“I’ll trade you,” Ilona said.
“Trade me what?”
“The answer to your question for the answer to one of mine.”
“Okay,” Tyler said. Ben would have asked what her question was first. He figured the reason she stopped ice dancing had something to do with Judy. Maybe she was a stage mom or whatever. But he was wrong.
“So I was twelve, right? Well, ten when I started working with a partner, this red-haired kid named Oliver Sammick. I loved that kid. Like, I really loved him. I used to pretend that we were characters from a Disney movie. We used to skate to the music from Beauty and the Beast, and I always used to pretend that he was a prince and I was . . .” she stopped. “Anyway, we were doing really well together, placing in competitions and stuff. But then I grew. And all of a sudden I was like four inches taller than him. It was kind of weird. So he dropped me as a partner. But I thought it was just because I was too tall and that when he grew we could skate together again. Then one day after practice, I heard his mom talking to one of the other moms about his new partner—this tiny little twig of a blonde girl named Ashley Eversbee. And wasn’t it so great that Oliver had a partner who wasn’t quite so unusual and exotic.”
“Ouch,” Tyler said.
“Yeah, I mean, it was his mom. It wasn’t like it was him. But then that was all I could think about. You know, like, maybe the boys would get taller, but I was never going to stop looking like this.” She was leaning over the back of the sofa where Ben was lying. “So I quit before anyone else could reject me. Probably a good decision anyway. It’s not like ice dancing really matches my personality.”
“Maybe,” Tyler said. “But who knows? I mean, maybe if you’d have kept up you’d be a completely different person.”
Ilona gave him a withering look. “Like tiny and blonde?”
“No,” Tyler said, “probably not. But maybe one decision can change everything about the future. Maybe it would have taken you in a completely different direction.”
“I don’t think so,” Ilona said.
“Why not?” Tyler asked.
The whole conversation was making Ben a little uncomfortable. He felt like there was an entire subtext he might be missing. He thought about pointing out that if Frodo and Sam had never trusted Golem, they would not have been able to return the ring to Mordor. But on the other hand, trusting Golem had not served them well through the entire journey, so maybe it was a bad example.
“Because I don’t think life is like that,” Ilona said. “I don’t think there are forks in the road and paths not taken. You make a million decisions every day that add up to who you are. It’s not like one decision carries that much weight.”
They were both staring at her. Ben was thinking that, really, she had said, much more succinctly and without the use of Middle-earth as a reference point, exactly what he’d been thinking. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Deep thoughts,” Tyler said.
“Oh, shut it,” Ilona said, her eyes squinting at Tyler like she was fixating on a target. “Are you a virgin?”
Ben coughed. Now they were both staring at Tyler.
“No,” Tyler said.
“Really? How’d that happen?”
“That’s another question,” Tyler said evenly.
“Damn,” Ilona said. “I should have phrased it, ‘In what way are you not a virgin?’ ”
“Too late now,” Tyler said.
The record player scratched to a stop, and the silence was deafening. A thousand things were racing through Ben’s drunken carousel mind. How was it possible that he was finding out about this critical event in Tyler’s life just now? And only because Ilona had asked? He was curious, angry, and hurt—feelings that balled up in his chest and burned like indigestion. The next song came on with a blast of horns and a faster rhythm. “Want to dance?” Ilona asked. She had gone over to the record player to fiddle with it, so it wasn’t really clear who she was talking to.
“One more drink,” Ben said. He didn’t want to think or feel anything right then.
“Sure, why not?” Tyler said nearly at the same time. Of course he would assume she was talking to him. Tyler put his glass down carefully on the floor and stood up, wobbling a little at first.
Ilona could really dance. Tyler just kind of stood there and swayed until she grabbed his hands and began to lead him around the room in back of the couch. Otis Redding was screaming something about try a little tenderness. Ben leaned back into the couch pillows, trying to figure out exactly what he was feeling.
