by J. Tomas
“You haven’t done any real work yet,” she points out.
Once he finishes eating, he gets serious. He’s already walked around the vendor booths, seen the food offered, checked out the hot guys…as dance music begins to pound out of large speakers set on the stage in one corner of the park, Chip decides to earn the twenty his sister promised him. With Jen’s help, he drags two of the heavy shipping crates from the back of the booth onto the cobbled path out front. Jen takes one, he the other, and together they climb onto the crates to dance and model their swimsuits. The boas add a flamboyant touch—he and Jen grind to the sounds of Cher and Pink drifting across the park, dancing in synch with the drag queens on stage. Is it just him, or do more guys duck into Shawna’s booth once he starts getting his groove on? From the smiles he’s getting, he wonders if he shouldn’t ask his sister for a bonus at the end of the day.
As one song segues into the next, Jen shakes her hair like a lion’s mane and Chip mimics her moves, though his short blond hair only gets slightly tousled. Their dance moves are well-rehearsed—how many times have they danced to the radio in front of the floor-length mirror in Jen’s bedroom? They’re born performers, and they both know they’re good. Feathers from the boas fly around them—no wonder they were so cheap—and more than a few people stop to watch. When the song ends, they get a smattering of applause, which Chip accepts with deep bows. “Thank you,” he says, breathless. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Another song starts and they’re off again. This time, though, Jen’s a little distracted. She stares off past the booths toward the stage, where people have started to gather, eating lunch or watching the drag show, walking their dogs or just visiting with friends. Chip can’t really see the stage well because there’s a tree in his way. “What ‘cha eying, Jenny-pop?”
Her shoulder drop fizzles out halfway down and she shakes her arms as if to loosen them. “I think…isn’t that Bobby Jarrett over there?”
Chip’s heart stutters and his feet fumble to a stop. Bobby Jarrett? Is she shitting him? “Where?”
She points out past the tree and Chip jumps from his crate to hers to follow her gaze. “There. See that German Shepherd? The guy in the blue shirt right past that dog. That’s him, right?”
Bobby Jarrett is only the sexiest jock in their entire high school, according to Chip. He’s a year older than them and plays on the school’s varsity soccer team. The first time Chip ever saw him was freshman year in the hall—he still gets shivery all over remembering how Bobby’s soulful brown eyes glanced his way and, for the briefest of moments, a faint smile almost crossed Bobby’s full, pouty lips, almost, while looking at him. Bobby’s thick chestnut hair falls all one length to his shoulders, and during soccer games he wears it pulled back into a ponytail, but every now and then he lets it hang free. Whenever Bobby comes to school like that, hair down, Chip has to ball his hands into fists to keep from launching across the hall to plunge his fingers into those soft depths.
And now Jen says Bobby’s here, here, at Pride? Oh, holy crap. Chip doesn’t even dare hope it’s him.
But it is. Thank you, Jesus, it’s him.
Jen isn’t so sure. Turning toward Chip, she catches her lower lip between her teeth and asks, “That’s Bobby, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” Chip hates how breathless he sounds, but he’d recognize that ponytail anywhere. Bobby stands by himself, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, and sort of looks around in a way that tells Chip he’s probably waiting for someone. Don’t let it be a boyfriend, he prays, clutching Jen’s arm as they watch Bobby. God, don’t do that to me, You hear? I didn’t even know he was gay so at least give me half a chance before You stick him with someone else.
Then it hits him. What if Bobby isn’t gay? What if he’s here with a girlfriend? Chip hasn’t ever seen Bobby with anyone—and Lord knows he’s asked around—but maybe she goes to a different school, or college, even. Almost afraid of the answer, he asks, “What do you think he’s doing here?”
“I don’t know. Just hanging out?” The way Jen doesn’t quite meet Chip’s gaze tells him she knows more than she’s letting on. Or rather, she suspects.
Chip’s fingers dig into her arm. “Wait, were you talking about him earlier? When you said I wasn’t the only one?” Maybe there’s hope for him after all. “God, Jen. You don’t think he’s—”
“I don’t know,” she says again. She shakes Chip off and gives him an annoyed look. “I told you, I’m not going to out anyone just because they make my gaydar go haywire.”
