Our lively conversation continues throughout dinner. The food is flavorful and spicy—perhaps a bit too spicy for me. After a few bites of the otherwise extremely delicious Tom Khem, I’m sweating like a pig and I have to use my paper napkin to dab my face dry, much to everyone’s amusement. By the time the dessert is served, I’m beginning to notice a strange pattern. As with the main course earlier, Mrs. Thongrivong is making sure that Phil ends up with the biggest portion, and throughout the evening, a disproportional amount of the conversation has been revolving around Phil. A strange suspicion creeping up on me, I lean into him and ask, “It’s not your birthday today, is it?”
He responds with a sheepish smile.
“Oh you gotta be kidding me!” I whisper pointlessly because everyone is sitting so close they can hear me anyway. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know?”
“I would have got you something.”
He shakes his head. “You already got me the E.T. doll, remember?”
‘That wasn’t for your birthday,’ I want to protest, but then I realize how much it meant to him—how much it still means to him—so I just say, “Well, Happy Birthday.”
“Thank you.”
Everyone else is still staring at us. It’s awkward, and I feel compelled to say something—anything—so I laugh and say, “I had a feeling we were celebrating something, but I didn’t know what it was.”
“We’re celebrating something else as well, actually,” Phyllis says. She puts down her fork, puts her elbows on the table, and entwines her fingers. “Well, kind of, I guess. As you know, Matthew, when I arrived here a few weeks ago, I was shocked, to say the least. And even now, I’m still not sure what upset me more, to see these wonderful people live in poverty like that, or the fact that all these years I was too blind to see. So yeah, it got a little loud yesterday, and that’s what you walked in on. I apologize for that. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay.”
“So anyway,” Phyllis continues, “then I spent a wonderful afternoon with you and Philip at the Korova, and I calmed down a bit, but when I heard about Phil’s situation at school and I got all upset again.”
“The special ed classes?” I say.
Phyllis nods. “I think it’s an outrage. You know Philip, and you know he doesn’t belong in special ed.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But what we do?” Mrs. Thongrivong says, and I can tell she’s feeling helpless. “When school say Philip has to take special class, what we do? They say is better for Philip. If we fight school, how school will treat Philip then? Better? No, not better.”
Phyllis puts her hand on Mrs. Thongrivong’s arm. “And you know what, I perfectly understand that. We’ve been through this. If this is what the school recommends, who are you to argue with them? And if you were to argue with them, it probably wouldn’t make Philip’s life at school any easier, I get that. But the important point here is, the school shouldn’t have recommended that in the first place, not for a kid like Philip. He is very special, but not in a way that the term special education implies. I think he’s not made for the kind of public school he’s going to at the moment, nor do I think is your school qualified to deal with him in a way that suits him best. Do you understand what I’m saying, Matthew?”
I don’t like where this is going.
“I guess?”
“And I can’t even blame the school, to be honest. They’re simply not equipped to recognize Philip’s extraordinary talent, or to deal with his unconventional personality. You’ve seen his amazing artwork, and I understand you’ve been exchanging emails with him before you’ve even met him at school, right?”
“Yes,” I say. Phil’s parents and his brother look at me curiously, clearly unaware of the nature of our written conversations or of how they came about, and I hope we don’t have to get into the details.
“Right, so you know that the Philip you see on public display at school is not the real Philip, the Philip that comes through in his art and his emails. He acts differently, and he expresses himself differently, so it’s true, in a way, that he is a special needs child. But those needs are so special, they can’t be met by a school like Brookhurst High School that just puts him in a class with people with all sorts of learning disabilities.”
I’m torn between pride, anger, and fear. Pride, because my boyfriend is such an awesome person, an unrecognized genius, apparently. Anger, because nobody ever noticed it until now. And fear of what it all means. Deep down inside, I know what’s coming next.
“I know a school,” Phyllis says, “that would be perfectly suited to accommodate Philip’s needs. Small classes. Highly trained experts. And a curriculum tailored to the individual, with a strong focus on the arts.”
“That’s … great,” I say. I look at Phil. He looks proud. Proud and sad.
“The school is a boarding school,” Phyllis continues. “It’s in Maine. I lived there for a while. I know some of the staff.”
“Maine?”
“They don’t take on everyone, of course.”
Please don’t let them take Phil, I’m thinking, feeling ashamed for being so incredibly selfish.
“Of course,” I say in a low voice.
“I already talked with one of my contacts at the school. They’re willing to have Phil over for a trial week. He’d stay at the school and attend classes, to see if the school is right for him and if he’s right for the school. And after that week, if both sides agree, he could enroll in the school for the next semester.”
“Wow,” I say, looking at Phil. “Way to go, you.”
He smiles at me awkwardly.
“So how do you like this idea?” I ask.
“I don’t know?” He shrugs. “I haven’t seen the school yet.”
“No, I mean, how do you like the idea of going there to check it out?”
Again, he shrugs. “It’s worth a try. It can’t be much worse than here, can it?”
