The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories Page 22

  A faint frown plays across her face as if the idea of that much weakness, that much love and capacity to forgive, makes her sick.

  “Does the prince know who she is?”

  “He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but once he puts two and two together—and it won’t be long—that’s when the real trouble will start. Right now, he’s not seeing much beyond the pretty face, but once he does…” She trails off for a moment, looking into the dark.

  “A hint of her origins, a whiff of lower class, and you can bet he’ll be trying to pull her wings off just like he did to those flies.” She shrugs a little, that hint of sadness coming back, but also a sense of the inevitable. It’s like she’s got a dark cloud hanging over her that she’s not even willing to try to shake.

  “Will you help me?” I ask at last.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  She looks at me long and steady, and I’m expecting her to ask what’s in it for her. She doesn’t though. She’s got this look like she’s still trying to figure me out and once again, she catches me off guard. “So why do you care so much? What’s in it for you?”

  How can I even begin to explain the geas to her? It’s too big. Hell, I don’t understand it myself. I only know that I have to protect that little ash-girl, even if it means my own life. I’ve been watching her for so long now that there’s nothing else.

  But I can’t say any of this. Turns out, I don’t have to. A different kind of light comes into her eyes now, and she smiles.

  “You love her, don’t you? You really love her.”

  I only stand there, blinking at her. I’m sure my mouth is open wide enough to catch every fly in the kingdom. I’ve never met anyone like this girl before. Her every word seems designed to surprise me, yet she cuts right to the heart of things. She sees the world as it is, not as she wants it to be, not as it pretends to be. It’s all so simple to her, everything laid out in black and white. And she’s absolutely right. And I can’t think of a word to say.

  But once again, I don’t have to say anything at all because she reads it all in my face and smiles her knowing smile.

  “I’m in. I’ll do some snooping around, and you keep doing whatever it is that you do, and I’ll be touch. One more for the road?”

  It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about the cigarettes, and I hand the pack over with fingers that have gone numb. And just like that, she’s gone and I’m left alone, standing in the dark, staring at the house where the only woman I’ve ever loved or ever will love is dreaming about dancing in the arms of another man.

  She comes to me on the night of the third ball.

  “I think you’ll want to see this,” she says with no preamble.

  “I’ve been poking around. I can get you into the palace, since, from what I hear, you’re no longer in the prince’s employ.”

  She should have my job. I don’t say anything, but fall into silent step behind her. Of course, as usual, she’s right. I didn’t tell the prince about the little ash-girl, but he figured it out on his own. Turns out he had more eyes watching her than just mine.

  We make our way to the palace, and true to her word she gets me inside. There are so many people coming and going, preparing for the ball—the grandest of the three—that no one takes the slightest notice of us. Inside she leads me to a room away from all the hustle and bustle and festive preparations. There’s a box all in lacquer and gold, and she flips it open and lifts something out for me to see.

  At first, I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at. They look like shoes, but no shoes I’ve ever seen before. They’re made of pure glass. The light from the window falls on them, so all at once they’re shimmering gold, blood red, saffron yellow and fire orange. When night falls they’ll shine with the borrowed light of stars. I know exactly where they come from—they’re lousy with the fairy’s magic.

  “He’s going to give them to her tonight, a wedding present of sorts.”

  She sighs and sets the shoes back in their box, closing the lid. There’s a sad look in her eyes that I don’t understand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  As soon as I say it, I know I’ve said the wrong thing. Her eyes go beyond hard until they’re blazing.

  “You don’t get it, do you? Those shoes, anyone who puts them on wouldn’t be able to get away, couldn’t run without their feet being cut to shreds!”

  I can see it now, some secret hurt burning inside her, the scars that first made her hard opening up like fresh wounds. She’s trembling. Before either of us can say anything more though, a sound outside the door leaves us both scrambling for a place to hide. When we emerge the box with the shoes is gone and her face is once again a mask carved from stone.

