“Well, Degrassi takes place in Toronto. It’s not even the United States! And other shows with gay characters . . . they’re all in the city. Bell Cove isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, if you haven’t noticed. Even our brochure calls us ‘quaint’!”
Becky puts a hand on my shoulder to calm me. I didn’t realize I was getting so worked up. I lower my voice. “I mean, besides Renée, is there even another gay person in Bell Cove?”
Becky is laughing at me again. “Of course there is! Renée’s girlfriend, for one.”
“What?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen Hannah, the woman who restocks the supply room every Tuesday?”
“What?” I’ve met Hannah a couple times. She’s really friendly, about forty, pretty, with long hair she usually wears in a ponytail that reaches almost all the way down her back. She looks like one of the artists who live up in the hills and come to town to sell their sculptures to tourists in the Main Street shops. I assumed she helped out Renée for some extra cash.
“Sean Jackson, there are gay people everywhere. You just need to open your eyes!”
I finish my ice cream cone while I digest this. Is Becky right? I mean, at the Pink Cone alone, there’s me, Jay, Renée, and now Hannah. That’s like almost half the people who work there. But then why aren’t there more gay people in other parts of Bell Cove? Why not at school? I once read in one of my mom’s guidance counselor books that one in ten people may be gay. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but if that’s true, there’s a lot of people in Bell Cove who are gay but just aren’t saying it. But then why not? Why would they have to hide? Then I think about my dad. And Renée and the chamber of commerce. And I start to figure it out.
“C’mon,” I say, licking my fingers from the last of my ice cream. “Let’s go back to my place and watch another gay movie.”
“Okay, how about Beautiful Thing? Or Get Real? Have you seen those?”
I give Becky a look.
“What am I saying, of course you haven’t. Let’s go.”
By the end of the night I’ve seen two more gay movies, and Becky’s made me a list of about fifteen more I have to watch. Some I’ve heard of, like The Birdcage and Brokeback Mountain, but others like Trick and Latter Days are new to me. She says we’ll have time to watch most of them over the course of the summer. Becky also makes me go to the Advocate.com, a Web site exclusively about gay-related issues. She says it’s not smutty like a lot of gay sites, and that I should start reading articles to get up to speed on “my people.” I laugh at that. To think that I have people now.
Somehow, I feel like by the end of this summer, I might just have people. Even people right here in Bell Cove.
Chapter 11
I’m sitting on a bench by the marina waiting for Lisa’s boat to arrive. I stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts on the edge of town on my way in for a bagel, and now I’m feeding half of it to a family of ducks splashing in the water a few feet away.
It’s been two weeks since my Ice Cream Orientation, the Fourth of July is this weekend, and soon Bell Cove will be swarmed with tourists. And just like Bell Cove is about to transform from a sleepy lakeside town into a bustling summer resort, I feel like I am a completely different person.
In just two short weeks, I’ve gotten my first summer job, made a new best friend, stood up to my father, and oh, yeah . . . kissed a boy. I look around at the couples walking along the water’s edge and realize every single one of them is heterosexual. Becky assured me that gay people do exist in Bell Cove, but they sure hide well. I look down at my khaki cargo shorts, black V-neck T-shirt, and beat-up Nikes. How many of those couples would look over at me and see me as gay? I’m not exactly waving a rainbow flag. I didn’t think I was hiding, but I’m starting to realize what Becky meant when she said I “need to open my eyes. ”
“Sean!” I look up to see a delapidated outboard ski boat coasting into the marina. The thing must be thirty years old. It’s a wonder it floats. Lisa is standing, leaning on the windshield, which is cloudy with age and use. She’s waving to me.
She’s obviously been spending a lot of time outside because her already blond hair is nearly white from the sun, and her arms have turned a nutty golden brown. She looks like she should be on the cover of an outdoor magazine.
