Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love (7 page)

The hall leading to the music room is dark, and the scent of sandalwood is everywhere. We sidestep past a dozen strange black suitcases, each in the unexpected shape of an exclamation point: long and narrow with a bulb on the end. The suitcases are well worn and well traveled, covered with baggage claim stickers and labeled FRAGILE in every conceivable language.

Inside, Jacob is sitting cross-legged on the floor, his sitar in his lap. One look at the long-necked instrument, its metal strings leading down to a small, round body made of an actual gourd, and I realize those exclamation-point suitcases must be sitar cases.

Jacob is chanting something that sounds sort of Morse code-y: “DA din-din da, DA din-din da, DA tin-tin ta, te-te tin-tin da . . .”

“Good, Shashti,” says Dervish, pushing aside a gauzy curtain so we can enter. “A little faster now.”

Jacob chants faster. The music room has beautiful French doors at one end and two enormous, multipaned windows at the other, overlooking a garden. The walls are painted a dark, glossy maroon and hung with tapestries, all embroidered with scenes from Hindu mythology.

Dervish sees me looking at the tapestries. “Those depict Tara,” she explains. “The great mother, who reminds us to be still and look within.”

I, of course, know all about this Goddess-Archetype-Within-That’s-Inside-Me, but now does not seem the time to show off my grasp of the esoteric. Dervish smiles and gestures for us to sit. There are no chairs, but the floor is layered with patterned carpets and many large, lavishly embroidered pillows. The walls, the tapestries, the carpets, the pillows—everything is saturated with color and design. Vivid gold against dark purple, saffron orange, deep midnight blue, with bits of sparkling mirror woven into the fabrics.

Dervish folds herself neatly onto a pillow. In contrast to the kaleidoscopic surroundings, she wears a plain white T-shirt and a pair of baggy acid-wash jeans, which strike me as a bit 1980s, to tell the truth. Her gray-blond hair is cut in a neat bob, and she would not seem out of place shopping at Bloomingdale’s. “Shashti tells me you are pilgrims, searching for enlightenment?” she asks.

“Shashti is my Indian name,” explains Jacob.

“You search, but already you are wiser than many who call themselves teachers,” says Dervish, “because you don’t chase false images. You search for the truth. You search for love.”

“We’re, uh, doing a science fair project,” says Matthew.

“Of course,” she says. “And you love each other?”

Apparently, neither Matthew nor I know what to say to this, since we basically just stammer and go “Uh” while pulling at our damp socks.

“Of course,” Dervish repeats, as if we’ve answered. “Such a strong connection. The past lives are many, many. And what can Dervish tell you about love that you don’t already know?”

For a split second I wonder what it would be like if I started to refer to myself in the third person. Sorry, Mom, Felicia has no intention of cleaning her room! What can Felicia tell you about dust bunnies that you don’t already know? “We would like a specific example of two people falling in love,” I say. “We want to know how it happens, so we can design experiments that will recreate the phenomenon under laboratory conditions.”

Matthew looks at me admiringly. I realize I’m starting to sound like him. Does love do that to people?

Dervish nods and turns to Jacob. “Play for me, Shashti. Tales of love require music.”

Jacob strums his sitar. It makes a pleasant, twangy sound, almost like a banjo, but as he begins to play it takes on a voice all its own, with sliding, complicated melodies in the high strings and a rhythmic droning underneath.

Dervish reaches for a small drum and starts to play along with Jacob—I mean Shashti. She strikes the drum with all the parts of her hand in turn, the palm, the fingers, the fingertips, each strike making a different sound. The drumming makes me want to clap along with the music, but I don’t, since I don’t want to miss a single syllable of what Dervish is going to say.

“I call my song ‘The Tale of Tenzin and Dervish,’ ” says Dervish, speaking in time to the music.

“Hai!” Jacob cries out. It sounds like a little yelp.

“I call my song ‘The Lovers on the Mountain,’ ” Dervish singsongs.

“Hai!” yelps Jacob. “Hai! Hai!”

