Fan Art

by Tregay, Sarah

  I sink even lower behind my computer, wishing I had a larger screen.

  Michael shakes his head.

  “What do you think, Jamie?” DeMarco asks.

  “It’s a love story,” I say casually. “It’s supposed to end happily ever after.” I’ve read enough princess-meets-Prince-Charming picture books to my sisters to know this is fact.

  “Romeo and Juliet is a love story,” Lia says to prove me wrong.

  “A morbid one.”

  “At least something happens.”

  “Yeah, they both die. Real exciting.” I loop my finger in the air, then wonder if I should be looping it by my ear. I’m not a literary buff—I read only what’s assigned—and I’m arguing the literary merits of a gay comic? There’s something seriously wrong with my brain.

  “It’s called conflict,” Lia informs me.

  “There’s conflict,” I jab a finger at Challis’s drawings. “This girl bullies the boys into kissing.”

  “But, yuck, that’s what they wanted to do.”

  “Not in front of everyone. Not like that,” I snap back, and realize that words aren’t coming from some logical explanation I learned in English class. They’re coming from my heart.

  And maybe Michael can tell, because he cuts Lia off. “But if it were about a boy and a girl, there would be no story.”

  “But there is a story!” I say. “It’s about two people finding each other.”

  Michael sighs like I missed his point.

  “And it’s a story about being picked on,” I say. “It’s about feeling different from everyone else. Everyone feels that way.” At least I think everyone feels that way. I feel that way.

  The others are silent, as if they aren’t convinced.

  So I continue, the words tumbling out as they short-circuit my brain, “It’s not about being gay or straight. It’s about finding an ally in a sea of bullies, finding love in a storm of hatred.”

  Holland nods.

  Michael shakes his head.

  DeMarco shrugs.

  Dr. Taylor comes over and helps himself to the comic.

  I watch his face as he reads.

  “Yeah,” Lia says. “And there’s another problem.”

  “A problem?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Michael says. “We’re not in the most open-minded school district. People might get upset.”

  “All it takes is one parent complaining and we could lose funding,” Dr. Taylor says.

  “And Gumshoe is toast,” Michael adds.

  “We just resurrected Gumshoe from the graveyard,” Lia says. “It’d be a shame to dig it a deeper grave.”

  “Yeah,” DeMarco agrees. “This is gonna be my magazine next year. We got to keep it around.”

  I look at Dr. Taylor, hope he’ll jump in and say something about freedom of speech—about gay rights, about banned books, about anything!

  But he’s nodding right along.

  And so is Lia.

  “But it is good!” I say. “And it shows diversity. Represents students in our school.”

  “I dunno,” Holland says. “Maybe people would like it.”

  “People would like it,” Lia repeats, “if the characters weren’t gay for each other.”

  “That d-doesn’t—” I sputter, my anger rising.

  “It does matter. If it were a boy and a girl, it’d be fine,” Lia says as if she solved our problem.

  “Fluff,” Holland says.

  “And we’re back to no plot,” Michael reminds them.

  “No,” Dr. Taylor says. “It’s not within our purview to change anything about the story.”

  Thank you, Dr. Taylor.

  “It’s either in or it’s out,” he continues.

  “We should vote,” Michael says.

  I close my mouth so I don’t look like a carp and choke down the lump in my throat. Challis is going to kill me. I said I’d get it in. And more than that, I want it in. I want someone, somewhere, to not feel alone and lost just because they read that story, and feel okay about coming out despite the odds stacked against them.

  Dr. Taylor takes a sheet of paper and starts ripping it into squares. “Majority this time,” he instructs, because we often go with a unanimous decision. Then he passes out the squares.

  I write IN, fold it up, and pass it back. I want a million squares of paper. I want to write IN on all of them. I want proof that I didn’t let Challis down, proof I voted for what’s right, proof we didn’t censor her story.

  Dr. Taylor collects the papers. Then he opens one and reads it. “No.”

  Another, mine this time. “In.”

  Then another no.

  And a third.

  “Yes.”

  Probably Holland.

  Dr. Taylor reaches for the last one and opens it. “And the last one is a”—he pauses—“a no.”

  Double damn it.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  ELEVEN

  I practically run into Eden in the hall on the way to my locker. Practically, because I hear her voice before we collide. I stop in my tracks. I don’t want to talk to her. Not now. Not after that craptastic Gumshoe meeting. Not after her stupid friends were gossiping about Mason and me going to prom together. Not after she read her brother’s supposedly anonymous poem. Not after I told her I am gay.

  “Thanks, Mr. Farnsworth. I’ll get it done. I promise,” she says, walking backward out of a classroom.

  I step back so she doesn’t bump into me.

  “Jamie!” she says. “Do you have your car?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I need a ride. My dad’s gonna kill me if I’m late for Bible study.”

  That sounds a little ironic, but I go along with it. “Sure.”

