Fan Art

by Tregay, Sarah

  I do my best to smile.

  He steps back and invites me in.

  Nick is slouched on a plaid sofa in the living room. The TV is on, playing America’s Funniest Home Videos.

  “Eden!” Mr. O’Shea bellows in the direction of the staircase.

  On the screen some guy gets hit in the balls with a baseball bat and I can’t help but wince. Nick, on the other hand, lets out an evil-villain chuckle. He seems to notice me for the first time and looks my way.

  I nod hello in his direction.

  Nick mouths the words fag mag.

  Eden bounces down the stairs in a skirt and blouse, a cardigan sweater buttoned over the latter. She looks like something straight out of the 1950s. “Hi, James,” she says coyly. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you,” I reply.

  Mr. O’Shea’s eyes volley between us as if he’s a referee waiting for us to slip up.

  I don’t dare. “My mother is expecting us,” I say, even though she isn’t.

  Eden’s eyebrows pop up.

  “For dinner,” I continue, partly because I think this will impress Mr. O’Shea, but also because I’m out of cash after the coffee, muffins, turkey sub, and soda I bought today.

  “Oh,” her father says. “Well, you two have a nice time.”

  “We will, Daddy,” Eden coos.

  “Home by nine,” he says more to me than to her.

  “Oh, goody! Thank you, Daddy!” Eden wraps her arms around his barrel chest, presses her face to his shirt, and says good-bye.

  I open the passenger-side door for her, walk around, and slide in. “Thanks for the warning,” I say.

  “About my dad?” she asks. “He’s a big teddy bear if you’re on his good side.”

  “A teddy bear with a shotgun,” I answer.

  “No shotgun. He likes you.”

  I can finish that sentence. “Because I’m a guy, I suppose.”

  “Bingo! If I’m out with you, well, they’re pretty sure they won’t find me sitting in a tree with a girl from church camp.”

  “And Nick?”

  Eden laughs. “They don’t worry about him. He’s yardstick straight.”

  That wasn’t what I was asking. “Not that. Does Nick have a bullet with my name on it?”

  “No. Not a bullet, exactly.”

  “Comforting.”

  “I tried to talk him into retracting his submission to Gumshoe.”

  “You what?” I ask. “He didn’t want anyone to know he wrote it.”

  “Um, yeah.” Eden studies her fingernails. “He kinda said.”

  “You explained that it wasn’t my fault, right? That you saw it by accident.”

  “Yeah, but, well . . .” She pokes at a cuticle. “He’s still kinda pissed.”

  “Great,” I say. “The last thing I need is the Redneck mad at me.”

  “Sorry.”

  I’d like to say that when I walk into my house with a girl who is dressed suspiciously like she is on a date, that she doesn’t get the once-over. But she does. My mom looks at Eden first, and then at me. The twins hide behind mom’s legs, sans their usual shrieks.

  I introduce Eden.

  “Eden?” my mom clarifies, as if she was hoping for a “Steven” or an “Adam” or anything but a girl.

  “Yeah,” Eden says. “Like the garden.”

  Mom nods. “Nice to meet you.”

  I point to one wide-eyed twin. “This is Elisabeth, or Ann Marie. I can’t tell them apart when they aren’t talking.”

  Eden sinks to her haunches so she’s at twin eye level. “Hey.”

  “C’mon, girls,” Mom coaxes. “Say hi to Jamie’s friend.”

  “Hi,” the one that must be Elisabeth says. She steps around Mom and sits on her haunches too, her diapered rear sticking out.

  “Hi,” Eden echoes.

  I sit on the floor and pull Ann Marie onto my lap. She lets out a peal of giggles and a slobbery strand of drool as I inform Eden as to which twin is which.

  “So,” Mom says. “Are you two on your way somewhere?”

  I shake my head. “I thought we might have dinner here,” I say.

  “Oh, um, okay,” Mom says. “There’s probably something in the freezer.”

  Like I was expecting anything else.