Is he choking? I start a quick mental review of the Heimlich maneuver, but then I realize this is the sitar-player equivalent of shouting “Rock on!” to the singer.

“I call my song ‘The True Language of Love,’ ” chants Dervish.

Matthew has closed his eyes. He’s leaning back on a big purple-orange-golden pillow and looks relaxed and peaceful. I decide to close my eyes, too.

Jacob sways and plays. The chord underneath stays constant, but the music is continually changing nevertheless. And now, Dervish begins to sing her long-awaited Raga-Saga of Love.

Unfortunately for us, it’s in Hindi.

And yet, while she sings and Jacob plays, a whole story unspools in my head, like a dream but clearer. It’s about me and Matthew. We’re climbing the side of a mountain. He slips, or maybe I’m the one who slips. Arms stretch out across a great chasm; we reach out to each other. . . .

Dervish has another student, so there isn’t time to get a full line-by-line translation of her song, which was made up on the spot in any case and would be difficult to reconstruct. But the quick summary she gives as she shows us out of the house goes something like this:

Many years ago, she was trekking in the mountains of Nepal with a Sherpa guide named Tenzin. In a sudden storm, both of them lost their footing and nearly slid off the side of the mountain. Somehow they scrambled back onto the trail, but Tenzin had broken his left ankle and Dervish had broken her right big toe. By lashing their injured legs together, three-legged-race style, they were able to make it back to base camp, and there, on a slippery slope of the Himalayas, they became passionate lovers until their bones healed and the lack of a common spoken language started to be somewhat of a drag, and anyway her return plane ticket from Kathmandu was about to expire and she was seriously jonesing for American comfort food like macaroni and cheese. So it was time to say farewell.

“When you’ve saved each other’s lives, the karmic debt is powerful,” Dervish says as we retrieve our wet coats and Matthew’s umbrella. Matthew seems dazed. “It creates a strong, strong energy between you.” She looks nostalgic. “Makes things pretty steamy, if you know what I mean!”

I wish I did know, but the only steam rising between me and my Darling Dazed Dawg is coming from a manhole cover on Lexington Avenue, streaming up in dirty gray puffs as we cross the street. The rain has slowed to a drizzle and everything is wet, wet, wet. Jacob has his sitar case wrapped in a plastic garment bag.

“See?” Jacob says as we duck under the awning of the King’s Palace Hotel, on the east side of Lex. “I told you she was cool. She’s an heiress or something. I think her grandfather invented Kleenex.”

“You sound great when you play, Jacob,” I say. “What was that ‘dit dit da’ thing you were saying?”

“That’s just counting,” he says. “Indian music has, like, a lot of beats.”

“What kind of car does your father drive?” asks Matthew. He’s craning his neck, looking down Lex. The King’s Palace is where my dad is supposed to pick me up, but traffic looks gridlocked.

“A Camry,” I say. “He’ll be here. You guys don’t have to wait.”

“Nonsense! And leave a fair damsel in the rain?” says the noble Sir Jacob, shaking the drops out of his platinum dreads like a wet white poodle.

“Course we’ll wait,” says Matthew, leaning out into the drizzle. He’s been strangely quiet since we left Dervish’s house.

The doorman of the hotel has been standing behind us this whole time, in his red and black uniform and big bearskin hat, just like the famously silent and stony-faced guards at Buckingham Palace. But this is New York City, where everyone has something to say.

“What poifect gentlemen!” he growls, his New Yawk accent thick as the incense at Dervish’s house. “You must be a special young lady to have two such gallant chevaliers!”

I want to point out to him that, technically, chevaliers would be on horseback, which neither Matthew nor Jacob are, but just then a white Camry with New Jersey plates pulls up in front of the hotel and honks.
Beeeeeeep!
Beep beep!
That’s my dad.

“Hey, sugar!” he calls out, rolling down his window. “Climb in, we’re running late!” The trunk of the Camry pops open. I throw in my overnight bag and stretch high on tippy-toe to close the trunk. My dad gets out of the car to help, but Matthew is already beside me, easily slamming the trunk down.