  “We should get to the ball.” Her words are clipped and cold and there’s no room for argument. So we go.

  If the pattern holds true, the little ash-girl-turned-princess won’t make her appearance until late in the game. She doesn’t disappoint. At midnight the ball is still going strong, even though some of the dancers are starting to fade. That’s when she waltzes in, as pretty as you please. All eyes turn. Mine are no exception.

  For a moment the whole room is holding its breath. The hall is blazing with light, but she’s brighter still. There’s a glamour on her to be sure, but it only augments her natural beauty, the beauty that’s always been there under all the grime. She’s caught, reflected a thousand times over in the mirrors that line the walls, and for a moment I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in a sea of her. Then her sister elbows me in the ribs, bringing me back to reality, and the fairy-made princess steps forward, smiling.

  I can see now—the changes go deeper than freshly scrubbed skin and shimmering new threads. The little ash-girl who once huddled by the side of the building, no more than a smudge of gray being washed away by the rain, is completely transformed. There’s an air of confidence about her, and I wonder if the fairy’s messed with her head as well. She’s walking and she’s aware, but it’s like she’s in a dream. And maybe there’s a glamour on the prince too, one I can’t see, because despite everything else, I only have eyes for her.

  She’s gliding up the center aisle to where the prince is waiting. She doesn’t even glance my way, but as she passes she’s close enough to touch. I catch a whiff of her, just a scrap of scent, and it leaves me dizzy and reeling. The air is so thick with magic you could choke. She’s truly dazzling—glittering like she’s been dipped in star dust. Her hair shines, all piled on her head and being held in place by jeweled pins in the shape of birds. When the light hits them just right, I swear they stir their wings and move.

  The prince has the box out now, and as she steps close he makes a sweeping bow and lifts the lid, holding it out to her. She makes a pretty “o” with her mouth and blushes, playing the coquette. I can see her eyes shine though, and she’s reaching for the shoes. I want to shout something to her, but it’s like my lips are frozen shut and my tongue has turned to lead. It’s her sister that makes the move.

  “No!”

  The word rips from her throat, and her eyes are blazing like they were back when she showed me the shoes. She charges up the aisle, and stands before the prince and her sister. I know exactly how it looks to the others standing in the room—it looks like jealousy, the fury of a woman scorned. I may be the only one who knows the truth, but I’m still frozen and dumb—a useless lump of stone. Before the cinder girl can touch the shoes, her sister snatches them away, glaring at the prince.

  “If these shoes go on any feet tonight, it will be mine!”

  She’s standing there, defiant, daring anyone to stop her. No one does. The look in her eyes is half-crazed. It’s like she’s got something to prove to the world, but damned if I know what it is. I wonder if she even knows. Knowing what she knows about the shoes, I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind, but she puts them on anyway. All eyes are on her. And there she is, pinned like a butterfly, ref
lected and refracted a thousand times over, like there’s no one else in the world. She takes one step forward. Then another. And the shoes shatter.

  They go to pieces just like she said they would. She crumples to the ground, a butterfly with broken wings, and her feet are a mess of blood and ribboned flesh. The prince is just staring at her, and her sister, the little ash-girl, is staring too—white-faced. And then the little ash-girl, my little ash-girl, does something I never would have expected. Her face changes, like it was made of glass too and shattered with the shoes and as the pieces fall away, a monster emerges from underneath.

  “My shoes! Look what you’ve done to my shoes!”

  Almost faster than my eyes can follow she snatches one of those beautiful pins from her hair. In her hand, the jeweled bird flutters, tucks its wings and dives down, all beak and claws, ready to strike.

  There’s blood, more blood than I ever could have imagined, and then it’s all over in a flash. The little ash-girl is standing over her sister, her face still and white, the jeweled pin, bloody now, still held her in hand. Her whole body heaves and her sister, her feet in ribbons of flesh, weeps tears of blood.

