Of course I’m not giving up that easily. “Does it have something to do with Gary? You never acted this way until he started hanging around with us. If you want me to tell him we don’t want to hang out with him anymore, I will.”
Then his face kind of crumbles, and he gives me the most miserable smile I have ever seen. “Oh, Maze, I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? Cyrus, come on. Tell me!”
He looks into my eyes for a few long, terrible seconds, and then he says, “You can’t tell anybody. Ever.”
“Of course I won’t tell anybody. You know I won’t!”
“It’s not just some silly secret. I really mean it, Maisie. Nobody else knows about this. You can’t tell anybody.”
“I get it, Cy. Just tell me.”
He looks away and takes a deep breath. When he finally speaks, it’s so quiet I can’t hear him.
“What?”
“I said, I like Gary.”
“I know you like Gary. You liked him before I did.”
He stares at me. “I like like him.”
For a minute I don’t know what he means. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and then all of a sudden it does.
“You mean you’re…gay?”
He turns around and looks at the door of his house. “Not so loud. My mom is home.”
I don’t know what to say. I thought I knew everything about Cyrus, but all of a sudden it seems like I don’t know him at all.
“I don’t know if I’m gay,” he whispers. “Maybe I am. I just know I really like Gary and he really likes you. I thought at first that would be okay, that we’d kind of all like each other, but it’s not okay. I can’t stand it, Maisie. When I see how he looks at you, it makes me feel awful. I want him to look at me like that, and I know he never will.”
I didn’t think Cyrus could ever tell me anything I didn’t want to know. But all of a sudden, he’s definitely giving me too much information.
I stand up. “I should go home,” I say. When I glance at Cy, he’s glaring at me.
“You’re going home?” His mouth drops open. “Maisie, I just told you a huge secret. You’re just going to walk away? I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Well, maybe you should have told me sooner. Before I…”
“Before you what?”
“Never mind.”
“Before you started liking Gary too?” I can hear the tears in his voice, and I wonder if he can hear them in mine.
“No. Just…I don’t know what to say, Cy. You surprised me. I have to think about it.”
We stare at each other as if we can see underneath the other person’s skin. Finally Cyrus says, “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?” He sounds so scared, I have to turn away.
“Of course not. I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.” I glance back at him. “Cy, are you sure?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure about anything, Maisie. I’m so confused, my stomach hurts all the time. When I’m alone with Gary, I feel like I might throw up.”
I remember the way I felt when Gary touched my arm. Yup, there was definitely some stomach upset involved there too. How can this be true? How can Cyrus like the same boy who—okay, I admit it—I like too? I like like. And if Cy is gay, why didn’t I know it before now?
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I say. “I just have to think about all this.”
Crouched on the steps, Cy looks up at me as if he’s Elliott and I’m E.T. and I just told him I’m returning to my own planet forever. “I know you’re freaked out,” he says. “I get it. I’m freaked out too.”
“I’m not freaked out. I just…I just have to go!” I do. I have to. I can’t think it through with him sitting right there.
As I run across the street to my house, I can feel Cyrus’s sorrow attaching itself to me. I’m not going to be able to outrun it.
I stay up for all of Saturday Night Live, but even Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson can’t get my mind off all the changes going on. Mom losing her job, Grandma losing her memory, and now this: my best friend telling me a secret that’s going to change everything for him. And maybe for me too. Can we still be best friends, or am I going to lose Cyrus now too?
I think about some of the movies Cy checked out of the library the last few months. We both thought The Birdcage was hilarious, and we laughed at The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert too, until one of the guys got beaten up. And I cried more than Cy did over Philadelphia when the Tom Hanks character was dying of AIDS. But I never thought it meant anything that Cy picked those movies. Maybe it didn’t. They all had interesting screenplays and terrific actors. So, were there any signs? If there were, I must have missed them.
