Carrie stood when she saw us and her face lit up and she came over and tugged on my shirtsleeve. “I’m working on a new sand design. It’s called Sister Needs a Straight Man. Wanna look?”
It was a faint outline in the sand, without a discernible shape.
“Very surreal,” I said. “I love it.”
We three looked at her outline and then Bryan laughed, so I did, too, and Carrie as well. And part of the world then opened up to me, because I heard myself laughing and it sounded strange and familiar all at once, like I had laughed before but maybe not like this. And it occurred to me for the first time: It really doesn’t matter. Life can be full of sand castle building and Bryan and Carrie and that’s truly, purely good.
32
Finch lived about a block away from Rahim, about a half mile closer to school than I did, in a subdivision where his family had lived as long as I’d known him. It was a Sunday morning in late November, and after a talk with Bryan, I decided meeting with Finch in person would be a good idea.
As I parked in front of his house, I remembered how, five weeks ago, Finch had come to my house, uninvited. I’d been watching football with my father, just minding my own business. He’d stolen time with my dad in order to dupe me, I realized. Blood surged into my temples, but I remembered my purpose, and realized that anger would solve nothing right now.
The Gozmans lived in a large white house, nicely manicured in the front. As I walked up the cobblestone steps to the front door, I saw that the hedges had been trimmed perfectly, and it made me wonder if Finch’s parents had any idea of what he had done to me. Such an ordered family ought to know, I thought.
I knocked on the door, and Finch’s mother answered.
“Hi, Mrs. Gozman,” I said. “I don’t know if you know who I am but—”
“Of course! Bobby Framingham! How have you been?” Finch’s mother was a small woman who wore horn-rim glasses that made her look older than she was.
“I’m okay,” I said. We stood there at the door, awkwardly. “Is Finch around?”
She offered me a tight-lipped smile. “I believe he’s upstairs. I’ll call him for you,” she said. And then she disappeared, closing the door in my face.
A few minutes later Finch peered around the door at me. “What’s up?” he said coldly.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, my voice slightly trembling.
“We can talk from here,” he said, keeping the door open just slightly and allowing me to see him through the sliver that remained open.
I sighed. “I’d rather talk to you face-to-face, Finch,” I said.
“Do you promise not to hit me?” he asked. What a dork. You commit the crime, be ready to do the time.
“Yeah, I promise,” I said begrudgingly.
Finch disappeared for a moment and finally opened the door, pulling his purple windbreaker over his head. Once his jacket was on, he spoke. “I just want you to know I did what I did knowing it would be good for you,” he said.
“Right,” I said. We stood at the front door, looking at each other.
“No really,” he said, kicking the concrete. “I mean, obviously I wanted the story, but talking to you, you were so miserable. You needed to do it,” he said.
“Whose choice was that?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“I want an apology,” I said. “That’s all I want. I want you to say you misled me, and that you’re sorry. That’s all.”
“You jocks,” he said, mumbling.
“Excuse me?” I said, turning and looking directly at him.
Finch shrugged. “You jocks have no idea what it’s like to have a hard time.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Bobby, everyone likes you. You think being gay will stop people from liking you? I bet it didn’t. I wrote that article, and for like a day, people came up to me and made me feel like I was something. Then it was over. It was like I didn’t write it at all.”
The laugh came from deep in my gut. “Poor Finch,” I said. “That must be hard for you, not being popular.”
“Fine. Make fun of me—”
“Really hard, not fitting in. Something a gay quarterback would have no knowledge about, right?”
He bowed his head and turned away. “No. I don’t think you get it,” he said. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear the tears in his voice. “You’re someone. I’m not.”
I sighed. “Look at what you did to me. Should people like you? You screwed me over. I wasn’t even close to ready and you decided it was time. How could you?”
“I did what I had to,” he said. “Look. I’m sorry. Are we done here?”
