You and Me and Him

by Kris Dinnison

  Leaning against a tree, I realize I have gone from never been kissed to boy-stealing ex–best friend in one weekend. I feel somehow both wounded and ashamed. Kayla screwed me. Again. And I’d like to kick her perky little ass. But I’m the one who kissed Tom. I hurt Nash. And I have no idea how to make it right. I make my way up the ridge toward town, walking until the trees and the fresh air blunt the edges of my frayed nerves.

  Chapter 23

  I can’t go back to school, and I can’t go home, so I spend most of the day drifting from one coffee shop to another. I slide into Square Peg about five minutes late. My gut roils from too much espresso and a pre-work chocolate-scarfing session. But as the sugar winds through my system, I feel less frantic than I did when I left Cedar Ridge’s hallowed halls.

  “Hey, Mags,” Quinn says, looking up from his computer with a wide smile. He glances at the clock and his smile morphs into a scowl, what he calls his “boss face.” “You’re late again!”

  I look around the empty store. “I’m sorry. Did I leave you in a lurch while you were trying to serve the zombie hoards hungry for vinyl?” I throw my backpack under the counter and lean against the chipped Formica, looking through a milk crate of records. “What’s this?” I pull one from the crate, studying the artwork on the worn jacket.

  Quinn looks up. “Record collection someone wants to sell. Short on cash, moving, blah, blah, yadda, yadda.” He peers at me. “What’s that on your face?”

  My hand darts to my face, covering as much of it as possible. I wipe at a dab of chocolate smeared above my lip. “Nothing.” I turn back to the milk crate. “So what’s on the agenda today?”

  “The ‘agenda’ today is pretty much like every day here at Square Peg Records: Pray for customers and winning lottery numbers while listening to rock and roll as it was meant to be heard.”

  “Um, don’t you have to play the lottery to win?” I ask.

  “Details, my dear. A technicality.” Quinn dismisses me with a wave of his hand. “But come to think, the bathroom could use a bit of a scrub.”

  The public bathroom at Square Peg is one of the few things Quinn and I totally disagree on. He thinks it keeps people in the store longer, and therefore gives them a higher likelihood of purchasing some quality vinyl from him. I think it gives the losers downtown an opportunity to pretend to be interested in records for about twelve seconds before they lock themselves into the bathroom with the singular intention of trashing it with various body fluids. I have cleaned up pretty much every one of those fluids in that tiny water closet. On occasion I send Quinn e-mails with advertisements for biohazard gear, asking that we purchase some for bathroom cleaning duties, but so far he’s declined. We both hold our hands out for Rock, Paper, Scissors, and as usual, I lose.

  I grab the bucket full of cleaning supplies.

  “Use the gloves!” Quinn calls to me as I disappear into the hallway that holds the bathroom.

  The gloves are another point of contention with us. I want to use them; believe me, the thought of my bare skin against any surface in the Square Peg public bathroom is abhorrent to me. However, the gloves may be, if it’s possible, even more disgusting than the bathroom, and Quinn has not replaced them in all the time I’ve been working here. I know where they’ve been, and with that history they should have been disposed of long ago with the care given to nuclear waste.

  I clean the bathroom, using as much bleach as is safe in an enclosed area. When I emerge several minutes later, gloves still on, my face is hot and I’m sweating from exertion in a confined space. I hack from the bleach fumes, a sound reminiscent of a cat expelling a hairball. When I look up, the store is no longer empty. Nash is there with some friends from an LGBT group he goes to sometimes in Seattle. Nash doesn’t like them that much; he says they cause too much drama (hello, pot; meet kettle). Nash goes there if he’s feeling lonely and needs to be reminded he’s not the only gay teenager in the world, or if they’re having a dance and he wants to see if anyone new has emerged from the closet.

  I know he called them because he doesn’t have anyone else. The fact that he’s here, and that he’s here with them, is meant to remind me of that. It’s a message to me about how serious this is to him, how big a betrayal. And here I stand, looking ridiculous and awful in disgusting gloves, holding a cleaning bucket, sweat pouring down my face. The boys all give me a once-over, and Nash makes a face like he’s the one who had to clean the bathroom. Now that they’ve seen me, there’s no point in avoiding things.

