Boy Toy

by Michael Craft

  Pierce assured him, “If you didn’t kill Jason, that’s not going to happen, Thad.”

  Though I was pleased to hear it from Pierce’s lips, my worst apprehensions about Thad’s stature in the microsociety of the theater troupe had now been borne out, and I again feared the emotional toll this would exact from him. Even the play’s director, the pompous Mr. Diggins, was preparing for Thad’s demise. Was Denny simply looking out for the show’s best interests? Or was he moving forward with a more sinister agenda? I told Thad, “I’m sure that Mr. Diggins just wants all the bases covered. If, for some reason—any reason—you couldn’t go on this weekend, who’d take over for you?”

  Thad shrugged. “I don’t have an understudy, not anymore. I guess Tommy would step up, if he could memorize the role fast enough.”

  Listening to this, Kwynn nodded. “He’s a quick study.” She picked up a long, thin slice of carrot and munched the end of it.

  “Meaning,” Pierce asked her, “Tommy learns lines quickly?”

  She swallowed. “Uh-huh. There were a couple of times at school when Mrs. Osborne had to make late casting changes, and Tommy always came through. I think he’d get better roles in the first place if he wasn’t so short; maybe that’s why he tries so hard. Anyway, when I was back at Unity High during my freshman year, there was a flu bug or something going around during the spring production. Our director had to make lots of last-minute cast changes, and nobody could handle it; the show turned out a mess.” Kwynn shook her head, lamenting the fiasco. “We could have really used Tommy, but he’s always gone to Central.”

  I’d forgotten—if I’d known at all—that Kwynn had attended both of Dumont’s high schools. “When did you start attending Central, Kwynn?”

  “Sophomore year. We moved to a new house, in town.”

  She was referring to the geographical distribution of the two schools’ students. Dumont Central was located near downtown and served the city school district; Unity High was located just beyond the city line and served several outlying county districts. She continued, “I could have stayed at Unity because I started there, but since Central has a better theater program, I made the switch.” She turned to Thad, smiling. “Glad I did too.”

  It dawned on me that Kwynn was doubtless a good “source” regarding who’s who—she’d been a student at both high schools, and she’d been involved with theater two years longer than Thad. I asked, “Did you know Jason back at Unity?”

  “Sure, Mr. Manning. We were in the same class, and we were both in a couple of plays that year.”

  Pierce figured out why I’d asked. He leaned forward on his elbows. “How well did you know him, Kwynn?” Tentatively, he added, “Did you ever…date?”

  She laughed. “Not as freshmen, Sheriff. Besides”—she and Thad briefly turned to each other, sharing a grin—“Jason didn’t exactly ‘date.’ ”

  Pierce and I turned to each other, sharing a grin of our own. I crossed my arms, asking both Kwynn and Thad, “Level with me—was Jason Thrush gay?”

  They looked at each other and exchanged a shrug. Turning to me, they both nodded matter-of-factly. Thad qualified his nod: “Jason never actually said so.”

  Kwynn told me, “He put up a good act, but everybody knew Jason liked boys.” A la Seinfeld, she quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Pierce laughed.

  I slapped a palm to my forehead. “Jeez, guys, why didn’t you ever mention this?”

  “You never asked,” said Thad, taking another pickle.

  “And everybody knew,” Kwynn repeated.

  Had times changed that much? An attractive, outgoing high school athlete/scholar/actor from a prominent family was generally known to be gay, and no one bothered to talk about it? Somehow, I couldn’t quite believe that the gay subculture had been that successfully mainstreamed out here in the middle of Middle America. Though Wisconsin could boast a proud tradition of tolerance and progressive attitudes, the Jason Thrush story struck me—any way you sliced it—as hot gossip-fodder.

  I laughed quietly, shaking my head at the irony of the situation. “If Jason was gay, his put-down of Thad at last Wednesday’s rehearsal was not only mean-spirited, but the height of hypocrisy.”

  Pierce snorted. “Yeah—the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Thad and Kwynn looked at each other, not quite getting it.

  I explained to Thad, “When Jason called you a ‘boy toy,’ he implied that you were gay, and he meant it as an insult. Knowing what you knew about him, why didn’t you just shoot the insult right back at him?”

