by Octavia Zane
“What did you do at the park?”
“I worked on the rides at first, and then I was Fast Wheels himself in a costume. I wandered around the park for hours and posed for pictures. It wasn’t glamorous, it didn’t pay well, and it was hot as hell in that costume, but it beat answering phones in a cubicle and box store retail. Or pumping gas. Nobody ever smiles to see the gas-pump guy coming.”
A basket of chips and two bowls of salsa landed on their table. They reached for a chip at the same time and knocked their hands together. This was so stupid, like something that would happen in a romantic comedy, yet Theo was smiling.
“Worst job?” Riley asked.
“There wasn’t a worst one, but working at the administrative offices in college was incredibly boring. Mostly I sat there and shuffled papers, or shredded them. Filing and sorting and waiting for time to run out.”
They dipped their chips in the salsa, Riley in the red and Theo in the green, and ate them. Feeling compelled to fill up the silence, Theo’s mind made an awkward leap. “Can I ask why you were arguing in your head with the ex about the guesthouse?”
Riley groaned heartily. “Goddammit, that was Dreyer. You aren’t a fan of his, are you? Dreyer Haskins? If you are, I won’t say anything negative.”
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about. Is he an actor?”
“He’s a poet. Won a few competitions, had a handful of poems picked up by literary magazines, and he published a book, too.”
“He supported himself off his poetry? That’s a hard task.”
“Cripes, no, he didn’t earn enough from his poems to support himself, and it made him madder than a sack full of cats. He did freelance work to bring in the dough. Greeting cards, songwriting, editing gigs. When that wasn’t flowing his way, he picked up a rash of temp jobs to make his rent. We met at a coffeehouse in Portland when he sat down at my table one night and told me that I was going to buy him a drink.”
Theo shrank internally at the thought of being so forward with a total stranger. “That took some nerve.”
Riley shook his head. “Not for Dreyer. He liked to push the envelope to see what he could get away with. Turns out, he got away with quite a lot.”
“Did you buy him a drink that night?”
“I did. I was pretty taken aback, I’ll be honest about that, but I was curious how it would play out. It played out in a year-long relationship that shouldn’t have lasted a week. He just kept calling, and I kept answering, and suddenly it was twelve months later and I realized we’d spent most of it unhappy. He wanted me to move to Portland with him.”
“To support him?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you’re probably right. He said he was sick of having to share me with my family.” Riley shrugged and helped himself to another chip. “Here I was congratulating myself for finally sticking out a year with the same guy, and then I started to wonder why it had to feel like sticking it out. You ever been in a relationship like that?”
“Yeah.”
“But you aren’t keen to talk about it. I can tell. That’s okay.”
Theo didn’t want to let it go like that, even with Riley willing to let the topic pass. “It wasn’t sticking it out in the first few years. He and I were happy, or happy enough.” Theo was the metaphorical frog in the heating pot back then, unaware of how hot the water was slowly becoming around him. “Somewhere along the way, things changed. And I stayed, sticking it out, figuring it was just a rough patch and we’d get back to happy or happy enough.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Too long. Almost eight years.”
Their plates were slapped down upon the table. “There you go. Be careful, they’re hot. Enjoy,” the server said brusquely.
“She is a woman of few words,” Theo noted as the server vanished into the kitchen. Snickering, they tucked into their meals.
A cell phone buzzed frantically. Riley took it out of his pocket and then put it back with a sigh. “I should have turned it off.”
“Problem at home?” Theo asked.
“No. It’s my mother wanting to know why she hasn’t gotten a picture of the kids in their Halloween costumes yet. She knows Rivers won’t answer that question, so she’s texting me.”
“Halloween is still two days away.”
“It is. She wants to post the pictures on all of her social media sites before my father posts any.”
Theo gave him a quizzical look.
