I’m getting sick and depressed as I write this stuff down. It reminds me of something else. Something I don’t want to think about. I don’t want to think about any of this right now. I don’t care about the silly revisions. Poop on the revisions.
“I’m not sure you’re going to be able to find a tree two days before Christmas,” Mother said at breakfast the next morning. This is Chapter Four, by the way. It was ten o’clock, and this was my second breakfast. My dad, who makes breakfast between semesters and on weekends, had busted himself with omelettes and hash browns and raspberry compote and freshly ground coffee.
“There’s a place on Grand Avenue, I remember,” Bjorn said. “Their trees were always overpriced and slow-moving. We’ll try there first.”
“Does everyone eat this well in Minnesota?” Fleur asked, and I could see my father’s head tilt the way Ruffy’s used to do, to the side, as if he’d heard his name. I knew he was trying to place a certain sound in her voice, maybe the slightly constricted mid-Central vowels, a sound that didn’t come from Newport Beach, where she’d been raised. I could hear it too.
“Only on weekends,” my mother said. “When he cooks. The rest of the time it’s oatmeal.”
“I’m glad I got here on a weekend.” Fleur bestowed a full smile on my father, which did not go unnoticed. His ears grew pink. My mother noticed it too and laughed out loud, which made his ears grow even pinker.
“I love oatmeal,” Richard said, explicitly for my mother. “Especially with apples in it.”
She nodded at him. “With apples it will be,” she said.
“What a brown noser,” Bjorn said. “He always did kiss up to older women.”
“You’re just jealous,” Trish said.
Bjorn bit her playfully on the neck. “What have I got to be jealous about? I’ve got you.” He nuzzled her and she squirmed, delighted.
“Are we talking about older women like me?” Mother asked.
“He said it, not me,” Richard said.
“It’s all relative, my dear.” My father kissed the back of Mother’s neck.
I wondered if Richard would kiss Fleur’s neck and make this happy sexual play at breakfast complete. To my relief, he seemed content to eat his omelette. Fleur watched my parents carefully.
The back of my neck itched considerably. I was happy when the back-door bell rang and I could get up to answer it.
Enter Ashley Cooper.
“I knew you were home, even though the answering machine said you weren’t.” She stepped into the back hall. “It dropped to eighteen below last night. The heat wave is over.” She loosened her muffler and unzipped her parka.
“So what? You’ve got your love to keep you warm,” I said.
She smirked. “Mmm, yes I do.” She heard the commotion in the kitchen. “Are you guys still eating?” She looked down at her watch.
“Yes, come in. You’ll never guess who’s here—”
“Hi, Ash,” Bjorn called.
Richard stood. “Hi, Ashley.” He held out his hand.
Ashley clutched it in both of her hands. “My gosh,” she gushed, not letting go of his hand, “I haven’t seen you guys in ages. How are you?”
“We’re brilliant, thank you,” Bjorn said.
Trish punched him.
“I don’t think you’ve met Trish.” Bjorn was laughing.
“Oh, you guys got married in Hawaii last summer. I was so jealous when Kate got to go to Maui.”
“Well, you went to Mexico—”
“Yeah, but Mexico—” She pretended to gag. “Driving through Mexico is nothing but dead animals on the side of the road.”
“This is Fleur St. Germaine,” Richard said. He had recovered his hand.
I could tell that Fleur stunned Ashley a little. There was a quarter note of a flinch when Ashley saw her sitting next to Richard. Not that Ashley skipped much of a beat She doesn’t give up her power easily. “How fun for you to be able to come,” she said and actually patted Fleur on the shoulder. She was smiling her barracuda smile. All the sharp little teeth showing. Her patronizing manner is the reason most girls hate her.
Fleur, who did not smile, said, “How fun for you to be able to meet me.”
I think my father snorted over the frying pan, and Richard shook his head as he sat back down. Trish and Bjorn exchanged a look I couldn’t read. You notice these things when you wear glasses the size of Dayton’s Department Store.
