Inside The Mind Of Gideon Rayburn

by Sarah Miller

  As Gid runs he thinks about Molly. She has spoken to him this week, but never unnecessarily, and never with any warmth. "Fuck," Gideon says, grabbing at a pain in his side.

  "Run through it," Nicholas says, picking up the pace.

  Gid grabs harder, twisting his body to one side. "You've got to be kidding," he says, but he manages to keep his legs moving. What's amazing about Molly is that she's also managed not to come across as cold, so there's so excuse to make an apology. Even in rehearsals, she said she had a cold sore and couldn't kiss. And she really did have one. He wonders if she made it out of stage makeup. He slows down. He doesn't want to run, he wants to think about how to...how to...

  Now, how is he finishing this sentence? With "win the bet"? Or with "make her feel better that he stranded her on the stairs to go talk to Pilar"?

  "Keep going," Nicholas says. "I promise, you'll feel better."

  Eventually the pain subsides, then is gone altogether.

  Just as they're easing into their cooldown walk, Gid looks out over the track to the access road that moves through the woods to the lower edge of the athletic fields. Coming through the fog is an early seventies muscle car, white, with blue-rimmed tires. Gid remembers the car from the driveway at the party. The car stops, the passenger-side door opens, and Pilar jumps out.

  Dennis's car.

  She's wearing a blue tracksuit trimmed with pink. Gid loves it when Pilar wears tracksuits. Her hair is in pigtails.

  Gid thinks she invented that look. I wish I could tell him that she didn't, because then he might be less enamored of her, less heartbreakingly impressed. But there are some things you just have to find out on your own.

  "Pilar is like a cramp," Nicholas says. "Run through it." Now, why couldn't I have made that point?

  The car makes a hasty three-point turn and speeds off. Pilar trots up a wooded slope behind White, slips into the trees, and disappears.

  Gid sends the message, I will always love you, into the morning mist. From near or far, always. He doesn't feel corny or embarrassed or totally sad. It's just...well, as Nicholas would say, the truth of the universe flowing through him.

  So he can't say sorry to Molly. So what. He can still fuck her in time to win the bet. That's all that matters, right? He keeps seeing that empty stair in his mind. What if she really likes him? What if he hurts her? What if he already has?

  Is it stupid to think he can pull it off?

  When he walks into the mail room later, she's standing there. She is pale and dark-eyed and frowning. That's my disappointment, Gid thinks. I made that mouth look that way.

  He thinks he only feels bad about that. But I know he feels good too. Powerful. He can't help it. It's not malicious. It's just that.. .well, growing up with such a sort of autistic father, he feels proud to be part of the world of feeling.

  "I am so sorry," Gid says, before he even comprehends what he's saying. "I...shouldn't have gone over to talk to Pilar like that. It was mean." He moves toward her so quickly and with such a genuineness of feeling that he almost feels like he's floating.

  Molly...I don't mean this to be mean, but she looks like she's thirty sometimes. Like, really mature. "I'm surprised you're apologizing," she says.

  He wants to tread lightly here. Because it is not just a matter, he knows, of leaving one girl to talk to another. Because surely Molly must know that Pilar Benitez-Jones is no ordinary girl. And in apologizing, he doesn't want to make Molly feel, well, ordinary.

  "I like that you said something to me," Molly says, and her voice is low and throaty and sends a little current through Gid.

  The current is like alcohol and adrenaline.

  "So...," Gid says carefully. He doesn't want to ask, "You're not mad at me?" That implies that Molly is weak, that...

  She's standing at eye level to his mailbox. She touches her finger against the glass window. "I bet you have a

  note from Danielle," she says. "That color is very her."

  Gid opens the box. Inside is a light green envelope, with, ironically, a love stamp. Gideon walks outside the mail room and sits on a wooden bench. He opens the envelope and begins to read.

  Dear Gideon,

  Hi. That was pretty weird, wasn't it? Well, at least I got to beat two prep school girls at Scrabble.

  Okay, that Scrabble line, for both me and Gid, is a heartbreaker.

  / wish that things could have ended differently between us. But Molly explained to me that you were really upset and talked about me a lot and didn't know what to do. She explained to me that you were really depressed and that you were just too down to deal with me.

