Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love (11 page)

“Robert’s my dad,” I say to Matthew, not wanting him to think there was some Robert in my life, in the Dawg sense. “What did he say?”

Mom stretches her legs out straight and flexes her bare toes. “Luckily for you,” she says, “getting into Brearley takes more than a phone call even from a Laura, I mean an alumna.”

When Mom makes word mistakes like this it’s always on purpose. I mentally applaud the subtlety of her witchiness.

“Does that mean everything’s okay now?” I ask, desperately hoping for a yes. If the Romeo/Juliet Thing is not working its X-magic on Matthew, who needs the stress?

“This seems more serious than his annual anxiety attack about whether MFCS is going to get you into Harvard,” says Mom with a sigh. “He is just very very tense. I wish he’d do yoga or something, it would make my life SO much easier!”

“Sometimes I can’t imagine you two ever getting married, Mom,” I say, wiggling my butt deeper into the beanbag chair. “You’re so different!” Matthew looks alarmed at my bluntness, but my mom and I always talk this way to each other.

Mom slurps her vile brew. “Yummy,” she says. “I guess that’s what you two came here to find out, isn’t it? How Robert and I fell in love. Where the ‘X’ came from, right?”

We nod.

“And where it went,” she says, more thoughtful than sad.

And so, she proceeds to tell us the story. Cheryl and Robert! A romantic tale of two suburban high-school kids. One, a rebel from the wrong side of the tracks; the other, a straight-A student from the original
Leave It to
Beaver,
all-American family. One craves adventure, risk, and foreign lands, while the other longs for home, family, and a steady career.

What never ceases to amaze about the story of my parents is that Cheryl (who later became my wild, wacky mom!) was the straight-A, home-loving, nice girl from the sweet suburban clan. It was my dad—corporation-working, Camry-driving, Lauraville-living Dad—who was the bad-boy rebel, at least back in those distant Long Island days.

“We were crazy in love,” remembers Mom. “Everything about him was dangerous and exciting to me, and everything about me made him feel safe and secure, like he had a home to come home to. We were the high-school sweethearts everybody knew would end up together forever.”

“What happened?” asks Matthew. The story is so absorbing, we’re both chugging back this awful tea without realizing it.

“I’m sure Robert would tell it differently,” Mom says to Matthew with a smile. “But in my version, we grew up. We found out we were more than just the opposite of each other. Without those clear roles to play—me the steady rock, him the wild child—there wasn’t much relationship left. By the time we figured all this out we had Felicia, of course. So it was hard to admit the marriage was over.”

“I bet,” says Matthew.

“It was the right choice,” says Mom, with conviction. “We’re both much happier now.” This last bit is somewhat aimed at me, I know. Mom remembers, though I barely do, that I used to ask them both every day when they were moving back in together. I was little when I did that, no bigger than Charles.

“The funny thing is, we really haven’t changed,” says Mom. “Look at Robert! He loves the excitement of that crazy job of his, the fast pace, the big money, all the travel.”

“But what about YOU?” I ask. I’ve never heard this part before, about how she and Dad haven’t really changed. “Aren’t you the wild one now? My groovy-hippie mom?”

“Oh, not at the core,” she laughs. “I’m very practical. I run my own business. I serve tea, for heaven’s sake! Having the store makes this neighborhood like a small town to me, with friends dropping in all day, talking about books.” She stretches out one leg again and rubs her warm foot against my cold one. “And of course, being your mother has always, always been the most important thing to me.” Awwwww. She likes to say stuff like that, it’s sweet and yucky at the same time.

Matthew, I notice, is staring at us over the top of his tea mug like he’s never seen two people carry on a conversation before.

“So you see,” Mom concludes, curling her legs underneath her, “your father and I both got exactly what we wanted. But now we have to think of something to help calm Robert down.”

“Paxil?” I say, not entirely kidding.

Mom sneers. “Aren’t you cute?” she says.

“My eye’s getting better,” I say. “Won’t he just forget about it eventually?”

“Honey,” she says, getting that I-know-what-I’mtalking-about tone in her voice. “The eye thing was just an excuse. What’s really bothering him is everything else: what were you doing in Chinatown in the middle of the school day? Why weren’t you being ‘supervised’? Why are you hanging out with boys who kick you in the face, accidentally or not?”

