Inside The Mind Of Gideon Rayburn

by Sarah Miller

  Perhaps more important, Liam still scares him, but he no longer feels the impulse to sob when he sees him.

  I've seen Gid look at me. I'm not saying where I fall on the worth-looking-at scale, but I will say that when Gid's eyes fall on you, you can't help but feel kind of pretty. Even if you know, as I do, that Gid's head does little but run in a loop, as regular as a train route.

  It starts off with Pilar. He sees her from afar, sometimes she even comes close to him and says hello, and this sends him into near-spasms of happiness, which almost as quickly turn over into anxiety as he realizes that he has not, since that glorious day in the girls' dorm, had an actual conversation with her, and that he must make that his very first order of business. But he barely has time to settle on that plan before he remembers his anxiety growing that he must step things up with Molly McGarry. He tried to talk to her yesterday. But she was with that Edie girl from his English class.

  At this point, frustration makes Gid's mind go blank, but only for a second. Because then, inexplicably, Danielle pops up, not Danielle per se but a dark, stomach-churning feeling of guilt for not yet having called her, and the only way he can stop berating himself is to again think pleasant thoughts about Pilar.

  You might think it would be hard to be in love with a guy and watch him lust after other chicks. The thing is, I am in for the long haul. I want Gid forever, and I can wait for forever to start. (Oh my God, who is channeling Mariah Carey?) Besides, I already know Gid and I are going to end up together, because I know him better than he knows himself. Remember what Mickey Eisenberg said about Ms. San Video? That he knows what he likes? Well, Gid knows what he likes too. He just doesn't know that he knows.

  On this particular night, Gideon has just smoked a little pot, and although Cullen assured him this particular pot's effects would be soporific, he can tell that he is (we are) going to be awake for a long time. You have permission, he tells himself, to think only of Pilar until you manage to fall asleep. But it's no good, because there's Molly McGarry, or the anxiety of the bet, weighing dark and heavy on his chest. He realizes with some surprise that he might want to win this bet more than he wants to sleep with Pilar. That means, he tells himself, stoned and fascinated, that I don't care as much about what I want as I care about what other people want for me. He beats himself up about this for a few minutes, but then, remembering that it's not likely that either girl will ever sleep with him anyway, he can't help but laugh.

  He's amazed at his total absence of tiredness. The whole inside of his head feels white, sparkling, alive. He remembers that he didn't brush his teeth or wash his face. He brightens at having something to do. In the bathroom Gideon stares at his face, at his nut brown eyes, his graceful eyebrows, and his fantastic, well-orthodontured teeth.

  The more he loves Pilar, the cuter he gets. It's like her beauty shines on him. And the Mariah Carey theme continues.

  He's staring at his face when the door swings open and standing there—no, this can't be, is he that high? But no, it's really her: Pilar Benitez-Jones. She looks right at him, but her eyes are big and unfocused. She ducks around the corner. "You have to help me get out of here, Gee-de-on," she hisses. The way she says help, with no h, and a long e, even her mangling of his name, gets him right in the knees.

  Gideon leaves his toothbrush in the sink and rushes to the shower, where she stands, her back pressed up against the gray-and-pink-tiled wall. She looks terrified but elated, her big eyes glassy around the whites and shiny in their black middles. Her teeth gleam. His insides feel as if someone is pouring cold water over them.

  Is Pilar in his dorm because she's visiting a guy? Why else would she be there? So he shouldn't put himself at risk of getting in major trouble for no good reason, for Pilar and some other guy's benefit. But—did he really just think this?—he loves her. He has to help.

  Gideon ushers Pilar farther inside the shower, taking his toothbrush with him. "You're lucky there's no one in here," he says, liking the way he sounds vaguely reprimanding.

  "We're in here," Pilar says, is she wasted? Gid doesn't yet know the difference between merely under the influence and wasted.

  "Sit down," he says. She looks at him challengingly. "Sit down," he says again. "You're going to fall over. Okay. You came running in here. Why?"

  "I was in Mickey Eisenberg's room," she says. Gideon's eyes widen. Pilar laughs, a delightful bubble, with a warm vodka vapor. "Not like that," she says, poking him with one finger. The entire range of skin around the poke turns hot. She reaches her other hand inside her bra. God, a beautiful girl who is always pulling things in and out of her bra... it's too good. "Like this," she says. She holds a small packet of white pills and smiles proudly.

