Kissing in America

by Margo Rabb

  Lulu paused on the other end. After a long while, she finally said, “All right. I’m coming.”

  She had a few things to take care of before she left; by the time she arrived it was almost six o’clock. We left the air-conditioned Havalind’s in a daze and headed into the hot Arizona air.

  Lulu checked her watch and snapped her purse shut. “If we leave right now, we should get there around one a.m. or so. I have to make a lot of stops to eat and pee, though, just so you know.”

  “Thank you so much for doing this,” I said. I wondered how I’d ever find a way to repay her.

  She tugged at her dress, adjusting it over her stomach. “The baby keeps me up all night long anyway,” she said. “Kicking and dancing and having a party in there. Might as well take a trip. Anyway, if I need a nap, we can pull off the road for a little while.”

  “We owe you big-time,” Annie said. “You’ve really saved us.”

  The VW Bug sat in the parking lot, its pale blue paint glowing against the red desert sand.

  “Let’s go,” Lulu said. “We have to leave now if we’re going to make it.”

  Maps

  Weeks ago, when I’d pictured myself and Annie the night before the show, I’d imagined us in our fancy room at the Mirabelle Resort, painting our nails and applying deep-conditioning hair treatments. Will would be sitting beside us, asking us questions about presidents and geography and literature, all of which we’d answer right. He’d kiss me good night—a kiss even better than the spell-casting kisses on the roof. Annie and I’d iron our clothes, go to bed early, wake up well-rested, eat healthy breakfasts, and make ourselves look sleek, shiny, worthy of being on TV.

  Or at least we’d be clean.

  Instead, my hair had turned into monkey fur. My dress for the show was a wrinkled ball in my suitcase. My nails looked like a gerbil had feasted on them. A pimple swelled beneath my cheek; it looked like a buried pomegranate seed. My stomach puffed out of my jeans, probably because I’d eaten three Toffee Crisps that day.

  Annie lay curled up in the backseat, sleeping. I’d tried to fall asleep but couldn’t.

  Still no more messages from Will.

  Lulu drove with her elbows resting on her stomach. My phone buzzed. My mom again.

  “Still not picking up?” Lulu asked.

  I shook my head.

  We were the only car on the road. “I haven’t called your mom yet, but I need to soon. I have to tell her what happened and that I’m driving you. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “I know.”

  Outside, the heat seemed to radiate off the highway as we sped through the desert. Lulu hesitated. “You know how much she loves you.”

  I looked down at my lap. I didn’t know. My love for you is bigger than the house, the whole city, all the people in the world, the entire universe, she used to say when I was little, but I had the sinking feeling that now she’d say My love for you is the size of a cup of coffee. Of a sugar packet. Or she’d say whatever Living with Your Teenage Daughter and Loving It told her to say.

  Lulu was silent for a while. “Your mom has been working so hard because she wants to provide for you. To take good care of you. Lord knows it’s hard to do as a single mom.”

  I’d never really thought about that—I’d thought working was her way of coping, like Janet had said. I shook my head. “I just don’t understand her.”

  “She’s complicated. Everything is complicated.” She paused. “You know, Rilke was wrong about one thing. As you get older, no matter how patient you are, you don’t get more answers—you just get more difficult questions.”

  “I want to stop feeling like this. I want to be like I was before he died.” The little girl in the Central Park photo. Happy. Carefree.

  She glanced at me, then stared at the road. “Grief isn’t like a map you can follow. It’s not a simple route with a destination. Sometimes you loop back and find yourself in the exact same place you left.” She paused. “I think in her own way, your mom is still grieving her parents, too.”

  I told her about Freda’s and Abraham’s graves in Cleveland. “Before this trip, I hardly knew anything about Freda except Formula 409. All I remembered was drinking milk with a drop of coffee in it with her, and eating noodles at her kitchen table.”

  Lulu smiled. “Years and years ago, when your grandmother was still alive, I stayed at her apartment once with your mom. I left a T-shirt there, and when your mom gave it back to me, it had bleach splotches all over it. Your grandmother had used it as a rag to clean the bathroom.”

