Be in the Real (24 page)

Derrick faced her. As always happened with him, he showed no indication of being even remotely unnerved by her. This lackadaisical attitude only heightened her fury that had been elevated to volcanic.

“We’ll go see Pauline after you meet with Franco again,” Derrick said, rubbing the fine stubble on his chin with the back of his hand.

It took Kaila a few seconds to process his words and understand their meaning.

“What do you mean see Franco
again
?” she asked, “I went to sleep and woke up and it was another day…but…”

She paused, skewering Derrick with her stare.

“Was Trill…”
 

She pressed her lips together just in time. Sudden realization of the truth swept through her. Her unshowered state of being, the lost time, the flashes of unfamiliar people and places. All of it made perfect sense now. Not only had Trillian decided to step in, but she had gone to places and done things without Kaila’s permission. It unnerved Kaila that Trillian had been so devious, but she also understood why Trillian had done it. This wasn’t just a learning experience for Kaila, Trillian was involved too. Kaila had been a fool to think that Trillian would follow the rules when they were in the real. Knowing that Trillian had already met this Franco person made Kaila want to do the same.
 

“Okay, lets go meet Franco,” Kaila said.
 

She took a few steps closer to Derrick as if to leave, then realized that she needed to clean up before she did. Kaila’s personal hygiene was near obsessive, very unlike Trillian who was quite a bit more lax with the mundane routines.

“I need to wash,” Kaila said, spinning on her heel.

She left Derrick abruptly.

“We can meet him later today,” Derrick yelled after her but Kaila had already moved on to her next task.

Showered and dressed in fresh clothes, Kaila returned to the downstairs. She had decided to keep her bag and laptop close at hand in case she somehow woke up in another place without her things, something that seemed to be happening frequently in the real. She discovered that once again Derrick had vanished. Another person had taken his place. This girl was completely unlike the fairy. She was tall and gangly and wore a turquoise flared skirt that showed off her knobby knees and spindly legs. Like Kaila, this girl had red hair, only hers was thick and coarse and tugged back into a ponytail. The color was reminiscent of tarnished metal not the bright copper of Kaila’s mane.

She smiled at Kaila’s approach; her widely spaced teeth seemed to barely fit inside her mouth.

“Hi, I’m Sugar,” the girl said with a nod of her head.

Kaila squinted at her with her mismatched proportions. It seemed everything didn’t quite go together on her. Her eyes were excessively big beneath thick rectangular shaped glasses; her upturned nose was huge in comparison to her lips that seemed to have disappeared into her face. Her features gave her a caricature like appearance.

“Sugar isn’t a name its something you sprinkle on strawberries or cereal,” Kaila said.

Sugar blushed a brilliant shade of pink. “It’s more of a nickname that kind of stuck since I was a kid. My real name is Samantha but I haven’t been called that in years.”

Kaila nodded, accepting the explanation.
 

“Where’s Derrick,” Kaila asked.
 

Derrick’s frequent disappearing act was becoming tiresome. His carefree behavior made Kaila question more and more if he indeed cared about Pauline at all. He had an opportunity to save a life yet didn’t seem to feel it was a priority. Another unpleasant thought wedged into her brain and left Kaila chilled in its wake. She mused if Derrick might have tried and failed to save someone before Pauline. If that was true, Kaila wondered if Pauline’s fate was written in stone and couldn’t be shifted into something else.

Panic seeped into her like a snake slithering up her back. Now that she had the thought lodged in her mind it was all that she could focus on. The concept that Pauline was destined to die no matter what they did made Kaila all the more adamant to find her. If nothing else could be done at least Kaila could spend some time with Pauline before she died.

“Is something wrong?” Sugar said, drawing Kaila back to the moment.

Kaila was too distracted to respond. Getting to Pauline had moved from desire to need. There was nothing and no one who would stop that from happening. Kaila clutched her laptop to her chest and barreled toward the door.
 

“Hey wait. Derrick said to wait and…”
 

Sugar’s voice was shrill and stressed. It did nothing to halt Kaila’s progress. Her bag bounced against her side as she bounded forward. The door to the outside was unlocked. In one swift move she threw it wide.

