Ask the Passengers

by A. S. King

  When we reach our favorite picnic area, I spread the blanket out and lie on my back. “I’m not sure where to start. I mean, first, you have to promise everything stays between us.”

  “Duh.”

  “No. I mean it. This has to stay between us,” I say. “Even if we break up or hate each other one day or whatever,” I say.

  “Break up? Are we in a relationship?”

  I put my middle finger up so she can see it. “Promise.”

  “I promise,” she says.

  “Okay. First I want you to go out with me next Saturday night.”

  “Uh, with or without Jeff Garnet?”

  “Without. We’d be going after that date.” I use air quotes again.

  “That’s called two-timing where I come from,” she says. But she’s smiling, so I know she isn’t mad anymore. “Hold up. Did you say after? Like—how late?”

  “From about eleven to two thirty?”

  “That’s late.” She stops and realizes and love-smacks me on the arm. “Hey! Is that why you’re so tired today?”

  “I would call this exhausted,” I say. “Thanks to Atlantis.”

  She turns her head to look at me and makes me turn my head, too. “Are you kidding me? You went to Atlantis?” Then she looks concerned. “By yourself?”

  “With friends.”

  “Now you have gay friends?”

  “Actually, a long time before I met you,” I say.

  “You’re full of surprises,” she says. “Do I know them?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “And?”

  “And here’s the thing you have to never tell anyone. You still promise?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Between us?”

  “Oh, my God, just tell me.”

  I take a deep breath. “Kristina and Justin.”

  She totally doesn’t get it. Blank stare.

  I say, “Kristina and Donna and Justin and Chad.”

  “Who the hell is Chad?”

  “Chad is Justin Lampley’s boyfriend.”

  She sits up and stares at me. “You mean Kristina Houck? Your friend?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow,” she says. I watch a plane fly west above me—just a small sparkle in the sky. I send my love to it just for a second because I feel guilty leaving all those people up there all alone.

  “But I hear all these rumors about those two!” she goes on. “How she’s into all sorts of weird stuff. Last week I heard she likes to bark when she does it.”

  I raise my hand. “Guilty. She made me spread that one. All I had to do was tell Shelly Anne, and my work was done. Shelly Anne has a three-district-wide spread.”

  She says, “Jessie always says she’s like the hometown girl over there.” She takes another minute to grasp it. “People would freak out if they knew this, wouldn’t they?”

  “True. So? Saturday? Will you come?”

  “Isn’t your curfew midnight or something?”

  “That’s where Jeff comes in.” I roll my eyes. “Apparently, my mother takes the word of a boy she’s never met when it comes to important things like extending my curfew. Jeff says we’re going to a midnight movie, and Mom says, Fine, be home by two thirty, and there’s your answer to the Jeff question.”

  “Yeah, but Jessie told me that he’s really into you.”

  “He is really into me.” I make the gag face. “But Kristina promised him liquor, and so when we go out, he covers for me. Sadly, this means I have to endure another date with him next weekend. But it’s a double date with Kristina and Justin, and it’s the last time, so it’ll be totally okay. Then I get to go to Atlantis with you, right?” I take her hand in mine and watch another airplane enter my field of vision from the east. “So, I could cover for you if you want. I mean, we can say we’re all going to the movies together or something.”

  It’s a big jet—probably a 747. I want to ask the passengers if they can see us lying here holding hands. I want to ask them if we look happy.

  “My mom is pretty cool about stuff like that,” she says. “So, what you said earlier. About breaking up. You never answered me.”

  “What?”

  “Are we in a relationship?”

  I ask the passengers: Are we in a relationship?

  “Yes. I think we are,” I say. “But it’s a secret.”

  “I know,” she says.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she says.

  I ask the passengers: Why am I still sorry?

  “It doesn’t seem very fair to you. I mean, I wish there were other places we could meet and hang out,” I say.

  She rolls herself to the space above me. “How about here? And now?”

  When Dee kisses me, the taste of her is enough to make me die right here on the spot. I don’t care if some mountain biker zooms through on the path. I don’t care about anything. Not Zeno or Socrates. Not motion or truth. When Dee kisses me, I am alive. I am moving. I am the truth.

