Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  “He’s a pretty solid second tenor.” Aaron, seated at the bench, leaned over his shoulder to look at Giles. “But he needs something that will do the work for him.”

  Giles thumbed through a folder full of sheet music. “What about Bieber? He could pull off ‘Baby’.”

  Enough of this shit. “How about CeeLo? I could sing ‘Fuck You’ right now.”

  Aaron looked thoughtful. “That’s not a bad suggestion. He’d have to use the ‘Forget You’ version, obviously, but it could work nicely.”

  That was what they ended up doing. Elijah had it on everyone’s authority he basically had to stay on key eighty percent of the time and he was in, but they wanted him to bring it because they had fantasies of the whole house, or as much as possible, being in Salvo and Ambassadors together. Elijah ignored this, knowing he didn’t have a chance in hell, and even if he did, he didn’t want it.

  Lejla, however, was another story.

  She wanted to be in Salvo the way fish wanted water, but she wouldn’t so much as try out for choir. She only wanted to do it as Lejla, but she was registered as Lewis. Worse, if she tried out as Lewis, she’d be placed as a tenor. Aaron assured her she was a countertenor as a male, which was basically the same as an alto for range. But she’d have to perform in a tux, or come out. She wasn’t ready to do that yet, so she wasn’t trying out.

  “It makes me feel like I’m taking her place.” Elijah confessed this one day while he and Baz drove around town to get away from the house. “This is the thing she wants. I should sit out with her.”

  “She can try out again at semester. Or next year. And you’ll be there to help her through.”

  “I guess.”

  “Speaking of semester.” Baz took Elijah’s hand. “I was going to tell you. I’m thinking…it’s not for sure, but I’m kicking around the idea of graduating in December. I’d still live in the White House, but…well, it seems like it might be time.”

  Wow. Elijah laced their fingers together. “If it feels right, I say do it.”

  Baz kissed their joined hands. “Thanks.”

  The buzz from the kiss made Elijah’s insides dance. “I meant to ask. You volunteered yesterday at the place where the guy from therapy works, right?”

  “Yeah. It was great. Mostly kids—well, young adults. They’re focusing on an LGBT homeless program, working in concert with Avenues for Homeless Youth. I’m not sure what exactly I’ll do there, but Ed swears he can find use for me, and Pastor is helping me set up an internship for credit.”

  Elijah got an out-of-body sensation. “What’s the name of this place? I don’t think you ever said.”

  “Halcyon Center. In Saint Paul.”

  Elijah let the Tesla slow as he drew a centering breath. “That’s where I stayed, Baz. When I ran away. It closed a lot for overnights, but I went to Halcyon Center to eat and shower and feel semi-sane. I would have lived there if I could have. If they’d had more money to stay open as a shelter.”

  Baz took his hand, squeezed it. Once they were back at the house, they went up to their room. They didn’t speak, just spooned together on the bed, soaking everything in.

  “I’m telling Mom Halcyon goes on the top-tier list of our charities.”

  Elijah turned in Baz’s arms and kissed him. Hard.

  When classes finally started, Elijah relaxed gladly into routine, but Baz couldn’t say he joined his boyfriend on that one. It felt odd to be on campus, especially with all the students back. He’d always been a little too old for college, first starting when he was almost twenty, but now he felt old. He was glad he’d taken Damien’s and Marius’s advice and done an internship and independent study, not regular classes. Knowing he’d be graduating in December had become a balm, not a cause for concern.

  He made regular treks into Minneapolis to visit Marius and Damien, especially Marius. This meant he saw a lot of Kelly and Walter too, sometimes more than he saw the man he’d actually schlepped into town to see.

  “I always heard med school was tough, but I never realized how much of an understatement that was.” Marius sank into his end of the couch, staring blank-eyed at the ceiling. “I think I average twenty hours of sleep a week. Kelly keeps slipping meal bars into my bag because they got called once when I passed out because I hadn’t eaten since the night before.” Marius sighed and shut his eyes. “I don’t think I’d make it if I hadn’t moved in here. I will owe those two for the rest of my life.” He put a hand briefly on Baz’s ankle. “Thank you for hooking me up.”