  I laughed.

  Lulu said, “You know, everything is connected. Freda’s pain became your mom’s pain. Your mom wants to protect you from inheriting any pain.”

  I watched the endless sea of desert. Dead and missing great-grandparents. Freda. My dad. My mom. Me. One big rolling giant ball of grief. Protect you. “She can’t,” I said.

  Sleeping beauties

  I woke up to a sea of cars streaming down the highway. Pink streaks smudged across the gray sky. I rubbed my eyes; my contact lenses had stuck to them. Lulu held a giant coffee cup in her hand.

  I sat up. “Where are we?”

  “Welcome to LA.” She smiled. She’d tied her hair into a bun and stuck a pencil through it. A few tendrils curled around her face.

  Palm trees lined the highway. They looked like giant lollipops with leaves on top. I checked my messages. Four, all from my mom.

  Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. I wasn’t ready to talk to her. Not now. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to.

  I squinted at the time on my phone: 6:02 a.m. “Is that time right?”

  “You fell asleep around Palm Springs, and I had to pull off the road and take a nap. I didn’t think I could make it all the way without sleeping.” She rubbed her eyes.

  “We’re almost there, right? We’ve got to be there at six thirty. . . .”

  “We should be in Burbank in half an hour.” She sipped her coffee.

  A groan came from the backseat. Annie had woken up.

  “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Lulu chirped, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

  Annie’s cheek had a bright red line down the middle of it, from the seat. A gas station receipt was stuck to her chin. She peeled it off and squinted at it.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “We made it! We’re here.” I tried to sound cheerful, to distract us both from the fact that we were about to be on national TV looking like shipwreck survivors who hadn’t showered in a year.

  “We should be at the studio soon,” Lulu said.

  Annie leaned to the side so she could see herself in the rearview mirror.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Is that my face?” She flopped back down onto the seat.

  “You both look beautiful,” Lulu tried to assure us. “Fresh as daisies.”

  “This is bad,” I said. “This is really bad.”

  Lulu said, “It’s a quiz show. Not a beauty pageant.”

  “We haven’t showered,” I said.

  “Nobody will be able to smell you through the TV,” Lulu said brightly as the sign to Burbank rose in the distance.

  Stage 4

  The studio looked like a cluster of gigantic blocks. A metal gate enclosed the property; outside, a field of unnaturally green grass surrounded a fountain and a tiny pond. We parked and approached the small white security booth.

  “We’re here for The Smartest Girl in America,” we told the guard. He checked our names and IDs against a list. Annie had emailed the production company last night and told them that Lulu would be bringing us, instead of Janet.

  “Good luck to you ladies. Stage 4. Wait here. A guard will escort you in.” He picked up his walkie-talkie, and a few minutes later a man in a uniform drove up in a golf cart and came out to greet us. We climbed in, and he drove us to a sound stage a short distance away.

  Inside, beautiful girls were everywhere, poised and manicured and perfectly coiffed. They wore
brightly colored dresses and skirts and flowery perfume.

  Even after being washed, my jeans held a faint whiff of horse ranch.

  “Maybe we can slip off to the bathroom, clean up a little,” Annie said.

  At the sinks, Lulu and I splashed water on our faces. Annie rubbed her cheek; it still looked like a miniature bicycle had sped across it. An attempt to brush my hair only made it look like a pile of dried moss. I checked my phone—nothing from Will—it was still too early to text him. I’d wait an hour and then try him. Lulu told us that she’d texted Janet about the change of plans, and Janet said she’d meet us later, after the taping. Lulu said she’d called my mom last night, too, after I’d fallen asleep, and told her where I was and that I was safe. I looked at the floor. I didn’t ask her more about it.

  Annie picked up her phone. “Grace is looking for us.”

  We met Grace and her father in the hallway. “Finally! You’re here!” Grace hugged Annie. “What happened to you?” She gazed at our wrinkled clothes.

