As La Vista Turns

by Kris Ripper

  I looked at my helpers. “Torturing the next generation of queers is fun, isn’t it?”

  Alisha nodded. “Torturing people is fun in general. You should see the shit we pull on Ed’s grad student housemates. They’re so gullible.”

  “Straight boys?”

  “And hipsters. It’s adorable. They have hipster names like ‘JP.’”

  Dred started gathering up the pictures. “Boards. It’s gotta be boards. Picture frames if you want to get fancy about it. Albums would get messy, and be too concentrated. But big boards, maybe three or four, would be perfect. Put them on easels, or hang them on the walls. Let people look to their hearts’ content.”

  I pictured it in the front of Club Fred’s, spread out.

  “You’ll definitely want frames,” Alisha added. “People will be touchy. I think I’d make copies of everything that wasn’t printed, and then you can just laminate them. I mean some of these pictures—” She reached for one before Dred could snag it. “Remember Mason? I forgot all about him.”

  I glanced over. “Damn, I did too. Suicide, right? Poor kid.”

  “Yeah, like ten years ago. We graduated the same year. He was so sweet.”

  “Uh, Zane?” Dred was staring down at a printout. “You should look at this one.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Well, that’s definitely Philpott.”

  I took the paper. I didn’t recognize the women in the foreground with Philpott, but there was a familiar face behind them . . . wait. “Is that—?”

  “If it is, don’t put that up. It’s too fucked up. Cut him out or something.”

  “Cut who out?” Alisha came around to peer over my shoulder. “Who are we— Oh. God.”

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” I didn’t quite touch the picture.

  “Joey Rodriguez. I’d know him pretty much anywhere. Ed does a lot of research. But what’re you gonna do with this?”

  “You can’t post it,” Dred countered. “I mean, seriously, you can’t.”

  “But this”—Alisha tapped one of the women in the foreground—“is Sally something. She died like three days before Christmas. You know that accident on the off-ramp? There were like six cars involved, but I think she’s the only person who died. You can’t not post her and her girlfriend. I mean, this is probably the last picture of them. They didn’t get together that long ago. And we don’t have that many pictures of Philpott, either.”

  All three of us stared at the picture.

  “Hell,” I mumbled. Joey was just over their shoulders. He’d be impossible to carve out without completely destroying the picture.

  The door to the back room opened and Keith emerged. “Hey, what did you guys do to Merin? He’s traumatized. You must have— Whoa, why’s everyone sad? All the dead people? Which I guess would be fitting.”

  Er. Fuck. Keith was one of three people who should definitely not see this picture. Four, if I counted Joey’s dad.

  I started to bury it under the rest of the pictures, but Alisha grabbed it back. “Maybe we can cut him out. We should at least try. Keith, do you have scissors?”

  “Yeah. But why are we dicing up people’s memories?”

  Dred pressed the picture to Alisha’s chest. “So you don’t have to see them. Joey Rodriguez is in that one.”

  He stopped. One hand smoothed down his tie. “Uh. I guess—I guess that’s not totally unexpected. If it was taken at Club Fred’s.”

  “Right. We don’t really want him to join the wall of our beloved dead, so we’re cutting him out.” Dred didn’t move, keeping the paper tucked against Alisha.

  “That makes sense.” Keith hesitated. “Can I see it?”

  Dred glanced at me. I shrugged.

  Keith took the paper and put it on the table. He bit his lip. “I don’t— Oh. God. And he’s—he’s standing there behind Philpott. That’s so fucking twisted. He, uh, he said he’d had to work really hard to get close to him. That he almost got away. Philpott did. He sounded so offended by that.” His Adam’s apple worked up and down. “Yeah, cut that out. I don’t want Cam looking at it.”

  “Or Ed.” Alisha brushed her thumb across Philpott’s face. “He had kind of an intellectual crush on Togg. Before he knew Togg was Philpott.”

  “It’s so hard to see him.” But Keith couldn’t seem to stop staring.

