Exiled to Iowa. Send Help. And Couture

by Chris O'Guinn

  Austin nodded slowly. “I’ll just toss my clothes in your laundry then, if that’s okay.”

  I explained to him where it was. Shawn looked away while Austin slipped out of bed and grabbed his discarded towel. I watched him descend from my room, my heart full of affection for him, and then I turned my gaze to Shawn.

  “It won’t shock you to know I can be a bit of an ass sometimes,” Shawn told me.

  I had no need or desire to grind my brother’s nose in the ugliness of our fight. If he was ready to admit he was wrong, than that was good enough for me.

  “It runs in our family,” I told him gently.

  Shawn nodded with a faint smile. “You were right. I was freaked out that you were dating a guy, which was really stupid.”

  “I suppose you had no reason to think it would ever happen.”

  “Stop that,” Shawn warned me pointedly. “Look, I never told you this, but when I first figured out you were gay, it seriously freaked me out.”

  I stared at him. “Really?”

  He nodded glumly. “I really hated the idea. I thought long and hard, though, and I realized that it was more important that we were brothers than that you were gay. I sort of made myself just deal with it.”

  “Which was really cool of you.”

  “I know. You really do have an amazing brother.”

  “And so modest.”

  Shawn winked at me. “So, yeah, I just never really thought about what it would be like if you started dating a guy. I was so totally not prepared.”

  I nodded slowly. “I noticed.”

  “Yeah, so I reacted like a big jerk. I let you down, and I’m sorry about it.”

  I forgave him instantly, of course. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “So, tell me who these jerks were that messed with you so I can teach them some respect.”

  I shook my head, smiling fondly at him. “No, Shawn. You don’t need to get suspended over this. I worked too hard to get you back on your old team for you to blow it now.”

  That surprised him. “When did you grow up?”

  I smiled wanly. “I did it when you weren’t looking.”

  My brother nodded, accepting that. “I think you did.” His gaze wandered in the direction Austin had gone. “He’s a little small to be your new bodyguard.”

  “You’d be surprised.” I bit my lower lip. “I love him, Shawn.”

  He turned back to me and managed a real smile. “Then I guess I just have to deal with that too.”

  With our little spat resolved, he took his leave and Austin came back in. We snuggled up together and talked in low tones about what we were going to do. Returning to Hoover High did not rank very high on our priority list. Neither of us felt like being the target for every bully, thug and Neanderthal roaming the halls. Thank God it was Friday and we wouldn’t have to think about school for a couple of days.

  By the time my parents got home, we had gotten dressed and were watching TV in the family room. As calmly as I could, I told them what had happened at school. My wonderful parents went ballistic. My mom fretted over me and checked to be sure I was all right while my dad started making calls, demanding the heads of the ruffians who had assaulted me.

  It took a while to get them calmed back down.

  Austin was invited to stay for dinner and treated like the hero he was. My boyfriend was clueless what to do with the praise, but he did like the feeling of being welcomed by my family. At my parents’ urging, he called his father and invited him over as well. It was supposedly for a group strategy session, but I knew they also wanted to meet Austin’s dad.

  I spared enough emotional space in my head to be totally weirded out by that meeting.

  “I’ve already spoken to the other coaches,” Alan said after small talk had evolved into discussion of the incident. “We’re going to make it clear to our guys and girls that anyone involved in this kind of bullying will be off their squad.”

  His outrage at Austin’s black eye had been palpable.

  “That’s good to hear,” my mom said. “No one should have to go through this sort of thing— gay, straight or whatever.”

  “We have a meeting with Principal Kretchmer next week,” my dad added.

  Alan nodded his approval. “That’s good. He’s a reasonable man. He called for a staff meeting tomorrow, so I figure I’ll talk to him then myself.”

  “The question is, what do we do until we get this resolved?”

  It was then I piped up. “I’m not going back there.” My parents frowned at me and I withered a little. “I’m not,” I told them sullenly.

  “It’s probably best that our boys stay home for a few days until this gets sorted out,” Alan said, coming to our aid in a surprisingly un-parentish way. Remembering how protective he was of Austin, though, I did sort of see where it came from. “I can get their homework and so on for them.”

  “Honey, I don’t want you to get hurt, but do you think it’s a good idea to let these bullies intimidate you?”

  “Mom, they’re bigger than me, they outnumber me and they want to hurt me. If ever there was a time for some constructive cowardice, it would be now.”

  My mother and my father exchanged more stern looks and then nodded their agreement. “Only until the meeting, though,” my mom said. “After that, we’ll have to decide what we’re going to do.”

  Relief washed over me. I would not have to contend with the monsters for a few days. I was safe, at least for now. As a bonus, it looked like I had some quality Austin-time coming to me, so things were already improving.

  Chapter 15

  IT TOOK A FEW DAYS for the novelty of being home-schooled to wear thin. Sure, it was nice spending time with Austin in a violence-free zone. Being able to do our homework while my mom made us sandwiches was the essence of cool, but I was starting to feel restless. I wanted to go to The Grab Bag and work, but I was too scared of running into any of my intolerant classmates. I longed to go to the soda shop, but there was too much risk of encountering Becca.

