Pretend You Love Me (31 page)

I sat on the brick ledge surrounding the fountain and Jamie hopped up next to me. He pushed up the cuff of his long-sleeve
shirt and shook his hand at the ground. A silver bracelet slid down his arm. “Shane sent it to me,” he said. “Isn’t it awesome?”

The bracelet looked expensive, like real silver. Not that I’d know fake from real. “Nice,” I told him.

“He had it engraved.” Jamie jimmied the bracelet off his wrist. Underneath, next to the skin, was one word:
FOREVER
.

“Forever.” Jamie repeated aloud. “That’s a long time.”

“Longer than a one-nighter in Denver,” I said.

He pressed the bracelet to his heart. What was it with all the love jewelry? Didn’t anyone send flowers anymore? Flowers expressed
sentiment. Then, after a week, they died.

“There you are.”

Our heads shot up.

“I’ve been looking all over for you guys.” The sight of Xanadu still made me melt. She had on her red leather pants today—so
fine—and a loose knit, see-through shirt. What I saw was a skimpy bra. Was she reverting to her old self? Her true self? The
bellybutton ring was back. The pants showed every curve and crevice of her. Her hair was loose, free, blowing in the breeze
away from her face like a supermodel. Like my Maserati girl.

She smiled into my eyes. I felt a rise between my legs. “What’s that, Jamie?” Her eyes drifted down.

“Nothing,” Jamie snapped. He fumbled to put the bracelet back on. It slipped out of his hand and plinked to the ground, rolling
away. Jamie dropped to his knees and groped for it, scooping up the bracelet like we were going to tackle him and take it
away. Xanadu curled a lip at me, like, What is with him?

Who knew? Love did strange things to people.

“Hey, guys.” Bailey sauntered up behind Xanadu. He was holding a package of beef jerky. Ripping off a chunk between his teeth,
he said, “How goes it?” sliding one arm around Xanadu’s bare midriff and offering her a bite.

She pushed his hand away. “Ew, I hate that stuff.”

Bailey looked offended. “Why? It probably came from the same cow as your pants.” He smirked.

She elbowed him in the ribs and grinned up at him.

It wasn’t that funny. “I’ll take one,” I said, not waiting for him to offer.

Bailey had to detach himself from Xanadu to pull out a strip of jerky from the package. “Jamie?” Bailey extended the jerky
to him.

“No,” Jamie grumbled. “Thanks.”

“What’s a hayrack ride?” Xanadu asked out of the blue.

Bailey knuckled her head and said to me, “I keep telling her it’s the highlight of Coalton Days. She doesn’t get it.” He explained
to Xanadu, like she was a moron, “Everett and June load the flatbed with hay and drive a bunch of people around.”

“That’s it?” She made a face. “You’re joking.”

I think Bailey wished he was.

“He made it sound like it was a religious experience.”

Bailey’s eyes dropped. “She’ll understand once we do it,” he mumbled. “Beau said June wants to get started earlier this year,
around eight. I said I’d spread the word.”

“Count me out,” Jamie said. “I have other plans.”

Bailey’s jaw dropped in unison with mine. What other plans? Jamie miss the hayride? Even if Beau was history, we always went
on the hayride. It was tradition. Last year the tradition was margaritas. Jamie and Deb had smuggled in a couple of thermoses
and passed them around. Other people filled canteens and water bottles with beer. Bailey was right, the hayride was the highlight
of Coalton Days.

“You remember our plans.” Jamie widened his eyes at me.

What plans?

He growled low in his throat.

“What?”

“Forget it.” He turned and stalked off.

“Why is he mad at me?” Xanadu asked. “What did I do? He’s been dissing me all week. If he even sees me coming, he deliberately
walks the other way.” She slit eyes at his back. “Is he pissed off because we’re not getting smashed every weekend? God, you
know, I’m sorry if I
don’t want to steal from Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee anymore. I have a police record already, okay?”

“You do?” Bailey said.

Xanadu blanched. “That was a joke.” She fixed on my face. “What did I do to Jamie?”

“You didn’t do anything,” I said. “He has PMS.”

Bailey cracked up. So glad he found us amusing.

The jerky suddenly tasted like cardboard, so I stuck it in my back pocket for later. Xanadu perched next to me on the ledge
and Bailey invited himself to scoot in beside her. She had to remove her purse from her shoulder to accommodate him. For some
reason, she handed me the purse.