  Oh my God, Gid thinks, Molly McGarry of the Buffalo McGarrys is a fucking genius.

  And I just want to tell you that I understand, and that whenever you want to talk I am here for you. I just want to tell you also that I am not mad at you anymore.

  For a boy these are the most magical words in the world. Because all boys want to behave in a way that could get them in trouble, without actually getting into trouble. This is what being a boy is all about.

  "I need a favor from you," Molly says, joining him on the bench.

  "Anything," Gid says. He holds up the letter. "How did you do this?"

  "May I read it?" Molly asks, not trying to hide the unmitigated delight in her eyes as Gid hands it to her. For a girl, reading things you're not supposed to, things meant for other people's eyes, is stunningly pleasurable. I guess that being inside Gid's head is sort of that same sensation. But it's been going on so long I don't even feel like I'm intruding anymore. I just feel like I'm with the person I love, but I don't ever have to wait for him to call.

  Molly reads, almost immediately smiling in a mildly self-satisfied way.

  "How did you do it?" Gid asks again.

  "Wouldn't you like to know?"

  Grateful as he is, Gid finds this a little exasperating. And who can blame him? Does she have to display her cleverness so constantly and with such aggression? Thank God, though, that he doesn't say this. "Just tell me," he

  says. Tm dying to know."

  Aware, perhaps, that curiosity, when it comes to the ladies, will get you everywhere.

  "Just like it says here, I told her that you were really down." Molly shrugs with false modesty. "She actually believed you weren't calling her because of something that had nothing to do with her. You've heard of the whole 1 love you too much to be with you' thing, right?"

  Gid has not. But he's intrigued. "Go on."

  "Well," Molly says, "some guy tried it on my sister.... He said he really liked her, but he was so depressed that he didn't want to drag her into his hell."

  "And she believed him?" He's enjoying himself. He's almost forgetting that this is business.

  Molly snorts. "Please. My sister's not stupid."

  Gid smiles. "Of course not. She discovered the unknown link between hurricanes and vaginas."

  Molly laughs out loud. And she looks pretty. Not lit-from-within-by-a-thousand-candles pretty, but pretty.

  "When I came to school here last year, I used it on my boyfriend in Buffalo. Greg Zhydoek. And he believed it. He believed it just like Danielle did. So," she rubs her hands together and holds them out flat, "they're happy, you're happy. People can survive anything as long as they think it's not their fault."

  Gid thinks about this. "What's that supposed to mean, then? Are Danielle Rogal and Greg Zhydoek stupid?"

  Molly purses her mouth. "Not stupid," she says. "Just romantic." Now she looks sallow again. Normal. God, this whole bet would be easier if she could just stay hot all the time. But then he probably wouldn't have a chance with her.

  "Are you romantic?" he asks Molly.

  Molly wags a finger at him. "No way," she says. "Not answering that."

  Gid admires this. To keep things inside, well, that sounds to him like it takes a lot of courage. He is an unrepentant sharer of information.

  "Anyway," Molly says, "let's talk about Halloween."

  Gid's
heart skips a beat.

  "I think you'd agree that you owe me."

  It skips two.

  "Well, I want to go to the dumb Halloween dance as someone who came over on the Mayflower. And I want you to be my indentured servant."

  "Let me guess," Gid says. "Your American history project." He groans. He hates dressing up. It's hard enough to act even marginally cool when he's being himself. "Can't you just use plastic soldiers?"

  She puts her hands on his shoulders. "Why do I need plastic soldiers when you're life-size?" He can feel the pressure from her fingertips on his collarbone. He thinks there might actually be something going on in this touch. And she looks hot again. Hotter than before even. He wishes they could stay this way until Halloween.

  the yellow ghost

  I have never wondered what an artistic rendering of Gid's virginity would look like, but here we are, on the night of the Midvale Halloween Party, and I have to say I'm pleased to have been given an opportunity to find out. Cullen steps out of his closet in jeans, a T-shirt, and, over the jeans, an enormous yellow thong made especially for the occasion. "That tailor at the dry cleaner in town thinks I'm a giant pervert," he says. "But she is also under the assumption that I'm gay, which is good, because her daughter's hot, and in the spring, when I begin to pursue her in earnest, it will take that much longer for the mother to figure out what's going on." Nicholas has fashioned two giant red question marks out of cardboard, roped them together, and hung the whole apparatus over his shoulders, like a sandwich board. They practice. Cullen stands still in the middle of their room while Nicholas takes various poses around him. "What do you think, Gid?" Cullen asks. "You see, I am the thong itself, and Nicholas is, you know, the ambiguity around it. Does it look like that?"

