by Steve Berman
Gregg smiled and put the Jeep in gear. “Would you believe this is sort of how I pictured our first date would be?”
“Most likely, I would believe anything you did, anything you told me.” Roque’s hand reached for the cup and found the heat of Gregg’s fingers instead.
Leap
’Nathan Burgoine
After three hours crammed in the back of the car, the last thing I was going to do was unpack. I’d thrown my stuff into the small room in the cabin that would be mine for the next three weeks—this time we had cabin four, because we’d been the last to call in our reservation—and had immediately set off down the dirt path to the lake. My dad was still unloading the car, and my mom was arranging the kitchen. Both of them had been smiling and had waved me off, saying they didn’t need any help. They were in a great mood—I knew they looked forward to this every year. We’d been renting a cabin for the last weeks of August as a family for as long as I could remember.
I closed my eyes, let the sun hit my face, and relaxed. Finally. I started down the familiar path, listened to the birds, and enjoyed the sound of the wind through the leaves—it had always reminded me of the water rushing over the dam at Hog’s Back.
At the top of the rise, there was a path that went farther up, to an outcropping. I thought about heading straight up there. You could take a running leap from the top and launch yourself out into the lake. It was gorgeous out. The water would be warm.
Then I heard laughter from down below, and I went down to the lake instead. When I came out of the trees, two familiar faces were waiting for me at the usual spot at the end of the small wooden dock.
“Ryan!” Angie grinned, getting up from her blanket and running up the dock. She was wearing a bikini, and had more than enough curves to fill one. Beside her, Barb put down the book she was reading and got up, too—her swimsuit was a one-piece, and flattered her lean build.
“You cut your hair!” I said, and grabbed Angie in a big hug, picking her up and swinging her in a circle. She laughed, kicking her feet. I put her down.
“Do you like it?” she asked, touching the short auburn bob.
“Very chic,” I said.
“I keep telling her it makes her eyes pop,” Barb said, walking up and giving me a much more sedate hug. “But she never listens to me.”
“Gay boys are better at that stuff,” Angie said, giving Barb a snooty smile. “Besides, you’ve been wearing a ponytail for, what, eleven years?”
“It’s functional,” Barb said, and rolled her eyes.
“If I had her cheekbones, I’d go for a ponytail, too,” I said.
“Eww.” Angie wrinkled her nose. “Long hair on boys is gross.”
“I almost did the leap it’s so nice out, but I thought I’d come find you guys first.”
Barb smiled. “We haven’t jumped yet either.” Every year since we’d been old enough to finally dare each other into action, we’d jumped off the ledge and into the lake with loud screams and lots of laughter.
“And not in this swimsuit,” Angie added, motioning to the bikini.
I laughed, and the three of us made our way back to the dock. I unfolded my towel, pulled off my shirt, and lay back, sighing comfortably as the two girls sat down. I rolled my head to the side, looking at Barb.
“Okay,” I said. “So why do I find out you’re an award-winning writer on Facebook?”
Barb had the grace to look abashed. “The newspaper story contest? I won second place. Sorry. I’ve been really busy.”
“And she had a boyfriend, but she dumped him,” Angie said.
“I didn’t dump him,” Barb sighed. This was obviously a discussion they’d had before. “We just sort of put it on hold.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” I said.
Angie picked up her phone and started thumbing through her photos while Barb rolled her eyes at us. Angie held out her phone. I sat up. A boy with blond hair and a great smile was beaming out of the phone at me. “Very cute. I approve. How come Angie knows about this dumped boyfriend, and this is the first I’ve heard about him?”
“Like I said, it’s been busy…My mom and Stuart are doing that puppy love thing all over the place, and they keep taking me out places and having ‘family nights.’ I think my mom wants me to feel secure that he’s not like my dad was. Anyway, Angie only knows because we go to the same school.” Barb shook her head. “It wasn’t anything serious. John and I had four dates in March and April, but he was going on kibbutz for the summer, so we put it on hold until he gets back.”