And despite this, my eyes are focused on the beautiful man standing next to her. He’s standing in order to see over the clouded windshield, and I can see his entire body as he maneuvers the boat into a slip. He’s a good five or six inches taller than Lisa, so about six two with curly brown hair and broad shoulders that have obviously seen a workout or two. He looks to be about twenty, and as my eyes drift down his body, I see that his Hawaiian shirt is unbuttoned, revealing a six-pack worthy of a Calvin Klein ad. The sun glints off a pendant around his neck.
I walk over to the boat and help Lisa out. While we tie the boat off, the curly-haired Adonis jumps up on the dock.
“Sean, this is Brad,” Lisa says as an introduction. “Brad, meet Sean, my boyfriend.” She wraps herself around my arm as if she’s afraid Brad might try to steal me from her.
Brad holds out his hand to shake, and I take it with my free hand. His grip is very strong. I can tell he works outside a lot by the rough texture of his palm. I also see that the pendant I noticed earlier is a silver cross.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, letting go of his hand. “Thanks for giving Lisa a ride.”
“No problem,” Brad says. He turns to Lisa. “I’ve got to grab some stuff at the hardware store and Pastor Ben asked me to pick up some donuts for a treat for the counselors tonight. You want to meet back here at”—he looks at an old black chronograph on his wrist—“say, four o’clock?”
“Sounds good,” Lisa says. “We’ll be here.”
We both watch Brad take off down the dock toward Main Street, and then we’re alone. Lisa looks at me expectantly, and I know what she wants. And I’m not ready to say no, so I lower my head and kiss her. I try to make it a quick peck, but apparently she’s really missed me at camp, because she won’t let me pull back.
I’ve never really minded kissing Lisa before. Even when I knew I wasn’t in love with her, the kissing was still pretty fun, but now that I know what it’s like to kiss Jay, kissing Lisa feels completely foreign. Her lips are too soft, her skin too smooth. The heat I feel when Jay presses his body up close to mine is completely nonexistent with Lisa. But she doesn’t seem to feel the same way, because this kiss doesn’t end. I have to push her away, just to get some air.
“Somebody will see,” I say by way of explanation.
“I don’t care. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, but I don’t get to go off to an island after the day is over.”
“Fine. Take me to get some ice cream.”
I do a mental calculation of the day’s schedule. Jay won’t be there until the evening, but Becky’s on the afternoon shift. If we rush now, we might be able to get ice cream without being seen. I really don’t feel like having to introduce Lisa to Becky, who has a tendency to say what she’s thinking without actually thinking. I grab Lisa’s hand and we walk up the dock. I set a brisk pace, and cross the fingers of my other hand that we don’t run into Becky.
We’re almost to the Pink Cone when I hear my name being called. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s Becky.
“Sean! Wait up!”
I put on a smile and Lisa and I turn to face Becky, who’s half jogging to catch up to us. She’s already wearing her Pink Cone T-shirt, and the sight of her big boobs bouncing up and down in bright pink is something to see. She’s out of breath when she reaches us, so I take the lead on introductions.
“Lisa, this is Becky. I told you about her on IM. And Becky, this is Lisa, my girlfriend.” I try to stress the girlfriend part in hopes that Becky will pick up on it and be tactful.
I’ve caught her off guard, and she almost blurts out something, which I am sure we both would have regretted, but manages
to cover it by bending over in a coughing fit. After a few moments, she straightens up again.
“I hate running,” she says with a half grin and a quick look at me. To Lisa she says, “So you’re the Lisa that Sean told me about. You’re a counselor at the Christian camp across the lake?”
“That’s me. I hope Sean’s only said good things.”
“Of course.” Becky punches my shoulder, hard enough that I wince. “What are you doing here?”
“I have the afternoon off, and I got a ride in with another counselor. Sean was going to take me to get an ice cream.”
“It will be my pleasure to serve,” Becky says with a deep bow. “Meet me around front.”
We’ve reached the Pink Cone and Becky heads toward the back employee entrance while Lisa and I head to the front. After a minute or two, Becky shows up at one of the windows to take our order. I tell Lisa to find us a bench over by the water while I wait for our cones. When Becky comes back with our cones, Lisa is out of earshot.
