Fan Art (20 page)

Eden leans over. “Who are you doing again?”

“Maxime Quoilin,” I say, and pull a printout about him from my papers.

I hand it to her and ask, “Why does Nick think I’d rat him out for the senior prank?”

Eden laughs. “Yeah, he got called into Chambers’s Chambers. Serves him right, too. I didn’t sneak out to the senior prank.”

“But why me? Like, a quarter of the class was there.”

“In Nick-thinking?” Eden asks, putting my printout down. “I pretty much know how his simple mind works. A girl wouldn’t do it—no guts. A brainiac like Mason wouldn’t do it—too smart. And his football buddies like Brodie and Kellen wouldn’t do it—no reason. And so, well, that leaves you.”

“But I didn’t turn him in and I’m not going to.”

“Oh, I hear you. He’s my brother. I have to live with logic like that.” She picks up my drawing and taps her Copic pen on her lip as if she’s thinking. “I still say Picasso.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, something about the two yous—how I can see who you think you are and who you want to be. . . .” Her voice trails off.

“Don’t go psychotherapist on me,” I tell her, even though she might be writing my “artist statement” for me. I take a mental note:
Who I am. Who I want to be.

“This one”—she points to the profile with her pen—“is all—”

I jerk my drawing away—out of reach of the ink.

“I’m not gonna draw on it, Jamie,” she promises. “It’s all confident, chin up, and the whole shebang. But
the eye looking at you, he’s not the same. He’s worried, not sure of things.”

I look at her. Look at my drawing, at the two versions of me.
My inside and my outside.
Look in the mirror.
Yeah
, I say to myself. Gumshoe
is being printed with a certain unapproved addition, I haven’t told my best friend I’m gay, and the Redneck thinks I turned him in to Principal Chambers. Of course my inside looks worried.

“But what’s Picasso about that?” I ask.

“I dunno,” Eden says. “Picasso’s people always look like they’re about to fall apart.”

I manage to keep myself together all through the dress rehearsal and through dinner at McDonald’s with DeMarco, Bahti, and the other band geeks. But as I tuck in my red shirt in front of the mirror in the boys’ bathroom, I see it. The worry on my face.

Eden explained to me how the eyes say everything. Paging through her sketchbook, she pointed out the emotions of the characters in her drawings—a fine collection of manga-style same-sex couples.

I stopped her at a page picturing two girls, one tall and the other short with exaggerated curves. The tall one was bending down to kiss the other girl’s forehead.

“You didn’t see that.”

“But it’s good,” I said. So good, I recognized that it was Eden and Challis.

She pretended my compliment didn’t mean anything, and then she drew me a cheat sheet: happy, snarky, worried, frightened, embarrassed, in love, etc. It was like a chart you might give to an autistic child to help them learn emotions—a row of faces.

I tried to take an eraser to my drawing after that. But Eden wouldn’t let me.

“Honesty is part of art,” she said, holding my wrist. “It’s good.”

Honestly
, I think to my reflection,
I look kinda gay in this.

I’m wearing a red button-down shirt. It’s crisp at the collar and cuffs, but sort of soft and sort of shiny in between. I’ve also got on my only pair of dress pants—black—a belt, and my Converse. My undershirt has a regular collar, not a V, and it shows. I consider taking it off but think that might be tacky, like John Travolta in the seventies.

The colored shirts are a tradition. Seniors wear colors—the girls’ dresses and guys’ shirts—and the rest of the band dresses in black. Why I agreed to red, I have no idea. Other than it was on the sale rack, my mother looked exhausted, and one of the twins was screaming.

I raise my chin, smile at my reflection, and pretend to be out and proud. It works.

For a minute, anyway.

Until I bump into Bahti backstage. Bahti in her cornflower blue prom dress and makeup—a complete 180 from an hour ago—and looking like the girl Mason kissed.

She smiles her million-watt smile at me and says, “Good luck with your solo!”

“Thanks,” I say.

“You’ll do great,” she says, as if I look as though I need encouragement.

I force my eyes from her lips, from the thought of where they had been. I pretend I see a tarnished spot on my trumpet and rub it on my sleeve.