It was beaded. Black and green and clear glass beads. I wanted to open it, inhale the scent of her, search around inside for
evidence and understanding of her.

She said, “Did I tell you I decided to finish my senior year here?”

“No.” My hopes soared. A lot could happen in a year. “I’m glad.” Euphoric.

“Me too.” She nudged my shoulder with hers. “I’m going to need a summer job though. Dad says he can’t keep sending me money,
and Aunt Faye and Uncle Lee shouldn’t have to support me totally. I was thinking maybe I could get a job at the Merc. Wouldn’t
that be fun, the two of us working together?”

It’d be a dream, I thought.

“Could you talk to your boss? Ask him if he has a position for me? Tell him I have experience hauling horse food off a flatbed.”
She grinned.

I snorted.

“Serious,” she said.

“Sure. I can do that.” Everett didn’t need summer help, not with me and June there. He told me earlier in the week he expected
this
year to be slow with the economy and the drought. Warning me, maybe, that he might have to cut back my hours. I could work
part-time, though. Split my hours with Xanadu. Anything to be with her.

She bumped shoulders with me again. I bumped her back.

Bailey leaned around the front of her and asked, “When are you going to softball camp, Mike?”

Was he still here? “I never said I was.”

He arched his eyebrows.

“Everyone just assumed that’s what I wanted.”

Bailey said, “You don’t?”

Xanadu interjected, “I hate when people do that. Assume they know what you want. Assume they know
you
, when it’s obvious they don’t. How could they?”

Exactly.

She unlatched the purse in my lap and dug inside, pulling out a camera. “I wanted to get some pictures of us to send home
to my friends. My friends,” she intoned. “Right. To Mom and Dad and Loni, at least.” Eyeing the surrounding area, she pointed
and said, “Let’s do it by that tree over there.”

My eyes followed her finger.
“No!”
I said.

Xanadu flinched. Did I react out loud? I just meant not
that
tree.

How could I explain? When I was six, Dad and I had planted that tree on Arbor Day. A red oak. It was a sapling then, a baby.
The tree was tall now, a perfect canopy that would shade the entire picnic area come summer. In the fall our red oak was the
most glorious tree in town. I hadn’t noticed how much it’d grown. Two years. How much I’d missed coming here on weekends,
during the summer. Sitting under our tree to think or read or soak up sky.

“Mike?” Xanadu’s eyes drilled the side of my granite face. “Are you all right?”

I swallowed hard. “Dad and I planted that tree together,” I said, not looking at her.

“Oh. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. We can take pictures somewhere else.”

I turned and met her eyes. An image of her materialized in my mind, against my tree, red hair on red oak. “No. Let’s do it.”
I pushed off the ledge to my feet.

Xanadu handed the camera to Bailey and stood beside me. She took her purse, then my hand.

She took my hand. And she held it all the way to my tree. She didn’t care how many people saw. She didn’t care if Bailey saw.

“Take one of me and Mike together,” she ordered Bailey.

Through the heat, the blood coursing through my veins, I heard him ask, “How do you work this thing?”

Xanadu ducked under a branch and snaked an arm around my waist. “It’s self-focusing. Just point and click.”

“Where’s the clicker?”

“God,” she said under her breath. “He’s so clueless sometimes.” She told him, “The red button on top.”

Can’t you see? I almost said. He’s clueless all the time.

“Okay.” Bailey raised the camera to his eye. “Smile.”

Xanadu rested her temple against mine.

Click.

I think my eyes were closed in the picture, but I didn’t care. We could stay this way forever. The warmth of her breath on
my face, our arms around each other’s waists. Her soft skin, hot skin.

Xanadu shifted so we were front to front, cheeks touching. “Take another.”

I was holding her with both hands now.

Click.

She threw up a leg and, in reflex, I caught it across my arms. Leaning back, she stuck out her tongue and dropped her head
down.

Click.

A couple more silly poses.

“Will you take one of me and Bailey?” she asked.

I’d take him out. What could I say? “Sure.”

Bailey and I exchanged places. He pulled Xanadu into his arms and held her head to his chest with his big hairy paw. I raised
the camera to my eye, framing only her face. The slight smile. Not unhappy, but not thrilled about being manhandled.

Click.

