KEVIN
I DID call Ms. Blake to tell her what was going on. At least she was glad for me. No juvie.
That was a relief. I paced around the trailer after that, not sure what to do with myself. Dad stayed in his room. I went down the short hall and raised my hand to knock on his door. I felt guilty because I’d made him feel bad about not finding work. Then I got angry that he was making me feel guilty. Then I felt unhappy that I was angry at him. And finally I felt angry that I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I stalked into my own room and flung myself on the bed. It sucked living After.
My room had nothing in it. I mean, there was some stuff—my bed and an old dresser and my clothes. My school backpack was shoved in the back of the closet, and a digital clock reported regimented time on a warped table next to my bed. But nothing real—no posters on the walls, no souvenirs of trips to Florida, no old toys from when I was little—just four walls and me. The only nongeneric thing in my room was a framed photo next to the clock. It was a school picture of a kid about fourteen years old. He had red-brown hair with a curl in it and a few zits, and he was smiling at the camera. His name was Robbie, and before I went to sleep at night, I tapped his picture three times, hoping he’d forgive me, hoping he’d take away the nightmares about what I’d done. It never worked, but I kept trying. I didn’t know what else to do.
I lay back and thought about taking a nap, but that would risk a nightmare, and I didn’t want to do that. Besides, Peter’s face kept swimming around inside my head, and who could sleep through that?
Okay, look—this is the twenty-first century, and I’m not stupid. It’s not like I’ve never heard about men who are attracted to other men. Shit, you can’t turn on the TV anymore without seeing a couple guys smooching it up. But Ringdale is a really conservative town, run by conservative people. I mean, a couple years ago, a teacher at the high school let one of her kids show an internet music video that said it was okay to be gay, and the school board fired her ass. People around here aren’t good with that kind of stuff. I hadn’t been… still wasn’t… either. Ringdale kind of does that to you. The factory warps people along with the plastic. So I kept my damn mouth shut.
And there was other shit too. Now that I was living After, I didn’t deserve someone like Peter. I didn’t deserve anyone. So I needed to keep it all inside. Besides, I told myself, Peter was nice and freakin’ amazing, but he wasn’t interested in me. He was rich and good-looking and had a dozen girlfriends lining up to blow him and another dozen begging to marry him. Even if he swung in the same direction I did—huge, Jupiter-class, nova-size if—he wouldn’t be attracted to me and my shitty shoes and my POS bike. So why even let him inside my head?
Which was why he spent the rest of the afternoon living there in all his starlight grinning glory. Why couldn’t the tiger just eat him?
That evening I biked all the way back to the theater. It occurred to me I was going to have legs of steel by opening night. The back door was propped open, and I threaded my way through the maze of hallways and dressing rooms and storage areas to the stage. The other cast members were there, some of them talking among themselves, others standing around, looking uneasy because they didn’t know anybody. I searched for Peter but didn’t find him. Was he coming? Then I shrugged to myself. It didn’t matter.
The theater was big and echoey, a space that might swallow you up. I hunched into myself at the edge of the stage and tried to call up confident, funny Algy, without luck.
A guy with longish blond hair and a lean swimmer’s build came up to me. He looked about twenty or twenty-one. “Hey, buddy. You’re Kevin Devereaux, yeah?”
“That’s me,” I said.
He handed me a script for The Importance of Being Earnest from a bag he was carrying. “I’m Les Madigan. Don’t lose this—we don’t have the money to give you another one—but you can highlight your lines and write blocking in it.”
“Blocking?” It sounded like combat.
“You know—stage directions. Where you move and when.”
“Oh. Got it.”
“You were pretty good at the audition.” Les held out a hand. “Welcome to the show.”
“Thanks.” I shook. He gripped hard for a long second and then let go, gave me a tight smile, and moved on to someone else.
Peter came in at that moment. He was talking with Iris and pointing to his own copy of the script. My heart gave another stupid flutter when I saw him, and I remembered how it felt when I grabbed him in a hug when we saw the cast list. I tried to shut it all down, but how does anyone shut down feelings?
“Let’s get started, everyone,” Iris called. “Circle up on the stage floor, please.”
