The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories Page 18

  “Alcohol.” She tips vodka onto the ground.

  Gin can only watch, her breath coming out in a whine.

  “And blood.” Silvie uses her ragged fingernails to snag her scabs, shaking a few drops free.

  “Gifts for the faeries, to open the gate.”

  “Don’t.” Gin reaches for Silvie.

  Silvie shakes her head, her expression one of pity and a little bit of sorrow.

  “Stay on the path, Gin. Stay safe so I’ll always have someone to come home to.”

  Silvie steps backward. There’s a thin piece of wood dividing the path from the trees. She steps back again, and she’s gone. Gin scrambles to edge and peers over. There’s a drop and she expects Silvie’s body tumbled and broken at the bottom, but there’s nothing.

  Silvie stepped into thin air, vanished, and now she’s gone.

  “What about the astronaut?” Dizzy says. “You said there’d be an astronaut.”

  “Hmm?”

  I look away from the bay, distracted. Light from the water still sparks against my eyes, like faerie lights between me and my daughter. I blink away the afterimages until I can see Dizzy clearly.

  “The astronaut, Mama.” Dizzy rolls her eyes, miming exasperation.

  I wrack my brain. Did I tell her there was an astronaut? The story keeps twisting away from me, like Silvie herself, water and smoke in my hands.

  We’re in a park above the bay, a picnic spread between us. The bridge, the same one I drove over with Silvie a lifetime ago, stretches away to Sausalito on the other side. Before I can catch the threads of the story, the ground shivers. Dizzy’s eyes go wide.

  It’s just a tiny earthquake, but Dizzy’s never felt one before. I take her hand, her fingers sticky with jam. There’s a solidity to her, baby-fat-soft, her skin sun-warm and smelling of lotion.

  “Come here, baby.” I pull her closer, cradle her body against mine.

  I lie down and press my ear against the earth, and she does the same.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Dizzy shakes her head, trying to squirm out of my grasp.

  “Shh. Listen.”

  I close my eyes, nose pressed to the back of Dizzy’s head. Even through the blanket, I feel spears of grass pushing up toward the sun, and under that, dark earth, moving with worms. Below the pulse of this life, there’s a second beat, a heartbeat, drumbeat, pound of feet, and prance of hooves.

  “What is it, Mama?”

  “That’s the kingdom of Faerie, moon-baby. Well, queendom. When the ground shivers like that, it’s the Queen of Faerie holding a feast. If you’re very quiet, you can hear them laughing and playing music.”

  It sounds like something Silvie would say, her words in my mouth, tasting of cigarettes and cheap vodka. Here, on the sun-warmed grass slope, I can believe. I can even see Silvie at the Faerie Queen’s side, her hair long the way it was before she went away the first time, all woven with violets. She’s smiling, and the Faerie Queen is luminous, so painfully beautiful it’s hard to look at her.

  “That’s your mother down there,” I say. The words husk. I swallow, and my throat is raw.

  Dizzy turns. She reminds me of Silvie, eyes large in her small face so they take up my entire field of vision. A frown tugs at her mouth.

  “But you’re my mama. How can my mother be down there?” She pats the grass with her hand.

  “Sometimes more than one thing can be true, moon-child.” I smile against the prickling behind my eyes.

  “If my mama’s with the faeries, does that mean I’m a faerie, too?” She chews her lip, expression serious.

  “You’re my Faerie Princess.” The words are thick.

  “But if I’m a faerie princess, why do you call me a moon-baby?”

  Dizzy finally succeeds in squirming free and sitting up.

  “You are my moon-baby,” I say, sitting up and cupping her cheek in my hand. An ache settles just below my breastbone. After all this time, how can it still be so hard to talk about Silvie, to get the story right?

  “Why don’t I tell you more of the story,” I say. “The part with the astronaut in it, and we can try to figure it out together, okay?”

  Silvie comes back.

  It’s impossible, but she climbs through Gin’s window, not bothering with stones this time. The one she threw the night she first came home sits on Gin’s nightstand like a talisman. Sometimes Gin wakes up clutching it so hard it leaves bruises the color of violets on her palm.

