Preaching to the Choir

by Kitty Parker

  Jane raised herself up a bit, then settled on the lap of a very contented Luke. He took the opportunity to begin sucking on her neck. Apparently, they were now an item. Either that or they were, to put it incredibly bluntly, "fuck-buddies."

  "Get a room, guys," Kurt joked, sitting down behind me.

  Jane gave him the finger.

  I turned my attention back to the spectacle under the tree. Georgiana was being held back by her boyfriend, Giles, while the sounds of unrestrained laughter wafted down from the hidden branches above them. The bitch clawed at the tree like a cat at a scratching post.

  I chuckled. "Down, kitty!"

  Kurt settled his head on top of my shoulder, watching the scene unfold. "Think we should get a sedative for her?"

  Slightly uncomfortable, I shrugged him off. "Wouldn't be a bad idea."

  He was about to respond, when I was saved by the bell. Literally.

  Mr. Faulkner jingled the bell on his bike at us to get our attention. It didn't work. He opted instead for clearing his throat loudly. That didn't work either. Finally, he decided to unleash his secret weapon.

  "HEY!" he screamed in a voice so loud that llama farmers in southern Peru would have looked up.

  "Do you think they heard that?" I quipped sarcastically to no one in particular.

  Kurt scoffed. "My deaf aunt in Omaha heard it."

  "You totally stole that line from Disturbia," I accused him.

  He smirked. "Guilty as charged."

  "Mr. Matthews, Ms. Leisch," came the somewhat amused voice of our conductor. "If you're done flirting, I've got an announcement to make."

  My face turned redder than a tomato, as did Kurt's. My feet suddenly became fascinating, and I studied them intently.

  Not noticing my embarrassment, Mr. Faulkner continued, oblivious to the fact that the rear tire of the bike he was perched on was rapidly deflating. "Everything's set, so if you could all grab one bike each from those stands down there, we're going for a ride around the canal."

  There were scattered eye-rolls and groans.

  Mr. Faulkner dismissed the complaints with a wave of this hand. "Oh, suck it up! We're going to have a good time."

  With a final fart-like sound of deflation, his tire gave out.

  ----------------

  Half an hour, some spare rubber, and a new tire later, our group was settled on our bikes and off for a scenic ride along the canal.

  "Remind me again what the point of this is?" Jane asked after struggling up a particularly difficult little hill.

  "Scenic beauty?" Eden offered.

  Jane merely scowled.

  "This bites," grumbled Brigid, who had already broken into a sweat.

  I shrugged. I wasn't having quite as much difficulty maintaining my stamina as my friends. Although I was by no means the most athletic person around (that would be Carey Harris, who passed by the rest of us long ago, the stupid show-off), I did enjoy riding my bike.

  "On your left!"

  I moved to the right as someone passed me. Upon closer inspection, I noted that the someone was Kurt. He looked as though he, too, was not in the least bit tired by our ride. It was easy for his strong rower's legs to pump the pedals up and down.

  As this thought crossed my mind, I automatically looked down at said legs. Just one of those auto-pilot reactions, you know? I didn't intend to keep looking.

  But believe me, if you saw what I saw, you'd keep looking, too.

  The muscles in Kurt's legs alternated between pulling taut as he pushed down on the pedals and contracting as he lifted up; taut, where I could see the contour of each sinew straining beneath the flesh, contracted, where the lift of his leg pulled on the muscles in his rear end and back, making them stand out. It was an amazing sight to behold. I thanked God that he had worn shorts.

  I only realized that I'd been staring as opposed to paying attention to where I was going after the front wheel of my bike hit a tree root and ceased to travel forward with me. Now, I was no physics expert (in fact, I didn't really like the subject at all), but I knew enough about inertia to know that my body wasn't just going to stop with the bike. Things in motion stay in motion, you know? Yeah, that thing. Of course, that is exactly what happened.

  Letting out a shriek of dismay, quickly followed by a muffled "Oomph!", I flew forward off of my bike and did a lovely face-plant on the dirt path.

  There were two similar shrieks behind me as Jane and Eden braked as hard as they could to avoid running me over. Needless to say, I was grateful.

  Eden hopped off of her bike right away to "examine" me. "Lotte, are you okay?" She gently touched my shoulder.

