Then the clock started ticking. Someone had to say something. Or maybe it was just me.
“I… um, have to make a phone call.” I sounded lame to my own ears.
Did he look disappointed? “I’ll see you later, I guess.”
I started walking away, but I made sure my “Hey, babe” when Michael picked up could be heard.
“What was that about?” he said.
“Someone from UCD is getting a little too friendly, and while I’m perfectly willing to be neighborly, there are limits.”
I buckled my collar back on as we talked.
Chapter 06
“YOU BACK with us, Mr. Babcock?” Coach Ridgewood said as my boatmates and I put our boat back in slings after our race. After two races, I understood what the big deal about the Head of the Charles was. The course was horrible—I’d rowed on far better courses on the West Coast. The weather could be garbage—people told me stories of snow during the regatta, and unlike the benign weather for my quads race yesterday afternoon, the weather today was the suck. A cold wind had come roaring off the Back Bay last night, making racing miserable, but not miserable enough to shorten the course. Yet in terms of competition, the West Coast had nothing to offer like this, and that—plus the rigors of the course—was why the Head of the Charles ranked. Now I understood.
I cocked my head to one side. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
Kev snickered. “Don’t ever change, Jeremy.”
“You’ve been a bit distracted.” Coach Ridgewood smiled when she said it, but that didn’t stop the other guys from laughing.
“Oh. That. That’s not distraction, Coach. That’s me in race mode.”
“Your coach at Cap City mentioned something about that, but I have to admit I didn’t believe him,” Coach Ridgeway said. “Peter Lodestone sings your praises very loudly, you know.”
I blushed. “He’s always pushed me to be more than I am.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone that single-minded.”
Ridgewood left to do something besides embarrass me, and I endured the good-natured teasing of my teammates. They didn’t mean anything by it, and I knew it made me a better rower. I was sure they had their own prerace rituals. Simply because I hadn’t seen them didn’t mean such things didn’t exist.
CalPac had a large presence at the Charles that year, JV A and B boats, as well as multiple varsity boats. I hadn’t paid them much attention since I didn’t row varsity. It sounded conceited, but every time I thought “I don’t row varsity,” I always appended a “yet.” Maybe it was conceited, but I was also the only person on either CalPac squad invited to row for another club. That probably meant something, but I was still tripping on lactic acid and too drained to figure it out.
As we finished derigging our rides, we made sure the riggers themselves were secured together for transit but otherwise left the boat alone. There would be a mass loading of the shells later, but someone had the master trailer-loading plan, and it wasn’t any of us. We had some free time, and everyone scattered, everyone but me. I loitered around the trailer, trying to figure out what to do. Call Michael? I’d missed him this weekend, and it would’ve been sweet if he’d been here, although I guess “watching your boyfriend race” wasn’t much of a reason to miss school, although touring colleges was, and he certainly could’ve toured BU with me. Call Goff? I’d have called my parents, but I burned incandescent with fury whenever I thought about them, so calling them may not have been the best of ideas. If they wanted to know how the races had gone, they could look the results up online.
I felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle and looked around. Coach Ridgewood was speaking to Coach Pendergast and someone I had never seen before, someone in a USRowing wind shell. I didn’t think too much of it. USRowing was a major sponsor—to say nothing of the insurer—of the regatta, and with the sharp turn in the weather, people had dashed for the merchandisers, of which USRowing was again one of the major ones. Half the people along the banks of the Charles that day had some kind of USRowing gear on to ward off the cold. I was tired—drained, more like it—and the fact that one or the other looked over at me meant nothing. People had been looking at me all weekend, and I’d been looking right back. Hot people positively infested this sport, and with all the eye-fucking going on, I was surprised we managed to put any boats in the water, let alone row them.
Speaking of eye-fucking, as I looked around, who did I happen to see? The rower from UC Davis, and naturally I was caught. I blushed, of course, and looked away, but he’d seen me, and we both knew it. I checked to make sure my collar was in place; it was, but with my wind shell zipped, it was out of sight.
I pretended to find my CalPac-branded gym bag all-consuming, but within about fifteen seconds, I felt him behind me. Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and turned around. A bit taller than I was, he had dirty-blond hair and blue eyes and broad shoulders supporting a muscular torso. He was even hotter up close. I tried not to drool.
He coughed. Could he be as nervous as I was? Why did this matter? “Hi.”
“Hello.” Jeez, could I sound any dorkier? And how could I get out of this and save face for both of us?
“I… uh… saw you and thought I should introduce myself,” he said. He was as red as I was. That made me feel better.
“Seeing as how we’re practically neighbors and all.” Yet somehow neither of us had gone looking for Cal State Sacramento. I held my hand out.
“Right.” He shook my hand.
“Right.”
So we stood there for a moment shaking hands. No names were exchanged.
“Oh!” he said. “I’m Josef, but everyone calls me Randy.” It sounded like Yosef.
“My name’s Jeremy, and that makes perfect sense, Randy.” I let go of his hand.
