by Gene Gant
She held it out to me. It had been printed off a computer at 9:41 p.m. last night, according to the date line at the top of the page. The picture showed a blonde-haired girl around Jill’s age. She looked like a victim of famine. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes round and ghostly, her skin drawn over her bones. The large, left-leaning words at the bottom were barely legible, an obvious attempt to disguise the author’s handwriting. But you could make out the message anyway.
Jill, this is your life.
It made my head burn. I ripped it apart, wadded the pieces into a ball, and shoved it into my pocket.
Jill was in retreat mode. Her face was blank, and she didn’t react at all to my burst of anger. Sitting beside me, she twisted the cap off a bottle of water and said, “Where’s Chain?”
“He went in to get a ham biscuit from the cafeteria.” I wanted to reassure her, tell her everything was going to be okay. But she would have tuned out the words, and I didn’t believe them myself.
Jill sipped her water. “My dad’s bringing Andy home tonight. It’s his birthday tomorrow. He’ll be with us for the weekend.”
Andrew was Jill’s twenty-year-old brother. He went off to college in Oregon two years ago and had some kind of mental breakdown. Jill never talked about his condition. For months, I thought the breakdown was from drug abuse, until Jill’s younger brother, Edgar, told me it was schizophrenia. Andrew never recovered enough to be on his own again. He lived in a group home somewhere in Memphis.
“Really?” I replied. “That’s good. You guys planning a big blowout for him?”
“No, Andy likes things quiet. It’ll just be Dad, Andy, Eddie, and me. I’m making pineapple upside-down cake. It’s Andy’s favorite.” Her eyes brightened and she smiled. “Believe it or not, Eddie is making macaroni and cheese for the birthday dinner, and not the kind in the box, either. He’s taking a cooking class at school. Can you believe it? He always has these recipes he wants to try out on us. I told him if he keeps it up, he’s gonna have me looking like a pig again.”
“Well. What do you think of Eddie’s cooking?”
“Oh, it’s delicious. Almost as good as my mom’s was.”
I was having a bad morning. Mom had barely said two words to me at breakfast. I felt tired from having stayed up until midnight to finish homework. And listening to Jill delude herself wasn’t making things any better. I started to get up. “I think I’m gonna go in.”
“Wait.” She grabbed my forearm. Her face was very pale, but her eyes, as they bored into me, were lively. “You’ve got that look you get when you’re upset. Did you have a fight with your mom or your dad?”
“My mom. Sort of.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Well, come take a walk around the block with me.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s, like, twelve minutes ’til first bell,” I protested.
She stood up, tugging at my arm. “We can make it if we walk very fast. Come on, it’ll make you feel better.”
It seemed like a bad idea to me, since it would probably make us late for homeroom, but Jill was suddenly so psyched up and raring to go that I didn’t want to turn her down. We made the circuit in something less than ten minutes, because Jill had us jogging the entire way. We got back to the front entrance, where Chain stood at the top of the steps, waiting. He scowled down at Jill and me as if we’d both lost our minds.
“Wooo-hooo!” Jill gasped, out of breath, her face clammy. “That was good. Got the blood pumping.” She squeezed my shoulder, a big happy grin on her face, and then pulled the bottle of water from her blazer pocket. “See you later, Kyle. Hey, Chain.”
Jill ran up the steps and hurried past Chain into the building. Mounting the steps in her wake, I was going to comment on her wild mood swing, but Chain was giving me a look as if I’d set fire to his mother’s favorite pantaloons—while she was wearing them. “What’s your problem?” I asked him.
“Kyle, I swear,” he said as he turned to go back into the building, “sometimes you are such an idiot.”
TY WAS waiting for me outside my Geometry class. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I returned, leaning back against the lockers next to him. “What’s up?”
Ty was all remorse and embarrassment standing there, even before he spoke another word. “Sorry about my dad. I heard he got to you yesterday, sent you running for your life.”
I crooked a smile at him. “Nah. It was nothing, man.”
“He means well. Things just don’t always come out the way he means them to. He’s sorry, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Reece had apologized the second I called him last night. He seemed genuinely worried about me, which had gotten me feeling very warm all over again. I made a brushing motion with my hand, as though sweeping something aside. “Anyway, it’s over. I’m trying not to think about it again.”
Ty reached up and pulled his backpack off his shoulder. “Dad asked me to give you this.” He opened the backpack and pulled out a book on competitive swimming, which he handed over to me.
“Hey, great.” I flipped through the book, pausing at the section of photographs depicting various swim strokes. The center of my chest seemed to grow warmer. “Tell him I said thanks.”
“I will.” He hefted his pack onto his shoulder again. “I talked to Dwight last night. He’s wondering when you’re gonna call him.”
I hadn’t even thought about the guy since his number went into my phone. “Well, I’ve been kind of distracted. But I’ll get around to calling him.”
“Make it soon, for my sake, okay? He’s bugging the crap out of me.”
“How do you know this guy, anyway?”
“Dwight and I met in grief counseling last year.”
“Grief counseling?”