  Pushing myself up on one elbow to face her, I expelled a mouthful of dirt in response.

  A concerned Kurt, who had dropped his bike some ten yards ahead of me, came running back. "Is she alright?"

  I glared at him. "Just peachy."

  "You have dirt all over your face," he noted. I hastily wiped it away, then made a move to stand up and retrieve my fallen bike. When I stepped on my right ankle, however, it began to throb with the sort of pain that, while thankfully not indicating a break, definitely meant that I had sprained or at least twisted the damn thing.

  "Scheiße! (shit)" I shouted as I crumpled to the ground. I tended to revert to German when I was really angry or in pain. This was definitely one of those times.

  "What's wrong, honey?" asked Jane, immediately by my side.

  Eden frowned in thought. "Is it your ankle?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, I think I sprained it or something."

  "I'll go tell Mr. Faulkner." Jane darted off.

  "Let me see it," said Kurt gently. "First aid training, remember?" he added when I looked at him skeptically.

  Sighing, I nodded. Kurt gently rolled back the leg of my jeans, exposing the offending ankle, which, sure enough, was pink and beginning to swell. I winced as Kurt touched it, even though his was the lightest touch I had ever felt.

  "Oh yeah," he said. "Definite sprain. You need to get some ice on this pronto."

  "Well, Dr. Kurt," I began sarcastically. "Unless you have some kind of magic freezer hidden in your shorts, I have no idea where we're going to get any."

  He nodded, taking in what I had said. I was actually kind of annoyed that he didn't laugh or at least roll his eyes at my remark. No, he had to get all serious on me, just when I needed something amusing to take my mind off of my pain. Stupid prick.

  Suddenly, said prick reached out and gently scooped me up into his arms.

  "Hey!" I shouted. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going to carry you back to the hotel. It's just a few blocks from here."

  "Put me down, you big Neanderthal!" I thumped his chest with one of my fists.

  He looked at me like I was insane. "On that ankle? I don't think so. Eden," he said, turning to my supposed best friend, who was allowing me to be carried off by a caveman. "Will you take care of our bikes and everything?"

  She nodded. "Of course. I think Jane has our room key, but she already ran off. Can you keep Lotte in your room until we get back?" I noticed a mischievous little grin on her face.

  "Traitor," I thought, scowling at her.

  "Sure," Kurt answered. "I'll put her on my bed and get some ice on her ankle."

  "Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" I shouted indignantly. They both chose to ignore me, and Kurt turned and headed for the hotel, carrying me bridal-style.

  "What on Earth possessed you to carry me back to the hotel?" I asked.

  He stared into my eyes, then grinned. "Isn't that what friends do?" he answered, emphasizing the word that represented what our relationship had supposedly come to.

  I scoffed. "It is when your friends are cavemen."

  ----------------

  An hour later, I was lying on Kurt's bed, my head propped up with pillows, my ankle surrounded by ice, and a book (Die Leiden des jungen Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, if you must know) clutched in my hands. Kurt sat in a chair a l
ittle ways off, also reading, but occasionally taking a peek at me, a.k.a. his "patient," as though I was about to explode. His anxiety was starting to really bug me when the phone rang, causing him to nearly jump out of his own skin.

  "Hello?" he answered after collecting himself enough to pick up the receiver.

  Pause. A big smile spread across Kurt's face.

  "Hey! I can't believe you're calling me here! How did you find me?"

  Pause.

  "Actually, I do. She's right here with me."

  I looked up. Kurt and this mystery person were talking about me?

  "Of course! I'll talk to you some more afterward, okay?"

  Kurt held out the phone to me. "It's your mother."

  Incredibly confused about why my mother would be calling Kurt's room, I took the phone from him and held it to my ear. „Mutti?"

  „Liebchen! Es ist so gut, deine Stimme zu hören! (It's so good to hear your voice!) Ich habe versucht, dein Zimmer anzurufen, aber du warst nicht da. (I tried to call your room, but you weren't there.)" Her voice suddenly took on a suggestive tone. "Also, warum bist du in Kurts Zimmer? (So, why are you in Kurt's room?)"

