by Shannon Hale
“Ow! Oh!”
“Really?” she said, rubbing her knuckles. “Did I really hurt you? You’re just faking it to make me feel good.”
“No, not faking.” He was still hunched over. “That was a proper punch.”
She clapped her hands. “Wow! I’ve never hurt someone before, especially not someone who deserved it so much. Can we do it again?”
“I’m certain I’ll do something else to deserve it before long. In the meantime, mind if we step outside and let the night air cool down the swelling?”
He offered his arm again and she took it. His left elbow was becoming familiar. Mike and Celeste were still dancing, Mike’s back to her. Becky waved, indicating that they should join them outside, and Celeste nodded, holding up one finger.
No one else was out in the chilly February air. Felix gave her his tuxedo jacket. The sleeves reached her palms, and she thought of how Mike’s coats engulfed her fingertips.
She reached to touch Felix’s red cheek, then stopped herself. “Is it sore? Does it hurt to the touch?”
“It does, actually.”
She giggled. “That was so great!”
“I’m so happy to have obliged.”
“You did offer.”
“I did. And I deserved it.”
The cold hadn’t touched Becky yet. She folded her arms and leaned against the stone balustrade, looking over the sporadic lights of Salt Lake City, up to the black outline of the mountains against a sparkly, starry sky. Beside her Felix was quiet too. She figured he was bored and was waiting for Mike and Celeste before restarting the conversation. That was fine. At the moment, she couldn’t drum up enough energy to make herself be entertaining. She sensed his eyes on her, probably gazing at the Fred Meyer surgical-steel-post earring with genuine pink enamel fl owers in her right ear. That little beauty should charm him more than anything she could say.
She felt deeply content to be out of the house and in a world full of air and a moon and Felix Callahan too, even if he was contemplating the abomination that was her cheap earring. The air between them was becoming warm, like the pockets of tepid water her toes found when swimming in a cool lake. And she felt—she actually felt a little tug on her chest. On her heart. As if her heart were tied to his by a string. No doubt a hallucination caused by new-mommy dementia, she thought.
It was strange, though, wasn’t it? That she was standing in silence with Felix Callahan, and neither of them seemed the least bit uncomfortable? That he’d come at all, that he’d wanted to dance with her. If she were a different kind of woman, she’d suspect Felix was falling in love with her. Which of course was impossible. But she was in the right setting—attending a ball, dressed in a gown (or at least, something of that genus), leaning against a marble balustrade with a handsome, famous, wealthy man. It was a shame that such a moment was wasted on Becky Jack, married mother of four. She tried to imagine what it would be like if she were someone else, some single, childless beauty, staring up at a sly moon. It was a scrap of a moon really, a fingernail clipping, hardly worth contemplating. If this were a true romantic moment in a screenplay, Becky would beef the moon up, round it out, make it silver and startling in its beauty. She relaxed into a sigh and got carried away rewriting the moment.
Rachel [that’s the name Becky assigns the single, childless beauty] sighs under the lusciously full moon. She turns to Felix, and sees that he’s not looking at her earring in disgust, but at her face . . . with longing.
RACHEL: It’s good that we’re together. I can’t believe I just said that. Why did I just say that?
She wants to take it back, yet feels in her bones that it is one of the truest statements that she’s ever spoken.
FELIX: Yes, I think so too.
Felix speaks with a little smolder in his voice.
RACHEL: Oh.
FELIX: I’ve changed since our first meeting. You have changed me, Rachel. I can’t stop thinking about you. The thought of you fills my very senses.
RACHEL: But that’s ridiculous. We’re so different. I mean, I’m just me, and you’re . . . you’re you. You can’t possibly—
He takes her hand and kisses the backs of her fingers, once. Chills travel down her arm and through her whole body. She has nothing left to say.
The moment slows. The moment feels like silver. The night isn’t cold, the lights of the city rise up and surround her like stars crowning her head. She feels her knees go soft, her middle woozy. Man, she really is tired. [Strike that—she’s not tired at all. She’s young and vivacious and twenty-nine.]
