Authors: David Levithan
Lehna rattles off the names of galleries, but I can see from the images on the screen that my paintings wouldn’t belong in any of them.
“This is such a bad idea,” I say. “If she brings it up I’ll just tell her that you misunderstood me or something. I’ll tell her that I
want
to have a show one day.”
“It isn’t enough,” Lehna says. She turns in her swivel chair and looks at me. “You want this, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “I want this.”
And I can see how much Lehna wants it to work out between Violet and me, too. There must be some compromise we can reach, some in between. I lean over the computer and type:
hair salon art gallery san francisco
.
“Let’s start out a little more realistically, okay?”
I find a trendy salon in Hayes Valley that features a new artist’s work every month.
“Your stuff is way better than that,” Lehna says, even though the work that they are featuring this month is actually really nice. Delicate line drawings with splashes of color. Mostly portraits, some botanicals. She clicks through some other links until she finds a list of San Francisco’s best new galleries.
“Look through this,” she says. “Choose one.”
“Fine,” I say, even though I know it’s a terrible idea. Because what Lehna is telling me is that I’m not enough for Violet yet. I need to be better, and I know that I can be, even if I have to fake it for a little while. “But I don’t have a show lined up yet,” I tell Lehna. “It’s still preliminary.”
“Let’s just say they went crazy when they saw your portfolio. It’s only a matter of time.” She reaches into her pocket for her phone and when she looks back up at me she’s smiling.
“Violet’s on her way,” she says. “Maybe you could, like, reapply?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I stand up and I find myself hot and dizzy, saying, “I think my lipstick’s in the car,” even though it’s not.
We head out of the study and into the crowd that has already multiplied in the few minutes we spent back there. None of the faces are ones that I recognize, and they are now too absorbed in one another to acknowledge us. Lehna at least
looks
like she belongs with her nose ring and her hair in its ponytail to show off the patch on one side that she keeps buzzed short. June and Uma are nowhere to be found. They’ve probably snuck off to a bedroom.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Lehna, and she nods and walks into the kitchen.
I step around the kids on the rugs and out the door, past my car, and up to the corner, telling myself that I’ll just walk around the block. I need a few minutes by myself because I suddenly feel stupid and small and like there’s no way I could be worthy of this girl I’m about to meet.
But I reach the end of the block and I keep walking, up through Dolores Park, into the throngs of celebrating people. They’re a happy riptide and I’m letting myself get carried out, deeper and deeper into the sea of them, further from the moment I’ve been awaiting for so long.
Out here feels worlds away from Shelbie’s living room. A bunch of teenagers sitting around looking cool is nothing like the thrumming swarm on the street. Here everything is electric and happy. Even the toughest-looking women, leaning against storefronts with expressions of practiced unapproachability, soften when I smile at them. Even the most aloof-looking boys seem sweet.
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking and I don’t want to take my phone out to check. I should turn back, but I’m not ready to leave all of this yet. Just thinking of Violet makes my hands tremble, and I’m standing next to the open door of a club that’s beckoning me inside with the techno remix of an old jazz song. I reapply my lipstick in the darkened window—for myself, not for Lehna—and then I step inside. It’s so dark it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, but soon I spot the bar. I’ll just try to get a drink, give myself some time to calm down. Then I’ll walk back to the house, ignore Lehna’s disapproval, and meet Violet.
The boy serving drinks is paper-doll perfect, and the crowd of men waiting to order from him seems to be in direct proportion to his attractiveness. But at the other end of the bar a cute girl with short hair and tattoos all over her muscular arms seems to be coming back from a break, so I make my way over to her and flash her a smile. She locks eyes with me and nods a nod that means she’ll take my order.
I lean over the bar toward her until our faces are close. She tips her head to the side so that she’ll hear my voice over the music.
“Tanqueray and tonic.” Lehna learned this from her older sister and taught me how to say it with confidence. It’s the only drink I know how to order.
The bartender turns away from me and grabs the green bottle and a glass.