  I wrinkled up my nose at the hidden implication. "Mutti, ich bin nur hier, weil ich keinen Schlüssel für mein eigenes Zimmer habe. (Mom, I'm only here because I don't have a key for my own room.) Du weißt, dass ich nie etwas mit Kurt machen würde! (You know that I'd never do anything with Kurt!) Er ist…Kurt. (He's...Kurt.)"

  To say that Kurt was uninterested in a conversation that evidently (judging by the only word that he could understand, his name) had so much to do with him would be entirely untrue. He sat in his chair, eyeing me with great interest, probably wondering what kind of nasty things I was saying about him. Either that or he somehow thought I was extolling his countless virtues. It was probably the latter, knowing Kurt, the arrogant ass.

  Oh wait, I was supposed to be trying to be his friend. My bad.

  My mother's voice brought me out of my musings on the inner workings of Kurt's mind. "Man weißt nie, in wen man sich verlieben wird...(One never knows who one will fall in love with...)"

  Alright.

  Ew.

  "Ach, Mutti!" I screeched, causing Kurt's eyes to widen in surprise. "Sag das NIE WIEDER! (Never say that again!) Ich kann nicht mit dir sprechen. (I can't talk to you.)"

  I promptly chucked the phone to the other end of the bed. Raising an eyebrow at me, Kurt went to retrieve it.

  "Mutti?" he asked. "Are you still there?"

  Pause.

  "Yeah, she's sitting there with her arms crossed, looking mad about something."

  I scowled at him.

  "Sure, I'll tell her." He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Lotte, your mother says you're in denial about something, but she loves you anyway."

  I rolled my eyes. "Tell her that she's delusional, but I love her anyway." Denial. Pft. Yeah, right.

  Kurt moved his hand off of the receiver. "Mutti? Lotte says that you're delusional, but she loves you anyway." He looked over at me. "She's laughing, in case you want to know."

  I chuckled. My mother was a nutcase, but a very lovable nutcase, even if she did enjoy butting into my personal life a little too much.

  "Yeah, it's going well so far," Kurt continued, flopping back down in his chair. "Stockholm's really nice."

  Pause.

  "Oh, really?"

  Pause.

  "Yeah, they're always nice. I love them."

  Pause.

  "Yeah, she's been fine. She hurt her ankle this afternoon, though."

  I pouted, knowing that they were talking about me again.

  "Actually, she hasn't. Not since Sunday, anyway. We called a truce."

  Kurt held the receiver about a foot away from his ear as my mother squealed.

  "Yeah, I know. End of the world, right?"

  Pause. Kurt ran his hand through his light brown hair.

  "Isn't that jumping ahead a bit?"

  Pause.

  "Well, yeah, but…"

  Pause. Kurt shrugged.

  "Maybe, if I'm lucky. I hope so, anyway."

  Pause.

  "I won't, I promise."

  Pause.

  "I'll tell her that."

  Pause.

  "Love you too, Mutti."

  Kurt replaced the receiver, then turned his attention to me. "Your mother says she loves you, she hopes your ankle feels better, and to please forgive her for definitely being right about everything."

  I snorted. "Typical. But hey, what the heck was that?"

  He stared at me, confused. "What?"

  "That!" I waved my hand at the phone.

  "Um, a conversation?" he suggested, rubbing the back of his neck.

  "You were talking about me withmy mother right in front of me!"

  He furrowed his brow. "Well, since you weren't going to talk to her, she asked me all these questions about you. What was I supposed to do? Make stuff up?"

  Realizing that I was being stupid, I shut up. Kurt interpreted this correctly as me conceding the argument to him. However, he didn't rub it in as I'd expected him to. Instead, he came over and sat with me on the bed, adjusting the ice pack to better cover the swelling on my ankle.

  "Your mother says they've been having a lot of thunderstorms in the evenings back home."

  "Really?" I asked. "Damn, I'm sorry I'm missing those."

  I was a huge fan of thunderstorms. There was just something about them that fascinated me. Perhaps it was their magnificent beauty. At any rate, back in Massachusetts, the humid summer air nearly always led to at least some rumblings of thunder in the late evenings, if not a full out storm. I loved watching these from my window. That was one thing I'd really miss while I was away for the summer.

