Kiss the Morning Star (2 page)

She was always singing, though not always in tune. Hymns, of course, but also show tunes—she belted them out brave and funny while she worked in the garden, her long hair gathered up in a silk scarf, smelling of jasmine.

They sang together, all that summer the year I turned twelve, the year we moved to Sterling Creek and my parents built their church, their dream. They were happy.

We were happy.

My father’s voice slid neatly under hers, under the sound of saws and hammers. It was almost like the church—and our home in the parsonage upstairs—was held together by the sound of their voices. So it shouldn’t be a surprise, I guess, that my father’s voice disappeared along with those walls, along with the dreams they built together.

There is a clump of dead thing on the road in front of us; its muddy brown fur lifts softly in the prairie wind. A gruesome flash of ravens as we pass.

“I’m making a new category for ones like that. The ones I can’t identify.” Kat makes a tally mark on the back cover of my spiral notebook. Her hands are already tanned a rich gold, even though we’ve only been on the road for two days.

“I think that one had a collar.” I can’t help shuddering a little, even though I’m joking. Death is always harder when it’s fresh.

Kat laughs. “Collared Critters! Another great category for the Roadkill Count.” She scribbles something with my purple pen. “I’ll put it next to “Possibly a Hitchhiker.”

I settle back against the driver’s seat, my right arm outstretched to rest on top of the gearshift. The sun slanting through the windshield makes me squint. “This was a good idea, Kat.
Is
good.” And it is. I’ve been still so long, cooped up with my empty-shell self—it feels strange to be moving, entirely present in space and time. With Katy back in my life (or me back in hers) and the road ahead, for once the world doesn’t feel too heavy, too crushingly real for me to bear.

Kat turns down the music. “So my dad sat me down for his ‘Think Carefully About Your Future’ talk,” she says, imitating her dad’s serious tone. I smile, picturing his worried brows knitted together above the smudged tortoiseshell glasses he has worn since we were kids.

“He was all, ‘Young lady, you had better think about this very carefully. A degree in commercial art or design will allow you the income you need, the
stability
you need, to be able to create your
other
art.’” Kat laughs, but there’s a catch in her voice. “
Ugh
, the way he said that, like fine art is somehow dirty or…I don’t know, shameful. My secret pornographic life.”

“Well, I guess…I can see his point, Kat. And with so many options for digital media…” I’m treading carefully here, stealing a sideways look to make sure it’s all right, that my long stretch of silence is forgiven. I’m still trying to find my way back inside this friendship, to the freedom I used to have with her. “I mean, starving artists and all.”

Kat sighs, pushing back against the seat. “I know, Anna. I
know.
The sensible part of me knows. But graphic art? What the hell? Why would I want to spend my
life
designing blog headers or…advertisements? Whatever. Art should be important. Art should…
change things
.”

I nod, but I’m not sure I understand what she’s getting at. Can art really change things? I remember when we painted that mural on the ceiling of her bedroom two years ago, the beehive with the bees dancing. It was interesting, lying on Kat’s electric blue bedspread looking up at all that geometry, but did it change us?

“You don’t believe me,” she says.

“You know I’m not artistic.” I’m not musical, graceful, or athletic, either. I basically have no skills. “At least you know what you want to do with your life.” A lurch of panic in my chest. Maybe I should have enrolled in the community college after all. This road trip won’t last forever.

“What happened to social work?”

“Katy Kat, that was from when we were like thirteen.” That was from before I became the kind of kid who
needed
a social worker.

“So is that nickname,” she says, slapping the back of my notebook with the palm of her hand. “I’m not a child anymore. From this moment on, I shall be called Katherine.”

“Katy.” I’ve missed her. I’ve missed this old playful tone that has crept into my voice, the way my eyes are drawn away from the road, drawn to her.

She waggles her eyebrows until those stupid sunglasses she wears slide down her nose, revealing the deep blue of her eyes, which are turning toward serious. “Anna babe, you can call me anything you want, as long as you keep talking.” Her fingers tap again on the cover of my journal. “What about writing? You’re always scribbling in your journals. Remember those stories you used to write for me, the ones we used to make into sexy mad libs? Two body parts, one liquid, an adverb, and a past-tense verb.” She laughs loudly, her head thrown back against the seat.