I’m finishing up my scrambled eggs Sunday morning when Gary calls. I’ve never talked to a boy on the phone before except for Cyrus, and it makes me nervous. It’s worse than talking to somebody in person because you can’t see what their face looks like. You can’t tell if they’re nervous too, and you can’t try to figure out what they’re going to say next.
“Hey, Maisie,” Gary says. “I was wondering what you were doing today. I thought maybe I could come over or something.”
“Come over? To my house, you mean?” What else would he mean?
“Yeah, just for a little while. Maybe this afternoon. We could take a walk or something.”
“Oh.” My stomach gurgles, and I wish I hadn’t slugged down that orange juice. “Well, the thing is, I have to edit my history project today. You know, the movie I made about my grandma. It’s due tomorrow.”
“Oh, right.”
There’s a long silence. No way am I going to hang out with Gary after what Cyrus told me yesterday. Uncle Walt is watching me from the table, which makes me even more fidgety.
Finally Gary says, “Maybe I could help you with your project.” He doesn’t sound too hopeful.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I have to write up a report about it too. It’s probably going to take me all day.” Can he tell I’m lying? I can probably get the whole thing done in a few hours.
There’s a big sigh on Gary’s end. “Okay. I guess I’ll just see you at school tomorrow, then.”
I know he’s disappointed, but what can I do? Now that I know about Cyrus’s feelings, I’m even more confused about Gary. Cy’s hurt when the guy talks to me—how bad would he feel if Gary was my boyfriend? I’m not sure I want that anyway.
“Yup, I’ll see you at school!” I say in my breeziest voice. “Bye!” I click off the phone and go back to the table. I hope Uncle Walt can’t tell my heart is beating way too fast.
“What was that about?” he says.
It’s just the two of us having breakfast. Mom already left for Grandma’s house to check on Mary Jane, and Dad went to Baldwinville to look at a truck he’d like to buy.
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It was just Cy, as usual.” I always tell Uncle Walt the truth, and now suddenly I’m a serial liar.
Uncle Walt has a know-it-all smile on his face. “That was not Cyrus.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you don’t get all fluttery when Cy calls.”
“What? I didn’t ‘get all fluttery.’ ” I can feel my face heating up. It’s not as good a liar as the rest of me.
“Okay, Hitchcock,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Keep your secrets.”
If only I didn’t have to. Not just this little secret, but the other enormous one. I wish I could talk about it with somebody who knows more about this stuff than I do, but I can’t. I promised.
The rest of my eggs are cold and rubbery now. There’s no way I’m putting those into my jumpy stomach.
“I guess Cy’s coming over to help you with your project,” Uncle Walt says. “The two of you never go a whole weekend without hanging out.”
I get busy spreading cream cheese on my bagel, as if it’s necessary to cover every toasty crumb. “
He’s busy today,” I say. “I think his dad’s taking him fishing or something.” Oh my God, I’m incorrigible.
“I don’t think so,” Uncle Walt says. “I saw his dad drive off about an hour ago, and Cy’s been sitting out on his front porch alone.”
“What are you, the neighborhood spy?” It comes out sounding nastier than I expect it to.
Uncle Walt narrows his eyes and leans across the table. “Okay, Maisie, what’s going on? Are you still mad at me? I get it if you are, but—”
“That’s not it,” I tell him, although maybe a little part of me is still mad. Once somebody says something that hurts you, you can’t forget about it right away, even if you want to. Which is one reason I don’t want to talk to Cyrus until I know what to say to him. What if I say the wrong thing, and he never forgives me? And then maybe he gets mad and says something I can’t forget?
“Well, what then? Did you have a fight with Cy or something?”
“No! I mean, sort of. It’s Gary’s fault. He’s always hanging around with us now and…making everything weird.”
Uncle Walt nods. “Because Gary likes you.”
I shrug. “I guess so.”
“And Cyrus likes Gary,” Uncle Walt says.
