Signs Point to Yes

by Sandy Hall

  As a kid, this exchange would have taken place in Spanish. Teo missed those days; it was like they shared a secret language back then, even though Spanish wasn’t actually a secret and millions of people all over the world spoke it.

  Not to mention that he was getting pretty rusty at the language and found it harder and harder to translate his thoughts. But he still missed that closeness with his mom.

  She took a plate of food from Buck and kissed his cheek. “This looks delicious,” she said, sitting down at the table. “Why didn’t you sleep well, Teo?” she asked.

  Again, he took a quick glance at Buck, who wasn’t paying any attention but instead was washing the pans in the sink and whistling.

  “I guess I have a lot on my mind. Thinking about college and stuff.”

  His mother nodded. “Are you narrowing down your list?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting closer. I’ll be ready to apply after I take the SATs again in October.”

  “Good boy. Are you coming with us to see Tía Marta?”

  “I promised Buck I’d mow the lawn.”

  His mom smiled and patted his hand. “Thank you. We appreciate it.”

  They finished up breakfast after that, and his mom and sisters left while Buck went into the study to pay some bills. Teo was certain he was actually updating his fantasy baseball league, but he was in no position to call Buck out on something like that today.

  Teo was still thirsty, but working out in the sun actually felt really good, like he was sweating the last of the alcohol out of his system. Buck had definitely underestimated the metabolism of a seventeen-year-old boy.

  He weighed the pros and cons of walking over to Jane’s house and seeing how she reacted to him. Maybe she’d been really drunk last night, too. Although he kind of remembered her driving home, so probably not. Which meant she would remember every humiliating moment of his literal nosedive.

  “How’s it going?” Buck asked when Teo went into the house to get more water after working for a couple of hours.

  “It’s hot as balls.”

  “Are you done?” Buck asked, ignoring Teo’s complaint.

  “Almost,” Teo said, scrolling through his phone. Ravi had e-mailed him four times in the past hour. Apparently, he really wanted to Skype with Teo immediately.

  Teo shot back a quick e-mail that he would sign on to Skype in an hour, after he finished being Buck’s landscaper.

  It had been only a little over a week since Ravi left, but Teo had no clue what they were going to talk about once they got past the initial catch-up. Maybe Ravi would have a lot to say about his grandmother’s health and his family in Sri Lanka. Teo certainly wasn’t going to bring up whatever was going on with Jane. Not only because he had no clue how to classify it—because, oh God, he had definitely tried to kiss her—but also because he wasn’t interested in another long lecture about “bros before hos.”

  Jane was not a ho.

  But Ravi was still his bro.

  It was a lot for Teo to make sense of on a good day, and he definitely wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

  Buck was nowhere to be found when Teo finished up outside. He got himself another gigantic glass of water and then went up to his room to log on to Skype.

  He sent Ravi a message to tell him he was online, and soon enough they were chatting. Usually they would text, but today Ravi wanted to video chat so he could keep playing some game on his DS.

  “So what’s up? What am I missing?” Ravi asked, not looking at Teo.

  “I went to a party at Claudia Lee’s uncle’s house last night,” Teo said, leaning back in his computer chair and yawning.

  “Yeah, I saw something about that online,” Ravi said in an offhand way that Teo could tell was actually masking jealousy.

  “It was fun.”

  “Who’d you go with?”

  “Work people. They all know her brother. That’s kind of how I got invited.”

  “Sounds better than what I did last night.”

  Teo prepared himself for the onslaught of Ravi’s “oh, woe is me” rant. Teo knew Ravi deserved to rant. A sick grandma totally gave him the right. But the problem with Ravi was that he was kind of the Boy Who Cried Woe Is Me. With him, everything tended to be dramatic and terrible, even when things weren’t really that bad.

  “What did you do?”

  “Played some kind of Sri Lankan board game with my cousins and went to bed at a reasonable hour. What time is it at home? I think I’ve totally lost touch with eastern standard time.”

  “It’s almost noon.”

  “I can’t wait to come home.”

  “When do you think that’ll be?”

  Ravi shrugged. “My grandma’s going to be fine, but it’s like now that we’re here, my mom doesn’t want to leave right away. And she wants to stay for at least two weeks after my grandma gets out of the hospital, to make sure she’s okay at home.”

  “Sucks.”

  “What’s up with you?” Ravi asked.

  “Buck is being kind of an ass about the lawn thing again. We go around in circles about it every summer. He acts like I’m always trying to get out of it, even though I’ve never once tried to.” Looking at Ravi on-screen, Teo knew his friend wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation, and Teo had no idea how to make him. He couldn’t exactly reach through the screen and punch him, like he normally would in this situation.

  “Do you want to go?” Teo asked.

  “What? No. Go on. Buck’s treating you like the landscaper again. I know how it is.”

  Teo rolled his eyes, but he still didn’t feel like he was really being heard.

  When Ravi ended the call because it was getting late in Sri Lanka, Teo idly Googled his dad’s name for a little while before going back downstairs when he heard his mom and sisters get home.

  “The yard looks really good, Teo,” Buck said while they were watching the Phillies game later that night. The girls were already in bed, and Teo’s mom was working away on her laptop in the kitchen. “You obviously worked really hard on it.”