“Hmmph,” I say, sounding just like my dad. I know she’s right. That’s the way he thinks, he just never says anything till it all comes out in an explosion.

“Remember, Robert was the wild one,” she says. “He knows how much trouble a kid can get into.”

“But, but but—” I say.

“I KNOW you’re not like that! I’m just saying why I think he’s overreacting.”

“It’s like he doesn’t even know me.” I admit that sounds very sulky-teen, but I feel entitled.

“I think it would help,” Mom says gently, “if he could see some evidence of discipline. Structure. Academic rigor.”

“Like rigor mortis?” I pun, meanly.

She rolls her eyes at me, like she wasn’t the one who taught me how to make bad puns.

“What if we win the science fair?” Matthew suggests. I see he’s finished his tea. “NASA and MIT and Microsoft always send scouts. That might impress him.”

“Winning would be good,” my mom says doubtfully. “But to be honest, I’m not sure the Secret of Love is something NASA is going to care much about.”

“Respectfully, I disagree,” says Matthew, sitting up as straight as one can in a beanbag. “In the short time we’ve been conducting this research, I’ve become very impressed at the complexity of the topic. Our Romeo/Juliet experiment is generating data we never could have anticipated. And now, based on your comments,” he added, “I think we may be ready to begin documenting Experiment Number Two.”

I look at him, bewildered. What is he talking about?

“ ‘Do Opposites Attract?’ ” he announces proudly.

Way to go, Matthew! Just when you think he’s lost interest, he comes up with something like that. Truly, a Dawg of Mystery.

“Interesting,” my mom says. “Do opposites attract? I think, sometimes, they do. For a while, at least.”

I give Matthew a quick tour of the Unbound Page before we leave, but I’m too embarrassed to show him the Deck of Hollywood Stars—what would a scientific DataDawg like him think of my tarot addiction? Little does he know how the entire Search for X emanated esoterically from this ragtag collection of showbiz personalities!

But while Matthew is in the restroom being cleansed by the twig tea, I scurry over to the deck to draw a single card, hoping for a quick read of our current situation. By now I know better than to ask if Matthew will ever lovemelovemeloveme. The Great Beyond does not play that game. Instead: Insight, I plead. Just give me some insight into this Felicia-Loves-Matthew thing.

You’ll never believe what I draw.

Sonny and frikkin Cher.

Do opposites attract?

I got YOU, babe!

That night, tucked in my bed, I resist the urge to write a poem about this “opposites attract” idea. Instead, I make a list of the ways Matthew and I are most opposite.

HEIGHT
Matthew is tall (like Cher). I am short (like Sonny).
CONVERSATIONAL HABITS
Matthew listens and is quiet and full of secrets. I tend
to blab everything, yak yak yak.
OUTLOOK ON LIFE
Matthew’s worldview is based on factual data. I am
fueled by vision, poetry, and inspiration (and
DONUTS ha ha)

I stop here, flummoxed. These are certainly differences, but are they opposites? What if I took them to the extreme? Wore flat shoes to emphasize my lack of altitude, spouted confessional poetry nonstop, started reading palms in the Red Room? Would it turn the tide of X in my direction? It’s a long shot, but I resolve to at least try the flat shoes. I usually wear boots with a chunky little heel, but tomorrow I will dig out the old Mary Janes.

I read my list one more time. The most opposite thing about Matthew and me, I can barely bring myself to admit, is that I am KOO-KOO-IN-LOVE with him— but him, with me, not. I wish I could think of a way for this most different of our differences to further my cause. Right now, I can’t.

I turn out the light.

Maybe the shoes will help.

11

The Second Experiment Falls Flat,
As the Crème de la Plooz of Footwear
Proves That Opposites Only
Sometimes Attract

T
he thing about Mary Janes is once you put them on, the rest of your outfit looks weird, and before you know it your three favorite pairs of jeans are in a pile on the floor and you’re wearing a dark skirt and a peach-colored sweater and tying your hair back with a ribbon. By the time I’m done getting dressed—egads! I’m dressed for Brearley!

I fully expect my mom to comment on this suspiciously un-Felicia-like outfit before I leave for school. It would be nice if I could sneak out without her seeing me. Maybe if I tippy-toe on the tips of my Mary Janes—

“You look very nice,” Mom says as she adds a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to her carrot-zucchini juice and chugs it down. (If not for chocolate-flavored soy milk, I would never open our refrigerator.)