“Almost,” I said. “You really think Stanford will be impressed by that article?”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “I don’t think that, I know that,” he said.
“Best of luck,” I said. “From the bottom of my heart.”
He turned and slipped back behind the door, and I walked, victoriously, down the cobblestone steps back to my car.
I felt in my jacket pocket, found the stop button, and turned the digital recorder off.
33
I’d told Bryan I had the tape, and he could write the article. He refused.
“This is your story,” he said. “You write it.”
“You sure?” It was Sunday night and we were talking on the phone. I told him what Finch had said, and Bryan was enthusiastic that I had all the evidence I needed.
“I’m sure, the Orange County Register is sure. I told my editor on Friday what you wanted, and he told me all we needed was proof on tape. It’s a go, Bobby.”
“What if my writing sucks?” I said. “I mean, I’m a stupid jock, right?”
“Kinda doubt it,” he said. “Just write the thing, we’ll take it from there.”
I got off the phone and sat down at my computer, staring at the blank screen. I’m glad I’m out of the closet now, but it wasn’t my choice, I wrote, and then I erased that line completely. I had no idea where to start. Bryan had said to write my story, not to worry about length. Include everything, he said. Whatever I was comfortable sharing.
“Your story will help so many people,” he had said. “I’m already proud of you and you haven’t even written it yet.”
I stared at the blank screen for minutes, until inspiration struck, and I slowly typed out a sentence:
I’ve never been very good outside the pocket.
I stared at the sentence on the screen. It was true, and I liked it. Then the second line came to me, and the story began to pour out of me.
I could hardly type fast enough to keep up with my racing thoughts. My fingers searched out the right letters and I pounded away. Putting it in words helped me feel better.
Even though it was late when I finished, I called my dad and read him the article. A few days earlier I had opened up and told him about what had happened with Finch.
“You just wrote that?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I could hear the praise in his question and I felt like I was glowing, I was so happy.
He chuckled. “Can you send me a copy? I’d like to share it with some people here. It’s great, Bobby. Really great.”
I was waiting for the but, which never came.
“Really great,” he repeated. “Your mother tells me you’re dating someone.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“It’s fine, Bobby. I’m glad. Is this a nice . . . boy?”
I laughed. “This is weird.”
“Is it?”
“A little,” I said. “How did Mom even know?”
“She said Carrie called for you and you were at practice and they talked.”
“Yikes! Getting weirder,” I said.
“I don’t know, Bobby. Sounds like you’re a little homophobic.”
“No. It’s just, this was all sort of my secret for a long time. I mean, being, you know, gay. And now it’s just weird having my family talk about
it. I’m not used to it.”
“Well, you came out, didn’t you? What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can we talk about something else?”
“You okay?” my dad asked.
“I’m okay. I just, I think I’ll need to get used to this, too.”
“We all will. So is he nice? Does he play sports?”
“He plays gay flag football.”
“Is that different than regular flag football?”
I laughed. “No, it’s just played by gay people. There’s a league in L.A.”
“Ah,” he said. “Does this gay flag-football player have a name?”
“Bryan,” I said.
“Is he in school with you?”
“He’s . . . a year older than me. A freshman at Irvine.”
“Hmm. You sure you wouldn’t do better with someone still in high school?”
“You’ll like him,” I said. “He’s not going to call and play pranks on you.”
My dad laughed. “I like him already. Time for me to get some sleep, kiddo.”
“Love you, Dad,” I said.
“Me too.”
I went to sleep feeling as relaxed as I’d felt in ages.
It’s kind of nice, having no secrets for once.
On the phone the next night, the editor sounded pretty excited about the whole thing. “Other than a few grammatical errors, I’m not changing a word,” he said. Knowing now what I’d been through, he couldn’t wait to tell the rest of the world.
“I’m straight,” he told me, “but your story really opened my eyes.”
I laughed to myself, wondering why he’d felt the need to tell me he wasn’t gay. He congratulated me for getting Finch on tape. Now there was no way we could be sued.
