The Before Now and After Then

by Pen Name Publishing

  Alex looked over at me and smiled. “And then one day he told me he couldn’t do it. He said ‘Alex, I just can’t go that far away. It won’t be any different there than it is here.’ And that was it.”

  I sat up. “And you never saw him again?”

  “If only life were that easy,” he laughed. “We saw each other all of the time. It seemed like I’d run into him almost every time I came home from school. Of course, he had already moved on and found another boyfriend. It was too much. It almost killed me.”

  We both smiled as we watched an ice cream truck drive by, its cheap music insulting Alex’s story. He looked back at me. “And that’s how I got the story for the book.”

  “I’m confused.” I said, not really sure how this related to the downward spiral of Alex’s characters in Suburban Wasteland.

  “I wrote the story about our relationship and our friends. Everything about that was true,” he paused. “But I needed a way to put it all behind, to kill off that part of myself, in a somewhat tragically romantic way. I thought if I made myself, or the main character Woody kill himself, then my ex would read it and understand how bad he had hurt me. I just wanted him to understand.” He started crying. “Do you know it’s my least favorite book I’ve ever written? I look back and think about how I trivialized all of it for my own therapy.”

  “But you helped so many people come out,” I said.

  Alex lit a cigarette. “Did I? Sometimes I think I made it worse. What would have been so bad about writing a book about two gay guys who were in love and it just didn’t work out. At least that would have been honest. Real knows real. I feel like I lied to my readers. There’s a power in being honest, at whatever cost.”

  “What happened to him? The boyfriend?” I asked.

  Alex took a drag off of his cigarette and winked, “That’s an even longer story.” He looked at his watch and told me it was time to get back to the house. “Your surprise should be waiting for you.”

  We drove back to the house and found Mom’s car parked in front with Dad’s car parked next to it. A Welcome Home sign was draped above the front door. “What’s going on?”

  Alex shrugged and acted like he was zipping his mouth shut. We got out of the car and walked inside where Mom, Dad and Rusty were sitting in the kitchen. “Welcome Home!” they said in unison.

  I laughed and looked at Rusty, confused. He stood up and walked over, giving me a hug. “You’re going to like this. Just go along with it,” he said as he handed me a red heart cut out of construction paper. I looked down at it and read the words written on it with a thick Sharpie. I’ve CONJURED up THE BREAKFAST CLUB for you!

  “It’s a scavenger hunt,” Mom said.

  “An adventure,” Dad added.

  I looked at the heart again and instantly figured it out. I walked over to the television and found another heart, taped on top, waiting for me. You made me DIVE into love! I looked at Rusty and smiled, running outside and down to the pool, with Rusty close behind me. When I reached the diving board, I found another heart. As much as I love plain cheese, it doesn’t hold a candle to you. I looked at Rusty, confused.

  “Think about it,” he said, rubbing his stomach.

  I ran back up the walk to the house and found the empty pizza box from the night before on the kitchen counter. I opened the box and found another heart. When you fall asleep at night, only think of me!

  I smiled and ran upstairs. This time, everyone followed me. I found one more heart taped to my bedroom door. Welcome Home! It said. I opened the door and at first I didn’t see it. The room was completely dark. I flicked on the light and saw a box sitting on the edge of my bed. Something was moving inside of it. I walked over and looked inside. Peering up at me was the smallest, fluffiest puppy I had ever seen. His white, black and brown fur blended together like an ice cream sundae, all coming together on top in a tiny Mohawk, making him look like no dog I had ever seen before. He yawned, sounding like he was trying to speak in a high pitched voice.

  I turned around and looked at Rusty, “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  Mom walked in and put her arm around me as I sat down on the edge of the bed, letting the little dog walk into my hand. “Rusty thought you needed a new dog and Dad and I agreed. We think it’s time.”

  Rusty kissed my cheek. “I hope you like him.”

  “I love him,” I said as I started to cry.

  “What are you going to call him?” Dad asked.

  I set him down on the bed and watched him walk around, getting his bearings. “Boo,” I said. “Boo Radley.”

  We spent the rest of the night playing with Boo. Later in the evening, Mom took me and Rusty to the store to buy him a bed, toys and some bones, although he was too small to chew most of the bones. When it was past eleven, Mom told me it was time to take Rusty home. “I think one sleepover a week is enough. And you guys had one and a half.”

  On the drive home, Rusty held Boo, letting him nibble on his finger.

  “Maybe he could be our dog,” I said.

  “Do you mean like our child?” Rusty laughed.

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “I want him to be yours. You deserve to have something that’s your own.” Rusty said, slowly petting Boo.

  I smiled, but somehow it hurt a little bit.

  When we got to Rusty’s house, he showed Boo to his Mom and Carlos. In choppy English, his mom told me to thank Mom for talking to the school. ”I don’t understand why Rusty always has to fight. At every school, he always fights.” She turned to Rusty and started crying. “You promised, Rusty. You promised.”

  “I know mama,” he said and then they elapsed into a heated conversation in Spanish.

