Karen looked at her phone. “Ten minutes till you’re off, Adam,” she said. “You want us to slow down so you don’t have to talk to Wade?”
“I might as well get it over with,” he said, handing the keys to Renee. The bows and arrows didn’t have half as much security as the guns. “Thanks, though.”
“See you at the party tonight?” Renee said, again shyly.
“Yeah. Why do you ask like that?”
She shrugged. “Just … easier when you know someone you like’s going to be there.”
Adam felt a genuine ember of warmth in his gut. There was nothing carnal or wistful or indeed wishful about Renee’s words. She meant it as she said it, simply, easily. It was such an unexpected rush that he found himself, again, absurdly, with tears in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll definitely be there.”
He waved them goodbye and walked the length of the warehouse towards Wade’s office, feeling the best moment he’d had all day. If not shaking off Marty’s sting, then seeing how that might be possible as the day wore on. The feeling lasted nearly a full minute until Wade leaned out of his office door.
“Come in and sit down,” Wade said.
“Do I have to?” Adam said.
“Afraid so.” Wade looked surprisingly serious, so Adam slid inside. The office was so small he had to shut the door behind him before he could sit, and when he did, he and Wade were almost knee to knee, Wade’s khakis bulging in a way that drew the horrified eye right to it.
Adam pressed himself as far back in his chair as he could. “What do you want, Wade? I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Yeah,” Wade said, leaning back himself, putting his hands behind his head. The angle thrust the rest of him further forward. Adam had nowhere to put the left knee that Wade was now bumping. “That seems to be the problem with you lately, Thorn. Always somewhere to go. Always in a hurry to leave.”
“What are you talking about? I’m on time for every shift. I never call in sick. I work every hour you put on the schedule–”
“Yeah, but you don’t really do any more, do you? You don’t go that extra mile. The giggle twins in there will work until that inventory is done, no matter what the schedule says.”
Adam frowned. “You told me this company had no such thing as overtime.”
“Oh, they won’t be paid. They’ll do it for knowledge of a job well done.”
“They’ll do it because they’re afraid you’ll fire them.”
Wade cocked his head. “Aren’t you?” He leaned forward and put his fingertips on Adam’s knees, not in an obviously sexual way, in a way that could be explained later if necessary, but he still put them there when he didn’t have to. “Because I’ve been wondering when I’m going to see you going that extra mile?”
Adam tried to squirm back, but there was no room. Wade’s breath was a mixture of coffee and breakfast cereal. “I’ve got school,” Adam said, swallowing, annoyed that he was. “I have to help my dad at the church.”
“And that’s all well and good,” Wade said. He opened his fingertips so they brushed along the top of Adam’s knees. “But we need to know we have your commitment here, too.”
“Wade, that’s not–”
“We value you. I mean, I know you and I joke around and have our laughs–”
“I don’t laugh–”
“Seriously, Adam.” He slapped his palms on Adam’s thighs and kept them there, again in a way that could almost be written off as companionable, like an older gentleman encouraging the confidence of his younger charge.
But Wade’s face was closer now, close enough for Adam to see the beads of sweat in his moustache. “This store doesn’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you.”
Adam swallowed again. “Why would you lose me?”
“Budget cuts. The economy.”
“The economy is improving.”
“We’re going to have to let people go, Adam. I don’t want it to be you.” Wade’s hands hadn’t moved, but somehow they felt heavier.
“I don’t want it to be me either.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Wade was still close, too close. Adam could smell his body now. Sweat, ageing cologne, something more intimate underneath that he didn’t want to think about.
“They’ve been talking about reducing your hours,” Wade breathed. “But I might be able to arrange something. If you can convince me you’re the team player I think you are.”
Adam saw that the bulge at Wade’s crotch had shifted, was now unambiguously larger, like a third person in the office. Adam had fended off come-ons from men – and not a few women – before. He was young and big and blond and, if not in Marty’s league of beauty, young and big and blond was more than enough for some people. There were men in the swimming pool locker room who seemed to have a hard time getting their trunks back on when Marty was changing near by. A woman on his paper route when he was thirteen had answered her door topless, not once, but three times, until he complained to his father. Even at the Christian summer camp, there was a counsellor whose private parts Marty had seen more often than normal averages would allow in the communal showers, the same counsellor who always “joked” about skinny-dipping.
Apart from the naked woman, it was always just on the edge of legality, could always be laughed off by the man, which no doubt Wade would do right now, right this very second–
“I’m not going to have sex with you, Wade,” Adam said.
There was a flash in Wade’s eyes, brief, fleeting, yet clear enough that for a second Adam thought Wade was about to grab him, force him, rape him in this overheated little office–
But then Wade leaned back. “You little bitch,” he said, in a near-whisper.
“Are we done?” Adam said, trying not to let his voice shake, only partially succeeding.
