Rufus + Syd

by Julia Watts

“That’s true,” Mrs. Snow says, “but Syd’s older than Rufus, so she has her driver’s license.”

  “Oh, you’re here!” Rufus squeezes past his parents, looking mortified.

  Part of me thinks it would be hilarious if I planted a big, sloppy kiss on Rufus in front of his parents. But the more sensible part of me thinks they might keel over from a heart attack if I did. And that “they” includes Rufus.

  “We’re ready to go, right?” Rufus says, grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the car. “I’ll be back by six!” he calls in the direction of his parents.

  “God, that was humiliating,” Rufus says once we’re safely in the car. “I wanted to just wait on the porch for you, but they wanted you to ring the doorbell so they could ‘get a look at you.’”

  “Well, I couldn’t tell if they liked what they saw.”

  He grins. “They saw a girl, so of course they liked what they saw. As long as I’m keeping company with a female, they won’t care what she looks like.”

  I take my eyes off the road long enough to stick my tongue out at him. “Thanks a lot.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean! You’re really pretty, Syd… it’s just that if they got to pick, they’d probably pick somebody a little more churchy and a little less rock ’n’ roll.”

  “Thank God they don’t get to pick, huh?”

  “Yep. Thank the god I don’t believe in.”

  He says it matter-of-factly, like somebody might say they didn’t care much for broccoli. “I don’t believe in God either,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud, and it feels amazing. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” I roll down the windows as we turn down Main Street and yell, “I don’t believe in God!” Rufus yells it too, and it’s fabulous to be loudly proclaiming our atheism on a Sunday afternoon in Vermillion, Georgia. It would be even more fabulous if Main Street wasn’t totally deserted.

  We’re both laughing. “I can’t believe we just did that,” Rufus says. “I feel like we’re outlaws… like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Or Thelma and Louise,” I say. “But without the ending. I’ll promise not to get us shot or drive over a cliff. I’ll have you safely back at your mama and daddy’s house in time for supper.”

  “I wish I never had to go back to that house. I wish we could just keep on driving.”

  We’re out of town now, on a country road. “Hey, it’s a nicer house than I’ve ever lived in.”

  “That house looks like a loaf of Wonder Bread. And it’s as white as Wonder Bread on the inside because Mama keeps it so clean. That’s why she didn’t invite you in. She lives in horror of people tracking in dirt.”

  “You know whose house I like? Josephine’s,” I say.

  “Me too,” Rufus says. “But I don’t think I want a house when I’m an adult. I want an apartment in the city.”

  “Me too,” I say. We pass a ramshackle produce stand advertising Earl’s World Famous Boiled Peanuts. “Too bad that place is closed on Sunday. Their boiled peanuts are apparently world famous.”

  “Why do people say something’s world famous when it clearly isn’t?” Rufus says. “It’s not like if we flew to Paris right now we could find some guy there who’d say, ‘Mais oui, of course I have heard of Earl’s peanuts.’”

  After we’re done laughing, I say, “Sometimes I like to pull over and find a place to walk for a while. Is that okay with you?”

  “Mais oui,” Rufus says again.

  “I’ll show you this place I know.” I turn down a gravel road that cuts through rows of scrub pines.

  “You’re sure this leads somewhere?” Rufus says. “If this were a horror movie, we’d run out of gas right about now.”

  “Actually, the place I’m going to show you would be an awesome setting for a horror movie.” We get out of the car at an open field where the grass is waist-high. “It’s this way.”

  We wade into the field. I pick two daisies and put one behind my own ear and the other behind Rufus’s.

  He smiles. “Make sure I remember to take this off before my dad can see it.”

  “So he won’t say, ‘In my day girls didn’t put daisies in boys’ hair.’”

  “‘And if they did it was because they were dirty hippies,’” Rufus says, in a gruff dad voice.

  We have to step high through the tall grass, and without even thinking about it, I reach over and take Rufus’s hand. Somehow it makes the walking easier.

