Inside The Mind Of Gideon Rayburn

by Sarah Miller

  "Please say something," Gid says.

  Molly gets out of the bed. She looks smaller than usual. She pulls down her shirt so it is covering her again and pulls on a pair of sweatpants. She walks to the door, opens it, and looks both ways down the hall. "The coast is clear," she says. "I think you'd better go."

  Gid's already dressed. He's about halfway down the hall when she calls after him. "You know what? I always thought it was sort of stupid that they didn't let boys up here. But now I can see why."

  Gid would love to believe girls forgive boys for making dumb sex bets about them. He would love to believe that he and Molly can start over. But judging from what happens in Spanish the following Monday, when they perform the play, it seems like maybe he's going to have to adjust his expectations.

  Molly makes out the way she's supposed to. It's weird how they're doing the same thing they did for real just a few days ago, but it feels totally different. Well. He opens one eye just a sliver while they're kissing and sees Liam, staring up at them, watching, interested. This is good, he tries to tell himself, now when I see actors kiss on TV, I will know how they feel. This is a good experience. Except it doesn't feel like one. When the class claps for them, they have to stand very close together, the three of them, on the classroom's tiny makeshift stage, and Molly digs the pointed heel of her shoe into Gid's foot. Hard. "I like very, very much," Ms. San Video says. "How you all wear the snout. Because in fascism, we are all pigs." She claps again.

  They don't correct her and remind her they are dogs, because their dog snouts really do look like pig snouts. They get an A. It makes Gid strangely sad that Molly was right.

  sour november

  On Sunday night, Cullen and Nicholas took the oversize question mark and the underwear outside and stacked them neatly beside the Dumpster behind Proctor.

  Tuesday afternoon, Gid, Nicholas, and Cullen return from their afternoon classes to find both pieces of the Halloween costume and a note: This is Oversized Trash, please handle disposal by Tuesday afternoon

  OR FACE FINE OR EXPULSION.—GENE CAVANAUGH.

  Twenty minutes later, they're driving around the Boston suburbs in the seven-series, looking for a Dumpster without a lock on it.

  Gid's in back, settling into his moroseness. He has a paperback today. They're still reading Moby-Dick. Mr. Barnes had one word for Gid's idea—that the whale represented man's drive, that the whale could have been a mountain, or a skyscraper, or a woman—and that word, written across the title page in dark red letters, was "Duh." On the part about the woman, Mr. Barnes scrawled, "Oh, Jesus!" He gave him a C. Gid thought, It sucks that I got such a bad grade, but I have to tell Molly what he wrote because she would laugh. But then he remembers: Dude, she hates you.

  "Wait a minute," he says, suddenly energized. "You guys put the underwear on the door. You had motive, opportunity. The underwear."

  "But you have the underwear in the room," Nicholas says with uncharacteristic gentleness, pulling out of a Target and crossing a state road to a Bed Bath & Beyond.

  "I know you've been through a bit of an ordeal," Cullen says, pulling excitedly at his curls with one hand, smoking with the other. "I'm still not going to tell you in some split second while you were taking out and considering your tumultuous wiener..."

  "Tumescent," Gid and Nicholas say in unison.

  "Whatever." Cullen taps an ash out the window and continues, "You can't tell me while you were looking at your torpid wang in its last moments of virgin glory that one of us somehow soundlessly opened Molly's door and hung a pair of underwear—a common brand, a common color, a common size—on her door."

  "Aha!" Gid seizes on this. "How did you know they were on her door?"

  "You told us," Cullen and Nicholas say in unison.

  Gid rolls down the window and inhales the comforting cool scent of ozone. "At least it's over."

  Cullen puts his bare feet on the dashboard. He flexes his toes, smiles, unflexes. Still enjoying his feet, he says, "We love you. We love you a lot. You're so great." He holds his big toes in both hands, rocking back and forth. They are circling a mall parking lot about four miles from campus. It is teeming with public school girls in cheap fuzzy sweaters, big butts packed into tight jeans, small butts packed into tighter ones.

  Gid is staring at one girl's eyes, marveling at how much makeup she has around them, when Cullen says, 'The bet is still on. We're going to shift the dates, obviously, one month forward, but we're proceeding."

