Way to Go

by Tom Ryan

  “I guess they’re right about you and me having more in common than we think,” I said.

  He laughed. “I guess so.”

  We didn’t say anything for a minute.

  “Danny, I’m not going to lie to you,” he said, finally. “I don’t like this cooking school thing one bit.”

  I groaned and turned toward the wall.

  “Hang on!” he said. “Hear me out.”

  I flipped back over and looked at him warily.

  “I still think,” he went on, “that university is the way to go, especially if you want to have a good solid foundation and lots of opportunities.”

  “Yeah, Dad, I know. You’ve said that a million times.”

  He held out his hand to shut me up. “Just let me finish. Anyway, I looked through that brochure you gave us, and as far as I can tell, it seems like, if you have to go to cooking school, this Atwater place is the one to go to. Am I right?”

  “Yeah. JP says it’s the best one in the country.”

  “It looks like it might be tough to get in. Think you can do it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think I’d have a pretty good shot. JP’s been teaching me a lot. I’d like to try.”

  “Well, like I said, I’m not thrilled about the idea, but your mother and I had a talk, and she made the very reasonable point that if this cooking thing doesn’t pan out, you can always go back to university later on.”

  “That’s true,” I said. I knew that wouldn’t happen, but I figured if it made him feel good, it didn’t hurt to let him think it.

  “I just have one condition,” he said. “I want you to apply to a couple of universities too. Just to keep your options open. Sound like a deal?”

  I didn’t need to think about it. I reached over and gave him a firm handshake.

  “Deal,” I said.

  “Atta boy.”

  THE TOURIST SEASON was over, and JP was preparing to go back to Montreal. Denise was going to stick around Deep Cove for the winter, but planned to close the Sandbar down until the following summer.

  After our last shift, Lisa, Maisie, Denise and I sat around in the kitchen as JP prepared one last meal for us.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you next year, JP,” said Denise.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I’m open to offers. I just have three conditions. Number one, you give me a raise. Number two, Danny comes back to be my sous chef again. If he’s going to go to cooking school, there’s a lot more I need to teach him first. Number three, you fill up my wineglass, pronto.”

  We all laughed, and Denise reached for the bottle.

  “I totally want to come back and work for you next year, Denise,” said Maisie. “This has been the best summer job ever!”

  “Me too,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “I can’t tell you how awesome that is, guys,” said Denise.

  “What about you, Lisa?” asked Maisie. “Are you going to come back and spend next summer in Deep Cove?”

  Lisa looked a little bit sad. “Probably not,” she said. “My aunt is selling her place so that she can move back to New York and be closer to my mom. That’s great and all, but I doubt I’ll be back. It’s okay though,” she said, her face brightening. “My friend Naomi and I are planning on backpacking around India next summer.”

  “I want to make a toast!” said JP. “To a group of wonderful young people, and their beautiful futures.” His eyes started to fill with tears.

  “Oh boy, here we go,” said Denise. “The old French bastard has had too much wine again.”

  “Be quiet, you evil woman,” he said, standing up and holding out his glass. “To good food, good friends and the promise of youth. What more does one need in life?”

  “Cheers!” we all yelled, clinking glasses.

  After supper, Lisa offered me a ride. “Last one of the summer,” she said.

  As I was grabbing my coat, JP asked me to come back into the kitchen with him. “I have a little something for you,” he said. One at a time, he picked up the knives that I’d been using all summer, and wrapped them up in their old stained cloth.

  “These are for you,” he said, passing the bundle to me. “Use them until you can afford a newer set. I can’t wait to taste what you do with them. You’ve been a great sous chef, my friend. I’m very proud of you.” He patted me on the back.

  I looked down at the knives and felt my eyes start to itch. When he’d first given them to me, weeks earlier, they’d seemed like a crappy secondhand set. Now that I’d learned so much with them, I could understand what they must have meant to JP. He’d obviously carried them around with him for years for a reason, and now he was passing them on to me. It was hard to believe that anyone could have that much faith in me. I hoped I could live up to it.

  Before taking me home, Lisa drove down to our usual place at the beach so she could have her nightly cigarette.

  “It’s been a pretty crazy summer,” she said.

  “You can say that again.”

  “So I was thinking. You should come stay with me in New York for a week sometime this year.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “I’m serious, Danny. Come visit me. I’ll show you the city! You can meet my friends!”

  I didn’t answer, and she let it drop. We both knew it wouldn’t happen.

  Neither of us said anything for a while. I wondered if I would ever see Lisa again. Or even think about her in ten years. Or Kierce. Even Jay, for that matter. Deep Cove was now. Who knew what would happen next?

  As if she could read my mind, Lisa said, “You know what? In a month or two, you might not remember me. None of you.”

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it didn’t matter either way.

  “Oh, hey!” she said, “Speaking of that, I almost forgot, I have something for you!” she grabbed her bag from the backseat and dug around for a second, then pulled something out, hiding it from me behind her back.

  “I made this for you because I don’t want you to forget me.” She thrust something at me.

