But in the cubicle she stood waiting. “I’ve kissed lots of people.”
Had kissing been going on among his classmates all the time? Was he the only one who had no clue? Had people been kissing each other behind the school Dumpster where they smoked? But Gracie Watts didn’t smoke. She got eighties and nineties.
“Lots?”
“I’ve been kissing since I was four.”
“Four?”
“I kissed Duncan McQueen in his father’s garage when I was four, and I kissed Brent Shiwack in the woods when I was only seven.”
“Brent Shiwack?”
“I kissed Kevin Stacey in his backyard tent hundreds of times, when I was eleven.”
“I haven’t kissed that many people.”
“Have you kissed anyone?”
“I don’t want to kiss people. I don’t want to go out with people.”
“Do you fall in love with boys?” She stood close and he was interested in her lips, but not in kissing them. He was interested in how the two peaks at the top were so sharp and the scoop in the middle had freckles in it, three, like stars behind the Mealy Mountains. He wanted to get a nice sharp pencil and draw that part of her lips. He got the idea she didn’t want him to kiss her at all, not really. He got the idea she wanted someone to talk to.
A great hoot went up, and Mark Thevenet called out, “Seven minutes!” Gracie and Wayne went back to their places in the circle.
“This is from Key West.” Donna wrapped a sarong around her head and put a glass ball on the floor where the bottle had spun. “You’re going to tell me your dreams, and I’m going to interpret them.”
“That’s only a weight for a fishing net,” Mark Thevenet said.
“You have no imagination. I’m an excellent dream interpreter. I learned how to do it from a kit I got for my birthday when I lived in Riverside, New Brunswick.”
“I’ll go,” Wally said. It was the first interest she had shown in anything at the party.
“You’ll have to wait your turn. The ball is telling me Tweedledee has to go first, and then Wayne Blake, and then Tweedledum. We’re going to split up Tweedledee and Tweedledum for once in their lives. That’s what the ball wants.”
“Fuck,” said Brent Shiwack. “I need a smoke.”
“Which one of you is Tweedledee?”
“Does it matter?” Brent asked.
“Who here knows which twin is which?”
“Everyone knows,” Wally Michelin said quietly. “Except you. Their names are Agatha and Marina. Agatha is shyer than Marina but she smiles more. She wants to be a travel agent. Marina makes things. She makes jewellery out of old copper pipes. Agatha and Marina aren’t identical. We all know that. How come you don’t?”
“Which one,” Donna stared Wally down, “is Tweedledee? That’s all I want to know. And which one is Tweedledum? Can you tell me that?”
“No,” Wally said. “I can’t. Because Tweedledum and Tweedledee aren’t their names. They don’t correspond to one or the other. Those are names people call the twins as a unit.”
“Does anybody else here think there’s anything wrong with that?”
Wayne said, “I think the twins probably like it better if you use their real names.”
“Do you?” Donna looked at the twins, who sat with their chins buried in the collars that peeped out of their cardigans. Both wore necklaces Marina had made. Everyone waited. Agatha directed one of her shy little smiles at the loops on the carpet.
“Do you mind us,” Donna said in a louder voice, as if the twins could not hear, “calling you a friendly nickname like Tweedledum or Tweedledee?”
“We don’t care,” Marina said.
“See?” Donna gave Wally a great big smile. “They don’t care. Why should you care if they don’t care themselves? Who made you the great authority? Come over, both Tweedles. Tweedledum, tell us the dream you had last night and I’ll interpret it. I might even be able to tell your future.”
Wally sat apart. The rest of the group nudged closer to Donna and her glass fishing weight.
“I didn’t have any dream,” said Agatha.
“Close your eyes.” Donna put on a wavery, occult voice. “Try to remember.”
“I know I didn’t have one because I didn’t sleep very good last night.”
“But surely you dreamt between your moments of wakefulness. Think back. We can only work with material you provide. We can’t cheat.”
“Maybe you could go on to someone else.”
“Do you ever have flying dreams?”
“I love those. But I never had one last night.”
“What happens in your flying dreams?”
“I move my hands at first, real fast.”
“Do it for us.”
Agatha flapped her hands. Everyone laughed.
“Then what?”
“Then I flap my whole arms.”
“And do you fly?”
“It takes a long time.”
“I dare say it does.”
“After I flap my hands, and then my arms, I start to float, then I’m up over the street. I’m over the houses and the telephone poles. Sometimes I look down and there’s a gull flying lower than me.”
“That must be amazing. Is Tweedledee ever up there with you?”
“No. When I fly in my dreams, I don’t have a twin. It feels strange.”
“I guess it is strange. Four hundred pounds floating over Croydon Harbour. I hope none of us is ever down on the road if you decide to fall. Do you ever fall?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Do you weigh four hundred pounds?”
“The nurse measures us in kilograms. We’re on a reduced carbohydrate diet. We have to have gall bladder surgery.”
“So my interpretation of your flying dream is this. Which one are you again? Are you Tweedledum?
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll say you are. You’re alone. You’re weightless. You’ve had your gall bladder surgery but one of you has died. It must be the other one. It must be Tweedledee. When are you supposed to have the surgery?”
“Next August,” Agatha said, near tears.
“Stop it,” Wally Michelin said. “Give it up, Donna. Agatha, don’t worry about it. Donna Palliser can’t tell the future just because she’s wearing a stupid bathing suit wrap around her head and looking at a fishing ball. Donna Palliser is an idiot.”
“We’ll reserve judgement on the death. Maybe there isn’t going to be a death. I never said it was for sure. Let’s do Wayne’s dream.”
Wayne knew Donna Palliser could not see into the glass ball. He knew she was in the business, tonight, of being cruel. He did not like to see Agatha Groves made fun of and did not mind giving Donna Palliser a change of topic. “I dreamed I was a girl,” he said. “I could see my sweater. It was a green sweater with glimmery buttons, like light changing underwater. I looked at my sandals and they were white. I was walking by a river. I tried to see my face in the river but I couldn’t. No one was with me. I tried to run with the river. I picked one peak of water and ran beside it and I thought it was the same peak. But then I wasn’t sure. I didn’t realize I was a girl in the dream until I woke up. While I was waking up I remembered I’m a boy, and I was surprised for a minute, until I remembered that’s what I always am when I’m awake.”