“They’re divorced,” Riley explained. “They got divorced when Rivers and I were very young and spent the rest of our childhoods duking it out over us. The judge must have done a shot of tequila every time our last name popped up on the docket. They fought over everything that could be fought over with Rivers and me, and they’re still fighting with one another to this day.”
“But you’re . . .”
“Yeah, grown and gone. They stay friends online just to fight, the way I see it. If I send Mom a picture of the kids before Dad gets one, she’ll post it in a hot second, tag Dad to make sure he sees it and to rub it in, and take it as a win.”
“A win of what?”
Riley made a helpless, placating gesture, his hands spread out in supplication over his supreme burrito. “That’s what we’d all like to know. That she’s more special? That she’s the favorite? I can’t tell you. If we were to confront her, she’d play dumb like every time before. I just won’t answer the text. Rivers will send a picture to both of them on the first of November. It’s best I stay out of it. I didn’t sign up for their war anyway.”
Sheepishly, Riley scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “I guess that’s not good talk for a first dinner.”
“We can’t help where we come from,” Theo said.
“No, we can’t. Are your folks still together?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? How do you not know that?”
“They threw me out when I was sixteen. I assume they’re still together, but I’ve never been back.”
Stunned, Riley said, “Why in the hell did they do that?”
“They weren’t too enamored with my inclinations, shall we say.” That was a polite way of describing that horrible evening, Mom weeping hysterically in the armchair and Dad red-faced and screaming as he paced around that Theo was a child molester, a pervert, a fudge-packer, and that he belonged on an island with the other fags so he couldn’t hurt anyone. Dad hadn’t dropped all that money on fertility treatments for a queer kid! At the worst of it, he demanded a refund from Theo.
A refund, because Dad had gotten a bad egg. He wanted his money back for those pricey fertility treatments, for all of the clothes that Theo had ever worn and every bite of food to go into his mouth. For the roof that Dad put over his head for sixteen years, the Christmas gifts and sports equipment and cell phone and doctor check-ups, simply everything that was wasted on his unsatisfactory son. He wrote out an I.O.U., his pen slashing so hard over the paper that it tore in several places, and made Theo sign it. Mom just cried all the harder, asking how Theo could do this to them, as if it was something he had purposely done.
“They threw you out for being gay?” His meal forgotten, Riley was gaping in horrified astonishment and anger. “Did they catch you with a boy? Did you come out to them?”
“Neither. I kept a journal in those days. Every night before I went to bed, I’d scribble a few lines. It was basic stuff about school, sports, movies, no more than a paragraph, but in one entry I wrote that I had a crush on a student in one of my classes. I was too embarrassed even in my own private journal to write his name, so I just put down his initials. J. K. Y. I suppose you can guess what happened next.”
Riley’s forehead furrowed. “I take it someone read your diary. But if you only wrote down the initials, how did they know it was a he instead of a she?”
Theo felt so sorry for that boy he once was, naively thinking his journal was safe. “My mother read the entry while I wa
s in school the next day, and took it upon herself to do some investigative work.”
“Ah.”
“I went to a small high school in Poke, Oregon. Five hundred students total. She dragged out my yearbooks to see who had a last name that started with Y. Of course, there weren’t many in a school that size. Just six. Of those six, two had names starting with J. One boy, one girl. Mom did a little calling around to narrow it down further: Jennifer Quinn Yee and Joshua Kurt Yarrow, so she had her answer and promptly told Dad. I came home from school and swim practice that day, and they pounced.”
Theo looked down to his plate.
A warm hand slid over his. “I’m sorry,” Riley said.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. That poor kid you were, sixteen years old and on his own. That’s hard for me to even think about, and you had to live it. Where did you go?”
