“Sorry,” I say as I try to wipe the tears from my eyes. Penelope loops her arms through my left arm, and Iris leans over and takes hold of that same hand. This is what girlfriends do. They hug. They console. They’re good at it. “Thanks … yeah, wow, just when you think you’re over crying about it, boom.”
“It’s been eight years since my mom died,” Iris says, “and I still cry about it. At least one good sob a month.”
“So you’re saying it’s gonna suck forever?” I say, smiling through my tears.
“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Iris squeezes my hand and smiles with me. It’s nice. She’s like a girl Art.
art
Jayden directs me downtown again, this time using the Kennedy Expressway. We park on a not-so-clean and not-so-safe street west of the Kennedy and then we go down an even less clean and less safe alley, where a woman as tall as Cam but with bigger biceps sits on a stool in front of a stairway that, probably, leads directly to the afterlife.
Jayden smiles, says, “Hiya, Sam,” only Sam doesn’t flinch, she might not even be breathing, and we walk on by her and down the steps until I’m sure I’ve seen the last of the living.
* * *
Though my imagination wasn’t that wrong, the stairs lead to a small crowded dance club with a big bar. The lighting is cheap and sparse, purposely so, the floor mysteriously sticky, and I cling to Jayden’s hand out of fear of getting lost. I feel like a small child at a grown-up party. Besides slowing every few steps to rub his butt into my crotch—which shouldn’t be so enjoyable!—he leads us directly to the bar, where he orders the same martini he did on Friday.
“You’re not going to drink with me, are you?”
“No,” I say as I pay for his drink.
“I think you’re afraid of exploring new things.” He takes a sip and again flawlessly performs his seduction-over-the-edge-of-the-glass routine.
* * *
Mmmmh. Since I understand all subtleties of human behavior, I understand that Jayden is trying to shame me into drinking with him so that he won’t feel shame for drinking to numb his fears. Straight Art was obsessed with being a one-of-a-kind force in the universe and would point this out, but Gay Art is just another typical teenage boy who doesn’t want to screw up his chance at getting his penis some action, so I’m going to just nod and shrug.
No.
No?
No, Gay Art has had twenty-four hours of being boring. That’s enough.
* * *
“Jayden…” I lock eyes with him.
“Oooh, you’re being so intense.”
“I’m never, ever going to drink with you. My family more or less are almost all drunks or stoners, so I have no desire to be like them. And I don’t know what your family life is like but I know no sixteen-year-old searches out places like this so they can have pear cider martinis unless their family is more or less horrible too.”
* * *
Still got it. Ha.
* * *
Jayden’s sexual smirk fades as his eyes fill with tears. He can’t find words to respond, probably because he’s torn about whether he wants to insult me or ask me to marry him again.
So I say, because Straight Art and Gay Art have united to form Super Art!, “You should know that you and only you could have made me confront and explore my attraction to boys so fast and furiously.”
He still can’t or won’t speak, but he does form this tiny, wounded, lovely smile on his lips. And then he manages, “Hug me?” in this delicate, young voice. And so I hug him, and despite the crowded, dark bar, it feels like we are all alone.
“Want to get out of here?” I say, and, oh, my gosh, I sound like such a dude I don’t even recognize my own voice. Jayden nods as I take him by the hand and lead us back to the world above.
ZEE
Dinner with Iris and Pen is nice. I never quite feel comfortable. Part of me is trying to be their friend, part of me is trying to figure out if I want to kiss Iris or not.
Toward the end, Pen asks, “So … you and Cam Callahan … are you dating now?” She looks at Iris as she asks this. Because she’s asking for Iris? Probably, right?
“I don’t know,” I say. Because that’s true. I don’t really want to see him or kiss him. But I also feel like you can’t spend every day from the time you’re eleven until seventeen wanting a boy to love you and then as soon as he shows interest run the other way. I owe him and us more time, don’t I? They don’t say anything to my “I don’t know,” which feels like they’re waiting for me to explain but fuck that, so I ask Pen, “You and Benedict seem like you’re going to get married.”
“Yeah, we will. But we’re freaks.”
Iris adds, “Freaks in a super-awesome way.” Damn, Iris just radiates kindness. Like my mother. Am I thinking about kissing a girl because she reminds me of my mother?! I’m more messed up than I thought. I try to shake my brain free of judgmental crap and ask Iris, “You seeing someone?”
“Me?” she says as if I wasn’t looking right at her. And, for the first time, she looks right at me. Holds my eyes in hers. Blue eyes, long lashes, tiny freckles beneath them. Man, it’s peaceful looking at her so directly.
“Yeah…” I say.
“No, I’m not seeing anyone.” And, yeah.
The bill comes. Pen pays. Then she says, “Have you guys ever been to The Forest Café? It’s just down the street, and it’s fascinating. Want to get a coffee and talk some more?”
“Yes, that sounds great,” Iris says.
And fuck me, I don’t want to go there, but I don’t want to ditch the only girls that I’ve ever been remotely interested in being friends with, so I say, “Yeah, sure.”
