Hello Groin

by Beth Goobie

  Probably inspired by Len’s smirk, Gary retrieved his key and disappeared down the hall with a girl from the Confed volleyball team. But twenty minutes later he was back, patrolling the party and grandly doling out time in his bed to the next eager couple of his choice.

  “Hey, Dylan,” he said, stopping in front of Cam and I. “You look like you’re falling asleep.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said, squinting up at him. Things were a little blur-rier than I’d realized. “I’m not sleeeepeeee,” I said, letting my voice coast dreamily through vowels. “I’m haaaappeeee.”

  “Cam, Cam,” said Gary in mock sternness. “What did I tell you about bringing drunk damsels to my party?”

  “She’s not drunk,” said Cam, grinning at me. “Like she said, she’s happy. Right, Dyl?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, bouncing my chin up and down. Up and down, Up And Down, UP AND DOWN. Snickers broke out around me, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Or rather, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t that I was that drunk, but it felt safer somehow, fooling everyone into thinking I was. I mean, someone who was stupid-drunk couldn’t be expected to engage in meaningful conversation. Stupid-drunk wasn’t worth picking on.

  Grabbing my head, Cam held onto it firmly. “Whoa, girl,” he said.

  “Haaaappeeee, haaaappeeee,” I singsonged brainlessly. Around us, an audience was starting to gather. Everywhere I looked, kids were sporting wide grins. Without intending to, Dylan Kowolski had suddenly become popular.

  “Haaaappeeee,” I singsonged again. “I’m haaaappeeee, haaaappeeee.”

  “Happy to the third power?” asked someone behind me, and then Len leaned over the back of the couch and grinned down at me. “That’s real happy, Gary,” he said. “A girl that happy deserves a chance at the key, don’t you think?”

  “The key?” said Gary, faking astonishment. “What a great idea, Len! Here you go, Cam—the key to bliss.” Holding it out, he added, “But remember—you’re in my bed, so don’t get too excited. I have to sleep on those springs tonight.”

  For a long moment Cam and I sat frozen, just staring at Gary’s hand. Up to now, there had been some kind of unspoken agreement between Cam and his guy friends. While they sometimes teased me about the fact that we weren’t having sex, they generally respected it. In the three previous parties that I’d been to at Gary’s house, it had never even been suggested that Cam take the key.

  All across the room conversations were dying off as kids tuned into what was happening. Soon the only sounds were those coming from the TV—gunfire, running, screaming. At least the movie wasn’t in the middle of a sex scene, I thought grimly. Beside me, Cam seemed to have gone into complete shutdown, not a flicker of emotion crossing his face. Then slowly, unbelievably, he reached out and took the key. Getting to his feet, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

  “C’mon,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “Can you walk straight?”

  My foot bumped a glass someone had left on the floor and I stumbled, but Cam tightened his grip, keeping me upright.

  I’m haaaappeeee, I thought silently, hanging onto his arm. Haaaappeeee, haaaappeeee.

  “Hey, Cam,” called Len as we reached the doorway. “Better lock the door behind you, bud. Everyone’s hot for the Virgin Queen.”

  Guffaws erupted, jolting me out of the dull blur in my head. Pulling free of Cam’s hand, I turned and looked at the kids who were watching from all over the room. Silently, smirks riding their faces, they stared back. Here and there I thought I saw a flash of sympathy, but nothing obvious. Nothing anyone could be held accountable for.

  That was when it hit me—this had been planned in advance. Gary and Len, maybe Rachel and Julie and Deirdre, had actually sat down and worked out a scenario that would place Cam and I in a bedroom alone together. A scenario that neither of us could wriggle out of without being absolutely obvious about it.

  What’s the matter with them? I thought incredulously. Why is it so important that we be exactly like they are?

  Then Cam’s arm came around me again, and we were walking through the doorway and down a dimly lit hall.

  “It’s this door here,” he muttered, fumbling with the key. As the bedroom door swung open, I glanced down the hall to see Gary and Len watching us from the other end. Quickly, before they could say anything, Cam pulled me into the room and locked the door.

