“Christ.”
“And it’s like . . . of all the things to hear right now. A gunshot.” He shakes his head.
I don’t know how he can think of the sniper when he just heard someone die, someone, an actual person, die, and how he can think that the shot he heard is reminiscent of the sniper, and not the other way around.
“How old was he?” I ask.
“Fifteen, sixteen.” He turns the coffeemaker on and starts fixing oatmeal. I feel like he’ll keep making something new as soon as he finishes what he’s cooking, and he’ll never sit down and eat, and that’s my brother, really. He says, “I’m sorry about Dad, at dinner.”
“It’s fine.”
“He’s not very sensitive of you, and I’m sorry. He just doesn’t understand you, you know?”
“I think I’m the one who’s supposed to talk about how misunderstood I am, and you’re supposed to come back at me with lots of elderly wisdom or something. Can I have a glass of milk?”
“May I.” He actually says that, and then he pours a glass for me. He overfills the glass, and milk spills onto the counter.
“Don’t cry,” I say, and he snickers a little. I wipe it up with a paper towel.
“Thanks,” he says.
“It’s my milk.” I take the glass. “Besides, the cats would be up here in a second if I hadn’t jumped on it.”
He says, “That’s where Dad’s issues come from. It’s not just the fact that he doesn’t know how to deal with anyone but elementary schoolers—though let’s not pretend that’s not an issue. He has no idea why you got all the animals and what to do with the fact that you essentially took over this house last year. Or let them take over the house, at least.”
“I don’t know what to say. I love them.”
“God, I know, Craig.”
“And it’s not like it matters because now they’re gone.” And I start shaking, and then here is Todd hugging me, and here I am crying again because I am apparently four, or however old he told me I was.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay. We’re going to find them.”
“Flamingo already died.”
“Who?”
“The bird.” I breathe hard. “Dead bird. Now what? How many other dead animals are out there? And Dad won’t let me go look for them . . .”
“Come on,” he says. He lets go of me and puts on his coat.
“What?”
“It’s not as if you have school to get ready for, yeah? And I don’t need sleep. I have Saturday nights off. Come on, let’s go look.”
When we’re looking around, calling and whistling and swinging our flashlights, Todd tells me about this girlfriend he had who used to leave letters in his locker folded up like frogs or swans. I don’t know why he thinks this story will make me feel better, but it does.
He doesn’t have a girlfriend now. He says he’s too busy.
“Is that how it works?” I say. “Is having a girlfriend or a boyfriend something like a job, like you need room in your schedule?”
“Well, no, Craig, but they call it a commitment for a reason. You don’t need to block out time in your day for a relationship, but you do need to have time to nurture it. Time to give a shit about someone else. And sometimes you don’t have room for another person.”
So I guess we have a capacity for things we can care about and then we reach it, and we’re screwed. That sounds like I’m judging Todd, but I’m not. I think that it’s a shame that he loves a few people so incredibly much that he’s used up all his love and he can’t spread it around, and that those people are me and Mom and Dad and people who call him on the brink of death who he loves with every bit of him for those five minutes, and the problem is that none of us give that much of a shit about him, because we don’t know how. Because I see him looking at me and caring so much and trying to connect to me and failing failing failing, and I don’t know how to help him, because I don’t know what I need from him. I don’t know what I need from anyone.
I’m so worried about him. And God, what if something happens to one of us? It would be like losing all your money in the stock market. That’s a horrible analogy, but it’s what I mean. It’s just that I think there are some good reasons to keep a foot on the ground. That’s all I’m saying.
Todd says, “And you’ve been in a relationship more recently than I have. You know how it is.”
“Not really,” I say, because I never had trouble making room for Cody. But Todd looks at me funny, so I say, “Yeah. I don’t know. It’s been a really long time. Sometimes I think I’m remembering it wrong. Like it wasn’t . . . how I thought it was.” I’ll decide that I’m pretending everything was so much easier and better and sweeter than it possibly could have been, in reality. Was he really that gorgeous? Were we really that molded together? And then I see a picture or I hear a song I heard with him and, yes, it was just as incredible, and he’s just as gone.
