The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories Read online

  “Steal a kiss from an angel and there’s hell to pay.” He pushed the shutters closed. “Come back and try your luck tomorrow!” Jimmie hustled the cursing, wounded man away, probably to someplace where there’d be more liquor than liniment.

  Once the crowd dispersed, Beni approached the shutters and lifted one. Celeste did not acknowledge her. The Kissing Booth Girl was once again serene—an elegant queen on a simple throne, not a girl on a stool in a plywood shack. A queen with a smear of red slicking her lips and chin.

  “Oh, boy! Did you see that?” Mattie popped up in front of Beni, blocking her view, and she realized she’d been staring. She let the shutter fall closed, focusing on the ring-toss boy.

  “Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that before. She almost bit his lips off. Do you think it’s true?”

  “What?” Beni shook her head, feeling lightning-struck. Mattie’s rapid-fire speech, ricocheting from thought to thought, was harder to follow than usual.

  “The thing about the wishes?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.” Beni glanced over Mattie’s shoulder. Was it her imagination, or did a faint glow seep around the edges of the shutters, coming from Celeste, sitting perfectly still in the dark? Despite the heat, the skin at the base of Beni’s spine prickled.

  “Yeah? I mean, why not.” Mattie ran a hand through his hair. “We got everything, right? Magic just finds its way here. Remember the frog that told fortunes? And the Vanishing Lobster Boy who forgot how to reappear one day? Why not a falling star? We’re the World’s Last Steam Circus!” Mattie copied Jimmie Seeds’ stance, puffing out his chest. Beni knew he had designs on rising from ring-toss boy to barker someday.

  “Our Magical Mechanical Menagerie will sweep you away to other worlds! Our—”

  “Not if I can’t get it fixed, first.” Beni held up a hand, cutting Mattie off.

  Disappointment bloomed in his eyes, but his mood changed just as quick. “You gonna give it a try?”

  “What?” Beni’s mouth went dry.

  Mattie jerked a thumb over his shoulder and made a kiss-kiss sound with his mouth. “You do like girls, don’t ya? Plus, you get a wish. Not a bad bargain.”

  Mattie grinned sly, and Beni’s stomach dropped, her cheeks warming. Could Celeste hear them through the booth’s thin wood?

  She took Mattie’s shoulders, hustling him away further down the midway. “What are you talking about?”

  Mattie’s freckles stretched further with his grin, and he punched Beni in the arm. “I seen the way you look at the Girly Girls in Madame Osprey’s Aviary Show. I won’t tell if you don’t want.”

  “I—” But before Beni could finish, Mattie let out a whoop, and took off, arms spread wide, thundering down the midway.

  Beni stared after him. If Celeste was a fallen star, then Mattie was something inhuman, too, a living wind-up toy. If he ever stayed still long enough, she’d check him for a keyhole and springs.

  Her gaze drifted back to the Kissing Booth, and the nervous flutter she’d managed to suppress returned.

  A kiss and a wish. It was stupid, impossible, but she desperately wanted it to be true.

  Beni locked the trailer door, even though Mouse wasn’t likely to be back anytime soon. He’d be too busy grubbing under rides for dropped coins, and picking pockets on the midway.

  Kneeling, she pulled out the cigar box she kept under her bed, the one that held everything that mattered. It smelled of cedar, and the ghost of tightly wrapped leaves—smoke waiting to be born. The top layer of the box held a packet of postcards from Lotts. He’d traveled the world—chasing Grand Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, and visiting all the top Academies—before he’d gotten sick and settled with the Steam Circus.

  Beni moved the postcards with a pang of guilt. She hadn’t been to visit Lotts in weeks. The sickness had changed him, left him a shadow of the man who’d seen natural talent in her and offered to help her hone it, never giving a damn, or even seeming to notice that her skin wasn’t lily white and she wasn’t a boy.

  Hating herself a little, Beni dug out the square of folded paper wedged at the bottom of the box. Was she only thinking of visiting Lotts now because she needed advice? Selfish.

  Beni unfolded the square of paper. The same lightning-to-skin feeling she got looking at the Kissing Booth Girl, Celeste, coursed through her. Elegant, simple charcoal lines swept across the page—her blueprint, her automaton.

