The closet door hung open, and through it I caught a glimpse of a rack of tennis shoes. More shoes were scattered on the floor in front of it. Emily wore only pink socks.
Peter sat Emily on her bed, and she flopped dramatically onto her back. It reminded me of the way Peter had done the same thing in his room a few minutes ago. “Why did you take your shoes off, Em?” he asked. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“I didn’t like them,” she said. “They were pushing on my toes.”
Her voice had a singsong note to it. All the words were there, but she said them differently than most people would. She put the accents in the wrong places, and I couldn’t put my finger on where. She also looked into the distance when she talked, instead of at Peter.
“So when Kelly tried to put your shoes back on?” Peter prompted.
Emily clapped her hands to her ears and rolled back and forth on the bed. “Wednesday shoes! Wednesday shoes!”
“Em, it’s okay.” Peter touched her arm with just his fingertip. “We’ll get the Thursday shoes, and everything will be fine again.”
He dashed to the closet and quickly stacked the loose shoes on the shoe rack in precise order, making sure to tuck in the laces. Then he selected a pair of bright-purple tennis shoes and took them to Emily.
“There,” he said triumphantly. “Purple shoes because Thursday is a purple day. Let’s put them on.”
Emily sat up and let Peter help her into the shoes. His motions were easy and tender. Neither of them paid the tiniest bit of attention to me. I stood near the door like a mouse trying to hide in plain sight.
“I think it’s time to draw a picture now,” Peter said. “What do you want to draw?”
Emily wandered over to a drawing table on the toes of her shoes. She opened a pad of sketch paper and a set of colored pencils and set to work. Peter seemed to notice me for the first time.
“Hey,” he said. “That’s my sister, Emily.”
I didn’t know if I should say hello to her—she was bent over her drawing and ignoring us—so I just nodded.
“She’s autistic,” Peter continued. “She can’t…. Well, there are a lot of things that upset her, so she stays in here most of the time. She loves to draw.”
“She’s good,” I said.
Emily crumpled up her drawing and flung it over her shoulder. It bounced across the floor and landed at my feet. I picked it up without thinking. Emily sharpened her pencil with a little hand sharpener and started on a new sheet of paper.
“Is she okay now?” I asked.
“She’ll be fine,” Peter replied. “Let’s go back to my room.” He raised his voice, but only a little. “I’ll see you, Em.”
Emily kept drawing. We left, and Peter clicked the door behind us. Neither of us spoke until we got back to Peter’s room.
Peter picked up a video game controller and switched on the console. Rage VII popped up. I set down the crumpled paper and took up the other controller. In a couple seconds, our battle copters were going at it.
“So now you know,” Peter finally said.
“Know what?” I fired a KR-16 at him.
“Why I don’t leave town, go to school somewhere else.” Peter dodged the missile and readied his machine guns. “Haven’t you wondered?”
I guess I hadn’t. But now that Peter had brought it up, why did he stay? He could go to school anywhere he wanted, even overseas. He wouldn’t have to worry about his parents finding out he was gay, and when he was twenty-one, he could do whatever the hell he liked. But he was going to college up the road. When I thought about it all, I guess I assumed it was because he wanted to live here, in the mansion, because… mansion.
“Uh… not really,” I admitted. “But I don’t get what you staying here has to do with Emily.”
“Some autistic people go into fits and rages,” Peter said. “No one knows why. Everyone is different. Now Emily, she has a strict schedule, and if something disrupts it even a little bit, she gets upset. Or if the weather is bad, she gets upset. Thunderstorms are a terror for her because the noise hurts her ears, and she never knows when the next thunder strike will come. Or if the food is wrong, she gets upset. And if her nurse puts out the wrong color, she gets upset. That’s what happened just now. Thursday is a day for purple shoes. The nurse must have made a mistake, but Emily never forgets.”
“What’s that got to do with you?” My helicopter took half its points in damage, and I fired back at Peter, but only halfheartedly.
