I used up most of my allowance on small pizzas and Diet Cokes. I no longer dressed for school—I dressed for after school. My parents worried that I had an eating disorder because I ate so little at dinner. I couldn’t tell them that I’d just had a pizza a couple of hours before, so instead I told them I was a vegetarian, ate lighter dinners, and sacrificed lunch when I felt I could.
Second highlight of my childhood: When Seth asked my name. Granted, he asked Bev’s name, too (I still couldn’t go to the pizza place alone; that was too weird). But Bev couldn’t look up when he talked to her, and I could. This, to me, was the beginning of flirting.
It would have been paradise if Sheryl hadn’t been around, coming in after each delivery, waiting for a noisy welcome-back kiss. (She was the only one making a noise, I noted.) She stopped wearing her varsity jacket and starting wearing his. I couldn’t see what she gave him in return.
After a couple of months passed, he would sometimes sit down with us, ask us which teachers we had, give us some advice on making it through junior high. (Sheryl was never around for this.) One time he asked me (not Bev) if I had a boyfriend, and I thought I was going to die right there. It had never, ever occurred to me that he would ask this question. I was dumbstruck. If I said no, I’d sound like a loser who couldn’t even manage to have a boyfriend in eighth grade. If I said yes, I’d be…unavailable. So I did the stupidest thing imaginable. I said maybe. And it worked. Seth smiled and said, “How mysterious.”
Something inside me—the woman I would one day become—knew to smile back. Mysteriously.
The true hardships came in March. Sheryl started wearing a pretty necklace that could’ve possibly been given to her by Seth. Bev had play practice three times a week after school. Hal, the owner of La Rota, starting hassling Seth about which college he’d choose. And my mother got off work early one Thursday, looked into La Rota’s window on her way to a manicure, and saw Bev and me eating a greasy slice an hour before I was supposed to be home for dinner.
My mother’s discovery was the most pressing problem—burgeoning flirt though I was, I knew I didn’t have the courage to rebel if my parents forbade me to get pizza in the afternoon. Under no circumstances could I tell my mother what Bev and I had really been doing there, so I searched for the easiest available lie and blamed it all on Bev’s parents’ divorce. Bev, I said, was having a hard time. She was feeling very vulnerable and didn’t want to eat alone. Her mother and father meant well, but sometimes they would have to work late (I knew to tread carefully here) and Bev had been skipping dinner instead of eating in her empty house. So the afternoon pizza was my mission of mercy. My mother, who knew enough about her divorced friends to know this was plausible, told me I had done the right thing, and paid me back for that Thursday’s excursion.
Sheryl decided to go to Florida State and then Seth decided to go to Northwestern, which really (it was so clear) pissed her off. He was free now—into college, second-semester senior (which, from what I could tell, was like being in kindergarten all over again, for all the responsibility he had). But he didn’t look happy. And he didn’t look I’m-going-to-miss-Sheryl-so-much sad. Something sadder than that.
He didn’t stop sitting at my table, even on those days when Bev was busy and it was just him and me and a slowly sipped soda. By May he was asking me which teachers I’d have next year, even though I didn’t know yet. With other customers, he always seemed to be searching for something to say. Sheryl would still come in and they’d still kiss, but like me with my half-mushroom, half-plain pizza—the usual—Seth seemed to have grown tired of it.
I became a little more forthcoming. I complimented him on his shirts, which were now branching out from the red and white stripes. I even went so far as to say one of them really brought out the green of his eyes. He said thank you but didn’t take the compliment with him when he left. I could tell. I congratulated him when a lacrosse game went well, and he seemed genuinely touched that I’d been in the stands. He started slipping me free Diet Cokes. I left him drawings folded in napkins.
My mood about the whole thing swung wildly. Sometimes I’d think I was just this eighth-grade pain in the ass, this little sister, this pest. But then I’d be talking to Bev and we’d have it all planned out. We’d get Seth to break up with Sheryl. He’d take all of college to recover from it. If he brought home a girlfriend from Northwestern, we’d break them up, too. After college, when he moved back to our town, his heartbreak would be old enough to have healed. I would be a second-semester senior. He’d see me and realize I’d always been there for him, that I was everything he’d been looking for in all of the others, that I was his true chance at love.