  I can't believe it. I almost wish that I was inside Cullen's or Nicholas's head just for the experience of being close to someone so insane that they would consider continuing a secret bet that is no longer secret.

  "Uh, you guys, isn't part of the bet that she doesn't know. ..so...?"

  "Sure, sure, sure," Cullen says. "That was an important component of the bet."

  "But now," Nicholas continues, "the fact that she does know..."

  "Is an important component!" Cullen concludes.

  Okay, so it wouldn't be that interesting to be in their heads. They're really just making it up as they go.

  Finally, they find an open Dumpster—an employee had been filling it and he was wheeling his pallet truck back to the store when they pulled up.

  "I'll get it," Gid says, wanting an excuse to get out of the car despite the rain. He takes the red question mark and the panties out of the backseat and heaves them on top of a pile of broken-down shoe boxes and packing peanuts. He tries to stuff them down but the Dumpster is too full. Finally, he stands on tiptoe to get some leverage and pushes with all his might, bending the panties and the question mark in half. He walks back to the car, rubbing his hands against his pants. He casts a look backward. The panties stay down, but the question mark snaps up again, like the bet, indestructible.

  Back in the car, Gid is too stunned, too demoralized to speak for a few minutes. As they're pulling into school, he says, "You know, every time I talk to her she's going to think, You're trying to have sex with me."

  "That might not be such a terrible thing," Cullen says.

  What Cullen means is that girls like to be wanted. This is certainly true. But he's missing the point. No big

  surprise there.

  They go directly to dinner, where Gid, hollow, empty, eats like he's forgotten about skinny fat. He sees Molly and tries to smile. Nothing. He expected that, in keeping with her style, she would at least be cordial to him. But she looks right through him. Needing badly to disparage her, Gid thinks, That's so high school, then remembers, they're in high school.

  Molly's actually the one thing about this high school that's not high school. And she hates him.

  "You're not allowed to discuss the bet with anyone," Nicholas says, swiping a glass of chocolate milk out of Cullen's hand and replacing it with water.

  "If anyone asks about it, deny it," Cullen says. "We could get in trouble."

  "For what?" Gid whispers, because Devon and Liam are coming.

  "Gambling," Nicholas whispers back, raising his eyebrows with subversive glee.

  They can't be serious, Gid thinks. He wishes he could take a week off.

  "Oh, and hey," Nicholas adds, "in all the excitement, I forgot. My mother wanted me to invite you home with me for Thanksgiving. Do you think you could come?"

  Thanksgiving on Christmas Park Circle, since Gid's mom left, involves lots of college football, a badly cooked turkey, and lots of canned vegetables. And it's always just Gid and his dad. "I think so," Gid says, hiding his enthusiasm. Well, this is something to look forward to.

  At this moment, Molly passes by their table. He knows that look. She's not looking at him, and she's trying not to look at him. She's aware of me, Gid thinks. She's aware of me, and I am not going home for Thanksgiving. Not an ideal life, but a livable one.

  It doesn't stop raining. The boys do a lot of staying in, which results in a lot of pot smoking. But one night Gid is about to take a hit out of the Vaportech, and out of the corner of his eye he see
s the Moby-Dick paper, with the Duh written across the front. "I don't think I want to smoke any pot," he says, passing it to Cullen. "I think pot's making me stupid."

  "Dude," Cullen says a minute later, over a bulging mouthful of smoke, "don't blame your problems on pot."

  "Okay," Gid says. "How about I blame them on you instead?"

  Nicholas makes him go running every morning, despite the rain. "You seem down," he says. "You need to shake this off."

  "Is that what you did with Erica?" Gid asks. "Shook it off?"

  Nicholas, tugging his arm over his head, freezes and stares at Gid. "I wasn't upset about her; I was upset because she was upset. There's a difference."

  Gideon writes Molly a letter, apologizing about the bet. How does he reconcile the fact that the bet's still on? He doesn't. Or if he does, in a tiny way, it's that he feels like he's a double agent. He used to tell Cullen and Nicholas everything he did with regard to Molly. But his remorse is a giant secret. He actually mails it, in town, with a stamp. He types the letter, even types the outside of the envelope, in case one of them sees her getting her mail.

