Page 95 of Malibu Rising

When she turned onto the road and out of sight, Jay thought he’d feel better, but he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

Mick took a right onto PCH off Chautauqua but he did not bother to use his blinker. Speeding up the highway, ocean to his left, mountains to his right, he turned his attention briefly to the invitation.

He found himself growing a tiny bit nervous, his heart beating an irregular rhythm.

He was preparing his apologies in his head, framing and reframing his past actions to create a story his kids would understand, one they could forgive. Now was the time for them all to run down to the ocean and baptize themselves in the sea and start again.

He was doing this for himself, yes. But he was doing this for them, too. What broken family—no matter how shattered or tattered or bruised beyond recognition—does not ache to be reunited? What child, no matter how lost or abandoned, does not ache to be loved?

Mick pulled up to the red stoplight at Heathercliff Road. And when it turned green, he turned left without his blinker.

Kit was standing in the outdoor bathroom staring at the stars. Ricky was sucking on her neck so hard she was pretty sure she was going to end up with a hickey.

She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t bear to. So she kept looking up at the night sky, trying to find the Big Dipper.

• • •

Ricky could not believe his good fortune. He was here, making out with Kit Riva, in an outdoor shower.Kit Riva. In an outdoor shower.He wanted to take her out on romantic dates to Italian restaurants, and buy her flowers, and go surfing with her, and just generally be in her presence all the time.

Ricky was so flabbergasted and ahead of himself, so enchanted and eager, that it was almost as if his excitement could sustain them both.

Almost.

Ricky was no Don Juan but he’d been with women before. He’d had a high school dalliance, a college girlfriend. He knew how it felt when a girl was as excited to be with you as you were to be with her. And Ricky was starting to worry—because of the way Kit wasn’t looking him in the eye, the way she kept freezing up when he touched her, the way she moved her pelvis farther from him—that she didn’t really want to be here.

Ricky stood back for a moment and tried to get Kit to look at him, but she averted her gaze.

“Kit?” Ricky said.

“What?” she asked.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to do this?” Kit said.

“I don’t know.” Ricky shrugged. “I was just getting the impression maybe you weren’t into it.”

“Well, I am,” Kit said.

“OK,” Ricky said. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said and she pulled him to her and kissed him again.

• • •

Kit was hiding, and she knew it.

She understood, very clearly, that once she admitted to herself she didn’t like kissing Ricky, she would have to admit she didn’t want to kiss men at all. That she didn’t like their roughness, their smell, the coarseness of their faces. That she’d never once looked at a man and desired him.

She knew that as soon as she pulled away from Ricky Esposito, she was going to have to accept that she had always, her entire life, desired softness. Curves and smooth skin and long hair and soft lips. She had always ached to be touched with gentle hands.

Kissing Ricky felt all wrong because he wasn’t Julianna Thompson. He wasn’t Cheryl Nilsson. Or Violet North. He wasn’t even Wendy Palmer, the waitress at the restaurant with whom Kit always felt a thrill when they shared a shift. She wished, for just one moment, he was that cocktail waitress she’d met earlier tonight, the one with the red hair. Caroline. But Kit kept kissing Ricky, hoping some internal desire would kick in, even though she knew that she had all the answers she’d been looking for.

Kit knew now—in her heart, in her body—that she liked girls the way other girls like boys. All she had done this evening by finally kissing a boy was show herself just how much she’d never cared about kissing a boy at all.

She pulled away from Ricky. “You’re right. I can’t do this.”

“OK,” Ricky said, backing off. “Sorry if I pushed you or anything.”

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