“I didn’t know where to go. All I had was my backpack with a few clothes inside, and twenty bucks in my wallet. It was ten at night when I set out. I did have my cell phone, though. Dad made me hand it over, and I stole it back on my way out the door. But I didn’t know who to call without having to tell the whole story, and I wasn’t out to anyone. I remembered an abandoned car out in Murray’s Field and headed there. That was where I slept that night.” He hadn’t slept much. It was miserably cold, and creepy to listen to the critters in the undercarriage. “In the morning, I walked the miles to Portland. There are some homeless shelters for LGBT kids in situations like mine. I had to walk; I was terrified to spend that twenty on anything but food.”
Riley squeezed his hand. “And you’ve never seen your parents again?”
“No. They realized a few days later I had the phone and shut off its service. I thought about mailing them an announcement when I finished my schooling, but . . .” Theo knew what his father would do: mail back the I.O.U. with payment due written at the bottom. Dad was not a forgiving man.
“They should have been there, cheering you on,” Riley said with indignation. “They should have been so proud.”
They should have been, but that was not the people they were. Now and then, Theo went online and looked them up. Mom’s social media pages were public, if sparsely updated; Dad didn’t have any or else they were under a different name. In the box for number of children, Mom always entered zero. If there had still been any love in her heart for her son, it would have said one.
“So . . .” Theo said as they returned to eating. “How did your parents react to you?”
The mood eased at once. “They blamed each other, naturally,” Riley said with half a wry grin. “Dad said it was because Mom put me in a dance class when I was three, even if it was just for a few months. Mom said it was because Dad never took me fishing. And then, once they got used to it, they fought about who could be the most accepting. I’m really quite tangential to the battle.”
“And your sister?”
“She said well, duh, told me not to steal her guys, and went on with her day.”
Yet another round of the Happy Birthday song broke out, Theo putting up his finger in warning to Riley. Riley mouthed the words to poke fun at him.
All too soon, they were stepping outside. The sky had darkened further, stars twinkling from horizon to horizon. A crisp breeze swept past as they walked to the parking lot. “That’s me,” Theo said, gesturing to his clean black hybrid under the overhead light.
“And that’s me,” Riley said, pointing to the very next car. It was also a hybrid, though much older and covered in a layer of dust.
They stood there, facing one another.
Then Theo acted on impulse, kissing Riley on the cheek and turning swiftly to his car to get inside. Rolling down the window, he called, “Good night.”
Riley smiled, and that smile made Theo’s heart beat faster. “I’ll see you soon, Doctor Theo.”
Theo drove home, feeling winded and excited all at once.
Chapter Five
Riley
“Come on, Sherlock! Fetch!”
Jesse heaved the tennis ball into the air. All three of them took off after it like a shot, the dog in the lead with Jesse charging along in his wake, and Gigi bringing up the rear with a gleeful howl.
Rivers and Riley were sprawled in the lounge chairs on the deck over the backyard. It was late afternoon on Sunday, the front of the bakery closed and Koala running the back, so Rivers was taking a well-deserved break. Riley had gotten through his little, irritating house projects, and then the four of them carved two pumpkins for the porch and strung up fake cobwebs over the windows in tribute to Halloween.
Was this old age? It felt so good just to sit and do nothing. He stretched out lazily.
“Clearly, I need to work with them on the meaning of fetch,” Rivers said, her fingers tapping on the keyboard of her laptop. “Or not. They’ll sleep like logs tonight.”
“Which dating site are you trying out?” Riley asked.
“Matching Hearts.”
He grimaced. “You won’t find anybody normal on the free sites! Shell out whatever it is for the paid places. They can’t be that expensive.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. It’s the first time you’ve ever called me normal.”
“That’s not how I worded it.”
She snorted and continued to tap. Scooping up the ball in his jaws, Sherlock ran away from the kids. They shouted and chased after him.
“Profile name,” Rivers mumbled.
“Fart-face von Finkelstein,” Riley suggested.
“Are you five years old? Shut up. Rivers87.”
“That’s boring.”
“It’s better than these profile names going up the side of my screen. BellySideUp. BigFrank. SexyNameHere. IcedNipples, I don’t know what kind of man you’re trying to attract, but it’s not the kind of man I want to respond to me.”
