“That’s not fair,” I say. The words are coming out before I can think, Don’t say that, foolboy.
“Wait a sec.” Naomi pauses right in front of the closet. “You make out with my boyfriend and I’m the one not being fair? Even a two-year-old on meth would be able to see how wrong that is.”
“I meant fair in the I have no fucking idea what I’m talking about sense.”
“Oh, I see. Maybe I need your leather jacket to compensate.” She reaches to pull open the closet door. I do the only thing I can think of to stop her.
“Yeah, if you want to look dumpy,” I say.
Bingo.
“You think it makes me look dumpy?” She actually sounds hurt.
“Sweetheart, the damn thing makes me look dumpy. Why do you think I haven’t been wearing it lately? I’m ready to give it back to the cow. Cuz at least the cow’s supposed to look like a cow.”
“Okay,” she says, checking the mirror one more time. “Let’s go.”
I turn out the light as I leave my room, since I always do that and I don’t want it to seem like anything’s out of the ordinary. It’s only once we’re out in the foyer between our apartments that I say, “Oh fuck!”
“What?” Naomi asks.
“I forgot something. I’ll be right back.”
“What did you forget?”
“My dick, okay? You can’t possibly expect me to go out without my dick! I’ll be right back.”
I close the door before she can get out another line. I run back to my room, open the closet, and see Bruce the Second standing there in the dark.
“I want you to stay,” I say. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
He nods. But he doesn’t look happy.
I figure it out.
“You’re not a cheap thrill, and this isn’t a mindfuck,” I tell him. I don’t know what it is, but at least I know it’s not either of those.
He steps into the dark shadows of the room. He touches my shoulder. So damn earnest, and I so damn want to kiss him.
“I promise I won’t be long,” I say.
“Go,” he tells me. “I’ll be here.”
I’m almost out the door when he says, “Gum.”
“What?”
He throws me a pack of Orbit.
“Tell her you went back for gum.”
“Thanks,” I say. I could get used to a guy who knows his way around an alibi.
I head back through the apartment. Naomi’s waiting outside in the elevator. I have no doubt she’s been holding it this whole time. It strikes me for the gazillionth time that she is completely fucking beautiful. And I love it, because my love for her has absolutely nothing to do with that. I love her because she’ll hold the elevator for me even if heading downstairs without me would make more of a point. I love her because if she sees a shirt that she knows will look good with my eyes, she’ll buy it for me, even if she can’t afford it. I love her because when I feel like putting my head in an oven, she’ll gently take it out and bake me cookies instead. I love her because she can curse like a sailor and could no doubt sail like a sailor, too, if she put her mind to it. I love her because even though she doesn’t always tell the truth, she always feels like she should. I love her because I don’t need to love her all the time.
“Got your dick?” she asks.
“What do you care?” I say.
She snorts, hits the lobby button, and tells me, “All I know is that this party better not suck. If it does, you’re going to be one dead Ducky.”
I feel disloyal. Because as the elevator heads down, I feel like I’m moving away from something instead of toward something. The love I have for Naomi is the kind that’s understood. But I feel compelled to go back to the thing I don’t completely understand.
He’d go around and open the door for me, wouldn’t he?
I can’t let Naomi know what I’m thinking.
This is very treacherous ground.
NAOMI
ORBIT
“Got your dick, Naomi?” Ely smirks at me as the elevator goes down.
“If I did, would it get me anywhere with you?” He thinks he looks so hot in that red belt. It totally makes him look dumpy. Dumpy and red-hot flaming. Very tragic combination on a gay boy.
“Negative,” Ely responds. He leans into me, jutting his chest against mine, then angles his face like he’s going to kiss me. His lips are almost touching mine when his hand lands in between our mouths. “Gum?” he asks, twirling a pack between his fingers. Like a piece of gum will successfully overpower Ely’s late-night scent. Ely will say it was only one, but his breath power indicates at least three.
A piece of olive is lodged in between his two front teeth. It gives his face a most welcome ugly appeal. If Ely leans in any closer to me, the friction between his smile and my anticipation would be like a begging to detonate.
I do realize a big bad is happening out there—war and injustice and global warming and all that hope and humanity—but I’m sorry, I care most about the Naomi & Ely . It’s what’s gotten me through this far in life. It doesn’t burst. Like everything else does.