  Teo was so taken aback that he couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Thanks, Buck,” he finally said. “I didn’t think you ever really noticed.”

  “You’re welcome,” Buck said. And then he smirked. “Maybe you should always mow the lawn hung over.”

  “I wasn’t—” Teo started to say.

  Buck held up his hand. “No judgment.”

  In what Teo considered a moment of growth, he decided to walk away before either he or Buck ruined the best conversation they’d ever had.

  Chapter 13

  Jane had spent the vast majority of Sunday morning bouncing from room to room, trying to find the best vantage point to watch Teo mow his lawn. As creepy as it was, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. He was very pretty out there in the sun, getting sweaty, taking off his shirt. He was like a guy in a deodorant commercial.

  She could only get a good look at him when he was working in the backyard, because of how the houses were laid out, but lucky for Jane, the Buchanans had a big backyard. There was plenty of work for shirtless Teo to do back there.

  Eventually he went inside, and Jane had to find some other way to pass the time. She decided to brainstorm more ideas for her Doctor Who/Veronica Mars crossover fic. It was better than infinitely obsessing over Teo’s attempt to kiss her last night.

  If only there had been a couple of witnesses around, just to confirm that it really happened. Even if the kiss hadn’t happened, Teo had definitely tried to make it happen. She had no clue how to interpret that. It was a good thing, but it left her feeling unsettled.

  Margo came into the family room while Jane was trying to figure out the inner workings of Drunk Teo’s brain. Their parents were out for the day, gone antiquing. Both of the girls were happy to have gotten out of it, even if their parents had tried to bribe them with lunch.

  “What are you doing?” Margo asked.

  “Brainstorming fan fiction.�
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  Margo laughed. “Sounds like fun. I used to read a ton of Battlestar Galactica fic. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “Oh my God,” Jane said. “I’ve never watched that show, but I can’t believe you read fan fiction!”

  “I am a woman of many secrets.”

  “So many,” Jane said, shaking her head.

  Margo smiled. “You have to solemnly swear that you’ll give Battlestar Galactica a try. It’s such an awesome show.”

  “Only if you promise to send me a link to your favorite fic.”

  Margo held up her pinkie, and Jane hooked hers onto it.

  “So you’re really not going to tell Mom and Dad about last night?” Margo asked, settling back onto the couch and not looking Jane in the eye.

  “I swear I won’t. I’m not a monster. I’m not going to out you.”

  “I know. Or maybe I don’t know. It all makes me really nervous.”

  Jane put her hands on Margo’s shoulders. “I promise it’s going to be okay.”

  “All right. But how do you know?”

  Jane shrugged, then pulled the Magic 8 Ball from between the couch cushions. “Perhaps I could interest you in a conversation with the Magic 8?”

  “Why did you have it down here with you?” Margo asked.

  “I use it to make plot decisions.”

  “What will Mom and Dad say when they find out I’m bisexual?” Margo asked the ball.

  “It doesn’t work like that, dumb ass. You have to ask only yes-or-no questions.”

  “Oh, duh. I forgot.” Margo thought for a second. “Will I be disowned when I come out?”

  Very doubtful, the ball said.

  “See,” Jane said. “That’s good news.”

  “I really don’t think the Magic 8 knows our parents, but it does actually make me feel a little bit better.”

  “It always makes me feel a little bit better.”

  “Oh! Wait right here, one second,” Margo said, running up the stairs.

  “I don’t know where else I would go,” Jane called after her. She listened to the thump-thump-thump of Margo’s feet in the second-floor hallway, and then the return trip.

  Margo came back down the stairs and thrust a file folder into Jane’s hands.

  “Mom wanted me to give you these.”

  “College brochures? I didn’t even know they still made physical college brochures.”

  “Some do, some don’t. Mom has had most of these around the house for years. She thought maybe looking at them would help you feel less overwhelmed.”

  Jane looked over at Margo. “She’s kind of grasping at straws.”

  “She says you’re a visual learner.”

  “Why didn’t she give them to me herself?”

  “I’m assuming because she thought you would take them from me without too much complaint?”

  Jane hummed and tossed the file aside.

  “What is it with you and college, anyway?”

  “Are you asking as an agent of Mom or because you’re really interested?”

  “Even if I was acting as an agent of Mom, I wouldn’t tell her the answer. Especially not now, with the possibility of mutually assured destruction.”

  Jane’s stomach twinged at that remark. “You really think I would blackmail you or something?”

  “I don’t know, Jane, I don’t know anything anymore. I’m scared, okay.”

  Jane nodded. “Well, I promise I won’t. And I’ll answer your question, but you have to answer one of mine.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Does anyone else know you’re bi?”

  “Well, Kara Maxwell,” Margo said, grinning.

  “Besides Kara Maxwell.”

  “Some of my friends at school, my roommate. But not too many people. I haven’t told any of my friends from high school because I wanted to come out to Mom and Dad first. I had this terrible image of them learning about this through some old-biddy gossiper, and I just—” Margo paused and shuddered. “I couldn’t do that to them.”