“Nothing wrong with icy nipples. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
She smacked his arm. He grinned. Pestering his twin sister was one of his very favorite activities.
“I want a turn!” Gigi yelled. “You have to give me a turn!”
“Give her a turn, Jesse!” Rivers called without looking over.
“I don’t even have the ball!” Jesse cried with indignation. “It’s Sherlock!”
“Marital status,” Rivers said to herself.
“Why would you be on that site if you’re married?” Riley inquired.
“In case I’m looking for a casual encounter or a threesome? I don’t know. Widowed isn’t an option, not that I would want to check that.”
“It’s truthful.”
Pushing her laptop away, Rivers gathered up her long hair, twisted it around, and dropped it over her shoulder. “Yeah, it’s truthful, but people think you’re bad luck when you’re a young widow. I saw it on their faces, especially in those first few years. They didn’t want to come near me. Like I would rub off on them.”
She checked the box for single. “Do you have kids? Yes.” Her eyes slipped to the other profiles. “One woman took a picture of herself in a barely-there bikini and holding a baby. Ugh. So creepy. Do gay guys do that with their profiles? Put up shots of their kids?”
“Not really. Most put up pictures of them wearing as little as the site will permit.”
“What was yours?”
“My picture?” It had been a long time since Riley put up a profile anywhere. “I was wearing a sock, tastefully placed.”
“Athletic or dress?”
“Sherlock, stop!” Jesse and Gigi chased the dog past the deck. The ball firmly in his mouth, he was running along with great glee. Then he dropped the ball but kept on running at top speed around the yard.
“Who am I kidding?” Rivers said in dismay, closing the lid partway. “No hot guy is going to pant after a profile of a mom of two. Kelly has told me so many horror stories of the men she meets online. She was texting back and forth with a man just a couple of weeks ago. They were joking and messing around, talkin
g about bad movies, and then she had to put the kids to bed one night. She came back to her phone an hour later and she had a dozen rage texts that obviously she wasn’t interested in him and why had she wasted his time and on and on. She was so stunned that she wrote back what she was doing instead of immediately blocking him, and got a snippy reply that he expected to be put first from now on.”
“Holy shit!” Riley exclaimed.
“They hadn’t even met in person! It was just two or three days spent texting. Not that that makes it better, but cripes, what a sense of entitlement. I’m sorry, little man, but kids don’t come with pause buttons and who are you to be making demands?” Rivers smiled affectionately down to the dog, who bounded into a pile of leaves the kids had raked up and scattered them everywhere. “And there was that other guy, the one who bragged about how he never had to see his kids since they were with their mom, and he asked if her ex wanted more custody. And then the guy who was Internet stalking her . . .”
“You’re talking yourself out of this before you’ve given it a chance!” Riley said.
“You’re one to talk.” She made a face at him. “You came home last night glowing like a Christmas tree, but did you even call Theo today? You never call guys back.”
“You want my honest answer?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t have his number,” Riley confessed. “I was about to ask for it when we were in the parking lot, and then he gave me a quick kiss and I forgot all about it until he was gone.”
Rivers snickered. “Smooth. Real smooth.”
“Yeah. I have the number for the clinic, but it feels weird to call up and leave a personal message that the receptionist will hear. And I do so call guys back!”
“Rarely. You’re the king of the one-night stand. A dance club ho. ‘Great music, huh?’ ‘Yeah, great!’ ‘Hey, I found something for you in my pants.’”
“That’s a total exaggeration, and it’s not true anymore.” Riley tried in the past to have longer relationships, but they never worked out. Harry was absolutely darling, the two getting involved in the years that Riley lived in California, but four months of dating and he made the horrifying discovery that Harry was not only married to a woman, but he had a toddler. There hadn’t been any sign of a family, no ring on his finger or secret phone calls. Riley fell over himself in his eagerness to get away.