Love Rules

by Marilyn Reynolds

  I am hovering somewhere between sleep and wakefulness when I sense Conan’s presence.

  “You need sunscreen,” he says.

  I turn to see him smiling, holding a tube of SPF 15 lotion. He kneels beside me and begins rubbing lotion onto my shoulders and upper back, then across my lower back, inch by inch, massaging the lotion deeply into my sun warmed skin.

  “Legs, too,” he says, and squeezes lotion along my left leg, thigh to calf. His hands are warm and gentle and I get a tingling sensation in places Conan has not yet touched. I want to turn to him, hold him close, kiss him with all my might. Instead, I lie still, basking in his touch.

  When Conan has smeared every inch of my back and legs with sunscreen, he lies down beside me.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He grins. “Turn over and I’ll get the rest of you.”

  “No, your turn,” I tell him, taking the half used tube of sunscreen and starting on his back.

  He laughs his deep, rolling laugh. “Like I’m going to get sunburned?”

  “Like it feels good,” I say, rubbing lotion into his broad, walnut-brown back.

  “Ummmm. You’re right.”

  “Besides, you can get sunburned, no matter how dark you are.”

  “Whatever you say, nurse.”

  Conan closes his eyes as I continue protecting his skin, whether he thinks he needs it or not. He is absolutely still and I wonder if he is drifting off to sleep, or if he too is getting tingly in places covered by his trunks. I wonder if he wants to turn to me, and hold me, as I wanted when our situations were reversed.

  The mood is broken when Kit runs up from the shore, dripping wet, laughing, shaking herself as if she were a dog, spraying us with water. When she goes to the restroom, Conan says, “Robert wants me to set him up with Kit.”

  “He’s already asked her out, and she says no.”

  “He thinks she likes him anyway. You know, they’re always laughing about stuff at lunch. He wants her to give him a chance.”

  “Conan . . . I don’t think so.”

  “Wouldn’t it be good, though, for Kit to have someone too? Like today. She wouldn’t be like . . . a third wheel.”

  “A third wheel?”

  “I don’t mean that in a rude way . . . just, don’t you think she’d like someone special, too?”

  “Maybe. But it won’t be Robert.”

  “Well, I told him I’d see what I could do. So will you at least talk to her?”

  “Tell him not to get his hopes up.”

  Late in the afternoon, when Conan and I are out in the water, I notice Kit talking with a girl over by the vending machine. I don’t want to stereotype anyone, but this girl looks like . . . well . . . a lesbian. I watch for a moment, long enough to see them exchanging slips of paper which I assume are their telephone numbers, then I feel guilty about spying and turn my attention to the next wave, letting it carry me in.

  Back on shore, Conan and I sit leaning into one another, waves occasionally washing sand from our feet and legs. I dig into the sand where I see little air bubbles erupting. Two tiny sand crabs scramble in the palm of my hand, tickling as they try to dig in. I put them back in the damp sand and watch them scurry down­ward, to their buried safety. Conan stands and offers me a hand.

  “Another swim?”

  I dig for another handful of crabs and shake my head. Conan gives me a quick, sweet kiss on the top of my head, then rushes into the ocean, pulling with strong, powerful strokes to reach the calmness of unbreaking waves. I’m still digging for crabs and releasing them when Kit sits down beside me.

  “That girl I was talking to?” Kit says, waiting for a response.

  I nod.

  “She goes to Sojourner High—says they’ve got one of those GSA groups on their campus.”

  “Sojourner? The alternative school where all the druggies and delinquents go?”

  “Star says it’s a cool school, just with a bad rep.”

  “Who would name their kid Star?”

  “Can I get to the point here?” Kit asks. “People from Hamilton come to their meetings, and it’s not all gays, or lesbians, or bis, or trans, or whatever. It’s their straight friends, too.”

  I keep digging for crabs.

  “I thought you didn’t want anyone else to know?”

  “You don’t have to be lesbian or gay to go there.”

  “But that girl . . . Star . . . She knows, or else why would she be talking to you about it? Did you give her a secret sign or something? I’ve heard there are secret signs.”