He cups his hand around her jaw, running a thumb over her cheek.
FELIX: Rachel, I don’t know what I’m feeling . . . but I . . . I think you feel it too, don’t you?
She nods, afraid to move, afraid to think. She stares into those eyes now, feeling like a heroine in a romantic movie. She labels it—Romantic. It helps her brain process what is going on. Felix Callahan touching her face, feeling something for her. Does she feel it too? He starts to lean forward, inviting her body to do the same. She should turn away, she should run away, this must be some kind of joke on her. But instead she’s staring back at him, unresisting. Did she lean too?
Kiss him, instinct urges. Kiss him and see if it’s like being struck by lightning, if your world changes from mundane to movie, if everything you thought was true is a lie and you fall wildly in love.
And as he leans and she almost leans, the synapses in her brain begin to fire like a lightning storm. A kiss. Now. Here. Is this her moment? Has she been living in a movie without knowing it, her story leading up to this? The rush of warmth through her limbs, the frantic kick of her heart, the deliciously cold jolt in her belly—maybe this is the best thing in the world. And forget pragmatics and sanity—live for such a moment as this. Live.
She is definitely leaning now. Her body sighs—her joints soften, her breath relaxes out of her lungs, her eyes even start to close—and his lips are so near . . .
“You’re cold?”
“What?” Becky jerked around much faster than Felix’s question could possibly warrant. No more daydreaming. Sheesh, thank goodness mind reading only existed in comic books, because if anyone had overheard her thoughts just then, she’d have to bury herself alive.
“I was wondering if you’re cold. You shivered.”
“No, I’m fine.” Goose bumps lined her arms, thankfully hidden by his jacket.
“Mind if I put my arm round you?” he asked.
“What?”
Felix smiled. “You love that word.”
“What? I mean . . .” Definitely no more daydreaming. Just imagining that had made her feel all swoony and discombobulated. And had he just asked to put an arm around her? She took a very tiny step away.
Where were Celeste and Mike? Standing beside Felix (post-daydream) was becoming chancy. He was her number one, after all, and here they were, alone. Well, alone besides her pink maternity dress, the bulk of which should count as its own separate entity. But still.
She turned to face Felix, meaning to say something smart, churn up the sudden solemnity, find something to laugh at again. But his look made her forget what she’d been about to say—he was intense, no humor about him now. She’d never noticed his eyes before, not even on the screen (she’d been too wrapped up in the whole package to analyze the parts). But seeing them now made her feel as if she’d known them for years. Wise eyes, sad eyes.
“It’s good that we’re together.” She snapped her mouth closed. Had she just spoken that line aloud? Shut up, Becky, shut up!
Felix breathed out. “It’s a relief to hear you say that.”
Her mouth was gaping, and completely without her permission.
“Because the thought of you has been driving me crazy,” he said.
She barely stopped herself from saying, “What?”
“I need to ask you a favor.” He turned to her fully. His eyes took her in. They were bedroom eyes, I-vant-to-suck-your-blood eyes. She shiver
ed.
His voice was all soft and yummy, and the sound of it went inside her, down into her knees. “Becky, may I kiss you?”
Did he just say that? Not possible. She’d imagined it audibly. Maybe she was the one who’d been hit in the head.
But then his hands were on her shoulders. His look was full of purpose, his eyes saying that she was the only thing worth looking at in the whole world. She was so disconcerted she didn’t extricate herself from his hands and back away, as she surely would have had she been normal, sane Becky. That was when his lips parted just a little, and he started to lean.
Becky made a face. “Whoa, wait, hold on a sec. What are you talking about?”
“A kiss,” said Felix, raising one hand to the back of her neck. “One kiss.”
“But . . .” She laughed in disbelief. “But why?”
There was something in his look now, his quiet features, the way he glanced at her and then down again as if too shy to stare straight-on—it was more Calvin the sexy pet shop owner than the Felix who didn’t have a surplus of damns.
