Fan Art (5 page)

I wonder about two boys kissing, but I don’t say anything.

“I haven’t been allowed to go to church camp since.”

The waitress comes to take our orders. I get a burger and fries. Eden just orders a soda.

“So you’re out with your parents?” I ask when the waitress is out of earshot.

“Tried to be,” Eden says. “But they don’t believe in lesbians—for them, it’s something I did, not something I am. And, well, their daughter can’t possibly be one.”

“That’s pretty weird,” I say.

“I’ve tried to educate them, but every time I bring it up, my mom gets really upset.”

I nod sympathetically.

“So Nick can do whatever he wants—as long as he goes to church on Sunday. Has his own truck. And me? They won’t let me out of their sight. They wouldn’t want me to be tempted by the she devil.”

The waitress brings us our drinks.

“Yeah,” I say. “You wouldn’t want a girl like you to step out the house. She might drink a soda at Shari’s.”

Eden laughs. “I know. I am such a rebel.”

My burger arrives, and we share the fries and gab about prom—the limo plans and who is going with whom.

An hour later I pull into Eden’s driveway behind the Redneck’s truck. She doesn’t open her door right away, as if she’s waiting for something.

“You okay?” I ask, following her gaze and feeling a flicker of worry in my gut.

She’s watching her house.

Then I see what she sees. Her mom is watching us from a window.

Eden turns her head quickly—catching me off
guard—and plants a lip-gloss-sticky kiss right next to my mouth.

“Ew!” I reach up to wipe off the strawberry-scented slime.

“No, you don’t,” Eden says, catching my hand on its way to my face.

“Why’d you do that?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes and juts her chin toward the house.

I don’t see her mother anymore, and I imagine she’s telling Nick to unlock the gun safe and drop a bullet into the chamber of a shotgun. I imagine him storming out the door, ready to take aim at the boy who appears to be taking advantage of his little sister.

“Don’t do that again,” I say, touching my cheek. My fingers get sticky with lip gloss. “It’s—” I stop myself before I say “gross,” because I don’t want to sound like a little kid.

“Come on, Jamie. I didn’t even touch your lips.”

I wipe the lip gloss from my cheek, and I can taste the strawberry. My face bunches up as if I’d bit into a lemon.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Eden says. “I don’t have cooties. Or mono.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, I—”

“You don’t like kissing girls?”

“Yeah, and . . . ,” I trail off.

But from the look on my face, Eden deciphers my
other
secret. “Oh. My. Gaga. You’ve never kissed anyone!”

“Hey!” I say. But it’s true. I’ve never kissed anyone in a romantic way.

“Jamie, you’re a senior in high school! And you’ve never been kissed?”

I didn’t need her to point that out. “I’d hardly call that ambush a kiss.”

Eden puckers her lips and I duck behind my hands. I hear her making smoochy sounds.

She stops and I peek at her.

“You’re adorable, Jamie Peterson,” she says, and opens the car door. “I had a nice time. So thanks.”

I back out of the driveway and drive home. I rest my forehead on the steering wheel and close my eyes. I feel drained of energy.

And then it hits me.

I told her I didn’t like kissing girls.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

SEVEN

Friday I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep
at all last night. I kept having dreams about kissing Eden. Sometimes I’d
like
it—and then I’d have to un-come out to my mom and Frank. Other times I’d open my eyes and it wasn’t Eden at all, but Mason. Wearing lip gloss.

The guys in gym class are organizing another game of touch football, so I opt for a slow jog around the track to try to clear my head. I’ve got to start thinking about the
Gumshoe
layout and look at the cover design again. The last of the writing and art should be submitted today.

Half the guys peel off their T-shirts, and I trip over my own feet. I stop, pretend to retie my Chucks and check out who is on the skins side of shirts vs. skins. It’s Brodie, last season’s varsity quarterback, against Kellen, but Kellen has the Redneck on his defensive line—or maybe as his entire defensive line. Mason is on Brodie’s team, staring down the Redneck with fire in his eyes, his glasses
off, and his T-shirt is hanging from the waistband of his shorts. I stare for a moment. The morning sun paints his torso bronze, and I can’t help but think of a sculpture of David and Goliath from Ms. Maude’s art history slides.

