Kiss the Morning Star (5 page)

I am helpless, helpless. “Not hiding.” My lips form the words, but the sound is missing.

Tears well up. I want to brush them away, but she has my hand. The other one has fallen to my lap, clutching a soggy napkin.

I can’t look away. Helpless.

Kat’s cheek is warm and damp; her hands are soft. Did she just
kiss
my fingers? My heart is squeezed between two plates of glass, like it’s being squished into a microscope slide. Still it manages to quicken its pace.

“Where’re you gals headed?”

The sound of his voice startles me, first because it is so amazingly warm and rich that I mistake it for my father’s voice, and then because it is coming from directly behind me. Kat and I both spin around to see the owner of the voice, and our knees collide forcibly beneath the table. Pain jolts through me, and I’m not sure how much of it comes from my knees and how much comes from the realization that I am further away from my father right now than I have ever been.

Then, leaning in to rub our knees, Kat and I collide: her forehead and my nose. The tears, already primed, spring up again as pain rockets through my sinuses. We’re a pathetic slapstick routine.

“Oh. Oh, dear,” says the man behind us, leaning awkwardly over the back of his booth, a napkin in his hand. “You’ve got a little bit of a bloody nose there, darlin’. No, don’t lean back; the blood will run down your throat.”

I take the napkin and hold it to my nose, pinching the bridge with one hand while the stranger peers at me with worried eyes. For the briefest of moments I recognize the echo of my father’s eyes, back when he still climbed my attic stairs to find out if I was all right. I scowl at the man.

“I’m so terribly sorry to startle you gals like that,” he says. He wrings his hands apologetically, and I notice he wears a smooth gold wedding band on his left hand. I think of the woman who wears the matching band. I wonder if she sings with him. I wonder if she smells of jasmine.

He nods toward our table. “I’m Lucas Shepherd. Pastor Shepherd, if you’d like. I have a parish here in town, a little country church.”

A pastor. I nod politely at the man and turn back to my own table, hoping he’ll take the hint. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, least of all some prying-stranger version of my own father.

“Wow, that’s kind of coincidental that you’re a pastor,” says Kat.

Oh, god, Katy, not now.

“See, Anna and I—I’m Katherine, by the way—we’re on a trip. A pilgrimage, if you will, with a religious purpose.” She turns to Anna. “Right, Anna babe?”

I shake my head, looking back and forth from Kat to this Pastor Shepherd guy, a strange knot forming in my stomach. “We’re on a road trip, that’s all.” I feel panicky.

But Kat is still smiling and nodding her head at something the man has just said. “Yes, yes,” she says, nodding some more, “Anna’s dad is a pastor, too, back in Minnesota. And we’re seeking out proof. Of God. Well, of his love.” She hits my shoulder lightly. “Show him. Show him the list. Maybe he’ll have some ideas for us.”

This is embarrassing. “Really, it’s just a road trip.” And I’m not showing him this list. Is Katy crazy? It’s full of drugs and sex.

Pastor Shepherd’s eyes are a warm caramel color, and they seem to grow brighter as his smile widens, revealing a charmingly crooked set of teeth and a lopsided pair of dimples. “Well, now,” he says, drawing out the syllables like music, “it’s mighty coincidental that we should meet just now. Or, not really coincidental, you know.” He gives us a conspiratorial wink and then casts his eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

I tug at Kat’s sleeve, but she doesn’t look at me. What’s she getting at, anyway? I try to figure out what it is about this guy that makes me so nervous, makes me feel like ditching the bill and running off. There is nothing outwardly scary about him; he appears to be a kind and genuine person—the kind of person I have to grudgingly admit might have something to offer us—some wisdom for a couple of dharma bums. He’s not icky, not like a molester or a murderer. But still I feel danger, something unsettling about him.

Kat has the Kerouac book out, now, and she reads the rucksack revolution passage to him. I wait for the man’s eyes to harden, for him to warn us of the sins we could encounter in such books. But he nods, his eyes full of that warmth, and he listens to Kat’s enthusiastic monologue with a patient smile.

At last Kat stops for breath, and Pastor Shepherd speaks up. “I just know it was no accident that we met here this evening.”

“How’s the sermon coming, Pastor Shepherd?” Our waitress beams as she fills his coffee cup.

“I was struggling a bit, Dana,” he says, “but I think it’s coming together now.”

She includes us in her smile. “If you girls are looking for God, well, you’ve found one of His people, right here. I don’t know how many sermons have been written in that booth, but it’s got to be quite a few.”