  On the way out to the parking lot, Eden explains about her English paper—that Nick wrote one with the same thesis and how she couldn’t turn hers in. “I started a second paper, but I didn’t finish it. And it was due today!”

  “Did you tell your teacher what happened?”

  “Not exactly. If he thinks Nick is cheating—or we’re cheating—we could get in a lot of trouble.”

  “Is he?” I ask.

  Eden’s green eyes grow wide behind her glasses, as if I just accused the Pope of having an affair. “No. He’d never do that. Wait. He saw my notes! I was watching TV, working on my paper . . .”

  I watch as anger clouds her face, but then it passes, replaced with frustration.

  “He’s such a snoop. Why can’t he leave my stuff alone?”

  “My sisters are the same way,” I say.

  She swipes at tear with the heel of her hand. “I can’t get Nick in trouble. His grades are in the crapper—you read his poem—and if Dad gets a call from any of his teachers, something’s gonna hit the fan.”

  Nick used to be a year ahead of us in school, but in sixth grade he was held back. That couldn’t have been easy for Eden. “Hey,” I say gently, and put my arm around her shoulders. It feels a little weird at first, but then she sags into my side and it feels all right. We walk the rest of the way to my car like that. I unlock the passenger-side door of my once-blue car. I drop my arm and Eden climbs in.

  “Where to?” I ask.

  “Church of God, on Boise Ave.”

  I start the car and back out of the parking space. I turn on the radio, hum along to Joe Walsh, and try to ignore the question burning in my gut.

  Eden toys with the crank that opens and closes the window.

  “It’s ancient, I know,” I say about my car.

  She opens her window all the way and turns her face into the breeze.

  “Eden?” I ask, trying not to sound pissed. “Did you tell your friends what I said?”

  “What did you say?” she asks.

  I almost say never mind. But I want to know if she told Challis that I’m gay, because Challis seemed to kno
w.

  “I didn’t say it—not exactly. You asked if I didn’t like kissing girls.”

  “Oh,” Eden says. “That.”

  “But did you?”

  “What the frick, Jamie? I didn’t tell them that!”

  I want to believe her, but I don’t. I need more. Proof. “But I heard you. In art.”

  “I wasn’t outing you.” She goes quiet and then mumbles, “I was, um, bragging.”

  “Bragging?” I ask.

  “That you asked me to prom. Major braggage.”

  “Um.”

  “They practically squeed their pants!”

  “About me?” I still don’t get it. “But Challis is a lesbian?”

  “Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,” Eden says. “That doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing that girls—gay or straight—like, it’s gay boys.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I tell her. “The very definition of gay boy is that they like boys.”

  Eden sighs as if I’m the stupid one. “We like you. And all the squeeably cute gay guys like you—both fictional and in real life.”

  “But you said you didn’t tell them I’m gay!”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’ve got good gaydar.”

  Really good gaydar, I think. I’m pretty invisible. I never wear nice clothes, just my ringer T-shirts and jeans, slightly baggy and a bit boring. I’ve never been in drama club. The closest I’ve ever been to a Broadway musical was playing the trumpet in the orchestra for The Music Man.

  “And even if you were straight, they’d do a slash pairing of you and somebody anyway,” Eden says.

  “Who?” I ask. The art-geek girls are always ’shipping people.

  But she doesn’t answer. I steal a glance at her and she shakes her head. “I can’t say.”

  “Eden?” I ask, my voice low on the first syllable, like my mom does when I’m in trouble.

  “Okay. Well, I voted for J/Ellen.”

  “Me and Kellen Zabala?” I ask, deciphering the code. Not bad. I was just telling myself that Kellen is totally crush-worthy.

  “Uh-huh.” Then, “Turn in here,” she says about the church.

  I do and pull up to the walkway.

  She gets out then leans her head in the open window. “The pairings. They’re stupid. Don’t let them bother you.”

  On my way home, I giggle about the idea that Kellen and I have slashed together, as if we were as famous (and fictional) as Spock and Kirk, Sirius and Remus, Spike and Angel. Really? Kellen and me? That’d make for some pretty epic fiction—I might even read that book—if only we weren’t real people.

  Thank God it wasn’t Mason. Ja/Son.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWELVE

  I’m groggy on Saturday morning—Mason, Gabe, and I watched both the seven o’clock and the nine o’clock shows at the three-dollar theater, followed by a round of video games—but I pull myself out of bed anyway. I’ve got to get Gumshoe done this weekend so we can work on edits next week. It goes to press on Friday. I put on yesterday’s jeans and a clean shirt.

  Mom is in the kitchen, watching the coffeepot as if it were the television.

  “Something good on?” I ask.

  “I’m just praying for a cup before the girls wake up.”

  “Frank gone already?”

  “Uh-huh,” Mom says.

  “Can I borrow your office key?” I ask, meaning the one to her office downtown. It’s the perfect place to work on projects. There are scanners and printers and Wi-Fi. And no two-year-olds.