  “She just started talking to me, said she’d noticed me around and didn’t I go to Hamilton High. That’s all.”

  Kit digs up a handful of wet sand and lets it sift slowly through her fingers, beginning a drip castle like the kind we used to make back when we were eleven and came to the beach with our moms.

  “You know how I’m not wanting to live a lie anymore?”

  “You’re not lying to anyone.”

  “Not with words. But Robert keeps asking me out and I keep turning him down. I know it hurts his feelings. He says he’s sure I like him, so why won’t I go out with him.”

  “He asked Conan to set you up with him.”

  “I wish he’d give it up.”

  “Couldn’t you go out with him, just as a friend?”

  Kit snaps her head up from the castle and gives me an angry, piercing look.

  “Don’t you get it? That would only make things worse—to be going out with a guy who likes me ‘like that,’ when I will never like a guy like that!”

  “Okay. Okay. Turn down the volume!”

  “It’s like a lie when I keep letting people assume I’m straight, when Nicole asks me if I don’t think some guy is so fine, and I just smile. It feels phony.”

  “I don’t get what’s phony about it,” I tell her.

  “Okay. It’s like . . . remember when I told you about Miss Hughes? When we were freshmen, and everybody was all ga-ga over Freddie Prinze Jr.?

  “I was totally obsessed with Miss Hughes, but all the time I let people think I was nuts over Freddie.”

  Pause.

  “I felt like a liar then, and I feel like a liar now, whenever I let someone assume I could like some guy. Get it?”

  Another pause.

  “I guess there’s another lie you’ve been living, too,” I say.

  Kit looks at me, all puzzled.

  “You let me believe we told each other everything. I spilled my guts to you, and I thought you told me your innermost feelings. Spirit sisters and all that. But you never said anything about Miss Hughes, or any of the rest of it.”

  Kit sighs.

  “I was afraid to tell you. I knew it was weird, and I didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

  We go back to building our sand castle, adding more steeples around the edges. Kit’s strong, dark hands drip sand on the tops. Her face is set. It must have been lonely for her to keep a whole heartload of thoughts secret. If I’d been her—honestly? I probably would have kept secrets, too.

  “I don’t think you’re weird,” I tell her.

  Her face softens. She looks up and smiles.

  “Thanks,” she says. “I don’t think you’re weird, either.”

  Long after our castle has been washed away, Conan joins us. Three in a row, we watch as the giant orange sun slowly descends below the horizon. Light fades, leaving a rich pink glow over the distant inky blue sea. I listen to the eternal coming and going of waves breaking against the shore. I wish I could express what I feel right now, that the earth is ongoing. That in spite of pollution, the forces of nature will prevail. That life is good, and friends are precious, and that it all has to do with love, one way or another—loving our planet, and each other, and ourselves.

  The tide slowly washes in, pushing us gradually back. We settle at a safe distance, sensing the movement of the darkening sea. Catalina is hidden from view. The moon casts a reflection on now black waters.

&nb
sp; Kit starts singing a song we learned for a choir skit last year.

  “Blue moon, you saw me standing alone . . .’’

  I join in with the alto part. Conan, although he’s not in choir, knows the song from somewhere.

  “. . . without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own . . .”

  The song is lonely at first, then ends with lovers finding one another, and the moon turns from blue to gold. Very weak, I’ve always thought. Tonight though, the song, along with the accom­panying sound of the steady, ongoing ebb and flow of the sea, fills me with a sense of harmony. Kit and Conan must feel it, too.

  We are silent after the song, until Conan says, “I want every day to be like this one.”

  Kit and I nod in agreement, then, reluctantly, pack stuff up for the long ride home.

  CHAPTER

  8

  It’s like there’s this “everything’s in harmony” beach glow that carries us through the week. Kit’s dad read an article about how computer use in high school raises IQ levels, so he’s quit checking her computer screen.

  Mom says she’s glad we had a good time at the beach, no problem that I drove there without first clearing it with her.

  Conan and Sean and I give our PC report on drug de-criminalization, and it goes really well.