Bev invited him to her play, but he couldn’t make it. I showed him my ninth-grade schedule when it came, and he gave me all the dirt. Lacrosse season was now over. Soon school would be over, too, and we’d be in that magic hour between classes and summer. Hal announced that he was throwing Seth a graduation party, and seemed pleased when Seth invited us. We were happy beyond words. We had no idea what we’d wear, but we both knew it had to be something new.
Then, a week before graduation, there was the big fight. Sheryl screeched into the parking lot, slammed the door, pushed her way into the dining room, and laid right into Seth. If Hal had been around, he would have stopped it with a look. But he was nowhere to be seen—he’d left Seth in charge—and so Sheryl was unopposed, yelling about something small—I think it was prom pictures—and making it really big. With an eye to the customers, Seth told her to quiet down. Big mistake. Now she was raging about how she would not be quiet because she knew what was at stake. Seth just stood there, helpless. Finally she wore herself out and slammed back to her car. Seth returned to work. I wanted to shoot a look at Bev, but she was out shopping with her mother. I was on my own. I finished my soda and stayed where I was. I looked at Seth until I caught his eye. When everything seemed calm, he came and sat down.
For the first time in my life as a flirt—as something more than just a girl—I found the words. They didn’t simply appear. I reasoned them out. I spoke them. Because they were true, and I didn’t need anything more than that. “She doesn’t deserve you,” I said, and before he could dispute it, I continued. “She takes and takes and takes, but she doesn’t take the right things. And she doesn’t give the right things back. You’re going away now. You don’t need her. You probably never needed her. She’s going to make it hell for you, but it’s over. You know that. Free yourself.”
He looked at me like I was some kind of oracle. In the best of all worlds, it would’ve been a look of love, an understanding that I was the one, I was it. But it wasn’t that. Instead it was something almost as sweet—that mix of recognition and appreciation. That gift of worth.
A party of eight came in the door, the bell ringing their arrival. Seth didn’t say anything. He just stood up and went to seat them. He looked back at me once before he got their menus. Taking me in, or at least my words. I almost waved.
I don’t know what he said to her. I like to think it was Even Rebecca, the girl at the pizza place, knows you’re not right for me. Whatever the case, by the time graduation arrived, Seth’s parents and Sheryl’s parents were talking to one another but Sheryl and Seth weren’t. I was lucky—it didn’t rain that year, so graduation was on the football field and I got to be there. When Seth’s name was called, Bev and I cheered at the top of our lungs. We weren’t the only ones, so maybe he heard us and maybe he didn’t. What was important was that he could have.
Bev and I ran home and changed. Our parents didn’t know what to make of the situation, but they went along nonetheless. I was wearing a blue dress from Express, the hem just above my knee, the collar a sailor cut. Bev, after buying many runner-up outfits, ended up wearing her favorite pink sweater set and white pants with new flowered sandals. Seth gave us each a hug when we arrived, then went to talk to his relatives. We were stranded—even the pizzeria seemed unfamiliar, decorated with streamers and ba
nners, serving food that wasn’t all pizza. We had both chipped in to get Seth a present. When he came back, we asked him to open it. It was an address book for him to take to college. (Bev had wanted to write our addresses in it, but I told her that was way too much.) “Ansel Adams,” he said with excitement. “How did you know he’s my favorite?” Bev (bless her) said it had been my choice, that I had just known. This got us each another hug, and an introduction to some of Seth’s cousins.
Our eighth-grade graduation was the next day. We were going to high school now. But first we were going to camp. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to spend the summer sipping Diet Cokes and snatching Seth’s free moments like fireflies. I argued with my bewildered parents. I even risked a tantrum. They would not give. But you love camp, they said. Arrangements had been made. Checks had been sent. I’d be leaving next week.