  "Oh, right," Gid says. "The drugs that I got with my phone call, which was no doubt a felony."

  "Anyway, Mickey was pissed I came over. He told me at dinner there was going to be a meteor shower tonight, and that your dorm head would be outside watching it."

  Gid runs to the left-hand bathroom window and, careful not to stick his head out too much, looks down to the dorm steps. The meteor shower! Mickey Eisenberg was right! Captain Cockweed sits on a lawn chair five feet from the dorm's front door, his head tilted slightly to the heavens, moonlight shining on his bald spot. At his feet, his son, Tim, looks to the sky, his head tipped back at the same reverent angle. Gid knows the kid's faking it, that even at age ten, he's figured out how to pretend he likes things like stars so his dad will think he's a good, curious kid and not just a budding hoodlum who only wants to slam into people on his skateboard while muttering choruses from Blink-182 songs. Gid's about to wonder if he should feel sorry for Tim Cockweed when Pilar peeks around the edge of the shower wall. "Gee-de-on," she says, louder than necessary.

  "Shhh," he says, shoving her back in the shower. The drugs have made her pliant and unstable, as if her body had been loaded onto a giant spring.

  She giggles. "You're hurting me!" Her tone is mocking; she's not really saying You're hurting me. Gid realizes. She's imitating someone who might play damsel in distress this way. She can joke all she wants, but seriously, honey, you don't just accidentally find yourself stranded at midnight in a guy's prep school dorm without kind of wanting it to happen.

  But Gid—in love, seeing nothing really beyond the velvet softness of Pilar's brown eyes and the satin of her skin—is incapable of such a critique.

  Very incapable. "Pilar," he says, tenderly, bravely, putting his palm on her head, stroking her hair as if she were a child. "Why'd you go out tonight? Even when Mickey told you it wasn't a good idea?"

  Pilar shrugs, and Gid, poor Gid, just watches the play of light on her shoulders as it moves up and down. "I ran out?" she says.

  Pilar Benitez-Jones was an Ecstasy fiend! She was getting more and more interesting by the second. At this

  moment the bathroom door opens. Gid thinks about clapping a hand over Pilar's mouth, like he's seen in movies. Then he does it. Wow. He's enjoying this.

  "Gid, are you in here?" It's Cullen. Pilar looks at Gid: What should we do? Gid shakes his head: Don't say anything. She nods.

  "You know, Gid's pretty tight-lipped about who he really wants to nail." It's Nicholas talking now. "Surprisingly tight-lipped for someone with zero game." Gid wants to die. The sound of running water and vigorous toothbrushing. "I mean, I see Gid looking around at girls. But you know how we always tell each other who's in the hot seat? He says nothing. For a dork..."

  "Don't talk about Gid like that," Cullen says. "He's our brother."

  "Just telling it like it is. I like the guy, but he's not that cool."

  "Personally," says Cullen, "I think that's what makes him cool. But what would you know, because you're completely cool, and that's what makes you so uncool."

  "Suck it," says Nicholas. "We're not talking about me. Anyway, for a guy who doesn't seem to have a big game, he's real casual when it comes to the girls. Is he into Kelly, the sophomore with the big earrings and the matchin
g butt? Rose May, that southern girl? Or maybe he's after Pilar Benitez-Jones?"

  Cullen laughs. Gid would love to interpret the laugh in a different way, but he knows that a laugh like that—loud, quick, totally sarcastic—only means one thing: not in a million years.

  "He probably just went down to the basement to sneak a Coke," Cullen says. "It's a funny world where you can smoke all the pot you want but Coke is off-limits."

  "Coke is poison," Nicholas mutters.

  "Yeah, well, my dick is poison," Cullen says. "But everyone still wants it." Nicholas manages a tolerant snort.

  Pilar takes a deep breath, obviously about to speak. Gid shakes his head vigorously and clamps his hand over her mouth. Her lips worming against his palm, the wall of her teeth. Why do girls get so excited whenever their name is mentioned? He looks right into her eyes. She bites the skin between his thumb and pointer finger, and Gid moves against her. He is aroused. They stay this way until Cullen and Nicholas leave.

  But when he goes to take his hand away she grabs it. She doesn't stop looking into his eyes. She grabs his hand, and she puts it—well, the fact that I don't want to say where she puts it should let you know where.

