Fan Art (4 page)

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know?” she asks. “Prom is a week and a half away, Jamie. All my friends are taken.”

Thank God
, I almost blurt. Because Bahti’s friends are supersmart—like Mason—and I don’t want to spend the evening comparing GPAs. (For the record, I am not a
runner-up for anything.)

Then I remember my manners and say, “That so?”

“So sorry. Good luck.” She hands me my tickets with a smile that’s edged with pity.

At home I drop my backpack on the floor, shout “I’m home,” and head to the kitchen for a snack. I make a triple-decker-raspberry-jam PB&J, take the carton of milk into the living room, and collapse on the couch in front of the TV. A
Jerry Springer
rerun is on, and I watch it on mute—Mom doesn’t want the twins to hear people argue like that. It’s funnier this way, anyway. A heavy chick’s arm flab jiggles as she jabs a finger at a rapping midget.

Ann Marie waddles in, holding out my English notebook as if it is some sort of present.

“Thank you,” I coo to her sweetly, while my mind says,
Oh crap.

The twins got into my backpack. Or, well, Elisabeth has it hiked up over one shoulder and is dragging it around behind her, upside down, its contents spilling out in a slow-motion avalanche.

I take another bite of my sandwich and tiptoe after her—so she won’t break into a run.

“Oh, honey, thank you,” Mom says in the other room. Ann Marie must have given her some of my homework to do.

I coax my backpack away from Elisabeth by convincing
her it’s time to play baby dolls, then I sweep my stuff back inside before Ann Marie returns for another load.

I’m sitting on the floor of the twins’ room, rocking a doll in one arm while Elisabeth holds a bottle to its lips, when my mom appears in the doorway.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” she asks, fanning herself with my prom tickets.

“Mom!” My cheeks grow warm.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me,” she says. “I was just curious.”

“It’s just that—Well, I don’t know yet.”

She laughs gently then asks, “Can I pay for your tickets anyway?”

I nod, not having the heart to tell her that I’ll probably chicken out and ask a girl, not a guy, to prom. Which I could, technically. But it doesn’t seem worth the fuss, even if I liked someone, which I don’t. Lincoln High isn’t exactly crawling with cute gay guys, except maybe a sophomore or two. I wonder if Mom will be disappointed. She’s been this way—eager—ever since I came out to her, as if she can’t wait for me to bring a boyfriend home to meet her.

“Burp,” Elisabeth says.

I shift a doll over my shoulder and pat its back absentmindedly.

I never had baby dolls, never played dress up in my mom’s high heels, and never wanted to join the cheerleading
squad, so it wasn’t like my mom knew I was gay. So I had to come out to her and Frank. Believe me, it was the worst thing ever. It’s not like they kicked me out of the house or sent me to boarding school or anything, but it was awful. I wanted to tell them before they got married, just in case big guy’s guy Frank had a problem with having a gay step-kid. But as the weeks and months passed by, they picked out flowers, hired a photographer, and ordered cake—and I kept choking on the words. The longer it dragged on, the harder it got to say. I couldn’t sleep at night, and my stomach was a constant knot of worry. I lost a few pounds, dragged myself out of bed in the morning, and watched way too many talk shows after school.

My mom was convinced that something was wrong with me and made a doctor’s appointment for me. Then, when the doctor confirmed that I was physically fine, she made me an appointment with a counselor. And counselor is a nice word for shrink. So I said it. In the car, on the way to the shrink’s. “Mom, I’m gay.”

She pulled over—right there on Capitol Boulevard—and gave me a great big hug. She started crying, and I thought it was because she was upset. No one wants a gay kid, right? All parents want is weddings and daughters-in-law and grandchildren, right? Well, no. My mom was happy about it! She asked if I was seeing anyone. And her face fell a little when I said no. But I was in ninth grade, for Pete’s sake.

“You have to tell Frank and Grandma,” I informed her. Coming out once was all I had in me.

“You sure?” she asked, mopping up tears with a yellow Wendy’s napkin she found in the console. “It’s your special news.”

And while I spent the next fifty minutes talking to that counselor about anything but being gay, my mom called Frank.

To this day I don’t know how he pulled it off. But when we came home, the kitchen was decorated.
Decorated!
With two dozen balloons, rainbow streamers, and pink heart-shaped confetti. There was an ice-cream cake with rainbow sprinkles and
Way to go, Jamie!
written on it.

I was mortified.

I couldn’t tell him that coming out was private—to me, anyway—and celebrating it made me cringe inside. So I tried to sneak upstairs to my bedroom and crawl back in the closet, but Frank cajoled me into staying with a stack of brightly wrapped presents.

I should have gone upstairs.

They were books. Embarrassing books with titles like
The LGBTQ High School Survival Guide
,
Your Sexuality and You
, and
Queue: Authors Line Up Tell Their Coming-Out Stories.
My mom got
Parenting Your Gay Teen
, and for Frank,
The Dummies’ Guide to Stepparenting an LGBT Child.
He must have bought the whole shelf at the bookstore.