  Gideon, making his reluctant but dutiful way into a white lace-up shirt, a pair of old black knickers, and a worn pair of suede boots—all filched from the theater department costume vault—frowns. "I thought this was a private joke," he says.

  "Look," Nicholas says, "you know me. Do I have any problem just ignoring people when they ask me questions?"

  "No," Gid says, working out a knot on his shirt. "But Cullen does."

  "Hey," Cullen says, "I just want to have fun. I just want to feel like your virginity." He snaps his enormous thong. "Hey! When people ask me a question, about what we are, I promise, I will just do that. Okay?"

  "You guys are fucking douche bags," Gid says.

  "But we're so clever," Cullen says.

  "It was my idea," Nicholas says.

  "Exactly," Cullen says, "and you would never, ever have had the guts to actually do it if not for me. Not the making-fun-of-you part, Gid. That's easy. The wearing-gay-shit part. You know?"

  Gid knows.

  He gives a resigned sigh. "What about me? Do I look like an indentured servant?"

  Nicholas takes a break from looking at himself in the mirror—you have to at least respect someone who has the gall to consider himself hot even when dressed as a giant question mark—and checks him out. "You look like Peter Pan," he says.

  Now Cullen gives him the once-over. "Gay Peter Pan," he amends. "Okay, truth? You look like a giant a-hole. But you are so winning this bet for Uncle Cullie tonight!" He puts his hand up, and he and Gid high-five.

  Gid thinks too much, but he does have a boy's uncanny ability to ignore things that will only get him down. See, he's all but forgotten that if he doesn't score tonight, Cullen's whole position on him is going to change. But Cullen's boyish enthusiasm captivates him every time, so Gid sails out the door floating on top of that high five like a pink cloud. Good for him, right?

  On the landing, he runs into Captain Cockweed, holding hands with his daughter, Erin, who seems to be dressed as either a ghost or a lollipop. Captain Cockweed clears his throat. "You know, Gid, I told your father I was very concerned for you," he says.

  Gideon manages a fake grateful smile. "Yes, I know," he says. "He told me, but then he said I looked so great and obviously had such nice friends that while he appreciated your input, he himself wasn't concerned." Now an "eat shit" smile. He even pats Erin's head and says, "Oh, I hope that your electrical system is working better. Happy Halloween." He watches with extreme enjoyment as Captain Cockweed's whole body contracts with hatred.

  The night air is cold and magical; the sky glitters with an almost impossible density of stars. Gid has that bursting-happy fall feeling. What's the unpleasant tug underneath it? he wonders. Fear. Sex with Molly.

  Behind him he hears the clicking of heels. The heels are definitely a woman's but they aren't too dainty. They're gaining on him. Surprise, it's Pilar. Dressed in a cowgirl hat and cowboy boots and a one-piece white suit, a sort of glorified unitard, which, because my orthodontist gets Vogue, I know is called a Nudie. Nudies cost a lot of money. Pilar isn't the sort of girl to spare any expense with her Halloween costume, and what with the full financial power of the Argentine beef by-product market, she doesn't have to.

  "Howdy," she says. "Are you supposed to be Davy Crockett?" "I thought he wore a coonskin cap," Gid complains.

  "Yes," Pilar says, "and one of these shirts too." She tugs on the laces, revealing a little of the left side of Gid's chest. He tries to breathe into that side a little harder, to puff it up. I would like to make fun of him for that, but when I walk around, I try to stick certain parts of my body out more than others too. It's an easy thing to fall into.

  Gid shakes his head. "If I were him, I would make sure I had a coonskin cap, okay? So what are you?"