We all scooted into a circle and sat like kindergartners with our legs crossed and an air of anticipation. I don’t know if I was trying for it or if he was trying for it, but Peter and I ended up next to each other, and I was excited and relieved and scared all at once. He gave me an ironic salute, and a smile crept across my face.
“You all have your scripts,” Iris continued, “and we’ll do a read-through in a minute. But first, a few rules.”
I made myself look around the circle. There were nine of us in the cast—five boys and four girls—along with Iris and that guy Les, who I remembered seeing at the auditions sitting next to Iris with a clipboard.
“Rehearsals start onstage at seven sharp, so you need to be here ten minutes before then. Early is on time and on time is late. After two tardies, you’ll be replaced.” She gestured at Les. “Les Madigan is our stage manager. Once the performances start, my job ends and he becomes god. Good stage managers are hard to find, so don’t piss him off.”
Les tapped his clipboard with playful menace, and everyone made dutiful laughing sounds. I glanced sideways at Peter. He was flipping through his script, not really paying attention. I guessed he had heard this stuff a dozen times already.
“Last rule—remember that we’re all volunteers. The only payment we get is experience and a whole lot of fun.” Iris pushed her glasses up on her nose. “So let’s start with an icebreaker.”
I wasn’t sure about this part. I’d done so-called icebreakers in school, stuff where someone wrote a label on your back and you had to guess what it was based on how people treated you. I hated shit like that because I always got something like East-Sider or Delinquent, and everyone treated me like dog crap in a bag even after the game ended. I looked around to see how the others were handling the idea. All the other members of the cast were strangers to me, though I thought the blonde girl with the round body might be named Melissa. They seemed relaxed with the whole icebreaker thing, but they probably all knew each other anyway.
“This is called Two Truths and a Lie,” Iris said. “Everyone has to introduce themselves, then tell two truths and one lie. The rest of us have to guess which one is the lie. I’ll go first.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Iris Kaylo, the director. One—I’m studying to be a teacher.”
Peter shifted, and his knee brushed mine, light as a dragonfly. It stayed there. I had another deer-in-the-headlights moment. The contact was casual, could be accidental. Maybe he hadn’t noticed.
“Two—I listen to a lot of reggae music.”
Or was it on purpose? I didn’t move, and neither did he. My knee turned into a hot coal. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Peter’s face. He was looking at Iris, and he was smiling just a little, as though he was into the lie/truth thing.
“Three—I once worked as a roadie for the Grateful Dead,” Iris finished. “Which one’s the lie?”
“Three!”
“Two!”
“Two!”
“One!” people called out. Peter shifted his weight and put his palms on the floor behind him, but he didn’t move his knee. I couldn’t have moved if a Tyrannosaurus rex had burst through the door.
“Two was the lie.” Iris grinned. “I definitely don’t listen to reggae. Melissa, you’re next.”
The round blonde girl waved to us, and most waved back. “I’m Melissa Flackworthy, and I’m playing Lady Bracknell. I’ll start with this. One—I’m the oldest of four sisters.”
I decided it was time to take some action. What the hell did I have to lose, right? I mean, it might be an accident, and I could just apologize. Still, tell that to my adrenaline levels. They zoomed off the chart. I casually leaned back like Peter was and put my hands flat on the floor behind me, close to Peter’s.
What the fuck are you doing? said my nasty inner voice, but for the first time in my life, I told it to shut the hell up.
“Two—I was born in Germany. Army brat.”
Everyone was watching Melissa, and my body blocked the view anyway. My hand crept closer to Peter’s like a shy inchworm. Just be cool.
“Three….”
My little finger touched his. I felt his skin on mine, and a little jolt shoved my heart into my throat. My shorts felt too small. I didn’t dare look at Peter.
“Hmmm…,” said Melissa. “I’m not sure.”
What felt like a long moment passed. I was dead. Peter would freak out, pull his hand away, and shake it like I’d given him a disease. His arm muscles tensed, and I braced myself for it. Then he pressed the side of his hand more firmly against mine. My heart flew from my body like a released falcon and shot into the sky, screaming its joy.