  It was a mix tape like the ones she and her friends exchanged, but this one had been made specifically for me. I opened it up and unfolded the paper cover inside the case. I could tell she’d spent a lot of time making it. An elaborate patchwork of images included a magazine cutout of the I Heart NYC logo next to a small paper map of Cape Breton Island. She’d cut the Sandbar sign out of a photograph of the restaurant, and it was glued next to a picture of a Model T Ford with “Old Bessie” written overtop in curlicued letters. In the middle of it all, carefully written in big block letters intertwined with tiny little vines and flowers, it said, For Danny, With Love, From His New Best Friend—XOXOXO Lisa—Summer ’94

  “Wow.” It was only a mix tape, but it felt like the best gift anyone had ever given me.

  “Look!” She grabbed the paper and flipped it over. On the reverse, she’d written down all the songs and musicians, and she’d named each side. Side A was Learn to Dance, and Side B was Learn to Cook.

  “Some of these are songs that we’ve already listened to, but most of them I don’t think you know yet. So the first side is songs that are good for dancing, obviously, and the other side is full of songs from JP’s collection. He helped me pick some of them out!”

  “I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Seriously.”

  She clapped her hands again. “I’m so happy you like it! Let’s put it on!”

  She grabbed the tape and shoved it into the stereo, and the air filled up with horns and drums.

  Baby, everything is all right, uptight, out of sight.

  “Stevie!” I yelled.

  She smiled and nodded. “You got it!”

  She jumped out of the car and ran around to my side. “Come on!” she yelled, pulling me out of the car.

  And then, under the late summer sky, we danced as if neither of us had a care in the world.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Things are going to chan
ge. Big-time. Just wait and see. By the end of this year, you won’t even recognize me.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “Danny, everyone knows that ninth grade is when a girl blossoms into a young lady, full of spirit and vitality.”

  It was Labor Day, the last day of summer vacation. In anticipation of her first year in high school, Alma had been driving us all crazy by incessantly humming “To Sir, With Love,” for almost a week. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Mr. Blanchette, her new homeroom teacher, was less like Sidney Poitier and more like Joe Pesci.

  I watched as she carefully stirred milk into a bowl of crumbled flour and butter. “You know,” she said, “this is going to be a big year for you too, big brother. One last year of tying up loose ends before hitting the big wide world, just like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.

  “Careful,” I said, “don’t overmix it.” I helped her dump the dough onto the floured counter, and showed her how to knead it lightly with the palms of her hands.

  “I thought the whole thing about It’s a Wonderful Life is that he never manages to get out of the town,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m still kind of hoping that you decide to stick around.”

  “Wow, Alma, I’m touched.”

  “It’s mainly selfish,” she said. “I’m not sure if I can survive three years of Mom’s food. Why do you think I asked you to teach me how to cook?”

  We cut the dough into rounds and popped the biscuits into the oven. The phone rang, and I brushed off my hands on my apron and answered it. It was Jay.

  “Kierce asked me to call you,” he said. “He wants us to meet him at the Spot.”

  “Are you kidding me? I thought I’d be the last person he’d want to see.”

  “Yeah, me too, but he’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I was still feeling a bit sore from the fight. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Maybe he’ll try to kick my ass or something.”

  “Give me a break. Come on, Dan. He’s leaving for good. It’ll be fine. Clear the air a little bit.”

  I didn’t know if I even cared if the air was clear, but I agreed to go with him.

  Kierce was sitting under the bridge when we got there. I was secretly pleased to see that he had a major shiner and a fat lip. He laughed when he saw me.

  “Man, I guess it was a pretty fair fight, hey, Dan?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I still felt a little bit weird about being there.

  “Relax, man,” he said. “It was just a fight.”

  “Am I going to have to break you guys up again?” said Jay.

  “No, it’s cool,” I said. “We’re cool.”

  “That’s my man!” said Kierce, reaching out and giving me a slap on the back.

  “So you’re really leaving, hey?” asked Jay.

  “Yep. Looks that way,” said Kierce. “Tomorrow morning. What a pain in the ass.” He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.

  “Shit, I don’t know. Everything went to hell when I freaked out at you guys outside the restaurant,” he said. “I was so pissed off at my parents, and then I thought I’d at least be able to hang out with you guys for my last few weeks. I guess I screwed that up pretty bad.”

  “It wasn’t like we were trying to keep anything a secret, Kierce,” I said. “I tried to get Lisa to tell you.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was just being stupid. She was pretty clear the whole thing with me and her didn’t mean anything to her. I was just too stubborn to believe it. Anyway, I’m sorry I blamed you guys. It was totally stupid of me. I guess I just felt like the whole world was against me.”

  “S’okay,” I said.

  “The worst part is, I really did like her, a lot,” he said. “I never felt that way about a girl before. I probably overdid it with the love talk, but I was into her big-time.”

  He looked genuinely sad, and I found myself feeling really bad for the guy. Kierce might have talked a big game, but when you got down to it, he had his own hang-ups just like the rest of us.

  “So what happens now?” asked Jay.

  “We’re going to live with my jerk-ass grandparents for a while until my mom can find us a place of our own.”

