by Mel Bossa
“After Nick left, I started acting out. You remember. By the next summer, I was well on my way to Juvy if Di Paglio hadn’t stepped in. He got me thinking and moving. He got me interested in the military. In training. Discipline. Those things just felt right to me. I guess they appealed to me. So, I joined up with the cadets and the rest is history.”
A question scorched my tongue, but I couldn’t even summon the courage to hear myself speak his name.
Nick.
Boone shrugged. “Anyways, what do you do?”
I smiled.
“Lemme guess. Accountant, right?”
I nodded. “Financial analyst,” I said with false arrogance.
He whistled, and bowed. “Well done, Red. Well done. I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh man, I can’t wait to tell Lene about this. She’s gonna flip. We were just talking about you last week at my parents’. Wondering what you were up to.”
Lene. I remembered her toothless mouth. Our baby. The love notes. How old was she now? Twenty-seven years old. A woman.
“How is Lene?”
“She’s at Douglas. Since last June.”
Douglas. The mental institution. The nut house.
“Oh God, Boone. I’m sorry—”
“It’s cool, man, I mean, I wouldn’t be able to cope, but she likes it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s good money too.”
“They pay her?”
“Yeah man, expect her to work for free?”
I shook my head, smiling. “She works at Douglas. She isn’t a patient.”
Boone exploded into laughter. “That’s too funny. Oh, she’s gonna love that.” He caught his breath. “Lene’s a shrink. A good one too.”
Of course. That makes perfect sense.
“So you got somebody?” Boone asked.
“Yes.”
“Yes. Okay. Well, what’s this guy’s name? What’s he do? How long have you been together? Is it serious?”
I chuckled, grateful that Boone’s curious nature hadn’t dwindled with the years. “His name is Nathan. He’s in sales. Pharmaceutical industry. It’s serious, yes.”
Boone whistled. “Pharmaceuticals, huh? So the guy’s loaded.”
I frowned, then shrugged. “It’s a comfortable living, yes.”
Boone’s eyes flickered for a moment, but he let it go.
We had covered everything important in less than three minutes.
Not everything, but I still couldn’t bring myself to ask about him.
“Listen,” said Boone, “I gotta jet. But hey, what are you and Nathan doing this coming Saturday?”
I thought about it.
Who cares.
“How ’bout you guys come for dinner? I think we should do that. Kenya is gonna fix you the best meal you’ve ever had, and we can catch—”
“Kenya? You married Kenya?”
Boone’s smile nearly knocked the air out of me. “I told you she was my soul mate.”
“Kids?”
“No, but we’re trying. We got a little house in Crawford Park, you know the neighborhood, right?”
“Of course. We used to ride our bikes up and down the Queen Elizabeth Park.”
“So, you wanna?”
“I’d be honored. We’ll be there, absolutely.”
“Here’s my card, and your ticket.”
I glanced down.
“Kidding,” said Boone. “I’ll see you Saturday, then?”
“Yes.”
“Derek O’Reilly,” he mumbled as he walked away. “I can’t believe it.”
I stood on the side of the road, inwardly cursing myself for being such a coward.
Seventeen years of wondering and hadn’t had the balls to ask.
Boone plucked the car door opened. “By the way,” he said, leaning on the door. “In case you’re wondering.” He winked. “Nico disappeared for more than a decade. The son of a gun traveled the world. Nico worked on cruise ships and beach resorts, bartending and cooking his way to a small fortune. We’d get postcards from every fucking continent. One month he was pushing booze at a Club Med in Saint Lucia, the next he was writing from a boat somewhere off the Alaskan coast.” Boone smiled, and then his eyes locked themselves to mine. “We didn’t hear from Nico for a whole year, and one morning, just like that, he came back. That was five years ago. He opened a little bistro restaurant in the old port. A place called Split. He’s doing well too. Got some fantastic reviews lately. But I don’t see much of him. There’s still some bad blood between him and my mom. Plus, he’s busy. Him being a big-shot chef and all.”
A chef.
A jolt of energy shook my insides.
I remembered that thick hardcover book on Nick’s nightstand.
Boone laughed. “You should see your face right now. You still have a thing for him, don’t you?”
My cheeks filled with heat. “No I do-don’t.”
“Right. Of course you don’t. Then it doesn’t matter if I tell you that Nico swings both ways. I mean, I’m just saying.”
Swings both ways.
My cock jumped.
I remembered a certain winter night. Private words whispered behind closed doors.
“I’ll see you Saturday,” Boone shot back before shutting the car door.
I watched him drive away and the silver moonlight engulfed my vibrating soul.
Swings both ways.
A chef.
Oh, God help me.
*
Dear Bump,
I have an oral presentation due next week.
Do you know what that means? Do you?
It means I’m going to have to stand in front of the whole class and faint.
“I’ll do all the talking, you just hold the chart,” says Boone.
We’re allowed to team up, but that doesn’t help much. Mrs. Saint-Amour counts the words. Everyone has to speak equally, or she knocks points off.
“You write it and I’ll draw the chart,” says Boone.
Please. I know. It’s the same every year.
