“Could we just—”
“Will you drop that stupid play already, Alex?” he shouted. “It is absolutely not on the table!”
And my face got hot and I felt ashamed of myself. “It’s not a stupid play!” I shouted back, and went up to my room. I sat crying in my room, staring at the poster image of Cinderella and her stepsisters in their ball gowns.
Tracy switched off the car in front of my house. She turned to me.
“Hey, do we want to do this? Do we want to like do this as a thing?”
I looked at her dark, flushed skin right then, at the way her hair swooped behind her ear and ended in a point at the back of her neck. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t a thing. It had already changed my life.
“Do we want to do this?” she asked again, and I realized that I’d just been staring, marveling. It seemed like every sadness I’d ever felt was behind me now, like sadness would be impossible from here on out. And this new voice of mine spoke, in a late-night bloom of joy:
“Yeah,” I said.
And I started to grin.
“Yeah,” I said again. “I think we do.”
Chapter 5
Once we were back in school, word got out quickly. Tuesday morning in English class I heard Lorie Guzman say our names in one breath, TracyandAlex. Jayson Williams came up to me after history class on Wednesday to ask if “you guys,” meaning me and Tracy, were going on the Spanish trip this year. On Thursday, Mr. Wolper-Diaz, who everyone knows keeps track of which students are dating, made it official: he smiled faintly when we picked each other as lab partners and put a little mark in his book. We sat together in all the classes we shared, and we talked as we walked together in the halls.
I decided that if I was really going to do this thing with Tracy, I should probably take her to some of the places Mabel and I used to go. Not that I needed things between me and Tracy to be like they were between me and Mabel. But I wanted to bring something to the table, if that makes sense.
Carma’s didn’t feel right, because that was just a coffee shop. But there was this place—the Lavender Ladder, it was called—where I’d gone with Mabel a couple of times to see bands. It had been a furniture store back in the seventies, and my dad says he remembers going there with his mom once to pick out a dresser. It was boarded up for a long time, but then a bunch of people turned it into an arts center and DIY venue and gallery kind of place. Most Tuesday nights Mabel went to a queer teen group they had. They were having a queer film festival, and I figured I could take Tracy.
“Wait, so what’s it called again?” she asked, when I told her my idea for our next date.
“The Lavender Ladder.”
“And it’s in Baltimore?”
“Down by Patterson Park.”
“How have I never heard of this place?”
I shrugged and said I wasn’t sure.
“And what’s happening there?”
“It’s this queer film festival,” I said, watching Tracy’s face for any flicker of a reaction.
“And what’s showing Friday?”
“Friday it’s this movie Querelle. I don’t know much about it, but I hear it’s kind of a classic.”
Tracy studied me a moment. “You think I’m a really serious person, don’t you?”
I frowned a little.
“But I actually think,” she said, “that you’re maybe a little bit more serious than I am.” And then she kissed me. “Don’t worry,” she added. “I’m excited.”
* * *
I drove us in my dad’s car through warm dusky light past the cemetery and the new hospital buildings with pedestrian walkways over the street. After a stretch of treeless blocks filled with barbershops and takeout places, we were under trees again and the low sun flashed in the front windows as we passed. Tracy was describing her life plan. She told me she would leave Baltimore for college and go straight from college to law school, ideally at Yale or Columbia. After a year or two of working for a judge somewhere, maybe New York or DC, she’d come back to Baltimore and get involved in city government. She wanted to live in Mount Vernon or Bolton Hill. As she spoke, I thought about how little time I’d spent imagining my own future.
We passed the park. The sunlight on the buildings had thickened to butter-gold. I had the window down and you could hear kids laughing and shouting and a set of speakers pouring out hip-hop. The air had its hand on my face. I’d learned my way around Baltimore with Mabel, but here, now, bringing someone new to a place she’d never heard of, I felt closer to this city than I ever had.
Tracy asked me if I thought I’d always live in Baltimore. The word always snapped me out of whatever private moment I was having, and I said I wasn’t sure. She asked what my gut told me. I said I’d always liked the sound of California. Tracy nodded and said it was important to her to give back to the place that made her who she was.
“But if you want to run away,” she said, “good riddance.”
And then she laughed.
My heart jumped. I was trying to think of a funny way to answer her, but then there was a parking spot and I had to grab it.
* * *
The Lavender Ladder was smaller than I remembered. The front room was a low-ceilinged rectangle with spotlights mounted on tracks on the ceiling, and there was a gallery show on the walls. The floors were scuffed linoleum, and there were stacks of folding chairs leaning against the wall. I bought us tickets from someone with big plastic earrings that stretched holes in their ears. The screening was through a door, in what I think had been storage. We found seats toward the front. I was nervous and talkative.
“Mabel used to come here a lot. She brought me to see bands a few times, and I always liked it.” I looked around. I wanted to be able to say something else about the place, but I didn’t know much more than that. “There’s a youth group that meets on Tuesday nights.”