  I wondered what Mom had told her on the phone. Obviously, she hadn’t told her the whole story. Some parents aren’t ready to hear the truth of what their children have to deal with on a daily basis.

  After a few minutes, Rusty’s mom calmed down, sitting with Carlos in front of the television while he watched a cartoon in Spanish.

  “Will she be OK?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she’ll be fine. She just worries about me.”

  Rusty walked me outside and kissed me and Boo goodnight. On the way home, Boo fell asleep in my lap and I felt happier than I had felt in a long time. Pulling into the driveway, I stopped and looked at the moon over the lake. It was another halo moon. I took a picture of it and texted it to Rusty, with the message “Beware of the halo moon.”

  He texted me back seconds later. “Watch out for the doom and gloom.”

  I laughed and walked inside. Mom and Alex played with Boo while I got ready for bed and finished some homework. When I was ready for bed, I went downstairs and got Boo. He yawned, making a high-pitched squeaky noise.

  “I’m tired too little guy,” I said as I gave him a little scratch under his chin.

  Since it was Boo’s first night with us, I wanted his bed to be as close to mine as possible and decided it belonged beside me on the floor. Scanning over my room, which was slowly filling with more personal items, my eyes fell onto the Celia Cruz album Rusty had bought for me. I wanted to remember that day, that moment, the happiness he was bringing back into my life. Pulling the push pins from my drawer, I tacked the album above my bed where it could be front and center, always in view. I stood back, making sure it was straight and properly aligned, and then decided the album should be flanked by the heart clues he had left earlier. I pinned them around the album in a half circle and then stood back to take in my work. It looked perfect. I smiled and climbed into bed.

  My phone buzzed and I read the text from Rusty. “Goodnight. I love you,” he said, with an attached picture of him shirtless in bed.

  I held Boo close to me and took a picture of us both and sent it to him. “We miss you and love you too!”

  “Pick me up for school in the morning?” he typed.

  “Of course. 6:35.”

  Picking Boo up from the floor, I got into bed and
snuggled my nose into his puppy smell, falling fast asleep with his little heart beat in my hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next day at school, Cher didn’t meet me at my locker. When I got to English, she still wasn’t there. I texted her but didn’t get a response.

  I still couldn’t find her by lunchtime and it was obvious she wasn’t in school. I texted her a few more times, but she never responded.

  “What’s wrong?” Rusty asked.

  “I’m worried about Cher. She’s not here today and she’s not texting me back. Yesterday she was acting so weird.”

  “She’s probably just sick,” Rusty said, as he bit into a piece of cheese pizza.

  “Probably.” I texted her one more time, telling her if I didn’t hear from her by the end of school I was coming over to her house.

  After school, Rusty said he needed to get home to help with his sister, so I dropped him off and drove over to Cher’s house. Her mom’s car was parked out front so I got out and walked up to the door and knocked.

  At first, no one answered, but I could hear the television on inside and I knocked again. Finally, Cher came to the door, barefoot, in an old pair of men’s striped boxer shorts and an oversized flannel shirt. Her hair was a complete mess and she looked like she had just woken up. “Yes?” she said.

  “Hey. I didn’t hear from you and I was worried,”

  Cher stood by the side of the door but didn’t ask me to come inside. “I’m fine.”

  “Who is it?” Cher’s mom shouted from the other side of the door.

  Cher rolled her eyes, “Its Danny, Mom.” She walked outside and closed the door behind her. She sat down on the swing and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Are you ok?” I asked.

  “I’m dying for a cigarette,” she said, tapping her fingers on the wood of the swing.

  “Do you want me to get your cigarettes?”

  She shook her head, “I can’t smoke.”

  “I can take you somewhere if you don’t want your mom to get mad at you for smoking.”

  “I can’t smoke,” she said again, looking me dead in the eyes. I was confused. “I can’t smoke, don’t you get it?”

  But I didn’t.

  Cher grabbed her face with both of her hands and rubbed her face. “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” I asked, unsure of what I had just heard.

  “I’m pregnant!” she shouted. “Pregnant, as in with child. Fucked. Screwed!” She was sobbing, “I’m so fucked.”

  “I don’t understand.” I whispered, trying to get her to lower her voice.

  “What don’t you understand? I’m pregnant,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  “Is it Henry’s?” I asked, still in shock.

  She turned and looked at me. “What kind of slut do you think I am? Of course it’s Henry’s.” She laughed to herself, shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry too. But hey, at least you’ll get to be an uncle. We’ll call you Guncle Danny. The gay uncle”

  “So you’re going to keep it?”

  She nodded. “I’ve kind of thought I might be pregnant for the last few weeks. I’m normally late anyway, but this time I was really late. I finally told my mom yesterday and we went to the doctor and got tested. I’m already three months pregnant.”

  I didn’t know what to say. None of the words in my head sounded right. “Are you sure you want to keep it?”

  “Even if I wasn’t already three months pregnant, I still wouldn’t have an abortion. And it’s not because of some crazy religious beliefs. I just couldn’t do that. And I can’t give it up for adoption. I couldn’t live and know it was out there somewhere.” She took my hand, “Look, I don’t get good grades, so let’s be for real, it’s not like I’m going to go to college. The best I’m going to do is either run away and chase my dreams or stay here and figure it out. And I don’t want to leave my mom, so maybe this is the best thing that’s happened to me.”