  Someday, the charcoal lines would become a woman with beaten-copper skin, twisting coils of wire hair, birdcage-delicate ribs, and softly ticking gears. Once built, the Clockwork Woman would be Beni’s ticket to the Grand Exhibition, the World’s Fair, any Academy she wanted. She’d travel the way Lotts had, exhibiting her marvel. And she’d never have to say yes sir and no sir to the likes of Mr. Akers again.

  Beni’s fingers traced the lines of her design without quite touching, careful not to smudge them. How long had the paper been folded in the bottom of her cigar box? She could have built the woman by now, or at least tried. But she hadn’t because she feared failure.

  But if she built just part of the woman, just an arm, wouldn’t that be something the Kissing Booth Girl had never seen before? Wouldn’t it impress her enough to give Beni a kiss and grant her wish? Beni folded the paper, smoothing the edges.

  She closed her eyes, and the flickering afterimage of Celeste painted itself on Beni’s lids—Celeste, serene and bloody in the shadows of the kissing booth, with a smile that sparked like flint against Beni’s bones. She’d seen what Celeste had done to the man who failed her test. Shouldn’t she be more afraid? But the man had tried to force a kiss, and Beni would never do that.

  If she was being honest with herself, that was part of it, too. Not just the promise of a wish fulfilled; Beni wanted Celeste to look at her with those more-than-human eyes and judge her worthy. Out of all the men, and maybe some women, who would line up outside the Kissing Booth, Beni wanted Celeste to choose her.

  A hollow she thought she’d sealed up with gears and grease, with following the Steam Circus from town to town, opened up inside Beni with such force it took her breath away. Katarina had chosen, and Beni hadn’t been her choice.

  Don’t you have a dream, Beni? Something you want more than anything? Something you’d give up everything for the chance to chase?

  Katarina, straddling two worlds, with skin just light enough and a voice sweet enough, that the world let her pass. Katarina with eyes the color of a mossy pond, lit by sunshine. Katarina, who’d gone chasing her dream and left Beni behind.

  A memory of sitting on the waterfront, the lights of Jackson Square behind them, filled the trailer with the green scent of water. Beni remembered watching golden lanterns sway on the steamboats cruising along the river as music wailed, slow and hot, sultry as the night.

  “Are you a virgin?” Katarina had asked her.

  She leaned close, mischief glinting in her eyes. Beni’s tongue turned to lead, and her cheeks warmed.

  “There was a boy…”

  She’d never talked about sex with anyone before. Certainly not anyone as worldly as Katarina, whose parents took her to fancy-dress parties, and let her taste alcohol. Katarina had snuck a bottle of syrupy-sweet pear brandy from the latest party, a masquerade, and brought it to the waterfront to share with Beni.

  Katarina still wore her party gown, buttery silk the same color as the light on the water. Beni wanted to run her fingers over it, but didn’t dare. A feathered mask, flashing with bits of amber, dangled from Katarina’s fingers. She sipped from the bottle, and passed it to Beni.

  Beni drank deeper than she meant to, the glass warm and sticky where Katarina’s lips had touched it. She coughed, and Katarina pounded her on the back.

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  “The brandy?” Beni wheezed; her eyes watered.

  Katarina took the bottle from Beni’s fingers, skin brushing skin. “The boy. Did you like him? Did you like being with him?”

&
nbsp; Katarina’s breath smelled of sugar and pears. Beni wasn’t sure what Katarina was asking. The question felt like a trap. What answer would stop Katarina from looking at her with such intensity and curiosity?

  “It was okay, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “Then you’re still a virgin,” Katarina said. “You’re a virgin until it means something, until it makes you happy. Otherwise, it’s just bodies. That doesn’t count.”

  Katarina’s lips met Beni’s before Beni could say anything else, or make sense of Katarina’s words. A shocked moment stretched before she unfroze, and returned the kiss. Katarina’s mouth tasted like brandy, like pears, but purer and sweeter and stronger than the drink.

  Katarina drew back, her eyes shining with a new light, one that asked permission. It was more hopeful than Beni had ever seen Katarina look before. She was still worldly, but she was human, too, and beautiful. And she’d chosen Beni.

  Beni nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  There, by the waterfront, it meant something.