“How long have you and Mabel known each other?”
“Just since freshman year.”
“Funny,” she said. “I would have figured you’d grown up together. You always seemed like you were scheming stuff. Maybe this is weird to say, but Jen used to call the two of you the Pirates.”
I blushed and was also maybe a little proud of that. “We just hung out a lot, I guess.” I was staring at the Filthy Classix of Queer Cinema program in my hand and maybe starting to regret my choice of a second date. “How about you? How long have you and Jen and Jo all known each other?”
“We went to the same middle school. Jen and Jo have been good friends since they were really little. And then the three of us started hanging out in like seventh grade.”
“Oh, so you go back a ways…”
I was going to ask Tracy what she’d been like as a kid, but someone went up to the mic and started making announcements: “Turn off your phones please, everyone. Exit the way you came in. There’s free popcorn in the back…” Then the lights went down. I wished I’d gotten us popcorn. It seemed too late now; I didn’t want to make the other people in our row get up.
The movie started—music and the first of the credits. I could tell almost immediately that it was going to be a lot. And I wasn’t sure if Tracy would like it. The story, if you could call it that, was about a bunch of sailors who all wanted to have sex with each other. They were simultaneously very repressed and very horny. The narrator kept saying cryptic things about desire. At one point I heard Tracy sigh and fold her program in half with a sharp crease down the middle. The main character, Querelle, tried to seduce someone, couldn’t, and then slit the person’s throat. At the same time, all the older men were in love with Querelle. The acting was weird and stiff and it looked like someone had painted all the backdrops in poster paint. There were literally giant stone penises built into the pier where the sailors hung out. I could feel the tension growing in Tracy’s body. She was either really uncomfortable or she hated it.
Everyone else in the room seemed to be having a great time. Someone honked with laughter like a truck ba
cking up and someone hissed Shhhhhhhhhhhhh! Querelle and his brother got into a fistfight and the man to my left with lime-green fingernails grabbed my arm and shouted, “Baby!” That made me laugh, but Tracy’s silence shut me down again. I was frustrated because I just wanted her to have a good time and I felt like she would if she just lightened up.
Something weird was starting to dawn on me. I was here on a date with Tracy, but I felt more connected to everyone else in the room—people I didn’t know—than to the person sitting beside me, the person who was apparently my girlfriend. When I thought about it that way, I started to get angry. I wanted to shake Tracy and say, They’re all having a great time. Why can’t we have a great time with them? I remembered that a few times now Tracy had pinched me or poked me like I was a weird little animal. I hated that. I actually think that you’re maybe a little bit more serious than I am. Why? Just because I was excited about an old movie?
She didn’t get me. I was an in-between kind of person after all.
* * *
It ended and the lights came on. The floor was littered with popcorn, and the recycling bins were rapidly filling with seltzer and ginger ale cans.
“All right,” Tracy said, almost under her breath, and touched my wrist. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom.”
“Okay,” I answered.
I was grinding my teeth.
Then I noticed someone by the popcorn machine. Or, I heard him before I saw him: he was laughing a high, giddy laugh. The laugh was coming out of a tall, skinny body with a round face and a shock of blue hair. He was telling a story to someone I couldn’t see, shaking his hands like he was shaking someone’s shoulders. He was curved, like a parenthesis, and he had on a short green T-shirt. Maybe my age, but confident.
He finished what he was saying and looked over my way. His face was open and expressive, like a child’s. His eyes met mine, and I saw a flicker of surprise—or interest?—as his mouth twitched into a smile. I managed to lift the corners of my lips in response.
“You ready to go?” Tracy was there at my elbow.
“Sure,” I said.
We didn’t talk much in the car.
It was 12:03 when I got back. My dad was asleep. My mom was in her pajamas, putting things away in the kitchen. She asked how the movie was, and didn’t seem to notice that I was three minutes past curfew. I said it was good. She yawned and nodded and kissed me good night.
Tracy called as I was about to brush my teeth.
“Just wanted to say good night,” she said. “And sorry for being such a grouch on the way home. I think that whole movie just put me in a mood.”
“Oh, it’s all good,” I said, keeping my voice steady. A moment passed. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just … it was weird watching that movie with you. For a while I thought you had an agenda. Like, why would Alex take me to this movie? What is he trying to tell me? It almost felt a little aggressive.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. “No…”
“And that made me kind of angry. But then I realized I was overthinking it. And you probably didn’t know much about it and thought it might be good. And then I felt less angry. And I felt bad for being so grumpy about it all.”
It was such a relief, hearing her say that, that all the good feelings I had about her came flooding back. “It’s okay,” I said.
“Am I right, then? Did you know anything about that movie going in?”
“No, I just thought it might be interesting.”
“Great. Wonderful,” she said. “I’m glad my suspicions were correct.”
The moment hung there between us.
