by TJ Klune
It only took a moment for the line to be picked up again, right about the time I was mumbling along that whips and chains excited me. “You still there?”
“Yes. And we need a new code, because apparently you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing with the old one!”
“I’ve had a very rough day,” he said. “Hold on. We’re in an empty office, and I need to figure out how to put you on speaker. If I hang up on you, feel free to continue bitching into the silence. It’ll save us all a good amount of time.”
The phone clicked in my ear before it took on a staticky quality. “There,” Sandy said, sounding louder. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes!”
“Hi, Corey!”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Hi, Vince.”
“What the hell is going on?” Paul asked. “Sandy made me look up stroke symptoms, and then we talked about Hot Topic, and now I want a smoothie. Do you know what smoothies do for me? Nothing. They’re pointless.”
“Please,” I said through gritted teeth. “Continue making this about you even though I’m the one who called a Code Orange Banana.”
Vince laughed. “I get the smoothie thing now. That’s fun.”
I couldn’t be mad at him. That was like being angry at the sun for shining or alcohol for existing. He made everything better.
“What’s wrong?” Sandy asked, and for the first time, he actually sounded worried. “Is everything going okay? You haven’t even been there two hours. Were kids mean to you? I swear to god, if some little shit was trying to start something, I’m going to march down there and commit a fucking felony.”
“No,” I moaned into the phone. “It’s not the kids. It’s worse.”
“Worse than teenagers?” Paul asked. “That’s impossible. There’s nothing worse than teenagers. They have memes and an underserved sense of accomplishment. There was a girl at the grocery store talking into her phone, and it sounded like she was speaking in tongues. Wig this and froyo that.”
“It’s my boss,” I said, cutting him off before he really got going. I loved Paul, but if he got going, then Sandy would too, and then neither of them would shut up.
There was a beat of silence. Then, “What about him?” Vince asked. “Is he mean? I don’t like mean bosses. I’m not a mean boss.”
Paul snorted. “That’s because all of the people who work under you wish they were actually under you.”
“Oh,” Vince said. “That… explains a lot. One of the girls asked me last week if I could show her how many push-ups I could do. I thought that was weird because we’re at work, but then a lot of people started watching, and it was fun.”
“Good Lord,” Sandy said, sounding disgusted. “We definitely need to have another sexual harassment seminar. And why the hell were we not informed so we could watch?”
“That’s my husband,” Paul snapped.
“I know that’s your husband. I was there. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to see him do push-ups while wearing a suit and tie. I mean, Jesus, Paul. I’m only human. Look at him. His nips are just so… puffy.”
“Vince! Cover your nips!”
And even though I wasn’t there, I knew Vince was doing exactly that. “My boss isn’t mean,” I said, trying to get us back on track. “He’s wonderful.”
“Oh,” Sandy said. “Then what’s the problem? You could do worse than that, you know.”
“It’s Jeremy Olsen.”
Deafening silence.
Then, “Corey?” Paul asked. “Can you repeat that again? Because the line cut out and we just want to make sure we heard you right.”
“The director,” I whispered ferociously, “of Phoenix House is Jeremy. Olsen.”
Thunderous silence.
Sandy said, “Hold please.”
More Muzak began to play. It was a version of Adele’s “Hello” which sounded like it had been arranged for a fifth-grade orchestra where every child played the recorder. I wanted to stab myself in the ears just to make it stop.
Thankfully, it didn’t last long before they returned. “Hi, baby doll,” Sandy said in a simpering voice, the one I knew that meant everyone on the other end of the line was now completely full of shit and that I should hang up before things got worse. Oh, how the tables had turned. Life was so much easier when I wasn’t the focus. “How are you?”
“Don’t,” I warned them. “Don’t even think about—”
“Can it, Ellis,” Paul snapped, playing his role with gusto. “We don’t have time for your shit.”
“Now, Paul,” Sandy said. “That’s not fair. We should sympathize with our dear friend and help him through his time of need.”
“Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “Are you doing Good Cop, Bad Cop, Corrupt Cop? But… that doesn’t make sense because I’m not in it. And if Sandy is Good Cop, and Paul is Bad Cop, that means Vince is….”
“Corrupt Cop,” Vince agreed. “I don’t really know what we’re doing, but Paul said that anyone who looks at me is automatically corrupted, so that’s cool. I don’t know if I could actually be corrupt, because that sounds rude.”
“He was hit on by a priest,” Paul said. “At Christmas Mass. Nana made us go because she said she’d found Jesus, but I swear to god she was running a grift.”
“Okay,” I said. “Don’t think we’re not coming back to that later, because what the fuck? But now’s not the time for your ridiculous games!”
“It’s no fun when you’re on the other side, is it?” Sandy asked. “Oh, I feel just terrible. I’m sorry, Corey. This was really insensitive of us.”
I was touched. “Thank you. That was very nice of you to—”
“Except it’s bullshit,” Paul bellowed. “Because we’re still going to do this!”
“Whoa,” Vince said. “I’m really starting to get into this. Paul, yell some more. Yell right in my face.”
