“Fair?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know? Like justice,” he said. “I’ll probably end up being a lawyer or an activist. I guess that’s partly why I started the GSA at our school. Like, it’s crazy that there’s no marriage equality in Ohio. It really bugs me when things aren’t . . . fair.”
“I didn’t realize you started that club!” I said, swatting him. “Nobody tells me anything! That’s so cool. I’m really proud of you.” And I was. I mean, being a gay teenager in suburban Ohio wasn’t easy; Jimmy had put up with snide remarks from stupid jerks ever since I’d known him. Oliver probably went through that, too, and then did something about it; he made a space for kids like himself, to make their lives a bit easier.
“I don’t know how you have any time for anything,” I said, “what with driving lessons, our play, the club, your school newspaper . . .”
“Actually, I quit the Herald. I realized I wouldn’t be able to do the play at the same time, and, well, it’s a lot more fun being around you guys.”
“Aww,” I said, patting his arm affectionately.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” he said suddenly. “Check out the backseat.”
I turned to see that Oliver had drawn one of the seat belts over a small bundle of newspapers. “Go on,” he said, “take one.”
I managed to pry one loose and smoothed it out on my lap—and drew a sharp breath. It was the Weeksburg High Herald, his school newspaper, and plastered all over the front page was Yours Truly. I was laughing, my hair blowing crazily in the breeze, as I completed the word OUT on the cookie tray. The headline screamed, THE RESULTS ARE IN! The article was about the school’s social-life survey; the caption read, Making out: 74% of respondents have kissed another student. Inside were five more of Oliver’s pictures from the photo shoot, with similar captions.
“They look really good,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah, you make a great cover girl,” he said with a wink.
“Oh, stop.”
“They kept delaying the article because the administration didn’t want to publish the results, but they managed to do it in the end.”
“That’s awesome,” I said. Maybe it was the golden light of dusk, but I felt that the whole world was vibrating with goodness, with promise, somehow.
We soon parked by the bluffs with a view of the lake. The sun was just over the horizon to our left, so I couldn’t see his shadowed expression in the glare.
“So. Lake Erie,” he said.
“Yup.” I nodded. “Lake Erie.” The moment hung there to be savored.
“Come on, let’s feel it,” I said, breaking the spell and launching us out of the car.
We stood in the bracing autumn wind and looked out over the dark expanse of water before us. It seemed as if the whole lake was slowly rocking back and forth with every wave.
Oliver placed his hand over mine, and I leaned against his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. Our fingers intertwined.
“Me, too,” I said. “Me, too.”
At home, I had an e-mail from Jimmy waiting for me in my inbox: Call me!!
Dutiful as always, I dialed his number. It rang four or five times before a girl’s voice answered, “Klausau!”
I was flabbergasted. “Uh, is this—did I dial—uh, Jimmy?”
“Aišku, aš nesu Jimmy.”
Wait a minute. I knew that voice. “Jeanie? Is that you?”
Silence.
“Jeanie, please give Jimmy back his phone.”
I heard fumbling, then Jimmy’s voice in the background. “Give it! Now get out!”
“Sorry,” he said, breathing heavily. “Jeanie got to my phone before I did.”
“Was she speaking some kind of . . .?”
“Yeah, she’s teaching herself Lithuanian. Don’t ask,” he said irritably. “So what’s up?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who summoned me,” I reminded him.
“Oh! Right!” he said, surprisingly chipper. “We need to talk. I was talking to Derek earlier, and he told me the most interesting thing.”
Oh, Lord. More about Derek? Really? Was he just going to act like things hadn’t been weird between us?
“And where were you, by the way?” he continued. “I called before, and your parents said you were at rehearsal. But you and I both know that’s not true.”
“Oliver got his license today, and we went for an inaugural drive to Lake Erie.”
There was a long pause. “Lake Erie?”
“Yeah. Lake Erie,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Oliver is a really interesting guy. Did you know that his mom ran out on his family when he was little? And that he actually started the gay club they’re in at Weeksburg High?”