My head swivels and I stare at him, then spit out the bite of bagel I’m never going to be able to swallow now. “How did you…? I didn’t tell you that!”
“I’ve got eyes, Hitch, and nothing else to do but sit around here and watch everybody. That’s an actor’s job, you know. To figure out why people do what they do.”
“You can’t know! I promised Cyrus I wouldn’t tell anybody!”
“You didn’t tell me, and I won’t tell anybody else. I’m just good at picking things up. The way Gary looks at you. The way Cyrus looks at Gary. It was kind of obvious.”
I push my plate away. “Well, it wasn’t obvious to me! Cy’s been my best friend my whole life, and I didn’t know this big thing about him. I feel like maybe I don’t really know him at all. I mean, what else hasn’t he told me?”
Uncle Walt reaches over and puts his hand on my head, which would annoy me if anybody else did it. “Maze, Cy probably didn’t know either until recently. I’m guessing Gary is the first boy he’s been attracted to. Or at least this is the first time Cy really understood what the attraction meant.”
I can’t look at those disgusting eggs or that greasy bagel another minute. I get up and take my plate into the kitchen and dump it all in the trash. Uncle Walt follows me.
“Are you upset because you hoped Cyrus would be your boyfriend?”
“No! You know we’re not like that! I just don’t want everything to change between us.”
He leans against the sink while I slot my plate into the dishwasher. “Why should anything change?”
“Are you kidding? Everything is different now! He’s…gay.”
“Uh-huh.” Uncle Walt pours himself another cup of coffee. “I can see why that might be difficult for him—he has to decide how and when to come out to people, and I’m sure he’s worried about that. But what does that have to do with you?”
I slam the dishwasher door closed. “It changes everything. You don’t get it.” I try to put my finger on the problem, but I can’t quite explain it, even to myself. Cyrus likes Gary, who I’m just starting to like too. It’s been hard for me to admit that, but for Cy to admit it is even a bigger leap than the one I’m making. And it feels like he’s going someplace I can’t follow.
“Look, Hitch,” Uncle Walt says, “I know you’re growing up in New Aztec, Illinois, which is not the most cosmopolitan place on earth, but it’s not Brokeback Mountain either. Surely you know some other gay or lesbian people.”
Well, sure, everybody knows the music teacher at school, Mr. Edwards, is gay, and most people are fine with that. And there’s a woman Dad works with at the post office who’s a lesbian, though I don’t really know her. And, actually, there’s a girl in fourth grade who has two fathers, but she lives on the other side of town.
“I guess I know a few people,” I say, “but they aren’t my age and they aren’t my best friend.”
“Are you the first person Cyrus has told?” Uncle Walt asks.
“Yeah.”
“He hasn’t told his parents?”
I shake my head.
“Well then, I guess Cy trusts you more than he trusts anybody else,” Uncle Walt says. He gives me his crooked smile and starts to walk out of the room, then turns and looks back. “That’s an honor, Maisie. Don’t let your best friend down.”
I’m glad I have to work on my history project today because it takes my mind off Cyrus and Gary and the big secret. Our computer is in the den, which is basically my room now, so there’s nobody looking over my shoulder as I upload the footage to iMovie. I love going through the videos and seeing Grandma laughing and happy, especially after the scene yesterday at her condo. In the videos she mostly seems the same as ever, but I notice that every now and then a blank look comes over her face, like she’s not at the kitchen table anymore, but in some other slightly out-of-focus place.
I listen to the interview about how she worked in her parents’ grocery store and how Hank used to help her stock the shelves. I’m glad I kept the camera running for the rest of that story because I captured the look on her face when she told me about the dance at the lake. She has this little secret smile on her face, and it seems like she’s watching it happen all over again, like a movie of it is playing in her head as she talks about it.
When I watch the footage a second time, I realize that when Grandma’s talking about the past, she’s completely at ease and happy, but when she gets pulled back into the present, her smile gets wobbly and she seems unsure of herself. Which is unbearably sad to watch.