  And what does Gid do? For those of you who said he grabs her and they make passionate love under the running water, well, you overestimate him. For those who say he sets his hand on her cheek and says, "Not here, Pilar. Not like this," well, that would make for great television. But it's not what happened. Because even though Pilar might have what it takes for primetime, Gid is pure after-school special.

  Which is why I like him. And why he struggles.

  sleepover

  Pilar eventually sank to the floor. Gid made sure she didn't break any bones.

  Gid stands there for at least ten minutes, watching her drift in and out and asking himself all sorts of moral questions about alcohol, girls, and sex. The yellow underwear flashes into his thoughts. When Pilar's eyes flutter open and she murmurs, "Let's do it," he thinks he will die of joy. But she's wasted. She doesn't mean it. But she doesn't not mean it. Her eyes are open. She's definitely awake. He holds up two fingers.

  "How many fingers am I holding up?" he says.

  "Peace," she says. Her eyes close, then open, then close.

  He undoes a length of paper towel from the dispenser, folds it, and sets it under Pilar's head. "Just let me sleep for fifteen minutes," she says. She's awake. So she does know what she's saying! He peeks out the door. Nothing. He dashes back into his room.

  The guys are asleep, though their personalities are still very much with them, even in repose. Cullen's on his back, mouth wide open, his whole upper body tipped backward on the white bank of pillows he stole from a four-star hotel in Tokyo. His head angles ever so slightly to the left, as if even asleep he knew this was the proper way to display his neck and shoulder muscles to the column of light coming in from the streetlamp. Nicholas lies on his side, his body in a perfect C, his hands clasped between his knees. Cullen's mouth grabs the air noisily. Nicholas doesn't make a sound; air just flows through him.

  Gid hears the soft but deliberate sound of feet on carpet. It's not Pilar. The steps are too...angry.

  He looks out the peephole. That pink head, that purposeful walk. It's Captain Cockweed, alert, suspicious, his powerful torso and hips propelling him toward their door.

  Gid leaps onto his bed. He hears a tiny metallic sound, Cockweed's wedding ring against the doorknob. Then the room floods with light. The door shuts. It is dark again. Gid waits.

  Should he let Pilar sleep in the shower?

  Yes, Gideon, that would probably be best for everyone.

  Then he has a bizarre fantasy. That Cullen wakes up before he does and goes in to take a shower and that he finds Pilar there, and that Pilar sits up, gives him a slow, sexy smile, and begins to slip off her clothes as Cullen reaches to remove his shorts...

  Gid plays out that whole fantasy as an excuse to risk going back into the bathroom.

  Pilar's still asleep. A clear ribbon of drool hangs out of the pink corner of her mouth and is spreading in a moist circle on the paper towel pillow. Gid slips one arm under her knees. She's wearing corduroys. They are soft. And then one arm under her neck. He bends at the knees and lifts her up.

  He has to open the bathroom door with his foot. He pushes it with a little too much force, and it swings back too fast, lightly knocking Pilar on the side of the head.

  She doesn't flinch. The hall is empty. It's only about six paces to his door, but Cockweed could emerge at any time. Gid leaps, his forward motion moving into the door so that he lands inside the bedroom.

  He feels very Matrix.

  Cullen and Nicholas sleep as Gideon eases Pilar onto his bed and gently straightens out her limbs. She opens her eyes. "Everyone thinks I am from Buenos Aires," she says, "but I am from Bahfa Blanca." She stretches and rearranges her body so that she leaves only about a six-inch-wide strip, which Gideon, grateful he is skinny fat and not fat fat, eases himself into. His arm is scrunched up underneath him. Would it be weird or bad if he kind of laid it on top of her body?

  He closes his eyes and imagines that Pilar Benitez-Jones is his wife, and that falling asleep next to her is the most natural thing in the world.

  He wakes up to Nicholas and Cullen standing over him.

  "Hi," Gid whispers.

  "Holy fucking shit," Cullen says. "This is awesome."

  "It's not that awesome," Gid says.

  That makes me laugh.

  "You're not going to believe what happened," Gid says.

  Cullen wags his head from side to side. "You found her wandering around drunk and brought her in here. Happens all the time. Or it's not unheard of. Did you know Aztec warriors used to sleep next to naked virgins to increase their resistance to pain?"