  No matter how many times before, or since, that I’ve seen them, that’s how they’re fixed in my mind now—the little ash-girl and her bloody birds of vengeance, and her sister with her ruined feet gazing up with blind uncomprehending eyes. One more scar for her trophy room.

  For a moment the whole world just freezes, that tableau caught a thousand times a thousand in the walls of glass. Nobody moves and nobody breathes—until I do, then I’m staggering sick and reeling out into the night. Somehow it’s raining again. Isn’t it always in this kind of tale? And I stand and scream at the sky.

  I never see her arrive, just like I never see her leave, and there she is in front of me, watching me with unfathomable eyes. I scream every obscene name I can think of at her, and then a few more. She just stands there with a look as hard as nails, sometimes a woman and sometimes an inscrutable pillar of light and ice. I know she doesn’t care at all for the lives she’s ruined, but I wonder for a moment if it’s really because she’s so other, or whether she’s got scars too. I guess I’ll never know. When I’m done with my tirade, she’s gone, and I’m alone in the dark and the rain.

  Never again did the cinder girl fly into that kind of rage. I guess that was the fairy’s doing too. The prince clipped her wings, just like her sister said she would. He made the cinder girl a new pair of shoes, and presented them to her on their wedding day. I was there; I watched her go gliding up the aisle, every step delicate and tremulous. She still wears them, every day, always believing the best of him, always believing he’ll change, no matter how big the bruise, no matter how lasting the scars.

  The ash-girl’s sister stayed—a servant in the palace, waiting on the new-made queen. I wonder why she stays. It’s like she’s trying to atone for some invisible sin that only she can see. She goes limping around the palace on her ruined feet—a terrible broken walk—feeling her blind way by dragging her fingers along the walls until they bleed.

  And then there’s me, still watching, always on the outside, unable to look away—the broken girl who went to rags from riches, the prince, still pulling the wings off of flies, and my little cinder girl drifting through the palace like a ghost, always afraid to lift her feet too high lest she break her beautiful glass shoes.

  It’s not every day I get asked to prom by a dead boy. Especially not Cal Flenders, the embarrassingly frequent star of my wet dreams. So when it happens, just as I’m coming out of the boys’ locker room, fresh from swim practice, I have no idea what to say.

  “Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.” Cal leans against my locker, grin as easy in death as it ever was when he was alive. “Even if the answer is no, you have to say something.”

  The hall around us is empty, and my pulse hammers in my throat. For once in my life, I’d be grateful for one of the “popular” kids to come along and knock me into the lockers, call me a freak, cause a distraction. But it’s late Friday afternoon, graduation is three weeks away, and we’re alone.

  “I don’t know.” My cheeks feel hot and the idea of blushing leaves me even more flustered.

  I want to say yes. Of course I want to say yes. It’s Cal fucking Flenders. He looks almost the same as when he was alive—perfect blond hair, captain-of-the-basketball-team smile. Only now his eyes are a color I don’t have a name for, like fluorescent lights reflecting off the pool before anyone has disturbed the surface.

  Two days after everyone came back from spring break, a pickup truck going twenty miles over the speed limit t-boned Cal’s car. Kids at our school have died before—drug overdose, suicide, a chance accident like Cal’s. But no one has ever come back before. “I didn’t even know you liked boys,” I say.

  It sounds so pathetic coming out of my mouth I want to crawl into my locker and disappear.

  “I like everyone.” Cal shrugs.

  And there’s that grin again. The one that always got the crowd going with two minutes to the buzzer and the game tied. The “Don’t worry, I got this” smile. I used to dream about that smile. But now that Cal is offering it to me and me alone, it feels like the first time I jumped off the high-dive board. Except it’s also like realizing only after I’ve jumped that there’s no pool under me.

  “Would the school even let us?” I risk a glance at him.

  Does school has an official policy on living/undead relationships? As far as I know, it’s never come up.

