Fan Art

by Tregay, Sarah

  Mason’s muscles go rigid, as if he’s ready to pounce.

  “You worthless piece of homophobic crap!” Challis’s voice cuts through the crowd. “Back the hell off!” Then Challis is all up in the Redneck’s face, slamming her palms into his gorilla-wide chest.

  The Redneck growls like a pit bull, drowning out her insults.

  She shoves him hard.

  He doesn’t budge. Then, after a beat, he turns and stomps away.

  Challis gives his retreating back a single-finger salute and puts an arm around Eden.

  “I can’t believe he did that,” Eden mumbles. “He doesn’t even write his own English papers.”

  As if drawn by the shouting, families start to trickle in around the corners of the stadium, infiltrating our sea of black hats and gowns with bits of colors—dads in red power ties, sisters in pink party dresses, brothers in orange-and-blue BSU jerseys, and moms in printed blouses.

  I let my arms fall to my sides and Mason does the same. We stand there, taking in the wave of people.

  My mind plays a game of mix-and-match, matching parents with my classmates: Holland’s mom is a tank-top type, her father a burly blond with more tattoos than shirtsleeves.

  The Schoenbergers are dressed in black, Michael’s dad in a suit and his mom and sister in dresses.

  Challis looks around hopefully, as if she is trying to spot someone, anyone with a blood relation. She bites her lip as her eyes grow glossy with realization that they hadn’t come at all.

  “You see your folks?” Mason asks me.

  “No, you?” I reply as my eyes snap back to Challis.

  She’s wrestling out of her gown. The zipper is stuck and she yanks the gown off over her head. Her hat falls to the asphalt. She balls up the flimsy nylon robe and shoves it into a trashcan. Then she scoops up the mortarboard and tosses that too. Only the square hat doesn’t fit in the round hole. So she leaves it there, the gold tassel fluttering in the breeze, and walks away.

  Mason points to where the crowd has shifted to reveal our parents—both pairs plus four siblings and my grandma and Stan—all together. My biological dad couldn’t make it. And this makes me think of Challis.

  “I’m not ready for this,” Mason whispers.

  I know I should be thinking about him. About us. About what this all means, but I can’t concentrate. “One minute,” I tell him, and squeeze his hand. Then I jog to the trash can, pick up Challis’s mortarboard, and pull the tassel free. I put it in my pocket, thinking that maybe, someday, she’ll want it back.

  In a flash I’m back at Mason’s side. “Sorry.”

  “You think they saw?” He juts his chin at our families.

  “The picture? Or us . . . ?”

  “Both?”

  “Probably,” I say. My mom is sagging under the weight of one of the twins in her arms, so she’s probably been standing there for a few.

  Mason swears in Spanish.

  “It’ll be okay,” I tell him, and hold out my hand, palm up and open—there if he needs it.

  Mason takes it. His grip so tight, my knuckles abrade one another.

  We dodge a hugging knot of Polmanskis and another of Quincys. Our hands cementing themselves together with heat, sweat, and fear—bonded as we approach our own knots of family.

  My mother is beaming, Frank is smiling. Grandma and Stan look out of place.

  Mason’s father is scowling.

  One of the twins spots us and wiggles free from my stepdad’s arms. She trips toward us and the other follows. Mason and I catch one twin’s little hand with each of our free hands. They tug us back toward our families.

  That’s when I see Mrs. V brushing tears from her eyelashes and Mr. V’s grip on her shoulder.

  “Congratulations, sweetie,” my mom says, hugging me long and tight. “You did it!” I don’t know if she means graduating or coming out. I’ve let go of my sister and Mason, but I don’t remember when I did.

  “Congrats, Jamie,” Frank says, giving me a thunk between the shoulder blades. He picks up one twin and at the same time, reaches for the other’s hand.

  I offer to shake hands with Gabe, but he pulls me into a hug. He passes me to Londa and goes back to teasing Mason in Spanish.

  Over the top of Londa’s head, I watch my mom watch Mr. Viveros.