  Eden watches as I pull out frozen pizzas. I let her choose the toppings, and then I put two in the oven. We open cans of soda and sit at the table.

  Eden asks about Challis’s graphic short story—apparently Challis hadn’t shared the details with anyone. “You’ve read it, haven’t you?”

  I nod.

  “So. Is it über-magnificent-amazing?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You don’t, by any chance, have it?” Eden asks.

  And warning bells ring between my eardrums, an echo of Eden reading her brother’s poem when she shouldn’t have. “Maybe,” I drawl. “But if Challis kept it secret—”

  “She would have shown it to me,” Eden reasons. “If Ms. Maude hadn’t started in on her slides.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t want to give Challis any more reasons to hate me.”

  “Puh-leeze,” Eden whines.

  “Okay,” I say as if I’m giving in. “I’ll give it back to Challis; then she can show you.”

  “No fair.”

  “Fair,” I say, and soon we are bickering like kindergarteners.

  “So you’ll take it to Game Den tonight?” Eden puts down her deal breaker.

  “Game Den?” I ask. I’ve been once or twice, but mostly I play video games at Mason’s.

  “Yeah. Everyone’s gonna be there. But my dad doesn’t let me go—especially not with Challis and crew.”

  “We’re going to Game Den?” I ask, but I know the answer.

  Eden nods. “My treat.”

  “You huge-Hoover-vacuum-suck at killing zombies.” Eden slides her hand into mine as we leave Game Den, where we met up with Challis and the art-geek girls for two hours of video game entertainment. We’re walking across the parking lot in search of nourishment because Challis is hungry.

  “Hey,” I protest, even though I do suck. “I saved you from a stomper or two.”

  “Only because you got in the way.”

  “We gotta go,” one of the girls says. “See you in school?”

  Challis pouts but gives the group of them hugs. Eden does the same. I just say good night. After they leave, I stop at my car and pull Challis’s folder with her comic out of my backpack. I give it back to her. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Her face crumples. “Rejected?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but I’m going to try again. I got a scan of it.” I attempt to sound positive.

  “You think they’ll change their minds?”

  “Maybe. Some of the staff really liked it—I know I did.” I tell her, not mentioning why they rejected it.

  “You’ll talk to them?” Challis asks, a flicker of hope in her blue eyes.

  “I will. Monday.”

  She tucks the folder under her arm and leads us in the direction of Mexican fast food. Eden buys a round of sodas, plus a plate of nachos for the three of us to share.

  “Wow, thanks!” Challis and I say, practically in unison.

  “No problem,” Eden says while she pays. “The least I can do for my two best friends.”

  Challis and I exchange glances as if to ask, We’re her best friends?

  I shrug and take the paper cups off the counter. I hand one to Challis and she leads the way to the fountain machine. Like a gentleman, I let her go first. She starts with Mountain Dew and proceeds down the line of levers until her cup is full.

  My stomach feels queasy just thinking about the taste of that. I go for a regular old Pepsi before we choose a booth by the window.

  Eden soon joins us with a plate piled high with chips, cheese, and toppings.

  We dig in.

  “May I read your story?” Eden asks Challis. “I heard it was über-maginificent-amazing.”<
br />
  Challis shoots me a look, as if she is blaming me for Eden’s interest.

  I hold my hands up like a traffic cop.

  “Okay, okay,” Challis agrees. “You can read it. Just no greasy fingers.”

  Eden beams, wipes her hands on her napkin, and then holds them out for inspection.

  Challis nods.

  Eden then opens the folder as if the contents were more holy than the Gutenberg Bible and starts to read.

  I can tell where she is in the story by the sounds she makes. “Oh no” when Tony is teased; “aw” when he talks to his dad; and a squeal followed by “OMG. They’re sooo cute!” at the end. After which she bounces up and down like she needs a visit the little girls’ room.

  “Awesomesauce!” she announces. “It’s really, really good, Challis.”

