Waterways (23 page)

A grey squirrel, Jelena, Kory thought her name was, raised a paw. “My grandmother was an albino,” she said. “Does that count?”

“With rare exceptions, color phases don’t qualify for minority admission,” Mr. Pena said. “There are exceptions—white tigers and white lions are culturally protected communities as well as being a different color phase, and would qualify.”

Kory raised his paw. “What about black foxes?”

Mr. Pena shook his russet-furred head. “Maybe, but we don’t have any of those at Carter. No, I don’t think anyone here qualifies under fur color alone, but you do need to talk to your parents about your heritage. If there’s anything unique in your background, don’t be afraid to use it.”

One of the other students raised a paw. “Isn’t that a bit dishonest? Why aren’t we just judged on our ability?”

The fox nodded. “I would love to live in a world where individuals were judged on merit. Believe me, it would be a vast improvement over the systems we have now, and would remove the need for you to attend this class. But as it is, all the other applicants are going to be doing the same thing you are, and there are so many kids out there with as much talent as you have that the smallest edge can mean the difference between Whitford and,” his eyes fell on Kory, “State.”

Kory flattened his ears to mute out the snickers. “Ah, I’m just kidding,” Mr. Pena said, without much sincerity, Kory thought. “But really, kids, if you think someone’s going to judge you on who you are, you’re deluding yourself. Colleges have to weed through thousands of applicants and the people doing it are overworked and underpaid. You need to make yourself stand out in an easy, quantifiable fashion.” His tail swished as he looked around. “You know what quantifiable means?”

“Easy to measure,” someone said, behind Kory.

“Right. You’ve got to have characteristics that stand out on a list that someone can put together. If your grades are a half point higher than someone else’s and you’re the smartest kid in the class, you’re still going to lose that spot if the other kid is more well-rounded than you are, in the sense of having the right number of activities on your application, or being a member of a minority group.”

He kept on in that vein for a while, and Kory noted that among all the characteristics he mentioned, he never once talked about gay students. Isn’t that distinctive, he thought? Wouldn’t that stand out on a list? The difference, he told himself, is that it has to be a trait that colleges want.

As if they didn’t have enough homework, Mr. Pena gave them an assignment as they were wrapping up. For the next meeting, they were to look at the essays on their applications and come in with three potential subjects. He’d evaluate them and return them the following week with suggestions for which was the best, and how to get started.

Kory left class wondering where he was going to find the time to do all of that in addition to his other work. When he called Samaki that night, they agreed not to have a sleepover for the first weekend since May. Samaki had just as much work as Kory, even counting the college applications. Kory made him agree to look at the application to State so he could pass along any questions to Mr. Pena under cover of his own interest. The thought of the class snickering at him was not bad enough to discourage him from helping Samaki.

They met at the Rainbow Center Saturday morning, but didn’t have time for another tryst; Margo had recovered her poise and put them all to work painting. Jeremy seemed recovered from the previous week, though reluctant to talk about his parents. The atmosphere was cheerful, but Kory felt paradoxically depressed by that, because it highlighted Malaya’s absence. Margo had found an address and given it to them with the caution that they should only send letters, not try to visit her. All through the day, the weight of the folded paper in Kory’s pocket distracted him, turning his mind to what he’d say in his letter. Between the lack of quality fox time and Malaya’s absence, Kory felt less fulfilled on the way home than he normally did on Saturday afternoons.

He spent the next day poring over his applications, shut into his room after church. They would take him a while to figure out. The Whitford and Gulliston applications had essays and neither of them was easy. “Pose a question and then answer it,” was Whitford’s. Gulliston just said, “write an essay,” and didn’t even give him that much. He pored over online essay examples until his eyes and head hurt, and then had to shut off the computer and sit down with a pencil and paper.

The question he really wanted to answer was, “What does it mean for me to be gay?” He didn’t think he could write that and send it off to a college, though. Maybe something about poetry. He could write something like, “Where do my poems come from?” No, that was terrible. Maybe, “What am I trying to accomplish with my poems?” No, that sounded horribly arrogant. “Where should I go to school?” A valid question, but not very original. “Should I listen to my mother?”

