First Flight (6 page)

“Oh.”
Oh
. The same little warmth that had sprung up the night before flared again. “So you would not mind if I gave you more?” Chris said, as he got out of the car.

“You can if you want to.” Jesse said, joining him on the sidewalk and tilting his head toward the entrance.

Whatever else Chris might have said was forgotten as they walked in the door. The store was like Meyer’s, in that it carried food and a selection of household necessities, but it was not like Meyer’s in that most of what it carried would never be found on Meyer’s’ shelves. The place was a riot of scents and colors, and Chris flitted happily from thing to thing. Jesse followed him, content to just watch.

“Can I live here?” Chris asked, his hands and nose pressed against the front of the lobster tank. “I would have good food forever and forever!”

Jesse laughed and shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t think they’d let you. Do you want some shrimp?”

“Yes, please!”

Shrimp procured, they wandered on.

“Oh, hey, look,” Jesse said, pointing at the cold case they were approaching, “they’ve got—”

“Eggs!” Chris, intent on the cartons, missed the startled looks his exclamation got him. He was delighted to discover that not only were there plain old hen’s eggs, the case also held stacks of quail, duck, and goose eggs. Two cartons of quail eggs and one each of duck and goose went into the basket he carried. “This is a good store.”

“I like coming here,” Jesse said, pleased that he’d managed to refrain from laughing at the gravity of Chris’s statement. He couldn’t explain why Chris’s reaction delighted him, nor why he wanted to kiss him for it. There would be no kissing, however, so he just put his hands in his pockets. “You want to see what kind of ice cream they have?”

“Yes. Very much.”

Thirty-five minutes of wandering later, the two of them stood in line. When it was their turn, Jesse took advantage of the fact that Chris was inclined to do as he was told and said, “Why don’t you give me the basket and go wait at the end of the counter, okay?”

“Certainly.” Chris handed it over and walked down to stand beside the bagging area. He watched, expression darkening as the total was announced and Jesse paid it. “Jesse—”

“This is for you,” Jesse said, picking up the first of the bags and holding it out to Chris. He wasn’t sure if Chris would understand it, but maybe he would. He’d figured out the quail eggs, after all.

“But—”

“And this.” Jesse picked up the second bag. “All of these, they’re for you.”

Chris took the bags as they were handed to him, a funny look on his face. “You are giving these to me?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, feeling his neck getting hot. The cashier and the bag-boy were probably staring at them, but he couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop for anything, really, short of perhaps a natural disaster. “They’re all good things, right? Uh, important things?”

“Yes,” Chris said. He cocked his head, looking back and forth between Jesse and the bags of food. His little voice seemed to be holding its breath. “A gift?”

“Yes,” Jesse said, feeling weirdly giddy as Chris took the last of the bags from him. “For you.”

He has given a gift in return, and from a place of good food,
his little voice said
.
“Thank you,” Chris said, and then he looked over Jesse’s shoulder. “We are in the way.”

“Crap!” Jesse jumped and scurried forward, looking over his shoulder, his face hotter than the back of his neck had been. “Sorry!”

The woman in line behind them waved. “It’s okay,” she said.

“Sorry,” Jesse said again, catching Chris’s sleeve and tugging him along toward the doors.

In the car, Chris said, “Did you also give me the candy you chose for you?”

“Huh? Oh, I completely forgot,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “Well, no, I guess not that.”

“I didn’t think so.” Chris nodded and settled down in his seat. Jesse had given him food. Good food: eggs and shrimp and ice cream.

Silence reigned as they made their way out of the parking lot. Jesse’s curiosity bubbled over again as he stopped for a red light. “Chris?”

“Yes?”

“I, uh, I’ve been wondering. You said I was important. Did you mean, you know, important to you?”

“Yes,” Chris said.

“Okay. And, uh, you said…. You said you
chose
me. What’s that mean?”

“I picked you out,” Chris said, and then he frowned as the strange dream came back to him.
You gave it up for something you could not find in the sky. And if I gave it up, that means I have not lost anything....
An idea formed, small and bright and almost as intriguing as the idea of Jesse and boyfriends. So he closed his eyes and tried to remember if he’d known Jesse
before
. He could remember a tree, heat, and the sounds from a car. “You came to the tree.”