“Oh no,” Sandy said, sounding disgusted. “They’re doing it again. They’re honeymooning.”
Ah, yes. The unfortunate side effect of our best friends getting married. Ever since they said I do, it was as if they’d been infected by a fuck virus, as everything seemed to turn the other on. Vince working out wearing nothing but his tiny shorts that left very little to the imagination? Check. Paul eating canned peaches directly from the can? Check. Vince shirtless and wearing a tool belt while fixing the gutters at their house? Check. Paul yelling after Wheels shit on the new rug that had been a wedding gift? Check. I’d walked in on them fucking more times than I cared to think about in the last few months, and I didn’t even live with them. And while the view wasn’t always… terrible, the fact that Vince liked to announce he had learned how to be a power bottom really didn’t do a lot to help the situation. Especially since he’d told me this while lying on top of me, as he was wont to do. He didn’t understand the concept of personal space, that one.
“Get out of the splash zone!” I yelled at Sandy.
“We’re fine,” Paul said roughly, and if I never had to hear what his sex voice sounded like again, I’d be just grand. “We can contain it.”
“Are you sure?” Vince asked. “Because I think we need to go count the highlighters again.”
“I really wish I didn’t know what that meant,” I muttered. “Can we please focus back on me?”
“Sorry,” Paul said. “You’re right. I must resist the call of Vince’s thighs wrapped around my neck.”
“I’m bendy,” Vince said. “Did you know we figured out I can suck my own—”
“Wow,” Sandy said. “That must be hereditary. Darren can do the same—”
“I’m going to hang up, you fuckers,” I growled at them.
“No!” they all said at the same time.
“Don’t,” Sandy said. “We’re glad you called us.”
“Seriously, Corey,” Paul said. “We’re here for you.”
“I give the best advice,” Vince said. “Everyone says so. Now, what seems to be the problem? I don’t remember what we
were talking about.”
“Professor Olsen,” I told them. “He’s here. And now he’s my boss. And he told me not to call him professor because I’m not his student anymore. He told me to call him Jeremy.”
“Oh,” Vince said. “Do you… not like his name or something?”
I groaned.
“He tries so hard,” Paul said. “I love you, Mr. Auster.”
“I love you too, Mr. Auster. Maybe I should show you how much.”
“Vince, please, we have to—”
Then, through the phone, came what sounded like a large family eating bowls of chili all at the same time.
“Well, we lost them,” Sandy said. “I… can’t even begin to describe to you what I’m seeing. I now know what narrators of nature documentaries feel like during mating season. It’s just… it’s just a sight to behold. Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo.”
“I need new friends,” I muttered.
“Nah. No one will put up with your bullshit like we do.”
I was outraged. “My bullshit? You listen to me, you mayonnaise-covered cracker, I will destroy—”
“Boss, huh?”
I sighed and banged my head against the door. “Yes.”
“That must have been a surprise.”
“You have no idea.”
“Well, what’s the problem?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear to stare at it before putting it back against my head. “I—didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Right,” Sandy said innocently. “But you’ve told us time and time again that there’s nothing between the two of you. Vehemently so, even. And since you wouldn’t lie to us about that, then what’s the big issue? Especially after all the shit you gave me about Darren and Ty about Dom, I wouldn’t imagine you’d put yourself in a position where the same could be done to you.”
“It’s—that’s—huh.” He had a point. There was absolutely nothing between Jeremy Olsen and me, and there never would be. And if I had a crush on him (if it could even be called that), it was nothing more than professional hero worship. Jeremy was brilliant. He was kind and funny and sweet, and sometimes when he laughed, he tilted his head back, flashing his teeth and—
“Baby doll?”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s just… it was surprising, I guess. Walking in here and finding out that he’s my boss.”
“Of course,” Sandy said easily. “That would be a shock for anyone. I thought one of the Super Gays was the director?”
“He was. He had to resign to go do Super Gay stuff.”
“Well, then, there you go. Because even if you were keeping things from me about how you felt about a certain nerdy and hot professor, that would be a moot point now, because he’s in a position of power over you. The dynamics are all off.”
Yeah, and that was absolutely part of the problem, but I kept that thought to myself. It seemed safer that way. “Right.”
“And since he is your boss,” Sandy continued, “and you worked so hard to get the job, and since this is technically part of your education, you wouldn’t want to do anything to screw that up.”
“Exactly.”
“Good. Then I don’t see what the problem is.”
I was relieved. “That makes sense. Thank you, Sandy.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Anything for you.” But then, “Of course….”
I dreaded hearing what he would say next, but I couldn’t help myself. “Of course…?”
“Hypothetically, if you were lying and you did have feelings for a certain nerdy and hot professor—excuse me, nerdy and hot boss—then you would need to do your best to keep that under wraps until either one or both of you has moved on from your job. And then and only then would you be able to suck on his cock until he came on your face.”
I yelped.
He ignored me. “But since that doesn’t seem to be the case, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly. “Nothing to worry about.”
