by Lark O'Neal
“No kidding?” Kaleb asks.
She gives him a coy raise of the eyebrow. “I’d love to find your twin, sweetheart.”
“Ah.”
“Can I get your autographs?”
“Of course.”
She digs through her bag and pulls out a New Zealand map. I sign it with my name and a smiley face. Kaleb scribbles his name, clearly uncomfortable.
“That was weird,” he says with a scowl as she leaves.
“Maybe we should think of things to sign.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, happy travels or something.”
He grunts. “You can if you want to. Not me.”
* * *
The flight to Auckland is easy and quick. I read and Kaleb listens to music and we don’t really talk. In Auckland, the connection is pretty short; we’re so focused on getting on it that there’s no time for anything else.
On the Auckland-Denver flight, we are flying business class, but this plane is not as new as the one I flew on the way here, and the seats are ordinary, side by sides, not that luxurious at all. The one bonus is that Kaleb is closer, separated by only the armrest, and the feeling of him beside me is all that keeps me from crying my eyes out as the plane leaves the green islands behind for the vastness of open ocean. A rock sits in my gut, and I peer out as long as I can see even a glimpse of land.
And suddenly, out of some hidden box in the back of my mind, rolls a marble of memory.
I’m screaming at the top of my voice, no, no, no, no, no! I want my daddy! I don’t want to go! No! My mother is struggling to hold on to me, her hand tight around my wrist as I yank backward and slam into the side of the bulkhead as we pass, and this makes me howl more. I yank hard and break free, but then she’s caught me around the waist and we sit down and she belts me in. Crying, howling, screaming in protest. No! I want my daddy.
I blink, putting my hand to my forehead. A cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck and I suddenly feel like I might throw up. The plane bounces over a current and I have to urgently breathe in, breathe out, hands clutching the arm rests.
Kaleb’s hand covers my left. “Another panic attack?”
“Not sure.”
“Still the same thing. Breathe in and out evenly.”
Nodding, I do as he tells me. “How are you always so reasonable and calm?”
“Someone has to be.”
It makes me smile, and now that the nausea is subsiding I can look at him. He’s very close, because even business class doesn’t give anybody that much room. His ridiculously thick long lashes are catching the light from the window, and his mouth is soft with humor and all I really want to do is lean over and raise my face and invite him to kiss me. His hand is still warm and heavy over mine, so I make do with that. “I remembered having a total breakdown when my mom and I left.”
His brows lift. “That’s new, right?”
“Yeah, very.” I think about the nightmare last night, the monster breathing in my ear. “I don’t know that I’m ever going to have any answers.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you don’t want them.”
I nod.
He lets go of my hand and pulls out his earphones. “I’m going to watch movies.”
“I’m going to read the script, start to finish.”
For a minute, his expression shifts, the amber eyes going darker, smokier. “Go for it,” he says after awhile and tucks the ear buds into his ears, and presses icons on the screen on the seat in front of him.
I take the script out of the seat pocket. It’s a Romeo and Juliet tale, about a sixteen year old who is the “ward” of a much older man, and the seventeen year old son of an enemy businessman. Jules is a foster kid who has basically been sold into sexual slavery by a foster mother. Rome is the son of a kingpin gangster, wealthy and cultured. They fall in love at a masquerade and it goes from there—balcony, union, disaster, the miscommunication that leads to suicide by both.
I know, I know—a thousand times we’ve seen it. But Mercedes has a gift and the nuances are beautiful, and every time I read the death scene, I cry again.
I read the script through again, thinking about how to absorb the personality of Jules so that I can be her. How is she different from me?
Jules is tougher than me. She’s also a virgin, kept that way on purpose so she’ll fetch the highest prices. That mix of cynic and innocent is very appealing. I’m more trusting than Jules, and need to figure out how to add a layer of suspicion of everyone.