“Sit down here, Ashley,” my mother said, giving up her chair on Richard’s other side.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, sitting down in one clean motion. “Kate,” she said, leaning across Richard, “do you want to go down to the Nicollet Mall this morning and do some last-minute shopping? I still have to find something for Kirk.”
“Well, I guess …” I hesitated. I really wanted to go buy a tree with the others, but it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t invited. Maybe they still thought of me as a tagalong. Still age twelve going on thirteen. “I don’t know why not—”
“No, you have to help us buy a tree!” Bjorn said. “It’s your familial duty.” He turned to Ashley. “She’s going with us this morning.”
I relaxed. I was invited.
I could see Ashley’s brain cells regrouping. “I thought you had a tree already,” she said. “The one on the piano—”
Bjorn waved his arm, erasing the very idea of such an insignificant tree. “I mean a big tree. A touch-the-ceiling tree. An old-fashioned Christmas tree.”
“A macho tree,” Trish continued. “An Arnold Schwarzenegger tree. A tree with a trunk the circumference of a barrel.”
Fleur picked it up: “A tree big enough for an eagle’s nest.”
“For a tree house,” I said.
“A tree to hang yourself on,” Mother drawled. She set a cup of coffee in front of Ashley and pushed the sugar bowl and cream pitcher gently in her direction.
“You guys are so crazy!” Ashley said and leaned into Richard, the way I had seen her do with dozens of boys in the last several years. It always seemed to work—that leading out with those tidy little boobs. The phrase book would describe those boobs as “firm high-perched breasts.”
“That sounds so fun,” Ashley was saying. “We never buy trees anymore. We have three synthetic trees—they reach to the ceiling, but they don’t have that wonderful piney smell, even when Mother sprays them with a pine aerosol. It just doesn’t work.”
Fleur covered her eyes with a cupped hand.
“Well, why don’t you go with them,” Mother said. “It won’t take that long, and you and Kate can go shopping later.”
“Would it be all right?” Ashley was asking Richard, not anyone else.
Richard burped loudly, and I thought Fleur was going to lose it. “Perfect,” she whispered under her breath.
“ ’Scuse me,” Richard said, his fist pressed against his smiling lips. “I seem to have lost control here.” He let out a funny giggle, hiccuped, and started laughing helplessly.
“Just don’t lose control of your sphincters,” Bjorn said, pushing his chair back. “Or you go to a motel.”
“Bjorn!” Mother said, but she was laughing.
Dad pulled a box of chocolates from the cupboard above the fridge and offered Fleur the first choice. “Dessert,” he said.
Fleur blinked at the chocolates. “Professor Bjorkman,” she said, “will you marry me?” She plucked out a dark cherry liqueur. “They’re my favorites.”
You should have seen my father blush. “Here,” he said. “Take the whole box,” and he handed it to her, laughing. No sign of narcolepsy this morning. No sirree.
This book could become dangerous. My father, age fifty-four, could fall hopelessly in carnal love with Fleur St. Germaine, leave my mother, age forty-five, and me, his computer, his classroom, his phonetic alphabets, and Minnesota, and go off to some beach somewhere with a twenty-one-year-old college student. It happens all the time. It happened to Ashley’s mother and Ash
ley about eight years ago.
But this is not that kind of book. And my father is not that kind of man. He and my mother shared one of those damned “knowing smiles” that romance novels are filled with. He was just enjoying Fleur’s beauty and her attention. She made him feel young. Maybe she even made him feel sexy. My parents fell in love twenty-five years ago. And they’ll stay in love until they die. I’m the novelist and I know.
Richard was looking at Fleur as if he’d like a proposal of marriage himself, or was that my paranoia? Fleur had passed the box of chocolates to him, and he offered the box to Ashley without taking one himself. She took one wrapped in gold tinsel, unwrapped it slowly, and said to Richard, her lips about an inch and a half away from his, “This is a special one,” and then fed it to him.