“They’ve arranged their schedules to share a few classes,” Angie added.
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow, grinning. Barb and Angie weren’t especially close to each other, I knew, except for August when we were all here at the cabins. They moved in different circles even though they went to the same school. Angie was a cheerleader and was looking forward to joining her mother’s sorority, Barb was more likely to join a writing group and only cheered when there was some sort of breaking news she cared about. I’d known them for what felt like forever. Our mothers had all been friends since grade school.
“I refuse to answer that,” Barb said, but she was blushing, and her lips were twitching.
“I assume you and Chris are still the thing? Any major breaking news there?” I asked, looking at Angie.
“Nothing serious,” Angie said haughtily, doing a perfect Barb impression.
Angie and I burst out laughing, and Barb stuck her tongue out at us.
“Oh my God, though,” Angie said. “My parents are thinking about giving me the car.”
I sat up. “Excuse me?” I hoped I didn’t sound as jealous as I felt.
She waved her painted fingernails, excited. “So you know how my sister got married, right? Well, a couple of weeks after that, she announced they’ve gotten lucky and are pregnant right away—no one bought that for a second, but we’re all pretending—and so now my folks are head-over-heels about the impending baby.”
I stared at her. “And why does that mean you get a car?”
“My parents are gonna give me my mom’s Mazda. Apparently the baby seat they’ve bought wouldn’t fit in it, so my dad got her an Element and I get the hand-me-down.” She grinned.
“Nice hand-me-down,” I muttered. She smiled at me. Barb made a noise I agreed with—something between a groan and a sigh.
“Hey, I’ll need wheels when I go to university,” Angie said.
I took a breath. “I worked at the gas station all summer—which, let me tell you, gives you a whole new perspective on your fellow man—and I don’t get a car. Life is unfair.”
“Completely,” Barb said.
Angie stuck her tongue out, but laughed. “Cars make you lazy. Don’t you prefer running?”
I rolled my eyes. “I shaved almost an entire minute off my five-K run this year,” I said, proud. “I think I’ve got a real shot at bringing home the gold.”
“And the hunt for a boyfriend?” Angie asked. Barb looked up at this as well.
“I’m the only out guy in my school,” I reminded them. “So that’s a big ol’ ‘no.’”
“What about that Skype guy?” Angie asked.
“James?” I lay back on the dock, sighing. “He lives three hours away. Also, he found a boyfriend of his very own.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. James and I had met online when he’d admitted his giant Jake Shears crush on a Scissor Sisters blog. A follow-up comment from me praising his taste had turned into an e-mail, then a couple of Facebook chats, and then Skype. He was cute—French Canadian, he had a great accent, and my attempts at high school French had made him laugh. We shared music with each other, sent stupid texts back and forth, and it had been what I’d thought could have turned serious, right up until the “I met this guy” text had come in, and then he’d pretty much vanished.
Boom. Back to being the only out gay guy in my school.
“How was this year?”
Barb asked.
“It was a lot better,” I admitted. The first year I’d come out had been bumpy. There’d been a kid in another school, Brady Adams, who’d come out on his fifteenth birthday and made the news with his blog about the day-to-day life of being the only gay kid in his school. Some idiots had started sending him nasty messages when the news story aired, but a lot of support poured in, too. The good outweighed the bad, and I’d seen so many messages on his blog from adults telling him about how much better it would get, but there hadn’t been any other teenagers. After one of his posts where he’d talked over and over about how much it sucked to be alone, I’d posted my first reply to him.
You aren’t alone. Three words, but it changed everything for me.
I’d known I was gay since eighth grade, but when I’d read Brady’s blog I’d decided to come out. My mom—she was a elementary school teacher—had been fantastic about the whole thing and had always been outspoken about her opinions on the subject, so I’d known she’d be okay when I finally got up the nerve to tell her. My dad had taken a little longer not being awkward around me—he was a quiet guy, and when he’d finally told me “it doesn’t matter, you’re my son,” it had taken a lot of effort not to burst into tears.
