A Kiss in Time (15 page)

Do not flatter yourself. I learned this phrase from Jack. Your mother sent me in here to
bide the time with you so that she and Jack could discuss me.

Oh, yeah? Meryl almost smiles. Shes like that. She wont say what she thinks to peoples
faces. Shes too nice. But when your backs turned, watch out.

I know quite a few people like that. Meryl slips open her sketch pad, taking elaborate care to face it away from me. She continues with her drawing. There is naught for me to do but
watch the television show, which appears to be about three friends, two boys and a girl,
who wish to be something called ninjas. The girl has pink hair, which is lovely. No one in
Euphrasia had pink hair. I know not what a ninja is, and I dare not ask Meryl, so I sit in
silence and watch. Bits of it are funny, at least, and I laugh. Meryl looks up, then back down. A moment later, I laugh again. You
like anime? Meryl asks. I take this as permission to look at her, which I do. A blank look. Anime? she repeats. Japanese cartoons? I shake my head. I have never seen one.
Youre watching one now. Oh. I look at the screen. The pink-haired girl is hit-

ting someone very hard. It seems quite lovely. I like how the girl, Sakura, will become a
fighter, too, just like the boys. She is rather like Judge Judy, isnt she?

Judge Judy? I shake my head. Never mind. Sakuras my favorite, Meryl says. She goes back to
her drawing, slightly less sullen. The television show ends, but another of the same begins. Meryl pays it little mind, engrossed
in her art. I can hear Jack and his mother talking in the next room, but the blaring
televi- sion prevents my knowing what they are saying. I stifle a yawn. My eyes begin to close. If I do not speak, I will begin to fall asleep.

Finally, I say, I am sorry for looking at your sketch earlier.

Meryl sketches a few lines, then says, Whatever.

It is just, I say, that back in my country, I studied with an Italian master, Signor Carlo
Maratti.

Woo-woo for you.

Oh, I am not bragging. I have no talent whatsoever, I assure you. Signor Maratti despised
me. He told my father that teaching me was a waste of his time, and he went back to Italy
to paint.

Meryl laughs. Pretty embarrassing, getting kicked out of art.

Quite. But you have talent, the sort of talent I wished to have.

Now she is holding the sketch pad so that I might catch a glimpse of it, but I do not
attempt to do so. Instead, I point at the television. I like her hair. Is it common in
your country?

But Meryl moves her sketchbook closer. I dont think its very good. I can draw people and
stuff, but then I have trouble with stupid things like the sky.

I pull my eyes from the television. May I see? When she hands it to me, I take a look at
it. As she says, the sky looks false against the realistic person and animals. Ah, I see
what you are talking about, although this is really quite won- derful. Have you studied
the concept of negative space? I dont take art, actually. My dad says its a waste of an elective. Whats negative space?

Signor Maratti was quite enthusiastic for itit is the idea that instead of observing the
positive space of an object, one should draw the shape of the space around the objectthe
mermaid, for example, or this seagull.

But I tried doing that, drawing the sky first. It still comes out bad.

I look closer. That is because you drew the outline first. What you must do is draw up to
the object, then draw the object afterward. Can I see your pad?

She hands it to me, and I turn to the first blank page. Then I attempt to sketch the sky
around the shape of a bird. It is quite bad, I know, but the concept is true.

Meryl attempts it herself. I try to nod encouragement without appearing patronizing. When
I was her agethree hundred three years agoI felt patronized by everyone. But no, she seems
genuinely pleased by my interest in her art. Finally, she finishes the bird, a much better
bird than my own, surrounded by a much better sky, and shows it to me. Wow, thats
incredible, she says, smiling. It really does look a lot better that way.

That is when Jack and his mother walk in.

Talia, Jack says, Im afraid my mom has some bad news.

Wait a second, Jacks mother says. Meryl, was that you speaking just now?

Meryl shrugs. Yeah. And that is your sketchbook? She reaches for it. Meryl snatches it back. Jacks mother
says, Am I to understand, Meryl, that you have allowed this . . . this . . . girl . . .

Talia, Jack says helpfully.

