by Marie Sexton
“Spit it out. Do I think what? Do I think you’re an idiot? Yes. Do I think you need a haircut? Yes. Do I think—”
“Do you think you could take me to Rock Springs on Saturday? Before the dance, I mean.”
“Sure. What for?”
“I need to get a coat.”
“Don’t you have a Sears catalog?”
Cody made himself say the words. “I can’t afford one of those. But there’s a secondhand store in Rock Springs—”
“No way, man.”
Cody winced. He’d hoped Logan wouldn’t laugh, but he hadn’t been expecting such a blatant refusal. “Okay. Sorry I asked.”
“No, I mean, no way do you need to go to that stupid store. Who knows where that shit comes from. I have at least eight coats in my closet that don’t fit me. Half of them ain’t even been worn yet. My grandma sends them all the time, but she keeps forgetting I’m not still twelve. I’ll bring you one of them, and then you can save your money for something cool.”
Cody glanced over at him. Not a bit of mockery in his eyes. Not a bit of pity, either. Just a matter-of-fact assessment of the situation. “I don’t mind paying—”
“Don’t be stupid. So, are we going or not?”
“To Rock Springs?”
“No! To homecoming.”
Cody shook his head, wondering how he’d ever gotten into such a ridiculous conversation. “Maybe.” He chewed his lip, debating. “Am I supposed to dress up or something?” Because if that was the case, he was screwed.
“Just wear your best jeans and a clean shirt.”
“You sure that’s good enough?”
“Which one of us has been to more school dances?”
“Fine.”
“Then I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.”
Cody turned back to his work, smiling down at the soapy water. “Whatever.” But as hard as he tried to act like he didn’t care, he did. He was filled with something that might almost have been happiness. “Just so you know, I don’t put out on the first date.”
“Good. Then there’s no reason to buy you a corsage.”
And just like that, Cody had a not-quite date for the dance.
If Nate thought he’d been miserable after his sexual encounter with Cody, it was nothing to how he felt after failing to feel anything with Christine.
He was different. He knew that now, without any doubt. After his mother’s betrayal, and his failed phone call to Cody, he’d locked himself in his room and debated simply climbing into his car and driving home to Austin.
It wouldn’t help. As much as he’d tried to convince himself that his shameful desire was somehow the result of Wyoming, he knew it wasn’t true. When he finally sat back and looked at it objectively, he could admit he’d never really been attracted to a girl at home, either. He’d watched other boys in the locker room on occasion. Usually, there hadn’t been anything erotic about it, but looking back, he began to take note of the times his heart had raced and his palms had grown damp at the sight of some boy undressing next to him. At the time, he’d chalked it up to nerves and self-consciousness. It had never progressed to anything more than that. But now, when Nate thought about those boys, and thought about how it might feel to touch them, he couldn’t deny the way it made him feel. In the clear, cold light of morning, he was able to admit something to himself he’d never realized before.
He was gay. Or queer. Or homosexual. He liked that term a bit better. But whatever anybody called it, the fact remained: he was far more attracted to males than to females.
And from there, it was easy to take the final leap.
He wanted Cody.
It was that simple. He was obsessed with Cody. Enamored of him. Maybe even in love with him. He fell asleep every night thinking about him, remembering how it had felt to kiss him, wondering if he’d ever have the chance to do it again. The thought of never again sharing that kind of intimacy made his heart ache.
But he didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.
Homecoming week arrived, and it seemed to be all anybody was talking about. Nate found himself avoiding Christine, as well as the Grove residents. He once again switched seats in social studies, choosing a desk in the front row on the right-hand side. He’d planted himself squarely in the middle of the Mormons, who all smiled nervously and said hello. He had classes with many of them, and they were always polite but distant.
Polite but distant suddenly felt like the greatest kindness in the world.
He heard the disturbance behind him as Cody and Logan came in. He’d bumped Logan’s entire row back a seat, which meant he’d have a harder time talking to Cody. That wasn’t why Nate had done it. He’d just wanted to get away from anybody who might talk to him about homecoming and sit in a place where he wouldn’t be tempted to stare at Cody the entire period but he figured breaking up Logan and Cody was an added bonus.
But he couldn’t bring himself to initiate contact with the object of his desire. He sat tense in his seat, listening to the quiet cadence of Cody’s voice as he talked to Logan. He secretly wished Logan would come down with a bad case of the mumps. He wasn’t even sure if the mumps were still a thing, but he didn’t care a bit. Anything that would ruin Logan’s perfect face for a few days at least, and get him away from Cody.
By Wednesday, the Mormons were talking to Nate, and inviting him to sit with them at lunch as if he were one of their own.
Nate had been vaguely aware of Mormonism back in Austin, but he’d always thought of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as an odd little cult. The people he knew talked about Mormons with the same confused contempt they used when talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses or Hare Krishnas. But in Warren, Mormons were the majority. Easily more than half the town’s residents were technically members of the church, but most of them, including Cody and his mom, were what Cody called “Jack Mormons,” meaning they belonged to the church in name only.
