Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love (15 page)

15

The Fourth Experiment Leaves Us
All at Sea, as Kittens and Dawgs Get Shipwrecked by the Most Fearsome X Mojo of All!

T
he very first person I run into at the North Cove Yacht Harbor is Matthew. He is gorgeous. Correction: The sky above New York Harbor is a tropical Hawaiian blue, the late-afternoon sun sends long, sparkling tendrils of light stretching across the water like diamond-studded taffy, the pristine gazillion-dollar yachts bob up and down like happy pampered pets, the breeze is cool and smells of salt and men’s cologne. Careful, I tell myself as he approaches, inoculating my heart against the X-forces that eddy around us, invisible and all-powerful. It’s the Romantic Setting that’s heart-stoppingly gorgeous, not Matthew, Matthew is exactly the same as he ever was. . . .

“Wow, Felicia,” he says, sounding stunned. “You look beautiful!”

Why why why why why? I lament inwardly. Why am I here to woo Randall, and Matthew to woo Jess, when all along it was supposed to be me and him? Him and me?

But “play it cool” will be my motto for the evening, because the Romantic Setting has us in its clutches already, and we’ve got a whole island to boogie round before the night is through. I adjust my sunglasses against the glare and nod my thanks, smiling my best Italian-movie-star half-smile.

“Which one of these rowboats is Trip’s?” I ask wittily.

“All of them!” proclaims Trip, appearing behind us in a flawless white linen suit. “But I recommend—this one.”

Trip gestures across the marina, to the prettiest, not to mention biggest, yacht that’s moored in the whole North Cove. “The
Betty Johnston
!” he says. “She’s the apple of my daddy’s eye. Do I mean my mom, or the boat? I’ll let you decide! Betty, Junior, meet my friends.”

Alors!
The gazillionaire and his wife! Snatches of the
Gilligan’s Island
theme song play in my head. The Mathises look like people you’d see in a magazine. Fit, tan, with beautiful clothes. Trip’s mom has an actual gauzy kerchief tied around her upswept hair. Talk about Italian movie star! It’s the most glamorous thing I’ve ever seen.

“My dear!” exclaims Betty to me. “Aren’t you delicious! What a knockout dress. I had one exactly like it when I was your age!” Her laugh tinkles like bells. I could tell her, if I weren’t so star-struck by her fabulous-ness, that if she’s in the habit of donating her old clothes to thrift shops there’s a good chance this IS her dress.

Junior shakes Matthew’s hand. Trip is shielding his eyes from the sun, scanning the crowds on the marina.

“Hey!” Trip yells. “Over here!” He’s waving, and after a moment we see at whom. It’s Deej. She’s skittering across the plaza in sky-high lemon-colored heels, looking every which way for Trip’s voice and giving her dress one final, perfecting tug in back before returning his wave. Her outfit is da bomb, her cocoa-cinnamon skin set off by a creamy yellow sheath. Her hair, usually pulled straight back and slicked against her head, is wrapped up high in a boldly patterned scarf, Egyptian goddess–style. Total effect: teen-supermodel love child of Nefertiti and Jackie Onassis. Her smile, when she sees Trip, is dazzling.

“Harrrrrold,” she purrs, running up and giving him a peck on the cheek. “I got stuck on that downtown train, I was afraid I was gonna miss the boat!” She turns and sees me. “Whooo, F’leesha!” she cries, delighted. “You are looking fine!”

“Mother, Dad, this is my special friend, Doris Jean,” says Trip. “The young lady I told you about.”

“The exchange student?” asks Betty, carefully, not revealing for a heartbeat that perhaps she had been expecting a shy Swiss heiress who skis with her father, the ambassador, on school holidays and summers at the family home in Majorca.

“Visiting student is what they call it. Mr. and Mrs. Mathis, I am so very happy to meet you!” exclaims Deej, with charm to spare. “And please call me Deej. It’s a nickname, but it’s what I go by. My grandma’s name is Doris, like mine, so they gotta call me something or nobody can tell who’s talking to who.”

“I sympathize completely!” says Harold “Junior” Mathis. “Every man in my family is named Harold. We’ve been through Hal, Harry, Hardy—finally we gave up and started using numbers, so I go by Junior and my son here got stuck with Trip.”

“It suits him,” says Deej, giving her Special Friend a sweet nudge.

“Because so often he
is
one, don’t you find?” laughs Betty.

Deej giggles and slips her slender arm through Trip’s. “You and Deej will have dinner with us, I hope?” says Betty to her son. “Captain’s table, you can’t refuse!”