Todd puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.” He lowers his voice. “Though you brought it up.”
“Well, yeah. I’m thinking about it.”
“Look,” I say.
Todd shifts a little so he’s in front of me. “What?”
I aim my flashlight at a bush. “There’s something moving.”
He says, “Let me handle it.”
“It’s not going to shoot me.” I approach on my hands and knees and make kissing noises. “Hey, baby baby, come out?”
He mews a little and comes out. Holy shit, it’s Shamrock. He’s as cute as I remembered.
“Todd, it’s Shamrock!”
He breathes out. “I’m so glad we found one.”
And, for a minute, Shamrock is my whole world. It’s like when I adopt them for the first time, and for a second all I have to do is keep a little animal clean and fed and warm and that is enough, and this kitten needs nothing else from me but love and there is nothing my love won’t fix for him. I can hold him against my chest and tell him I love him and there you go, he’s purring. That’s all he needs. His fur is so soft. “Thank you, Todd,” I say.
One dog.
Two cats.
Three rabbits.
A guinea pig.
I have this weekend friend. He’s only my friend on the weekends, because we don’t go to the same school and we don’t care enough to track each other down. But on Saturdays we have karate together, so after that we usually get Slurpees or something. His name is Mansfield, which is one of the most unfortunate things I’ve ever experienced.
He’s not very good at karate, either. I don’t know why he’s in my class, but there are only six other kids in the class with us, so maybe they’d feel too bad about dumping him. Anyway, it’s not like I’m great at karate. We’re probably the failure class and no one cared to tell us, but I still like doing it. It keeps me from being an angry young man, I guess.
After class we pack up our shit and I ask him if he wants to walk to the 7-Eleven, and he says, “I don’t know, Craig. I don’t know if this is the perfect week to be walking around looking for a Slurpee, you know?”
What the fuck?
I say, “Come on, it’s like half a block.”
“It’s right by a gas station.”
“Yeah . . . ?”
Mansfield looks at me. “Come on, Craig, don’t play dumb. That’s where everyone’s getting shot: gas stations and parking lots. I don’t want to die before I have sex.”
“So I’m home free, then.” I give him this big smile, and Mansfield looks at me with this face, and it’s so worth him thinking I’m straight if it makes him this jealous of me. Heh. I mean, he could always be jealous of the fact that I’ve slept with a boy, too, or also that I own him at karate, or that I’m not too afraid to get a Slurpee, but this is easier.
So I think, whatever, I’ll go get a Slurpee myself, it’s not as if I really value Mansfield’s company. But when I walk out of the karate studio, there’s my mom, station wagon idling in front of th
e place, and she says, “Craig, come on, hurry into the car.” Jesus Christ. It makes me want to wear fluorescent pink clothing and jump up and down. I need to send Lio to her, to tell her exactly what my chances are of getting shot. Next to nothing. Next to nothing. This is all so stupid.
LIO
I DON’T THINK THERAPY ON FRIDAY HELPED ME. I probably should have sucked it up and talked about the sniper. Maybe that’s what I needed. Maybe that would fix me.
My dad is on the phone with one of my faraway sisters. Jasper and Michelle are at the mall buying Chrismakkuh presents. They asked me if I wanted to come. I don’t know why I said no. I like the mall. I never buy anything, but I like to walk around and look at people.
My therapist has been on me about that, lately, how I always say no to things I would like. I don’t think I’ve ever had a drink on an airplane because I always say, “No thank you, I’m fine,” too quickly to consider something. It’s ridiculous that these are the problems that my dad pays so much for me to talk about.
My real problem is that Craig hasn’t answered my email.