. . . that you have allowed Talia to see your sketch- book?

Meryl has secreted the sketchbook behind her person again. She studied with an Italian
master. Isnt that cool? Jacks mother nods. Yes. She looks at Jack. You say her parents will be back to get her in a week? Jack nods.

And you have actually met her parents? Jack laughs. Boy, have I! All right. She can stay
the week. But she has to sleep in the study downstairs, on the air mattress. I wish I knew what an air mattress was.

A
n air mattress is a strange thing, indeed, Talia says. Its rubber, I say. And the study is
way too small for it. Talias going to be wedged between the desk and the door out to the garage, but I couldnt talk Mom into letting Talia stay in the guest room.
Too near our rooms. For my own security. So were putting a princess on an air mattress. By
the garage.

It is ingenious that people of your time have found so many uses for such an unpleasant
substance. She feels the top of it. Is it not possible to put something else inside it,
like feathers?

Look, Im sorry. My mom, shes a little weird about things. Were not going to do much
sleeping, anyway. Weve got that party tonight. I look at her. Boy, is Amber going to freak
when she sees you. Amber? Talia says.

Yeah, you know, the girl you talked to on the phone. My ex-girlfriend.

She did not seem very nice.

I shrug. Shes usually nicer. Im not even sure thats true. I realize that maybe Talia didnt
know that Ambers going to be there tonight. But anyway, youre so beautiful, shell flip out
when she sees you.

Flip out? I am sorry, but what does that mean?

It means shes going to be really jealous when she sees us together.

Talia puts her hands on her hips. That is why we are going, then? To see this girl, Amber,
to make her jealous?

I dont say anything. I mean, yeah, its the reason, but when she puts it that way, it
sounds like Im using Talia. Which I sort of am, I guess. But this party is the chance Ive
been waiting for all summer. Bringing Talia home was just about driving my parents nuts at
firstbut it will be incredible when Amber sees her and realizes Im not just waiting around
for her. Finally, I say, Hey, I brought you back here. I talked my mom into letting you
stay. I thought the least you could do was Fine. She looks away. But should you not be spend- ing your first evening back with your
parents?

I shrug. My moms got a meeting tonight, and Dads out of town. As usual.

Talia nods like she understands, but I doubt she does. Back in her time, mothers didnt go
to meetings, and fathers worked on the farm, with their sons by their sides. But shes being nice about it.
Actually, shes being nice about every- thing, the Chinese food that she choked onI guess
they dont have soy sauce where shes frommy weird mother and my weirder sister, and now the
air mattress. They dont have anything where shes from, and she thinks its all awesome.

I change the subject. So, you were actually talking to my sister?

Mm-hmm. She seems lovely. I laugh, and she says, What is funny?

Its just . . . my sister and I mostly just insult each other.

Have you tried talking to her about something which interests her? Talia pokes the air
mattress with her finger.

I shrug. I didnt really think anything did.

Talia tries to sit down, but the mattress bucks her off. I help her onto it. In my time,
she says, there was not much to do but talk. We had no televisions. We had no
telephonesneither the kind in your pocket nor the kind on a table. We had no movies or
cars. So we talked. I learned that it is possible to make conversation with anyone, if you
figure out what they wish to discuss.

I remember how Talia got me to talk about the garden- ing thing. Ive never told anyone
else about that, but with this girl, I sort of feel like I can be myself without worry-
ing about looking uncool. After all, she doesnt even know what cool is. But the problem with having someone come to your house and be with you all the time is you
start seeing what your life is like through their eyes. Like, why didnt some- one show to
pick me up from the airport, or at least call to tell me they werent coming? Why doesnt
Mom have any real food in the house? Its not like our food rotted when we were asleep for
three hundred years, but thats sort of what it looks like. And why cant I get my sister to
talk to me?

Yeah? I say. And what did you figure out about Meryl?

That she is lonely, has few friends. She tries to befriend the neighbor girl, who only
makes jest of her.

Jennifer picks on Meryl?

Talia rolls her eyes. You do not see what is right before you. But Meryl is a talented
artist and finds solace in that. That is what we spoke about. Art.

