The Kiss That Counted

by Karin Kallmaker

  She straightened her spine. She didn't need protecting. She was fixing everything all by herself. "All I really need is my twenty-one hours and I've knocked off four of them tonight so far."

  Emily began to reply, but Karita's voice cut her off.

  "I just heard from Lucy. She was so sorry she forgot to call. Her mom's had another stroke and she's in Cheyenne."

  Emily leaned tiredly against the washing machine. "That can't be good news, not after the last one."

  "She doesn't know when she'll be back."

  "Makes sense—she should take care of family."

  CJ didn't say anything, but was aware that Emily was deliberately not looking at her. Right then she couldn't have said if she hoped Emily would still tell her not to come back or if Emily would ask her to finish out her time. The moment felt like a crossroads, but she didn't get to choose the path.

  Finally, Emily sighed. "Against my better judgment." She heaved herself toward the utility room door.

  Karita let her pass. "Thanks."

  Emily grunted a reply. Her grumpiness didn't surprise CJ at all. It wasn't as if Emily had many choices here either. The abruptly brilliant smile that Karita gave CJ—that was unsettling. It burned bright in her mind for a long while, banishing all shadows.

  By two a.m. Karita was pleased to see that CJ had sorted and filed the client records for the last week. She worked methodically and quickly, and Karita wasn't sure she could have done it any more quickly herself.

  "What line of work are you in?"

  "Commercial real estate." CJ looked up from the stack she was alphabetizing. Only her eyes gave away her fatigue. "Is this a job for you, here?"

  "I wish—Emily can't afford other paid staff. If she didn't have a small private practice of her own, she couldn't even afford herself. So I spend my days pushing paper around a law office."

  "If it pays the bills, can't complain about that."

  "Real estate is in a slump, isn't it?"

  "Yes and no. Some locations never go out of fashion, no matter the times. I've been lucky in that regard. Not to change the subject, but why does it matter that it's Friday night?"

  Karita was pretty sure CJ meant to change the subject. "The incidence of domestic violence goes up on Friday and Saturday nights. Weekend syndrome."

  "After a bad week, take it out on the wife and kids?"

  "Primarily. But some abusers know just how much damage they can do on Friday night and their victims will still be able to go to work or school on Monday, nobody the wiser. This has actually been kind of quiet."

  "This was quiet?" CJ's smile was tight.

  Karita put a hand to her throat. The bruise had settled into a dull ache. "Violence here is pretty rare. I've seen and heard more yelling in the law office. where I work."

  CJ straightened up and rubbed her lower back. "These are done. I have to be honest, I don't have much left in me. My day started about twenty hours ago."

  "The next shift arrives shortly, but why don't you go ahead— "

  "I'll stay until you get some relief."

  There was a clatter of keys at the back door and Karita peeked at the monitor. "Help has arrived, as a matter of fact. Can you find Pauline and let her know?"

  Karita greeted the next shift and gave them a quick rundown on the night's events, making only brief mention of the altercation with Sonya. Emily would have to decide about Sonya's eligibility for future stays. When CJ returned she made introductions as she got her things out of her locker. By the time she was ready to go CJ was likewise ready and Karita showed her the back exit. "We're paranoid, but it's not unheard of for some guy to figure out where the shelter is. We try not to leave alone after dark and never by the front door. Where are you parked?"

  "Just here." CJ pointed out a late-model Trailblazer under the buzzing streetlight. "How about you?"

  "Just across the street. We do try to mix it up, where we park, because the neighbors can get testy about it." Karita was glad of her sweater. Though the sidewalk still radiated warmth the cool air felt as if it had rolled right down off the mountains.

  CJ shrugged and unlocked her car. "See you here, again, I guess. I hope."

  Karita heard the hint of reluctance in CJ's voice and didn't know quite what to make of it. "Maybe so. If not here, I'm addicted to coffee."

  CJ sketched a salute, but Karita just couldn't let her go.

  "Were you hitting on me, you know, at Gracie's?"

  "What happens if I say no?"