  "I'm not a what, I am a who. On Halloween, everyone is a who."

  "You're a cowgirl," he says. "And anyway, that's not true, some people are whats."

  Pilar removes her hat. Her hair is pinned up into a sort of wavy bob. "I'm Patsy Cline. I know everyone is thinking I will be Carmen Miranda or something..."

  Gid smiles inwardly at the idea that everyone on campus has formulated an idea of what Pilar might be for Halloween. And so do I. Even if I were Pilar, I would have to laugh at myself for assuming this.

  Pilar continues, "So I thought I would throw them a curved ball."

  "It's not curved, it's curve," Gid corrects her.

  But Pilar shakes her head, her hair skimming her shoulders. "No, that's wrong," she says. "The ball is curved when it's thrown. Curved ball."

  "Trust me. Curveball. The pitcher threw a curveball."

  But she shakes her head again. "I don't believe you." The girl told the boy he was wrong.

  "Fine. Suit yourself. I am American, you know."

  "Oh, yes," Pilar says. "Your Americanness and its clean-cut charms has made itself evidenced to me many times. Anyway. What are you?"

  A group of girls walk by, deferentially lowering their eyes. (Gid knows this is for Pilar's benefit, not his.) One of them, Gid is pleased to see, is the fading-green-eyeliner girl from the TV room. They're all in fishnets, short skirts, and ripped-up tank tops. A few feet away, another group of girls walk by wearing essentially the same thing. "They're all hookers," Pilar says, sensing Gid's confusion. "American girls are always hookers on Halloween, so they can show off their tits. But anyway, please tell me what you are."

  He tells her. Tells her why. Well, not entirely why. Just that he's a part of someone else's costume. She looks bored. Her violet-colored mouth goes a little slack. Or maybe she just looks a little sad? She's carrying a guitar case. She opens it up. it's filled with makeup, her cigarettes, and a bottle of water. "That's vodka," she says.

  I should have known she was tipsy—the whole "Americans this, Americans that" routine.

  She looks around, but they're in a protected area, a dark path between Thayer and the administration buildings. "Do you want some?"

  It's going to be a long, emotionally challenging night, Gideon. Have some vodka.

  He boldly stares into the shine in Pilar's eyes as he takes his drink.

  "Boy, that burns," he says, handing back the bottle, keeping his gaze on (again, his words) the magic
brown velvet of her eyes.

  "But it burns clean. They won't smell it." She sets it back in the bag, kneels down—affording for Gid an exciting peek down her Nudie—and comes up with a photo.

  She hands it to Gid and—wow, he was right—he sees that she is a little sad. It's them on the night of Fiona's party, sitting in the chair, pressed close together.

  "I have to go," Pilar says.

  "Hey," he says, "can I get another swig of that vodka before you take off?"

  After a few chugs, Gid notices Pilar has rhinestones on her cowboy hat. She's a white flame, he thinks. Yet another ill-fated love metaphor for Gid.

  Walking a few more steps to the party, he remembers casting his love of Pilar hopelessly into the morning mist. He laughs. He acknowledges that it may be the vodka that's making him laugh and that he will not always find this torturous connection between him and Pilar funny. But for now, he laughs.

  He finds Molly sitting on the stone ledge outside the party, wearing a long ugly brown dress and a matching bonnet.

  "Is that what people wore back in, what was it, 1620?"

  Molly ties her bonnet string underneath her chin. "Yes. I got a book out of the lower-school library called How Our Forefathers Dressed. Which, clearly, I should have lent to you. You look like Robinson Crusoe."

  "I've been getting various things," Gid says. "Robinson Crusoe is good."

  Molly nods approvingly. "Well, Robinson Crusoe is more than fine. He's about a hundred years past the Pilgrims, but I don't think fashion moved very quickly back then. Anyway, here." She holds up some sort of leather strap. It's a leash. It is a leash.

  Gideon's testicles contract.

  "You want me to wear a leash?" Thank God for that nice vodka buzz he got from Pilar. Oh no! Pilar's going to see him on a leash. See? Already his love for her is no longer funny.

  Molly's now slipped the collar over his head. She talks the entire time, in an informational tone of voice, as if this were no big deal.