“We’ll do it on Doc Brown.”
“Boone. Doc Brown isn’t a real per-person.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
This presentation makes my skin itch. Boone doesn’t understand the concept of research. Reality doesn’t seem to visit him much.
“We’ll say he’s from out of town.”
We have one week. One week to find someone we admire and interview this person.
I suggested Mrs. Bebelski.
I like Mrs. Bebelski. She lives two doors down from us. She sits on her porch all day and knits. She has a pair of slippers for every day of the week. She has a number tattooed on her arm. On account of her being a survivor of some war called the hollow cost.
But Boone grimaced. “Nope. She always makes me eat those dry bananas.”
Boone’s suggestions don’t take us anywhere. Unless we can track down the Terminator and ask him a few personal questions. Oh, and since he got back from Florida, Boone is making everyone call him Maverick. Says he’s going to be a pilot when he grows up. Says he’s going to fly jets.
I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. Saint-Amour said.
“Anyone who you feel has done something of significance around you. May it be grandiose, or small. It doesn’t matter. This is your chance to sit down and talk with this person. Get to know this person more deeply.”
More deeply.
There is only one person like that around me.
But it would be easier to sit down with Indiana Jones.
*
Dear Bump,
So, we were discussing the presentation over a bowl of tapioca, in Boone’s basement.
“We could ask your aunt some questions.” Boone flicked a crumb off the coffee table. “Make it look like she’s some big shot.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t wanna ask m-my aunt per-personal que
stions.”
“Why not?”
I puzzled over his question for a moment. “Because, then she’ll ask them all right buh-buh-back.”
Boone skimmed his tapioca. He always carefully removes the first layer because he doesn’t like the cinnamon Mrs. Lund sprinkles on top. “We could ask Coach Angelos. He’s in the Club Optimist. They do charity work and stuff.”
Boring. “No.”
Boone sighed impatiently. “You keep saying no to everything. What’s wrong with you, anyway? You’re acting like a prissy boy.”
My eyes darted up.
Boone sank back into the couch and folded his arms over himself. “You haven’t said a word to me since I got back.”
“What? I’m talking to you-you right now.”
“Not really, no.” His blue eyes fastened themselves to mine. “You’re different. You walk different. And you never smile anymore.”
Boone’s words poked at something raw inside me. I dug the spoon into the pudding, and then stuffed it in my mouth.
He shook his head. “Fine. Be like that.”
I didn’t want to be “like that.” I wanted to be at the opposite side of “like that.” I wanted to tell him about Mom’s yellow breath and Dad’s empty promises.
And how his brother’s smile makes me want to take my pants off.
See if Boone ever heard of something like that.
“We could ask your duh-dad,” I finally said.
Boone fiddled with a couch pillow. His eyes kept swooping the room, as if maybe, if he looked hard enough, the person would magically appear before us. “Not my dad. Too busy.” He slapped his thigh. “What about Jesse Chao’s dad? He writes for a paper. He went to Iraq last year.”
“I thought he was a cow-cowboy.”
Boone rolled his eyes, and picked up his cup again. “So? Should we call Jesse and ask him if his father would wanna do it?”
The very thought of asking Jesse Chao for anything makes me angry. “No-no way. Nope.”
“You’re just mad ’cause he’s been winning every chess game since we got back from the holidays.”
It’s true. I don’t know why, though. I can’t think straight anymore. My head is filled with fog. I keep forgetting Johan’s strategies. Like something has sucked the normal thoughts out of my head and replaced them with fragments of someone else’s mind.
It’s been like that since the Lunds came back from Florida.
Finally, Boone set his empty cup down and threw the pillow on the ground. “Forget it. We don’t have anyone. It’s a stupid idea anyway. Why couldn’t she do like Mrs. Jenkins and ask us to pick our favorite animal?”
I picked up the cups and placed them on the first step, then went back to the couch. “I guess we could do it-it on Doc Brown. We cou-could change his—” But, I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Because Nick’s feet had appeared on the top step of the staircase.
Then his calves.
His thighs.
And when my eyes reached the bulge in his jeans, I averted them, and glued them solid to the carpeted floor.
“Hey,” said Nick as he walked past us, straight to his room.
“Hey,” returned Boone.
I could only mouth the word hello.
Boone watched me. “What were you saying?” He had a funny look in his eyes.
I tried to compose myself, but that liquid fire was burning through my whole tingling body again. “That maybe-be we could change his na-name. Like, instead of Doc Brown, we could say his name—”
“Wait here.”
“What—”
“Gimme a minute.” Boone shot up from the couch. He tucked his Star Wars T-shirt into his black jeans and walked off to Nick’s bedroom.
I sat up.
Waited.
Listened.
I wiped my wet palms down my pants and fixed my socks, then stared at the TV screen. It wasn’t on; I could see my reflection in it.
I looked like Mrs. Bebelski’s canary after he flew into the window.
Dazed. Confused. Wild-eyed.
Nick’s door opened.
I stiffened up and held my breath.
Boone tapped my shoulder. “Hey.”