“Of course, Mom. Have I told you lately you’re a peach?” Trip takes his mother’s arm and the three of them, elbows linked, saunter together toward the boat named after Betty, laughing in perfect three-part harmony: tinkling soprano, jazzy alto, and roughened but still boyish tenor.

The bass of this quartet, Junior, has stopped to light a cigar. He stands on the marina, smoking, and Matthew and I walk past him as we approach the boarding ramp of the
Betty Johnston
.

“Thanks so much for having us, Mr. Mathis,” I say. “This is amazing.”

Trip’s dad exhales a fragrant puff, politely aiming it away from me. “You’re all such nice kids, I can see that already,” he says, his voice sounding strangely gruff. “It makes me gladder than you can possibly know.”

Matthew and I smile and start to move on, but Mr. Mathis abruptly turns back to us. “Don’t ever think there are no second chances,” he says, hoarse and urgent. “Of course there are. That’s all life is, one second chance after another after another.” He blows out another puff. “Thank God.”

I hear it now. It’s not the smoke that’s making his voice gruff. He’s actually choked up.

“Thank you,” I say again. And Matthew and I step on board the Love Boat.

Randall’s already there, milling about the lower deck near the ramp. It’s sweet that he’s waiting for me, but it also means he sees me arriving with Matthew. And what of it? I can’t help it if we happened to show up at the same time, and it was, honestly, pure coincidence, even though I don’t usually believe in coincidences.

“Hey,” he says with a nervous smile. I have to say, this Romantic Setting mojo is unbelievable. I’ve never seen Randall looking so swell. In fact, I’ve scarcely noticed how Randall looks before, even when I was kissing him. But tonight he is a handsome, lean, and light-footed Dawg in a chocolate brown suit and colorful striped tie. He’s had a haircut, too, and his thick black hair is kind of spiked and hipster-looking. There may be hair product involved. In sum, Randall is a cupcake.

“You look fantastic,” he says, taking my hand.

“You too,” I say, meaning it.

“Hey, buddy!” says Matthew. “Cool boat, right?”

“Awesome. You gotta see the upstairs, the whateverit’s-called—”

“Crow’s nest?”

“No, that’s only in pirate ships, dude!”

“Oh man! Think we’ll see any pirates?”

And so the happy Dawg banter begins. I long to see Jess and Kat and check out their fab outfits, so I excuse myself from inspecting the
Betty J
with the Dawgs and wander onto the main deck. I spot Kat on the upper level, gazing moodily out to sea. She’s wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked, loose-fitting, black shroud, I guess you could call it, but she looks gorgeous anyway, pale and severe. I see Jacob up there, too, looking right at home on a private yacht, which is not surprising considering his famous Mother Thespian and all.

Then, on the far side of the main deck, across from where I’m standing, I spot an adorable auburn-haired Kitten who’s wearing, get this, practically the same dress as me. Not exactly the same, because mine is a halter top and Jess’s has cap sleeves with a heart-shaped neckline. And hers is actually a navy blue, so dark it’s almost black, but unless you’re standing in bright light you can hardly tell the difference.

We hug and squeal about the dresses. I’m about to joke that Trip’s mom must have given away a lot of clothes over the years, but Jess beats me to the conversational punch.

“I brought a guest!” she says.

Is her older brother home from the Peace Corps? I can’t imagine who else she’d bring.

So I start to ask her, “Is your brother home from—” and then I see Jess’s “guest.”

Her brooding, tormented “guest,” who’s staring gloomily over the water, like Mr. April from the Depressed Russian Pianists pinup calendar.

“Uh, Jess?” I say, pulling her away to a private spot behind the lifeboats. I try not to sound like I think she’s gone wacko. “What is Dmitri doing here?”

“Trip said we could bring a guest, so I did!” she says, all blithe and normal-acting. Well, yeah, but since all the Kittens and Dawgs were invited anyway, there was sort of no need to bring anyone. At least, that’s what the rest of us, the NOT CRAZY people, had concluded.

“Dmitri . . . is . . . your . . . guest?” I want to give her time to really hear how mental this is.

“I’m trying to help Kat!” she chirps. “I want to show him how important it is that he NOT back out of her recital! She’s SO upset about it!”

I glance up again at Kat, who does seem to be in mourning. Jess prattles madly, gaining speed as she goes. “Lucky that Trip’s mother is on the board of Carnegie Hall, that’s how I finally convinced him to come. Fee, it’s perfect. We’re on a
boat
! He HAS to hear me out, where else can he go? And Kat is going to play for everyone after dinner. Once he sees how incredible she is in performance, how AWFUL it would be if she had to cancel her recital . . .”