“Right.” I’m being told there are people who are able to withstand the most horrendous torture techniques and never reveal they’re a Russian spy or an Islamist terrorist or whatever it is we’re torturing people for these days, so I’m channeling my inner Russian-Islamist terrorist-spy and try to prevent the sting in my heart from making itself visible on my face. To hear that living three thousand miles away from me couldn’t be much worse for him than staying here hurts, even if he probably didn’t mean it that way.
I look at Phil’s parents. His dad smiles at me awkwardly—it’s the only way how he knows to smile.
“Is good school,” he says. “Good school. Maybe good for Philip. Maybe better school make him happier.”
“We want Philip be happy,” his mom adds. “But what we can do? Nothing we can do.”
“I understand.” Turning to Phyllis, I say, “But won’t this cost a fortune?”
“Well,” she says, “there are scholarships and half-scholarships for exceptionally gifted students. And then there’s still me, you know?”
“I see.” I look back at Phil. “I guess we’ll still have the school holidays, right?”
Without a reply, he looks at his plate, his Khao Pahd untouched.
“What?” I say.
“Look, Matthew,” Phyllis says, “There’s something else we need to tell you. This family isn’t doing well here in Brookhurst, as you know. Sure, I could buy them a house and give them enough money so they would never have to work a day in their lives. Except they don’t want me to. Of course they don’t. They want to stand on their own feet. Philip’s dad wants to support his family all by himself, and I understand that. He wants a proper job, but he can’t get a foot on the ground around here. So I got him a job, a good job. It’ll allow them to rent a decent home, and Ricky will be able to go back to school and at least get a high school degree. But … well, that job is up in San Dimas.”
“That’s … great.”
No, it isn’t, you idi
ot, I’m thinking to myself. It’s awful.
“It’s only an hour up the interstate,” Phyllis says. “And you’ll be able to drive in a little over a year.”
“Yeah, no” I say, trying to sound as cheerful as possible, “it’s fine. It’s great. I mean, it just comes as a bit of a surprise. It’s a lot to take in all at once. But … it’s all good. It’s great. I’m happy for you.” I look at Phil, then at his brother and his parents. “For all of you.”
“Thank you,” Phil says.
“All right,” Phyllis says, “now that we got that out of the way, let’s enjoy our dessert, shall we?”
I pick up a piece of Khao Pahd and put it in my mouth.
It’s delicious.
It’s sweet.
It puts the sweet in bittersweet tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It’s autumn proper now. The days are still warm, but with the sun rising later and setting earlier, the nights get chilly, and that chilliness seeps into the days like autumn’s inherent melancholy keeps slowly seeping into my soul.
Meanwhile, my life has turned into a dream.
That’s not a metaphor for something exceptionally gratifying or some wild fancy or unrealistic hope. My life has literally turned into a dream, a series of images and emotions and sights and sounds occurring in a seemingly random manner, disconnected, wild and raw and scary. It doesn’t have to be an actual nightmare to make you toss and turn and sweat in your sleep, to make you feel anxious and confused. All it takes is the nagging question what it all means and the disconcerting feeling that it might not mean anything at all, that whoever is behind it all has no plan.
Everything just happens.
Life just happens.
And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
My relationship with Chris is back to where it was on the first day of school. He’s being all nice and smiley and friendly, acting as if nothing good or bad ever happened between us, and it annoys the hell out of me because I have no idea what to make of it. But I never say anything. I don’t want to create any tension, because we do have one common goal left after all, and that is winning the Schoolympics relay race. Once that’s over and done with, I might never even look at him ever again.
One Monday morning I hand in my Romeo and Juliet term paper. Mrs. Spelczik is so happy I’ve done it with weeks to spare that she doesn’t waste any time and returns it to me two days later with a big, fat B+ on the front page.
“Good job,” she says.
“Good job,” I say to Phil an hour later between kisses, sitting on his lap on a toilet seat in a stall in the second-floor restroom.
“Thank you,” he says, visibly proud.
“Not bad for someone who’s in special ed.”
We both chuckle, and then we kiss again.
Our secret restroom meet-ups continue. We try to have them at least once a day, in alternating periods as to not raise any suspicions. Nevertheless, one day as I’m picking up my hall pass, Mrs. Spelczik says, “You should see a doctor about your bladder.”
“I already have,” I say. “He said it’s my prostate.”
Under the roaring laughter of the entire class Mrs. Spelczik pinches the bridge of her nose while motioning me out of the room with her other hand.
Later that day we’re having lunch in the cafeteria—the guys and I, not Mrs. Spelczik, obviously—and Sandy says, “So, only ten more days until the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Are you guys excited?”
The question isn’t directed at anyone in particular, but Phil is the first to reply.
“About that,” he says, looking at me sheepishly, “I can’t make it to the dance after all.”
“What?” I say, feeling deflated.
Sandy shares my sentiment. “Oh no! Why not?”
“The school in Maine confirmed my trial week. It’s next week. I’ll be leaving this Sunday and I won’t be back until Friday.”