I place my index finger inside my mouth so he’ll know about the olive. He immediately licks it from his teeth.
Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .
He’s so close already—why not?
“Time-out?” I tease, referring to our occasional hands-free, means-nothing-but-platonic-love-between-best-friends make-out sessions that don’t count in real time. (The time-outs only happen when we’re drinking or bored—which interestingly seem to go hand in hand, or mouth to mouth, as the case may be.)
“You’re only using me for my gum,” he teases back. “How can I trust you’ll still respect me in the morning?”
He pulls back, dances around me, playful.
False alarm. I lied. There’s no , and Ely doesn’t look dumpy or red-hot flaming. He just looks like Ely. He’s not hot, like Gabriel. He’s Ely. Lovely. The first person I think of when I wake up in the morning, the last person I hope for when I fall asleep at night. The one person who’s as much a part of me as me.
Maybe I’m an egoist. I’m not sure exactly what an egoist is, but I’d appreciate any label right now that could clarify exactly what Ely and I are. To each other.
I mean, I know we know. But do we really know?
The egoist version of us distills Naomi & Ely, two parts of the same whole. My mom and his moms have me over and over again that sexual preference is not a choice, but when Ely’s leaning and teasing, so close to me without touching me, yet I still feel him—up here, down there, on every centimeter of my skin—it’s like I can’t , because no matter what anyone says, I can’t help but believe that he chose for me:
When we were thirteen and learning how to kiss by using each other as practice, gay wasn’t even an issue. It felt so natural and sweet and right. No wall existed between us, because it was so clear we were destined to share that first experience together. His lips didn’t feel gay then. Why should they now? Just because Ely is attracted to boys doesn’t mean he couldn’t want to push our mind-meld into body-meld. I refuse to believe it’s possible he couldn’t want that, too, on some level, whether he knows it or not.
Or maybe, as backup friend the girl Robin advises, I’ve known Ely too long and too well, and my eyes only see what my heart projects.
I need to spend more time with other girls.
The elevator door opens.
Ely places a piece of gum into my palm as we step into the lobby hall area. I stop cold.
Bruce the Second really does have great teeth—bright and shiny, perfectly straight, almost works of art. The art is no accident. Both his parents are dentists. They allegedly own the mouths of the LIRR Ronkonkoma Branch Line’s elite. And their prodigal good son chews only sugar-free gum. Bruce the Second is an Orbit man. Ely is Dentyne’s bitch.
“Since when do you chew Orbit?” I ask Ely. I do not unwrap the gum. I pop a Tic Tac into my mouth instead, from m
y own stash.
“Since Madonna started writing children’s books. Why do you care?”
I step back from him, resisting the urge to shove him against the wall. Naomi, come out, come out, wherever you are.
I care because, um, oh yeah, BRUCE THE SECOND IS MY BOYFRIEND! Or was. Or something. I mean, I don’t think I really care that Bruce is about to not be my boyfriend anymore, unless he’s already not my boyfriend and we’re so indifferent we’re not even bothering with an official breakup scene. I do care about the fact of my best friend being the reason for that. Maybe when Ely confessed he’d kissed Bruce the Second, I was like, “Yeah, whatever.” That indifference was a lie. It’s like when Ely says, “Well, it’s a good thing you’re gonna fuck you, cuz it ain’t gonna be me,” and I laugh. Indifference lies to protect my hurt.
In order to stay in Ely’s orbit, you have to make choices. Yes, Ely, you really do have a chance with Heath Ledger. No, Ely, no one thinks you’re an asshole when you fall down drunk on the pavement and your friends have to carry you home. You’re fun Fun FUN! Ely, of course I’m teasing you about wanting to sleep with you. Why would I want to ruin our friendship like that? You have to choose to let Ely believe his fantasy version of reality, for the sake of preserving Naomi & Ely.
Fuck Ely for making me crawl through his Ely- to survive our friendship.
But if I crawl out, where can I go? What’s left? Ely can spin and weave and dart and aim with other boys all he wants, so long as I’ve remained his cen ter. His queen.
I can’t believe I’m pushing this.
