by P. E. Ryan
“Please. Webber’s snooping around, keeping an eye on me. It was an okay job until this cone-head thing started.”
“How did I not think of that? You are a cone head!”
“All right. A little sympathy for your friend, okay?” Sam climbed down from the footstool. “Did you get your pictures of the Pistol Museum?”
“Two rolls. And they let me photograph the inside of the old jail. I sweet-talked them. Didn’t have to do that at the cemetery, though—those people don’t care what you do.”
“Very funny.”
“I think I’ll get something.” Melissa squinted through her glasses at the flavors listed on the chalk-board. “Chocolate: boring. Mango-papaya: ick. Blueberry…that’s what I want. Swirled with vanilla. And throw a few of those nuclear sprinkles on it.”
“At your service.” Sam took a medium cup off the stack.
“A small!” Melissa said. “Please, I’m a whale.”
“You are not.” He glanced around quickly, checking for Mr. Webber. “I’ll give you a medium but charge you for a small, how’s that?”
“Thanks. But make it a small medium.”
Sam was handing her the yogurt when he spotted Charlie Perrin across the food court.
Charlie was with Kate Bryant. They were holding hands, walking slowly toward the Pizza Hut and the Daniel Dogs, as if undecided about which one to go to. The last time Sam had laid eyes on Charlie, he’d been running past the park at the back of their neighborhood and had seen Charlie shooting baskets. Sam had spotted him first and immediately veered away before he was noticed.
Melissa followed his gaze to the spot that was holding him transfixed.
“That’s Charlie Perrin, isn’t it? And Kate what’s her-name.”
“Bryant,” Sam heard himself say.
“Right. One of those girls who doesn’t know I exist because I’m not a size four. I guess we should be social and say hi.” Melissa waved at them.
“No!” Sam hissed. At that moment, he saw Charlie glance over.
“Why?” Melissa asked, lowering her hand. “Because of the hat?”
Suddenly remembering the hat, Sam yanked it off his head and shoved it under the counter. “I just don’t want—don’t need to talk to him.”
“God, that’s right. You two aren’t friends anymore, are you? When am I going to get that story?”
“There isn’t any story,” Sam said. He was still holding the cup of blueberry-vanilla swirl; he shoved it toward her. Over her shoulder, he saw Charlie’s whole body make a kind of jerk, as if he were about to wave back. But Charlie didn’t wave; the move was aborted. He turned with Kate toward the Daniel Dogs, and they approached the counter.
“Wow,” Melissa said. “I think we were just dissed. We were, right?”
“How should I know?” Sam snapped. “They probably didn’t see us.”
“Not that I care. She can stick her size four where the sun doesn’t shine.” Melissa brought a spoonful of yogurt to her mouth.
Hell, Sam thought, I had to be wearing that stupid hat. He rang up the sale, stabbing his fingers against the buttons of the cash register, and took Melissa’s money. She was going on about something and he was only half listening.
“…so tired of these snotty cliques that act as if the rest of the world—the average, everyday world—just doesn’t exist. You know what I mean? It makes me want to punch someone.”
Someone cleared his throat and said, “Can I get a small cup of mango-papaya, please?”
Both Sam and Melissa looked over. A guy was leaning against the end of the counter. His hair, so blond it was nearly white, rose up in a cool, crazy sweep off his forehead. He was wearing jeans and a light-blue, long-sleeved T-shirt with the words YOUR BLISS across the chest. He smiled, and then exhaled part of a laugh and said, “Don’t punch me. I’m not part of a snotty clique, I swear.”
Sam recognized him. “You go to Cernak, right?”
“Yeah. I just transferred there last semester.” He held his hand out to Melissa. “Justin McConnell.”
Nobody shook hands nowadays. At least, no one they knew. Melissa looked down suspiciously, as if she’d been offered a joy buzzer, then brought up her own hand. “Melissa Rudge.”
“The photographer,” Justin said. “I know your work from the Fountain.”
A goofy grin spread across Melissa’s face. “Wow! I’m recognized!” She pumped his hand energetically.