It hit her like a tidal wave, the unfamiliar sounds, smells and all that encompassed life in the real world. What she had witnessed through a pane of glass was heightened to incomprehensible proportions. The reality left Kaila literally gasping for breath. Horns honked, people laughed, the wind blew her damp hair away from her face. Everything was alive, pulsing with energy and life like nothing she had ever seen before. She moved down the steps of the brownstone, barely feeling the stone beneath her feet. She wanted to touch it all and see that it was real.

 
Kaila had once believed as Trillian did, that virtual was the same as the real, that in fact if you studied and searched for long enough you could hook onto it all, be there in your mind and it would be the same. But it wasn’t, not even a little.
 

Kaila moved down the sidewalk, skirting around people as she did. She concentrated on the aroma of sausages, hot dogs, soft dough pretzels and freshly popped corn, on the food carts that she passed along the way. They had served hot dogs in Wildwind but they had never smelled like these did, meaty and spicy. The meat aroma mingled with the scent of mustard and ketchup and pungent sauerkraut and onions. She had never liked anything but ketchup on her hot dogs, but now wanted to taste everything that was offered.
 

“Kaila, Kaila, Stop…”
 

The voice was like a mosquito in her ear, irritating and unimportant, something to be forgotten. She paused beside a cart further up the street. Kaila watched the vendor, a short stalky man with a silver goatee and a shaved head, do his job. He fished out a foot long wiener and fit it into a steamed bun that was white and fluffy at the center and brown on the outside. When she stood still she could smell the bread too, and so much more. Chopped onions, diced tomatoes, hot pepper rings in red and green and every assortment of condiment that one could imagine. Her mouth watered with every inhalation. In that moment there was nothing she wanted more than to taste one of those hot dogs, pile it high with every single thing on the cart and eat every bit of it because this was real. It was all real.

“Kaila.”
 

Kaila felt cold fingers grip her arm. Even before she turned to face the owner, the spiders crept across her flesh as if they had been waiting for that exact moment the whole time. When her eyes met Sugar’s the other girl hastily released her hold on Kaila. It was just in time since the irritation of the skittering legs had pushed Kaila to very close to her melting point.
 

“I want a hot dog,” she said.

“I think we need to…” Sugar started to say.
 

Her face was shiny with sweat and so pale that every freckle on her skin seemed to pop into view. A single coiling curl, made straight in her ponytail, had broken free and was resting on her right cheek. Much to Sugar’s surprise, Kaila flicked the piece of hair with her thumb and forefinger, sending it flying out to the side in an arc. Kaila laughed at the sight of if then did it again as soon as it had fallen back into place. Her laughter filled the air all around them. Sugar however, appeared to be annoyed by Kaila’s actions. She pursed her non-existent lips into a pout until they actually vanished from view.

“You have chicken lips,” Kaila said with another flick of Sugar’s hair.

“What? Chickens don’t have lips,” Sugar said. Her brow furrowed more with every swish of her hair.
 

“Exactly,” Kaila said.
 

She broke into even more vigorous giggles until her whole body was vibrating with mirth.

“Is she okay?” the hot dog vendor said.

 
Obviously he had been watching Kaila. Kaila spun to face him, drawn to his accent that she recognized as Australian.

“You’re from Australia,” she said with a wide grin. She had already been exhilarated by all the real around her, but now her pulsed quickened even more because she had a traveler from a foreign land right in front of her.
 

“Have you petted a Koala bear? Have you sniffed a eucalyptus tree, do you know how many poisonous snakes live in Australia?” she asked in a steady stream of words.
 

The vendor threw his hands up in front of his chest. Kaila studied the stains of ketchup, mustard and many other things on his chef’s apron. She wondered how long it had been since he had washed it. But before she could ask him that question she had moved back to her original thought.

“I want a hot dog,” she said.
 

The vendor stared at her. His beady eyes crinkled into a squint. Kaila turned back to glare at Sugar who had been speaking all along; Kaila hadn’t heard a thing she had said.

“Give him the money so I can get a hot dog.”
 

Sugar shook her head. Kaila stepped in closer, looming menacingly. It was something that she was very good at.

