“Just tell me what it is, Dyllie,” Cam said finally, without lifting his head. “I want you to be happy, I want you to like it.
Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”
But that was the one thing I couldn’t tell him, I couldn’t even tell myself. So after a while I buttoned up my shirt, we climbed into the front of the car, and he drove me home.
Chapter Five
The main question here, I suppose, would be, What was the big deal? Most people didn’t go into a major funk over sexual orientation anymore—a lot of lesbians and gays were out these days. TV sitcoms were full of gay characters, and the Internet had loads of chat sites for teenagers who wanted to talk about the issue. There were even five girls who were officially out at the Dief, and as far as I could see they weren’t given a rough time—as long as they stayed away from the senior girls volleyball team, that is. If they had been guys, it would have been different, but most straight guys who got uptight about gays thought lesbianism was sexy. So as the Dief’s five official lesbians, they got some stares and the odd dimwit comment, but they weren’t harassed or shunned in any obvious way. They all had friends—homo and hetero, though admittedly none from the phone patrol.
No loss there, of course, but it was also true that I wasn’t friends with any of them. It wasn’t that I went into a massive panic attack whenever I saw one of them, though sometimes I wondered if they had a way of reading other girls, if they could tell about me. No, it was more that I just didn’t click with them.
They were all really different than me—besides our hormones, we had nothing in common. I guess what it came down to was that their scene didn’t feel real to me.
They
didn’t feel real, I suppose, because they didn’t feel like
me
. So they weren’t
really
real, y’know?
The people who are
really
real in your life are the people you’re close to. The rest are just a dream you wish you weren’t having. And the people I was close to were my family, who reeked heterosexuality, and Cam, who reeked the same very straight vibes, and Joc, who was dating a guy whose vibes were so massively hetero, they were almost solid. That was what I was surrounded by, that was what was real to me. The rest, like I said, was just a virtual reality game I wished I wasn’t playing.
It wasn’t that I thought my family would reject me if I told them I was lesbian. I knew their love was deeper than that. But there were assumptions that ran through everything we said and did together, never spoken aloud but still there, part of every family gathering and the frequent jokes my parents made about the grandchildren they would someday have. These assumptions were like an invisible web of warmth and light that connected all of us, the understanding that some day the love we felt for each other would be carried on into the next generation. Coming out as a lesbian meant that wouldn’t happen.
Well okay, I suppose there was the option of a reproduction clinic, sperm donors and all that. But it was kind of impersonal compared to the husband-and-wife thing. And besides, how would you know for sure what you were getting? I mean,
really
? I mean, NOT!
And NOT meant, of course, no next generation coming out of Dylan Kowolski’s womb. No next-generation Dylans would mean massive disappointment for my family—not just my parents, but my grandparents, aunts and uncles, brother and sister
and cousins,
everyone.
More importantly, it would mean massive disappointment for me. Because I
wanted
to fit into that web of warmth and light. I
wanted
to have children, a husband and a happy home. If I was hetero, I figured it was pretty much guaranteed. If I was hetero, I would be happy.
And, of course, there was also my friendship with Joc, my best-friend friendship that had been a core part of my life since grade three. She was part of the way I laughed and breathed. So if I walked up to her one day and said, “Joc, I’m in love with you, and I have a mad passionate urge to kiss you,” and it freaked her into a total funk and I lost her, well, it would be like losing part of my body. Like I said, we’d been friends for a long time, she was the way I breathed. I didn’t know how to lose that.
So I couldn’t just up and tell her how I felt about her, unless I was absolutely sure of the reaction I would get. If only there was some way to figure out in advance what it would be. Because sometimes, in spite of the fact that she was dating Dikker, I could have sworn Joc was really attracted to me. Like I said, she was always hanging all over me. And there was that electric flash that occasionally leapt between us, as well as that moment in the soap spill haze when she’d almost started unbuttoning my shirt.
But there was also, of course, Dikker.