I feel my face heat up. “Those were so gross.”

“But seriously, Anna. Maybe you could write a book or something.”

“Whatever. I don’t write books. I write…I don’t know.” I feel suddenly anxious about my notebook in her hands. I want to take it back, but that would only make her curious. “I write stupid stuff—feelings and memories and junk. Nothing anyone would want to read.”

“Well, maybe you need to have something to write about. Maybe Kerouac is right, and you’ll have spontaneous poems just…leaking out of you. Words dripping out all over the place.” Kat giggles. “That sounds kind of fun, you know.”

Yeah, right. Poetry. “Sounds messy,” I say.

“Maybe it would do you good to get a little messy, Anna babe. Lose a bit of that perfect control you’ve got going on.”

“Whatever, Kat.” I roll my eyes. “Let’s hear a poem from you, how about? We’ll have a contest. A Haiku to South Dakota Contest.” The moment the idea spills out of my mouth, I’m certain that I can’t do it, can’t say a poem out loud, even to Kat. I watch the newly green fields flash past, fenced into tidy rectangles—varied shades of green, yellow, and brown.

“Haiku? Okay, wait. Five-seven-five? Or is it the other way around? For syllables.”

This is way too complicated. “I have no idea. Maybe? I think so.”

“Let’s make them Jack Kerouac–style, in the spirit of our road trip,” says Kat. “No rules. A short poem in three lines. An image, but no tricks, no…artifice.”

“I don’t even know what artifice is.”

“Yeah, well, then you probably won’t use any.” She laughs, and the sound of it crinkles in my chest like a candy wrapper in a quiet room. I want more.

My own laugh sounds forced, and I let it die quickly. It seems an insult to Katy’s happiness, but at least I’m trying.

“Okay…okay…let me think,” says Kat. “A Haiku to South Dakota.” She falls quiet, gazing out the passenger window. “Here it is.” She turns to face the front, crosses her feet underneath her on the seat, and clasps her hands in front of her.

Kat smiles as she finishes, points at the hillside dotted with horses. “Your turn,” she says.

I steer the car around a particularly fresh bit of roadkill. “I think you’d better mark that one as a ‘Former Flyer.’ Lots of feathers.” Oh,
nice
, Anna. This is how I respond to her poem? “That was pretty, Kat. I liked it.”

“You’re stalling.”

I shrug. “I’m not a poet.”

“C’mon. It was your idea.”

“I know, Katy, but…I told you, there’s no poetry in me. I write…lists.” I have about a million lists for this trip alone: Things to Do Before Careening Toward the Unknown (At a Safe and Legal Speed); Things We Cannot Leave Without; Ways to Convince Dad That Driving Off into the Unknown Is a Very Good Idea.

“Perfect,” says Kat. “Make a list of what you see. C’mon, Anna, you’re always scribbling in that journal. I know you’ve got more than lists in there.” She pauses, holding my notebook with both hands as though she will open it and look inside, and then she sets it down on the console between us. I exhale my relief.

When she speaks again, her voice is resigned, wistful. “You used to share things with me.”

The sky has grown darker, a royal blue that stands out in stark contrast to the pale white stone formations up ahead. I shift in my seat, a series of satisfying crackles making their way down my spine. “Look, Katy! The Badlands!”

It’s crazy. Like the prairie has sort of belched itself up along one ragged edge and then beyond that the world is an alien landscape—a rocky, spiny, sharp world made of hot sun and shadows like creases neatly pressed across the face of the rocks.

Kat sighs, but she doesn’t push it. “That’s amazing,” she says. “I want to get right in the middle of that place and camp there tonight, with nothing but that creepy shit all around me.” She nods. “Don’t people find God in the desert or whatever, like in Bible stories?”

“God knows where to find
me
.” I pull the car into a picnic area by the side of the road, and we get out and peer over the edge into the chasm of craters and craggy peaks. “But this might be a good place to hide.”

