The Best Kind of People

by Zoe Whittall

  andrew tapped at his forehead the way Jared had suggested he do in moments of crisis. This is a stressful moment, but I can get through it if I remember to breathe and be in my body, he thought. When Jared told him about the forehead tapping theory, Andrew had made fun of him, but he felt desperate for any strategy at this point, staring at the old dusty computer monitor that his mother had covered in a ridiculous cotton doily for when guests stayed over. It would probably feel better to take the computer outside and bash it with a bat, just like the printer in his favourite scene in the movie Office Space.

  He stubbed out the joint in the ashtray he’d made twenty years ago in shop class. He remembered trying to make it look shitty so that his classmates wouldn’t think he was artistic.

  My father is in a jail cell right now. He grappled with that thought. He clutched at his chest, his fingers coated in sweat. The joint wasn’t helping. He didn’t feel stoned really, just more sad, helpless, as if a film were covering his skin.

  He opened the drawer beside his bed and pulled out a cigar box. Inside was a hollowed-out Bible filled with envelopes. Letters from Stuart, Andrew’s first boyfriend, who was also his coach in high school. His aunt Clara was the only one who knew about Stuart, and she hadn’t really approved because he was older, and because he chose to live in Avalon Hills and was therefore either dumb or “self-loathing,” a term Andrew didn’t understand at the time. But she understood that he wasn’t being harmed, and that their feelings for each other were real.

  Andrew hadn’t spoken to Stuart since his second year of college, when their phone conversations included a lot of long pauses while Andrew tried to think of excuses to hang up. Andrew had been surprised to realize that once he left Avalon Hills, and ceased to be the only gay guy he knew, he and Stuart actually had very different interests, and weren’t very compatible at all. Andrew broke up with him over the telephone one night in his dorm room after he drank too many beers with his best friend, Lindy, who convinced him to let her give him a blow job that he felt guilty about the next day when she wouldn’t speak to him.

  Stuart showed up at his dorm room two days later, drunk and begging him to reconcile. Andrew had reacted with cruelty, although cruelty when you’re that young and newly free from your parents feels like your right. Andrew opened the door and handed him the sweater Stuart had given him as a going-away present. He shook his head and said, “Please go home, Stuart.” He shut the door, whispering another unconvincing “Sorry,” and waited until he heard security escorting him out. They hadn’t spoken since.

  Months later he felt terrible about that moment, though he knew it had been the right decision.

  Andrew hadn’t thought about Stuart for years, and really only mentioned him when anyone asked him for his “coming out” story, which rarely happened anymore. Younger guys didn’t seem to have that ritual of exchanging stories of revelation, denial, acceptance, estrangement. These days they seemed to say, “What? I’ve always been gay. Here I am in day care in my Glad to Be Gay! onesie. What are you harping about, old guy?”

  He’d never run into Stuart on visits to his parents over the years, probably because he rarely left Woodbury Lake when he came home. He preferred to lounge on the dock, sequestered in silence.

  Andrew put on a pair of his old jeans. They were too loose for him now. He wrote buy a belt on his phone’s notepad. He left his room and peered down the hallway towards the master bedroom. He heard his mother’s shower running. Downstairs he discovered a pot of coffee, still warm, and poured himself a cup. He looked out the back window and saw Sadie and her boyfriend running down to the lake wrapped in old swim towels. How could they act as though nothing was happening? He felt a twinge of annoyance that Sadie wasn’t helping take care of their mother. He took a sip and knew where he had to go.

  When he drove past the Coffee Hut by the beach, Pat was outside watering the petunias. The newspaper box had a photo of his father on the front. He lifted one hand from the wheel in a partial wave, and Pat offered a tepid nod in return.