Around noon there’s a knock on my door, and Mom sticks her head in. “I’m back. Uncle Walt says you’re working on your history project. How’s it going?”
“Good,” I say. “How’s Grandma doing with Mary Jane?”
Mom sighs and comes into the room. “Well, it’s not a match made in heaven. I guess Mary Jane didn’t sleep much last night, because Grandma woke up at around three o’clock in the morning and decided she wanted to bake a cake.”
“Bake a cake?”
“She didn’t seem to know it was the middle of the night. And when Mary Jane tried to get her to go back to bed, Grandma threw a spatula at her and then a can opener. After that Mary Jane was afraid to go back to sleep. I made breakfast for both of them, and I think there’s a truce in place.”
I groan. “Doesn’t sound good.”
“I know. By the time I got there this morning, Grandma didn’t remember anything about her middle-of-the-night shenanigans. Of course, the thing she did remember was that Hank was coming over today. Apparently he promised to bring her a pastrami sandwich for lunch from the deli near the theater.” Mom leans against the wall as if she needs something to hold her upright. “I didn’t even know she liked pastrami,” she says. “Of course, I didn’t know she liked Hank either.”
“I guess she kept a few things secret,” I say.
“Apparently. Where’s your father? Bowling, as usual?”
“He went to Baldwinville to look at that truck.”
“What? We can’t afford a new truck!”
“He said it would be a big help when we have to move Grandma’s things. We wouldn’t have to hire a moving van.”
“For the cost of that truck, we can hire a dozen moving vans!”
“Don’t be mad at him. It’s a used truck, not new.” Mom and Dad don’t fight very often, but I know from past experience that when money gets tight, they get on each other’s nerves.
“I’m not mad at him, Maisie. I’m just frustrated. Used or not, we can’t—”
She’s interrupted by a buzzing phone and stomps off to dig it out of her purse. I hope it’s not Dad saying he bought the truck. I’m waiting for the yelling to begin, but then I hear Mom say, “She fell? Is she okay?” r />
I go to the door so I can hear better. Uncle Walt is sitting in the living room, checking his phone, but he struggles to his feet and walks closer too.
“Well, where was Mary Jane?”
It’s about Grandma, which is the other thing I was afraid of. Uncle Walt tilts his head back and stares up at the ceiling.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Mom grits her teeth. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. And…thank you for calling me.” She hangs up, stares at the phone for a minute, and then collapses in tears.
Uncle Walt goes over and puts his good arm around her so she can lean against him while she cries. “What happened?”
“I just left there half an hour ago and already—” Mom takes a deep breath and tries to stop herself from falling apart.
“Grandma fell?” I ask. “Is she hurt?”
“Who was that on the phone?” Uncle Walt wants to know.
“Hank Schmitz,” Mom says. She pulls a wad of tissues from a box on the dining-room table. “When he showed up with his pastrami sandwiches, nobody answered the door. It was open, as usual—that’s another thing that has to change—so he went in and found Ma lying on the kitchen floor, moaning. Apparently she spilled grease while she was trying to fry up some bacon, then slipped in it and hit her face on the table. He says that she cut her cheek and that one side of her face is already turning black and blue.”
“Oh my God.” Uncle Walt rubs his hand over his forehead like he’s got a headache. “Why was she frying bacon?”
“Hank said she forgot she’d already had breakfast.”
“Where was Mary Jane?” I ask.
“Sleeping,” Mom says with a heavy dose of disgust.
Now Uncle Walt looks like he might cry too, but Mom has pulled herself together. “I have to get over there. And you’re coming with me this time.” She pokes a finger into Walt’s chest. “I know you don’t like to see her this way, but she’s your mother too, and you’re not in California for a change, so you’re going to help me.”
Uncle Walt nods, but he looks a little sick. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”
“I’m coming too,” I say. “You might need me.”