  “I’m glad it’s going well.”

  “Totally. The only problem is they keep insisting I could bring girls home, and I can’t figure out how to explain there is nothing further from my mind than sex right now.”

  This didn’t surprise Baz, since Marius hadn’t ever been much of a player, but the defeat and flatness in the way he wrote off sex at twenty-two gave Baz pause. “We should book a night to get you laid, though. There’s fasting, and there’s starving.”

  “I’d only embarrass myself. Every now and again if they’re going at it loud enough, I can manage a half-assed solo act, but usually I pass out so hard I have to set three alarms to wake me up.” He stifled a yawn on the last part and shifted to sit more upright. He also raised a sleepy eyebrow at Baz. “You and Elijah are still doing okay, I hope?”

  “Yeah.” Baz wasn’t sure how else to qualify that, so he pulled at a loose thread on the couch, as if fraying the cushion might unleash the way to confess to his best friend how much he felt for Elijah. How he kept feeling like he should say it, but he didn’t know how.

  When Baz finally glanced up, ready to fumble out a preamble, Marius was fast asleep.

  Baz did his best to shutter his disappointment. They’d had a whole twenty minutes together, and Baz had known all along Marius would have been napping if not for Baz’s visit. But it made Baz feel like shit. He was in the middle of calling up an Uber ride when keys rattled in the lock, and Kelly came in. Marius’s roommate smiled, opening his mouth on a greeting, swallowing it and waving with his keys instead as he spied sleeping Marius. “Hi.”

  Baz rose, holding up his phone. “About to call a ride and get out of your way.”

  Kelly frowned and motioned for him to come into the kitchen. “Don’t be silly.” He dropped his backpack on the counter. “Unless you have to get home? Because Walter just texted to say he’d be late again, and even if Marius is awake, he always says he should study. I’d love someone to go to pizza with.”

  “Only if you let me pay.”

  Kelly held up his hands. “Not stopping you.”

  The restaurant was pretty busy, meaning they had to wait a few minutes before they got a table, but there wasn’t anything unpleasant about passing the time while chatting with Kelly. He was so damn happy. It should have annoyed Baz, but he found Kelly refreshing, almost healing.

  “So what’s up with you?” Kelly leaned back in the booth and nudged Baz’s foot with his own. “Are the paparazzi still stalking you?”

  “Not paparazzi. Reporters, and they seem to have mellowed out. They’ve done a little bit of background info on me, but we’re not the full focus yet. The whole drama is if my uncle will get confirmed right now.” He smiled wryly. “If you were worried, no, nobody’s going to photograph us going to dinner and blast you on TMZ for being my piece on the side.”

  Kelly wrinkled his nose and bit his lip. “Damn. That would have made Walter all jealous.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “God, sorry. I’m so rude. Elijah would be jealous too, wouldn’t he?”

  Baz turned his butter knife over and over. “I don’t know. He’s hard to read sometimes.”

  “But you guys are dating, right? And it’s going well? You seem good together. Connected.”

  Baz shrugged. “We’re okay.”

  Kelly folded his arms on the table and regarded Baz with gentle
concern. “Something’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell how much of it is my own paranoia.” He let go of the butter knife and pushed fingers under his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. I want to tell him I love him, but I don’t know if it will fuck it up or not. Yeah, no way he was saying that. “Seriously, you don’t want to hear this. It’s fine.”

  “I know I’m not Marius, but…well, I don’t mind listening.”

  “I’ll keep my laundry to myself, but thanks. Tell me about your classes or something.”

  “Boring, but okay. Business classes won’t light the world on fire for excitement, but I’m doing well, and I know I can go get a good job when I’m done. I’m never going to have a flashy career like Walter. But I’m getting good at the nuts and bolts of how organizations and businesses work from underneath.” Kelly wrinkled his nose. “I can’t say I wouldn’t mind if people got breathless over manager the way they do lawyer. My dad keeps telling me it shouldn’t be about how exciting your title sounds. The world is full of silent soldiers. Your work is your reward, if you do it right.”