* * *
We don’t even move our cars since it’s so close, but on the walk, Pen gets a call. It’s the pizzeria. She needs to go in and work. So she says to Iris and me, “But you two should go. I’ll text you later. Zee, can you drive Iris back to Riverbend?” And then she leaves.
Was this part of their plan? To leave me and Iris alone?
Iris says, probably reading my brooding face, “We don’t have to go. I totally understand if you want to come back when Pen can stay with us.”
“No … let’s go.”
art
I take Jayden to Seven Sisters, the diner in Morton Grove that my grandmother would take us to when I was a kid. When he sees where we’ve gone, he says, “If two obviously gay teenagers go into this obviously straight white Republican stronghold, everyone’s going to stare.”
I think before I speak. (It happens from time to time!) Then I say, “Let them stare.”
Jayden shakes his head. “God, I hate when you act all confident and manly.”
“You mean you love it.”
“Yes, darling, obviously.” He leans over and kisses me on the cheek and—AND!—grabs my penis through my jeans. “And you love that.”
* * *
We order french fries (aka the vegetarian’s secret weapon) and tell each other our life stories. The short version of his is that his parents got divorced when he was young, after his mother got sick of his father’s affairs. His mother had a fancy Wall Street job, so she didn’t need his money or his drama. His dad married another rich woman, moved to Miami, and is rarely heard from. His mother moved them here in May, when she became CEO of some big Chicago-based bank. Since she’s off making millions, he and his twin sister, Allie, have been raised by a rotating army of nannies. Allie’s the jock (who plays travel soccer with Carolina), and Jayden knew he was gay before he could tie his own shoes.
Afterward, halfway through the drive to his place, I reach over and take his hand in mine.
“You’re good,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” At the next stoplight, he turns my head toward his and kisses me and, oh my god, he’s devouring me like Zee does. Sucking my lips between his teeth, tongue deep into my mouth, penetrating me with—just let me say it!—his passion.
I only can break from his control after getting honked at by the car behind me when the light turns green. But at the next stoplight, he does it again. And I let him. And I love it again. There are probably five hundred lights between Morton Grove and Winnetka (I never exaggerate, ha), and so we rotate every few minutes between me driving him home and him driving me crazy. When we get near his house, he steers me down another street.
I say, “But your house is that—”
“Shhh,” he says, and slides his hand over my thigh and over my groin. Jayden directs us to a park on the edge of Lake Michigan. We’re the only car. It’s very private. Oh my god, he wants to have sex. I’m so not ready.…
“Jayden…”
“Shhhh,” he says again, and squeezes me down there again. “Let me give the pretty speech for a change.” He takes a deep breath. “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever met, Art, and the way you see through me is terrifying and addicting. I know this is new. This being with a boy. So if you need to pretend I’m a girl to feel normal…”
“I don’t want to pretend you’re a girl…”
“You always say the right things—”
“… but I’m not ready to have sex, Jayden.”
“Are you ready for this?” he says and then kisses me, but only for a moment, before he lowers his head downward and oh. Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh—
ZEE
Iris and I walk into The Forest Café, and even as she’s in awe of all its trippiness, I’m alert with paranoia, convinced my dad is here even though that makes no sense. I don’t want to sit in the main area, where we would be easily spotted, so I steer Iris to a small table tucked between a hill and a silver-bottomed goldfish pond.
“I’ll go get us drinks. What do you want?”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’d like to,” I say. Jesus, I’m polite to girls.
“Then a mint tea, thank you.”
“Be back in a minute.” I maneuver to the center coffee bar, put in our orders. While I’m waiting, because I’m still flipping out that I’m going to see Arshad, I’m scanning every booth and table for his face. Nothing.
When I turn back to get the drinks, however, I see that beautiful waitress. Stephanie. The one who served Arshad and me last night. Even from across the width of the circular coffee bar, I can see her long nails. Not wanting her to see me, I grab our drinks and disappear down one of the paths.
* * *
“Thank you so much,” Iris says as I hand her the tea and sit down next to her. I’m trying to be relaxed, to be present with her. But my anxiety is spiking, wrestling with Stephanie’s presence, my dad’s absence, and whether Iris is looking at me like she wants to kiss me.
I sip my latte and we both avoid eye contact. I should say something.
But Iris says, before I can think of anything, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Ruby Rose?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know who that is.”
“She’s an actress. Forget it. I’m being dumb.”
“No, you’re not. Is she at least pretty?” I smile.
“Yes, but more like handsome. That sounds wrong. Handsome in a pretty way.” Which is basically how I would describe Art. Though maybe I’d say he was pretty in a handsome way. She adds, “I didn’t mean to say you weren’t pretty. The actress is pretty. But pretty in a very special way.” She blushes.
“That works, thank you,” I say, and we’re flirting, right? It’s such gentle, subtle flirting. Boys are usually so obvious about it, but thinking they’re being subtle. Except Art. He’s obvious and proud of being obvious.
“Zee?” Iris asks.
“Yeah?”
“Are you…” she starts. But pauses. Can’t look at me again. Just beyond me. She wants to ask if I’m gay, doesn’t she? Just get to it. No more subtle games, I guess. Iris continues, “… expecting someone?”