  “He’ll have another key,” I said. “Pull something across it.” Flicking on the light, Cam dragged a dresser across the door and flicked the light off again. Then he put both arms around me and started walking me backward toward the bed.

  “Is this what you want?” I mumbled into his neck. A zillion miles away from my brain, my voice felt as if it was floating up by the ceiling. “I mean really, Cam? Really?”

  Cam tipped me carefully onto the bed, then lay on top of me and buried his face in my hair. For a while we remained like that, completely motionless. Up by the ceiling, far away from my brain, my voice just kept talking.

  “I guess I never thought it would happen to us like this,” it said, kind of singsongy. Vodka chitchat. “I mean in Gary’s bed. Think of how many times he’s jerked off here, Cam. Think of what he was thinking about. Think of Len and Julie, and everyone else who’s been here tonight.”

  “If it was good enough for them, why isn’t it good enough for us?” asked Cam, his face still buried in my hair.

  “Is that all you want?” I asked. “What’s good enough for them?”

  We lay there for a while longer, not talking, just breathing. Then Cam said, “We could go back and pretend we did it.”

  “Pretend?” I demanded. Finally, finally the blur in my head was starting to clear. “Why should we pretend for them?”

  “I guess,” said Cam. Getting off me, he sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “Unless you want to go back, I mean.”

  “They’re watching the hall,” he said, still not looking at me. “To congratulate us when we come out.”

  For a second all I could do was stare at him. So he’d been in on the advance planning too.

  “We’re on the first floor,” I said finally. “Let’s use the window. And make sure you ditch the key somewhere Gary will never find it.”

  It took Cam all of thirty seconds to shove up the window and slide out the screen. Then we were climbing through the opening, out into the cold October air. My feet hit the ground and abruptly I was sober—stone cold sober.

  “Shit,” I said. “It’s freezing. And we left our jackets inside.”

  “They’re in the front hall. I’ll get them,” said Cam and took off along the side of the house. Following more slowly, I waited on the porch until he came back out and handed me my jacket. Then we headed down the street toward his car. The moon was out, three-quarters full, and a few specks of snow were spiraling down through the air. When we got to the Firebird, Cam unlocked my door first like he always did. Then we got in and sat shivering, waiting for the car to warm up.

  “I can’t believe I did that,” said Cam. Shoulders slumped, he sat staring straight ahead. “I can’t believe I was actually considering...”

  “It’s my fault too,” I said weakly.

  Immediately my heart started in fast and hard, doing its kick-ass thing. I mean, there was no going back now. It was coming. Finally it was almost on us.

  “How can you say that?” asked Cam, still staring down the street. “I’m the one—”

  “I’m the one,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. For a long moment neither of us moved. Then, slowly, Cam turned to look at me. And there it was, the question he’d never dared ask, taking shape on his face.

  “It’s me,” I said, swallowing hard. “The problem here is me. If I wasn’t the way I was, you never would’ve thought about going along with that tonight.”

  “You don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to,” exploded Cam.

  “No,” I said miserabl
y. “That’s not it, Cam. At least, not all of it. You know it and I know it.”

  He got really quiet then, staring at me, his breath rasping in his throat. “So what’re you saying, Dyl?” he asked, and I knew we were flat up against it—the point at which we were both so sick of our fear that we were finally willing to face it.

  What was the best, the truest word—dyke, lez, lesbiAN? None of them felt right, none of them felt like me.

  “I love you, Cam,” I blurted. “With my whole mind and my whole heart. But my body...”

  My voice wobbled and trailed off into the silence. “Jeeeeezus,” I whispered, hugging myself. This was so hard, harder than anything I’d ever had to do.

  “Well,” I said finally, “I guess my brain and heart love you, but my body likes girls.”

  Rigid and silent, Cam stared at me. “I heard,” he said finally, “something about you kissing a girl—Sheila Warren, I guess—at the Confed dance. Some kids said they saw you. I just brushed it off. I thought it was crazy.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “Really, Cam?”

