Kiss the Girl

by Susan Sey

  “Except for, what, your face, your figure and your trust fund?” Mary Jane asked.

  “Nixie’s more than her face,” Karl said.

  “Please, don’t start with this,” Nixie said, putting her fingers to her forehead.

  “With what?” Erik asked.

  “People identify with Nixie,” Karl told Erik and Mary Jane. “They all have crazy mothers, rotten jobs, difficult relationships. But Nixie has all that crap in spades and look what she manages to accomplish anyway. She’s proof that good works in the world. She gives people hope.”

  Nixie grabbed Erik’s forearm. “He’s not reasonable about this. Don’t listen to him.”

  “But it’s more than that,” Karl went on. “In this business, you get a lot of people with the face and the money to do some good. Sometimes they even have an education. But Nixie? Nixie connects. You give her a one on one with anybody from a sultan on down to a goat herder, and within five minutes, they’re dying to build her an orphanage or write her a personal check. Money rains out of the sky wherever she lands. But more importantly, people listen to her. They follow her. They learn from her. Nixie makes a difference.”

  Mary Jane stared at Karl in silence. Erik glanced between him and Nixie, his golden brows drawn together in some unreadable line. Nixie sighed.

  “So now you know,” she said. “The secret is out--I’m the Messiah. The one the Red Cross has been praying for lo these many generations.”

  “Don’t be flip, Nixie. Six million Jews died in the Holocaust because the world didn’t know what was happening to them. Because of you, the world knows what’s happening in Darfur. In Afghanistan. In Kosovo. Deliberately withholding the same aid from Bumani because it’s inconvenient for you is tantamount to abuse and it’s beneath you. Now get your head out of the clouds and get back to work.”

  “No.” The word skidded into the taut silence between her and Karl like a stone skipped on a frozen pond. “You want too much from me, Karl. I can’t save the world. I tried. God knows I tried, but I can’t. Whatever you think you see in me just isn’t there.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not. You want proof? How’s this? I like hamburgers.”

  He sighed but Nixie nodded furiously. “That’s right, Karl. I like hamburgers and flush toilets and long showers and that bright yellow cheese that comes in a squirt can. It’s awesome on potato chips. You can’t recycle those cans, either. What do you think of that, huh?”

  “Come on, Nixie. Be serious.”

  “I am being serious. You’ve been feeding me this chosen one business my whole life and I tried for so long to make it true. To make you happy. But I can’t do it anymore.”

  Karl leaned back and gazed at her for a long moment. Nixie swallowed and twisted her shaking fingers together, hoping to look strong and confident instead of terrified. He said, “So what do you want, Nixie? If not Bumani, then what?”

  “What everybody wants, I guess.” Her voice came out pitifully small and Nixie cleared her throat. “A home of my own, a job I like. Friends. Not the kind that come and go with the cause of the day, either. Real friends.” She glanced at Mary Jane, who gave her an encouraging smile. She studiously avoided looking at Erik when she said, “Maybe even a family of my own someday.” She shrugged casually. “I like kids.”

  “Kids.” Karl snorted and glared at Erik. “With him, I presume?”

  “If I feel like it. So what if I do?” Erik jolted in the seat beside her and Nixie glanced over at him. Great. The very suggestion of having kids with her had the fearless Viking doctor all vacant-eyed and startled. She patted his elbow. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

  “Of course,” he murmured.

  Nixie turned back to Karl. “It’s none of your business, Karl. That’s the point I’m trying to make here. If I want to throw myself at Erik’s feet and beg him to bang me six ways from Sunday, it’s nobody’s business but mine. Why is it such a crime to want a nice, normal personal life?”

  “I’m not sure that qualifies as normal,” Mary Jane said, looking doubtfully at Erik.

  “Hey, women beg me to bang them all the time,” he told her. “All the time.”

  “Oh.” Mary Jane nodded. “Of course.”