“Does he?” Chip’s heart begins to race, and one word crows through his mind. Yes, yes, yes. Then he slaps Jen’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I have it bad for him.”
She protests, “Chip, he’s never said—”
“He’s at Pride, Jen.” Chip shakes his head, exasperated. “Straight guys don’t come to these things unless their fag hag wives drag them. It’d be a blow to their masculinity or something.”
“Not that you’d know,” Jen teases.
Chip doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he jumps down from the shipping crate, tosses the boa over his shoulder in a dramatic gesture, and tells her, “Maybe not, but I’m going to find out.”
* * * *
Chip isn’t exactly a wallflower—most kids at his school know who he is, even if it’s only as Jen’s gay BFF. When he’s with her in the halls or in class, they’re both giggly and loud. But though he’s out and proud about it, he doesn’t exactly flirt with anyone. Hell, until now, he thought he was the only gay guy his age in all of Richmond. Being here at Pride shows him maybe he’s not as alone as he thought, and Bobby’s just icing on the cake. Between classes, Chip might be content to stare and dream but here?
Here he dares to step up his game.
He crosses the park in sure, quick strides, almost forgetting he wears nothing but a pair of Speedos and a garish boa. He keeps his gaze trained on Bobby, and each step he takes closes the distance between them. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, exactly, but he has to say something. Even if it’s just a simple “hi.” Something.
It isn’t until he’s a few yards away that Bobby sees him. For a second, fear flashes across Bobby’s dark features, then his face closes like a fist, daring Chip to acknowledge him. His eyes beg Chip to keep walking, though. When Chip stops in front of him, Bobby glances around as if looking for a quick getaway.
Chip doesn’t let him off so easy. “Hey, Bobby. I didn’t think I’d see anyone from school here.”
Bobby grunts and looks past Chip as if hoping no one else has seen him. “Jen’s here.”
“You know it!” Chip laughs. “She wouldn’t miss it for the world. She says she’s a gay guy trapped in a girl’s body. Oh, hey, I’m—”
“Chip.” Bobby glances at the hand Chip offers, but keeps both of his crammed in the pockets of his shorts. “I know.”
“You do?” Chip feels a goofy grin tug at the corners of his lips. Bobby knows who he is! Hot damn! “Awesome. You’re like the last person I ever expected to see here, you know?”
Bobby’s face hardens, his brow clouded above a stormy gaze. “Why’s that?”
Chip shrugs, flipping the boa casually over his shoulder. “I mean, I totally didn’t think you were—”
“What?” Bobby takes a threatening step closer, cutting Chip off in mid-sentence. “Didn’t think I was what, exactly?”
“You know,” Chip tries, faltering. “Like me.”
Another step, and Bobby pulls one hand from his pocket to poke his forefinger at Chip’s bare chest. His flesh burns where Bobby’s touches it. “I’m not like you, got it? I’m not some damn fairy boy floating around with feathers and glitter fluttering in my wake, okay? I don’t burst into flames whenever I walk into a room.”
Chip takes a step back, shocked. He isn’t like that, is he? Is he? “No, I meant—”
“I don’t have the prettiest girl in school holding all the jocks back from kic
king my faggot ass,” Bobby says, interrupting him. He pokes at Chip again, forcing them farther apart. “I’m nothing like you, Charles Patrick Reid. Chip. And I’ll never be. I never want to be.”
Without another word, Bobby spins on his heel and storms off, leaving Chip speechless. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What the hell was that all about? Where did it come from?
And does Bobby Jarrett really know his full name? Does that mean what Chip thinks it means?
He doesn’t know. The more he thinks about it, though, he decides he wants to cry. His eyes tear up and his nose starts to sniffle. He bites the emotion back. Damn Bobby for making him feel like this. For getting his hopes up by being here in the first place, then dashing them by calling him a…a damn fairy boy. He isn’t. He isn’t.
Is he?
