by R. Cooper
“Yeah?” Chico remembered only thinking The Nutcracker was pretty. He’d probably been too young to consider meaning. “When is rehearsal?” he wondered, while Rafael watched him toy with the epaulets, and then lifted his head when Rafael stood up. He didn’t understand until Rafael extended his hand to help Chico to his feet.
He was out in the practice hall not a minute later, seated on one of the benches at the back, surrounded by gold braid and thread Rafael personally carried out for him.
AFTER A while the bench began to fill up with other people, parents using e-readers to pass the time, and Mr. Winters, who took notes on everything in a journal. Mr. Winters was about his son’s height, with broad shoulders and Slavic features more like his daughters. He scooted over to give Chico—and the jacket and the scissors and needles and pins—room and only raised his eyebrows when he saw Chico adding more gold braid to the king’s cuffs.
Mr. Winters must be where Rafael got his calm manner. When he noticed Chico watching, he angled the notebook toward him so Chico could read some of his notations. He had sketches of two figures dancing with lots of arrows and words in French. The only thing in English Chico could read was trust can’t be rushed, or forced, it must grow. We watch it grow.
Chico smiled at him, although he didn’t understand, and Mr. Winters directed his attention back to the rehearsing. Only one of the older girls was dancing under Rafael’s watchful eye, the one who had to be playing the dancer. She had the bigger role, Mr. Winters informed him without Chico needing to ask, but the clockwork dancer was the one with the title role, and the one who had not just to dance, but to give her character life while convincingly playing a soulless machine.
Chico had watched her study the other girl, the dancer she had to copy while also being something unique, and thought he understood part of why she was worrying so much. The ballet had meaning to her too. It was no use telling her this was only a local production. She wanted to stand out on her own.
So he leaned in toward Mr. Winters and asked, very seriously, what her costume looked like.
Mr. Winters, equally serious, told him everything.
AFTER THAT, it was nothing at all to get home from work, grab something easy to eat, and head over to do the last of the repairs and fittings and also work on his—slight—costume changes while he watched them dance.
Sometimes Mrs. Winters would send him to one of the other classrooms to fetch her husband, who was back to teaching his ballroom classes for beginners and summer tourists who didn’t seem to know a world-class danseur was in their midst. If she had anything to say about the times she caught Chico staring at her son, she kept it to herself. Maybe she’d realized staring was all it was, a harmless infatuation from someone not ready for more.
If she had anything to say about Rafael looking back at him from across the room, or noticed her son peering over Chico’s shoulder at whatever he was working on, she probably said that to Rafael. And Rafael probably just answered, “Yes, Mama,” and did as he pleased, as though circling around Chico was something he would continue to do until Chico told him not to.
Chico, quite obviously, had yet to do that.
Mrs. Winters continued to catch him staring.
Lots of people probably crushed on her son, students both young and old. The parents. Volunteers. Jase, who continued to show up to paint now that the props were done. He talked a lot with Davi, which was how Chico knew that this weekend the three of them, Davi, Jase, and Rafael, were going to drive into the next town and hit the bars.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Brandywine had two bars, plus the historic one at the hotel, and people couldn’t always relax at a bar where everyone knew them. And sometimes gay men, and bisexual men, and everyone else under the LGBTQ umbrella, didn’t feel fully relaxed at a straight bar. But the excursion was meant to help them all “blow off steam,” according to Davi, which was according to Jase.
So far, Chico had been pretending he didn’t know this. And since hiding under his pillow no longer worked for him, he’d been puttering around the costume room long after rehearsals had ended, adding details to the costumes no one had asked for.
Rafael walked into the room with his hand out as though he intended to turn off the lights, then stopped dead when he saw Chico. The fact that he immediately smiled shouldn’t have made Chico feel as good as it did.
“You’re going to ruin your eyes at this rate.” Rafael studied Chico for another few moments, then carefully came forward. “And you look worn out again.”