“Well, Jack’s pie is the best inspiration,” he says, handing her his plate and fork. “You tell him that, now.” He clasps his hands together, and I worry for a minute that he might ask us to pray right there in the diner, making a big show of it. I hate praying in public.

“Say, are you girls moving on this very evening, or are you staying here in town?” He looks concerned. “It’s awfully late to be out there on the road now.”

“We’re heading out,” I say.

“We could stay,” says Kat.

“Excellent!” says Pastor Shepherd. “My wife and I would love to have you stay with us. We have a guest room that nobody uses since our sons went off to college. You’ll have to put up with a bit of a mess, as we’ve been packing all week for a little road trip of our own, though.”

“Oh?” says Kat. “Where are you headed?”

Pastor Shepherd smiles broadly as he slides out of his booth. He picks up his check and then casually snags ours as well. “No, no, I insist,” he says, in answer to our protests. “My Bible study group is heading down to Mexico with several other congregations in Wyoming and Utah for a missionary trip. We’re going to be laying the foundation for a new church in a village in the mountains. We leave the day after tomorrow, in fact.”

“That sounds amazing,” says Kat.

I follow them out of the diner, feeling far from home, but I know I’m not missing the dusty train tracks and the stale room where my father lies staring at the ceiling. Home doesn’t exist anymore. Either that or I haven’t found it yet.

I don’t have nightmares about it, not exactly. I don’t dream about flames or fire engines or the pale, shocked faces of my neighbors. The night my mom died and my home burned to the ground is surreal and terrifying in my memory—I recall tiny things like the feeling of the frosty grass on my bare feet and the smell of the oxygen mask, but I forget the big things like how I broke my bedroom window or who called 911 or when was the first time I realized my mom wasn’t beside me.

Instead my dreams are filled with images of classrooms, where I am surrounded by robots who speak to me in unintelligible beeping. Or sometimes I dream of Katy, doing my homework for me like she did in real life after the fire. When she hands me the page, it’s covered from top to bottom with neat, red tally marks. Sometimes I try to count them. What do they stand for? Probably it’s how many times I kept her at a distance when I should have shared. Like best friends do.

She tried. All those months she tried; she stopped by with her armloads of books and drawings she made for me, an old guitar she bought at a thrift store, her face full of complexity. I answered the door, stood and shuffled my feet, until finally she retreated, walking away from our red dust apartment and the train tracks and the sadness.

“Katy?” I listen in the dark. Kat doesn’t answer, but I can hear more of the soft sounds that woke me. “Are you crying?”

She only sniffles. “Go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” Tiny movements on the mattress—she
is
crying. Kat never cries. “Um, are you okay?” I find Kat’s shoulder and pat it awkwardly. Her back is to me; she’s coiled into herself. My hand feels stiff and stupid on her back. I’ve never been good at this, at touching other people. Kat is the hugger—the hand-holder, the comforter. I give encouragement best in the form of…oh, I don’t know. I mean, nothing I did worked for my dad.

Except. The text he sent back.

Woke before the sun today. Called Gran with birds singing in the backyard.

“Nothing’s wrong,” whispers Kat. She rolls, trapping my arm underneath her, burrowing her head into my shoulder. “I dunno,” she says. “It’s been a weird couple of days so far.” True, that.

I feel my heart compressed again, fluttering madly behind glass, this time more like a panicky fly trapped in a window. “Did we hit one of those guys, Kat? Really, you can tell me. I can take it. Did we kill someone?” I can’t take it. I wish she had called the police from that diner, I really do.

Kat starts to shake again, but this time she’s laughing. Hard. She props up her head on her hand, still on top of my arm—close to me, so close. “Anna, how many times do I have to tell you? It was a chunk of dirt.” She can’t even go on for a moment because she’s laughing so hard. I feel like an idiot. “There was a little bump in the road, that’s all. I saw it before I turned off the lights, silly. It wasn’t a person, I promise.”

Quickly—so quickly I have no time to respond—Kat leans in and kisses me. She tastes of toothpaste and tears. “You’re so cute, Anna babe,” she says, pulling away. “I’m sorry I woke you with my stupid crying. I…maybe I’m homesick.”

Just like that, her breathing settles, falling into the slow rhythm of sleep, or nearly so. For a while I lie awake in the Shepherd’s guest room, one hand on the bed beside me, feeling the warm spot where Kat had been, and the other softly resting on my own mouth. Finally, giving my fingers a little kiss—the kiss I did not return—I let my hand fall away, and I think for the first time in years about Meggie Dempsey’s twelfth birthday party, where Katy and I were the only girls to choose Dare instead of Truth.

