The Kiss Class

I have a kiss hangover. Is that normal for a first kiss?

My love life is one big bah humbug. When a blind date goes bad, a Knight in an ugly Christmas sweater armor swoops in and rescues me with a kiss in a very public way.

That wouldn’t be a problem except Pierre plays for the team my father coaches and has a reputation for being the biggest flirt on ice. If you ask me, all hockey players belong in the penalty box.

Except, I wouldn't object to a second kiss or lessons. Dare I say Pierre is a pro? Could have something to do with him being French Canadian. However, his rescue PDA lands him in trouble with the team.

We make an agreement: he teaches me how to kiss and I play the role of the girl he can’t get over. For those of you not up against the glass, he pretends to be falling over his skates for me and I pretend to hate him.

Then a winter storm leaves us stranded and it’s up to us to help save the Christmas Market. Seems like our game of fake-it is turning into a make-out. I mean make-it.

But what’ll happen when the holidays are over and we go back to our real lives? I don’t want to land on Santa’s naughty list, so I won’t tell a lie. Pierre had me at that first mistletoe moment. I just hope he feels the same.

Chapter 1: Cara

My love life is a big bah humbug. Seated in the lecture hall for my final class of the semester before the start of Christmas break, my pencil slides across the notebook margin, sketching a cold and calculating man with a scowl and gold coins reflected in his eyes.

A therapist would have fun analyzing the meaning of this and the cross-section of my scholastic life and love life.

Footnote: It doesn’t exist.

Do I have Daddy issues? Nope.

Might I have an itty bitty problem with control? Perhaps I should see a shrink.

Do guys want to date a perpetual student? I ought to take a poll.

Is something off balance in my life? I inwardly groan.

Only a woman who has been in school since she was three would think to survey guys rather than, well, I don’t know what a person with more dating experience would do.

“When you return after the holiday break, I expect you to have some solid material that we’ll critique as a class.” Professor Fujiyama gives us the hairy eyeball.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know whether you actually went on location to sketch your subjects or if you slacked off and watched videos to work from.”

Not only am I a lifelong student, but I’m also an overachiever and would never even think of slacking off. It’s not like I want to spend half my winter break in an icy arena, but Professor Fujiyama has a point.

He says there are three kinds of drawing:
1. From the creative well of one’s own mind.
2. From a still, which could be a photo, a video (even though technically it’s not still), a bowl of fruit, or even a model.
3. Live action, which is the most dynamic and difficult,

if you ask me. Because movement is involved, you more or less have to rely on the other two types to fill in the gaps when the action passes, shifts, or changes shape. It’s also the most interesting because it’s a combination of what the artist sees in real-time and the lapse that they fill in from memory and creativity.

The professor continues, “To achieve excellence and become a master, you have to do the hard things.
Otherwise, everyone would succeed. Art would be boring. Don’t be boring. But do have a splendid holiday. Happy drawing.”

The zipping of bags, sliding of chairs, and muted chatter indicate the class is over and vacation has started.

Even though this is an upper-level program, the younger twenty-somethings take this as a cue to celebrate. The classrooms that empty into the hallways of the austere sandstone building are a cacophony that would make me think I’d traveled back in time to freshman year of high school. The mood is like a riotous hockey game as everyone makes their escape.

Although I love Christmas, I’ve been . . . at this for a while. I’m not the oldest person in the classroom. No, that would be Professor Fujiyama. But I’m not that far behind.

“Heading home, Cara?” he asks.

“Yep. Cobbiton, Nebraska.”

“Never been.”

“It’s a suburb of Omaha. Usually, people say they’ve never heard of it.”

He taps the air. “I remember now from when you submitted your project proposal. Your father is the hockey coach.”

I nod. My father is also the one footing the bill for my ongoing studies, even though there has been a change
in my enrollment status—one he isn’t aware of.

Should this be a topic of conversation when I’m home? Yes.

Will it be? Pray for me.

“Are you traveling or staying here?” I ask, shouldering my bag.

He lets out a long breath, like serenity will be found as soon as the door closes behind me. “I have to pick up my sister from LAX in an hour. We have plans to visit three botanical gardens,” he lowers his voice, “and the one at CSU Long Beach.”

My eyebrows shoot up because they’re a rival school.

He lifts his finger in the universal symbol for quiet.
“Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”

Grinning, I reply, “Your secret is safe with me.”

I wave goodbye. Once in the hallway, worry creeps through me. I’m not sure how much longer my secret will be safe. If you’re wondering which one, it’s not the never-been-kissed secret. My sisters know, so I don’t think that counts. That also means they probably have a Christmas wish list of guys to fix me up with. They had one last summer when we met at the lake and sent me Valentine’s Day prospects before that.

