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Tuesday, 22 July 2003

  • Chapter Nine

     

    Now I have to do it.  No more putting it off, the time has come to take a deep breath and tell Kat that Jennifer and I are moving in together.  I don’t know what she’ll do.  Kat reacts.  It’s ingrained in her; she goes with what she feels and reacts.  I’m afraid of her reaction.  I don’t want to hurt her.  But as soon as I think that, it occurs to me that the thought is quite egotistical.  I am assuming that I am the center of Kat’s universe, that one word from me and she’ll be off to fling herself from a bridge or join a nunnery.  I keep reminding myself that Kat was the one who told me that I wasn’t the one for her.  Maybe when I tell her Jennifer and I are moving in together, her reaction will be to sigh with relief.  “Thank God!  I was hoping that you weren’t going to spend the rest of your life mooning after me!  What kind of salad are you going to get?”  And while part of me wanted only that reaction, another darker part of me whispered, “You don’t want her to say that.  You want her to cry and moan and protest.  You want her to show that she . . .” But it was a thought that I wouldn’t even let my mind complete, because it was too dangerous and because I had already turned my back on it.  None of this got me around the fact that I had to tell Kat, and there was no way out of it, it just had to be done. 

     

    We were meeting for lunch.  I was holding on to this as a way of reassuring myself that Kat was going to take the news in stride.  How upset could a person get in a public place?  I tried not to think of some of the wackier, wilder, and louder scenes Kat had made in public.  She’d take this just fine.  She had to.

     

    We met at the restaurant.  It couldn’t just be a faceless chain restaurant where your waitress had lots of shiny buttons and they had generic items with sassy shrimp sauce!  No, this was Kat.  So, it had to be the Olympia Café, serving up the finest Greek food in Philly.  Just a little funky, just a little off the radar.  Just like Kat.  She was there before me, as usual.  I always ran late and she always got there ten minutes early.  As I approached the table I tried not to feel nervous.  Then Kat came into full view and all my nervousness vanished.  It was replaced, instead, by a sudden shock of desire.  It wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  Kat had chosen an outside table on the sidewalk, she loved to sit in the sun and observe the people passing by.  Now I could see her, sitting at a rickety little table and peering at the menu as if she’d never seen it before.  Her hair seemed to glow in the sun, the light brought out a dozen colors in each strand.  But mostly, it was honey colored, as always, rich and thick.  As if it wasn’t hard enough to see her hair shining in the light, oh God, she was actually wearing it down.  Most of the time, she kept it pulled in a bun at the back of her neck.  She didn’t go in for a lot of fussing over hair.  But now, it fell around her shoulders in fat, chunky curls that made her look like an angel by Raphael.  She was wearing a simple blue tank top and my fingers tingled at the thought of her bare skin.  I blanked.  I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t move in with Jenn.  I couldn’t do anything but run my fingertips down her shoulders and tangle them in her hair and drag her away from the table, and, no, I couldn’t do any of that, it was too late for any of it.  I had to tell her.  Because even as I sat down next to Kat for a gyro, Jenn was packing up her things and getting ready to make space for them in my apartment.  Correction.  She was getting ready to make space for them in our apartment.

     

    “And how was the Big Apple?” Kat asked as soon as I sat down across from her.

     

    “You know I hate New York City.  It’s either too touristy or too genuinely filthy.  Gimme Law & Order reruns any day, thanks.”

     

    “What can I say to the guy who doesn’t even like the greatest city in the world?  You know what they say: if you can make it there . . .”

     

    I cut her off, “If you can make it there, you’re probably certifiable.”

     

    We laughed together.  It was a real laugh, not just the hollow sound of us pretending to have a good time.  It was a good moment and for a second everything felt unclouded by the burden of our mistakes and the things we weren’t saying.  I only for that second, Kat and I were nothing more than teasing good friends laughing over lunch.

     

    We made more chatter and the waiter came and took our order.  I knew exactly what Kat was going to get and how she was going to order it.  It was comforting.  Too quickly, the waiter retreated and we were left on our own.  It was time.  No putting it off until desert and then putting it off some more before finally blurting it out before I hopped into a cab and cleared the hell out of Dodge.  Kat deserved more than that.  And I knew I couldn’t make it through the whole meal with the weight of telling her lying on my chest.

     

    “Kat, there’s something we have to talk about, well, more like something I have to tell you,” I spit it out.

     

    She lowered her eyes and shoved her glasses up her nose almost defiantly.  “Oh boy, Will.  Do we really have to?”

     

    “Yes, I can’t, you have to know,” I tried to find a semi-polite way of telling her.

     

    “Wait, wait.  Before you get a single word out, and I know you’re just dying to say a single word, let me tell you a story, okay?  Can I just tell you a story?”

     

    I shrugged.  Maybe the story would involve her getting a quickie marriage to a prince over the weekend and I’d be off the hook.  “All right.”

     

    She took a sip of her water.  Her hands were slightly trembling.  “I never had a serious boyfriend until my first year of college.  His name was John and he lived up to the normalness of his name.  He was the total opposite of every thing I had planned on for a first boyfriend.  He was an All-American boy.  He didn’t do any of the stuff I had imagined my first serious boyfriend would do.  He didn’t have purple hair, he didn’t lead protest rallies, and he didn’t like to read free-verse poetry out-loud in coffee bars.  He just liked soccer, watching Star Wars, hanging out with his family, and being totally and completely mainstream and normal.  Needless to say, I was hooked,” Kat rolled her eyes.

     

    “And so we had a year together.  It was my first year away from home, my first serious boyfriend.  It was a great year.  I did excellent in school.  John taught me the ways and hows of being a normal girl.  I guess it never took, but I learned to blend in, and you know I still adore a good evening showing of Empire Strikes Back.  In any case, John taught me to be a girlfriend.  He taught me how to flirt, how to have a relationship.  But when it was all said and done, neither one of us could get around the fact that I was not a normal girl.  I haven’t ever been one, and these days I’ve accepted I never will be one.  I’m just a little too odd for all of that.  John, on the other hand, could not accept that.  For a little bit, me being strange was what John had liked about me.  He liked that I was different, he liked that I was aggressive.  But slowly, the appeal started to wear off.  In his heart, he needed mainstream America, he needed someone to make him apple pies and fold his socks.  That was never gonna be me.  So, John went off to find some girl who could be all that stuff.”

     

    Ouch.  I could feel the sting.

     

    “And, golly, did that hurt.  Heck, it more than hurt.  It destroyed me.  I had always been happy being strange; it was what I liked the best about myself: I wasn’t like anyone else.  After John left, I hated it.  I wanted to wear jeans from the Gap, live on Maple Street, and run a carpool.  I wanted to change my major to education and go into teaching nursery school just like every other fucking sheep.  I wanted to bake apple pies, fold socks, and vacuum while wearing pearls.  But, you know, there’s only so much something can hurt.  There’s only so long you can weep over something.  I thought I could do it forever, and sometimes it felt like I was going to, but even I got tired out after a while.  My freshman year ended in a haze of angst and tears.  I heard through our shared network of friends that John had found himself a new girlfriend, only a week or two after we broke up.  She was, indeed, an education major.  She liked soccer.  She wore tops from Banana Republic and jeans from the Gap. I spent a few nights awash in hate, anger, and bitterness.  Then I worked really hard on letting it all go.  I can still summon it, is the thing, all these years later, if the right moment or memory hits me.  The kinda scares me, but there it is.”

     

    Kat took a deep breath and let her eyes sweep over my face for a split second.  Then she took a long drink of water and began again.  “That summer, Jennifer and I got an apartment.  We worked two jobs each, never got any sleep, and had a great time spending tiny amounts of money and being out on our own and away from the dorms.  My main job was at a florist’s.  I guess I could have made more money working at a bigger store, but I just loved the little place.  Mr. Nee had opened it in the early 1950s, shortly after he married his wife.  He still brought her home flowers every day.  I did all sorts of odds and ends for Mr. Nee and helped keep the whole business running smoothly.  From sweeping up the floor to keeping the books, I was up to my elbows in that store, and I loved it.   I did a lot of deliveries, because Mr. Nee didn’t like running around that much.  It was fun, and it helped me get to know Philadelphia.  I liked the deliveries the best.  There’s nothing like the grin people give you when you hand over the flowers.

     

    One afternoon, late in the summer, I was in the back when I heard the front bell tinkle.  I put on my best ‘Can I help you today?’ smile and came up front.  It was John.  For a minute my heart hammered in my chest, thinking he’d come to beg for me back.  But then his face fell and I knew he was surprised.  Part of me thought he was just going to turn around and bolt and part of me wanted him to.  But there he was, a one in a million shot in a tiny florist’s shop, staring at me.  Before he could make the slightest motion to wave and back away, I extended my smile a few inches and watched a wan smile spread over his face.  It was too late to turn back now, eye contact had been made and smiles had been exchanged.  I asked him brightly what he needed and he muttered he wanted to send flowers to, uh, this girl.  I knew, I knew.  The bastard never once sent me flowers, but here he was.  He specified a dozen roses, but yellow, not red.  I took the order.  I tried to make small talk, it fell amazingly flat.  Part of me felt like a pod person, like I was standing outside my own body.  On the one hand, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t stabbed him with the clippers.  On the other, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t stabbed myself.  All through my attempts at chatting, he was stumbling over something to put on the card that went with the flowers.  I can only imagine how nerve-wracking it was for him.  I just thank God I didn’t give in and peak at what it said later.”

     

    Kat laughed here.  It was a hard sound that seemed to be ripping her throat.  She sipped at her water.  I wanted to tell her to stop, that I couldn’t take anymore of knowing what an asshole this guy had been, that I couldn’t take it reminding me what an asshole I was.  At the same time, I had to know how the story ended and I knew she had to tell me.  I just looked down at my napkin in my lap and let her finish.

     

    “As soon as he was doing placing the order, he started to walk out as fast as possible; I swear I thought he was going to break into a run.  I told him goodbye, wasn’t it nice that he’d found this florist, maybe he could come back and we could go to a movie or something  . . . but he just kept walking, shaking his hand goodbye.  I told Mr. Nee this was one bouquet I had to put together myself, and since that was one of the things I was learning that summer, he agreed.  I stayed late that night, making sure it was a true creation of beauty.  I can still see that arrangement so clearly.  Twelve yellow roses exploded in every direction, surrounded by baby’s breath and greenery.  It wasn’t a traditional arrangement, but it was beautiful.  I still appreciate the irony of that.  I cried the whole time I put it together.  The next day, I delivered the roses to the office that she was a clerk at.  Everyone made over them; they were so unique, so unusual.  She preened under the attention.  It was a hit.  I smiled at everyone tightly and declined a tip.  I never saw either one of them again, but word has it they got married and she carried a bouquet of yellow roses.  I am sure it was a conventional arrangement.  But I’ve never really cared for yellow roses since.”

     

    “Oh.  Kat.”  I breathed.  It was all I could think to say.