  With a shrug, Karita said, "I'm not sure I'd believe you."

  Something leapt in CJ's eyes as she turned to face Karita. "It's not a plausible lie. So yes, I was hitting on you."

  "Why? Is it just the way I look?"

  "That would be the obvious answer." CJ slowly raised one hand to touch Karita's hair where it fell forward over one shoulder.

  Breathing was abruptly difficult. "But not the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

  With a shake of the head, CJ whispered, "The whole truth is that I couldn't help myself, which is very rare for me."

  She let strands of Karita's hair slip off the ends of her fingers and the quiet sound reminded Karita of snow falling. She'd never felt so delicate.

  "You walked away," CJ said, just as quietly. "Why?"

  "You have a girlfriend."

  "Not in the way you mean, but…yes, there's someone."

  "So this shouldn't happen."

  Their gazes locked and Karita fell into dark, deep eyes, lit in the depths with a lining of gold turned silver in the streetlight. There was something there, it could have been a warning, but there was more than that. She couldn't help a little gasp when CJ blinked and the connection was broken.

  "No," CJ said. "No, it shouldn't."

  It was all the truth that should have been needed for Karita to step back from the luminous glow in CJ's eyes. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird, trying to escape to safety. CJ let the last of her hair trail from the tips of her fingers and there was space between them again. With space there was cooling air that should have brought rational thought with it.

  She ought to have remembered her decision that CJ was a frog, no princess, and kisses wouldn't change that. There was no fate at play here, no magic. CJ was another Mandy, all about money. Even if she was looking for more than sex, all she wanted was a girlfriend-cum-tennis bracelet, an adornment. Eventually she would call Karita a fake, twit her about the uselessness of helping other people. There'd always be poor, and there'd always be battered women, so why didn't she just grow up?

  CJ was bad news. And telling herself that had no effect whatsoever.

  Instead Karita was dizzied by the pulse of the night and the inescapable thought: I have to know.

  She cupped CJ's face, giving her time to say no, but CJ didn't say no, she didn't say anything, then there couldn't be words with Karita's mouth pressed to hers. They were still and again the world seemed to take a deep breath. The crickets fell silent, the streetlight's buzz faded to nothing.

  In the spell of their stillness, Karita first felt their mutual surprise. Kisses before had always brought feelings surging to the fore with a physical drumming that caught Karita in the dance of emotion, of life. This kiss pushed all that into the background, leaving room for something else to pour through her veins and pass between them in the quiet of their kiss. She doesn't kiss like a frog, Karita thought and it made her smile against CJ's mouth.

  CJ made a small sound, breaking the spell, then kissed her more deeply. Karita was aware, then, of a deep fire, one she had never tapped, and as it swelled the laughter died.

  They separated, didn't look at each other. That was magic, Karita thought dazedly, but I didn't make it.

  "I'm sorry—"

  "It's okay, I shouldn't—"

  "Tired, long day…silly."

  Karita finally stole a glance at CJ, and those remarkable, deep eyes were mirrors of midnight. A glint of quicksilver might have been the refection of her hair in th
e depths.

  She offered another kiss. For a moment, she offered everything with her eyes, the curve of her arms, the yearning of her body. That she hardly knew CJ seemed irrelevant.

  CJ said, "I can't." Her eyes darkened, and Karita's refection was gone. "I can't."

  She was aware that CJ didn't start her car until she was safely inside hers, motor running. She didn't remember what inanity she spouted as she walked away, but it was surely as stupid as the wave she gave as she pulled away from the curb.

  What was that about, Karita? What did you just do?

  She could tell that her voices of inner reason wanted to ask why but she had no answer to that. Did she have to know why, right now? The obvious answer was basic animal attraction. That was a good enough reason for just a kiss, wasn't it? No harm done. That's all it was—attraction. Pheromones. Maybe even hormones.

  She was an adult, and she knew nothing good would come of it, and honestly, she told herself sternly, nothing ought to come of it. She'd loved Mandy and been left feeling both cheap and used. Nothing had to happen. CJ wasn't safe. It had been the kind of night that had first driven her and Emily into bed together, too, the kind of night where they both wanted to pull a veil of very good feelings over things that ached.