“Dad, this is Matthew Dwyer. Matthew, this is my dad.” This unlikely combination of words sounds fake even as I’m saying it.

“You’re the one with the science project, right?” says Dad, shaking Matthew’s hand. “Super.” Dad never used to say super till he met Laura. “The three of us are supposed to have a meeting or something?”

“An interview, yes,” says Matthew. “When would be convenient?”

“Lunch next week? I’ll check my calendar and we’ll pick a day. Oh, you have school . . .” My dad’s voice trails off.

“It’s for a science project. It’s fine, Dad. We’re allowed to meet you for lunch, they won’t mind.” I’m starting to drip. “Can we talk about this later? When we’re not, like, in a monsoon?”

“How do you do, sir? I’m Jacob!” Jacob calls loudly from under the awning. “Forgive my appalling lack of manners, but I have to protect my instrument!”

“Oh, howdy there,” says Dad, confused by the presence of a second teenage boy when he thought there was only one. The thing about my dad is, he expects to be confused by my life, so he doesn’t make that extra effort to understand stuff. He just focuses on what he does understand, like giving people rides. “No problem,” he says. “Can I give you boys a lift anywhere?”

“No thanks,” says Matthew. “I need to walk.”

Much as I would love to have Matthew along for a ride in the Camry, I understand his point. I’d need to walk, too, if I’d just heard the Secret of Love revealed in a language I couldn’t understand. Which, in fact, did just happen to me, and I wish I could say something to Matthew about it, but my dad is standing right here. “Looking forward to that lunch, sir,” Matthew says, wiping the rain out of his eyes.

“Right, Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday’s better—I’ll check my book and let Felicia know. Okay, let’s hit the road, sugar, gotta go gotta go.” My dad gives Matthew a hearty handshake, waves in the general direction of Jacob, and scurries back behind the wheel of the Camry. There’s a solid thunk as he slams the car door.

Matthew looks at me. I feel a big drip of water running down the side of my nose.

“You’re all wet!” he says.

“You too,” I say. “Matthew—”

“Did you see anything?” he asks in a rush. “While Dervish was singing?”

“Yes,” I say, surprised by his question. “I mean, sort of.” It’s true, I did have a vision, but is this really the time to tell Matthew about me and him on the mountain?

“I did, too. Like a movie in my head. Weird stuff I—I can’t really remember,” he says, his hair plastered to his forehead. “Isn’t that dumb?”

“I’ll see you Monday,” I say, but what I mean is, don’t worry, lots of people have visions, like Joan of Arc or Hildegard of Bingen, for example, and sometimes it means they’re schizophrenic and other times it’s just migraines but a few of them are probably channeling something important from the Great Beyond and by the way I am still CRAZY IN LOVE with you, Matthew Dwyer!

“See ya,” he says.

And Matthew kisses me, quickly, right on my cold wet cheek.

As if on cue, it starts to pour again. I run to the passenger-side door of the Camry, waving at Jacob. “Bye, Jacob! Thanks!”

Matthew slams my door shut. I wave to him through the rain-speckled car window. As my dad pulls out into the traffic on Lex, I could swear I see an actual twinkle in the eye of the King’s Palace doorman, like a happy firefly in the rain. My dad honks his horn.

Beeeeeeeeep! Beep Beep!

7

French Toast! For Breakfast!
Everything’s Peachy in Lauraville!

M
y whole life since I was a wee little Kitten, every time I traveled over a bridge, whether by car or bus or riding a train, some well-intentioned grown-up would say in an excited voice, “Look! We’re going over a bridge!” And I’d look. And in fact, it’s always pretty interesting.

New York City has some of the coolest bridges ever in the annals of bridgedom. On the East Side there are those three famous sisters, the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges. They connect Manhattan to Brooklyn and vice versa, and they’re so close together that no matter which one you’re on, you can see that traffic is moving faster on the other two. Also in Brooklyn is the Verrazano Bridge, an astonishing piece of engineering marred only by the fact that once you get across it you’re in Staten Island. More choices for crossing the East River are available farther north, in Queens, most notably the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and the mazelike Triborough Bridge, which inexplicably manages to go three places at once.