But after awhile, the study is too much and I take out the book Tyler gave me for Christmas, A Moveable Feast. I’m not sure I’m going to like it—seriously, Old Man and The Sea bored me half to death—but within a few pages of this one, I’m all the way in. It’s comforting to read about Paris in a long ago time, the famous artists and writers. I wonder, staring off into space, what it would be like to visit Paris. It somehow eases my sense of loss over leaving New Zealand.
I’m a traveler now. I can go back.
* * *
Hours later, I wake up from a deep sleep with a jerk. The cabin is silent, the only sounds the roar of the engines. Outside my window, the world is dark, only the ocean below us, empty and vaster than I could have ever imagined. I have no idea what’s yanked me awake, but I straighten my stiff neck and realize that I’ve been leaning hard on Kaleb’s shoulder. He’s sound asleep, the ear buds still in his ears.
It’s a luxury to study him like this without him knowing. The tumble of a single loose curl over his forehead and eyebrow, his blunt strong nose and unbelievable mouth. It’s so lush and gorgeous, so pillowy to kiss, so skilled. My eyes tiptoe downward, skimming his throat and his strong arms, crossed over his chest, and downward more over his lean belly and powerful thighs.
A wave of desire ripples through me as I imagine those thighs naked, scattered with black hair, and that amazing tattoo. I’m awash with memories of the night we spent in Milford Sound, getting to know each other’s bodies so intimately, and how aligned I felt with him at that moment.
He’s right beside me and I miss him so much it’s like I’ve lost a finger.
His eyes open and he’s staring right at me, both sleepy and alert. He moves a few inches closer, takes out one side of his earphones and puts it in my ear. It’s “A Girl, a Boy, and a Graveyard,” Jeremy Messersmith, one of the odd singer-songwriters we both like. I smile slightly and lean back, eyes still on his face.
“I could feel every place your eyes touched me,” he says very quietly.
“Could you?” I whisper in return. “Do you want me to do it again?”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes again, arms crossing over his chest more tightly. I’m no psychologist, but even I know that means closed position. Keep out. So I just lean sideways with the music in my ear, sharing this one small thing he will give me.
I wonder what I want. What he wants.
Well, that’s stupid. He wants me to get rid of Tyler and just be with him, and that makes perfect sense, and maybe it’s even exactly what I want. Sitting next to him like this, my knees tucked close under the blanket, I could look at him for hours, even the parts that aren’t perfect, like the roughness of the skin on his neck where he shaves, but not really, and gets bumps sometimes. It’s like a face I’ve known, as if it was already in my head when I was born and I was just looking around until I found it.
Which is probably kind of stupid and just a matter of hormones or pheromones or something. Didn’t Tyler say something like that to me when we first met?
Does Kaleb feel that way? Does he believe in soul mates and deathless love and all that, like Torches, like two lovers who have to be together no matter what, even if they die?
I focus on the fabric of his sleeve, which is ordinary blue cloth, and I pinch it between my fingers. He opens his eyes a little. “What?”
I shrug.
His mouth softens and he pulls the armrest between us up and pushes it into the space between the sea
ts. “Come on,” he says, opening his arm to offer me the spot next to his body. When I sink into it, sighing with relief, he pulls the blanket around us and his arm curls around my back.
I close my eyes, hearing his heart under my ear and I don’t care if we are soul mates or not soul mates or anything else. I want only to be right here, right now, hearing his heart beat beneath my ear, his breath moving in and out of his lungs. Steady.
KALEB
By the time we get through customs in San Francisco, we’ve been traveling for more than 18 hours. My ears are stopped up from the flight, and I keep yawning to try to get rid of the sensation. The line creeps along, and Jess and I creep with it. Finally, we push through a pair of doors and we’re slammed into the middle of the airport.
The noise blasts me first—kids crying, people talking, announcements overhead, robotic voices announcing time zone, and reminders to keep your eyes on your baggage.
The next thing is the smells—so many food smells. Onions and chocolate and something sugary and coffee and meat. “I’m hungry. Do we have time to get something?”