“You’re right about cliques, by the way. They’re boring and exclusive,” Justin said.
Sam felt nervous, for some reason. His hands weren’t near anything, but he was certain he was about to knock something over. Justin extended his own hand across the counter, and repeated his name. “I’m Sam,” Sam said, shaking it. He looked at Justin’s wrist. He wore a thin, dark rope bracelet.
“Sam Findley,” Melissa clarified. “He works on the Fountain, too.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that really classy article you wrote about…who was it—Ms. Crockett?—retiring.”
“That’s…me.” Sam wondered when Justin McConnell had entered the food court and if that moment was before or after Sam had removed the waffle-cone hat from his head.
“He’s going to be editor-in-chief next year,” Melissa said.
Justin nodded, impressed. “Kudos.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “It’s a very important position. I’m actually doing undercover work right now, a crackdown piece on the whole…frozen yogurt scandal.” Shut up, he told himself. Close your mouth.
But Justin laughed. “Good. I love scandal. I’ll be part of it, with my small cup of mango-papaya.”
Sam felt himself grinning. He looked from Justin to Melissa, who motioned with her head toward the yogurt machine behind him. “Oh!” he said more loudly than he’d intended. “Duh!” He fumbled for a cup. “So…you moved here from the Midwest, right?”
“Yeah. Is it obvious?”
“No, it’s just what I’d heard from Teisha.”
“That would be Teisha Springer,” Justin said. “Next year’s class president.”
“You seem to know everyone.”
“Hard not to know Teisha after that big-budget campaign she launched. I’m still seeing those neon-colored posters whenever I close my eyes. But I knew her before that. She was the student assigned to show me around when I first got to the school.”
“Didn’t you move here from one of those square states?” Melissa asked.
“Sort of. Ohio. It’s not square, but it might as well be.” Justin dug money out of his pocket as Sam slid the cup across the counter. “What shape do you call Florida?”
“Oh, square,” Melissa said, “definitely.”
Sam couldn’t stop staring at him. Justin looked so relaxed, so comfortable with himself. Sam never could have gotten his own limp hair to swoop up like that. And Justin’s skin was completely clear, which made Sam remember the bump on his chin that he shouldn’t have messed with earlier because it was probably even redder now. When he met Justin’s eyes again, Justin was looking right at him.
“You have a wicked smile,” Justin said.
The compliment (was it a compliment?) caught Sam off guard. “Wicked as in Witch of the West?”
“No. Wicked as in angelic. Sort of like bad as in good.”
“Or hot as in cool,” Melissa added.
“Exactly,” Justin said. “In fact, you have Montgomery Clift’s smile.”
“He does. You’re right.”
Who was Montgomery Clift? Embarrassed, Sam glanced down and said, “What’s your shirt mean?” He pointed to the words YOUR BLISS.
Justin did a one-eighty for them. The back of his shirt read FOLLOW IT.
“Very cool,” Melissa said, nodding.
“You think? The three guys I passed in the parking lot didn’t seem to agree.”
“What did they say?”
“Well, two of them snickered and one of them called me a fag. I assumed it was the shirt.”
Melissa groaned. “People are such assholes.”
Justin shrugged. “I didn’t care. I felt like saying, ‘How very astute,’ but I didn’t think they’d know what astute meant.”
He looked down at his yogurt and stirred it with his plastic spoon. Melissa glanced at Sam and mouthed the word Wow.
Sam felt his hands threaten to knock things over again. He folded his arms across his chest.
“So,” Melissa said, “you’re an old-movie buff.”
“You could say that. How did you know?”
“Not many people go around mentioning Montgomery Clift.”
“They should,” Justin said. “A Place in the Sun is one of the greatest movies of all time.”
“I just watched The 400 Blows,” Sam blurted out, wanting to contribute something.
“Truffaut,” Justin said. “It’s a masterpiece. Did you like it?”
“It was great.”
“I love that last, long shot where you think something awful is about to happen, but nothing does. It’s so powerful.”
