The Athena Effect

by Anderson, Derrolyn

  “All of this stuff is in their permanent collection,” Caledonia said quietly. “So that means that my parents saw it too.”

  Standing there, wrapped in Calvin’s arms, Caledonia was happier than she could ever remember being. She leaned back into him and he pressed into her; before too long he was kissing her neck and ear, his warm lips making her dizzy.

  He burrowed his face into her hair. “You smell good,” he murmured.

  “It’s the pheromones,” she replied.

  “The what?” he laughed.

  “You know… chemicals.”

  “No… I’m pretty sure it’s you,” he kissed her behind the ear, making her giggle. She sighed with pleasure and melted into him. The museum guard strolled past them again, his footfall pointedly loud.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Calvin whispered into her ear.

  They walked out into the bright shining day, arms locked together.

  “Have you ever heard of Fisherman’s Wharf?” he asked her.

  ~

  Suddenly everything between them had changed, and they walked hand in hand, neither one wanting to break physical contact. Bathed in contentment, they took in the sights and sounds together, mingling with tourists from all over the world. They stopped to watch the street performers and Caledonia smiled at them all, charmed. When Calvin dropped a dollar into an open guitar case she asked him why.

  “That’s how they make their money,” he explained, constantly amused by her inexperience.

  “How much do you pay them?”

  “You’re not really paying them… It’s more like you’re showing your appreciation for what they do.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” she asked.

  He chuckled, and had to admit she had a point. They stopped and watched a juggler toss flaming batons into the air alongside a magician producing doves from a top hat. Caledonia gasped with amazement, her eyes bright. There wasn’t a cynical bone in her body, and the performers played to her, singling her out of the crowd to pick a card or assist in their performance. Calvin thought she was more fun to watch than they were.

  He kept his arms around her as much as possible, loving the way it felt to be able to touch her whenever he wanted to. He spoke under his breath, “You do realize… That it’s not really magic, right?”

  She rolled her lovely eyes at him, “I’m not stupid. I’ve read books about magic tricks… I’ve just never seen it done.”

  He whispered in her ear, “You’re the only one who can do real magic.”

  Their eyes met again, followed by their lips, and they ended up spending most of the day kissing. They sampled the food stands, feeding some remarkably docile seagulls that landed at their feet when they sat on benches that faced out towards the dancing sea.

  She tried to pay, but he wouldn’t let her. “It’s okay…” she said. “I got my money back this morning.”

  “Your aunt finally wised up?” he asked.

  “No. I just… I have the situation under control now.”

  He raised his brows at her, his eyes asking the question, but hers clouded over and she turned away. Caledonia was unwilling to discuss her newfound power, and he let it go, keeping his mouth shut and taking her hand quietly.

  Their perfect day was over much too fast, and they climbed back on the bike just as the fog started to roll in. It engulfed the city in a cool, damp cloak, following them across the bridge while the sun set over the western sea. She turned back to see a grey blanket creeping across the mouth of the bay, swallowing everything in its path.

  She nestled against Calvin, her lips curling into a smile on the back of his neck. They were about halfway home when he pulled to the side of the roadway, stopping to climb off. He took his helmet off, set it aside and reached over to remove hers.

  “Why are we stopping he–”

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her, sweet and slow. It started out warm and comforting, like wood-smoke and butterscotch candy, and built to a bright burning red that made her stomach quiver. The roar of traffic rushing by was drowned out by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

  When they finally broke apart she was dizzy.

  “I wasn’t going to make it all the way home,” he explained. He embraced her once more, handing her back her helmet.

  Then they were back on the road, and Caledonia clung to him tightly, happy in a way she’d never imagined she could be. She thought about the art museum, and the painting that her mother had loved so much. There was something else her mother had told her about her parent’s date at the museum– something that made her heart skip a beat when she thought about it.

  It was on that exact spot, standing in front of that same painting so many years ago, that her parents had shared their first kiss.

  ~

  Chapter Fourteen – QUESTIONS

  ~

  They pulled up at Calvin’s house to see a dozen big motorcycles parked in the front yard. He was disappointed because he wanted to be alone with Caledonia, and suddenly afraid that his brother’s rough crowd might put her off again.

  “Let’s go get something to eat,” he suggested, relieved when she agreed.

  He took her to a Chinese restaurant with red and gold walls and a giant fish tank on one side of the room. They were seated in a booth next to the tank, and once again, Calvin watched Caledonia’s enormous eyes scan the room, taking in every detail.

  She smiled across the table at him, “It smells good in here.”

  A waiter approached, bringing them a pot of tea and pouring it into small china cups. Caledonia watched closely and flashed another brilliant smile at him, taking the menu he offered and studying it, her brows knit together in concentration.

  She looked up at Calvin with serious eyes, “What if I pick the wrong thing?”

  He chuckled, “What do you like?”

  She looked back at the menu, “I don’t know. There’s too much to choose from.” She bit her lip, so worried that Calvin had to fight the urge to lunge over the table and kiss the look right off her face.