  19

  THIS IS NOT POLITE DINNER CONVERSATION.

  AT DINNER MONDAY NIGHT, Ellis is a complete douche.

  “So it turns out the whole front line is like a dyke picnic,” she says. “I thought it was just Kelly and Kira, but now I hear it’s Michelle and Gabby, too.”

  Mom says, “Ellis, that’s ridiculous.”

  “I know, right? Jesus! It’s, like, spreading.”

  Mom says. “You’ve been hanging around these small brains for too long.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Dad just eats. I can’t believe no one else can smell the pot wafting from his core. At this point, I think we could scrape off his epidermis and smoke it for a buzz.

  Ellis laughs. “How about lesbian luncheon? Is that better?”

  “No,” Mom says.

  “Uh, gay garden part—”

  “Stop it,” Mom says. “Don’t be so small-minded.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Mom reaches over and rubs Ellis’s forearm. “I think you need a Mommy and Me night.”

  Oh. Of course she does. Because nothing spells parental discipline for homophobic slurs like dressing up fancy and underage drinking at some faraway country club where larger minds are present.

  “I’m running with Jess this week,” Ellis says.

  “Come on. One night away from running won’t kill you.”

  “I’ll go,” I say, seemingly out of control of my own mouth. Why did I just say that?

  “I think I can do Thursday,” Ellis says.

  “Great,” Mom answers. “We’ll go Thursday.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this. Her hand is still on Ellis’s arm. This was like a private conversation they had. My offer to go along stayed in another dimension.

  Dinner conversation drifts, and Dad mentions his stapler and how he now uses Diane’s (the alleged thief) every time he needs to staple something. No one responds to him, either, as if he’s in the same dimension I am.

  “I made dessert!” Mom says as I’m clearing the table. “I had too many eggs, so I tossed together a bread pudding.”

  “Oh,” we all say, because the Joneses don’t eat dessert unless it’s a holiday. We all sit back down, and she serves us each a bowl of warmed bread pudding with ice cream.

  When she sits down, she turns to me. “How’d your date go on Saturday night? Kristina said it was a lot of fun.”

  “It was.”

  “Fun fun, or just fun?”

  I think back to Saturday. I look forward to this Saturday. “Just fun, but with the possibility of becoming more fun,” I say.

  “You should go out more often. You know, you can see Jeff on Friday nights, too, if this is getting hot and heavy,” she says.

  Bleh.

  “I want to know if it gets hot and heavy before it gets hot and heavy,” Dad says. “It’s my right as a father. Plus, I’ll have to sit him down and give him the talk.”

  “It’s not getting hot and heavy,” I say. “And who says that
anymore?”

  Ellis says, “Hot and heavy. Hot and heavy. Hot and heavy.”

  “Shut up,” I say. She sticks her ice cream–covered tongue out at me.

  “You have the rest of your life for that stuff anyway,” Dad says.

  “Gerry, you know nothing about teenagers,” Mom says. She turns back to me. “Unlike your father, I know everyone is doing it. You don’t have to talk about it, but just promise me you’ll be safe.” Oh, my God. I need an invisibility pill right now. I need the ring from Frodo Baggins. Precious! Where is the ring?

  “Can’t we go back to talking about the lesbian luncheon or whatever?” I say while I get up and leave my half-eaten dessert in the sink. I am suddenly paralyzed by the truth. I have no control over my life. Now that I’ve made worlds collide, I’m in less control than I ever was before.

  Thursday night when I get home, Ellis and Mom are already getting dolled up for their Mommy and Me night, and Ellis is in the red dress that is too low cut for a sixteen-year-old.

  “I love it!” Mom says.

  I close my bedroom door and read more Plato. Today’s humanities class was the day I was waiting for. Penny Uppergrove, the über-valedictorian who has a photographic memory, finally freaked out. She drives Ms. Steck crazy. But what’s the answer? How can any of us pass a test if you don’t give us answers?