“When she goes really ballistic, like she did just now, I’m the only one who can calm her down. It’s been like that ever since we were little. We don’t know why. It just is. She likes me best in the family, and people with autism don’t bother to hide stuff like that. She’s okay around Mom, but she barely tolerates Dad, even though they both love her. She’ll scream and kick herself into exhaustion if I’m not around. That’s why I’m still here.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s… rough. Are you going to stay around here forever?”
The controller jerked in Peter’s hand, and I blew up his helicopter without even trying. Peter’s voice went quiet in a way that made my heart slide down to my stomach. “I don’t know. I’ve got so much else to worry about right now. It’s just that….”
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said in that same quiet voice. “I’m trapped. I have to study what my parents want. I can’t go anywhere for long because of Emily. Now this murder thing is hanging over me. I’m never getting out of here, or if I do, it’ll be because I go to jail.”
How can you feel awful for someone who has a billion dollars, especially when you live in a trashed-out east-side trailer? But Peter’s pain was my own. I pulled his head down onto my shoulder. He resisted for a moment, then wrapped his arms around my body and clung to me like a monkey. Feeling strangely grown-up, I ran my hands through his hair and kissed the top of his head.
“Ten,” I said.
Right then the door burst open and a woman in a suit barged in.
ACT II: SCENE IV
KEVIN
“PETER FINN.” The woman strode into the room. “What happened to—”
She stopped and stared down at me. I stared up at her, my arms frozen around Peter. Peter’s muscles were locked in place against mine. His breath came fast against my shirt like a baby bird’s.
“Mom,” he whispered.
“God,” I said.
“Jesus.” Mrs. Morse whipped the door shut. The sound broke both of us free, and we yanked ourselves apart. My heart was banging against my ribs like they were iron bars. Shit, shit, shit! I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. At that moment I really wanted Dad.
“What… the hell… is this?” Mrs. Morse coasted into the sitting area like a thunderhead. Lightning cracked behind every word. She wore a navy-blue business suit, and her hair was pulled back into a schoolteacher bun. “Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?”
It took me a second to understand she was talking to me, not Peter. I scrambled to my feet, heart still pounding, while Mrs. Morse towered in front of me like the first rock of an avalanche. Peter slowly got up. Fear crushed me behind steel girders, and I became small inside. Someone else had to be outside, out there to handle this. Without thinking about it, I spun the Algy shell around me. Algy was used to handling irate relatives. He would know what to do. I straightened, put a half smile on my face, and put out my hand.
“Hello, Mrs. Morse,” I said with Algy’s confidence. “I’m Kevin Devereaux. Peter Finn and I are in the play together. It’s nice to meet you.”
Mrs. Morse ignored my hand. I shrugged and made a little gesture with it like Algy might have.
“That’s not what I asked.” Mrs. Morse’s voice was made of broken glass, and her eyes, the same green as Peter’s, drilled into me. Or tried to. The Algy shell hardened.
“Yes, it is,” I said brightly. “You asked who I was. I just told you.”
“Don’t
get smart with me,” she snapped. “What did I just see here?”
I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “Peter Finn is upset about what happened with Emily just now. I’m sure the help told you all about it.”
Mrs. Morse’s eyes went to Peter. Her mouth was tight and pale. “Peter Finn, what is this… boy doing here?”
“His name is Kevin, Mom,” Peter said quietly. “Like he told you. Like you asked.”
“I just saw you two together on the floor,” she said, “writhing like a pair of…. I can’t even say it.”
“There was no writhing,” I put in, using my Algy voice. “Writhing was right out.”
She flicked another glance over me, taking in my worn clothes, my knotted shoelaces, my bad haircut, and she visibly tried to get her control back. “We have this problem with the police, and now you’ve taken up with something out of an east-side ditch, Peter Finn. You couldn’t destroy the family faster if you tried.”
“Mom,” Peter said. “That’s not—”
That did it for me, though. The tiger roared inside me and made me feel tall. The fear girders dropped away, and the Algy shell shattered. Words shot from my mouth like hornets. “I thought the rich had good manners. Maybe you need to buy some from your son.”
