Kiss the Girl

by Susan Sey

  James jumped back, dripping, but pitched his voice into the carrying range as well. “Jesus, Sloan. Always with the drama. Grow the fuck up, why don’t you?”

  Sloan dismissed him with a toss of her head and rounded on Nixie. “And you,” she said. “Why, you ungrateful little bitch. You’re welcome to him.”

  Nixie, her back to the room, didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Certainly didn’t chime in with her lines. She simply watched Sloan with a numb fascination. She’d always known her mother was an actor, but she’d never realized the extent of her talent. Never realized before that she was in character every single minute of every single day. She was magnificent.

  Sloan leaned in, put her mouth very close to Nixie’s ear and said, “I’m lobbing you a softball here, Nixie. I’m the slutty temptress who took advantage of a generally good man in a moment of weakness. Defend him.” Her lips curved in her trademark smirk as she leaned back. “You’ll want to use your outside voice.”

  Nixie stared at her, bemused. Sloan arched her brows at the continued silence. “Those kids need the money, Nixie. Now, as James would say, grow the fuck up and earn it.”

  Grow up, Nixie. Grow the fuck up.

  The words were still rattling around Nixie’s head when Karl appeared at Sloan’s elbow. “I need Nixie.”

  Sloan cut her eyes toward the crowd of rapt eavesdroppers who were trying valiantly to pretend they weren’t listening. “We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

  “It’s important.”

  She shrugged. “Your call.”

  “It’ll have to do,” Karl said and turned to Nixie. “There’s something you need to see,” he said. “Come with me.”

  Mary Jane pulled back and swiped a couple fingers under her eyes in the way women did when they were trying to salvage a makeup job. Erik was no expert but he didn’t think it was going to help.

  “Thanks for doing that,” she said, then gave up swiping and just scrubbed at her cheeks with both hands.

  “What are friends for?” Erik fished a hanky from his pocket and handed it over. She took it, but instead of mopping up her face, she crumpled it into a tight ball in her fist.

  “In our case, I’m starting to think it’s being a fake fiancé upon request.” She sighed and plunked down on the edge of huge concrete planter squatting in the corner. “You know we’re not getting married, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Are you in love with Nixie?”

  “Yep.” Erik tucked his hands in his pockets, amazed at how good it felt to just admit that. “Are you in love with Tyrese?”

  Mary Jane shrugged. “A hundred years ago, maybe. Now? I don’t know. He’s completely wrong for me.”

  “Yep. Nixie, too. Doesn’t seem to matter.”

  “He works for a gang, Erik. He teaches them how to squeeze the maximum potential profit out of their guns and drugs and lord knows what. All the love in the world isn’t going to fix that.”

  “Yeah. I guess not.” He poked a finger into her shoulder and said, “Still, he’s really good looking. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “To think I ever considered getting married to you.”

  “Hey, I have it on good authority that I’m an excellent catch. You’re sure you want out?”

  Mary Jane’s mouth quirked up in a shadow of her old, sly smile. “Yeah, I’m out. Besides, that thing about you being such an awesome catch? You don’t want to believe everything your mother tells you, all right? She’s a politician.” She twisted the ring off her finger and held it out. Erik took it and tucked it into his pocket. He wondered if he’d still run into Nixie immediately, now that he wasn’t trying to propose to Mary Jane.

  “At least we didn’t make a formal announcement or anything,” she said. “Can you imagine how hard it would be to back out of--”

  She broke off as the balcony doors burst open. Framed there in the brilliant lights of the ballroom were Karl, Nixie and Missy Jensen of Channel Four news.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Missy poked a microphone in Erik’s face and said, “Dr. Larsen! Dr. Riley! I understand congratulations are in order?”

  Erik glanced at the crowd of curious onlookers behind the camera, saw Tyrese there and felt his momentary optimism deflate like a day old balloon. He shifted his gaze to Karl--smug, beaming Karl--then to Nixie. Who wasn’t smiling. Who wasn’t frowning. Who wasn’t...anything. Something was very wrong with Nixie. He moved toward her, but she pushed a hand toward him, stopped him dead.

