What a Kiss Can Do

by Kathy Johncox

  “Kind of,” I said. “How did you know?”

  Derek ignored my question and said, “And what are you kind of thinking?”

  “Kind of wondering—about you.” I looked directly at him.

  He smiled. “Let me put your mind at rest. If we indeed were dating per se, where dating is defined as leading toward sex eventually, you wouldn’t be the first normal-sized, or tall woman that I have dated.”

  “Yes, but dating and sex—two different things.”

  “Why are you blushing? I’m sure you’ve wondered before. You’re an intelligent and curious person with admittedly raging hormones. Knowing each other the way we do, I feel very comfortable telling you I am creative and adaptable, and I have skills.” Derek smiled again and licked the drips off his chocolate cone.

  I smiled back. “Interesting,” I said.

  I closed the laptop and leaned my head against the couch. I contemplated a nap as I looked around my living room, fairly neat and kind of spare in a Scandinavian modern way. I sighed. In a few months things would be different here, and I wasn’t sure I understood how different. Formula, diapers, toys, yes, I got that. It was the man situation that confounded me. Googling “father” had given me some new perspective on how the two men in my life might possibly fit into Rudy’s life when she joined us. What would happen? Who would I want to be here? Who would step up? Would Fergie change his mind? Would Derek fight for a place?

  Through the archway, I could see my photo on the table in the hallway; it was still the soft-focus version reflecting my softer, needier side. Visions of laptops, Google ads and Miss Barbara Bear swirled in my head. Too many questions, I thought, as I surrendered to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stranger Happenings

  The weather was warm, and the whole area seemed geared up for it. Summer festivals celebrating corn, sauerkraut, strawberries, and unfortunately psychics, were just some of the upcoming events that were always covered by the Bridgefield Sentinel-Post. My thought this year was to do a big spread on festivals, the why, the where and the how. Little League was in full swing and there was about to be a parade honoring the players, all the players, with some mention of the best fielder, highest batting average, and other stellar achievements on the diamond. Of course, prior to this was the Little League candy sale, the door-to-door visits by earnest youngsters, male and female, early and late, selling high calorie candy bars for outrageous prices for the good of the cause. I was used to the doorbell ringing and now had a significant pile of candy on my hall table. I was partial to Milky Way bars.

  When the doorbell rang really early one Friday morning, in my half-awake state, I crawled out of bed damning Little League to hell. I looked out the high diamond-shaped security window in my door and saw no one. I carefully opened the door to “So, this is Rita in the morning.”

  “Oh, God,” I groaned.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Derek said as he walked in, smiling and dressed in faded jeans, a black t-shirt and a denim jacket.

  “Not going to work today?”

  “I have a late court appearance but I have some exciting news. Get dressed. We have to go.”

  “Nothing is that exciting until I have coffee.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Decaf, of course,” I said and went to the kitchen wishing I did not sleep in baggy flannels and a too-tight t-shirt.

  “I thought a good journalist would drop everything for a scoop.”

  That earned him a scowl. He laughed out loud.

  “Well, okay. Let me tell you. Remember those odd events we’ve been hearing ruminations about for the past few months? The sightings of lights Scott and I were talking about at one of the parties? Odd sounds out in Sweet’s Corners? Veiled mentions of UFOs?”

  “Go on.”

  “Last night, around eleven, it happened again. Only this time, someone really saw something. We need to get out there.”

  “How do you know? It’s five in the morning for God’s sake.”

  “I have my sources, just like you. Now hurry. Get dressed. I’ll ready the coffees.”

  Derek was excited, more animated than I’d seen him in a while. I hadn’t taken him for a UFO chaser, but then he was constantly surprising me. I went upstairs and pulled on my new overalls and sneakers.

  “Nice.” He looked approvingly at my jeans. “Very European.”

  “So I’m told.”