  Silvie crawls under the covers, her flesh freezing. Gin holds her breath, afraid to move. It has to be a dream. She’s stopped counting the days since Silvie vanished. But now Silvie’s bones and sharp angles dig into Gin; her chilled skin soaks up Gin’s heat. Here and undeniably real.

  “You came back,” Gin says.

  “I came back.” Silvie leans her forehead against Gin’s. Gin can just see her eyes in the dark, and her smile. Silvie’s breath smells of something she can’t quite name—peppermint, and a stale medicine tang. “I promised I would.”

  There isn’t time for Gin to decide whether this is happening, whether any of it is real, before Silvie kisses her. Despite the medicine smell, her mouth tastes like smoke and whiskey and honey. The sharp burn of cheap vodka, the stale, ash-flecked taste is gone. How long, Gin thinks, how long, and the thought slips away like a thread of smoke, an offering to the faeries. The kiss is melting, golden and liquid, and all that matters is now. Except…

  “Where were you?” Gin pulls back.

  She’s reluctant to take her mouth from Silvie’s, but she can’t help asking the question. This time, she swears, she won’t let Silvie go without an explanation. She’s spent too long applying those ugly words to Silvie, the ones that don’t fit—depression, self-harm, cancer, suicide. Some days, Gin even manages to convince herself Silvie never existed. But now she’s here and real and warming in Gin’s arms, and she needs something to make sense of Silvie vanishing. Words to patch over the hole in her heart. Gin thinks she’ll accept whatever Silvie tells her, even if it’s a lie, so long as Silvie gives her something.

  “In outer space,” Silvie says, her voice wistful and dreaming. “Among the stars. I’ve been gone for a million years.”

  Gin’s breath catches. Despite her resolve to believe, she’s disappointed.

  “What about Faerie?”

  The look Silvie gives her is hard to read in the dark, but it might be pity. Or it might be pain. Her voice is soft though, like a lullaby.

  “Oh, Gin, what does that matter now? I’m here.”

  It hurts, but Gin lets any other questions go. She lets Silvie sink into her and fill the humming spaces between her bones with words. Silvie’s voice is a low murmur, describing the wonders she’s seen—the earth from above, all blue-green and tipped with white at either end, how her feet have touched the red dust of Mars, and how she’s drifted out beyond the Kuiper belt, so far beyond. None of it makes sense, but as Silvie speaks, the world drops away. Gin can’t hold onto her anger or her doubt. She’s right there beside Silvie, drifting miles above earth and watching the sun spill over the curve of the horizon.

  Floating among the million, billion stars spilling from Silvie’s lips, they make love. Silvie’s mouth is on her. Her hands are on her and inside her and this is everything she’s ever wanted. Gin’s cheeks are wet. She closes her eyes, trying to drift forever. She never wants it to end.

  But it does.

  Gin wakes alone. Her hands are fists, one of them clenching Silvie’s stone, her palm red from holding onto it so hard.

  She followed the rules, and Silvie came back to her. She followed the rules, but Silvie is gone again.

  Gin buries her face in her pillow and sobs. She grips Silvie’s stone and wills it to disappear into her skin. It was real; she has the memory of Silvie’s smoke-and-honey-and-whiskey mouth. It has to be real. As her body shudders, all she can think is, if she’s patient, if she keeps following the rules, maybe Silvie will come back to her again.
>
  “So my mama’s an astronaut and a faerie?” Dizzy asks.

  Her eyes are wide, full of deep consideration and wonder.

  “That’s right, baby-girl.” My phone buzzes, my sister’s name lighting up the screen. I tense, before remembering myself and pasting on a smile. “Go play outside while I talk to your Aunt Lisa. I’ll tell you more of the story later.”

  “I’m going to throw an astronaut faerie tea party!”

  “Okay, moon-girl. Stay where I can see you.”

  The light through the kitchen window is deep and gold. How long have Dizzy and I been sitting at the table, telling stories? As the backdoor closes, I answer my phone.

  “Lisa.”

  “Hello to you, too. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  Lisa’s tone is too carefully casual.

  “Fine,” I say.