  “I think this is the first time I’ve held a girl’s hand since elementary school,” he says. “It’s like you hit that age when nobody holds hands anymore because it ‘means something.’ And boys holding each other’s hands is out of the question.”

  “What about in private? Have you held a boy’s hand since elementary school?”

  Rufus looks like he might say something but then looks away and says, “Not really.”

  “The place is beyond those trees,” I say to let him know I’ve backed off the nosy questions.

  He grins. “Race you there.” He takes off, and so do I, but he’s many paces ahead of me. He runs like a gazelle, while I’m more of a warthog. He stops once he gets to the trees and waits for me.

  “I didn’t know you could run like that,” I say. “Did you ever do track and field?”

  “No, but running from assholes who want to beat the hell out of me keeps me in pretty good shape. I was just thinking how nice it is to be running to something instead of running away.”

  There’s no doubt Rufus has it harder than I do. At school I’m excluded and sometimes teased, but I’ve never been afraid for my safety. Not like Rufus and not like that Michael Foster guy who’s still in the hospital after being beaten up. “I’m sorry people give you so much crap.”

  “There’s no need for you to be sorry.”

  “I know. I just wish I could make it better.”

  Rufus squeezes my shoulder. “You do make it better. By hanging out with me. And by not giving me crap.”

  I think about the 24-7 loneliness I was suffering before I met Rufus. How did I stand it? “You make things better for me too.” I take his hand again and lead him through the trees.

  “Wow,” he says as soon as he sees it.

  “I know, right?” We’re standing in front of the skeleton of an old plantation house. It’s been burned out on the inside, but its white columns still stand. I always imagine I’ll see a ghostly Southern belle come out of what’s left of the front door.

  “It’s a ruin, isn’t it?” Rufus says. “Like Stonehenge.”

  “I like to lie under this magnolia tree over here,” I say. The tree is huge, taller than the ruined house even, and its blossoms are as big as dinner plates. I crawl under the tree and sprawl flat on my back, and seconds later Rufus is beside me. I look up through the branches and big glossy leaves and inhale the flowers’ scent.

  “It smells yellow,” Rufus says. “And rich like butter.”

  I can’t feel colors like Rufus can, but somehow magnolias smelling yellow makes sense to me. “Sometimes I take a blossom home with me. I’ll float it in a bowl of water, and the smell fills up my room and I can close my eyes and pretend I’m under this tree again.”

  “I think I’ll try that too,” Rufus says. “My house always smells like cleaning products and air freshener that’s supposed to smell like flowers but doesn’t.”

  “My house smells like cigarette smoke.”

  “I’m pretty sure my mom would kill anybody who tried to smoke in her house. Except that killing a person in the house would make a mess too.”

  I laugh. “Your mom tries too hard, and my mom doesn’t try at all. I don’t know which one is worse.”

  “Whichever one you have to live with, I guess,” Rufus says.

  We’re quiet for a couple of minutes, and then I say, “Rufus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Five years from now, where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing?”

  “You mean if I get out of here alive?” He says it
like he’s joking, but I can tell it’s not 100 percent a joke, and it scares me.

  “Don’t talk that way. Of course you will.”

  “I probably will, Syd. It’s just sometimes I worry what if one day those guys who grab me after school don’t stop at just slapping me around? And then sometimes, too, I used to get so sad I’d think I couldn’t take it anymore, and I might… but I haven’t thought about that since I met you.”

  “And you won’t think about it again. You are going to get out of here, and five years from now, what will you be doing… besides some sexy dude?”

  Rufus laughs. “Well, a sexy dude would be on my list, but not stupid sexy. I’d want him to be smart and sweet and funny… those would be the things that would make him sexy. And I’d be in a big city—maybe New York—in college, and my boyfriend and I would spend our free time wandering through museums and seeing plays and films. And it would be really perfect if you could be there too.”

  My eyes tickle like I might start to cry. “Hey, you don’t want me being the third wheel when you’re out with Sexy Boyfriend.”

  “Well, by then you might have… someone of your own too.”