Jesse frowned at that. “You picked me out because I came to a tree? I’ve been by millions of trees.”

“No,” Chris said, curling up, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. “Singing. You, and the tree, and music, and I
knew
you, before.”

“I think I would remember meeting you,” Jesse said as he changed lanes, “especially if it involved a tree and some music.”

“Summer,” Chris said, running through the few images and sensations once more. “Hot. The tree and singing, and I know it was
you
. Sometimes, sometimes you and someone else.”

Jesse made an abrupt turn into a church parking lot and put his car into park. “Wait, Chris, just wait a second, here.” He suddenly remembered, remembered how all of last summer and part of this summer, too, he’d gone down Collins Road to where the giant old oak spread its branches over the road. He remembered parking there, letting music and solitude wash away the thousand irritations of his day.

He also remembered taking Kevin out there when privacy couldn’t be had anywhere else. He hadn’t been out there in months, though. Not with Kevin, and not to just lie under the tree and listen to music. He’d driven Collins Road but he hadn’t stayed, not since he’d met Christopher.

“What, do you live out by that big tree on Collins Road? I know some people do,” he said, turning in his seat and looking at Chris.

“Maybe?” Chris rubbed his face. “I can’t remember.”

“I never saw anyone,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “There were birds and rabbits and once some deer, but—” He stared at Chris. It was crazy, utterly and completely insane. “You were in my car. After I— That dead— Birds. Eggs and wings and flying. Chris, were you a, were you a
bird?
Were you— Were you that raven I picked up?” Yeah, it sounded even crazier when he said it out loud.

“He told me I didn’t lose anything,” Chris said, looking at his knees. “He said I gave it up for something I could not find in the sky.”

“Okay,” Jesse said, because it was the only thing he could think of. Just as he inhaled to ask
who
? Chris spoke up again.

“I didn’t know what he meant, because when he told me it was the day you brought me the quail eggs, and I could only think that I had only found unhappiness. But now I think….”

The quiet stretched out until Jesse said, “Now you think what?”

“I think… I think it was
you
.” Chris sat up and looked at him. “Because I would not find you in the sky, would I?”

He no longer cared about who Chris had been talking to. “Well, not unless I was in an airplane.” Jesse swallowed as he discovered that he still wanted to kiss Chris, former bird or current crazy man or whatever he was.

“I suppose not.” Chris looked at him for a few seconds more. “The ice cream is melting.”

Jesse laughed, glad that there hadn’t really been much of a mood to spoil. “And the shrimp are getting warm. Home we go, then.”

J
ESSE
’
S
phone buzzed against his leg in the middle of putting things away. He glanced at the number, then answered the call. “Yeah?”

“Hi, Jesse.”

“What do you want, Kevin?”

Chris pulled a shrimp out of the bag and carefully worked the meat free of the hard orange tail. The tone of Jesse’s voice was unsettling, but he hadn’t asked him to leave, so it must be all right.

“I just called to see if you wanted to hang out.”

“You want to hang out?” Jesse considered the carton of ice cream he held, then put in the freezer. “Why?”

“Because I miss you,” Kevin said. “Don’t you miss me?”

“Oh. Well….” He glanced at Chris, then put the last of their ice cream away.

“Come on. I’ll make it worth it. You know, just the way you like it.”

Chris’s head was bent as he concentrated on another shrimp. Jesse caught the little flash of satisfied triumph as the shrimp came free of its former exoskeleton and shook his head. “No. I’m just gonna stay home. Bye.”

“What, with
Chris?
I’m offering to blow you and you want to—”

“I’m not interested,” Jesse said and hung up.

“You’re not going to go hang out?” Chris started on a third shrimp.

“Nope. I just wanna stay here, see what’s on TV or watch a movie or something,” he said, smiling as Chris offered him the shrimp. “With you. Thanks.”

Chris watched Jesse’s face as the man took the meat from him, their fingers barely touching. His little voice approved of touching, as well as Jesse’s plan to stay home
with him
. “Okay,” he said and retrieved another shrimp.