There was another long pause.
“What? Jimmy, are you still there?”
“Look, I’m just gonna say it. Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”
Oh, man. Was Jimmy jealous of Oliver?
Ugh, it all made sense: Jimmy thought Oliver was becoming my new GBF! That explained Jimmy’s extra-frostiness when he’d walked in on me and Oliver at the snack machine. He thought I was replacing him with a cuter model. One with a driver’s license, no less.
“The drive was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. It wasn’t, like, planned.”
“Right. But planned enough to lie to your parents about it.”
“That was because I was supposed to go out with Felix.”
“Oh, really! Well! That’s news. And then you decided to go out with Oliver instead. And telling me about any of these things didn’t even cross your mind.”
“It wasn’t like that. Felix—”
“Look,” he said. “If this is how you want things to be, fine. I just thought we were better friends than that. Stupid me.”
I sighed, and thought, OH, MY GOD, HE IS SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN.
“You’re blowing things way out of proportion,” I said, annoyed that I had to humor his need for affirmation. “We are good friends. We’re best friends.”
“It’s not feeling like it.”
Oh, Lord. “Well, it should. Now. Tell me what interesting thing Derek told you earlier.”
Jimmy snorted. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”
Click.
There was that word again—fine. Clearly, it was anything but.
Something strange had happened tonight: I wasn’t sure where my loyalties were anymore. I mean, despite this stupid fight, Jimmy would always be my oldest friend. But already I felt that Oliver was perhaps becoming . . . a closer friend? Somehow I acted different when I was alone with Oliver, in a way that felt deeper, more genuine. Maybe I was growing up, and my relationship with Jimmy remained stuck in who we both used to be.
Well, whatever. I sighed heavily and flopped onto my bed.
Enough of the gay-boy dramas. I had my first real date tomorrow! Felix and I were grabbing dinner after rehearsal.
Finally.
Yowza! My first date ever!
Here’s how it went down.
Well, first of all, the dress rehearsal went on and on. Everyone (including me) was getting nervous about the upcoming opening, so we were all hyper and distracted. That, of course, meant that we kept wasting time, missing cues, and screwing up lines.
But the biggest distraction was the costumes. Calliope had done an amazing job, not surprisingly—we all looked phenomenal. I realized she had been asking about my head movement because she had added a wire armature inside the hood to lift it above my hair, like some kind of astronaut’s helmet. It looked cool, but it totally restricted my peripheral view, leaving me like a horse with blinders, so I managed to convince her to take the wire out and leave it as a normal hood. I mean, this play was going to be complicated enough without my being visually impaired.
Felix’s Wolf outfit was the most impressive. Just like in the Broadway show, he had a fake muscle-y chest—not that Felix needed that kind of enhancement, in my opinion. But he did look a lot older and hai
rier, with Wolverine-like claws, so it was a bit unnerving to have him advance toward me, snarling, in our big number together.
Look at that flesh,
Pink and plump.
Hello, little girl . . .
His Cinderella’s Prince costume, on the other hand, made him look like something out of a Disney cartoon. Swoon!
But as I said, the performance was a mess. Even reliably sunny Sister Mary Alice was reaching her limits, which in her case meant stony silences and long looks that only made you wish she would scream at you or throw things instead.
“I’m not going to raise my voice,” she’d say, all low and warbly, “but you should remember that at seven thirty on Friday evening there will be a reckoning. Will it be a triumph? Or a painful, regrettable disaster? It’s up to you.”
Her surgically precise guilt trips were in sharp contrast to Jenny’s broad reign of bossiness backstage. Poor Oliver and Jimmy bore the heaviest onslaught of commands as they scurried back and forth, putting out fires—ripped costumes here, off-kilter spotlights there, dead microphones everywhere. Jenny was running around, too, issuing endless reprimands to the cast, which inspired a staggering range of curses in response. Everyone was on edge.