“Why’d you really go back to your apartment?” I ask Ely. “Cuz I saw your dick the first time out of the apartment and Dicky was like, Mmmm, girl, you and me, we’re going to have us a good ol’ time at Ducky’s tonight.”
“Gum,” Ely says.
Bingo.
I lie all the time, but I hate being lied to.
If only Bruce the Second had been a Wrigley’s gum-chewer, and not an Orbit man. Four out of five dentists can basically guarantee that their sons who chew Wrigley’s turn out to be straight; odds are three out of five dentists would at least reassure a straight girl patient that their sons will stay in the closet where they belong until they’ve figured out their sexuality for sure. No need to place those sons’ names on a No Kiss ListTM.
Bruce the Not My Boyfriend Anymore has no idea the jeopardy he’s jumping into. I sort of feel sorry for him. He probably has no idea that when it comes to boy prey, Ely is all about the hunt but doesn’t give a shit about the capture. And I’m not going to be the to warn him. time on the train I tried to warn Bruce the about me, but we ended up making out instead. I’d rate our chemistry a . Bruce can figure Ely out for himself. Good luck.
Keep moving, Naomi. Don’t react. Don’t give it all away.
As Ely and I approach the lobby seating area, where the sleep-lessheads congregate, I check myself out in the lobby mirror. God, I am so pretty. What a waste, if Ely doesn’t notice—at least, notice my looks in the Wow-Naomi-is-boner-hot way, and not in the Wow-those-stilettos-I-picked-out-for-Naomi-go-great-with-her-dress way. Truth: If my little black dress looks amazing on this body, it’s because my waist wears his belt around it. If my face shines, the glow is Ely by my side.
Ely is probably right. The best I’ll ever get is if I fuck me. In fact, I’ve tried, but masturbation turns out to be hella time-consuming with not very satisfactory results. Or maybe I’m just doing it wrong. My work ethic has always been weak.
I’ve never understood why looking hot has to be equated with sex and conquest. Whatever happened to anticipation, to courtship, to true love? Can’t a person look hot and not have it mean something? Call me an old-fashioned Naomi bitch, but I’m holding out for true love. Even if it is an unattainable fantasy.
I’m not going to make the mistake of letting beauty (mine or his) guide my attraction to any man. That love-at-first-sight crap does not work. My father saw my mother’s picture in a magazine and fell for her before he’d even met her. When I was little, he would spend more time photographing her than photographing the images that were supposed to be supporting our family. But his attachment to her looks could only be sustained so long. Dad eventually tossed aside the beauty myth for the very real lesbian across the hall. He even wanted to leave Mom for her, but then the lesbian remembered she was a lesbian after all, so Dad just left, and Mom decided to cover her beauty under her bedcovers.
I don’t think it was Dad choosing a lesbian over her that most damaged Mom’s sense of her own femininity. I think it was losing her marriage to a woman she’d called “friend.”
The poker players halt their game when Ely and I reach their area of the lobby. We pause at the same time to silently admire Gabriel, dealing cards to the sleeplessheads. Yeah, I’d have him—who wouldn’t?—but he’s ranked number two on the No Kiss List ListTM, and I UNDERSTAND THE BOUNDARIES.
Sue knows trouble when she sees it. “Naomi, does your mother know you’re going out so late?” I suspect it’s my outfit that concerns Sue, not the hour.
“Yes,” I lie. My mother’s passed out in the pharmaceutical daze she’s been in since Dad left. The doctor finally cut off her sleeping pill supply, but Bruce the First didn’t know that when he gave her his stash in exchange for Mom doing his laundry after his sister went on strike and told him to stop being a big baby and learn to do his own damn laundry.
I do Mom’s laundry, too, now. I don’t mind. She’s very good about separating her whites from her colors. But no matter how many laundry loads I do for her or dinners I prepare for her or nights I spend curled up in bed next to her, I just can’t shake the blue out of her. I wish I could be that gold-standard daughter.
Mr. McAllister stands up from the leather couch, clutching last month’s Vogue. Pervert. “ ’Night, all,” he says, taking a bow before walking over and stepping into the elevator.
“Wait!” I call out to him.
The elevator door opens back up. I turn to Ely. “Are you sure you didn’t leave anything else up in your apartment?”