  Friday night it’s Kit’s turn to stay at my house. We rent “Dog Day Afternoon,” just because it has the required word in the title. It turns out to be a really great movie, with a bunch of Academy Awards. It’s a weird story, though, about this bisexual guy who robs a bank to get money for another guy’s sex change. Okay. So I’m not explaining it very well, but it really is a great movie. After it’s over, Kit and I talk for hours, about how tortured people can be when the world thinks of them as one way, say, as a man, and they think of themselves in an opposite way, as a woman.

  “Like Leonard/Leona,” I say.

  “Except I think she’s only Leona now. I don’t think she wants

  to be identified as Leonard anymore.”

  “Well . . . it’s hard for me not to think she’s still both.”

  “Work on it,” Kit says.

  I’m already in bed when I hear the hum of my computer and see that Kit is bringing up her e-mail. She’s got messages from churlygirl and sadchck and a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of.

  “Come look at this.” she says.

  “Do I have to?” I whine.

  She laughs. “Don’t be such a slug.”

  I get up and stand behind her, looking down at the screen. She points to a message from strgrl.

  “This is Star, the girl I met at the beach.”

  It’s an invitation to a GSA leadership training class tomor­row at Sojourner High School, for gay, lesbian, bi, trans, questioning, straight youth who want to start or strengthen GSA groups on their campuses.

  “What’s this bi and trans stuff?”

  “You know—like they talked about in PC. Transgender, like Leona, and bi—can go either way.”

  Kit sounds like she’s talking about something as simple as different hairstyles. I don’t exactly see it that way.

  She opens a message from churlygirl: “Hope to see you at Sojourner on Saturday. It’ll be cool!”

  “Go with me,” Kit says.

  “I told Conan I’d meet him at the mall.”

  “What time?”

  “Around four.”

  “So??? This thing is over at one.”

  “Well . . . I told Mom I’d help do stuff around the house, too.”

  “Why don’t you just say you don’t want to go?” Kit asks, turning back to the computer screen. I go back to bed.

  The truth is. I’m not sure if I want to go or not. I want to be supportive and all, but mostly I want to do it without being involved. As soon as I think that—be supportive without being involved—I know what a stupid idea it is. I mean, how can you not be involved, if you’re going to be supportive.

  “I’ll go,” I say.

  “Forget it. I don’t need any favors,” Kit says angrily.

  I get up and go to the bathroom, brushing and flossing one more time. What’s with her anyway? When I go back to my room, she’s answering the e-mail. Neither of us says anything until after she turns off the computer and gets into bed. We lie in the dark, with plenty of distance between us.

  “I don’t want to have to beg for your support,” Kit says.

  “And I don’t want to have to go places where I’m uncomfort­able, just to please you.”

  After about a thousand inhale/exhales in the quiet night, I tell Kit, “I’m going tomorrow. Because I want to.”

  “If it’s awful we’ll leave,” she promises.

  The meeting’s not exactly awful, but it sure is an experience unlike anything I’ve ever had before. As soon as we walk into the Sojourner media center, it feels like I’m in a foreign country. I want to turn around and walk right back out the door. Kit’s already talking with Star. She wouldn’t notice me leaving. I turn to go, but this person, Leaf, hands me a sign-in sheet and starts talking to me.

  “Is this your first meeting here?” Leaf asks, arching a pierced eyebrow complete with a small silver hoop.

  I nod. Leaf is wearing cargo shorts and a bright red and yellow Hawaiian shirt. I can’t tell if this person is a girl or a boy. Very full lips, and a rather dainty demeanor, with a slightly husky but melodic voice. Maybe it shouldn’t make any difference, whether I can identify Leaf by his/her sex or not. But I keep trying to figure it out. I realize I’m staring. I walk away from the door, to the other side of the room, where I practically bump into Frankie Sanchez.

  “Hey,” he says, giving me a surprised look. “There’s a bunch

  of sodas over there in the cooler. Can I get one for you?”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Maybe a Sprite, or 7-Up?”

  “Come with me, and see what you want.”

