Soul Kiss Read online

  That night, I couldn’t wait to tell my parents about the history test. “I aced it,” I said, as we sat down to dinner. “It was all stuff that Daniel and I had studied. It was like the idea for each answer just came to me and all I had to do was write it down.”

  “Since you’re doing so well in school, maybe you could tutor your brother,” my mother said.

  I couldn’t tell her that I thought I had gotten smart because I kissed Daniel, nor could I suggest that as a way for Robbie to improve his grades. Fortunately he groaned and said, “Mom. You know I have a disability. You’re not supposed to make fun of me.”

  “No one is making fun of you, Robbie. I’m just suggesting--”

  “You’re suggesting that I’m not trying hard enough,” he said, assuming a martyred air. “That hurts, Mom.”

  “Would it be okay for me to go out with Daniel tomorrow night?” I interrupted. Hit the parents while they’re on the defensive—always a good strategy. “We’re just going to go to the bookstore and read. Maybe get some fast food or something.”

  The Big Mistake snickered, and I shot him a murderous glance. I was getting him out of trouble, didn’t he realize that?

  “Daniel is certainly having a good influence on your grades,” my father said. “Caroline?”

  “Fine. Go out with Daniel. Pass the pot roast, please,” my mother said.

  It was funny—I was all caught up on my homework, but I still spent most of Saturday reading, just for fun. I read three books that I had been wanting to, including Northanger Abbey, the Jane Austen book Daniel had related to. I kept stopping during my reading to think about Daniel and what he had said. I knew I was behaving differently, but I hadn’t thought I was turning into a bitch like Chelsea, or like some of the snotty people in Austen’s book. I would have to watch myself to make sure I didn’t become a total jerk.

  That evening I picked up Daniel when his shift finished at ComputerCo. As soon as he got in the car he leaned over and kissed my cheek, and I turned my face so that we could kiss for real.

  When we finished, I leaned back. “Yesterday, during the test, it was so weird. I just had to look at the question, and right away I had this answer forming in my head.” I put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space. “Is that the way it is for you?”

  “Pretty much. Like with that question about the other kings of Europe and the French revolution, I immediately thought of Marie Antoinette and how her parents were the emperor and empress of Austria, and how terrible it must have been for them to have their daughter killed and not be able to get too upset about it. I just went on from there.”

  I told him the way I had approached the question, and he said, “That’s good. So our answers won’t be too similar. We don’t want Mrs. Becker to start asking us questions too.”

  It was interesting, I thought as I drove, that even though we had read all the same stuff, we still had different ideas about the answers. So maybe I wasn’t going to turn into Daniel, but maybe just some new and improved version of Melissa. That is, unless I didn’t turn into Chelsea.

  It was the beginning of November, and it was too cold to hang around much outside, so I drove us to the mall. We moved around from store to store, looking for an out of the way place where we could kiss.

  We ended up in the optical department of one of the big department stores. It was in a corner of the store, and the grill had been pulled down in front of the counter, but there were a couple of chairs where we could sit, hidden from the crowd.

  What can I say about kissing Daniel that I haven’t already said? His lips were chapped from the cold, but they warmed up as we kissed. “I like the way your lipstick tastes,” he said.

  “I didn’t use to wear it,” I said. “But it keeps my lips moist.”

  “Is it strawberry?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I like strawberry.”

  We kissed some more, since he liked it so much. I didn’t feel those electric flashes, the way I had the very first time, but instead I felt this warmth that welled up inside me. It felt so good kissing him. Of course, since we were in public we didn’t do anything more than just hold hands while we kissed.

  “You think that’s enough?” Daniel asked, backing away from me.

  “Maybe a little more.”

  Finally, though, we did go over to my house. My parents were both home, my mom in the living room, my dad in his study. The Big Mistake was, for a change, not glued to the sofa and some creepy video game. He was having dinner at a friend’s house, some other game geek.

  Daniel and I went up to my room, keeping the door open so my parents wouldn’t come snooping. He had picked out a pair of books from the library. One was on the causes of World War I, the other a science text on learning disabilities. “I thought maybe we could learn something about your brother with this one,” he said.

  “Like learning that he’s a jerk? I already know that.”

  Daniel frowned, as if he knew I could be a better person. I sighed and took the history book from him while he read about kids as weird, or weirder, than my brother. It only took me about forty-five minutes. Then he started asking me questions about the book, which he’d read the night before.

  “Who was Franz Ferdinand?” he asked.

  “Easy. His assassination triggered the first world war.”

  “Not an answer to the question. Who was he?”

  I pouted. “He was the Archduke of Austria-Este, a prince of Hungary and Bohemia, and next in line to the throne of Austria-Hungary.” I looked directly at Daniel. “He married for love, even though his family disapproved.”

  He shifted in his seat. “What were his political views?”

  “He favored granting autonomy to the different ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. Looks like he was ahead of his time in that.”