  “You’re engaged?” she asked.

  “He is,” Karl boomed cheerfully. “Has been, actually.”

  “A secret engagement?” Missy asked, her smile tickled.

  Erik didn’t answer. Nixie’s eyes hadn’t left his, and her gaze had him pinned.

  “Is that true?” she asked, her voice low, urgent.

  He glanced at Mary Jane whose gaze was fixed on Tyrese. Ah, shit.

  “Yes,” he said, forcing the words out through lips that wanted to clamp down and keep the lie inside. “I’m...sorry.”

  “How long?” Nixie heard the words, heard herself speak them, but they were dull and distant over the roar in her ears. Something was happening to her, something terrible. The emptiness inside her chest stretched, strained, and it took both hands on her sternum to force in a thin breath.

  She saw Mary Jane shoot to her feet next to Erik, saw her clutch at his sleeve. “Erik, no. You don’t have to--”

  “How long did you wait?” she asked, cutting through Mary Jane like she didn’t exist. She didn’t, really. Not for Nixie. Nothing existed for Nixie except Erik and the noise in her head that twisted and rose and reached like a funnel cloud. It fed on the guilt in his eyes, and the horrible pressure inside her grew until it was everything and she was nothing. Until her skin went hot and tight and fragile. “How long did you wait between fucking me and asking another woman to marry you?”

  She was dimly aware of the people around them, their nervous eyes, their worried glances. Hands came toward her, touched her elbows, her shoulders, her back, but she shook them off with a fierce shudder and stepped forward. She put her face right into Erik’s. Wanted to see the truth of his answer chase itself through his eyes.

  “How long did you wait?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, and his eyes were stark and honest. “I didn’t wait at all. I left you and I went to her.”

  The roaring in her head died abruptly, leaving behind one awful beat of ominous silence. Then everything in Nixie exploded. The pain layered under the numbness buried under the pure, aching emptiness--it all went up in a molten jet of rage that snapped and roared like fire, leaping and dancing and destroying. Fury spurted into the hollow at her core, filling her, consuming her. It shot along her skin, danced up into her head and turned the air around her hot and dangerous.

  Power coursed through her and she gloried in the sharp slap of it. In the sting of coming back to life after so many years of playing dead. Of pretending the insults didn’t hurt, the rejections were deserved, the debts of the world were somehow hers to pay.

  “Nixie?” Erik reached toward her, his brow creased in concern. A concern that she’d have given the world for an hour ago, but now just fed the beast inside her that devoured pain and turned it into this sparkling, heady rage.

  “Don’t touch me.” She shook off his hand. “You don’t get to touch me. I’m not yours, and that’s your fault. I offered. Offered you everything. You took it, then gave your ring to somebody else. So don’t bother pretending to care now. It’s too late. I don’t want your concern and I don’t want your pity. I don’t want you. Not anymore.”

  And then Karl was beside her, sidling up to her shoulder, touching her elbow, murmuring in her ear.

  “Enough, Nixie,” he said softly. “Enough. It’s time to make your speech, wrap this up and move on.”

  She switched her focus to Karl, to the small smile hi
ding in his beard. A small smug smile. She’d pleased him, she realized. She’d finally shoved Erik aside, just as he wanted. Just as he’d planned. She’d behaved.

  He hooked a hand inside her elbow and drew her into the ballroom. The crowd parted for her as if she were on fire. Maybe she was. Karl didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’ll want James beside you at the podium,” he said. “He doesn’t need to speak, just be seen in the position of honor next to you. After Sloan’s little scene, it’ll be enough. You’ll want to mention Senator Harper, of course, his invaluable assistance in addressing this shameful problem going unnoticed three miles from the Capitol--”

  He went on and on as he steered her toward the podium, kept dropping his words into her ear, one after the other, without waiting to see if she wanted more. Just like always. The boiling lake of fury inside her sent up a fresh streamer of lava as Nixie arrived at the steps to the stage.