  I think I see a gloss of near tears in Challis’s eyes.

  But she just smiles and says, “Thank you.”

  Eden turns to me. “Did it get rejected because of the LGBTQueness?”

  I process the alphabet soup of her question and admit to half the reason it got rejected. “Sorta. Yeah.”

  Challis reaches over and takes the folder back, a muffled string of choice vocabulary spilling from her lips.

  “I’m gonna try again,” I say.

  “Thanks,” she says weakly, as if she thinks I’m powerless.

  “But it’s sooo good,” Eden whines. “Challis, you’re so amazingly talented. . . .” She trails off, thinking. “We could start, like, a petition or something!”

  Challis gives me another one of her I-blame-you-for-bringing-this-up looks.

  But Eden keeps on babbling, ticking things off on her fingers, “The GSA students, the Mathletes, the Japanese club—” She stops when Challis touches her hand. A blush rises to her cheeks.

  “Thanks,” Challis says. “But it’s okay.”

  On the way home, Eden points me to a shortcut to her neighborhood. I follow her directions, turning left and right when she tells me to until I recognize her street.

  Eden points to a cheery yellow house with lots of lights on. “You know Lia Marcus?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “She lives there.”

  “Oh,” I say, glancing over at the house.

  “We used to be best friends,” Eden tells me. “Sleepovers-every-weekend, finish-each-other’s-sentences best friends.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’d walk to each other’s houses and watch soap operas every afternoon.”

  “Not anymore?” I look over at her. I’ve noticed that even though she tries to fit in with Challis’s friends, she always seems to be on the outskirts.

  But she stares out the window at the porch lights of passing houses. “Not since I came out.”

  My gut feels like I swallowed an ice cube. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. At first she pretended to be cool with it—kinda So you like girls, who cares?—but I could tell it bothered her because she wouldn’t change her clothes in front of me.”

  “People are weird like that,” I say. “If you like girls in general, they think you like them in particular.”

  “Ew!” Eden says. “That squicks me out. She was my best friend.”

  I might not be on the honor roll, but I get her gist: Kissing your best friend sometimes has the “ew” factor of kissing a sibling. I think of Mason and his slow-motion smile, the shape of his lips. Too bad I didn’t get that brand of squick.

  “. . . making excuses not to sleep over,” Eden says.

  I scramble to catch up on what I might have missed.

  “And inviting lots of friends when we slept at her house—as if she didn’t want to be alone with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I saved her the trouble of breaking it off. I stopped returning her calls. It was just too humiliating.”

  “Humiliating?”

  “To have someone pretend to be your friend when they really don’t want to be.”

  The ice cube feeling spreads to my chest as I imagine how awful that must have been. I read about friends fading away in one of those self-help books for gay teens that Frank bought me in ninth grade, but I never knew the people involved. Now, knowing about Eden and Lia, it all feels more real. More like it could happen to me.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FOURTEEN

  Monday, the Redneck parks his truck next to my car in the student parking lot. I take my time getting my phone and car keys in all the right pockets, but he doesn’t leave. He stands there with a scowl etched across his forehead.

  So I take a deep breath and say, “Hey, Nick.”

  “’S’up, Fagmag?”

  I wince at the sting of my new nickname. “Can’t believe it’s Monday already.”

  “You weren’t supposed to show it to anyone,” he says, the words coming out in one long grunt.

  “Sorry about that. I dropped my books. Eden picked it up.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “It got in,” I tell him, trying to cheer him up. “You’ll get that extra credit from Taylor.”

  He doesn’t cheer up, just changes the topic. “I know what you two are doing.”

  Crap.

  “And if you think that pretending to be unfagged is helping my sister see straight, you got another thing coming.”

  Huh? I didn’t understand a word of that.

  “Got that, Fagmag?” he asks about my non-answer.

  “Got it, Nick,” I say even though I don’t. “No problem.”

  He stops to tie his boot and I walk faster. There’s a reason I’ve been running a mile in gym class. It might come in handy someday. Soon.

