by Carrie Jones
It’s a house, gambrel style, cute white with a big garden in the back, a sunroom in the front and a pool. It’s got a camper in the driveway and pumpkins on the front steps that no one’s smashed, at least not yet, but it’s almost Halloween. There’s a St. Bernard on the side lawn, looking at me, not barking, wagging his tail.
Inside this house, it smells like blue paint and beef stew and cinnamon tea. Inside this house, it smells like a big Swedish and Irish family where most of the kids have grown and gone. Inside this house, it smells like love and incense and soil for flowers to grow in.
This house is Dylan’s house. I stare at it; stare at his bedroom window with the curtains still drawn. That’s not normal. Dylan’s usually the first one up, singing good morning like a bird in a tree greeting the day, that’s what his mom used to say.
His mom, she thought we’d get married. She’d laugh when I came over and ruffle my hair and say, “How’s my future daughter-in-law?”
I wonder how he’ll tell his mom. I wonder how he’ll tell his dad. I wonder how he’ll tell his older brothers. I wonder if he’ll get the chance or if someone will tell them first. Maybe they’ll learn in a hushed whisper, an angry hiss of hate.
“Oh, Dylan,” I say aloud. Only the wind answers me, whistling the leaves, telling me to give it up, to turn around and to ride my bike home. I do.
My mom’s up and humming, shuffling around the kitchen when I get home.
“Good ride, honey?” she asks, hugging me hello.
She smells like coffee. I used to love coffee before I had to give it up. Coffee and gum are my addictions. Now I’m a Postum and Tic Tacs girl.
My mom puts my favorite mug, a Halloween ghost mug, into the microwave and presses the minute button and says, “I made your Postum for you.”
I slide into a chair, stretch out my legs, flexing my feet to loosen up the aching muscles. “That’s sweet.”
“You want any toast?”
“Yeah,” I start getting up, but my mom puts out her hand.
“I’ll do it. This morning how about I pamper you?”
I smile at her and knead my calves. “Okay.”
She makes my toast and pulls my Postum out of the microwave.
She starts singing, the wrong lyrics, of course, like she always does. It’s this old Led Zeppelin song, “Stairway to Heaven.”
“There’s a feeling I get when I look at my waist,” she sings as she stirs.
“Mom,” I say and roll my eyes. “It goes, ‘There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west.’”
“Oh,” she laughs and smiles and runs her free hand through her hair.
She doesn’t have much hair. It’s thin and dyed red and floaty. It’s old woman hair really. My mom had me when she was twenty-two, which makes her . . . what? Thirty-nine? She’s a bit plump, but she has dimples when she smiles and when she laughs and she likes to laugh. She worked so hard for so long doing the kind of job that would kill anybody’s soul, but a couple years ago she got a new job at the hospital. Before, she was the receptionist at this dental supply company. She worked by this cabinet where they have rows and rows of pretend teeth, all different sizes, all different shades from super-star white to tobacco yellow. They use them for caps and dentures. When I was little, I’d have nightmares about those teeth coming after me in the dark, attached to jaws of course, and chomping, chomping, chomping away.
I shiver and just then my mom hands me my peanut butter and honey toast along with my Postum.
“Thanks,” I say while she kisses the top of my head.
“You betcha.”
She walks over to the counter, sips her coffee, stares at me, and I brace myself for the Mom Moment, the moment when my mother tries to be the kind of mom you see on sitcoms and old tv shows, the Uber-Mater, Herr Reitz would call it, the super mom.
“Is everything okay with you, sweetie?” she asks.
“Yep,” I lie, take a bite of toast.
“No seizures lately?”
“Nope.”
“Good, I’d hate for you to have to go on that medicine again.”
Before they knew what caused my seizures, Dr. Dulli put me on medicine. He tried a million kinds, but something always went wrong. My blood would get toxic, I’d hallucinate. I’d be allergic. Seizure medicine works great for some people, but not for me. That’s why we had to try so hard to figure out what was causing them, the seizures.
I shudder, thinking about it. The sweet honey on my toast coats my tongue. All those rashes, all that sickness, Dylan was there for me the whole time.
My mom sips her coffee, creating a calculating silence while I try to hurry down my food so that I can escape to the shower.
“Dylan hasn’t called the last couple days,” she says.
I shrug.
“Things okay with you two?”
Postum solidifies in my stomach making a good globby pit. I stand up and rush the words out, “We broke up. It’s no big deal. I’m okay.”
“Oh, honey—”
My mom’s arms reach out to me but I’m already gone, past her and fleeing to the shower where no one asks me questions, where no one looks at me with pity eyes.
Mr. Raines, our lovely principal, announces on the intercom that the Boys’ Varsity Soccer Team “stomped on Trinity” yesterday afternoon.
Emily snarfs. “Sounds like they took out the father, son, and Holy Ghost.”
I’m laughing with her, walking down the hall to first period, when I see him. I see Dylan. Everything stops. My heart stops. My feet stop. My soul stops. Even Emily stops and says, “Uh-oh” beneath her breath, real quiet.
Dylan lifts his hand cautiously. His fingers wiggle a bit in a tiny wave.