So much for Chico’s big brown eyes, Chico thought grumpily. He must be tired, because he was getting peevish. “Do you think the clockwork dancer should be like a Barbie doll version of the dancer, or do you think she should be her own creation? Because at first I was going to stitch the dress with big black thread so everyone would be reminded that she was a doll, but I keep thinking that she’s just as tragic as the rest of them.”
Rafael paused, then pursed his lips. “That’s a good question, but maybe one for another day. You should take a break.” His answer was way too considerate for someone who had been on his feet for twelve hours at least.
“I’m not done,” Chico told him, with a stubborn dignity he hadn’t known he had. “You’re the one who should rest. Teaching classes and putting on a ballet. Tsk.”
From Rafael’s raised eyebrows and slow, uncertain smile, he guessed Rafael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But like his father, Rafael seemed to know when to keep quiet. He edged into the room, then made for the sofa. “I’ll wait,” he announced, as if Chico had asked.
Chico scowled at him for it, although Rafael was right and he doubted he’d get any more work done tonight.
He trailed the tip of his pencil over the notebook next to him, not really drawing anything, since he was stuck on the idea of the dancer and her clockwork counterpart. It couldn’t be about what the inventor thought of the dancer. He loved her and wanted to protect her. In the ballet, he makes beautiful doll after beautiful doll of her, only to reject them and do something else. He was a smart man, the inventor. Smart enough to see why the dancer is miserable. Smart enough to get her to dance for him. Smart enough to know the real her. But that wasn’t the doll he presented to the king. That mattered. Chico just couldn’t figure out why it mattered.
After about ten minutes of sulking silence, he let himself glance at Rafael.
Rafael was on his back, eyes closed, possibly asleep.
He’d been ready to lock up the place and go home, and Chico had been angry and stupid and made him stay.
“Shit.” Chico got up quietly. He closed his notebook, turned off the desk lamp, and approached the sofa. He put one hand to Rafael’s bare shoulder. “Rafael.”
“A kiss is traditional in this situation,” Rafael remarked without opening his eyes.
Chico jerked backward and put his hands to his face.
“I thought…. You stopped…. I thought we weren’t going to do that anymore,” he exclaimed in a high voice, frowning. There had been no flirting since Rafael’s date. Rafael had watched him and watched him and lit up to see Chico watching back, but there had been no flirting.
Chico had never asked him to stop. He waited until Rafael sat up and opened his eyes before he gave him the best glare he had.
“Did you put up your curtains yet?” Rafael’s question made absolutely no sense, but he was looking at Chico expectantly, as though one thought followed the other.
Chico continued to glare at him, slightly thrown now. He shook his head. “I’m heading down this weekend to my parents’ house to get my sewing machine, maybe take my mom fabric shopping with me.” He went to his desk for his notebook, which conveniently kept him turned away from Rafael. “You’ll be busy too, I hear.”
There was no explaining jealousy. Chico should have been seething over John with his new boyfriend, living in his apartment, with all his friends visiting them and chattering about it online. Instead he kept thinking of R
afael standing behind Jase with his hand on his hip, showing him how to waltz, and then it was long, unhappy nights and the sinking feeling he still wouldn’t be ready to approach Rafael on Rafael and Jase’s wedding day.
“Yes.” Rafael answered shortly as he came up behind Chico and followed him from the little costuming closet. He switched off the light before Chico could and crossed the room to the french doors, where he waited. The only illumination was the moonlight that came through the glass of the doors. Chico had stayed later than he’d thought.
He came over to join Rafael at the door and shivered at the always surprising temperature drop of nighttime in the coastal mountains. Rafael grabbed one of the many sweatshirts constantly left behind by the dancers and handed it to him without comment.
It smelled like a teen girl’s vanilla body spray, but Chico put it on. The sleeves fell over his hands, which made Rafael sigh, but not unhappily. He seemed more resigned, although Chico didn’t see why his tiny size and inability to remember to bring a coat at night was a problem for Rafael.