“How much are you paying him, Peter Finn?” Her voice was low and dangerous, like a gun pointed at your thigh.
“Half as much as your husband pays you,” I snapped.
She slapped me. The crack rang through the room, and my entire face stung. The shock of it froze me for a second. Red anger pulsed hard, and my arm twitched. I was going to hit the bitch. Then I remembered Robbie and stepped back. I wasn’t going to do that again.
“Mom!” Peter moved between us. “What the hell are you doing?”
Two red spots glowed on her cheeks, and for a moment she looked uncertain, like she was afraid she’d gone too far. “I don’t understand—”
“I’m gay, Mom!” Peter yelled. “Kevin is my boyfriend, and he was kissing me when you walked in.”
Her face hardened again. “I won’t have that kind of talk in this house. That isn’t you. It won’t be you. Bad enough that Emily is the way she is without you making it worse. You’re a Morse, and you have responsibilities to this family.”
Peter ignored her, though I could see it cost him. He was swaying a little, like a tree that was about to topple. “You saw the truth, Mom. You’ve known the truth for years. Remember how you walked in on me and Gary Hayes?”
“You didn’t know any better.” Mrs. Morse’s tone was December sleet. “And Gary was lucky we only fired him. Your father wanted to file charges.”
“You can’t file charges for kissing, Mom,” Peter interrupted. His voice was shaking, but he didn’t stop talking. “Kevin could file charges against you for assault.”
“With what lawyer?” she sniped. “This trailer trash couldn’t buy a used cigarette.”
The tiger snarled, and red anger squeezed my stomach. My cheek was still stinging from the slap. Not even Dad hit me, and this woman, this stranger, had slapped my face. Outrage shoved the words out of me. “Wow,” I said. “Any similarity between you and a human being is purely coincidental.”
“Kev.” Peter put a hand on my shoulder, which made his mom’s face go from volcano red to snowstorm pale.
“No, seriously,” I said with false brightness that sounded a lot like Algy. “Whatever’s eating her got diarrhea.”
Her hand shot back. I lifted my chin.
“Go ahead—hit me again. I could use the money.”
Face white, she lowered her hand. “Yes.” Now she used a venomous whisper that would scare a snake. “I can see that.”
“Mom,” Peter said, “You just said I’m a Morse, and you said being a Morse means I get respect.”
“Even when it’s not earned?”
I glanced between them. There was something going on there that I wasn’t following, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“You are a Morse, Peter Finn,” she said, visibly trying to stay calm. “You will be a Morse—a proper Morse. You will get married, you will take over this company, and you will drop these adolescent experiments before this family gets hurt. Before you get hurt.”
Peter swallowed, then said firmly, “I’ll still be a gay Morse.”
“I’m your mother!” she burst out. “You don’t speak to me that way.”
“Then I won’t speak to you. Let’s go, Kev.” Peter strode for the door. I shot his mother a hard look and followed.
Peter didn’t speak all the way down to the front door, but I could see how stiff his walk was. I became more unsure by the moment. Was he going for a walk or leaving his house forever?
One of the help guys met us at the door, and I wondered how much they had overheard. Text messages were probably flying at the speed of gossip. “Shall I call Mr. Dean for you, sir?”
“Fuck no,” Peter said and stormed out.
He almost ran into another guy coming in. The man was an older version of Peter—same broad shoulders, same height, same night-black hair. Except this guy was going silver at the temples, and he had a carefully done scruffy beard. His eyes were also blue instead of green. The suit and tie he wore probably cost more than my dad had ever seen in his entire life. Peter’s father—the co-owner of Morse Plastic. That’s what Peter would look like when he got to be that age. Still handsome. Jesus.
“Peter Finn,” Mr. Morse said. “I got the message about Emily. Is everything—”
“I just told Mom I’m gay, and Kevin here is my boyfriend,” Peter said. “Mom’ll give you an earful.”