“Hi, guys,” he says.
“Hi,” I say. I scan him. He does not look too depressed, but how does a depressed person look. I have no clue. I say it again, all awkward and stupid, like I’ve never seen him naked or held his hand or seen him cry, “Hi.”
“Hhmm,” is all that comes out of Emily’s mouth and I can tell by her tensed-up back and the way that she’s clutching her books that she’s trying to vaporize Dylan with her kitty-cat eyes.
“Belle, I wanted to tell you . . . about Bob . . .” he starts to say. His hands flap around in the air like they’re trying to pull the right words out.
Emily grabs me by the elbow, steers me by this golden boy, this sad-eye boy who used to hold me in his arms. She says, “We’ll be late for class.”
“Yeah, right,” Dylan nods. He looks at me. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. My heart has gone so big, so haywire that it thumps everywhere in my body. It’s taken control of all of me, just thump thumping away. It’s all I can hear.
Thump. Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Finally Emily’s voice breaks through as she does a speed-walk hustle through the hallway, “Really, what freaking nerve. Who does he think he is? What a scum bag. He didn’t even say anything about you passing out in the cafeteria yesterday, I mean, everybody in the whole school knows about it and he can’t even act concerned. Jesus, I can’t believe you ever went out with him.”
Thump.
Thump. Thump.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Emily’s words are nothing words. All I can think about is Dylan and his gold, gold soul and the way his fingers used to feel against my skin when he touched me.
I turn around and look for him in the hall, but my Dylan has disappeared. Another boy, still golden, stands still as people part around him. He lifts up his hand and waves goodbye.
Em stands next to me, camera in front of her like a gun, she clicks a picture of the hall with the new Dylan in it.
She checks the p
icture on the viewfinder and shows me, “That’s a good one. High school hall. Devoid of meaning.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Right.”
Then I remember what Tom’s dad said and I rush down the hall, back toward Dylan, leaving Em standing there with her camera, probably taking a picture of me. I rush past Shawn, Mimi Cote in a stupid metal Mimi-skirt, Eddie Caron. I get to Dylan, watch his shocked, sad eyes and I gush out my words, “You have to be careful, Dylan. It’s a small town. Tom’s dad said that people might come after you. He wanted me to warn you.”
Dylan stares at me. “Tom’s dad?”
His mouth is a straight line.
He shakes his head and says, “I’ll be fine, Belle.”
Then he walks away, leaving me in silence, except for my stupid heart that thumps and thumps, alone.
Eddie Caron and all his hulking, big glory comes up behind me in the hall and puts his hand on my shoulder.
I jerk away, startled.
We both mumble, “Sorry.”
We walk together toward class.
He clears his throat and says, “You and Dylan really broke up?”
“Yeah.”
“Saturday night? When I drove by?”
“Yeah.”
“For good?”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head. “I never would’ve believed it.”
I shrug. “Me neither.”
He bangs next to me. “Sorry. You were too good for him, though.”
I whirl on him. “No I wasn’t.”
“Sure you were.”
“No,” I whisper. “I wasn’t.”
He lets the silence nestle between us and then he says, “If you ever need anything, just let me know, okay?”
“Yeah, Eddie. Okay,” I say. I stare at this huge man/boy. Back when we were in kindergarten together and we’d hold hands waiting for the bus, he’d build me castles in the road dirt while we waited and say stuff like, “I’ll be the knight and you be the princess and I’ll protect you.”
“No, Eddie,” I’d tell him. “I want to be the queen.”
He’d nod in that slow way of his and he’d say, “Okay. You be the queen and I’ll be the knight and this is your castle and I’ll protect you.”
He was so sweet, if even an ant came by, he wouldn’t squish it. He’d pick it up and move it somewhere else. He’s so big now and we are so far apart. I can’t even imagine holding his hand. I blink my eyes and for a second wish we were little kids again and everything was easy, and our biggest problem was worrying about getting beaten up on the bus.
He stands there, waiting for me to say something intelligent, I guess, his big brawny body blocking my way into class. He smells okay, though. His eyes are harder than his kindergarten eyes.
I smile at him and say the only thing I can think of, “Thanks.”
Seeing you in the hall today hurt like hell, Dylan. My breath stopped. I am so mad at you and at the same time, I’m so worried about you. Your eyes were so sad. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you, to be gay in a world where gay is dangerous, where gay means being dragged behind a pickup truck or thrown off a bridge or not being allowed to be a scout leader. It’s a world where gay means you can die because you’ve loved.
You’re in that world now, Dylan. You’re in that world and I’m not. I’m left here, watching, hoping, waiting. I’m left here wondering about how hard it was to be you when you told me, when you loved me, when you pretended that I was your soul mate, life’s light, and all that hokey, new-age lovey-dovey stuff.
How hard it must be, Dylan.
But I’m still hurt and I’m still mad, because you were my best friend, you know. You took care of me when I had a seizure or got a B on a test, or yelled at my mom or had a fight with Emily.
We swore that we would always be there for each other, but how can we do that? How can we do that when we are in different worlds?
