by RJ Martin
“What are you doing?”
“Fourth is the highway gear.”
“This isn’t a highway.” On the chrome dashboard the tachometer needle spiked into the red. I eased in the clutch. Once into the next gear I planned to really take off. Screw them all. “I thought you liked to go fast.” I struggled not to counter steer. I let the car get too far to one side and had to cut back hard to stay on the road. If I hadn’t been driving and angry, I might have puked.
“Are you mad I kissed you?”
“You brought Angie.”
“How else was I supposed to explain being there?” There were signs on either side of the road. They each had permanently flashing lights and read: Sharp Turn—Reduce Speed. “Jonah, stop!”
I let out the clutch, and we stalled going thirty-five miles per hour. On that twisty road and with all the mixed-up energy pumping through me, we could have been doing one hundred or more. Rusty and I lurched forward and got snared by our seat belts. The car was on a diagonal across the road between the first bend in an S-turn so sharp calling it a Z would have been better. Cut into the side of the mountain, the road had no shoulder, just steep walls of rock on one side and on the other was a drop-off where you could see treetops below us.
“I was there this morning because I wanted to see you,” Rusty said once we both overcame the idea that I’d almost gotten us smeared against the side of the mountain. He put a hand on the back of my neck. “To see what’s important to you, okay?”
“It felt like you were making fun of me. There are plenty of people doing that already. You may not believe in it, but I do.”
“I was jealous.” Rusty whipped the hair out of his eyes. “I don’t want them to have you.” He should’ve said him.
“Are you gay?”
“What?” He sat back again and practically bounced on the seat. “You are just wild today, Jonah? You sure Angie and you aren’t twins?”
“Did she ask if you’re gay?”
“No.” Rusty added a little macho depth to his voice.
“I know you didn’t screw her. Not physically anyway.” I took the black box of a key out of the ignition. “What did you do?”
“Jonah, I’m not telling you about what I did or didn’t do with Angie.” He swung for the key, so I held it out the window.
“She’ll tell me if I ask her.” I leaned farther out as Rusty reached across me so our chests were touching. “As long as I have some red meat to throw back.”
He grabbed my wrist. “Like being gay?”
“Me or you?” I pulled the key in the window.
“I don’t want to make a choice, Jonah. My friends and I, we don’t decide. Girls and boys, boys and boys, girls and girls… we just have fun.”
“Then how do you meet a special, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend?”
“Keep your options open, I guess. Be open to it all, Jonah.” He tried to kiss me. I stopped him with a Heisman Sister Margo would’ve been proud of.
“Me or Angie? I mean, I think it’s great you won’t decide on your sexual orientation or that you’re bi or whatever, but I’m gay and Angie is my sister and I don’t like you enough to hurt her.”
“You do really look alike.” He grazed a finger over my cheek. “You ever try on her clothes?”
“No, I’m not into that.”
“Never?”
“I used to get jealous she got to wear a skirt to school.” I felt myself blush a little. I was still mad at him. “I wanted a kilt.”
“I put on a bunch of Jace’s stuff once when I was a little kid. She had a boyfriend I thought was cute. Her personal trainer, Ronny, was the first guy I think I ever looked at that way.” Rusty wasn’t boisterous but confessional, and I liked it. “Ronny had a thick mustache and muscles. Anyway, I liked him, so I tried to make myself look like her.”
“What happened?”
“He came to pick her up for some charity dinner or something, and I came out of my room in one of her blouses and pearls. I was wearing lipstick too, and Jace thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen and so did he.”
“It is pretty funny.”
“They laughed until I cried. Then Jace had the nanny put me to bed, and they left.” Rusty looked out the window at something but nothing out there had moved. “You like me?”
“Not enough to hurt my sister.” I hoped that worked. I felt like a volcano of thoughts and feelings was churning in my head and down there. Forget the wave; I was a spiral.
“You think it won’t bother her to know her little brother stole her man?”
“Did I?”
He tried to kiss me again. This time I didn’t stop him, but the driver of the oil truck behind us did. He flashed his lights and really lit into the horn while he squealed the brakes. Rusty and I sprang as far apart as we could and still be in the car.
With my whole body trembling, I struggled to get it in gear. Every new blare from the impatient trucker made me jump.
“I’ll do it.” Rusty climbed in front of me as I squirmed out from under. We got kind of tangled over the console and started to laugh.
“Get out of the road!” The trucker started to shout now too. “Are you kids drunk? I called the troopers!” He blasted the horn again. “I’ve got your license number!”
Rusty snapped the car into gear and eased it slowly forward. The trucker turned on his hazard lights and flashed his brights. Rusty stopped again. Without warning he grabbed me behind the neck and gave me a big open-mouthed facial assault that lasted almost five seconds. Before I could react, Rusty leaned back in his seat and started to drive again. The trucker waited now, a little shocked I bet, and we lost him pretty fast.
“That gay enough for you?”
“You still have to choose.”
Rusty answered by showing me what the car really could do. He tore up every turn or bank the road had to offer as if it were the bunny slope for an Olympic skier. I kept a tight hold on the handgrip above my seat, now appreciating and understanding why it was there. The sun started to fall, and I knew my frequency of not being home on time was getting to the drama point.