  “I can order if you want,” he offered.

  She set the menu down with a relieved look, “Yes please.”

  Calvin told the waiter that she’d never tried Chinese food before, asking him for suggestions. He ended up ordering more food than they needed, wanting to show her as many new things as possible. Caledonia turned around to inspect the fish tank, fascinated by the fancy goldfish with huge bulging heads and diaphanous tails.

  “Look how bizarre…” she said, pointing to one with telescoping eyes.

  He got up to slide into the booth next to her, watching her watching the fish. He rested his chin on her shoulder, and before too long he was trailing kisses down her neck, making her squirm and giggle.

  “What happened here?” He brushed his lips across two round marks just above her collarbone, “Vampire?”

  She shivered a little at the sensation, “I told you the cat dragged me… Didn’t I?” She pulled the collar of her shirt down a little to show him two corresponding puncture scars on her back, “That’s where he bit into me.”

  Calvin groaned, pulling her closer. The image of a cougar closing its jaws on her was a terrible one, and he kissed her scars again, swearing to never let anything bad happen to her again. He wanted to protect her, and she could feel it, sweet and warm and purple and pink. Her parents used to feel the same way.

  The waiter arrived with a tray and Calvin got up to sit opposite her, eager to see her reaction. The man set two soup bowls down with a flourish, placing a pile of browned rice in each and ladling broth over them. He stood back to watch the expression on Caledonia’s face as the soup exploded with cracking popping sounds.

  She sat bolt upright, reeling back in her seat with her eyes wide open, “What’s it doing?”

  “Sizzling Rice,” the waiter said with a wink.

  Her eyes darted back and forth between the waiter and Calvin, and she finally smiled, breaking into
delighted laughter that they couldn’t help but join in.

  “That was my favorite when I was a kid,” Calvin said, remembering.

  The dishes started arriving fast and furious, and the waiter presented each one to her personally, describing it in detail as if she were a visiting dignitary. They dug in, and the waiter came around often, anxious to please her.

  “Everybody loves you,” Calvin smiled, feeling happy.

  “That’s not true,” she replied, thinking about the girls at school. “But it’s nice of you to say it.”

  After they finished eating, Caledonia leaned back with a sigh, “There’s too much food here. What a terrible waste.”

  “It’s okay. We can take it home.”

  She seemed surprised, “They let you do that?”

  He smiled at her again, wondering how she could be such a contradiction. She knew so much, and yet almost nothing at the same time. He paused for a second, thinking about how she was about food.

  “How come you don’t eat at your aunt’s house?”

  She stiffened in her seat, looking down and fidgeting with her fingernails.

  “Tell me,” he said, and something in his voice demanded the truth. She looked up to meet his eyes.

  “My aunt works a lot…” she started out.

  “And?” he leaned forward intensely.

  “I don’t like to be there when she’s not around.”

  Calvin’s eyes widened. He remembered the big jerk that had answered the door and clenched his jaw with a flash of anger, “Why?”

  “I don’t like her boyfriend.”

  He sat up straight, “Why?”

  “He’s always trying to–” she looked down again, ashamed.

  His voice rose, “Trying to what?”

  Calvin was so upset it was overwhelming, and she was alarmed at his intense reaction. “I just don’t like the way he looks at me.” She started backpedaling, “It’s only when he drinks… and nothing’s happened yet… not really.”

  He burned hot with anger that she could feel from across the table, “So that’s why you’ve been wandering around outside at night? To keep away from him?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted.

  “I’ll kill him!”

  She looked up at him incredulously, “If I wanted him dead, I would have done it myself.”

  He clenched his fists, “Does your aunt know? What does she say?”

  “He denies it… And she believes him. She wants to believe him.”

  “I’m gonna kick his ass!” Calvin hissed, and from the colors he was putting off, she didn’t doubt he was planning it.

  “No! Please don’t do anything,” she tried to reassure him, surprised to see him getting so worked up. “I have the situation under control.”

  “If he so much as looks at you…” his voice was dripping with menace.

  “It’s okay now. I figured out how to stop him. I can… scare… him. He won’t be bothering me anymore. And now that school’s going to be out I can get a job to save enough money to get away.”

  He paused, taking a deep breath and exhaling, “Is he why you want to leave?”

  She nodded yes.

  He pressed his lips together tight, unclenching his fists despite his lingering anger. “You did your thing… Right? To him? That’s how you got your money back.”

  She nodded, looking away with embarrassment, “Yeah. I’m getting a lot better at it.”

  He took her hand across the table, “If he ever bothers you again, I want you to come to me... Okay?”

  She remembered the last time she’d run to him for help, only to find a girl on his lap just moments after he’d dropped her off. Her stomach churned when she remembered how it felt, and she realized that nothing had really changed. Her parents had told her to trust no-one, and yet here she was, confessing everything; admitting to what she could do. She withdrew her hand.

  “I can handle Phil,” she said.