Huh? She lifts her finger, pointing behind me. My fucking dad. But I turn and it’s Stephanie, the-too-gorgeous waitress. She’s looking at me. At us. The way she’s looking at me …
Stephanie says, “Zee?”
I stand fast. Iris stands behind me, slipping her arm through mine, knowing I need someone there even if I don’t know why.
The woman approaches. “I’m Stephanie.…”
“The waitress from last night,” I say.
“Yes … and…” She pauses. I brace myself. I don’t know what for, but something. Then she starts again, unsure, “… your father’s girlfriend.”
* * *
Girlfriend? Didn’t Michael say my dad had a boyfriend?
* * *
I ask, “Is he here?”
“No. But I called him. He really, really wants to talk to you. Can you please just stay until he gets here?”
Iris slips her hand through mine, entwining our fingers. It’s a lightning bolt of strength, strength enough to say, “No, I can’t. We can’t. We’re leaving.”
* * *
Iris and I are outside moments later, walking fast, our hands still clasped. We move well together, our legs have a natural rhythm, our pace effortlessly even. Once we’re at my truck, I stop. I have to know who I am. And what I want. I pull her into me with my free hand, lean her against the truck door, and—
art
—ohhhhhhhhhh. Oh. Oh—
“No,” I say even though my penis is like, No?! But I say it again, “No,” and I raise Jayden’s head up to mine before he manages to unzip me.
“No?”
“It’s … I don’t … I’m not…”
“So you’re saying,” Jayden starts, then gives me that look, “we should just skip oral and go straight to sex?”
The. Look. On. My. Face.
“I’m kidding, Art. It’s okay. Truly.”
“Do you want to know how not ready I am? I wouldn’t even know how it works. Do we take turns? Both wear condoms?”
“What about anything we have done would suggest anything but I’m the bottom and you’re the top?”
“I was the bottom … with Zee.”
He laughs. Laughs!
“Maybe I’d find this funny too if it wasn’t my own identity crisis.” I’m the manic one for once as Jayden lets his laugh settle. He then takes my hand in his. But not as we did it before. No, this is not seduction. This is … sympathy? Yes, sympathy. And as if seeing that in him for the first time opened my eyes to the rest of him, Jayden’s layers begin to blossom all at once:
“Art, darling, I grew up in New York. As in Manhattan. As in the greatest place on the planet. By fifth grade, I knew boys that liked boys—me, in case you didn’t know”—he winked, still better at that than me—“girls that liked girls, boys and girls that liked both, boys born in girl bodies, girls born in boy bodies, and kids that knew they were both or neither or everything. We were gender and sexually fluid before it was cool because we didn’t do it to be cool—we did it to be who we truly are.”
I’m definitely moving to New York. Ha.
“If you want to be a bottom with her and a top with me or trade off or both at the same time or forget our silly labels altogether, then, my handsome-gorgeous boy, you can. You can do whatever the heck you want to do. You can love whoever you want to love. You can be whoever you want to be. Anyone who says you can’t, no matter what religion or bullshit they are hiding behind, are only telling you that you can’t be you because they’re terrified of the freedom to be who they want to be.”
I want to kiss him. A lot. He knows and squeezes my hand to remind me I’m actually a disaster right now.
“You’re going to be shocked to hear this, but I’ve learned I have major abandonment issues”—now he laughs at himself—“and so of course it’s inevitable that I fall almost every single time for boys that also love girls and their stupid amazing girl parts I can never compete with. I only feign drama with you because—well, mostly because I’m great at feigning drama—but also because I want to trick you into liking only boys so that I can solve
all my father issues through our relationship.”
We both smile as I now squeeze his hand in that same new, layered way.
Jayden leans in, as if he really needs us both to listen, and asks, “You’re still in love with her?”
I was motionless! I swear! But he knows. Of course he knows.
“You are. I hate her. I hate you. But I also love you and I’d probably love her too.”
“So…”
“What now?” Jayden asks.
Yes.
“You go home, find the girl you love, and know that there’s a boy in Winnetka who loves you … and is probably stalking you.”
I laugh.
“Yes, I’m very funny. But, seriously, Art, I’m totally going to stalk you.” Before I can decide if I’m scared at the idea of him stalking me or turned on, Jayden kisses me on the cheek, floats out the door, and disappears into the shadows.
For, like, a second.
Then he’s back under the streetlamp’s glow, dancing for me, for him, for anyone lucky enough to witness the magical creature that he is.
ZEE
—I kiss Iris
and she lets me
and she’s a girl
and she’s beautiful,
and
I suck her soft essence in through my mouth,
and I think of Art,
but I don’t want to think of Art, so
I kiss deeper, tongue, hungry lips.
“Zee…” Iris says, her free hand against my chest, pushing me gently away. Away?
“Sorry,” I say, and I see me in her eyes. Like when Cam wants more than I can give.
“No … it’s okay … I’m not…” She searches my eyes for the words. I love her finding things inside me. But I’m impatient.
I say, “Ready? You’re not ready.”
“Probably…”
I wait.
“I’m not ready … for someone who isn’t ready.”
The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy Page 21