But the crème de la plooz, as Jacob would say, the people’s choice, is the George Washington Bridge, which is on the West Side of Manhattan and spans the Hudson River at 178th Street. For one thing, it’s a beautiful sight, with its deeply curved suspension cables and open latticework of steel. It has a more glamorous setting than the East River bridges, with the elegant prewar apartment buildings of Washington Heights on one side and the lush green cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades on the other.

But the most crucial thing about the George Washington Bridge is this: it’s the slender, twinkling leash that tethers New York City to America. We are just a little island out here, after all, a chunk of ancient rock sticking up from a deep harbor that just happens to be the center of the human-made universe.

That’s why, whenever I’m off to one of my twice-a-month weekends in New Jersey, I always make a mental note of the moment when we get to the other side of the Gee Dubya, as we city folk call it. It’s like when you’re in a plane that’s landing and you hold your breath, waiting to feel the bump of the wheels touching the ground. We are now arriving on the mainland. You are entering the Dad Zone, and thank you for flying Camry Express.

“Moose had fleas!” Dad says as he drives. The wipers give a lazy rhythmic thump every ten seconds or so. “We had to bomb the house. What a pain.”
Thump.

“You should use herbal flea collars. They’re nontoxic,” I say.
Thump. Thump.

The wipers thump, Dad hmmphs, and we drive. Toll plaza, highway, strip malls, and multiplexes. Eventually we reach the exit that leads to Oakville, New Jersey, also known as Lauraville: The Town That Ate My Dad.

“We’re getting pizza for dinner, okay?” Dad says, turning the wheel with one hand and rummaging for his cell phone with the other. “I’ll call now and we can pick it up on the way home.” This is another quirk of life on the mainland. You have to pick up your pizza. In the city, the pizza comes to you.

“Pizza’s fine,” I say. I close my eyes and let my head lean against the clammy, vibrating window. The nerve endings in the spot on my cheek where Matthew kissed me are still doing the macarena. Has a glimmer of X been spotted? I need to talk to the Kittens, quick!

Once at Chez LauraDad, we devour the bready, cheesy Jersey pie from pretty floral-rimmed plates at the big dining room table.

“Charles will be so excited to see you! He’s getting very tall!” chitchats the ever-dieting Laura as she nibbles her way through half a slice. “Did your dad tell you they’re reopening the pool club in June? How fun! I hope you’ll come out lots and lots, that would be super! It must be awful spending summers in the city.”

Charles is Laura’s son, who’s four and usually spends weekends with HIS dad, the former Mr. Laura. But it seems they’ve summoned Charles back for Sunday so we can all be together, Brady Bunch style. Super.

“So that’s the boy your mom told me about, huh?” Dad says, plopping another slice on my plate. “Seems pleasant.”

Matthew? Pleasant? Brilliant, mysterious, lanky and witty and oh-so-lovable Matthew, pleasant? It’s like saying the Taj Mahal is a cute little house.

“He’s very nice,” I say. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I add, to avoid any Mrs. Dwyer–like confusion.

“Better not be!” says Dad. He thinks this is funny.

“It’s a science project,” I say.

“Super,” says Dad, through a mouthful of pie. “You still into the poetry? Or is science the new thing?”

Poor, poor Dad. I used to get really mad when he couldn’t keep track of the simplest facts about my life. But then Mom told me the story about the empty boat. It’s an old Buddhist story. A monk was fishing from a little boat in a river, and he looked up and saw another boat heading right toward him. He got very angry and started calling to the other boat to turn away, watch where you’re going, stop, STOP! But it kept coming, and the monk got so furious he jumped up and down, yelling and hollering, till he almost fell out of his own boat. And then the other boat floated right up to him and he saw it was empty. It was just being carried along by the current. And the monk laughed and laughed.

