by L. Philips
“You’re not,” he says so easily that I know he believes it. “But you want someone?”
I don’t know how to answer, exactly, so I watch for a moment as smoke sucks out the window and into the twilit sky. I’m sure his snobby neighbors love that. I should be getting home soon, but there’s still a little weed left and I need the numbness right now almost as much as I need air.
Then I decide to keep being honest with Landon because (a) he probably knows the truth anyway, and (b) I don’t like keeping things from him, and I’m a little sore that he’s kept something from me.
“I want to be with someone. But not, you know, just anyone. I want someone.”
He nods against me. “I know.”
And of course he knows. He knows me; he knows my history. Our history. He knows that I almost had what I’m looking for with him, until we screwed it up beyond repair.
He moves, nuzzling into my neck. “So Grindr isn’t an option.”
I laugh, which, combined with the weed, makes me feel pretty good, like maybe this day isn’t a total loss. “Not an option. So what do I do? Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Maybe Archie knows someone.” Landon laughs, then sobers. “I don’t know, Sam. We’ve got one more year in this abysmal place, then we can take over the world. Guys will be falling at our feet, all gorgeous and sexy and, you know, gay. But until then . . .”
“Until then we just wait it out? Is that what you’re saying?”
“What’s one long, miserable, lonely year?”
I stare at him and mumble my reply. “On top of two already? Awful.”
Just then my phone lets out a shrill ring and I curse. I’d forgotten all about calling Meg. I sit up; Landon immediately curls into the space I left behind. “Hey, Meg.”
“Hey. Did you do your calculus yet? I can’t get number fourteen.”
I look over at Landon, whose gray-blue eyes are watching me with amusement. “Not really. I’m at Landon’s.”
“Ugh, are you two hanging out while I’m stuck doing homework? I hate you.”
“Not really,” I lie. “He’s reading one of my new stories.”
“And talking about his deep longing for romance,” Landon says, loud enough for Meg to hear, and I swat at him.
“Put me on speaker,” Meg orders, and I do, and she addresses Landon directly. “Do you know anyone, Landon? Sam is clearly miserable.”
“Thanks a lot!” I interject, but they talk to each other as if I’m not there, as if it wasn’t that Meg called me.
“Well, it has been two years,” Landon says, smirking at me. Then he mouths to me, “Exactly two years.”
“Is there a dating site for miserable, desperate, gay seventeen-year-olds?” Meg asks, and instead of defending myself against Meg’s insults, I mouth back to Landon, “I’m sorry.”
Landon shrugs my apology away, then says what we’ve learned to say to each other over the past year and a half, low enough that Meg can’t hear over the line. “Bygones.”
“No website I know of,” he says to Meg, louder. “eHarmony is mostly for adults. Straight adults. And Sam’s already ruled out Grindr.”
I roll my eyes at my friends’ conversation.
“Well, I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
Landon and I both lean over my phone and say in chorus, “Tell me.”
“We could do a spell.”
Landon covers his mouth to stop a laugh from escaping while I say, “Meg . . .”
“Don’t give me that ‘Meg . . .’ crap, this shit works. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for years now.”
Landon, composure regained, pipes up. “And how, exactly, has magic worked for you, oh wise mage? Or, I’m sorry, it’s magic with a k, isn’t it? Magic-k?”
“The k is silent,” Meg says irritably. “I passed my chemistry test last week because I said a spell for intelligence.”
“You also studied a week for it,” I say. “Next.”
I hear Meg blow out a breath. “I cast a love spell the night before Michael asked me out.”
“And that brought you a real prize, didn’t it?” I mumble, and Landon elbows me.
“Well, I was happy with the results, but if you want we could be more specific.” I hear some papers shuffling, the sounds of books being closed, then opened. I can picture Meg at home at her pre-Wiccan-era pink desk, pulling out the spell books she keeps hidden from her parents’ strict regime. “I think maybe . . . ah, yes. Here it is. Let’s do this.”
Meg reads out a section of a witchy manual, about doing a spell to find a soul mate. “It suggests making a list of qualities you want in a boyfriend. You know, to give the spell direction.”
I look at Landon, who is trying so hard not to laugh his face is purple. “Well, directionless magic could be a real problem, I suppose. Sort of like Santa Claus without Rudolph.”
“Or Frodo without Gollum!” Landon says.
“Very funny,” Meg says. “I know you two are godless heathens, but don’t you think it might help to believe in something greater than yourselves?”
Landon leans close and whispers, “Did a witch just call us godless heathens?” and I feign shock.
“I’m just saying, putting some positive energy out into the universe could really help you, Sam. You get back what you put out there.”
There’s a brief pause where Landon seems to be considering Meg’s words, and I’m trying to figure out why he’s considering. Then, to my utter surprise, Landon says, “Maybe she’s right. At the very least, this gets you started, you know? Gets you out there, looking.”
I stare at him. Landon and I are not religious in the slightest. My parents are atheists, his only went to church when it looked good for his father’s political career. We bonded over our mutual disdain for organized religion, and our mutual love of concrete, rational things, like science and facts and stuff. We are both amused by and a little in awe of Meg’s zealotry sometimes.