  I buy a cup of coffee—okay, my caramel mocha—and a muffin—okay, two—from Flying M on the corner. I love that place. They always have an art show on one wall and a funky gift shop in the corner, but the Valentines for AIDS posters are my favorite. They do an art auction every year to raise money, and the posters are created by local graphic designers—done in shades of red and pink. Someday, I tell myself, my poster will be on that wall.

  At the office, I set up in the little room in the back. The one that will be mine this summer when I work here. Sure, it’s stacked to the ceiling with rolls of blueprints and the desk is actually a flat file, but I have what I need: a scanner from the last decade. (My mom’s firm used to photograph their projects on 4 x 5 film and scan the negatives with this monster.) It’s perfect for scanning artwork.

  I start with the male nude, then the stack of new stuff I chose yesterday. It’s slow going, so I turn on the ancient radio. The scanner hums and clunks along to the classic rock while I eat breakfast. By eleven, I have everything in Photoshop and I’m turning my color scans into black-and-white masterpieces by adjusting the curves. I try not to think of Challis’s drawings, or how they wouldn’t need any adjustments, being straight pen and ink.

  By one I have the poems—including Nick O’Shea’s—and flash pieces typeset, some all alone, others clustered in groups. I leave most of the artwork big, bleeding off the edges of the pages, and mirroring content in the shorter works.

  I move my production studio to the sandwich shop down the street. I order a turkey sub and bottomless soda. I chunk through the short stories. We have six, each spread out over three or more pages. I slide the pages around, work them so that each one ends with a drawing or painting. I slide in a set of seven blank pages and imagine The Love Dare among the sonnets. Then I hear Michael say, “But there’s no plot,” and hit the delete key.

  Back at my mom’s office, I print everything out, trim the crop marks, and make a dummy. I lose myself in the details of the typography—Goudy 10/13—for the rest of the afternoon, as if keeping busy will keep Challis’s story from creeping into my consciousness. The red pen I’m marking the pages with doesn’t help. It reminds me of how I wanted to color in the hearts in the last frame.

  A poem catches my eye. A word, actually: homophobia. Instead of just looking at the letters and lines of type, I read it. It’s about the words we don’t say, or wouldn’t say, in a perfect world. It brings me back to Mason with his AP French class and his bilingual family. And Challis’s comic.

  Screw it.

  I pull out the comic. Put the first page on the scanner and hit return. A clunk and whir, and it pops up on the monitor. I repeat the process until I have all seven and save. By five I have two dummies: one with Challis’s comic and one without.

  At Night I Dream

  Anonymous

  At night I dream that we live in a David Levithan novel,

  a world set to music and lit like Broadway—

  each moment deep, magical, and underscored by

  the simple and the profound, like a Beatles’ song.

  Here, in my dreams, we love whom we love,

  blinded not by the color of their skin,

  worried not by the details of their gender,

  nor about the book in which they find their god.

  Here we speak a thousand languages,

  understanding the nuances without having to ask.

  And yet we have forgotten the word for hate,

  and with it anger, hostility, and homophobia.

  But in the morning, I wake to a bleating alarm clock

  and the banter of bilingual breakfast conversations—

  none deeper than the contents of the fridge—

  and I pray for a passport back to dreamland.

  And yet woven into the lilt and trill is a nuance

  spoken not out loud—even though we have

  two languages and a thousand words and ways

  to say it—simply, deeply, profoundly. I love you.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  THIRTEEN

  I’m triple-checking the office door to make sure it’s locked behind me when my cell rings.

  The screen says EDEN. I answe
r, “Your number’s in my phone?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  I wait for an explanation.

  “I messed with it in art. When you were asleep.”

  “But—” I start to protest that we weren’t even sitting next to each other yesterday. It’s no use. This is Eden. “Never mind. What’s up?”

  “Want to do something?”

  “Sure,” I agree.

  “Pick me up?”

  “When?”

  “Whenever.”

  I go directly from my mom’s office to Eden’s. The Redneck’s truck is in the driveway when I pull up. I park in the street. I take a minute to check my hair in the rearview mirror before I ring the doorbell.

  A very large man opens the door and stands there, fitting in the frame like a puzzle piece. I see where the Redneck got his build and, at the same time, I wonder why Eden’s so short. She has curves, so she isn’t small everywhere, but she comes up only to my chin.

  “Hello, Mr. O’Shea?” It sounds like a question, but really, it’s an answer. An answer to why Eden wanted me to come over—part of her plot to be able to go to prom.

  “Yes?” he prompts, as if asking me what I am selling.

  “Is Eden home?”

  He jerks in surprise, his head brushing the doorframe. When he recovers, he inspects me, tilting his head as he looks at my ears (which aren’t pierced), and then up and down twice as if checking to see if I had somehow sprouted breasts. When he looks certain that I am male, he says, “I believe she is.”