Soul Kiss (10 page)

"So you know what a Vulcan mind meld is."

"You think that's what happened to us?" I closed my eyes and remembered kissing Daniel, the electric flashes I'd felt. I opened my eyes again and saw Daniel staring at me. I blushed. "But I don't know all your memories. Wasn't it some kind of telepathic link?"

"Yeah. But maybe you didn't get my memories but instead some bit of the way my mind works."

"Like a virus?"

He laughed. "Yeah, my brain has infected yours. Now you're going to turn into a geek."

I pushed his shoulder. "God forbid."

"Go," he said. "Start reading."

He turned to his computer and started typing. But instead of starting with the brain, I looked up the Vulcan mind meld. Okay, so it was all in a TV show. But who knows, maybe there was a piece of truth in it? We didn't have warp drives or teleporters or phasers, but I'll bet there was a basis for all of it in science somewhere.

The mind meld required physical contact. Check. Daniel and I had kissed, with tongue. That was pretty physical.

You had to be a Vulcan to initial a mind meld, though. That was a problem. Daniel looked pretty human, though of course so did the Vulcans, except for those pointy ears.

I looked over at him as he stared at the computer screen. Could he be some kind of alien? I mean, if some species from another planet had already figured out how to travel across the vast distances of space, they could probably also simulate our appearance. I remembered Odo, from
Deep Space Nine
. He was a totally different life form, but he managed to look human, except for the nose.

Again I looked at Daniel. His long hair hung over his ears, but I was pretty sure I'd seen them before, and they weren't pointy. I'd have noticed that. And his nose looked perfectly formed.

I went back to the details of the mind meld. The Vulcans who did it best, like Spock, had advanced mental abilities. Daniel had that covered.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Could I sense any of Daniel's memories floating around inside my brain? Could I feel what he was feeling?

Unless he was feeling that this was a stupid waste of time, I was only in my own head. I gave up and did what Daniel had suggested; I researched the brain. I had heard somewhere that we only used about ten percent of our brain capacity. But I discovered that didn't mean that ninety percent was just sitting around wasting time, like the Big Mistake when he should have been doing homework. It just meant that there was a lot of power we weren't harnessing.

Had Daniel's brain figured out how to harness more power? And somehow have transmitted that to me?

I went back to reading. The brain was about the size of a head of cauliflower (a creepy sort of metaphor, if you ask me) and regulated about a gazillion things that we did, from seeing and hearing to walking and pooping.

"Melissa?"

I looked over and saw Daniel staring at me. "We've got to book if we're going to get the last late bus."

I looked up at the clock. It was nearly four, and we'd spent almost two hours at the computers. I hadn't even felt the time passing.

"This whole business is freaky," I said, as we packed up. "I didn't even realize what time it was."

"Welcome to my world. I have to wear this watch with an alarm so I don't completely space out on when I have to go to work or to school." He showed me the watch on his wrist. It was a cheap digital one with a rubber band and an alarm function on the dial.

We split up at the bus dock. As the late bus threaded its way through the farmlands and suburban developments around Stewart's Crossing I stared out the window. I didn't want to think any more but I couldn't stop myself. What was happening to me? And how was Daniel involved in it?

Saturday morning I decided I was going to bake that carrot cake that Daniel wanted. I got on the Internet and surfed around a few recipes. Then I asked my mother if I could take her car down to the grocery to buy what I needed. "I can do your shopping for you, if you want," I said.

She looked at me, then placed her hand to my forehead again. "Are you feverish? You've never made an offer like that before."

"I just need this stuff, all right? Carrots and walnuts and real flour. If you don't want me to pick anything up for you, that's all right."

"Oh, no, don't let me stop you. You go get ready and I'll put together a list for you."

By the time I came back she had this huge list and I started to regret my impulse to ask. I was going to just dart in, buy the things I needed and then come home. Instead I was going to be trapped in the aisles of the grocery. But she gave me a pair of fifty-dollar bills and said, "If you can't find anything, call me, and I'll tell you where it is."

Like I couldn't find my way around a supermarket. I grabbed the cash and the car keys and ran.

In the past when I went to the grocery with my mom, I just mindlessly threw stuff in the cart. But that morning I found myself reading all the labels, picking the canned soup that had the fewest calories and artificial ingredients, buying the small-sized dish detergent instead of the large because there was a two-for-one sale on the small one and the per ounce cost was less that way. And even so I was home in under an hour.

"You got everything?" my mother asked, coming out to the driveway to help me unload the car.

"Yup. Everything on your list." I handed her the change and the receipt.

"You couldn't have gotten everything and still had this much change, Melissa."

"It's all about being a smart shopper," I said airily, carrying a couple of bags inside.

We started unpacking. "This isn't the brand of chicken broth I usually buy," my mother said, holding up a paper carton.

"This one has almost thirty percent less sodium. And the cartons are better for the environment than cans."

She looked doubtful, but she pulled down a can of the soup and compared ingredients. "You're right. This brand is better. How did you figure that out?"

"I just read the labels, Mom. That's what you're always telling us, right?"

She just shook her head and put the soup in the cabinet.

I started peeling and shredding the carrots while the oven pre-heated. As I worked I read the section on cakes in my mother's cookbook. All the stuff about baking powder and baking soda and how a cake should rise, and the way the egg proteins bound to the oil--it all made sense.

By the time I had the cake in the oven I was sure it was going to be perfect. How could it not be, when I understood everything about how to make it?