  “They’re going to be fine.”

  “Do you mind maybe being there when I come out?”

  “Seriously? Of course I’ll be there. I’ll support you. I don’t know how much help I’ll actually be. But, yeah, of course.”

  Margo smiled.

  “And now,” Jane said, tapping on her laptop with a pencil to mimic a drumroll, “the real reason I’m terrified of college is that I think I’ll fail.”

  “I don’t think I realized you were terrified of college. I don’t think Mom realizes that, either. I think she thinks you think—”

  “Oh God, how we Connellys like to complicate things,” Jane muttered.

  “She thinks you’re lazy. At least that’s what I got out of it.”

  “I’m not lazy.” Jane frowned. “Well, I am lazy, but it’s not laziness that’s keeping me from wanting to go to college. Maybe a little, but not about the work—about the getting there. The applications and the SATs. It’s all really scary. It all seems like so much effort when I don’t even know if it’ll work out.”

  Margo nodded.

  “And I have no clue what I’m going to do with my life, and I don’t want Mom and Dad to waste their money so I can get straight Cs while getting a degree in English or whatever.”

  “I mean, they don’t have to waste their money. You could go where Mom works on the cheap and live at home.”

  Jane gave her sister a withering look.

  “Right. That sounds awful. But you would still have to live at home even if you didn’t go to college.”

  “I could find a full-time job and get an apartment.”

  “Yeah, right,” Margo said, laughing. “Do you realize how much money you’re talking about there? Rent, utilities, groceries. If you left home, there’s no way Mom and Dad would still pay your cell-phone bill or your car insurance. You’d have so much money going out every month in bills you’d have to work three minimum-wage jobs just to stay afloat. It’s not really that easy, Jane.”

  Jane deflated. “I know. But is it so bad that somehow that sounds easier than college? Like, what if I can’t handle the workload?”

  “You definitely won’t be able to handle the workload of three jobs, either,” Margo said.

  “Everything is the worst.”

  “No, it’s not. There’s a plan in there somewhere. I’m sure of it. Maybe you could go to college close to home, but at a school where Mom doesn’t work.”

  “What am I even going to take classes in?”

  “Everything? Lots of people go to college undecided. Start out with a broad list. There must be something you like. Something you wouldn’t mind pursuing.”

  Jane nodded. “You make it sound easier than it is in my head.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “But it still fills me with this…” Jane paused, grasping for the right word. “Dread.”

  Margo sighed. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I just want to find another way to do this, something that sounds doable to me. Something that doesn’t make me wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.”

  “Well, you could get a roommate,” she said.

  “I could,” Jane said.

  “You could get as many roommates as you needed so you wouldn’t have to work three jobs. You’ll find a way if this is what you really want.”

  Jane was on the verge of tears. “Thanks, Margo.”

  “I didn’t mean to discourage you. I guess I don’t understand. What you’re talking about terrifies me. It terrifies most people our age. But you’re braver than the rest of us. I wanted to make sure you weren’t discarding the idea outright just because of the way Mom has presented it.”

  Jane knew that was a huge compliment, coming from her sister.

  “All right. I’ll think about it. But don’t go telling Mom I said I’d think about it.”

  “She really does want what’s best for you, even if she’s not great at showing it.”

>   “Maybe if she backed off a little, I’d be able to have some thoughts of my own.”

  Margo leaned over and gave her sister a longer-than-usual hug.

  It wasn’t until much later that night that Jane decided to at least look through the brochures. She felt better after talking to Margo, less panicked about the idea of going to college, but she still wasn’t sure if it was really for her.

  She flipped from one booklet to another, looking closely at a brochure for a small college in Virginia. She scanned the happy faces in a classroom full of students and smiled back at them. She read the caption beneath the photo: Professor Mateo Rodriguez leads a first-year writing course.

  Jane bolted upright and stared at the face of the professor. The longer she stared, the more he looked like Teo.

  Her Teo.

  Could Connie have changed the father’s name on Teo’s birth certificate and then given her son the father’s real name?

  Jane’s eyes crossed trying to figure that one out.

  She leaped over to her laptop and started searching for Mateo Rodriguez, trying to find a link between him and Consuelo Garcia.

  She’d heard of a couple of creepy sites that would show you where people lived, but she’d been hesitant to try any of them out before this. Now that she had a concrete name and a picture that bore a striking resemblance to Teo, though, she couldn’t stop herself.

  She typed in the name Mateo Rodriguez and selected Virginia as his location. There were a few hits. She looked at each one for a long time. If she wanted pictures or exact addresses, she’d have to pay, but she was learning enough with the free information.

  After some further searching, she found a Mateo Rodriguez who’d gone to high school with Connie.

  But when she went to the website for the small college in Virginia, she couldn’t find him on any of the faculty lists.

  Jane cast a wider net, searching for Mateo Rodriguez in English departments across the country. But it was getting late and she wasn’t having any luck.

  After some thought, she made a new e-mail address—something less fandom-related than allonsygeronimor123@gmail.com—and composed an e-mail message to the English department, asking if she could find out where her favorite professor was now located, if that was okay. She would really appreciate a reference from him for grad school.