  Dear Molly,

  I feel bad that I made a bet about you. It wasn't a nice thing to do. I do really like you, and I hope you don't feel too bad.

  Gid.

  After mailing the letter, he calls his father from the Student Center pay phone. As the phone rings, he prays with all his might for the answering machine, and he gets it. "Hi, Dad," he says. "I just called to tell you that I won't be making it home for Thanksgiving."

  "Hello? Gid? What's this you're saying?"

  "Uh..." That was all going so well, Gid thinks. "I'm...I'm going to Nicholas's, in New York City."

  Jim laughs, but Gid can tell it's forced. ^Well, I guess I can't compete with that, can l?;'

  Gid finds this question passive-aggressive. What's he supposed to say now?

  Come on, Gideon. Remember you want your dad to think he's getting a good deal?

  "You can compete with anything, Dad." Whoa, that was hard to get out. But he's glad he managed it.

  "So the good news is," he says, "I'll see you at Christmas."

  Good job, Gideon. You're getting it.

  "Right, right." He can hear the relief in his father's voice. "The Big Apple."

  "I knew you were going to say 'Big Apple,'" Gid mutters.

  "What was that?" Jim Rayburn says. "That was just an ambulance going by."

  Gid says he was just asking one of his friends to go buy him a Snapple. Jim laughs again and then tells Gid he quit drinking Snapple at lunch and lost three pounds in a week.

  it's not the bet

  On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, an hour before leaving for New York with Nicholas, Gid pays a visit to the mail room, annoyed with himself as he goes. There hasn't been a response from Molly yet, so why should there be one today? The mail room has that bustling, pre-vacation feeling. Everyone is red-cheeked and happy and carrying a large duffel bag.

  But there is an envelope. It's red, like Molly's coat. This makes Gid optimistic. He tears into it. Gideon. It's not the bet Molly.

  Gideon winces. Couldn't it have been something just good or bad? Something he could hang a real mood on?

  A few hours later, Gideon sits on the Amtrak in the window seat. Nicholas is next to him, asleep, still attracting a lot of attention. Prep school girls and college girls too—the hot ones in their heels and jeans and the shlumpy ones padding around in sweats and PJs—keep passing back and forth. They've clearly been sent by their friends to check him out, because they're all trying not to smile. The prep school girls tuck their embarrassed but excited faces into the placards of Fair Isle sweaters. The college girls just leer. The lucky asshole. He gets attention even when he's asleep. If I looked like that, all these girls wouldn't ignore me, Gid thinks, i would never have had the bet made about me. I would be going out with a girl like Pilar. And I wouldn't have been forced to be mean to Molly McGarry.

  Come on, Gideon! Do you really believe you've been forced? He doesn't. He knows that the bet and he and the guys at some point all have become one. He just knows he didn't start it.

  He presses the recline button and sinks back to think about whether starting something and not stopping it are the same thing.

  "Excuse me." Gid turns to see a putty-faced man, dandruff dusting the shoulders of his shiny black suit. "This

  is a brand-new laptop. Watch it." Gideon hikes his seat back up, only halfway. The man fidgets and makes annoyed noises. Gid watches the cold, rocky shoreline of Connecticut, remembering a Discovery Channel special he watched in which some tribe in the deep forests of Brazil had to dedicate most of their waking hours to some ridiculously unpleasant, disgusting, and dangerous task—like the only food they ate was some venomous beetle that had to be picked out from the teeth of a charging animal, or they lived in huts that could only be held together with nails from some metal that could only be forged on the hottest day of the year. And after showing these miserable creatures and their hideous engagements with mere survival, the narrator said in a detached, matter-of-fact, and creepily drawn-out voice, "This is their wooooorld. They live under theeeese terms." And that just settled it. Well, in a weird way, it did.

  I have my world, Gideon thinks, comforted by the tap-tap of laptop keys behind him. I have my terms.

  Another Fair Isle-sweater girl walks by. She looks right through him, fixating on Nicholas instead. Gid feels no anger. She lives under her terms.

