by Troy Storm
“Hey, bud,” Stephen noticed the intent, surprised look on the young man’s face. “you haven’t misplaced the file have you? Bet you’ve got more back-ups than…”
Andy looked up at the older man, eyes wide, jaw slack. Full shock mode. He gulped air, but no words came. His head jerked to stare at the young coach, and then back to Stephen.
“Andy?” Stephen said, quietly, moving to his side as the others continued chattering.
The young man snapped his laptop closed.
Stephen pressed the release, opened the computer and waited for the electronic page to reconstitute itself. He read what was on the screen.
The girls caught sight of Andy’s look. Following their gasps, the others quieted and waited for Stephen to speak.
“The coach and I have been accused of homosexual activity as a result of incontrovertible evidence by a respected school staff member. Members of the school board had an impromptu special meeting this afternoon and Coach Parks will be asked to resign his position. Mr. Bartholomew has threatened resignation if the request is put through.” He took a moment to catch his breath and continued reading from the screen. “In light of such public immoral activity, it would be inappropriate to present Coach Parks’ suggestions regarding the teaching of responsibility to the school’s young men and women and therefore the consideration of such a lesson plan will be immediately tabled. Bartholomew and two other board members dissenting. ”
Chapter Ten
Stephen stared out the sliding glass doors of the den. Behind him, Syble sat on the couch, her face grim; Chad on the floor next to her, his head in her lap, still angry.
It was a nice backyard. Nice ‘vista,’ as Syble playfully called it. They had worked hard on designing it, putting in the planting beds, attending them, getting a decent carpet of grass, lugging the stones they had piled around the little pond.
The fountain was turned off, the surface of the water still…waiting. Just like the three of them. Waiting to see what would happen next.
How could it have all fallen apart so quickly?
Chad’s coming into their lives could have been a disaster, should have been a disaster, but Syble’s insistence that he and Chad become friends had been a godsend. They were now three.
Stephen eyes stung, startling him. His jaw firmed. Now was no time to get sentimental. No matter what happened—and something was very obviously going to happen, and soon—their lives would be different. Already were different. Would be more different.
So?
They would deal with whatever came their way, he insisted to himself stoically.
He and Syble had made it through some tough times; now the three of them would make an even stronger team, facing whatever they had to face.
Still, his practical sense was annoyed, infuriated, by having yet another new life imposed on them, as opposed to being able to make the choice themselves.
They would make the choice. On that he was firm. He and Syble had governed their own destiny up to this point, they had made their own decisions, some screwy, sure, but they had lived with the compromises.
Now, with Chad, there would be no more compromises. The three of them were meant to be together. And they would be together even if it meant leaving the home they had built—with the meltdown at work he had been prepared to lose it anyway—and starting over somewhere else. Chad had said as much, he was ready to go. He would miss the kids, especially since he seemed to have finally figured out how to begin to communicate with them, but he wasn’t about to give up what he had found with Syble and Stephen. He was unshakeable.
So…they just had to figure out the specifics.
One last glance at the ‘vista,’ and Stephen turned to face the other two-thirds of his new life.
“Okay, gang, we gotta talk. It’s decision time.”
* * * *
Syble thought the members of the school board looked about as bad as she felt—exhausted, upset, and grim.
She could empathize, but she couldn’t sympathize. Many on the board were friends from long standing who had always seemed pleased with her as the town librarian, but they now represented a group who, perhaps through no fault of their own but because of some vague thing called morals, now threatened to turn her and Stephen and Chad’s life upside down.
She felt sick about how the work on the sex lesson plan would go down the drain. That because of community standards, teenagers in the high school might not get the information to help them make informed, responsible decisions about their blossoming sex lives.
She wondered if the three of them had made the right decisions—decisions they would soon be informing the town board. They were responsible adults and whether they liked it or not were, in their present positions, role models to the teenagers. How they handled themselves might make a difference in a young life. An enormous responsibility that none of them took lightly.
Syble glanced around. Stephen and Chad flanked her in the school conference room. Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Lopez had insisted on being present to support whatever Syble and the men felt was best. They glared at their school board friends across the large conference table. Andy was disgusted, slumped in his chair, raking the board members from under frowning eyebrows, his ever-present laptop clutched to his chest.
Meredith and Francine had begged off. They couldn’t think about their beloved, handsome assistant coach being fired without breaking into tears, no matter what awful things were being said by that terrible Coach Branfield. Not that being gay was that awful. Some of their best friends in school at least thought they might be gay.
Everybody was sick about it, they reported, the whole school. The teams were furious at the senior coach, and every single one of them had threatened to walk out of the athletic programs until Chad held an off-campus meeting at the town park and implored them to keep going. Their friendship with their teammates, the positive attitude their bonehead Assistant Coach Parks had finally learned to instill in them, he insisted, were precious memories they would carry with them all their lives.
