Cut Both Ways
Page 27
I step back again, budge into a woman who’s holding a baby. I apologize. The woman barely notices me, she’s staring so hard at the smoky sky.
“Will?”
Brandy, pointing at me. The woman next to her, staring over at me.
“They’re saying nobody was in the house, Will. But do you know where your dad is?”
I don’t know. I can’t see my dad’s truck. Or the shitty van. Or Roy’s car. He can’t be in there, but part of me thinks that it might be better if he was.
“Just the dog in a painting,” I say. I don’t know if anyone hears me.
I step back again. People turn to stare at me.
“There was a dog?” I hear someone say.
“Will, where are you going?” Brandy, near me. Up under my chin. Her arms trying to circle around me, but I keep moving back. Back. Back. I just want to get to my car.
I walk and walk and walk until I’m through the mob of people. I get into my car and sit there, holding my keys. Looking down at them in the little cup of my palms.
A knock comes at the window. Brandy.
“Will, your dad is here,” she says. “He just showed up with Roy, do you—”
“I have to be at work.”
“Will,” she says, and then I put the keys into the ignition and drive. Turn the radio all the way up until I can’t hear anything.
All the way to work, I see the picture of the dog in the attic. Curling up in smoke. Then ashes. Then blowing away. Less than ashes. The sky is very blue but I think I can see bits of smoke and ashes. Following me all the way to work.
I punch in. Sierra says hello, introduces me to the new waitress. She’s cute. Lillian. The new cook is working through breakfast rush with the other prep cook, a girl whose name is either Jenny or Jen. Or maybe Jan. I can never remember. And she’s one of those people who won’t shut the fuck up, who tires you out with all their information so that you don’t even want to get to know her. She’s a good worker, though.
I go into the walk-in, look at the list of deliveries. It’s Wednesday, so we’re flush. Time to unpack and chop. There’s a fresh box of tomatoes and just one cambro of diced left, for omelets. I start on that, decide I’ll do lettuce next, then cheese stacks.
Carl comes over, then. Asks if I’m all right. I nod at him. He just stares for a minute; he’s sucking on a huge cup of Mountain Dew from a straw. Then he ducks out.
A minute later, Sierra’s standing by me: “Will, are you okay?”
I look up from my chopping, sweep a bunch of tomato guts into the trash bin.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Okay. Lemme know if you want a pop or anything. Okay?”
I nod, keep chopping. Keep my eyes on the knife.
I don’t know when she leaves, but I’m about to start on lettuce when Garrett’s there.
“Have you talked to your dad?”
“No,” I tell him.
“You need to punch out,” he says. “Your girlfriend told me you just left without saying what was up. And I . . . your dad needs you.”
“I was scheduled for ten.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t . . . it’ll be fine, Will. Just go.”
“I’m finishing my shift,” I say.
He says more stuff, but I’m in the walk-in, getting lettuce. Coming back out. Garrett’s by the prep counter. He looks exhausted. His hair grayer. Like ashes. I wonder if they’re starting to drop from the sky above my dad’s house.
“You don’t need to be here,” he says.
I want to say, No. No, I do. I don’t say anything, though. I need to keep standing. I need to do something. Anything. I don’t want to talk or look at him.
My phone is vibrating in my pocket with texts. I would turn it off but I kind of like knowing I’m ignoring everyone.
“Fair enough,” he says. “Though I think you need to be with your family. But I guess . . .” He looks up at the ceiling. “Anything I can do for you?”
“Nope.”
Lettuce. Cheese. Mushrooms. Stack beef patties, then chicken portions. Then taco meat.
Sierra brings me a big chocolate milk shake, without me asking.
The new cook girl brings me a bacon cheeseburger, on my break.
Carl asks me to bring him some more lettuce so I do.
I help rack coffee cups, then bus a table of twelve, including two high chairs. Sierra uses a Hoky to sweep the cracker crumbs off the floor. I take out trash. I make salads. I restock ice cream in the beverage station. I push potatoes through the slicer for hash. I do fries for the girl cook.
I wonder if he took any pictures of it, my dad. Before it burned. I should have had Brandy take pictures.
At five after six, I’m standing outside, watching the clouds cover the sun. It feels like it might rain.