Chapter Eight

“
O
OPSIE
!”

Chris turned at the exclamation, certain that it was not a genuine expression of remorse. To his dismay, nearly all of his carefully stacked apples were now on the floor. He looked around, but the only person to be seen was the back of someone looking at broccoli, on the far side of the display that held the apples and oranges.

An hour later, a strange soft thumping and bumping caught his attention, and he hurried around Mrs. Schultz just in time to see a last half-dozen oranges roll off the display and onto the floor. Chris grumbled to himself as he knelt to check each one and decide if it went back on display or not.

Forty-five minutes after that, Betsy’s voice interrupted him as he was discussing cantaloupes. “Chris!”

“Yes?” Chris peered around Mr. Bunting’s shoulder.

“Chris, why did you leave the one off of the price of melons? We’ve had a half-dozen pi— unhappy customers who’ve insisted that they’re ninety-nine cents!” Betsy crossed her arms and glared at him. “So I checked the specials sign, and sure enough, it says they’re a dollar instead of
two
dollars. All the other prices are wrong, too.”

“I wrote them down just as you said,” Chris said, a strange feeling coming over him. It was almost like his first morning all over again but much worse. “I need to finish helping Mr. Bunting and then I will talk to you.”

“Just fix the sign when you’re done here, okay? Great.”

The sign, a blackboard on which the specials were chalked, showed clear evidence of someone else erasing his carefully placed numbers. Chris just shook his head and wrote them in again, then went off to finish straightening up the celery.

Or he would have, had there been any celery to straighten up. He rubbed his eyes, then walked along the display case. Red potatoes, white potatoes, baking potatoes, carrots, a gap with sad little celery leaves stuck to the bottom of it, cucumbers, avocados. No, the celery was still gone. There was some in the back, so he’d simply restock it.

“Excuse me, young man,” a voice said, as he pulled a cart laden with boxes through the double doors that led to the loading dock.

“Yes?” Chris turned and smiled at the small old woman—Mrs. Fitzpatrick—who was standing by the radishes.

“The man stacking celery is very rude! I’d like you to speak to him about how he treats paying customers!”

“Celery?” Chris nodded, trying to put on a mean expression. He had no idea how well it worked. “Oh. Yes. I shall speak to him immediately.” He trotted off toward the celery. Circling around behind the apples and oranges, he could see a semi-familiar figure feverishly replacing the celery in its spot. Chris crept up behind him and grabbed his arm. “Excuse—” Something hit him in the stomach and he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Help! Police! Fire!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, somewhere behind him.

Chris held onto the person who had hit him, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. There was a lot more shouting than necessary, if you asked him, not that he could say anything about it. Then there was the man and the celery. He looked up and almost lost his grip on the guy. “You!”

“Let go of me!” Kevin shook his arm, but Chris wouldn’t let go. Kevin pulled his free hand back and hit him again, landing a solid blow just under Chris’s left eye.

“Help! Fire! Help! Police!”

“Shut
up
, lady,” Kevin snarled, trying to round on her; he was hampered by Chris.

“How dare you! Help!”

“All of you be quiet,” Tanner bellowed, and silence fell. “Now, what is going on?”

Kevin and Mrs. Fitzpatrick launched into explanations, complete with finger-pointing. Tanner held up his hands and shook his head. “Okay, no, you two please be quiet. Christopher! What’s happening?”

“I feel sick,” Chris said, because most of his world was consumed by the misery that was nausea. “And Kevin hit me.”

“Because he hit me first!”

“I did not,” Chris said.

“Christopher didn’t hit anyone,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “But this Kevin character,
he
was rude to me! You should fire him, right now.”

“He doesn’t
work
here,” Tanner said, a funny look on his face.

“He doesn’t? Then why was he putting out the celery?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick put her hands on her hips and glared at Kevin.

“I don’t know,” Tanner said. “Do you, Christopher?”

“I think he took it,” Chris said. “And I think he made the apples and oranges fall on the floor.”

“You can’t prove it,” Kevin said smugly.

“He did it,” she said, pointing at him again. “Anyone who says that first thing, they’re guilty. And I bet you anything the tapes will tell the tale.”