  Baz’s lips quirked. “Spoken like a Minnesotan.”

  “How about you? What are you thinking of doing when you’re finished with school?”

  “I like the volunteering, but it’s not an actual job. And I am, for all practical purposes, disabled. I’d also never pass any drug test because I use pot for pain, and I don’t qualify under Minnesota medical marijuana law. I couldn’t handle a desk job, and I have eyestrain difficulty. I’m getting through college with a lot of exceptions and greasing of palms by my family. That will never work in the real world.” He thought about Ed, who had an arrangement with Halcyon, but he doubted they’d give two special jobs.

  “Well, first of all, that sucks. But I don’t think you should write yourself off so completely. If you were anybody else, I’d say you could apply for disability, but you don’t need money. You’d probably prefer to earn your own way, and I’m not saying you couldn’t. Except you don’t seem to strike me as someone determined to pave his own road. Which means you’re in a perfect position. You can pretty much do what you want.”

  “This is my problem. I don’t know what I want to do.”

  “You said exactly what you wanted just now. You want to help people, but you don’t need to be paid to do it, or not much. You need somewhere that won’t be ableist and has either a flexible schedule or a liberal policy about when and how you turn work in, but if you’re not expecting to make a million dollars, or even a hundred thousand dollars, that opens up a lot of doors.”

  Baz pursed his lips. “What doors? Seriously, I can’t so much as come up with a career track to dream about.”

  “You need somewhere with people. Lots and lots of people who need you.” Kelly tapped on his phone screen a few times, then passed it over, revealing a web page. “Rose is doing an internship at a social center for immigrants, and she loves it. They’re always teetering on the edge of closure, but they do great work. I bet they’d take another volunteer.”

  “So what, you’re saying I should be a professional volunteer?”

  “I think the word is philanthropist. And yeah. I totally think that’s what you should do.”

  Hope flickered, and Baz quickly batted it down. “I can’t waltz into places and start throwing money around. And I’d have to clear it with my parents, my uncle.”

  “I’m not talking about using your family’s money. You could be a public face for these places. Shake hands. Rub shoulders. In either role, you’d be an asset. But mostly I’m saying you can go volunteer because you don’t have to work.”

  Their pizzas arrived, and Baz rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as the waiter put out the industrial-sized cans to stand their pizzas on. A busboy helped set them out. After urging Baz and Kelly to let him know if they needed anything else, the waiter left, but his assistant lingered.

  He was young, likely not even eighteen. “Um—are you…Sebastian Acker?” Before Baz could answer, the boy pulled a pen and order pad from his pocket with shaking hands. “Can—can I have your autograph?”

  Baz blinked. “Autograph?”

  The kid’s face was blotchy, and not just from blushing. He was lanky, skinny and underwhelming in the skin-care department. He had a hard time making eye contact, and when he spoke, his voice wobbled. “If it’s okay. I…read about you. Online. And I saw the video interview on your mom’s website.” Now the red was all blush, and he glanced briefly at Kelly before frowning. “Are—are you still with Elijah?”

  “Yes, he is.” Kelly smiled a very manager kind of smile. “I’m Kelly Davidson, Sebastian’s friend. He’s keeping me company while my husband is at work. What’s your name?”

  “Chris.” He stared at the pad, crushing pages as he worried the edge.

  Kelly’s expression was something of a cattle prod. Baz cleared his throat and reached for the paper and pen. “Sure, I’ll give you my autograph. If you give me yours.”

  Chris ducked, rubbed his ear. “Oh—okay.”

  Feeling weird, Baz scrawled out an official-looking Sebastian Acker, then realized he’d fucked up. He needed to sign it to the guy. Trying not to make it seem crowded, he added, To Chris, my pizza hero. He passed the pad over, pulling off the sheet he’d scribbled on, revealing a new page. “Your turn.”

