Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (3 page)

“I thought Oliver said you weren’t that kind of friend,” he said quietly.

I looked at him blankly. “What kind of friend?”

Arturo Campbell, whose dad was white and whose mom was Venezuelan (I know this because he told me the first day I met him, which was funny because I really wasn’t curious), shook his head. “Kid, I think that’s gonna be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question for you, you know that?” And then, before I could embarrass us both by trying to figure that out when we both knew I wasn’t capable of that shit, he took my napkin and my water bottle from me. “Tomorrow, I’ll bring you a soda. Just one. I think you’ve earned one lousy fucking soda.”

So Oliver came over to my house that afternoon and swam, wet and agile as an otter, moving with the same quick little motions with which he walked and spoke. My mom saw him and smiled in greeting, and then walked away. My father walked in and out of the house without acknowledging he was there. My sister was a freshman—she knew all about Oliver. As we were swimming in the cool water under the oppressive heat layer, she came out and asked him if he liked to shop. When he said no, he liked to read, she blew a raspberry at him.

“What was that for?” he asked, smiling that innocent white smile up at her. She was on the deck and he was in the pool. I was in the deep end, treading water, hoping my little sister wouldn’t be shitty to him so I wouldn’t have to act like a three-year-old and call Mom to make her go away.

“
That
was for being the wrong kind of gay.
Jesus
, what are stereotypes for?”

I snickered, because she was sharp, and Oliver cracked up so hard he splashed water when his otter-swift hands moved. “Well, mostly they’re to throw back in people’s faces,” he said. “But I’ll go shopping in a bookstore, if that counts.”

Nicole stripped out of her T-shirt and dropped it on the patio, wearing a plain old blue one-piece because she was a little curvy and Mom said it was tasteful. Suddenly I sort of yearned to see her in a paisley bikini; not because I’m a sick perv or anything, but because Nicole was a lot more interesting than that plain blue bathing suit and the plain white T-shirts that she always wore.

“Hmm . . .” she said, thinking hard as she walked gingerly down the pool steps. It was hot enough outside to make the cool sort of a shock. “Would it be the kind of place that served cappuccino and had poetry readings and music nights?”

Oliver’s grin grew a little dreamy. If you went up toward Placerville, there were arty little places like that, but here? Nope. Everything was the big bland Costco of its stock. Pottery Barn was considered unique and one of a kind, because God forbid anything stand out or anything. I always figured that’s why people liked the football team and the basketball team and the marching band so much: put everyone in a uniform, and they all looked the same. I think in our community that was reassuring.

So it didn’t take a genius to figure that small, brown Oliver would be excited about a place not populated by big hunks of clone meat like myself.

“If we get a place like that up here, you let me know, okay?”

My sister laughed and then dove into the water with a little shriek. When she surfaced, a few feet from me, she said, “I think we’re going to have to build one, sweetheart—and that means we’ll have to shop together after all.”

Oliver laughed and conceded that maybe they
would
have to bond via retail. Whether she knew it or not, my little sister—who had been a giant ugly bug crawling up my ass when I had my football buddies over—was suddenly on our side.

Estrella came out then with sandwiches and snacks, and I was surprised. She’d never done that when I’d had my other friends over, although there had always been potato chips we could serve.

I climbed out of the pool and toweled my hair before coming over to check out the spread. “This is awesome,” I told her, meaning it. She’d always been really nice to Nicole and me, cooking our favorite stuff, smiling at us when we were eating dinner in the kitchen, or asking us about our day. When we’d been younger, she’d been the nanny, but as we’d gotten past needing one, Mom had kept her on as the housekeeper/cook. I always thought it was because Mom loved her too, but that was something else I think I got wrong. For Mom, she was just super competent help. It was only to Nicole and me that Estrella meant something special.

“Well, I like this friend,” Estrella said, smiling. She had little teeth, with a gap in the front, and a round face and body. She was probably my mom’s age, but she seemed older somehow—maybe it was the softness. I knew that she’d listened to Oliver and me talk in the kitchen when we were studying for the SATs, and that she and Oliver had sometimes had snow-flurry conversations in Spanish that had felt intimate and real. She’d never spoken Spanish to me and Nicole. I felt like I knew her better after she’d made us sandwiches and hot chocolate—and the snacks, by the way, were pretty much one of the best things about the SATs, period.

“I know. I like him, too. His dad is pretty awesome. I wish I could work for him forever.”

Estrella looked at me thoughtfully. “I don’t think your father would like that very much,” she said kindly, and I shrugged.

“Yeah, well, he might change his mind when I flunk out of Berkeley.”

She sighed and patted my hand, which was still wet from the pool. “Maybe you should think of a way to avoid that?”

I winked at her to make her smile. “You know me—anything to get out of hard work.”

Estrella shook her head. “You’re a good boy, Rusty. Keep bringing Oliver by. He’s a good boy, too.”

Nicole and Estrella were smart—they saw the lines being drawn. But not my parents.

They treated Oliver like they treated all of my other friends, and didn’t, not once, notice that the enemy, the secret marauder who would topple all of their hopes and their plans for their baby boy, was in their swimming pool, smiling up at me with bright brown eyes, wearing a pair of plaid shorts that weren’t made for swimming at all.

He came over to swim a lot that summer. I remember little photo shoots in my head, his thin, brown limbs shiny and wet as he stood on our white concrete patio. I liked the way he flipped his hair out of his eyes, and the way he’d swim with his arms at his sides, rippling his long, skinny body. In the water, standing on the bottom step of the pool, he looked exotic, like a merman or something.

I started to think about him,
dream
about him, in his plaid not-swimming shorts, standing mostly naked on my parents’ patio.

