Inside The Mind Of Gideon Rayburn

by Sarah Miller

  He understands that paying attention will be a constant battle for him. The girls, they command the front of his brain. And there's not that much left beyond that.

  "Okay, what did we learn from this story?" Ms. San Video asks in Spanish. She stops in front of Gideon.

  "Are you talking to me?" he asks.

  "Hablemos espanol,"instructs Ms. San Video.

  "Okay," Gid says with a Spanish accent.

  The class laughs. Ms. San Video's face barely moves, but Gideon (and, of course, I) feel her amusement expand.

  "Tell us what you learned in the story," she says, in espanol.

  "That cars are better than motorcycles?" Gideon says in Spanish, hopefully.

  The class laughs again. Ms. San Video frowns. "You can't roll your Rs?" she says, exaggeratedly doing exactly that.

  "No," Gid replies.

  "Why not?" she says. "You are afraid, Geedeon Rrrayburn?"

  "It's because—" Gid knows what he wants to say, but he feels so much pressure, feels his face heating up, and all he can come up with is, "I think probably your tongue can do more stuff than mine." He says this in English.

  Everyone laughs. Even Ms. San Video. Gid, at first stunned and confused, then ashamed, finally laughs too, partly because Liam, who terrifies him, is laughing the hardest.

  Gid would never admit to himself how much it pleases him to make Liam laugh. Will I ever, he wonders, still laughing, stop wanting to impress people I don't even like?

  When Molly McGarry turns around and proffers him the tiniest of smiles, Gid stops laughing and nods to her.

  For a boy, a nod is, like, intimate. Molly colors slightly, and Gideon does the same. They both start to smile and then try not to. He settles back in his chair as the class calms down, deeply pleased at having made progress, however small, this quickly.

  There is chemistry between them, i can see it. Now, chemistry is good, of course, but for a boy like Gid, who examines his instincts a lot but has trouble trusting them, chemistry can be confusing. It can feel a lot like anxiety, and this, of course, is something Gid's always trying to avoid.

  of the bahia blanca benitez-joneses

  Friday night, two weeks into school, Gid sits in study hall. He's annoyed. He understands prep school is about working, but Friday night study hall, well, it's stupid. (It's actually Calvinist, Gideon, and if you didn't spend all your time getting high and panicking about how you're going to impress your roommates by having sex with Molly McGarry before Halloween, you might develop the cultural literacy your hardworking blue-collar father sent you here to get.) He reads the first chapter of A Tale of Two Cities, where the lady is making the scarf. Madison was knitting last night. She was knitting a sweater that seemed to me to be mostly comprised of holes where she could show off her breasts. Gid can't help thinking about her. Molly McGarry, okay; she seems like a nice girl, but Madison...he can't explain.

  I can. Molly's appeal requires some concentration. Madison's appeal is like...well, a sweater with lots of holes in it.

  Outside, a pizza delivery car is circling the quad, probably for one of the faculty. On Friday nights, Jim Rayburn would leave Gid twenty dollars to order a bottle of grape soda and a sausage pizza. After he ate his pizza, he'd call Danielle. Then they'd retire to his room for some...

  Danielle. Holy crap, Danielle. In a damp, hot rush of sweat and guilt Gid realizes that he hasn't called Danielle, whom he spoke to every day for...well, he can't say how long (it was seven months, Gid, you went out for seven months) since he got here.

  Gid secures permission to return to his dorm on the grounds that he doesn't feel good.

  The pay phone is in the basement rec room of Proctor, where small alumni gifts come to die. I don't understand how a campus whose entire branding centers around cushy flawlessness allows such unchecked mayhem. The veneered furniture is damaged and splintered. The television, connected to a dusty old VCR, only gets UPN. On top of it is a dusty plastic fern in a tin pot covered with calico fabric.

  A kid wearing a bathrobe and reading The Turn of the Screw lies on a cracked red vinyl sofa.

  "I'm sick," he announces the moment Gid walks into the room. "Don't come any closer."

  "Well," Gid asks, "why aren't you in your room?"

  The kid shrugs. He has dark curly hair and small eyes and glasses. He still looks like a boy. He smells like pot and some gross illness smell. Gid guesses he's a freshman. "I came down to use the phone," he says. "But it doesn't work. And I'm too tired to go back up."