My father came in as I was icing the cooled cake. "That smells so good," he said. "We haven't had a real cake in the house in years."

"Because of Robbie. He's gluten-intolerant. So the rest of us have to be denied everything he can't eat."

"It's not like that, Melissa."

"Yeah, it is. But you know what? I'm going to college next year. I can eat anything I want then."

"You haven't tasted dining hall food." He dipped a finger at the edge of the icing bowl. "Mmm, this is delicious."

"It's a mixture of powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese." I started to explain how the cheese and the sugar came together to make it so creamy, but then I stopped myself. That's the way Daniel would talk. "I made a baby cake too, for you and Mom." I moved the bowl aside and pointed. "I'll frost it for you and leave it in the refrigerator."

His eyebrows rose. "That's my girl," he said, kissing my cheek. "Your mother and I are so proud of you."

"Yeah, because I don't cause a lot of trouble like the Big Mistake."

"You shouldn't call your brother that. I'm sure that hurts his feelings. And your mother and I are proud of you for who you are, not in comparison with anybody else."

He took another finger of icing, then smiled and walked back to the study. Even though I wanted to make a smart remark, I didn't. It felt good to know that my parents were proud of me, and I was going to let myself enjoy that while it lasted.

Daniel's mother was pretty proud of him too. You could tell it every time she looked at him.

Their apartment was small -- just a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. We ate at their kitchen table, a spindly one with a Formica top. The chairs didn't match each other. Mine was metal, painted a glossy maroon, while Daniel's had a curved Windsor back with a slat missing and his mother's was an armchair like the kind we have at each end of our dining room table.

She served us a casserole of rice and shredded chicken she called
Arroz Imperial con Pollo
, or Imperial Chicken and Rice. It came to the table in a big, square-topped mound. The bits of chicken had been mixed into the rice along with peas and something red that his mother said was pimento, and it tasted heavenly. There was a big bowl of soupy Cuban black beans to go along with it, and a long loaf of crusty bread.

"This is so delicious, Mrs. Florez," I said. "It's so much more flavorful than anything we eat at my house."

"My mother's cooking has a
sabor Cubano
," Daniel said, rolling his Rs in that way I thought was so charming. "It means a Cuban flavor."

I knew that the dinner was cheap to make, mostly just rice and beans with one or two big pieces of chicken shredded into it, but that didn't matter. It was better than a lot of expensive steaks I've had.

"Daniel told me that he was born in Cuba?" I asked his mother.

"We come from Cienfuegos, southeast of La Habana," she said. Her accent was a lot stronger than Daniel's, and sometimes I had to strain to understand her. "In English it means one thousand fires. I was a school teacher, and Daniel's father was an engineer, and we lived in an apartment that looked out over the Bahia de Cienfuegos, like a big lake."

It was sweet the way she pronounced his name, with the accent on the last syllable, like his name was Danielle. But I bet that really bugged him when he was a kid.

She smiled and had a faraway look in her eyes. "Even before Daniel started school, we knew he was especial," she said. I noticed that she added an extra "e" before her "s" sounds, and wondered if that was common among Spanish speakers, or if it was just her. I could look it up, I thought.

Then I realized I was acting like a geek.

She took a forkful of chicken, then continued. "Daniel could learn anything quickly. He was reading books with chapters when the other children were still learning the alphabet. When he started school his teacher was surprised at how smart he was and made a report about him."

"A report?" I asked.

"In Cuba, they watch everything. The government there is not like here. There the politicians and the police are in charge of everything. They make all kinds of decisions that people here make on their own."

I didn't say anything. It sounded like a terrible place to live.

"You are going to college, Melissa?" she asked.

I nodded. "But I don't know where yet."

"You see? You are free to make your choices. If you were Cuban, you would already know what they are going to do with you."

She put down her fork. "When Daniel started school, he was five. Very soon people come to our apartment, to talk to me and his father, to examine him. Daniel's father and I are nervous. We worry they would take him away from us."

Across from me, Daniel squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. I didn't know why. It wasn't like his mother was showing me bare-bottomed baby pictures of him or anything.

"Take him away?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because he is so smart. We think the government will want to put him in a special school, and that we will not see him again."

"That's terrible."

She looked sad. "My husband, he had gone to the university for engineering, and me for my teaching degree. But if they know how smart Daniel is, they will never let us keep him."

She dabbed her napkin at the corners of her eyes. "We know we must take Daniel and leave Cuba. But that is no easy task. We must find the right person to smuggle us away, and pay a great deal of money."

"Wow." Daniel's life story sounded just like a movie.

"It was very dangerous. And then, my husband was killed just before we leave."

She blew her nose with her napkin. "But we talk about happier things. Daniel says you are very good in your math class."

"Oh, no, Daniel is the genius. He's just helping me study."

"But you understood that proof on Wednesday," he said. "That one I was having trouble with."

It was true. I was reading ahead in the book and I figured something out that Daniel hadn't gotten to, and I got to teach him something for a change.

"That's just because you hadn't read that part yet."

"Maybe you can convince Daniel to take the college test," she said. "He refuses, because he knows we do not have much money. But I am sure if he tests, then a college will offer him a scholarship."

"Mami, we have gone over this already."

"You haven't taken the SATs?" I asked Daniel.

He shook his head. "It costs money, and it's useless. I'm just going to work at ComputerCo full time after I graduate and save up some money. Then maybe I'll go to college after that."