“Romance is losing track of where you are, when you are, and being so sucked in by the other person that for a moment, nothing else matters. It has to happen organically. You can’t set up a tripod, pose for a shot. And you can’t just force it every week wherever you go.”
“And you want every kiss in your life to be that?” he asks.
“Yeah. And that’s a second question I’ve answered, and you haven’t answered mine.”
“Haven’t I?”
“No. That’s three. Do you believe in romance? Like, being so caught up in someone you’re smiling involuntarily.”
He sighs. “I’ve...only ever been in love once, I think. I’m not sure though.”
I stay silent enough that he knows he needs to elaborate.
“There was this guy, Justin,” he says. “We went to the same middle school and then high school. We kissed at a house party in junior year, but that’s about it. Nothing major.
“Dad saw him working at the mall, and I’d told him about Justin. And he was like, ‘Why didn’t you ever date Justin properly?’ and I didn’t have an answer. The next day, I saw him walking down the corridor at school, holding hands with a guy and it hit me: I waited too long.”
I exhale. “That’s your love story?”
“I think so.”
“That’s bleak.”
“Sometimes they’re bleak.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, but I did once bully Hugh Mason off the debating team, and then realise months later that I had an intense crush on him.”
He stifles a laugh. “I don’t know about you, but that sounds like love to me.”
I cackle. “Right?”
He shares another story, one about a guy he met on summer camp. I reply with one about the first guy I kissed at school. Time escapes us. It isn’t until someone trips over me while looking for a place to lay her towel that I remember there are others on the beach besides us. She apologises. I tug on my spare towel and roll it into a ball.
“You can chill here,” I say.
“Really?” She doesn’t wait for me to change my mind.
I turn back to London and realise, in the commotion of being tripped over, we’ve edged closer to each other. He rests his hands on the towel.
His left pinkie finger grazes the side of my hand. It’s an accident, but he doesn’t pull away. We keep talking and I find myself squeezing his forearm for emphasis.
The world around us evaporates—the sounds of shrieks and waves and amplified playlists go quiet.
“Would you kiss a random on the beach?” London asks. His face is inches from mine. He blinks.
“If I was properly wooed, maybe.”
I take a breath. I erase the space between us. My lips meet his. We kiss.
When we come apart, he’s smiling.
* * *
REFRESH
by
Mark Oshiro
This is a very bad idea.
My text to Rosie hangs in the balance, and for a moment, I wish I could pull it back. I know what she’s going to say to me. And sure enough, the dots appear below mine and to the left, and the message comes through:
Don’t be a baby, Rodrigo. Eres un bebe, ahora? Should I get you a bottle?
Ah, Rosie. She’s so...detailed.
I’m serio. I hear there are people into that. Quieres un pañal? I can facilitate that for you.
And now I’m wishing she wasn’t so detailed.
I put my phone back down on the table and push it away from me. More texts are coming through, but I can’t look at them now. That’s a bad idea, too. It’ll just make me more nervous, and this is nerve-wracking enough as it is. What if he doesn’t show? What if he does show up, but he doesn’t like what he sees?
Maybe I should update the photo.
I grab my phone again and open up the front-facing camera. This makes me wince immediately, and I’m plunging. Plunging into those terrible, dark thoughts, the shadowy recesses I often cling to. This is not going to go how you want it to. The thought was uninvited, but familiar. You haven’t dated anyone yet, so what makes you think this is the start?
No.
No.
I take a deep breath, then adjust a few of the curls on my head. I love my hair, I tell myself. And I do! My curls are one of my best features, and I always make sure they show in all the photos I put online. Rosie knows not to post anything without consulting me first.
It had taken me over an hour to pick a photo I was pleased with before I stuck it on the app. A warm smile. My curls. The light hitting my brown eyes just right. A colorful flannel, but not too bright. It matches my brown skin so well, and makes me look dignified. Approachable. Nice.
And I love how soft I look, how my curves give my body a shape that is mine. I struggle with my body like anyone else, but having Rosie in my life has made me appreciate being a big guy. It’s who I am! And I love feeling confident about myself and my body.
That’s what other boys want?
Right?
My phone vibrates again.
I open the app.
Refresh.
Is he here yet? I’ve still got five minutes, but maybe Erwin is like me and likes getting places early. I click on his profile—saved in my favorites, of course—and look at his photo.
Tall. Close-cropped hair in a slick fade. Skin slightly darker than mine. He’s got on a tight-fitting tank top, and it’s clear why. And those lips...
Okay, Rodrigo, calm down. You’re in public, and you can’t be staring at him when he gets here. I didn’t want to be in public to do this, but Rosie wouldn’t let me link up with this guy unless I was somewhere with lots of people. So when Erwin told me he wanted to meet, I picked a coffee shop downtown.