     

    “Don’t.”  She waved her hand at my pity.  “It made me what I am, who I am, today.  I lived through it.  And now I know I never would have been happy as his little lap-dog, I couldn’t have stood it.  But, I told you, because, well, I lived through it.  That’s all I’m saying, that’s what I wanted you to know.  I made it through that delivery, through that arrangement.  So, I mean, I didn’t want you to give me those big pity eyes, I told you so you’d understand, you’d see, that I made it through that.  And I know what you’re going to tell me now, why you wanted to do lunch.  Did you really think you’d get to tell me before Jennifer?  Do you honestly not know her at all?  She called as soon as you got up to take a shower.  And then she lied to you about letting you be the one to tell me.  Of course.  Why wouldn’t she want to share with her best friend?  Just a few white lies, who could it hurt.  She’s Jennifer, that’s just how she is.  I know that you’re moving in, that she’s moving in with you.  I knew from, from, when you called me and stuttered out the invitation.  And so, you know, before, umm, you start weeping and, um, wailing about the pain and anguish and how you never meant and this isn’t what you thought, and how sorry you are, and, uh, how the other night was just a mistake, I just wanted you to hear that story, so you’d know that I lived through that delivery.  And after that, Will, I’ve decided that I can live through anything.”  She stopped and lowered her eyes.  Her hand shook hard as she reached for her water glass.  I knew she was on the verge of tears.  And the damnest thing was, so was I.

     

    Kat might have been able to live through it, but at that moment, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it at all.

Friday, 28 March 2003

  • Chapter Eight

    Kat and I laughed and made some more jokes about, about, God knows what. But then she reminded me I had a trip to take the next day. She then suggested I call a taxi and get home. What else could I do? What else did I really want to do? I called the cab and went home. I walked into my apartment, packed everything for my trip very neatly, and then passed out, collapsing on my bed with all my clothes on. In so many ways, I was exhausted. I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers; I couldn't string words together in my mind. Everything was bleary and bad. All I wanted to do was sleep, to pretend nothing in this night had gone this wrong.

    "Tomorrow, tomorrow," I thought vaguely "I'll be in New York with Jennifer and it will be a great time and all of this will seem like a distant memory. Tomorrow morning I will see Jenn and I will remember how passionately I love her and this will be one crazy night that was full of mixed signals and it just won't matter. Tomorrow I won't feel this gaping emptiness, this ache, this sadness. Why, tomorrow, this will all be over." It was the last thought I had before sleep knocked me cold. I knew it was a lie.

    So there I was, a little more than 24 hours later, Jennifer lying on my chest in a motel room in New York telling me that guys just weren't attracted to Kat "like that". It was a miracle I didn't start shouting, "Hey, you know what, I bet more guys would like Kat 'that way' if they could hear how fantastically hot she sounds when she shatters glass with a scream as she comes!" but I thought that might distract from the mood.

    I had felt guilty when Jenn came to pick me up the next morning. I was waiting for her to point at me and shriek, "Good Lord, I see another woman's fingerprints on you! They're glowing, damn-it!" But she didn't say anything of the sort; she just kissed me and said I looked tired. I knew then I was going to get away with cheating on Jenn. Oh, make no mistake about it; I knew I had cheated on her. None of this "well, what really counts as cheating anyhow?" crap. I knew it was cheating from the first second Kat's lips grazed mine. Hell, the dreams I had the night before of Kat writhing under my touch were cheating. But when Jenn showed up, telling me what a good time we were going to have in New York, I knew that, even with torture factored in, I would never tell her anything about what had happened the night before. Even when she tempted me into making a sarcastic confession when she lightly scolded me upon arrival with the comment, "Well, I hope you and Kat didn't stay up too late playing your silly games." Nope, I wouldn't tell. I had gotten away with it, free and clear. And, boy, that made me feel even guiltier.

    I don’t know how 24 hours could mess up my life so totally. But there you have it. One second, Kat is coming in my arms and the next Jenn is lying on my chest. How else does it unfold? Oh, but wait. I am making it seem like none of this was my fault. Like I was just strolling along on the sidewalk and all of a sudden this fell out of the sky on me. I knew that wasn’t true. I had done this to myself. I had chosen to kiss Kat back, and more to the point, I had chosen to lie to Jenn and kiss her just the same way I’d kissed Kat. If anything had messed up my life, it wasn’t a few hours and coincidence; it was me, and my actions. Of course, that made it worse.

    Jennifer must have felt me stiffen up at her remark about Kat. She stopped kissing my chest and looked up at me. Her eyes smiled at me. “Don’t be mad about what I said about Kat, okay Will? I know you love her like your sister, just like I do. I can never be jealous of a sister, that’s all I meant.” Her tone was apologetic.

    “I know Jenn.”

    There was a moment of stillness. Inside I was praying that she wouldn’t try to start fooling around again. The rush of memory that had brought back with Kat had soured me on anything else for the rest of the night. I thought of Jenn on top of me, I thought of her body wrapped around me. It was a recent memory, seeing as it had only happened a few minutes ago. The fresh memory of being inside Jennifer was nice. The vague thought of being inside Kat was enough to have me committed.

    Jennifer broke the silence. “I meant what I said, Will. You know, about us not spending enough time together. I hate it. I love being with you, you know. I wish we could be like this more often!”

    “I know.” I had no clue at what Jenn wanted me to say. I figured it was best to keep my response short and in agreement with her.

    “That’s why I have this idea, Will.” She sat up full in the bed, dragging the sheet off me and pulling it close around her. She looked me directly in the eye.

    “Oh yeah?”

    “Will, we have been together for a long time. I mean, not an eternity, but still a nice long time. I just feel like we need to be moving somewhere else, you know? We have to moved forward. If things don’t move forward they just rot and die, right? So, I think it’s time for us to,”

    And then it happened. A blinding white flash of fear shot through me. In my head I completed Jennifer’s sentence for her. She was going to say “I think it’s time for us to get married Will! Can’t you just imagine how great it will be? It’s finally time for us to merge and become a larger corporation! I have the charts all figured out!” When she said that, I’d just have to jump out of the hotel window or run to the bathroom and try to quickly drown myself in the shower. I didn’t know anything about moving forward. I didn’t know anything about rotting and dying. I just knew that marrying Jennifer would cut off the last supply of air I had, it would shove me under for the last time. It didn’t make any sense. All I had ever craved, since I was a small child shuffled from one strange house to another nameless town, all I had ever wanted was what Jennifer was about to offer. I had wanted the two car garage, the PTA, the little woman at home in our nice split-level house, and a secure job as a lawyer handling dog bite cases. In that moment, I realized for the first time the very thing I wanted was about to drive me mad. It didn’t have to make any sense, that’s just the way it was. If Jennifer finished that sentence, if Jennifer proposed to me—and that’s just the sort of thing she would have done, just her style, everything would be finished. I’d be trapped. I. had. to. do. something.

    I shook my head violently and leaned forward towards her, grabbing the top of her shoulders. “Wait, Jenn, before you finish, there’s something I have been wanting to ask you, something I think could change your, change the thing you think you’re about to say, I mean the thing you know you want to say now, you know, it’s a big, I mean, it’s the reason I wanted us to come to New York, I wanted a nice time, to, well, I have to ask you something.” I was stuttering out the words roughly, and I shook as I held her shoulders. I had no clue what was coming out of my mouth. Nothing made sense. I hadn’t wanted to ask Jennifer anything. And, in fact, I had no idea what I was about to ask her.

    She was confused. The deeper I looked into her eyes the more I thought she was probably also a little freaked out. But there was also that glint of hope. “Maybe,” I could see her thinking slowly “maybe he’s ready to merge!”

    “The thing is Jennifer, I think we could spend a lot more time together, I know we could, it only makes sense, if you seriously think about it, that is, I want you to, or at least you could think about it as a possibility, if you want, it’s about the stage in my life, our relationship, ummm,” I still had no idea where I was headed. I just wanted to be let out of the corner I found myself painted into.

    Jennifer arched her eyebrows. “Will, if this is going somewhere within this century, I’d sure like to know about it.” She said tartly, jerking her shoulders away from my shaking grip.

    “LetsMoveInTogether.” The words came out in one breath, in a giant torrent. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what they mean. They sounded like they were in a foreign dialect, like any second I was about ready to start shooting pea soup out of my mouth as my head spun around backwards.

    Jennifer’s eyes, however, lit up with excitement. It was plain to see from the look on her face that she was thrilled. “You just said, ‘Let’s move in together.” didn’t you? I know you did! You said it incredibly fast, but you did say it! Didn’t you?”

    I nodded mutely. Oh God! It wasn’t a nightmare. She had heard it. I had said it.

    “Will, Will!” She was beaming, her smile stretched her face way out of proportion, and it was like she had grown more teeth. “I was just going to say we needed to move forward by promising to be more committed to one another, more serious about our relationship. You know, stuff like spending more weekends together, me cutting down on my hours at work, us making a resolution to spend at least one night a week together on a date or something, you know details like that. But I never thought you’d consider having me, I mean, it’s not that I didn’t think about it or want it, but I would never have suggested it, I thought you weren’t ready, or, or, you didn’t want that. I didn’t even know if I was ready for it, I wasn’t sure our relationship was prepared for such a big step. But since you planned this whole trip and brought me here especially to, since you think it’s so important to us, that must mean you’re really sure and really serious, I mean. . .” Her words flowed furiously, she was practically gasping with excitement.

    I felt as if I had been sucked into a black hole. I thought my legs were going to give out from under me. M Then I remembered it wouldn’t matter since I was actually sitting in a bed. This is what happens when I try to do the thinking for other people. This is what happens when I jump, no LEAP, to conclusions. I do things like this. I ask Jennifer to move in with me. I ask her to move in with me to stop her from proposing to me. Because God knows that’s it’s every little girl’s dream to propose to some guy while you’re lying naked in a hotel bed next to him. Does it get anymore romantic than that scenario? I asked Jennifer to move in with me when her plan had been for us to catch dinner and movie together more frequently. Way to go, Will! So, I didn’t want to rush into anything. So, I wanted to make sure we didn’t get in over our heads. Personally, I cannot think of a better way to take it slow than to actually ask a girl to move in with you. I am a damn genius, really. My logic is stunning.

    Jennifer’s face was glowing. “Tell me the truth. It’s really important, Will. This is your chance to turn back. Do you want this? Do you mean this? Do you really want us to move in together?” She took my hand in hers gently.

    Her whole body radiated hope. She seemed genuinely thrilled. This was what I had wanted, this was what I had asked for. This is exactly what had caused me to turn from Kat the night before. I turned Kat away for Jennifer. I had turned down that moment with Kat, filled with a liquid electricity, for this moment with Jenn. I had chosen Jennifer. Not just out of duty or some pathetic sense of comfort. I had chosen Jennifer for the security and stability she offered. I chose her because she made me feel safe. Kat made me feel dangerous and unknown. It had scared me last night, with Kat in my arms. And it scared me even worse now, because it was hundreds of miles away and I could still feel Kat on me and around me. This moment with Jennifer had been what I was looking for. I had gotten what I wanted. From the first moment I met her, the first second of our first blind date, Jennifer was all I had been searching for and all she had ever claimed to be. She was normal, she liked mainstream things. She had a steady job and parents who had been married for several peaceful decades. She made sure her outfits always coordinated and she made sure her hair was trimmed regularly. She made me laugh, but never too hard and she made me think, but never too much. This is what I wanted. SHE was what I had wanted. Maybe it was a little sooner than I had intended, but it was what I had wanted, make no mistakes about that. Be careful what you wish for, they say.