  Frankie and I walk back across the room to get sodas. Just as I bend down to check out the choices, Leaf comes over. Now that I’m eye level with Leafs way hairy legs, I know he’s a guy. If it weren’t for those legs, though, I’d never have figured it out.

  Kit leads Star over to us.

  “This is Lynn, my best friend,” she says. “Lynn, this is Star.”

  “Hi,” I say, smiling.

  She nods, then turns her attention back to Kit.

  “Come on,” she says, pulling Kit away. “I want you to see this cool display.”

  Kit lets herself be drawn to the other side of the room, and here I am with Frankie and Leaf, not knowing what to say. I’m eyeing the door again when I hear a familiar voice asking that everyone take a seat on one of the chairs in the circle. It’s Mrs. Saunders, Emmy, the librarian I told you about a while back.

  “Lynn! Nice to see you here.”

  “Where’s Rosie this morning?” I say, walking over closer to where Emmy’s standing.

  “She’s home with my husband . . . It’s so sweet. She loves having a dad who pays attention to her.”

  I guess I look puzzled because Emmy adds, “Rosie’s biologi­cal father doesn’t come around very often.”

  “I know how that goes,” I say.

  Frankie waves at Emmy. “We should probably start soon.”

  “You’re right,” Emmy says, again asking that everyone take a seat. Slowly, people find places in the circle of chairs. There are about twenty people I guess. Nora Thomsen and Caitlin Ratchford are here, also from choir. I don’t know them very well. They’re juniors and they hardly talk to anyone except each other, and sometimes Frankie.

  Really, it’s weird, but I’ve never even heard Caitlin’s voice, except for when she’s singing. Whenever I say hi, Caitlin smiles, and Nora says hi back.

  Kit comes over and sits next to me, with Star practically glued to her other side.

  Frankie introduces himself as the president of the Sojourner GSA, then introduces Emmy as the advisor from Hamilton High, and Guy Reyes as the advisor from Sojourner. He
asks that we review the dos and don’ts of participation in the group. Frankie mentions confidentiality, and someone else talks about no put-downs.

  Really, the rules for this group are the same as in peer communications, except they include not introducing ourselves by sexual orientation. That was the first thing I planned to say in my introduction. I’m here as a friend, not a. . .What would I have said? Not as a homo? Not as a lesbian? I’m here as a normal person? Lucky for me, there’s a plan for what we say when we introduce ourselves. It’s called an “ice-breaker.” All I can think is that an ice-breaker would have been good equipment for the Titanic. Maybe this ice-breaker will help me get rid of the sinking feeling that lives inside me right now.

  Okay. This is the ice-breaker. We say our names and what we had to eat for dinner last night. Some of the dinners sound so funny that before we’re halfway around the circle, everyone’s laughing uproariously. It starts with Leaf’s catsup and butter sandwich on whole wheat bread, and gains with a girl’s Rice Krispies Treats with peanut butter and jelly. Then there’s a string of vegetarians with gardenburgers and sprouts. The girls from choir, Nora and Caitlin, were part of the gardenburger set. That’s according to Nora, who spoke for them both.

  Next, people describe big batches of greasy fries, onion rings, fried zucchini. Cokes and chips. Killer foods, if you believe the American Heart Association.

  By the time it gets to us, pizza and soda sounds like a health food meal. Here’s the thing though. Because we all laughed together, we’re no longer strangers. Even Leaf, who I think it’s safe to say nearly everyone thinks is weird when they first meet him, seems like one of the group, not like a weirdo.

  Frankie and Star lead the next exercise. Frankie introduces it as “Change Seats” but Star calls it “Move Your Ass.” I’m sur­prised Emmy doesn’t correct Star’s language. I guess it’s differ­ent than during actual school. In the library if anybody uses “ass” in front of Emmy, they’d better be talking about a donkey.

  The game is kind of like musical chairs, without the music. Chairs are removed from the circle until there are exactly enough chairs for everyone, minus one. It starts out simple—move your ass if you have a driver’s license. About half the room, including me and Kit, get out of our chairs and race to find another. Frankie’s left standing. Which means he has to come up with the next statement.