  “Because”—Thad hesitated—“you and Neil were there. How could I put Jason down for being gay?” He smiled at me. “Not much of an insult, not in my book.”

  My jaw sagged. A lump came to my throat. I couldn’t respond.

  Kwynn leaned forward. “I hope you weren’t offended, Mr. Manning, when I razzed Jason about his ‘cheap perfume.’ As soon as I’d said it, I wished I could take it back.”

  “Hey,” I managed to tell both of them, coughing past the lump, “you guys are way too sensitive. But believe me”—I rose from my chair, stepped between them, and hugged both their shoulders—“I appreciate it.” Laughing, I added, “Jason very nearly heard far worse from me. I’m glad you both spoke up when you did.” Sheepishly, I returned to my seat.

  Even Pierce was moved by these tender emotions—he fidgeted with the knot of his tie and wiped a fleck of something from the corner of his eye. Taking a stalk of celery from the relish boat, he bit off the end, breaking our momentary silence. After swallowing, he said to Kwynn, “You mentioned that everyone at school knew that Jason liked boys, but you said he ‘put up a good act.’ I’m sort of surprised that he got so involved with theater. I mean, theater’s great, but in the jock mentality, isn’t it a bit…suspect?”

  Kwynn rolled her eyes. “Maybe, but Jason couldn’t have cared less. He had this whole macho thing—the sports, the big talk, even the way he walked.”

  She’d noticed too, huh? I could still envision Jason’s butch swagger. I asked, “But he didn’t date?”

  “Well,” she qualified her previous statement, “he didn’t ‘date’ date, if you know what I mean. He occasionally went out with girls, but as far as I know, that was just ‘public’ stuff.”

  “Like school dances?”

  She nodded. “Exactly. Do you know who Nicole Winkler is—from the play?”

  Indeed I did. “I’ve met her mother. Nice woman. Nicole seems a bit—what?—emotional, I guess. Was she friendly with Jason?” I was playing dumb, of course, hoping to hear the story from a perspective other than Burton Thrush’s or Mica’s.

  Thad suppressed a laugh.

  Pierce, also playing dumb, looked from face to face, asking, “What’d I miss?”

  Thad said, “Nothing, Sheriff. I’m sorry. It’s just that Jason and Nicole were sort of an item. Sort of.”

  Kwynn amplified, “At least she thought so. This goes back a couple of years. I had already transferred to Central High, but you keep your friends, and friends talk. Nicole is a year older than Jason was, but they got acquainted while working on a school play. She apparently bought the macho act and fell for him, dismissing all the rumors. I guess he figured Nicole made a good ‘cover,’ so they went to dances and stuff together. They looked good together too.”

  I said, “Jason’s father mentioned that they were on the homecoming court.”

  “Yup,” said Kwynn, “last fall. That’s when Nicole assumed things were getting serious, and I guess that’s when Jason decided it was time to back off. In certain ways, they seemed like the perfect couple, but what was he gonna do—marry her? So no one was surprised when Jason dumped Nicole.”

  Pierce asked, “No one was surprised—except Nicole?”

  Kwynn shuddered. “That’s putting it mildly. She just didn’t accept it. What do you call that—denial? And from what I hear, her mom wasn’t much better. That’s the only reason
Nicole got involved with summer theater—to be near Jason. And that’s also why her mom got involved with the costuming—to be near Nicole.”

  I recalled, “Nicole leaves town this fall for college, right?”

  Kwynn nodded. “As far as I know. She graduated in June.”

  “Wow,” said Thad, who’d been listening quietly, “next year, that’s us.”

  He was referring to graduation and college, and his voice carried an unmistakable verve, suggesting he was eager to get on with his life. Was he truly focusing on the future, as I would expect of any bright seventeen-year-old, or was he merely yearning to escape the mess that now surrounded him in Dumont?

  Berta appeared again to serve the main course of our lunch, depositing plates in front of us with efficient flicks of her wrist. Only Thad had opted for that day’s special, Nancy’s renowned mushroom Strudel. This unique creation, something of a signature dish, I’d sampled many times and enjoyed. Today, though, it struck me as wrong for the warm weather, and besides, I’d grown squeamish of late about fungi, even the most benign button variety.