He didn’t exactly pull away. It wasn’t as if I could blame her or anything. Ashley was doing what she’d been doing with any guy in reach since I had known her. I remember the time she told me about “the lure.” She made it sound like fishing, and she herself was the bait. We were in my bedroom in front of the dresser mirror. “Puff your lips out a little like this—no, part the lips slightly—yes, good, and move your chin forward, half closing the eyes. Oh, it doesn’t work with you! Your glasses absorb your whole face.”
It was true; I wasn’t right for vampy looks. “Can’t you just get a boyfriend by having common interests?” I asked her.
“Who do you know who enjoys identifying esoteric American dialects and keeping a journal written in the phonetic alphabet?” she asked me. She was practicing the pout in the mirror.
“My father.”
“Gross.”
“I wouldn’t mind finding someone like my father. I like my father.”
“He’s always sleeping.”
“No he’s not. He’s intelligent. He’s funny. He’s kind and sensitive. He loves classical music—”
“Borrring!”
“And he’s a terrific dancer.” I realized that my father fit the descriptions found in the personal ads in the back of his college alumni magazine.
“None of that counts,” Ashley said, finally turning away from the mirror to look at me.
“What counts?”
Her tongue flickered between her teeth. “Thighs,” she said slowly. “Boys’ thighs.”
That was it? Thighs? Thighs? What about warmth and kindness and humor? What about intelligence and stability? But then I remembered that Ashley’s father hadn’t had a lot of those qualities and bit my tongue.
Richard Bradshaw is the only boy I’ve ever known who has the above-listed qualities. He wasn’t in a whole lot of pain when she fed him a second chocolate.
On the other hand, I was miserable. Ashley could get anyone she wanted anytime she wanted. She leads out with her breasts, after all. And she’s so sexy. I can see that she is. I have never competed with her for a guy. I know I could never win. And perhaps that’s why we have been able to be friends. I have always been a willing listener to Ashley’s escapades.
It was too painful watching Richard eating, literally, out of her hand. I would not be able to listen to her talk about him, ever. I could feel my shoulders slumping along with my morale. It took all my strength to keep my head from rolling forward and clunking onto the table.
Fleur probably had him all wrapped up, but if she didn’t, Ashley would know what to do. Why did mating have to involve these stupid little games that I didn’t know how to play? Didn’t even want to play.
Then it hit me. Ashley didn’t know how I was feeling. She was always telling me about her feelings, which were varied and extreme, and I tried to be sympathetic, although once she accused me of not understanding passion. Well, I understood it now. I would have to tell her. She would understand if anyone would. Honesty would work. I would be honest with her: Look, Ashley, Richard is the only hero I’m interested in. I need your help in getting him. You could tell me how. Tell me how to puff out my lips. Tell me the magic words, Ashley. You’re my best friend. Teach me. Remember how I helped you through algebra and through first-year German? I have been a good friend, haven’t I? Now you have to be my friend and teach me how to get Richard. He’s the only passion I’ve ever had. Besides linguistics.
“Do you have time to go with us?” I asked Ashley, coming out of my reverie.
She looked away from Richard, startled, as if she’d forgotten that there were other people in the room. “Yes, I’d love to go—that is if there’s room.”
“You can sit on Richard’s lap if there’s not,” said Fleur, standing up and gathering every dirty dish within reach. She looked mad.
“Take the Cherokee,” Dad said. “That should hold all of you.”
“I’ve got to brush my teeth,” I said. “Ash, come upstairs with me, I’ve got something to show you.”
Reluctantly she pried herself loose from our hero’s side.
“What is it?” she asked when we were alone in my bedroom. “Your mother didn’t buy you diamond earrings for Christmas, did she?”
“Diamond earrings? I don’t want—”
“If I don’t get them, I will kill my mother.” She sat on my bed. “I’ve told her I don’t want one other thing, just diamond earrings.”
“Ash, listen—”
“Is the Ice Queen sleeping with you?” Ashley had spotted Fleur’s duffel bag next to the bed.
“Fleur? Yes.”
“She wanted to kill me when she saw Rich liked me.” She let out this hormonal squeal. “Isn’t he beautiful, by the way? What a surprise to find him here.”
