“Thanks for meeting me,” he said.
“Sure,” I said, staring hard at the table. I sat down, and when the waiter arrived I ordered an iced tea. Then we sat across from each other and tried to fi nd things to say.
“Great day,” he said, and I nodded emphatically like he’d just said the most brilliant thing ever.
Excellent. I go out with a sportswriter, and suddenly I’m the one
who’s an idiot.
“Totally,” I said, wide-eyed and smiling vacantly.
“You played well last night.” Bryan gazed into my eyes and I held his look. I could feel my eyelids flickering and wondered if 133
I looked constipated the way I was staring at him. I couldn’t even breathe.
“Thanks,” I said to his forehead. I found if I looked at his forehead, it was easier to say actual words.
“That pass to number eighty-one, really great,” he said.
His forehead had a sort of design to it, the creases. If I looked closely enough, it was almost like hieroglyphics. “Yeah,” I answered.
“The other team was all zombies, intent on devouring your soul.”
Hieroglyphics. I wondered if it amounted to a complete sentence or thought, like maybe a message to me about how to keep my heart from jumping out of my mouth. “Totally,” I said.
Bryan laughed. I refocused, and saw his was a kind face. His teeth were slightly uneven on the top; it made him imperfect and that made me like him more. I laughed. “You’re really nervous,” he noted.
“Maybe a little,” I replied, tracing a circle on the table top with my pinky.
Bryan touched my shoulder and I flinched before willing myself to look back at him. “Relax,” he said. “I won’t bite. Why don’t we put off the interview for just a little bit? Just talk for a while.”
I returned his smile. “Probably a good idea,” I said. “At this rate, I’m liable to sound like a complete idiot.”
“That would
never
happen,” he said sarcastically, laughing and lifting his hand from my shoulder. “Actually, I need to go next door and pick something up. You mind?”
I nodded, and gulped down the rest of my four-dollar iced tea.
The coffee shop was in a mall area, and what he meant by next door was actually a walk across the massive parking lot to a Sports Authority.
“I need new cleats,” he said as we walked.
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“Cool,” I said.
“I play in the gay fl ag football league in L.A.”
I took that information in without commenting, trying hard to glance at his body without turning my head. Did he have really strong legs? I couldn’t remember.
I got a nice look as he tried on a pair of football cleats. His legs were thin but solid like a runner’s, matted with a light fur.
As he paid for his cleats at the register, Bryan told me he wanted to be a news reporter, not a sports reporter. His internship was his foot in the door at the paper. He said he liked sports, knew a lot about them, but they weren’t his passion.
He was only a year older than me, but Bryan seemed to know things about life, about the world. I felt like I knew nothing.
“How do you feel about Caesar salad?” he asked as we left the sports store and found ourselves back in the sun. I was beginning to feel comfortable with him.
“As? As an emulsifier? A means for attaining world peace? Help me out here. Be more specifi c.”
Bryan laughed, and put his hand on my shoulder. I stayed deadly still as he touched me.
“How do you feel about it as a lunch item?”
“Mixed,” I said. “But if you need it to live, I could probably fi nd something on the menu, too. I guess we’re going for lunch?”
“It doesn’t take much to clue you in. A few hints like salad and lunch, and you get it almost right away.” Bryan took the lead, and I realized we were walking toward his truck. “I have a place in mind.
I’ll drive.” He unlocked the passenger-side door and threw the bag with his cleats behind the driver’s seat.
I didn’t have to be asked twice.
We drove to Laguna Beach, where I’d only been once with my 135
parents as a kid. We parked on a side street near the main drag, about a block away from the Pacific, and I could almost taste the salty air.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we got out of the car.
“Just don’t you worry about it,” he said. And I didn’t.
We walked to a café near the ocean. Inside, we sat at a window table. I could feel Bryan’s hazel eyes on me.
I stared at the menu, and when I glanced up there were those eyes. I looked away, turned the menu over, and stared at the empty back of it.
“Anything interesting?” he said.
I looked up and he was smiling at me. I didn’t want to smile back, but it felt like someone was tickling the inside of my chest with a feather. I shrugged, looked away.