  I know she means well, but I’m so tired of people who mean well. I just want to get on with my life, and do it alone. I watch Dizzy through the kitchen window. She’s wearing a clear plastic salad bowl turned upside down on her head—her space helmet—and spreading out a blanket for tea. I watch her careful preparations, attention drifting, then snap back into the conversation all at once as my sister’s words catch me.

  “I don’t want to be set up on a blind date.”

  “Okay.” I hear Lisa take a mental deep breath. “It doesn’t have to be a date. You could go to a spa, take a class. Something. I know it’s hard, being a single parent…”

  Lisa doesn’t know any such thing, but her voice is so earnest. She’s trying, and I swallow my words.

  “I just need more time,” I say.

  And there, without being able to see her, I feel Lisa flinch. More time. How many years have I been asking for more time?

  “Ginny, you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep waiting for someone who—”

  “Don’t.” I cut her off, my voice sharp, but with a raw edge underneath it.

  Outside, Dizzy runs in circles with her arms held to the side. I can’t hear her through the glass, but I can imagine the whooshing rocket noises.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” I tell Lisa.

  There are only two options, and I don’t want to hear either of them. You can’t keep waiting for someone who isn’t coming home. You can’t keep waiting for someone who never existed.

  “Okay,” Lisa says, just that.

  I picture her lips pressed together, fingers drumming the table as she struggles with patience.

  “But if you need anything…” She lets the words hang.

  “I know.” I close my eyes, leaning against the sink and letting the counter take my weight.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. There’s an ache behind my eyes. There are stars, so very many of them, and I’m floating lost among them. Silvie isn’t coming home. Silvie never existed. Does my sister think I’ve never thought of these things without her saying them? Does she really think I’m not trying? I am trying, for Dizzy’s sake.

  I just have to find my way to the end of the story, and everything will be fine.

  I open my eyes. Outside, Dizzy pours invisible tea into tiny pink plastic cups, conversing happily with the empty air.

  “I love you,” Lisa says from the other side of the world.

  “Love you too.” I hang up before she can say anything more.

  Follow the rules. Stay on the path. This is the way it has to be.

  Dizzy jumps up again to run around the small square of our yard. When she catches me watching, she stops and waves. After a moment, I step out onto the back porch, letting the sun warm my skin.

  “Come join my tea party, Mama.”

  I step off the porch, blades of grass tickling my bare feet.

  “You sit there.” Dizzy directs me, and I obey.

  As I fold myself onto the blanket, there’s a feeling like a storm coming on, electricity against my skin. I glance to the corner of the blanket where Dizzy has laid out two pink plastic cups of invisible tea. She seats herself in front of a third, and pours a fourth cup for me. I can’t take my eyes off the other two cups—one for the Faerie Queen and one for Silvie.

  A slant in the afternoon light. The air shimmers, and changes, and for a moment, Silvie is there with me. Her hair is shaved to stubble, but her eyes are bright. She puts her finger to her lips, and winks at me.

  Dizzy tugs on my sleeve, bringing me back to the here and now.

  “Tell me more of the story, Mama. You promised.”

  “I did, didn’t I, moon-baby? And what do we say about promises?”

  “Always keep them.” Dizzy tilts her head up toward me, offering a gap-toothed grin. She lost her first baby tooth last night, and we left it under her pillow for the faeries. I stayed awake all night, hoping Silvie would be the one to come.

  “That’s right.” I tap Dizzy on the nose, and she scrunches it up at me before I settle her against me, my arm around her shoulder.

  “Now, where were we?”

  Silvie comes back. Again. Gin knows it’s her the moment she knocks. Gin’s in a different house now, there’s no way Silvie could have found her, but there’s no one else it could be. Legs stiff, Gin rises from the couch, and puts her eye to the peephole.

  A cigarette burns in one of Silvie’s hands. As usual, she isn’t dressed for the weather. Her arms are bare, and behind her, rain erases everything. She keeps glancing over her shoulder.

  “Hi,” Silvie says as Gin opens the door.