    “Yes. This is what I wanted.” I said. It was the truth. It was what I had always wanted. And, somehow, I felt like I was drowning.

    She squealed. She made that noise that only women can make. She fell back onto the bed, laughing. Then she sat straight up. “Will! It’s so perfect! This is just thing for us right now!” She was grinning. She leaned in and kissed me on the mouth, masking her lips onto mine with a force that left me a little taken aback. “I can’t wait. I mean, there’s so much to think about. Have you already been thinking about it? I am assuming we’re going to be moving into your place, because it’s bigger, and obviously I have a roommate, not that Allison is going to mind having more of her own space. We should get a new piece of furniture to celebrate. Oh. My Mom is going to be upset about it, I think, but only at first, and then she’s going to be totally thrilled, she’ll wanna help me nest and stuff. We can probably get it done in just a few days, but I’ll need lots of boxes, maybe we should hire some movers, but I don’t know if it would really be worth the expense.” Jennifer’s thoughts were rushing out, faster than she could finish them. I could already see her making space in my closet, buying new rugs, alphabetizing my CDs, and compiling schedules. Maybe there would be a little chart for chores with gold stars.

    She paused for a spilt second. I tried to remember how to breathe, as I was having trouble actually drawing air into my lungs at the moment. Then I saw Jenn’s eyes glow a little brighter and she shouted out the name I least wanted to hear at that moment.

    “Kat!”

    “What about Kat?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level and yet slightly curious. Had to keep that fear out of my tone. Kat. What about Kat? It was the question that hadn’t stopped running through my mind for the last 24 hours. Odds were pretty good that Kat would find out, you know, me and her best friend living together. Then what? Would I lose her forever? Would she want to throw us a housewarming party? I didn’t know and either way, I was scared and guilty.

    “She has to be the first person I tell. It’s a best friend thing. I mean, I have never lived with anyone before, you know, and oh, she has, and it’s about time I caught up with her, and we always said it was gonna be the one thing she had over me, always joked it was the only thing she had beaten me to. And now she’s going to be so happy, because she likes you so much, and we’ll laugh about being even, and she’ll understand what this means, and she’ll be happy for me. I want to call her this very second! It’s a girl thing, and I have to share it with her, and now she’ll never even have to leave our place, because both her best friends will be there, and,” Jennifer was still smiling her insanely huge smile, and she had pulled her hand from mine and was now reaching dangerously for the phone by the bed.

    The primary thought in my mind was, “What asshole has Kat lived with and why haven’t I heard anything about that?” but that was a pointless thought, a stupid thought, a thought that wasn’t even mine to think, so I shoved it rapidly aside. I heard Jennifer’s words. “She’ll understand what this means.” Jenn was right about that. Kat would understand more than Jenn could imagine. No matter what, whether she wanted me or not, hearing that Jennifer and I were going to be living together right after we had the thing, the night, it would hurt Kat. It was more hurt than I felt I could put on anyone, even if it had just happened as an accident. For Kat to have to smile to Jennifer over the phone, knowing I was right there the whole time, that was almost torture. I knew that. Anyone not in a coma knew that. Sure, Kat was going to have to find out. But delay it a little while. I could try to lessen the blow. I knew then that I was going to have to be the one to tell Kat. It was the only way the idea would get to her without deception. I was going to have to try to be a stand-up guy (though wasn’t it just a little late for that?) and tell her myself. But even if I couldn’t, even if Jennifer insisted it was news only she could share with Kat, I still couldn’t have the news delivered to her over the phone the night after she’d kissed me senseless.

    I stopped Jennifer’s hand by grabbing it tightly in my own again. “Jenn. I want to be the one to tell Kat.” I might as well keep it short and simple.

    “Why?” She asked, genuinely puzzled.

    “Because she needs to hear it from me after I made her scream with delight in my arms last night, OK? Does that seem fair enough to you, precious?”

    That seemed a little drastic, though, so I just said, “I know you two are best friends and this is a big girl thing, but she and I have been spending a lot more time together than you and her.” That was true. Now for a semi-lie. “That’s why I know she’s been extra bummed out lately. Not just because she can’t get anyone interested in her novel, but because she’s been single for a while now and she’s starting to think,” I swallowed here and was surprised to find a lump the size of a tennis ball in my throat. “that she’ll never find the person she was meant to be with. We were just talking about that last night. She’s been confiding in me a lot lately. Stuff she’s sorta been embarrassed to tell you. I don’t want this to hurt her more than it has to, and I know you don’t either. It would just make me feel better if I could tell her, and in person too. Does that make sense?”

    “Oh Will! How perfect are you? You are the ultimate sensitive male! That’s so great of you to be thinking about Kat that way.” Jenn reached over and hugged me.

    I felt so guilty and dirty that I almost broke down right then and confessed everything. Jennifer pulled away from the hug and frowned a little bit. “Although my feelings are a little hurt. I thought Kat knew she could tell me anything. I understand her thinking, but it still hurts a little. Best friends are supposed to share everything, you know.”

    Oh, I knew. “So you’ll wait and let me tell herm then?” I asked.

    “Yeah, I’ll let you tell her. That does sound like a good idea. But then she and I are going to have to have a serious talk about some of those things she’s keeping from me, you know!”

    I smiled grimly.

    Jennifer leaned in and started to kiss me. “Besides, there are other things I want to do right now. I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you?” She asked a in a light whisper, running her hand down my chest and towards my crotch.

    It was the last thing I wanted to do at that point. I hopped away from her suddenly. “Actually, I feel a little weird. Not weird, I mean, just rushed, out of it. I wasn’t ready to ask you to move in, you know, so this has sorta, well, thrown the plans off, and I’m rattled. I feel, uhhh, funny.”

    I was getting to be the best liar in the world. Jennifer looked at me strangely. “What?”

    “I just need some time to take it all in, you know, the way it played out.”

    “Umm, OK. What, do you want me to leave the room for a while?” Her tone was sarcastic.

    I barked out a short burst of laughter. “No, baby, I just, I feel a little out of it since my plans got wrecked. I just, I just, need to clear my head, I think. I’ll just take a shower and then everything will be better, okay?”

    She relaxed a little onto the pillows. “Sure. That’s fine. I’ll watch some TV and then when you’re nice and clean and feeling better. . .” She batted her eyes suggestively.

    I swallowed, smiled weakly, and then backed into the bathroom. I reached blindly for the hot water and soon was standing under a steady stream of scalding water. It was too hot. It felt like my skin was being pricked by thousands of sharp, hot needles. This was what I deserved, I thought miserably, for fucking all this up so horribly. I rested my head on the shower tiles, thought of Jennifer and Kat and imagined what it would be like to have to tell Kat I was moving in with Jenn. Then I pretended it was the hotness of the water that was making tears course slowly down my cheeks.

Friday, 22 November 2002

  • Chapter Seven

    As soon as our mouths came together, I knew kissing Kat was wrong.  I had made it this far in my life without cheating on a girlfriend.  I am not holding myself up as a model of boyfriend perfection or anything.  I just never managed to find two girls I felt like I couldn't live without at the same time.  Sure, Jenn could be a pain in the neck sometimes, but she was a good girlfriend and she didn't deserve to be hurt.  It wasn't just that.  I was risking everything with Kat kissing her this way.  Our friendship, assuming it survived, would never be the same.  With every wet slide of her tongue in my mouth, I knew that we were changing everything.  My best friend, my girlfriend, the fabric of everything that made me who I was, was all on the line and in question, and God, I didn't care, just as long as I could keep holding Kat.  Even with all that, I knew it was wrong.  I also knew I didn't care, nope, not the slightest bit.  Didn't care if it was ruining my friendship with her.  Didn't care if I was throwing away my relationship with Jenn.  Didn't care about anything except more of Kat, more of her mouth, more of her skin, more of her body plastered next to mine.  It wasn't about being drunk and a few too many shots of tequila.  That might have started the ball rolling, but it was beyond that.  She knew that too, or else she wouldn't have been frantically pressing herself down on top of me, her mouth crushing mine.

    I didn't think it was possibly, but there were words lingering in my mind, so I pulled my mouth away from her and spit them out in a frantic rush.  "We, we, after this, we, just can't go back.  This would, we would, this would end us going back to, to..." She lifted her head for a moment and caught my gaze.  Her eyes were dazzling.  They seemed feral in the near dark of her apartment; they glowed with a hunger I'd never seen before in anyone.

    "Go back to what?  What are we risking here, Will?" She slurred my name slightly, but I couldn't say if it was the tequila or the sheer desire making her unsure of her words. 

    "We're risking our friendship, our companionship.  We're risking your friendship with Jenn, and my relationship with her." I vaguely noted that I had mentioned our friendship first.

    She eased off me, but just a little bit.  It didn't matter that it was just a little bit.  I felt the loss of her weight keenly.  "I know it.  I know, believe me, there hasn't been a minute since I figured out you were Jenn's boyfriend that I haven't known all of this and more.  More than you know, more than you can imagine, I know.  But Will, oooh, Will, didn't you feel it?  I know you did."

    "IT.  Yes, Kat.  I felt it.  I don't know what it was, I don't know why it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up like that, I don't know why it made my entire body shake internally with desire.  I don't know why I have never felt it before but somehow it seems so familiar.  But I can't say any of that out loud.  Because it doesn't make any sense.  Because I don't want it to seem like drunken rambling.  Because, because, I am afraid of what it might mean."

    And so I don't saying anything.  I can't.  The words are thick in my mouth, they sound like bad poetry or feeble excuses, or both.  I do the only thing I can, in the darkness, in the slight haze of alcohol I am using as too handy an excuse, in the pull of desire so strong I feel dizzy with it.  I ring Kat back to me, back into my arms.  "I'll take the risk, Kat.  Will you?” I whisper the last two words, afraid that she will turn and run or giggle at me as if this were one of our scenes.

    "All my life, Will, all my life I have been waiting for this risk."

    I kissed her again, reaching up towards her hungry mouth as she lowered her head to meet mine.  We kissed for what seemed like an eternity.  I kept finding new dimensions in her mouth.  It wasn't like any kissing I could ever remember.  My lips didn't seem to tire of her, and for once I didn't want to move on to anything else.  I wasn't just kissing someone for foreplay, to make her think I was a sensitive new-age male.  I was kissing Kat because I liked it, because it was one mystery after another unfolding in the way she moved her tongue, or the way she licked my lips.  I was entranced by it.  I was kissing Kat because she tasted like warmth and goodness and she tasted right.  Every kiss seemed to take me to a new place in her.  I was kissing her because it felt more intimate than I'd ever imagined.  Who knew kisses could be so, so, much?  Kissing wasn't just something to get me going.  It was a whole other universe.  Kat felt it too, because she leaned closer and closer to me, putting her mouth so close to mine that I couldn't tell where her lips ended and mine began.  She was mewing into my mouth and I could feel tingles all through my body and up into my hair.  She moved back and forth on top of me, rocking slowly and deliberately.  That motion was promise, that motion was teasing.  Kat was teasing me, I realized dimly.  Kat, who had never had a moment of guile since I met her, who expressed every thought she had every second she had it, Kat was teasing me.  I thought of how beautiful she had looked in my doorway at the start of the evening.  The dress was gorgeous.  Her boots were fantastic.  And now, now, all I wanted was them crumpled into a heap on the floor.  I wanted to feel the smooth curve of her calves under my own skin.  I wanted to put my mouth on the small of her back.  I wanted to run my fingertips over the raised skin of her scars.  I wanted to smell the musk of her body.  I wanted to lay my cheek on her hips and run my tongue in places that would make us both shudder.  I wanted to sleep with Kat wrapped around me like a blanket.  I want so much that I feel greedy, that my life won't be enough time to get everything in.  And for a second, time stops.  And in the stillness, I realize how happy I am.  For no reason I can put my finger on, I know that I am happy.  I am content.  I can't explain it, but there it is.  I am content.  I can't explain it, but there it is.  I feel like crying suddenly, crying for being at peace in the middle of a storm, crying for the way happiness has settled on me.  It's almost surreal.  But no matter how happy and delighted I was with the kissing, and I was happy, my hands were bound to stray.  There was a limit to how much teasing I could take. 