“You come in here,” Wade said, ignoring the question, “flashing that meaty little ass of yours, waving it in my face like a sow in heat, getting me to put my hands all over you–”
“Are you kidding me–”
“And now, and now!” Something weird happened to Wade’s voice and it took a second before Adam realized he was forcing a laugh. “You purposely misunderstand a serious work conversation to make it seem like–” Wade rubbed the sweat from his moustache. “I don’t know. Like I’m coming on to you, Thorn?”
“I can see your erection, Wade.”
“Don’t be disgusting!” Wade’s hand immediately dropped to his crotch, covering it. “And now you’re going to try and say that a little bit of banter, that we’ve always had, is somehow leading you to this bullshit idea that–”
“If you try to reduce my hours, I’m calling human resources.”
Wade’s face suddenly hardened, like a camera coming into focus on a wasps’ nest. “Too late, boyo. You’re fired.”
“What?”
“Pack your shit and get out.”
“You can’t–”
“Who are they going to believe, Thorn? You? You’re a kid.”
“You can’t do this.”
“Can, and did.”
Adam felt a little ball of panic in his chest. “Wade, I need this job. My family, my brother–”
“Should’ve thought of that before you started telling lies.”
“I haven’t said anything. To anyone.” He swallowed again. “Yet.”
Wade raised an eyebrow.
Adam felt himself breathing. Where was he going with this? “Please,” he said, and immediately hated himself for it.
“You begging me, Thorn?” Wade said with a sudden half-grin. He seemed to visibly relax, open his knees wider, his hand still at his crotch, dangling there with faux innocence.
“You can’t… You can’t do this to people, Wade.”
“What people? I don’t see any people here. Just a teenage pussy overestimating his own appeal. I got twenty years with this company. You think you can take me on? You think you can do that and win?”
/> “I could sue.”
“And I’d be forced to tell the world how your faggotty voraciousness made it nearly impossible to do my job in a safe working environment.” And now Wade fully smiled. Adam wondered if there was anyone else in the world made so ugly by their smile. “What do you think the churchgoing folk of The House Upon The Rock would make of that?”
“You prick,” Adam said, barely whistling it between his teeth.
“Could’ve been different, Thorn. We could’ve come to an understanding. But now–”
“I’ll take the reduced hours,” Adam said, hating himself more with every word. “I’ll take a pay cut–”
Wade’s crotch-level hand made a motion against the khaki. “What else are you willing to take?”
And for a second, a second he would relive for years to come, Adam found himself considering it. Would it really be so bad? Wade didn’t look like someone who would ever take his time about anything, and if it was over quick, who would really be harmed…?
He would. The thought of Wade’s hands on his bare skin alone gave him goosebumps, already felt like a violation, but if…
If he deserved this. (Did he?) If Wade had spotted in him – as he obviously had – that corruption at his heart, that little piece of unfixable brokenness–
It’s not real love, Marty said.
We’re just messing around, Enzo said.
Maybe it was all true.
Maybe this is what happened to people like him.
(People like what?)
“You think about it,” Wade said. “If you come back in here for your shift on Monday, I’ll know you made the right decision.” He turned back to his computer. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”
Adam left, clocking out on autopilot, not even saying goodbye to Karen and Renee, who were returning the scanning equipment. He left the warehouse and sat behind the wheel of his car, wondering what the hell had just happened. Had he really been given an ultimatum by his boss? Did that really happen to people?
His thumbs hovered over the letters on his phone. He typed, I think I have to sleep with Wade to keep my job.
Yuck… Angela replied, then, Wait, are you serious?
His phone rang immediately. “Call the police!” she said as soon as he answered.
“I need the money, Ange,” he said. “I need the job.”
“What happened?” He told her, and she said, “You are not going to sleep with Wade. He’d give you some seventies STD. Like herpes.”
“No, of course not, but–”
“But nothing. He broke the law.”
“Maybe… Maybe it didn’t even happen. Maybe I read it wrong?”
Angela screamed in frustration so loud he had to pull the phone away from his ear. “Why am I the only one I know with any self-esteem?”
“You have wonderful parents.”
“Look, where are you now?”
“I’m supposed to be going to Linus’s.”
“Come here first. I’m at work.”
“But–”
“Remind yourself when I’ve got your back, Adam.”
“Always.”
“Damn right. Come now. Bring bulgogi.”
She hung up. He held his phone for a long moment, then tossed it onto the passenger’s seat, where it bumped the single red rose he’d bought this morning at the garden centre.
The red rose meant for someone today, meant for Linus, maybe. Meant for Linus, because who else? Idiot, he said to himself. You fucking idiot. The rose now just seemed embarrassingly corny, embarrassingly gay, something that deserved the scorn of a world where people like Wade could do whatever they wanted.
He refused to look at it as he drove away.
BECAUSE, PIZZAS
“Can I snap his wiener off?” Angela said, taking a bite of the bulgogi. “Like, with pliers?”
“I wouldn’t even ask you to touch Wade on my behalf.”
“It wouldn’t be me. It’d be the pliers.”
He could feel her watching him, waiting for whatever cues he’d give to tell her what he needed. He wasn’t sure himself what the cues would be. First Marty and now Wade had knocked him so off-balance it was like those moments during running when he tripped but had not yet hit the ground, flailing like an ostrich for even the possibility of staying upright.