  The door, which we’d mostly closed against the chill, grated open. Cameron shook his overcoat off and hung it on the coatrack I thought they’d only gotten for him. “I’m here and I brought snacks. Thought you could use—” He stopped talking. “Keith?”

  Keith flipped the picture. “Don’t look at this. It’ll wig you out.”

  Cam deposited two cloth grocery bags one table over and approached slowly. “Why?”

  “Because it’s him. Joey. In this picture.” He hesitated. “With Philpott. Not with him, with him. Just, like, in the same picture. But I’m going to cut him out, okay? So don’t look.”

  “Cut him out?” Cam’s face hardened. “You can’t.”

  “What do you mean? I have to. It’s— He can’t . . .” Keith’s words trailed off as Cam took the picture from his fingers.

  He stared down at it. I caught Dred’s eyes and bit my lip. She offered the smallest shrug.

  “I could just cut him out,” Keith tried again.

  “No. You can’t cut out everything unpleasant and pretend it isn’t there. He was there. If you truly want to honor what happened, you have no choice but to leave him in the picture, along with everyone else.” He put the picture back on the table. “Is Josh in back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll go say hello. Feel free to dig into the food.” Long strides carried him to the office door. He knocked once before opening it.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “If Cam’s all right, I’m all right.” But Keith still couldn’t seem to look away from the picture. “It’s so weird to see him like this, like he’s anyone else. In my head he’s a villain, but he wasn’t, really. He was just a very scary, very messed-up man. Anyway, I don’t really want to be staring at this all night, so what else can I help with? Is it time for poster board yet?”

  I nodded. “I think Alisha’s right about making color copies of the actual pictures. But everything that was printed out we can trim up and start mounting.”

  Keith set us up with huge pieces of thin poster board and glue sticks, and we got to work. He also made a few phone calls to find a copy center that would laminate such big pieces and mount them for us so they’d stay standing on easels.

  Dred was the one who trimmed the sides of the picture with Joey Rodriguez in it and glued it to a board. I’d thought about placing it somewhere at the bottom, along an edge maybe, but Dred had found a place for it in the middle, with all the other pictures, and no particular resonance.

  Maybe it was better that way, after all.

  I skated out of work early on Friday to go back to the center, where our picture boards were complete and amazing. “These turned out so much better than I thought they would.”

  Josh nodded. “They’re really something else. Keith and I spent probably two hours last night looking for people we knew.”

  I glanced up. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. And yeah, we saw it. He said he wanted to cut Joey out but Cam wouldn’t let him. Which is interesting.”

  “He got . . . intense. About it.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Yeah, that’s Cam when he feels strongly about a thing. Hey, you staying for dinner? He’s bringing over food when he’s off.”

  “Do I ever turn down food? Sure, if you’re asking. Is Merin here? I have a question for him.”

  “He’s in back.”

  “No hurry. Assuming he’s here for dinner, too.”

  “He better be.”

  I looked up from my printed list of things to do. “How’s all that going? He looked pretty tired the other day.”

  “Yeah, he’s spent the last few days at h
is friend Sammy’s house. Actually, I’m not sure if they’re friends or enemies. Or frenemies. But Merin stays there every now and then.” He shrugged. “Jaq told him if he wants to graduate, he’s gotta buckle down and pass the last of his required classes, so he’s basically stopped going to everything else.”

  “Is that all right?”

  “Jaq says it’s not ideal, but he’ll still have a diploma at the end of it.”

  I thought about spring semester, senior year. It had been almost impossible to be in class, and I’d had a safe place to live. Of course, I’d also had motivation to get decent grades because I planned to start at the community college the next year.

  No time like the present to feel Josh out a little. “So Hannah had this idea. College, but for jobs, not classes. Has she talked to you about it?”

  He raised his eyebrows and pulled out a chair. “No, but I’m all ears.”

