by Jason June
“But it is what it is.” We were at Red-Alert nonchalance. “I learned a long time ago that life isn’t fair, and Chip doesn’t need to deal with my bad luck.”
Lu’s never seemed to be able to catch a break. Her parents died in a car crash when their pickup slipped on black ice. We were just babies, and Aunt Carol was only nineteen when she took Lu in. Apparently one in seventy-seven people die in car wrecks every year, but Lu is the only person I know who’s lost anybody in her family to one. Plus, it’s a .02 percent chance that a child will lose both their parents before they turn eighteen, but Lu did. Regardless of the numbers, all the statistics are just a way to say she was dealt a really fracking shitty hand.
But Chip was not supposed to be a part of all that shittiness. What happened to him having perfect timing? To him being able to look out for her when I had to move away? Him having her back was what was supposed to make all those times I was made the Spare Tire worth it. Now it was like he’d let all the air out of me and Lu in one fell swoop.
I was still silently cursing Chip when Lu said, “The hoedown cannot get here soon enough. Maybe the distraction of the dance will remind Chip that I’m a fun person, if he even wants to come anymore. And you’ll be here, which will make life seem normal again, even if it’s just for a night. Speaking of which, I’ve been assigned the community beat for the school paper and got all the deets for the hoedown. It’s October ninth.”
October ninth. As in the very same October ninth as my homecoming. The homecoming at which I was going to dance with a boy, maybe kiss (hopefully make out), and be elected homecoming king because of my epic costuming skills.
I felt light-headed. My vision tunneled. I couldn’t catch my breath. About one-third of the general population faints, and I was about to become a part of that group.
I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t dump Lu and the hoedown after she just said she needed me there to lift her spirits. Especially not when a major reason Chip and Lu fought was because she couldn’t afford anything. The prize money for the costume contest could at least get her a little extra cash. Sad stat: Two-thirds of American households would be sent into debt with a five-hundred-dollar emergency. I had a feeling Lu and Aunt Carol’s emergency threshold was way less than five hundred bucks. Every dollar helped.
“Jay?”
“Oh, um . . . Is there a theme?” I asked. “I want to be sure we dress to the theme.”
Fracking great. My first thought was to dig myself deeper into this mess.
“Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue,” Lu said.
“That’s the lamest theme I’ve ever heard.” Maybe she’d let me bow out of going if the theme was so stupid I couldn’t come up with a legendary outfit.
“Yeah,” Lu agreed. “The dance committee was really uninspired this year. It’s supposed to be”—she put on a really affected, sarcastic voice—“emblematic of the Blue Bluff orchard surrounded by the red leaves of autumn. Ugh. I’ve got nail art covered if you can come up with the costume. And maybe, uh . . .” She drummed her nails against the coffee table again. “Maybe if you can cover the cost for it, that would really help me out. That way I wouldn’t have to ask Chip.”
I didn’t hesitate at all. “Of course, Lu, don’t even worry about that.” I’d have the worrier role covered while I figured out how to escape this dance dilemma.
“Great,” Lu said, but I could tell she was bothered she even had to ask. “I’ll pay you back with my portion of the winnings.” She massaged her temples, the creases in her forehead the deepest I had ever seen them. “But tell me all about your first day. Did you meet any VSBs?”
My mind flashed back to Albert checking me out in Ms. Okeke’s room, his eyes veering down to my mouth. I had met a VSB, one who’s into other guys, and who Max said was totally into me, but I couldn’t tell Lu all that now.
“You totally did, didn’t you?” Lu said. “And now you feel bad telling me about him when I’ve just had a huge fight with my boyfriend.”
She knew me so well.
Lu wagged a finger in front of the camera. “Nuh-uh. Don’t do that. You get to be excited about the things that are happening to you even if my life is going to shit. Spill.”
So I told her all about Albert. The smashing into each other, the gum stuck to my hair, the blood on my face. I told her about meeting Max, and how he suspected Albert thought I was a VSB, despite all my clumsiness.