It feels like I’m going away for a long time. Like I’m saying good-bye to all these things but doing it privately. Quietly. Only in my own head. Doors to bathrooms closing, sleeping dogs curling up in smoke, in flames that nobody saw or started.
When I get to Garrett and Kristin’s, they’re both standing there, arms linked, watching me crawl slow down the gravel drive. Kristin has her hand over her eyes, looking at the clouds.
“Come inside,” Garrett says.
We go inside, the three of us. Toward the screened porch. The wind from the rain that’s surely coming is whooshing through the screens. Kicking up dust and dirt and bugs from the fields. Kristin sits on the couch where I lay with Angus that one night. She puts her hands on her knees. I sit down next to her. Take off my glasses, rub my eyes. Rub the lenses on my shirt. I kind of like how everything’s blurry. The green and black field meeting the gray sky.
“I can take you off tomorrow’s schedule, if you like,” Garrett says softly.
“No, that’s okay.”
“Your mom wants you to call her,” Kristin adds.
“I will.”
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
I shake my head.
She gets up, then, goes into another room. I can hear her talking low, like she’s on the phone. I put my glasses on.
“Your dad’s upset,” Garrett says.
“I know.”
“He had things all finished,” Garrett says. “Well, nearly.”
“I know,” I say.
“We can have your graduation party here,” he says. “Or at your mom’s.”
“Whatever,” I say.
“Will,” he says. “It’s a setback, surely. But not reason enough to postpone celebrating your accomplishments.”
I look at him. I want to tell him it’s no accomplishment, me graduating from Franklin. I don’t want to celebrate with anyone. Especially my mom. I don’t want her pity so fuck her and fuck Jay. And my dad? I can’t imagine seeing my dad’s face. I can’t think about it without wanting to break down.
I tell him I need to go to bed. I tell him, can he just take my phone. I hand it to him and it feels heavy, like it’s overstuffed with texts and electricity. I tell him to tell everyone I will call them in the morning. I tell him thank you and then I go into the bedroom that’s mine now. I sit on the bed and take off my boots and I think that this bed feels like the perfect balance. I can sink into it, but it holds me up too.
I sleep, but I wake up a lot. I see my dad’s face at graduation. I see my mom and Jay staring at each other. Sending messages in silence.
Before dawn, I’m awake. It’s sudden, like I just know that I should open my eyes.
I think about Brandy, rolling yarn on her bed, bare naked, this same time so many months back. I think about Angus, sitting up in his bed, letting me kiss him before I left that one morning.
I know where I am. The air is no longer heavy and too thick.
I go downstairs, barefoot, in my boxers.
The house is quiet. I stand on the screened porch, feeling a wave of wind burst through the porch and then the rain itself, spraying on all sides, drenching the cornfield black and green.
Built and rebuilt, he should have said. Because he will rebuild it. I know he will. And all this will go on, between him and my mom, between him and me. Between me and myself, whoever I turn out to be, years from now.
Between me and Brandy. And me and Angus. Maybe one of those conversations will stop. Sooner rather than later. I can’t decide what I think of that. I stand there, watching the rain, hearing the thunder. Seeing the lightning crack and ask for my attention. Puddles in the yard, puddles in the gravel drive, long dirty streams gathering along the furrows near the field’s edge.
I stretch, cracking my neck and arms. The hair on my arms and chest stands up and I’m shivering but it feels good. I’m awake, and it’s nowhere near time to go to work, but I still go into the kitchen to make coffee for when Kristin and Garrett wake up.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THIS BOOK STARTED with a question: How would it feel to fall in love with your best friend of the same gender?
Could you separate out your love for that person from the sexual aspect?
Adolescence is when young people are just starting their sexual exploration, and in writing this book, I wanted to explore how some teenagers might come to define themselves as bisexual. Do they land on “gay” or “lesbian” first? Would they assume they were bisexual to begin with? Would it be difficult to accept you were attracted to both genders, or possibly didn’t even care about gender when it came to love and sex and romance? How would you explain this to others?
The word “bisexual” never once appears in the story, and readers may wonder why Will doesn’t come to identify himself in this way. That Will doesn’t even consider this is an example of “bisexual erasure.”
