A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (20 page)

“What?” she asked, breathless.

He blinked as though fighting his way through a fog. Instead of speaking, he leaned down and kissed her.

It was a kiss that knocked a thousand more dreams free of their cocoons. Memories of former nighttime exploits showered down from the darkened caves of her mind. Kate gasped as the relationship she’d formed with this mysterious man fleshed out into something even more solid than she’d previously known.

He pulled away, and licked his lips. “What’s wrong?” he asked, staring at her.

“I just—I just remembered you. More, I mean. I remember more dreams,” she said, gasping for air. The weight of those memories crushed down on her.

“We have a long history, you and I,” he said. “But for now, let’s just skate and pretend it will last an eternity.”

Another disco song had already begun, and as Kate’s head returned to her surroundings, she immediately recognized Barbara Streisand (or as Kate like to think of her, Babs) and Barry Gibb singing one of their duets. Will smiled and zipped away, chugging his arms along to get going fast. Kate spun in place in the center of the rink, watching him dodge around other couples. She felt a smile tug on her cheeks and her admiration for him grew. Was this the real Will? How different would he be in a real life?

The sequins on his outfit glittered beneath the disco light. Barry’s voice rained down and washed over Kate like a tsunami as he launched into his part in the song. Will straightened and looked at her. Their eyes met from across the rink and he began serenading Kate. She laughed and skated after him. Soon they rolled along, hand in hand, singing together like some kind of epic romantic comedy that made all the women swoon.

Kate was into it. Really, really into it. She could be, too, because this was a dream and the people skating around them were oblivious, involved in their own fictions in that strange way of dreams.

12: Drifting

Kate walked to work, through the soft golden light of the desert morning. Birds chirped in the trees and she caught the odor of freshly mown grass wafting down the residential street as she crossed it. She passed the Scientology place with its permanent “Now Hiring” sign in the door, past the soup place and a few other odd businesses, and then she was on the commercial block where Suga’s was.

The entire time she thought about the date she’d had with Will. The skating. The magic of that experience. It was a date, wasn’t it? She looked around, feeling like someone might be watching, reading her thoughts, and judging her for thinking a dream she had with some guy was a date.

But . . . it was. Whatever was going on was unusual. Or perhaps it happened all the time and people just didn’t talk about it. As far as she knew, everyone had recurring dreams of a sexual nature with the same person over and over.

She strolled past the adult store and the girl who opened during the week was out front, rolling up the iron gate. Her lip was pierced, her ears were gauged and she was wearing a short denim skirt, fishnet tights, knee-high boots and a pink off-the shoulder shirt. “Hey Rachel,” Kate said.

“Hi! How’s it going?” Rachel said, turning to show off a face-splitting smile. Rachel’s brown eyes were bright behind her pink horn-rimmed glasses.

“Great! You?”

“Bitchin’, you know. The usual,” she nodded and laughed. “Another day another sex-toy sold. Am I right?”

Kate laughed and blushed. She paused to consider asking Rachel if the girl had ever heard of someone having recurring sex dreams in all her experience at the adult shop, but thought better of it. She delivered a friendly parting wave as she pushed the door to Suga’s open and stepped inside. Ferg was behind the counter, bent over, straightening rows of Game Boy cartridges in the front counter display case.

“You’re late.” He didn’t look up.

“By a minute,” she said, unable to keep the appalled tone out of her voice.

“By three, according to the store clock.”

“Which runs on what, a battery? My phone, which syncs with Verizon, says by a minute.”

“The store doesn’t run on Verizon time.” He slid the display door closed, straightened and gave her a serious look.

“If you want to fire me for it, go ahead.” She stopped dead in her tracks and folded her arms across her chest. She tilted her chin up as though giving him the chance to punch her in the jaw.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Don’t be a jerk.” She swallowed the twinge of guilt for calling him a jerk. He hesitated. There was really no other way to handle Ferg. He looked on anything else as weakness, so she stood her ground until she knew she’d won. With a shrug, Kate continued to the back room and dropped her messenger bag inside.

When she came back out, Ferg smiled at her. “I’ll let you make it up to me. Go up to Salt and Sugar and get me a large coffee.”

“You wish.”

“Please?” he begged, changing his tone and cocking his head to one side.

“Why don’t you go yourself?”

“You know why. Emily. She’s there in the mornings. Always. Anyways, look,” he said, holding his hands out in a helpless gesture, “I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about being late. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”

“Said the Nazi to the Jew,” Kate retorted. Was he really trying to escape culpability? 

He gave her an offended look. “Do you have Jewish blood? Because I do. Don’t make Jewish jokes.”

“It’s not a joke. It’s a fair reference to the faulty nature of your reasoning.”

“Calm down, calm down, Kate. Come ‘ere.” He held his arms out, offering a hug. He beckoned with both hands. “Come on. Let’s make up and be friends again.”

He strolled around the counter and hugged her in front of the endcap display with the store top ten sellers on it. Kate returned the hug without a word, staring at the columns of cellophane-wrapped vinyl. Truth was, Ferg was a great hugger, though she would never tell him—he’d brag to everyone about it. His build was big and barrel-chested. She was sure hugging him was what it would feel like to embrace a bear.

When he let go, he asked, “Now will you go get us drinks?”

She grudgingly held out her hand for his money. He dug his wallet out of his back pocket and placed a ten in her palm.

“For both of us,” he said. “Pour cream in till it’s nice and golden and bring back a handful of raw sugar packets.”

She nodded and headed out, grateful for the opportunity to not be in the store sparring with Ferg. Sometimes he was a lot to take. And after seeing him glare at Ty over and over again at Lucy’s Saturday night, Kate was still irritated with him. It bothered her that he thought a hug would fix everything. But she didn’t know what else she could make him do. She couldn’t feasibly hold a grudge for too long.