  While we ate, we continued to converse, shifting to topics less emotionally fraught than Jason’s sex life or Nicole’s unrequited crush. Our talk drifted back to school, and it was clear that both Thad and Kwynn were now ready to put Teen Play behind them and get back to the “real world” of hitting the books. Not that either of them was all that scholarly, but both of them, naturally, looked forward to ruling the roost next year with their fellow seniors. The word college kept popping up as well, and it became apparent that they’d both been giving their options considerable thought. What I had not realized, though, was that they’d been making these plans together.

  Thad nudged his plate aside, leaning forward to tell me, “Kwynn’s parents have decided that if she wants to major in theater, she can. Isn’t that great?”

  Truly, I didn’t know how to answer. It was important to enjoy college, of course, but it was also important to learn disciplines useful in later life. Objectively, Kwynn’s chances of actually becoming “someone” in the theatrical world were slim. There were, after all, countless kids with stars in their eyes, heroes of their local drama clubs, dedicated, determined, and talented. But few would ever achieve anything professionally; most would end up waiting tables while waiting for the big break, broke. Their hopes could be dashed by anything—a fickle casting director, a favor owed someone else, even the color of their eyes. Only minutes ago, Kwynn herself had said that Tommy Morales could never get a decent role because he was a few inches too short. How, I wondered, could would-be actors willingly, eagerly subject themselves to the desperate competition, superficial standards, and cold scrutiny of the profession they sought to enter?

  Thad, Neil, and I had already had this discussion with regard to Thad’s intentions. He wanted to study theater; we were grateful for his enthusiasm, but gave him the hard-knocks lecture; still, his ardor was undampened. Privately, Neil and I ultimately conceded that with the Quatrain family fortune left in trust to Thad by his mother (he’d collect nothing till he turned twenty-five), he was in the enviable position of not needing to worry much about his “next meal” after college. Why shouldn’t he devote his education to something he loved? And—who knew?—he might just be the one to beat the odds and achieve stardom.

  Kwynn, though, was another matter. I barely knew her parents and had no awareness of their financial circumstances. It might well behoove her to devote her college years to honing skills more predictably marketable than acting.

  “Isn’t that great?” repeated Thad.

  Tentatively, I directed my answer to Kwynn. “Well, it’s a bit risky, you know.”

  She laughed, but it carried warmth. “You sound like my dad, Mr. Manning.”

  “Dads worry. It’s our nature.”

  Kwynn and Thad pattered on, but I was stuck on the comment I’d just made—I’d referred to myself as a dad, and it had rolled off my tongue as naturally as tomorrow morning’s headline. This was something of a watershed moment, and I had no way of sharing its significance.

  Pierce seemed to understand that I was “dealing with something,” so he helped carry the conversation, asking questions about the colleges Thad and Kwynn mentioned. Their answers reinforced that they were in this together, and in my mind’s eye, I saw them sitting there, talking, a few years down the road, married, with a baby. A baby? I’d barely gotten comfortable with the notion of myself as a father—now this quick, precipitous leap into grandfatherhood.

  “It’s in California,” Kwynn was saying to Pierce as she handed him a pamphlet that she’d pulled out of her purse. (Bag? Tote? Rucksack? God, I felt old—even my vocabulary was failing.)

  Thad said, “Mrs. Osborne, our director at Central, told us about it. It’s a brand-new arts college, not even built yet. It opens next fall, after we graduate.”

  California? I knew that Thad would soon begin applying to colleges, and I assumed that he’d want to get away from home. Since he was serious about theater, I figured, Northwestern has a fine program. Maybe the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. Either way, he could still drive home for a weekend whenever he wanted. If he needed a bit more distance, well, Yale is hard to beat. Sure, he could go Ivy League—if they’d have him. But California? It’s two thousand miles away. He couldn’t get any farther within the contiguous forty-eight.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Pierce, pushing back from the table to look at the brochure. “Desert Arts College. I’ve read something about this. Glenn Yeats, the computer-software tycoon, apparently thought it was time to ‘give back’ to society. Dipping into his billions, he’s building, from scratch, a complete college campus dedicated to the arts. It’s already under construction in the Palm Springs area, near one of his homes. The facility itself will be first-class, and money is no object when it comes to raiding top faculty from other schools.”

