by Steve Berman
Gregg. Gregg Lehman. He had spent every year of high school mooning over the boy. And every night imagining what it would be like to hold his hand, caress his neck, kiss his lips…and other, sweatier pursuits across Gregg’s lanky landscape.
But he had not written this. Why would he pen something so revealing in his own yearbook? If Leo opened it—and one day she’d surely be so bored that she would—he’d never hear the end of her teasing. Lehmann? He’s Jewish. They chop off the ends of their bicho.
He opened the book to the endpapers, covered in signatures and sentiments. All made out to Gregg Lehman. He had the wrong book. They had traded yearbooks to sign right after English, but he remembered Gregg handing his back, had read what Gregg wrote—Never stop developing. Too short and referencing their brief stint together as partners in Photography class. Roque had wanted Gregg to admit his undying love and desperation at being parted with the start of summer. Or to ask for a kiss. But no, the guy had just smiled and said his good-bye.
So how could Roque be holding Gregg’s book? A book with a message he never wrote. Roque began reading the sentiments from his classmates:
I thought you were kinda weird but know I’m grateful you loaned me a hundred dollars to get my fake ID. Thanks for helping me get wasted often!
I stared at you. A lot. All through Geometry. Why don’t you like blond girls? Everyone likes blond girls. TV tells us so.
Dude, I don’t even know who you are.
None sounded the least bit like something you would write in another person’s yearbook. Not to a friend. He flipped to Gregg’s photo. He wore glasses with round frames dipped down his nose so you could see his eyes. The photographer had caught him in mid-wink with a hint of a smile. Roque sighed, and then laughed at himself. Was he that lonely? No. Did he want a summer fling? Maybe. With Gregg? Definitely. And it needn’t just be a fling; nearly every kid from their high school was destined for Rutgers University because it was cheap.
Gregg’s photo moved. Moved as if it was a few seconds of video trapped on paper. He dropped the book onto the floor. Pages flipped. The weak light from the sole window in the room must have tricked his eyes.
The yearbook lay open to pictures of the underclassmen. Juniors maybe. A drawn red ink heart surrounded one girl’s photo. Roque knelt down to read what was written beside it.
Sharon Cohen, who owned her frizzy hair and cat’s-eye glasses. I’m proud (underlined a lot) to be your only girlfriend. So what if it was back in 9th grade. We rocked!!! (The base of each exclamation point was a tiny, perfect heart.) Now go kiss a boy and try not to think of me.
A notion tingled inside Roque’s head. Maybe Sharon was teasing Gregg. Maybe…Gregg never ever mentioned a girlfriend. He’d gone to prom stag like Roque. But Gregg was a quiet guy, the sort that frustrated gaydar. There had been umpteen mental checklists trying to figure him out. Dresses preppy (√). Oblivious when he spills ketchup on shirt (X). Artistic—photography class (√). Takes photos mostly of girls (X). Doesn’t know how hot he is (X). Borrows my music (√).
He flipped through more pages. Every salutation, every acknowledgment written by another student or teacher was just too personal. Mrs. Groolesky’s I wish you had an uncle. An uncle who had your looks. An uncle who had your looks and was a divorce attorney made him laugh but Mr. Trall’s I gave you a B-because you’re a heathen. Mark 23:37-38 left him ready to spit on the Latin teacher’s photo.
Roque turned to all the various student clubs and activities, where the unpopular kids banded together for mutual understanding if not protection and the school’s darlings gathered in shallow pools to reinforce their saturated popularity. In the photo of the Astronomy Club huddled around a telescope, Gregg knelt on the grass. Next to him sat Duncan Hall, the most notorious gay kid at Maple Shade High. Duncan, whose favorite class was Gossip. A fresh tattoo on his arm, a string of numbers in blue ink tattoo that bit into the glossy page that could only be his phone number. And below the photo: Now that you’ve dumped that Cherry Hill brat, time to give me a call.
Roque put the yearbook on the bed and began pacing the room, which seemed to have shrunk until its walls confined worse than any cage.