    At first, I just ran my hands down her body.  I was surprised at the smoothness of the lines, the curves were perfection.  Not that Jenn was a stick-model supermodel or anything, but Kat had real curves and a little extra swell to her skin.  I could tell the difference, that's for sure.  Kat felt womanly.  I mean, I had always known that Kat was a woman, not just some androgynous thing hanging around me.  But until my hands traced the silhouette of her body, I had never fully understood what a woman Kat really was.  She writhed a little harder under my touch and I felt woozy with both power and the intense fear I was about to mess something up.  I didn't care, I had to try it.

    I never stopped kissing Katie as I gently lifted my hand under her skirt.  My hands brushed over the clunky boots she was wearing.  I wanted them off, because I needed to feel her legs under my hands.  I needed to feel as much of Kat's skin as possible.  She sucked in her breath when I touched the front of her panties.  She pulled off me a little, straining to leave her mouth fastened to mine.  I wanted to see her underwear.  Knowing Kat, they had green cows on them, or days of the week, or, or. . . and then I knew that I didn't care if they had the New Testament in Pig Latin on them.  All I wanted was them off Kat. 

    "Kat?" I mumbled.  "Is, uh, I want to, if it's all right, I want to, Kat?"

    There was a pause.  My heart rose up into my throat.  "Risk it, Kat, risk it with me." I urged her in my mind.  Then she leaned slightly forward and met my hand.  I could feel the satiny fabric of her panties.  I knew then it was alright.

    I didn't even know where to begin.  It was sacred.  I was doing something sacred, something holy.  I had to make sure I did everything right.  I hooked my thumbs through the thin sides of her panties and eased them down.  She sighed as I did it, a breathy moan barely pushed off her lips.  They were simple gestures on both of our parts, but they were so intense it was unnerving.  You can never go back down this path.  Once you walk down this road, there is no returning to the innocent path of friendship.  I knew it as my good friend sighed, as she changed in front of my eyes into a goddess of epic proportions, ready and open to me.  And as Kat's panties slid down her legs, catching slightly on her boots, I really didn't care.

    "Don't fuck this up, Darden." the voice of confidence hissed in my ear. 

    I ran one finger along the outside of her.  She jerked.  I knew it wasn't because I had hurt her.  I have always been a curious guy.  While my fellow adolescents were flipping through Playboy and Penthouse, I devoured anatomy books to see HOW the female body worked, what made it tick, and what made it feel good.  OK, sure I looked like a dork, but in the end it had paid off.  But this wasn't just your average Jane.  This was Kat.  This was my best friend, who knew every single stupid detail about me that everyone pretends doesn't matter.  This was Kat, good old buddy Kat, who was making my skin sizzle with desire.  I couldn't mess up this time.  I had to remember every single part of every single thing I had learned, because this was the promised land.

    I slowly slid one finger into her.  I listened to my heart thump madly in my chest and I held my breath with anticipation.  Not just of what would happen next but of I could actually handle touching her this way.  She groaned gutturally.  "Oh, Will.  That's. just. right." each word was a breathy sentence.

    I knew it was right.  I could feel it was right by how hard I was.  Kat fit me like a glove.  She was tight and wet around me, around my single finger.  She lowered herself a little onto my finger and I took the opportunity to ease another finger into her.  With two fingers in her, Kat was even tighter around me, I felt even closer to her.  And, God, it felt even better.  I started to ease my fingers in and out of her very cautiously.  She moved with me, and we feel into a nice, slick rhythm in just a few seconds.  We were rocking together steadily when I decided it was time to find Kat's...button.  I brushed my thumb across her clit, just the lightest touch, and she made a high, keening sound of delight.  It all happened in waves then.  Before I had even really adjusted to the way she felt around my fingers, clenching me and inviting me to come into her deeper, I could suddenly feel her coming.  I wasn't prepared for it.  It was so soon, I couldn't believe she was already coming.  She tightened around my fingers, she throbbed around then, really: once, twice, and then she screamed.  Not a quiet moan like Jenn usually gave, or a small murmur of pleasure and approval.  No, not for Kat.  Kat was screaming, like a banshee, like a demon, like a woman possessed.  It was unlike anything I had ever heard.  It was such a shout, that I could hear one of her neighbor's dogs start barking in response.  At the end of her scream, she added my name, it sounded like a prayer.

    At that sound, I realized that I was on the brink of coming too.  I couldn't believe it.  "Kat?" her name was a question.  I had to stop this.  God, I had to stop it this second.  If I didn't stop it right now, I'd lost more than I could really wrap my mind around.  Kat had me shaking, Kat had me ready to disgrace myself like a tenth grade boy on his first time out.  Kat had me ready to bed, to plead, to walk through hell to get just a little bit more of her.  She had me on my knees.  All from my fingers inside of her.  I knew then that if I ever came inside of her, if I ever got any closer to the smell and taste of her, I would most likely lose my mind.  There was no way this could be natural.  I had never felt such a thick fog of desire.  My skin felt too tight, my mind couldn't string words together.

    Everything blurred around the edges.  I was not Will Darden.  I was someone I had never known existed.  I was the Will Darden I had been running from my whole life.  I was a guy who left in the night and traveled around the country like a vagabond.  I was a guy with no ties, no boundaries.  I'd do anything, go anywhere, hurt anyone, just to get to Kat.  I would hit the open road and never think to look back, as long as Kat agreed to come with me and smile her smile at me.  It was all the freedom I had ever been afraid of, all the places in my soul I'd tried to avoid.  It had to stop, before I lost myself in a way I could never come back from. 

    "Will, you know, that was, I mean, well, you felt it, and, well, the thing is, the couch, we might want to, if you think," She trembled as she spoke.

    "This isn't right." I whispered, coming out of her quickly.

    I felt an actual physical loss.  As soon as I took my fingers out of Kat, I wanted to cry.  She slid off me a little.  "What you mean, I am sure, is that it's not right on the couch, and that we need more space." Her voice was thin.

    "Say yes, you dummy.  Say yes and take her to bed.  Say yes and end this." My brain screamed at me, testosterone rushing through my veins.  But as soon as that thought was over, a calmer, colder voice rang through my mind.  "It won't be the end of anything.  It will be the beginning of something bigger than you can guess."  I knew that voice was right, I knew I was more scared of the beginning than any ending.  "Oh, Kat, it's not that.  I wish to God it were.  But it's more than that.  This, I mean, I don't feel like, at this time, there's too much in between us right now for this to work."

    She came all the way off me as if she had been slapped.  She shook a little when she jumped up, but she managed to stay standing.  I sat up on the couch, and like the coward I was, I turned my face from her.  "Why?  Why are you doing this?"

    "It's n-n-not right." I stuttered the words out.

    "You FUCK.  At least try and tell me the truth about it.  Don't lie and say it's not right.  Because if there's one thing we both know, it's that this is right."

    "Do you remember your best friend since the seventh grade?  Do you remember Jennifer?  My girlfriend?  Do you want to be some cheap thing I have on the side with Jennifer, with anyone?  Is that what you really want for us, Kat?" I looked at her then, but I wished I hadn't.  She was shaking and stepping away from the couch, away from me.  But worst of all was that I could see tears brimming in her eyes.

    "Then, why, why, why," here her voice cracked.  She was crying, I didn't have to look to know.  She took a deep breath.  "did you start this?  Why did you kiss me back?  Why did you ask me to take the risk with you?"

    "I don't know."

    "Oh.  Well.  That clears everything up then.  Because, hey, you don't know.  What do I want miracles, you don't know.  So, allllrighty then, everything is okay." Her voice was sharp.

    "Kat, please." I stood up, feeling empty inside, feeling shallow and stupid.  I wanted to run away, pretend that none of this had happened.  At the same time, I wanted to pull her to me, kiss her until my mouth bled, make love to her on the living room floor until I was screaming like she had.  I walked a few steps towards her, reached out to her.

    Then the worst possible thing imaginable happened.  Kat backed away from me.  It was almost more than I could stand, the sight of her recoiling from me.  It was just what I was expecting, I guess, and yet it still hurt like a burn on my skin.  "Oh, Kat, I'm so sorry."

    "Oh.  Well." She started again as she stepped away from me.  "You're sorry.  That's extra OK then, I didn't understand that you were sorry.  I mean, put 'I'm sorry" on top of 'I don't know' and everything makes sense now and suddenly I feel totally happy and shiny!"

    "Kat, the thing is, I can't lose you.  I can't make it if I lose you, don't you know?  You're my best friend, my reality check, I can't lose what we have." My voice sounded ragged even to my own ears.

    She stopped stepping back.  "I know, Will.  I know what we are.  I feel it too, remember?"

    "And do you want to take a chance with that?" I asked.

    "Did it seem like I wanted to take the chance?" She retorted angrily.

    "We would have regretted it."

    "We'll never know now."

    "What about Jennifer, Kat?  You never answered that part of the question.  You were too busy with all the bitter indignation.  What about Jennifer?" I demanded.

    "I love Jennifer.  I love her more than you do, that's for sure." She snorted.  "I know Jennifer, I know that she'd want me to take chances, to take the big risk to try to find the person," Kat bit her lip and broke off.

    "What person?" I instantly asked.

    "Nevermind." she ran both words together and turned her back on me.

    My heart was hammering in my chest, faster than ever.  Kat and I, we were on the brink of something.  I didn't know what it was.  I couldn't put my finger on why it made me so nervous and yet so excited.  My palms were sweating.  I felt chilled and scared.  We were right on the edge and it wasn't enough, I wanted over the edge.  I had to see what was on the other side of all this.  Kat was only a few steps away from me.  I knew I had to cross those last few steps.  It might kill us both, but I had to touch her again.  I put both my hands on her shoulders, resting my palms lightly on her back, hardly moving.  "What were you going to say?" I asked, quietly.

    She didn't turn.  She just exhaled and I felt her chest slowly fall.  "Jennifer likes you, Will.  She likes you a lot.  Maybe she even loves you some.  I mean, you have been with her for a while now.  But sometimes I think she's just with you because you're there and you're convenient and comfortable.  Jenn isn't much good at being alone, you know.  I'm not saying this to be a bitch or sound jealous and petty, don't worry, I just know her is all." She stopped for a second.  I guess she was waiting for me to protest that Jenn and I were the love match of the century.  I couldn't do that, of course.  "But Jennifer loves me.  That I know.  She loves me like a sister, like someone she has known her entire life.  And because she loves me that way, she'd want me to, I mean, I know that her love for me means she wants me to be," Kat tripped over her own words, and stopped.  She took another deep breath.