The sun bakes us into the pavement. I lean against a rock formation, position my face into what I hope is the kind of cheerful expression typically seen in people’s vacation photos, and Katy snaps my picture with my phone.

“I can send that to my dad,” I say.

Maybe then he’ll love me again, I don’t say.

“Is he coming to terms with this?” Kat hands the phone back.

I shrug and keep my eyes on my screen. “He’s texting me the things he’s getting out of bed for, and I’m supposed to send him…what I’m learning, I guess.” I hate thinking of it, of the heaviness that clung to him when I told him I was leaving. “He…he asked me to bring him his Bible.” I glance at Kat’s profile, soft against the sharp contrast of the boulders behind her.

Kat nods. “Do you think he’ll ever…”

I duck my head, pulling my sunglasses back down over my eyes. “Who knows.” To be honest, I don’t really care if he goes back to preaching, if he would only start living again. Still, his interest in his Bible and in our dharma bum project is a pretty significant change already. A glimmer of the man with the golden voice, the father I revered for most of my life. The father I left behind. I slide my finger over the phone and stick it in my pocket. “Let’s find a place to camp before it gets dark.”

“There. Right there.” Kat points at a spot on the map, completely surrounded by the Badlands. “Sage Creek Campground.”

I take a good look at the map, thinking about that formidable landscape. There is no way I want to go into that craziness unprepared. “Primitive,” I say, reading the campground designation. “That means we’d better haul in water.”

“Look at you, all taking charge.” She slips her goofy sunglasses up onto her head and winks at me.

I roll my eyes, but a smile slips through my defenses. “You’re trying to get me to cook dinner tonight, that’s all.”

I check through our supplies quickly, my clipboard in hand, and then we fill a five-gallon plastic jug with water from a spigot near the ranger station at the park entrance. “I guess we’re all set. Do you want to drive?” I toss the keys a couple of times in my hand, hoping Kat will tell me to keep them. “Maybe we’ll see some buffalo.”

“You drive, and then
I’ll
cook dinner,” says Kat, climbing back into the passenger seat.

The road is thin and dusty. It’s a rough ride, and I drive slowly along the rocky gravel track. The sun is getting lower, and still the road snakes around the outcroppings of bright rock, following closely along the lip of a deep chasm in places.

“Anna, what time is it, anyway?” Kat gazes out the passenger window, searching for buffalo. The clock display in Kat’s car has never worked.

“I don’t know. Seven maybe?”

“So what happens if we get all the way out there, and there isn’t a spot for us to camp?” Kat plucks at her toes with one hand, looking out the window.

“I don’t know. There’s no time for us to drive to the campground, find out there aren’t any spots, then get back to that bigger campground by dark.”

“So do you think maybe we should go stay at the bigger campground?”

I shrug. I sort of hate changing plans once I’m settled on a direction. “You’re the one who wanted to camp right in the middle of all this, weren’t you?”

Kat tilts her head, and I see her hands go up to her hair and then float back down uncertainly. She hardly ever looks uncertain, which is another part of what I’ve missed about her.

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess…. I guess I haven’t ever really done anything like this before. Wow, am I actually nervous?” She laughs, pulls her knees in closer to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “I never get nervous.”

True. “The map says some people don’t even pitch a tent out here, Kat. They sleep right out under the stars.”

“I bet there will be a ton of stars. But what about…buffalo, or…?”

“Prairie dogs!” I push the brake down so hard that the car rocks to a stop. I point out the window. “Look!”

There are prairie dogs everywhere, as far as we can see—prairie dogs standing up straight as sentinels and prairie dogs peeking out of tunnels—prairie dogs poking up from the horizon and right beside the road.

“It’s the Roberts Prairie Dog Town,” says Kat, reading off the map. “Cute. They kind of look like they might bite a leg off, though, to be honest.”

A smile tugs at my face. “I don’t see any buffalo.”

“American bison,” reads Kat. “Which means buffalo, really.”

“I guess this is it.” The road circles a grassy field, dotted with pale wooden picnic tables, each with a slatted wooden roof. A dusty trail leads to a pair of outhouses. “I hope we’ll be able to find a spot away from the biffy,” I say.