Jealousy. It was undeniably there, but of who? And why? Was this about Ilona? He glanced up as she pulled herself under Tyler’s arm and spun out perfectly in time with the song. Tyler moved like somebody’s middle-aged uncle pulled onto the floor to dance in a movie wedding scene. He liked that Ilona made Tyler look awkward. It was the virgin thing that was bothering him. I mean, why hadn’t Tyler told him? Wasn’t that the kind of thing you told your best friend?
He didn’t think either of them had ever been serious enough with any girl to make that happen. Was it Megan? For some reason that thought made him want to throw up. Or maybe it was the tequila. He sat up suddenly, trying to swallow the feeling. She didn’t love Tyler. He was immediately embarrassed by this thought. It didn’t have to be about love. It was just something you did. Something to get over with—at least the first time. All that flowers-and-candles stuff was for Hollywood and girls’ imaginations. But somehow, when it was Tyler, he wanted it to mean something. He wanted that for him. He had to check himself given the amount of liquor he’d ingested. Were any of these thoughts enough to make him gay? He didn’t think so. He didn’t want to be the one with Tyler, but he wanted love for him—in some form, anyway. He looked up, and both Tyler and Ilona were staring at him.
“What?” he said.
“Where the hell did you go?” Ilona asked. Tyler just looked amused.
“I gotta piss,” Ben said and stood up too quickly. He stepped forward into one of the end tables, grabbing the lamp before it teetered off and crashed onto the floor.
“Watch out,” Ilona said, “we just put that there like four decades ago.” Ben turned around to flip her off but then had to step hard to the right to avoid crashing into one of the bookcases. He managed to stagger out to the bathroom without hitting any more furniture.
About ten seconds after he zipped up, there was urgent knocking on the bathroom door. “Jesus,” he said, “just a second.” He slowly washed his hands, relishing the way the warm water slid over them and thinking about how drunk he was. He looked in the mirror. He was wearing his orange snuggie hat inside because it was still arctic in the reading room, even with the fire. His eyes were dull and glassy, and was that a zit coming in on his forehead? He leaned forward to inspect the red spot when the door flew open and Ilona squeezed past him. “Ever hear of privacy?”
“I really have to go,” she said, pulling one arm out of her silver jumpsuit. “And getting out of this thing is like peeling out of a wetsuit.” She looked up at him. “Are you staying for the show?”
Ben looked at her collarbones and her bare shoulders. Her cheeks were bright red, and her blue and black hair was spilling into her eyes. He leaned back against the sink to see what she’d do. Ilona stared at him and then yanked one side of the jumpsuit down. Ben felt his eyes go wide. Immediately he stared up at the ceiling, and then without looking down he pivoted slowly around toward the door. Except at the last second, just before she was out of his peripheral vision, he saw just a flash of the dark pink flesh of a nipple. And he was pretty sure Ilona saw him do it.
He walked back to the reading room feeling strangely proud.
“What?” Tyler said.
“Boob.” It was all he could say.
He picked the stone gargoyle off the floor and pressed his cheek against the cool rock surface. He followed his feet, which were doing their best to follow the rhythm around the room, dancing with the small gr
anite lawn creature. He was only partially aware of Tyler dancing next to him. Now he was over by the window where Tyler was unhooking a tired-looking length of velvet rope from the curtains. It had gold tassels on the end. Tyler swung it over his head like a lasso and then behind his back like it was a towel. At first Ben thought he was going to bust up laughing and fall onto the sofa. But then he saw Tyler’s face. He was so serious. Like he was really trying to make something out of this dance with the rope. Then he had it around his neck like a scarf and through his legs for the old butt-floss move.