At first, the dreams weren’t anything remarkable. He’d just be smiling at me, like I’d done something great. I mean, I’m not a
complete
asshole, but great? I have never, ever been accused of greatness. As a football player, I was good enough to play, but that was when I was pushing myself into the ground. As a student, I was in the honors classes because I had
outstanding
tutors, but that was their smarts, even if it was my sweat that made it stick. But at least in my dreams, Oliver was staring up at me like I had just won the Super Bowl and solved world hunger during the commercial break.

The first time I dreamed that, I woke up almost in tears. I wanted to be back asleep, having that dream so bad.

I didn’t think about it then, and when I
did
think about it, I tried to focus on the fact that maybe I should stop being a pussy about how bad I
didn’t
want to go to Berkeley. That if I wanted people to look up to me like that, maybe I should try to be someone worth looking up to.

When I wasn’t working, or at the pool, I was reading. I figured if I could read some of the books that Oliver read, I’d maybe get some of his quickness. I read
A Separate Peace
and
The Chocolate War
, but all I really got out of them was that big clots of peer pressure really fucked a kid up. I figured that I didn’t have to worry about that shit anymore. My friends had all taken off.

I mean, we still texted and saw movies together sometimes, but they were all working the same internships and jobs that my dad had wanted
me
to work. Between the working, the reading, and the swimming, more and more and more, my world revolved around Oliver.

I was okay not having that crowd of friends anymore. With all the reading Oliver and I were doing, we were starting to get the same jokes. Like, when him, me, and Brian Halliday saw that new Bourne movie. We were sitting there, watching guys kick ass on screen, when suddenly it hit me. These movies were about spies who didn’t want to spy anymore. They were getting
reborn
as someone else. And then,
bing-bang-boom
, I was back with that
Crime and Punishment
book that Oliver had given me, and then holy shit and hallelujah, I remembered Mr. Rochester and St. John and
Jane Eyre.

“Omigod omigod omigod!” I hissed at Oliver. “
Bourne!
Get it? It’s like he’s been re
born
!”

Oliver jerked, like I’d given him a wedgie or something, and then he turned to me with a smile so big, I swear it made the theater brighter. “God, Rusty, you totally nailed that one.”

I grinned and then turned to Brian, and he was shoving popcorn in his face. “Get it?” I whispered. “It’s his name, but it
means
something. It’s like . . . like
allegory
.”

Brian squinted at me. “Shut up and watch the movie,” he muttered. “People are looking at us funny.”

For a minute I was real disappointed. I felt like I was seeing the sun for the first time, but Oliver elbowed me and grinned and gave me the thumbs-up. For an irrational, terrifying moment, I thought about grabbing his hand and kissing it, because I was that fucking grateful, right?

But I didn’t. I turned my attention back to the movie. Afterward, Oliver and I asked Brian if he wanted to go out to ice cream with us, but he said no.

“I gotta be up early in the morning,” he said, sounding like my dad. “If I’m not there on time, your dad gets on my case. Jesus, Rusty, I can’t believe you
came
from that guy.”

Yeah. Brian had taken the internship in
my
dad’s office, and I guess I was supposed to have taken the one offered by
his
dad. Nice. Swapping us like the little game pieces we were supposed to be seemed more and more cold-blooded.

“Don’t look at me.” I shrugged. “I’m working construction. I get there at nine, I leave at five, and my boss buys me soda when his son’s not looking. I got it good.”

“He does not.” Oliver looked properly horrified. I smiled back at him. I loved grinning at him. I wanted to wrap my arm around his neck and ruffle his hair, but that had never been us.

“He does too,” I told him, figuring Mr. Campbell wouldn’t mind too much if I gave this away. “But only once a week. The rest of the time it’s horchata.” Which I didn’t particularly like, but he meant well, so I drank it anyway.

Oliver smiled, very proud of himself. “Yeah. My dad, he listens to me if he knows what’s good for him.”

I looked at Brian to try to share the awesome that was Oliver’s dad. “He does, too,” I told him seriously. “I mean, I never in a million years thought anyone could actually . . . you know . . .
listen
like this guy. He’s awesome to work for. I wish I lived with him.”

Brian sneered. “Yeah, well, you and Oliver get any cozier, maybe you can.”

I recoiled. “Man, what crawled up your ass?”

“Not the same thing that’s about to climb up yours.”

I looked at him, floundering. “That’s so ugly,” I said at last, my voice low. “How come you gotta be like that? You weren’t like that in school. You guys were always really nice to Oliver in school.”

“Yeah, well, that’s when we thought he was your friend. It’s a little different when he’s your
boy
friend. You know that, Rusty. It’s like . . . like we can let them hang around us, but there’s got to be a line.”

“Besides,” Oliver said quietly at my side. “They
were
like this in school. You were just too sweet to take it that way.”

“Is that how you like ’em? Sweet?” Brian’s voice was nasty, and something in his face was hurt, too. It hit me that he felt like he was losing me. And he was mad at Oliver because Oliver was the one who would get me in the end.

“I . . .” I shut my mouth and opened it again, and I wished suddenly that I was a kid again, in grade school, where all you had to do was go out and catch the ball, and that made kids your friends. “I’m sorry,” I said, turning to Oliver. “I’m sorry I was too stupid to know they were being mean. You’ve been a real good friend to me. I wouldn’t have let anyone be mean.”

Brian scoffed—and I never knew what that word meant until I heard that sound come out of his mouth.

“God, Rusty. Have a nice life. Give your mom my apologies for your going-away party. I’m not going to make it.”

“You’re having a going-away party?” Oliver asked, brightening, and I wanted to sit down and cry on my knees.

“I guess it was a surprise,” I said.