  Dust chased Beni’s heels all the way to Lotts’s trailer. Her folded drawing thickened her back pocket. Music, laughter, and the salty-sweet smells of the midway, washed over her.

  Lights shone in Lotts’s trailer, but Beni hesitated outside the door. At the creak of a footstep, Beni’s heart leapt to her throat, her guilt returning. Lotts opened the inner door, peering through screen.

  “Are you going to skulk out there all night, or are you going to come in?”

  “I didn’t want to bother you.” Beni faltered; the short distance from his chair to the door had left Lotts winded.

  But the last thing he wanted was pity, she knew that. Lotts ignored her discomfort, waving her inside. Beni sat while Lotts made tea. She didn’t dare offer to help.

  Beni’s mental image of Lotts was a man with the sun inside his skin, letting it shine out in a near-blinding smile. That man had a chest like a barrel, a strong, straight back, and could have lifted her clear over his head if she’d let him. This Lotts ran the faucet with bent fingers. His back curved. His hands trembled lifting the kettle to the stove.

  Beni cleared her throat. “We’ll have Gertie back in top shape by tomorrow. The whole Menagerie will be running just like you designed it.”

  Lotts carried two mugs from the small camp stove, handing one to Beni before lowering himself into his beaten chair. His trailer was wide and he lived alone, luxurious, compared to anyone else but Mr. Akers’s living conditions.

  “We miss you,” Beni said.

  Her throat closed on the words. They were true, but if she missed him so damn much, why hadn’t she been to visit him before now? It wasn’t fair. Lotts was the one who had to live with his wasted body, day in and day out. Avoiding him just because it made her uncomfortable was the height of selfishness.

  “Nobody needs me getting underfoot.”

  “You’re still the foreman.” Beni tried on a grin. “I think this whole thing is a put-on so you can get out of work.”

  “I wish, Beni-girl, I wish.” Lotts settled back in his chair.

  Somewhere along the way, Lotts had become a ghost trapped inside a cage of skin and bones.

  “What are you doing here, Beni-girl?” The suddenness of the question startled her.

  A hint of the old fierceness returned, a flint edge coming into Lotts’ gaze.

  “And I don’t mean here, here,” Lotts said, indicating the trailer. “I mean the Steam Circus. You’re not a child anymore, Beni. You should be studying at the finest Academy.”

  Beni’s stomach clenched. “I…”

  Beni pulled out the sketch, and handed it to Lotts, holding her breath. He studied it a moment, before handing it back.

  “Ambitious.”

  “That’s it?” Beni nearly spilled her tea. She’d never shown the sketch to anyone before. Anger mixed with defeat. From Lotts of all people she’d expected a least some word of encouragement.

  “Well?” Lotts arched a brow; it seemed an eternity before one corner of his mouth crept upwards. He gestured at the paper in her hand. “You’ve got everything you need, what more is there to say?”

  Beni gaped. The first wave of rage went out of her, replaced by indignation. Lotts held up a hand.

  “Beni-girl.” He took a deep breath. “The design is good. It’ll work. So, again, what are you doing here?”

  Beni fought the urge to squirm. There was more iron in Lotts’ gaze than she remembered, or maybe it simply hadn’t been showing of late. Even with the sickness eating at him, he was still the man she remembered. He held the sun inside his skin, even cloud-dimmed. She knew the answer he wanted, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. And she needed him to tell her that was okay.

  “I can’t do it,” she said.

  Lotts’ gaze didn’t waver. Under his scrutiny, Beni’s anger returned. How could he possibly understand?

  “It doesn’t matter.” Beni’s voice came out sharper than she intended. “No Academy would accept me anyway.”

  Not like the music Academy in New York City that had accepted Katarina, Beni told herself, and she held her anger like a shield.

  She pointed to a framed picture on the wall, Lotts’s graduating class at the Boston Academy. “Academies don’t take girls, and they especially don’t take black ones.” She hated the tremor in her voice, and the stinging in her eyes.

  Lotts didn’t flinch. Unlike the hard, sharp blue of Celeste’s eyes, Lotts’s eyes were the open bowl of the sky. He shrugged, meeting her outburst with a mild tone. “So, you’ll be the first.” Lotts set his mug aside, and leaned forward, hands on his knees. “You’re making excuses, Beni-girl.”