  Gid puts the pay phone to his ear. Dead.

  "I told you." The kid groans theatrically and sets his open book on his chest.

  "You really don't have a cell phone?" Gid says, actually kind of happy about this.

  The kid shakes his head. "My parents don't believe in cell phones," he says. "They hate the government."

  Gid doesn't understand the connection. And he's never heard of anyone hating the whole government before. It seems kind of extreme. "Your parents sound kind of crazy," he says.

  "Probably," the kid says, totally unbothered by this idea. "I have an idea. Why don't you do me a favor?" He goes to sit up, and it seems he really is sick. He holds the book upright against the frayed arm of the sofa and kind of uses it to hoist himself up. "I can't leave. Go over and use the phone in the girl's dorm, White, and call this number." He reaches into his book and produces a number written on a ripped-off corner of a newspaper.

  As Gid moves toward him, the kid makes a halting motion with his hand. "I told you I was sick," he says. He balls up the paper and tosses it to Gid. It lands at his feet.

  "It's my brother," says the kid. "Call him and tell him that Grandma is coming tomorrow at four-twenty."

  "You have your brother's number written on the corner of a piece of newspaper?"

  When Gid doesn't move, the boy sets the book down again and looks at him. "Look, if you do this for me, I'll do you a favor."

  Gid almost laughs out loud. The kid scowls at him. "You think I can't do you any favors, but I guarantee, I can do a lot for you."

  The kid has a lot of self-confidence, even if he is annoying. "Okay, your grandma's coming at four-twenty, and what's your name?" Gid says, not trying to keep the irritated tone out of his voice.

  "Mickey Eisenberg," the kid says.

  "Nice to meet you." Gid waves, hoping to avoid another germ lecture. "I'm Gid."

  "I know who you are," Mickey says. "You're the one who said that thing about your tongue to Ms. San Video." He clucks his tongue. "That Ms. San Video, she is all woman."

  "You're fourteen," Gid says. "You can't say someone's all woman. It's ridiculous."

  Mickey Eisenberg just shrugs. "Hey, I know what I like," he says. "Someday, maybe you will too."

  I think I might have a little crush on Mickey Eisenberg too! Not really. But if he's this sexually decisive at fourteen, well, things can only improve.

  The lounge in White is about as ugly as the one in Proctor, save for a poster of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks tacked above the pay phones. Gid stares at the poster, in particular at the man in his trench coat sitting at the lunch counter. Gid identifies with him. The guy just plain looks like he doesn't know what to do.

  Gid asks himself what seems like a thousand questions at once. Has he effectively broken up with Danielle by not calling her? Does he need to actually break up with her, or could he simply behave as if they were never going out—i.e, do nothing?

  His mind starts to take a strong liking to this notion. Then a phrase comes into his head that he thinks might be just what he's looking for: I've been feeling confused.

  Guys think the word confused gets them off the hook. They are so wrong. All it does is give girls hope where there is none.

  Wait, not confused. Oh, good, Gid figured that one out all on his own. Confused will lead to a conversation about what he wants. No way. He gets a brief image of his parents, fighting.

  He has to call Danielle. It's the decent thing to do.

/>   Even I think so. And I don't want him paying attention to other girls. Even if he's only doing it to be polite. What if he falls back in love with her from the sound of her voice? Doubtful.

  He'll do the favor for Mickey first.

  A guy, maybe twenty or twenty-five, answers. "I'm calling for Mickey," Gid says. "Your grandmother will be here tomorrow at four-twenty."

  "Okay," says the guy. And hangs up. Gid stares at the phone, wondering if he did everything right. He's thinking about calling back when he hears a girl's low, snickery laughter. He turns around. Standing there dressed in a white T-shirt, white pants, and brown sandals, next to the world's biggest pile of Louis Vuitton luggage, is a girl who is somehow, impossibly, even more beautiful than all the other girls he has seen so far combined.

  I can attest that she really is.

  Gid gasps, as if the girl were on fire. The girl opens her mouth.