  “Long trip,” Annie said.

  Grace didn’t look too great herself. Her skin had broken out, her cheeks were bright red, and her mouth seemed pinched.

  “Are you okay?” Annie asked her.

  She gave us a stretched, thin smile. “I’m fantastic.”

  Grace’s father wrapped his arm around her. “She’s just a little nervous. First time on camera.”

  The thought of being on camera made me feel a little sick, too. My stomach turned over. I tried to keep it together.

  A production assistant came by with an iPad; she checked our names off and pointed toward a large room. “It’s only contestants and companions allowed now, so all other people will need to say good-bye. Your belongings will be stored in a locker during the taping, so please don’t bring any valuables,” she said. “It’s the show’s policy to prevent cheating or theft while you’re being filmed.”

  Annie and I gave Lulu a giant hug. We thanked her for driving us, for rescuing us—for everything.

  “I wish there was some way we could repay you,” I said. “If we win, we’ll buy you your own doughnut shop. Fresh doughnuts every morning. And night. Forever.”

  “Sounds perfect.” She smoothed her dress. “Should I take your luggage to Janet’s? She sent me a message with the address.”

  “We’re staying at the hotel,” I said.

  Lulu didn’t argue with me. “I’ll check into the hotel then and take a nap. I’ll meet you back here when it’s over. Good luck. I’m rooting for you.” She hugged us again and kissed our cheeks.

  Annie didn’t have anything valuable in her backpack, but I gave the pillowcase with my dad’s things to Lulu, to take to the hotel. “Please stick it back inside my luggage, okay?” I asked her.

  “Believe me, I’ll keep it safe,” she said.

  She waved good-bye. I hated to see her go. A little kid’s voice inside of me wanted to plead: Stay. Help. I need you.

  I took a deep breath, and Annie squeezed my hand as we entered the next room. The assistants passed out forms for us to fill out, then separated us into different green rooms for hair and makeup. “Last names A through L in Room 1, and M through Z in Room 2,” a production assistant said. That meant Annie would go to Room 1 and I’d go to Room 2. Grace would be in Room 2 also. My chest slowly began to fill with cement.

  “Contestants and companions, this is the last time you’ll see each other until after the show,” the production assistant told us. “So now’s your chance for any last-minute advice, encouragement, morale boosts . . . you’ve got two minutes.”

  Girls squealed and chattered; Grace’s dad, her lifeline on the show, muttered something to her about a mnemonic device to remember the periodic table. Annie and I stared at each other. My neck felt tight.

  “So. Here we go,” Annie said.

  “Here we go.” I bit my lip.

  She opened her bag. “Here—take this.” She handed me Quarky, her good-luck charm.

  “What? I can’t take Quarky.”

  “If you start to get a panic attack, or get anxious, or feel like you’re going to faint, just hold him.”

  “I won’t panic. We’ve survived a rattlesnake, a bus lunatic, being abandoned by the side of the road—not to mention diseased eyeballs—”

  Still, there was a definite itchiness spreading down my arms. My back had begun to sweat.

  “Take him,” she said.

  I held him as she hugged me tightly, more tightly than she ever had before. Then she disappeared into Room 1.

  Light, love, life all tumbled

  As soon as Annie left my sight, the lack of sleep caught up with me and I felt like I was walking underwater. Henry, the assistant leading us to Room 2, brought us by the set. A pink neon THE SMARTEST GIRL IN AMERICA! sign sprawled across the wall. Rows and rows of seats towered above us, for the studio audience, which would be made up entirely of teen girls, Henry told us. Black cables snaked around the ceiling, over monitors and lights.

  Hundreds of lights. Why did they need so many lights? And so many cameras? Wasn’t one camera enough? And why were some of the cameras so huge, mounted on black moving frames like giant dinosaurs, like oversized versions of those roaming X-ray machines at the dentist, which always looked slightly sinister to me?

  “Um, where do the companions sit during the show?” I asked Henry.