  By the time Cam arrived with food, Josh had a notebook out and was brainstorming. I took a picture of his scribbles and sent it to Hannah, who texted back, A man after my own heart. Are you at the center? Can we bring dinner?

  I, of course, invited her to bring dessert.

  Keith and Merin came out from the back, Jaq and Hannah arrived with additional food and dessert, and the seven of us made a raucous table in QYP, eating and tossing ideas around.

  “I love this whole thing!” Keith topped off everyone’s sodas while gesturing with his free hand. “It’s awesome! Like, it’s all the advantages of having a college campus, but without the requirement that you have to be in school.”

  Hannah smiled her thanks for the soda. “But the funding. It’s not nothing, starting a program of this scope. We could build it on a technical-school model, only emphasizing real-life experience instead of courses.”

  “With dorms,” Jaq added.

  Josh waved at the table. “And a cafeteria? That was the hardest thing about moving out of the LVCC dorms: trying to get food.”

  “Definitely.” Hannah raised her glass to him. “Hon, you and I have to compare notes.”

  “We really do. Then we have to get Keith to write up a business plan. He has a gift.”

  “I totally would. I could sell this idea.” Keith nudged Merin. “What do you think?”

  “You’re all a bunch of dumbass do-gooders.” He didn’t look up from his food.

  I sighed. “Merin has us pegged.”

  “Hey,” Hannah said. “I’m a do-gooder with money. You should be nicer to my people.”

  Merin rolled his eyes. “Maybe not everyone wants all that college-type shit. You geniuses ever think of that?”

  Jaq threw a napkin at his head. “Don’t make me send you to the principal’s office.”

  Cam cleared his throat. “By the same token, there are kids who go to college who may not need the classes. I didn’t mind LVCC, but I didn’t need it. My job was a foregone conclusion. I took a few years of film studies classes for fun, but none of that has materially improved my career.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that.” Keith’s eyes were wide and thrilled. “That’s a whole other angle to exploit!”

  Merin sighted down the table. “You really wouldn’t have gone to college?”

  “There wasn’t any reason to. Other than my parents thought the social aspects would be good for me.”

  “Were they?” Jaq asked.

  Cam started to shake his head, then shrugged. “I don’t know. They might have been. I mostly remember feeling awkward a lot. The thing you’re talking about would have the same social aspect, but in place of classes, apprenticeships or jobs, right? So that would have been the same for me. It would have been a much better use for my parents’ money.”

  Josh nodded. “Yeah, that’s another thing. Not everyone can afford college. So what kind of program would you have in place for financial aid?”

  “Good point.” Jaq poked Hannah’s arm. “The FAFSA is out the window.”

  “But we wouldn’t be trying to pay professors or administrators. It’s more about room and board.”

  Merin snorted. “It’s a halfway house for assholes who couldn’t get into college.”

  He’d meant it derisively, but the rest of us looked at each other like . . . yeah. Exactly.

  “Or for people who didn’t see the point of college,” Cameron added. “Or for people who want to go directly to work after high school but don’t necessarily want to live with their parents.”

  “More structure,” I said. “Right?”

  Hannah swirled her soda and considered it. “More structure than living in an apartment on your own, less than living at home. Merin, serious question.”

  He looked up, wary as hell. “What?”

  For a long moment she surveyed him, still playing with her soda. “Say this existed. If QYP had a second level with a dormitory and a cafeteria, and you could live here and continue working— Is that something you’d do?”

  “QYP is something else. Are you talking about for everyone, or for—” His sweeping hand took in all of us.

  “Queer people,” Keith said.

  “Well, whatever you say, though I don’t really get off on jumping for joy, because: labels. And anyway, you still have a money problem. My parents wouldn’t pay for college. They sure as hell wouldn’t pay for me to live here.”

  Hannah shook her head. “I’m a rich do-gooder. I’ll foot the bill. If it was only queer people, say eighteen to twenty-four, and I was paying for it, would you live here?”

  He shrugged and went back to his food.