Ilona walked in. “And then it got weird,” she said, assessing the scene in the living room. Ben didn’t care. He didn’t put down the gnome. In fact, he clutched it tighter as he whirled around the living room. He stopped in front of the tequila bottle and lifted it up. There was less than two inches of clear liquid sloshing back and forth in the firelight. He slugged it out of the bottle and, leaving his stone partner behind, danced over to Tyler and thrust the bottle in his face. Tyler drank and passed it to Ilona. Then Tyler threw the velvet curtain sash around Ben’s shoulders and twisted him up as he danced around him. He turned around and pulled the cord so that Ben twisted and spun. Now the whole room was spinning and it didn’t seem like it would ever stop. Ben stared down at his shoes, trying to find a horizon point, some way to center himself, but staring down made him feel even woozier so he focused on the only things he could focus on. There was the bottle being passed around and rapidly emptied, the stone figure tucked once again under his arm and magically giving him permission to dance unself-consciously, and the faces: Tyler’s and Ilona’s, laughing and dancing, glassy-eyed and dizzy, each lost in their own private ecstasy.
“You all need to stop moving,” Tyler finally said. He was slumped against the legs of one of the high-backed chairs. Ilona was lying on the couch and Ben was leaning against it. The fire was dwindling down to a few black logs speckled with bright orange jewels. Tyler repeated himself, and Ben knew exactly what he meant because everything around him was spinning.
He was grinning and he didn’t know why. He reached up and poked his cheeks. His face felt like a rubber mask. He was smiling at Tyler, at the velvet rope dance, and at the greatness of a friend who would follow along and dance with inanimate objects. Tyler would always be one to play along. When they were in elementary school, they had made up a secret handshake. It was a thirty-second-long series of moves that ended with a cool-guy head toss and a finger point. Their first year of middle school, an eighth grader had seen them doing it on the bus and called them fags.
Ben had wanted to melt down into the seat and die, but not Tyler. Tyler just shrugged his shoulders and flipped the kid off when their bus driver, Mrs. DeGrinney, wasn’t looking. Did Tyler remember this stuff? And did he remember it the same way Ben did? Probably not. He stared over at Tyler, who was spinning a small wooden splint around and around with one finger, and felt a sudden surge of empathy—almost enough to start crying. Ben held onto these things, every last tiny humiliation, as proof that he wasn’t worthy and all the while thinking that everything just bumped and glided off his best friend with ease. But it was not the truth of things. Even in his drunken haze, he could feel that the cloud in Tyler’s life had not been lifted. He wondered what it would take. He also wondered, in his tequila-induced stupor, how you were supposed to love another guy without wondering if you loved each other in some way that society would think was wrong? It seemed heavier and larger than his friendship with Tyler, and yet the question lay at the center of a swirling tornado of confusion and love.
Tyler was staring out into space now. Ilona was rubbing the shiny silver fabric of her pantsuit and humming softly to herself. The song was a slow one. He could feel the energy draining out of them. Ben stood up suddenly. He wasn’t ready for the party to be over. With booze-saturated boldness he walked over to where Ilona was lying and grabbed her hand to pull her up to dance. She surprised him with the force of her return grip. Before he could lift her up, she pulled hard and he fell down on top of her, his chin resting on her chest, his eyes neatly in line with a small scar underneath her chin.
“Hi,” he said. “Want to dance?”
Tyler looked up from his place on the floor. “Whoa,” he said, “should I leave you two alone?”
“No,” Ilona said, “apparently Ben would like to dance.” She was smirking and Ben thought about how unfair it was that the male of the species had an instant physical and visible reaction to lying between the legs of the female. Especially a female in a shiny silver jumpsuit who, not even an hour ago, had flashed her nipple at you. Ben conjured his “go-to” thought for situations like these, which was the one time he’d come home late and walked in on his parents. Ugh. The effect was instantaneous. He stood and pulled up a smirking Ilona alongside him.
Being close to Ilona was strange—but he didn’t dislike it, and he didn’t pull away. They danced, leaning against each other until the music stopped and the only sound was the soft thump-thump of the record player spinning without contacting the needle. The fire was just a smoldering heap of ashes, and Tyler was gone from the room.
They found Tyler asleep on the sectional, his face smushed awkwardly against one of the arms. His mouth was open, and his breathing was interrupted by the sharp inhalations of tiny hiccup breaths. Ilona mumbled something about blankets and left Ben standing there watching his friend sleep. When was the last time he’d seen Tyler in such a deep peaceful slumber? He felt a sudden tenderness and protectiveness toward his friend.