“I’m totally going to Insta-stalk him,” Lu said. “Do you think you’re going to go to homecoming with him? When is it, by the way?”
My brain froze. Curse her journalistic instincts to always ask pertinent questions.
“Um, October nixteenth?”
“I don’t think that’s a date.”
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “October sixteenth.”
I knew it was a lie, and that I shouldn’t lie to my best friend. But six out of ten Americans think it’s okay to call in sick to work even when you’re not, so I decided to just call it a mental health day. A day in which I could take some time to mentally figure things out to keep Lu’s and my friendship nice and healthy.
“That’s perfect!” Lu said, finally perking up. “Hey, maybe Albert would want to come to the hoedown too. You should ask him.”
“Will do.” I laughed way too loudly. “Everything’s perfect!” Another awkward laugh.
“Are you okay? You’re doing that weird laugh like when Ms. Poffenroth taught us sex ed freshman year.”
Fortunately, that’s when Dad walked through the front door, giving me an excuse to get out of the convo before I made the situation worse.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said. “Dad just walked in and”—awkward laugh—“you know how excruciating it is talking about relationship stuff when he’s around. Gotta go! Bye!”
I hung up and face-palmed. “No, no, no, no, no! The odds are never in my favor.”
“Rough first day?” Dad asked.
“Oh, no, actually the day was great. Just having a hard time with, uh . . . with my math homework.” I didn’t want to tell Dad about the dance dilemma because all my horny hopes in the Gay Agenda would have to be divulged, and that was not an option.
Dad whistled. “Homework on the first day. They’re not kidding around at this new school, huh? I like it.” He headed for the kitchen while I melted in despair on the couch.
The day had been great. I had crossed off the first item and a half on the Gay Agenda, and found potential friends and a group where I might belong. There was a guy who possibly liked me, if Max’s suspicions and those tingles in my gut (and other places) were accurate. But in order to accept all of that and start the plans I’d been waiting my whole life to set in motion, I had to ditch my best friend since kindergarten. I wouldn’t get to go to our last hoedown together, and I’d ruin Lu’s shot at some extra cash she could really use.
Despite that, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to go to homecoming with a boy for the first time ever. This year was supposed to be all about knocking my firsts off the Gay Agenda. And if I won the homecoming costume contest, I’d have a chance to make my mark.
This was the Battle of the Ho’s: homecoming vs. hoedown, and it was HOrrible.
I grabbed my notebook. It was time to add my first depressing item to the list.
JAY’S GAY AGENDA
1.Meet another gay kid. Somewhere, anywhere . . . please! in Seattle in, like, days!
1.5.Get checked out by a very VSB!
2.Go on a date with a boy at the Space Needle and hold hands within the first ninety minutes.
3.Go to a dDance with a boy and have my first kiss slow dancing to Shawn Mendes while getting caught in a surprise Seattle downpour.
4.Have a boyfriend, one who likes to wrap me up in his arms and let me be little spoon, and maybe smells like coffee from all the cafés he goes to.
5.Fall in love with a boy, but wait for him to say it first so I don’t seem too desperate, and maybe he says it for the first time
at Pike Place Market or in the first Starbucks.
6.Make out with Albert, with tongue, and hard enough that I’d get a little burn from his stubble. run my fingers along that perfect jawline.
7.See another penis besides my own, IRL, and do fun things with it!
8.Lose. My. Virginity!
9.Become part of a super-queer, super-tight framily by impressing everybody with my epic costumier skills, erasing the “new kid” label, and becoming homecoming royalty.
10.Figure out a way to make my gay dreams come true and not destroy my bestie’s life.
8.
Fashion Yourself into a Life Vest
The next day was my first block-B schedule. Unlike Riverton, which only had six classes a day every day of the week, Capitol Hill did eight longer classes, but you only had four each day to accommodate for the longer periods. This gave me block-A days, like the first day of school, and block-B days, which included Fashion Design. This school had a legit fashion course, the kind of artsy elective I only got to see on episodes of CW shows with kids who lived much more glamorous lives than me. Until now, that is. I figured it was time to move on to costuming with more sewing and less duct tape to guarantee an unbreakable best-costume winning streak. Now I just needed to decide which dance I was going to be making a costume for. I was at my locker mulling over the Battle of the Ho’s when Max snatched my schedule from my hand.