Monday morning, following the 7-Eleven catastrophe with Dikker, I got onto my bike and headed to Joc’s house the way I usually did. The weather had cooled somewhat since the weekend, but snow was still a ways off, so the neighborhood was dotted with adults clearing leaves off their cars and kids in windbreakers, walking to school. Normally everything I passed went by in a bright blur, simply an extension of my thoughts, part of the early morning buzz I felt biking toward Joc’s place.
But this morning there was an odd feeling to the ride, as if things were out of sync. Joc hadn’t phoned last night the way she usually did, and I hadn’t called her. It was like a tradition between us, we always called each other Sunday night to plan the coming week.
So when neither of us called, it was a sign that something was definitely off. My guess was that Joc had asked Dikker what had happened behind the store and he’d told her “Nothing,” but she was brooding over it anyway, working her way toward nuclear detonation. And of course I was still in a major funk, trying to figure out what exactly had made me storm back there the way I had. So when I got to Joc’s house, I coasted up to the curb and just stood with my head down for a bit, trying to figure out how to handle the next few minutes. Because if Joc was mad, the all-important moment with her was the first one. If you managed to pull the right grin or say the right thing, you had a chance of heading off a major explosion. If not, you were busy picking up the pieces for the next few days.
Unfortunately she didn’t give me much time to mull things over. Almost the second I pulled up, the front door swung open, and there she was, leaning against the doorframe and watching me. And as soon as I saw her, it happened to me the way it always did—an electric shimmer that lit every nerve in my body so I was suddenly riding hyperspace.
She was eating toast from one hand and drinking coffee from a Tweetie Bird mug in the other. Her hair wasn’t brushed and she still had to put on her makeup, but she was gorgeous, her large purplish blue eyes flat on me, watching and speculative. For a long moment neither of us spoke, just stood and stared at each other. Then Tim came barreling through the doorway, bumping Joc out of the way with his hip.
“Hey, Dyl,” he called, coming down the porch stairs. “Want
a lift downtown? That’s where I’m headed.”
Tall and dark-haired like Joc, Tim had graduated from the Dief three years ago and now worked at an auto-body shop in the city’s west end. The rest of his time he spent tinkering with his friends’ cars. That, and pouring beer down his throat.
“Can’t,” I called back. “The school thing, y’know?”
“Prison!” he bellowed, punching his fist into the air. “Break free!”
Getting into his car, he revved backward out of the driveway and took off down the street. Eyes fixed on his taillights, I watched for as long as possible, until the absolute tip of his muffler had vanished around the corner. Then slowly, very slowly, I turned back to Joc. As expected, I found her gaze still on me, heavy and loaded with meaning. Too loaded. Nervously my eyes flicked past hers and glued themselves to the wall beside her head. Guilt—I was crawling with it, the evidence all over my face. “Power blush” was what Cam called it.
But then, all of a sudden, I just thought,
Screw it!
And I dumped the whole guilt thing. Because even if I didn’t know why I’d gone storming after Dikker at the 7-Eleven, it hadn’t been to hurt Joc. Besides, she’d started it. She called me a queen.
“You coming or what?” I called, too loud, but definitely not ass-kissing eager.
At that Joc’s eyes narrowed, and without responding she backed into the house, letting the door slam behind her. For a moment I just stood there, wondering if I was supposed to follow her in, or wait at the curb like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Screw that too!
I thought and dropped my bike onto the lawn with a melodramatic crash. Then I stomped into the house after Joc, letting the door slam behind me too.
Immediately I was hit with the dense odor of cigarette smoke.
Ms. Hersch, Joc’s mom, was a heavy smoker, and so were both her offspring. Officially, Ms. Hersch didn’t know Joc smoked, or that her frequent evening shifts at the local library branch gave her daughter unrestricted access to the household ashtrays. This was, of course, a very different situation from my undercover nicotine habit, since my mom happens to be the Clean Lungs Patrol.
“Hey—go easy on the door, would ya?” called Ms. Hersch from the kitchen. “It works just as good if you close it gently.”
“Sorry,” I called back and headed down the hall toward Joc’s room. The Hersches’ house was a bungalow, everything on one floor, with Joc’s and Tim’s rooms facing each other across a hall on the east side. When I got to Joc’s room, she was standing in front of her mirror, curling iron in hand.