As if this wasn’t hard enough, Seth was going to be in college by the time Bev and I got back from our respective camps. He looked sad when he told us this, but it was small consolation. That week was an extreme bittersweet.
The dreaded Wednesday, the day before I left, I spent the morning seeing Bev off to camp. There was a slight delay—the bus had a flat on its way to the parking-lot pickup. Bev leaned over to me and said, “Go. It’s okay. Just write and tell me what happens.” I hugged her tight and ran the thirty minutes to La Rota, stopping a little short to catch my breath.
Seth was there. I looked at him for a minute in the window, my reflection laid atop his body. I knew I would never forget him; I was recording it all now so I would remember him right. Then I walked in, bell ringing, Seth smiling. “The usual?” he asked, and we both laughed. It was a little before lunchtime—nobody else was around. Hal said hi to me and told Seth he’d cover the other tables. So for the first time, Seth and I sat at the table for a whole half hour, him asking about camp, me asking about his summer and college. He stole a slice from me. I didn’t care.
Too quickly, we were done. I knew my parents were waiting. I knew I still had packing to do. But I didn’t know how to say good-bye.
We just sat there. Then Seth laughed and said, “Look at us!” He said he was sure we’d meet again. He’d come back home and there I’d be, at table seven (I’d never known it was table seven), and we’d talk just like we’d always talked. I went to pay, but he said it was on the house. Then he said, “One sec” and ran back to the kitchen. When he returned, he was holding a neatly folded napkin. This time he had drawn something for me. It was a drawing of a pizza box. In the center he’d sketched a picture of me. And instead of You’ve Tried the Rest, Now Try the Best, he’d written something else. It said, You’re Not Like the Rest—You’re the Best.
I knew I was going to cry. I thanked him and accepted his hug without once thinking it could be a kiss. He wished me luck at camp. I wished him luck at college. The bell rang again as I left. Our last words were keep in touch.
I still have that drawing. Whenever I look at it, it makes me happy. That’s the moral of the story. That’s it.
LOST SOMETIMES
His name was Dutch. We weren’t boyfriends, but we screwed all over the place. I’m serious—you name the place, odds are we screwed there. The gym. Burger King. His grandmother’s house. We couldn’t stop. We decided to go to the prom together to make a statement, and also to see if we could screw there, too.
There were a couple of other gay kids in our school—it was a big school—but all of the rest of them were, like, sensitive. With Dutch, though, everything was exactly what it was. We first hooked up at this Christmas party, senior year. You know, the kind you have with your friends a few days before everyone has to go stick it out with their parents. Anyway, the eggnog was ass-knocking. I kinda knew Dutch, but I had no idea what his story was. Me, I was a big flamer. In middle school, they wanted to cast a girl as Peter Pan but decided to cast me instead. No real mystery there.
So it got to be about three in the morning and Dutch walked over and told me I was a little devil. I told him that he was a little devil, too. And sure enough, that’s all it took for us to start making out in Kylie Peterson’s little sister’s bedroom. I mean, her stuffed animals were on the bed, but we didn’t care. I’d kissed guys before, but it had never been so voracious. I loved it. We didn’t go all the way—we figured there weren’t any Trojans hidden in the My Little Ponies, if you know what I mean—but it was clear we were already on the way to all the way.
It was a game. I mean, don’t get me wrong—it was serious. But it was also a game. I’d say we screwed on our third date, but we didn’t go on dates. Dates makes it sound like dinner and candlelight were the point. But the point was sex. The usual ways and places first, then getting trickier. We didn’t want to get caught, but we wanted to come this close to getting caught. We wanted to see how far we could go before we got the shit kicked out of us. Sometimes we’d pass each other in the halls—arranging it so we’d walk by each other between every period, but not saying a word, just giving each other that I’m going to have you soon stare. And other times he would grab me right there by my locker and thrust his mouth onto mine, and we’d be tonguing it up for everyone to see. It was so screwed up, because the thing that made us the most powerless also gave us such power. We could make them turn away. We could bother them and challenge them and mess them up. You think people are afraid of two boys in love? To hell with that. What people are really afraid of is two boys screwing. And even though we weren’t about to drop trou in the halls, we were going to let them know we were doing it whenever we could. We always played it safe, condom-wise. But location-wise? Safety was not the first concern.