    I knew she wasn't going to speak anymore unless I forced her hand.   I had to know what she was going to say, which means I had to force her hand.  I leaned in towards her, smelled her all over again.  I shook inside, desire creeping back up in me before I could even blink.  I planted a soft, gentle kiss on her neck.  It was the first time my mouth had been on that specific part of Kat.  I discovered that it was a whole separate universe, and that I wanted to spend several decades exploring it.  She shuddered.  Her whole body shook, top to bottom.  "Finish, Kat, finish." I whispered.

    "Jenn would want me to be with someone who could make me happy.  She might be hurt if it was, if it was," Kat gulped hard "uhhh, but in the end, she wants me to find the person who I need.  She'd want me to be with the person I was meant for, the person I was meant to be with." Her voice was a monotone.

    She said it.  Just like that, she said it.  Every thing I had ever wanted, everything I had ever been looking for . . ."the person I was meant to be with." I wanted to shout, to dance her around the room, to curl my arms around her waist, to kiss her senseless, to sing out to the stars in the Philadelphia sky.

    Before I could do any of those things, Kat jerked sharply away from me. She turned to face me.  Her eyes were cold, determined.  "But, obviously, you are not that person." Her words were clipped.

    "What?"

    "Because whoever that person is . . . he'll take the risk with me."

    I felt queasy, juvenile.  I didn't know what to do or say.  I was wrong, I was out of place, I had messed everything up so much.  "See? I told you it was a mistake."  Childish, hollow, and petty, they were the only words that came to me.

    She smiled.  It was the old Kat smile: full of laughter, playfulness, and schemes.  "Yes, I guess you win this round of being right.  What, you want a medal?" She poked me in the ribs.

    In one sense it felt like we were faking normalcy, trying to grin through the changes. In another way, it was like we were right back where we'd always been.  That was the sense I was going to stick with.  "Yes, I want a medal.  Could you get something in gold?  I'd like a blue ribbon too, please."

    Kat laughed.  For only a second, it was a brittle laugh.  All it took was a single sentence to betray how we really felt.  But only a best friend could catch the second. 

Monday, 14 October 2002

  • Chapter Six

    "Will, I am swinging by your place at nine-thirty and if you're not there, I am busting some windows.  Believe me, you'll be sorry!  I get wicked mad!" Kat's voice finished her message on my machine with an overdone Boston accent.  It was the only message I had, and after she threw in a quick "Bye-bye darling!" in her normal voice the machine beeped loudly and rewound.  I sighed and threw my keys on the table, smiling despite myself. 

     

    It had been a long day at school.  I had a grueling test in my Children's Law class, and two other classes made for a full and exhausting day in law school.  All I wanted to do was fall into a nice, thick sleep.  Jenn and I were going to New York on Saturday morning and staying for a three day weekend.  I still needed to pack, of course, and I wasn't too definite on any of our plans.  Typical.  But I had been neglecting Kat lately for time with Jenn and studying for my Children's Law test.  She had rung out of me a promise that we'd spend one night out and about.  I had promised mostly out of obligation but as I heard Kat's bouncy voice on my machine, I felt a little more energetic and found that I actually wanted to forget everything and go out with her that night.  I would be ready at nine-thirty.

     

    She rapped sharply, and promptly, on my apartment door.  "Only the fairest of maids may enter!" I called down the hall from the bathroom.

     

    The door swung open.  "Aye, just me luck to be stuck outside!  I'm certainly not the fairest maid!" Kat called back.

     

    "Modest as always!" I retorted.

     

    I took a last, quick look at myself in the mirror.  I flashed a quick smile, which always made me look better.  I saw reflected back a normal guy--maybe a little wolfishly better looking than the next guy, but not by much.  His hair was a dark blonde, with all sorts of shades mixed in with the blonde: a little brown, some red, occasionally something that looked gray.  If you caught it in the right light, it looked a different color every time.  He had wide eyes, a shade of blue that wasn't quite like a mountain pool or rare sapphires, but could maybe be called the color of a clear desert sky, one like you'd find over Las Cruces, perhaps.  A sweet guy, Will Darden was, and when he put himself together well enough, why he could almost pass for handsome.  Maybe not the fairest maid in the land, but not too shabby.

     

    I came from the bathroom absently, looking for my wallet.  I looked up as almost a second thought.  That was when I saw Kat.  She was still standing under the dim light that passed for my porch light, rocking back and forth on her feet.  She was humming a little and smiling to herself.  I stopped dead in my tracks.

     

    She wore a short white dress that ended just above her knees.  It was one continuous piece, with no sleeves.  It fell on her smoothly.  She had a filmy scarf coiled around her arms, like a loose shawl.  Her thick blonde hair was mostly coiled on top of her head in a tight bun, but several thick curls fell down her shoulders.  She looked almost like a princess.  I say "almost" because instead of the normal, expected white slippers most princesses would wear, Kat had one a big, black pair of Doc Marten combat boots.  They were tall ones that ended a few inches under where her dress began; the intricate laces probably took her an hour to get done.  It was the exact, perfect look for her.  She would never believe it, but she was beautiful, and by far the fairest maid in the land.

     

    "Now what kind of glass slippers are those?" I teased, trying to keep my voice playful but even.

     

    She looked up and saw me, her eyes lighting up.  She danced a little jig, kicking her boots up as high as she could.  "They're a splurge!"

     

    "In honor of?" I asked, as I crossed the room towards her.

     

    "Oooh, well, my novel got turned down by another publisher today." She said it flatly, but I could feel the sting.

     

    "They're idiots, Kat.  Absolute idiots." I was standing directly in front of her then, so I could see into her eyes.  They were trying hard not to water.

     

    "Ahh, jeez, Will.  You've got to say that.  You're my friend." She smiled and glanced away from me.

     

    "No, really, Kat.  Your book is fantastic, and I mean that as a reader, not just your friend.  You just need to find the right publisher, don't be discouraged.  You're gonna do it, I know you will." I reached over and took her shoulders in my hands, shaking her lightly. 

     

    "Well, you know, I've only been rejected four times, which isn't that bad, I guess.  They say John Grisham's first book was rejected about twenty, so you know..."

     

    "Ahh, Grisham is a hack.  You, on the other hand, are an artist.  No way it will take you twenty times.  Everyone appreciates art." I assured her.

     

    She smiled at that, a real one.  Then she giggled a little.  "Darling Will, ask Van Gogh.  Nobody gives a shit about art."

     

    I laughed back.  "Ok, sure, fine.  You're a shallow and unskilled writer who makes Danielle Steel read like Hemingway.  Feel better now?"

     

    This time her laugh was loud and long.  "Totally.  That is just what I dream of being told about my talents at night!" We made faces at each other and laughed some more.  "Enough sad-pity-me-talk!  We're going out to have fun and shake it off, not wallow in whining!" She declared, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the door.

     

    "Halt, halt, fair maiden.  Without his keys, your squire is locked out!" I pilled away from her and dashed back into the apartment, grabbing my keys.  I jumped out of the door and clasped her hand.  Pulling her forward I cried, "Now then, let us proceed!"

     

    She giggled and followed along.  We were halfway down my walkway, skipping and laughing, when we ran, almost literally, into Mr. Freedman and Ms. Boothe. 

     

    "I am so sorry!" Kat exclaimed, stopping short in front of the couple.

     

    Mr. Freedman looked as nonchalant as ever, I swear, nothing ever ruffles that man.  Ms. Boothe smiled serenely.  Maybe when you're old and in love, nothing bothers you.  "Not to worry, dear.  I assume you two children are in a hurry." Ms. Boothe responded in a dulcet tone.

     

    "Yes, but I should have been paying attention to where I was going." Kat apologized and smiled at then ruefully.

     

    "Don't fret at all.  You didn't hit us, did you?"

     

    "Well, no, I guess I didn't.  But, still, I mean," Kat was floundering.

     

    Ms. Boothe picked up on it.  "Oh, dear, it appears to me that will has been so taken aback by your beauty it has not occurred to him to introduce us.  I am Evelyn Boothe," she held out her hand, which Kat grabbed and shook vigorously "and this is Henry Freedman." She pointed to a grinning Mr. Freedman.  Then she leaned in towards Kat and mocked whispered, in a conspiratorial tone, "He's my boyfriend."

     

    I was glad that Ms. Boothe had defused the situation, but I felt like a jerk for not making introductions.  I ran a hand through my hair, waiting to gauge Kat's reactions.  She laughed and smiled broadly.  "Ms. Boothe, I am so pleased to meet you.  She finally released her hand and then smiled at Mr. Freedman.  "You too, sir." She held her hand out to him, and he shook it,

     

    "Sorry about the introduction thing." I muttered.

     

    "Well, since he didn't finish the introduction thing, I am Kat Nelson." Kat said, making me flush even redder.

     

    "Hello Kat!" Ms. Boothe and Mr. Freedman echoed at the same time.

     

    "Those are some nice boots ya got ya there, Miss Kat.  Had me a pair of them in the way, I did at that." Mr. Freedman told her, looking directly at Kat's enormous boots.

     

    "Thank you sir, I am sure your pair saw far more action than mine ever will." She made it a point to elbow me cartoonishly and waggle her eyebrows.  Everyone chuckled.

     

    Ms. Boothe clapped her hands in delight.  "Oh, Will, she's a treasure!"

     

    "Come along, Evelyn; let's let these children get along for their night.  I am sure they have other plans, just like us." Mr. Freedman gently urged Ms. Boothe forward.

     

    "Well, alright Henry.  You two have a lovely evening.  And please do come see us for tea sometime.  We'd love to have you both!"  Ms. Boothe smiled warmly.

     

    Kat grinned right back.  "Oh, you can count on us being there!"

     

    "Don't worry boy, we can have us coffee.  None of that Earl Grey nonsense for us." Mr. Freedman assured me gruffly.

     

    I bobbed my head in agreement.  Mr. Freedman and Ms. Boothe walked off towards his apartment, waving the whole way.  Kat waited until they were totally out of sight before she moved again.  She twirled in a circle.  "Oh my God, Will, how could you never have mentioned those sweet people to me??"

     

    I shrugged.  "I guess it never occurred to me that you'd be interested in the geriatric love life of my downstairs neighbor.  Strange, I know."

     

    She started again down the walk and towards her car.  "Well, I guess, yeah, I can see that logic of that.  But, still, I mean they're the greatest people, so original, and you know how I like that.  They're totally unbelievable, so nice and happy and cool.  They still seem so excited for life, and for each other.  When we're old, do you think we'll be like that?" She paused and turned back towards me.

     

    I was still for a moment, considering my answer.  Somehow, I could see stars behind Kat.  It was the oddest thing, because you never see stars in a city, and if you've grown up in a city, you can't even really imagine stars.  You see pictures of starry skies in books; you think you know what it's like.  You don't know what the stars are until the city is gone and the entire universe is spread out in every direction around you like a tablecloth sparkling with a million diamond plates, like a rain of fiery glitter.  But when Kat turned towards me, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and asking me what we'd be like when we were old, I can think of no way to say it except. . .I saw stars.