So now I’m feeling a little betrayed, and a little angry that he thinks this would be good for me. And if I’m being honest, maybe I’m a little angry that he doesn’t have a reason to feel as pathetic as I do because apparently there’s been someone—or several someones for all I know—for him. It’s like a double whammy of jealousy and self-pity.
“You really think I should do a magic spell?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Like I said, you can always wait it out. Or you could do something.”
“We know you’re lonely, Sam,” Meg says, and my ears burn.
Landon’s arm snakes around my waist, and maybe it’s his touch that reminds me how great it can be to have somebody. Maybe it’s the idea giving me feelings of hope and possibility, things that I haven’t let myself feel in a while. Maybe it’s the strong weed. But something pushes me toward saying yes, and I do.
Meg squeals. “All right. I promise you, Sam, the Goddess always listens to me. She won’t disappoint you. You’ve got an in with Her.”
Landon cracks up then, and I laugh too, but Meg’s voice drones on, oblivious. “So you’ll make a list then? Qualities that you want? Oh, and you’ll have to write your own spell. That makes it even more personal. And we can do it Friday night, Sam! It’s Friday the thirteenth! Great Goddess, it’s perfect. We can even do it at Saint Catherine’s, where the energy is strongest.”
“Excellent,” Landon agrees, with so much sincerity that he actually might be for real, and I kick at him. He’s totally turned on me.
“Wait, Meg,” I say. “Slow down. How many qualities? Like, twenty?”
“Hmnn. I think that’s too many. Kind of greedy, and we don’t want the Goddess to think you’re greedy.”
“Right, of course,” I say. “Wouldn’t want the flying spaghetti monster to get the wrong idea about me.”
“Samson,” Meg warns, “if you’
re not going to do this right, I won’t do it at all. You can’t be disrespectful.”
“She’s right, you know,” Landon says, eyes sparkling with mischief. “If you’re going to do this, don’t half-ass it, Raines.”
I am completely outnumbered. I sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re right. So what, like, ten? Ten things I want in a boyfriend?”
“Yes. I think that’s perfect.” I can almost hear her smile. “The Perfect Ten! This is going to be fabulous, I can feel it. Can you feel it?”
I can’t feel a damned thing, but I’m used to being a bit perplexed by all of Meg’s feelings and intuitions and senses. “Oh yeah, I can feel it,” I lie.
Meg lets out another squeal and says good-bye, and I stare at the phone for a moment in silence, wondering what I’ve just gotten myself into.
“Am I crazy?”
“Nah,” Landon answers. “Magic or not, I think it would be good for you. Wasn’t lying about that. Plus it will make you think about what you want. And that can’t be a bad thing, right?”
“I guess not.” I pick at a loose thread in my sweater, a vintage find from my dad’s closet. “Hey, Landon. I know it’s none of my business, but who was he?”
Landon cocks his head at me. “No one special, Sam. And it’s always your business.”
“But you didn’t tell me. And I guess I just . . . I just thought that you’ve been lonely this whole time like me. It’s kind of weird to think that you haven’t been.”
He waits a few ticks, then says, “What makes you think I’m not lonely?”
We smile at each other then, silent words flowing between us for a long moment, then Landon squeezes my knee. “Let me drive you home.”
“So I’ve been thinking that you need to write your spell in Latin,” Meg says as we arrive at our lockers the next morning. “Since that’s what you study and all, it will give the spell an even more personal touch. And Latin is such an old language. Lots of energy built up in it.”
I glance around for Landon, hoping he’ll save me from Meg’s nonstop spell planning, but he’s nowhere to be found, the jerk.
“Fine,” I agree. I can manage a spell in Latin. Meg takes French so it’s not like she’ll be able to understand it anyway. I could write about sea monkeys for all she knows.
“So have you finished your list?”
I toss my book bag on the floor next to locker number 75 and spin the combination. “Not even close,” I admit. In addition to not having much time to even think about the list last night, it was surprisingly hard to come up with the qualities I did manage to write down. Honestly, it’s all so embarrassing that it’s hard to even think about. Like I’m so pathetic I’m resorting to religion I don’t even believe in. And even if, by some Wiccan miracle, the thing works, is the Perfect Ten even going to want some loser who had to use magic to get a date? It might be easier to adopt thirty cats and start wearing mumus around the house now, and cut to the chase.
“Show me.”
I take out my English notebook and hand it to Meg, looking her over as I do. She looks cute today, less goth than normal, and with a pair of skintight jeans and a low-cut V-neck shirt, she’s showing off all her endowments nicely. I catch a few of the boys checking her out as they walk by, and I’m really kind of jealous.
She looks up at me, wrinkling her nose and sticking out her lips. It’s her Not Good Enough face.
“What? It’s a start.”
“Not much of one.”
She hands the notebook back, and I look down at what I’ve written:
Perfect 10
1. Sexy
2. Talented
Yeah. Creative, isn’t it?
Regardless, those two things are important to me. I want a guy who’s going to make my palms sweat and my heart drop into my stomach every time he walks by. I want him to send my whole body into shudders and shivers when he touches me. I really, really want to want him.
