Over Time

by Kyell Gold

  I grab my jacket, but Lee’s looking at me and not moving, and I can’t figure out why until I feel the stiffness of the envelope in the jacket pocket. I pull it out and hold it up between us. For a moment I consider putting it back in and walking out. But I know that’s not the right thing to do.

  “By the way,” I say, turning and holding out the envelope, “if you want to know how much Lee considers himself family, here. This is from both of us to help with Alexi’s expenses.”

  Gregory doesn’t get up, though his eyes do watch the envelope. Dad finally gets up to take it from me and he opens it. His eyes widen. “This is…very generous.”

  Mom appears in the doorway to the kitchen and watches Dad walk across the room to drop the envelope in Gregory’s lap, the check sticking partway out of it.

  We all wait for his reaction, and at first he doesn’t do anything, not even look down. Then curiosity gets the better of him and he drops his eyes. His fingers tease at the check and his brow lowers as he reads it. “What is this?”

  “I told you, it’s to help—”

  “Is this to shut me up?” The envelope falls to the floor as he lifts the check out of it.

  “No!” My voice rises again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  He stands up, brandishing the check. “And it’s in his name! You couldn’t have sent the message any more clearly if you’d written ‘shut up’ on it.”

  “Gregory! I have had enough of this behavior.” Dad stands up, but his usual authority doesn’t stop Gregory—or me, for that matter.

  “I thought I was perfectly clear before.” I match his tone. “I don’t give a shit what you say or do. That,” I point to the check, “is for my nephew.”

  “What,” he sneers, “so you can have me indebted to you? So you have a forty thousand dollar chit you can call in sometime in the future?”

  “So your goddamn cub doesn’t get any sicker!”

  “I told you,” he says, “we are doing fine.” And before any of us can stop him, he takes the check and rips it in half.

  The pieces flutter to the carpet in silence. Even Lee is dumbstruck. I can’t process all the thoughts going through my head. And of all of us, it’s Mom who finds her tongue first.

  “You will apologize to your brother,” she says, her eyes fixed on Gregory, “and to Lee.”

  He stares at her and then turns to Dad. “Dad…”

  But our father shakes his head slowly. “Your mother is right. Family comes first and you are not thinking of family.”

  “I’m—” Gregory stutters, the first time I’ve seen him unable to speak in years. “But—you don’t understand—that was—”

  “Apologize,” Dad says, “to both of them. And then I think you should leave.”

  Gregory looks around the room, skipping over Lee, and then his eyes rest on me. His jaw tightens and he stomps past all of us without a word. A moment later, the front door slams hard enough to rattle the glass in the windows.

  Silence drags on and on, and then Dad reaches a paw out to Lee. Lee takes it, looking up into his muzzle. “I am sorry,” Dad says.

  Lee tilts his head. “For?”

  “I am realizing that it sounded as though I did not consider what Gregory did to be serious. And the truth is…” He looks up at Mom. “I did not want to believe that it was. I knew your relationship confused him, but I hoped the case was a coincidence or that he did not really believe it. And now it will appear that I am only apologizing because you offered forty thousand dollars to our grandcub.”

  “It was Dev’s money really.” Lee smiles. “He gave it to me and so it made sense to give it back. But,” he adds quickly, “thank you. There’s no need to apologize for believing the best of your children.”

  “I have perhaps not always done that.” Now he releases Lee’s paw and looks at me.

  I shuffle my feet. “I haven’t made it easy.”

  “No.” A smile flickers.

  “I’ll write another check,” Lee says. “To you guys. You don’t have to tell him where the money comes from.”

  “Thank you.” Mom comes up now. “It is a very nice thing.”

  “And I hope,” Dad says, “that we will see you both here for the holidays.”

  24

  Back to School (Lee)

  That was about the most uncomfortable kiss I ever had. I couldn’t pull away with Dev obviously making a point in front of his father and brother, but I couldn’t really forget about them watching, either. I’m just glad he didn’t want to make more of a demonstration.