“Oh,” I say. “When on Friday?”
“I’ll be landing in Santa Ana in the afternoon. Three-thirty, I think.”
“Right,” I say. “That sucks because you’ll be missing the Schoolympics, but the dance isn’t until what, seven p.m.?”
Sandy nods. “Yeah, seven.”
“There you go. Plenty of time to get home from the airport, throw your scrawny butt into your tux and make it to the dance. You have no excuse.”
“I have no tuxedo, either.”
“Oh please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Do I look like I have a tuxedo?”
“No?”
“Exactly. And that’s why we’re gonna rent one. Or two, actually. I was gonna talk to you about that anyway. Are you free this afternoon?”
Phil shrugs. “I guess?”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at three.”
So I pick him up at three to take him to that place on Madison that rents out tuxedos. Phyllis is tagging along which is perfectly fine with me because it means we don’t have to walk, and also—more importantly—because I suspect with her help it will be much easier to pick an outfit. Turns out I’m right. She makes us try on two, and it’s the second that wins her unreserved approval.
“My,” she says, clasping her hands in front of her chest like a proud mother, standing behind us as we admire ourselves in the mirror, “if that isn’t the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen!”
We do look pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I look at Phil’s reflection in the mirror and he looks back at mine, and we both have to grin.
“What are you grinning at?” I say.
“Nothing? What are you grinning at?”
“Nothing? You look sexy.”
His awkward grin mellows into a contented smile. “Thank you. You look pretty.”
“Thank you.”
As we keep standing there for another few moments, looking at each other, smiling at each other, I realize that for the first time since the summer, I’m genuinely happy. I’ve finally adjusted to high school life, my grades are all right, I’m openly gay and proud, and I have a boyfriend who may defy conventional standards of attractiveness but who is very special in the best possible meaning of the word. Not yet two months ago I would have been embarrassed to be seen with him in public, or to be associated with him in any way. Now it fills me with pride to call him my boyfriend.
Phil, for reasons I can’t coherently explain, makes me want to be a better person. I have never met anyone who had that effect on me, not in my family, not in my small circle of friends. Sure, there are some issues that need to be resolved. I find it difficult to deal with the dichotomy between his breathtaking private displays of affection in the confines of a school restroom and his pretty much non-existent public ones. Sometimes I wish we could just sit in a park and kiss, or walk down a busy street holding hands, but as long as we’re in public, Phil seems to be happy to be just friends and nothing more. It’s a less than perfect situation, but I can deal with it as long as I at least get to spend some time with him every day.
In a few days he’ll be heading off to Maine, though, for a trial week of living three thousand miles away from me. It might as well be three million light years. Occasionally, I catch myself secretly hoping that he’ll hate the school or that the school will turn him down so he’ll come back after that one week and stay for good, even if the family will move up north after New Year’s. Fifty miles is still a lot better than three thousand. But whenever I have these thoughts, I feel like a despicable, selfish jerk because if you love someone you should root for them, not against them. And I do love him, I think, even if I haven’t said the magic words to him yet. I don’t want to put any pressure on him or create an awkward situation if I tell him I love him and he’s not ready to say it back to me. Anyway, I’d hate to see him go to school in Maine and only get to see him once or twice a year, but I’d hate it even more to stand in his way, because if anyone ever deserved a break, it’s Phil, even if his break may lead to my breakdown.
I’m trying not to let any of this
get to me. With my mind focused on the Schoolympics and the Sadie Hawkins Dance, all I care about is that at this point in time I feel happy, and I want to cherish that happiness as long as I can. I know it’s not gonna last. Nothing is ever gonna last. There will always be ups and downs, highs and lows. Right now I’m on a high. I’m on a high at last, and I’m not going to the future drag me down before it’s here.
It’s autumn proper now, and that’s all right.
I love autumn, even though it means that winter is coming soon.
* * *
Chris and Jack wrap their arms around me, Jack his right, Chris his left. Not too long ago the mere thought of finding myself wedged between these two would have sent me running or, more likely, made me crawl under a rock and hide in shame, and even now their touch makes me feel awkward. But it’s all good. Today I’m exactly where I want to be, standing in a huddle with Chris, Jack, and Jason. Our arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, we’re standing on the lawn of Lincoln High School’s sports ground. Lincoln High is one of five high schools in Brookhurst County that take part in the annual Brookhurst County Schoolympics and this year’s host school. We’ve been at Lincoln all day, since eight-thirty in the morning. It’s mid-afternoon now, and the competition is drawing to a close. In the bleachers some six or seven hundred spectators, most of them schoolmates, friends, and family members of the competing athletes, are eagerly awaiting the final event of the day, the 4 x 100-meter relay final. And we’re in it. We’ve dominated our preliminary and semi-final heats with resounding wins, but we’re not taking anything for granted, because in their semi-final, the Lincoln team was almost a second faster than we were in ours. They’re our biggest rivals, and beating them is a steep mountain to climb, but that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna try.
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