  “Maybe,” I say, but I have a hard time imagining who that might be.

  “But I’m dragging you into my fantasy,” Rufus says. “What do you want to be doing five years from now?”

  “Well, I want to be in a city too. New York would be great, especially if you and Sexy Boyfriend are going to be there. And by then I should be a senior in college. Nobody in my family’s gone to college before… well, nobody in the side of my family that I know. And I want to go and to graduate… not just to prove a point, though, but because I want to know stuff and see stuff and be a person of the world, you know?”

  “Like Josephine’s a person of the world?”

  “Yeah, except you won’t catch me moving back here.”

  “Amen, sister.”

  WHEN WE get back to Rufus’s house, his mother surprises me by coming out to the driveway and waving at me to roll down my window. “I don’t mean to… uh… interrupt you kids,” she says, as though she just caught us in a passionate make-out session. “But Syd, I was wondering if you might like to stay for supper. That is, if your mama doesn’t already have supper waiting on you.”

  If my mother had supper cooked and waiting for me, I’d probably pass out from the shock. “That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Snow. I’d love to stay.”

  When I look over at Rufus, his ears are bright red. “You don’t know what you just agreed to,” he whispers once his mom has headed back toward the house.

  “Should I have said no? I figured if I’m supposed to be your girlfriend, dinner with the parents is part of the deal.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. It’s just… you don’t know what it’s like in there.”

  I laugh. “You make it sound like we’re going inside a prison.”

  “We kind of are.”

  The inside of Rufus’s house is the complete opposite of mine. The only regular household task my mom does is take our dirty clothes to the laundromat once a week. Anything else I do when I feel like it, and often I don’t.

  The Snow house is the kind of clean where you’re scared to touch anything. To the left of the foyer is what I think is called a formal living room, which really means a room where nobody would be comfortable sitting. There’s a stiff cream and gold sofa, matching gold armchairs, and a polished coffee table with little porcelain angel figurines on it. Hanging over the couch is a cheesy painting of a flower-covered cottage. When I look at Rufus, he winces, probably because he’s seeing the place through my eyes.

  “I believe everything’s ready,” Mrs. Snow says. “Syd, you’ll have to excuse us. Sunday supper is very casual at our house. I always cook a big Sunday lunch, which we eat in the dining room. But Sunday supper’s just leftovers in the kitchen—nothing more than a snack, really.”

  “That’s fine,” I say, because I’m not sure why she’s apologizing. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  The kitchen floor is so spotless it gleams. The table is covered with a red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloth, a plate with more ham sandwiches than four people could possibly eat, a huge bowl of potato salad, and two glasses of iced tea and two of milk. The milk, I suppose, is for Rufus and me, though I don’t remember the last time I drank it. I don’t even put milk in my coffee.

  Mr. Snow takes his place at the head of the table, and Mrs. Snow says, “Dear, would you like to ask the blessing?”

  Mr. Snow bows his head, closes his eyes, and says, “Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies that we may be fit for thy service, amen.” He rushes through it without expression like a bored waitress rattling off the day’s specials.

  “Amen,” Mrs. Snow says brightly and passes the plate of sandwiches. “So, Syd, Rufus tells me your mother works over at the Hair Affair?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, taking a sandwich and passing the plate to Rufus.

  “And what does your daddy do?” she asks, passing the potato salad.

  My stomach tightens. “Well, I don’t know, really. He and my mom haven’t been in touch for quite some time.” Not since the night he got her pregnant—whoever he was. But of course, I don’t say this part.

  “Syd likes old movies like I do,” Rufus says, and I silently thank him for changing the subject.

  “That’s nice,” Mrs. Snow says. “So what church do you and your mother go to, Syd?”

  “Uh… we haven’t really found one yet. We haven’t lived here that long.”

  “Now, Olivia,” Mr. Snow says, gesturing at her with his ham sandwich. “Syd didn’t come here for you to interview her like she’s on 60 Minutes.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Mrs. Snow says, looking ruffled. “It’s just… Rufus has been going through this phase where he says he doesn’t believe in God, and I thought you might be a good influence on him, Syd.”