Number two is equally important. My boy needs to be interesting, and good at something. I mean, I won’t complain if he happens to love literature like me, or loves to write like I do, but what his interest is doesn’t matter. Hell, he could be fascinated by medieval jousting or taxidermy for all I care. Just as long as he has something, because it’s essential that I’m not his only interest. That was the problem with Landon. I mean, it’s not like Landon was a loser or something, but it was like he had no life outside of me. And it may sound awesome to be the center of someone’s universe, but in reality it’s bad. Really bad.
I shake my head to clear the thoughts of Landon and take my notebook back. “I’ve got until Friday night. Don’t panic.”
Meg stops rummaging through her own locker, number 77, and lays a hand on my arm. “Just take it seriously, okay, Sam? I know you don’t believe like I do, but if the Goddess answers you with someone, you want that list to be good, you know? So think hard about what you want. Sexiness and talent are fine, but what about brains? Michael says the most attractive thing about girls are their brains.”
“What would Michael know about brains?” I mumble, slamming my locker door shut, and wouldn’t you know? Michael appears at Meg’s side, cramming his tongue down her throat before saying hello to either of us.
“Raines. Good to see you.”
He constantly calls me by my last name, and he’s always slightly formal with me, as if he thinks this is how civil, grown-up men should behave.
Douche.
“Why, hello, Michael,” I say, slightly breathless and batting my eyelashes. He swore up and down to me that he wasn’t at all uncomfortable with my sexuality when we first met, the way people who are uncomfortable with my sexuality usually do. So whenever he’s around, I up my queerness a few degrees. “You look so handsome today.”
That’s a lie. The guy is wearing cargo pants and a Cleveland Browns T-shirt. He’s tall and thin, so he’s got that going for him, and if he just dressed decently at least he wouldn’t look like a total schmuck next to Meg’s prettiness. Do yourself a favor, Michael, and pick up a GQ once in a while.
His skin turns red but he ignores me and kisses Meg again. “See you before last period, babe?”
“Of course.”
They make out again and I look away so that I don’t vomit all over the hallway. Once they break apart, Meg and I walk to the Foreign Language hallway, where she’ll have French and I’ll have Latin.
“He tries to be nice to you, you know.”
I shrug. “It’s not me he has to be nice to. I’ll like him when he stops being a lying, cheating bastard.”
Meg says nothing, even though I can tell it’s taking quite an effort to keep her mouth shut. Finally, when we get to Madame Vinson’s classroom, she orders me to work on my list in Latin class.
“But we’re conjugating—”
“Work on it, Sam!” she hisses just as the bell rings, and hops over the threshold that separates hallway from classroom. Tardiness is detention in Athens High. I jump over my line too. “And put some thought into it, please?”
A noncommittal nod is the best promise I can give her. “Coffee after school?”
She rolls her eyes as Madame Vinson taps her on the shoulder, giving her the evil eye. Vinson doesn’t permit English in her classroom. “Oui!” Meg answers.
And of course I don’t pay attention in Latin, which means the twenty sentences Mr. Ames assigned to translate will be a real bitch tonight, but I do come up with one more item for my list, thanks to Michael’s lack of fashion sense:
3. Style
Two
We go to the Donkey, which is the only respectable place in Athens to get coffee. Sure, there’s Brenan’s and Perks and the Starbucks stand inside the college bookstore, but those places are for people who wear North Face and Uggs and have daddies who send them an allowance check each month. In other words, they’re for the spoiled colle
ge kids. The Donkey is the only place in town that doesn’t burn their beans and has a crowd that’s a little more alternative. Any night of the week you’ll hear some great musicians or poets on the little stage in the corner, catch someone reading Kafka or laboring over a political science thesis, or overhear a deep discussion on the merits of legalizing marijuana.
Yeah, the place stinks like patchouli and unwashed hair, but I love it.
Meg and I sit on stools at the bar and the barista—a guy named Ted—sets our usuals in front of us before we can even order. Meg gets out her latest book on Wicca, which I initially thought was about gardening because the title is The Garden Path, but Meg assures me it’s about the magickal properties of herbs or some other nonsense. I get out my Latin and start to work. We’ll work side by side for a few hours in the coffeehouse before going home. It’s not that I don’t want to go home. My parents are really quite awesome, even if we don’t always talk about everything in my life. But they’re cool about me and who I am, and love that I’m different.
It’s Meg who doesn’t want to go home. Ironically, she’s the one whose parents don’t approve of her “lifestyle.” In their eyes, she’ll never be as perfect as her younger sister, Catherine, who declared she wants to be a nun last year, or her older sister, Margaret, who already has three children with her über-Catholic husband, like every dutiful servant of the church should. Even her brother, John, who nearly failed out of college, ranks higher in the family because he still attends Mass every weekend. I guess his soul is still pure or something, even if he can’t get a passing grade in chemistry.
So I indulge her. Nearly every day, unless Michael has a day off from his job at McDonald’s and she ditches me for him, we sit here until the coffee, the homework, or the excuses run out.
I don’t look up from my translations until I hear Meg suck in a breath and a pointy elbow lands squarely in my ribs.
“Ow! What was that for?” I hiss.
“Look.”
