It sounded like a pep talk that Rachel would give.
Dwayne growled from the back of his throat. “I’m not gay,” he repeated.
“Take your time,” I said. “But once you’re ready to say it, you’ll feel better. Believe me. I know.”
Dwayne leaned over me and his head blocked the sun from the skylights.
“Are you deaf, Upchuck? I told you, I’m not gay.”
“Dwayne!”
A tall, willowy woman with short hair and black jeans came bounding up the steps. She looked a little old to be a gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/transsexual youth, but who was to say what the age restrictions were?
She wrapped her arms around Dwayne as far as they would go and gave him a hug. “Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. I was talking on the phone, and the call took longer than I thought.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Dwayne. He reached into his pocket and handed her a set of keys. “Thanks for letting us use the van. We’ll meet you downstairs when the movie’s over.”
The woman clipped the keys to her belt. “Enjoy the show,” she said. “And tell Solveig hi.”
Dwayne was halfway across the room. He pulled his Marlboro cap from the pocket of his sweats and adjusted it on his head. “Thanks, Mom,” he said, and was gone.
If it were possible to die of self-initiated spontaneous combustion, I would have been a smoldering pile of ashes on the floor.
“Hi!” said Dwayne’s mother, turning her attention to me. “My name is Shari, and I’m one of the adult leaders here. And I bet I know what you’re thinking. Yes, moms can be lesbians too.”
That was the last thing I was thinking. I was thinking how many seconds it would take for Dwayne to call the hockey team and tell them I was gay.
“It’s always great to see a new face,” said Shari. “Let me take you around so you can meet some of the regulars.”
She took my elbow and led me to the group of girls on the couch. They told me their names, but the only thing I heard was Dwayne repeating that he wasn’t gay, and me insisting that he was.
“And this is Persephone,” said Shari, introducing me to a big-boned girl with a head full of dreadlocks. She smiled, and her mouth sparkled with braces.
“Lucky you,” said Persephone. “I bet you didn’t realize this was Lesbian Appreciation Day. All girls and no guys.”
Was there really a holiday like that, or was she joking?
“We do seem to be short on fellows today,” said Shari. “Where are they this month?”
Persephone counted on her fingers.
“Seth has a dentist appointment. The Jackson twins have to work. Mike Capella got stuck baby-sitting his sister, and the rest drove down to Minneapolis to see that new movie starring superstud Antonio-what’s-his-name.”
I bet Solveig would have loved superstud Antonio-what’s-his-name. Why couldn’t Dwayne have taken her to Minneapolis instead of showing up here in Summerfield?
“Cheer up,” said Persephone, tugging on my sleeve. “Who needs guys anyway? You’re going to have a good time with us girls. C’mon, you can be my partner for a little dyke Ping-Pong.”
She rounded up a couple of friends and they cleared off an old, warped Ping-Pong table. The legs were wobbly, the ball was dented, and the paddles were cracked down the middle.
“We call it dyke Ping-Pong because the ball never goes straight.”
Persephone and I were losing badly, 19 to 3, when Shari announced it was time to check in. The girls moved the furniture into one big circle and began telling about their past month. Some had new jobs. Some had been on vacation. Some had younger siblings that they wanted to auction off on eBay. They all had something funny or interesting to say.
And then it was my turn. Twenty-three teenage girls (I had counted) and one lesbian mother stared at me and waited for me to speak.
“My name is Steven,” I said, but that was as far as I got. Here it was, my first statement to a group of kindred souls and my brain decided to take a time-out.
Shari and the girls waited patiently for me to continue. Maybe if I started moving my lips, something intelligent would spring forth.
“And I think The Great Gatsby is a perfect metaphor for today’s society.”
I swear it was the only thing I could think of.
Shari was at a loss to respond. “Oh. I see.”
She looked around the group, hoping that one of the girls would jump in with an appropriately positive comment. No such luck. They were all staring at me like I had tentacles growing out of my ears.
“Is there anything else you’d like us to know?”
Considering my first remark, that was a brave thing to ask.
Finally one other thing popped into my head. “I passed my driver’s test,” I said. “Yesterday. On the third try.”
For a moment, the room was quiet. Then every single girl stood up and cheered. Some even whistled.
“Way to go, Stevie!” said Persephone. “It took me five tries to nail that baby.”
After that, everyone had driving horror stories they wanted to tell. One girl had backed over her instructor’s foot. Another had received her first speeding ticket leaving the exam station. I never realized there were so many ways to embarrass yourself in a car.
Finally Shari clapped her hands and held up a video. “Who’s in the mood for a movie?”
Good. We had finally come to the gay part of the meeting. Maybe this would be a movie that explained homosexual basics, like how to recognize other gay people, what to do if somebody sets you up with a date of the wrong sex, and how to salvage your life once the biggest jock at school discovers you’re gay.
The video was Finding Nemo.
I hadn’t realized that Finding Nemo was a gay movie. I watched it closely, looking for the hidden gay messages, but they remained beyond my grasp. The only gay thing I noticed were two girls on the couch holding hands.