  The girl says, "Four-twenty?" and raises one perfect brown eyebrow. "You know what that means, don't you?" Her hair and eyes are dark, and her skin is a uniform golden tone. She reaches around and lifts the hair off her neck, then winds it like a rope and ties it to itself so that it hangs in a heavy knot down the middle of her back. "jQue

  calor!"she says. "You'd think these people could pay for some air conditioners, no?"

  She looks Gid up and down, realizing he hasn't said a word and is just staring at her. Girls are starting to filter back from study hall, walking quickly, heads lowered, though most eyes cheat upward for at least a quick glance at this girl. This creature. This apparition.

  Gid's mind is going apeshit.

  Her face lights up with expectation.

  He realizes he will have to say something. "Do you go to school here?" he says.

  She feasts on his incredulity. "You're new," she says, slowly, deliciously. Again with the eyebrows. Gid prays to God that she's flirting. "I have been here since ninth grade." Her accent is totally different from Ms. San Video. But he doesn't want to ask this girl where she's from, because he has learned that sometimes people with accents are just from the United States and they get mad when you ask them where they're from.

  "My name is Pilar Benitez-Jones," the girl says. "I am late because my sister got married." Pilar Benitez-Jones laughs, Gid notices, with little humor. "My sister got married, which was a long affair involving two continents, a lot of air travel, which dried out my skin, and there was also an awful lot of my parents screaming at each other. Or, rather, my mom screaming and my dad trying to excuse whatever behavior of his had made her scream." Pilar sits down on top of one of her suitcases and, as if to shut it all out, clamps her beautiful hands over her beautiful ears.

  "That's so funny," Gid says, happy for the first time in his life about his parents' acrimonious divorce. "I mean, I was just thinking about my parents' fights in exactly that way. I'm Gideon," he says.

  "Gee-de-on," she says. He doesn't even think of correcting her.

  "My mother and her new husband moved to Santa Fe," he says softly. "I call it Santa Gay because it's—"

  His confession is interrupted by a soft ringing. Pilar reaches into her bra—oh my—and extracts a tiny silver phone.

  Gid thinks it is appropriate that this information about his mother kind of went into the ether. He would like for it to stay there.

  Pilar speaks excitedly, head bowed, in Spanish. Gid, who, appearances to the contrary, is not entirely clueless, realizes this may be his invitation to leave. But Pilar covers up the phone's tiny mouthpiece with one pink-polished thumbnail. "Wait," she whispers. She's off the phone in a few seconds. She looks around cautiously.

  "What are you doing in here, making calls for Mickey Eisenberg?" she demands.

  "You know Mickey Eisenberg?" Gid is amazed.

  "Of course, he sells Ecstasy. He calls himself Four-twenty, some pothead reference."

  "I thought he sold Ecstasy."

  Pilar holds out a lock of hair and pulls it down so it bisects her mouth. I recognize this as a brazenly manipulative female gesture, but Gid just thinks it's the hottest thing he's ever seen. "He sells Ecstasy," Pilar explains. "He smokes pot."

  Gid must look shocked and stupid, because Pilar starts to laugh. "Mickey Eisenberg has you in here making drug deals for him, and you don't even know it."

  Pilar thinks this is very funny. Then her eyes soften with concern. She touches his arm.

  That's when it happens. The slight weight of her finger on his arm feels like the whole world, in a good way. She's talking. Gid tries to concentrate on what she's saying, but he's dizzy. He's in love. This is why he left Danielle standing in the driveway without telling her what she wanted to hear. This is what he was waiting for.

  Oh, and Gideon is forgetting the bet. Pilar has transported him from the cares of this world.

  "Don't worry," she whispers. "None of the teachers here have any idea that Mickey Eisenberg sells drugs." She rolls her eyes. "And as long as we all keep getting our Ivy League acceptances, they wouldn't even think to care." The dorm is starting to buzz now, as more and more girls come back from study hall. Suddenly, Pilar's golden and perfect face lights up. "Madison!" she cries.

  Madison Sprague's short hair is in little pigtails. Gid thinks they look cute, because he is a guy and doesn't know to be annoyed by the whole "I'm so pretty I don't care what I look like" aesthetic. She and Pilar give each other a big girly hug as Gid hovers, embarrassed. He should probably walk away, but he just can't. He knows he'll be at school all year, he hopes all next year as well, but as he looks at Pilar's sparkling brown eyes and perfect butt in her white pants, he can only feel this is the most important moment in his life.