     

    "Will? Earth toooo Will?" Kat was waving her hand around and trying to get my attention.

     

    I shook my head, feeling reality rush back in around me.  There were no stars around Kat, only the bright lights of a Philadelphia night.  "Sorry about that, I spaced out for a second there."

     

    "It's those aliens again.  I don't know why they have to keep abducting you!"  She walked up towards me, widening her eyes and grinning.  She hooked her arm through mine and began dragging me towards the parking lot.  "Now then, who's gonna drive?"

     

    Kat drove.  We went downtown and found a favorite little bar of Kat's.  It was tiny and dingy, and a little removed from the main street.  You would only find it if you were looking for it, or lost.  Kat loved it.  The beer was cheap, the bands were obscure, it was never too crowded, and on Fridays they even served food.  It was owned and operated by a small Welsh woman named Marina, who had lots of black hair and tiny eyes that always gleamed with information.   Kat and I had been there once or twice, listened to a band and shot pool on one of the tables they had.  I actually liked the atmosphere.  It was way better than some of the trendy, yuppie places Jennifer liked to haul me where I had to pay seven dollars for beer shipped from Bulgaria.  The best part of the odd little bar was its' name.  It was called Eithaf Cariad--which was something in Welsh.   Kat knew what it meant; she said that Marina herself had told her, but that she would never tell me.  I could have looked it up, sure, but what fun would that have been?  If I ever did get crazy enough to actually try to persuade Kat to tell me she would simply smile and reply, "Wait until the exact right moment, Will!  Only then can I tell you!"  So I always waited patiently, and returned with her to Eithaf Cariad.

     

    That night there was a bluegrass band with an awesome fiddler on the stage, much to Kat's delight, and chicken wings were only two dollars per heaping basket.  People screamed random greetings to Kat as soon as we entered.  They knew here, she was a regular--and a distinct one at that.  I felt like I had stumbled into a weird rerun of Cheers.  Kat screamed hello back, and danced lightly to the fiddler, showing off her boots.  As soon as we had gotten our coats off, Kat hauled me to the floor to dance. 

     

    We swirled around the dance floor a few times, swishing back and forth and pretending we knew how to dance to the fiddle.  Then we made our way to the bar.  "Bar-keeeep!" Kat bellowed.  Marina came around and grinned indulgently.  "We are travelers seeking respite from an awful week.  Ale, please."

     

    "Good evening to you, Kat darling.  And Will, you're looking fine for someone seeking respite." Marina responded.

     

    I waved and she poured us two shots of tequila.  No wasting time with ale.  Kat and I were drinkers and damn good at it, too.  We took the shots straight up; I finished a split second before her.  Through a pinched face I asked her, "Who's gonna eat the worm?"

     

    She gulped and said, "Whoever loses this pool game."

     

    "Get ready to chow down," I threatened, grabbing a stick.  "You're on!"

     

    We raced each other towards the open pool table.

     

    It was a wonderful night.  I was very glad to be away from the burden of being the law-school-y-serious-boyfriend guy.  We played several games of pool, had three baskets of chicken wings, talked with all kinds of random bar patrons Kat seemed to know intimately, and cleared off a bottle and a half of tequila.  It was a great, fizzy feeling of belonging--where everything makes sense, but not too much.  It was the perfect feeling for a Friday night with your best friend. 

     

    In the middle of a pool game the bluegrass band struck up a mournful tune that someone made you want to tap your toes.  I found I was.  Kat noticed.

     

    "You know this is a song about murder and singing bones, don'cha?" She asked.

     

    My toe tapping stopped as she trilled with laughter.  "And this is the music you adore."

     

    Her laugh was like silver bells.  "Exactly.  Don't you see?  Grim and beautiful, makes you want to dance, makes you want to cry.  What a story, what art." As she described the music, she shook her body along to the beat, dancing and rotating her hips just a bit.  I could fairly see the delight radiating off her in waves.

     

    All of a sudden, I felt very drunk.  At least that was the only explanation I could come up with.  Every inch of my body was tingling a little, and it was suddenly like I could hear Kat inside me.  With every swing of her hips, I felt a little more senseless.

     

    "Well, my singing bones girl, let's dance to it then!" I shouted, pulling her out to the dance floor.

     

    She squealed with surprise but as soon as we got to the floor she began to fly around me madly.  "Stay still!  You have no idea how to dance to this music!" She scolded me.

     

    She unwrapped her filmy scarf and began to treat it like she was a gypsy doing the dance of the seven veils.  I could see the edges of it twirling around and around me, as I watched Kat peak through it and do a little two-step over and over.  As the scarf tickled my nose I wanted to do something mindless, to pull Kat to me and make her scream and cry and laugh with a sudden joy. 

     

    Before the wrongness of the idea could hit me, the song was over and she poked a finger and me and hopped back towards the pool table.  Like a trance had been broken, I caught my breath and followed her back.

     

    It was almost two o'clock when I remembered Jennifer and our trip to New York.  I frantically blurted it out to Kat, and we frantically fell into a spastic fit of giggles.  Then we figured we might as well catch a cab and head for home.  Kat would return for her car the next afternoon.  Everyone bid us a fond farewell and Marina insisted we come back next Friday for a free basket of wings, then she hailed us a cab.  The cabbie asked where to and Kat spit out her address first.  About twenty minutes later, we were stumbling into Kat's dark apartment and laughing about something not really funny.

     

    We plopped down on the couch and chatted, making stupid, drunk small talk.  I was starting to drift off to sleep when New York snapped back into my thoughts.  I woke with a start.  I shook Kat lightly.  "I've gotta go home!" I exclaimed.

     

    "Why?" She muttered.

     

    "I gotta go to New York tomorrow, you know, with Jenny!" I slurred.

     

    She opened her eyes and looked at me warily.  "Ahh, why do you have to be with Jennifer?  Will, why do you have to be going to New York tomorrow?" her words ran together.

     

    "What?" I asked.

     

    "Nothing, nevermind." She jerked up and stood awkwardly from her place on the couch.

     

    "Wait!" I cried, grabbing her hand.

     

    We were both a little drunk, and a little sleepy, so it was no surprise when my grabbing made her wobble a little and then toppled onto me.  We both mumbled "Ouch!" and then laughed.

     

    "Sorry." We said, again at the same time.

     

    Kat didn't try to move from off of me, and I didn't try to move her myself. 'Why her, Will?  Why like this?" She mused.

     

    "Kat, what are you saying?"

     

    "Do you love her?" She whispered.

     

    There was a gasping silence.  "Ummm, well, ummm, she's,"

     

    "Will, Will have you ever felt that thing between us?" Her voice was on the edge of pleading.

     

    Yes.  Yes.  I saw stars, Kat.  Oh, of course.  But it wouldn't, we'd never, it doesn't even make sense, there's Jenn and, oh, I did, I did---but we're too much, and it's too scary, oh, yes, Kat, Kat.  My mind raced but I didn't say a word.

     

    Again, silence.  Then she lowered her head until our foreheads were touching.  "Will, ya wanna know what Eithaf Cariad means?"

     

    "Yes." I exhaled.

     

    I could see her smiling, I swear it.  "It means Extreme Love."

     

    Just like that, I can't say how, just like that, our mouths were together.  We were kissing so deeply I felt like I was being swallowed whole, taken in and over.  My arms circled her, pulling her tight, and her hands were in my hair.  God, it wasn't just a kiss.  It was a revelation.

Tuesday, 10 September 2002

  • Chapter Five

    From that day on, Kat and I were nearly inseparable.  Jenn and Kat gossiped at the SUB for what seemed like hours.  I drifted off into some sort of state of shock.  To imagine I had almost asked out my girlfriend's best friend.  Gee, why not just make the booking on Jerry Springer now and save everyone the time?  More amazing still, to imagine that Jennifer was best friends with someone like Kat.  Not to disparage Jennifer, of course.  Ooooh, no.  She was polished and intelligent and witty.  She made great cocktail party small talk and she had legs that would not quit that she always knew to show off just a little in high priced designer skirts.  Jennifer was a wonderful girlfriend all round, sweet as pie and chatty to your mother and with a nice little bedroom trick or two, though nothing bizarre, up her sleeve.  But she wasn't as...vivid as Kat.  She didn't have that burning around the edges, the wild insistence that life happen in one bright moment after another.  Jenn was average.  She was normal.  People as vivid as Kat, well, they were hard to come by.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't recall meeting anyone as violently alive as Kat in a long time. 

    The last time would have to be Isabel Escobar, the loveliest girl I had ever laid eyes upon.  She was my first love.  After only a year in Bellflower, we moved to New Mexico.  "Don't you think we need some desert time after all that rain, kids?" My father had asked heartily.  We all shrugged and packed up.  What else could you do?  It was my tenth grade year.  My father picked Las Cruces, a middle-sized town down at the very Southern tip of New Mexico, of all places.  "It means 'Three Crosses', family, doesn't that just sound fascinating?"  He'd enthused.  I barely resisted snapping at him, "No, Dad, it sounds like it's a place with three crosses.  How in the hell is that FASCINIATING?" But I just shrugged and shipped off.  As for Las Cruces, God, but that is one ugly town.  Everything is flat.  As far as your eye can see, you can see flat.  Farther than that, even.  There is flat in places you can't even imagine, places you dream of at night.  If I hadn't known better I'd have truly suspected that the entire state of New Mexico was a giant, long, flat, dry board.  But we'd driven through mountains: some green and lush, others barren and foreboding.  Then we wound up in Las Cruces.  There were no mountains.  There was nothing green.  There was only heat, a long, dry heat unlike any we'd ever lived in.  From the moment the car door swung open, I hated the place.  Of course, that was before I walked into homeroom that next Monday morning and fell right into the rich gaze of Isabel.  Then I forgot the dessert and the dust and the dryness.  I just wanted to drink Isabel's eyes, to dive right in.  She was an oasis: a vibrant, colorful, original oasis.

    I can still see Isabel, sitting in the back of that classroom, her tiny body elegantly draped in a sari.  What she was doing wearing a magenta sari, I'll never know.  She just liked unusual clothes and the way they seemed to fit her.  She was sitting in the back but she drew my eyes immediately towards her.  Somehow I stumbled towards the homeroom teacher and shoved my slip into his face.  Thank God by those days they didn't make you recite who you were in front of the class.  I just walked towards Isabel.  I didn't know who she was, and I didn't care.  It was like she had me locked in a tractor beam from one of those countless Star Trek movies, or episodes, or whatever.  I was not behaving like myself.  The first hard-learned lesson of being the new guy?   BLEND IN, DON'T MAKE WAVES.  You have to keep your head down and pretend you're not even there, walk like everyone else, breathe like them, don't think, don't act, don't ever make connections...JUST BLEND IN. And yet, even after years of teaching myself that lesson, there I was: blindly crossing a homeroom of people, some total unknown, towards a girl in a sari and sandals who had merely gazed at me.  It was crazy, but it couldn't stop.

    Suddenly, I didn't hate the desert, because Isabel's skin was the color of the desert, of the sand I had seen on all sides as we entered Las Cruces.  She looked like she had risen from the dust, put herself together from the vast, arid land that was everywhere.  Her hair was blacker than any metaphor I can come up with and it fell over her shoulders in a smooth, thick wave.  And her eyes glowed.  Sometimes, in the quiet of night, all these years later, I can see Isabel's eyes brown eyes burning bright.  I just kept going towards her, those eyes boring into me--her entire body beckoning.

