Bouquet (3 page)

“
Are you Jim Arnoldson?”
the man asks.

“
Yes sir,” he says. “I
am.”

“
I’m Howard Yearn. I work
here at this institute.”

“
It’s a pleasure to meet
you, sir.”

They shake hands and then he seats himself
when Howard Yearn gestures to the chair opposite him. The man’s
eyes are hard, ice-like in their perpetually-hollow pits, and every
moment he looks at him feels like a judgment thrust upon him by
some higher force.

Is this it?
he thinks.
Is this the
way it works?

He imagined it to be
different, a trial and error set in order for the student to leap
over it. There should be ropes, he thinks, to climb, and rods upon
to jump over. This seems too easy, but then again, it is a
technical college. He is no Harvard, no Yale, no Princeton,
Columbia or Stanford. Hell—he is barely a man with a degree, a man
who barely passed math in high school and who only excelled in
English because he for some reason liked to read. This place, this
very
school
he
now sat in was the bottom of the rung, but it promised something
that most other schools couldn’t even begin to debate.

“
We’ve reviewed your
application request,” he says, “and your student loan application
has gone through.”

“
It has?” he
asks.

Baffled, he nearly loses his breath, but
manages to contain himself as the secretary at the side of the room
rises and passes him a piece of paperwork, upon which are figures
he can barely begin to process.

Is this,
he thinks, but stops before he can
finish.

The number of zeros behind the two stop him
short.

“
Sir,” he says, looking
down at the piece of paper. “I can really get this much money a
month?”

“
Of course,” the man says.
“The government’s paying for its future generation of workers. How
old are you, Jim?”

“
Twenty-four.”

“
See? You’ve got a whole
life of work ahead of you. Of course your loans would have gone
through—that is, if you keep up with the recommended number of
hours.”

I can do this. I really can.

Nodding, he looks down at the piece of paper,
smiles, then tilts his head up at the man he knows will change his
life.

In Howard Yearn’s eyes, he sees his
future.

He can’t wait for it.

“
How did it go?” Michael
asks.

“
Fine,” Jim smiles, taking
his partner into his arms and spinning him about the middle of the
living room.

“
Jim! Jim! Put me
down!”

Unable to contain his laughter, he crushes
Michael against his chest, then presses their lips together in a
savage kiss. At first Michael tries to shy away, but after Jim
calms himself down enough to settle his nerves, Michael accepts the
kiss, then pushes Jim away to look him square in the eyes.

“
Tell me,” he
says.

“
I got in,” he smiles. “I
got in, Michael. I got in!”

Michael bursts into tears.

Their future is ahead of them.

Jim begins to attend the technical college
with his heart on his sleeve and his hopes in his hands. Not once
since high school has he carried a backpack on his shoulders and
not even for a second has he contemplated doing homework, but the
simple act of waking up in the morning, brushing his teeth, then
driving to school has him happier than ever. He makes friends
quickly, learns about the inner workings of the newest and future
technology, and even begins to construct one of the machines within
the first three months of his schooling.

Six months into his life as a technical
college student, he begins to realize that this is what he wants to
do.

One night, while sitting at the counter doing
homework, he raises his eyes to find Michael standing in the
kitchen, eating cheese and crackers. He rises and starts for his
boyfriend’s side, then stops before he can round the counter, when
Michael raises his head and looks him directly in the eyes.

Something on his face unsettles him.

“
Babe?” he asks. “Is
everything all right?”

“
Everything’s fine,”
Michael says, shoving the saltine and cheese mix into his mouth.
“Don’t worry about it.”

You always say that when something’s on your
mind.

Sighing, he braces his hand against the
counter and stares Michael in the eyes, begging for a response.
When none comes, he rounds the counter, takes two of the crackers
in hand, then places a piece of cheese between them, all the while
waiting for his boyfriend to speak. It seems as though nothing is
going to come out when Michael turns and starts for the threshold
that leads into the living room, but when he stops to do what Jim
thinks is reconsider his actions, his right hand tightens into a
fist hard enough to make the vein in his arm bulge.

“
Michael?”

“
I’m not used to you being
gone so much, that’s all.”

“
I’m gone the same amount
of time I usually am,” he says, starting toward his
boyfriend.

“
I know, but…”

“
But… what?” he frowns.
Unsure how to take his partner’s response, he wraps his arms around
his shoulders, then pulls him back against his chest, swearing he
can hear their hearts beating together when he bows his face into
Michael’s neck.

Isn’t that what they
say?
That two hearts beat as
one?

Either way, he doesn’t want them to be
individuals—he wants them to be a pair, together, as two people
bonding together to create one greater whole.

With that thought firmly in mind, he sighs,
takes a deep breath, then backs away, giving Michael just enough
space to decide what it is he’s going to do.

When Michael turns, Jim expects the worst.
However, when he sees the look in his eyes and the curve of a smile
on his lips, he knows that things are lighter, the agony distant
and the frustration caged within its magical menagerie.

“
You ok?” he
asks.

“
I’m sorry for being so
selfish.”

“
Don’t be,
babe.”

“
It’s just… I’m used to us
spending more time together when you’re not gone.”

“
I know.”