* * * *
When he returns to Shawna’s booth, he snags the shipping crate he’d been dancing on and drags it into the back behind the merchandise so he can hide away from everyone. He hopes for a dramatic return—maybe Jen will see his pout and rush to his side, eager to cheer him up—but she’s chatting with a butch dyke who’s hitting her up, and Shawna’s busy making a sale. So Chip flounces down on the shipping crate with little ceremony, and when he heaves a dejected sigh, no one notices.
He leans back on the crate, angry and sad. When Shawna notices him, he wraps the boa around his face to hide behind it, which only causes his sister to nudge his foot as she walks by. “You call this working?” she asks.
His reply is muffled by the feathers. “Leave me alone.”
After an eternity, the dyke realizes Jen isn’t interested and finally leaves. Giggling, Jen sashays over to where Chip sits—he sees her through spaces between the feathers—and jostles him aside to sit beside him. When he doesn’t uncover his face to look at her, she prompts, “Well? What’d he say?”
With his forefinger and thumb, Chip parts the feathers right in front of his eye and peeks out at her. “He called me a faggot.”
Jen’s mouth opens in a perfect pink O of surprise. Her eyes widen, as well. She looks so much like a blow-up sex doll, Chip’s glad the boa covers his face so she can’t see him snicker. “No way,” she breathes, aghast. “He didn’t.”
Chip sort of shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The guy’s a dick.”
“Chip, I can’t…I mean, really?” She frowns, a wounded look in her eyes. “What did he say exactly? He didn’t really use that word.”
“He did.” Though thinking back, Chip doesn’t remember if Bobby actually called him a fag or not. All he knows is he heard the word in Bobby’s voice, and it echoes through his head like a tolling bell. “He called me a flaming fairy, too.”
“What’d you do?” Jen wants to know.
The boa starts to get a little hot and suffocating, so Chip pushes it down off his face to pool around his neck like a thick collar. “What’d you think I did? I walked off.”
Jen shakes her head. “No, I mean, what’d you do to make him say such horrible things?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Chip stares at her, shocked. So somehow this is his fault? “All I said was hey, didn’t think I’d see you here, guess I’m not the only queer at Jackson High, that’s good to know, and he flipped out on me.”
“You called him queer.” It isn’t a question.
Chip shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe. I don’t remember exactly, okay? I just said—”
“You idiot!” Jen slaps his arm, a stinging smack, and when Chip flinches, she strikes him a second time. “You don’t go around saying shit like that to guys who aren’t open about their sexuality! This is why I don’t tell you every time someone we know pings my gaydar. Not everyone wants to be dragged out of the closet just yet!”
“Hey!” Chip cries, shrinking back from her. She swats at him again and he almost falls off the crate to avoid her hand. “I didn’t tweet about it or post it on my Facebook page! All I said was I didn’t know—”
“Because it’s none of your damn business.” Jen gives him a shove, sending him sprawling onto the ground behind Shawna’s makeshift counter. “Who cares if he likes guys or not? It’s no concern of yours, and it isn’t up to you to tell the world, either.”
Chip doesn’t see why she isn’t taking his side on this. “I care,” he says, regaining his seat. He fluffs his boa as if she might have smushed the feathers by pushing him. “How am I supposed to know which guys I can ask out if I don’t know which ones are gay?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like you.” Crossing her arms, Jen turns her back to him, nose in the air. Now she’s mad at him, too, and he sure as hell doesn’t know why. “He’d probably turn you down, anyway, after you went and outed him.”
“I didn’t…” Chip sighs. “Look, he outed himself, okay? He’s here, isn’t he? If that doesn’t shout ‘I’m gay,’ I don’t know what does. Jen…”
“I’m mad at you,” she snips.
As if he doesn’t realize this. “Can you at least tell me why?”
She sniffs and shakes her head, her curls tumbling down her back. Chip knows that’s all the answer he’s going to get until she’s good and ready to play nice again. Seriously, how is this his fault? Bobby’s the one…
From the corner of his eye, Chip sees a familiar blue shirt in front of Shawna’s booth. Bobby.
Crap.
He ducks down and pulls the boa up over his face again. He wishes he could disappear. Don’t see me, he prays, screwing his eyes shut as tight as he can, as if that’s going to work. He hears a shuffled step and holds his breath. Just keep walking, just keep walking, just—
“Hey, Bobby,” Jen says, suddenly all smiles again.