  “Hey, Nash,” I say. “I was going to talk to you earlier but I . . . um . . . I had to leave school unexpectedly.”

  Nash looks at his friends, then back at me. He’s smiling a tight little smile. “I didn’t really notice you were gone.”

  “Yep. Gone for the whole afternoon,” I say. “Maybe you could call me after work?”

  “I don’t think I’ll have time.” Nash runs his fingers along the edges of the albums in the bin nearest him. His friends are all watching, listening. Quinn looks through the milk crate of records, but I know he’s hanging on every word.

  “Okay,” I say. “Well, when you do have time, I think we should talk.”

  Nash gives a little head jerk to the boys. They head for the door, and the minute they leave, I make an about-face into the bathroom to pull myself together.

  “Trouble in paradise?” Quinn asks when I return.

  “There’s been some talk about Tom and me . . .” I grab lotion out of my bag and start applying it to the hands I just scrubbed into raw, red blotches in the freshly cleaned bathroom.

  “Talk?” Quinn asks.

  I shake my head, trying to rid it of the disastrous scenarios that have been dive-bombing my brain all day. “Nash has his panties in a bunch. You know how he can be. It’s nothing. It’ll blow over.” But my stomach is twisting, and I know this time Nash is hurt for real. And I hate that I’m the one who hurt him. I start thinking I need to move, or eat something. I need to distract myself from this awful feeling.

  “Didn’t look like he’s going to get over it to me, but what do I know?” Quinn’s still looking at me. “Maggie, you know if you ever need to talk . . .”

  “Quinn, we talk all the time.” I punch him in the arm super slow-mo.

  “I’m glad. But I know how things can be, especially when love and friendship get tangled up.” Then he says in an accent I think is supposed to be sort of a New York mobster type, “You want I should rough anybody up for you?” At that moment Tom walks in. Quinn waggles his eyebrows at me and hooks a thumb at Tom. “Like him, maybe?”

  I shake my head, giving him a big hug. “You rock,” I whisper.

  “What was that all about?” Tom asks when I join him in the R&B section.

  “Nothing. Quinn’s just taking care of me.”

  “You disappeared today.”

  “Yep.” I avoid his eyes. “I needed a little ‘me’ time.”

  “Well, I was worried,” he says. “And I had to do the lab with Kayla.”

  “Oh, poor baby. You had to put up with a gorgeous blonde fawning all over you.”

  “She didn’t fawn. She flirted but didn’t fawn.”

  I can see he’s trying to get a reaction, but I don’t bite.

  “So do you want to get together after work?” he says. “Maybe have a cup of coffee or something? I think we need to talk.”

  “Tom, listen,” I begin, but I’m not sure what I want to say. “Nash knows.”

  “Maggie, does it really matter? He’s not an idiot. He must have already known you were into me.”

  “Into you? I’m not . . . Okay, whatever. That’s not the point.” I think I know the answer, but I ask anyway. “Did you tell Nash?”

  “No. No. Not all of it.”

  “What part did you tell him?”

  “I was trying to break it to him that I wasn’t . . . that I didn’t like him, and before I knew it, I was telling him how much I liked hanging out with you. I started out trying to make
him feel better, but I guess it kind of backfired.”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “He’ll get over it, though. Right?”

  “Nash was here a few minutes ago. He won’t even talk to me.”

  Tom still doesn’t get it.

  “Nash is my best friend. He has been for so long that not talking to him feels like I lost an appendage. A day without Nash is like a day without . . .” I search for something that communicates how basic Nash’s presence is to me.

  “Is like a day without drama?” Tom offers.

  It’s the first really snarky thing I’ve heard him say. I want to congratulate him on shedding the nice-guy thing for once, but my loyalty to Nash won’t let me.

  “He’s really not like that,” I mumble.