  Pilar, still asleep, is fully clothed. And I would be very surprised if she were a virgin.

  "Can you believe how beautiful she is? I mean, isn't it just heartbreaking?" Gid says. He dreamed about her all night.

  "Mother of God," says Nicholas. "Beautiful and about to get us fucking expelled." He goes to the peephole. "Mrs. Cockweed is out there with the damn ironing board. Oh wait, she's packing it up, she's going. Cullen, get your hockey bag out of the closet."

  Cullen winks at Gid. "She is pretty hot," he says. "You're such a champ for not nailing her, what with the bet and all."

  "I want to call it off," Gid says. "I really think that Pilar likes me. She said..."

  Cullen is coming toward him with a human-size red bag.

  "No," says Gideon, horrified. "You're not going to put her in a bag."

  "What are you going to do, carry her out in your pants?" Nicholas asks. He cocks his head at Gideon. "You wake her up."

  "Wait," Cullen says. "Gid wants to call off the Molly McGarry bet because he's in love with Pilar."

  "No, no, no," Gid says, "I didn't say I was in love with her. I said she likes me, and—"

  "Both of those things are equally absurd," Nicholas snaps. "More absurd, in fact, than the fact that one of us has to carry this one-hundred-twenty-pound girl out of our dorm in a bag."

  Pilar opens her eyes. She sees Gideon, Nicholas, Cullen, then the bag. She knows what it's for.

  "One hundred fifteen pounds," she says. She laughs. She closes her eyes again.

  "You don't have to," Gid says. "We can probably..."

  Pilar opens her eyes. She rolls onto her side and hoists herself on her elbow. She sits on the edge of the bed, then puts her head between her knees.

  Cullen opens his mouth. He's about to make a gross joke. I don't need to be inside his mind to know that.

  "Shut up," Nicholas says. "It's too early for your stupid fucking..." He rolls his eyes, too world-weary to complete the sentence.

  Pilar, woozy, lowers herself onto the floor. She looks up at Gideon, her eyes huge and moving in her head with intoxicated instability. She crawls into the bag. "Leave me in the woods behind my dorm." Her tone is dull. She i
s a practiced misbehaver.

  Gid savors every inch of Pilar's face as the bag is zipped up and it disappears.

  Gid insists on carrying the bag. It's not too heavy. He can handle it. But walking through the doorway the bag swings out and some rather hard part of Pilar's body hits the molding. "Sorry," Gid says. A few steps down the hall, the bag swings the other way. There is another thud. "Geez, sorry again," Gid whispers, kind of caressing the bag.

  Cullen and Nicholas have been watching from the doorway, and Cullen comes barreling down the hall, exasperated. "You can't fucking talk to the fucking bag," he says.

  With little effort, Cullen takes the bag and hoists it onto his shoulder. "If you're totally fine in there," he hisses, "don't say anything."

  The bag is silent. Gid would feel bad that he wasn't the man for the job, but he makes himself feel better by remembering it's because he cares too much. After all, he did carry her last night. Under the right circumstances, she is not too heavy for him.

  crates aren't inhumane

  Days pass, and Pilar doesn't talk to him. She always says hi, which in a way makes it worse, because it's not that she doesn't see Gid. She totally sees him and chooses to restrict the terms of their interaction.

  He hates that Nicholas is right. I kind of hate it too. This whole "in your league" idea is very unromantic.

  Though, like most unromantic things, it could very well be the way life works.

  Gid resolves to get used to the dull pitch of life, down from the whirring frenzy when Pilar was sort of around more, and resolves to set his sights on Molly.

  For three straight days, he studies the back of Molly McGarry's head all through Spanish class. Not surprisingly, this provides no insights.

  He's going to ask Cullen. This whole watch-and-learn thing, while less desperate than actually being schooled, is also less effective.

  Gid finds Cullen just as he's walking into the dining hall with Fiona, the calculating babysitter. Fiona Winchester, black-haired, pink-cheeked, pert in front and behind, stands a whole foot shorter than Cullen. She looks up at him with adoring eyes. Her eyes have a natural softness to them. It's easy to see why she might cultivate motherliness to pursue boys. She's wearing shortish pants which are fashionable but to Gideon seem merely too short, a vintage paisley shirt, and a pair of high-heeled boots that look purposefully odd with it all. Even her outfit is sort of weirdo-cool mom-ish, though she's only fifteen.