  Karl slapped his palm on the table and Nixie jumped. “For Christ’s sake,” he snapped. “You don’t have a normal life because you’re not normal. When God was handing out gifts, you got the money, the face and the fame instead. You also got the responsibilities that go with them, so let’s not waste any more time on this fairy tale bullshit, okay? It’s time to get back to work.”

  Nixie glanced at Mary Jane and Erik. Erik watched her, his face stoic and grave. Mary Jane bit her lip and avoided Nixie’s gaze, as if to say you know, the guy makes a good point. Nixie’s chest filled with searing frustration and hurt disappointment. Why couldn’t she make anybody understand? She wasn’t asking for anything special. Just what everybody else seemed to have automatically. Why was it so hard for her?

  “I can’t do it anymore,” she said to Karl, her voice low and distinct. “Maybe it’s not what you want for me, but I’m building something here. Something I believe in, and won’t walk away from. I’m not going to Bumani with you. I quit.”

  She moved to stand up but Karl grabbed her wrist, pinned it to the table. “Don’t do this, Nixie. You’ll be sorry.”

  “Are you threatening her?” Erik asked. His voice was mild, but something hard and cold ran just under the surface.

  “What? Of course not.” Karl gave him a startled frown. “But I know Nixie. I know her better than she’ll ever know herself, and this isn’t her. She needs to just settle down and remember who she is.”

  “Let me go,” Nixie said slowly. She looked into his round, genial face, the face of the man who’d been her father, her teacher, her mentor for so many years, and saw a stranger. “Please, Karl. You’ve got to let me go.”

  “You’re upset about James,” he said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll talk when you’ve had time to cool down.”

  Karl opened his hand and Nixie scooted out of the booth, rubbing her wrist. She turned to Erik. “Will you take me home, please? I’m done here.”

  “Yep.” He slid out of the booth and Nixie marched to the door, her knees watery with adrenaline. She climbed into Erik’s Jeep parked at the curb, but her hands were shaking too badly to manage the seat belt. She folded into herself, arms banded over her stomach, forehead to knees, and wheezed a few breaths in and out until she felt a little less like passing out.

  She heard Erik get in on the driver’s side. Then his hand was on the back of her neck, his strong fingers digging through the mess of her hair to press lightly against her skin.

  “Nice work, princess,” he said. “First time you’ve told off an authority figure?”

  Nixie tried a shaky laugh. “You could tell?”

  His fingers drew slow circles on the corded muscles of her neck, gentling the tension there in tiny increments. Nixie closed her eyes and finally filled her lungs. She felt like she hadn’t breathed in twenty minutes.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” She sat up slowly, his fingers still threaded through her hair. She gave him a shaky smile, and he sighed.

  “Liar,” he said, and his hand curled around the back of her neck, drawing her forward until his mouth touched hers. Panic zipped along her skin, but she couldn’t make herself pull away. She was already awash in adrenaline from the fight with Karl. Another blast like this and her heart was going to explode. Then she thought about all the times she’d faced death before and gave a mental shrug. If she had to go, she’d go kissing Erik. It was definitely better than a chopper crash.

  But as his mouth moved over hers--warm, firm, coffee-flavored--an unexpected peace settled over her. This, she realized dimly, was a whole different kind of kiss. Sweet, uncomplicated and infinitely more dangerous. The first kiss had been all shock
and awe, a kind of sexual pyrotechnics she’d been completely unprepared for, and it had sent her entire system into orbit. But this, this was different.

  This kiss was...gentle. It took nothing and offered everything--comfort, support, safety. The harsh buzz of adrenaline leaked away, replaced by a warm honey glow. Her very bones softened under the undemanding press of his mouth, and when he drew one knuckle down the edge of her cheek, Nixie’s lips curved under his. God, she could love this man.

  He drew back and let his hands fall away. “That’s more like it,” he said.

  “Like what?” Nixie blinked slowly at him, still smiling like an idiot.