He looked down at the paper where he’d written the question. Now, where did
that
come from? He crossed it out slowly and wrote next to it, “Does God love me?”

That one he looked at for a long time. It had potential: he could talk about the hardships he’d endured and the blessings he’d been given, and discuss some of the theology he’d learned through years of Sunday school. He could even talk about Malaya and her family, his mother’s devout belief in the face of her misfortunes, and Father Joe’s cheerful sermons, if not the talk he’d given Kory last spring, back when Kory was agonizing over his feelings for Samaki.

In retrospect, it was hard to believe he’d resisted the attraction to the fox. Samaki had been a steadfast friend as well as a boyfriend, closer than anyone save for Sal and Nick in Kory’s life, and their lovemaking seemed so natural now that Kory couldn’t remember why he’d spent a whole night in Samaki’s basement sleeping two feet from the fox, terrified to touch him. Father Joe’s reassuring voice had been a huge help in surmounting that wall of fear.

He couldn’t use that in the essay, not without revealing his private life to the admissions officers and whoever else read the essay—he imagined it on the Internet next year at this time, available to all his friends. What he could use was Father Joe’s calm assurance of God’s love.

He jotted down some notes on that essay, and then set about coming up with two more subjects. Neither of the other ones felt as rich to him as his first question, and when he called Samaki that night to talk and told him the questions, the black fox agreed.

“It’s really good to put a positive spin on religion these days,” he said. “Just don’t come off like some sort of home-schooled right-wing wacko.”

“Like I normally do?”

Samaki laughed. “I know. Anyway, you could always just say you’re gay. Gay and religious, that’d get you into any college. Talk about diverse.”

Kory laughed too, but shortly, feeling the pressure on the walls of his internal dam again. After hanging up, he worked on some other homework, and didn’t look at his essays again until he handed them in on Thursday.

Thursday evening, Samaki called him just as they were sitting down to dinner, well before the appointed time. Kory felt a prickling as he stepped out of the room to accept the call. “Kory, dinner is ready,” his mother said sharply. “You can talk on the phone later.”

“Just a minute,” he said vaguely, staring at the phone. Samaki wouldn’t call at this time unless it was important. He braced himself, and hit Talk.

“Malaya’s in the hospital,” Samaki said. “Margo just called to let me know.”

“Which hospital?” he said numbly. His mother stepped into the room and held out her paw, glaring at him.

“Westfield General,” Samaki said into his ear.

Instead of placing the phone in his mother’s paw, Kory looked up at her and repeated, “Westfield General. Westfield’s over past the river, right?”

“That’s right. Can you go over there tonight? I’m going in a minute. Mom’s just getting the kids dressed to go out.”

His mother’s expression had softened at the name of the hospital. “I’ll try,” Kory said.

“She’d probably like to see you the most.”

“I’ll try,” he repeated. “We just started dinner.” As soon as he said it, he was aware of how inane it sounded.

“What’s wrong?” his mother asked. “Is it Samaki?”

He nodded, as Samaki said, “All right. I’ll see you there.”

He hung up with a warm flush that the fox understood him even when he said something silly. “Is he all right?” his mother was saying. “Why is he in the hospital?”

“He’s not. Oh, no, I mean, that was him calling. One of the kids from the shelter is in the hospital. She was a friend of mine. Can we go, Mom?”

“It’s a school night, and besides, there’s nothing you can do for her, is there?”

He holstered his phone, and shook his head. “But I want to see her. I want to let her know that I’m there for her. She probably got put in the hospital by her father.”

“Her father!” His mother’s eyes looked sharply past him. “You don’t want to get mixed up in another family’s business.”

“I just want to let her know she’s not alone.”

She wavered, looked back into the kitchen, and then put a paw on his shoulder. “Let’s eat quickly, and then we’ll go.”

Nick came with them, following silently out to the car and into the back seat as his mother started it up. At first, Kory thought Nick was just seizing on an excuse to avoid homework, but as they pulled out onto the street, he reached along the window and patted Kory’s shoulder.