  Kwynn dabbed her lips, having finished her lunch. “That’s why Mrs. Osborne told us about it. This really important director has just agreed to move out there from New York—from Broadway—to be in charge of the new theater program when it opens a year from now.”

  “Who is he?” asked Pierce.

  I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t really care. I was sure there were better theater schools—established schools with long-earned reputations for excellence—much closer to home.

  “It’s not a he,” said Kwynn with a laugh. “The director is a woman.”

  That caught my attention. Could it possibly—?

  Thad told Pierce, “Mrs. Osborne says she’s the very best. Ugh, what’s her name? It’s short. Something like… like…”

  “Claire Gray?” I asked.

  “That’s it!” both Thad and Kwynn responded.

  “Of course,” said Pierce, “she’s a playwright too. A few years back, she wrote Traders—it was a hit on Broadway and became a hot movie.”

  Thad asked me, “Then you already know about her?”

  “Sure, I know about her. I also happen to know her. She was in Chicago a couple of years ago and attended the housewarming party that Neil and I gave at our loft. In fact”—I paused for effect, dramatic effect—“I danced with her.”

  Kwynn was wide-eyed. “Really, Mr. Manning?” Thad seemed no less surprised. Pierce cocked his head skeptically.

  “Yes, really.” I laughed. “Just because none of you have ever seen me dance with a woman doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” Sitting back, I added, “Claire thought I was pretty good.”

  Pierce asked, “So it’s ‘Claire,’ huh? You’re on a first-name basis.”

  “We are,” I stated flatly.

  “Hey”—Thad thought of something. “You could write our letters of recommendation, Mark. Kwynn and I would be sure to get in.”

  “Hold on,” I said, suddenly not so smug. “We don’t know anything about this school—it isn’t even built yet. And it’s halfway around the world.”

  From the side of his mouth, Pierce reminded me,
“It’s four hours by plane.”

  Thad said, “You too, Sheriff. Can we count on you for letters?”

  Pierce was obviously flattered, but he took his cue from my reticence. “Once everyone’s decided on the schools where you should apply—of course, I’d be happy to recommend you. Both of you.”

  Both Thad and Kwynn were getting googly over these prospects when Nancy came to the table with Berta. Nancy lilted, “I hope everyone saved room for you know wha-aat,” as Berta began clearing dishes.

  Great, I thought. Just what the kids needed. Get a little sugar in them, and they’d be bouncing off the walls.

  Dessert, it turned out, was a sensible concoction of mixed berries, heavy cream, and a drizzle of booze, so the fructose was blunted by the alcohol. By the time we left the restaurant, Thad and Kwynn were still bubbly, but short of hyper. Out on the street, they thanked me for lunch and the earlier office tour, then took off together to check on weekend reservations at the theater office, leaving Pierce and me to walk back to the Register.

  Along the way, Pierce asked, “Was it just my imagination, or is there something going on between Kwynn and Thad?”

  I shrugged. I sighed. “Beats me. It seems they’re closer than I thought. Whether it’s friendship or romance, I can’t tell.”

  Pierce laughed softly. “Chances are, neither can they.”

  “God. They’re talking about going off to college together. I wonder if Neil has picked up on that.” We were walking past his office, and I could see that he had not yet returned from his lunch meeting. My question would have to wait.

  Pierce and I continued voicing these idle speculations, but as we approached the door to the Register’s lobby, he stopped speaking in the middle of a thought, reached inside his jacket, and unclipped the pager from his belt. Peering at it, shading it from the sunlight with his hand, he told me, “It’s Vernon. I can call him from my car, or we could go up to your office.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.” I opened the door for him. Entering, I waved to Connie, and we climbed the stairs.

  Leading Pierce across the newsroom, I headed straight for my office without greeting staff or snooping at the city desk. Glancing up, Lucy noted my rushed entrance, and deducing correctly that there was a development on the Jason Thrush story, she followed Pierce to my office.