Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love by Maryrose Wood Page B

extra effort to understand stuff. He just focuses on what he does understand, like giving people rides. “No problem,” he says. “Can I give you boys a lift anywhere?”
    “No thanks,” says Matthew. “I need to walk.”
    Much as I would love to have Matthew along for a ride in the Camry, I understand his point. I’d need to walk, too, if I’d just heard the Secret of Love revealed in a language I couldn’t understand. Which, in fact, did just happen to me, and I wish I could say something to Matthew about it, but my dad is standing right here. “Looking forward to that lunch, sir,” Matthew says, wiping the rain out of his eyes.
    “Right, Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday’s better—I’ll check my book and let Felicia know. Okay, let’s hit the road, sugar, gotta go gotta go.” My dad gives Matthew a hearty handshake, waves in the general direction of Jacob, and scurries back behind the wheel of the Camry. There’s a solid thunk as he slams the car door.
    Matthew looks at me. I feel a big drip of water running down the side of my nose.
    “You’re all wet!” he says.
    “You too,” I say. “Matthew—”
    “Did you see anything?” he asks in a rush. “While Dervish was singing?”
    “Yes,” I say, surprised by his question. “I mean, sort of.” It’s true, I did have a vision, but is this really the time to tell Matthew about me and him on the mountain?
    “I did, too. Like a movie in my head. Weird stuff I—I can’t really remember,” he says, his hair plastered to his forehead. “Isn’t that dumb?”
    “I’ll see you Monday,” I say, but what I mean is, don’t worry, lots of people have visions, like Joan of Arc or Hildegard of Bingen, for example, and sometimes it means they’re schizophrenic and other times it’s just migraines but a few of them are probably channeling something important from the Great Beyond and by the way I am still CRAZY IN LOVE with you, Matthew Dwyer!
    “See ya,” he says.
    And Matthew kisses me, quickly, right on my cold wet cheek.
    As if on cue, it starts to pour again. I run to the passenger-side door of the Camry, waving at Jacob. “Bye, Jacob! Thanks!”
    Matthew slams my door shut. I wave to him through the rain-speckled car window. As my dad pulls out into the traffic on Lex, I could swear I see an actual twinkle in the eye of the King’s Palace doorman, like a happy firefly in the rain. My dad honks his horn.
    Beeeeeeeeep! Beep Beep!

7
    French Toast! For Breakfast! Everything’s Peachy in Lauraville!
    M y whole life since I was a wee little Kitten, every time I traveled over a bridge, whether by car or bus or riding a train, some well-intentioned grown-up would say in an excited voice, “Look! We’re going over a bridge!” And I’d look. And in fact, it’s always pretty interesting.
    New York City has some of the coolest bridges ever in the annals of bridgedom. On the East Side there are those three famous sisters, the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges. They connect Manhattan to Brooklyn and vice versa, and they’re so close together that no matter which one you’re on, you can see that traffic is moving faster on the other two. Also in Brooklyn is the Verrazano Bridge, an astonishing piece of engineering marred only by the fact that once you get across it you’re in Staten Island. More choices for crossing the East River are available farther north, in Queens, most notably the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and the mazelike Triborough Bridge, which inexplicably manages to go three places at once.
    But the crème de la plooz, as Jacob would say, the people’s choice, is the George Washington Bridge, which is on the West Side of Manhattan and spans the Hudson River at 178th Street. For one thing, it’s a beautiful sight, with its deeply curved suspension cables and open latticework of steel. It has a more glamorous setting than the East River bridges, with the elegant prewar apartment buildings of Washington Heights on one side and