    "She must confess she is lost." Her voice was a husky whisper as I stopped in front of her.

    "My Lord," I thought.  "She doesn't just look like a mythical creature; she IS one, because here she is--speaking to me in riddles.  I wonder, if like the Sphinx, she'll kill me without the right answer."  It was enchanting and overwhelming.  I immediately grinned and stuck out my hand.  "I'm Will Darden."

    She shook her head and wagged a finger at me. . .  slowly backing away.  There was a moment of panic.  Then a moment of inspiration hit, and I knew she wanted me to rhyme back.  Off the top of my head I replied, "He is quite sorry, he must have her at any cost." At once, I thought to myself "Nice, Darden, real nice.  Way to play it subtle.  I mean, no way is she gonna figure you like her now."

    Isabel laughed.  If nothing else, that laugh did me it.  The laugh itself was a lover's touch--intimate and familiar, rich and full or promise.  I swear it, my knees got weak.  "A quick wit, and he'll play the game."

    "As long as she desires, but first he needs a name." I quickly retorted. 

    She seemed speechless for a moment, then she laughed again.  This was the point a normal person would give you their hand to shake.  Instead, the beautiful girl curtseyed low in front of me, as if I were a king.  She lowered her eyes for a fraction of a second then met my gaze.  "She is bested.  My name is Isabel Escobar."

    Isabel might have thought she was bested, but he knew better. 

    We were instant friends.  From that second in homeroom on, it was me and Isabel, peas in a pod.  We weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, we were just cohorts and pals. Usually, the more different you are in high school, the more the "normal" (and thus more powerful) people lash out at you, mock you, and try to destroy you.  Can't have someone crashing the herd mentality.  But it was just the opposite with Isabel.  Everyone at Onate High School adored her.  She was considered an eccentric, and people just loved to watch her.  She always had a trick up her sleeve, and seeing it unfold was always a delight.  Everywhere she went, she drew people in.  There was always an entourage following her in the hall, trailing after her, desperate for some slight bit of her originality.  I had never been popular.  As a matter of fact, in most of the schools that had blurred in front of my face, I hadn't even been noticed.  Just another blank face that kept his head down and moved along.  But all that had changed.  Isabel was as drawn to me as I was to her, and we became the most whispered about duo on campus.  Apparently, no one believed that someone as exotic as Isabel was drawn to someone like me.  Why would they? I didn't believe it!  There I was, the new boy, with absolutely nothing strange or bizarre about me, and I had won Isabel's undivided attention.  It was as incredible as it sounds.

    Why did she like me?  Why did she single me out?  I really don't know, even to this day.  Maybe because I had approached her.  Maybe she liked the blank surface she saw in me.  Maybe she appreciated that I was always up for whatever plan she could concoct.  Or maybe we were just meant to find each other in one of those pairings no one can predict or explain but that just makes sense. 

    "Will, what say thee to a Shakespeare scene in the lunchroom?" She would whisper at lunch.

    I shrugged my shoulders, and so that day at lunch we would stand on a table and act out Isabel’s favorite scene from As You Like It  or Othello.  Everyone would scream and shout and clap.

    "Tomorrow, Will, let us come to school dressed as if we are from the future." She would shout as we headed out to the parking lots.

    Again, I shrugged my shoulders, and the next day came to school wrapped in all the tin foil I could find in my house.  I looked weird.  Isabel was covered in blue lipstick and silver glitter, and she had Saran Wrap draped from her.  Her hair was bunched into uneven, small waves all over her head.  People giggled and grinned as we walked by, whistled and hooted.

    My life as Isabel's sidekick and best friend was a constant surprise.  We were always moving, always acting, and always feeling--a sensation I wasn’t all together familiar with.  We competed in classes, my GOA rose higher than ever before, partially because Isabel and I were always trying to outdo one another.  And everyone knew us, everyone knew ME.  When I was without Isabel, people still shouted hellos to me, still waved and smiled.  I wasn't the new boy.  For the first time in my life, I was Will Darden--a person unto myself, outside the stigma of an outsider in the midst of old pals.  The effect was, needless to say, immense.  I walked with a new confidence and trust in myself.  I no longer wanted to be the sullen rebel OR the smarmy know-it-all.  I saw that I could be a little bit of both, or neither at all.  I liked just being WILL, dressing up and having scenes.  More than that, I liked talking to people, feeling comfortable in my own skin, getting to know other people in their skins, for who they were.  Isabel gave me all that, she showed me the way there.  All that, and I was hopelessly in love with her. 

    What can I say?  Isabel was a force of nature, really.  She said and did just what she wanted.  She wore turbans and cornrows in her hair, she protested unfair migrant labor laws, and she gave book reports in the form of songs.  She was beautiful.  On the outside yes; her skin the desert all around me, an ethnic color of brown I had never encountered in Washington, or Georgia, or Kansas, but she was radiant within, and that shone out like a beacon.  She lit up my life, without question, and I passionately adored her for it.  So many times in my head, I imagined telling her how I felt, doing it in the form of a sonnet, or after the morning announcements over the PA system.  I created scenes where we were play acting a moment from Romeo & Juliet and I just kissed her full on the mouth.  Yet no matter how many scenes I created in my mind, I never did anything.  Part of it was, I had never been kissed. I was only sixteen and right about the time I figured out the name of a girl I MIGHT be able to have a crush on, the family quickly packed up and headed out.  I was justifiably nervous.  Of course, the other part was that I was deathly afraid that if I pulled anything, not only would Isabel wallop me a good one, she'd also quit being friends with me.  And that was something I just couldn't stomach.

    It was April.  As Isabel had pointed out at the beginning of that month, it was National Poetry Month.  In honor of that: we would recite poems in the lunchroom, we would post poems in the halls, and we would sing poems in the hall.  I shrugged my shoulders and went along.  Then Isabel had one of her brainstorms.  She shoved a note into my hand last period and smiled as she skipped away, reciting nonsense verse by Carroll.  It read, "Will, darling, tomorrow, let us write poems on our bodies.  Come to my house this evening at 8:30." It was signed in a loopy handwriting with, "your Isabel."  I still have that note, you know, tucked away in my wallet, the scrawled handwriting fading as the years past.  It was the first time anyone had ever seemed to be truly MINE.

    Not too surprisingly, Isabel's parents were as unconventional as she was!  Her mother was practicing yoga in the living room and greeted me warmly, waving from a very strange folded up position.  Her father was out back working on his Zen garden.  I proceeded downstairs to the large room that was Isabel's bedroom.  It was a memorable room.  Each wall was painted a different shade of blue.  And everyone who visited was invited to write their name or favorite quote or draw a silly picture.   She loved to collect random knick-knacks and odds and ends from flea markets and thrift stores, and they graced the room too.  She had candles and picture frames in every corner and on every surface.  Some frames she had left the stock photo that comes with a frame when you buy it.  "Don't those people look far more photogenic than any I could ever possibly know?" She said when asked about it.  There were scarves and socks and other clothing bits and pieces draped off her bed and doorknobs, even some from her ceiling fan.  Her bed was round, a perfect circle.  We had spent lots of time searching for it, as Isabel insisted it be round, before we finally found one at a dirt-cheap flea market in Juarez.  "THINK of all the places this bed has been!" She had squealed to her parents.  Apparently, they did, because they special-ordered her a new one from a furniture store in town, and made us throw out the used one.  Isabel still mourned its loss, but secretly I thought she was far healthier for it.  In other words, Isabel's room was like Isabel, full of life and originality and quirks.  I loved it, and we spent many hours in there, exchanging dreams and listening to obscure music we found in bargain bins at the mall.  I knocked a little at her door, a mere formality, and Isabel called out, "Come in!"

    It was incredible.  When she had mentioned poems on our bodies, I assumed Isabel had meant some words scribbled on our legs, or maybe a few verses up our arms.  Stupid me, assuming when it came to Isabel.  Isabel was draped leisurely on her bed, lying on her back, her hair making a waterfall to the floor.  She was wearing the tiniest bikini I had ever seen.  Her face cracked into a smile as soon as she saw me.  "Have you picked out your poem?" She asked.

    Believe me, had I not been holding on to the doorknob so viscously it was cutting off my circulation, I would have fainted right then and there.

    "Isabel," I choked out "you know you'll never get away with wearing that to school.  There's, uhhh, the, errr," as I trailed off I wanted to say "the fact that half the male students will die from heart failure!" but instead I blurted out, "you know, the dress code."

    She quickly flipped over on her stomach.  "I know!  But I am going to wear something very skimpy, and kinda cover myself up with a skirt and a little top.  The point is for people to see bits of the poem, as much as possible, as much as I reveal from time to time," She smirked, I felt woozy.  "and then they'll be curious about the poem, and why I've written it all over me, and what it's about, and how it ends.  See, promoting National Poetry Month! Encouraging kids to read!  Who's gonna wanna suspend me for that??" She winked.

    She was right.  It was a gimmick, and a damn fine one at that.  She'd cover up just the right parts, and when no teachers were looking, she'd flash the other right parts.  Not to mention the fact she'd be using all the stir she'd create to get us to read poems.  And of course, Isabel was a teacher's pet.  She was in the top ten percent of her class, she was smart and polite, and she got other students motivated about school.  She would get away with her poetry stunt just fine . . . assuming it didn't kill me, that is.

    "Brilliant idea, Issy.  You've done it again." I said.

    She patted the bed beside her.  "Aren't I the best?" She sighed, then laughed.  "Now come sit here by me and tell me the poem you picked to intrigue the entire student body across my midriff."

    I walked woodenly to her bed and plopped down beside her.  "I thought, maybe, uhh, a sonnet by Shakespeare, or, uhhh, maybe, err, something by Yeats." I could hardly breathe, much less think about poetry.

    "Ahh, let us give out pal Will a rest.  We use him too frequently." She said in a cheery British accent.  "Yeats sounds promising, but he was always too pastoral for me." She mimicked in an Irish voice.  "I have a suggestion."

    "Anything." Boy, did I mean THAT.

    "What do you say to Eliot?"

    "As in T.S. Eliot?"

    "No, silly, Dave Eliot, the guy who fixes our refrigerator!" She made a stupid face and jabbed me with her finger.

    "Hahaha," I replied, making her face back at her.  "Which poem, then?"

    "What else?  His masterwork!"

    "Listen, Issy, I don't know what size you think you are, or how small you think I can write, but there's no way The Wasteland is going to fit on your body."

    "I should have known better than to leave that one up to you!  The one guy smart enough to know Eliot's masterwork and its length!  I meant The Love Song of,"

    "J. Alfred Prufrock."      we finished together.

    "Sounds peachy to me." I shrugged, not being overly familiar with the work.

    "I thought you could write it on me in this marker.  It washes off only if you scrub really good, so I figured it would be pretty sweat-proof."  She handed me a fine-tipped black marker,  I swear, I was feeling woozy.  "And here's the poem."  She thrust forward some crumpled paper.  "I tore it out of our Literature book."  She giggled.

    I uncapped the marker.  "Obviously not a real lover of poems!" I retorted.

