by P. E. Ryan
As if jumping on this very thought, his little sister swung open the door and walked into his room.
“Hey! Jeez, could you knock?” Sam yanked the sheet up around his waist.
“Don’t be a grouch,” Hannah said, gazing around at his posters and at his clothes lying at the foot of the bed as if the place just amazed her, as if she hadn’t been in his room a million times before. “Slipped my mind, I guess.”
“Well, there’s such a thing as privacy, and you’re violating mine when you come barging in here without knocking.”
“Sorry.” Hannah continued to snoop her eyes around the room. She was ten, six years younger than Sam, and too curious—too nosy—for Sam’s taste. She was wearing a ROOF-SMART T-shirt that hung down over her shorts, and her hair was pulled into two ponytails that sprouted out over her ears like crabgrass. “Can I wear your Dolphins cap?”
“No,” Sam said.
She pulled the cap off the handle of his closet door and put it on. “Yes, I can. May I?”
“No.” He reached out and snatched the cap from her head. But then she frowned at him, and he put it back on her and tugged it down over her eyes. “You look like a roadie.”
“What’s a roadie?”
“Someone who follows rock bands around the country. Someone so junked out on smack, she can’t even remember which band she’s traveling with.”
“What’s smack?” she asked, but she didn’t seem to really want to know (and Sam wouldn’t have told her anyway). “You’re weird.” She was slipping a bare foot down into one of his running shoes. “Mom says to come eat breakfast before it’s lunchtime.”
“I’m not hungry.” He was starving. “Hey, don’t touch my sunglasses.”
Hannah already had them on. She looked at him, wearing his sunglasses, his Dolphins cap, and his running shoes. Her hips started swaying and her hands pawed the air. “I’m Sam. I’m cool. I’m Sam-I-am.”
His body was behaving now. He’d slept in his boxer shorts, thankfully, and not in the raw (though he’d thought about it after watching that movie). He shot out his arm like a big hook and dragged her onto the bed. She squealed as he tickled her beneath her arms.
When she was thoroughly conquered, he let her go and sat back against his headboard. “Why are you wearing that dumbass shirt?”
“You owe a quarter to the swearing jar,” she told him, straightening the cap on her head.
“Yeah, I’ll be paying that real soon.”
Hannah looked down at the shirt and tugged on its hem. “Teddy gave me this.”
“He gave me one, too. Know what I did with mine? Cut it up into rags.”
“You’re so weird,” she said. Then she stared at his floor, at the piles of clothes and the scattered CD cases. “You’re a slob. Can we call Dad?”
“Why, so you can tell him what a slob I am?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not a narc.”
She really was a funny little kid, for being a nosy snoop. “We just called him yesterday. He said he was going to call us next time. Friday, I think. Hey, what time is it in London?”
“How should I know?”
“Come on. What did I teach you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Some weird science thing.”
“Time zones,” he said. “Remember? How Grand-dad is in Nashville, and he’s an hour behind us?”
“I know,” she groaned.
“Well, people in London are five hours ahead. We’re here”—he made a fist and pointed to his thumb knuckle—“and Dad is…here.” He pointed to the knuckle of his third finger. “It’s ten o’clock in St. Augustine, so what time is it in London?”
“Fifteen o’clock,” she said, screwing her face up like a moron.
“You’re brilliant,” Sam said. “I’ll bet you’re just oozing brilliance all over the inside of my cap.” He got out of bed, grabbed a T-shirt from the floor, and pulled it on. From another pile, he found a pair of cutoff shorts and climbed into them. “Be right back, Jack.”
As he crossed the hall to the bathroom, he heard voices coming from the front of the house. More conversation about wall sconces. When he came back into his room, Hannah was lying down flat on her back across the foot of his bed, her head hanging over the side. Looking at him upside down, through his sunglasses, she said, “Dad’s with his friend, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
Hannah huffed. She rolled over. “I wish he’d come home.”
“He’ll be home in, like, three weeks.”
“I mean home,” she said.
He knew what she meant, of course. It had been almost a year since their parents had gotten separated. There’d been a lot of arguments leading up to the event, most of them behind closed doors—that awful, muffled sound of angry adults trying not to be heard. Then there were a few very loud arguments, which Sam had drowned out with his headphones. But even though the fighting went on for a few weeks, he was still shocked when his parents sat him and Hannah down and told them the news: Their dad was going to move out of the house. There’d been a thousand questions, most of them from Hannah (“For how long?” and “How come you don’t just stop fighting?” and, over and over and over again, “Why?”), and none of the answers had been very specific. “It’s for the best,” they both said. But how could that make any sense? How was it for the best when their dad was moving up to Ponte Vedra Beach?
They went to his new house almost every weekend, either dropped off by his mom or picked up by his dad—though they never spent the night. His dad’s new house was larger and nicer than theirs. It had a pool, and Sam and Hannah kept swimsuits there so they could go swimming when they went over. The house was owned by a man named David, who shared the living space.
His dad was an architect who sometimes wrote textbooks, and he was working on a new one now. David was some sort of financial consultant.