  We drove east out of Bridgefield into an area of low rolling hills and fields with cornstalks about thigh high. Derek’s had replaced the BMW with a new Land Rover and it normally commanded attention in that people always stared when we drove up. However, this time, we didn’t go anywhere where there were people, and there was fog or mist or something covering the fields. The sun was just starting to come up. We swung south onto a side road and continued for about two miles. Derek pulled off the road into some mud and slammed on the brakes.

  “Where is he then?’ Derek looked around.

  “Who? The alien you’re going to meet?”

  “He did say be here at quarter after six.”

  “They use our time?”

  “Enough, Rita. I’m waiting for the farmer who saw whatever it was—the object.”

  I was crabby, full of disbelief and out of coffee. My journalistic instincts were on high alert for a quack when I heard something in the bushes on the fringe of the field.

  “Mr. Jameson,” Derek called.

  “You found it, son.” An older man, maybe in his late 70s, with a cane and a dog came out of the greenery.

  “Good directions, sir. This is Rita Jensen from the Sentinel-Post.”

  We shook hands and looked each other over. We must have passed muster because Mr. Jameson led us into the field and we followed him. Here there was mud plus cornstalks.

  “Right about here it was, son.”

  We stopped and I looked down. We were standing in a rather large area of flattened corn stalks shaped like a house, peaked roof and all, all crushed down sideways.

  “Please tell Ms. Jensen what you saw, sir,” Derek said.

  “Well, it was like I told you. Last night, I saw some lights out here and thought it was those kids down the road doing something they shouldn’t. They often do that. So I came out with King here.” He pointed to the Irish setter glued to his side. “It was nearly dark by then and on my way down the road, this kid stopped me to buy one of those Little League candy bars, a Milky Way, maybe it was—I couldn’t see well. While I was digging in my pockets for my money, I heard a loud whoosh and saw a stream of lights going straight up. A greenish color. When I turned around the boy was gone and so was everything else. Just the flat grass was still here. King was chomping at the bit, ready to leave and he’s usually pretty laid back, okay with things, you know, so we hurried back home and I called in a police report.”

  “That’s how I heard about it,” Derek said. “I was scanning for information about one of my clients,” he said to my surprised look.

  “Can we walk out there?” I asked.

  “Sure. Whatever you want. Come up to the house if you need me.” He turned around, dismissing us, and King, who seriously had been sniffing the flattened corn, led him back through the brush.

  Derek had this really zealous look on his face, the kind of look, it crossed my mind, I’d like a man to have for me. He carefully stepped toward the circle and bent down to touch the dirt.

  “Feels normal,” he said.

  “Excellent,” I said.

  “I wonder what it was.”

  “A figment of Mr. Jameson’s imagination? Anybody could trample this grass, I mean corn. Some kids. Animals. Crackpots.”

  “Being a journalist certainly must get in the way of flights of fancy. To be so anchored in the here and now, what a pity. I had hoped better for Rudy.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that Rudy would be better off in bed watching the sunrise from her mother’s bedroom window?”

  The sun was rising over
the field. Colors rose with it, reddish and pink and gold, now at the beginning, and later they would all be boring yellow, the sun I most often saw. As the red crept slowly up, I got an image of flames reaching up into the sky and I felt warmth where there had been damp. Where did it come from? What part of the world is now dark so we could have light and warmth? When earth is alternately bathed in light and dark, what do aliens think? Now I was talking as though aliens actually existed. I pushed that mildly disturbing observation aside and focused on one obvious thing—out here, where there was nothing to obscure it, the sun had character.

  Derek fussed around the area some more but stopped when he felt I was somewhere else. He came over to me and we stood looking at the changing aspects of the sunrise.

  “Don’t get enough chances to do this, do we?” he said.

  “Normally I don’t even think about it. The sun is just one more thing that sometimes happens each day. Now, being out here and really seeing the sun come up—this is a special day.”

  “Maybe it’s like taking time to smell the roses, as you Americans are always talking about but never do, by my observation.”