  My mom stuck her head in my bedroom door. I was sprawled on my bed, Daniel next to me on a floral-print armchair that used to belong to my grandmother. He had the book on his lap.

  “How are you guys doing?” my mom asked, clearly noting the separation between Daniel and me.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re talking about the origins of the first world war. Do you think if Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated the war wouldn’t have started?”

  She looked surprised. “Well, I took European history a long time ago, but I think his assassination was only one of the triggers that started the war.”

  “Good answer,” I said. “Daniel, any more questions?”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” my mom said, turning away before we could quiz her on anything else.

  I answered more of Daniel’s questions until we were both satisfied that I had understood the whole book. Then we went out to a fast-food restaurant for fried chicken, giving my brain a chance to relax before the next book. When we walked in, we saw Mindy sitting next to Brandon on the same side of a booth. As soon as she saw me, Mindy scooted away from Brandon.

  We ordered a bucket to share, and while it was being put together I walked over to talk to Mindy. They were on their way to see a movie, a dumb teenaged comedy about a brother and sister who switched bodies and had to learn how to live with each other. The very idea of being inside the Big Mistake’s body just grossed me out.

  “What are you guys doing?” Mindy asked.

  They called our number, and Daniel went to fetch the bucket of chicken. “Just hanging out,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her we were spending Saturday night with Daniel quizzing me about reading books. That was just too geeky to share. And the kissing part wasn’t Mindy’s business.

  “You guys should totally come with us to the movies,” Mindy said, though I could tell from Brandon’s face he didn’t like that idea.

  “Thanks, but I’m not in a comedy mood,” I said.

  “You need to lighten up, Melissa. Have some fun now and then.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Enjoy the movie.”

  I left them and joined Daniel at a tab
le across the room. Mindy and Brandon held hands as they walked out, and she waved good-bye at me with her free hand, already slotted into a mitten with a happy face painted on it. Good grief. And she was trying to counsel me on my life?

  Daniel and I deliberately didn’t talk about any brainiac stuff at the restaurant. The chicken was delicious, crunchy on the outside and juicy inside, but the potato wedges were soggy and the biscuits would have been better at breakfast, smeared with strawberry jam.

  When we were finished eating, we went to a strip mall down the road from where Daniel lived in Levittown. The air was crisp and I felt like I could almost see my breath. I took Daniel’s hand as we walked down the row of stores, looking in the windows at cell phones and ladies’ clothes and photos of kids doing tae kwan do.

  A big chain bookstore anchored the far end of the center, and we went into its coffee shop, where we sat back in big overstuffed chairs with fancy coffee drinks, and I read the book about learning disabilities. It took me about the same amount of time—forty-five minutes. And it felt like I had the same level of comprehension. I was also making all kinds of connections in my brain between the things in the book and the ways I had seen Robbie behave, the failed therapies my parents had tried, and the few things that had worked.

  “I don’t think I’m reading any faster than I was after the first time we kissed,” I complained. “So it’s not like a cumulative thing.”

  “Give it time. Maybe it’s not an instantaneous thing. You’re going to do another experiment tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah. But what if that connection we had was only a one-time thing?”

  “You think? You don’t feel connected to me anymore?”

  “Of course I do. But I don’t get those brain flashes anymore.”

  “Did you have them after the first time?”

  I stopped to think. “I don’t think so. I mean, I was more caught up in kissing you than in thinking about what was going on with my brain.”

  He pulled out a small notebook. “Are you writing all this down?” I asked.

  “Of course. This is a scientific experiment.”

  Well, yeah. It was. But it was also me and Daniel kissing, and I didn’t think that needed to get written down anywhere.

  He started asking me questions from the book. I was amazed at some of the things—like how many different additives and chemicals were in the most ordinary foods, and how some people genetically just weren’t prepared to handle them. “Which group of people has the most difficulty digesting lactose?” Daniel asked me.

  “Non-Europeans,” I said. “Because those people have only been eating milk products for a few generations and their bodies haven’t caught up yet.”

  “Close enough. Explain how nutritional disorders can be connected with behavioral and learning problems in children.”

  “Jesus, Daniel. How about a couple of easy questions first?” He smiled, and I started to think about the connections.

  I must have talked for five minutes before he said, “All right, you understand that. Now how does it relate to your brother?”

  I frowned. I didn’t like admitting that Robbie’s problems might just be outside his control, but that’s what all the reading indicated. “When my parents started experimenting with his diet, his behavior got better. I remember the first time he was good the whole time we were at my grandparents’ house. It was like all of us could let out a breath we were holding.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He had a lot of those symptoms that ADHD kids have—stuffy nose, all these ear infections, eczema, hives. He couldn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours when he was a baby. That’s when my mom had to quit her job for a while just to take care of him.”

  When we had gone through the whole book, I drove Daniel home, and we kissed in the car for a while, with the lights out. It was cold but that was okay, because it made us huddle together more. I had my eyes closed, kissing Daniel, when I sensed a bright light behind us.

  “Don’t move,” Daniel said.

