by Kris Ripper
“Good to meet you. I’m Keith Whelan. Welcome to the Queer Youth Project.”
He looked even younger up close, but he shook my hand firmly and gestured me back toward the office.
“Let me introduce you to Josh, then I’ll start the tour and he can join us when he’s done fighting with spreadsheets.”
“Fighting with spreadsheets never ends well.”
“I’ve already done battle with this one, but he keeps thinking if he looks at it just right maybe it will tell him something new.”
A call came from the back room. “I heard that!”
Keith grinned and my brain immediately jumped on the idea that they were closer than business partners. “This way, but watch out. This is where all the everything ends up.”
It wasn’t really an office. It was a large room in which they’d stolen a corner and shoved a couple of desks. The unoccupied one was neat and tidy. A black guy a few years older than Keith was sitting at the other one.
“Josh, this is Ed from the paper. Ed, Josh.”
“We spoke on the phone.” I shook his hand.
“Really good to meet you, Ed.” He turned to Keith. “I can’t make it better.”
“I know. I told you that already, remember?”
“Yeah, but we were so careful.” He shook his head. “Damn it. Sorry, Ed. Let’s show you around a bit.”
“I told him we’d start and you could join us later.”
Josh snapped shut the laptop he’d been working on. “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”
“Spreadsheets giving you trouble?” I asked.
“Man, spreadsheets are always giving me trouble. Which is why I try to leave them to Keith, but I really thought this one was holding out on us. No dice. So I figured we’d show you around and describe to you how the place will look when we open, then we can sit down and show you the programming stuff. Sound good?”
“Sure.” I’d work in my questions or, if I couldn’t, ask them later.
They led me into the main room again, pointing out different areas they planned to section off through the use of furnishings.
Josh gestured widely. “We’re trying to make things comfortable without making ourselves a target. No big-screen TVs, and we have a guy coming in over the weekend to install a cage for all the computers. I definitely want kids to be able to come here and search for jobs, or do schoolwork, but the laptops will all go into the cage at the end of the night. We also have an alarm company charging us a small fortune, so I think we’re managing potential theft concerns pretty well, but ask me again after someone comes in and busts the place up, right?”
His cavalier tone surprised me a little. “You expect to be robbed?”
“Opening a place in this neighborhood, catering to teenagers and young adults, and not expecting some amount of loss would be like having a kid and not expecting the occasional glass breaking, you know? I don’t have any illusions about our target demographic. Some of them will be desperate or angry enough to steal from us, and that’s fine. We’re willing to accept the risk. I’m a lot more worried about people from the outside who just want to make us disappear.”
I nodded. “Are you getting pushback?”
“On the record? La Vista has been nothing but welcoming.”
“Ha.” I raised both hands. “Off the record, out of curiosity. Things aren’t all smooth going?”
“We didn’t expect them to be. Funding has been easier in some ways, mostly because Keith can write a business plan that makes people want to fall in love, but the actual nitty-gritty of getting off the ground has been a little more . . . subtly contentious than we knew to expect.”
I tried to work out what that meant. “In terms of what? Again, off the record.”
“Oh, nothing overt. Nothing I could describe to you. More a feeling we get, talking to people sometimes.” He gestured me through a door and into a hallway. “This corner has been chopped up into smaller rooms. Initially we weren’t thrilled about it, but now we’re beginning to have an appreciation for the idea. The electronics cage will get a room to itself, which adds a layer of security, and we’re hoping to have a room with donated clothes and shoes. We’ll also be able to hold meetings here. We’d planned to do that in the room where our office is, keep everything out in the open, but that’s not always what people want.” He offered a rueful smile. “We have a few consultants who have been very convincing about the need for a certain level of deniability when it comes to QYP. It’s the opposite of what I’m going for, but you can’t have everything at once.”
“I understand that. What kind of meetings?”
“Twelve-step meetings, the high school GSA, maybe. A local youth minister wants to know if we’d be open to a Bible study group.”
My face must have done a thing. His smile widened.
“That’s about Keith’s response. But I believe you can be a queer person of faith, so I’m open to it. Though we’d want them to meet in the big room, at least to start. I liked this lady when she came to pitch her Bible study idea, but I’m wary too. And the whole idea here is that we have to be careful. We’re inviting kids who are incredibly vulnerable—economically, physically, legally—into a space that we’re responsible for keeping safe. If we get robbed, we open up the next day and repair everything. We will be consistent, and we will not be easily silenced.”
“Damn.” I followed him back out into the main room. “Also off the record, but I wish this had existed when I was growing up.”
“You and me both. That’s why we’re here. Let’s find a place to sit and then Keith can do the real sell job. I’m only here to soften people up so he can seduce them.” He flashed a playfully flirtatious smile. “If you’re ever interested in coming down here to volunteer, we have a form on our website.”
“Good to know.”
I scribbled notes and asked questions for the next hour. They took me on another, more in-depth tour, and this time I began to see the place as they saw it. Toward the end of the interview (which had stretched much longer than I allotted for it), a kid walked in the front door, black parka on and hood tugged down over their face despite the heat outside.