  “Why did you bring me out here?”

  “It’s an adventure. Perhaps a story.”

  “Remember when these events first came up in community conversation? It was some time ago, like maybe the insert party. You were talking with Scott. I got interested then, but too much got in the way.”

  “Indeed,” he said, smiling.

  “If you think about it, I’m the journalist/fiction writer here and we are the ones who are supposed to be besieged by flights of fancy and ‘out there’ thinking. You’re a lawyer and by extension supposed to be grounded in things of the world, the things that are real and affect us every day.”

  “Well, I’ve always had an affinity for discussions and events that lead to thinking about aliens, and here define aliens as not only beings from another planet, but also people who don’t actually fit into the world. You can see how that would interest me, a person who feels on the outside of things more than you know. I hide it well, I think,” Derek said

  “So all that Derek confidence is like a well-written script to a Star Trek episode?”

  “In some ways. My sense is that people like you, creative people, people who have ‘muses’, as they say, often live in the realm of what’s possible. People like me are more about what is right and what is wrong, and less about what is possible. It’s possible, but it’s wrong to judge people or beings for that matter, on a what-you-see-is-what-you-get basis. There is so much more to people than just what you see.”

  At the point Rudy started kicking.

  “Yes, for sure. And how they make you feel definitely enters into that,” I said looking down at my watermelon-shaped belly and rubbing my stomach to let her know I was still there.

  “May I?” Derek said. He put his arm around my waist, asking for permission, which I gave, nodding, and he, too, massaged Rudy.

  “I like this,” he said. His hand was warm through the denim and his touch was firm. I had this flash of warmth and kind of a jolt in my stomach, something I vaguely remembered to be the beginning of desire, and shivered.

  “She does, too,” he said. The brief shiver hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “You two okay?” Derek looked into my eyes and did not move his hand.

  I nodded. “I should go. Work today.”

  His voice was husky. “Agreed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Non-Virgin and the Gypsy

  By mid-summer I’d attended and written about most of the local summer festivals, which were fun and interesting to readers since they were interesting to me, and that made writing about them easy. Some festivals were more intriguing than others; for example, the Sauerkraut Festival, as usual, was pungently aromatic, and I’m being kind. Our entire small town was involved somehow with sauerkraut salad and other recipes ranging from the common to the downright strange. Cabbage was something I didn’t favor anyway, and my expectant mother inability to digest certain foods made me demur at the free tastings, because I was not interested in the gastronomic after effects I might experience. I took Felicia to do the tasting for me; I could and would handle the writing.

  One of the most intriguing festivals was the Psychic Showcase. That one was a little scary because the minute the psychic people saw me, they wanted to tell me something about myself, about the baby, about the father, about the due date. Some things it’s better not to know. I managed to avoid most of the psychics—who actually looked like people I knew in the world, as in housewives, insurance salesman, even doctors—all except one crone-like woman with a babushka and a toothy smile. She motioned me over to her little cabana-looking tent. Not wanting to be rude, I walked over, intending to ignore all that she would say, especially if I had to pay her.

  “A momma,” the old woman said.

  Of course, she had to have some foreign accent. I decided she was more a gypsy fortune teller than a clairvoyant.

  “Momma free,” she said and beckoned me into the tent.

  I entered reluctantly, wishing Jen were with me. We sat across from each other and the woman reached for my palm. Her hands were old hands, and wrinkled but extremely soft.

  There was a scent, something heavy that, if I sat for a long time, would probably make me sick. Then, suddenly it changed to a fresh smell of spring water just as I started thinking about the gypsies in the D.H. Lawrence book, The Virgin and the Gypsy, with the big flood and the gypsies, especially the compellingly handsome and mysterious gypsy man who saved the young girl from certain drowning. I was trying to remember the ending when the woman said something that really got my attention.

  “Enough. No more think water.”