I could have learned more watching Tom Hanks.
After the movie ended and everyone said how cute it was, the girls began to put on their coats and leave.
“Nice to meet you, Steven!”
“Congrats on your license!”
“That’s it?” I asked Shari. “The meeting’s over?”
She pointed to a clock on the wall. It was already after four.
“I hope you’ll come back next month,” she told me. “It was a real pleasure getting to know you.”
I doubted whether her son would agree.
True to her word, my mother was waiting at the door when I got home. She was gripping the phone as if ready to call the police had I been any later. “So, what was it like? What did you do? How many kids were there?”
She pulled me into the living room and sat me down before I could even unzip my coat.
“It was fine,” I said. “I had fun.”
She studied my face and frowned. “You don’t look like you had fun.”
“I did,” I said. “Honest.”
And when I thought about it, it was true. All of the girls were nice. So was Shari. Even losing at dyke Ping-Pong was kind of fun.
“It’s just that …”
My mother held her breath.
“I was the only guy there. Everyone else was a girl.”
She tried to look sympathetic, but I could tell she was relieved.
“And somebody from school saw me. Somebody I didn’t want to find out I was gay.”
This time the sympathy was real. “Oh, Steven. I’m sorry.”
We sat there on the couch for a while without saying anything.
Eventually my mother spoke. “How about if I bring you some cookies? I baked them while you were gone.”
That explained why the house smelled so smoky.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not.”
She came back in with a bowl full of crispy black poker chips and two big glasses of milk.
“Do you know what I was thinking while I baked these?”
You were thinking
that you and the oven made a lethal combination?
“I was thinking that you’re a very brave young man.”
She reached across the couch and held my hand. “And I was thinking how much I loved you.”
She gave my hand a squeeze. “And I was also thinking how lucky I am to have a wonderful gay son who makes me so proud.”
She picked up a cookie and rapped it against the side of the bowl. It sounded like concrete being hit with a hammer. “And finally, I was thinking I used way too much oatmeal in this recipe. Or maybe not enough cornstarch.”
I took the cookie from her hand and snapped off a corner between my teeth. Cornstarch or not, I thought it tasted delicious.
When I got to school the next morning, I half-expected to find a banner hanging over the front doors:
ATTENTION, STUDENTS AND STAFF!
STEVEN DENARSKI IS A HOMOSEXUAL!
Dwayne had known I was gay for nearly a day. Surely the word must have spread.
And in fact, there was a banner over the front doors. But it had nothing to do with me. It was a huge banner congratulating the hockey team on winning their Saturday game. Next stop, the state tournament.
The proclamation that bore my name was considerably smaller. It was printed on a piece of recycled typing paper and taped directly above my locker:
CONGRATULATIONS TO BEAVER LAKE’S
NEWEST DRIVER,
STEVEN DENARSKI!
I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!
LOVE, RACHEL
In my opinion, it looked fifty times better than anything the cheerleaders could have made.
Rachel’s good wishes lifted my spirits, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I faced the fallout from my encounter with Dwayne. Snide looks? Name calling? My head stuck in the toilet and flushed? I didn’t know what it would be, but I knew that something had to happen.
I waited for it to happen that morning.
It didn’t.
I waited for it to happen at lunch.
It didn’t.
But later that week, as I was hurrying to my second-hour class, I spotted Dwayne and two buddies coming at me from the other end of the hall. The three filled the hallway like an industrial-size snowplow.
I could have turned around or hidden in the bathroom, but frankly I was tired of waiting. For that matter, I was tired of hiding too. So I just kept walking and aimed for the narrow opening between Dwayne and the wall.
As I reached the spot where Dwayne could have easily body-checked me into the lockers, I readied myself for whatever was going to happen next.
“Hey, Upchuck,” he said.
“Hey, Dwayne,” I replied.
And we passed.
That was it. He went his way; I went mine. I began breathing again when I got to my class.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dwayne didn’t give a rat’s rear if I was gay. Like, duh, his own mother was a lesbian. But I was surprised, as well as profoundly relieved.
It’s nice to discover that some surprises can be good ones.
Before the day’s end, Vice Principal Cheever made another of his all-school announcements on the classroom monitors. This time he was flanked by the two head hockey coaches and Mr. Bowman.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate our fine coaching staff on the outstanding job they’re doing with this year’s hockey team. We are proud to have dedicated teachers like these working at Beaver Lake.”
Even when he had something positive to say, Cheever still sounded like he was delivering a eulogy.
Mr. Bowman spoke next. “Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Cheever, but all of the congratulations belong to the team. They are the ones who worked their tails off and earned this trip to the state tournament. They are the ones who deserve our praise.”
He then went on to recite the entire roster of players from memory.
The guy had class, you couldn’t deny it. And he still looked pretty good in a designer shirt.
On the bus ride home I began to work out the math: 24 more days until the next support group; 576 hours; 34,560 minutes. Calculating the exact number of seconds seemed a little obsessive, even for me.
My mother asked about school. My father made a tuna noodle hot dish for dinner. All in all, it was an ordinary evening in the life of a slightly neurotic gay teenager.