“So you like football,” I said weakly, trying to bend the menu. It wasn’t a bender.
Bryan laughed and took the menu from my hands. I let it go and studied the table. There was no place left to look.
“Okay, we need to deal with the invisible elephant,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I took a sip of water and settled into my chair.
“The invisible elephant? That’s, like, pooping all over the place and no one is mentioning it?”
I wrinkled my nose. “What are you talking about? Are you insane?”
Bryan laughed. “I’m gay, Bobby,” he said.
I grabbed my paper napkin and tore it into little pieces. “I know,”
I said quietly.
“And?” Bryan’s voice was insistent. I knew he wasn’t going to let me go on this.
“Congrats?” I said weakly.
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“Nuh-uh,” he said, shaking his head, a smile still there.
“Um . . .”
Bryan reached over and cuffed me on the head gently. “Come on, Bobby. Just say it. It’s okay.”
I thought about my life the last few years, the ways I’d changed, the dreams that wouldn’t go away, the conversations with Austin, Rahim, Coach, Blassingame. I’d never expected to have conversations like these. When I was younger I could never have guessed that my life would take this turn. I looked at Bryan and realized there was nothing to say but the truth.
“I guess we may have something in common,” I said.
“Guess? Maybe? Hello!” Bryan laughed a bit too loud and I felt a little embarrassed.
“You’re one of the only people who know,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, I know.”
“You can tell?” I asked, sipping my water.
“Well, yeah, but I also know because of my cousin.”
I wanted to say,
How can you tell?
But there were more important questions.
“Huh?” My heart was beating so hard I worried I’d have a heart attack.
“Bobby,” Bryan said, his arms crossed. “Dennis Fowler is my cousin.”
I sat in dazed silence for a moment, wishing my food would arrive so I’d have something to do. Then Bryan explained to me what had happened.
“My dad told me after my aunt told him,” he said. “Otherwise known as—”
“Dennis’s mom,” I said, leaning my head back and staring at the ceiling.
137
“He told me to keep it on the down low,” Bryan said. “I’d just started at the
Orange County Register,
so I had access to their photo archives and I did a little search one day.”
He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “You’re very sexy,” he said, suddenly a little shy. “I decided it was absolutely necessary to cover all your games. Didn’t you think it was a little weird that I was always covering your games? Did the
Orange County Register
do that in the past?”
“Hell if I know,” I said, floored by this revelation. “You’re related to Dennis Fowler? How come you’re not an idiot?”
Bryan laughed. “You don’t know that for a fact,” he said.
I looked him over, and raised one eyebrow. “You know what this means?”
“No idea,” Bryan said, and right then our food arrived. I was suddenly not hungry for my Oriental chicken salad.
“It means that you’re a stalker. Do I need Mace?”
We both laughed. “I think you’re safe for the time being,” he said.
Bryan paid the bill, and I looked at my watch. It was nearly four o’clock. “Are we going to start the interview now?” I asked.
“In a bit. I need to work off that meal. How do you feel about minigolf?” he asked as we got up from the table.
“’Bout the same as Caesar salad,” I said.
Bryan grinned and shrugged. “Good enough for me.”
He was terrible at minigolf, but decent in the batting cages. I tried not to show him up—aw, the hell with that. Of course I tried to show him up. And I succeeded. We drove back from Laguna Beach as the sun set. I’d totally lost track of the day, hadn’t called home, hadn’t done anything. It felt perfect.
“This gay stuff is diffi cult, isn’t it?” I said as we drove.
138
Bryan glanced over at me and smiled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, my life would be a lot easier . . . never mind.”
Bryan put his hand on my leg and I nearly jumped. “Who’s to say, Bobby? Don’t you think some good things come out of being gay?”
His hand was still on my leg, and I was beginning to be glad it was there. It had warmed up and was now pretty comfortable. Just two guys driving, one with a hand on the other’s leg. “I don’t know,”
I said, thinking about it. “Like what?”
“Like sensitivity,” he said. “Being gay has made me more sensitive.” I almost laughed, because it sounded so, I don’t know, gay.