He sounded amused. I hated him. “Good. Well. I’m glad we’ve had this talk. If you need anything, you call me. I’ll always be here to listen. You know that, right? For anything. All of us will.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. They might aggravate me, and every now and then we might find ourselves in ridiculous positions that tended to defy known logic, but I couldn’t ask for better friends. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve them. “Thanks, Sandy.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “And I promise to keep this between us.”
“And by that you mean you’re going to tell Darren. And Matty and Larry. And Nana. And Charlie.”
“You know me so well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a hose so I can spray these two mutts in heat. Paul, you are going to hurt yourself! Put Vince down. Bad Paul! Bad!”
I thought I heard Paul snap back through a mouthful of something before the phone disconnected.
It was then I realized I was still in a closet that smelled like feet with a shit-ton of toilet paper.
“My life,” I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ.”
I’d wasted enough time in here. Any longer and Marina (or heaven forbid, Jeremy) would come looking for me, and I didn’t want them to think I was slacking on my first day. I took a calming breath as I put my phone back in my pocket. I opened the door and—
Two teenagers were standing in the hall, staring at me.
Unfortunately, I recoiled, forgetting that when one is surprised by teenagers, one can’t show terror. They would sense it and use it to either attack or tear me down emotionally with slang that sounded like text-speak.
It took me a moment to recognize them and remember their names. Diego and… Kai? They’d been the ones sitting out in the front when I’d arrived. Up close, they looked so fucking young. And even though it hadn’t been that long since I’d been their age, it felt like a lifetime.
Diego was short, almost more so than Tyson. He was rail-thin and had the beginnings of a mustache growing on his upper lip. He wore cutoff jean shorts and a loose black tank top with a smiley face on it. He had a wallet chain that looped around to his back pocket, and I wondered if I’d ever been cool enough in my life to pull off a wallet chain. I thought not.
Up close, and now that they were actually looking at me (though it appeared to be with mild disdain), I could see Kai was… pretty…. I didn’t like to try and guess what people defined themselves as, but if I had to, I thought Kai was nonbinary. Their head was shaved to a minimal stubble, and they had their septum pierced with a small silver ring. They weren’t wearing makeup, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if they did sometimes. They wore similar cutoff jeans and a shirt that proclaimed DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY. Where Diego had flip-flops, Kai wore black boots with silver studs along the laces.
And both of them were staring at me.
“Um, hi,” I said, closing the closet door behind me. “How are you?”
“You were shouting in the closet,” Diego said, arching his pierced eyebrow. “Why were you shouting in the closet?”
“Oh. I was… practicing.”
“For?”
“You know, stuff.” That sure sounded convincing.
They didn’t look like they believed me. “What kind of stuff?” Kai asked. Their voice was soft and gravelly, deeper than I expected it to be.
I thought quickly. “Adult stuff. You’ll understand one day when you’re older.”
Kai grimaced. “That was lame.”
“So lame,” Diego echoed.
“I try,” I said. “There’s just some… things, I needed to work out. And hey! I didn’t really get a chance to introduce myself—”
“What are you?” Kai asked.
I blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Queer?” they asked, looking me up and down.
I forced myself not to fidget under their gaze. My hair was pulled back in a tight bun, the ends crinkled and sticking out. I hadn’t
tried to straighten it, happy with the way it looked. My tie was a little crooked, and my collar felt like it was choking me, but I thought I looked all right.
“Gender-fluid? Trans?”
I wasn’t used to such bluntness. I had no problem with who I was, but it was still almost shocking to hear it from someone I didn’t know. I wasn’t offended, but I was curious. “Does it matter?”
Kai shrugged nonchalantly. But there was a weird edge in their eyes that made me think it did. “Just good to know, you know?”
Diego bumped their shoulder. “Had a straight guy here once. He was nice.”
That sounded ominous. “Nice, huh?”
“He tried,” Kai said. “Didn’t quite get it.”
“At least he tried,” I said. “That doesn’t always happen.”
“So, what are you?”
They weren’t going to let this go. “Is it important to you?”
The same shrug. It isn’t, that shrug said. But it is.
When I was thirteen one of the other foster kids had gone in my room while I was out. He’d trashed a lot of my stuff simply because he could. I’d been furious because I’d had so little to begin with. Back then I was dealing with my own shit and hadn’t been able to understand the anger this other kid had been carrying. He was destructive because he didn’t know how else to be. I can see that now. But I wouldn’t have been able to do anything at the time.
He’d been gone the next week. I never found out what happened to him.
But when I came back into my room, I found the kid had thrown a heavy book against the mirror on the back of the door. The mirror was cracked down the middle, and my reflection was fractured. A little on the nose, but it’d made more sense than anything I’d ever felt before.
Fracture was a bit of a misnomer. It meant broken. I wasn’t. But there were still two halves of me, and I stood in front of that mirror for a long time. There’d been no realization like a lightning strike, no moment when I looked at my reflection and thought, yes, yes, this makes sense.
It didn’t. And it wouldn’t for a long time.
“You need a label?” I asked now, trying to get in the right headspace. Getting to know the kids at Phoenix House was important. It was why I was here. It was part of what I wanted to do. But I couldn’t seem like I was patronizing them. Kai snorted. “It’s all about labels these days. Don’t you know that?”