I look very nice. Okay, I can deal with that. It’s good to know I can pull off such a dorky ensemble, should I end up at Brearley after all. In fact, by the time I arrive at the Pound, I am feeling not so dorky. Maybe it’s because the tattooed skinhead guy with the ferret who I see every morning on the M15 bus actually offered me his seat today. He’s never done that before.

So why today? Do flat shoes give a Kitten some strange power over Dawgs? If so, this renders bogus a hefty percentage of shoe advertising, which trumpets the unwearably sky-high heel as the crème de la plooz of Sex Kitten footwear.

But, as Matthew might say, a true scientist must Observe and Describe the phenomena she actually, truly sees. She shouldn’t put blinders on, stubbornly searching only for what she expects, or even wishes, to see.

No matter how hard she might be wishing.

“You look so little!” says Matthew, who’s on all fours with his head in a fireplace. “Did you shrink?”

After a thorough search of the Pound, I’ve found Matthew in the fourth-floor study. It’s freezing in here, and at the request of Ms. Blank next door in the math room, Matthew is trying to start a fire. But he cranes his head around long enough to notice that I’ve shrunk.

“It’s the shoes,” I say. He still doesn’t get it. “They’re flat.”

“Huh,” he says. “Aren’t all shoes flat?”

Matthew Dwyer, sometimes I could strangle you. But before I can apply mental Wite-Out to that alarming thought, Jess pops in the door, chattering away with what can only be described as sitar-studded enthusiasm.

“You’ll NEVER guess what I did! OH! Fee, LOOK how cute you are today!” exclaims Jess. “You should wear skirts more often. You have SUCH gorgeous legs!”

Yes, Jessica Kornbluth is the kind of excellent Kittenpal who always makes a point of saying the right thing in front of the right Dawg. One of many reasons we adore her.

“You need more kindling,” she says to Matthew, ever helpful. “I’ll go get some. But first! GUESS who’s coming to the Pound tomorrow?”

Mr. Frasconi’s not due back till Monday. The Easter bunny? No, Easter’s not for weeks yet. My mind is still reeling from the utter, pathetic failure of the Mary Janes (one might say they fell flat, if one had the heart left to make puns), so right now I’m not putting two and two together that quickly.

“Who?” says Matthew, giving up on the fire and turning around, his face streaked with ash.

“Doris Jean AMBERSON, that’s who!” says Jess. “After talking it out with my parents, it was clear they just didn’t want me hanging out at Deej’s school after I got punched there! But there’s no reason not to continue our tutoring program HERE! At the Pound!”

“How did you convince her to come?” I say, standing up extra straight to compensate for my shrunkenness.

“I asked her!” says Jess, grinning. “And she said she’d ask her parents, and THEY said she should try it so she could ‘come down off her stubborn high horse and see for herself what a different school was like.’ They’re not too happy about those tough friends of hers, either,” says Jess. “I can’t wait for you to meet her!”

“Perhaps she’d be interested in seeing the rabbits?” suggests Matthew hospitably.

“OH!” cries Jess. “Matthew! That would be AMAZING! Thanks so much, I bet she’d love it.” Jess beams at me, her world in perfect tidy order. “I’ll go get the kindling,” she says, all but dancing out of the room.

I’m glad Jess is so happy, but it’s only in-my-head glad. My heart is still flattened flat as a Mary Jane under the weight of this footwear fiasco. I know the feeling will pass, as feelings almost always do, but until then—

“Jess is very—impressive,” says Matthew, oh-so-casual. “She has a logical approach to things.”

“Yup,” I say. Maybe I can borrow a pair of real shoes from someone?

“What color would you say her hair was?” I hear a Matthew-like voice saying. “It’s not really red, but it’s not really brown, either.”

“Dunno,” I mumble. Even gym sneakers would be better than Nightmare on Mary Jane Street. But Kat’s feet are too big, and Jess’s too small.

“I’m always fascinated by people who are so POSITIVE and OPTIMISTIC,” Matthew says, with uncharacteristic emphaticness.

WHAT?

Okay. Matthew not being in love with me, I’m getting used to.

Matthew not being in love with anybody, I can totally handle.

But don’t tell me Matthew likes Jess. That would be too much to bear.

“I wonder if she has any interest in science?” he muses. “She’d be an excellent researcher.”