  He continued to drive too fast, the way he had as a teenager, through the bucolic Avalon Hills Main Street with its carefully tended foliage, passing every store where he could potentially buy a belt. He turned right at the public library, going up the Mason Street hill, feeling both repelled by and drawn to the nostalgia he felt when he approached the school, which was set back from the road in a shroud of trees. He pulled in by a side lane, into the staff parking lot, and was waved through by a security guard who noted the staff parking sticker on his parents’ Volvo. He watched a student leave through a side door, loosening his school tie and throwing off his blazer, jumping on a bike he’d stashed by the cedar bushes that encircled the janitor’s house.

  Media trucks lined the parking lot, antennas popped. Reporters checked their hair in the reflection of their phones and held microphones at their sides while camera crews took shots of the school. Police cars blocked the main road’s entrance. Andrew walked behind the building towards the athletic field, trying to be inconspicuous. A group of girls were playing lacrosse on the field closest to the school. The grounds looked smaller, shabbier than he remembered them. He was now walking where he used to scurry, hoping not to be noticed, wishing he could disappear. It was comical, the way the land looked so anonymous and non-threatening as an adult.

  The north field, beyond a line of trees, was where Stuart and Andrew had had a meeting spot at a certain boulder. You could be seen, but not always. The shrubs in the area had grown thicker. He passed through the thicket on the dirt path, well worn by sneakered kids over the decades. The track looked exactly the same.

  Stuart was standing in the middle of the field holding a clipboard while students ran around him. Andrew sat in the bleachers and watched, astounded that while he had gone to university then law school, while he had had dozens of relationships and finally found someone he could be with long-term, Stuart had been in the same spot, running the same circles around the same field. Yelling the same shouts of encouragement, ogling the same broad-shouldered closet cases year after year. It was both sad and comforting.

  Stuart looked towards the bleachers and Andrew waved at him. Stuart looked in his direction again, puzzled, and waved in a way that indicated he wasn’t sure who Andrew was from that distance. Eventually he sent the class indoors, and as he approached, his eyes widened. His hair had receded, and the beer he loved to drink to excess on the weekends at the gay club in Woodbridge had certainly done a number on his midsection. He looked tired, significantly older, and he blushed when he saw Andrew.

  “Holy shit, Andy Woodbury.”

  No one called him that anymore, not in years. They hugged. Stuart smelled the same, like a spicy drugstore cologne. In his final year of high school Andrew used to spray it all over his sweater before leaving Stuart’s apartment in the middle of the night to bike home, just so he would be able to breathe in his scent, his head swirling with love.

  “I had no idea about your father, Andy. We’re all in shock.”

  “Worried they’ll come after you next?” he joked.

  Stuart didn’t laugh. He looked mortified. “That’s not funny, Andy. You were seventeen — that’s not really the same thing.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “And I held off for a long time … You were the one who chased me. I didn’t do a thing until you came to the bar that night and shocked the hell out of me. I figured if you were going to go home with some old guy, may as well be someone who cared for your well-being,” he said.

  “You weren’t old. You were twenty-five, for god’s sake. I’m older than that now. I was just kidding …”

  “I know, I know.” He looked over at the school, as though expecting someone to come out and catch them, even though they were just two grown men chatting.

  “Do you know the girls?”

  “Some of them, yeah. I know a few of them. I don’t know,
Andy. It’s a tough position to be in, a male teacher away on a trip with a bunch of drunk girls. It’s always easy to judge … You know, we all want to stick up for your dad. He’s always been such a solid guy.”

  “Well, I know that. But the girls? They’re still kids, right? I mean, that’s what they’re going to say, the people who believe them.”

  “Right, right,” Stuart said. “Kids are so different now, Andy. They scare me a bit with how much they know.”

  “I dunno. We knew a lot. Doesn’t every generation think the next is so scandalous?”

  “No, I’m telling you. These kids have no innocence anymore.”

  Andrew didn’t want to debate Stuart on this myth he was clinging to, so he just nodded, saying nothing.

  “Plus, everyone remembers how your dad took that gunman down.”

  “Of course,”

  “Shit, I still can’t believe I’m looking at you, Andy. You broke my heart, you know that?”