There was no reason to be jealous. Gregg was straight and Duncan was just being Duncan, all forward and flirty with any guy that moved. And Duncan knew how Roque felt about Gregg; he had told Roque not to obsess over near beer, whatever that meant.
Roque walked back into the living room. He felt like his spine was a lit roman candle, that sparks would fly out of his fingers if he didn’t clench them into a fist. His sister peered up at him from a book, a guide to winning poker, and then tossed the paperback onto the floor.
“What?” she asked. “So now if I want to read, I’m not allowed?”
“No. I mean…yes. Just don’t talk to me.”
“You’re raro,” she called after him as he went into the kitchen. But he couldn’t open the fridge. With the power off, he’d let the cold air escape and his mother would howl if she even suspected something might spoil and food money be wasted.
He opened the door onto the beachside porch and stood at the edge of the wooden planks so raindrops would strike him now and then as he paced. He just had cabin fever. If you could have that in summer on the beach. Cabana fever?
Roque held a hand out to collect rainfall in his palm. Even the sensation of the cooling drops striking and pooling above his wrist, where blood rushed to and fro beneath the skin, could not distract him from thoughts of Gregg calling Duncan up, Duncan suggesting they take a ride into New Hope with all its cute shops and hipsters, Duncan faux laughing in the jeep on the highway, Duncan draping an arm over Gregg’s shoulder and, with his fingers, adjusting Gregg’s shirt collar. Then he’d stop laughing and lean in close…
Roque could feel a scream of frustration building inside his chest.
What he needed was to hear Gregg’s voice. That would mean the difference between a weekend of complete misery and…well, something better than misery. He had kept his crush on his friend hidden and managed to remain non-miserable all though senior year.
Maybe the neighbors would let him use their cell phone. Roque was somewhat confident he remembered all of Gregg’s digits. 7-9-6-2-1-0-6. Or 2-0-1-6.
He ran through raindrops, crossing the space between cabins. The screen door rattled when he knocked against the metal frame. The interior was as dim as the one he’d left. A couple minutes later, a pair of round heads appeared in the doorway. Frowning round heads, one with shaggy brown hair, the other black and spiked with way too much product.
The teens blinked at him, as if suddenly awakened. A pair of “What?”s followed.
“Um, hey. I was wondering—our power is out also—could I borrow a cell phone?” He realized the request sounded lame, so decided to add an “It’s an emergency” to the end.
Spikey, the shorter of the boys behind the door, looked to and fro, as if expecting the flashing lights of a police car or ambulance just at the periphery of his vision. Spittle struck the rusty metal screen and Shaggy said, “No.”
“Please?”
Spikey muttered something to the boy, who then asked, “You the brother of the girl who’s staying next door?”
“Uh, yeah, why—”
“Rican girls are hot. So if she had asked…” Shaggy said. Both boys laughed, showing braces, as they shut the flimsy wooden door beyond the screen in his face.
*
Roque collapsed on the floor near where Leo read. “If it ever does stop raining, don’t even think about wandering that way,” he said and gestured toward the next cabin.
“Oh?”
“They’re gilipollas.” And he told her what had happened. Nothing about the yearbook or Gregg, though.
Leo giggled. “Rican girls are also trouble when we’re bored.” She dropped the book. “I have an idea. Grab a deck of cards and follow me.”
Seeing Leo with him, the boys let them inside. But their smirks faded when she sta
rted demanding they clear space on the living room floor and bring over some candles.
“I’m not into any voodoo shit,” Spikey said.
Shaggy, who might have been a year older, nudged his friend in the stomach. “Cards is tarot, not voodoo.”
“Relax.” Leo took the top card from the deck of cards Roque held. Jack of hearts. “Just regular old playing cards. I thought we’d play some strip poker.”
Every guy in the room—Roque included—let loose a “What?!”
“Well, not traditional strip. You still have to ante up. That means money, boys. But if you win the pot, the losers also drop trou.” She grinned. “Eventually.”