  "You've been to New York before, right?" Nicholas asks as they pull into Penn Station. Gid feels important in the bustle of people arranging to get off the train.

  "Yeah," he says. "I mean, I've been to, like, Radio City Music Hall and the Empire State Building."

  "That's not New York, honey." A white-haired woman is popping out the wheels and handle on a black rollaway. She's carrying a canvas bag printed with the phrase WNYC: Exercise Your Mind. "New York is about jazz, art, cafes. You'll show him the real city. Some real nights on the town," she says, winking at Nicholas and then waddling off, duck-footed in rain boots.

  "The real city," Nicholas says. "Those kind of people are so annoying. When they opened a Gap in the Village, she probably cried."

  They take the subway, which is exciting and different. Gideon's heard a lot of weird things about the subway, how it's all homeless people just trying to rip diamonds off your neck and out of your ears, and is surprised to see mostly quiet, orderly people reading books or staring straight ahead. The ride takes just a few minutes.

  They emerge to dusk and the pulse of Christmas lights, and Gid nods, contented, beginning to relax, feeling a buoyant anticipation he can't quite place.

  I think I know what it is. I love staying with my friends' parents. Other people's parents are almost always great. They give you food. They have different stuff than your family, usually better. And otherwise, they basically ignore you. It's heaven. And Nicholas only has a mother. Single parents are always nicer than both parents. Single parents want to please you.

  On the short walk to Nicholas's apartment Gid observes that this neighborhood seems to be almost entirely populated by doormen and old men and women, the women frowning in tweed, the men bleary-eyed in trench coats, walking small dogs. Most of the buildings are beautiful, with giant windows, draped with sumptuous amounts of pine

  boughs and red ribbons. A few, though, the newer ones, are white, ugly, and look like cruise ships, set upright from bow to stern. "Where are we?" Gid asks.

  "This," Nicholas says ominously, "is Park Avenue. The heart of the Upper East Side."

  A neatly dressed pretty girl about their age walks by wearing a red coat. Gideon thinks about Molly and her note. It's not the bet. It's sick-making and reassuring all at once. It's not the bet. What does this mean? That she hated him all along? No, she liked him. Her face when she talked to him, she always looked so happy.

  I'm glad to see he's trying to work it out logically. Thinking. It's good for teenage boys to r
emember to think, because otherwise they just won't.

  Okay, so when he told her about the bet, she didn't seem that upset. Right? Is he dreaming this? He heard about an artist once who tape-recorded all of his conversations. Maybe he should start doing that? It's not the bet. "Not the bet," he says out loud.

  Nicholas groans. "Why are you thinking about the bet right now? Molly's not even here. Take a break."

  Easy for him to say.

  Then they're turning in to Nicholas's building, walking under a gated stone archway attended by a blue-suited doorman who calls out, "Nicholas!" He's white-haired and his uniform stretches tightly over his short, squat body. "Staying in trouble?"

  Nicholas walks over to him and shakes his hand. "How's it going, Kenny?"

  "I can't complain," Kenny says, patting his stomach. "At least not to the tenants!" He barks out a laugh that follows them into an enormous courtyard. Its expanse is dizzying. It's the size of a football field, with turrets in the corners and little stone outbuildings manned by more blue-suited doormen, some with clipboards, some talking on phones. It looks more like a medieval fortress than an apartment building. "You live here?" Gid asks. Nicholas's flat reply, "Yes, all my life," warns him that he should probably keep his amazement to himself.

  Yet another blue-suited doorman greets them in the elevator, which is some gloriously rich wood, with brass fixtures polished to a mind-bending shine. He presses a button reading PHC. Penthouse C. Gid smiles to himself. Penthouse City!

  "This is your real mom, right?" Gid says.

  Nicholas nods. "If we were going to my stepmother's right now, I would be acting like a total asshole:'

  Gideon has always hoped Nicholas had some awareness of taking out his stress and anger on other people. This comment fills him with tenderness.

  The elevator door opens. Advancing toward them, a white Pekingese beside her, is a slimly upright, strenuously youthful brunette. She takes Nicholas's face into her hands. "Darling," she says. She kisses one cheek, then the next. Then she stands back and regards Gideon.