I wish I had Violet’s number because I would text her and say:
I got a little sidetracked and ended up in a bar. Meet me here?
I would say:
I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you.
I avoid looking at my lit-up phone as I dig in my purse for my wallet. The bartender plunks my drink in front of me on a bright pink napkin, and I hand her ten dollars in exchange. Then I make my way to a tall table with a single bar stool. It’s been shoved against a wall and left unoccupied, because everyone here is either standing or dancing, pushing their way into the center of the party. I take my first sip as the paper-doll bartender makes an announcement and cheering follows. It’s for a contest; I can’t hear what kind, but soon “Umbrella” is playing and almost-naked men are climbing on top of the bar. Some of them look superconfident, some of them look self-conscious, but they are all having fun and their happiness fills me up. I watch them strutting around and then I watch the crowd watching them, and I notice that most of the guys are focused on one particular dancer. I follow their gaze to a boy who seems too young to be in here but who also seems totally at home.
All he’s wearing are those tight boxer things I’ve seen in Calvin Klein ads, red and blue, and with his close-cropped blond hair and general wholesomeness he could be the gay poster boy for America. Unlike one of the older guys who is practically humping the bar, he doesn’t even seem like he’s trying to be sexy. He’s just doing his thing, singing along. I sing along with him. He points into the crowd and a dark-haired boy whoops back at him. And it’s crazy, but I
know
that boy. He’s a junior; his name is Ryan. He used one of my landscapes for the cover of the literary journal last semester. I couldn’t tell if he was gay, but I guess this answers my question.
And now I’m starting to think that the dancing boy looks somewhat familiar, like I’ve seen him in a commercial or something, like he’s played in the background while I’ve been thinking of other things. But no. I know him from real life, I guess, because he’s caught sight of me now and his whole demeanor changes.
He freezes.
Mark Rissi!
We’ve never even talked, but we sit next to each other in Calc. Now the song is over and the crowd is going crazy. Mark jumps down from the bar and Ryan is trying to high-five him, but Mark is still looking at me, taking his clothes from Ryan and muttering something.
When Mark reaches my table, he’s still fumbling with his belt buckle.
He stops in front of me and says, “Oh my God.”
All of that confidence and happiness is gone, and I want it back for him. That
rush
. I want it back for all of us. I feel like we share something, in what we’re missing right now.
“Hey, Mark,” I say. “It
is
Mark, right?”
He nods, but all he says, again, is, “Oh my God.”
“I have something serious to ask you.” My heart is pounding because I’m not the kind of person who just opens up to anyone. I tend to be more of a listener, not a sharer of problems, but tonight is not a typical night. Violet is less than a mile away from us, the bass is pounding, the disco ball casting diamonds of light through the darkness, and it turns out that the shy jock from Calc is in reality a heartthrob jailbait of a boy who dances practically naked in gay bars.
“Please—” Mark starts.
But I am not a ruiner of squeaky-clean reputations. I’m ready to move on to bigger things with him. So I cut him off and say, “I thought it was an excellent performance. By the time you leave I’m sure that every available guy in here will have given you his number.”
Ryan appears next to us.
“It’s my fault,” he says. “I kind of coerced him into doing it.”
“God, you two,” I say. “Lighten up! I won’t tell anyone. But, Mark, just listen, okay? Because I’m about to ask you something and, like I said, it’s a serious question.”
Mark’s panic fades into relief. He sighs and runs his hand over his face. When he looks at me again, he is ready to listen.
“Do you want to be friends with me?” I ask him.
He cocks his head.
“Come again?”
“I know that makes me sound like I’m in preschool or something. It’s not even the main question, but I feel like we should establish a friendship before I ask you what I really want to ask you. I’ve spent the whole day, the whole school year, really, realizing that I might not actually like my friends all that much. Which is why I’m at a bar by myself on a night when everyone else is with other people. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but here I am, and then here
you
are, and it’s like a flashing arrow is pointing at you, telling me that you are someone I should know.”
“Uhm,” Mark says.