“Yeah. He had lost his mom, and I was having a hard time dealing with my uncle’s death.”
“Your uncle?” I could feel myself getting uneasy. It was always difficult for me to be around people who’d had a death in their family because I had no idea what I was supposed to say or do. When Jill’s mom died, I avoided her for an entire week, even though she sent text messages saying how much she needed to be with me.
“Yeah, my dad’s brother, Willie. He had this birth defect in his aorta that nobody knew about. He was a lot more spontaneous than my dad. Uncle Willie and I were goofing around with each other one day, like we always did, and his aorta blew. I thought I caused it when I was tussling with him. The doctor said he was gone before he hit the floor.”
“Damn, man. I’m sorry that happened.”
Ty nodded, looking surprisingly at ease. “Anyway, Dwight and I had different therapists, but they decided to do this group session together at a wilderness camp. I wound up in a canoe paddling down the river with Dwight. He had guilt issues about his mom’s death, like I had about my uncle’s death, and we kind of bonded over that. He’s a nice guy, man. The two of you could be good together.”
“Maybe….”
“Hey, you never know. Just give it a shot. Call him.” He punched me in the shoulder. “Better run, don’t want to be late for English.” He rolled his eyes, which reflected his enthusiasm. “Catch ya later.”
Ty rushed down the hall, disappearing into the crowd of kids moving along the corridor. I looked at the competitive swimming book again, rubbing my thumb over a sticky little smudge on the front cover where the price sticker or some label had once been. The book was already precious to me because it had come from Reece. Holding the book snugly against my side, I drifted into my Geometry class.
Six
I DIDN’T want to risk running into Mom or Reece that afternoon, so instead of checking in at home first, I sent Mom a text message and walked straight over to Dad’s place from school. Music was playing in the town house when I arrived, old school, up-tempo R&B from the seventies. It wasn’t shake-the-roof-off loud, but I could hear it as I walked up with my key in hand.
Not wanting any
surprises, I knocked instead of using the key. If I saw my dad and Stephanie mauling each other again, my poor little psyche would be scarred for life. And heaven help me if I caught them even further along than last time. Just the idea of Mom or Dad having sex made me itch. But to actually see it? God, it would take years of shock treatments to burn the image out of my brain.
The music went down a notch after I knocked. The door opened. Stephanie looked out, her eyes widening with surprise when she saw me. “Kyle, hi,” she said, smiling warmly. “Come on in.”
“Hey, Stephanie.” I walked past her into the living room. Dad hadn’t bought a whole lot of furniture, even though he had been here an entire year, and the place had a spare, airy feel to it. Stephanie thought that was some chic decorating choice on his part, but I knew better.
“I thought you wouldn’t be here until later,” Stephanie said, her tone apologetic. She closed the door and crossed the room to the entertainment center, where she’d plugged her MP3 player into Dad’s sound system. “The landlord started painting my apartment this morning, so your dad invited me to spend the day here. But I know this is the start of your father-son time, so I’ll leave when your dad—”
“It’s okay, Stephanie. You don’t have to run off.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I like having you around.”
Her smile brightened. “You’re so sweet. Thank you.”
I smiled back and started to go to my room. “Hey, Steph.”
“Yes?”
“Are you gonna marry my dad?”
“I don’t know. That depends on your dad. He’s my heart, but he says right now marriage is a bad taste in his mouth.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I was reluctant to ask what was really on my mind. I didn’t want to make Stephanie uncomfortable, and her answer could change the way I felt about her. But this had been nagging at me for months, and I had to know. “Can I ask you something really personal?”
She was scrolling through the songs on her MP3 player. She answered without hesitation. “Sure.”
“Did you know my dad was married when you… when you slept with him the first time?”
Stephanie turned her full attention to me. She searched my face, and there was regret in her eyes. “No, I didn’t. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and I didn’t ask. I just assumed he was single. Which, in retrospect, was dumb on my part. I trust too much, sometimes. I didn’t find out about your mom until three months later, around the same time she found out about me. That’s when your dad moved out.”
“So when you found out about my mom, how’d that make you feel toward my dad?”
“It hurt, and it made me angry. I don’t like being lied to, and I don’t like hurting other people, even people I don’t personally know. I cut your dad out of my life. I told myself that I was through with him. But by that time, I was half in love with him, and… well, it took a long time, but I forgave him.”
Okay, so she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d knowingly take another woman’s husband home with her. And she didn’t just let Dad off the hook. More importantly, she’d shared her feelings with me, something Mom would have never done. She didn’t treat me like some kid too stupid to understand anything. “Thanks. I appreciate you telling me that. It means a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m gonna go get out of this clown suit.” I hauled my backpack to my room. There I peeled off my uniform, tossing slacks, blazer, shirt, and loafers into a heap on the floor of the closet. I knew I should go ahead and clean up my mess left from last weekend, but I was too bummed out for that right now. Most of my casual clothes were at Dad’s because that was where I spent my weekends. I pulled on a pair of green cargo pants, a black sweatshirt with the sleeves cut out, and black work boots. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out the book on swimming.