“All right, we’re saving the Dares for last,” Meggie announced after Katy chose, and then all the other girls went around and chose Truth. One by one, they shared secrets about the boys they liked and whether or not they had their period yet. All the while, Katy sat smiling and waiting, her dark eyes moving from girl to girl. Finally it was my turn.

“Dare.” It was Katy’s eyes that made me say it, dark and blue and
interesting
. I wanted her to be my best friend.

All the girls moved their heads in close, smothering giggles behind their hands. They huddled around the little table at the front of the camper, peeking at us over their shoulders, rocking with laughter.

Katy touched my arm, her hand warm and reassuring. “Don’t worry. It’s almost always food-related,” she said. “We’ll have to touch something gross or eat something gross. Or both.” We were all sleeping in a small travel trailer in Meggie’s backyard. I was the new girl, transplanted just in time for middle school. The girl whose father was building a church—and some weird church at that.

The girls broke out of their huddle, and Meggie stepped out in front of the table. I instinctively drew my knees in toward my chest, clutching my Strawberry Shortcake pajama pants. I hadn’t quite figured out which of the girls could be trusted and which were like venomous snakes, their mouths ready to hiss with gossip and lies.

Meggie smiled, her braces laced with hot pink bands, her hair in two bright blond pigtails, dripping in glitter. “Gravel Pit!” she said, like it was Disneyland. I glanced at Katy, who smiled back.

“We’re sneaking out,” Kat said. “Mischief and mayhem.”

Sneaking out of the camper was a Dare in and of itself. The little trailer was parked in the yard with the door in plain view of Meggie’s parents’ bedroom window. I could see their television from inside the camper. I slipped my feet into my shoes and wiped my palms on the legs of my pajamas.

“Katy goes first,” said Meggie, pointing toward the floor at the back, toward a small cupboard next to the bathroom door. Kat didn’t hesitate. She opened the cabinet, wriggled in headfirst, and made a little bit of noise—some thuds and a clank or two—and then the sound of a door opening to the outside.

“There’s an access panel that hooks up with this cabinet,” explained the girl beside me. “You have to sort of wiggle down until you’re through it.”

All of the girls disappeared through the cabinet, and I was last. Taking a deep breath, I dove down through the crawl space, my arms swimming in front of me, my chest scraping along the linoleum flooring as I squirmed my way through the access panel and then into the arms of the girls who were waiting to catch me. They giggled, pressing their hands over their mouths—all of them softly glowing with the moonlight shining on their pastel pajamas. We tiptoed in a wavering line through the little thicket of trees that separated Meggie’s yard from the road.

Beyond the trees, the moonlight was bright enough to see, and we spread out, gravel crunching beneath our shoes. I walked beside Katy, sticking close in the unfamiliar shadows.

A loud hoot sounded suddenly from the woods, and I jumped and grabbed for Kat’s arm. She shrieked, and all six of us were nearly lost to the cataclysms of giggling that followed. I was passing the first test—becoming one of them.

“An owl, just an owl,” somebody whispered, between giggles.

The gravel pit was eerie in the moonlight, a landscape alien to begin with and only made more strange by shifting shadows as the clouds passed over the moon. We pressed in close to one another, our giggles fallen into soft whispers and occasional urgent hisses to “wait up!” I wrapped my arms around myself and tried not to stumble on the loose rocks as we made our way up over the first hill and down again, out of view of the deserted road.

Meggie directed us to a flat area, and we all gathered in a tight little circle, our knees touching, the cool gravel seeping through our thin pajamas.

Silence settled around us. I thought of the owl; I wondered about omens. I seemed to remember reading something about owls being a sign of death, and I shivered, goose bumps rising along the nape of my neck and chasing each other down my spine and arms. As one, we pushed in closer together, gathering our courage.

“Before we do the Dares,” said Meggie, theatrically drawing out her words in a low, husky voice, “we’ll share communion.” She giggled a little, then pulled out her dad’s silver pocket flask and sloshed it from side to side so we could all hear the liquid inside. “Everyone drinks on the first round,” she commanded.

Surely the rest of the girls could hear my heartbeat as the blood reverberated in my ears. Meggie tipped up the flask—I watched her throat bob twice in the moonlight—then passed it to her right, to a tiny girl named Naomi, who shook her head quickly with fear plastered across her pinched white face.

“Come on, Naomi, just a little sip. Don’t be like that.” Meggie hardly bothered putting any muscle into the command. She knew Naomi would comply.

Sure enough, the girl lifted the glinting metal flask to her thin lips and grimaced as she took a drink. She didn’t make a sound, but clamped her other hand over her mouth instantly and shoved the flask toward the girl to her right.