“I’ve called Derrick and he’s coming.”
 

Sugar shoved her cell phone toward Kaila as if to prove her point. Kaila ignored it; her focus was too keenly activated to be dissuaded by Sugar’s aggravation.

“Now, I want it now.”
 

Kaila’s voice carried through the air. Her tone straddled the edge of control. Sugar, who had obviously read the signs, dug into the tiny black leather purse that was slung across the front of her. She shoved money at the vendor without comment. He took the crumpled bills from her, counted out what he needed then passed Sugar the change. Kaila had her hot dog seconds later. She hiked the strap of her bag up the length of her forearm then shifted her laptop under her armpit a little, to secure its place. With everything stabilized she began the exciting task of loading every possible item that was offered on the cart. When the hot dog was fully laden to the point where condiments were literally falling to the ground at her feet, she took her first bite.

 
The tang of the mustard, sweet of the ketchup, the stringent quality of the onions mixed with the spiced meat in an explosion that tantalized every taste bud in her mouth. She chewed, savored, then ate more, licking her fingers between bites. Kaila was so appreciative of the offering that she lost all sense of the world around her. She groaned with pleasure at the combination of flavors and textures. Only the food that she was consuming mattered. And when she had eaten the last bite, chewed every morsel and had swallowed, and just the flavors remained on her tongue, she returned to the realm of the real world. The vendor stood frozen in place, awe and pleasure painted his expression.

“I’ve never seen anyone enjoy a hot dog that much,” he said with an admiring grin. Kaila noticed that his smile showed his small crooked teeth that were yellowed and stained with brownish streaks of nicotine.
 

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You can have another one, on the house mate,” he said with a nod. “I reckon it’s worth it to see you scarf it down with so much vim and vigor.”

“I think she’s done.”

 
Derrick pushed in beside Kaila. He snatched a handful of napkins off the cart and began wiping stray condiments from her lips and mouth. The scowl on his face said he was less than pleased at seeing her there. His chagrin did little to deflate Kaila’s high. But the sudden realization about how restricted her life had been in Wildwind gave her pause. The routines that had given her comfort before now seemed suffocating. The urge to have more real now multiplied.
 

Derrick was oblivious to her revelation. He grabbed the corner of Kaila’s bag and tugged her forward, leaving Sugar standing on the street behind them. He had already managed to get Kaila a fair distance from the cart when the realization that he was taking her back to the brownstone made Kaila halt in place. She snapped the bag out of Derrick’s grasp. He glared at her with unabashed disapproval.

“Don’t make this difficult Kaila, we’re going back inside, now,” he said. His words were crisp and direct. Ignoring his orders, Kaila shook her head. Now that she was out, there was no way that she was going back, no matter what Derrick said or did.
 

A woman with a baby in a stroller moved toward she and Derrick. Kaila couldn’t help but notice how the baby bobbed up and down in the seat as if trying to bounce out. As they passed by Kaila the baby suddenly tossed a bottle at her leg. It hit the fabric of her sweatpants with a soft thud, landed on the concrete then began rolling away. Kaila pounced on the bottle somehow managing to keep hold of her computer and her bag in the move. The bottle was warm to the touch and greasy with what she assumed was baby saliva, since large globs of drool trailed down its chin. The baby boy was dressed in a blue onesie that showed off the rolls of his chubby thighs and pudgy arms. A navy fabric ball cap was positioned askew on its tiny bald head.
 

 
The mother, who had just noticed that the bottle was gone, stopped walking. Before the mother could say anything Kaila pushed the bottle toward the baby. She leaned in close so their faces were just inches a part. Like everything else that had happened in the last hour, this too was a first for her.
 

Kaila felt the hot breath of the toy-like being on her cheek, and was surprised at how sweet it smelled. And there were other smells coming from the little being, powder and sunlight and fabric softener, and a newness that said that this little life hadn’t been on earth for very long. The baby reached out both hands for the bottle, a wide toothless grin spread across its chubby face, more drool dribbled from his fat lips. Kaila stared into his huge blue eyes that sparkled with life. She wondered what he saw, if he knew she was crazy, or if that was something he would be taught later on in his life.