    She giggled again.  "Will, do read it to me as you write it.  I love the poem.  Oh, and start at my legs." She stretched one long brown leg in front of me.  The world flashed in front of my eyes, and I began to write. 

    She squirmed as I wrote, and it only added to the intimate, almost dangerous, feel of the whole activity.  I had never been that turned on in my life, that aware that I was a sixteen year old boy writing on the legs and back and arms of a girl I wanted desperately. She never spoke, just laughed sometimes, or nodded approvingly to my reading of lines, or Eliot's turn of a phrase.  Other than that, my voice was the only sound in the room.  And each line seemed to speak to me specifically, personally.  Each line was a direction, a whispered admonition about what I was letting slip away from me.

    "Time for you and time for me,
    And time yet for a hundred indecisions,"

    That line went up her left leg, and I shuddered a bit on the "yet", because I knew there was hardly ever as much time as you assumed.

    "Do I dare
    Disturb the universe?
    In a minute there is time
    For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

    That verse came down upon her right leg, and the pen shook on "revisions", for all the times I didn't get to revise, and never would.

    "I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
    I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
    And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
    And in short, I was afraid."

    This part snaked up her right arm, and I was ashamed when I put "afraid", for I had spent so much of my life (even to this moment) in that condition.

    "And would it have been worth it, after all,
    Would it have been worth while,"

    This question started on her back, and "after all" was nearly my undoing, for I knew just what was worthwhile in my life, and what had passed me by--even when it was worthy.

    "'Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

    The last line tapered at the small of her back.  My hand shook violently as I finished and capped the marker.  She jumped from the bed and I tried to steady my breathing.  "That was an excellent reading, Will!" She enthused. "Now I just must see how I look!"

    She ran to the full-length mirror on her closet door.  She twirled in front of it, her eyes roving all over her body, as she "ooooh-ed" and "ahhhh-ed" in a hundred different tones.  She scampered back to the bed, where I was still feeling disoriented.

    "Beautiful!  Perfect!  We're becoming legendary!" She opened her arms and squealed with delight, falling onto her bed with a loud thump.  "Thank you!" she looked up at me, her eyes the same blazing brown as the first day I had seen her.  It was an indelible moment.

    I heard Prufrock's voice, his fear and indecision, in my mind so loud it startled me.  Isabel must have heard it too, or seen something in my eyes, or at least sense that something had changed because she touched my hand gently and whispered to me, paraphrasing Eliot, "Is it worth it?  Is it worth it after all?"

    Her eyes were question marks, and I remembered she was a sixteen year old too, just as many hormones rushing through her body.  "I don't want to drown." I said numbly, not even knowing what that meant.

    "Then hold on to me." She said simply, sitting up and coming towards me.

    And I kissed her.  How?  I can't remember.  Really, all of a sudden we were kissing, our mouths open and awkward, full of sloppy tongue and too much spit.  But it felt like heaven to me.  My hands were tangled in her hair, it was so warm, and she tasted like spices and wonder I could never name.  She pressed back, her body full of poems. 

    The next day at school, Isabel made her biggest splash yet.  Everyone was talking about it.  We got a whole page in the yearbook, it was THE buzzed about event of the school year, and the library couldn't keep it's Eliot books on the shelves.  And Isabel and I?  We were together from then on, and definitely as boyfriend and girlfriend.  Everyone sighed with delight, happy that we had confirmed that we weren't just friends.  The school might have been happy, but believe me, I was happier.  They were the most idyllic months of my life, there in the desert--happy and sixteen, in love and totally careless of the fact that at any moment my father was destined to leave.  I know how it happened.  We stayed in Las Cruces for two years, you see.  My mother had begged my father so much he relented for two years.  Besides, if there's one thing New Mexico has plenty of, it's damn space.  It gave my Dad wandering room, so he could disappear into the wild every now and again for a week or two.  I was lulled into a false security, see.  I forgot that I was of the moveable sort.  For a little while, happy and secure with Isabel as my partner in crime and misadventure, I forgot I was nothing but a rootless nomad, always on my way to somewhere else.  But two years was all my Dad could stomach, the stupid bastard.  And one night, sure as you can be, during the summer before I entered my senior year at Onate, my father said, "It's off we go family!"

    I went black with rage.  The injustice of it hit me, more than it ever had before.  Because finally, after all this time, I had something that I was leaving behind.  We stayed only three weeks after my father's announcement, and every day of those three weeks I hated my father more and more.  I realized I was leaving behind people I knew, people who knew me.  I was leaving behind a life and a persona.  I was leaving Will Darden.  Worse than all that, I was leaving Isabel.

    We tried not to cry, and failed.  She whispered poems of remembrance and devotion into my ears.  She promised that nothing would end what we had become.  She said that since our tears had mixed, so had our souls, and now no distance could keep is apart.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had no idea what distance could do.

    I grew bitter and sarcastic.  Why answer anything when you could snap?  It was the worst time in my life, full of blackness and hate.  It didn't matter, none of it mattered.  We moved, we left.  We always would, you see.  We went off to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.  My senior year far away from the desert I hated, far away from the girl I loved.  And then I knew anger wouldn't do anything for me.  I went numb.  I'd just stop being.  It was the being that had caught me, it was the being that made this ache and wonder, so I'd just shut the being up. 

    And once again, here comes the bitter irony I hate so well.  About six months into our Philadelphia move, my father decided that Pennsylvania was not his state, and decided to head down south.  For once, once in 21 years of marriage, my mother said NO.  She wasn't moving again, she wouldn't put the children through it.  I think my hollow eyes and blank stares had impacted her in some way.  She didn't want to see Emmy and David emptied out that way, left blank and rootless.  My father gutted it out at home one more month, but the urge was too strong, and he left us for good.  Ahhh, the irony.  If my mother had only decided to put her foot down seven months before, what a different Will Darden I would be.  But she would never have made that decision if she hadn't seen me devastated by the last move.  Oh, irony.  There I was--stuck in Philadelphia and, at long last, I was home.

    Isabel and I wrote.  Then she decided to spend a year traveling in Panama, and I never heard from her again.  It was a distance I had expected, but it still hurt.  But having her disappear into the jungles of a foreign country was a lovely end.  I like to think she joined some kind of revolution there, and lets the men write battle plans on her thighs, which she then smuggles across the country.  Part of me never stopped missing Isabel and the connection we'd had, the reckless days of living with my heart on the line   And I had never come across a soul as original and brave as hers until Kat beamed into my life.  That's why Kat was so irresistible.

    Kat and I were always up to something.  We went to the zoo and make up Harlequin romance novel stories for the animals or for the people that passed by us.  We took the tour of Independence Hall and loved to tell the tourists about the statue located nearby of Benjamin Franklin in a toga.  We ate Philly cheese steaks and pretzels, then bought some for the homeless and would hand them out like spare change.  One of our favorites was First Friday.  That was the first Friday in every month, all the galleries in Olde City were free admission.  We would walk from one end of Olde City to the other, going in every one we could find, admiring every exhibit.  The streets were packed, so we'd watch humanity and make up stories or sometimes act them out.  Every First Friday ended with desert at The Painted Parrot, where the lighting was dim but the cheesecake was divine.

    It's not that we didn't want Jennifer to come, or even that we didn't invite her.  But she was tired from work, retail manager at a huge department store, or she thought zoos were immature and First Friday "too collegiate".  She came to lots of things with us, movies and dinner and bowling. We both fixed Kat up, which never seemed to work out and some weekend Jenn and I spent totally alone.  It was just that Kat came into my life like the breeze that blew her novel into my hands.  And we were the best of friends from then on and it just made sense.

    Kat and I had been a matched set for almost six months.  It had seemed longer than that.  We finished each other's sentences.  She would call me up in the middle of the night to tell me what was happening in her story.  Jenn and I were also moving along smoothly, understanding each other and being content.  To celebrate what was our ten month anniversary, I splurged and took Jenn to New York City for the weekend.

    We were lying in bed together, calmly sated, when Jenn sighed into my chest, "Oh, Will.  We need to spend more time together."

    "I know baby, but we're both busy people." I answered, smoothing her hair.

    She snorted a little in what sounded like disbelief.  "Yeah, you're not too busy to spend the day playing shuffleboard with retirees or looking at mummies when it's Kat involved, are you now?"

    I stiffened.  Jennifer made no sign of being jealous of the time I spent with Kat before this.  It seemed an odd time for it to come up.  I teased her.  "Is that a little jealousy in you tone?  I somebody a wee bit jealous?"

    She snorted again, this time much louder.  "Jealous of Kat? Please, get real!" She shook a dismissive hand.  "Hey, listen, I love Kat like a sister.  Well, I don't have a sister, so I don't know exactly what that's like, but it's close enough.  We've been together through it all.  But I mean, Kat steal a boyfriend of mine?  In what universe?  Come on, Will!" She actually laughed a little. 

    I admit I was totally mystified.  "What's so funny about that?" I asked.

    She sat yup and looked at me, wrapping the sheet around her tightly.  "Kat is a princess Will, really.  But, you know, the type of guy I go out with usually isn't taking by her singing karoke off-key in bars on non-karoke nights.  My boyfriends, well, they don't really get into her hats and gloves and weird accents.  It's not like she's a big threat to me or anything." She shrugged.

    "That is totally insulting!  Katie is refreshing and unusual and eccentric, and,"

    "Right, exactly, she is.  And, you know, Will, that's not what guys want.  It's what guys SAY they want.  What they really want is someone to make dinner, talk to their Mom on the phone, listen to the baseball game, give a great blow-job, and do the laundry. They don't want crazy girls who do the Macarena in convenience stores.  At least, the guys I go with sure don't."

    I was so taken aback by Jennifer's cynical rundown of what assholes guys were that I couldn't even speak.  I wondered if my mouth was gaping open.  All that AND she had described her best friend as a "crazy girl".  It was a side of Jenn I had never seen before.  She was totally cutthroat and cold, like she knew the all the truth about everyone's real motives, and no true sentiment existed.  It actually gave me a little bit of the creeps, I felt shivers run up my spine.  I wanted as far away from her and that bed as possible.  I just sat there for a few moments instead, wishing Jenn hadn't started this conversation, wishing I could erase what she had just said.

    The something occurred to me.  "Well, if guys you go with don't like Kat, if they just think she's a kook, why do I like her so much and get along so great with her?"

    "Oh, guys I fate like Kat all right, they think she's a barrel of monkeys.  But, you know honey, it's like my Mother always says, 'Men flirt with girls like that but they don't marry then.' I mean, Kat is fun, but that's it."

    "Jeez, Jennifer, your mother doesn't say that--it's a line from Gone With the Wind!  And it's about easy women, not weird ones." I snapped back.

    She laughed.  "Yeah, I do that with movie lines sometimes.  But the principle is the same.  Guys like to hang out with Kat, to be her buddy, but they don't like being her boyfriend.  They don't like her that way." She leaned back down on my chest and started sprinkling it with feathery kisses.

    I was successfully distracted.  Good thing too, because I was THIS close to blurting out to Jennifer, "Oh yeah?  Well if guys you date don't like Katie that way how did THIS guy wind up kissing her last night, huh?"

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  • So, I've got just a few hours to break up a wedding and get the girl I love. (but am I really sure those two things are the same thing?) I also have to get the most important final of my life turned in before I fail out of law school. What could possibly go wrong in this situation?

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