David was nice, and funny, and maybe a little older than Sam’s dad. Hannah was crazy about him—though she tended to toss affection around like confetti, Sam thought, remembering the comment he’d heard her make that morning: “I love you, Teddy.” Ugh! Sam liked David, too. He was always relaxed. Sam’s dad even seemed relaxed—for the first time in Sam couldn’t remember how long. He seemed happy. Sam had been glad for him, but he hadn’t quite understood. Was a new friend and a bigger house enough to turn someone around, make him a happy, smiling person? Was it enough to make him want to start a whole new life?
“You know your mother and I still care about each other a great deal,” his dad had told him once, when they were alone in the kitchen.
“But you don’t want to live together?”
“That’s right. On a certain level, we just didn’t get along. It happens with people, and the best thing they can do is be honest with each other about how they feel; otherwise, they just stay unhappy. But it doesn’t mean we’re not still a family. We are. Always remember that.”
“But we’re not,” Sam said, confused. “You and Mom don’t even like talking to each other on the phone.”
“Well, people fight, Sam. Sometimes the fight gets so big that you can’t pretend it’s not there anymore, you know what I mean? I still care about your mother, and I want you to know that I’m always there for you. And for Hannah, too. We’re still a family.”
Whatever, Sam had wanted to say, because it still didn’t make sense to him.
Then, several months ago, it all became clear—sort of. Sam and Hannah had come over for a cook-out by the pool. Hannah was practicing cannonballs, and Sam dried off and went into the house to use the bathroom. As he turned into the hall, he saw David sitting at the desk in his bedroom, staring at the computer. “This is great!” David said. “Thank you! It’s twice as fast now. You must have cleaned out a lot of junk.” Then Sam’s dad appeared behind David, put his hands on David’s shoulders, and leaned over. He looked at the computer screen for a moment, then kissed the side of David’s neck and said, “You’re welcome.”
Sa
m had ducked into the bathroom and quietly closed the door. He stared at himself in the large mirror behind the sink, utterly confused. His dad didn’t seem gay. Neither did David. And if they were gay, then why would his dad have married his mom in the first place? Was this something his dad had just recently figured out? Sam couldn’t wrap his brain around it. His mother had wrapped her brain around it, that was for sure. It must have been what all those fights were about, back when his dad still lived with them.
Hannah, Sam was certain, had no idea. She was such a blabbermouth that she would have said something to him by now.
It was almost too crazy to think about—except that, in a way, Sam had always thought about two guys together that way; he’d been imagining what it would be like to kiss and touch another boy since he was, what, ten? He’d tried to make himself not imagine it, but that had proved impossible. And he’d spent a lot of time worrying about how people might react if they found out about him. Especially his family.
Now, knowing what his parents had gone through and how it had split them apart, his situation only seemed worse. It was like his dad had done something wrong, and now Sam wanted to venture into that same territory, which would only upset everyone, and everything, all over again. Granted, there was gay stuff all over the place—in the news, on TV shows, in the movies—but still, for the most part, people he knew just made fun of it. He’d gone to a large birthday party last spring for Mike Chupnik, the sportswriter on the school newspaper staff, and they’d had Dude, Where’s My Car? playing on the television. No one was paying much attention to the movie, but then right in the middle of it, Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott leaned into each other and, out of the blue, shared a serious lip-lock. While Sam was absorbed by the sight, one of the other guys in the living room started howling and making gross-out noises. “I hate this part!” someone else yelled. “It makes me want to puke!” Then Mike, who’d just opened Sam’s present, said, “Hey, who invited the fags?”—cracking up everyone in the room but Sam.
How would people react if they knew that not only was Sam Findley’s dad a full-fledged homo, but that Sam himself was a homo in the making? They’d probably say his dad had caused it, which was totally ridiculous. They’d probably even make sick jokes about his dad messing around with him. For all Sam knew, his mother might even think something like that. She didn’t seem to mind it when Teddy made stupid, homophobic remarks.
“It’s not so bad,” he told Hannah now, wanting to make her feel better and wanting to change the topic. “Just think of it like Dad lives up the road. That’s all. He’s just right up the road.”
“Why’s he in London, anyway?”
“Because of David’s job,” Sam said, and instantly wished he hadn’t. He knew it would only prompt another question from his little sister.
“Why can’t just David be there?”
“Because Dad wants to be there to research his architecture book. He told you that.”
“What’s wrong with the buildings here?”
“I don’t know,” Sam snapped. He really wanted to change the subject now and was relieved to see Jasbo waddle into the room. “Wow, is Jasbo fatter than he was yesterday?”
Hannah jumped off the bed and squatted down, holding her arms out to the copper-colored dachshund. “He’s fat as a piglet. Come here, Jasbo. Bring your fat butt over here.” Jasbo made his way across the carpet and lowered his head, allowing Hannah to scratch his neck. “You’re a good old fat dog, aren’t you?”
“Has he eaten breakfast?”
“He’s been eating all morning! He ate half my egg.”
“Well, let’s go feed him half of mine,” Sam said, and ushered his sister out of the room. The dog waddled after them.
3.
(You. Are. Stoned.)