  Karita put a hand to her still throbbing neck. That's all it was—mutual need. Well, she had Emily if that need got urgent. There was no need to get involved with a near stranger, even one who made Karita feel as if every kiss, every touch before that one had been hollow practice, tepid foreplay Maybe CJ didn't kiss like a frog, but that didn't mean she wasn't one.

  CJ found her apartment too quiet in the dead of night. Dawn wasn't all that far off, but sleep was not going to happen. She sat with her list of names in her hand, consciously thinking about nothing, trying not to relive that moment of disbelief when she'd realized Karita was going to kiss her.

  She'd walked out the shelter door with Karita, reminding herself that it would take so many lies, and so much time, that it simply wasn't worth the effort to seduce her. That Karita might take the initiative hadn't occurred to her. She'd been kissed before. She'd been pursued and seduced before, too, yet the kiss had been a surprise. And after that extraordinary kiss, Karita had offered herself, freely, a gift.

  Wasn't it ironic, she mused. She had no experience with gifts. She didn't how to accept one and she certainly didn't know how to turn one down. For a moment long enough to quash the tremulous feeling in the pit of her stomach, she had heard Aunt Bitty's sour assessment: If it's free, its not worth having.

  You fool, CJ, you should have grabbed on with both hands, and let all the light you could take from her chase away every shadow, every memory. Karita was clean, and a kiss from her was purifying. More than that could be redeeming and Lord knows you need redemption.

  Aunt Bitty wouldn't shut up. So, you take that light into your arms, CJ, and what happens, then? You take the light, you burn away the past and then she finds out who you are. What you were. What you've done.

  She drowned out Aunt Bitty's rasp, but her own voice of reason took over. She would only bring pain to a woman like that. Violated trust and a broken heart was the repayment she could guarantee for freely given grace—well, wasn't that a thought? Grace couldn't be a gift and it couldn't be stolen. It could only be earned.

  She laughed into the silence of her bedroom. Rochambeaus didn't earn anything but jail time. She got out of the desk chair and unzipped her skirt so she could unsnap the money belt under the waistline. A few moments later she had the safe open and another bundle of twenty fifty-dollar bills stuffed inside.

  A hot shower eased the tension in her shoulders, but when she turned out the lights she felt as if she were on a seesaw, teetering between the memory of Karita's kiss and what the shelter had stirred up. With a lost moan, she tipped over the edge. It had only been a kiss, a kiss like no other, but it didn't change the past.

  The jailhouse shrink had said that it was okay if memories she'd managed to put out of her mind suddenly resurged. Happenings in her life would remind her of things she'd rather not recall. Of course the shrink, like the rest of the social welfare system, had no real idea what CJ remembered.

  Though the recollection was murky, she could see her mother and aunt bent over Uncle Vaughn's body. There was a lot of blood and sounds were muffed. Aunt Bitty had said showers were easier to clean than beds and then she'd seen CJ standing in the doorway. Her face was like a painted ghost's in CJ's memory, no eyes, no expression, a red streak across one cheek. Her mother turned and then just wasn't there. It was her and Aunt Bitty, and Aunt Bitty telling her to ignore Uncle Vaughn and if she needed to pee, to go ahead and do it. The way she said it meant Cassie June had better be fast about it, or else.

  It was the finest house CJ could remember them ever living in, and they'd left the next day, before the sun came up, the way they usually left places. It had to have been a fine place because the toilet flushed easily and the bed she shared with a cousin, Daria, was warm. That night she'd been cold, though. Daria had slept through the yelling, the thuds and then the eerie silence broken only by the shower turning on and off, on and off.

  The memory wouldn't get any more solid than that—over the last ten years it had, in fact, gotten less vivid. Less intensity was supposedly a good thing, but CJ's racing heart and pounding temples didn't feel less intense. It wasn't the worst memory, either, just one of the oldest.