But as I pondered that I realized it was true. Being different was a big part of it. I knew what it felt like to feel different from my friends and family. To be isolated and alone. And that’s not something that someone like Austin or Dennis could relate to.
“And of course, there are other things, too.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Well, like the sex-with-guys thing,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, my face fl ushing. “Well, I wouldn’t know.”
He stared ahead at the road, taking the information in.
We got back to the parking lot at about five o’clock. The two of us sat in awkward silence for a few moments. I was trying to figure out ways to make this day never end.
“So maybe we can do this again?” I said, adjusting my seat.
“Well, maybe not this exactly.”
“Yeah, something different. Maybe an interview,” Bryan said, and I laughed.
I turned and looked at him. “I’m going to ask you out on a date, how about that?” I said, feeling very close to him. He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “But this needs to go slow, okay? I mean I’ve never even been out on a date with a guy.”
“Yes you have,” he answered.
139
“No, I haven’t.”
“You’ve just been dated, Bobby.”
“I have?”
“You have.” Bryan smiled, a cute, boyish smile, his mouth curling at each end. “Thanks to my unique guerrilla dating tactics.”
140
It was a mob scene at the Five and Diner after school on Monday. The smell of grease wafted into my nostrils as waitresses hurried past carrying overloaded trays of cheeseburgers and fries.
While I waited for a table to open up, I fiddled with the bowl of wrapped toothpicks and wondered whose job it was to wrap them.
Was that what life amounted to for some people? If that was your life, how did you deal with it, how did you tell yourself that it had meaning?
This would have been a good time to turn around and ask Carrie, but my usual companion was at
Hairspray
rehearsal, hated me now, and had been replaced by a clumsy but well-meaning journalist nerd. Over the weekend Finch had asked me where he could interview me further, and I chose my favorite fifties diner. It sounded especially good now, since I had a major hankering for a root-beer fl oat with whipped cream.
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A couple of girls from school were in a booth near the door.
I recognized them as cheerleaders. One, blond, wore a maroon-and-gray ribbon in her hair, our school colors. The other, dark-haired and olive-skinned, wore a pink halter top that revealed a huge chest. They eyed me as if I was some kind of celebrity, and out of the corner of my eye I watched them whispering to each other.
I wondered if they thought it was weird that I was with Finch.
Was it weird? Were we friends now?
Is this what life has come to, and
how can I turn back time and make it turn out another way?
We were seated in a booth in the back, and as I picked up a menu Finch began to arrange his interview things: a digital recorder, a spiral notebook, and an array of pens. Finally organized and oriented, Finch looked up at me and the left side of his mouth curled up. “I really appreciate you redoing the interview,” he said. “Obviously I need more if I’m going to explain to the world who Bobby Framingham is.”
“We’re friends, Finch. You can call me just Bobby,” I said, smiling back at him.
Finch looked down. “Okay, thanks.”
We sat there in awkward silence for a moment. I had an urge to play sugar-packet checkers, but figured Finch would think there was something seriously wrong with me and would write about it. The humor would be lost in the translation. I held off.
“So,” he said, turning on the tape recorder and grabbing a green pen. “Talk to me about your future, what you want to do, where you want to be.”
I rubbed my chin, hoping that made me look mature and introspective. It probably just made me look like a dork. Without Carrie around, it was often hard to get the needed feedback on my physical actions. “I don’t know. Playing football somewhere.”
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Finch scribbled a note in his pad. “Any sense that you’ll wind up at Stanford?”
“I really don’t know, Finch. I mean, I have enough on my mind without worrying about next year, you know? I’ll focus on that in January maybe.”
“I’d kill to get in,” Finch said, his eyes narrowing.
“Yeah, I remember, your crazy mom.”
I figured he’d laugh, given how we’d laughed about things after the football game that time, but he didn’t. It was like the window had closed and Finch was no longer laughing about his family life.
I looked over at him and felt bad that his mom was putting all that pressure on him. “You’ll probably get in,” I said. “And for me, I don’t care that much, wherever I wind up is fi ne.”