Bisexual erasure is the willful disbelief that people can be attracted to both genders, as well as the tendency to emphasize sexual identities in people that fit the observer’s own narrative, e.g. a man who is bisexual is really a gay man in denial; a woman who is bisexual is just doing it for male attention. Bisexual erasure can be perpetrated by gay or straight people. To paraphrase my friend Rachel, “We don’t see people romantically holding hands with two other people usually, so we assume whoever they are currently with defines their sexuality.”
For instance, when Will goes on dates with Brandy, observers see a straight couple. On the other hand, Will believes that if others see him and Angus as a couple, the assumption will be that they are gay.
I don’t know what Will’s identity is. Even if I did know, I think it’s more interesting for a reader to contemplate what he is and what he might be than for me to label him with certainty.
What I do know is that we need to work for a world where it is easier for kids like him.
For more information on bisexuality and sexuality, I suggest the following resources:
Scarleteen: www.scarleteen.com
The Bisexual Index: www.bisexualindex.org.uk
Bisexual.Org: www.bisexual.org
Advocates for Youth: www.advocatesforyouth.org
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’M A TERRIBLE photographer. I nearly failed Photography in high school, actually, for not understanding how to reckon with my school-issued adjustable Yashica, as well as occasionally flipping on the light in the darkroom. In order to get a basic sense of the art of photography while writing this book, I read John Berger’s Ways of Seeing and On Looking and even as a person who only took one art class in undergrad, I found them quite fascinating.
I’d like to recognize the following people for their support in the making of this book:
Michael Bourret, who takes such good care of me, seeing to things that I don’t want to deal with or even attempt to understand, as well as responding to highly prurient email questions in a most unflappable way.
Andrew Karre, for launching me into this world and embedding so many wise whispers into my brain.
The cabal of Gayle, Ted, Drew, and Christa: there are too many things to thank you for, but mainly for making me laugh.
Tess Sharpe, Betty-Jeanne Klobertanz, and Bryson McCrone, for help on issues of sexual identity.
Kristin Mesrobian and Meagan Macvie, for being early readers and constant cheerleaders.
Shelley Mlsna, for help on the nature of high school photography labs in real Minneapolis Public Schools.
The team at Harper: in particular, Erin Fitzsimmons for the lovely cover; Alyssa Miele for her editorial insight and commitment to Daryl Dixon; and Claire Caterer and Jon Howard for diligence and patience in copyediting through my slop. (Did you edit this graph too, with its snarl of colons and semicolons? Good lord . . . )
And Alexandra Cooper: I’ve learned so much writing this book with you. Thank you for your openness to my gross/weird ideas. Thank you for buying me cookies and cheeseburgers when you visit Minneapolis and never blinking when I bring up something off-color or opinionated. Thank you for all your patience and for seeing things I don’t see. Your belief in my Fake People gives me more confidence than you can know.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CARRIE MESROBIAN teaches writing to teens in Minneapolis, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She has also worked as a teacher in both public and private schools. Her debut novel, Sex & Violence, was named a Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, in addition to being nominated for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. She has also written another young adult novel, Perfectly Good White Boy. Learn more about her and her fake boyfriends at www.carriemesrobian.com.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2015 by GETTY IMAGES, LUCA DIANA/IMAGEBRIEF.COM, and ISTOCKPHOTO
Cover design by ERIN FITZSIMMONS
COPYRIGHT
Excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s sonnet LXV from 100 LOVE SONNETS: CIEN SONETOS DE AMOR by Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Tapscott, Copyright © Pablo Neruda 1959 and Fundacion Pablo Neruda, Copyright © 1986 by the University of Texas Press. By permission of the University of Texas Press.
CUT BOTH WAYS. Copyright © 2015 by Carrie Mesrobian. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mesrobian, Carrie.
Cut both ways / Carrie Mesrobian. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Senior Will Caynes must face unsettling feelings for his best friend Angus after they share a drunken kiss, while also embarking on his first real relationship with sophomore Brandy—all as the burden of home-life troubles weigh heavily” — Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-234988-0 (hardback)
EPub Edition © August 2015 ISBN 9780062349903
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Bisexuality—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Gays—Fiction. 5. Sex—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M5493Cu 2015 2014047809
[Fic]—dc23 CIP
AC
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15 16 17 18 19 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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