Her pace was slow heading up the block to Salt and Sugar. She wasn’t in a hurry, nor was she anxious to return to the stuffy store and engage in more pointless arguments with Ferg.

She took a deep breath and tried to think of something else, about how much she loved summer mornings. Yes. The only thing better was a fall morning, where she could smell winter coming on the chilled breeze. Her brow furrowed as her mind drifted away from that topic, and to how aware she’d become that she wasn’t getting any younger. The summers passed so fast and then fall was here and she began thinking about how hard another winter would be.

Well, anyway, at least her thoughts were cheerful for a second.

There was a long line in Salt and Sugar and Kate shuffled to the back of it and looked around. The decor was hip, with comfy yet cool red suede armchairs, bar-stool style seating, and vivid, abstract wall art done by local artists.

Turned out, Ferg was right. Emily was working today. She had a tie-dyed scarf wrapped around her head and her black dreads poked out the back. As Kate reached the counter, she spotted Kate and smiled, while the jewel in the side of her nose glinted in the track-lights above the bar. “Kate-o, how goes it?”

“Not bad. You?” Kate’s palm began to sweat all over the ten dollar bill Ferg gave her. She stuffed the money in her pocket. Ordering a drink always made her nervous—the pressure to get everything right was laughably intense.

Emily nodded. “Splendid. Loving summer. I heard your gig was phenomenal.” She busied herself with restocking the counter-top jar of biscotti from a bag she pulled from under the counter.

“It was good, I guess.” Kate sensed the line behind her pulsate and sigh with irritated customers. They wanted her to order and cut the chatter. But Kate couldn’t figure out how to cut the conversation short.

Emily raised one dark eyebrow and asked what she could get Kate. Kate ordered, not mentioning that one of the drinks was for Ferg, but Emily knew and her right eye twitched ever so slightly as she pulled the cups out and poured in the light roast for Ferg.

When she handed his coffee over, Emily caught Kate’s gaze for a second and Kate saw the fracture of light in her green eyes that confessed her broken heart. “Tell him I said hello,” was all she said.

“I will,” Kate promised, feeling the urge to tell Emily how great she was and that Ferg was a self-recriminating fool who made dumb mistakes all the time and that it wasn’t her fault because she was amazing. Instead Kate was quiet as she paid and walked away. She went down to the other end of the counter to pick up her latte. She felt the collective exhale from the line of customers behind her as she walked away. Everyone was so impatient all the time. At least she didn’t try to pay with a check.

Back at the shop, Kate told Ferg again what a loser he was for breaking up with Emily.

“Was she there?”

“Yeah, of course.” Kate said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“How did she look?”

“How do you think? Beautiful. Amazing.” Kate took a slow sip of her latte and set it on the counter.

Ferg picked it up and moved it away from the computer.

Kate rolled her eyes. He was particular about where they put their drinks. Claimed that in the past people had spilled beverages on the keyboard. Kate had her doubts, since their keyboard came from the prior century, at least.

“Did she ask about me?” he questioned, trying to be casual about it.

“She just wanted me to tell you hi for her.”

He grunted, standing on the other side of the counter, his hand cupped around his drink as he turned it in place and stared, unseeing, at the ground by Kate’s feet. “That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” They were both quiet for a few minutes as Beck’s latest album played in the background.

“Well, I think I’ll put on a DVD,” Ferg said, turning and heading to the used DVD rack.

Kate stared at him, thinking about how frustrating it was to try to get your friends to make choices that
weren’t
totally stupid. Like with Ferg and Emily. Or Audra and all her boyfriends. But, if Kate was honest about it, to an outside observer, her decision would make absolutely no sense. Not that they made sense to her.
I mean, a dream boyfriend, literally,
she thought. Her eyes narrowed and she squinted as she watched Ferg pick out the
LA: Bluefire
DVD set.
What? Why would he pick that one?

“There was something hilarious about this. And mysteriously good,” Ferg said as he popped the disc tray open on the Xbox resting on top of the DVD book case.

“You mean mysteriously awesome and sexy?” Kate teased. “Face it. You think the lead actor is a total hottie.” She had no idea where that was coming from. Was she being subversive? Was she just finding a way to talk about her lust for the Casanova from her nighttime rendezvous? That had to be it. Because there was no way she thought Ferg had a crush on an actor from the 1970s.

“Sounds like someone’s projecting. No, man, I just liked the cars, and the grittiness of it. We both know if they made this show now, it would be on HBO and would be as big as
Breaking Bad
or
Game of Thrones
or
The Sopranos
.”

“Well, nice way to change the subject away from Emily.”

“Look, it’s over. OK? I don’t want to talk about it,” Ferg said. After navigating through the menus and turning on the subtitles, he hit Play All.

Kate was about to tell him that Emily still cared about him, when the door burst open and in walked Anthony and Zach.

“Get lost, losers,” Ferg said with a sarcastic grin as he looked up. Zach charged at Ferg and tried to punch him in the side. Ferg dodged and slapped Zach on the cheek.

“Ow.” Zach rubbed his cheek. “We just thought you’d want to see Anthony’s newest tat, but we’ll go.”

“Oh, we want to see it,” Kate said, leaning over the counter. She didn’t. She hated tattoos.

Anthony turned and with delicate movements, lifted his shirt to reveal his right shoulder blade. It was the 311 logo. Red, irritated, and bruised. Kate bet it hurt on that bone.

“Nice,” Kate lied. “Very cool.”

With a loud crack, Ferg slapped Anthony on the bare part of his arm.

“Ow! What?” Anthony cried, letting his shirt drop.

“We told you not to get that, man. Do you sincerely believe you’ll still be listening to 311 when you’re fifty?” Ferg asked.