  “The Companion Chamber. That place is sealed,” he said. “It’s like a vault. Off-limits to everyone till we start. They want it to have an air of secrecy.”

  “Are there this many cameras in there? This many lights?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the hot prickles on my skin. Grace tapped my shoulder. “Your eyes are bugging out. I’m kind of nervous, too. Of course today’s the day my face decided to explode with zits.”

  Why was she being civil to me, all of a sudden? Probably out of necessity, like the people on wilderness reality shows who have to be nice to each other to survive.

  Grace glanced at a blond girl in the corner. I recognized her from the audition—she’d been the one wearing her school uniform.

  “I talked to her this morning before you guys arrived. Her name is Lauren. Her parents hired five tutors for all different subjects. Not just run-of-the-mill tutors—for economics she had a Nobel Prize winner coaching her,” Grace said.

  Oh god.

  “And an acting coach so she answers confidently. And a stylist added hair extensions.”

  Lauren’s blond hair waved over her shoulders like the tresses of a teen Barbie.

  “And she had porcelain veneers put on her teeth. I wanted to get veneers too, but my dad said they were too expensive.”

  Veneers? Last night I hadn’t even brushed my teeth.

  Grace wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell horse?”

  I took a step back. “Excuse me,” I said. I held up my phone, went to the corner, and checked my messages. I texted Will.

  We’re here in LA at the studio. See you tonight? Filming ends at 5pm-maybe then?

  Room 2 was filled with acres of food: a table was stocked with bagels, pastries, muffins, cheeses, fruit, and cookies. I filled my plate, and then everyone took turns sitting in a swivel chair in front of a lighted mirror. Henry gave us more forms to fill out while we waited. When it was my turn, the makeup artist cocked her head, squinted at my hair, and said, “I’ve seen worse.”

  She took out a giant bottle of dry shampoo and plugged in a straightening iron the size of a sword. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.” She took out an airbrush machine, which looked like a large motorized pen, and began to spray foundation on my face. Then she opened a tiered box that seemed to contain the entire contents of Sephora: highlighters, eyeliners, blushes, lip stains and glosses, and dozens of colors of eye shadow, which she mixed like a painter.

  When she finished, I could barely recognize myself. I looked like I’d actually slept the night befor
e. And not in a VW Bug.

  “I love you,” I told her. “You’re a miracle worker.”

  Grace came over to me. I practically bumped into her eyelashes; she’d had about ten pounds of mascara applied to them. She fidgeted and kept picking under her fingernails. My anxiety had congealed into a jittery simmer, a runny glue clogging my veins.

  “Hey,” Grace said in a quiet voice, “there’s something I wanted to tell you.” She looked directly at me.

  “What?”

  “Annie had never told me about—your dad. But Janet mentioned it to my mom . . .” She paused, trying to finish the sentence. “If I’d known—”

  I felt something in my pocket. My phone buzzed.

  Hey! It’s Will. Where are you now?

  My heart jumped into my throat.

  “Um, hold on a second,” I told Grace. I turned away.

  My fingers felt weightless, floating on top of the screen, but as I typed, my hands shook.

  At the studio. Getting ready for the show. Will I see you tonight?

  Can’t tonight. Free this afternoon. Can you slip away before it starts? I can meet you there when you’re on a break.

  “Who’s that text from?” Grace asked me. “Your whole face is red.”

  “No one.”

  Her eyes lit up. “It’s from him. That guy. The poet guy.”

  I ignored her.

  Now. He wanted to see me now.

  I turned to Henry, who fluttered around, collecting forms and checking tasks off his list. “Are we going to have any free time before the show starts?”

  He shook his head. “No. No way.”

  “But I thought we don’t start taping for three hours.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the rules. We can’t go through the hassle of checking everyone in and out, in and out. Sorry.” He sped off down the hall.

  “Jeez, even your scalp is blushing,” Grace said. She blinked. It was amazing she was able to blink with all that mascara. “So Poet Guy wants to see you now?”