  “Like you. That other smile was awful. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Oh.” Nixie gave herself a brisk mental shake and made an effort to reconnect the synapses that had clearly come unglued under the delicious heat of his kiss. “You kissed the boo-boo better, is that it?”

  He shrugged. “Did it work?”

  She took a quick inventory of her injuries. The fight with Karl was history, yes, but now her heart was dangerously exposed. Good lord. “I guess,” she said. “Yeah.”

  “Is he always like that?” Erik glanced into the side view mirror and pulled into traffic, cool as you please. Nixie, hot, flushed and unhappy, wanted to kick his shins in. “I mean, my mom’s no slouch when it comes to planning futures for her offspring, but even I thought that was a little disturbing.”

  She pulled her focus back to the conversation at hand. She could berate herself later. “Karl’s not a bad guy. He’s just a believer.”

  “In what?”

  “In the idea that people are honor-bound to give back to the universe in equal measure to what they take,” she said. “Or in my case, what they’ve been given.”

  “And he’s what, the universe’s enforcer?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “It’s just that his particular gift is for direction. He’s like a chess master. He can see to the end of every game, right? All those moves, counter-moves, back up plans? They’re all in his head at once and he can access any one of them at any moment, no sweat.”

  “Scary.”

  “No kidding. Sometimes when I feel like arguing with him I just go and slam my hand in a car door instead. Easier.”

  Erik was silent for a moment, then said, “What’s the deal with his tattoo?”

  “The one on his inner arm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Those are the coordinates for Auschwitz, along with the words never again.”

  “Auschwitz, the concentration camp?”

  “Yep. There’s a movement that pops up every couple of years to dismiss the Holocaust as an urban legend, and with the survivors dying and physical evidence disappearing, Karl felt the need to put the evidence on his body. His own personal mission statement, I guess.” Nixie clicked her seatbelt into place. “I have the face, the money and the fame to be a big part of making sure never again holds but Karl has the vision to use my gifts--and me--to the maximum possible potential. For him, nagging me into doing my duty is fulfilling a sacred responsibility.”

  “I don’t know, Nixie. He sounded a little unhinged there toward the end.”

  “He’s not. He’s just--” She broke off as Erik stomped the brakes and sent her flying into her seatbelt’s strangle hold.

  “What?” she yelped, hands on the dash, hair in her mouth. She spit out a curl looked around wildly. “What?”

  Erik gripped the wheel and stared straight out the windshield.

  “I forgot Mary Jane.” He closed his eyes, laid his forehead on the wheel. “Again.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Erik said for the third time, peering into the rearview mirror. Mary Jane lay across his backseat, one arm dramatically over her eyes. “Will you please sit up front now?”

  “No. I’m punishing you. Plus I need to lie down. My nerves are shot. You abandoned me with the holy roller fern killer. I thought I was a goner.”

  “Nixie said he wasn’t dangerous.”

  “Nixie thinks Cheez Whiz is yummy.” She peeked out from under her elbow, caught Erik’s eye in the rear view. “You’re totally into her.”

  “What?”

  “You are.” She sat up, leaned her chin over the bench front seat. “You tried to play it cool, I’ll give you that. You were all oh everybody’s hot for Nixie. So what? But you’re totally into her. She did her wounded princess routine and you about killed yourself getting to the door so she could sweep through without missing a beat.”

  “I don’t like seeing anybody bullied, Mary Jane. It wasn’t personal.”

  “Oh, please.” Mary Jane flopped back against the seat. “She had an emotional tiff with her father figure and you forgot your girlfriend. For the record, that’s me.”

  “I didn’t forget you,” Erik said. “I just got caught up in the moment.” In kissing Nixie, he thought. Again.

  She threw her arm back over her eyes. “I don’t think this is working out, Erik.”

  “What?”

  “This. Us.”

  “We’ve been dating a week, Mary Jane. Give it time.”

  “We’ve had five years, Erik. That’s plenty of time.”

  He pulled to a halt in front of her apartment building and hooked his elbow over the seat. “So what, you want to break up? Because I forgot you at a coffee shop?”