“Hey,” Melissa said, “you should come over to my house Monday night. I’ve been having this disaster movie fest, and a group of us are going to watch The Poseidon Adventure.”
“I love The Poseidon Adventure!” Justin said. Then, in a gentle voice that sounded like it belonged to someone else, he said, “What’s your name, honey?”
“Nonnie,” Melissa said, getting into it.
“Nonnie, your brother’s dead.”
Melissa clapped. “Red Buttons! Very good!”
Justin looked at Sam. “Will you be there?”
“Me? Oh, I—yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Cool,” Justin said, grinning. “We’ll all go down together.”
Melissa grabbed a napkin from the counter. She wrote down her address and phone number and handed it to Justin, who scribbled on a second napkin. This he tore in half and handed a part to each of them. “That’s my phone, and my e-mail.”
“Thanks!” Melissa said, tucking the paper into her pocket.
Sam just stared down, amazed that he was holding it.
“You guys are great,” Justin said around a spoonful of yogurt. “I should get going, though. I’ve got to find my mom a birthday present. Something ceramic and nauseatingly cute. So…see you on Monday?”
“Definitely,” Melissa said. “I’ll send you the info.”
“Well, it was great meeting you both,” Justin said.
A moment later he was walking away from the Goody-Goody, the words FOLLOW IT receding into the food court and then out into the mall.
“Well,” Melissa said, turning back to Sam, “that was interesting.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “He’s nice. You two really seemed to hit it off.”
She laughed and tossed her empty cup into the trash can next to Sam’s hip. “Actually, you two were the ones who were hitting it off. But I can pretend I didn’t notice, if you want me to.”
Wow. Riding his bike home from the mall, Sam could still see Melissa mouthing the word to him, after Justin’s blatant admission that he was gay. It hadn’t even been an admission; he’d offered the information. Sam had never known anyone to just come forward with something like that before. And now Justin’s phone number and e-mail address were traveling home in Sam’s pocket. Never mind the fact that he’d probably never get up the nerve to use either one. It was all pretty amazing.
But another remark Melissa had made had caught him completely off guard—that crack about offering to pretend she didn’t notice what was going on between him and Justin. The implication was that Sam was…or that Sam might be…Man, he thought, you can’t even say it to yourself! Had he ever told her anything to imply that he felt that way? He remembered one afternoon when they’d been lying on the floor in Melissa’s bedroom leafing though People magazine, and they’d come across an article about a hot-looking movie-star couple who were getting a divorce. “Her loss,” Sam had remarked without thinking. Melissa had looked shocked. “His loss is more like it,” she’d said. They might have been defending the husband and wife, respectively, as good spouses, even good money earners. But they might also have been speaking of who was the hotter “catch.” If that was the case, did it make Melissa gay, too? You’re losing it, he thought. The whole world is not suddenly turning gay.
When he got home, Teddy’s car was in the driveway. Sam steered his bike into the garage and went in through the kitchen.
It was after ten P.M. His mom and Teddy were sitting close together on the sofa, watching TV. They had their feet propped up on the coffee table—something Sam and Hannah weren’t allowed to do.
“Hey, Nerfball!” Teddy practically shouted.
His mom shushed Teddy and said, “Hannah’s asleep.”
“Hey, Nerfball,” Teddy said in a loud whisper. “How’s the yogurt flowing?”
Kill me, Sam thought. He stepped into the living room and glanced at the television. “What are you guys watching?”
“A movie your mom’s all fired up about. I think you’d call it a chick flick.”
“Excuse me?” Sam’s mom said. “You’ve been pretty caught up in it yourself.”
“That’s because I was figuring out the plot. They’ve been feeding that dead guy to the detective, I know that much. I just don’t know who killed him.”
“That’s not what it’s about,” Sam’s mom said—but in a playful tone of voice that Sam hadn’t heard her use since Hannah was little.
“I’m going to bed,” Sam said. “Good night.” He started across the living room toward the hallway.
“Well, wait a minute. How was work?” his mom asked.