“I know. I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was ten. Which one’s the lie?”
A chorus of guesses followed, but Peter and I stayed silent, our hands pressed secretly together. I risked a glance at him, and this time he smiled fully at me, and I smiled back. A hundred suns flashed into existence and went nova.
“It’s three. I never did learn to ride a bike.”
Some laughter and a little conversation among the cast followed that one. By now my arms were cramping up from the way I was sitting, and I was forced to shift, which pulled my hand away from Peter’s, but I made eye contact with him so he would know it was okay. He nodded. It felt amazing good that someone else might feel—
“Kevin! Yo, Kevin!” My head snapped around. Les was pointing at me with his pencil. “Your turn, man.”
The suns and novas and falcons evaporated with a fwoop. “Oh! Sorry. I’m Kevin Devereaux, and I play Algy. Lemme see.” I thought fast. “One—I have family in New Orleans.”
One—I’ve figured since I was twelve that I’m gay.
“Two—I’m really good at chess.”
Two—I’m sitting next to the greatest guy I’ve ever seen, I think he likes me back, and my heart is pounding so hard I can barely talk.
“Three—I ran away from home once and didn’t come back for almost a month.”
Three—I’m a loser who lives in a white-trash library with an ex-con, and I’m turning out just like him.
“Three!”
“One!”
“One!”
“Three!”
Oops. One of those was supposed to be a lie.
“It’s two,” I said. “I don’t even know how to play chess.”
I saw Les looking at me for a moment. He pushed his hair out of his eyes with a long-fingered hand, winked at me, and went back to scribbling on his clipboard. What was that all about? A pang hit me—had he seen me touching Peter’s hand?
“Okay, Peter,” Iris said, which snapped my head around again. “You’re next.”
Peter ticked his off on his fingers. “I’m Peter Finn—Jack Worthington. One—I’m a licensed pilot. Two—I’ve dated someone who was ten years older than me. Three—I’m going to be an architect. The lie is number one.”
“Hey!” Iris shook an admonishing finger at him. “You’re supposed to make us guess.”
“Sorry. I don’t like guessing games.” Peter raked a hand through his hair and looked straight at me with eyes that stopped my breath. “And that’s not a lie.”
Les tapped his pencil hard on the clipboard.
After that Peter and I carefully pretended nothing was going on. The others went through their truths and lies, and then we read through the script. That was kind of fun, though with everyone just sitting in a circle, I didn’t really feel like Algy. It was the first time I’d actually read The Importance of Being Earnest all the way through, and I decided I’d have to look up some stuff about Oscar Wilde, the guy who wrote it.
When we were done, Iris gave us all a copy of the schedule, a list with contact information, and a website where we could get updates. I shoved it into my pocket and didn’t tell anyone I didn’t have a computer. I met some of the other cast members, but I was a little shy around them. Melissa seemed nice, and two of the guys in the show—Joe and Thad Creeker—were brothers.
Once we were done, everyone scattered, and I lost track of Peter. A little disappointed, I headed out back to the tiny parking lot, which was nearly deserted. I didn’t see Peter’s Mustang. It was ten o’clock, and a gibbous moon coasted over silvery treetops. When I was little and Mom was still around and we lived in a real house, I thought it was gibbons, and that a gibbon monkey lived up there, making the moon more and more full. The dark, warm night lay soft between streetlight puddles, and hidden crickets peeped as I unchained my bike.
Footsteps scuffed on the cement. I whirled. It was Peter. My heart kept on whirling.
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t see you leave.”
I shrugged. Suddenly the touching game seemed dumb and distant, probably a mistake. “Yeah. Are we the last ones?”
“Except for Les. He has to lock up.”
“I missed your car,” I said.
“It’s in the front lot. You’re riding your bike home in the dark? Kind of dangerous.”
“Nah. I do it all the time.” I wrapped my chain around the seat post. “I like riding at night. It’s peaceful.”
Peter stepped closer. “You were really good during the read-through. Everyone else was stumbling, but you were really smooth.”
“Really? Uh… thanks. I thought you did pretty good too, Jack.”
“Algy.”