  “Whatever!”

  “That’s the truth. I was really fucked up about it for a good year or so. No one was good enough after you broke up with me.”

  There’s always a power shift, Andrew thought as Stuart scratched the sides of his face. The initial pursuer usually ends up being the one with less to lose. He wondered what the balance would be with him and Jared.

  “So, do you have a boyfriend now?”

  “Nah, nah. I don’t do relationships anymore. I’ve got Katie, you know, we still live together. We have the baseball team, and we’ve got the dogs.” He opened his wallet to show Andrew a photo of two golden doodles. Katie was Stuart’s roommate, a woman who made angel statue crafts out of wire and papier mâché and worked at the library. Andrew had always assumed she was gay, but she never had any girlfriends. Most people, including his parents, thought they were a couple.

  A car came barrelling down the side road and stopped. Only staff usually used that road, and kids skipping class. Andrew felt the same fear and anxiety he had in high school — that they would be caught — and then he laughed. Stuart looked uncomfortable. “I better go, I’m late for my next class. Don’t be a stranger, Andy. Call me if you want to have a drink and catch up.”

  Andrew watched him walk through the open field towards the school, the same limp in his right knee from the college football injury that had crushed his athletic dreams. He didn’t seem like an older man anymore, just old.

  When Andrew got back to his car, he turned the key in the ignition and the radio played a song from his high school days, a ballad from one of those awful post-punk bands the girls used to cry over. It started to rain slightly as he pulled out of his parking space, but it was still sunny in the distance above the mountains. The crescendo of the song sparked something in his chest, and Andrew started to cry. What the fuck was happening? What was he going to do about his father? At work he felt confident in his ability to argue his clients free. Now he felt like a doctor with a family member who was sick and whom he couldn’t care for. He was powerless.

  He got to the exit gate, but it was blocked by police cars. A cop made the universal hand gesture for him to roll down his window, which he did, slowly and only halfway. The joint in his back pocket started to feel as if it was burning him, though he knew this was his imagination. He wiped away the remaining tears clinging to his stubble.

  “Hello, sir. Are you a teacher at this school?”

  “No, no. My sister goes here. She forgot her lunch, so I was dropping it off,” he said.

  The cop took off his sunglasses and leaned closer to the window, placing one hand on the top of the car. “Can I see your id, please?”

  Andrew sighed. “You actually don’t have a right to do that unless I’m suspected of a crime. Am I suspected of a crime? I’m a lawyer, you see.” He would never say such a thing in the city. But he wasn’t going to let some redneck townie push him around in Avalon Hills.

  The cop squinted at him, unimpressed, with the pained look of anyone forced to work harder than they want to.

  “Andy?”

  Andrew looked at his face. Despite the lines, the sagging skin under his eyes, and the salt-and-pepper beard, it was definitely Alan Chambers, a former jock from the public school down the road. Andrew had tutored him after school at the learning centre, a job he took because it would look good on college applications.

  “Alan?”

  A wave of nauseous recognition passed between them.

  “It’s been a long time,” Alan said coolly.

  “Yes, it has.”

  Alan continued to stare at him, blank, and then grinned. “You’re the reason I graduated, remember? Goddamn fractions!” He laughed, slapping his hand on the top of the car for emphasis. Andrew’s pulse sped up, but he knew immediately how the interaction would play out.

  “How you been? Got any kids?” It was the standard thing to say. Andrew wished he could just press the gas pedal, speed away. He imagined reaching through the passenger window and punching him in the face, his tobacco-stained teeth reduced to rubble against his fist. Once he was on the ground, he’d grab for his gun and press it against his temple and wait for him to cry.

  “Yup, three girls. Beautiful angels.” He took off his cap and showed him a laminated photo of three kids under a Christmas tree pinned to the underside of the hat’s brim.

  “Yes, angels,” Andrew deadpanned. “That’s great.”

  “Yes, the best thing I ever did in my whole life, you know. The best thing,” he repeated, as though saying it twice made it more true, while putting his hat back on his head.