  And it ended pretty well for us, at least. I leave the house smiling and waggy from his parents’ reception to me and the idea that we’ll be able to help Alexi, but my tiger’s mind is elsewhere.

  “I don’t get how he can be that way,” Dev growls as he slams his car door closed. “Where the fuck did that come from?”

  I watch the puffs of his breath and mine in the car and rub my paws together to warm them. “Let’s not forget that after our first, ahem, date, when you came back to my apartment, I didn’t know if you were going to hit me or kiss me. And then we didn’t talk all summer, and I wasn’t sure you were going to come back.”

  He laughs harshly, but relaxes a little. “What do you mean? You bought a new dress.”

  “I hoped.” I smile. “I didn’t know. I thought you might spend the summer denying it ever happened and putting that faggot fox out of your mind.”

  “As if.” He shakes his head. “But still, I didn’t think gay people were…”

  “Didn’t you?” I try to remember the Devlin Miski I met that spring, and fail. “You maybe hadn’t thought about it very much. Gregory probably hasn’t met anyone he knows is gay, and having it be his little brother, right around the time you’re getting to be a big celebrity…”

  “He’s jealous, I know.”

  I clear my throat. “Could you start the car? It’s a wee bit chilly.”

  “How long have you lived in Chevali? A month?” He snickers and starts the car anyway, and then pulls out into the street.

  “I’m losing all my fur. See?” I wave it all around in the air and he coughs theatrically.

  On our way out of town, I keep the conversation going. “Don’t you feel just a bit excited that you’re more famous than he is? That you’re doing better? I mean, you were in the UFL Championship game.”

  He doesn’t answer, and I can see his thoughts going back to the game itself. “While he’s taking charitable cases who only want him to be involved because of you. That seemed to bother him more than anything else, you know.”

  His expression clears, and I see the memories of the game fade. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s pretty great, huh?”

  “And who’d have guessed your dad would throw him out?”

  “He didn’t really…” Dev pauses. “He did, didn’t he?”

  “I mean, it’s not permanent or anything, I’m sure. But it gave him something to think about. And you made a pretty nice speech there at the end, too.”

  He flicks his ears, and his whiskers lift. “I just thought about what you would say. Well, no, I mean, I didn’t even have to take time to think. It came out like that.”

  Warmth that has nothing to do with the car’s heater fills me. “I’m glad. And I hope the words have an effect on him, even if it takes time.”

  He nods, and when neither of us says anything, he turns up the music.

  Two exits down the highway, almost out of Lake Handerson, I can’t hold in the question anymore. “Hey, Dev?” He turns his ears toward me but doesn’t look away from the road. “Was I okay? I mean, did I step out of line or talk too much?”

  That gets him to laugh. “After I pulled you in to kiss you, you ask that?”

  “I just want to be sure. You know, your dad might be onto something with this whole ‘talking’ thing. Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about keeping quiet?”

  He chuckles and reaches over to pat my leg. “You were fine, doc. Don’t e
ven worry about it. You made good points.”

  My ears go up and my tail relaxes. “So I can learn, I guess.”

  “You can. You don’t always.”

  “Fair enough, I guess.” I shake my head. “What was with that kiss?”

  For a few seconds he thinks about it, and then says, “Ah, it seemed like a better idea than punching him, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say.” His muzzle half-turns. “You think it was a bad idea?”

  “It was a sweet gesture.” I smooth down my cheek ruffs. “I don’t think I was looking my best.”

  “I doubt they noticed, fox.”

  Forester College is much as I remember it, all stately limestone and brick under a blanket of snow. I used to know more of the history than I do now: founded by Jason Keller, a beaver, back in 1894; briefly famous in 1971 for making it ridiculously easy to qualify for an educational exemption to the draft (then-president Mitchell White: “We would rather teach our children to fashion plowshares than bury them with swords.”). Famous alumni include Jay Wortham, an ermine who served two terms as Senator; Mariann Morgan, a vixen who fought for female suffrage and the Orwell Acts; and one Devlin Miski.