I should probably do some homework, but I have a hard time convincing myself that homework really matters. I haven’t done any reading for a class since middle school, but I still get As on all my papers.
It’s depressing that those As are, so far, the entirety of my success story. When I was nine, I thought I would drop out of school and join a band and travel all over the world. And now here I am, and whether I do my homework or not, graduation has started to look inevitable. I got out of dying from cancer, but I can’t get out of graduating from high school.
Maybe I’m destined for a middle American life. That’s probably why my twin got killed off. Your average desk bitch doesn’t have an identical twin.
This doesn’t explain why I’m gay. This doesn’t explain anything. God, I need to shut up. Or maybe say some of this stupid shit out loud so it will go away.
I sit up.
I should probably tell my therapist this, except she’s not supposed to listen to me say this bullshit stuff. She’s paid to weigh in on my bullshit stuff. I don’t need perspective on this. I don’t need to be told that all of this comes down to twin guilt.
I had one therapist who was convinced all my problems came from feeling my brother even though he isn’t here. Phantom pain. Like losing a limb.
I gave that some thought and came to the reluctant conclusion that it was definitely bullshit. I don’t feel Theodore. I don’t remember how eight years old felt. Most of the time I’m grateful for that.
There’s this bird outside my window. It’s so loud. I wish someone would shoot it. Ha.
So this is dumb, but every Saturday I end up considering calling Mom. I hate talking on the phone, and I’d probably end up just breathing loudly like a creeper. I don’t know her number, either. I’d have to ask Dad. That would be horrible. So I never call, but I always think about it.
I’m thinking about it right now when my cell phone rings. Who the fuck would call me? I check the screen, but it’s not Craig.
Fuck Alexander Graham Bell. I hate being forced to talk.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Lio, this is Amelia.”
Amelia. It could be worse, easily. She’s from school. She’s definitely into me. She’s also really good at statistics and has a knack for witty IMs, so I keep her. But if she thinks our relationship has progressed to phone calls, I feel bad for leading her on.
I say, “Hey.”
She says, “So sorry for cold-calling, and ohmyGod this is so lame but my dad realized our country club—I know, I totally wouldn’t blame you if you hung up now—closes like tomorrow or the next day and we still have all these kind of pseudo-free dinners still available under our membership. If we don’t use them, the money kind of goes to waste.”
She leaves a space here for me to say something.
“So, anyway,” she continues. “My parents can’t go tonight, so they told me, ‘Amelia, why don’t you invite someone from school,’ so I was wondering if you’d like to go with me?”
I say, “Oh.”
There are a lot of reasons I should say no to her. The fact that I’m gay is probably the first reason, but it’s not the only one by any stretch. There’s the fact that I’m in love with someone else, unavailable though he may be. Or that making small talk over small portions isn’t exactly my thing.
So, I should say no, but apparently my no thanks I’m fine disease doesn’t apply here. I say, “Let me ask my dad, okay?”
That is the worst thing I’ve ever said. I essentially just cut off my penis.
I say, “We might have plans. I can get out of them.” I realize I’m trying to compensate for what I said about asking Dad for permission. I’m trying to get her to think I might be cool. Way to go. Woo back the straight girl. Jesus, I can’t win.
“Oh, sure,” she says. “Just call me back?”
“Yeah. Um, I’ll IM you.” I hang up because I sound like a jackass and that shit needs to end.
Okay, Dad is going to tell me what to do. Even though I haven’t come out to my family, I’m pretty sure there’s an unspoken understanding that I’m gay ever since I sang “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” in my mother’s high heels, completely bald, for one of our family talent shows.
I don’t remember this, but the pictures are pretty fabulous.
I step into the kitchen. “Dad?”
“He’s napping,” Jasper says. Shit, when did they get home? The shoes Michelle’s wearing must be new, because she’s studying the reflection of her feet on the oven.
“I don’t know that they’re exactly right,” she says, and then she looks up at me. “What’s up? You look like shit.”