The ones who were true Mormons—the ones who actually followed the church’s many rules—formed their own little clique. There were four of them with him in social studies: Stacy, Lisa, Grant, and Nephi. Nate was surprised to find they weren’t anywhere near as weird as he’d been led to believe. They didn’t drink, or swear, or smoke, but other than that, they seemed to be into all the same things the other teenagers were.
That night, Nate’s dad knocked on his bedroom door. “Seven o’clock,” he said as he poked his head in. “Time to call your mom.”
Nate was at his desk, doing math homework. His heart clenched. He couldn’t meet his father’s eyes. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
His dad didn’t respond. For several seconds, there was only silence, Nate staring blindly at his math book, his dad like a statue in the doorway. Finally, his dad spoke, his voice gentle. “I talked to her on Sunday, Nate. She said you called late Saturday night. She said—”
“I don’t want to talk to her!”
“You can’t avoid her forever, son.”
Nate put his pencil to paper, biting his lip, trying to direct his attention back to limits and differentiation. Trying not to think about whoever had answered the phone at his old house in Austin.
Eventually, his dad left, closing the door behind him.
The following afternoon, Lisa tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Are you going to homecoming on Saturday?”
Nate turned in his seat, hoping she wasn’t about to ask him on a date. “I don’t think so.”
But it was Stacy who spoke next. “You can come with us, if you want.”
“Yeah,” Grant said. “It’ll be fun. The guys are meeting at Adam Sullivan’s house at five. We’ll have pizza and watch a movie or something until the girls are ready. Then we’ll all head over together.”
Nate glanced cautiously back at Cody, who was studiously ignoring him, and Logan, whose long legs were stretched out into the aisle, his cowboy boots strangely at odds with his hot-pink polo shirt. Logan was glaring at him, and Nate ave
rted his eyes quickly, remembering Logan’s threat to skin Nate alive if he fucked with Cody’s head.
Don’t worry, Logan. I’m too busy fucking with my own head, and Cody’s forgotten I exist anyway.
But despite everything—Cody and Logan, Nate’s wayward sexual desires, and his mom’s new boyfriend—Nate suddenly didn’t want to miss the dance. It was his senior year, after all, and going with a group seemed safe enough.
“Sure.” But his eyes lingered on Cody as he said it.
Not much chance of Cody being at homecoming.
He was in a good mood until he arrived home Friday afternoon and found a letter waiting for him in the mailbox. It was from Mike, and Nate stared at it for a moment, trying to decide what he felt.
On one hand, it was nice to know that Mike still thought about him enough to write a letter. On the other hand, Nate felt so detached from his old life, he almost wanted to throw the letter away unopened.
“Don’t be stupid,” he mumbled to himself. He dropped his backpack on the living room floor and took the letter upstairs before plopping down on the bed to read it.
Nate,
Hey, man. What’s up? Nobody’s heard from you since you moved to Wyoming. It must be more fun than you expected.
Our tennis team is awesome this year. Too bad you’re not here. We’re second in the division, and might even take state. I got my letter. I failed my math test because Ms. Carter is a bitch, but I was still eligible, so it’s cool.
Jason and Lisa broke up last week, right in the middle of Top Gun. They got kicked out of the movie theater and everything. It was totally embarrassing. And Tony went to homecoming with Carrie, but says he didn’t even get to first base. Have you had homecoming yet? Met any hot babes up there? According to David Lee Roth, farmer’s daughters make you feel “all right,” so at least you have that going for you, right? (And yeah, I know it was a Beach Boys song first, but David Lee Roth is way cooler.)
Speaking of cool, have you bought the Beastie Boys record yet? Check out the album cover in a mirror, if you haven’t already. They’re my new favorite band. My mom hates them, which makes it even better. You gotta fight for the right to party, know what I mean?
Guess that’s about it.
Write back soon.
Mike
Nate’s hands were shaking by the time he finished the letter. The tennis team was doing great without him, and his friends were going to movies and to homecoming and listening to music as if Nate weren’t stuck in the windiest version of Hell ever. Nate didn’t even care that Tony hadn’t made it to first base. To hell with Tony. Warren didn’t even have a movie theater. The closest Nate had gotten to Top Gun was seeing the commercials on TV. Some of the people from the Grove had driven to Casper to see it, but he hadn’t wanted to go with them, and he sure wasn’t going to go by himself. And as for the Beastie Boys . . .
Who in the world were they?
The one static-filled station he managed to pick up in Warren played country, and there wasn’t a single record store in town. I want my MTV! had been spray-painted across the side of the bowling alley, but so far, nobody had complied. Some weekends, Nate managed to stay up late and to watch Night Flight, always hoping for a few music videos, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen anybody called the Beastie Boys.
He really was in the black hole of modern civilization.
“Fuck you,” Nate said aloud to the room. He crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it toward the trash can in the corner. It bounced off the wall and landed in the middle of the room. “Fuck you, and fuck David Lee Roth too.”
The coat Logan brought Cody on homecoming night—“Better than a corsage, anyway,” Logan had said—was a bit too big, and still had the tags on it. Cody felt like a fool for taking it, but only until he put it on and walked outside into the Wyoming wind. A glance at the sky was all it took to tell him snow was coming.