She spun around and moved back against him, leaning into him, his arms enfolding her. Thick arms, tanned. Pound for pound
I was more buff than Bailey. I could work on my tan; it was early in the season. He’d gotten a head start with the calving.

Click.
I might’ve cut off his head.

He wedged his chin on top of Xanadu’s scalp. She tilted back her head and smiled up at him. She smiled. And kept on smiling.

A memory resurfaced. Déjà vu. Jamie and Shane. How they smiled at each other, shared smile. Intimate eyes. Me, taking their
picture. Me, not in the picture.

A bolt from the blue knocked me back a step. “Mike.” Dad’s voice.

Dad, speaking to me. “Look, baby.”

Xanadu and Bailey filling the camera’s viewfinder.

“Can’t you see?” Dad said.

I could. I could see Xanadu kissing him, Bailey kissing her back. I could see what passed between them. The connection. The
bond. The love. In that instant of clarity, I saw the truth. She loved him.

She loved him in a way she would never love me.

I handed the camera back, mumbled an excuse, fled, flew, escaped. The blur of grass under my feet, the ground moving, splitting,
opening a chasm between us. Them. Her and me. The distance impassable, impossible. The longing, desperation, the broken coupling,
the draining of my hopes.

I was gay. A dyke. A baby dyke. That’s how I felt, like a baby. A toddler taking her first steps and stumbling. Falling. Trying
again. Suc
ceeding. Grasping the power, the strength, the freedom to run, run, running off half-cocked, not watching where I was going
or what I was doing. Not seeing the truth. Not aware of the danger. Like a wild child, forgotten, oblivious to the stairs.
Running, falling, falling,
thud.
No one to catch me. No one to care. To pick me up, hold me, comfort me, rally me to try again. Keep going, baby. Anything
is possible.

No, it isn’t, Dad. You’re a liar. “You’re a liar. A fucking liar.”

I hated him. I hated him for giving me hope.

I slammed through the back door.

“Who’s that?” Ma sounded startled.

My lungs hurt. My head hurt. Everything about me hurt.

“Who is it?” she demanded.

“It’s me,” I snarled. In a weaker voice, calmer voice, “It’s me.” Whoever I am. Whatever I am. I inhaled what strength and
dignity I had left and headed to my room.

She was propped on the sofa, sitting, I guess, her rolls of fat spilling over two full cushions. Her TV tray had toppled front
first and her Donettes were broken all over the floor. The picture on the TV screen crackled and buzzed.

I looked from the TV to her. She gazed off into space, her beady eyes black as death. On the floor by her feet lay the remote
control.

I sauntered up to it. Bent over, picked it up. I held it out in my open hand between us. “Say please,” I said.

Her jaw clenched.

Say it, I screamed inside. Say please. Say Mike. Say help me. Say stay. Say anything to me.

Nothing. No reaction.

Slowly, I set the remote on the sofa cushion, too far for her to reach. “What is it with you?” The pressure busted free, spilling
out in a rage. “Two years, Ma. It’s been two years! You haven’t said a word to me in all that time. Not one word.”

She blinked.

“Is it
worth
it?” My voice rose.

She shriveled in place.

“Dammit. Goddammit. All my life. What did I do? What did I do to make you hate me?”

No movement, no comprehension.

Dammit! I wheeled around and stormed for my room.

“Thief.”

“What?” I stopped.

“Thief,” she repeated.

I turned around. “What do you mean? I didn’t—”

“You’re stealing from me,” she stated flatly. Her eyes focused and fixed on my face. It felt like two ice picks boring through
my pupils.

I couldn’t hold her gaze. “I’m not stealing. I just… I wanted some of his things.” My eyes raked the floor.

“You’re stealing.”

“No!” I glanced up. “I’m just borrowing.”

“You’re stealing him from me.”

Her narrowed eyes sliced me in half. She added, “You always did.”

She was crazy. I didn’t know what she was talking about.

Yes, I did. Maybe. “You can have it all back,” I said. “What do I care?” I yanked up the chain around my neck and threw it
on the sofa. I charged to my room to get the stuff—the clothes, the lighter, the pictures, watch, everything I’d taken. I
tore the suspenders off my body. She could have him. She could keep him, I thought. There’s nothing left now. He left me nothing
of value.

I stomped back in and crossed the room. She shielded her face with her forearm, cowering, like I was going to hit her.

I wanted to. I wanted her to hurt the way she hurt me.