  Today she shouted, “I give up! How am I supposed to study anything if there are no answers?” Then she burst into loud, obnoxious tears. It ended with two of the Zeno-lovers talking her down in the back of the room along with Ms. Steck promising that the class wouldn’t hurt her GPA.

  I hear Mom and Ellis clip-clop their way down the steps after sufficient makeup application and jewelry adornment.

  “I say we make Thursday the new Friday,” I hear Mom say to her on the way out the door. “Who needs school?”

  And for sure, Ellis doesn’t go to school on Friday. Neither does Penny Uppergrove. But her father comes to see the principal, which is the talk of sixth-period lunch.

  They say: That Ms. Steck is letting the kids run her class.

  They say: What kind of class doesn’t have tests? Is this where our tax money goes?

  We start our unit on the Allegory of the Cave. It’s a part in Plato’s Republic where he wrote a dialogue between his brother Glaucon and his teacher, Socrates. The short version: People chained in a cave are only able to see a wall. The wall has shadows cast from a fire they can’t see. They guess at what the shadows are. Their entire reality becomes these shadows.

  Clay has read it before. Of course. Knows all about the Allegory of the Cave. “The only life these prisoners know is the sounds and shadows of the cave. Imagine living like that!” he says. “Or maybe we are living like that, right?”

  Ms. Steck stops him before he can spoil the rest. Apparently there is more excitement to come for the prisoners in the cave. For now, all we have to worry about is a three-hundred-word essay from the point of view of one of these prisoners exploring the realm of belief versus the realm of knowledge.

  Which, if you think about it, is a really funny subject to explore around Unity Valley.

  20

  CONFESSIONS OF A DANCING QUEEN.

  COMPARED TO LAST SATURDAY, work is a breeze. I am sent into the freezer to do inventory for the second big job next week. I see Dee a few times—out in the kitchen from a distance. She smiles at me and I get that feeling again, like the first time she smiled at me at the hockey game.

  Before we leave the parking lot, she says, “I’m really stoked for tonight.”

  “Me too.” I reach for her, but she pulls away a little—like she’s trying to make me want her more by keeping her distance all morning.

  She fiddles with the zipper on her sweatshirt, then looks up and has a weird expression on her face. “What’s it like, Jones? I mean—what should I wear?”

  She’s clearly nervous. I smile and say, “Whatever you wear will be perfect. You’re beautiful. You’d look good in anything.”

  “You really think I’m beautiful?”

  “Would you rather I said you’re hot? Sexy? Hot and sexy?”

  “Beautiful works.”

  “Good. Wear whatever you dance in. You do dance, right?”

  “I dance.”

  “Good. Then tonight will be our first dance. I can’t wait,” I say. Only when I hear it come out of my mouth do I remember that I am a robot.

  “Have fun on your date,” she says, which reminds me I have to see Jeff and lie to him for a few hours before I go to Atlantis. “I want a full report.”

  “See you in the parking lot at eleven?”

  She nods. No kiss good-bye. We just keep staring at each other and grinning.

  The Legion Diner is particularly busy tonight, so we go early for once. Justin, Kristina and I wait for Jeff to show up, and we talk.

  “I really can’t string him along like this anymore. Everyone knows he’s really into me, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I mean, he’s an okay guy. I hate lying to him.”

  “You didn’t hate lying to us,” Kristina says.

  God. I wish she could just pick a side and stay there for a minute.

  “Meow,” Justin says. He winks at me.

  Then Jeff walks in, so we can’t have the rest of the discussion.

  Here are the stats from dinner:

  LEG SQUEEZES: 21

  COMPLIMENTS ON HOW I LOOK, WHISPERED TOO CLOSE TO MY EAR: 6

  USES OF THE TERM BRO WHEN CONVERSING WITH JUSTIN: 13

  ASS PINCHES (WHEN I GOT UP TO GO TO THE LADIES’ ROOM): 2

  FRANK SOCRATES SIGHTINGS: 0

  MINUTES I FELT GUILTY FOR LYING: approximately all 110 of them

  Dee is waiting in the bar parking lot when we arrive in Justin’s car at 10:56. We are eager. I see the lights of a passing plane above me. You’d be eager, too, I tell it.