“Really,” she assures me as the underclassmen file out onto the stage.

I nod.

Together we seniors wait for our names and sections to be called: percussion first, then brass, then woodwinds.

Bahti touches my arm when it’s my turn.

“Jamie Patterson, first chair trumpet,” Mrs. Templeton announces.

I walk out into the lights, playing a snippet of the Lions’ fight song. When I get to center stage, I finish the note, spread my arms, and take a bow. The audience claps. Someone shouts my name, and I know Mason’s out there.

I take my seat and check that I have my music on my stand. The concert runs smoothly, better than the dress
rehearsal. And I get so into my solo that the music melts away my memories of the moment and leaves me with a natural high.

I’m driving to Shari’s after the concert, and every time I look in the rearview mirror, I ask myself,
Why did I think
this
was a good idea?

See, I told Eden we’d go out after the concert. And Mason was there, so I asked him to join us. But he said he didn’t want to be a third wheel.

“You won’t be,” I said, even though he didn’t make any sense, because Eden and I weren’t together like that. “We can invite other people.”

“Yeah,” said Eden, chiming in.

“Good job, honey,” my mom said after she made her way through the knot of people.

“Sounded great,” Frank added.

“Thanks,” I said, and let my mom kiss me, and then they were off to enjoy a rare evening alone. Londa was babysitting.

I turned back to Mason and tried to convince him that Eden wasn’t
that
annoying (his real reason for declining). In a few minutes Eden had rounded up a few friends, mainly Holland, DeMarco, and Bahti. Bahti still wearing her prom dress.

“You don’t mind if I come along, la?” she asked me.

And I said, “No, of course not.”

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

So Eden’s riding shotgun and the others are in the backseat. All buckled in. But there’s only three seat belts—Bahti and Mason are wearing one.

I can see them in the rearview mirror, tangled and twisted together—she’s sitting on his lap and their legs go one of his, one of hers, one of his, one of hers. And her skirt is, well, shorter than I remember.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

We all sit in a big round booth at the restaurant. We order slices of pie and sodas.

“This is so much fun!” Eden announces, like the sugar or the excitement of a night out makes it impossible for her to sit still.

“How did you manage this one?” I ask. “It’s after nine on a school night.”

“I told my dad it was intermission,” she says with a giggle.

“So he thinks you’re still at the concert?”

“He’s hasn’t been to a high school band concert in twenty-five years. He won’t know they aren’t four hours long.”

DeMarco laughs. “It practically did—I thought Mrs. Templeton would never shut up.”

“All the sentimental speeches about us graduating,” Bahti says. “I thought we’d never get out of there!”

“I thought girls liked that stuff,” Mason says.

Bahti looks at him. “I felt a bit bad for her.” She shrugs.

“I’m just glad she didn’t talk for four hours,” I say, taking a bite of my cherry pie.

“Shh,” Eden whispers. “Don’t tell my dad.”

Holland’s phone rings as if on cue—her parents checking in on her—and the conversation soon evolves into a competition of whose parents are weirder.

Mason, however, doesn’t join in. He eats his piecrust with his fingers, and when I look at him, he’s already looking at me.

“What?” I ask. “Pie on my chin?”

“No,” he says. “That color. It looks good on you.”

I look down at my red shirt and feel my face burn. It probably matches. “Um, thanks?”

He smiles for half a second as if he’s the one who’s embarrassed, but he recovers quickly. “My dad does the same thing!” he says to the others as if he had been listening to them all along.

What was that?
I wonder.
Was he flirting? With me?

I shake off the thought and chime in. “My stepdad does that too.”

And even though Mr. V can be pretty old-fashioned at times, Eden’s parents win the trophy.