“You’re going to tell her, right?”
“I don’t know.” I puff out my cheeks in frustration. “I know I should. I know I need to, but I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Trust me, she’ll hurt a lot more if she thinks you lied to her. Even more if she thinks you cheated on her.”
I know Becky’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I’m still deciding what to do as I take the cones over to Lisa.
“Here you go.” I hand her a small cone of strawberry and sit down on the bench beside her.
“Thanks.”
We sit in silence eating our ice cream. Lisa keeps giving me mischievous sideways looks while licking her ice cream cone in obscene ways. Sometimes I forget that Lisa is a “church girl,” as Jay called her.
I smile back at her and do my best to respond to her flirtation, but my mind is somewhere else. No matter how I feel about Lisa romantically, I do think of her as a close friend. She’s easy to talk to, we share lots in common, and we have the same sense of humor. I’m as afraid of hurting Lisa as I am of losing her friendship. Before the silence gets to that awkward point, I decide to break it.
“So, how’s camp?”
“It’s amazing! The little kids are so cute. The counselors are awesome. They’re from all over New England.” She slips her hand into mine. “How’s your summer been? Do you like your job?”
“It’s cool. Becky’s fun. She’s from New York City.”
“Really? Has she seen all the Broadway shows?”
“Yeah. She says her favorite is Avenue Q but Wicked is a close second.” We listened to the soundtrack from both shows one afternoon when we were hanging out. When Becky found out I already knew all the words from Wicked, she said it was another OGT. This thought reminds me what I need to say to Lisa.
“Lisa,” I start, “I need to tell you something.”
She turns her body so that it’s facing mine on the bench and her knees are pressing into my thigh. Her eyes have this Bambi look to them, innocent and open for anything I have to tell her. Except one thing I could tell her. This thought flows through my head and pushes the words I’m about to say to the back of my throat. Instead of I’m gay, I say, “I love you.”
Even though we’ve said the “three magic words” to each other plenty of times on IM, or have written notes to each other that end with little hearts, I’ve never said it to her in person. Even on the dock when she was leaving for the whole summer, we didn’t say it. So right now, the words land on her ears like an entire Hallelujah Chorus. What have I done?
“I love you, too!” Lisa throws her arms around my shoulders, and she squeezes me so tight I can feel her necklace, a small gold chain with a cross—not that different from the one Brad wears; now why am I thinking about Brad?—pressing into my chest. “You’ve seemed so distant the last few times we’ve talked, I was worried.”
“I’ve had a lot of stuff to think about.”
“You know I’m always here to talk.”
Not about the things I want to talk about. “I know.”
She finally lets me go, and it’s like I’ve changed out her batteries for a new set. The next thing I know, I am being dragged off the bench and we are again walking hand in hand down Main Street, but at a pace that’s hard for me to keep up. Lisa swings my arm like a manic pendulum. I’m sure this is what it must look like to be in love. It’s too bad I don’t feel the way I look.
After my colossal mistake, it’s impossible to say anything to Lisa now, so instead I try to enjoy the afternoon with her, which isn’t that hard. Like I said, Lisa really is a good friend, so we have fun playing the pinball machine in the back of the Gold House, feeding the ducks with the leftover crust from our pizza, and then I introduce her to the soundtrack from Avenue Q which I downloaded on to my iPod from Becky. She loves “There’s a Fine, Fine Line,” but thinks that “The Internet Is for Porn” is obscene. I think it’s hilarious.
What we don’t do is head over to my house, because I’m afraid that Lisa will want to make out, and now that I’m dating Jay, that would feel like cheating. The irony of this is not lost on me.
Eventually, we meet back up with Brad at the marina as he’s loading some lumber and tools into the boat. The muscles in his arms ripple under the heavy load of wood; I have to stop myself from staring. Lisa kisses me on the cheek before hopping down into the boat where Brad catches her from falling. As he maneuvers the boat out of the marina, I have a crazy thought: maybe I can convince Lisa to go after Brad. Then she would forget about me, and I’ll be off the hook without ever having to tell her I’m gay.