Rafael put on a gray sweatshirt that might have actually belonged to him, since it fit him and said “New York” across the chest. He waved Chico through the doors before following him out and locking up. The doors, as always, required a fight to get fully closed, but Rafael knew their secrets and had it done in no time.
His keychain had a flashlight on it, something Chico discovered when they were outside in the dark. “I need one of those,” he remarked, as if he hadn’t just proved he was still falling short in the taking-care-of-himself department.
He started walking when Rafael did, which had nothing to do with the flashlight, although it was late and much darker than Chico was used to during his nightly walk to his place.
“I didn’t mean to keep you. You’ve probably been dying to go home. Get some rest. Maybe eat.” After five minutes of silent walking, Chico couldn’t seem to shut up. “You could have come in to kick me out. I mean, you didn’t have….” He didn’t let himself ask if Rafael had plans for dinner. “I know you can’t keep food around the studio.” Mrs. Winters had a hollow leg. She even ate food she said she hated. Chico had watched her devour a box of raisins while explaining how raisins were disgusting. “And now—” Rafael should have turned off and headed in a different direction by now, farther down Alberi Lane. “Now you’re walking me home. Please don’t let me keep you from eating.”
“One of the things I love about teaching instead of dancing is that now I get to eat what I want,” Rafael commented, lighting Chico’s path from slightly behind him. “One of the things I hate about it is that I’m so busy, I sometimes don’t get to eat anything. I’m starving. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to a meal.”
Chico’s excited breathing was very loud with just the two of them and the trees. He wondered if Rafael was telling him he hadn’t gone on any more dates with Jase.
Chico slowed so they were walking together. He swallowed and tried out the words. “I’ve been getting better at feeding myself. But… but at the moment, all I have is peanut butter and jelly.”
He took another step, then another.
Rafael’s hand glanced over his elbow. “What kind of jelly?”
Chico shot him a look that Rafael probably couldn’t catch with the flashlight beam focused on the ground. “You must be hungry and tired if a PB and J is an acceptable dinner to you.” He could see the lights from Davi’s house as they came through a stand of trees. “My apartment is…. Well if you aren’t expecting a disaster, you don’t know me very well. But, just so you know, I didn’t used to be this person. I used to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Sometimes Rafael asked questions he shouldn’t.
Chico shrugged, which was not an answer in the dark. “I just felt I had to be ready. Our apartment was very neat.” He did not want to talk about John, but he did hesitate when they reached the driveway. “We can see if Davi is hungry too.”
It wasn’t quite a question. Chico went hot anyway for what he was kind of, sort of, asking—if Rafael wanted them to be alone. “I love Davi,” Chico added quickly, out of guilt. “He’s the best.”
“I’m pretty fond of him too,” Rafael responded calmly. “But he’s probably already eaten.”
“Oh. Right.” Chico took another moment, before veering toward the garage. He turned once, as the security light came on, but Rafael was still there behind him, close, but not close enough to step on Chico’s heels. Rafael turned off the keychain flashlight and stuck it in his pocket, then stared curiously at Chico.
Dry-mouthed, Chico spun around and continued up the steps to his apartment. He got his key out, the one Davi insisted he probably didn’t need. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, turning on the lights as he did. He set his notebook on a stack of boxes—dishware, he’d labeled it last weekend, if not unpacked it. He really wasn’t thrilled about using his and John’s shared dishes in his new apartment.
“It’s really not much,” he excused the place and waved for Rafael to sit or stand or walk the entire small perimeter. The bed was unmade. But his one plate and coffee cup were clean on the rack. The boxes were at least arranged neatly.
He watched Rafael consider the space, and he shouldn’t have been surprised when Rafael headed for the balcony. He found the switch for the outside light, flicked it on and turned it off again, evidently satisfied with the ambient light from the bedroom-slash-living room. Then he pushed open the sliding door and stepped outside, where he turned his face up to the stars.
