Ask the Passengers

She softly pulls my hand down and onto her chest and holds it with her two hands.

We don’t say anything for a while. I can feel her heart beating.

“Do you mind if I kiss you right now?” she asks.

And my mouth says no, even though it knows I am dating Dee. (It also knows that Dee has never been polite enough to ask me anything before she does it.) As we kiss—and Kim is a spectacular kisser—I begin to think about what this means. This means I’ve kissed two girls in my life. Which is one more than the one boy I’ve kissed—if you don’t count Jeff Garnet, who I’m not really kissing. It means I am more of a lesbian than I was only a minute ago when I was just looking at Kim and thinking about how cute she is. It means that one day I will have to tell my parents. And Ellis, who says things like lesbian luncheon. It means that maybe I will finally drive my pseudo-agoraphobic mother into full-fledged hiding.

Or maybe I will save her from Unity Valley, and this will finally get her to move back to New York City, where we belong.

They’ll say: Good riddance to her. She thought she was so damn special.

“Wow,” Kim says.

Then we go back to kissing, and I clear my mind of all those thoughts and I just feel stuff. I feel aroused and happy, and kissing becomes harder when I smile a little, and when she feels me smile under her lips, she smiles, too. I bring my hands up to run them through her hair.

We stop and look at each other in the dim light. And then I hear “Asteroid!”

And I say, “Shit.” I roll off the table and sit on the bench for a second, and Kim follows me and sits next to me, and I can tell we’re both trying to look innocent and failing.

“Should have known I’d find you here,” Kristina says. She looks at Kim, who moves her hand in a wave. “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” I say.

Donna looks at her phone. “We’ll be really late if we don’t leave now.”

“And Dee’s waiting, right?” Kristina adds.

“Yeah,” I say.

Kim walks with us to Donna’s car. We fall behind them, and she says, “It was nice meeting you. Come back any time you want.” She slips her number into my back pocket and then says, “See you guys!” as if we had just played on the swing set in fourth grade together.

“She seems nice” is the last thing Kristina says to me.

ME: I just kissed someone else.

ME: True. Not very cool.

I bring my hand up to my face and see if I can smell Kim on my hands. I realize how stupid I am for doing this.

ME: You know what this means, right?

ME: No. Not at all.

ME: It means you’re g*y, Astrid.

ME: Oh. That.

ME: Yeah. That.

Since Donna and Kristina are talking and listening to music up there as if I’m not in the backseat, I summon Frank to sit next to me. He winks as he arrives. Then he gives me a thumbs-up.

I have no idea why he’s so happy for me. I could have just ruined everything.

25

WELCOME ABOARD FLIGHT ATLANTIS.

BY THE TIME WE PULL INTO the bar parking lot, it’s 10:42. Earliest we’ve ever been. Dee is here, in her car, waiting for me. I make my exit while Donna and Kristina start making out in the backseat and Justin texts Chad because he’s not here yet.

When we kiss, it overflows into a longer kiss and then a longer one and then a passionate, sink-down-in-the-seats kiss, and I feel a blanket of desire over me like I’ve never really felt before. Not ever. She grabs my hair and twists it. She squeezes my hip, and I put my right hand up her shirt and touch her through her bra and then slide my index finger around her waistband. Just a little.

FACT: I WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING TO SAY ABRACADABRA RIGHT NOW.

FACT: I’D RATHER STAY HERE IN DEE’S CAR THAN GO INTO THE BAR.

FACT: NEITHER OF THESE THINGS IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

So I nibble on her ear and whisper other words. “Abalone,” I say. “Abercrombie.”

She chuckles and slips her hands into my jeans and down the sides of my legs. Under my panties, and then aims them around my ass and holds it like someone would hold a water balloon. Carefully. Skillfully.

“What were you saying?” she asks.

“Ab… dominal external oblique muscles.”

She removes her hands from my jeans and lifts my shirt a little. She kisses my lips. My chin. My neck. My collarbone. My belly. My ribs. She says, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. Were you trying to say something?” She begins to unbutton my fly.

“I think it was abrasion,” I say. “Or maybe abridgment.”

She lifts my bra, and my br**sts spill out. “Are you sure? I thought you might be trying to say something else.”

Brutally loud knock on the window. We lie and breathe for a second.

“Abrupt, abominable abuse. That’s all she’s good for at times like this.”

Kristina keeps knocking.

I sit up and sigh. “Did you ever wonder if what you believe is reality? I mean, that beyond this is a real reality that’s more real than the reality you know?”

“Shit, Jones.”

“But did you? Did you ever get pulled in so many directions you weren’t sure which one was real?”

She bear-hugs me.

I say, “I love you.”

She kisses me on the forehead.

Kristina knocks again and says, “We’re leaving you here if you don’t come now.”

We straighten ourselves and get out of the car. I feel the cold more than I usually do. I realize that I was sweating. Parts of my body are damp. The right parts. I shiver. Dee and I cross the street and get in line and press ourselves together. Neither of us can stop smiling. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s like no one else is here. Justin’s and Chad’s lips are moving, and they seem to be having a conversation, but I can’t hear them. Same with Kristina and Donna. Blah blah blah. I feel 100 percent ready to say abracadabra.

Maybe even tonight. Claire would be so proud.

We are now experts at getting through the door. My heart rate doesn’t increase. My palms aren’t sweaty. I don’t even have exact change. I smile at Jim the bouncer and hand him my twenty-dollar bill. I say, “For two,” and hold up two fingers. Dee thanks me as he hands me ten dollars in change.

As I step over the threshold, I feel I am entitled to happiness, even if my best friend is acting weird and making me paranoid. Even if I just did what I did with a complete stranger named Kim. Even if I feel like an occasional dumbshit. I am in my own personal happy jet—in a wide seat and with the perfect mix of cool and warm air and the little pillow positioned perfectly in my lumbar region.