Something called REALITY crashes down around me, like the deafening ocean surf at Rockaway Beach, where I remember going years ago with my mom and Stuart, the only post-Dad boyfriend of hers I’ve ever actually met. Stuart, whom I never saw again after that torturous August day, with its hour-long subway rides to and from the beach and the bad hot dogs and burning sand and gallons of sunblock in between.

Of COURSE Matthew likes Jess! Jess is wonderful, energetic, a doer. She’s extremely cute, in her Little Orphan Annie kind of way (I believe “auburn” is the word you’re looking for, Matthew!). And she’s logical. A realist. Incredibly smart. Just like Matthew.

I’ll say that again:

JUST LIKE MATTHEW DWYER.

So much for opposites attracting! It seems my Mary Janes have worked EXACTLY the magic X-mojo I was hoping for, but with the usual tragic navigational flaw.

Yes, thanks to my footwear, the room has FILLED with X! And NONE of it is sticking to ME!

“I bet she’ll really like the rabbits,” says Matthew, turning back to the fireplace. It’s not clear if he means Deej or Jess. “Don’t you think so?”

“Of course she will,” I say. My cheeks are so hot I could start that fire by sticking my face in it, kindling or no kindling. “Everybody likes rabbits.”

I am sitting at the counter of the Moonbeam Diner, alone, eating a slice of cherry pie with no enjoyment whatsoever. And the very, very, very last person I want to see right now is Randall.

“Hi!” says Randall, appearing out of nowhere. “I didn’t know you came here. I love this place.”

Before I can say anything that might persuade him to GO AWAY, he’s on the stool next to me. “Wow!” he says. “You look so pretty!”

I start to conjure up a wisecrack about how surprised he sounds, but he babbles on. “I mean, you always look nice. But today you look extra nice. There’s something about your hair that way. It’s nice to be able to, uh, see your ears.”

“Thanks,” I say, fervently wishing one of us would disappear.

“Your eye looks better, too,” he says. My ears, my eye. What’s next, my glorious elbows?

“I’m wearing a lot of concealer,” I say. “A
lot
.”

“Good,” says Randall. “That’s good.” He seems encouraged that I haven’t run away yet, even after that freakish barrage of body-part compliments. “Hey,” he says in a different voice, “about that poem I wrote . . .”

“The seasonal reference was masterfully done,” I say, sounding more bitter than sincere.

“Thanks. Anyway—when I wrote it, I was just trying to apologize. I didn’t want you to think, like, you know . . .”

I think I do know what he’s trying to say, but since he’s hell-bent on having this conversation right now, when I am so not in the mood, I might as well make him work for it. “Think what?” I ask, all cruel innocence.

“That I was like, uh, hitting on you.”

“But you already hit me!” I wisecrack. He’s so teasable and I’m in such a bad temper, I can’t help myself.

“I know!” says Randall, growing exasperated. “Listen, Felicia, I think you’re a really nice girl and all. You’re smart, and pretty, and, I mean, I like you a lot. But I know you like Matthew, and so I didn’t want to be gross. I just think you’re cool. You know?”

What’s funny-sad, or more sad-funny, to be accurate, is how sitting here, hearing Randall profess his love for me, is so pathetically familiar. Even if I weren’t in such a horrible mood, he’d seem sort of fumblingly sweet and even likable, but it wouldn’t change how I feel.

Just like—but then my cheeks start to go cherry-pie red again, so I have to take a few calming breaths, since Randall’s right here, mooning over me in the Moonbeam—

—just exactly like how the Search for X, though it might get me a first-place prize at the science fair, a job at NASA, and a full scholarship to Harvard, seems increasingly unlikely to change anything at all between me and Matthew.

Except, maybe, for the worse.

Poor me! Poor Randall! Poor unrequited lovers everywhere!

And then, my Kittenbrain desperate to think about anybody’s unrequited-love woes but my own—

—and maybe, just maybe, wanting to console my flattened heart by finding out—purely for entertainment’s sake, mind you—just How Much Randall Loves Me—

—I remember Kat and gross Dmitri, and that I need to ask Randall for a big, big favor.

“Randall, listen,” I say, sweet as pie. “I need to ask you for a big, big favor.”

“Sure,” my willing X-slave replies, smiling and clueless, eager to be of service. “Anything you want.”