After dinner, Dad and Laura tune the TV to something they think I’ll like, and Moose climbs on the sofa and snuggles his big golden head in my lap. But I can’t stop yawning, so nobody objects when I excuse myself and retire to the room Dad and Laura call Felicia’s room, even though it has nothing to do with me. It’s all princessey and decorated in pale pastel colors, like an Easter egg. It does, however, have a phone.

My first Kittencall is to Kat. Before I can even tell her about Dervish’s house, the music, the visions, the KISS, she starts babbling at me. It is incredibly unlike Kat to babble. Something must be up.

“
Bleeping blintzky bleepskanya!
Felicia, you are reading my mind to call me! The grossest possible thing has happened! It’s about Dmitri.”

Who’s Dmitri? I think, and then I remember: the creepy new accompanist! The gross old guy with the weird vibe.

“At the end of our rehearsal today he gave me a card,” babbles Kat. “I didn’t even open it till I got home, because I was too busy thinking about all the mistakes I made during rehearsal, and that the program I had picked was stupid and boring and maybe I should throw out all the pieces and choose different ones.”

“You always say stuff like that before a recital,” I say.

“Yes! And it’s always true! But that’s not the point!” cries Kat into the phone. “The point is, it’s a love letter! Three pages in tiny little script . . .

“ ‘And so, my darling Katarina, I finally must bring myself
to confess these feelings that are burning so hotly in my
bosom. I watch you play for day after day and I dream I
could be your violin! Embraced by you and made to sing
with joy!

Yours, in every way,

Dmitri’

“That’s how it ends. I feel sick,” says Kat.

“ ‘Hotly in my bosom’ is pretty sickening,” I agree.

“I don’t mean the prose! It’s just gross! He’s like, thirty. And I can’t stand that he’s been watching me this whole time and thinking stuff like this without my knowing!”

We agree that Dmitri is gross, the letter is gross, and it’s totally unfair that now she has to decide what to do about it because all she wants is to have a good recital. It’s way too late to find a new accompanist, and despite his über-grossness Dmitri is an excellent pianist. And even if she could replace him, she’d have to make up some reason OR tell her dad about the letter.

“And that would be very bad,” Katarina says in a low voice. “He’d be so mad. I don’t want to think what might happen.”

Poor Kat! I give her what assurances I can and tell her I’ll see her at the Pound on Monday.

It’s too late to call Jess now, so the tale of my kiss from Matthew will have to remain untold a little longer. As I slide under the smooth pastel-colored comforter, I tell it to myself once more, changing a few details as I go—move the kiss lipward, add mushy dialogue, tag on a happy ending and fade-out, in a little heart shape.

I also think about Kat’s dilemma. The source of Dmitri’s weird vibe has been revealed, and it is X. The dark side of X, the gross, unwanted X from an inappropriate person who has taken things way too far in his own mind.

I think this, and all of a sudden my cheeks flush hot and red like Jersey pizza sauce.

Is this what I’m doing with Matthew?

GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!

When I wake up after a night of strange, sandalwood-scented dreams, I resolve to monitor my own X more closely. The last thing I want is to be the gross
³
Dmitri of Matthew’s world. That would be the biggest ewwwwww of all.

So many thoughts in my head! I know I’m supposed to be on poetry hiatus, but different rules apply in Lauraville, where I must use any means necessary to maintain my mental equilibritude. I grab my notebook and my second-favorite pen (because it’s closer) and begin to work.

A Sonnet of X Gone Wrong

When X arrives, unwelcome as a flea,
Repel the itch with herbs and oil of tea tree.
Resolve to be a friend he’s glad to see,
And not a total freak like weird Dmitri.

I’m trying to think of a better rhyme for “Dmitri” when there’s a tap on the bedroom door.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Laura says, waltzing right in. “Great! I wanted to catch you before you got dressed. Look, I bought you some clothes!”

Laura drops a heap of peachy-colored stuff on the foot of the bed. That’s when she notices that I’m writing.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable working at the desk?” she says. “It’s so hard to get ink stains out of the sheets.”

Felicia’s Private Kitten Directive Number Iambic Pentameter: A Poem Cannot Be Written at a Desk.