“Fine.”
“Does Mr. Webber know you’re about to cut down your hours because school’s starting?”
“He knows.”
“I still don’t like the idea of you working during the school year. You don’t have to, you know.”
“I want to,” Sam said. “It’ll be fine. Good night.”
“Do you want to watch some of the movie?”
“You should!” Teddy said. “Your mom’s right, it’s not really about a murder. It’s about these two girls who want to get it on.”
“Teddy!”
Sam knew nothing about the movie they were watching and told himself to keep moving before Teddy made another stupid remark. He walked across the living room and nearly made it to the hall when his anger got the best of him. He turned and said, “So it’s about mariposas?”
“Sort of.” Teddy shrugged.
“You know, you can say the word lesbian,” Sam said. “It won’t turn you into a mariposa.”
“Good night, Sam,” his mom said.
“Why do you let him talk that way?” Sam asked, suddenly angrier at his mom than at Teddy.
“Whoa,” Teddy said. “Mr. Crankypants.”
Sam glared at his mom for another moment, then stormed off down the hall.
He would have slammed his bedroom door, but he remembered that Hannah was sleeping. He dropped down onto his desk chair and glared at his computer screen. Clenching his jaw, he thought, Stay away, just stay away.
She did. He waited several minutes, but she never tapped on the door, never came in to talk to him. For some reason, this made him even angrier.
What could she possibly see in Teddy? How could anyone even stand him? Okay, so he wasn’t walking around with an ax chopping people up, but he was over-the-top annoying. He practically showed up in the mornings with a napkin tucked into his collar, asking what the breakfast special was. Dropped by any afternoon when Sam’s mom wasn’t at work. Stuck around until late at night.
Sam thought about cranking open the window above his bed, removing the screen, and slipping outside. Maybe going for a late-night run. Hell, he could even just throw some stuff into his gym bag and take off—but where would he go? Not to his dad’s, because his dad was on the other side of the Atlantic, with David. Think big, he told himself. Blow the scene. You’ve got the mo
ney; use it. Mexico…Canada…Follow your bliss. But he could never do that to Hannah.
Besides, the one time he’d actually tried running away had turned out to be one of the worst nights of his life.
It was over a year ago, back when his father was still living at home and his parents had been fighting heavily. If they weren’t snapping at each other or having a full-blown argument, they were as silent as stones. It was awful to be around. One night during dinner, Sam asked where they were going for their family vacation that year. He was met with dead silence. He asked again.
“We’re not sure,” his mom told him.
“Well,” he said, “it’s almost summer. Shouldn’t we know by now?”
“Sam!” his dad snapped. “Stop giving your mother such a hard time! It’s really getting to be a problem, all right?”
His dad had been fighting with his mother for weeks; now he was suddenly sticking up for her.
Sam couldn’t remember what he said back; whatever it was, it was something smart-mouthed enough to get him sent to his room in the middle of the meal. He fumed for several hours. He pounded a fist against the mattress and looked around the room for things to break, but everything was his, so what good would it do? Finally, after he was sure everyone had gone to sleep, he took the pillowcase off his bed, jammed it full of clothes and the measly contents of the Barney bank he still had from when he was little, and slipped out the window.
It was late and very dark outside. He had no idea where he was going, and as soon as he got ten feet from his house, he only wanted to see Charlie. He walked directly to Charlie’s house, three blocks over.
Charlie’s bedroom window was dark. Sam dropped his pillowcase behind the bushes and tapped on the glass—softly, so that Mr. and Mrs. Perrin wouldn’t hear. No one came to the window. Then Sam remembered that Charlie had just gotten a new tent and had talked about putting it up in the backyard. Leaving the pillowcase beneath the bushes, Sam walked around the house and passed through the side gate.
Sure enough, there was an orange tent with dark-blue flaps pitched in the middle of the yard, its sides glowing from a flashlight within. Sam crossed the yard, and as he neared the front of the tent, which was zipped closed, he whispered Charlie’s name. The light jostled against the tent walls. He whispered the name again.