Where on earth had this day come from? And where was it headed?
Adam took another bite of lunch. Even in his upset, he had stopped off at the Korean barbecue place and picked up bulgogi. Angela’s parents had made a concerted effort to keep Korean culture in her life and were faintly miffed that it often got reduced to holy-crap-this-bulgogi-is-awesome.
They were in the back room of Pizza Frome Heaven, one of Frome’s lesser pizza places. It was in a small strip mall just slightly too far away from the larger strip mall where everyone usually went. But it did a good bulk deal and the pizza wasn’t half bad. It wasn’t necessarily half good either, but it would do for a “get-together” where everyone was going to be far more interested in the booze anyway.
“There’s a fire up by the lake,” he said. “I think it’s near those cabins where Katherine van Leuwen was murdered.”
“That poor girl,” Angela said, seriously.
“I saw the smoke when I was driving here. I hope it doesn’t screw up the get-together.” He offered her the Styrofoam bowl. “Kimchi?”
“Ugh, no,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know how you can eat that stuff.”
“You’re the one who’s Korean.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only Korean in the world who can’t stand fermented cabbage. It smells like dogs humping. Seriously, Adam. Are you okay? Because I feel like killing someone.”
Neither he nor Angela could honestly claim to have been through many terrible traumas after the car accident with her mom. They were, on the whole, fairly normal very-lower-middle-class kids in a rural suburb of the big megalopolis that curved around Puget Sound like a J. The Thorns were a clergy family with airs and ambitions; the Darlingtons were farmers, for God’s sake. Nobody had enough money to get into really interesting trouble, and nobody had the inclination for the more readily available trouble just anyone could afford.
Neither of them had ever done drugs – aside from trying a joint Angela had found in her parents’ bedroom one night and to which she had proved embarrassingly allergic, requiring a shamefaced trip to the emergency room for the whole Darlington family, a good talking-to for Angela, and a promise to sweep the whole matter under the rug for Adam. Neither of them had ever caught STDs; Angela’s mother gave Adam all the condoms he could ever want; and Angela had never got pregnant or even had a scare. She was way too smart for that.
They’d never had any run-ins with the police outside a speeding ticket (Adam) and a raided house party (Angela). Nobody they were close to had got cancer or MS or a tumour. No eating disorders, nothing requiring a psychiatrist (well, not a reputable one; Adam was sure his parents would have only been too happy to send him for a “cure” if they thought it was on the table, but even they knew not to push that one). The only real drama they had was Adam coming out to her, and Angela had done most of that for him anyway.
They’d just had life together. First kisses, last kisses, virginities lost, drinks tried, movies watched, classes shared, heartaches exchanged, world theories pontificated, gossip spread, uncontrollable laughter at nothing, polite dinners with respective families, mutual protection from bullies, gentle terrorizations of weak student teachers, early breakfasts every Friday before school at Denny’s. All the stuff that counted. All the stuff that made the cement that stuck them together.
They’d been kids together. They’d been young teens together. They were growing up into adults together. It had been long enough and consistent enough that they’d gone past all boundaries. If she needed him, he’d be there instantly, no questions asked, and he knew she’d do the same. She was here now. They had their bulgogi. This is what a family was. O
r should be.
“Do you remember the last year we went trick or treating?” he asked her.
“With the snow?” she said, surprised, but willing to go with it.
“With all that snow.” Frome got heavy snowfall maybe once every six years and never as early as Halloween, but when they’d been in seventh grade – right at the outer barrier of trick or treating age – the snow had started and not stopped until there was a foot of it. Adam and Angela, dressed as Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton, not respectively, had to bury their costumes under a couple tons of heavy jackets, coats and scarves. “We got so much candy,” he said.
“Because no little kids were out in the snow.”
“And when we got back to your farm, my parents couldn’t even get the car out to pick me up so I had to stay over.”
Angela laughed, remembering the next bit. “And my mother–”
“Your mother–”
“Who makes two twelve-year-olds share a foot bath?”
“And all the eucalyptus she put in it.”
“I still can’t smell cough drops without thinking of the foot bath.”
“I love your mom. That was when she told us about that racist Dutch Christmas thing.”
“Zwarte Piet! Oh, my God! Even my hippie mother didn’t think that was racist until she moved here.”
“Yeah, I love your mom,” he said again, which they both understood, maybe not even consciously, was another way of saying he loved Angela.
Speaking of which–
“There’s something up, isn’t there?” Adam asked. “Something you wanted to talk about?”
“Nothing like your day.”
“That doesn’t matter. Not even a little.”
“In the face of Wade? I think you win.” She stood and stretched, sniffing and then wincing at the front of her uniform. “I smell like onions.”
“You always smell like onions after here. And it’s not about winning. Quit changing the subject. What are you trying to avoid telling me?”
She gave him a side-eye, but thoughtfully. He could see her squinch her nose the way she never believed she did when she’d reached a decision.