  “I just want to help,” he said.

  She could tell he did, but she was confused and afraid. The thought of Calvin kissing another girl again scared her much more than Phil ever did, and she remembered what Brandy had said about guys not being able to control themselves.

  The waiter came to take their plates, bringing them two fortune cookies.

  “These ones are true,” he told Caledonia with a wink.

  Calvin demonstrated how to snap open the cookie to find the little slip of paper inside.

  “I read about these in a story once,” she said somberly. She read hers aloud, “Change is coming soon,” She looked up at him with scrutinizing eyes, “I suppose that’s always true.”

  He read his, “Your wish will come true.”

  “What do you wish for?” she asked him.

  He looked at her intensely, “I don’t want you to go away.”

  She looked down, afraid to trust what she saw right before her eyes. When they got up to leave, Calvin escorted her out the door, his warm hand pressing on the small of her back. They got to the bike and he folded his strong arms around her, burrowing his face in her hair and breathing in deeply.

  He pulled back to look at her, stroking her cheek softly and forcing her to lock eyes with him. “What color am I putting out right now?”

  She gasped. He was doing it again, flooding her with colors so intense that she felt she might drown in them. “Pink,” she breathed.

  “Pink?!”

  She couldn’t help smiling at the look on his face, “There’s some purple too… and red.”

  “What color are you?” he asked, searching her phenomenal eyes.

  “Same,” she whispered.

  “Is that good?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.

  He drew her back into his chest, and she could feel his heart pounding against hers.

  “It feels good to me,” he whispered in her ear. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

  She froze, suddenly serious. She reeled back to look up at him with big fearful eyes, “I swear I’m not doing anything.”

  He smiled, cupping her chin and looking at her with his eyes wide open, “Whatever it is, I like it.”

  She watched his face as he leaned in to kiss her, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions washing over her again. She couldn’t tell where his began and hers stopped, and she’d never felt anything so intense in her entire life. I might not have to leave, she thought again, and the idea made her shiver inside.

  He pulled up to her aunt’s house, reluctant to drop her off. She reassured him again that she’d be fine, and agreed to let him take her to school in the morning. She climbed down from the bike only to be wrapped back up into his enthusiastic embrace.

  “Thank you,” she said solemnly between his goodbye kisses. “Thank you for taking me to the museum…” He swooped in to kiss her. “And for the Chinese food... And showing me the sea…” He kissed her again, “And... Just– just everything.” He sent her off with one last kiss that had them both reeling, and she stumbled in the door and up to her room. She got into bed and hugged the pillow, her mind a tumult of confusion.

  Caledonia spent hours lying awake, her head and her heart fighting a vicious battle over whether or not she should trust Calvin. She thought about his ardent kisses and blushed, smiling at the memory of how it felt. Then she remembered that his lips had been all over another girl not so very long ago. She flushed an ugly envious green that quickly turned to deep blue shame.

  Now that she knew what Calvin’s kisses tasted like, she couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him again. She could no longer see things clearly when she was around him; her logical thoughts were drowned in a sea of emotion. She needed to be away from his intense colors to get some perspective, but the only place she really wanted to be was with him.

  She had witnessed his nature with her own two eyes. He was reckless, both with his own safety and with the feelings of others. The way he callously toyed with girls was a red flag; Caledonia kne
w she would be a fool to ignore it. But she wanted to. She wanted to believe that his colors would never change– she wanted to believe in him with all of her heart. She thought about her Aunt Angie, and how deluded she was about Phil.

  Calvin was making her parent’s little cabin in the woods start to seem less like a refuge and more like a lonely and desolate place. If she stayed she was afraid she would end up behaving like a fool, or worse, be left behind, drowning in his wake like one of the sad girls from school.

  That night, both Calvin and Caledonia lay in bed awake a long time, thinking about each other. The last thought that crossed both of their minds was their first kiss in the museum, and they each brought their fingers to their lips, in awe at the power of it.

  ~

  When Caledonia left for school the next morning, he was right there, waiting outside her front door.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice velvety smooth.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  He took her bag and her hand, leading her out to where his bike was parked. Then he put everything down and greeted her with a kiss. Everything seemed brighter in the fresh new morning, and Caledonia had a renewed sense that somehow, someway, things were going to be okay after all.

  When they got to school Calvin walked her to class with his arm draped around her. He was staking a claim on her for all to see, and it did not go unnoticed by the girls that competed for his attention. He was by her side at lunch too, lounging on the grass and nudging his head onto her lap as she tried to read a book. He made it nearly impossible for her to focus.

  A couple of girls followed her into the library when she went to return her books, talking in loud voices for her benefit.

  “I don’t get it,” said one of them. “I mean… Look at her.”

  Caledonia turned around to see Hillary and Debbie. They were both scowling at her with open contempt, and neither one of them held any books.

  “You know, you’re totally not his type,” Debbie snarled at her.

  “He probably just feels sorry for you,” Hillary added. “He told me I was the hottest girl at school.”