“I’m fine here,” I say. “Thanks for the clothes.”

She brightens. “I was at the mall and they were having a fantastic sale. I thought this color would really flatter your complexion. I hope the girls’ sizes fit!” Laura adds. “You’re developing such a womanly figure!”

Furball alert: I gag on the word “developing.” Gag.

“I’m gonna go tidy up before Hurricane Charles gets here!” she chirps. “And then we’ve got some superfun stuff planned! And French toast for breakfast! Okay?”

I’d prefer plain cereal, but okay! It’s Sunday and this is what Dad and Laura do. Shop at the mall! And make big breakfasts! And plan outings! I picture all the exclamation points of Laura’s speech as little sitars, swaying and twanging emphatically away. This strikes me as so hilarious I start to laugh out loud.

“Great!” says Laura, delighted by my obvious delight. “I’ll make extra! With lots of syrup!”

By the time I get dressed and down to breakfast I’m fairly presentable, in my Pumas and dark hip-hugger jeans, with a black zippered hoodie layered over a peachy long-sleeved sweater. I push up the sleeves of the hoodie and make sure you can see the peachy sweater cuffs sticking out. This is a reasonable compromise, in my opinion.

If Laura is disappointed she doesn’t show it. “See, Charles! I told you she was here!” she says. Hurricane Charles arrived while I was in the shower, apparently. He is actually crazy about me, which is fine.

“Feeeeeesha!” he yells, and runs to give me a big hug. We do our elaborate ritual of high fives.

“French toast, anyone?” says Dad.

“Ewwwwwww!” says Charles. “I want pancakes!”

“We’re having French toast!” announces Laura, like this is a fresh tidbit of happy news.

“Hey, champ,” says Dad, his voice sinking into a lower register. “It’s good. You’ll like it.”

“Pancakes! French toast is too eggy!” says Charles, putting his arms straight down with his hands in little fists. I kind of see his point.

“But Feesha’s having French toast! Right, Feesha? Aren’t you having French toast?” Like, when did Laura start calling me Feesha? I have to end this, now.

“Chuck-o,” I say. “You are a person of refined taste. I want to take you to the very best restaurant in all of New York. It’s called the Moonbeam Diner. And everyone who works there is in a moon costume.”

“Like astronauts?” he says, frowning but intrigued.

“Sort of. And when you get there, one of the moon people gives you a menu that’s waaaay big, as big as you are. And inside is a list of every single kind of food there is.”

“Pancakes?” says Chuck-o.

“Ten kinds of pancakes,” I say. “And at the Moonbeam Diner you can have anything you want, because they have this big menu to choose from. But we’re not there today. Today we’re at your house.”

“My house,” he says. “No menu.”

“No pancakes,” I say.

“Just French toast,” concludes Charles, scrunching up his face. “Can we play astronauts?”

“After we eat,” I say. Laura puts two plates of French toast on the table in front of us. She’s biting her lip. Dad is already eating and reading, in his own Sunday-paper world. And it’s not even the
Times
.

After breakfast the day was spent mostly in the car, with stops at the petting zoo, the mall (there’s always a reason to stop at the mall, it seems), the handmade ice cream place, and a McDonald’s drive-through, after Charles went into meltdown and started screaming for a Happy Meal. After he got it he gave me the chicken nuggets, ate a few fries, and busied himself with the crappy toy du jour for exactly five minutes. Then he fell asleep in his car seat.

Dad drops off a sleeping Charles and a tired-but-still-“Wasn’t that super?”-ing Laura at their house before driving me home. I give Charles a tiny kiss goodbye on his head, but he doesn’t stir.

By the time the Camry makes it to the East Village it’s after eight. It’s cold and dark out, but the kind of cold and dark that’s full of streetlights and yappy dogs being walked and boisterous people spilling out of cafes. Truly, there’s no place like home.

“Bye, kiddo!” Dad says. “See you at lunch with what’s-his-name. Wednesday or Thursday. I’ll check my book and call you.” We smooch and he waits till I’m safe inside the building before he drives away.