Except for Kate O’Day, that is, who was an island of tranquil professionalism. She paid attention and never missed her cues, and she blatantly ignored anyone who tried whispering when we were supposed to be silent. It seemed a bit stuck-up at first, but by the end of the rehearsal she had pretty much shamed us all into some semblance of sober focus.
After sitting through Sister Mary Alice’s and Mrs. Murray’s scathing notes, we were finally released. It was late, about ten o’clock, so everyone left right away. Luckily, my parents understood that the rehearsal was bound to run really late, so I didn’t have to worry about curfew. Oliver had offered me a ride with him and Derek earlier, but, without thinking, I’d told him I was going to grab a late dinner with Felix.
“Oh?” he replied, clearly taken aback.
“It’s not . . . like . . . ,” I said, flailing for words. I should have told him about Felix by now, I realized.
“It’s OK. You don’t have to—I mean, it’s fine,” he said, giving me a quick smile before walking off to meet Derek.
Felix had texted Matt (remember him? The spiky-blond jock from the audition?) to pick us up, so we ended up standing in the parking lot to wait. It was getting cold already, so there were no fireflies or droning crickets to give any indications of life in the landscape. Only one fluorescent lamp fixture unsteadily pooled light on the asphalt around us, with just the inky void beyond. Watching the tiny red dots of car taillights recede into the darkness, I momentarily regretted having not taken Oliver up on the offer of a ride. I was tired, and it would have been nice just to get into his cozy car with him, like yesterday. With him and Derek, I mean.
Felix sat down on the ground and patted the curb.
OK, this was a pretty attractive option, too.
I plopped down. His arm snaked over my shoulders, and I worried that he could feel my heart banging against my rib cage. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, opening my eyes to gaze at the starlit sky above.
“Pretty intense day, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, searching for something more to say but coming up short.
“Sorry about last night. My grandmother wasn’t doing so great, so I couldn’t really get away.”
I thought about the old woman at the mall and how she clearly had health issues. And to think I was being such a jerk about not hearing from him all day yesterday, while he had something way more important to focus on.
“No need to explain,” I said, chastened. “It’s OK.”
So, instead, we kissed. And kissed. Eventually a black Camaro roared into the parking lot and swerved to a screeching halt, its tires drawing parentheses on the asphalt.
Felix whooped and sprang up. The doors on either side of the car opened, and Matt and a girl with frizzy black hair and a glitzy miniskirt stepped out.
“Hi, I’m Brianna,” she said, giving me a once-over. “You must be Mary.”
“Martha,” I corrected her.
“Oh, right, sorry,” she said, in no way apologetically.
“Dude, let’s roll. I’m starvin’,” Matt said. I climbed into the back with Felix, where the seats were apparently designed for small monkeys, not humans. An empty soda cup crushed against my foot as Brianna ratcheted her seat into me.
“You got enough room back there?” she asked.
“Yep, all set,” I said, wondering whether the fact that I couldn’t move an inch in any direction would actually help me in an accident or mean certain death.
Felix didn’t have it any better, but it was nice to be able to just hold hands for once—a welcome distraction from Matt’s NASCAR-inspired driving style. Eventually he pulled into the Friendly’s off I-71, just north of Weeksburg. We went inside, grabbed a booth, and ordered some properly greasy food. Actually, I ordered greasy food first, and Matt joined me, and then Felix and Brianna ordered sensible salads. (Dating lesson learned.)
So it turned out that Brianna didn’t really know the guys that well; she was going out with Matt for the first time.
“So what school do you go to?” I asked.
“Holy Name,” she replied, delicately spearing a cucumber slice with her fork.
“Oh, so do you know Felix’s sister? What’s her name again?” I asked, turning to Felix.
“Jill. Jill Peroni,” he said. “She’s a senior. Do you know her?”
Brianna thought for a moment but then shook her head and shrugged. “Peroni? I know some Jills but no Peronis. I don’t know that many seniors, really, but I’ve probably met her at some point.”