  We meet with a fiftyish pine marten named Rob who is the Forester University Athletic Director, a grey fox named Janine who is the Director of Special Events for the University or else maybe the Director of Marketing, I’m not sure, and a young stallion named Chuck who is the current president of FLAG.

  Rob and Janine are dressed in typical Midwestern business suits, but Chuck wears a huge loose flowery silk shirt over a tight t-shirt bearing the design of a rainbow flag, and his jeans barely contain the thick muscles of his legs. The last president of FLAG I remember was a polar bear business major who would have said that Rob and Janine were underdressed; when Chuck takes me aside during the pre-meeting drinks, I am absolutely unsurprised to hear that he is a junior in sociology.

  “Hey,” he says, “you were in FLAG, right?”

  “I was.” I don’t need to go into how I grew distanced from it my senior year, when dating Dev made it difficult to be part of my gay crew. I was active for three years, and that’s not a bad track record. My senior year would have been his freshman year, and I vaguely remember a horse freshman from the few meetings I went to, but I wasn’t one of the people he would have noticed either, and he doesn’t say anything about it.

  “So did you get my e-mail?” He’s all excited the way horses get, bobbing his head and grinning at me. “What did you think?”

  “Oh,” I say, remembering, “I’m not sure I’m on the FLAG alumni list. I might not have signed up my senior year, and I don’t check my Forester e-mail anymore.”

  His head stops moving and his ears go out to the sides. “Aw, that’s a shame,” he says. “I put a picture of your boyfriend up there and I wanted to get one of you, too, but I wasn’t sure you were an alum and by the time I got it confirmed, it was too late. But I mentioned you!”

  “Too late?” I tilt my head. “They haven’t even decided if they’re going to do the day yet.”

  He waves his drink around so enthusiastically that I’m worried it’ll spill. “I know, but I wanted to let people know I was going to be helping plan it so I could bring suggestions from current members and alums. It’s cool, though, I’ll get your info and put it in the announcement when we go ahead with it.”

  “If they go ahead with it.”

  He jerks his head toward the others with a big horsy smile. “I already talked to Janine and she says she wants to do it, she just has to figure out how.”

  I look over to where Dev is talking to the fox and marten, and perk my ears in that direction. Dev’s talking about Polecki and how he’d be willing to come up as well, and Rob responds with enthusiasm about having two players who were in the championship. He suggests maybe they can arm-wrestle. Janine’s thumb-typing furiously on a little Blackberry; she breaks in to ask what companies they can contact for sponsorship money. I make a mental note to suggest Ultimate Fit; maybe they can work in the third commercial Dev owes them as part of the event, and he won’t have to interrupt his minicamps or training camps or even his next season, if they hold onto it that long.

  Chuck is saying something about a dinner that evening, and I focus back on him. “It’d be really cool for the club, be a chance to meet him outside the confines of the event, because he’s going to be really busy then.”

  “Tonight?” I say.

  “Yeah. Even if he can only show up for fifteen minutes. It’s just a regular meeting. I think for the actual event, we’ll organize something too, but…” His head’s bobbing again and he’s smiling. “I worked with Janine on the first Pride Day last year and she’s totally willing to have the students involved, but we were supposed to have time with Marcia Bendinger too and then Janine said they had a chance to meet with some of the local alumni, and it never happened…”

  I’m sure the name is supposed to mean something to me, but I have no idea who that is or why the students would want to meet her. I get the gist of it though, and I’m sympathetic to marketing people taking over an event. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say. “How about coffee at Ketteridge’s?”

  “We do the Starbucks on Maple,” Chuck says, his grin threatening to burst from his lips. “It’s bigger and better lit and we can usually all get in upstairs if we go an hour before they close.”

  “There’s a Starbucks on Maple?” I ask, because it doesn’t seem like things can have changed that much in two years, but of course they do and apparently they have.