We left him standing in the doorway. Peter’s car was nowhere to be seen, but Mr. Morse’s car—a sleek black Benz with tinted windows—was at the bottom of the steps, and a driver was just climbing in.
“I’ll take it.” Peter took the keys from him. “Get in, Kev.”
I got in. Peter peeled down the driveway. In the rearview mirror, his dad stared after us.
“UH… WHERE are we going?” I asked. We had exited the Morse estate through a back gate that looked like it was used for deliveries and didn’t have any reporters guarding it, and now we were driving around Ringdale. August sunshine poured over the car like molten gold, but icy air blasted from the AC vents. Peter’s face looked carved from a glacier. We ran hot and cold.
“I don’t know,” Peter said and pulled into a strip mall. “You want some ice cream? I want ice cream.”
“Okay.”
“There should be a ball cap and a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment. Give them to me, would you?”
I did. Peter, his eyes and hair now hidden, paid for two huge salted-caramel sundaes at Jim ’n’ Joes, and we got a shady umbrella table outside. The heavy, stifling air pressed in around us. People passed us by on the sidewalk, no idea the two guys at the cast-iron table were a couple of… well, were a couple. I poked at my ice cream a little and pushed it into the sunlight. You have to let a sundae melt a while before it tastes good. Despite what I’d told Peter, I wasn’t really in the mood for ice cream, but I never got the good stuff, and I wasn’t going to screw it up just because I was in a harsh mood. Peter didn’t touch his either. The whipped cream was already sliding off the top, toward the table.
“Fuck,” he said at last.
“Yep,” I said.
“Shit,” he said.
“Damn,” I agreed.
“Balls.”
“Hell.”
“Boobs.”
I looked up. “Boobs?”
“All the other ones were taken.” A smile cracked Peter’s face. It widened into a grin, and then he was laughing. He rocked in his chair and slapped the tabletop. A blob of whipped cream dropped through the iron grill, and his cherry rolled away.
His cherry. That broke me, and I laughed too. I couldn’t help it. We sat in those uncomfortable metal chairs, snorting and laughing into our fingers while our sundaes drooped into mush and people stared as they pa
ssed.
“Oh my god.” Peter scrubbed at his streaming eyes with the heels of his hands. “I can’t believe I did that. My parents know. I’m screwed, Kev.”
“It feels good, though, doesn’t it?” I said, breathing a little hard. “Nice not to have to hide from them.”
“How would you know?” he gasped.
Oh. Right. We hadn’t had the chance to talk about it. “I told my dad yesterday. He got me drunk, and it sort of slipped out.”
“Drunk?” Peter repeated. “No fucking way.”
“Yeah. It was after the cops came over.”
The smile dropped off his face. “What cops?”
I told him about Detective Malloy’s visit and how Dad had finally made her leave. “I didn’t tell her anything except that we’re in the play together and we rehearsed lines at your house,” I finished. “She bought it. Afterward, though, we were both freaked out, and Dad let me drink some whiskey. It tasted awful, but it calmed me down so much I sort of told him about you and me.”
“How did he take it?” Peter leaned toward me. He seemed almost hungry.
“He hugged me and said it was okay.”
“Wow.” Peter’s sundae had melted into a caramel puddle. “Wish I had your dad. Mine is probably working out how to kick me out of the family forever.”
“My dad isn’t perfect.” I scooped up some melty sundae and let it play over my tongue. Salt and caramel. Meltier than I liked it but still good. “Though he’s never slapped me.”
Peter winced. “I’m sorry about that. I never saw Mom do anything like that before. It’s seriously not her.”
“What is her, then?”
“She’s….” He drifted away for a second. “She married my dad when Morse Plastic was going through a rough time. Mom is old money—really old. Rich-before-Shakespeare old. Her family saved Morse Plastic, and she’s superfocused on making sure the company survives—her and Dad both.”
The Importance of Being Kevin Page 13