He’s acting, she thought.
“I need to see if what I’m feeling means what I think it means,” he said.
“You do not.”
“I do actually.”
“Balderdash. You just got thumped in the head. Wow, I didn’t know I could hit so hard. I might’ve really done some damage.”
His hands dropped from her. “Why won’t you let me kiss you? This isn’t something I envisaged we would argue about.”
“You envisaged kissing me?”
“Well . . . yes, but I was eloquent and you were rational.”
“And in your fabulous daydream, what happened next?”
“Actually it ended there, which is why I wanted to kiss you, to see what would happen next. But I’m rapidly reconsidering that desire.”
“Well, thank goodness for that, since, according to your envisaging I’m so enthralled by your sexual powers I have no self-control.”
“It’s not as if I was happy about having to kiss you.”
“What is this, some bet? Some bad-boy prank?”
“It is not a prank,” Felix said, his voice strong, his eyes angry. He slammed his fist down on the very hard marble. “I thought I was falling in love with you!”
She stared at him, and he stared at his fist, and the staring went on long enough for Becky to realize that she was finally getting cold.
“That’s crazy,” she whispered.
He wagged his head in a kind of befuddled, helpless agreement. Should she pat his shoulder consolingly? Check his pupils? Scream for security? Then it started. She tried to hold it back, but the harder she tried to hold it back, the more insistent it was, until she choked on it. Then out it came—a hard, loud laugh.
“Sorry . . . I don’t mean to . . . sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I’d rather you didn’t kiss me, if that’s all right.”
Felix leaned back and sighed, his smile cheery. “Do you know, I don’t think I’d actually fancy kissing you after all. That’s good to know.”
“Isn’t it? Man, when we got to the eye staring, I was sure I was living in Bizarro World.”
He looked over her dress, his chest shaking with a chuckle. “That really is an unsightly rig.”
“At last I get some honesty out of the man!”
“I was being honest before.”
“What, when you wanted to kiss me?” she said with a teasing smile. “When you thought you were falling in love with me?”
He shrugged. And that motion stilled her to her core, made her stand fast and look at him now, read him as she would a child she suspected of lying. But she detected no telltale signs of dishonesty. He was serious. He’d really thought—“You really thought—”
“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” he said, raising his arms in a helpless gesture. “If you were the least bit attractive—”
“Hey!”
“If I felt the smallest itch of desire for your body—”
“Take it easy now!”
“Then I could dismiss all this”—he gestured madly at his chest and head—“as mere sexual desire. That I can manage. I had a wild past before Celeste, and there are still the occasional cracks of temptation, but they are not difficult for me to overcome.”
“Wow, you are a modern-day hero.”
He ignored her. “I have never loved another woman as I love Celeste, and now you’re confusing things. This wasn’t simple desire, so naturally I assumed I was falling in love with you—”
“Naturally, because there could be no other explan—”
“. . . and I wagered that a kiss of passion could help sort it all out. But now that seems unnecessary, and I’m still left in the muddle. I find no logic to my interest in you. First off , you’re Mormon. What does it mean to be Mormon anyway?”
“That’s a nickname for people who belong to my church. It’s a Christian religion.”
“So, you read the Bible, pray, have lots of kids, go to church on Sunday and all that.”
“In a nutshell.”
He shook his head. “Sounds god-awful.”
“And you’re a cynical atheist, can’t stand children, and combine the words ‘god’ and ‘awful.’ Even if we weren’t both married, we’d make a horrific couple.”
“Well, what a relief to get that out of the way!”
“Absolutely.”
There was a shiver of silence in which Becky wondered what would happen now. Would he walk away? And she’d never see him again? Well, at least she’d have a good story to tell Mike.
But Felix leaned against the balustrade, looked at the moon, and said, almost shyly, “But I’m feeling rather protective of you, as if I don’t want to let you go.”