The first-floor boys’ room. The showers of the locker room when everyone was in class and we were skipping. The couch in the faculty lounge. The boiler room. The second-floor boys’ room. The lighting room in the auditorium, against the movie projector. Room 216, second lunch block. The roof of the cafeteria when everyone else was under us, chattering. The art room, with paints. The third-floor girls’ room. The 400 aisle of the library.
We were only caught twice. Once I said I was helping to look for his contact lens, which must have fallen on his fly. The other time the art teacher found us. I thought he’d been watching for a while before letting us know he was there, but Dutch said his shock was real. He didn’t say a word to us. Just saw what was going on, turned red, and left.
We weren’t exactly the popular kids. But we were damn popular with the unpopular kids. The girls especially, this army of goth older sisters—they didn’t want to hear about us having sex, but they admired our spirit. We weren’t the prom types, but as the time approached, Dutch said to me, “Wouldn’t it be cool to screw at the prom?” and I said, “Yeah, I guess it would.” I kinda wanted to go anyway, but I wouldn’t’ve told him that. I didn’t want him to think I was taking anything too seriously. He’d already told me we were going to split up at the end of the year, because in college there would be new dicks to play with. He said it like he was joking, but you can’t tell a joke like that without meaning it at least a little.
We weren’t going to spend any money on the prom or anything cheesy like that. No limo, no tuxes, no tickets. We were just going to show up and do it our own way. While other couples were talking about flowers and cummerbunds, Dutch was telling me to not wear button-fly pants, “for easy access.” That night while biting his neck, I drew blood.
The prom was at some hotel, which made it very easy to crash. As everyone was pulling up to the front door in their gowns and their stretches, like it was the movie premiere of their new life, Dutch and I were smoking with some busboys by the service entrance. He was flirting, I was nervous, and when the pack was finished, the busboys pointed the way to the ballroom.
After we slipped in, I looked around the room and felt strange. It wasn’t that it was beautiful—it was just a hotel ballroom, with round tableclothed tables and white balloons with our class year printed in orange and blue, our school colors. But seeing it made
me feel…sentimental, I guess. I had been to proms before, but this was the one that was supposed to be mine. This was a memory I was supposed to be having.
As I looked around at my classmates all dressed up, Dutch was scouting out a place to screw. He didn’t want to start in the men’s room, because that would be too obvious a choice. I insisted that going under one of the tables was a bad idea, since people would be sitting down soon, and then we’d be trapped. We walked back into the reception area. People didn’t seem surprised to see us, or to see that we hadn’t dressed up. They weren’t disappointed in us, because their expectations had never been that high to begin with. It bothered me.
Then Dutch pulled me into the coatroom and made me feel a little better. You know what it’s like to look at someone and realize they’re hungry for you? The thing I loved the most about Dutch was that he never stopped grinning—even if his mouth was serious, his eyes were in on the joke. He enjoyed me, and that’s what kept us going and going and going. He found the most expensive coat in that coatroom, then took a turn into the back, threw the coat on the floor, and led me on top of it. Button-fly access, yeah. Condom, nice to meet you. I could hear everyone outside not hearing us. I could hear the empty hangers ping against one another as my shoulder hit into the racks again and again. Dutch would stop and smile, and I would smile back and keep quieter than usual. I’d feel his breaths catching, measure the distance between them to know he was close.
After we were done, he squeezed me tight for a moment and then said, “All right—back to the prom!” I made the foolish mistake I’d made at least a few dozen times already—I thought, for that one millisecond of hope, that this might be the moment, the occasion that he would say “I love you, Erik.” Even if he didn’t really mean it. We’d been screwing around for long enough that I knew it was a conscious decision on his part to never use those words with me. And because he held them back, I restrained myself, too. The two times I’d slipped and said them, he’d just smiled and said, “No, you don’t.”
How They Met and Other Stories Page 11