Which was how Chico ended up bringing three peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on his single clean plate out onto the balcony, where he and Rafael ate in the dark. He didn’t have any milk, and regretted it, but Rafael accepted water in a coffee cup without comment. He also ate both of the sandwiches Chico made him, so he truly must have been hungry.
Chico took his time and finished his sandwich a little later. He couldn’t tell if the silence was due to sticky peanut butter or a reluctance to break the mood. He didn’t feel like they’d been fighting, but he found his thoughts drifting to what Rafael might be like in a fight. If he lost his temper or sulked or got sarcastic.
“It’s strange being out here and not seeing light from that direction.” Water didn’t cut through the peanut butter as well as milk, but it allowed Chico to speak.
Rafael’s silhouette turned in the direction Chico gestured to, where his home was, currently dark. His house was the next nearest house, after Davi’s. The others were mere specks of light between the trees.
“Everything seems very far away like this.” Chico wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to say. “A month ago I liked that. Now… I don’t know.”
“Are you missing city life?” Rafael’s throat must have still been thick with peanut butter.
Chico pushed his cup of water at him in case Rafael’s was empty. He shook his head. “No. Not really. Some things, yeah, like the good coffee places and the seafood. But I guess… I guess I could drive to the coast for that, if I wanted.”
“You could.” Rafael stayed where he was and didn’t touch the cup.
Chico turned toward him. “Are you really happy up here?”
“In most things, yes, I am.” He got the sense Rafael was peering at him in the near dark. “I’m with my family. I have a career I like and enough freedom in that career to basically do what I want. But I can see how a small town could be suffocating. It’s not for everyone. Even I need to get away sometimes. If you’re of a certain age and a certain persuasion, it can be lonely here.”
Unless Chico wanted to help him with his loneliness, or encourage him to talk about Jase or the bars, he had nothing to say to that.
He shifted back to look at the stars. “This really is my favorite thing about being up here… aside from time with Davi, of course.”
“Mine too.” Rafael exhaled, a tired, wrung-out sound, and leaned heavily into his chair. “My house was built more like a hunting cabin.
It’s sort of… I guess you might say it’s sturdy looking. Nothing fanciful went into the design. But there’s a great balcony outside my bedroom. I like to sit outside when the weather is nice.”
“That sounds amazing.” Chico meant it, without allowing himself to dwell on that bedroom or Rafael’s house or if he’d mind company on his balcony someday. “Do you know, I thought my life before was okay, but I don’t ever think I would have said it was great?” Chico wasn’t even angry. He sighed at the heavens and wriggled into his borrowed sweatshirt. “Even then. How odd. I had—well, I thought I had—a decent boyfriend, a job that paid okay, a nice apartment where we lived together; and we watched the right movies and played the right music. It was good. Better than I ever expected. But it wasn’t great.”
Rafael’s chair creaked. “Why wouldn’t you expect something great for yourself?”
Chico waved a hand. “I don’t know. I’m gay? I’m not glamorous or super sexy? I’m smart but not a genius, and have no real talent. A settled life was all I really wanted. I didn’t think to ask for more than that.”
“Settled?” Rafael turned again. Chico somehow knew it without looking. “Were you happy?”
“I… thought I was?” Chico answered seriously but then realized he’d reached the point where talking about it was boring. Three years of his life with someone, and he was bored with talking about it after only a few months.
He considered that, then nodded. “I was like all my paired-up friends my age. I was doing well. But I was never relaxed like I am right now. There’s no pressure here. Or there’s less pressure here. I can work to get by and do whatever I want with my free time, and what I want is to sit at the studio and sew frilly tutus. Is that a strange thing to be proud of? Because I am proud of those tutus. I even like saying tutus.” God, he liked making Rafael laugh, even small, warm chuckles under his breath. Rafael shook his head, though, as if answering Chico’s question, so Chico nodded again. “Now I’m… not even sure what my status updates would be if I did all that online crap again. What is there in my life I can easily explain to others? Why do I even need to justify it to them if it makes me happy? Oh.” Chico drew out the word. “Talk about a late-night revelation.”