  With a sigh he laid his head on the steering wheel. “I dunno,” he whispered, so quietly I had to lean forward to hear him. “Maybe not. I’ve wondered, I guess, if you might...”

  He hesitated, then added fiercely, “But I never thought it straight out.”

  “Cam,” I said hoarsely, “I never ever two-timed on you. There was just Sheila at Confed, and I didn’t mean anything by it. She was coming on to me, and I was drunk. It happened, I guess, because I’ve been fighting it so hard, trying to keep it all down inside me so no one could tell. And when she came onto me, it all just sort of exploded.”

  I paused, waiting for him to say something, anything, but he just sat there with his eyes closed.

  “I know...I should’ve been stronger,” I said, forcing myself to keep talking. “I should’ve been honest with you and everyone else and just come out and said it a long time ago. I mean, no one was going to pulverize me over it. That stuff happens at some schools, but probably not at the Dief, I know that. But kids still look at you funny. And there’s the hidden stuff, really mean crap—like the way they evicted Michelle Allen from the volleyball team because they thought she was a dyke.”

  Cam nodded without opening his eyes. “I heard,” he said, his voice wobbling slightly.

  That wobble just about broke my heart. “That’s why I quit volleyball and soccer this year,” I said quickly, desperate to fight off the enormous heaviness I could feel coming down around him. “Locker rooms, y’know—everyone with their clothes off. And the feelings, the way I get them now...Well, they’re a lot stronger than last year. And sometimes I go so red. There’s no way to hide it then, just no way. I was afraid Julie and Rachel would figure it out and come after me. Y’know—the way they went after Michelle.”

  I paused, swallowing hard, but again Cam didn’t speak or open his eyes. I mean, it felt as if he was going to sit there like that forever. Taking a deep breath, I tried to think of what he needed to hear more than anything—the truest words.

  “The hardest thing about this whole thing has been you, Cam,” I said quietly. “You don’t know how much I’ve been working at it, trying to turn onto you. Because I love you, I think you’re the best guy on the planet, just the best. I really want to turn onto you.”

  After that I just shut up and sat with my head down, not knowing what else to say. And that was when I realized that Cam was sobbing quietly, his shoulders shaking, his forehead in tight against the steering wheel. When I tried to hug him, he pushed me away, and I had to sit there and wait while he sobbed for what seemed like eternity.

  Finally he straightened. Without looking at me, he turned on the ignition and put the car into gear. “Well,” he said quietly. “I guess I’ll take you home now.”

  At the first intersection he opened his window and threw out the key to Gary’s bedroom. Then, without speaking he drove to my place, watched as I walked up to the front door and unlocked it, and took off, tires squealing, into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  That night sleep was a long time coming. I kept hearing Cam crying in my head and remembering the way he’d tried to keep the sound inside himself, curving his body around it. Without meaning to I’d hurt him deeply, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to change that. I fell asleep crying about it and woke early Saturday morning to a feeling of dull stretched-out aloneness. At first I couldn’t think of why, and then it hit me—Cam was now out of my life...and so was Joc. Everything I’d worked so hard to prevent had happened anyway, and the heaviness that came down on me as I realized this was so great, I seemed to stop breathing.

  For a while I simply lay there, not moving, not thinking, not being. When the door to my room opened and Keelie started tiptoeing toward the bed, I didn’t even try to play along, just rolled over and gave her my back. Her careful footsteps came to a halt, I heard her breathe in-out, in-out, and then, without speaking she turned and ran from the room.

  It was hours before I got up and when I did it was to a world that had gone slow-mo with sadness. I thought constantly about calling Cam but decided that having to talk to me again was the last thing he needed. So after cleaning my room, I slumped down onto the window seat and sat staring out at the backyard. It was raining, large drops plopping steadily against the glass. Putting my hand to the pane, I watched the water run down the other side of the window. Happiness—that rain was my happiness and as usual it was out of reach, pouring down the opposite side of wherever I happened to be.

