“Okay,” I said. “Go.”
The words came out a bit more defiantly than I wanted them to. He leaned back and gave me an inquisitive look. I looked everywhere but in his eyes. He put his hands on my shoulders and tried to steer me into looking at him, but I kept my focus on everything behind him. My bed, the Johnny Morgan shrine, the spoon on the nightstand resting in a puddle of melted strawberry ice cream.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did I do something?”
I finally let my gaze meet his. “It’s just that nothing about tonight has gone the way I wanted it to. My dad was a jerk and now you’re leaving. I guess I just had this idea of how things would be, which was a huge mistake, but one I make over and over again. You think I would’ve learned my lesson by now.”
“Hold on,” Alex said. “I had a great night.”
“Well, you’re being all distant,” I said. “And a kiss on the forehead? What’s up with that? And you’re at your friend’s house? Is that what I am? Who’s Jarvis?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know Jarvis that well. He’s only bought from me twice before, and he doesn’t need to be all up in my business. He doesn’t need to know whether or not you’re my friend or boyfriend or whatever. And I’ll admit, dinner freaked me out a little. I’m not good with parents as it is, and then to have things go down the way that they went down . . . well, I got a bit rattled. I’m sorry if I went into my shell. But what do you expect?”
What did I expect? We stood there in silence for a while, each with our arms crossed and our eyes wandering. I started tapping my foot.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I guess I wasn’t being totally fair.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
We felt each other out with our eyes and then moved in for a hug. He squeezed me tight and rolled me lightly back and forth in his arms. I liked that he was a little bigger than me, that he could put his arms around me and make me feel safe. He kissed the top of my shaved head.
“Your fuzz feels funny on my lips,” he said, not moving his mouth.
“Your lips feel funny on my fuzz.”
“Do they?”
“They do.”
He blew out a puff of air that vibrated his lips against my scalp. I laughed at the sensation and the noise it made and pulled away from him.
“Go,” I said. I moved back a bit, laughing as I went. “Go off and do your drug business.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” He was smiling and grabbing out for me, but I kept slapping his hands away playfully. “Come back here. I want a kiss.”
“Leave me alone. I’m still mad at you.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“I’m not,” I said.
But I was. He rolled his sleeves up to his shoulders and got into a wrestler’s crouch. He snarled at me, bared his fangs like a scrappy little dog, and then lurched forward and tackled me and brought me down onto the bed. We laughed for a second and then he moved in and we were kissing. He brought his hand up and touched my face and kissed me again. I decided right then that for the rest of my life I would tell people Alex Kincaid was the first boy I kissed. Those few that I’d stolen from Pablo wouldn’t count.
Chapter 16
Lucy and I met up later and went to our diner. I’d called her for an emergency meeting the moment Alex left. We sat in our usual booth and ordered a plate of cheese fries and a couple of Cokes. The counter was lined with truckers all looking up silently at images of the war on the mounted television. A big-haired waitress moved up and down the counter filling coffee cups and water glasses as she went. There was a Sting song coming from the speakers in the ceiling. Near the entrance a redhead in a very short orange dress was in the phone booth crying into the receiver.
“So my dad, like, disappeared after dinner,” I said.
“Where’d he go?” She was pulling apart two clusters of French fries that were attached with a web of bright yellow cheese. “To that chick’s house?”
“He said that things between him and Vicki were through,” I said. “But really, who knows. It’s just that we went out to dinner the other night and he acted like he was going to try to be there for me, but when it all came down to it, he just couldn’t keep his word. Typical. And then Alex was being distant. And then there’s my mom acting like a happy robot woman, which I guess isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it just adds this air of stress to the whole situation.”
“It’s a big deal,” said Lucy. “Meeting the parents and all that. I’m sure that’s why Alex freaked out. This is new for your parents too.”
“I guess,” I mumbled. “I just want to skip it, you know? I want it not to matter. I’ve spent so much time worrying about being gay and telling people. I want to move beyond that. I want to worry about other stuff.”
“Good luck with that,” Lucy said. “It’s always going to matter to someone. And didn’t you say you and Alex were talking about Fairmont and stuff?”
“Yeah. A bit.”
“Well, think about that,” Lucy said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If he likes you half as much as you like him, then I’m sure the idea of you taking off forever doesn’t exactly put him in the best mood.”
I stirred the ice in my Coke. “I never really thought of that.”
“Way to overlook the obvious, kid.” She smiled and leaned forward. “So tell me more about dinner. Tell me the good stuff. Is it love? Could you love this guy?”
“I don’t know. I still feel like using that word might jinx it all. Like if I say it’s love, he’ll call and tell me he doesn’t ever want to see me again.”
Lucy laughed. “That’s not how the universe works, Captain Negative. Good things happen.”
“This might sound crazy, but I can’t wait to get out of here and go to college and be done with everything. I’ll miss Alex a ton, and if there’s a way to make this work, I’m willing to try. But it’s time for me to get out of here. I feel done with it. The next month can’t move fast enough.”