  The words acted like a pin touched to a balloon. She wanted to explode, shout at him that it didn’t work that way, he couldn’t possibly know. His skin and sex had never kept him out of any place he’d wanted to go, and Lotts had been everywhere. But his words and the steadiness of his gaze held her back. What if they were true? She hadn’t even tried.

  “I’m an old man, Beni. I don’t have time for bullshit.” Lotts’s gnarled fingers gripped the frayed arms of his chair. “If you want it bad enough, you take it, and you don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t your right.”

  Beni looked away. The weight of Lotts’s expectation was too much. What right did he have to tell her what the world would allow her to do? The Academies were full of men like Mr. Akers, looking down on her.

  Lotts’s next words brought another jolt, causing Beni to whip around and stare at him.

  “And don’t go thinking that this Kissing Girl will solve all your problems.”

  “How did you—?”

  “I ain’t dead, Beni-girl. I still hear things, and I know what they’re saying about her. She’s a fallen star. She can grant wishes. Don’t go pinning your hopes on something you know nothing about. Wishes are dangerous and fickle things.”

  The image of Celeste’s mouth, slicked in blood, sprang to mind. Lotts settled back in his chair, his voice quiet. “And did you ever think about what this Kissing Booth Girl might want herself?”

  Any retort rising to Beni’s lips died on her tongue. The last of the anger ran out of her, leaving her hollow inside. She hadn’t thought of the Kissing Booth Girl at all, not beyond as a means to an end. She’d fallen from the sky. What if she was lost and couldn’t get home? Or if she was here on purpose, what would she take from a person in exchange for giving them their heart’s desire? Beni’s stomach churned, simultaneously cold with fear and hot with shame.

  She’d come looking for easy answers, and Lotts had only given her more questions. Beni rose, moving toward the door. She needed to think.

  “Your schematics,” Lotts said.

  Beni looked back. The sketch had drifted to the floor.

  “It’s a good design, Beni, a solid one. It’ll work. Just be sure you’re building it for the right reasons.”

  Words stuck in her throat. Beni folded the sketch, stuffed it back in her pock
et, and slipped out the door.

  Instead of returning to her trailer, Beni went to the workshop set up near the Menagerie. The sun was down to a thin, fire-colored line at the edge of the sky. Against it, Gertie was a bulk of shadow. When the Menagerie worked right, the animals never lurched or stuttered. Their oiled gears were magic, mimicking life, but moving in ways flesh and blood animals never could.

  Beyond the Menagerie, colored lanterns glowed along the midway. A hot-air balloon, ghost-pale and mirroring the rising moon, drifted above the Last Steam Circus, tethered by a line thin as spider-silk.

  A lump clogged Beni’s throat. Even if everything Lotts said was true, did she really want to leave all this behind? Beni rested a hand on Gertie’s thick leg—cool enough in the twilight she could touch it without burning her skin. What did any Academy have to offer compared to this? A bunch of stuck-up students in stiff collars and starched shirts? People who would look down on her at best, turn to violence at worst. The Steam Circus was magic. Lotts wouldn’t have settled for anything else.

  Beni tried to picture Lotts, the brash, bold, wind-burned foreman, among those lily-white suits. A grin caught the corners of her mouth. The Boston Academy never saw Lotts coming, she’d bet that much.

  And they’d never see her coming, either.

  Her pulse kicked. Despite the risk, maybe because of it, getting herself into an Academy was still worth it. Even if she had to work twice as hard for half the recognition, she wanted to be there. She’d go precisely because they didn’t want her. She’d go for herself, and for all the other girls out there who might come after her. And if she got there with a little help from a fallen star, what was the harm?

  Beni stepped into the workshop. The dim space held the day’s heat, warm and musty. It smelled of wood chips, grease, and the memory of metal.

  Underneath the work tables were boxes filled with scraps. Beni knelt, sorting out lengths of thin copper tubing, handfuls of springs and gears, and scraps of leather. Rocking back on her heels, she surveyed her finds. Everything she needed was right here. If she worked at night, while the rest of the crew was out spending their day’s pay on booze, she could get a rough prototype together.