  “So that’s our first big decision,” Josh said. “Are we talking about something that’s open to everyone, or are we focused on queer kids?”

  Keith nodded. “And if we are, it’s a different focus. It’s about getting kids off the streets, not providing them an alternative to college.”

  “But . . .” Jaq sat back. “Why can’t it be both? If all those homeless kids are queer like you said when you opened this place, why can’t we make it about both of those things? Just because everyone else writes off homeless queer kids as if there’s no way they’d ever pursue higher education, doesn’t mean we have to.”

  Cam glanced down the table. “Merin, where do you see yourself in ten years?”

  “Dead. Maybe. Or working some shitty job and hating my life.”

  “That’s the long game.” Cam looked at Jaq, Hannah, me. Josh and Keith. “The long game is you want to give queer adolescents, whatever they call themselves, whatever their resources, a better shot than that. How you frame it might matter for fundraising, but what you’re really talking about is that buffer period between turning eighteen and being completely and totally responsible for everything in your life. Which is what college does for people who go.”

  Josh offered a rueful smile. “Or what having parents willing and able to support you past college does.”

  “Right,” Keith said. “But it can’t be dependent on parental income like financial aid at college is. My folks paid for LVCC, but they wouldn’t have ever touched something like this.”

  I nodded. “And right out of high school isn’t the only time you can go to college. Like Emerson’s students at the community center—they’re all adults, but they’re there because they’re already at jobs and want to get their GED, or they want to do their résumé or something.”

  Keith blinked. “Emerson teaches at the community center? My stepmom got her GED through there last year. I wonder if he knows her. That would be really weird.”

  Jaq reached around Hannah to shove my arm. “Queers of La Vista, right?”

  “Yeah, Keith’s stepmom can be our token straight lady.”

  “Ha.” Keith laughed. “Actually, she’d like that. For real, I’d pick Marianne over both of my actual parents. At least she has a sense of humor. But I guess you can’t choose your family.”

  “Well.” I pointedly looked around. “I think we do choose our family.”

  “Cheers to that.” Keith raised his g
lass.

  For the second time in a week, Jaq and I toasted family. She pushed back from her chair and leaned over to kiss my cheek with tears in her eyes.

  “Stop being a baby,” I whispered.

  “I like our family,” she whispered back.

  I touched my belly and thought about the farmhouse. “Me too.” I pulled out my phone and texted, May I spend the night? No funny business.

  Cam was telling us about the Spencer Tracy film festival when she texted back.

  Hope you’re not expecting me to change my sheets for you.

  It was the perfect response, somehow. Irreverent and standoffish and funny all in one. I sent See you soon back and enjoyed the rest of the meal.

  I didn’t temp the next morning. My actual temps during the two-week wait weren’t relevant, though it was good to stay in the habit. But I lay in Mildred’s bed thinking about reaching for my bag, getting out my thermometer, and I just didn’t feel like it. I must’ve been tired if I hadn’t put it out on the side table.

  Well. Or distracted. No kissing, but I apparently spent my life underestimating how glorious it was to crawl into bed beside someone and know their arms would wrap around me.

  For hours.

  And in the middle of the night, when I’d turned toward her and hugged her close, she’d pulled my arm in tightly. She’d been asleep. It would have meant something different if she’d let me hold her when she was awake. But it meant something regardless.

  Even the next morning, I could still feel the way her hand had grasped my wrist and dragged it in against her body.

  I thought we’d wake up together and go downstairs, but I was up early and she didn’t show signs of gaining consciousness any time soon, so I finally got up.

  Emerson was in the kitchen. Obie ragged him about not sleeping in when he could, but I thought he probably liked having time to himself. Which I was now interrupting, like a very bad houseguest.

  “Good morning.” He eyed me over his coffee cup and leaned back against the counter as if he’d only been downstairs long enough to pour his coffee, not to get comfortable.

  I got myself a cup and leaned next to him, brushing against his arm. “I think I’m in love with Dred.”