  “Could have fooled me.” Tom shoves the record he’s holding back into the bin. “I don’t get it. I’m not gay. I would never have liked Nash in that way. I think he’s cool and all, but I don’t really understand what that has to do with us.” Tom puts his hands on his head and kicks a bin of sale records near the counter.

  “Hey! Gentle with the merchandise!” Quinn says.

  Tom takes a deep breath. “Sorry. I honestly don’t know what the big deal is, Maggie. All I know is I like being friends with you. Can’t we keep hanging out like we have been? You know, just as friends?”

  “Just friends?” My skin goes cold, then hot, and I grab the counter, clutching it until my knuckles whiten. I knew this was probably coming, but it stings all the same.

  “Yeah.” Tom lowers his voice and leans in. “I know I’m the one who kissed you, but I’m not sure what it meant for me. You know, long term?”

  “So you’re telling me you kissed me, risked the best friendship I have, the best friendship I’ve ever had, and now you’re like ‘maybe not’?” I sway a little, reestablishing my grip on the counter. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I say under my breath.

  “Maggie . . .”

  “No offense, Tom. But I have friends. I don’t need more friends. I need Nash.”

  “With friends like Nash, who needs enemies?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, I know Nash is an idiot if he’s mad at you for one little kiss.”

  “Look,” I say. “Did you ever play dibs when you were a kid?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Well, Nash and I have been doing it since probably second grade.”

  “Maggie, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nash called dibs.”

  Tom still looks confused, and then it hits him. “Dibs? On me? That’s why he’s so mad?” Tom shakes his head. “You guys are unbelievable!”

  “I know it sounds stupid. But it’s really about being a good friend. Being the kind of friend who doesn’t get in the way when the other person really wants something. And now we’ve kissed, and I blew it. I’m not that kind of friend anymore. And I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if it can be fixed.”

  “Whatever. Dibs are for bunk beds or the last chocolate doughnut. You don’t dibs people. Call me when you grow up, Maggie.” He swings his backpack onto his shoulder and pushes out the door, leaving the bell jangling wildly.

  “I am so screwed,” I say. It comes out half as a laugh and half a sob.

  “Wow, how many people are you going to piss off today?” Quinn stands next to me.

  “It’s fine. The men in my life must all be PMS-ing.” I look at Quinn and smile. “All the men but you, exalted boss and spirit guide.”

  “So, a question for you: If the tables were turned, if you liked the boy, but the boy liked Nash, what would you do?”

  “Tom doesn’t like me. Didn’t you hear him? He wants to hang out, be friends.”

  “Whatever. Indulge me for a minute. What would you do?”

  “Cry myself to sleep for a few nights, like I do whenever the man of my dreams likes someone else?”

  “But what would you do about Nash?” Quinn asks. “Would you blame him? Would you make him choose? Or would you let him have the boy?”

  “Well, it’s different,” I say. “It’s harder for Nash to find boys who are . . . compatible. Especially in Cedar Ridge. If Tom liked Nash, I’d be sad for me, but I’d be psyched for him.”

  “Hmmmm,” Quinn says, turning to his ledger.

  I wait.

  Quinn has something to say on the topic, but he’s pretending to be absorbed in the accounts.

  “‘Hmmmm’?” I say. “‘Hmmmm,’ what? What does ‘hmmmm’ mean?”

  “Nothing,” Quinn says, his voice nonchalant. “But, okay . . . I have to wonder why Nash can’t do that for you.”

  “Do what?”

  “What you said you’d do for him. Be psyched because you found someone.”

  “But it’s different—”

  “Bullshit,” Quinn says. “How many boyfriends has Nash had?”

  “None.”

  “How many have you had?” he asks.

  “None.”

  “Doesn’t sound that different to me,” Quinn says.

  “But I kissed Tom.” I pace back and forth inside the tiny square island of counter. “Ultimate betrayal. Nash liked him. I kissed him. How do I fix that?”

  “Look, if Tom makes you feel good, if you really like him, even if it’s just as friends, then Nash needs to find a way to be okay with that. Even if it hurts him a little.” He spins back around to the desk and picks up his pencil. “Now, let me do my work. I think Classic Jazz needs straightening.”