Ryan mutters something about invisibility, but I don’t ask him what he means because I’m too focused on Mark’s face.
“I guess?” he says. “I mean, if you want to.”
“Okay, good. So now for the real question: Have you ever wanted something so badly that it sort of takes over your life? Like, you still do all the things you’re supposed to do, but you’re just going through the motions because you are entirely consumed by this one thing?”
The blush that was beginning to fade comes rushing back to his face, even deeper than before, and his eyes dart toward Ryan and then quickly away.
Interesting.
Mark nods, and he really looks into my face as he does it, and I look hard back at him, and it is clear: We understand each other.
“I just ran away from a girl I don’t know yet,” I tell him.
He smiles. “She sounds that bad?”
“No,” I say. “She sounds amazing. She’s supposed to change my life.”
“So what happened?”
“She’s all I can think about all the time,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. He understands.
“Have you ever wanted something so badly that when it’s about to happen, you feel this need to sabotage yourself?”
His eyes stay fixed on mine and I can tell that he’s trying to follow me to this place, but he ends up shaking his head.
“No,” he says. “I don’t think I work that way.”
“I didn’t think I did, either. I’ve been waiting for this night for months. And then, I just…” I shrug. I feel my eyes well up.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says. “Don’t give up. It’s still tonight. Where were you supposed to meet her?”
“At this party.”
“Okay, and is it close?”
“Yeah, just through the park and over a few blocks.”
“Has anyone tried to get in touch with you?”
I groan. “I’m afraid to look.”
“Then hand it over.” He waits. I dig my phone out of my bag and place it, screen down, into the broad palm of his hand.
“Whoa,” he says, the light of the screen illuminating his face. “Twenty-three texts from Lehna Morgan.”
“Go ahead.”
“Want me to read them all or just the highlights?”
“Just the highlights.”
He scrolls down the list.
“They’re mostly variations on ‘Where the fuck are you?’ A few ‘Are you okay?’s.’”
“Keep going.”
“One says: ‘Violet just got here.’ Is that the girl?”
I nod.
“Okay, hold on.… Oh.”
“What?”
“She left. About five minutes ago.”
“Is she coming back?”
“Lehna doesn’t say.”
I look into my drink. Mostly empty. Just some remnants of ice cubes.
“Maybe I should order another one.”
“
Or
we could try to find her.”
Mark’s face is open, hopeful—a perfect antidote to the despair slowly settling in me. I’m about to ask him how we’d go about finding her, but the music gets softer and a man’s voice booms out that the winner of the midnight underwear dance contest has been determined.
People cheer and I cheer with them, rooting for my new friend, Mark, who is not looking toward the bartender but is instead scanning the room, the hope on his face now mingling with concern as the bartender says, “Defeating our reigning champ, Patrick,
Mark
takes the crown tonight. Mark, are you still out there? Get your all-American sexy butt up here to collect your prize.”
And then the music is loud again and everyone is dancing.
“Aren’t you gonna go up there?” I ask him. “The prize could be something good. You know, penis-shaped lollipops, rainbow-patterned condoms…”
But Mark doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t move. So I turn toward where he’s looking and I finally spot Ryan, who is now across the room from us. He’s with a few cute college boys, one with thick black glasses, another in a ski cap, and another who I can only see from the back, tattoos peeking out of his shirtsleeves, one hand holding a glass of beer, the other hand settled in the curve of Ryan’s back. One song fades into the next and Tattoo Boy and his friends are feeling it. He turns, takes a few gulps of beer, sets the glass on a nearby table, and starts moving with the rhythm.
I’ve probably kept Mark to myself for too long. Here he is, out in the city on the kickoff of the year’s gayest week, winning underwear contests, the object of quite a few lustful gazes, and I’ve trapped him in a corner with my crisis.
“You should go over there,” I say, but Mark doesn’t even seem to hear me. That despair I mentioned I was feeling? It’s like it has suddenly become contagious, taken over Mark’s entire body. His shoulders are slumped; his breathing seems labored.
“What is it?” I ask him. “What’s wrong?”