6' 1". Love the movies. Looking for someone new...someone refreshing. Surprise me.
I could surprise him. I could be new and exciting!
I...think.
I look around the cafe, but I don’t see him or anyone who could believably be him. There’s a noisy family in the back of the store, and the mom is trying to calm down her whining child. Most everyone else has their headphones on, their heads bowed, their eyes locked on their laptops.
So he isn’t here. And I am trying not to panic, and maybe this double shot was one of many bad ideas currently occupying my life. I swipe down on my screen.
Refresh.
He isn’t online.
Oh, this is definitely a bad idea.
I open my messages again.
He’s still not here, I text Rosie. You think he’ll show up?
Those three dots.
Rodrigo.
Oh, damn. Just my name, nothing else. I can hear Rosie’s voice in my head. Why you bein’ a fool, Rodrigo? Why you asking me a question you know the answer to?
I switch over to the app.
Swipe down.
Refresh.
Still not online.
I hadn’t given Erwin my phone number. I wasn’t going to trust a stranger with that. You never know who anyone is online. But as Rosie fires off text after text to me, I wonder if this was another mistake. What if he wasn’t going to trust me because I had not trusted him with my phone number? In a burst of anxiety, I open his DMs, and this must be the thousandth time I’ve read them since this morning.
Erwin: We been talking a while.
Me: I know! Like a whole month.
E: You think it’s time?
Me: ...for what?
Me: Are you talking about meeting?
E: Of course!
E: But only if you want.
E: I was thinking of it.
E: A first step.
Me: Like on the moon?
Me: A first step for gaykind?
E: Lmao your too much.
E: But I was thinkin...
And then, of course, Mom had me come help with dinner, and I didn’t want her to see my phone blowing up with notifications, so I had left it back in my bedroom. For an hour. When I came back to my phone, much later that evening, there were only two unread messages.
E: Well, damn. I see how it is.
E: Its okay, maybe its too early to meet.
A familiar panic slipped into me. I shot off a few messages, all in rapid succession:
Me: Ah! Lo siento, Erwin, I had to go make dinner. I promise!
Me: I didn’t understand what you were referring to.
Me: I think it’s a good idea. You really want to meet me?
But there was nothing, not until this morning. I kept refreshing his profile, hoping to see that green dot come back again, but it stayed gray. He stayed inactive. And my hope evaporated. I slept terribly that night, and I woke up this morning certain that I’d just blown my shot with this beautiful guy. When would someone as attractive as him find me appealing ever again?
I rolled over. Picked up my phone.
Six unread messages.
All from Erwin.
I dreaded opening them. I switched on the lamp by my bedside and squinted as light flooded my vision. I braced myself. Took a deep breath.
Opened my phone.
Opened the app.
Swipe down.
Refresh.
And the little message count went up, and I went straight to them, and, just as I was doing now, I read them. Over. And over. And over.
E: I do. Sorry if I seemed salty earlier. Sometimes folx don’t wanna meet. They just wanna talk.
E: And I like our conversations. I feel an energy. You feel it too?
E: Maybe its just me. But maybe not.
E: Maybe we can take a chance.
E: Today. This afternoon. Let’s just be ourselves.
E: But in each others presence. You down?
This happened.
Saying it in my head helped. If he really didn’t want to see me, if there wasn’t some attraction there, then would he have sent me those messages?
No.
No one would do something like that.
I sip my coffee, which isn’t as hot anymore, and I put my phone facedown, and I tell myself that I just have to wait. I just have to believe that Erwin will show. It’s possible. It’s real. This is not a mistake.
I follow this inspirational plan of mine for the whole of a minute, and when the door to the coffee shop opens, my heart nearly thumps right out of my chest. Is it him???
A slender but older man, his beard tightly lined up around his face, slinks into the shop, letting the door shut behind him. He seems me staring, gives me one of those nods of acknowledgment, then makes his way to the counter.
This is a disaster.
When I open my phone, it goes right to his messages again, so I back out of it and—
Oh.
Oh, shit.
The icon is bright green.
He’s online.
Underneath that, it reads:
486 feet away.
It’s like every emotion I’ve ever felt is now rushing through my body, all of it a torrent that spills out. I nearly drop my phone, and I absolutely drop my coffee, which pours onto the tabletop. I stand up and scoot back my chair, which scrapes against the floor loudly, and now, everyone’s staring at me.
Great. Just what I needed.
I rush to get some napkins, and I’m cleaning up when I realize my phone is still open, still on his profile page, and I don’t even care if anyone sees it.
I glance at it.
212 feet away.
It’s a rapid procession now, one thought colliding with another as they all scramble for attention in mind.
What if he hates me?
What if he isn’t showing up at all?
What if I make a fool of myself?
I text Rosie, my comfort and my certainty:
He’s almost here omg. I’m dying
The dots appear.