“I had a really nice time hanging out with you, Tracy,” I told her. And it felt true, even if it meant forgetting how angry I’d been during the movie.
“Me too, Alex. Let’s do it again?”
“Definitely.”
Chapter 6
“So how was your date last night?” my dad wanted to know, once I’d made it downstairs. It was Saturday morning, and he was making omelets. I woke up to the rattle of pan against burner; I smelled garlic and onion. Now I was in the kitchen, and there were bowls and spoons and cutting boards everywhere. “Was this the same girl as last time? What was her name? How did it go?”
“It was fine,” I said.
“What’s her name?” my mom asked.
“Tracy.”
“Tracy. Tracy.” My mom was the one with the good memory. “Do we know her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t think you’ve met her.”
“Do you guys have a lot of classes together?”
“Um, some. We’ve got English together, and chemistry, and—”
“Is that how you met her?”
“No, we sort of knew each other before. We—”
“You like her?” my dad cut in.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I do.”
“Your first girlfriend, huh?” he added with a smile.
“I don’t know…”
“A part of me always thought you and Mabel would end up—”
“Peter.”
I had told my dad a thousand times that Mabel dated girls. But somehow it never stuck.
“No, and I love Mabel,” he said. “But this is great, too.”
“I just remembered.” My mom put her book and coffee down and started upstairs. “I got you these shirts.”
While she was getting the shirts, my dad gave me his advice. “Just go slow,” he said. He was scooping eggs and cheese and mushrooms onto a plate. “I know it’s all very exciting, and you’re going to want to rush into things, but that never ends well. I remember when I was your age—”
“Here, honey, I got this gray and this blue. Will you try them on and let me know what you think?”
“Let the kid eat,” my dad said.
“Of course, Peter, just—for later.”
“You like those eggs?”
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re good.”
My mom held each shirt up in turn. They were heavy cotton button-downs, one with stripes and one with a simple pattern.
She held one up for me. “Will you at least tell me if you like them?”
“Sure,” I said, with a glance, sighing in my head. “I like them.”
I always felt wrong in baggy button-downs like that, like I was walking around wrapped in big sheets of foam. But whenever my mom was at the mall, she’d buy a few on sale and bring them home. I felt too guilty to object, especially since there wasn’t anything I could say I’d rather wear. Having a mom who buys you clothes is a nice thing, right? Sometimes, though, I felt like a small dog my mom dressed up and sent out into the world.
She was still holding up the shirts, waiting for me to take a proper look. “I think they’re nice, sweetie…”
Flickers of anger started to rise from my stomach and tease at my shoulders. It was similar to the anxious anger I’d swallowed the night before with Tracy. What the hell was upsetting me?
“Yeah,” I said, “I agree. Thank you.”
Why was I being so stupid about this? If I didn’t want the dumb shirts, what did I want instead? When I asked myself that question, my brain short-circuited somehow and all the sparks and smoke turned me around and sent me back to where I’d come from, which was nowhere.
Meanwhile my dad was doing his guys are just guys thing. My dad isn’t like a dude-bro or anything, but he loves shaking my shoulder and talking about guys like us.
“He doesn’t care about the shirts,” he was saying. “He cares about his new girlfriend.”
“Oh…,” I started to say.
“I’d say that most guys care more about girls than they do about clothes. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I was ready to smash my plate and crawl under the house. Maybe my life just wasn’t mine. Maybe it belonged to them. It felt like my life would never actually be mine. My parents would keep tracking it and thinking about it and telling me what it was all about until I got old and they were
even older and one of us died.
I took a deep breath. I don’t think they had any idea I was feeling what I was feeling. My mom rolled her eyes ever so slightly and folded the shirts. My dad came around behind me and dropped his hands on my shoulders and gave me an affectionate shake.
“Our son, our son!” he said, with pride in his voice. “He’s growing up.”
* * *
The morning stretched into afternoon. It was a typical Saturday in our house. Dishes in the sink, the back door open; outside, someone raking, kids playing. Once the anger passed, I messed around on my phone for a while, watching trailers for the kinds of documentaries I liked but knew would never play in Baltimore, and then I settled down with my homework. My mom went out to do errands while my dad caught up on emails.
Tracy texted me a picture of a backyard, filled with people. She was at her uncle’s birthday party.
“I keep thinking about you,” she texted.
“Me too,” I texted back.
Every once in a while, my chest got tight with a twitch of the confusing, free-floating anger I’d felt the night before, during Querelle. Then I’d shake it off and go back to focusing on homework. And every once in a while, I thought of the boy with the blue hair.
Chapter 7
The next afternoon, after homework, Tracy and I met up in the park by Lake Roland. The birds were noisy in the last hour of sunlight, and we walked up the path away from the parking lot. Tracy said she’d been describing me to her mom.
“What did you tell her about me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I told her you were really smart and funny and attractive and that I liked you a lot.”
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