  “What did your mom say?” I asked.

  “She’s actually being really cool about it. She said I could withdraw from school if I wanted, but I don’t think I want to do that,” she sighed. “I just have so many things I have to figure out.”

  “Did you tell Henry yet?”

  “No, and I’m not sure when or how I’m going to do that.” She tapped her finger on the side of the swing. “That’s one of the things I have to figure out.”

  Cher didn’t say much after that. We just sat there, swinging and watching the kids across the street trying to get cars to stop at their lemonade stand. “Doesn’t it feel like we grow up really fast? One minute we’re playing in our front yard and the next minute we’re all grown up.” She didn’t say anything after that for a long time. She just swung and stared at the kids. “Come on,” she said, taking my hand, “Let’s go get some lemonade.”

  We walked down the driveway and crossed the street, buying huge glasses of lemonade from the kids. Cher gave each kid a dollar and they told us we could have free refills. She smiled and took my hand, “Let’s just walk for a while.”

  Cher asked me about Rusty and I caught her up on everything that had happened, with the scavenger hunt and me getting Boo. She laughed, and for a moment, she seemed like the old Cher. We waved to people who were watering their lawns and people we passed on the sidewalk, and even though I hadn’t grown up her neighborhood, those streets seemed like my home that afternoon. We walked up and down the street for over an hour until I got a text from Mom asking me to come home for dinner.

  I walked her back to her house and hugged her before I left her alone on the swing.

  “Thanks for being such a good friend,” she said and I smiled thinking I hadn’t really done much at all. I waved as I drove off, watching her push herself back and forth on the swing with her bare feet.

  When I got home, Mom was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. She was dressed in a nice black blouse and skirt. “I thought we could go out to dinner, just the two of us.”

  “OK,” I said, turning to walk upstairs and get ready.

  “By the way, you missed your appointment with Neil today.”

  I turned around. “Shit! Seriously mom, I totally forgot.”

  “You meet with him every Thursday. How could you forget?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just did. I’ve never missed before.”

  Mom thought about this for a minute and then smiled and nodded. “Why don’t you go upstairs and check on Boo and get ready.”

  Upstairs, I found Boo had chewed up an entire pack of Black Jack gum that Rusty had left me the night before. After I cleaned up the mess and the wrappers, I put Boo back in his bed and told him to stay put, realizing this was ridiculous and that I needed to get him a crate. I thought about keeping him in his box but that felt mean, so I made sure there was nothing he could get into and started to get ready. I pulled out a pair of khaki pants and a blue polo, changing quickly before walking downstairs.

  Mom thought it would be fun if we tried something new and she decided on an Indian restaurant called The Treehouse that she had heard about from friends. The place had this ginormous tree trunk sprouting roots in the middle of the restaurant. We sat on cushions on the floor at a low table in the corner. I had never had Indian food before, so I let Mom order. She quickly chose samosas, chicken masala and saag paneer. We didn’t talk until the waiter brought us our water.

  “Are you doing OK?” Mom asked.

  “Yes. Are you doing OK?”

  “I’m good. Well, as good as I can be given the circumstances, pending divorce and all,” she said.

  “Do you think you and Dad might work things out?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head. “There are just some things you can’t work past, Danny. I really wish I could, and maybe if it hadn’t all ha
ppened at the same time it would be possible, but I just don’t think so. I think maybe your dad and I are just better apart.”

  “But it’s not like you guys even tried,” I said.

  “What do you mean? We tried,” she said, confusion filling her eyes.

  “No you didn’t. Sam died and you moved out and then we got the house. You guys never went to counseling or anything.”

  “There are some things counseling can’t fix,” Mom laughed.

  “Then why do I have to go?”

  Mom put her glass down on the table. “We just want to make sure you’re OK.”

  “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s the two of you who aren’t OK? Maybe you should stop focusing your attention so much on me and take a look at yourselves.”

  Mom thought about this for a second. “I’m willing to try counseling if you think it would help me.”

  “Good, then schedule an appointment with Neil,” I urged.

  Mom laughed, almost spitting water out across the table. “Not Neil.”

  “Why not? You’re the one who thinks so highly of him. Why wouldn’t he be good for you?”

  Mom dismissed the idea with her hand. “Let’s talk about you. Are you doing OK?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  She nodded and rolled her eyes. “True. I just want to make sure you’re really OK.”

  “What are you really asking me?” I asked.

  “Do you think you’re rushing things with Rusty?”

  “No.”

  “Danny, it’s been less than a week and already you boys are telling each other you love each other.”

  “So?” I wondered where this was going.

  “I just think it’s really fast.” The waiter brought our food and Mom was silent until he walked away. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” she whispered.

  The smell of the food was incredible, even if it was being ruined by Mom’s intentioned conversation. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “When Sam and Jess met and started dating, did you have this conversation with him?”

  Mom sat back and thought about it. “I don’t think so.”