Bitch!!! You’re gonna be fine. Seduce him, honey. You got
this.
The door opens.
My heart stops, I’m sure of it.
I sit up straight, put my phone to the side, give the entrance my full attention.
Three of them walk in like they’re in a group, but it’s clear in a moment that they don’t know one another. The first person is...one of the employees. They lift an apron over their head and slide it down so that it hangs from their neck. They look nothing like Erwin.
Then there’s a taller guy behind him. Young, possibly my age. And he’s thick. Not like the way some people misuse the term online, who think that having abs, pecs and a size 31 waist makes them thick. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a linebacker on my school’s football team.
His skin is a light brown, with a line of facial hair tracing his baby face, and he’s got a close-cropped fade. He’s really cute. He glances at me, then keeps walking toward the line by the counter.
Figures, I think. I don’t really get guys hitting on me in public.
So I look to the third one, who must be Erwin, and he...
...is a FedEx delivery man.
My heart drops all the way to my stomach, and I let out a rush of air. Why do I keep doing this to myself? I see more texts from Rosie, but I ignore them to open the app one last time.
0 feet away.
What?
What?
I turn back around. Did I miss him somehow? The mother and surly child are gone. But the other tables are still occupied by those deep at work on their computers. The same people. Was it the employee? I look back down at the app—
0 feet away.
—and it’s clearly not him at all. Erwin said he was Puerto Rican, and the employee is definitely white.
0 feet away.
Perhaps he is next door. Or just parked. Oh, God, does he even drive? This is Fresno. He probably has to.
And in that moment, I realize just how little I know about this guy.
His name is Erwin. He said he was Puerto Rican when we talked about being Latinx and how people thought everyone in California was from Mexico. (We’re really not.) He lives across town, closer to Clovis. And...
And...
And...what else?
What else, Rodrigo???
How did I not know more? We had talked every day, for hours and hours, and I had vague impressions of him, and he seemed cool, and—
“Rodrigo?”
I look up.
The guy is standing there.
The thick one.
The one with the thin facial hair.
The light brown skin.
The hoodie stretched over his torso.
The one who is most definitely not Erwin.
He’s lighter; still brown, but definitely the tone from the photo. His shoulders are wider, his face is round instead of long, and his head is full of bushy curls.
There is no way that this is the same guy from the profile photo.
“Uh...hi?” I say, arching my eyebrow up at him.
“It’s me,” he says, and I look down to see his hand shaking at his side.
What?
What???
No.
No, this can’t be happening.
“Who are you?” I ask, hoping I’ve misunderstood this.
“Erwin,” he says. “We’ve been talking on—”
I raise up a hand to him. “You’re joking, right?”
He sits down across from me, and when he smiles, I can see fear ripple over his face. But his smile is cute...sort of. But whose smile is this? Is this even Erwin?
“No, no jokes,” he says. “I’m just glad
that we could make this happen.”
My mouth is on the table. At least, it feels like that’s the case. “But...” The words fail me. I open my phone with my pass code, and there’s his photo, and I know right then that I am not imagining this.
I look at the photo. Study it.
I look up at this...person.
Different facial structure. Cheekbones. Different hair, different body shape. In fact, this guy looks younger than me.
They’re 100% different people. I have no doubt about that.
“I’m so lost,” I say. “This has to be a mistake.”
“It’s not.”
When he says it, he stares at me, refusing to break contact. “It’s me, Rodrigo.” He smiles again. “Making our first small step for gaykind.”
Oh my god.
It is him. “But you’re not...”
His brows crease together. They’re thick, too, and I want to admire them. But now I’m angry, my rage pulsing under my skin.
“No,” I say, “this is whack, man. Did you...did you catfish me? Did I just get catfished?”
I know I’m being loud; I know that other people are probably staring at me; I know their eyes are on the two of us. But it’s like my spirit is leaving my body, floating above the two of us, and I am observing this unfold from afar.
I’m brought back down, though, when he replies. “It’s not that bad,” he says weakly.
“You’re not the one being catfished!” I hiss.
“But it’s all still me,” he insists, and his hand is on his chest over his heart, a gesture I would probably find attractive in any other context, but right now, I hate him all over again.
“How can you say that?” I shoot back, holding up the phone, pointing it toward his face. “This is definitely not you.”
“But everything else...that’s me. I just use the photo so people will talk to me.”
My mouth drops open for the second time since he’s arrived. “What? Really?”
“No one wants a big dude,” Erwin says. “At least, not like me. So, the guys feel better talking to me if they think I look like that.”
I’m speechless. I sip at the paltry remains of my lukewarm coffee because I don’t have anything meaningful to say. Does this work? Does he meet up with guys all the time with this technique?
No.
I have to say something.
Out Now Page 8