  Chris put the pad on the table, clearly writing more than his name. When he handed Baz his paper, he folded it in half. “Thanks.”

  Gathering his autograph and pad, Chris took off. Baz opened the paper. When he’d read it, he placed the note on the table so Kelly could see it too.

  Every day at school kids tease me, but reading about you standing up for your boyfriend and overcoming your disability made me feel brave. I’m trying to get a scholarship to go to Saint Timothy when I graduate. Thanks for being my hero. Love, Chris.

  “Wow,” Kelly said.

  Baz felt queasy. “I’m such an idiot. I signed it to my pizza hero.”

  “That’s cute. He’ll probably put it in a frame.”

  “It’s stupid. Pizza hero, when he wrote that? What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Be his hero. Be the reason he doesn’t let the turkeys get him down. Be the guy who let him express how much you being an example means to him.”

  Christ. “And you’re saying you want me to do this for a living?”

  Kelly leaned back in his chair, smiling. “I want you to keep doing what you’re doing. Being you, being out there, letting people see you. Being the little thing getting people through their day.”

  It sounded wonderful. And terrifying. And destined to fail. “That’s a lot of fucking pressure.”

  Kelly winked as he pulled a piece of pizza onto his plate. “I think you can handle it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The evening before upperclassmen choir tryouts, Elijah was a wreck. Part of it was he couldn’t smoke, since Aaron and Giles and Mina had all pointed out smoke and vocal cords weren’t the best of friends. He told himself he didn’t give a fuck, but now that they had him all worked up about it, he did want to get in to choir. Not in to Ambassadors, no matter how they bugged him. But the chorale, yeah. He kind of wanted it.

  “I wish you were trying out,” he told Lejla as they sat together in her room.

  She drew her knees to her chest with a sigh. “I know. Me too.”

  “You still could.”

  She shook her head.

  The first few days of classes had been rough. She wasn’t out as trans beyond the White House, and apparently being Lejla at home made being Lewis to the world much harder. She’d resumed her genderfuck wardrobe, unisex clothes with added female adornments, and when she wasn’t getting out-and-out hazing, she at least got funny looks.

  She went with him to his audition, though he told her she should stay home. “I want to be there for you.”
Since Aaron and Giles were deep in the music clique, they managed to sneak her into his audition.

  Elijah had what Aaron called a part voice, perfectly fine for a group but not appropriate for a heavy solo. He did his best to project the way they told him to, but he was nervous. Baz, who was on the student selection committee, had to treat Elijah like anybody else, but he did smile and tip his glasses down for a quick wink as Elijah left.

  “I think I sucked,” he said as they exited out the back door of the choir room.

  Lejla hugged his arm. “You were fine.”

  They took the skywalks to the coffee shop outside the library, where they planned to hunker down until Giles texted it was time to come see the results. Most students had tried out during freshmen orientation, but Elijah was part of the few returning students auditioning. Once the last prospectives were through, the committee would meet, and the results would be posted. That would be in about an hour.

  “It’s no big deal if I don’t get in.” Elijah spoke this lie into his coffee.

  “It is a big deal, and you’ll get in.” Lejla tugged at the hair in the center of his forehead. “You were great.”

  “I sound all wheezy.” He wrapped his hands around the mug. “You sound great. I’ve heard you singing to yourself in your room. It should have been you.”

  “It will be me. Later.”

  She sipped her drink, and Elijah studied her. She was in Lewis clothes, but he could always see her now, even if she left the femme at home. Today she wore a hint of eyeliner and lip gloss, which went nicely with her My Little Pony Fluttershy tee. Aaron had taken her to some fancy stylist friend of Walter’s in downtown Minneapolis, giving her a flirty androgynous cut which reminded Elijah of the Black Butler, all angles and blunt edges and asymmetrical swoops.

  “How are your classes?” Elijah asked. “Are you doing okay, going as Lewis?”