Things would make more sense if Charlie woke up one day to find that someone had actually cloned him when he was a baby, and that all along there had been five of him. It would explain how one of the Charlie Perrins was just this normal, happy-go-lucky guy with a girlfriend and a car and a year left to go in high school. And how another Charlie Perrin was a slacker who walked around feeling sad whenever any thought of his mother entered his mind, which was about a million times a day. And how the third Charlie Perrin was able to think of his future and imagine grand success on a pro ball team, while the fourth had already concluded that he was a loser and a daydreamer. And then there was the fifth Charlie Perrin, who seemed to have never even met the other four, and who liked closing out the entire world and getting high.
He’d smoked pot for the first time almost a year ago, a few weeks after his mother died. A couple of teammates—Troy and Taylor Sullivan, twins who were good players but not exactly his friends—had invited him over after the team had won an afternoon game against Ocala. Charlie had played well, scoring twenty-five points. With the brothers, in the rec room of their large house, he ate hot dogs and watched a movie and played a half dozen games of Splinter Cell. Then Taylor put on some music and closed the blinds.
“Hey,” Troy said, dropping down next to Charlie where he sat cross-legged in front of their giant television, “good game today.”
“Really good game,” Taylor said from the stereo. “You were electric.”
“Thanks.” Charlie felt himself nod. “You guys were great, too.”
“Just doing our jobs,” Troy said. “So, hey. You been doing okay?”
“Fine,” Charlie said. He was still looking at the TV screen but felt the twins’ gaze from either side. He set down the joystick. “You?”
“Sorry to hear about your mom dying and all,” Taylor blurted out.
Troy shot his brother a look. “Yeah. Sorry about that. That really sucks.”
Charlie had no idea what to say. Yes, it sucked? Thank you?
“Our mom,” Troy said, “you know, her mom died when she was really young—when our mom was really young—and she told us it was awful, and that it, it must be really rough on you.”
So that was why they’d asked him over all of a sudden, having never talked to him off the basketball court before. Their own mother had put them up to it. You two ought to ask that poor Perrin boy over to the house. He could probably use some cheering up. Charlie felt the hot dogs he’d eaten start to churn in his stomach. He didn’t really want to be in the Sullivan house any longer but didn’t know how to just leave, since he was dependent on Mrs. Sullivan for a ride home.
Fortunately, both Troy and Taylor seemed more than ready to move on from the topic of his mother, now that it had been officially acknowledged. Taylor stepped away from the stereo and reached up high on the DVD shelf for a small wooden box. He lifted the lid and took out a twisted cigarette. “Want to get high?”
“Yeppers,” Troy said.
Charlie looked from one brother to the other. Were they serious? He tried to sound casual. “What about your parents?”
“They never come in here. The only person in here besides us is the cleaning lady.”
Taylor chuckled. “And she wouldn’t say a word, because she doesn’t want to get deported.”
Charlie felt himself shrug. He nodded.
The three of them shared the joint, which made Charlie cough, but almost immediately he felt more comfortable in the twins’ rec room. They laughed at how red his eyes looked, though their eyes looked red, too. The music, whatever it was, started to sound incredibly great.
“Are there any more hot dogs?” Charlie asked.
“Why? You hungry?”
“Yeah. I don’t why, though. I just ate.”
Troy and Taylor started laughing again. Charlie started laughing, too. “You’re stoned,” one of them said, and the other one said, “You. Are. Stoned.”
This seemed enormously funny, and the three of them laughed for what felt like half an hour.
Finally Troy cleared his throat and said, “You know, you’re a cool guy.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said, wiping his eyes with his fingers.
; “He is,” Taylor said. “You are. When our dad, you know, when we told him we wanted to try out for the basketball team, he started bitching about how he never should have put that hoop in the driveway. ‘You boys join the basketball team, you’re going to be hanging out with nothing but blacks.’”
Troy cracked up at his brother’s impression of their father. “That’s exactly what he said!”
“And we were like, I don’t think so. White guys play basketball, too. Of course, he was kind of right. I mean, there are a lot of black guys on the team this year.”
“More than a lot,” Troy said.
“And it’s not so great wondering if you’re gonna get, you know, mugged in the middle of a game,” Taylor said.
Charlie had been laughing all through this. He stopped. “Huh?”
Taylor shrugged. “I know it’s a cliché, but clichés are based on truth, after all.”
Charlie cleared his throat. He wiped his eyes again. “Wow,” he said. “You guys really are snobs.”
The amusement drained out of both brothers’ faces simultaneously. “We’re not snobs,” one them said.
“Well, okay. Racist.”
“We’re not racist,” the other one bit out, sounding shocked. “We’re real.”
“Well, when you say…when you say…” Charlie couldn’t figure out how to vocalize what he was thinking. Suddenly he realized he didn’t have to. “Wow. I’m feeling pretty good.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah. The only thing is…” He glanced at the brothers, squinting. “I see two of you.” This cracked him up until he was practically folded over with laughter. The twins looked bemused; they’d probably heard this joke before. “Where do you guys get this stuff?” Charlie asked.
“The buzz?” one of them asked—was it Taylor or Troy? Who cared?—and then made a thumbs-up with one hand. “Our Dr. Feelgood goes by the name of Derrick Harding.”