I’d gotten so used to our high-speed tour of wooded roads to nowhere I was really startled when Rusty suddenly slowed way down and made a sharp turn up a summer person’s long, gravel driveway. Shrouded by spruce trees, the stone, glass, and timber McMansion sat in the distance. The lawn lights, all four of them, came on as we made the turn into the carport out front.
“Where are we?”
“Home.” Rusty climbed out. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I meant mine.”
“You don’t like it?”
“You live here?” Fiery sunset glistened off the smooth surface of the lake and little waves lapped against the dock.
“Jace does, and I’m staying with her, so for now, yeah, I do.”
“You ever stay with your dad?”
“I don’t have a father.” Before I could ask obvious questions, Rusty explained. “Jace wanted a baby, but she was afraid if she married a poor man, he would take her money, and a rich one might fight her for me. So she stayed single and bought a turkey baster full of spunk.”
“Really?”
His eyes widened like he was about to let me know it was a joke. He didn’t, it wasn’t, and then his expression fell to a resigned normal. He even shrugged. “Now you know.”
“That’s wild.” I didn’t know what else to say. “My dad didn’t pull out fast enough. That’s how I got here.”
“I thought Catholics couldn’t do birth control.”
“Married people can, sometimes, sort of, the rhythm method?”
“That’s real?”
“If they want kids but not right at that moment.” I tried to ignore his suppressed laughter. “The church allows…. Angie was still a baby.” I realized I was babbling so I threw up my hands in surrender. “It’s confusing to explain.”
“Like being a gay priest?”
“I got
to get home.”
“No.” Rusty stepped between me and the driveway. “It’s almost ten miles from here.”
“Then drive me.”
“One hour.” His eyes lit up as he said it. “One hour and I will.”
“Where’s your mom?” I stayed by the car.
“She got bitten by a spider and went down to the city to see a specialist.”
“Did she swell up or anything?”
Rusty shook his head no and sent his long hair swaying from side to side. “Jace is batshit crazy when it comes to stuff like that.”
I thought about when I puked in front of her. That must have really made for a rough night for Rusty when they got home. Until meeting the Naylors, I’d never thought rich people had problems too.
“One hour.” He tugged both my hands as he walked backward toward the house.
“Why an hour?”
“You’ll see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I DUG around on the floor for my sweatpants. Wearing only his boxers, Rusty was not the least bit modest. His body rivaled JC’s in every way. He too had a firm, lean build with just enough muscle without being too much. His six-pack was more like an eight and his fingers grazed the short brown hairs of his happy trail. Rusty leaned forward and pulled me back on the bed. We kissed once more, and I worried if I didn’t get dressed, out of his room, that was how they’d find us someday: our lips locked and brilliant red. Our bodies, though, would be drained of all other life like a pile of entwined human kindling.
“Drive me home.” I rolled out of bed still a virgin. I think we stopped somewhere between second and third base. I hated sports metaphors, but this was the one everybody used. Shortstop, maybe; we’d reached shortstop. Rusty wanted more, I think. He didn’t push me, though, and that made me really enjoy what we did. I forced myself to look around the room rather than at him. He hadn’t grown up here so there were no posters, no trophies, no old school books or toys.
“You told Sally and Hank you were having dinner at a friend’s, right? They’re not expecting you.”
“They will be now. People up here don’t have four-course, fancy dinner parties where people talk all night. They sit, eat, and go watch TV.”
Pictures were stuck into the frame of the large antique mirror over his dresser. In one Rusty was standing on a palm tree covered beach with his hand around some girl’s waist. In another taken somewhere Gothic and European, he stood next to a buffer model-looking guy who had his arm draped over Rusty’s shoulder. There were others too, of Rusty in groups, couples, or just him alone. No face was repeated except his. Maybe it was for practicality because he had so many friends. That’s what I hoped. The other way, that he just met and moved on over and over, that sounded not so great to me. That’s kind of what priests did. They shuffled between assignments. At least they had JC.
“You getting dressed or snooping?”
“Not much here.”
“Jace hasn’t really bought this place yet. I mean it’s hers if she signs the papers, but she needs to spend all four seasons here first, she said.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Rules are different for people like Jace.”
“And you?”
“As long as she’s around.” Rusty didn’t look grateful or resentful. He had an accepting sigh he gave sometimes when Jace was the topic. I didn’t sigh about my mom. I might cringe or laugh but never sigh.
“Do you have a real room somewhere?”
“Our apartment in New York, I guess. I’ve had that one the longest.”
“Is your stuff there?”
“You mean kid stuff? No, man; Jace does a purge once in a while and we say good-bye to anything that hasn’t been out of a drawer or box in over two years. It’s in one of her books.”
“You didn’t save anything?”
“I have Mr. Watson.”
“Who’s Mr. Watson?” I sprang back on the bed. I was almost dressed, except for my sneakers, but he hadn’t moved. “Tell me.”
“My teddy bear.”
“Why did you name him that?”