Except something kept buzzing around in the back of my brain, just out of reach. Something that Mr. Bowman had said at the end of the day. And while it was annoying, it couldn’t be very important, could it? All he had done was recite the list of hockey players.
Then, just as I was unloading the last butter knife from the dishwasher, it came to me.
Mike Capella.
He was one of the hockey players Mr. Bowman had named. He was also the guy Persephone had said was baby-sitting on Sunday.
Coincidence? Most likely. There were probably dozens of Capellas within a hundred miles of Summerfield.
Actually, there was only one. I had run to the phone directory and checked.
Okay. So maybe these two Mikes were one and the same. Maybe there really was another gay student at school. I’d find out for certain soon enough. There were only twenty-four days until the next coffeehouse meeting.
Unless Mike had to baby-sit again. Or my parents wouldn’t let me use the car. Or a glacier broke lose from the polar ice cap and ripped a chasm through the center of the United States.
I picked up the phone and started dialing. It’s what Rachel would have wanted me to do.
More important, it’s what I wanted me to do.
Someone answered on the third ring.
“Is Mike Capella there?”
“Speaking.”
“The same Mike Capella who had to baby-sit his sister last Sunday?”
“Yeah. Why?”
This was good, but not good enough. I had been fooled once by Dwayne and I wasn’t about to be fooled again.
“The same Mike Capella who also happens to be gay?”
Silence.
What a stupid thing to have asked. Of course this guy wasn’t going to say yes. Even if it were true, why would anyone admit this to a total stranger?
“Damn right I’m gay. Who the hell wants to know?”
Being sworn at had never felt so good.
“My name is Steven DeNarski, I go to your school, and I happen to be gay too.” The words rushed out of my mouth like prisoners making a jailbreak.
Another pause. This time a little longer.
“Okay,” said Mike. “That’s cool.”
And since I was already speeding down this highway of irrational bravery, I decided to throw out the brakes and hit the accelerator. “And I was wondering if you’d like to get together sometime. To talk.”
“Do I even know you?” asked Mike.
Wham! I had crashed into a brick wall. I was afraid it was going to come to this.
“Sort of,” I said. The words were no longer in such a hurry to escape. “I used to sit at the hockey table, in lunch. I was the quiet one, at the end.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for his reaction when he finally realized who I was.
“Cool,” he said. “Very cool.”
“Cool” was rapidly becoming my favorite word.
Fueled by one more burst of adrenaline, I continued. “So how about this weekend?” I asked.
“Can’t,” said Mike. “I’ve got hockey.”
Of course he had hockey. It was the state tournament. Unless he was using hockey as an excuse not to meet.
“What about Monday?” he asked.
Anyone with half a brain would have said yes.
I almost did.
“Can’t,” I said. “I’ve got square dancing. What about Tuesday?”
Not even a pause.
“Tuesday works for me.”
“Cool.”
My mind was pounding with a thousand questions I wanted to ask him: Did he know of any other gay kids at school? Did the h
ockey team know that he was gay? Did they really get to throw Mr. Bowman in the showers when they won their last game?
Good questions one and all. But they’d have to wait till Tuesday. Right now I needed to cement the details before my courage deserted me or Mike changed his mind. “Five-thirty? At the Pizza Barn?”
Long, long pause.
I had blown it. My comment about square dancing had finally sunk in.
“There’s just one problem,” said Mike. “I can’t drive. My dad won’t let me get my license until I’m a senior. Pretty sick, huh?”
Man, were we going to have a lot to talk about.
“No problem,” I said with the worldly air of one who has had his license for nearly a week. “I’ll pick you up.”
I got his address and wished him luck at the tournament. When he hung up, I collapsed exhausted onto the carpet.
A miracle. A genuine, modern miracle.
There was only one minor detail left to take care of.
“Mom, Dad, can I borrow the car?”
My dad was behind his newspaper and my mom was sitting on the floor, organizing the chapters in her new book. “Going somewhere with Rachel?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m going out for pizza, next Tuesday, with a guy from school.” And then, just to make sure they heard correctly, I raised my voice and added, “He’s gay.”
My dad lowered his paper and my mom dropped the chapter she was holding. They exchanged quick looks, then turned toward me.
“Make sure you fill the tank,” my dad said, and went back to reading.
My mother wasn’t so calm.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather invite your friend over here? We could all have pizza together and then play cribbage or rummy. Everyone likes rummy. I bet your father would make some of his famous mozzarella sticks. And I could whip up a big box of pudding for dessert.”
When she saw that I wasn’t interested in mozzarella sticks and pudding, she sighed. “All right. As long as you’re home by eight. No, make that seven-thirty.”
No self-respecting sixteen-year-old has to be home by seven-thirty on a weeknight, but I didn’t argue. Not this time.
As I returned to my room to call Rachel and tell her the good news, I realized that she would want to know which of the hockey players was Mike. Come to think of it, so did I. In all my weeks of sitting at their table, I had never once heard anyone being called by that name.
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