Chapter 12
Jay walks out of the deep freezer and looks at his watch. “Ten o’clock. Hit the lights.”
“I thought you would never ask,” Becky says, flipping the switch for the exterior lights that include the OPEN sign and the gigantic pink ice cream cone that protrudes from the third story.
It’s two days after my failure with Lisa, the first day of July, and as if Mother Nature is playing a joke, it’s unseasonably cool instead of warm, so it was pretty slow all night. We only had two customers after nine o’clock: an older couple out for their evening “constitution,” as they called it, and a car full of teenagers on their way home from seeing a movie at the Odeon. We’ve been ready to close for a good half an hour.
“Let’s get out of here, guys,”Jay says.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say, grabbing my sweatshirt from a peg in the back. I follow Becky through the open door that Jay is holding for us.
I push Jay’s hands away when he musses my hair as I walk past. “Hey!”
He follows us down the back steps. “You don’t like to have your hair touched? Well, what about here?” He pushes his fingertips just below my rib cage and tickles me. He’s gentle, but his fingers send electric currents up and down my body.
“Stop! That tickles! Stop!”
“That’s the point, silly.”
“Yeah, well, how do you like it?” I try to tickle him back, but he dodges out of the way and hops gracefully on top of the stone wall that runs in front of the Cone. “Hey, not fair!” I whine, looking up to where he is perched. My head is at his knees. I hear a high-pitched beep, and Jay pulls his cell phone from his jeans pocket.
“Boys, boys,” Becky says from behind me.
I had almost forgotten that Becky was still with us, so strong is the Jay potion.
“Quiet down. It’s past Bell Cove’s bedtime, and we don’t want to wake the neighbors,” she says.
“Okay, Mom,” I whisper. “Whatever you say.”
Jay looks down at us from his perch. “Hey, my friend just texted me. We were supposed to head to Manchester, but he had to cancel. You guys want to do something? It’s not past my bedtime.” He’s wearing a zip-up hoodie and from one of the pockets, he produces a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I try not to sound too shocked.
“Filthy habit,” he says. He pulls a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth, then cups his hands around the end. When he removes his hands, the tip of the cigarette glows orange. He exhales a stream of smoke. “You smoke?” He holds the pack out to me.
“No.” He offers the pack to Becky, but she shakes her head.
“I don’t smoke much, like a pack a week. Picked it up from a guy I dated once. A couple of years ago.”
Whoa. This admission almost knocks me over. On the one hand, I’m totally thrown off by this smoking thing. My father smokes a pipe, and I always told myself growing up that I would never become a smoker like him. I hated how it made his clothes smell and his teeth all yellow. Although somehow Jay makes it look sexy, grown-up. I wonder if it feels grown-up, too. But even more significant is the way Jay casually mentions his ex-boyfriend.
Becky must be reading my mind, because suddenly her hand is on my shoulder. “People do a lot of things when they’re in love. Hey, I’m starving. You guys want to get some food?”
Jay jumps down from the wall. “Great idea. Porfido’s is still open; that’s about it for Bell Cove.”
“Pizza’s delish,” Becky says. “Lead the way.”
We pick up our pizza and head down to the marina. Jay suggests we eat on his boat, and Becky and I agree. We sit in the bow of the boat, with the pizza on the floor. Jay makes a point of sitting next to me, and keeps one hand on my thigh even while he uses his other hand to eat his pizza. It feels weird, but in a good way, to be part of such an obvious public display of affection. Lisa and I barely ever touched in public, so this is new for me.
After several minutes, Jay finally breaks the silence. “All right, what’s the plan? You two want to go out on the lake?”
“Sounds good to me,” I say. I look over at Becky, wondering if she’ll duck out like she did last time. But Becky seems against leaving me alone with Jay tonight.
“Why not? But let’s have an adventure. We need something with a little danger to it,” she says.
If I Told You So Page 7