  Kurt's voice pulled me out of my reverie and back into the (sadly) thunder-less reality of a hotel room in Stockholm. "Yeah I know, me too."

  This surprised me. "You like thunderstorms?"

  He nodded and smiled. "Yeah, I love them. I have a window seat in my room, and I like to sit there and watch them pass through. When I was younger, I used to ask if I could go sit on the roof to watch them. I never did understand why my mother always said no. That was before I learned about lightning, of course."

  I chuckled. "When I was really young, they used to frighten me. I'd pull the covers over my head and sit there trembling like a leaf. I'm not exactly sure when, but I eventually stopped being scared of them. After that, I grew to love them. There wasn't like a defining 'face your fears' moment or anything, it was just a slow change of heart."

  Kurt turned and looked at me intently. As always, his hazel eyes were full of an emotion that I couldn't identify.

  "Sometimes," he said softly, "a change of heart can take a long time."

  I just nodded, staring right back into those mesmerizing eyes. There was a thoughtful silence.

  "So," said Kurt, breaking away from my gaze. "How's your family?"

  I raised an eyebrow at him, but continued anyway. "They're good, I guess. Loud, German, psychotic, you know the deal."

  Kurt chuckled appreciatively. "Your family's not that psychotic."

  "Alright, that's an exaggeration. They're enough to make you psychotic, though."

  "That explains a lot," he mumbled.

  "Hey!" I shouted indignantly, shoving him.

  He laughed as he fell back against the pillows. "I was just kidding!"

  I grinned and rolled my eyes. "So what's your family like, Kurt?"

  I seemed surprised at my question. "What?"

  I shrugged. "You know more about my family than you probably should, and since we're friends, I figured maybe I should know at least something about yours. Since I'm kind of captive in your room right now, I figured that this would be as good a time as any. It's not like we have anything better to do."

  "Alright then…" Kurt looked up at the ceiling in thought. "What do you want to know?"

  I tapped my chin. "What about your father?" I asked after
a minute. "What's he like?"

  Kurt grinned. "Like me, but older."

  "I pity your mother."

  Kurt scowled at me.

  "Kidding!" I raised my hands in a "don't shoot" type of gesture.

  He continued to look at me. An awkward silence engulfed us.

  I shifted uncomfortably. "Um…you mentioned a few days ago that you had a brother. I never knew that."

  Kurt shrugged. "You never asked."

  "Touché," I conceded. In all honesty, this knowledge made me wonder what else there was to Kurt that I didn't know about. He wasn't exactly a secretive person, but it still seemed like there were little things that I wasn't aware of.

  ----------------

  The next day was a Wednesday, but more importantly, it was an off-day. We were allowed to do as we pleased. For me, that meant lying around and being lazy while using my sprained ankle as an excuse not to do anything. This annoyed the hell out of my roommates, since I'd basically taken up permanent residence on our couch, depriving them of seating. They didn't find my newfound fascination with Swedish soap-operas amusing, either.

  "God, I wish I could pull a Mr. Miagi, clap my hands, and just somehow magically heal that ankle so you'd finally get off of your ass!" Jane stood in front of me with her hands planted firmly on her hips.

  Usually, I would have make a crack about her reference to a 1980's cult classic, but I just moaned and put a pillow over my head. "Go away." Of course, with the pillow where it was, this came out more like "Mro erwerph."

  "Lotte," Brigid started, coming to stand next to Jane. "I know you have a sprained ankle, but that doesn't mean you can just turn into a freaking vegetable!"

  "And hog the couch!" Jane added.

  I shoved the pillow angrily away from my face. "Well what the hell am I supposed to do? Get up and dance a polka?"

  Jane sighed in exasperation. "This calls for desperate measures. Ladies, conference!"

  Before my eyes, my three roommates grouped into a huddle to discuss my "situation" and form some sort of evil plot to get me to move. Those traitors. After a minute, they broke apart and stood facing me, their hands planted firmly on their hips and looks of determination (and slight amusement) on their faces.

  "Alright," Eden began, rather like a general announcing battle plans. "Here's the deal. We're taking a boat out to see Drottningholm Palace. The gardens are supposed to be gorgeous. You," here she pointed a finger at me,"are coming with us."