I went downstairs to tell my mother, who was reading a magazine in the den.
“Are you sure you want to go through this again?” she asked.
I smiled, as confident as I’d felt in a long time. It worked. I saw the worry fall away from her.
“Just read the article in the morning, would you?” I said. I kissed her on the cheek and headed off to bed.
That Tuesday morning, I ran downstairs to get the paper first thing. I tore through it looking for the sports section.
There I was, on the front page, a huge picture of me in my uniform, smiling. I couldn’t remember when that picture was taken. I’d never seen it before, but I liked it a lot.
“Perfect,” Bryan told me, over the phone when we talked that morning. “I knew you could do it. Congratulations.”
“I’m a little freaked.”
“It’s gonna be fine, Bobby.”
“Thanks for all your help,” I said. “I owe you a lot.”
“That’s true,” he said.
I laughed. “Shut up.” I was driving and talking, which is a bad thing to do, but I’d been dying to hear his reaction before school started.
“It’ll be a huge success, no question about it,” Bryan said. “By the way, have you finished your personal essays yet for your applications?”
I had not.
“Just cut the thing out, and put it in the mail. No questions asked.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Sounded like a plan.
Another call buzzed in and I picked up. It was the Orange County Register editor. He sounded excited. “Looks good,” he said. “We’re getting lots of calls and the story is being picked up by the Associated Press.”
“Wow.”
“Also I just got a call from Finch Gozman’s lawyer,” he said.
“What?”
He continued. “He told me he’d see us in court. I asked him on what grounds? When I told him we had a tape of Finch admitting what he’d done, he said he’d sue us for unlawful recording of his client. I laughed at him. He realized they have no case, and he hung up on me.”
I laughed. “That’s awesome!” I said.
There was a lot of support at school. A bunch of people came up to me and told me what a dork Finch was. One guy I’d never talked to before, a junior with pink hair, came up to me in the cafeteria during lunch period.
“Bobby? Hi, I’m Reg? You don’t know me?”
Everything he said was a question. I recognized him from Hairspray . He’d been in it with Carrie.
“Hi,” I said.
He looked around surreptitiously. “I just wanted to say, that was very brave? What you did?”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him. I wondered if this was some sort of come-on. I tended to be attracted to guys who had hair that’s less pink, or any other neon color.
He leaned closer. His breath smelled of peanut butter. “One thing that people don’t know about me? Is that I’m gay? You’ve given me the confidence . . . to maybe do the same?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that this particular guy was not gay. But who was I to judge?
“That’s great, Reg. Let me know how it goes,” I said. I shook his hand and headed over to Carrie, who was sitting alone at a table near the Coke machine.
Before I got there, Todd Stanhope came up to me. I’m not a stalker, but if I was, he’d be my stalkee.
“Hey, Bobby,” he said to me, as if we talked every day. We definitely didn’t.
“Hey, Todd,” I said, and we stood there, facing each other.
I was hoping I wouldn’t crumble at the knees as we stood next to each other.
“Your article today was cool,” he said, his eyes wandering around and finally making contact with mine. “I have a brother who’s away at college. I’m gonna send it to him.”
It was interesting to me that he didn’t say “gay,” but I knew what he meant. I also was thinking: How old is he, and does he look like you?
Instead I nodded and said, “Thanks, Todd. Are you cool with him?”
“No, not really,” he said, laughing. “But maybe I’ll try harder. If I do, it’s because of your article.”
I was half astounded, half disappointed. Here was the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen, and he was telling me my article had opened his mind. But on the other hand, if he wasn’t cool with his gay brother, that meant he was straight. “Thanks,” I said.
“You around this weekend?” he asked me, looking slightly beyond me.
“I think so,” I said.
He waved to someone. “I’m having a party Saturday night,” he said. “Bring whoever. That weird girl you hang with.”