Roque shook his head and held out the cards to her. “I am not going to sit here and play strip poker with my sister—”
“Of course not.” She shoved the deck of cards against at his chest. “You’re the dealer.”
“But…”
“Confía en mí,” she said. Trust me.
She stretched a moment, and the two brothers stared longingly at her. Then she sat down on the bare floor. Roque sat beside her, then the other boys.
“Texas Hold ’em is the game.” She cracked her knuckles.
Leo pulled out a wad of dollar bills from the pocket of her shorts. She unfolded one and tossed it onto their midst. The brothers did likewise.
She didn’t need to explain the rules. Cable television taught kids everything they needed to know to survive adolescence.
She won the first hand. The boys shucked their sneakers. Overpriced sneakers, Roque noted.
She lost the second hand and did not hesitate to remove her T-shirt. Her bra was peach and lacy at the edges. The boys’ jaws dropped, as if the rubber bands attached to their braces had snapped. Roque looked at the hand she had folded. A pair of nines. It would have beat theirs.
After that…she never lost. A half hour later, the boys were pale and doughy and down to their underwear, ironically tighty-whities for both. Roque estimated they had lost at least fifty dollars, plus however much Spikey’s sports watch might be worth.
“So,” Leo said, “I’d be willing to use this”—she held up her winnings—“to rent a cell for the night.”
Spikey groaned and reached into the pocket of the shorts lying next to him. Shaggy scowled. “How do we know you’ll give it back?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve seen my wanted posters? I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you both what you really want,” she fingered the bottom fringe of her bra, “a long look—”
“All right!” Spikey shouted.
“If—and only if—you lend us your phone.” Then her lips turned into a grin Roque had never witnessed before. “And you kiss each other.”
“Kiss?!”
“With tongue.”
“No way no way no way,” Shaggy said, but Spikey was paying more attention to Leo’s hands slipping behind her back to reach the latch of her bra.
Roque stayed quiet because he was sure he had someone stepped into some crazy television show and was waiting for the laugh track to commence. Or a commercial break.
“I want to see them,” Spikey said.
“Dude, there’s better on the ’net.”
“No. Nothing’s better than real life.” And Spikey leaned over before Shaggy could escape. With one hand he grabbed a handful of brown hair at the back of Shaggy’s head, securing the way for their lips to meet. Shaggy’s cheeks puffed out, as if he were playing the trumpet and not kissing another guy.
Leo laughed. Roque slapped a hand over his eyes because he knew what she’d do next. He heard gasps, though whether that was from the effect of a first boy-on-boy kiss, seeing his sister’s bare breasts, or C) all of the above, he didn’t know. Or want to.
*
On the walk back through the rain, Roque stayed a few steps behind his sister, who had pulled back on her T-shirt but cradled her bra in one hand and the phone in another like a pair of trophies.
He was still in awe. “You learned to do all that after one read?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Papi taught me how to play ages ago.”
Roque handed her a towel to dry her hair.
“Here.” She pressed the cell phone into his hand. “You have ten minutes to speak to the mariposa that has you stir-crazy. The rest of the battery belongs to me.”
*
Roque retreated to the bedroom to make the call. On the third ring, a voice answered. Not Gregg’s. No, it was pitchy, unmistakably Duncan’s: “Speak to me.”
Why the hell would Duncan have Gregg’s phone? Roque’s insides trembled. As if he were on the edge of the flu. “Where’s Gregg?”
“Roque Prieto! How’s the surf?” A giggle. Everyone in the area knew of the torrential rainfall.
“Just put Gregg on.”
“Still all moist after that one?”
“Duncan. Please.”
“If I could, I would, hon. But he’s not here right now. After sharing a fabulous breakfast together—well, you know how I leave men crazy—he drove off forgetting his phone. But don’t fret—”
Roque hung up. He didn’t want to hear details.
The weird yearbook lay open in his lap. But Gregg’s photograph was now empty, as if he had ducked when the photographer clicked the camera. Or he was hiding from Roque. The caption of Most Likely to Hack into the Smithsonian had changed to When I take a drink I become another person, and the other person wants a drink too.