  The cool sheets of her bed made her think of Karita, but she refocused on the deals she had in negotiation, on Burnett's contact, on the list. She wanted all the names crossed off that list. After the last one she'd feel free, wouldn't she? These memories would continue to fade, and the past would be settled, wouldn't it? She didn't need kisses from angels for that.

  She thought, then, even though she tried not to, of seeing Karita again, bumping into her at the coffee bar, or going back to the shelter to watch her bring peace to almost everything she touched. CJ closed her eyes and knew that even if the past could be settled, there were futures forever closed to her.

  Chapter 6

  Karita raced across the building lobby, Marty's briefcase in one hand and a lunch bag in the other. So much for yesterday's resolution to stop cutting court appearance timing so close, she thought. He pulled up to the curb as she burst out of the main doors. She tossed the briefcase in through the open window and the bag after. "I made you peanut butter and banana—you eat that or Minna's gonna have my head about your blood sugar."

  "Sorry about this—you're a doll. Get some lunch." Marty pulled out into traffic just as a patrol car turned the corner behind him. "Later, princess!"

  Karita caught her breath, then glanced at her watch. She still had time to make it to lunch. She'd never been to the Down the Block Deli, but it was Pam's choice. Far enough from the office. not to risk bumping into anyone else who worked with them, but not so far that it would be a long walk in the heat of the day. She was glad she'd had the sense in her mad dash out the door to trade her low-heeled pumps for her comfortable clogs.

  Pam was at the counter, paying for her meal, when Karita arrived. "I'll snag us a table," she said as Karita got in line.

  "Sorry I'm late," Karita said as soon as she joined Pam at the table. She spread out her sandwich and chips, then popped the cap on a bottle of organic sweet tea.

  "Marty had a court date?" Pam smiled up at her, but it was clearly an effort. Her long, brown hair was as dull as the look in her dark-ringed eyes. She blinked in the bright deli light, giving her the look of an owl out unexpectedly in the daytime. The weight of the world seemed to be on her shoulders, making her seem even more petite.

  "Nothing changes." Karita was so glad she'd remembered to call Pam—she looked as if she hadn't been outside for a week. Like most of the associates, Pam had worked long hours and probably didn't have much of a network of friends for times like these.

  "There are things I could hope would change." After a listless nibble on the crust of her sandwic
h, Pam put it down. "Thanks for calling. I can't seem to focus on much, but it was nice to have lunch with you to look forward to."

  "Have you thought about suing? Susan House fred you after…you know." Karita dropped her voice. "Sleeping with you."

  Pam shrugged. "I'd love to tell the world what a heartless shit she is. But lawyers who sue other lawyers, especially associates who sue partners, well…I'd like to have a career. Plus, one of the things we tell clients is that going to court rarely takes care of the emotional distress. I'd lose so much more going to court than I'd gain. All I really need is a recommendation, and yesterday she said she might give me one."

  "You're talking to her?" Karita glanced around nervously, not meaning for her voice to be quite so loud. The deli was crowded, though, and no one seemed interested in them.

  "There was something at my apartment that was hers. She stopped to get it. Hey—I didn't beat in her head with the television, so that's something." Pam's bitterness was slightly eased by something like a genuine smile.

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "Lick my wounds. I'm going to give up my apartment and move home and regroup. My student loans are huge and I can't afford to be unemployed for long. My folks are disappointed, but I finally came out to them and just admitted that I'd made a really huge mistake—guess what, they still love me."

  "Well, that's something good. Not that you have to thank the Evil One because one good thing might have come from the mess." Karita sipped the tea and wished there were some way to make Susan House pay for the pain she'd caused Pam. It was so unfair that she was getting away with it. After another bite of her avocado and jack cheese sandwich, she said, "If I didn't love Marty I'd quit. Do you think he has any clue what Susan is like?"

  "Some, yeah, I mean he's heard her blow up at people. But I liked Marty a lot, too. I was learning a ton from him. Nothing flashy, just practical application of law and how to run a practice."

  "Do you think you could tell him the truth, at least?"

  Pam pushed her half-eaten sandwich away. "That's the problem. The truth."