She stared at the moon too, that pathetic little shred of it, her recent laugh still curling her lips. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“What does this mean?”
“Have you considered that maybe—this is a wild idea but hear me out—maybe you might like me in say, oh, a friendly way? I absolutely without question refuse to be the least bit romantic with you. And yet”—she turned to face him—“and yet I feel kind of giddy, like I just made a new best friend at camp, and he’s supercool.”
“I am mortified to admit this, but I know what you mean. This has never happened to me before, and I find it all not a little unsettling and quite nearly shocking.”
“Making new friends with cool people always makes me kind of twittery-excited. But you . . .” She laughed. “Gosh darn it, this is so bizarre. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with Felix Callahan. We’re somewhere in La-La Land.”
“This is precisely what I’m talking about—you say things like ‘La-La Land’ and ‘gosh darn it.’ I should be eager to scrape you off my shoe.”
“I know, sweetie, I know. But maybe we’re just keen on each other, as you limeys would say.”
“ ’Ello love, ’oos your uncle and all that.”
“Exactly. But we fell into the keenness pretty quickly. I mean, if we’d grown up together, come into a friendship slowly, it’d be one thing. In a way, it almost feels like falling—” No, she wasn’t going to say it. “There should be a new term—falling in friendship or something like that. I wish there was a word for it! The English language is seriously fl awed. It reminds me of Gonzo’s song from The Muppet Movie. Do you know it? No? Seriously, you have no culture.”
So she sang it for him, starting with the part that bemoans the lack of a term for old friends who are meeting for the first time. She paused, intending to stop, but the edge of the melody was hanging there in the cold like the decimated moon, aching to wax round. So she took a breath and kept singing through the verse. Her voice was small and raspy because she knew better than to sing out, and it ended up sounding less like a melodious bird and more like a tree branch scraping against a house.
Still, the words, the tune, seemed perfect for a night under the stars—full of wo
nder and mystery and yearning. And then the song went and tugged at her emotions unexpectedly, and had she known she’d start to tear up, she never would’ve squawked a note. So she opened her eyes wide to dry them and bit a lip until pain trumped sentimentality.
Felix sighed and she thought he might say something tender, share the heartfelt moment.
He said, “You really shouldn’t sing in public.”
Her laugh was so unexpected, she snorted.
“I mean it,” he said, putting a comforting arm around her. “Never again.”
“The day that you qualify as ‘public’ will be a very sad day.”
“Also, you shouldn’t snort.”
Prompted by a surge of gratitude, she hugged him. She had sung Gonzo’s song and cried, he had told her not to sing ever again (or snort), and that made her want to hug him till his bones creaked. What was happening? Everything from her sore right knuckles to her elephantine maternity dress made impossible sense.
“Felix.” She let go, suddenly shy to speak. But that tense, tickly sensation running from her throat to her belly was giving her some kind of superhuman nerve. And besides, he wasn’t really Felix Callahan anymore, not in that ethereal, big-screen sense. So. She cleared her throat. “Felix, will you be my friend?”
He did laugh at her, though he didn’t seem to mean it. “Yes, we’ll get matching lockets holding strands of each other’s hair.”
“I wish the English language gave us a better option. ‘Pals,’ ‘chums,’ ‘buddies’ . . . but a word that implies the sudden and unusual nature—like ‘metabuddies.’ ”
“ ‘Metabuddies.’ Wow. This is getting serious.”
“So?”
“So. Yes. Let’s be friends. That would solve some of this confused muss. Do we spit in our palms and shake?”
“I think this calls for a pinky pledge.” She hooked her pinky around his. “I, Becky Jack, agree to be Felix Callahan’s pal, even though he’s way overrated as an actor and screen hunk and can be such a brat.”
Felix cleared his throat. “I, world-famous and fabulously wealthy Felix Paul Callahan, agree to be mates with Becky, even though she wears grandmother shoes and insists on popping out children with reckless abandon and shows no remorse for her vicious right hook.”