  I make my way over to the Jazz section. If there was a yearbook category for “Least Likely to Find a Boyfriend at Cedar Ridge,” Nash and I would be the clear winners. Either of us finding a guy here, a guy who likes us back, would be a minor miracle: something to be celebrated.

  Flipping through the third bin, I find the album I need right away. I go back to the counter, put it on, and drop the needle down on Billie Holiday’s “It’s the Same Old Story.” Quinn doesn’t turn around, but he stops writing and sits up to listen. I put my head down and get to work, thinking about Tom and singing along with Billie’s mournful voice. Like Billie says, it’s an old story, but to me it’s brand new, and I don’t have a clue about what comes next.

  Chapter 24

  That night I’m stretched out on my bedroom floor, feet on my bed, one arm thrown across my face. What a shit storm of a day.

  Checking my phone, I see a text from Tom: Sorry. And one from Nash: Sorry yet? Like bookends, those two. I don’t respond to either text.

  My phone buzzes again. It’s Nash. And he’s calling, not texting, so I pick up.

  “Nash!” I say, fumbling the phone a little as I answer.

  Nash is silent for a few seconds, but I can hear him breathing. “Maggie, how could you do this?” he says. His voice is quiet, but I can hear a little tremble of anger underneath.

  “Nash, I’m not sure what you heard, or who you heard it from.” I try to keep my voice level. “But Tom and I aren’t together. Talk to Tom if you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh, Tom and I talked already—we talked about a lot of things, hon.” The word is sweet, but it drops like a blade. “Last night we talked about how I’m not his type. Right after he spent an eternity raving about the stellar time you two have been having behind my back.”

  “Stellar time? What, in biology lab? Give me a break.”

  “Biology? Yeah, nice cover. Hiking? Seattle? Dinner? You were after him all along, and congratulations! Tom wants you, not me.”

  “Nash, listen, that’s not how that happened. You were standing right there when we decided to go hiking. And Seattle was your idea until you bailed and left me to play tour guide. Get a grip!”

  “Why would he say that, then?”

  “Say what?” I ask. “That we had fun on the hike? Or in Seattle? We did, but that doesn’t mean he likes likes me.” I sound like I’m twelve. “Nash, I know you’re sad, but you’ve got this wrong
. Tom and I are not—”

  “I would be happy for you if it were any other guy.”

  “Nash, you have dibs—”

  “Fuck dibs, Maggie! When has dibs ever helped either of us in the boy department? Jesus! Grow up! Until now we were both in danger of reaching legal adulthood without being kissed.” His voice verges on hysterical now. Nash is unhinged by whatever he imagines is going on between Tom and me.

  “No, Nash, it’s not . . . We’re not . . .” I say, but he isn’t hearing me now.

  “I should have trusted my instincts. Way back when you said he was too nice to everyone, I should have known you liked him. I should have known!”

  “Nash, you’re my best friend! You know me—”

  “I thought I did, but now I have no idea. We were both in the same boat: seventeen, never been kissed, never had a boyfriend. That sucks, right? But we were in it together, and I thought you would be happy for me when I finally found someone.”

  “I am—I mean, I will be—” I am crying now, but I don’t care. “Nash, you don’t understand . . .”

  “Don’t, Maggie,” he snaps. “Seriously. And you know the hardest part? The thing that is really breaking my heart right now? What I want to do most is talk to my best friend. But since she’s the one that fucked me over, I guess that won’t be happening.” He’s crying a little now. “You were the only one I could trust, Maggie! The only person who knows all my shit. The only one who’s seen how hard it’s been. I really can’t wrap my brain around how you could do this to me.”

  “This didn’t . . . It’s not what you think!” Now I’m crying in that disgusting, gulping, snotty way that can’t be controlled, trying to get enough words out to make him see how sorry I am. How much I want to fix this.

  “All this shows is that you don’t care what I want, as long as you get yours.” Nash’s voice sounds bitter and brittle.

  This poison dart stops my crying immediately. Nash has crossed the line. I remember what Quinn said and take a breath.