“Yes! We have Fashion Design together and the same free period. We’re going to devote it entirely to homecoming planning and Gay Agenda accomplishing.”
My stomach flipped. I’d tossed and turned all night thinking of some way that I could be at two dances at once, but nothing came, including myself. “Helping myself out” was a usual nightly routine, since I was a nearly eighteen-year-old who had yet to meet another gay guy willing to help me out on the coming front. Basically, no coming meant I was seriously distracted. I was going to have to pick one dance over the other, and I just wasn’t ready to make that choice yet.
I was way more likely to make out with somebody (and maybe knock off more intimate items on the Gay Agenda) if I went to homecoming. But I was also way more likely to break my best friend’s heart if I didn’t show up in Riverton. I couldn’t lose Lu.
I took my schedule back so I could change the subject. “This says that Fashion Design is in S-I-F? What’s S-I-F?”
“It’s pronounced sif,” Max said. “It’s the Seattle Institute of Fashion, just a couple blocks down the street.” He grabbed my hand, the same thin gold bracelets he’d worn yesterday bumping against my wrist. “Follow me.”
We left the main building and walked into the morning gloom. Capitol Hill High was right in the middle of the city and made up of refurbished old buildings that weren’t big enough to hold everything a school needed in one structure. The campus consisted of the main building, the math and science building, the humanities building, the gymnasium, the auditorium, and apparently, the Seattle Institute of Fashion, all scattered among thriving businesses. We walked past a brewery, the Furry Friends of Dorothy pet groomer, and no fewer than four coffee shops until Max pointed to a structure that was as nondescript and gray as the Seattle sky. “Here we are,” he said. It did not seem like a place where fabulous fashions were fashioned.
I held the door open for Max, but a group of at least a dozen football players knocked him aside as they barreled past to run into the building. Max threw up his hands so vigorously that his vintage Backstreet Boys T-shirt came untucked from his purple leggings. “Watch where you’re going!”
“Max!” one of the players yelled. I instantly logged him in my list of Capitol Hill VSBs. He was Black, my height, and had short twists that were dark at the roots and bleached on top. He had round cheeks, like he still had a bit of baby weight, which was a cute clash to the adult biceps bulging out of his blue-and-white football jersey. A large number twenty-three was on the front over the Capitol Hill High lightning bolt mascot, and Alexander was written on the back.
Alexander let the rest of the football players cruise by. When the coast was clear, he approached Max tentatively. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you the past couple weeks.”
“Mmm.” It was the shortest reply I’d ever heard from Max. Yes, I’d only known him one day, but he was so outgoing. Here he was all pursed lips and awkward looks at the sidewalk.
“How are you holding up?” Alexander asked.
“I’m great, Damon,” Max said, reminding me that last names were on jerseys. I really should have paid more attention to Monday Night Football. “Honestly, great. People need to stop worrying about me.” Max hooked his arm around my elbow. “Besides, I’ve got Jay now.”
Damon looked as if he hadn’t noticed me standing there. “That’s right. I heard about you. New kid running the QSA with Max?”
Wow. Word got around Capitol Hill faster than Riverton, even with nearly eight times as many students.
“That’s me,” I said.
Damon turned his attention back to Max with such a tender look in his eyes. Did they used to go out? Maybe that was why Max was being so short with him: they’d had a jaw-dropping summer affair like the one I’d hoped for while it was actually Lu and Chip who were having one. But it must have ended badly if Max and Damon were so uncomfortable around each other.
“Well, I guess as long as you’re okay,” Damon said, opening the door to SIF. “You know you can always talk to me, right? Answer my calls sometime. Or Cami’s. She’s really been wanting to tell you about her first few days of college.”