I dont know what to say to that. I never noticed she had talent. She never showed me her
sketches or anything. Whooo! This is fun! Talias standing on the air mat- tress now. Its
underfilled, and shes trying to walk across it,

which is a bit like walking on a surfboard. Stop. Youll fall. What shall happen if I do?
Hit my head and sleep three hundred years? Maybe. Why not? Oh, you are just an old bore! Lady Brooke was always trying to stop me having fun. Well, you cannot! Oh, yeah? I grab the air pump and turn it
on full blast in her face. How about that? She squeals and covers her face. Better! But in the next moment, she falls. I catch her, and for a moment, I hold her there, and I think what
it would be like to kiss her. To kiss her again.

But thats silly. I dont even like her, and shes going away in a week. Then Ill never see
her again. What I really want is to get Amber back, so kissing Talia isnt part of my plan.

She grabs the air pump out of my hand. Attack of the ninjas! She turns it on my face and,
at the same time, kicks my legs out from under me. I fall on my butt. Oh, I am learning
from your television.

I dont kiss her. But I do think Ill miss her when shes gone.

A
party! I am wearing Meryls Abercrombie & Fitch shirt and a pair of blue jeans, both of
which are rela- tively modest. The bathing costume, I place inside my purse, never to see
the light of day.

Jack wears a tank top and his own bathing costume, which is somewhat more modest than
those prescribed for women. Still, it reveals a great deal more flesh than I am accustomed
to seeing revealed by the gentlemen at court.

I try to focus my eyes properly on the back of Jacks head or, perhaps, the floor as we
traverse the stairs and the hallway on the way to Jacks car. And yet my eyes continue to
travel downward, sideways, or in general away from their proper destinationfor the
destination they seek is the back of Jacks legs and other nether regions which have been
properly covered in recent days by his trousers. I remember that delicious moment in the studythat horrible little room next to the place
where they keep the cars, where I am to be consigned these next seven nights when I fell
from the air mattress, and I thought Jack was going to kiss me. Was he going to? Will he
ever?

I sneak another glance at Jacks legs.

Signor Maratti had a book filled with colored plates of subjects appropriate for young
ladies, flowers and fruit and other vegetation. These, he showed me often, the better to
reveal my own inadequacies as a painter. But one day, when Signor had excused himself to
clean the paintbrushes, I ventured to glance at the book. It fell to the floor and, in my
haste to retrieve it, I saw a plate which made me gasp.

I knew immediately why Signor Maratti had not shown me that particular page. One would
have thought that the realization of this fact would have been all that was neces- sary to
cause me to avert my eyes in a ladylike manner.

One would have thought wrong.

The picture was of a young man, quite naked but for a bit of leaves where a codpiece would
go. I assured myself that, had it not been for that bit of leaves, I would have turned the
page. What struck me about the picture was how different this young mans body was from my
own: muscu- lar where mine was soft, angular where mine was round. I could not quell the
momentary thrill at the thoughtI knew it was an improper oneof beholding, even touch- ing
such a body one day in personwhen I was properly married to a suitable consort, of course. Then Signor Maratti entered, and I was forced to pre- tend I had been looking at the
flowers. I am afraid I did not concentrate for the rest of the lesson, and it was a
blessing that Signor himself was old and fat, the better to calm my racing heart and mind.

He never left me alone again.

But now, hundreds of years later, I am beholding a male body, a body which was not even a
wish of a prediction of a dream on that long-ago day, and yet I feel the same excitement
at the thought of it, the same wondering how it would be to touch it.

We reach the party at good speed, thanks to the service of Jacks car. There are numerous
other cars parked on the grassy area in front of the house. To whom do they belong? Will
their owners like me? At parties at my fathers castle, I was always in the company of Lady
Brooke and other female companions, who were under strict orders to keep me entertained,
as if I were a fussy infant. There will be no such orders here.

What if they hate me?

I was quite perturbed to find that Jack was using me to make this Amber person jealous. On
the other hand, it is gratifying to know that he believes me so beautiful.