  “That sucks,” I said. I meant it. I didn’t know what I’d do if I had to finish high school somewhere other than Deep Cove.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “The high school looks pretty cool. They have a football team, and there’s a lot more shit to do there. Malls, movie theaters, paintball. We’ll be pretty close to Toronto too. Think of all the girls! You guys will totally have to come visit me!”

  “Sounds good, man,” said Jay. I nodded. I figured I was as likely to visit Kierce in Ontario as I was to visit Lisa in New York.

  “Danny, man, I totally underestimated you,” said Kierce. “If I’d known you could throw a haymaker like that, I never would have thought you were queer. I guarantee you, after that fight, you’ll have girls hanging off you. Rule One Hundred and Six: Girls love a tough guy.”

  I laughed. “So I’m a tough guy now, huh?” Kierce got so much wrong sometimes that it wasn’t even worth arguing with him. He could go on assuming that only straight guys got in fights, and that gay guys never fell for girls. If life was that simple for him, I wasn’t going to be able to teach him very much.

  “Well, guys,” Kierce said, “I’d better get home. My mom will be freaking out about packing. She wants to be on the road super early tomorrow. Gross.”

  We walked with him to where he’d parked his van.

  “You guys want a lift?” he asked.

  “Nah, I think I’ll go hang out at Jay’s place for a while,” I said.

  “Well, boys, it’s been a slice,” he said. “I’m gonna miss you guys, in a totally non-gay way.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Always remember Rule Four: Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

  He gave us both brief dude hugs and then jumped in his van and pulled away, spinning his tires. He gave a quick honk of his horn before disappearing around the corner.

  “What a guy, hey?” asked Jay.

  “Yeah.”

  “This year’s gonna be pretty different,” he said. “Kierce is gone. You and I won’t be in the same grade.”

  “Different’s okay,” I said. He nodded.

  I was glad I’d come to say goodbye to Kierce. He could be a real dick, and who knows how he’d react if he ever found out that I really was gay, but I knew I’d never meet anyone like him again. You could say a lot of things about the guy, but he never pretended to be anything he wasn’t. Maybe that was one thing he’d taught me, even if he’d never actually come out and said it.

  “So I’ve been thinking about seeing if Maisie wants to do something with me,” Jay said as we were walking to his place. “You know, like a date, or whatever.”

  I laughed. “A date? You gonna take her to the Spot?”

  “Seriously, man, do you think it’s a good idea?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know for sure, but I think you should give it a shot.” I hoped she went for it. I had a feeling they’d be good for each other.

  We walked along in silence for a few minutes, and then Jay stopped abruptly and turned to me.

  “So—are you?” he asked.

  “Am I what?” I asked. My heart started pounding furiously in my chest, and I felt my throat go dry.

  “You know. Are you—gay?”

  I looked at him, and for a few moments I didn’t say anything as a million things rushed through my mind at once. I thought about fighting with Kierce, about being enthralled by Lisa, about falling in love with cooking and realizing what I wanted to do with my life. I thought about me and Jay as kids, racing our bikes up and down the hill by his house. I thought about us sneaking beer to the Spot for the first time, and about slowly starting to think about life outside Deep Cove. I thought abo
ut all the secrets I’d kept and the lies I’d told to myself and everyone else for so long.

  “Yeah,” I said finally. “I am.”

  He thought about that for a moment.

  “You know what, Dan? I’m totally cool with that. Way to go, buddy.”

  I took one look at his big dumb smile and knew without a doubt that he meant it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  In Deep Cove, it doesn’t take long for summer to dissolve into memory.

  September rolls around, the water gets colder by the day, and the wind pushes endless billows of gray and purple clouds across the sky. Heavy frothing waves churn up onto the newly deserted beach, and shorts and flip-flops are replaced with jeans and sweaters. Tourists and summer residents disappear, and town slows down a little as the people who are left behind take a deep breath and prepare to get back to the real world.

  I reluctantly traded knives and cutting boards for pencils and paper and got back to the grind, waking up early and catching the school bus, pushing through homework, worrying about grades. Within a few days of school starting up again, it felt like I’d never left.

  But I missed the Sandbar. Every math equation I struggled through or short story I analyzed just made me wish I was back in the kitchen, melting chocolate for ganache, or watching JP whip up a new seafood sauce.

  Jay had asked Maisie out on a romantic picnic, of all things. I’d gone over to his house and showed him how to make fried chicken. We’d even baked a pie. Now the two of them were officially a couple. They were crazy about each other, and not only had Jay made a major effort to quit smoking, but he’d also allowed Maisie to start tutoring him so he could take a couple of correspondence courses and still graduate with us in June. He had plans to go to the local community college and take a landscaping program.

  Being honest about myself with Maisie and Jay made me feel a lot less lonely, and better about life in general. I didn’t feel as crazy anymore, and as Maisie put it, if you took Ferris and his buddies seriously, you might as well expect to feel shitty about life. Jay seemed to think that my family would be cool with it when I got around to telling them. I figured he was right, at least about my mom. Dad would need some time to get used to things, but I had a feeling that he’d come around in the same way he had about cooking school. As for Alma, I started to think that having a gay older brother might be one of the best things that ever happened to her.