  The heavy inner dullness gave way then, and the tears started. It was over, finally—the long charade, Queen Dylan, everything. By the time I got to school Monday morning, half the Dief would know that Cam and I had broken up. Cam would talk to Len, Len would tell Julie, and Julie would get the phone patrol into gear, revving with Foxfire rumors. Cam wouldn’t tell Len the reason we’d split, I knew I could trust him for that, but it wouldn’t help much. With him out of my life, there would be no reason for the phone patrol to show mercy and they would let loose, following their natural instincts.

  Face pressed to the window, I cried harder than ever. Sweet sixteen absolutely sucked. Two months into grade eleven and my life was over. I mean, it was over.

  Gradually the window fogged up and the front of my T-shirt grew damp with tears. Still I kept crying. Sniffs and sobs came out of me, then a couple of straight-out wails. This time there was no stopping it—I couldn’t seem to get anywhere close to a grip, and soon my body ached from crying, I was raw from the inside out. At some point I felt something touch my knee and looked down to see Keelie staring up at me, wide-eyed. A little later Dad came into the room, sat down on the window seat and put an arm around me. That felt okay so I scooted closer, and he put his other arm around me too. Then I just kept crying. Mom brought me some green tea, but by that time I was so tired that my hand was too shaky to hold the mug. So Dad took it and blew on it to cool it, while I leaned against his chest and sobbed some more. When I’d finally calmed down enough, he held the mug to my lips, and I was astonished at how smooth and warm the tea felt sliding down my throat.

  “This is amazing,” I croaked.

  “I asked your mom to put lots of honey in it,” said Dad. Slowly I slurped down the rest of it, then lay my head on his shoulder and snuffled my runny nose against his sleeve. With all the tears and gunk I was leaving on his shirt, he was going to have major laundry to do. Sighing heavily I glanced past him, out the window. To my surprise it was dark, which meant Dad had to have been sitting here with me for at least an hour, completely clueless as to what was going on, just waiting while I cried myself out. And now that I was finished he was still here, waiting for an explanation.

  What should I tell him? Should I make something up, use the experience as a practice run for the story I was going to have to start spinning Monday at school? But this was my dad, not the phone patrol. And he was here, sitting beside me in the dark, not
even complaining about missing his supper because he loved me so much. Maybe I could tell him something...part of the truth, a little tiny teeny bit of it.

  Burying my face in his shoulder, I mumbled, “Cam and I broke up.”

  Dad’s arm tightened brief ly around me and he asked, “Why?”

  “Because...,” I muttered, working my way slowly through various options and ditching them one by one. “Well...,” I said, still hanging on to being in between, nobody knowing. “Because...well...”

  “Because, well...why?” prompted Dad.

  Deep inside I could feel something untwisting itself in a long gulping sigh—something that wanted to breathe easier, something that wanted space.

  “Well, because,” I repeated, letting it untwist a little farther, then farther yet. “Because...I’m a dyke, that’s why.”

  Dad sucked in his breath, and I could almost feel his thoughts moving carefully in the silence. Finally he laid his cheek against the top of my head.

  “Good for you,” he said quietly. “It took courage to say that.” Emphatically I nodded. Monster courage, I thought, blinking back a fresh batch of tears. The mother of all courage.

  “Don’t worry,” I muttered into his shirt. “Danny will give you lots of grandkids. So will Keelie, probably.”

  Dad gave a short laugh. “Grandkids!” he said. “Heck, I’m too busy trying to keep up with my kids to worry about grandkids.”

  “Well, I wanted to have kids,” I said. “With Cam. And he’s upset. I hurt him really bad.”

  “How did you hurt him?” asked Dad.

  With a sigh I pulled back, and Dad took his arm from my shoulder. The cool air came in around my face, patting it like gentle hands, and I sat staring out the window into the dark, thinking my way word to word.

  “I lied to him,” I said hoarsely. “I should’ve told him a lot sooner. I mean, I’ve known the way I am since—y’know, since my body started changing and all that. But I pretended, I dunno, because I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like you and Mom, and get married, and have kids, and be happy. How can I be happy if I’m a dyke? And Cam’s so great, he would’ve been a great father, and—”