  “Oh yeah! It’s a block down from the bookstore. They just put it in last year and it’s amazing, they’re already talking about putting another one in on the other side of campus.”

  “That’s where Ketteridge’s is.”

  “Yeah, but nobody really goes there. I mean, some of the theater majors do. I guess it’s usually pretty full when I go by. I don’t go there very often, though.” His silk shirt ripples as he gestures and bobs. “But yeah, if you guys can show up at the meeting, it’s in Harnwell Hall at eight, and we’re usually over at the Starbucks by nine-thirty and they close at ten-thirty. That’d be awesome.”

  What kind of coffee shop on a college campus closes at ten-thirty? I don’t ask that; instead I say, “We’ll see what we can do.”

  He smiles and extends a hand to my paw. We shake and then talk about all the gay rights news of the day, the lawsuits coming up over marriage. I tell him how when I started school back in 2003, none of us ever believed marriage would actually come about, and now people are taking it seriously. He says that people like Dev coming out really help because they’re reaching other segments of society—people who watch sports aren’t generally the ones who have the most enlightened views on gay rights.

  It’s a nice talk and stirs up those old feelings again. I start to tell him about the Vince King case and then I think it’s settled and I shouldn’t, and then I think, hell with it, and I tell him all about it. He’s horrified at the incident, furiously glad at the lawsuit, and, like me, unsure what to think about the settlement. “I’m glad they had to pay, but I wish it’d gone to trial.” He blows a snort. “Send me the info and I’ll tell people about it. We have a newsletter.”

  It’s a nice gesture, and I remember when I would’ve eagerly offered the services of the FLAG newsletter. But the people it reaches are people who already know what kind of shitty things Families United does. They don’t need more convincing. Plus, now, I’d be exposing Gregory to the world if I did that. Partly I genuinely feel bad for him, but also I don’t want to give him a platform to yell about Dev.

  Rob and Janine offer to take us to lunch, but we don’t go to Goose’s, the diner, nor to P.J.’s, the casual dining restaurant where my parents met Dev for the first time. They take us to this place called Aqua, a smallish restaurant with blue-tinted walls and aquaria all around the entrance. We’re seated at white-linened tables with soft light glowing in blue shades overhead and given
blue leather menus from which to choose seafood, all caught from the nearby lake.

  On the way over, I get a call from Gena. She wanted to let me know that Hal came over and spent some time with Fisher and that he left contact information for some of the other guys he’s been talking to. I ask how Fisher’s dealing with it, and she says he seems more relaxed, though it’s only been a little while. The nurse is working out well and Gena sounds more positive than she’s been since—well, since midway through the season, I guess.

  By the time I get into the restaurant, Chuck and Rob have taken the seats around Dev, so I sit across from Janine. After we get the “what do you do” out of the way, we end up having a pretty good conversation. Her title is actually Director of Marketing and Communications, and she’s a Forester alum (from well before my time, though she’s not as old as Rob).

  “Okay,” I say, “so I need to ask your opinion on a critical matter that I’ve just become aware of at Forester.” Her ears perk my way, and she looks serious—because she doesn’t know me yet. “What do you think of the Starbucks?”

  The grey fox’s first response is a marketing one: “Oh. Starbucks has been really great to work with. They’re putting a lot of money into the community and they’re respecting our wishes as far as where to set up their shops…” Then she sees my expression and says, “But I’m a Ketteridge’s gal myself. Starbucks is fine for an afternoon latte, but if I’m sitting with friends…” She looks past my shoulder. “Don’t do much of that around campus anymore. Maybe when my cubs go here.”

  She has a boy and a girl, eight and thirteen, and I let her tell me about them, and then she lets me tell her about my job with the Whalers and the championship. I can tell she’s not that into football, but she admits that she watched the game with her husband and that he was excited about Dev. “‘I watched him play here!’ he kept saying,” she chuckles. “‘I coulda gotten his autograph!’ It was really cute.”