He so looks guilty. I so want to hate him.
“Like what?” Ely mumbles.
“Like your balls, to go along with your dick?”
“Language, young lady!” Sue scolds, gesturing in the direction of sweet Bruce the First with Mrs. Loy’s Chihuahua in his lap. High school boys. So fresh, so clean. So pathetic and yet so irresistible. He breaks my heart for breaking his heart. I kill me.
Well, then. Distraction, thank you so very, very much for seating yourself in the lobby in the middle of the night. No, not that distraction. Gabriel’s major league, and I might not look it but I am still farm team. Attention: pinch hitter. Bruce the First, step up to the plate, please.
Ely can buy his own damn drinks tonight. A girl who looks like me should not be such a . It’s time for a changing of the guard. Why shouldn’t the be a instead, or anything or any1 to help me escape the lie of ?
“What are you saying, Naomi?” Ely asks.
“Are you coming or not?” Mr. McAllister bellows from inside the elevator.
“Not!” Ely responds. The elevator door closes.
My mouth opens in honesty—long overdue. “I’m saying I hope you have a good time tonight with whatever it is you’re not telling me about. Because I changed my mind. Girl’s prerogative. C’mon, Bruce. Let’s take Cutie Patootie out for a walk. You and me. I don’t want to go to that stupid NYU party with you, Ely.”
Stupid NYU parties, that’s what got us into this situation in the first place. Last fall, our first semester at NYU, we went to a party at the Robins’ dorm. Ely and I were the hit of the High School Musical sing-and-bong-along crowd as we sang “Breakin’ Free” together. Our routine was well rehearsed— we’d performed the leads in our own high school senior musical the previous spring, me cast as Troy, and Ely cast as Gabriella. But that night, as I danced and sang Troy’s part, “We’re breaking free!” when Ely as Gabriella was supposed to twir
l and sing out “We’re soaring!” and together we’d sing “Flying!” all of a sudden Ely flew away instead of singing, just like that. Some real Troy look-alike had caught his eye and demanded his immediate attention.
People think beauty is a blessing, but sometimes it’s not— like at college parties, when your gay best friend dumps you for a cute boy, and every other guy there is too intimidated to talk to you. That’s where Bruce the Second came in. Later he told me he didn’t think he’d ever have a shot with a girl like me, so why not take a chance on talking to her? Become her friend? He sat down next to me as I sulked over Ely’s abandonment. He said, “You know, people think Ginger Rogers was Fred Astaire’s favorite dance partner. But that’s not true. He always said his favorite partner was Rita Hay-worth.”
I must have been really drunk not to have gotten it right then and there.
“I always thought his favorite was Cyd Charisse,” I slurred. I’d never seen one Fred Astaire dance movie; I was merely repeating something my grandmother had once said. Not like that stopped me from talking on the Fred/Ginger/ Rita/Cyd—and who the fuck is Gene Kelly, anyway?—topic with Bruce for maybe fifteen minutes. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. The boring subject. I grabbed on to this Bruce; time for distractionary making out.
What can I say? I liked Bruce the Second the accounting major. He added up to easy boyfriend. No pressure. No expectations. He was always available when Ely wasn’t.
And I know it’s like I should be furious with Ely now, and wondering if I was just Bruce the Second’s gay learning curve, but even as I’m about to take off with Bruce the First, really what I’m feeling is Please, Bruce the Second, please. Don’t take Ely away from me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ely says. “Even for you, Naomi, this is outrageous. You’re going to stand here wearing my belt and tell me you’d rather go out with Bruce the First and that stupid fucking dog?”
The other side of me is thinking, Go back upstairs, Ely. Fuck off and fly away. Find what you’re looking for, who’s so clearly not me. I wanted you to be my first, Ely, and you laughed at me. I held off Bruce the Second when he tried to be my first, not only because I wondered if he only wanted to do it with me just to prove that he could but because I wanted that first time to be special. Shared with someone I love rather than someone I like. It didn’t have to mean you wouldn’t be gay or I was in love with you. It wouldn’t mean I was just trying to get back at Ginny cuz the only thing she’d hate more than you getting it on with a girl would be you getting it on with a girl who happens to be related to my dad.