  She steps inside like it’s only been a moment since she disappeared, picking up the thread of a conversation Gin lost ages ago. Silvie’s boots make puddles on the floor, and now Gin sees the thing on step that had been blocked by Silvie’s body before. A car seat, with a baby bundled inside.

  Silvie’s smile is nervous, a jittery, shattered thing. She shrugs one shoulder. Her gaze moves around the room, never settling.

  “Hi,” Silvie says again, and for a moment, Gin wants to hit her.

  She wants to see Silvie’s lip split, blood running down her chin. But instead she picks up the car seat and carries it inside, because what else can she do?

  The baby is wrapped in two layers of blankets—one blue, printed with a pattern of rockets and white stars, the other yellow, scattered with tiny faeries in pink and purple and green.

  Gin stares at Silvie, at the swaddled baby between them.

  “Where did you…?” She can’t finish the question.

  Words bounce and clatter in Gin’s skull. Changeling. Stolen. Alien. Unwed mother. Adoption. Any and all of them could be true. She pictures Silvie, round as the moon, terrified and alone. Gin can picture it, because she can imagine exactly how she would feel in that situation.

  She pushes down sympathy, glaring at Silvie, her fingers curled into fists at her side. She wants to hold onto her rage.

  “Where the hell did you get a baby?”

  Silvie’s been gone for years; the space left by her absence has been filling with anger one drop at a time.

  “I’m in trouble, Gin.”

  Silvie wraps her arms around her body, holding hard angles together. Her head is still shaved. She barely looks a day older than when Gin last saw her. Except she’s thinner now, and the shadows bruising her eyes have become permanent.

  Silvie sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Her skin is goose-pimpled. She looks so incredibly fragile and lost Gin wants to fold her in her arms and she hates herself for feeling that way. How dare Silvie come back here again? How dare Silvie keep breaking her heart?

  The baby chooses that moment to cry.

  Silvie lifts the bundle—baby and blankets—holding it awkwardly. She bounces the child, the motion somewhere between impatience and panic, then pushes all of it into Gin’s arms.

  “You take her. I’m terrible at this.”

  Gin is too shocked to protest. She holds the child, swaying by instinct until the crying stops.

  “You can’t keep doing this.” Gin looks at the
baby instead of Silvie. It’s easier that way.

  “She’s yours,” Silvie says, and Gin’s head snaps up.

  “What?”

  For a moment, the room is filled with ghosts—Silvie, framed by the cathedral height of trees; Silvie under Gin’s window, made of shadows and moonlight; Silvie’s skull visible beneath her skin, lost in the whiteness of a hospital bed; Silvie drifting free among the stars. When Gin blinks, the ghosts collapse into one thin, haunted woman. Silvie as she’s always been, as she’ll always be—a contradiction, here and gone, lost and coming home.

  “I’ve never loved anyone but you, Gin. Who else’s baby would she be?”

  Gin thinks of Silvie’s skin, cold against hers in a sea of blue shadows. The stars pouring from her mouth, which tasted of smoke and whiskey and honey. Those stolen moments she’d convinced herself were a dream.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Gin says.

  She looks down to find the baby looking right back at her. The eyes are the same ones she sees in the mirror every day. The breath leaves Gin in and rush. Her heart aches, doubts crowding around it, but she tightens her grip on the baby girl in her arms.

  It doesn’t work that way, but maybe, just maybe it does.

  Down-soft hair peeks out from the wrapped blankets. There’s a luminous quality to the baby’s skin. Not like Silvie’s ghost-glow, but the opposite, like the baby is more alive, more real than either Silvie or Gin.

  The door opening and closing doesn’t register. When Gin does look up, Silvie is gone.

  The dam holding back all the sorrow and rage cracks. She wants to scream, she wants to weep and rage and throw things at the closed door. But she can’t. The little girl in her arms needs her. Her daughter needs her, and she can’t afford to fall apart right now.

  Gin breathes out, making her heartbeat calm, but oh god, what is she going to do with a baby? This tiny, fragile life is her responsibility now. The thought of it makes her blood fizz and leaves her dizzy.

  “Dizzy.” Gin tests the word aloud, and the baby coos, waving fat arms that have come free from the blankets.