  “Congratulations, Jamie,” Londa says. “I’m gonna miss having two little brothers—you’ll visit me in my new apartment?”

  “Of course,” I say to her, but my eyes flick to my mom.

  She gives Mason a motherly hug, whispers something in his ear. He nods. She pulls him close again, holds him for a long time. Then she says to his parents, “You should be proud, a college-bound high school graduate!”

  They nod and mascara-tinted tears dislodge themselves and roll down Mrs. V’s cheeks. Mr. V’s face is stony, not a flicker of emotion crosses it, and I get the feeling he’s thinking about the one thing no one is saying out loud: his son is gay.

  “We’ve gotta go,” Mason says quickly. “See you at the party, okay, Jamie?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my heart heavy with what I imagine will happen when he and his father are no longer in a public place.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  FORTY-EIGHT

  My mom puts an arm around my waist and rests her head on my shoulder as we walk to our own vehicle. My grandmother and Frank are walking in front of us, each carting one of the twins on a hip. Stan trails behind.

  “That was one helluva way to come out,” Mom says, and I know she saw us.

  “Mom!” I scold.

  “Gumshoe was pretty good, but phew, that kiss was better.”

  “Mom!” My face warms with embarrassment.

  She gives me a squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”

  We’re quiet for a moment as we wait for cars to pass by, and it occurs to me that maybe Mom hasn’t seen Eden’s drawing—maybe the picture was only in some of the programs—maybe she doesn’t know that our coming out wasn’t exactly our idea.

  “Mason, though . . . ,” Mom says. “That surprised me.”

  “Me too,” I agree. “But these girls in our class, they seemed to know.”

  “Really?” she asks.

  I pull my program from my shirt pocket, unfold it, and hand it to my mother.

  She’s confused.

  “In the middle,” I say.

  She pulls the wrinkled pages open, squints in concentration at the drawing. Then she covers her mouth with one hand, but I can tell her lips are an O of surprise. “These girls, they did this?” she asks. But she doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Oh, Jamie! Honey.”

  I practically catch her as she falls onto me—her arms open and eyes welling with tears. “Baby,” she says, the word—fortunately—muffled by my shoulder.

  “Carrie?” Frank says her name, ducking back out of the van.

  “I should’ve had you transferred,” Mom mumbles through tears. “I knew that school was trouble. Knew it all along.”

  Frank gives me a what’s-she-talking-about? look.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I say. “We’re okay.”

  She pulls away and looks up at me. “But the school, they should—They should—”

  I shake my head. “School’s over. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But—”

  “Mason and I are fine,” I repeat for her sake, but deep down I get the feeling that I’m lying. “We’re fine.”

  And all through dinner—my grandmother has made real food—I keep thinking about the stone-cold look on Mr. Viveros’s face.

  After dinner my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Eden. I don’t answer.

  A text comes in:

  Please pick me up. I need to talk to you.

  I know I need to talk to her, too. But I don’t feel like it. Not now. Not in the mess I’m in. Not while I’m worried about Mason. I don’
t reply. I just scrape my untouched plate into the kitchen trashcan. I put it in the dishwasher, a swirl of mashed potatoes and a matching one of gravy still clinging to it.

  I glance up to find my mom looking at me, a worried smile on her face. “Mason?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “Eden.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To talk.” I sigh.

  “That’s girls for you,” Mom says. “It’s what we do best.”

  I know what she’s saying, that she’s here if I want to talk about it. “Thanks, but—” My phone buzzes again. I look at the screen and wish this message would be from Mason and not Eden.

  Can I come over?

  Mom looks at me as if she wants it to be Mason as much as I do. I shake my head, and her face falls to what I imagine is a mirror of my own expression. I feel her pity and want to shake it off. So I text Eden back.

  No. I’ll pick u up. For Brodie’s party.