Josh immediately walked over, but since he didn’t look alarmed I assumed kids randomly showing up wasn’t that unusual.
“That’s our number one assistant,” Keith said. “Hi, Merin.”
“Hey, Keith.” The kid didn’t look over.
Merin. I knew that name. This was Jaq’s kid. The one she thought was trans.
Josh said something. The kid replied. For a second they faced off, but whatever it was, Josh won. He nodded his head toward us and the kid followed him back over.
“Ed Masiello, Merin Beighley. We’re trying to get Ed to come volunteer down here when we’re open.”
“I like how you say that like this place is ever gonna be done.” Merin reluctantly extended a hand. So, a white kid. I hadn’t been able to tell under that parka, with the hood pulled low.
“Good to meet you.” I couldn’t very well ask if they knew Jaq without it being obvious Jaq and I had talked. “You don’t think QYP will be ready in time to open?”
Josh nudged Merin and smiled at me. “Be careful what you say to Ed. He’s a reporter.”
That got the kid’s attention. “Are you?”
“I work for the Times-Record.”
“My girlfriend wants to be a reporter. She’s gonna be pissed she didn’t come in today.”
“This probably won’t be the last time I stop by. Hey, is there anything you guys need? I could end the article with a call for donations, if that would help.”
Josh and Keith looked at each other.
“Not yet,” Josh said after a minute. “We’re trying not to overwhelm ourselves.”
Merin snorted. “That’s a fancy-ass way of saying we’ve already got way too much shit and nowhere for anyone to sit.”
Josh nudged Merin. “Truth. The back room is filling up with stuff we haven’t yet found a home
for when this part of the building isn’t even close to ready for the open house, which is in less than a month.”
Keith staggered, clamping down on Merin’s shoulder. “Did he just say that out loud?”
Merin shook him off, but didn’t look all that disturbed. “Yeah, he did. Ha. You jerks need to buy me more paint. And like . . . scaffolding or something.”
“We really didn’t consider scaffolding. Hell, that’s another thing for the damn spreadsheet.” Josh ran a hand over his shaved head. “Let’s do the paint run right now and pick up lunch or something.” He tugged Merin’s hood. “You’re with me. How many days do you think it will take to do the whole room if all three of us are working? We need to figure out how long we need scaffolding for.”
“Shouldn’t we paint the bottom parts of the walls first and work it out from there?”
“I’ll call the rental place and see. I don’t want to leave it to the last minute, or we’re screwed if they don’t have any available.”
“We hired Merin on a whim.” Keith kept his voice low. “It’s the smartest thing we’ve done so far. Anyway, if you have any more questions, give one of us a call. The website should be changing over the next few weeks to have a lot more information on it, hopefully, which might be helpful to you.”
“I’ll write this up and see where my editor wants to put it. It’ll definitely go on the Times-Record site, but I can’t guarantee it will be in the print edition.”
He shrugged. “Really, you could scrap the article and come volunteer with us instead, and we’d still consider this a good use of our time.” He stuck out his hand, and I took it. “Good meeting you, Ed. We’re here from dawn till dusk most days—or at least one of us is—so feel free to come by again.”
“Thanks.” I probably wouldn’t, but then again, I liked the idea of the place, and I liked the idea of volunteering more genuinely than I expected to. “Good to meet you too.”
I left the future site of the Queer Youth Project feeling slightly more hopeful about the world.
The first few weeks Alisha and I were together passed in a blur. We saw each other almost every day, and on the days we didn’t, we texted constantly. We talked about everything—movies, books, gender, politics. I’d never had to charge my phone so frequently. I took shorter showers so that they wouldn’t interrupt our conversations, and kept skipping out on knitting group, which I might have done anyway, because it reminded me of Honey and made me sad.
I didn’t want to be sad. I wanted to be happy. With Alisha.
I went back to her place a handful of times, sometimes to make food, sometimes to have sex, sometimes to snuggle on the sofa and watch television with my arm around her shoulders, or her head in my lap.
Part of me felt like I was an imposter, living someone else’s happy life with someone else’s happy girlfriend, but every time she looked at me I felt so seen, as if she was the first person who’d ever looked at me and seen who I really was.
I ignored Abuela, who kept leaving me messages. She’d upgraded me from “mija” and “flaca” to “mocosa,” which meant I should probably go see her soon before she got really annoyed. I’d gotten a text from Cameron asking me if I wanted to come for a showing of All About Eve, which I’d almost missed completely because I’d been so intent on looking at only Alisha’s texts. On a whim I asked if I could bring a friend, then called her and invited her along.
They knew each other, kind of, the way everyone knew each other in La Vista.
“Your mom let me in once when I didn’t have any money,” she told him, as he was locking up the ticket booth. “I came in with this big group, but they’d all gone in ahead of me and I only had, like, three bucks in my wallet. Super sweet of her.”
Cam smiled. “Did she keep the three dollars?”
“No. She told me to use it for popcorn if I wanted.”
“Mom loved getting kids in here to see movies. If they could have afforded to let everyone under eighteen in free, they would have.”