“
And… I don’t know. Maybe I
should try to find some new friends, but this town, this
place—“

Michael doesn’t need to finish, and as he
draws away, into a place where his voice is silent but his thoughts
are screaming, Jim tries not to remember the horrible abuse his
partner not only suffered as a teenager, but as a young adult, when
his father whipped him to bits for being gay and his mother smacked
him so hard across the face she cracked his lips. The thought, as
unsettling as it is, grounds him even further and only confirms his
suspicion—this time alone is forcing him to reconsider his past,
his notions, and possibly even their future together.

“
You’re… ok with me going
to school,” he starts, unsure how to continue. “Right?”

“
Of course I
am.”

“
I mean… I know you must be
thinking about some things.”

“
Yeah.”

“
But you know I love you,
right?”

“
I know.”

“
I wouldn’t be doing this
if we weren’t together.”

“
We weren’t?”

“
No. I want a future
together, baby. I want a future with you.”

Michael turns his head up.

When a smile crosses his partner’s lips—when
his white teeth are revealed and his dimples are shown in all their
glory—he knows he has made the right choice.

One year later, he the top of his class.
Riding the coattails of his professors, soaring through his
homework like mad, he is like an obstetrician aiding not others,
but himself. Each of his teachers say that he will go far, that he
will be one of the leading men in his field and that, come time for
the new millennia, he will be at the top of the career bracket
making not tens, but thousands of dollars.

Seated at the kitchen counter with food on
the table and more content than ever, he waits for Michael to get
out of the shower, all the while scratching numbers into dimensions
that serve as the makeup of one of the world’s current
supercomputers.

This is amazing,
he thinks, looking not only at the sheet, but at
the book next to him.

Gargantuan in purpose and
even greater in scope, the
Computer
Sciences
book at his side is his Bible.
Though not Catholic, Christian, Lutheran or Baptist, he believes
himself to be a religious man based solely on the text within this
book. It tells him of the past, the present and not only the
foreseeable, but the distant future. It says that every ten years
their computer processing power doubles and that by twenty-fifty,
they could very well have computers that fit within contact
lenses.

Amazing. Just… amazing.

In the distant side of the house, he hears
the water turn off and the door close. Shortly thereafter, Michael
emerges in a pair of boxer shorts and crosses the room to fetch one
of the tacos he brought home for the afternoon’s lunch. “Hey,” he
says, offering him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“
Hey,” he
replies.

“
More homework?”

“
More?” he laughed. “It’s
never-ending.”

“
Still,” the younger man
says, unwrapping the hard shell before him. “It seems like all
you’re doing lately is homework.”

“
I’ve worked my ass off to
get straight-As.”

“
I know. You’ve earned
it.”

Smiling, he sets his pencil down, then
reaches over to mess with his boyfriend’s hair. In response,
Michael laughs and opens his mouth to take a bite out of his
food.

The sight alone makes him realize just what
all he is working for—their present, their future, maybe even a
family. He’s broached the topic of adopting or maybe even hiring a
surrogate, but they haven’t talked about it in detail. They’re
young, not even in their mid-twenties, and can wait for such things
as children. Besides—in his current frame of mind, he doesn’t think
that he would be a capable father, especially not with all the
schoolwork he has piled up.

Caring for a baby
and
going to school—he
might as well shoot himself in the foot.

Ah well,
he thinks.
It’s no big
deal.

Taking a bite out of his own taco, he bows
his head and continues his work.

“
Your grades are
impressive,” Professor Haldwell says in a meeting after class one
day. “You must study quite a bit.”

“
I do, sir,” he replies,
sliding his hands into his pockets.

“
I never expected this from
you, Mr. Arnoldson.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Can I be honest,
son?”

“
Yes sir.”

“
I thought you were just
some dumb hick like most of the other kids here are.”

“
Sir,” he
laughs.

“
It’s true, Mr. Arnoldson.
You’re one of the brighter bulbs in this group.”

“
I appreciate the
compliment,” he smiles, reaching out to shake the man’s hand as he
offers it. “I’m just trying to work toward a better
future.”

“
You have a girlfriend,
son?”

No,
he thinks, but his confidence betrays him and he offers a
nervous smile.
Not exactly.

“
Something wrong, son?” the
professor asks.

He does not trust this man enough to say that
he is gay, that he sleeps with another man and that he shares his
home with him. That knowledge in itself is enough to place him in
an awful predicament. Time and again he has heard of students
getting slighted for their accusations, their thoughts, their
selves, and he doesn’t want to fall into that trap. So, like the
honest man that he is, he smiles, shoves his hands in his pockets,
then says, “No,” because it’s the truth—he doesn’t have a
girlfriend, and though he has a man at home, that is not what the
professor has asked.

“
Shame,” the man replies.
“You’re a good man.”

He’d say thank you if he had the need to.

“
How’d school go?” Michael
asks.

Ok,
he thinks, closing the door behind him.

He doesn’t want to broach this topic with
Michael, this indecision about their relationship and sharing it
publicly. It’s too sensitive a topic, too great a risk, so with
that in mind, he merely smiles and leans forward to embrace the man
he has lived, loved and lied about for nearly four years.

“
It went fine,” he says,
smiling when they break apart. “What about you?”

“
I didn’t do much,” Michael
admits.

“
That’s all right. As long
as you’ve had a good day.”

“
I have.” Michael pauses.
His eyes flicker in their sockets. “Jim. I need to tell you
something.”

“
Yeah?” he frowns. “What is
it?”