All the Major Constellations

by Pratima Cranse

  “So I went on this sunrise hike with the Christian kids and then I outed John to this really bitchy Christian girl and then I had sex with her.”

  There was a long pause. Then Marcia said, “To shut her up?”

  “Don’t start.”

  “How do you know John is gay?”

  “I don’t even know if he’s actually gay. I mean, they’re all kind of affectionate, you know, touchy-feely. I didn’t even know that I thought that about him until I suggested it to Karen,” he said.

  “Really?” Marcia said.

  Andrew paused. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” What did he know? How long had he suspected John was gay? Was John gay?

  Marcia cleared her throat and said, “So, you told Karen the bitch—”

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “I guess I shouldn’t call her that,” he said.

  “She did make you a man, after all.”

  Andrew grunted.

  “Was it her first time too?”

  “I really, really, really doubt it.”

  “That’s telling us something.”

  Andrew grabbed some crackers and stuffed them into his mouth. He was famished. Marcia continued talking. She seemed to be enjoying herself. He could tell, even over the phone.

  “She’s deeply religious. These kids don’t believe in sex before marriage. But clearly she had it with you, and she’s had it before which means . . . which means—”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Which means she’s probably pretty conflicted herself.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Like John.”

  “Oh.”

  “Conflicted.”

  “I get it!” he said through a mouthful of cracker.

  “Do you? John’s kind of an alpha male, right? Handsome. One of the ringleaders?”

  “Um . . .” Had he said that about John? He remembered that he’d told Marcia all about these kids a while ago. Did he say John was handsome? Or had he implied it somehow? But Marcia didn’t wait for him to answer. She rattled on.

  “Karen’s in love with John. She knows that he’s gay and has a thing for you. You’re a surrogate John, so to speak.”

  Andrew sunk back on a kitchen stool. “Give me a break,” he said. And then he groaned and closed his eyes. He massaged his lids. “My eyes hurt.”

  “Too much sun.”

  “What about Laura?” he asked.

  “Oh my god, Andrew. You want to know if you can salvage the Laura pursuit despite the fact that you had sex with her friend this very morning?” Marcia laughed and said, “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”

  Andrew spent the next ten minutes piecing together his bizarre and exciting morning. He left out the part about him kissing Laura’s earlobe and their having briefly held hands. He wanted to keep that private, even from Marcia.

  “Poor David,” Marcia said when Andrew had finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor John.”

  “That too,” Andrew said. He rubbed a kink in his thigh and recalled how he had flung his arm around John’s broad shoulders and briefly clung to the back of his neck. What had come over him? John had trembled. Andrew was ashamed at having treated him in such a cavalier way, and then disgusted at John’s response, and then ashamed of feeling disgusted. But then again, maybe John wasn’t gay.

  “Is Karen pretty?” Marcia said.

  “She’s okay. She’s got nice legs.”

  “Nice legs?”

  “She has nice legs and skin.”

  “Lovely. But not like Laura?”

  “No one is like Laura,” he said.

  “Sara is like Laura.”

  “What?”

  “And Laura and Karen are close?” Marcia said.

  “Yeah. Always whispering and talking.”

  “So Laura probably knows that Karen has sex.”

  “Shit!” Andrew said. “Karen wouldn’t tell her though, right?”

  “Karen doesn’t have to. Laura may have guessed. She’s probably seen her friend like this before—worked up, angry, emotional. And then some guy gets her alone.”

  “She came on to me. I didn’t take advantage of her,” Andrew said.

  “Speaking of which, did you use protection?”

  “I didn’t even know it was happening until it was happening.”

  “That sounds pretty born-again.”

  “They’re not born-again!”

  “So the two girls are close, Laura’s prettier than Karen, Karen probably knows you’re gaga for Laura because she’s used to every straight guy within a ten-mile radius being in love with Laura—”

  Andrew felt uncomfortable. Like maybe Marcia was talking about herself and Sara. Marcia was cute and shy; Sara was sexy and confident. Guys were always after Sara. How had that affected their friendship? How had it affected Marcia and how she thought about herself? And why hadn’t he ever considered these things before? He was about to say something stupid to Marcia about how cute she was, but she was happily occupied psychoanalyzing people she didn’t know.

  “So, there’s this dynamic between them, this push-pull of competition. Karen never feels as if she measures up. So she compensates by sleeping with the guy who can’t get Laura.”

  “I thought you said she slept with me because she’s in love with John,” Andrew said.

  “That too, I think.”

  Andrew stood up. “David is going to catch hell for hanging out with me so much. And then I totally fucked things up for John. Those dorks are like his family, and I don’t think he has family and— Fuck!” With a violent gesture he swept his arm across the counter, spilling the newspaper and box of crackers.

  “Listen. You think you’re this—this demonic force, excuse the pun, that’s wreaking havoc on this group. But they were already screwed up to begin with, okay? Just like everybody else.”

  Andrew thought for a moment. It made sense. Unable to help himself, he said, “What about Laura?”