School had been a bigger step than my folks, but I kept thinking about Brady, and that got me through it. I wasn’t worried too much about bullies—I wasn’t exactly popular, but the track team had my back, and nobody wants to piss off one of the yearbook photographers. I wasn’t a social outcast. I figured I could hold my own, and if nothing else, three years of cross-country pretty much gave me all the training I needed in the “run away” department. But it hadn’t been like that. I’d started small—my friends and the team had been mostly okay with it, though one or two of them had kind of faded away over the year. My track coach, Ms. Fletch, had been amazing and she’d steered me toward PFLAG and other stuff like that, and even asked me if I wanted to set up a Gay-Straight Alliance next year, which I was thinking of doing.
Sure, there were jerks—most notably Chad Donovan—and boy did those jerks manage to make some days pretty rough, but for the most part it had only gotten better over the last year. Chad had graduated now, too, so I wouldn’t see him again. I liked myself more now—it had taken a lot of effort to be someone I wasn’t. Then I’d met James, and things seemed to be going in a much better direction.
Until he met someone.
“You’re totally gonna get scooped up the minute you get to university, Ryan,” Angie said. “Mark my words.”
“If Brady doesn’t get you first,” Barb said.
I groaned. I’d eventually met up with Brady Adams at a coffee shop, only to learn that he thought we were on a date. I’d thought we were just going to hang out. He was tiny—and fifteen, for crying out loud!—and it was really awkward. He liked Lady Gaga. He’d sent me messages and written poems about me on his blog. It was humiliating.
“Bite your tongue,” I said. “Besides, I think even he has managed to find someone now. Or at least, there’s no poetry about my dimples anymore.”
They laughed.
“Anyone show up for cabin three yet?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Not yet,” Barb said. There were four cabins in the group, and last year, the fourth family had been a young couple with twin four-year-olds. They were cute, but we were all sort of hoping they’d take a pass this year. They’d pretty much lived at the dock, and we’d always felt like it was our space. Our parents liked the large yard that the four cabins shared, pulling picnic tables together and playing games and laughing the day away, the men barbecuing and talking sports while the women shared stories.
We settled back, letting the sun warm our skin and talking about movies and books and the bits and pieces of the last year, until the sun started to dip and the mosquitoes came out.
*
The sound of a car door closing woke me, and I sat up and looked through the small screened window in my room to see that there was now a car outside of cabin three. A couple of figures moved about in the moonlight, and I peered, trying to see if there were any shadows the right size for the twin boys. There weren’t. In fact, it looked like there were only three people there at all, and all of them were too tall to be children. Their voices were muffled—they were obviously trying to be as quiet as they could, aware it was quite late, and I watched for a little while as they unloaded a cooler and a few bags from the car, then went into the cabin. I lay back, smiling to myself that there’d be no children yelling and splashing in the water, and that the dock was once again our domain.
The next morning while the sun rose I went for a run around the road that led into the cabins. Even without the sun beating down, it was hot, and I was soon sweating and swiping away some lingering mosquitoes. I did a full set of laps, and then headed back for the yard the cabins shared. I could hear laughter as I made my way around the last bend. Everyone was already outside, the picnic tables once again rearranged into the cluster the way our mothers did every year, with a jug of milk and boxes of cereal over one of them. Angie’s mom and Stuart were sitting at one table with Barb’s folks, and my parents were at another with a couple I didn’t know. I made a beeline for the food and grabbed a bowl and a spoon from the breakfast table.
“That’s our son, Ryan,” Mom said, shaking her head. She turned to the couple, who seemed to be about the same age as my folks. “He does have manners, but he’s in a growing spurt again and eats three times his weight after a run.” Then she looked back at me. “Ryan, this is Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. They’ve got cabin three this year.”