  My freedom from school was starting to feel more like exile.

  Austin felt it too. We ended up driving off to Fordham just to get some free air. I was starting to understand what he had felt like back in the Days of the Hoodie. In Buford, at school, I had felt constantly under threat. Only once we were away from the whole town did I actually relax. That made me think that maybe I would have to change schools just to get some peace.

  The idea of starting over again made me queasy, though.

  November had brought with it a definite chill, which I felt was symbolic. I had bundled up in a fashionable scarf and my favorite jacket for our outing. My delicate hands were ensconced in a pair of silky-soft knit gloves. I remarked to Austin that I was going to have a tough time getting used to the cold.

  “You haven’t seen nothing yet,” was his reply.

  As cold as it already was, that observation alarmed me.

  When we got back to my house, I was surprised to find Billy sitting on my doorstep. I glanced over at Austin, who was looking at Billy in astonishment. The last of their animosity had disappeared, though, with Billy running to my defense. Austin was not so unreasonable that he was willing to hold onto his grudge after what Billy had done for me.

  “I should get going anyway,” he told me.

  I nodded and kissed him, not caring right then who saw us. Austin smiled at me and then took off, leaving me to handle my visitor. Folding my arms, I walked over and sat down next to him.

  “You could have gone inside, you know.”

  Billy shrugged, frowning a little. “I wasn’t sure if I would be welcome.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve kept them up to date on your transformation. They think I have a bad-boy complex, which is so not true, but parents, right?”

  He just shrugged at my joke. “I guess.”

  “Come on, let’s go in. I need some hot chocolate.”

  Billy followed me inside and my mom took one look at his Jack Frost-nipp
ed nose and proceeded to mother him. She sat him down by the fire with a blanket and a steaming mug of hot cocoa so fast he barely had time to stutter out an “I’m fine, really.”

  “Don’t bother,” I told him as I settled in an armchair. “Her Mom-Fu cannot be countered. It’s best to just go along with it. She almost always stops before she breaks out the adoption papers.”

  “Don’t mind my son,” she told Billy, getting him another blanket. “He’s thought he’s funny for years and I haven’t had the heart to tell him otherwise.”

  Billy smiled and blew on his hot chocolate. My mother bustled out to make us a snack. I didn’t even actually mind. In my opinion, Billy could use some mothering. I didn’t tell him so, of course, since that would have spoiled it.

  “Are you ever coming back to school?”

  I shrugged a little. “I don’t know. Why?”

  Billy was pensive. “I still need help with that ‘Come What May’ song.”

  “Shawna can help you.”

  “And Jackie was complaining that she can’t make her costume for Zidler fit.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “Billy, are you saying people miss me?”

  His eyes flickered with annoyance. “Don’t act surprised.”

  “Do you miss me?”

  “Shut up,” he groused.

  I eyed him askance. “How did you draw the short straw?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did you wind up being the one sent to try and get me to come back?”

  “Oh, no one made me,” he told me with a minute shrug of his considerable shoulders. “We were all talking about it and Shawna and Jackie were saying they were going to come here and drag you back by the hair and I said I’d do it.”

  “Drag me back by the hair? I thought you’d gotten over your caveman ways.”

  Billy snorted laughter. “No, I just thought I’d try and talk some sense into you.”

  “Many have tried, it never sticks though.”

  He shook his head at my wit. “Look, we’ll make sure you don’t wind up hurt.”

  That was an impossibly sweet gesture. “I don’t really think you guys can be there all the time, and you shouldn’t have to. You do have your own lives, after all.”

  Billy muttered something.

  “What was that?”

  He looked somberly into his steaming cocoa. “I didn’t have anything before you and the club.”

  That hit me like a two-by-four to the back of the head. I had always assumed his taking part in the Drama Club and the show were prices he grudgingly paid to get with Becca. I never gave any thought to the idea that he actually enjoyed it. I eyed him with an unflattering amount of amazement on my face.

  “That’s … really quite an admission.”

  He shrugged, his expression clouded and moody. “I used to spend all my time trying to find somewhere to be that wasn’t home. I’d hang with Derek, but I always knew he was just using me to keep people in line. Now I have something I actually look forward to.”

  I felt a small well of contentment deep inside me. I had worked magic with my little club. I had brought Austin out of the shadows, I’d given the school thespians a united purpose and I had changed this beast into a prince. No amount of bullying or intimidation would ever be able to take that away from me.

  “You could just show up after school, you know, after everyone’s gone home. We could really use the help.”

  “Maybe,” I told him thoughtfully.

  He sipped his drink. “I talked to Becca.”

  My good cheer ran and hid at those words. “Oh?”

  Billy nodded, looking into the fire. “I told her it was really uncool of her, what she did. She told me she is sorry it went as far as it did.”

  That was something, anyway. “You know you don’t have to feel guilty about still liking her, right?”

  Billy gave me a grateful look that told me he had not been sure of that at all. “We talked, and I told her everything. I kind of realized after what you went through that secrets don’t work out too well.”

  I winced. What a time for him to choose complete honesty as a plan of attack. “How did that all go?”