  “Drew, I have to go.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “She’s having a new central line put in.”

  “The main IV thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I meant to call you. She’s been spiking fevers. They don’t know why. They figure if they replace all the lines that might help. Sometimes those can introduce infection.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “Dr. Bavin seems confident that this will help.”

  “Oh. Good.” He shuffled around, played with the phone cord, unsure of what to say next.

  “I heard about Brian,” she said.

  “Fuck him,” Andrew said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “With that? It’s fucked-up, but it has nothing to do with me!”

  “All right, all right, don’t yell.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I really should go.”

  “Talk soon?”

  “Yup.”

  Andrew wandered into the living room and flopped onto the couch. He felt both better and worse after talking to Marcia. He had thought that losing his virginity would be pure elation, and in a way it was, but he also felt empty. There was a sort of distance between himself and his body. It had all happened so fast. And Karen had been so . . . furious. It was sexy; the memory of it was sexy, and just thinking about her angry, pointy face made him excited again. Her legs gripping him, her tongue in his mouth, the warmth of her, the smell and taste of her. Something musky and piney and dark and sweet. Did all women smell like that when they were excited? Or was it particular to Karen? He remembered her shocked perplexity when they had finished. And then that empty nauseated feeling returned, like the feeling of being excited and not gettin
g satisfaction.

  He groaned and put his head in his hands. Surely, he’d just exploded his relationships with his new friends. With Laura.

  31

  HE WOKE UP TO THE SOUND of Becky trotting around in the kitchen. He peeled himself off the couch to feed her.

  It was four o’clock. What an annoying time to have woken up; now he’d be up half the night. His mom worked weekends and would probably be home soon. She worked odd hours at a big box store in Darington. She stocked shelves and kept inventory. As a result, her arms and back were often sore. Yet she rarely complained. His father, on the other hand, complained a lot about back pain. There was still no sight of Brian or his dad anywhere, for which he was grateful.

  After Becky ate, he grabbed her leash and they headed out the door. As he walked along, he thought about his weird out-of-body experience on the mountaintop. The feeling of endless light. Endless sunlight and breathlessness and palpitations and general semi-hysteria. He hadn’t told Marcia about that stuff either. It was like that time with Laura at Shaman’s Point when he’d thought that he’d had a panic attack. I was dehydrated and exhausted, Andrew reasoned, and all I’d had for breakfast was a cup of coffee. Even Matt had said something about his needing to eat. Besides, being close to Laura always seemed to throw him for a loop. Maybe he’d had anxiety brought on by hunger or something—this thought was much less disturbing than the other possibility, the possibility that there was a God that looked down on him and . . . and did what, exactly? Make him feel crazy and be weird to John and have sex with Karen? It didn’t make any sense. Laura and her friends were elated by prayer and singing and the supposed presence of their God. Maybe he’d felt that way for a moment, but mostly, he’d just felt dark and horny.

  At that moment a man walked toward him. “Andy?” he asked. The man’s eyes were sharp.

  “Andrew.”

  The man just stood there, smiling. Andrew noticed a small notebook and pen in one of his hands.

  “That’s a great-looking dog,” the man said.

  “She bites.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Well, aren’t we off to a nice start,” the man said as he fell into stride with Andrew. Becky dodged the man’s attempts to pet her.

  “I write for—” the man started.

  “I don’t care who you write for. I told you to fuck off,” Andrew said.

  “I can understand why you’re upset. That shit they’re saying about your brother. Him in particular. I mean, Jesus.”

  Andrew wondered who was saying what about Brian in particular, but he knew better than to ask. “You shouldn’t take the lord’s name in vain,” he said.

  This seemed to catch the man off guard. “Oh,” he said. Then: “This could really mess things up for him.”

  Who cares? Andrew thought. He quickened his pace.

  “You’re a smart kid. Better student than your brother from what I hear.” Andrew didn’t respond, so the man went on, “I mean, he may have gotten the scholarships, but he was born with what he’s got. Not that he didn’t work hard. Because he did work hard, didn’t he, Andy? Not just physically, but mentally. The way that boy plays, whew! He plays vicious. You got to practice that kind of mean. You got to work at it.” The man had a soft voice with a low thick pitch, as though his tongue were coated in cream. Andrew felt the speed of his walk slowing to the pace of the man’s soothing, creepy voice.

  “Your parents must be very proud,” the man said.

  Andrew started to open his mouth but stopped himself. This man is smarter than I am, he realized, and the thought did not disturb him. My best friend is smarter than I am. I’m used to this shit.

  “Please leave me alone,” Andrew said. Becky growled softly. Startled, the man stopped as Andrew and Becky kept walking.

  “I’ll leave my card on the steps. Just in case you want to tell your side of the story. Protect your information, if you know what I mean,” the man called out behind him.