  Eden bawled like a baby all the way here, saying over and over how sorry she is about the drawing. I let her, because I needed to hear it. Not the crying, just the apology. Then, when we get to the party, she disappears into Brodie’s bathroom and has been there for the last twenty minutes. I guess I got what I wanted: to be alone. But I can’t stand it. My stomach is a mass of writhing worry. And even though the party has barely begun and I know that Mason’s probably still eating dinner at the Viverosno-phone-zone dining-room table, I text him.

  Hey, can’t wait to see you.

  Too tacky. I hold down the delete button.

  Thinking of you.

  Even worse. Delete.

  Hope you’re hanging in there.

  Is that a sexual reference? Or a kitten poster? No. Delete, delete, delete.

  Finally it’s Eden who saves me when she emerges from the bathroom, her eyes still ringed with red.

  “How do you send a text to someone you kissed and really want to be your boyfriend but you aren’t sure he feels the same way?” The words bypass my brain and tumble out of my mouth.

  She takes my phone from my hand. “You don’t.”

  “But—” I reach for it before her words sink in.

  “Some things are better explained in person.” She closes my phone and hands it back.

  “You don’t have to disappear,” I tell her while we wait for Mason. “I’ll explain about the drawing. You won’t have to.” We have a clear view of both the gate and the French doors, but we’re standing away from the noise of the fire pit and barbecue.

  “Thanks, Jamie,” she says. “But I’m gonna pass. I think you two need time alone.”

  I know. But I’m not sure I’m ready.

  Forget butterflies. I’ve got a nest of yellow jackets down there. I don’t know what to do. What to say. Or how to act. What do you say after you kiss someone? What did that kiss mean?

  “Stay?” I ask. “Please.”

  “Okay.”

  I spy him. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt—probably from Gabe’s side of the closet—as if he hasn’t changed his clothes, just taken off his tie. The sleeves are rolled up, and his tan forearms are bare. He looks okay. Actually, way better than okay.

  My heart melts and my palms get sweaty. I wipe them on my shorts and check my antiperspirant.

  “You’re fine,” Eden assures me. “And you smell good.”

  She starts edging away, as if to start her disappearing act.

  I grab her hand. Make her stay.

  Mason sees me and smiles as bright as the first star on the horizon.

  I hang on to Eden for balance, weaving my fingers into hers.

  She tugs me toward him. “Hey, Mason,” she says cheerily.

  “Hey,” he says. Then he sees our hands. And his eyebrows wrinkle with a question.

  I untangle my fingers from Eden’s.

  “I was just leaving,” she says.

  “See you,” Mason says to her. But the eyebrow question marks remain.

  “I—I, uh,” I stammer, trying to explain. “Um, I mean, earlier—that was, yeah. But I guess, I’m worried—I don’t know, I want to, you know, but—”

  “Jamie,” Mason says. “You’re babbling.”

  “I know, it’s just—” I inhale. Try to make the words make sense. “Are we—are we more than friends?”

  He steps closer, his brown eyes locked on mine. “That depends . . .”

  I hiccup more air into my lungs, stammer more nonsense.

  His voice is steady when he finishes his sentence. “If I’m still your best friend or if Eden is.”

  “You are,” I say.

  “Good.” He nudges the grass with the toe of his dress shoes. “You know, because I was sorta feeling replaced.”

  Oh. Yeah. I reach for him and touch his arm.

  He steps closer, not hugging me but resting his forehead on my shoulder, like he did that night it rained. I wrap my arms around him.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s just—it was hard to be around you and in the closet. And Eden . . . Well, Eden knows everything. I could talk to her.”

  “I know,” Mason mumbles into my collar. “I wanted to come out to you, tell you the real reason I didn’t want to date in high school.” He chokes on the words. “But it just got too damn complicated.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Way too much drama.”

  Mason chuckles, and I feel his shoulders shake. I join in. Soon we’re laughing so hard, we edge right back around to crying. My stomach muscles spasm, and I clutch my gut as another peal of laughter rocks through me. Mason claps a hand on my shoulder and I tumble into him. We totter for a moment then fall onto the grass—Mason on his back and me on my side and pressed into him. We duck our heads, embarrassed and laughing.