  Without meaning to, I hold my breath, waiting for Cal’s basketball friends to leap out and throw pig’s blood on me like in Carrie. Because this all has to be some cruel joke, right? Boys like Cal don’t go out with boys like me.

  The corner of Cal’s smile quivers. My stomach flip-flops like I really am caught between the high board and the pool. Cal looks nervous. He really is asking me to prom, and he really does want me to go with him.

  “So?” Cal holds out his hand, not like a handshake but like he might just lift my hand to his lips and kiss my knuckles like a prince in a fairy-tale movie if I put my palm in his. “How about it?”

  “Yes.” The word is breathless and even though my body has sliced through the water and I’m coming up from a perfect dive with the crowd cheering, I’m still sure I’ve fucked up somehow.

  But Cal takes my hand, and the world doesn’t end. His skin feels cold, reminding me he’s dead, but that’s the worst thing that happens. He squeezes my fingers, then leans to kiss my cheek, sweet and chaste.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at seven, or earlier if your parents want to take pictures.”

  Despite days of badgering from Kiri and Natalie, I refused to tell them who I was bringing to prom. I spot both with Soo and Gord and Sid, as soon as we enter the gym, which no longer looks like the gym. Props to the prom committee for the fantastic job decorating.

  Even though we’ve all been best friends practically forever, nerves flutter in my stomach as Soo waves us over. I brace for the worst, but none of them so much as bats an eye at beautiful, dead Cal by my side. Soo elbows me and gives me a thumbs up. And just like that, Cal is one of us, accepted by the pack, and conversation resumes its flow as much as it can over the pounding music.

  “You look like you need this.” Soo presses a cup of bright red punch into my hand. Gord tips in a shot from the flask Soo gave him for his birthday, engraved with a dirty limerick in place of a monogram.

  As threatened for weeks, Soo’s dress is a nightmare. She trolled bargain basement warehouses and consignment shops to find just the right thing. It looks like a sequin factory vomited on a cage full of canaries, and Gord is equally outrageous in a powder-blue tuxedo, paired with a paisley tie and cummerbund.

  Joey is the last to join us, chronically late—pun intended. Everyone looks happy, even Kiri, who I’ve always suspected has a thing for Gord, even though Gord and Soo have been together forever.

  Between the punch and Gord’s f
lask, the edge of anxiety wears off the world, softening everything. We made it through five years of high school. We’re survivors. And to the survivors go the spoils: tonight, we dance.

  Holding Cal’s hand, I push my way to the center of the crowd. I don’t care who sees the living boy and the dead boy together. We don’t stop our feet to sip from Gord’s flask as we spin past him or to sing the wrong words to songs the DJ plays. We dance like idiots, laughing at stupid things that are funny only to us.

  But as the night winds down, the fluttery, unsettled feeling returns. The dance floor is nearly deserted except for a few couples swaying to “Stairway to Heaven.” Gord moves in an exaggerated slow circle with his head lying on Cal’s shoulder. Natalie and Sid lean close, having already broken up and gotten back together twice tonight alone. Kiri is dancing with Philip Nickels, and Joey must be off refreshing his buzz.

  Soo’s canary dress shows signs of wilting, but she’s grinning, holding one last sticky cup of punch.

  “I guess this is it,” I say, stomach plunging as the words leave my mouth.

  “What do you mean?” Soo doesn’t take her eyes off the dance floor. “There’s still Nova Scotia. You are coming, right?”

  Soo turns to face me. Multicolored lights cycle across her sequins and spark into my eyes. I squint and pretend it’s only that, not absurd gratitude and too much spiked punch making me tear up. What did I expect, that my best friend would abandon me just because I came to prom with a dead boy?

  “I thought maybe… Because of Cal—”

  “Oh, god.” Soo laughs and punches my arm. “You are so old fashioned. Dead, living, it’s all good. Bring Cal. We’re leaving first thing tomorrow. We’ve been planning this trip all year. If you back out now, I’ll kill you.”