I slowly turned around, and found Boone grinning from ear to ear. That’s when terror iced my blood, sealing my lips together in a straight line.
Nick plopped down next to me. “Go”
I caught a gust of his beach scent and my head spun.
Nick spread out his long legs on the coffee table and yawned. “Shoot.”
The couch is in an L shape, and I sat in the shorter part, with my legs folded under me. Nick sat in the long part.
No matter where I looked, his face was in every frame shot.
Boone flicked the TV on and sat in the arm chair. “Go ahead, Red,” he said without looking at me. “Nico says he’ll be our subject. Him being dyslexic and all. As long as we say that he’s been prematurely accepted at McGill University. Pre-med, no more, no less.”
I glanced over at Nick.
A cocky half smile hung on his lips. “That’s right. Saint-Amour flunked me twice. Said I was a lost cause.” He leaned forward and then pushed a strand of his ash blond hair out of his eyes. “So, you got your questions ready? I got somewhere to be.”
His eyebrows are alive. He has a thousand different smiles. His eyes are like glaciers floating in the deepest, bluest of all seas.
I shot a nervous glance over at Boone, but when I realized that he wouldn’t acknowledge my panic, I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “I-I-I haven’t prepa-pared anything really. I mean, I thought that—”
“So,” said Nick, lying back into the couch. “Wing it, O’Reilly.”
Wing it.
I’ve never winged anything in my life. I wasn’t even sure what that meant.
Nick ran his tongue over his lips and raised a brow. “Jesus. Let’s go already.”
I pulled some paper out of my school bag. A pen too. “Let’s see.” I looked over at Boone again. “Aren’t you go-go-gonna ask some questions?”
Boone shook his head. “I’m drawing the chart, remember?”
There is no chart for this presentation.
Nick closed his eyes and started to snore loudly.
I got the point.
I took another deep breath. “What made you-you decide to go into me-medicine?” I asked, without looking at him.
“The pay.”
“Okay.” I scribbled my question and his answer down real quick, but my fingers were sweaty and the pen kept sliding down my thumb. “Where do you plan-an on being a doctor? I mean, what hospital-al do you plan—”
“What’s a good one?’”
“Okay.” I scribbled down his words, trying not to let the ink get wet.
“O’Reilly, that’s not my answer, I’m asking you somethin’.”
I looked up.
His skin is immaculate. His Adam’s apple moves up and down when he swallows. His feet are the size of my calves. His hands are broad. His fingers are long and always busy with something.
“What?”
“What’s the best hospital on this shithole of an island?”
I thought for a moment. “Dunno.”
Nick rubbed his chin, then his eyes. “I plan on working in New York.”
I jotted down his answer. “How did you sur-sur-mount the obstacles—”
“Surwhat?”
“I mean, how did you-you overco-come your learning disabilities to achieve this goal?”
I witnessed a shadow move across his crystal blue eyes, and I wanted to reach out and snatch the words that still hung in midair. Wanted to push them back into my big stupid mouth.
“I found a way to make the words make sense,” he finally said.
I could barely hold my love inside my chest anymore. It expanded with every breath Nick took, until I could feel it on the very tip of my scalp and toes. There was darkness all around me. The only light I could see was the one
in Nick’s eyes. “I see,” I whispered.
And the light in his eyes swallowed the darkness.
Like a blue vacuum.
His face makes me want to cry.
I blinked. “What words of wisdom could you pa-pass on to-to someone who may be suffering from dyslexia-a?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
Nick shrugged, and smiled. “Don’t jerk off so much.”
I don’t know what the joke was, but still, my penis moved inside my pants.
Nick slapped my knee. “Kiddin’, man. I don’t know. Guess I’d say…Learn how to use your brain upside down.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Nick echoed softly.
His eyes were like blue flames warming my mouth.
I didn’t know where to go from there, so I stared at the paper.
Nick pulled a thread on his sock, letting out a long breath. “Is that it?”
I glanced up. “You—you said you fo-fo-found out how to make the words make sense. How?”
“I draw things.” He yanked the thread out and stuffed it under the couch. “Little words I get wrong. I draw ’em. Make symbols.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. “You mean, like pictures of the words?”
Nick shook his head, and reached his hand out. My stomach churned. His fingers almost touched my hand.
“I’ll show you. Gimme the paper.”
I couldn’t give it to him, but he slipped it out of my fingers. The pen too. The breaths were coming fast now. Too fast.
He tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear again, and using his knee as a hard surface, began to scribble something.
Finally, now that his eyes were on something else, I could stare at him undisturbed.
I let my eyes move over him. He wore his old blue jeans. There was a big tear around the left knee, but it was patched up with a red bandanna. He wore a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up all the way to his shoulders, and it was skin-tight. I could see his stomach under it.
It’s hard. Like a flat rock.
His chest heaved lightly with every deep breath he took. He has a small mark on the bottom of his neck. Looks like a scar. His right ear is pierced, but he doesn’t wear an earring. His thighs are bulky. His forearms are covered with blond fuzz.
I almost puked when my eyes got caught on his mouth. I felt sweaty.