Authors: Robin Antalek
Before Bella, Sam had considered himself only a semi-virgin because of Suzie Epstein. They might not have had sex, but they had done everything but. As it was, that night with Bella they did it twice and he could have gone again and again if they'd had more condoms. Sam would have liked to experience exhaustion from fucking, but he wasn't about to tell Michael any of this.
“Jesus Christ, Sam.” Michael was staring at Sam strangely. “I have class at nine. I'm going to take a shower. Your tour is at noon and meets on the steps of the library near the admissions building. If you want food you can take whatever you want from the middle shelf in the refrigerator, that's mine, and the cabinet next to the stove without a handle, also mine.” As he talked he grabbed clothes and a towel and left the room.
Sam realized his boxers had formed a tent over his dick and
he batted it down out of embarrassment. Obviously that was the reason for Michael's annoyance. Well, nothing he could do about it now. He closed his eyes, remembering Bella Spade that night. They had gone to the high school winter dance in their usual group, attending mostly as a joke. They had made screwdrivers in Peter's basement before they left, and they were buzzed but not drunk, as they walked through the streets. The houses were already lit up for Christmas even though it was only the first week of December. Sam had been surprised when Bella caught up to him and slipped her hand into his jacket pocket, curling her cold fingers around his. There had been something so innocent about that gesture, reminding Sam of the games they used to play in the closet during sixth grade. Her breath had smelled like the licorice they had been eating moments before. He had kissed her on the cheek and they had held hands for the remaining minutes in silence, letting everyone think what they wanted when they emerged from the closet.
What happened after the dance was unexpected, but also somehow not at all. Sam was attracted to Bella for sure, and she was always so nice to him. He noticed her sometimes in the library writing in a marbled composition book that she carried with her everywhere. But she had also been Suzie's best friend. It was hard for him to see her and not think of Suzie. As far as he knew, none of them had heard from her. In the beginning the girls still talked about her like she was still around, but that eventually stopped. He hadn't bothered writing Suzie even though he really wanted to ask her why she had given him the photographs like she did. Sam realized he already knew the answer: Suzie hadn't cared for him at all. The private humiliation was enough. He didn't need written confirmation.
Still, that night after the dance, it had seemed stupid for Sam to
stay away from Bella because of what had happened the summer he was fifteen years old. No one even knew about it; it was like it had never happened. Certainly Bella would never have to know.
Sam sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. If he gave any thought at all to Bella Spade's mouth and hands he was a goner. He needed to get up, get dressed, eat, and then go find the fucking library and admissions office. It was the least he could do for his father.
Almost everyone in
the tour group was with one or, in most cases, both of their parents. From where Sam was standing, alone, the parents seemed to want to go to Brown way more than the kids. The tour guide, Carrie, a junior English major, did her best to answer every one of the parents' questions, and made it seem like she hadn't answered these same exact questions a million times before.
The last part of the tour was cookies and coffee and informal discussion with some other Brown students. Carrie caught Sam at the cookie tray, his hand hovering over the Milanos. “Only one per prospective student,” she said from behind his left shoulder just as Sam snatched up a handful of cookies.
Sam dropped the cookies back onto the tray before he heard her laugh. “Oh man, that was way too easy.” He felt his face go red and then she nudged his shoulder like they were old friends. “I'm sorry. I am so tired of doing tours today.” She wriggled her jaw from side to side. “My mouth hurts.” Sam gave her a sidelong glance and picked the cookies back up. She laughed again. “Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Is your lifelong dream to come to Brown?”
Sam paused, trying to figure out how not to sound like he'd
never get in, not in a million years, and she said, “I'm teasing again.” She picked a cookie off the tray and studied it before she nibbled an edge. “I'm just the tour guide working for my work-study dollars. Not admissions.”
“My brother goes here, so . . .” He shrugged.
“Who is your brother?”
“Michael Turner.”
“No kidding? Why didn't you say something?” She squinted at Sam through a fringe of bangs that fell into her eyes. “Then you must know Kate.”
Sam frowned and shook his head.
“His girlfriend?” Carrie said. “She's one of my roommates. He must talk about Kate. They've been together for at least a year by now.”
“Michael talks?” It slipped out before Sam thought about it. Michael had had a girlfriend for a year?
Carrie laughed. “You are funny.” She nibbled some more of the cookie. “So I'll probably see you tonight. Then you can meet Kate. You're coming with Michael, right?”
“Uh, sure, yeah. Tonight.” Michael had said the previous day that they were hanging out, so maybe he was planning on telling Sam later that they were going to a party, and about his girlfriend.
Carrie popped the rest of the cookie into her mouth. “Okay, well, my tour duties are officially over. I'm just going to hand out these info packets to the parental units and then I'm out of here.” She put her backpack down on the floor and pulled out a sheaf of folders with the Brown University logo, offering one to Sam before she wandered away. He watched her calves in diamond-patterned tights squeeze and release as she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet in her scuffed black Doc Martens. Then he turned back to the cookies and swiped half a dozen off the tray and a can
of Coke. It wasn't until he was back at Michael's apartment that he realized he had left the folder she had given him on the table.
Their father went
about the business of divorcing their mother like he did everything else: silently and away from the house. He worked as an attorney for a large firm in Manhattan. He never talked about his work, and Sam's childhood memories of him consisted of a bulging briefcase and progressively bad eyesight.
Sam found out about the divorce one night after dinner. His father was at the sink; it was his turn to wash because Sam had cooked. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow and suds clung to the hair on his forearms. Sam was hunched over the table, pretending to do his English homework and hoping he could sweet-talk Mindy Stevens into letting him see her vocabulary paragraphs, when his father started talking about things being official.
Sam looked up and tapped his pencil on the table. “Huh?”