“That’s not good enough,” said Meggie, pointing her finger imperiously at Naomi. “Next time around you have to go twice.”

Naomi looked terrified, peeking out from behind her hand, but each of the girls in the circle after her drank from the flask—if not eagerly, then stoically—as though their honor depended upon putting on a good show. Only Katy sat easily to my left, all smiles. She tipped the flask back without the slightest pause, and I watched her swallow several times before bringing the flask down again. She handed the cold silver bottle to me while whispering, “It’s watered down, anyway.”

The flask felt heavy and oddly satisfying in the palm of my hand. I ran my thumb over an inscription on the side and brought the flask to my mouth, the slight metallic odor reaching my nostrils a moment before the sour scent of the whiskey. I could feel the pulse jumping in my throat. Could they see it? Katy put her hand on my knee, and the touch gave me courage. I tipped the flask back and felt a rush of liquid pour into my mouth. I gulped twice and lowered the flask, suddenly aware of the slow heat spreading down to my belly in a wave. I coughed as a flicker of heat shot up into my sinuses, but only a little, and I handed the flask back to Meggie, to my right.

Meggie Dempsey locked eyes with me for a long moment, then turned to the others again and smiled widely, sealing my acceptance into the circle. “Now. The Dare.”

She sat up extra straight, her platinum pigtails looming above the rest of the circle. “We
dare
you two to kiss each other,” she said, triumph in her voice. “Right on the lips.”

“Not just a kiss. You have to make out,” spoke up one of the others. I couldn’t remember her name, but her bangs hung in her eyes.

Meggie shot the girl a withering look. “Longer than a minute,” she said.

I felt my cheeks burning. Was it the whiskey or the thought of making out with Katy—with a girl? With anyone. Did a first kiss count if it’s another girl, or is that like practice?

“No tongue,” said Meggie, giggling. “That would be gross.”

I blinked, kneeling across from Kat, my cheeks growing even warmer at the thought of tongues. Tiny, pea-sized pebbles dug into my knees. I shrugged. “Why not?” I said, forcing my voice to sound confident. “It’s just a kiss.”

Before I could even take a breath, Kat leaned in—her hair a dark shroud that hung around us. She was warm; she was close. Her hand came up to my face, cupping my chin but also obscuring the view of our mouths. “Just pretend,” she whispered quietly, her mouth millimeters away from mine, her breath hot and tasting of whiskey. We held the pose, as close as if we were really kissing but without touching, while the girls giggled and shrieked around us. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. I felt Kat’s closeness as though I were a moon in her orbit. I was drawn close—closer, made bold by the thought of her interesting blue eyes.

I moved suddenly, pressing my lips against Katy’s mouth, and we both gasped with the contact. The warmth that was still floating in my belly spread up my chest, and then my lips burned with their own daring, and I pulled away. My first kiss.

There was a moment of silence between us, our bodies still close enough to share the same atmosphere, and then we drew apart quickly with a spill of nervous giggles. The circle of girls dissolved into laughter, too, and my heart fluttered away like a small, frightened bird inside my chest.

Mrs. Shepherd raps lightly on our door with offers of pancakes, eggs, and hot showers. I have to pry myself out of the blissful warm water, wondering when the next shower will come. At the breakfast table, I watch Pastor Shepherd. His hope and faith radiate out from him as he talks; it flows between him and his wife—a sun and his reflecting moon. It makes me wistful and wary.

“If you girls are looking for proof of God’s amazing love, what you should do is join up with us,” he says, leaning forward in his chair. His voice ripples with excitement at this idea.

“Join you?” Kat leans toward him. I cross my arms over my chest and try desperately to avoid rolling my eyes. There’s no way. I know church people. I know how kind they are, how eager to help. I know how they gossip, how they keep a tally inside their heads on everyone.

“Darling, what makes you think these young girls would want to join up with a bunch of old folks on a mission trip?” Angela Shepherd pats her husband’s hand.

He beams at her. “They’re on a pilgrimage, dear. They’re seeking evidence of God’s love, and who better to show them that evidence than our wonderful parishioners? What better way to learn the lessons of love than by leaning their weight into a shovel in the mountains of Mexico?”

Kat is nodding. She is actually nodding.

No way. They have been very kind, hospitable, but there is no way that I am getting on a bus and going to Mexico with them. No freaking way.

“I’m sorry.” I hate speaking up like this, but someone has to, or I’m afraid we’ll end up bouncing along some dusty Mexican road singing rounds of “Jesus Loves Me” while I struggle to keep from vomiting. “That doesn’t seem fair. I mean, obviously Katy…
Katherine
and I haven’t done any of the fund-raising or the other preparation.”