I hear Jess’s words. They’re fine words, all in perfect standard English. I just don’t believe them. I say nothing. My dubious look speaks for itself.

“I was thinking of Kat! Really!”

My dubiousness is taking on intergalactic proportions. There has never been a more “I don’t THINK so!” expression on anyone’s face than there is on mine at this moment.

“You invited Dmitri,” I say. She looks at me, the picture of innocence.

“To the party.” She’s still not cracking.

“On the BOAT?!!!”

They say every criminal wants to be caught, and this seems to be true of Jess, whose cheeks suddenly turn as pink as Johnny Depp’s lips. “Ohmigod, Fee!” Jess says, the truth gurgling forth. “I know, I’m INSANE! But have you ever, ever, ever seen anything like him? EVER?”

“JESS! He’s like, THIRTY!” We are struggling not to shout, since Dmitri is standing on the other side of the lifeboats.

“I KNOW! I know nothing will happen!” I watch, helpless, as Jess plunges the remaining distance into kookooland. “I just thought it would be amazing to hang out with him! Especially tonight! It’s so—I mean, the water, and the sunset and everything. You know?”

Of course I know.

Jess, like the rest of us, is now helpless, captive, a willing victim of (insert Terrifying Horror-Movie Sound Track Music here)—

The Romantic Setting!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

The most fearsome X-mojo of all!

Dinner on the
Betty Johnston
makes the multi-ethnic gourmet fare at the Pound look like warmed-over Mickey D’s. Five-star restaurant fare is one thing—what else would the Mathises offer, hardtack and scurvy pills?—but we are a tad surprised when champagne is served, since we know Trip is now a nondrinking kind of dude and the rest of us are, more or less, fourteen. But his parents are here so it must be okay, and we each take a little glass, even Trip. It is ultradelicious, bubbly and subtly flavored, like carbonated almond juice.

Dmitri doesn’t stop at one glass, and the more he drinks, the more he seems to be pouring his heart out to Jess. The two of them are having a very intense-looking conversation. I send Jess a psychic message not to forget to argue Kat’s case about the recital before her Kittenbrain gets completely boggled by Dmitri-X and champagne.

Trip and Deej are at one end of the table with Trip’s parents. I’m sitting with Randall, and Kat has become the focal point of Jacob’s gallantry, which she endures. And poor Matthew. The odd man out. Jess having an X-quake over Dmitri is a turn of events no one expected.

As for Cupcake Randall: he grows more boyfriend-like by the minute. He’s charming and attentive, with a sly sense of humor. And he has awfully good manners. Not the medieval-courtier kind like Jacob, but just nice, like he always seems to notice when someone hasn’t spoken for a while and makes a point of asking them a question. I like that.

The evening is going so well, in fact, that I’m starting to get nervous—no, worried—no, TERRIFIED that the major Romantic Setting X-mojo being generated right now on the Love Boat could spin out of control, ricocheting at crazy angles and zapping me back to a place I do not want to be. As the luscious desserts arrive (an elaborate ice cream concoction with bitter chocolate shavings and a single perfect boysenberry nestled on a geranium leaf), I resolve to be strong. The Romantic Setting may be powerful, but it’s no match for the will of a Ferocious Kitten! If there is any Matthew-X left in my heart, now is the time to kibosh it.

Kibosh! I say to my heart. I spray a pffft of X-Be-Gone upon you!

As if hearing my thoughts and finding them ludicrous, at that very moment the swirling forces of X send Randall off to the little sailor’s room, leaving an empty seat next to me, into which Matthew instantly slides.

“Hey,” he says. “Great dessert. Did you know boysenberries were discovered by Rudolph Boysen? It’s an interesting example of chance selection, a genetic cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. I wrote a paper on it once.”

“No,” I say, my heart giving a sideways lurch.

“Listen,” says Matthew. “I was thinking about what we were discussing the other day. The Romantic Setting. Remember?”

Well, duh. I was hoping we could devise some benign, impersonal Romantic Setting experiment about the relative X-benefits of sixty-watt bulbs versus hundred-watt—

“Wouldn’t you say this qualifies?” Matthew asks, looking around. “The mood, the food, the ambience? Have you noticed how we all seem much more attractive than we really are?”

“It’s a Romantic Setting, no question,” I mumble. Come back, Randall, come back! I forbid myself to make eye contact with Matthew, since one look into those storm-colored depths might turn me to stone like a victim of Medusa, melt me into a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West, make me leap onto the table and scream “I LOVE MATTHEW DWYER!” like F’Leesha losing her mind. Kibosh kibosh kibosh—