“Yeah. Cedarville sucks.” She looked around the diner for emphasis. The woman in the phone booth had shielded her eyes as if she was trying to hide from everyone in the restaurant. Three out of the six truckers at the counter were showing major ass crack. “I can’t wait to go back to California. I mean, L.A. sucks, but at least it sucks in a much more sophisticated way than this place. This place is just . . . ugh. New York City is where it’s at. I’m gonna apply for college out there.”
“New York City doesn’t even seem like a real place to me. Nothing outside of here does. It’s all just a fuzzy dream.”
“Isn’t it?” she agreed. “This town wipes out the idea of anywhere else. It’s sort of magical like that.”
“Have you been to New York before?” I asked.
“Never.”
“Me neither,” I said.
We picked at the fries in silence. I used my straw to stir the melted ice and watered-down soda concoction that my drink had become. A few minutes later another Sting song came over the speakers and Lucy lip-synched along, squinting her eyes and tilting her head up to the ceiling for maximum adult-contemporary emotional emphasis. She stopped after a bit and laughed and then went back to just sitting there, sometimes watching the cars out the window as they took the ramp up to the interstate.
“I like how I can just be quiet with you,” I said. “When we’re here. Or driving. It’s always the same. I can just sit and be with you and not have to worry. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love talking to you. But there’s this great comfort in being quiet.”
“I know what you mean,” she said.
“I’ll miss you when you go back to California. You’re my first real friend.”
She smiled and reached across the table for my hand. She squeezed my fingers.
“You’re the sweetest,” she said. “You’re a great, great guy, Dade. Alex is lucky. And I’m lucky. Anyone who knows you is lucky.”
I was tearing u
p before I knew it.
“Oh no,” she laughed. She was getting teary eyed too. “Don’t cry. I’ll cry if you cry, and I don’t cry.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes. “I can’t tell if I’m crying because I’m happy or sad.”
She got up and came to my side of the booth. She put her arm around me and pulled me close. I reached around her and hugged her back.
“The truckers are staring,” I said after a few seconds.
It was true. They were. The whole row of them was doing a bad job of pretending not to look at us.
“We just got engaged,” Lucy shouted over to them. “I just asked this man to be my wife.”
The men at the counter traded confused looks. I burst out laughing.
“We’re glad you and your ass cracks could share this moment with us,” she went on. “Seriously. We really are. Those are some serious cracks and this is a serious moment.”
Three days later I was sitting on the couch in my swimming trunks and an old baby blue T-shirt as my parents buzzed around the house in preparation for the trip. Their suitcases were packed and waiting by the door. They would be leaving for the airport at any moment.
“Has anyone seen my pills?” my mother called from the kitchen.
“Which ones?” I called back.
“The blue ones.”
“What are they called?”
“I can never remember the name. The new ones that start with a P.”
“Prednisone?”
“Prednisone? That’s a steroid. I don’t take steroids. Where did you hear that word?”
“I take steroids now, Mom. I think I’m going to join the Fairmont football team. It’ll be a good way to meet girls.”
My mother came into the living room. “Tell me you’re joking,” she said demandingly. I gave her a pointed look. She started to go back into the kitchen, but she turned around after just a few steps.
“And meet girls?” she said. “I thought you were gay.”
“I am gay, Mom. It was a joke. Ha-ha. Get it?”
She went back into the kitchen. There was the sound of drawers opening and closing. “I’m stressed out and trying to leave, Dade. And your father can’t find his passport. Please don’t play tricks on me when I’m like this. Not now.”
“But you’re always like this,” I muttered to myself.
I just sat there staring out the picture window. Alex was due to arrive in thirty minutes. Hopefully my parents would be gone by then. I could hear my father’s footsteps above me as he moved from room to room looking for his passport.
Mikey Sanchez from four doors down came racing down the street naked. Not ten seconds later his mother came running after him wearing an apron over a flower-pattern dress and one yellow rubber glove.
“Ah!” I heard my mother say. There was the unmistakable rattle of pills in a bottle and then a drawer sliding shut. “Found ’em.”
Just then my father’s voice came through the intercom.
“Peggy?”
“Yes?”
“Why was my passport in your sock drawer?”
“I hid it when I was angry with you.”
“Well,” my father said through the intercom, “I found it.”
I glared at the luggage by the door.
When would they be gone?
It was August and the house was cool, but under the coolness was a persistent throb of heat, like there was a window open somewhere in the house that was preventing everything from dropping to serious frostbite levels. Or maybe it was just so hot outside that the summer was winning over everything. I wanted to open the door and feel the heat hit me like a blast of water, like something from a submarine movie where the tragic sailor opens the door and is met with a surge of ocean water. Let the summer run through everything, let it flood the house.
My mother came into the living room and sat by me on the sofa.
“Are you nervous about being by yourself? Remember that Mrs. Savage is there if you need her. Go have dinner at her house. Don’t eat junk. Don’t pass out in the yard.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom.”
“You and Lucy can swim in the pool,” she said.