  I peek out from under my fingers to see Kellen raising a red Solo cup as if he’s giving us a toast. Brodie does the same, followed by an “I love you, man!”

  I smile back and raise my empty hand as if I have a cup in it. “Love you—”

  But Mason pulls my hand down. He’s still laughing when he says, “You’re such a flirt.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Mason says. “Just flirt with me next time.”

  “I promise.”

  He edges up on his elbows, his face dangerously close to mine.

  My stomach is knotted up from laughing, and my lungs are working overtime to catch my breath. So when he rolls towards me and kisses my lips, a million mixed up signals course through my neurons. I’m dizzy. Breathless. Speechless. Ice-cold. On fire.

  I don’t let him stop. I reach for his face, pull him over onto me.

  Someone yells, “Get a room,” but we ignore them and keep kissing.

  Until we both start giggling. My face is burning.

  “How many creepy stalker girls are staring at us right now?” Mason whispers.

  “Um. All of them.”

  He takes a deep breath, as if to prepare himself for something. Then he stands and offers me a hand.

  I take it and he pulls me upright. I don’t let go.

  Mason motions to the cluster of people around the fire pit. “Do they look a little cozy?”

  I follow his gaze and find Eden and Challis, their heads bent together as if they were whispering. Oh my God. They have their arms around each other. That’s new.

  “I don’t trust them. They’re up to something,” Mason says.

  “They’re fine,” I say as they pivot and then walk toward us.

  “Hey,” Challis says.

  Mason doesn’t respond but looks away instead.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him go shy before. “Hey, you’re here,” I say to cover for him. I had hoped she’d be here but wasn’t sure she would be.

  She shrugs. “Nice party.”

  “I have something for you,” I tell her. I pull her tassel from my pocket and hold it out.

  She stares at it then looks at me.

  “I thought you might want it, you know, someday.”

 
“You saved my tassel from the trashcan?” She takes it from my hand and looks at it.

  “Yeah.”

  “In the middle of the shittiest day of your goddamned life you pulled my graduation tassel out of a trashcan?” she repeats her question.

  “It wasn’t in the trashcan,” I say, avoiding her question because the jury’s still out on if this is the worst—or best—day of my goddamned life.

  “Can you be any more perfect?” she asks.

  Eden shakes her head. “He’s adorable. I told you.”

  “Thank you,” Challis says to me. “But this isn’t why we’re here. We came to apologize—to both of you.”

  Mason’s eyes flicker up from the grass.

  “Mason,” Eden says. “I’m so sorry about the picture. I drew it because I wanted you two to get together—wanted everything to be a fairy tale—but I didn’t mean for everyone to see it. I just wanted to show Challis and a few friends. That’s all.”

  I look over at Mason.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Fine.”

  “It’s not your fault Nick made copies and stapled them into the students’ programs,” I tell Eden for Mason’s sake. “Heck, I can’t even believe he thought of that.”

  “He got the idea from Gumshoe,” Eden says.

  I cringe.

  “Brilliant,” Mason says.

  “Apology accepted,” I say to Eden. Then I say to Mason, “We talked about this—how it wasn’t Eden’s brightest move.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Eden adds, then smiles a little. “No more fan art for real people.”

  But Mason doesn’t respond.

  And Eden’s smile fades.

  I know Mason won’t accept her apology, and I also know not to push him. Not today. I shake my head and Eden seems to understand.

  “See you,” she says. “And Challis is giving me a ride home, so you don’t have to.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  Then Challis slips a supporting arm around Eden and they walk away.

  Mason watches them go then wanders a few yards to a cooler. He rummages through the ice and chooses a can of beer for himself then asks me, “What do you want?”

  “Soda,” I say.

  We find a pair of patio chairs away from the crowd and sit. Our knees touch and a million questions bubble up in my brain. When did you know? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you know I had a crush on you? Is your dad gonna kick you out? You want to get naked? I press my lips together. I don’t ask any of them yet, but instead I say, “So, McCall?”