  “Good, actually. She was pretty cool about it all—even seemed kind of surprised I went to so much effort for her. She … well, she and I are going out now….”

  I managed a smile. “Billy, it’s fine. I don’t hate her. I want her to be happy, and you too. Don’t worry about it.”

  He relaxed visibly when I gave him my blessing. “Thank you.”

  I smiled wryly. “See? I told you I’d get you two together.”

  Billy’s face broke into a smile. Evidently, that had been the weight bowing him down—he had worried I would see him dating Becca as a betrayal. All I felt, though, was relief. Though they had not taken the route I had set out, they had found each other in the end. Being in love, I had found, made all kinds of hurts simply disappear.

  * * *

  Austin and I arrived in the auditorium, hand in hand, the following afternoon. After some discussion, we both agreed that we had things we still wanted to do before the curtain went up. The walk from the car had been filled with terror and I had stuck close to Austin in case Derek or someone like him was lurking around.

  “What are you all doing? This is a mess!” I cried with a big smile on my face.

  Faces all turned to me. A chorus of squeals rang out and Shawna, Jackie and Franci ran over to us and hugged us. Austin and I smiled at them and hugged them back, strengthened by their exuberance at seeing me. It was nice to know I had been missed.

  “Austin, Kenny spilled soda on the Taj Mahal backdrop and the Paris one still needs an Eiffel Tower,” Franci told him.

  “I’ll fix it. Did someone kill Kenny for me?”

  “Don’t any of you dare!” Ken—whom we called Kenny—shouted.

  I grinned at my friends. “Oh my God! You killed Kenny!”

  “You bastard!” they chorused.

  Ken flipped us off and went back to rehearsing. The piercing strands of “Roxanne” filled the auditorium, as he showed us all just how big his voice could get when he wanted. Austin went off to do his repairs and I followed my posse backstage to check in on the costume situation.

  Jackie had been right that the Maharajah costume we had for her as Zidler-playing-Sultan was just not going to work. The coat was too small and there was no sewing magic that would fix it. So, we had to start from scratch. I was still excited about the choice we had made to make Zidler—a man in the movie—a woman for our production. Jackie blew the roof off the place when she sang “The Show Must Go On.”

  As chaotic as it all appeared, though, I could tell it was right on track. Whole scenes had taken shape. The musical numbers were tight and even the necessary cuts had not compromised the show too badly. I was really excited and proud of what my fellow thespians had accomplished.

  At five o’clock, I excused myself and headed to Kretchmer’s office for the big showdown with him and me and my parents. I wasn’t looking forward to him having free rein to blame everything on me as he had in our first encounter, but I had to trust my parents to deal with it.

  Billy and Austin insisted on escorting me, which was quite chivalrous and so I did not complain or try to get them to abandon the idea. There was also the fact that I really didn’t want to wander the halls of the school alone, no matter the time.

  It was quite crowded in Kretchmer’s office with my parents and I both in there with him. My dad ended up standing, both out of agitation as well as the fact that the third chair did not appear structurally sound.

  Kretchmer was his usual stern, humorless self. I had to wonder if he might not have been better off being a warden in a prison. There was, though, an even grimmer cast to his expression today— if that was even possible.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he told us perfunctorily.

  “Thank you for seeing us,” my mother replied. Of the three of us, she was definitely
the calmest. “I know you must be very busy.”

  “Oh, for the love of…. Veronica, enough with the chit chat. I want to know what he’s going to do to those punks who attacked our son.”

  The fierce protectiveness in my dad’s voice made my heart swell.

  “They have been suspended,” Kretchmer told us evenly. “But that brings us to the subject that we need to discuss.”

  I really didn’t like the sound of that. “Sir, I’m sorry I’ve been absent for the past week.”

  “Mr. Murray, under the circumstances, that was the smartest thing you could have done.”

  I was relieved to hear that he was not going to punish me, but my mother had a very different reaction. “I don’t like the idea of my son being run out of school, Mr. Kretchmer.”

  “That speaks to the heart of the issue that your son’s situation has brought up,” the principal told us.”There have been several school board and PTA meetings in the wake of Friday’s incident, all of which express the concern that having openly gay students at this school disrupts the learning process.”

  My eyes went wide.

  My mother stared blankly at him.

  My father went nuclear. “Are you telling me they want my son expelled just for being gay?”

  Kretchmer nodded slowly, his expression impossible to fathom.

  “That’s absurd!” my mom fumed. “You can’t even think-”

  “My son has a right-” my dad broke in.

  “— and if they have a problem—”

  “— can’t keep him out of school just—”

  Kretchmer let my parents vent their fury for a full minute before insisting they calm down so he could speak. I sat in silence, shaking. This was it. My orientation was going to destroy everything I had built once again, just like it had in L.A. The sheer injustice of it all made me want to cry, but I had already wept every tear I had in me.

  “Since your son has not broken any laws or violated any school rules, however, they have left it to me to resolve this issue.” Kretchmer seemed vaguely amused by the idea that he was being used as the scapegoat. His gaze turned fully to me. “Mr. Murray, you have done incredible things at this school in the short time you have been here. I know how hard you have worked and I want you to know I am grateful.”