“You’re talkative today,” I said, flopping down onto the bed.
Keeping her eyes fixed on her reflection, Joc shrugged. Slowly the silence ticked by, a grenade waiting for victims.
“So,” I said finally, trying to kick-start a conversation, “what fascinating things did life bring you yesterday?”
“What did it bring you?” countered Joc, rolling her bangs into the curling iron.
“Took Keelie to the park,” I said. “Raked the lawn. Met Danny’s new girlfriend. Flavor of the week, y’know. They’re lining up for him.”
“He’s gorgeous,” shrugged Joc. “No surprise, he’s your brother.”
The compliment was so unexpected, coming at a time like this, that it sent me into an immediate funk, the heat crawling up my neck. Power blush. I
hated
doing the red thing.
“We look a bit alike,” I said carefully, trying to put the brakes on my manic blood rush. “But I’m nothing—”
“Guys are crazy for you, Dyl,” Joc said quietly, setting down the curling iron and picking up her mascara bottle. “Cam’s lucky to have you and he knows it.”
“Oh yeah,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the heat stampeding across my face. Fixing my eyes on the ceiling, I thought about icicles up my butt, freezing cold showers, life in the Arctic—anything that would take me down ten or twenty degrees Celsius.
“Even Tim’s gaga over you,” Joc continued as she cleaned her mascara brush with a Kleenex. “And Dikker’s friends are always asking about you. God, even the teachers watch you.”
“Oh, come off it,” I snapped, sitting up. “Teachers watch everyone.”
“Not like you,” said Joc. Leaning toward the mirror, she began applying mascara. “Not
Queen
Dyl—”
A tsunami-sized wave of frustration slammed through me, yanking me to my feet. “Don’t call me that!” I yelled, the words pouring unchecked from my mouth. “Just because I’m going out with Cam. Just because
he’s
popular and Dikker’s—”
“Cam!” Joc said incredulously. Mouth open, she stared at me. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Cam, Dyl.”
“Then what?” I bellowed, the anger huge and hot in me. No, not anger.
Fear
. Fear like a trapped bird, its wings flapping desperately inside my chest.
“It’s just you,” said Joc, her eyes hard on me. “The way you are. As if everyone around you is your subject. We’re all here to please you.”
“I am
not
...,” I spluttered helplessly, then just stood there, staring at her. I mean, I was speechless, a complete void.
“If you think you can wait
one
minute,” Joc said airily, turning toward the door, “I’ve got to brush my teeth. Then I’ll be ready.”
With that, she stalked out of the room. As she left, absolute chaos erupted in my head. Flopping back onto the bed, I listened to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Was it possible Joc was telling the truth? Did I really come across like
that kind of snot? But how could I? I mean, I was hardly a candidate for sainthood. Anyone who
half
-knew me knew that. And lots of girls at the Dief were prettier than me, way prettier. I was lucky Cam wanted to go out with me. Joc made it sound as if it was the other way around.
The thing was, Cam and I weren’t having sex. And the times I’d done it with Paul in the summer before grade ten were ancient history now. So it was probably my twelve-month stint of abstinence that was behind all this queen stuff Joc had been throwing at me lately. It made her suspicious, but she didn’t know what to be suspicious about, or maybe didn’t
want
to know. “Queen” was the only word she could come up with to define the situation. As usual, everything came down to the same old problem. Hormones, I didn’t have the proper hormones. I was out of sync, skewed,
wrong
.
At the other end of the hall the bathroom tap shut off, and Joc’s sullen footsteps started toward the bedroom. Brushing her teeth obviously hadn’t cheered her up, and the situation called for emergency measures. I was going to have to cut deep, bleed a little. Maybe a lot. Taking a long breath, I waited until she reached the doorway, then said, “Okay, so I was pissed-off Saturday. Because you called me a queen, and I
hated
it. And...”
I paused, racking my brains as I tried to come up with something she would believe. Something
reasonable
. “Αnd I guess I wanted to prove I wasn’t—a queen, I mean,” I added grudgingly.