And, the assistant coach had further pleaded, don’t be so hard on Coach Branfield. Though he was wrong, he wasn’t entirely wrong. His version of friendship between guys might be different from that of Chad and Stephen’s, just as Chad’s version was probably a lot different from that of the current crop of teenagers. But in all fairness, the coach was sincere in his belief and at least he spoke his mind openly. To be honest about one’s feelings was the beginning of learning how to deal with differences, he told the kids.
And, boy, was that a loaded observation, Syble had thought wryly as she and Stephen stood next to Chad in the band gazebo as he implored the team members to hang in there. The students cheered, took a vote, and decided to stay on the teams and finish the season.
Which seemed to annoy some of the parents, who felt the administration was losing control of the students. They urged the school board to quickly get the assistant coach out of there so they could get on with their lives, and the plans for the upcoming senior prom.
It was even rumored that Syble might be asked to resign her job as the town librarian. Charged and jury-less convicted of…most people didn’t want to even guess what her involvement with the two men might be.
At that point, Andy went ballistic and threatened to bring down the entire school district’s computerized information system. Stephen was able to rein him in by getting the board to agree to a final, private hearing where all accused parties could present their cases. Even if nobody had formally been accused of anything…yet.
And, now, that confrontation was taking place.
Syble asked to make an opening statement to the assembled parties, which Matt Bartholomew challenged, saying the board’s jurisdiction only covered the assistant coach, no matter what rumors of illicit behavior might be circulating.
“Syble, don’t dig yourself in deeper,” Bartholomew pleaded.
Insisting that her husband and the coach’s friendship—the nature
of which was the subject of the current controversy—was begun at her insistence, Syble felt she should at least be allowed to speak.
“We are not concerned with whatever you might have instigated, Mrs. Thornton,” one of the board members said, primly. “We are concerned with the apparent result.”
“Is that kinda like you don’t care how we do whatever it is you want us to do…just so long as we win?” Andy muttered.
After a bit of confusion, sorting out the young man’s butchered syntax and implication, Andy was asked to leave.
“He represents the student body,” Stephen informed them, dryly. “If Andy leaves, this meeting will become invalid since its purpose was voted on and approved by a majority of the board members, as you all explained to us very carefully. His presence as the representative of the students was specifically requested.”
The young man heaved his heavy frame from his chair—he was getting more in shape, Syble noted, but was not quite there yet—and slapped his open laptop in front of Mr. Bartholomew.
“You better read that,” he said, his tone flat. “All of you. Before Mrs. Thornton makes her statement about what they’re planning to do, or doing, the three of them.”
Oh, dear, his insolent attitude was really a turn-off. “Andy…” Syble implored.
“It’s okay, Miz Thornton,” he said. “I promised not to bring down the system, but I didn’t promise anything else.”
As he quickly scanned the computer screen, Matt Bartholomew’s face went from concentration to stunned surprise, to red-faced anger, quickly giving way to pale fear, and finally ending full circle with intense concentration on the obviously shocking text before him. The other board members pushed in to see as he vainly tried to prevent their reading what Andy had posted.
“They don’t know, yet,” Andy announced, indicating Syble and her puzzled group facing the board. “Only me. But all I gotta do is turn the laptop around and let them read it. I know a lotta that stuff is just talk, but that stuff about Mr. Thornton and the coach is just talk, too. An’ frankly, I and none of us kids give a shit what they do or don’t do in the coaches’ shower room. They’re grown-ups, right? An’ for that matter we don’t care whether any of that stuff on the computer is true or not. It’s going around town. And some of it’s been going around for years. Who’s sleeping with who. Who’s not getting any. Who’s mad at who. Who’s got a stick up their ass about somebody’s stupid lawn! Maybe it’s all made up. Who cares? Once it goes out on the Internet, you all can go fight among yourself and leave us kids alone. That’s what you want to do anyway. That’s what you’ve been doing. Lettin’ us try to figure it out for ourselves. And then tellin’ us we got it all wrong. Does that mean when we get to be grown-up you’re still gonna be telling us what we can and can’t do?”
He paused, expecting a reprimand. None was forthcoming, except a horrified Andy, what have you done? look from Syble. The board members glanced nervously from one to the other, obviously more concerned with what they had just read on Andy’s computer.
“I may be curious about stuff like that, that stuff on the computer,” Andy continued, a sly smirk playing around his tense lips for a instant, “just ’cause I’m nosy, but I’m not any more curious than I am about how the kids got away with screwing on that hayride. An’ I’m even more curious about how when the girls got knocked up suddenly everybody’s treating them like they’re whores or something.”
His narrowed gaze raked up and down the line of eight silent board members, some still angry, other fearful, a few chastened. “But it makes me mad, and if I’m supposed to represent the student body it makes us all mad when somebody keeps us from knowing stuff that might help us. It’s tough being a teenager. Especially about that sex stuff. We need all the help we can get, and Coach Parks was somebody who was helping us.”