  Andrew was never asked the same question in return. “Anyway, it was nice to see you again,” he said, carefully turning to look ahead. The thickness of their dishonesty seemed to contribute to the front window fogging up. Ahead, two cops leaned against a cruiser, sipping coffees and watching them.

  “Andrew, look, your father is in a lot of trouble, and they’ve upped security here, of course. I don’t want to see you back here, okay?”

  Andrew nodded but couldn’t hide a sneer. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, Alan? You telling me that I’m a potential danger?”

  Alan looked away. “I dunno know what you mean, Andy.”

  It bothered Andrew that Alan still didn’t pronounce words separately. I dunnowhatchomeanAndy. He still spoke as though trying to outrun his childhood stutter.

  “Yes, you do. I’m not the threatening one, am I?”

  Alan picked up his radio and said something coded into it before turning back to Andrew, who was tapping the wheel, rage surging in his chest.

  “That was a long time ago, man. High school, kids’ stuff. You’re not still upset, are ya?” Andrew could hear the whispered slur Alan might as well have said after that, and his laugh, the same as in high school, after he’d said fucking pansy ass faggot under his breath when he walked by him on the street.

  Andrew didn’t respond, just stared at him, willing Alan’s heart to stop.

  “Look, look, sorry about that. You know, I was a shit. I’ve changed now, right? People should be free to be anything they want to be, right?”

  Andrew eyed the gun on Alan’s holster. Which people, asshole?

  “Right,” he said, “very astute, Alan.”

  “Anyway,” Alan said, looking at the row of cars gathered up behind them, “please don’t come back round here until they get this thing settled, okay?”

  Andrew sped off without answering, shaking with an electrified anger he hadn’t felt in years. It was like the time he was in California during an earthquake, one the locals thought was insignificant but he interpreted as the end of the world, the way everything solid around him became fragile and movable. Everything outside the car wasn’t real, and his body was aflame, hot and awful.

  At the light, a group of Avalon Hills girls stood at a bus stop. The uniform was the same timeless kilt and
white blouse, and were it not for their hairstyles, cellphones, and array of designer handbags, it could have been the late 1990s. He remembered how the kids wore toques over their flattened, messy hair when he was in high school, plaid shirts that clashed with their kilts tied around their waists. The girls used to carry canvas army bags that cost five dollars at the surplus store in Woodbridge. At the stop, a girl with long blond hair was looking through her purse, a Louis Vuitton that must have cost more than his monthly rent in New York. She wore very high heels, also designer. She didn’t look like she was actually a kid until she pulled a plastic bag of jujubes out of her purse and threw one at her friend, then emptied the whole bag into her mouth and puffed out her cheeks like a squirrel. The light changed and he pressed on, following the familiar yellow lines that curved through downtown and then around the lake.

  He pulled into the Coffee Hut and looked at his phone, surprised to see that his hands were still shaking. Four texts from Jared. I want to know you’re ok. Will u just text me back a simple ok? I know it’s hard. He texted back an okay. He read the texts over and felt a bit calmer. Jared really did ground him. He followed it with an I Love You. He perused the screen of emoticon options and decided on a simple pink heart.

  He’d been feeling guilty lately for leaving Jared hanging, and for being a bad boyfriend, even before this happened. He’d been taking him for granted. No more. He was lucky to have found Jared, and he shouldn’t forget that.

  five

  joan stood in the ensuite shower stall for several minutes, watching patchy scenes from a nightmare trapped in a looped refrain in her mind. Water on the edge of painfully hot pulsated between her shoulder blades. She opened her eyes to thwart the dream memories, staring instead at the stone bench along the perimeter that had seemed ostentatious when the designer had suggested it. The master-bathroom renovation had been a fiftieth-birthday gift from her husband. The room had originally been designed to suit George’s mother in the 1970s, complete with hideous floral wallpaper, sink the colour of Yardley rose soap.