wallet. “Ring that one up, too,” I told the guy.

“But I already spent all my money,” Beth said.

“I know.”

“Here,” the guy said, lifting the necklace from the stand and handing it to Beth. With Sophie’s help, she fastened it around her neck.

“It’s not gold,” I said.

She reached for the mirror, tilting it so she could see.

“Don’t you want to say ‘thank you’ to your sister?” Sophie asked.

Beth threw her arms around me and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s
beautiful.
” Then she stepped back and examined her reflection. Raising her eyebrows, she put her hands on her hips and cocked one shoulder forward. “Really?” she mouthed to an imaginary admirer. “You do?”

I caught Sophie’s eye and smiled.

ON SATURDAY,
Ariel called and asked if I wanted to come to her house that afternoon instead of meeting at Java Jive’s.

“You know, to report on our dreams,” she said. She paused, then added, “I made a Tunnel of Fudge.”

“A what?” I said.

“A Tunnel of Fudge. It’s this awesome cake from the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.”

“Oh,” I said. Still, for an instant I balked, feeling that old sense of being backed into something. Coffeehouses were safer: there were other people around, it was neutral territory. But then I realized—and it was weird that I had to
realize,
that I didn’t just know—that I liked Ariel. As I drove to her house, I remembered all the judgments I’d made about her, and I felt bad, because wasn’t that exactly what was so messed up about Kate? The way she focused only on how things looked on the surface, instead of pushing deeper and figuring things out for herself?

I pulled into Ariel’s drive and cut the motor. For several seconds I sat there, listening to the engine pop, and then I unbuckled my seat belt and stepped outside. A flutter of cloth in the kitchen window caught my eye, and I saw Ariel holding back the curtain and waving. The curtain dropped, and she came out the front door to greet me.

“Lissa! Hey!” she called. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”

“What? No way.” I took a step forward. “Nice house.”

“Yeah?” She glanced up the street at the other, almost identical houses and made a face that suggested she wasn’t so sure. “Come on in. I’ll get you some cake.”

The kitchen was bright and sunny and very clean. A spice rack on the counter held alphabetized jars of spices, and matching blue and pink pot holders hung from the cabinet knobs to the left of the oven. Above the sink hung a framed piece of needlepoint that said “Bless This Mess.”

Ariel grabbed two plates from the cabinet and cut into a chocolate bundt cake with drizzly chocolate frosting.

“Yay, yay, yay,” she said, lightly clapping her hands as she examined the inside of the cake. “Sometimes the tunnel part collapses, and it becomes an avalanche of fudge instead. It tastes good either way, but I’m so glad it turned out.”

She handed me my plate and watched as I took a bite. The outer edge of the cake was rich and moist, while the inside, as promised, tasted like a dense ribbon of gooey fudge. “Mmm,” I said. “You are a goddess.”

The screen door squeaked, and Ariel’s mom came in loaded with shopping bags from Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Behind her trailed a girl a year or two younger than Ariel and me.

“Hi, girls,” Mrs. Thomas said. She put her bags on the table and pushed back her hair. “You must be Lissa. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“That’s Shannon,” Ariel said, nodding at her sister.

“Hi,” I said.

Shannon leaned against the counter. She was small and blond and looked bored. “No nose ring?” she said to me.

“What?”

She walked over and scooped a dab of frosting from the cake plate. Ariel snatched the cake and moved it.

“Mom,” Shannon said, “tell Kimberly she has to let me have some.”

For a second the name threw me, and then I remembered: Kimberly/Ariel; Ariel/Kimberly.

“I’m sure Kimberly will be happy to share,” Mrs. Thomas said.

I shifted my weight. It was strange that Shannon and Mrs. Thomas still called Ariel “Kimberly.” Or maybe Ariel hadn’t told them she’d changed it? I’d thought of her as Ariel for so long that Kimberly now sounded wrong.

Ariel glared at Shannon, then opened the refrigerator and poured two glasses of milk. She handed one to me and said, “Come on. Let’s go to my room.”

“Watch for crumbs,” Mrs. Thomas called. “And please bring back your dishes!”

Upstairs, I settled myself on Ariel’s floor and broke off a piece of cake. I thought about Ariel’s mom, how she was pretty in a tired sort of way. And Shannon was a pain, but what little sister wasn’t every so often? Mainly, they both just seemed normal. I looked at Ariel and smiled.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing. I like your room.” My eyes traveled from her colorful bedspread to the Mardi Gras beads draped over the side of her mirror. I
did
like her room, although it, too, was more normal than I’d have guessed. But what did I expect? Black walls? Shrines to Inanna piled with tea cakes and dowsing rods?

“So,” Ariel said, “I tried those techniques you told me about, but I haven’t had a lucid dream yet. What about you? Any luck?”

I leaned back against the wall. I hadn’t had a lucid dream this entire week, not one. I felt as if I’d stalled out. It frustrated me.

“None,” I said.

“I almost had one, I think. I was having a dream about being at the grocery store, only for some reason I had all this gunk in my mouth. Like wet sand. It was disgusting. And I kept spitting it out and spitting it out, and I remember thinking, ‘God, this can’t be real. I
have
to be dreaming.’ But even though I thought that, it didn’t shoot me into a lucid dream.”

“Weird,” I said.

“I think the gunky stuff was my mouth guard,” she said. She blushed and rolled her eyes. “I wear a mouth guard when I go to bed. Isn’t that gross?”

“You mean, like a retainer?”

“Sort of. It’s like what football players wear, only smaller. It’s to keep me from grinding my teeth.”

I envisioned Ariel in bed, her heavy eyeliner gone and her mouth guard in place. “It’s not gross.”

She pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her cheek on her knee. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I really wanted to have one, though. A lucid dream.”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes I just . . . I don’t know. It would just be so nice to have something special happen, you know?”

Her expression was so wistful that it felt wrong not to tell her. I put down my plate. “Um . . . actually, I
did
have a lucid dream. Not this week, but a while ago. Before we even talked about it.”

She lifted her head. “You did?”

I swallowed. “Two of them.”

“Lissa!” She sat straight up. “So
tell
me about them. Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

She didn’t ask why I hadn’t told her before, and I was glad. I told her about my moon dream and then about my weird floating dream, how I imagined myself drifting around the house like a ghost. She listened with parted lips, and when I came to the part about bumping up against the window, she laughed and slapped the floor.

“That is so strange,” she said. “And cool. So then what?”

“Well, I finally floated outside, and it was all dark and kind of spooky. And I looked down, and below me was—”

I stopped. Ariel lifted her eyebrows.

“A girl,” I said. “Just this girl, walking on the street. And then the dream shifted, and I was in my bathroom flossing my teeth. Isn’t that bizarre?” I spoke quickly, scrunching my toes in my sneakers.

“Wow,” Ariel said.

“Yeah. Although what was
really
weird was how real it felt. Even though I knew I was dreaming.”

Ariel shook her head. “Isn’t it amazing the stuff we can convince ourselves of? And not just in our dreams, but in our normal lives, too. You know?”

I wondered what she was thinking of, what lies she’d convinced herself were truths. But I didn’t ask.

 

 

 

I stayed at Ariel’s for a couple of hours. We agreed to keep working on having lucid dreams, and I gave her more tips, such as memorizing certain dream signals (for her, maybe the gunk-in-the-mouth thing) and telling herself that the next time that happens, she
will
realize she’s dreaming. I hoped that by talking about it, maybe I’d get things back on track for me as well.

At 5:30, we headed over to Darlin’s, me in my truck and Ariel in her Volvo. I had to be home by 7:00 to meet Finn, but I figured there was no reason I couldn’t deliver an order or two. It would give me something to do.

But Darlin had other plans. She ushered Ariel and me into the living room, sat us down, and brought out a bottle of sparkling cider. “A toast,” she said, untwisting the wire cap. She filled our glasses and beamed at us.

“What?” Ariel said, looking from Darlin to me. I lifted my eyebrows, and she turned back to Darlin. “Darlin, what’s going on?”

“To
Darlin’s Delights,
” she said, clinking her glass against ours. “Or maybe that’s too cute.
Darlin’s Delicacies
? Or just plain
Darlin’s
?”

“What are you talking about?” Ariel demanded.

“I’ve decided to do it,” Darlin said. “I’m going to phase out Entrées on Trays—”

“What? Why?!”

“—and start my own catering business. My
own
catering business, with my food and my recipes. And hopefully a ready-made list of clients, if only they’ll trust me to cook for them!”

“Oh, Darlin, they will!” Ariel said. “They totally will!” She put down her cider and gave Darlin a hug. “Darlin, that’s awesome!”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s great!”

“And you two will be my charming and courteous servers, of course. If you want to be. I’ll run it by my weekday drivers, too, and see who all is interested. I’ve got so much to do—apply for a business license, update my kitchen, create a menu—but I’m enjoying every minute of it. Can I tell you how wonderful that feels?”

“It’s because you’re doing what you love,” Ariel said. “You’re following your heart.”

“Oh, girls,” Darlin said, squeezing us both. “My soul is in a riotous condition. It’s the truth. But if I start with this . . . well, we’ll just see, won’t we?”

Ariel and I celebrated with Darlin for a little over half an hour, until at 6:15 I glanced at my watch and made a face.

“Shit,” I said. “I’ve got to get going.”

“Ooo, that’s right,” Ariel said. To Darlin she announced, “Lissa’s got a date.”

“A date?” Darlin repeated. She looked surprised.

“She’s going out for pizza with this awesome guy named Finn,” Ariel said. A line formed between her eyebrows, but disappeared when she smiled. “It’s very exciting.”

“It really isn’t,” I said. “It’s just that I’m never going to make it if—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ariel said. She walked me to the door, then waved as I hurried to my truck. “Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

I glanced back, ready to make some smart remark, and saw that Darlin had joined Ariel in the doorway.

“Just remember to follow your heart,” Darlin said. She said it lightly, but her gaze was steady. “Take care of yourself, baby.”

My retort dried up, and I turned away.

I STOOD IN MY BATHROBE
before the mirror. My skin was flushed from my shower, and I liked the way my hair looked when it was wet. Fuller, darker, and sticking up in interesting clumps when I raked my fingers through it. It was getting longer, too. My bangs grazed my eyebrows now, and the sides had finally grown out enough to shove behind my ears. I spied Beth’s mousse behind a bottle of lotion and pulled it out, weighing it in my hand. What the hell. I squirted an egg-sized pouf into my palm and smeared it into my hair. There—maybe now it would stay the way I wanted it.

In my room, I slipped on my new shirt and a pair of faded jeans that hung low on my hips. I was fishing under my bed for my brown leather belt when the telephone rang. “Dammit,” I muttered. I scooted backward and reached for the phone. “Hello?”

“Lissa, hi,” Kate said.

My heart skipped a beat. “Hi. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Dad’s grilling some chicken and Mom’s complaining, as usual. Says he’s got the temperature too high, that the outside will be roasted before the inside has a chance to cook.” She snorted. “Now she’s saying we’ll all get salmonella and die in our chairs. Can you hear her?”