  That afternoon, at the Gumshoe meeting, I proceed with my carefully planned tactics. I show DeMarco, Lia, Holland, and Michael how the dummy with Challis’s graphic short has more variety and more visual interest. Holland nods right along.

  “I don’t know, Jamie. Maybe we shouldn’t do a comic. We didn’t have one last year, and we won the award anyway,” DeMarco reasons.

  “But it looks amazing—adds visual variety,” I say, purposely ignoring their previous comments about the story being fluffy and plotless.

  “It’s not how it looks from a distance, Jamie,” Lia says. “It’s the characters—the gay characters. Kissing. It’s, like, wrong in so many—”

  Michael stops her. “It’s not about making judgments; it’s about the future of Gumshoe. We got funding from the school, from taxpayers. They won’t like this story and we don’t need it—it’s just not that great.”

  “A thousand dollars,” DeMarco says. “I looked it up.”

  Forget gaining ground—I’m losing this battle. I see it all over Holland’s face. She’s about to wave a white flag, surrender to the masses. And I should have known; Eden told me about Lia’s not-exactly-accepting behavior last night.

  “My parents are on the PTO,” Lia says, “and they won’t—”

  I scramble for footing, try to find the right words. They fail me and I say, “Parents don’t read high school literary magazines.”

  “True,” Lia agrees. “But they don’t have to read to see this!” She jabs her finger at the page where the boys are kissing.

  This is when Dr. Taylor steps in. “Thank you, Jamie, for bringing this point up again. It was worth discussing. But I’m afraid the discussion is over.”

  The others pack up their things and file out of the classroom. I watch them go, feeling like a wounded soldier left on the battlefield. Stupid. I can’t even think of the right thing to say. Even when I’m right.

  Michael turns and gives me one last look, his hand on the doorframe. He takes a noisy breath, exhales. “Look, Jamie. I’m sorry.”

  “I thought . . . ,” I start, but hesitate. “I thought you were, well . . .”

  “Yeah, I know. I was in the GSA, so everyone, um, assumed thi
ngs.”

  “You’re in the GSA?” I echo, perking up a little.

  “Was. To support my sister. But it wasn’t worth the hassle.”

  I give him a questioning look.

  “It was her club. She started it. When she graduated, I told her I’d go. But after a while, it got to be too much—the rumors, I mean.”

  I nod. I get it. I believed those rumors. But there’s something I still don’t get. “But if you’re a straight ally, why don’t you want Challis’s story in Gumshoe?”

  “C’mon, Jamie. It’s not worth it. Take out the fact that it’s about two boys, and the story falls flat.”

  “But it is about two boys,” I say.

  “But it doesn’t mean it’s good.”

  “I like it. I think it’s brave.”

  “Okay, so you like it,” Michael says. “But it doesn’t mean it’s worth the trouble. I’ve seen the hatred—parents storming the school board meetings, waving signs, quoting Leviticus—that’s what happened when Nell started the GSA.”

  We were in junior high when this was going on—not that I remember it clearly. I do remember my mom getting upset, talking about sending me to Boise High and not Lincoln. I didn’t understand why, exactly. Just that Mason was going to Lincoln and, damn it, that’s where I wanted to go.

  Michael takes an audible breath. “It was horrible. Scary. I don’t want to go through that again. Not for some girl’s fan art.”

  “I remember,” I say. “But why can’t we fight for this, too?”

  “Because it’s fluff, Jamie. It’s not worth it.”

  “It isn’t fluff. It’s a love story—about two people like your sister. Doesn’t your sister deserve a love story? Doesn’t everyone?” Don’t I?

  “Yes,” Michael says, his face looking tired as he sniffles. “Just not in Gumshoe, okay?”

  I get the feeling this isn’t going anywhere and I don’t argue.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FIFTEEN

  Tuesday starts off badly. Challis is waiting for me in the student parking lot before school. “I couldn’t talk them into it,” I say.