“So how did you meet Matt?” Felix asked her.
Brianna went into this long, complicated story involving mixed-up movie tickets at the mall, with Matt grunting his agreement occasionally as he ate. Felix’s eyelids fluttered and started to droop, and he yawned widely, arching his back and stretching his elbows up in the air. His shirt lifted, and I caught a glimpse of his stomach, lean and toned. Damn, he was good-looking.
Brianna had moved on to another story, this time involving something that had happened to her friend Shawna’s brother. I was trying to focus, but Felix’s sleepiness proved totally contagious. It didn’t help that the restaurant was about a billion degrees hot. Felix caught my eye and winked in sympathy, then patted my knee under the table. I drained the last of my Coke, hoping the caffeine and sugar would get me through Brianna’s next topic: how her neighbor’s dog farted all the time.
Felix’s hand remained on my leg.
“. . . and then I said to her, ‘Who the hell do you think you are, bumping me with your baby carriage?’” Brianna droned on, and Felix shifted in his seat. As he did so, his hand slid farther up my thigh.
His hand suddenly seemed a lot less charming. I felt the room wobble oppressively.
“. . . the whole thing was totally ridiculous. I mean, what the hell makes her so special? I was, like, this close to . . .”
I was frozen in place. I mean, what was I supposed to do? What, exactly, was Felix up to—I mean, we were in the middle of freakin’ Friendly’s, for God’s sake!
His hand crept farther, almost to my crotch, and a wave of nausea washed over me.
The waitress walked by, and I shot out of the booth, following her.
“Where are the restrooms?”
I pushed open the door and practically collapsed, grabbing onto the sink for support. I splashed my face with cold water, then stared hard at my unsteady reflection, trying to get control of myself. I was breathing really hard, but somehow I couldn’t get enough air. What had just happened? Why was I reacting this way? How had I gone from making out with Felix and being, like, “look at his abs” to suddenly feeling so . . . violated?
All I wanted to do now was go home. Just go home and curl up in bed. Be anywhere but here.
There is one very big drawback to being a really good, up-standing person: No one ever wants to disappoint you. I know that sounds like a good thing at first—I mean, Sister Mary Alice used that impulse to great effect in the musical, getting us all to work hard and do our best. But sometimes you need people who understand you. Obviously not my parents, who thought I was at rehearsal, anyway. I didn’t call Jimmy—I didn’t even know where we stood anymore. And I didn’t call Xiang. (Of course, what could Jimmy or Xiang have even done—asked their parents to come pick me up from Friendly’s? But, whatever, I’m trying to make a point here.)
And I didn’t call Oliver, either. Now, don’t get me wrong: It’s not that I thought he would have been all judgmental. And in my head, I knew that there wasn’t anything to be ashamed about. But I still felt that way, like somehow I had totally gotten myself into this situation with Felix, and that I’m such an immature weirdo for not knowing how to deal with it gracefully. I mean, I was sure that someone else—anyone else—would have known what to do. Hell, probably anybody else would have welcomed Felix’s advances and matched them. What was wrong with me, that I was having such a strong, basically physical reaction to something that, really, was no big deal? Why couldn’t my brain stop my heart from racing or my palms from sweating?
I called Kirby. Somehow I just knew that he would understand. That he wouldn’t ask questions. That when I asked him to pick me up, he’d hear what I was really saying. That he’d come, and he’d find a way to get me the hell out of there.
And that’s exactly what he did.
I went back to the booth, where Matt and Brianna were flicking fries at each other and snorting with laughter.
Felix fixed me with a questioning stare. “So, are you feeling OK?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, I guess,” I said, fumbling for a convincing explanation for my long absence and coming up short. “I kind of have a headache. It’s been such a long day.” (When in doubt, try a cliché!)
He patted the booth next to him, and I slunk into a seated position. He put his arm around me, and I’m sure he meant it to be sympathetic and protective, but it only made me feel trapped.
Beyond Clueless Page 15