  We were slouched down in the backseat, so no one could see us. I heard the booming, rhythmic beat of the bass. It even made the mom-mobile shake as the gangbangers drove past.

  Or maybe it was that I was so scared I was shaking. Daniel pressed me closer to him and I buried my face in his thick, wavy hair. We stayed like that until the gangbangers were long gone.

  Daniel pulled away from me and said, “You should go. I’ll see you on Monday and you can tell me what happens with your experiment.” As soon as he got out of the car I locked the doors and turned the car on. I waited until he was in his apartment to back out of the driveway and I drove home very carefully, my hands on the wheel just as my father had taught me.

  Soul Kiss

  The next afternoon I went into my father’s study to look for a book for our experiment. I found this public relations text that looked about the same length as the history book and the one on behavior. I carried it out to the living room where my father was sprawled on the sofa with the Sunday paper.

  “Can you help me with a school project?”

  He looked up from the business section. “What do you need?”

  “Just time me reading this book, and then ask me some questions about it when I’m done.” I held it up to show him.

  “That’s one of my college texts. It’s going to take you a long time to read it.”

  “Just start the clock, okay?”

  “If you say so.” He pulled his cell phone out and set the timer, then went back to reading the paper.

  I must have been about halfway done when he said, “Are you really reading that? You’re turning those pages awful fast.”

  I looked up. “Yeah. I’m reading about this guy Edward Bernays and how he says public relations is about informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t let me disturb you. Go back to reading.”

  I did. When I finished the book I looked up and said, “Okay. Stop the clock.” He pulled out his phone and stopped it, and I said, “How did I do?”

  “Forty-eight minutes.”

  “Shit.”

  “Melissa!”

  “Sorry, Dad. I was hoping I would read faster.”

  “I can’t believe you read that whole book so quickly. It took me a whole semester.”

  “No, it probably just took you a few hours over the course of a semester.” I handed the book to him. “Here, ask me some questions.”

  He opened up the book to the end of the first chapter and asked me one of the review questions. I answered it. Then he paged halfway through the book and tried again.

  When I finished answering, he shook his head. Then he flipped to the last chapter and asked another question.

  “How did you do that?” he asked, when I had finished. “How did you read that so quickly and understand it? Have you always been able to read that fast?”

  “I’ve been studying with Daniel,” I said.

  He didn’t look like he believed me. He was my dad, so I wasn’t going to tell him about kissing Daniel. And I didn’t think he would believe that some of Daniel’s brain cells had gotten into my body when we kissed. So I just started making stuff up. “It’s a trick I picked up from him. You just look at the sentence, pick up the key words and move on. You train your brain to act quickly.”

  He shook his head. “You always tested well, Melissa. But I didn’t realize you were a genius.”

  “I’m not a genius, Dad.” I thought back to Algernon the laboratory mouse. “I’ve just learned to read fast, that’s all.”

  “It’s not just about reading. You understand this material. That’s comprehension.” He looked at me. “When do you get your first report card?”

  “Next week.”

  “I expect to see grades that reflect this ability.” He looked at me, as if an idea had just popped into his head. “Is that why you took the SATs again? Because you learned this way of reading from D
aniel?”

  I shifted around on the sofa. “I guess. I was just curious to see if I could test better.”

  That night at dinner, I noticed my mom looking at me funny. I was sure my dad had told her about the speed-reading thing, and she was bursting to ask me about it but holding back. Funny, that’s not usually her problem. Most of the time she’s willing to just dive in to things, like “How has your period been, Melissa?” and “Do you think you need to go up a bra size?” Horrible, embarrassing things. But reading? Ooh, that must be very taboo.

  As I was carrying the dishes into the kitchen, where she was loading the dishwasher, her curiosity got the best of her. Of course, though, Robbie was all she thought about. “Do you think you could show your brother this reading trick you learned from Daniel?”

  “It’s not a trick, Mom. I’m not some performing seal with a ball on my nose.”

  “Technique, then. Your brother is smart, I know it. But he just can’t focus.”

  What could I say? That she was delusional, that the Big Mistake was a doofus who would probably never even get into college? But then I remembered what I had read about the connection between diet and learning disabilities. “I don’t think it will work for him,” I said. “His brain is wired differently from mine.”

  I put the dishes I was carrying into the sink so she could rinse them. “Just a single change in one gene can make a big difference,” I said. “And you know neither Daniel nor I are qualified to work with someone with a disability. Suppose he got frustrated because he couldn’t learn the way we do and that only made things worse.” I went on with the DNA evidence I had read in the book, and I could see my mom’s eyes glazing over. Then she looked worried.

  “You don’t think there’s something changing about your DNA, do you?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t bitten by any mutant spiders, and I didn’t fall in any pools of radioactive waste, Mom. I just started learning better.”

  She closed the dishwasher. “Well, if you do learn anything you think would help Robbie, I hope you’ll tell us.”

  She looked so sad I had to lean over and kiss her cheek. “Of course, Mom.”