I grabbed Frank’s book and paged through it furiously. I was looking for the idiot box where it told him to throw me a party. I didn’t find one. And my heart sank. I would have felt better if he had done this because some dummy told him to.

But he came up with it on his own.

imagined

—E. K. O.

there’s this boy in my class

who’s matt-damon adorable,

with idaho summer-sky blue eyes,

the same turned-up nose

smattered with freckles,

and lips quick to reveal

his famous, nervous smile.

all the girls are in love with him,

but he doesn’t know it,

and perhaps this is what

we love about him.

or maybe we love

how he and his best friend

are perfect for each other,

only they don’t realize it.

and maybe, just maybe,

this is what we love about him.

the idea of them together—

walking side by side, hand in hand

under an idaho blue summer sky,

across an emerald hayfield

smattered with wildflowers,

his lips quick to say

a nervous “i love you.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

SIX

I find a poem in my
locker when I get to school. And even though I know it’s someone’s
Gumshoe
submission, I don’t read it, but rather pretend for a minute that it’s for me from a secret admirer and slip it into my pocket. I imagine it’s full of intimate details, like how he likes my hair or my ridiculously childish freckles. It ends with a clue—there’d have to be a clue—of where to meet and when. We’d both show up, of course, and sit on a blanket under the stars, the warm April air having nothing to do with the shiver running down my spine.

Too bad imaginary secret admirers don’t make viable prom dates.

In art, Ms. Maude has the lights off and the projector on, and we’re flying through art history at breakneck speed. We started the semester with the cave paintings in Lascaux and, with three weeks of classes to go, we are up
to Marcel Duchamp and his urinal. Ms. Maude is certain we’ll get up to present-day art by the end of the term, but the class has a bet going—most of the girls say she will and the guys say she won’t.

I write
$1
in my notebook and slide it across the table to Eden.

In my pocket
, she writes back.

I’m about to write
No way
when Ms. Maude leaps ahead half a decade and sums up Dadaism in one sentence.
No fair.
She segues to the Bauhaus, and I know I should be listening. Those Bauhaus dudes are the founding fathers of graphic design.

But I’m not listening.
You going to prom?
I write. Again I slide my notebook to Eden.

She looks at me, an are-you-crazy? expression on her face.

I gesture at the note.

She writes something. Slides it back.
No.

Why not?
I scribble.

She doesn’t wait for me to pass the notebook; she just reaches over and writes.
No date.

Be mine.

She looks at me again then writes:
I thought you were gay.

I freeze.
How the hell does she know?

Eden takes the paper back before I write anything.
And you want to go to prom with me?

Yes.

Not possible
, she scribbles.

Why not?

Ms. Maude glances our way, and Eden pretends she’s taking notes on the lecture. When she slides my notebook back, it reads:
You’re out of my league. Not to mention the wrong gender.

The wrong gender? I try not to look surprised and I ignore that part.
What league?

The popular one.

I’m not popular. I’m in band.

Eden sighs as if I’m clueless, and she pushes my notebook back at me without an answer.

Please
, I write. I didn’t know dating involved so much persuasion.

Why?

Because you’re cool.
I offer her the notebook.

She reads my note and shakes her head.

I try again.
Because I want to get to know you better.

She fake gags on her finger.

Because I’ll have a good time if you’re there.

Eden smiles.

And I have a prom date.

“Here’s the thing,” Eden says as we pack up our stuff after class. “My parents are überstrict about stuff I do—they don’t usually let me go to school dances.”

All that work and she can’t go?
Dang it.

“But since it’s prom and you’re a guy, I think it’ll be okay.”

Phew.

“But before I can go anywhere with you, you’ll have to prove you’re an upstanding citizen.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“We’ll start with just my mom. You come over, and we’ll go somewhere like we’re dating.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s how prom works. I pick you up. We go to prom.”

“Before prom. Like, today. Or tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I agree, because if finding one prom date was this difficult, finding a second one is out of the question. And besides, Eden and I are sort of friends. We could do stuff outside of art class.

Eden takes my hand, turns it palm up, and writes down an address.

“Four thirty,” she says.

When I find the address that Eden wrote on my hand, I’m relieved not to see her brother’s truck parked in the driveway. Seeing him once a day is about my limit.

After I’ve answered no fewer than twenty questions for Eden’s mom, including if I have taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior—which, well, I might have lied about—Eden and I are seated in a booth at a Shari’s.

“When did you
know
?” Eden asks me, her emphasis implying everything.

“Huh?” I play dumb. If she thinks I’m going to come out to her just so she’ll go to prom with me, she’s going to wait until the second coming.

“Oh,” she says, suddenly interested in the menu. “Sorry, I just thought we had something in common. I can totally relate, you know?”

This is why I don’t date girls. They’re weird. They talk about everything and assume you want to too. I don’t get it. It’s as if their bras are filled with words.

“In sixth grade I had a crush on a girl in Sunday school,” she offers up as proof to my theory.

“How’d that work out for you?” I ask.

“Not good,” Eden says. “This other girl squealed when she saw us kissing behind the boathouse at church camp.”

“Bummer.”

“Nothing brings down the wrath of God faster than two girls kissing,” she says.