I smiled and said hello. They smiled back. Mrs. Sullivan was very pretty, with dark hair and dark eyes. She had her hair back in a scrunchie, but you could tell she’d still taken time to do her makeup and put on a nice blouse. Her husband seemed more relaxed—he looked like he’d probably played hockey or something when he was younger—he was a big guy. He was either bald or shaved his head—probably a mix of the two—and seemed to fit in more in his comfortable shirt and cut-offs.
I started pouring some cereal. I scanned for Barb and Angie, but they’d probably already headed down to the dock.
“Our son is still asleep,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “He’s growing, too. He’d sleep all day, if I let him—but we got in pretty late.” She and my mom shared a laugh over us boys.
“I’m up,” came a voice, and we all turned.
The guy coming out of cabin three was tall and dark-haired and looked rumpled and out of it. He rubbed his eyes with the palm of one hand, then looked around. When he looked at me, I shivered. Hi, there.
“This is Will,” his mother said. She introduced him to my parents, and he said hello. He was wearing an Arcade Fire T-shirt—hello, good taste!—and a pair of tan cargo shorts, which I could forgive since he had great legs, and wide shoulders.
I was suddenly very aware that I was sweating like a pig and probably smelled foul.
“Ryan,” my mother said. “Show Will where the cereal is.”
I looked at the table in front of me where the cereal was in plain view of anyone with even one half-functional eyeball. I pointed at it. “Cereal,” I said.
He smiled—a crooked smile, which was really hot—and I saw my mother roll her eyes at me. Will joined me at the table, and I cleared my throat. “Bowls. Spoons.” I pointed at each.
“All right, smart-aleck,” my mother called, but Will laughed. He had a deep laugh.
“I’m Ryan,” I said. I’m gross and sweaty and you’re tall and cute.
“Will.” He nodded. He poured some flakes into his bowl and grabbed the jug. His T-shirt was tight, and that was a good thing. He obviously hit the gym. I pressed my own arms against my side, holding my bowl against my chest. Could he smell me?
“Nice to meet you. Grab your spoon, and I’ll show you where we go to escape the old people.” And where I can get into the lake and clean off my stink.
*
“Ladies,” I said, c
arrying my bowl in front of me and leading the way while Will walked behind me. “You will notice that I am not accompanied by five-year-old twins.”
Barb and Angie held their hands over their eyes as we approached the dock. Angie had a much more modest swimsuit on today, I noticed, though it definitely still worked her curves.
“Thank God!” she said.
“Hi,” Barb said, rising, and offering her hand. “I’m Barb. She’s Angie.”
“Will,” Will said. He looked at the dock, and the lake. “This is pretty nice.”
The dock wasn’t the only thing that was nice. Will’s eyes, for one thing, were the colour of dark chocolate. I dropped my towel and spread it out awkwardly with one hand, still cradling my breakfast with the other.
“Did you just get up?” Angie asked me.
“I went on a run,” I said. “Some of us work and train our butts off all summer and don’t get hand-me-down cars we don’t pay for.”
“Please.” She smirked. “You worked in a gas station. What ride are you gonna buy, a bike?”
“Don’t mind them,” Barb said. “They’re not used to guests.”
Will laughed, sitting down beside me. I scooched over to give him some room and to try to stay downwind. He took a spoonful of his cereal and chewed. He had a great jawline.
“So what school do you go to?” Angie asked.
Will swallowed. “We just moved from Toronto. Next year I’m going to Ottawa Central. It’s my last year.”
“That’s my school,” I said, and Will looked at me, interested.
“What’s it like?”
My brain went blank. “It’s a high school,” I said.
He pointed at his bowl. “Cereal.”
I laughed. The girls regarded us like we were idiots.
“We thought we’d do the leap today,” Angie said. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Will was eating, so he shook his head and raised an eyebrow. I’d always wanted to be able to do that one-eyebrow thing. I’d trade in my dimples for knowing how to do the one-eyebrow thing in a heartbeat.
“Our mothers are all friends,” Barb explained. “We come here every summer. There’s a path that takes you to that outcropping.” She pointed, and Will craned his neck to look at it. “We jump in the lake every year. It’s like a tradition.”