Jess pulls out her phone. “Yeah. I think we need to find our gate first, but then we can find something.” Her hair is mussed at the back, and I reach a hand out to smooth it before I realize I shouldn’t. It’s just hard to stay aloof.
She gives me a sweet little smile, reaching up to check it. “I should go comb it, brush my teeth. Can you wait that long?”
“Sure.”
I wait in the hallway while she ducks into the ladies room, and watch the parade of humanity, listening to all the American accents, smiling at the differences in them. A big black man with a barrel belly teases a coworker in a voice that’s slow as honey, and she giggles, slaps his arm. A girl runs by pulling a suitcase, and it clacks over the floor.
America. I’m in America. Through the windows, I can see the city, nothing particularly iconic, but I pull out my phone and send a selfie to Instagram and then to my sister.
Jess comes back out, not seeing me at first. Her hair is tamed back into place and she’s changed her shirt, into a warmer sweater, the color of turquoise, which sets off her tan and her mountain blue eyes. Objectively, as if I have never seen her in my life, I take her in. Jeans on slim legs, just enough chest to keep her from looking like a boy, very nice ass.
She looks around and finally spies me, and her expression brightens. So much.
It’s not the way she looks that caught me. She’s not my type; I’ve said it a billion times. Not my type, this slight, shy blonde. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Watching her as she comes toward me, I’m caught in the bend of her elbows and the way she pulls a lock of stray hair away from her eye and the sound of her voice as she says “Okay, let’s find our gate. I think it’s right over there.”
“Are you sure there’ll be food over there?”
She grins up at me. “You’re in America now, cowboy. There’s always food.”
And she’s right. Before we reach our gate, I count seven different places to buy meals, plus two more to have a beer and one free-standing Starbucks. “That’s the third one I’ve seen here,” I say as we pass. “How can they all stay in business?”
“I’m sure there are even more,” she says, and stops. “This is our gate. Food court is right over there. Look around. Anything look good to you?”
It’s overwhelming. People push toward their favorites, and the crowds are really quite thick at the moment. I remember it’s the day after Christmas. Christmas decorations and music are everywhere.
There are signs I recognize—Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s, but— “I want something really American that I wouldn’t get in New Zealand.”
A passerby, a guy around thirty, hears me. “San Francisco Sourdough, right there.” He points. “The clam chowder is great.”
Jess smiles at me and shrugs. “Let’s try it.”
I wave thanks at the guy. And the food is really good, the soup served in giant bread bowls, way more than I can eat. All around us people settle down with trays of enormous portions. “I thought it was exaggerated,” I say, eyeing a woman who must weigh 18 stone laboriously carry a tray of pasta, bread, pie and enormous cup of soda to a table and settle in. “The portions.”
“Nope.” She looks around, but her attention is on the food. “This bread is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I didn’t know it could be so, so sour. Do you think we should take some with us?”
I shrug. “Why not?”
I’m listening with one ear to the background noises. The cadence of the accents is different, the pace of conversation, in some ways faster, some ways slower. For the film, I have to speak American, and I’ve been on YouTube, listening to coaches phrase certain accents from around the country. Behind me, a man speaks into a mobile phone, “Bring the contracts out and I’ll get them signed before we go to the meeting.” Under my breath, I imitate him, thinking I’m pretty close.
Jess says, “Not thIm. Theeeeeem,” she says, drawing the world out. “Most words need more space in them in an American accent.”
I smile. “Especially in the South.”
“Yeah, but our characters are Californian, so this is our world.”
“Will you have to change your accent?”
“No. The west all sounds pretty much the same. It’s when you go east and south and maybe even the midwest that it changes.”
I nod. And suddenly, a wild sense of cheer burns through the jet lag. “Bro, we’re here. In America.”
Her jeweled eyes glitter. “We are.”