  She jerked her arm from Karl’s grip mid-sentence, turned her back on his startled face and marched up the steps to the podium. To the microphone. To the avid faces and the expectant hush of a few hundred people who knew something juicy was about to unfold right before their hungry eyes.

  Nixie wasn’t one to disappoint her public.

  “Good evening, everybody.” A jagged elation surged through her veins as she grabbed the mic. “First of all, let me just say, you look great. You’re all dressed up, you’re trading compliments over cocktails, votes over canapés. You’ve got your checkbooks out and are just waiting for the go-ahead from Senator Harper to write the clinic a nice fat check. And that pleases me. It pleases me beyond words. Because I have it on good authority that when a girl sells her soul, she ought to get her money’s worth.”

  An uncomfortable ripple went through the crowd, a couple hundred people shifting, frowning. Nixie smiled furiously into the blazing lights and plunged ahead.

  “So I’m asking myself, has tonight been worth my soul? Don’t get me wrong. Helping kids breathe is always a good thing. But I hope like hell it was worth what I’ve paid for it because I’m all tapped out. I mean, I’m all for saving the children but I don’t have a single piece of my soul left to sell for your donor dollars. Do you hear me? I have nothing left for you people. My heart is gone--I gave that to you, Erik.”

  Every camera in the room swung to Erik but he knew his way around a press corps smackdown. He gave them nothing, his face like granite, his mouth a grim line inside it. She sighed. What had she expected? Nothing was all he had to give. All he would give, at least. Hadn’t she learned anything this week?

  “My family is gone, too,” she said. “Karl explained to me just this evening that he’d shun me like the Amish if I didn’t give up this ridiculous dream of a personal life. A home. A family. Somebody to love me back for a change. And as for my mother, well.”

  She paused to glance at Sloan, who stood between Karl and James, eyebrows raised, an enigmatic half-smile curving her lips. “Well, you all know my mother. She’s not one to choose family over fame. I learned that tonight. The hard way. Not that I’m throwing stones. Maybe I don’t have Sloan’s flair for it, but I’m no stranger to renting out my body for a cause. There’s a detailed accounting of who I’m wearing tonight in your press packets, as per the lease agreement. But you know what? No matter what I sell, it’s not enough. It’s not even close to enough and it never will be. So let’s just say this right out loud: Nixie Leighton-Brace is not enough to save the world. Was that a surprise to everybody, or just me?”

  “Enough, Nixie.” Karl, his face rigid, marched up the stage steps. “That’s enough.”

  “No. It’s not.” She turned on him with a savage fierceness that froze him on the last riser. “I’ve spent my whole life listening to you talk and talk and talk. But it’s my turn now, so why don’t you just shut up and listen? Besides, I already know your opinion on the subject.”

  She spun back to the crowd, waved an arm at her fuming advisor. “He’d have me believe I owe it to the universe, based on my tremendous luck in being born Nixie Leighton-Brace, to cast myself on the altar of the world’s fucked-up-ness and burn. Like that’s going to balance the scales somehow. But I’ve been doing that for twenty-eight years now, and haven’t noticed anything getting particularly better. So I’m making a break for it. I’m going to save myself for a change, and I’m going to blow up some really big bridges behind me. So pay attention, all you gossip mongers and bottom feeders. I’m only going to do this once.”

  She turned back to Karl, to Sloan, to James clustered at the edge of the stage. She found Erik and Mary Jane still framed in the open doors of the balcony where she’d left them. Registered the various states of agitation, condemnation and panic on their faces. Pain sparkled fresh and sharp in her veins. The pain of having disappointed Karl, and the hurt of his loving her name and her image more than who she really was. The pain of having her mother turn away from her one last time. The jagged and bleeding ache of Erik’s rejection. She let the beast inside her consume it all and spew it out as rage.

  “You can screw off, Karl,” she said distinctly. “Go find yourself another messiah because I’m all done trying to love somebody who only cares about what I can do for him. You can have Sloan fuck her way through the United Nations for charity for all I care. She can’t hurt with a heart she buried twenty years ago anyway. Can’t love, either, can you, Mom? But that’s beside the point by now.