“I just want you to know that you are mine. Officially.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have custody of you. Your mother has visitation.”
Sam tapped his pencil again. Since his mother left, there had been several awkward phone calls. So far he had refused to join her for the meal she kept offering to buy him.
“She has you for a week in the summer and one weekend a month, if you want.”
“And if I don't?”
His father turned back to the dishes without answering. Sam noticed a smear of salsa on the back of his pants from their taco dinner and he felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to tell him. “What about Michael?” He assumed his parents had divided their children and his mother had chosen Michael.
“What about him?”
“Does she have Michael too?”
His father sighed. “That's a little more complicated. Or a little less, depending upon who you are, I suppose. Michael is over eighteen, so he can choose what time, if any, to spend with your mother.”
“Why didn't anyone ask me?”
His father sighed again. “I didn't think you wanted to go to court, Sam.”
Sam slapped his notebook shut. “I need to go out for a little bit, okay? Just for a walk.” What he really needed was to get the homework from Mindy, and he knew his father wouldn't stop him from going out on a school night. He had been very lenient since his mother left. If Sam let him think he was more upset about his mother than he really was, well, so what? He stood and gathered his books and turned to leave the room.
“Sam?”
“What?”
“I won't keep you from your mother. However much time you need, you take that? Okay, son?”
“Sure.”
“We both still love you very much.”
“Okay.”
“I'm here if you want to talk. Or you can always call your brother.”
Sam shook his head without speaking and let the back door slam harder than he intended. He immediately regretted the effect it would have on his father.
He stayed at Mindy's that night until he knew his father would be snoring in his chair in front of the television, a lukewarm cup of tea by his side, just so they wouldn't have the chance to talk.
When Sam got
back to Michael's apartment, Michael was waiting for him with a beer. “Happy hour, bro,” he said as he handed him a frosty can. “Fucking Friday.”
Sam closed his hand around the beer and Michael tapped his beer against Sam's and took a long swill. Sam watched the muscles in Michael's neck constrict as the liquid flowed. This was the most enthusiastic greeting he had gotten from his brother in a long time. Possibly ever.
“Drink up,” Michael commanded. “We have places to go and be seen.”
Sam lifted the can to his lips and drank even through the stabbing pain in his left eye from the shock of the cold beer. He finished about half and then came up for air, squinting over at Michael. His brother laughed and opened the refrigerator, grabbing two more beers and opening one. “Come on, put this in your pocket.” He tossed the unopened beer to Sam and walked out of the kitchen.
Sam ran to catch up. His empty stomach churned from the beer. He would have liked some food, but Michael didn't seem to be offering. He wondered if their father had told Michael to expect a dinner.
Michael jogged down each flight of stairs and waited briefly on the landings for Sam to catch up. By the time they hit the front door to his building Michael had finished his second beer and Sam had finished his first. “Hey,” Sam said, already beginning to feel a little buzzed from the beer. “You hungry orâ?”
“There will be food, Sammy, never fear.”
Sam drained the second beer as they walked up College Hill. Michael walked slightly ahead of him, just far enough that Sam couldn't ask where they were going. He veered left abruptly in front of a small clapboard house surrounded by an iron fence.
Michael's bike, without the front tire, was chained to the fence.
Michael opened the front door into a dimly lit, cramped hallway that smelled sharply of curry and made Sam's left nostril begin to run. He followed Michael up a steep staircase to a landing where three open doors were shrouded with tapestries and an even stronger aroma of Indian spices prevailed. Against the walls were canvases of all shapes and sizes, some turned in, exposing the T-bar of stretcher, and others facing out. The paintings looked a lot like those Sam had noticed in Michael's room.
Michael lifted the corner of the closest tapestry and beckoned Sam inside. The room was decorated with a thousand twinkling white Christmas tree lights. People were everywhere, more people than Sam imagined could fit into the space, along with even more paintings. The mood was festive but mellow.
Sam sniffled and followed Michael deeper into the apartment, where the smell of food intensified. Sam was practically drooling when they reached a table laden with exotic-looking dishes. “Go ahead, grab a plate,” Michael said, pointing to a stack.
Sam's stomach was growling and he set about following the crowd around the table, piling his plate with rice and naan and curried vegetables. He couldn't find a place to sit, so he leaned against the wall and started shoveling food into his mouth. Once he had cleaned the plate and pacified his stomach, Sam took a breath and looked around. His brother was across the room wedged into a corner talking intently to a dark-haired girl. Every once in a while he reached out and touched her: her shoulder, her cheek, or her hair. She smiled when he did that and bit her bottom lip, as if Michael's hand on her arm was worth the wait.
Sam was about to make his way over to them but something in the way they leaned toward each other stopped him. They didn't look like they wanted company. Sam returned to the food, de
vouring another full plate, and then went in search of a beer, then, beer in hand, went out and sat on the front stoop and studied Michael's bike chained to the fence. He wondered where Carrie was, if this was her place.
He'd been out there only a few minutes when he heard footsteps. “Hey, Sam, there you are.” Michael came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Where did you go?”
He shrugged. “Nowhere. I couldn't find you so I came out here.”
“Chill, dude. Are you mad? I thought you'd just hang, have a beer, eat some good food.”
“I'm not mad. I just don't know anyone, you know?” Sam said, feeling like the high school kid that he was. He had just been a little bit afraid that someone was going to ask him what he was doing eating their food and drinking their beer.
“Everything's cool.” Michael shrugged. “It's weird only if you make it weird.” He stared at him until Sam nodded back. “You ready to go?”
Sam stood, tucked his empty bottle behind a planter on the stoop, and followed Michael down the path. “You taking your bike?”
“Huh?”
“Your bike?” Sam pointed to the fence.
“That's not mine,” Michael lied.