Kory turned and smiled, then sat forward and watched the lights speed past the windshield. He shouldn’t let his imagination wander, but he couldn’t help seeing Malaya’s skeletal hand reach up over the porch, remembering the fragile body she tried to conceal with her tough manner. He wished he’d taken that hand and held it then. What if it were shattered now, what if it was too late? He pictured her bleeding from the head, paralyzed, back broken, and shook the images from his mind.

“How did she end up back with her father?” his mother asked. They had just merged onto the expressway. “I thought your kids had been taken away from unsuitable families.”

“She went back to him,” Kory said. “She didn’t have anything but her family, and she thought everything else was a lie.”

“A lie? What does that mean?”

“We kept telling her she’d be okay, that she deserved to have a normal life, but she didn’t believe it.” He was too upset to give much thought to the words he used.

“Oh. Is she… special?”

He jerked his head to the side to look at his mom. “No!”

“Well, what do you mean, have a normal life?”

Now he was fully aware of how close he was to dangerous ground. Her stare probed for cracks in his armor. He looked straight ahead again.

“You know, because she was abused.” Another lie, but only a partial one, at least.

His mother stayed silent after that, but he could feel her disapproval of anyone who didn’t take steps to solve their own problems.
The Lord helps those who help themselves,
he knew she was thinking, even though she didn’t voice it. Her sense that something about him was wrong might have been diverted, but surely it was only a temporary reprieve.

Kory’s only experience with hospitals had been at St. Michael’s when Nick broke his arm playing on the playground in second grade. Westfield General looked nothing like his gleaming white memory of St. Mike’s. The carpet of the lobby, dull grey, felt tacky under his paws, and the antiseptic smell made his fur prickle, but he ignored that as he walked past the battleship-grey walls to the dimly lit reception desk and the tired-looking deer behind it.

“I’m here to see Malaya Bahar,” Kory said, aware of the jangling of his nerves. His fingers drummed the desk; his tail twitched restlessly.

The nurse consulted her computer screen. “She’s in 405, but visiting hours are over in fifteen minutes.”

“That’s okay, we’ll hurry.” He turned to his mother and said, “I’ll be back down soon.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Come on, Nick.” Taking Nick by the paw, she strode toward the elevator.

Kory squeezed his paws together, then hurried after her. “But Mom, you don’t know her.”

“I’d like to meet her. You’re clearly important to her, aren’t you?”

The elevator was taking forever to show up. He shifted from one foot to the other, and didn’t respond. “Well?” his mother said. “Is she just a friend?”

“Yes!” Kory almost laughed at the thought of him dating the dark, grim Malaya.

“Well, I just wondered. You did spend so much time helping at that home, and it was right after you and Jenny split up.”

Nick had wrested free of his mother’s hand and now stood silently behind her. He met Kory’s eyes and rolled his own. Kory nodded to him, and said, “She’s not my girlfriend,” just as the elevator arrived.

The elevator doors opened onto a jumble of bright reds, yellows, and blues. Cartoon characters cavorted over the walls, and in a corner of the large waiting room, yellow plastic toys lay strewn over the gaily patterned carpet and rounded plastic chairs. It took a moment to see the worn patches in the carpet, the white scars on the cartoon characters, the cracks in the chairs. In one corner of the lobby, Mrs. Roden and Mariatu were playing some game with a little toy, while Ajani and Kasim sat nearby, kicking their legs. The two boys jumped up when they saw Kory and ran over to him.

“Hey there,” he said, hugging back, looking down the hallway.

“Kory!” Ajani said. “I’m so bored.”

“I’m not,” Kasim said, the lie as evident as his pride in telling it.

“Ajani,” Mrs. Roden said with gentle reproach. His ears folded down, his bushy red tail curling underneath himself. She greeted Kory’s mother and Nick, and said, “I’m so glad you could make it. It’ll mean a lot to her, poor thing.”

“Mom, you want to wait here with Mrs. Roden?” Kory said.

“No, no, I’ll come along.”

“But maybe they don’t want too many visitors there at once.”

Mrs. Roden waved a paw. “She’s stable and awake, if a little muzzy. They have her on Temerol. We just came out here because Mari and the boys were bored.”