Wow thanks. “I just . . . I have something I need to ask him, okay?”
“Okay,” Michelle says. “God. You don’t have to verbally abuse us.”
Jasper says, “Leave him alone. Can I help, Li?” She gives me a hug. “Is everything okay?”
Maybe I really do look like shit. I say, “This girl invited me to dinner. I don’t know what to say.”
My sisters light up like candles. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” Jasper spins me. “Oh, my God, Lio, your first date! This is bigger than your bar mitzvah!”
I hope someone gives me money and cufflinks for this.
“What are you going to wear?” Michelle asks me. “Please tell me you are not going to wear a T-shirt. Let’s not wear anything with words on it, Lio, okay?” She’s touching me all over like she’s trying to clean me off. “And something besides black? You must have colors in your closet somewhere. You have some red and pink, don’t you? If we choose one to accent the black . . .”
Oh, God. They think I’m straight.
I say, “I haven’t said yes yet . . .”
Jasper says, “Oh, Jesus, Lio, don’t play hard to get. Call her and tell her you’re coming. You don’t have to act so uptight just because you’re gay.”
Now I’m entirely confused.
“Go get ready!” Jasper says. “Call her! Get dressed! Just don’t kiss her at the end, that would be cruel. Unless you like her! Don’t limit yourself, Lio!”
“Remember, wear nothing with words!” Michelle calls after me. “And find a hat that isn’t falling apart. Don’t you dare show her your hair!”
I do not understand my life.
Dad drives me. Maybe my sisters are aware this is all some kind of ruse, but I’m getting the feeling my father has no idea this date isn’t going to end in marriage and children. He’s babbling on about his first date, and his first car he drove to go pick her up. And how in his day they didn’t have these fancy electric car window openers, you had to crank them down by hand. God, I want to crank my head off right now.
He says, “You brought money to pay?”
“It’s her country club, Dad. She’s going to pay. Or her parents.”
“Oh, then they might give you a menu without prices. I’m not sure. It’s been a long
time since I ate at a country club. But don’t order anything too expensive. But don’t order anything too cheap, either, that’ll insult her. It’s best to stick with some kind of chicken or fish.”
I like how he thinks I’m straight but has managed to deduce that I’m basically the girl in this situation.
“And don’t linger outside,” he says. “You know.”
I say, “Yeah, I know.”
He doesn’t need to tell me.
My heart starts pounding like after a nightmare, so I close my eyes and take some deep breaths. I know how to calm myself down. I just hate that, ever since that argument with Craig, I’ve had to do it so often.
There is no reason for me to be scared. No one has been shot in hours. Feeling vulnerable isn’t new to me.
Thinking my vulnerability is significant is.
The voice in my head saying, Cody’s dad shouldn’t have died—yeah, that is, too.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but this isn’t the headspace I need to be in right now.
The outside of the country club is deserted. It’s hard to walk in these stupid shoes. They’re my dad’s and too big. It’s like my feet are fish. It takes me too long to get from the car to inside. I breathe.
Amelia is wearing a pink silky dress that falls off her shoulders. I realize now how poorly I know her. I don’t think I would have recognized her if she weren’t the only teenage girl standing alone. But she’s funny over IM. And her dress is pretty.
She gives me a little wave. “Thanks so much for coming,” she says. “I think if I hadn’t found someone to treat, my dad would have been really concerned that I had no friends or something.”
I smile a little. Is she familiar with the fact that I don’t talk? I can’t remember if she’s ever tried to interact with me in real life. Why did she invite me? Maybe she really doesn’t have any friends. At least that’s something we have in common. That can be our conversation starter. Too bad I’m the official conversation finisher.
We get a table. There’s a little useless candle between us. When I was a kid, my sisters and I used to set the napkins on fire whenever we were at a place nice enough to have candles at the tables. That wasn’t very often, since every time we went, my sisters and I would try to set everything on fire.