  I looked at her and she said “Close your eyes. Think nothing.”

  “It’s hard for me,” I said. “I’m always thinking.”

  “You can do,” she said.

  I closed my eyes and began rubbing my stomach with my free hand, since that seemed always to relax Rudy and me as well. I visualized the morning mist over the cornfield and felt warmth from my core travel to my shoulders and down my arms into my fingers. I imagined her eyes were closed as well. I felt like she was weaving back and forth. Then, suddenly the smell of the rare book room in the local library wafted under my nose.

  “Books,” she said. “You like.”

  I started to nod, but she shook her head. “Sit. Don’t move.”

  “Purple. Special.” Now the smell of cigarettes permeated the air; it was the scent of Dad’s purple chair sometimes when the air current was just right.

  We sat for a few minutes and she said a few other things that were fairly innocuous and might or might not be true of me and my life, the kind of things you could probably make up about a thirty-something pregnant female and be pretty safe with.

  Then she said, “Love.”

  A number of things immediately replaced the “nothing” I was trying to think about. Suddenly, the smell of lemon was strong and reaching out to me.

  I opened my eyes to find her staring intensely into them.

  “Now question. You ask me just one.” she said. It was very clear that she meant I could ask her one question.

  “I don’t have one,” I said.

  “Everyone has,” she said. She took both of my hands. Her hands were surprisingly strong.

  After we sat in silence for a few minutes, me trying to think up a question that would be safe, she squeezed my hands.

  “I know it,” she said. “And I know the answer. It is yes.”

  “The answer to what question? I don’t have one.” This was too much mystery and too little control, just what I hated about psychics and I was starting to get panicky and frustrated. Rudy was restless as well.

  “You know.”

  Frustrated and a bit disturbed, I stood up, and she squeezed my hands even more tightly.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said and pulled my hands from hers.
/>   “Momma free,” she said again and waved me off.

  I called Jen to tell her about this experience, more like an ordeal, and she was all excited.

  “Try to remember what you were experiencing or thinking when she gave you the one question to ask,” Jen said. “That will be very revealing.”

  I told Jen I’d try to remember and hung up.

  So many things had crossed my mind right then, that I wasn’t sure which one the woman, had she known what was going on in my head, had said “Yes” to. Will the baby be healthy? Will Fergie come back a changed man with a better attitude? Do I care? Will I tell my father about Rudy? Will I forgive him? And the last, will I ever want to experience Derek’s self-avowed love-making skills? And will I get to?

  Eerily, for the next few days, I kept smelling the lemon fragrance that had surrounded me in the cabana-tent, off and on, at odd moments, and I fervently wished for something other than Rudy’s somersaults to distract me. I told myself that between the psychic and the antics of that thing in the cornfield, that everyone was so hush-hush about, I felt I had the nuggets for several stories, if not books.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Flight of Fancy

  The end of the summer approached and news was in a late-summer slowdown. Little League tournaments were coming to an end and society events were on hiatus. School hadn’t started yet and the local colleges were cutting staff, not adding programs. I was dry for what Boss called my “secondary feature” for the coming week. And my belly was pretty darn big. Pondering the world with Rudy from my office window, I went back to ruminating on that morning with Derek in the cornfield, as I had so many times. When I would have a particularly bad day, I would call up the sunrise, the moment with Derek, his touch on my Rudy stomach, and oh yeah, somewhere in the back of my mind was the inexplicably smashed corn.

  Over these months, Derek had stepped right up in Fergie’s absence and was making me feel cared for and what? Loved? He called me every day and I looked forward to it. There was always something to say or share. We argued, but it was sensible arguing over things that deserved argument, not just dumb disagreements for the sake of disagreeing. We had even touched a bit on his relationships with women in the past. He’d even assured me he had a sex life, but we hadn’t gone into depth on that as we’d been so busy handling the result of mine. But I felt now that I could bring it up if I wanted to.