“Jace had a boyfriend when I was little who didn’t think it appropriate for a child to call him by his first name. Maybe that was why I remembered him.”
“Ronny?”
“No, this guy was a lawyer, I think. He was hot too, in a Scotch ad kind of way. I already had the bear. I just renamed him.”
“Whatever happened to the live version?”
“Purged like all the rest, but who cares? I’m where I want to be, and that’s what matters.” Rusty pulled me to him by the drawstrings on my gray, NC3 hoodie. He kissed me, and in spite of the chick-flick drama my now even later arrival at home would bring, I let him. Rusty’s hands slid under the hoodie and his fingers caressed my chest. I gasped and helped him pull it back over my head.
I AMBLED down the exposed staircase, and I had to concentrate not to let my mouth fall open at how amazing the house was. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows framed the big stone fireplace and exposed chimney. The living room had two couches, soft chairs, and ottomans. Small tables had games like backgammon or chess on them. A stack of old-looking books was piled on the floor as if placed there on purpose but to look like they weren’t. The dark, gleaming dining room table had to be ten feet long, was surrounded by a dozen tall ladder-backed chairs, and had several hurricane lamps set down the middle.
I’d climbed back into my NC3 issued sweatpants but left the hoodie off because the air felt good against my skin. I’d missed my ten o’clock school-night curfew, and I was just starting to cool off. I stepped into the long white kitchen filled with shiny, stainless steel appliances, which all looked summer-person expensive and never used. I was in search of something for us to eat, my mission while Rusty took his turn in the shower. We went one by one because together we’d never leave.
“Hello, Jonah, isn’t it?” Jace sat on a stool beside the big butcher block island. Her wine glass had a globe top and the narrowest stem I’d ever seen.
“Hi.”
“Is your sister here?” she asked me, but I kind of thought she already knew the answer. I hate when people do that.
“No, ma’am,” I said. Where was Rusty? Didn’t he know he needed to save me from his mom?
“You can call me Jace.”
“I don’t think my folks would like that, but thank you.”
“Jonah, isn’t it?” She knew that answer too. “The future pope.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I’d wait until I got home to decide if that was a lie.
“Come, sit with me.” She sipped and then poured a refill from the now half empty bottle next to her.
I didn’t want to, but I had to figure out if she knew or would tell if she did. Chad would love all this intrigue. How did my life get so out of control? Not that I was complaining. Until I saw Rusty’s mom just now, I’d never felt so alive. It was like I was aware of every cell in my body, and they were all sparking at once.
“You like my son?”
“We’re friends.” I crossed my arms in front of my bare chest without trying to act like I was covering it up.
“He’s older than you.”
“Not that much.” I felt my face getting hot.
Jace nodded and sipped. “Rusty enjoys a certain freedom, perhaps so much, he doesn’t understand not everyone is so fortunate.” She sipped, waited. Her eyes stayed fixed on mine for so long, I thought maybe we were having a staring contest. “Do you want to know the secret of success?”
“Okay.” Not. I suddenly just wanted to put a shirt on and go home.
“All of us are really two people: the one we are inside and the other person we show the world. When both those people are the same, then the light inside us can shine out and we’re as brilliant as the sun.” She splayed her fingers in the air for effect. “If they’re not in sync, the light is blocked, and inside it creates a throbbing pain. When that happens the world just sees us as dull and a
little angry too.”
“And you shine your light?”
“My heroines do.” She sat back. “Mine’s gone out. Money will do that to you.”
“And Rusty?”
“My son has not seen his light yet. That’s why it’s so important to make others see it for him.”
“What about me?”
“I think you and Rusty have more in common than you realize.”
“Hello, Jace.” Rusty’s powder-blue T-shirt stuck to his still-wet skin. He looked like he had dressed in a hurry. He tossed me my hoodie, and I slipped it back over my head. “Everything okay?”
“You know it is.” Rusty’s mother seemed a little embarrassed and set down the glass as if she was done.
“I love you, Mommy.” Rusty kissed her forehead, and she squeezed the hand he put on her shoulder. “Now, I have to drive Jonah home.”
“Good night, Jonah.”
“Jace.”
Rusty nodded, impressed, and hooked an arm around my neck as we walked out. Behind us Jace began to sing. “This little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine.”
“WHAT DID you and Jace talk about?” He sounded tense and rubbed his palms on his wide-striped, wool slacks.
“Light.” I forced myself to smile. “What do you think she said?” We were parked at the end of the trail that led from the street to my house and Chad’s. Again, I’d say I was with him. Rusty leaned in and got a good look at me eye to eye. I kept smiling, and when he was convinced nothing was wrong, he kissed me.
“See ya,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else. I reached for my door handle, but Rusty controlled the lock.
“You really want to know about me?”
“Sure.” I had no intention of repeating what his mother said. I wanted to hear something from him that would make me forget it. I wanted Rusty to remind me how perfect he was and rinse away the doubt seeds Jace planted.
“Come to New York.”
“I have school.” I hated to admit it, but I was kind of a kid still, sort of. Rusty was free, his mother was right, and he didn’t understand I wasn’t. If she hadn’t said anything, would I be packing already in my mind?