“Yeah, it’s weird I never come here anymore. Not that I go to the Cinema 18, either. I guess I don’t spend money on movies.”
“Alisha’s saving up to go on adventures,” I added. “International adventures.”
“Oh really? There’s a joint here in town that coordinates that type of thing, I believe.”
She crinkled her nose. “I know. I work there, actually, but I’m talking about real adventures, the kind that aren’t coordinated by anyone, you know? You fly somewhere, get off a plane, and there you are.”
“That sounds so exciting.” He offered her his arm. “Confidentially, Alisha, you should try to coax Ed into coming with you.”
“Don’t think I’m not already.”
“I’m standing right here,” I said, pretending to be affronted.
Cameron laughed and led her away. “Adventure is good for the soul, don’t you think?”
“I so do, Cameron, I so do.”
I followed them into the theater and we took seats on the top row, left side. The old wooden seats weren’t as cushioned as seats in new theaters, and as we walked, the threadbare carpet didn’t completely muffle our steps on the floorboards below.
“God,” Alisha whispered. “I love the way it smells in here.”
“Me too,” I said.
Cam gestured us in first, and there weren’t more than a dozen other people in the entire theater. I wondered if he was playing it casual when he said the Rhein wasn’t in trouble.
The second we sat down, Alisha grabbed my hand.
I love All About Eve: the delicious mind-fuckery of it, the twistiness of who you’re rooting for when everyone’s shallow and selfish, the end, which is so perfect it makes me ache a little and wish I wrote screenplays. I’ve never loved it more than sitting there holding Alisha’s hand, occasionally stealing popcorn.
An hour after I got home, after leaving her at her apartment, I got another text from Cameron: Now I understand why you haven’t dropped by in a few weeks. You two should come to movies more often.
I wrote back, feeling a little bashful, and promised that we would.
Work was reliably dull through the beginning of August. More feel-good stories. Somewhat to my surprise, Potter advocated for the story about the drop-in center to go into the print edition. I clipped it and sent it to the QYP address, not even sure if they received mail there. I got, in return, an invitation to the open house, which was later in the month.
I thought about going down again to see if they needed help with stuff, but quickly got sidetracked doing other things. Steven Costello’s face still looked out at me from the bulletin board when I was getting coffee, and I still couldn’t remember where the hell he was from.
Honey’s case was cold. Joe didn’t think it was all that likely the cops would ever solve it unless someone confessed or new information showed up. Togg, continuing his kick about a killer targeting people who didn’t conform to gender norms, went so far as to say that the next murder was inevitable, and when it happened, La Vista would have a serial killer on its hands. Like most of Togg’s more extreme stances, even his more defensive commenters couldn’t find anything to support in those posts.
I read his site, and my paper, and courted Alisha, and tried to ignore everything that didn’t jive with the bubble of “actually okay for once” that I was floating in. I tried to embrace the Caspar ethos of not giving a fuck, and while I wasn’t actually successful, it was nice to feel drawn through my days by something happy and hopeful, instead of the thing I’d been doing for months of just getting through each day, bracing for the next.
Being a boyfriend suited me. Not being obsessed with murder, or the dead-endedness of my job, or sneaking over to see Abuela without being seen by my father, also suited me.
But you know what happens to bubbles: they always pop.
Fredi’s next theme night was Back to School in the second week of August. Alisha and I went in matching “school uniforms.” She made a hell of a
school girl, and I wore a tie that matched her skirt and fell only halfway to my belt, which looked somewhat nerdy and worked with the look.
Theme nights at Club Fred’s were becoming a thing. Back to School was more crowded than F*ck G*nd*r had been, and I was glad we arrived together, because otherwise it would have been hell trying to find one another.
“This is crazy!” she shouted. “I’ve never seen this place so packed!”
“Me neither!”
Cam was nestled into a corner at the bar, reading a book, so we said hello and managed to grab beers before wandering around. Josh and Keith were there, at a table, so I introduced them to Alisha. They extracted promises of future volunteering from both of us and assured me that they were on target for the open house.
“Our trusty assistant keeps us in line.” Josh tugged Keith closer. “Right, babe?”
“Merin would sacrifice sleep from now until we open if that’s what it took.” Keith turned and raised his eyebrows at Josh, who laughed.
“Do you two want the table? We’re about to go dancing.”
“Definitely,” Alisha said. “Good meeting you guys!”
“You too!”
They walked away, Josh winding a proprietary arm around his date.
Alisha leaned in to speak directly into my ear. “No shit, if those two made porn, I’d watch it. They had definite sparks.”
“What about us? Do we have sparks?”
She pinched my side. “You gotta ask?”
As tight as the crowd was, our table ended up being a nucleus of all kinds of conversations. Zane hung out for a while with a book about quilting, trying to get people to help her choose a pattern. (I didn’t even know quilts had patterns.) When she went off to do her bizarre flailing dance, she stole Alisha, and every now and then I could see flashes of Zane’s bright pink-and-purple streaks, or Alisha’s braids, maybe half of which she’d dyed blue. Cam sat in Alisha’s chair sometime later, getting his fill of “practice small talk.”
“You know you already make small talk with people, right?” I asked.