I shake my head, hoping to erase the image like an Etch a Sketch. It doesn’t work. This isn’t just a passing bent thought. I have a crush on my best friend.

With all the distractions, it takes me twenty minutes to run a mile. Or maybe I ran two. I don’t know. I lost count of the laps. I’m just finishing my shower when the others burst into the locker room with a thunderous roar of laughter, footsteps, and banging doors. I crank the water off, wrap a towel around my waist, and head to my locker—eyes on the tiles. I’m tying my Chucks when a pair of dirt-encrusted, steel-toed work boots fill my view.

“You work on the fag mag?” The Redneck towers over me.

“Uh, um?”
Fag mag? Where’d he get that?
Oh yeah, the male staff members are Michael, who’s rumored to be gay; DeMarco, who doesn’t play basketball; and me.

“The fag mag. Gum-on-my-shoe.”

“Yeah,
Gumshoe
.”

He juts his chin to one side, and I hear his vertebrae crack and pop.

I panic and grip the bench.

He doesn’t chew me out for taking his sister to Shari’s or eat me for breakfast, but rather grunts, “I wrote something.”

“Cool,” I choke out, and stand up. His Adam’s apple is practically at my eye level.

“Taylor said I’d get extra credit if I submitted it.” He shoves a piece of wrinkled notebook paper at me.

I take it. And hope he’ll leave. Soon.

But he doesn’t. He stands there like he’s thinking then says, “My sister said you’re taking her to prom. That the truth?”

I nod, hoping he’s not the overprotective type.

“You, like, her boyfriend or something?”

I don’t know how to answer this, so I say, “Or something.”

He cocks his head.

“Nothing serious,” I explain. “Friends.”

He nods once, then gestures to the notebook paper in my hand. “Don’t show it to nobody.”

I’m about to agree but realize I can’t—in order to submit it, the other Gumshoes will have to read it. “Wait, Red—” I start to say, but I stop before I say
neck
instead of
Nick
.

He turns in slow motion, like I’d imagine a grizzly bear would if catching a whiff of blueberry pancakes.

“I’ll, um, have to show it to the
Gumshoe
staff. Is . . . Is that okay?”

“Yeah, but no one else.”

“Got it,” I say, and slide the paper into my pocket.

Unsucceeding

by anon

It doesn’t take much to fall behind.

A spelling test, a book report,

a teacher who holds you back a grade.

A small step not taken and you’ve fallen short,

fallen on your face. You’ve lost the game

before you even stepped onto the field.

But work hard at what you’re good at

block every receiver, every punch,

every blow to your self-esteem.

And it still isn’t good enough.

Because you know deep inside

that you’ve failed at the American dream.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

EIGHT

“So now that you have a
date . . . ,” Mason says, sliding into the seat next to me at our end of the cafeteria table. He has on a plaid button-down over a white tee, the sleeves of the former rolled up. “Suit or a tux?”

“Tux,” I say, closing the file with my English paper on my computer. “And a real tie. Not a clip-on.”

Mason laughs. “Yeah, Londa wears a clip-on at work.”

Londa waits tables at some pseudofancy Italian restaurant, which is why she’s almost always busy when my mom asks her to babysit my sisters.

Mason gestures at my computer and I give it to him. He opens a browser window and types
prom looks for guys
in the search box. A picture of a really cute guy in a well-fitting white shirt appears onscreen.

A shock of attraction jolts me. My fingers itch to reach over and cover the screen so no one else can see
it—and see right through me. Not that looking at a cute guy constitutes inappropriate computer use on school property, a suspension-worthy offense, but he is H. O. T.

Mason glances at me, a teasing smile tugging at his lips. “Buy a tux?” he seems to ask the screen after reading the copy. “What planet are they from?” He clicks an arrow, paging through a slideshow of prom dos and don’ts.