He turned to Chad. “He wasn't always like that, he used to really suck, but he learned and now the teams think he’s great and they don’t want to lose him. We're not going to lose him.” He snatched his laptop back. “I don’t care what you do with old Branfield. I got stuff on him, too.”
“Andy!” Syble choked out, “You’re not threatening them with…with…whatever you might have…rumors? Oh, Andy, that’s not our way.”
“Maybe not, Miz Thornton, but they threatened and I threatened back. Not Mr. Bartholomew. He’s, like, at least trying to see our side. Now maybe the rest of them know what it feels like. Teenagers gossip about each other and a lotta kids get hurt. Where do you think we learned how to bully? We don’t need grown-ups acting just as stupid as kids. ’Specially you grown-ups.” He glared at the board members. “You’re supposed to be the smart ones.”
Matt Bartholomew held up a weak hand. “Andy,” he said, quietly, his mind obviously in turmoil, “once again you’ve shoved our noses in it and, once again, made us aware of how we may be…of how we are failing our young men and women.” He turned wearily to the rest of the assembled group. “Can we all just back off for a while? Give ourselves a few days to think very deeply about what we’ve done—and not done? Perhaps we can come to a more reasoned position.”
He continued, “Don’t be angry at Andy, Syble. It’s not about the rumors and the speculations concerning the board members that he’s threatened to bring to light. Unfortunately, it took a threat to bring us to our senses. I’m angered, of course, by being faced with coercion, but at the same time, forced to recognize that's the attitude we seem to have instilled in our kids.” He looked at the young man, sadly. “Win…no matter how.”
Andy shrugged. “Well, maybe I’ve got some stuff to unlearn, too.”
The meeting was adjourned.
“Still,” Andy whispered to Syble as they all filed out of the conference room. “It’s nice to kick butt, sometimes.”
Syble whispered back, “I don’t know whether to spank you or thank you.”
The young man wearily gave his trademark shrug. “I probably deserve both.”
Mrs. Lopez hurried up. “Andy, you got nothing about me on that computer, have you?”
“No, ma’am.”
She gave a huge sigh of relief before she hurried out with Mrs. Abernathy. “I been awfully friendly with the butcher lately. I better watch that.”
* * * *
Two weeks later the little fountain in the ‘vista’ backyard was bubbling happily away as Syble, Stephen, and Chad re-entered the den having said goodbye to their last-departing guests.
Syble paused behind the sofa, her fingers pressed to her lips, getting hold of her emotions. “It looks like we just had a very happy gathering in our still-with-us home.” She gave a deep sigh of contentment and let her eyes fill to spill quietly down her cheeks.
“Thanks to Coach Banks, here,” Stephen said, joining her. He reached over to knuckle Chad on his fresh crewcut as the grinning young man completed the trio on Syble’s other side. “Since we had the economic good sense to ask him to join us in our palatial mansion to help pay the mortgage.”
“We are now a one-bedroom, two giant closets family.” Chad reached behind Syble to give Stephen a retaliatory knock on the head. “Mrs. Abernathy was green with envy. An entire bedroom for a closet,” he trilled. “I may have to sit down.” He fanned himself extravagantly with his hand.
“She sat the entire time,” Syble noted, dryly.
“Mr. Abernathy certainly does mix a wicked dry martini,” Stephen added, by way of explanation. “And his loving wife certainly does appreciate them. Whereas, Mr. Lopez can whip up a great batch of mini-pizzas. A man after my own stomach.”
“It was lovely of them all to come to the ceremony. I was afraid it might embarrass them. And then when Andy and the girls all wanted to come…”
“And bring their parents,” Stephen added, eyebrows up. “Well, whoa, it wasn’t a quiet little commitment gathering any longer.”
Chad dropped his head. “You didn’t have to do it, you guys,” he mumbled. “Just for me.”
“He says fo
r the two thousandth time.” Syble lifted his face and gave him a kiss.
“Ten years is pretty good for a marriage in this day and age,” Stephen gently boxed the young man’s chin. “And since the state hasn’t seen fit to recognize what we are now in, it seemed the decent thing to do—dissolve one and commit to the other. And your vows were great, buddy. Thanks for all the sweet somethings.” He turned Syble’s head to give her a kiss. “Pass it on.”
“Pass it on yourself, you big softy,” she said, stepping back. “And your vows weren’t so bad, either, for a hard-headed businessman.” She smiled as the two men sealed their commitment and then added her own lips to theirs, clumsily, breaking everyone up. “We gotta work on that three-on-one thing.”
“Yeah! Work it is.” Chad pumped a fist in the air and headed for the bedroom, stripping off his polo shirt as he went, beckoning Syble and Stephen.
They all cheered.
“Work on it!”
Together.
*THE END*
About the Author
Troy Storm has been making up stories all his life. He just now writes them down and shares them. He lives on the upper west side of Manhattan. You can follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/troy.storm.184 . His blog is at www.troystormwriter.blogspot.com.
Secret Cravings Publishing
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