I was amazed all over again. And again, that warm glow spread through my chest. He’d given me a present. That had to mean something. Didn’t it?
STEPHANIE stood in the middle of the living room, eyes closed, swaying gently to the song she was now playing. It was a slow, moody piece about a man and a woman crying together through a rough patch in their relationship. The music distilled every single thing in me down to one big lump of melancholy. I walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa.
Stephanie opened her eyes after a moment. Something registered in her face, something not quite good, but she smiled her usual little smile. Everything about her was always calming, clear, wise, and yet she had this innocence too, like a little kid who didn’t know there was cruelty and sickness beyond her front yard. “Did what I told you about your dad upset you?”
“Nah.” I slouched against the backrest of the sofa, trying for cool detachment.
Stephanie went to the entertainment center. The music switched abruptly to a fast, funky song with squalling guitars, deep, driving bass and a thumping drum beat.
She turned and pointed at me. “I’m liking the construction worker look.” She began to bop to the beat. She wore a long denim skirt and a flowery, gauzy blouse that flowed easily with her oh-so-feminine moves.
“You dance great,” I said.
Another smile. She raised her hand and waved me over. “Come on. Show me what you can do.”
I was hardly in the mood for dancing. I hesitated for a few seconds before getting up and making my way to her, feet dragging with every step. At first, I just kind of stood there, shifting my shoulders and bobbing my head. Stephanie stepped it up a notch, circling around me, her body snapping and popping like the music, and that pulled me out of myself. I cut loose the way she did, executing old school steps I’d seen Dad spontaneously break into and not caring one bit whether that made me look like a fool. The lyrics were something about love on a rollercoaster. The guys singing were hitting high notes most dudes would be ashamed to even try for, but that didn’t stop me from squealing along.
Stephanie laughed. “Get it, boy!” And then she was singing too. Unlike me, she actually knew the lyrics. We swung around each other until the song began to fade out several minutes later. Our dance trailed off with it, and I slumped on the sofa, laughing.
Stephanie switched off the sound system. “I figured that one would get a smile out of you.”
“That was good,” I replied, a little out of breath. “Dad plays stuff like that, when he’s not listening to that sleepy smooth jazz. I never pay much attention to that old music.”
“Well, you should. Life is built on what came before.”
Whatever that means. “Okay.”
Stephanie sat in the chair across from me. Her hair was loose today, hanging down to her shoulders, and she pulled it away from her face, tucking errant strands behind her ears with her thumbs. She smiled at me and waited.
She had read my mood earlier, before we started dancing. I could see that in her patient, sympathetic look. Her eyes said that she would not pry, but she was ready to listen if I wanted to talk. If it had been Mom or Dad, they would have freaked the second they figured something was wrong, and they would have tried to squeeze the information out of me, which would have made me want to open up to them even less. There were some things a guy just didn’t want to discuss with his parents. But something about Stephanie made me want to tell her everything. It was like being in a confessional with a priest. I knew my secrets would be safe with her.
“Stephanie,” I said, “there’s this guy that I like.”
“Oh? That’s great.”
“But there’s a problem.”
“I thought there might be.”
“Actually, there are a couple of problems. For one thing, I don’t think he likes me the way I like him. And I’m pretty sure he’s straight.”
She made a little shrug. “You just have to take a chance and tell him how you feel. That’s the only way he’ll tell you how he feels—”
I raised both hands, motioning for her to wait. “That’s not all of it. This guy is forty-one, and he’s,
like, one of my mom’s closest friends.”
Stephanie didn’t look shocked or outraged at that. Her only reaction was that her smile dimmed, just a bit. “Well. That’s a problem.”
“So how do I deal with him?”
“What are you asking me? Do you want to know how to get him out of your system?”
“No, I want to know if… if I have a chance with him.”
The look in her eyes was sobering. “Kyle.”
“I know, I know. He’s straight, and you think he’s too old for me. But I like that he’s older. And he’s not like anybody else that I know.”
“It would be better for you to go after a guy closer to your own age. And who you know for sure is gay.”
“I don’t want anybody my age. Stephanie, I saw this guy naked in the locker room and he’s… damn, he’s fine. He’s perfect. I’ve seen guys my age in the buff too, and there’s no comparison. They’re just kids. But this guy? Wow! The chest, the shoulders, the arms, the legs, every part of him is so strong, so damn manly.”
“Kyle.”
“And he’s got the ass of the ages, the one you see on those Greek statues, on that David statue. I thought I would pass out or something when I saw it—”
“Kyle.”
“And he’s rugged, he’s built like a brick house, he’s hairy, he’s just… all man—”
“Kyle!”
I blinked, startled. In my head, Reece and I were already running off into the sunset together.
Stephanie smiled. “Breathe,” she said quietly. Then, to demonstrate, she drew in a long, deep breath and slowly let it out.
I followed her example. After a couple of breaths like that, my head cleared and I felt a bit closer to reality.
“Good,” said Stephanie. “Now, I want to ask you something. Do you want to hurt this man?”
“Hell, no.”
“Then do both him and yourself a favor and forget about him.”