The boys aren’t as cute, so I start to calm down. Until a picture of Darren Criss—the dark-haired dreamboat of
Glee
fame—pops up. He’s wearing a pair of chunky black glasses and a suit and looking a lot like Mason. “Yeah,” I tell Mason and reach for my computer. “Classic. And renting.”

If he notices me noticing him and any resemblance to Darren Criss, he pretends not to. “What do you want?” He jerks his chin at the lunch line.

“Pizza. And a Heath Bar,” I say, standing up again.

“No, I’ll get it,” Mason says.

I hand him my caf card.

He takes it, his fingers brushing mine.

I watch him walk away, his jeans slung low on his hips and the pockets hugging his backside just right. My mind curves into the gutter, and I imagine sliding my fingers into one of those pockets.

No. No. No.

This has got to stop.

I shouldn’t be crushing on him. Friend crushes always end in with a broken heart, if not a broken friendship. I should totally be crushing on someone else, like Darren Criss, for example, or Brodie Hamilton—every girl in school has fallen in love with him at some point in time.
How about Kellen?
He’d look good in a tux, even one with a clip-on tie.

Anyone but Mason.

When I walk into art, I see Eden sitting on a desk talking to Challis and a cluster of art-geek girls, one of whom is coloring her fingernails with a black Sharpie. I pretend not to notice them, figuring it’d be for the better, considering the beans I spilled to Eden yesterday. It doesn’t work. I hear my name and turn around.

“Jamie asked me to prom!” Eden announces. “And we went on a date yesterday too.”

“But he’s—” Challis begins, then drops her voice to a whisper as she continues her sentence.

I can’t hear what she’s saying, but my mind fills in the blank. And my lungs fill with dread.
No
, I think, as if telepathy is a viable option.
I’m not out at school.

The girls’ heads bend together and bobble as they whisper. Sharpie girl’s smile widens with each juicy bit of gossip

After a minute Eden says, “Mason? Really? But he’s going with Bahti.”

The dread spreads outward from my lungs, and my arms go cold.

“They should so go to prom togeth—” Sharpie girl says.

Um. No.

“Ssh-zip!” Challis interrupts, zipping her lips and motioning toward me.

The conversation ends with an awkward silence, Eden and Challis each giving the Sharpie girl a reproachful look. She shrugs them off, mouthing the words,
It’s true.

Forget cold. My face flames as anger churns to life in my gut.
WTF?
I feel like shouting at her.
Mason and I are not going to prom together. It’s not true—it’s all in that marker-sniffing head of yours!
I clench my jaw shut and march past them, not looking in their direction. I put my things down next to DeMarco and slide into a chair. I catch a pencil as it rolls off the table and anchor it with my cell phone.

“Hey,” DeMarco says, as if noticing that I’m not in my usual seat. “Deadline’s today.”

“Yeah,” I reply, glad to talk about
Gumshoe
and glad to be away from girls.

If he notices that I’m steaming, he doesn’t let on. “You read Juliet Polmanski’s piece?”

I nod as Ms. Maude dims the lights and starts in on the race to the art-history finish line. Jackson Pollock
splashes up on the screen. I send her a silent thank-you because we aren’t working on our portraits today. I can’t focus on drawing right now.

I can’t focus on anything. Not clearly, anyway. I tell myself that I don’t want to know what Eden told Challis and her groupies, or on what planet that girl got the idea that Mason and I should go to prom together, or how the hell my social life is any of their business. I wonder how my crush became public knowledge when I hardly acknowledge it myself. I haven’t told a soul. And I don’t plan on it. Mason’s my best friend, and I’d never do anything to hurt him—not that rumors that you’re gay physically hurt, but they’re pretty lethal when you’re straight. I take a deep breath and vow to never trust a girl with any personal information—not even if I need her to be my prom date—
ever again.
I exhale, slump in the chair, and close my eyes. Exhausted.