  ';Hey, Gid.': Madison gives Gid a flirtatious punch on the arm. She reaches over and kisses him on the cheek. Then she says, "He lives with Cullen and Nicholas," which makes Gid wonder, does she have to explain why she knows him? Couldn't she just know him?

  "I gotta go, Hal's calling," Madison says, walking backward up the stairs, sending smaller, less pretty girls scurrying from her wake. "I'll come to your room later."

  "Cullen and Nicholas," Pilar says when Madison's out of earshot. She shakes her head sympathetically. "That must be fun, but also"—she puts out one of her hands, turning it from side to side so her assortment of rings sparkles under the lights—"maybe a little bit not so fun?"

  Yes, yes. This is exactly what it is like. This girl, with her beautiful white clothes and her sparkling jewelry, she deserves to know everything about him. He wants to tell her about his parents and the culs-de-sac and the kids playing in their driveways and Merle Haggard. About how the Vaportech is wonderful and awful all at once, and how when he runs, he dreams that a girl as absolutely perfect as she might one day think he's something other than skinny fat.

  "Do you need help?” he says. "I could bring this stuff up to your room."

  "You can't go there," Pilar says.

  "Oh, right," Gid says. Perhaps the best thing to do at this point is extract himself before saying anything that would point to how he feels. "I guess I should get back to my dorm."

  "But if you go back to your room," Pilar says, "you're not going to hear the secret I'm going to tell you."

  So I'm not imagining things, Gid thinks. We connect.

  He comes to this conclusion partly because he wants to and partly because he doesn't know that a pretty young girl will tell a secret to a fucking handbag. It's just what they do. What we do.

  Pilar leans in. Gideon focuses all his attention on the light pressure of her mouth on his ear as she whispers, "Madison likes to record herself deflowering guys on her camera phone and then send the footage to her boyfriend. She says he gets 'bored on tour."' Pilar says this last part in a not very good British accent, which nonetheless conveys her lack of sympathy. She's visibly delighted to share this information, and her already formidable glow intensifies. "Have you ever heard anything so crazy in your life?" Pilar gives the word life about fourteen syllables. Moments from now, the radianc
e of her smile will not shine on me, Gid thinks, and I will die a little.

  "Yes," Gid says. "I mean, I don't know." Then he backs away, tries to smile. Oh, Gid! Get out of there.

  "Maybe?" Pilar suggests. She says this over her shoulder, where her T-shirt has moved a precious few inches to the side, revealing a narrow pink ribbon of a bra strap.

  Gid nods. "Maybe."

  "Maybe I'll see you around," Pilar says.

  "That would be great," Gideon says. He looks down at her pile of luggage. He can't help her take it upstairs, since that's against the rules. But he bends down, picks up the heaviest duffel from the floor, and helps to arrange it comfortably on her shoulder.

  Then Gid, not one to resist the final gesture (this is why I adore him so), tucks her T-shirt under the strap so it doesn't dig into her pretty skin.

  "I'll bet you had a crush on Madison before I told you that," Pilar says.

  Gid blushes.

  "Try not to make any more drug deals," Pilar says and walks away.

  may be not zero game

  Gideon has been at Midvale for three weeks now. He has settled into a routine: running, class, lunch, more class, dinner, sitting around, studying, and, most nights, sneaking out.

  I've found a way to sleep through some of the sneaking out. There's only so much of Madison Sprague's wine guzzling and Erica's Nicholas-loving and Mija's, well...general Euroness that I can stand.

  Erica's Nicholas-loving is especially disturbing. There's nothing more depressing than watching a girl love a guy who doesn't love her back.

  The morning runs no longer shock Gideon. Sometimes he takes it upon himself to brew the daily batch of green tea that he and Nicholas carry off to class. Nicholas says he uses exactly the right amount of tea. Ms. San Video doesn't get less hot, but Gid knows he's going to see her every day except Thursday, so he regards her with more restraint. He actually read A Tale of Two Cities, and Mrs. Yates has taught him the difference between a da Vinci and a Caravaggio, a Rembrandt and a Vermeer.