To hell with pride. The coat was warm, he’d beaten the snow, and he still had all his money. Maybe now he could buy some good boots, or a pair of gloves.
“Don’t you have a truck you can drive in the winter?” Cody asked as he climbed into Logan’s Camaro.
“Hey, as long as the roads are clear, I’m sticking with this one.” He started the car and turned it around in the dirt lot that counted as Cody’s front yard. “You gonna talk to Nate tonight?”
Cody shook his head, trying not to chuckle. “Gee, I’m so anxious to discuss Nate for the eight hundredth time this week.”
“You know he’s going to be there, right?”
“How would I know that?”
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear them talking about it in social studies.”
“I don’t listen to anything he says.”
“Liar.” Cody kept his gaze averted as they drove under the train tracks and surfaced on the more respectable side of the trailer park. “Have you talked to him at all?”
Christ, Logan could be persistent. It was hard to fault him for it, but they seemed to have this conversation over and over. He was tired of talking about a relationship that only existed in Logan’s imagination. “Why would I?”
“How many times do I have to say it? He misses you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“I think he’s trying to find a way to break the silence.”
“By what? Switching desks in social studies. So what? It doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”
“There’s something else. Something I didn’t tell you before. Last week—”
“Logan, stop. I know you’re trying to help, but seriously, let it go, okay? Concentrate on your own lousy love life, and leave mine alone.”
Logan braked at the stop sign at the entrance to the park. There was nobody behind them, and they sat there for a minute. Cody didn’t look over, but he felt the weight of Logan’s gaze on him. He squirmed a bit under the scrutiny. Maybe he’d been too harsh. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe—
“Okay,” Logan said, his voice quiet. “I won’t mention it again.”
For some reason, Logan’s acquiescence didn’t feel as good as Cody had hoped. Having Logan actually drop the subject felt like giving up on Nate all over again. It felt like finally admitting defeat. But it was what he’d asked for, so Cody forced himself to say, “Thanks.” He hated the awkward silence though, so he cleared his throat and said, “How’d the game go last night?”
Logan smiled. “It was awesome. I mean, we lost, but only because our defense sucks, and I actually had a pretty good game. I was afraid knowing the scouts were there would make me nervous, and I guess it kind of did, but it seemed like a good kind of nervous. I threw for two hundred and twenty-seven yards, and rushed for one touchdown. Coach thinks I’ll hear from the university by Christmas.”
“That’s great.” He couldn’t even envy Logan his success, although he couldn’t help but wish somebody would offer him a ticket out of Warren too.
Cody felt like an idiot walking into the dance. He was sure everybody would see him and wonder why he was here, but if anybody noticed, they didn’t make a big deal out of it, and an hour later, Cody grudgingly admitted it didn’t suck nearly as much as he’d expected. It helped that Logan was there, trying to keep up a good front despite watching the girl he was crazy about rub herself all over some guy who was old enough to legally drink.
“Forget her,” Cody said, in an attempt to cheer Logan up. “Ask somebody else to dance.”
“Maybe.” Logan eyed the group of girls huddled in the corner to their right. “If you do.”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Yeah, but they don’t. Have you ever thought about trying to prove the rumors wrong?”
Cody looked up at him, trying to search Logan’s face as the red and blue lights from the dance floor flashed across it. “Are you serious?”
“Sure. Just a couple of dances, maybe take one of them on a date or something, and then all the trash tal
k might go away.”
Cody pondered that. Maybe Logan was right, but it wouldn’t change the facts. Even if he could find a girl willing to date him, how long would it take her to figure out that he had no interest in her? “I’d hate to put one of them in the position of having to tell me no.”
“What if they said yes?”
“That’d almost be worse.” Because he knew without a doubt that it’d never go further than that. He’d had plenty of time to consider the fact that girls had no effect on him whatsoever.
He was saved by Logan’s sister, Shelley, who tapped Logan on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I had an idea.” Logan turned away, stooping a bit so they were eye to eye and he could converse with her without having to yell over the music.
Cody leaned against the wall, his eyes scanning the gym. It wasn’t too bad, really. Sure, the music sucked, and Logan was his only friend, but things could’ve been worse.
Then his eyes landed on Nate and Stacy.
Yeah, Cody. It’s worse.
He’d somehow avoided looking at Nate up until this point. He’d almost even avoided thinking about him. But now, Nate was all he could see. He wanted to look away—wanted to walk outside and have a smoke, at the very least—but he couldn’t take his eyes off Nate. And then Nate and Stacy turned his way, doing that stupid little circle that apparently qualified as slow dancing at school dances, and Nate’s eyes locked on to his.
It made Cody’s stomach squirm and his heart do horrible, fluttery things. It made him want to hide, to dive deep into that quiet place inside where he didn’t have to feel anything, but at the same time, he wanted to stay right where he was, just soaking Nate in. He was scared and thrilled and utterly powerless to do anything but watch Nate.
Nate, dancing with Stacy.
Except, maybe not really. Because Cody felt sure Nate wasn’t thinking about Stacy at all. He felt sure something was happening that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Nate and Cody, as if everybody else in the gym had disappeared and they were the only two people left on earth.