  Andrew didn’t know and didn’t care what he meant. He felt aimless and irritated. He wanted to see Laura, but he didn’t know what he’d say. He vaguely wanted to get in touch with Karen somehow too. Just to make sure everything was all right. They hadn’t used a condom. What if Karen got pregnant? Andrew’s stomach plummeted into his shoes. That would ruin his life. Utterly ruin it. Karen probably slept around, he thought. She went nuts every so often and jumped on some hapless jerk like him. At this thought, Andrew felt terrible for Karen, and terrible, too, for thinking so harshly about her. He also wanted to have sex with her again, and this made him feel like a fiend or a hypocrite or both.

  Unable to help himself, he walked to Laura’s house. He loafed around for a few minutes. He heard voices inside, but he couldn’t make up his mind about what to do. He had to find out if Laura knew he’d had sex with Karen.

  He was just making up his mind to knock when he heard a car pull into the driveway. Laura and a little girl got out of a beat-up family van.

  There were dark circles under Laura’s eyes, and her skin, usually golden, was pale. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest. She seemed to slump forward. He liked the darkness under her eyes. It made her look weary in a sexy sort of way. As Andrew drew closer to her, he noticed that her lips were dry. He had a desperate urge to lick his thumb and draw it across her mouth.

  Lie through your teeth, he thought. You have nothing to lose.

  “Laura,” he said.

  She turned toward him, her expression calm and cool. Andrew found himself unable to speak.

  “Get in the house. Help Mom with dinner,” Laura instructed the girl, who was not the same girl who had answered the door for Andrew the other night, so long ago. Laura started up the steps. Andrew gently took her arm above the elbow.

  “Laura,” he said.

  “Yes?” She did not look at him.

  “I don’t know . . . how I’m feeling . . . about everything. I know today was crazy.” He blushed. “I just know that I want to keep spending time with the group. With you.”

  As usual, he had trouble reading her expression. Placid, calm, indifferent. Indifference, that was what it was. It was devastating. This morning he’d had her, hadn’t he? He’d kissed her ear; she’d held his hand. And Laura was jealous when he took Karen into his car. Andrew knew enough about girls to know that he might’ve been able to play off that jealousy, spin it into something else. But things with Karen had gotten so out of hand.

  “John was talking about a fishing trip,” Laura said. “You guys should go.” She started up the steps again, and his hand slid from her arm.

  “Laura, don’t—”

  Someone shouted from inside the house. “Come and sing to us!”

  “Good-bye,” Laura said.

  Andrew watched a sliver of her silhouette through the narrow window above the front door. Then she was a shadow disappearing up the stairs. Then a flicker of a shadow. He watched until he knew that any remnant of her shadow was just his mind playing tricks on him.

  As Andrew walked away, he heard an eruption of clapping behind him, in the house, where Laura was entertaining the people she loved.

  32

  “THINGS ARE LOOKING UP,” Brian said to him when he got home. He was tossing a tub of fake butter in the air and catching it like a baseball.

  “That shit’s going to splatter everywhere, and I’m going to end up cleaning it up,” Andrew said. He unleashed Becky and put some treats in her bowl.

  “Ass,” Brian muttered.

  “Mom home?”

  “How should I know?” Brian put the tub on the counter and tried to pet Becky. Becky shied away. “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Don’t pet her while she’s eating,” Andrew said. “That’s threatening to her.”

  “Fuck you,” Brian said.

  “Andrew!” their dad
shouted from the living room.

  They both froze.

  “What is it?” Brian said.

  “Was I talking to you?” their father said. His voice was slurred.

  Brian looked at Andrew and shrugged. Andrew walked into the living room. His dad was sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, a beer in one hand and the remote control in the other.

  “You talk to any reporters?” he said. He did not look at Andrew when he spoke.

  “No,” Andrew said. He leaned against the bookshelf, exhausted. His head and heart were consumed with Laura. The last thing he wanted was to deal with this bullshit.

  “Good. Brian tell you about the girl’s lawyer?”

  “No,” Andrew said. He was about to add and I don’t care, but then he remembered his mantra: eighteen and out. He didn’t say anything, but he was unable to keep himself from walking out of the living room. His dad didn’t call him back. He nearly toppled over Brian in the dining room.

  “Were you listening in or something?” Andrew said.

  “Blow me,” Brian said.

  Andrew put the tub of fake butter away and walked up the stairs. He wanted to get away from his family. He wanted to get back to Laura somehow. He picked up his Bible and leafed through it. He lacked the patience and discipline to even read his favorite Psalms. He paced the room. He thought about Karen. He thought about jerking off. He felt beyond horny, beyond restless; he felt lost. He tiptoed down the stairs. Brian and his dad were watching sports. He picked up the phone and called John, who was surprised to hear from him.

  “I don’t want to go on a fishing trip. Let’s just hang out,” Andrew spoke quickly and without thought.

  “Okay, cool,” John said. He sounded hesitant.

  “I could get some pot or something.” Andrew felt like getting fucked-up. Would John go for that? Or would he cower and faint at the suggestion?

  “Um . . . sure. You could see my place. It’s kind of a dump, but there’s beer and stuff,” John said.

  “Don’t call Matt.”

  John paused. “All right,” he said.