  “And Erik? I hope you’ll be very, very happy in your very, very safe marriage to your very, very nice best friend whom you do not love. I hope your cowardice will keep you warm at night. Mary Jane, I’m sorry for all this. Seriously. I don’t want to rain on your parade, but what the hell are you doing in this parade anyway? You have such a rare and decent courage, and you deserve somebody who loves you for it.

  “But you know what? Whatever. I’m done trying to fix everybody else. I’ve got enough broken shit of my own to work on. So I’m done with you people. With all of you.” She threw out both arms to encompass the whole room. “If you’re really committed to children’s health care in this country, in this commonwealth, hell, in this neighborhood, you’ll write us a check anyway. But if you’re only here because Senator Harper told you to be here, because you wanted to put on a pretty dress, eat hors d’oeuvres and build up your political capital, then take your money and go home. I don’t want it. And I won’t sell one damn thing more to get it. I’ll find another way.”

  She shoved the microphone into its cradle, gave the stunned and silent crowd an ironic little bow and sailed off the stage on knees that wanted to buckle.

  But not because she was afraid or hurt. She was still hollow, exhausted and empty, but it was a clean empty this time. Fresh. She’d finally purged the poison. She paused in front of Karl, who stared past her as if she didn’t exist. She waited for the old guilt to stir, the pain, but everything within her remained still and quiet.

  James shook his head. “Stainless steel balls,” he said. “I’ll give you that. My father’s going to crucify you, but damn, what a way to go.”

  Sloan touched her shoulder, the ends of her hair and shook her head. “Security will take you home,” she said. “Backstage.”

  Nixie slipped through the curtains.

  Two hours later, Erik pushed Nixie’s doorbell for the ninth time. He hated this doorbell, with its solemn, mournful bong. Nixie was many things but she wasn’t scored in a minor key.

  “She’s not home.”

  He turned, found his mother in her blue bathrobe in the open door of her apartment across the hall. “What are you doing up?” he asked. “It’s--” He consulted his watch, winced. “Late.”

  She dismissed this as the diversionary tactic it was. “You’ve screwed it up, haven’t you? With Nixie.”

  He scowled. “I haven’t screwed anything up. There was nothing to screw up.”

  “No? Then why are you wearing out her doorbell at 2 a.m.? In your gala tuxedo still?” Her gaze was sharp on his face,
and he resisted the urge to scuff his feet. What was he, ten?

  “What have you done, Erik?” the Senator asked.

  “Nothing, Mom. Jeez.”

  She rolled her eyes, stepped back from the door and pointed an imperious finger inside. He ducked his head--he was ten, powerless against that finger--and walked inside. He plunked himself at her kitchen table while she moved around the room, gathering the makings for a pot of coffee.

  “If you want to lie to the press or your friends or yourself, that’s one thing. But I’m your mother. I knew you before you knew yourself. You can’t lie to me, so stop trying. What did you do?”

  “She wanted more from me than I could give, okay?” Something dark and awful inside him strained toward the surface but he strapped it down. “I dented her ego a little, that’s all. She’ll recover.”

  She dumped enough grounds in the filter to make a pot of rocket fuel and gave him a look that mixed pity with incredulity. “Nixie Leighton-Brace wanted to date you and you turned her down.”

  “It was a little more complicated than that.”

  “Complicated how?”

  “I asked Mary Jane to marry me.”

  “What?” She nearly bobbled the pot of water she was feeding into the machine. She pressed brew and turned the full force of her stare upon him. “When? When did you do this remarkably foolish thing?”

  He stared at his hands, pushed back against the anger and the fear that had knotted his gut. “Right after I, um, turned Nixie down.”

  “Did you both have your clothes on when you turned her down?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh, Erik.”

  He hunched his shoulders. “It gets worse. She found out about the engagement at the gala tonight. In front of a lot of people.”

  “How many people?”

  “In person? Couple hundred.” He paused, miserable. “I don’t know how many people will watch it on TV.”