Can’t say I’m looking forward to their meddling.
The secret that makes me need to reapply deodorant is that I transferred programs without telling my family.
I’m a full-fledged adult, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, but I’ve always been the brains of the bunch. As a triplet, out of the three of us, I’m the academic one, starting with our nursery school teacher telling our parents that I was “gifted.” How could they know that about a three-year-old who still put Weebles in her mouth? I have no idea.
To this day, I’m guilty of gnawing on pen caps, which is why I mostly use pencils now. Graphite is almost as bad as licking an ashtray. Not that I’d know.
Even though I’m the nerdy one, that doesn’t mean I know what I want to do with my life.
After four years, I graduated from Oxford with my bachelor’s, having changed my major the same number of times. I started with anatomy and physiology, thinking I wanted to go into a branch of medicine. Then I shifted gears and focused on pharmacology. Third year in, I took a sharp right turn and went into archeology, where I spent a lot of time, um, sketching artifacts before spending a summer in Greece and graduating with a degree in classics and history.
Suffice it to say, I was all over the place, and that didn’t stop when I received my master’s degree in business. Then, I got into USC Law. They also happened to have a fantastic graphic arts program . . . and I somehow doodled my way out of becoming an attorney and into possibly working as a video game designer.
But no one knows that.
Given the expectations associated with my smarts, I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed. And deep down, if I’m honest, I do feel like a failure even though I was voted most likely to succeed.
For instance, Anna married her high school sweetheart Calvin Bannanna—yes, that’s his real last name—she claims the fact that her first name and his last rhymed is why they became best friends in third grade. It was meant to be. She’s a park ranger at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Headquarters.
Ilsa is a pianist and travels with a worship band all over the world. She’s the spicy firecracker of the family and got hitched last summer to an Australian we call KJ, short for Kangaroo Jack. His real name is Jack McMann and he’s an impermeable wall of, well, man.
Then there’s me.
I’m on track to become a video game concept artist. I think. As a kid, I spent a lot of time daydreaming but got pushed to use my extra active brain for something useful.
While Anna was, and still is, the classic adventurous tomboy and Ilsa was somehow self-compelled to spend hours playing piano (along with the flute, violin, and guitar), resulting in becoming a virtuoso, I read a lot . . . and doodled. I guess I was kind of in my head.
It’s noisy and crowded in here, if you can’t tell.
I race from the campus to the airport. While looping the labyrinthine streets surrounding LAX, trying to find the turnoff for long-term parking, I kind of feel like a headcase. At the same time, my mind gets lost in the whole school-romance-future maze.
Peering through the windshield, I mutter, “Why isn’t there a clearly marked sign?”
I pass a gated area blocked by orange cones for the third time. When I get to an intersection, I spot the detour arrow and follow it again. But I still can’t find the entrance. I see cars parked on the other side of the fence but no way in.
Then I spot the kiosk and gate for the lot, but it’s on the other side of the road. If I drove over the median, I’d be there already. After I get through security, I anticipate having to run to my gate. “This is what I get for following the rules.”
Los Angeles is a city known for its traffic, so I’m surprised that there isn’t much at the moment. I look around, making sure it’s safe, before flipping a U-turn. Chances are a traffic cam caught it and I’ll get a ticket in the mail, but judging by the skid marks on the asphalt, I’m not the first person who, in a fit of desperation, took their life and the law into their own hands.
After parking, riding the bus to the airport, making it through security, and arriving at my gate, thankfully, everyone still waits in line to board. Right now, I could use a gust of that stiff Nebraska wind that I was all too happy to escape when I left home over seven years ago.
When I told my small-town friends that I was moving to England to attend Oxford, they were full of interest and curiosity. When I transferred to Los Angeles post-graduate, they were wary. They didn’t think a girl like me would make it. They were afraid the city would eat me alive.
With a smile and a proud little jiggle of my head with my jingle bell earrings, I’ve survived. I’ve also won over more hearts than not. Well, as the last triplet standing in her singlehood, that doesn’t include love life hearts. And I wouldn’t mind if that changed STAT.
Anna says I’m looking for love in all the wrong places (books). Ilsa tells me to broaden my horizons (leave the library every once in a while).
They also took it upon themselves to find me a guy. But I have criteria. He has to like books and libraries. Seems simple enough. It’s not. I’ve looked. All the dates they set me up on resulted in me filing the experience away in the #Fail folder.
I don’t want to obsess over this, but I have to prepare myself because my sisters might feel slightly guilty that they’re married and I'm single, meaning they’ll go to extremes to change my status.