Chip hears Bobby clear his throat, then the guy says, “Hey, Jen. I thought that was you dancing in front of the booth.”
Her laugh is genuine and warm, and it makes Chip feel like dirt. “You knew I’d be here.”
When Bobby sort of snickers, Chip parts the feathers of his boa enough to see the smirk twisting Bobby’s face. At the movement, Bobby notices him and Chip releases the feathers, hiding again.
It doesn’t work. He feels a shoe nudge his and then Bobby says, “Can we talk for a minute, man?”
Chip freezes. Bobby wants to talk to him? Yell at him again, more likely. He shakes his head no, but Jen digs her elbow into his side and sends him falling off the crate a second time. Pulling the boa off his face, Chip starts, “Jen! I swear—oh, hi, Bobby.” Like he didn’t realize the guy was standing right there.
Tilting his head over his shoulder in invitation, Bobby says, “Just a minute, that’s all.”
Chip frowns as he wraps the boa protectively around his bare chest. Jen’s looking at him with eyes so wide, he’s surprised they don’t fall out of the sockets. It’s her way of telling him to go on, take the chance. Hear Bobby out. Besides, he can’t say anything worse than he’s said already, can he?
Grasping the ends of the boa in both hands, Chip crisscrosses it over his chest and nods. “Sure. We can talk.” When Bobby doesn’t speak immediately, Chip asks, “You want to take a walk or something?”
He follows Bobby from the booth. Out on the cobbled path, they walk side-by-side, and Chip wonders if people think they’re together. He wishes. They aren’t even friends.
And they aren’t talking, either.
Bobby wanted to say something, but now that they’re away from Shawna and Jen—more or less alone, or rather, as alone as they’re going to get here at Pride—he just seems content to walk beside Chip without breaking the silence between them. Chip bites his lip and tells himself to wait. He has nothing to say to Bobby—this little walk wasn’t his idea.
With every second that passes, he grows more aware of his mostly-naked body in such close proximity to Bobby’s. Whenever someone comes at him from the opposite direction and he has to step toward Bobby to get out of the way, Bobby doesn’t seem to mind. Once Chip even thinks he feels the ghost of a hand hovering right behind the small of his back,
a glancing kiss of skin on skin that makes him flush all over.
What’s this all about?
Taking Chip’s hand in his, Bobby steps off the path and leads the way out of sight behind the last few vendor booths. Bobby’s fingers feel comfortable and warm in Chip’s palm. At any moment, Chip expects Bobby to pull away, let him go, but they continue walking through scraggly grass with their hands linked. Like boyfriends, Chip dares to think. No matter what else happens today, he’s sure this is the best thing ever, Bobby’s hand tight in his own.
Past the last vendor booth, a small copse of trees shades the far corner of the park. Beyond the trees, low bushes block the view of Canal Street, which is empty at this time on a Sunday afternoon. Downtown Richmond is a shadow of its usual hectic weekday self at the moment, and even the music from the stage doesn’t seem to quite reach this far. Chip lets Bobby lead him to a spot beneath the closest tree where the grass is thick and lush, a place the mowers who trimmed the park didn’t get. He keeps hold of Chip’s hand, though, pulling Chip down beside him on the soft turf.
For a long moment, Chip holds his breath. His hand is a little sweaty, caught in Bobby’s grip, and he wants to wipe it on the grass to dry it off before Bobby can notice. But he doesn’t want Bobby to let go, either. He doesn’t really know what to do.
Finally Bobby exhales, and as if that’s the signal he’s been waiting for, Chip does the same, relieved. Bobby’s hand relaxes and Chip’s falls to the grassy spot between them. Without looking at Chip, Bobby tells him, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Chip murmurs. He hopes Bobby doesn’t ask what for, because he still doesn’t really know, but if Jen’s mad at him about something then chances are, Bobby is, too. “I didn’t…I mean, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s my fault.” Pulling his knees up to his chest, Bobby frowns at his shoes as he plucks the blades of grass in front of him. “I really didn’t expect to see anyone from school here, you know? I just wanted to hang out without having to fake it for once. That’s all.”