“I’m sorry, my middle name’s Randolf.” I tried not to notice how cute he was when he blushed. How the hell was I going to get out of this? I was done with worries about saving face and was seriously considering flight when my phone went off to Eve 6’s “Inside Out.” Because SoCal may be where his mind was, but it sure wasn’t his state of mind. Goff! Thank goodness. Yeah, we had a hard time saying good-bye this summer.
“Girlfriend?” Randy said. Fish much?
I shook my head. “Boyfriend.” I smiled. “It was great to meet you, but I gotta take this.”
Saved by the bell. Or ring tone, as the case may be. I shouldered my bag and waved Randy a cheerful farewell as I headed for the nearest T station. Ugh, I get myself into the worst fixes.
“Goff. Thank God.”
“Germy! Congratulations, baby brother! That was some amazeballs—”
“You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.”
Goff paused. “Now what did you do?”
I explained my most recent awkward situation. Goff laughed.
“It’s not funny!”
“No,” Goff struggled to get out, “you’re right. It’s hysterically funny. I can’t wait to tell Laurel.”
I made the only sensible reply. I blew a giant raspberry into my phone. Then I wiped the spit off it.
“Seriously, Rem, I watched both of your races. You looked great, at least what I could see. You were fast.”
Goff always knew what to say. “Thanks, brother mine. Both races felt good, even if they felt totally different.”
“So which one was your favorite?” I heard noises in the background, women’s voices. He was probably over at Laurel’s dorm. Big surprise there.
“If I had to choose?” I thought about that for a few moments. “Probably my race in the quad. You know how I feel about sculling, and there was something about that race that felt pared down to basics. It was four scullers and a sleek, fast boat.”
“Rem, you were dressed as gay unicorns.”
“Only three of us were gay unicorns. Lodestone was a straight unicorn.”
Goff snickered. “I can�
�t actually believe we’re having this conversation.”
“Speaking of conversations….” It all came rushing back. “I needed you to have my back last week. Jeez, the parental units were after me about Michael.”
Goff didn’t say anything at first. Then he sighed. “Do I even want to know?”
“No, probably not, but if they’ll get after me about Michael, they may get after you about Laurel. I can’t think what set them off.” Thinking about that dinner made me queasy, and that wasn’t good. I had a bunch of calories I needed to replace, and right then I couldn’t face the thought of food.
“Why don’t you start by summarizing the convo?”
So I did. “Basically, they think I plan my life around Michael.”
“Dude, you do.”
He did not go there. “I do not!”
“Rem, he makes every important decision for you,” Goff said. “You’re entirely too dependent on him.”
I found myself about to scream in my brother’s ear, so I took a few deep breaths. “Michael doesn’t make every important decision for me, Geoff. He doesn’t. What he does do is help me clarify my thinking, and I do the same for him. That’s not dependency, that’s being boyfriends.”
“Okay, Rem, I’ve never wanted to get into this, but you know me and Laurel are close—”
“The word is whipped, Geoff.” I couldn’t figure out where he was going with this, and my suspicions were on high alert.
Goff sighed in my ear. “If you must call it that.”
“It’s true.”
“Then you need to listen to this, because you’re way beyond that, and Mom and Dad are right.”
“The hell you say.”
We always had each other’s backs. Always. Growing up, Goff had an easier relationship with Dad than I did, especially after I overheard him saying some particularly uncomplimentary things about me to some of his friends on the phone. About the nicest was changeling, but even though Goff didn’t understand why Dad and I butted heads and why I hid everything from our parents, he didn’t question it. We were brothers, and that was that. So this? This was the closest he’d come to betrayal in our eighteen years together.
“Rem, Michael’s become a crutch for you. I remember perfectly well you sitting down with the CalPac fall course schedule this summer and matching your schedule against what you thought would be Michael’s school and crew schedule, all so you’d be available when he whistled.”
What the actual fuck? How could he say something like that? “Why does everyone keep harping on that?”
“Well, for starters, it’s weird. Not even Laurel and I did that. I scheduled my classes when they worked for me, and she for her. We spend a lot of time together, sure, but we’re here for an education.”
“Bull. Shit. The only reason you two didn’t plan your schedules together is because she told you what to take and when to take it, and don’t deny it. I’ve been down there. I’ve seen your calendars.” I thought for a moment. “As for me and Michael, that’s not making him a crutch, that’s me having a more flexible schedule and making sure we have some time together.”
“Maybe people—me and Mom and Dad—would let it go if we knew for sure it wouldn’t happen again, Rem. What happened? You used to be so… so fierce, and now it’s like you’re scared to do anything without Michael telling you it’s okay.”
Maybe I’d been so fierce last summer because I’d had to be, because I’d been semicloseted, and I hadn’t thought I’d had anyone on my side. No one had stood at my back, and I couldn’t even have counted on my twin brother. Looked like maybe I counted on him too soon.
Maybe I didn’t trust my own judgment anymore because—hello—the last time I did, it resulted in me contracting HIV. But could I say these things aloud? No, I could not.