  Mary Jane shook her head and got out of the Jeep.

  “Hey, wait!”

  Mary Jane yanked open the front door and slid onto the passenger seat.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  He stared. “What?”

  “Kiss me. Right now.” She leaned toward him, eyes closed and offered him her mouth. The interior light glared down on her nose, illuminating skin as white and soft as Wonder Bread. She smelled like the soap they scrubbed with at the hospital.

  “Didn’t you used to have freckles?” he asked.

  Mary Jane’s eyes opened and she gave him a puzzled look. “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “I could have sworn. Just a couple, right there, across the bridge of your nose.”

  “Nixie has freckles, Erik. Just a couple. Right there.” She tapped her nose.

  “Oh.” Erik stared at her, horrified and embarrassed.

  “Yeah.” She folded her arms and gazed at him with sympathy. “You’re in deeper than you thought, huh? I’m sorry, Erik. It sucks. Trust me, I know.” She shook her head. “Can we call it quits now?”

  “No. I just need more time.”

  “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

  “No, I’m not. Nixie is absolutely wrong for me. She’ll prove it if I just give her enough time. Bear with me, okay? I swear to God, I’m a better boyfriend than this.”

  Mary Jane pursed her mouth and studied him. “Yeah, okay. But only because I don’t have anything better to do. And you’d better believe you’re going to make it up to me.”

  “I will. I swear I will.”

  She opened her door and slid out. “Forgetting me at a coffee shop. God.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  She slammed the door and waved over her shoulder as if to say yeah, yeah. Erik waited until she was safely in the building, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed his mother. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello, darling.”

  “Hey, Mom. You have a minute?”

  “For you? Always.” She covered the phone and said, “Whoever secures the Independent Party vote on this gets a summer intern. Move, people. Make it happen.”

  Erik smiled. “You know it isn’t politically correct to bribe your staffers with people, right?”

  “But it’s the only treat they really like.” She covered the phone again. “Gender of your choice,” she called out. “Ivy Leaguers. Ambitious and of questionable moral fiber.” Erik heard her smile. “Ah, there they go. I love it when they hop to like that. Now, then. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you
still have Grandma’s ring?”

  “Her wedding ring?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “I need it.”

  There was a long pause. “Oh, Erik. Honey. What’s her name and how far along is she?”

  “Jesus, Mom. I didn’t get anybody pregnant.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I just...there’s a girl.”

  “Somebody serious?”

  “I’m hoping it’ll get that way. That’s why I need the ring.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I’d rather not say right now.”

  “Ah.” There was a significant pause. “I understand.”

  Erik frowned. “You do?”

  “Of course, darling. You’re a grown man. I respect your privacy.”

  “You never have in the past. Why start now?”

  “For a start, we’re on cell phones, and are both in what I assume are public spaces. I’m not interested in reading about your engagement in the paper before I even give you the ring. Besides, I know you. I know who this is about.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you do, Mom.”

  “Honey, you are giving me zero credit for basic human perception. A blind woman could see the sparks you two throw when you’re together.”

  “It isn’t Nixie, Mom.”

  “Did I say it was? But how interesting that she was the first person you thought of.” Her voice was arch, knowing. “It’s enough for me to know that your... girlfriend has issues with the press. You do, too. I completely understand that you two would want to stay low profile until you’ve come to an understanding.”

  “We do. But Mom, I’m serious. It’s not Nixie.”

  “Of course not, dear. So who is it?”

  “I can’t say yet. I...need time.”

  I need to kiss Mary Jane, he thought. Why the hell didn’t he do it when she offered? He’d managed to kiss Nixie easily enough without an engraved invitation. The blood drained from his head and rushed south at the memory. God. He was in trouble.

  “Mmm hmmm.”

  “I need to get my head on straight, and I think this will help. Can I have the ring?”

  “Oh, sweetheart. Of course you can. I’ll have it cleaned and you can pick it up whenever you like.” She sniffed once, delicately.