Chapter TEN
JESS
We land in Denver twenty-two hours after we left New Zealand. I slept maybe five or six hours, Kaleb less than that. A tall, tidy black man waits for us when we finally make it into the terminal, holding a sign that says Te Anga/Donovan. We knew to look for him, but I still get a little thrill thinking that they sent a driver for us.
“Hello,” he says in a thick, rumbling voice. “Welcome to Colorado. I’m Stephen and I’ll be your driver throughout the production.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. Kaleb shakes his hand firmly.
It takes awhile to get our baggage, and there are tons of skis and snowboards lining up. A trio of guys with slouchy hats and high end coats are jostling each other, laughing. One has a bag that says Olympic Team. I point discreetly. “Is that someone we should know?”
Stephen inclines his head. “Not my world, I’m afraid. I do know some of the trials have been moved to Breckenridge because Lake Tahoe has so little snow.”
“Hmm.” I don’t look at Kaleb. Breckenridge is still a long way from Aspen, but closer than Lake Tahoe.
I wonder if they are friends of Tyler’s. Kaleb studiously doesn’t even glance at them.
The car is big and black and solid, with a giant trunk. “Do you need a blanket? Pillows?” he asks, and we gratefully accept both.
“How far is it?” Kaleb asks.
“Three to four hours, depending on the weather and traffic.”
“We’ll need some food before then. We’re both starving.”
“Not a problem. The company has packed a basket for you.”
So we settle in for the long ride. I’m feeling cranky and off-center, wishing for hot food, but when we open the basket, it’s pretty luxe—fresh red grapes and honey-crisp apples, sweet baby carrots, and three kinds of sandwiches—egg salad and roast beef and turkey—all on thick bread. Stephen hands us bottles of water and points out the row of sodas and soda water in a rack on the back of the seat, barely lit with the same pale blue lights that give our space a soft glow.
“One last thing and I’m going to close the window and let you sleep. Look back at the airport and you can see the roof that it is so famous for—representing all fifty-two 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado.”
I peer out my side window and catch my breath. The canvas roof glows against the darkness, all the tent-tops sticking up like snow-covered peaks.
“Gorge,” Kaleb says, and settles back, pulling a Dr. Pepper out of the rack. “It’s cold!”
“Really?” I touch it and laugh. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
For a second, he eyes the sandwich and then the driver and then me. As the window between the front and back seat closes, he says quietly, “I think our lives have changed a lot more than we thought.”
Butterflies swirl around my belly. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Ready?” He takes a bite of his sandwich.
I pop a grape in my mouth, like Cleopatra. “It’s going to be easier than being poor.”
“Sure about that?” He opens the soda and takes a sip. “What is this?”
“Welcome to America,” I say with a laugh. “My turn to know stuff.”
He toasts me with the bottle. “To knowing things.”
* * *
It isn’t long before the quiet and dark and warmth of the car lull us both into sleep. Kaleb leans against the back, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and I curl up with my head in his lap. “Okay?” I ask, already falling into the heavy drag of sleep.
“Mmm.” He’s falling, too. His hand curls into my hair, wrapping a length of it around his wrist, his thumb stroking it like it’s a blanket.
When I wake up, the car is stopped and Kaleb is rubbing my upper arm gently. “We’re here, Jess.” His voice is warm and husky. “You were really out, Dolphin Girl.”
Blinking, I straighten and shake off the blanket. “That probably means I’ll be awake in the middle of the night.” I yawn. “Did you sleep?”
“For awhile.”
Stephen opens the door and I climb out, pulling my coat on in the sharp mountain air. We’re parked in the round driveway of a really nice hotel, and people are coming forward to help with bags, greeting us with deference. In my just-wakened state and the new environment, my shyness rises like a vine to choke me and I scramble in my jeans’ pocket for bills, only then realizing, “We didn’t get any American money!”
Kaleb touches my upper back. “It’s all right. Catch you tomorrow, bro,” he says to the guy putting our suitcases on a trolley. “We’re jet lagged as hell.”