“Just because Michael’s still in high school doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean you should set your life by him. It doesn’t mean you should dump that kind of responsibility on him. Rem, he’s not even eighteen yet! Give him a break.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Goff sighed. “It means you’re dragging him into college life before he’s finished high school. It means you’re still stuck in high school. It means,” Goff plowed on relentlessly, “that you’ve stopped living for you and live only for Michael. I may be whipped, and yes, it’s a foregone conclusion I’ll propose to Laurel when she tells me to, but I’m still my own man. When did you stop being yours?”
Goff’s words hit like body slams, each harder than the last, each coming so fast I barely had time to process it before the next one flew at me.
“He saved my life,” I whispered.
“No, Rem, he didn’t.”
“But—”
“He didn’t, Rem. He really didn’t.”
Okay, now Goff was full of crap. “When I was in the hospital—”
“If you hadn’t gotten sick, you’d have told Mom and Dad sooner or later.”
“But I did get sick.”
“And I told them.” Goff paused. “Rem, he kept you company, he gave you strength when you needed it, but he didn’t save your life. You did that.”
“But I love him,” I said softly.
“That’s great, Rem. He’s a fantastic guy… but try not to lose yourself. I think that’s all Mom and Dad are saying. It’s what I’m saying. You used to be as tough as nails. You’re not now. What happened? That’s what Mom and Dad are reacting to.”
There was so much I could not tell Goff, let alone my parents, so much I longed to articulate but didn’t dare. My parents and brother were supposed to be the people closest to me in the world, right? Instead they were the people I hid my cards from, the people I would never tip my hand to. Families were so messy. I knew on one level I was so lucky to have the family I did, regardless of how angry they made me, but on another level, recent events caused me to hold them at arm’s length, there to stay for… I didn’t know how long.
“I have to go. My coach is giving me evil looks.” I disconnected the call without giving him a chance to say anything.
I called Michael immediately.
“Hi.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Nothing. I… I wish you were here.”
Michael sighed. “We talked about this. There’s no way I could be there.”
“I know, but maybe all this shit wouldn’t seem so vivid.”
“Uh-oh. What’s going on?”
“My parents are on the warpath because they think I’m too dependent on you, and apparently my treacherous brother thinks they’re right.”
Michael didn’t say anything for a while, long enough that I’d have thought he had hung up if it weren’t for his breathing. “I have to admit I think they may kind of have a point.”
“They have a point. Well, fuck me with a chainsaw, why didn’t you say so?” So that’s what it felt like when the bottom dropped out of your stomach.
“Calm down, big guy. It’s not a major deal. You seem to be naturally subservient, and I’m naturally dominant. You depend on me, and I take charge and take care of you. It’s the natural order of things, and it seems to work pretty well.” I wanted to take comfort in his words, I truly did, but something held me back. “Now I want you to do something for me. It’ll probably be easier if you’re somewhere without a lot of witnesses.”
I looked around. Not too many people, for all that I wasn’t too far from the race venue. “Yeah, it looks clear.”
“Good, then I want you to put your arms around you like you’re hugging yourself.”
“That’s absurd.”
“See, the thing is, princess, I’m not there to do it myself, and you sound like you really need a hug right now. You sound like you need more than that, to be honest, but this proxy bit only goes so far,” Michael said. “So be a sport and play along?”
I had to smile. “Okay, arms around me.”
“Now close your eyes and pretend I’m right
there with you, putting my arms around you, and loving on you,” Michael whispered in my ear. “You looked amazing out there. We watched some of the races at the boathouse, you know.”
“Really?” That made me feel better.
Michael laughed softly. “A Cap City Juniors alum and our coach racing at the Head of the Charles? Are you kidding? We had a huge monitor and live video streaming. We made a party of it. But oh my God, those costumes? Who was responsible for those outrages?”
“Coach Sundstrom’s husband.”
“I’ve heard people call him Twinkerdrew.” Michael giggled. “Isn’t that horrible?”
“Yes, especially since he was such a sweetheart to me before the race when I was feeling like I was a lousy substitute they scraped up at the last minute.”
“Good, I’m glad he set you… um, straight on that score, because, Rem? I got chills watching you. You’ve always been good, but I’ve got to tell you. You’re heading for great, and I’m not saying that because I’m your boyfriend.”
“Thanks,” I said, sniffling. Damn cold Boston air. “I miss you.”
“Me, too. You’ll be home soon, and I’ll be waiting at the airport for you.”
I smiled, my earlier bad mood slipping away. “I’m glad someone will. With my flights not coinciding with the rest of the team, I figured I’d take a shuttle back to school.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” he drawled.
“Oh?”
Michael chuckled. “It’s not like I’m going to say anything.”
“Tease.” I had to admit, however, that I was feeling much better for speaking to him.
“You know it.” Michael must have sensed my improved outlook, too. “Are you doing better? You sound better.”
I smiled. “I’m better, thanks to you.”
“I think you’d have cheered yourself up eventually,” Michael said.
“Maybe. Or maybe I like hearing your voice.”
“Text me when your flight’s on the ground?”
“Will do.”
We made our good-byes, and I disconnected the call. I had to wonder, I thought as I went to meet my teammates, if this was what Geoff had been talking about. Then I tried to put it out of my mind.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air Page 6