  I hop into Dee’s car and jump on her like a lonely dog after a day at home alone. This is probably the most forward I’ve ever been with her, and while I’m doing it, I try to figure out why. I think it has something to do with Jeff Garnet.

  She slips her hands into the waistband of my jeans, onto my hips. I kiss her as if we are not in a parking lot surrounded by a bunch of other people. Someone raps on the window.

  “Break it up, lovebirds. Let’s go!”

  Though Dee knows Kristina and Justin vaguely, I introduce them as if they have never met before. And oddly, they interact as if this is the case. I sense a respect toward Dee. She’s out. We aren’t.

  Getting through the door only causes me minor heart palpitations this time. Jim the bouncer seems to recognize us from last week, and he takes our five-dollar bills and stacks them atop the other five-dollar bills in his little cashbox.

  Dee stays close, and I hold her hand as I lead her from the back of the bar to the border of the dance floor.

  “Is it always this loud?” Dee screams into my ear.

  I hold up two fingers and say, “I’ve only been here twice, but yeah. I think so.”

  She nods.

  We’re both dancing in place—just a little. Dee’s arms are wrapped around me from behind like a blanket, and I feel myself relax. After a half hour of watching other people dance, Donna asks me if I want something to drink, and before I can ask for a bottle of water, Dee orders us two hard lemonades and hands Donna ten bucks.

  Donna brings the bottles, and Dee takes them both and hands one to me and holds hers up to toast. The music is a particularly loud techno song, and she has to nearly scream, “To us!”

  I clink. I drink. It’s not half bad. Tastes like lemonade.

  A half hour later I am feeling really loose. And happy. Loose and happy. I know this has something to do with the hard lemonade. As I look around the bar, I see people smiling at me. One of them is Biker Lady with her whistle. She waves, and Dee asks me if I know her.

  “Kinda.” I wave back and blow a kiss, which makes her point at me and blow her whistle.

&
nbsp; I’m dancing like I am not a not-dancing robot. I don’t know what’s happened. Suddenly, I can dance as if I’ve done it a million times before. Like I am a dancing queen. Dee is right here, rubbing up against me. We are two parts of the same animal. People are hooting. We’re on fire. Every time Dee gets her face near mine, we kiss. Right there on the dance floor. After the song is over, we stand to the side and I gulp water and she gulps more lemonade and she has her hand in the back pocket of my jeans. It’s as if someone has taken the real Astrid Jones and replaced her with one who is okay with intimacy in public places. It’s like I’m the anti-Astrid.

  “You two are hot,” someone says. When my ears hear it, it’s fuzzy.

  Biker Lady is doing her bar circles with her whistle, and she stops once to grind with the two of us. It’s not as naughty as it seems. It’s not real grinding. We’re just being funny.

  And I am pretty sure I’m gay.

  I mean, not just by default because I am in love with Dee, but I feel like these people are my people or something.

  By the time the bartender calls for last call and the lights flicker, I’m too tired to dance anymore. I’m still soaked, but I’m no longer tipsy. The same can’t be said for Dee.

  “I’m going to drive you home in your car,” I say. “Then I can meet up with everybody at the Superfine parking lot.”

  “I’m fine,” she slurs.

  I take her keys—proof that her reaction time is lame. “I’m finer.”

  In the bar parking lot, Kristina and Donna fall into Donna’s car for a few minutes, and Justin and Chad are in Justin’s car. We agree we can leave in five minutes after some alone time.

  Dee looks at her watch. “Shit, man. We have to be at work in three hours.”

  I kiss her on her neck. “Totally worth it.”

  “True.” She kisses me sloppily and it makes my insides twist up and we make out for a few minutes and everything is going great until she jams her hand into my pants and I have to stop her from going too far because I don’t want to go that far.

  She slaps the car seat and says, “Dammit, Jones! Just shit or get off the pot!”

  I decide Dee is now fine to drive home.