He tossed the book across the room and was satisfied at the thud it made, at the plaster it cracked on the wall.
Back in the living room, he dropped the phone on the sofa by Leo, who watched him move to the front door and struggle with the latch. She asked him where he was going, but Roque didn’t answer.
He started running through the rain. He often fell to his hands and knees onto the chilled, dark sand, but picked himself up again and again. The beach was deserted and he was determined to reach the farthest end he could. And then? Then he’d just sit in the rain until he got pneumonia. Or the rain, which fell so hard it stung, would erode him into tiny pieces that would wash away into the frothy Atlantic.
He reached a line of rocks jutting out of the sand, perpendicular to the shore. Before he could climb over them, a car horn startled him. He looked over his shoulder. A Jeep drove over the dune grass, its headlights trained on him. He stepped aside.
It stopped inches away. The driver’s side door opened. Gregg leaned out. “You’re not supposed to swim on the beach.” Raindrops began to spatter Gregg’s glasses.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Liar.”
Gregg’s forehead furrowed. “I drive through a storm to find you and I’m rewarded with attitude?”
“I’m not the one that had breakfast with Duncan! Was that his treat after you treated him to dinner?”
Gregg shook his head. “Get inside and we’ll talk.”
“No. I’d rather swim.”
“You know I could get arrested for driving on the beach.”
“Really?” Roque glanced up and down the beach.
“Honest. And I promise to be honest with you.”
Roque walked around to the passenger side. He was thankful to get out of the rain, though he couldn’t be more soaked if he had dived headfirst into the surf.
“When you’re wet your eyelashes look huge,” Gregg said.
“Duncan. Tell me now.”
Gregg sighed. “Yes, I did go to Duncan’s house this morning. And he cooked me breakfast. But I went there just to talk.”
“’Bout what?”
“You. I needed a neutral party to talk to—like Switzerland.”
“Duncan’s not Switzerland. He’s more like…like Hannibal Lecter crossing the Alps.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Nothing this day makes sense. I think I have your yearbook—”
“I’m not interested in Duncan. But he’s been out for ages. You’re out
. And…and I’m not quite there yet.”
“Wait…what?”
“I’ve always thought you were cute. Since we met. I was kinda hoping you’d ask me out some time. I couldn’t because…I mean, do two guys go to movies together? Hold hands? What are the rules? But then, you never seemed interested in me that way, so I just buried my feelings and was sorta content to be friends.”
Gregg reached out and pressed his hand on Roque’s shoulder. “And then, when you signed my yearbook, I realized high school is over and I won’t be seeing you like every day. Even if we’re both at Rutgers, that place is huge. And all I wanted to do was ask you out, but I thought you’d say no.”
“No. I mean—I wouldn’t have.”
Gregg smiled. “Duncan told me that you sweated me.”
“He did?” Roque leaned closer to Gregg.
“Yeah. He encouraged me to go after you, told me he overheard you telling folks you’d be down the shore this weekend.”
Roque mentally groaned at being such an idiot, such a jealous idiot, with Duncan.
“And here you are.”
“And here I am. I want—”
Roque leaned forward and kissed him.
Gregg blushed. “Uh, yes, I wanted a kiss, too, but I was going to say, ‘I want that date.’”
“I’m here in your car. You can take me anywhere.”
Gregg was the one who started the next kiss.
“You really have my yearbook?” he asked.
“Buy me a drink and it’s yours.”
“A drink?”
Roque nodded. “I think you’d be a very different person hammered.” He regretted saying it moments after it escaped his mouth. He didn’t want a different Gregg but the very one that risked the rain for him.
“At one time,” Gregg said. “But I’m really more of a coffee drinker these days.” He reached into the cup holder and shook the paper cup a little. “It’s not as hot as it used to be.”
Roque wiped water dripping from his forehead into his eyes and looked out the streaked windows. “There’s gotta be a pier somewhere close. We could share.”