I drop Bahti off first, partially because her apartment is down the street from Shari’s, and partly because I want
Mason to wear his own damn seat belt. Eden is next, and so on, until Mason and I are alone in the car. He’s got the window open, catching the night air in his fingers. I think about attempting yesterday’s non-conversation again, but the urge to reveal my biggest secret and lose my best friend has drained from my bloodstream. Instead I turn on the radio. We sing along to the Rolling Stones’s “It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll.” I drive through our neighborhood, and when I stop on the street in front of Mason’s house, I know I won’t be digging down deep into my heart and spilling my guts all over the place.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

THIRTY-THREE

I have a plan. It’s simple
and easy to follow. And even a B-average student like me can follow it.
I can do this
, I tell myself as I drive to Mason’s house the next day. I know he’s home because he sent me a got-out-of-jail text, meaning he’s off work.

I have to do this. Gumshoe
is due back from the printer tomorrow, and Mason will see it. Sure, he won’t know the details of Challis’s comic—not at first—but he will hear as soon as the rumors that aren’t rumors start turning the mill. He’ll learn about how it was voted out and how I put it in without permission. And that it’s kind of a big deal. A big gay deal.

I am going to come out to Mason.

I park in the street and check my hair in the rearview mirror. I walk up the driveway past Mr. V’s truck, and rap on the open screen door.

“Come in,” Londa calls. Then, when I step inside,
she says, “Jamie! How are you?” She says this as if I am her favorite little brother, as if she’ll bake me cookies and pour me a glass of milk.

“Busy,” I say.

“Tell me about it,” she says, making her point with a wooden spoon. The kitchen smells amazing—like onions and garlic and chicken. “Papers due, exams . . . I’m so ready for summer break.”

“Yeah,” I agree, and nod at Gabe who comes in to raid the fridge.

He holds up a can of Orange Crush.

I nod again, and he tosses it to me.

“You staying for supper?” Londa asks.

I shake my head. Just in case my little announcement doesn’t go over well.

“Enchiladas
verdes
,” she says to temp me. “I made them myself.”

“Sounds delicious, but . . .” I can’t think of a lie she’ll believe.

“So you’re staying?” She smiles.

I know better than to argue with Londa. She doesn’t take no for an answer.

“He’s in his room,” she says, and nods in the direction of the hall.

As I walk the two yards from the kitchen to Mason and Gabe’s bedroom door. I think about how I’m not good with words—spoken ones, anyway—and with two little
words, to be precise.
I’m gay.
Who am I kidding? People always have to say that twice. So that’s four words:

“
I’m gay
.”

“
What’d you say?
”

“
I’m gay
.”

Or in my case, seven, total. “
I’m gay. I love you
.”

Mason is lying crossways on his twin bed, with his bare feet resting on the wall. His blue-black curls fall over the edge. He’s reading a paperback copy of
Moby-Dick
. I say hi, and he looks at me upside down as I fidget in the doorway like a kid who forgot to take his Adderall. My orange soda is probably shaken to the point of combustion.

“Hey,” he says, but doesn’t get up. “Car still running?”

“Yes, like a dream.” I start counting backward from ten to distract myself from what I came here to do.

Ten
. Mason folds down a corner of a page in his book.

Nine
. He looks at me. “You can sit if you want.”

Eight
. I sit on the floor and hug my knees to my chest.

Seven
. He flips around so he’s sitting cross-legged on the bed and facing me.

Six
. “You look like you need a movie.”

Five
.
I need so much more than that
.

Four
. “Popcorn,” he adds. “A big tub of popcorn with lots of butter and salt.”

Three
. “Yeah,” I say. Because junk food is supposed
to be really bad for you, and right now, I’d kind of rather be dying of a heart attack.

Two
. “Awesome! I’ve got AP English lit tomorrow, but I’m all studied out.”

One
.
I’m gonna say it. Two words and I’ll be done.

“Boys! Dinner!”

Mason scrambles up and out the door. I unstick myself from my thoughts and stand up. In the dining room, I sit in the extra chair next to Mason and across from Londa. I put my orange soda next to my plate but don’t dare open it. Mr. Viveros holds court at the head of the table and waits for Londa to stop fussing with the salad tongs. We join hands and bow our heads. Mrs. V’s hand is as soft as Mason’s is calloused. Mr. V prays in Spanish, and usually I can follow along with my high-school vocabulary, but I say my own prayer instead.