Damon gave Max those tender eyes again. If all that time watching Ex on the Beach taught me anything, it’s that people didn’t look at each other like that unless they used to bone. Max nodded in acknowledgment, and Damon walked into the building, but not before giving Max one last loving look.
I whipped to Max as soon as Damon was out of sight. “Okay, what was that all about?”
Max slumped, his shirt wrinkling at just the right place so the Backstreet Boys’ brows were as furrowed as his. “It’s nothing. We’re going to be late.”
Apparently he didn’t want to talk about it. I decided to drop it, but I made a mental note to start a list of ways to pay Max back for being my Gay Guide. Maybe helping heal the rift between him and Damon would be the way to do that.
“We can’t be at the right building,” I said, taking Max’s hint to drop the subject, then making sure the pale orange letters on the glass door actually read SIF and not GYM. “Shouldn’t all those jocks be going to work out or something?”
Max walked inside and held the door for me. “Actually, athletes mean we’re in exactly the right place.”
“They do?” I wouldn’t at all mind taking in the view of some football players over the top of my sewing machine.
“Fashion Design is the football team’s art of choice.” Max led me past a chipped front desk, through another set of glass doors with a peeling orange SIF logo, and down a creepy hallway with fluorescent lights and scuffed booger-colored tile. The interior design of this place seriously had me doubting the instructors could create runway-worthy fashion.
“It’s a tradition that started a few years ago,” Max continued. “All athletes at Capitol Hill must participate in at least one art program to remain on the team. The football seniors a while back thought it would be fun if they all joined Fashion Design and created outfits for each other that they had to wear at graduation no matter what.”
Max paused before opening a beige door with chips falling off it and took a fortifying breath. He pushed the door open, revealing a room that looked more like a biology lab swarming with jerseys and sewing machines than a design studio. There was one empty lab table left with two gray and dingy Singers on top.
Max led the way, continuing on his football player explanation as if he hadn’t stopped to compose himself before entering the room. “Despite the stereotypes you might see on TV, Fashion Design is chock-full of straight boys.” He patted the stool next to hi
m and I sat down, completely in awe at all the jocks in the room. The football players at RHS wouldn’t have been caught dead in a Fashion Design class. Last year Justin Ridderbach practically quit school when he found out he had to join home ec.
“Well, there is one other gay guy who I know signed up for this class, but he’s . . .” Max trailed off, chewing his cheek as he tried to find the right word. “He’s difficult. So don’t go thinking you’ll find any gay romance here while you’re hemming some skirts.” He nudged my shoulder, a mischievous grin replacing his scowl. “You’ll just have to stick with Albert.”
I giggled when Max said his name. Like actually. Fracking. Giggled. “Ohmigawd, I can’t believe this is how I behave when I have a crush on a real-life guy.”
Max patted my back. “You’re sweeter than a Snickers, Jay. It’s what I like about you. We’re all jaded city kids here, but everything is so new to you. You’re like a gay baby. You’re a gayby!”
“Thanks? I think?”
Ping! A pen smacked against my sewing machine. “Jeezus!” I whipped around to see who had thrown the Paper Mate projectile.
Sitting two tables back was a blond white boy with the most piercingly blue eyes I had ever seen. So piercing, he looked like he’d spear me straight through the head if he could. “Shhh! Mr. Bogosian is about to start.” He pointed to the door, where a man—Mr. Bogosian, apparently—had just barely set foot in the room. About to start was a total overstatement.
“Fine, but you don’t have to be such a jer—”
Blue Piercer raised a very aggressive finger to his lips. “SHHHHHH!”
It’s always so ironic that people who insist others be quiet end up making way more noise than the people they were shushing in the first place. I swear that kid got spit all over his purple NYU Tisch School of the Arts sweatshirt. If Lu had been here, she would have done a great impression of him and shushed him right back with a fiercely nailed pointer finger. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a sharpened manicure to do the job. So instead I turned around and rolled my eyes at Max, who fiddled with his gold bracelets while he mouthed, Difficult.