I could tell there was something she wanted to say to me. There always was with her. I sorta understood that for the first time right then. What was the thing she was constantly not saying and what did it have to do with me? It wasn’t that she loved me. She said that often enough. It was something else. Something that mattered more, if you can imagine that.
Just say it, I thought to myself, despite the fact I didn’t know what it was. Just come out and say it.
She rubbed her palm over my head.
“You hair’s coming back fast,” she said.
“I need to cut it again.”
“But there’s hardly anything there.”
“I liked the way it felt when I first shaved it.”
“Oh, grow it out,” she said. “I like it longer.”
“I kinda like it short. No?”
“Whatever you want, I suppose. But I like it long. It feels like it’s you then.”
“It’s still me,” I said.
“I suppose.”
She took my hand in hers and put it in her lap. She let out a sigh and looked out the window. “Every time I’m about to get on an airplane, I start to think about everything. It’s the world we live in now, I guess.”
“Nothing’ll happen. Cars are more dangerous than airplanes.”
“I’ve never flown over the ocean before.”
“I’m sure you’re above the clouds,” I said. “You probably can’t see anything.”
“It’s still there, though.”
Outside Mrs. Sanchez came walking back down the street, her naked son squirming in her arms.
“That child is going to grow up to be a nudist,” my mother said.
“I think he already is one,” I said.
My father came into the living room. He was wearing khaki shorts that stopped just above the knee and a navy blue polo tucked in at the waist. His sporty-shaped sunglasses hung around his neck on a bright yellow cord. Summertime leisure gear for dads. His face had that magic ease to it, the one he could put on at a moment’s notice in an effort to make everything seem okay.
“We all set to go?” he said.
“I think so,” my mom said. “I think we’re off.”
I stood and gave her a comically huge hug. Then I went over and gave my dad a sideways squeeze. He brought his hand up behind me and rubbed it on my head, letting out a little laugh as he did so.
“Emergency numbers are on the refrigerator,” my mother said. “Dr. Kennedy’s office, the fire department, poison control center, oral surgeon—”
“In case of any teeth-shatteringly good times.”
“—the alarm company, the Savages’. I think that’s it. And don’t say teeth-shattering. It makes me nervous.”
“911?” my dad asked.
“911 is on there,” my mom said, totally missing the joke.
“Super,” I said. “We’re set.”
“I can’t think of anything else,” my mother said.
She looked nervous. Pensive. It would’ve been terrible form for her to bust out a pill right then and there, but I’m sure she was itching to do just that. So I gave her another hug.
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” I said into the side of her head, into her hair. When did I get taller than her? I always thought that at times like this. “Have a good time. Don’t worry about me.”
“Dade’ll be fine,” my father said. “Man of the house.” He opened up the front door and a surge of warm air entered the house. I helped them take their luggage out to the driveway, where my father’s Audi was parked. He’d gone out early that morning and had it washed, as if it were important that their trip to the airport be in a sparkling car. That was how my father’s mind worked. The quest to make things perfect must be perfect in all respects.
My mother put her sunglasses on before getting in the car.
She rolled down the window and mouthed good-bye as they were backing out.
“I love you, Dade,” she added. “Very much.”
My father lifted his hand from the steering wheel and waved at me like I was some kind motorist who’d just allowed him to merge into his lane. I waved back as they pulled into the street, straightened out, and drove away.
From my pocket came the sound of my new Vas Deferens ringtone. A text message from Alex.
R they gone yet?
Chapter 17
That week the house felt more like home than it ever had before. Having my parents and their problems out of the house made me realize how much space they took up.
I was making me and Alex breakfast at one p.m. in nothing but my bathing suit and I was suddenly overcome with the urge to stop everything and allow myself time to breathe and simply exist. I just stood there staring at the scrambled eggs. A million watts of sunlight were blasting through every window, and I could feel the blood moving through my body and sustaining my existence. Alex sauntered in from the backyard, the blue and yellow plaid bathing suit he borrowed from my father dripping water on the floor. He came up behind me and put his arms around my waist and kissed my bare shoulder.
“You’re such a good housewife,” he murmured into the back of my neck.
“Don’t interrupt,” I said, nudging him away. “Scrambled eggs are an art. I need focus.”
He tugged at my bathing suit. “I wanna play.”
“Stop,” I said. “I need focus.”
“That’s not what you need. You need to play.”
I tried elbowing him away several times, but he kept tugging at my suit. I finally thought Screw the eggs and moved the pan to an unlit burner.
We made frozen margaritas and took turns doing readings from my mother’s self-help books while standing on top of the kitchen table. We read from Finding Your Awareness, The Secrets of Intuition, and How Can I Love Me if I Don’t Even Know Me?
“‘What one must realize,’” Alex read in a fake British accent, “‘is that in the absence of hope, there lies hope itself. The vast expanse that many people mistake for a desert of utter hopeless-ness and despair is actually the rich field from which a bountiful crop of faith will eventually spring. And like any other crop, faith needs time to grow. And time, dear friend, is your friend too.’”