  “I can already tell she’s a good influence on him,” Mr. Snow says. “We’re glad to have you here, Syd.”

  “Thank you,” I say, though I don’t know what evidence Mr. Snow has that I’m a good influence… except that I’m a girl and therefore proof of his son’s heterosexuality.

  This is the first time I’ve been present at a real family meal with both a mother and a father. If it’s supposed to be normal, then why does it feel so weird? It’s like we’re in a play and everybody has a role they’re supposed to act out. But Rufus doesn’t like the script, and I don’t think I do either.

  After Mrs. Snow has forced seconds on everyone, Rufus says, “May I please be excused to show Syd my room?”

  Mr. Snow chuckles. “All right, son, but keep the door open. No hanky-panky under my roof.”

  As we walk down the hall past baby pictures of a tiny red-haired Rufus, I whisper, “Remember, no hanky-panky, mister, so you keep your big mitts off me!”

  Rufus grins. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”

  His room is decorated the way parents decorate boys’ rooms, with a dark blue bedspread and matching curtains and some picture of a ship I’m sure he didn’t pick out. But Rufus being Rufus, attached to the mirror over his dresser are photos of James Dean, some guy I don’t recognize (Montgomery Clift, he tells me), Amy Winehouse, and Marilyn Monroe.

  I point to the framed Rebel Without a Cause poster. “So you got to hang that up?”

  “Yeah, I begged Mom, and she finally let me after I told her Josephine gave it to me, although she wasn’t too happy about it.”

  “My Bette Davis poster is up too.”

  “Maybe I can see your room sometime.”

  In my mind I see the cheap paneling and every stain on the carpet. “I don’t know; it’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “And this isn’t?”

  I laugh. “Well, I’d better hit the road. Eventually my mom will probably wonder where I am.”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Well, then, let’s do it right.” I take Rufu
s’s hand and let him escort me down the hall. We stop at the kitchen, and I say, “Thanks again for dinner, Mrs. Snow.”

  She looks up from washing dishes and sees Rufus and me holding hands. “You’re more than welcome.”

  “I’ll walk her to the car; then I’ll come back to take the trash out,” Rufus says.

  “I bet there’s not another girl at Vermillion High with such a polite boyfriend,” Mrs. Snow says.

  “I bet not,” I say, but I’m thinking, that’s because all the other girls’ boyfriends are straight.

  Rufus

  I WONDER if life will always be such a binary thing, divided between good news and bad news. It has always seemed to be that way for me. School’s out for the year—that’s the good news. The bad news is much worse and honestly, it outweighs the good by far: Michael Foster died. I don’t quite know what happened, he was supposed to recover. But according to what’s been in the newspaper and also on the local news, there was some bleeding in his brain, and then seemingly all of a sudden he was brain dead. And that was that. So it’s murder now, and the sheriff is saying that though they still don’t know who did it, an investigation is underway.

  I feel so sad for Michael Foster and, of course, for his family too, and I also feel more scared than I’ve ever felt living in this town. Naturally, Mama and Daddy and I haven’t talked about it—other than Mama shaking her head and saying “What a shame” at supper on the night we heard the news, and Daddy kind of beating his breast about the sheriff and his posse and all. We don’t ever really talk about important things. And besides, my parents don’t even know about the thing that Michael Foster and I shared—being gay, I mean. In fact, that hasn’t been a part of the news coverage either, meaning that his murder is not being seen as the hate crime it was. At least not yet.

  I feel like I’ve got to start being extra careful now about where I go and how and when I go there. I’m so glad school is out so that I don’t have to deal with being there or leaving there, since that’s always been the most dangerous territory for me. I’m sure Mama would love nothing more than to pick me up after school as well as take me wherever I want to go, but then I may as well stay home all the time or just be like a prisoner. No more Mr. D’s after school, which would mean no coffee! And when would I see Syd and Josephine, except maybe on the weekend?