And then, it did hit him. He knew the last part after all, and he didn’t have to wait for Tyler to tell him. The game, the haunted house, all of it. It was not something Tyler would have come up with on his own. He didn’t start the games, even though he’d always played along. Ben felt a horrible rotten roiling in his stomach. He blinked several times, hoping that would clear his thoughts. He needed to be sure before he could ever say anything to Tyler. And yet he was sure—as sure as he’d ever been of anything. The feet on the stairs, the smug looks, and Tyler’s burning dislike for the guy who was supposed to be a surrogate parent. Ben stood there over his sleeping friend, feeling his own helplessness to do anything to make it better.
Ilona reappeared with stacks of small plaid navy blue and purple blankets. “A lifetime of Judy’s air travel kleptomania comes in handy.” Ben shook one out over Tyler’s chest and then another to cover his feet. Ilona looked at him funny—he didn’t quite know why, but she just shook her head and swayed out of the room when he sat down on the couch next to Tyler. He felt somehow that his vigilance was necessary. And even after he covered himself with a few of the blankets and his breath began to come slower and steadier and his eyelids felt weighted with sand, he kept trying to see Tyler. When he finally did fall asleep, his dreams were full of missed connections and things just a tiny bit out of reach.
Chapter 25
For a couple weeks after the drunken dance party, Ben agonized about whether to say what he thought he knew to Tyler. The hardest part was that things were better between them than they had been all school year. Their conversation was easy and light. They went for long conditioning runs around the golf course and through the park near Tyler’s house, and they had their club team, which practiced two nights under the lights at the community college.
One afternoon before a run, as they waited in Tyler’s car for a rain squall to pass them by, Tyler brought up that debaucherous night at Ilona’s house. “I’m glad I hung out with you guys,” he said as they watched the fat drops explode on the windshield.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Tyler was playing with the seat belt buckle. “I think I was afraid you were going somewhere without me.”
Ben turned this over in his mind. “What would you think if I applied to BU too?” he blurted out.
Tyler made a noise in his throat that was somewhere between a cough and a snort. “Don’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
“
Because it’s a meathead school and you’re not a meathead.”
Ben sat there, stunned. In all the versions of this conversation he had played out in his head, he had never encountered this one. Tyler’s flat-out dismissal of his idea. “Neither are you.”
“I don’t know what I am,” Tyler said quietly. And then his voice brightened a little but it still sounded forced. “Look, it’s my free ride. I can live with it. But I mean, what if you got there and you hated it? And I would be wondering all the time if you hated it but weren’t saying anything because you didn’t want me to feel bad.”
Ben wanted to tell him that was ridiculous. That he would do what he wanted regardless of how Tyler felt about it. But he couldn’t say it, mostly because he wasn’t altogether sure it would be the truth.
The rain stopped and they went ahead and ran three miles. Ben pushed himself to set a faster pace, and with every step he felt he was leaving behind any pain or rejection he felt at the loss of the two of them at BU together. And as he did, he found himself thinking about the other applications he was going to fill out before it was too late.
Everything seemed to be moving faster and busier than it had before. Every morning there were announcements about getting measured for graduation gowns or buying yearbooks. Even Ilona was busy, now that the greenhouse was getting ready for its big season. Most days she left right after school to get to work and worked long hours on the weekends as well. They still hung out, watched TV, got high, and played board games, but more often than not Ilona nodded off on the big leather couch, exhausted from school and work.
One night he came over and found her sitting on the porch flicking clods of dirt out of the soles of her brown leather boots into the yard. “I applied to UMass,” he said before even saying hello. Ever since he’d actually applied to the school, he’d been avoiding the topic with her, afraid that she would ridicule him for having no better or more original plan for himself or his future. He had planned on saying it quickly and early so that he wouldn’t shy away from the topic the next time they hung out.
Wired Man and Other Freaks of Nature Page 17