“Yes—I mean, yes, he is beautiful. I think so too.” I’d never in my life said anything so dumb out loud. “I—I mean,” I continued, stammering, “I mean, I like Richard, that is, Rich.”
“Like him?” Ashley said. “I crave his body.”
I swallowed. “So do I,” I said, sitting on the bed next to her. “So do I—crave his body, I mean.”
She looked at me as if I had developed an unpleasant facial tic. “You?” And then burst out laughing, obviously because it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
“Yes, me. What’s so funny?”
“Well,” she managed to say between giggles, “you’re just not his type at all. I mean—” She stopped when she saw my face, which I know was not smiling. “You’re serious! I can’t believe it; you’re serious.”
I had never talked about Richard to anyone. To speak aloud about him was to make him a schoolgirl’s fantasy, even if I was a schoolgirl. It made us both seem silly, but especially me. I felt that now as I talked: “Yes, I’m serious, and I want your help. You’re the only one who can help me. I don’t know how to attract someone like him. I’ve had no practice, no interest before this, really, but now I’m interested.” I shook her shoulders. “I’m interested. Help me lure him.” I used her word and felt immediately embarrassed.
“But I want him,” she said, her voice rising.
“You have Kirk. You have anyone you want. Please—Richard Bradshaw is the only guy I’ve ever found who remotely interests me. He is the love of my life!” I was using a language she would understand. I didn’t like the way it sounded coming out of my mouth. Sappy romance language. Ugh.
“So this is the cool Kate Bjorkman in love.” Something, the tone in her voice, made her sound a little jealous of that cool Kate Bjorkman. “Hell has frozen over at last,” she continued. And then, hugging me effusively, “Of course I’ll help you,” she said. She clasped her hands in front of her as if she were beginning a painting. “Take off your glasses,” she commanded. “And keep them off. He’s not going to look twice at you with those Coke bottles on your face.” She removed them for me.
Even as close as I was to her, her face blurred. “How will I see?”
“You want him, don’t you?” she said. “Then you’ll have to give up seeing for a while. You’re not wearing lip gloss,” she said. “Didn’t I give you some?”
“Oh, I keep forgetting—”
“Let me fix
your face a little.” She pulled makeup out of her coat pockets. “I keep this stuff to freshen up during the day,” she said.
She did something to my lashes and eyes and applied more lipstick and gloss and blush.
“He’ll fall on his head when he sees you.”
“I won’t be able to see it,” I said. If he looked at me with yearning, I wouldn’t see that either.
“Come on,” she said, and pulled my arm. I put my parka on and slipped my glasses into the pocket.
Ashley must have seen me do that because she said, “Don’t wear them under any circumstances.”
I followed her down the stairs. “Shouldn’t he fall in love with me with my glasses on, since I can’t live without them?”
“Trust me,” she hissed back. “I know about these things.”
The others were ready to go in the kitchen in Chapter Five.
“Where are your glasses?” asked my mother, my father, Bjorn, and even Richard simultaneously—everyone who had known me all my life with those glasses welded to my face.
“In my pocket,” I said as casually as I could. “They were giving me a headache.” It was stupid, but I couldn’t think of anything else. I couldn’t see without them. Everybody knew. I felt like a total jerk. Ashley must have sensed these feelings, because she pinched my arm, which meant I was to go through with this.
“You look different,” my dad said. I didn’t usually wear makeup.
“Let’s go before all those trees are gone,” Bjorn said, to my relief. We headed out through the back porch and into the garage.
“Doesn’t she look different, though?” my dad was asking my mother.
The last thing I heard Mother say before the back door closed was “Shhh.”
A surprise awaited me in the garage. Bjorn and Trish were in the bucket seats in the front; Fleur sat on the far side of the backseat, then Richard, and before I could get in and sit next to Richard, which seemed to me to be a good plan, Ashley climbed in next to him. “Lucky you,” she said to me. “You get the back all to yourself.”
The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman Page 4