Why do I keep writing you notes in class? Is it because I used to? What else should I do?
I fold them up into little squares and put them in my left pocket, carry them around all day. They weigh me down. They keep me from floating away to the drop-ceiling roof with the water stains in it. They help me get it out. What else should I do? Tell me. What else should I do?
In my right pocket is the note from last Friday. I put it in my pocket every morning.
You wrote: You don’t seem to have a cold anymore. That’s great. I love you.
I am afraid to see you. I am afraid of what I might say. I am afraid of what you might say. I’m afraid that you’ll tell me that it is true, that you never loved me, that it was all one big, fat, horrible, heart-breaking, ego-shattering lie.
Tom calls me Commie. He should call me Wimp.
An old note falls out of my copy of Catcher in the Rye. Go figure.
It’s all bent and crumpled and I instantly know what it is. It’s the note Emily wrote me the day before Dylan finally asked me out. Dylan and I had been friends forever and he held my hand once during a movie, but that was it. I, of course, had the hots for him. Well, I had the hots for him and Tom Tanner, but Tom didn’t call me every single afternoon. Tom didn’t have green eyes and he didn’t talk about things like souls and God and reincarnation and love and auras. Tom played with duct tape and talked about soccer and he never called me on the phone, even after he broke up with Mimi.
“Mimi asked me to the dance,” Dylan told me on the phone when he called me about it.
Hate made me clench my teeth together and grind them. I forced my mouth open to talk but I couldn’t breathe. “Mimi?”
“Yeah,” he said, chewing something. It sounded like a bagel.
Quiet rested over the phone line. I closed my eyes and put my face in my cat’s fur. I counted to ten. I imagined what life would be like with a name like Mimi. Dylan and Mimi. Dylan and Belle sounded better.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. I swear I could hear him shrug.
“Well, do you like her?”
A pause. “Not that way.”
“Mm-hhmmm.”
I could breathe again.
Mimi and I had been best friends until eighth grade. We’d do makeup together, sleep over at each other’s houses. Mimi always put stuffed animals in between us in bed to make sure we didn’t touch each other, like that was some big awful thing. I did better in school and in sports, but she was a much better flirt.
“Do you like Tom Tanner?” she asked one time at cheering.
“Yeah.”
The next day she asked him out. Then she did it again, with Dylan.
Emily and I discussed it all via a note in Algebra II. Emily’s handwriting commanded both sides of the page, with its extravagant loops. Mine seemed cramped, tiny, shy. She was stressed about whether to drink at a party. I was stressed about the Mimi situation.
Well, Belle, scared of what?
Of being “in love.” If we went out I don’t know if we’d ever break up. I mean, I like, love him and I understand him because in a way he’s part of me and I him. We’re like two souls that are one, but not identical.
That sounds corny.
Well, okay, whether you drink or not is up to you, but don’t if you don’t want to. And do if you do. If you don’t know now decide when the time comes. You’ll know what to do. Intuition.
Good advice! Do you believe the saying opposites attract? Because if you’re that alike it would be hard to keep the relationship going. See the thing I don’t understand is what you want to happen between you two? Understand????!!!
I don’t know!
It’s just—I know it’s like meant to be and stuff, but I have to wait cause to truly love someone you have to work out the things th
at need to be—and you have to be ready to love them and they you. Do you know?
That’s very philosophical there Belle. But don’t you in the slightest want to be dancing in Dylan’s arms Friday night or do you want Mimi to be . . .
Tell the truth . . .
Yeah, but I can’t make him love only me and I know he does but I don’t know if he’s ready to.
Well, suppose you and Dylan were going to get married soon. Would you approve of him having affairs ?!?
If we were getting married, there’d be a commitment and he’d be ready to love me. We’re only 15. This is scary for a fifteen year old. You love people in different degrees, anyway.
Yes, I can see that, but first you have commitment to be boyfriend/girlfriend and then you have whatever next in everything, even now.
Who was it who wrote those words? Some confident girl. Some girl who knew her stuff. Some girl who didn’t have a boyfriend, and wanted one, but didn’t really need one. That girl was me.
I rip the note up into a thousand pieces, and I don’t care that I’m in the middle of English and that Rachel and Mimi stare at me with big eyes and whisper behind their pretty manicured hands. Everyone is, except for the guys. The guys like Andrew and Travis raise their eyebrows, shift their jock legs uncomfortably, the guys like Rasheesh cross their nerd knees, or if they’re invisible boys they nod in sympathy.
I don’t care. I make confetti, march up in front of Mr. Patrick, right in the middle of his lecture, and flutter the pieces into the trash bin.
Then I raise my hand and answer the next question just to prove how cool I am.
“I don’t believe that the thematic impact of Adrienne Rich’s poem, ‘The Afterwake,’ centers around the fatigue mentioned in the second stanza but on the word ‘nerves’ at the end of the first line.”
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Andrew starts laughing and applauding. Kara Raymond does a cat whistle. I sit down and smile. Mr. Patrick shakes his head and says, “I don’t know what to do with you, Philbrick.”
Andrew mutters, “I bet Tom would.”