We both kind of grinned, and uncertainty hung in the air between us, unclear as cracked glass. Neither wanted to move closer, and neither of us could move away. Peter’s breath smelled like chocolate. My hand was on my bike seat. Silence stretched. I didn’t know whether to run like hell or fall at his feet.
“Do you go through the park when you ride home?” Peter asked at last. “I can show you a cool shortcut.”
I couldn’t say anything for a second. Then I managed, “Sure. But… how come? It’s kind of out of your way.”
“You heard me at the icebreaker.” And then he put his hand on top of mine on the bike seat. It was warm, and that touch made my crotch go tight. “I don’t like guessing games.”
The stupid little voice in my head said, He’s toying with you. Get the hell away. Be safe! Run! A sick feeling tried to come up through my stomach like sewage.
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was talking about, that he was making a huge mistake. But then it was as though funny, confident Algy pushed me aside and took over my body. From my mouth came the words “You don’t have to guess,” and I flipped my hand around to take his.
There was a tiny moment when nothing happened and I thought I had fucked it up. Then Peter gave a heavy sigh and grabbed my hand tighter. “Oh, thank god. I was terrified that you were screwing with me.”
“Holy shit! So was I.” We both laughed then. It felt really good to do that with someone.
Peter’s head came around, and he dropped my hand. “What was that?”
I looked around too but didn’t see anything. “What?”
“I thought I heard—never mind.” He led me away with my bike. “Come on. It’s a damn beautiful night.”
“It damn sure is,” I agreed, and we laughed again.
We wandered down the fake country lane past the huge houses with their tea-party trees to the park. The summer night was a cloak drawn soft around us, giving us a private world overseen by the moon, and she wouldn’t say anything. I walked between Peter and my bike, and our shoulders touched as we moved. It sent happy little shudders through me. How could such a small thing as a touch make me so happy? It didn’t seem real.
“So was that really true?” I asked. “You really dated someone ten years older than you?”
“Yeah.” Peter ran his hand through his hair again, and I admired the gesture. “I was fifteen. It broke all kinds of laws. But man, it was great while it lasted.”
“Er… just so we’re on the same page… it was a guy, right?”
Peter halted on the sidewalk. I stopped too, suddenly afraid. What had I done wrong? Shit. Was he still…?
“Dude,” he said, “the last girl I kissed was my cousin Shelly at her wedding, and I way wanted to kiss the groom instead.”
More laughter. I felt the tiger retreat. Peter could do that.
We crossed the bridge and wandered into the park. Peter’s arm came slowly around my shoulders. I had never felt the weight of another guy’s arm there. It made me feel secure, like the world would never touch me again. It also made me excited. My shorts felt too tight again, and I swallowed hard.
“Did you always know that you were… that you liked guys?” I asked him.
“No way.” Peter snorted. “It took me forever to figure it out. Well, forever until I was fifteen.”
The river flowed like a silver snake under the gleaming stars. I could feel Peter’s body heat like the summer night around me. I could jump over the trees. I could walk on the moon. I wanted… I needed….
And then Peter’s arms went all the way around me. Before I completely understood what was going on, he was kissing me. I dropped my bike. His mouth was warm on mine, and every part of my body melted and froze at the same time. Even as it happened, other thoughts—
This is it! My first kiss!
You don’t deserve this, asshat.
Is that his dick pressing against me?
—crowded through my head, trying to ruin it.
We parted, but our foreheads were still touching. His breath moved across my face.
“Jesus, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered. “From the second you walked on that stage, you were beautiful, you know that?”
A shadow moved at the corner of my eye. Was it a person? I backed up and turned away a little, feeling weird and heavy all of a sudden. My left hand stole around and clasped my right elbow. “Don’t call me that. I’m a frigging loser.”
Peter looked mystified. “You’re not, Kevin. You’re so talented and smart. Anyone can see that. Iris sure did.”
“I’m a loser, okay?” The tiger was growling again. “Just like my…. I’m a stupid loser.”
“Because I kissed you?” Peter put his hand on my shoulder. “Oh my god—I didn’t mean to—”
“No!” The stupid anger flashed back. I had thought Peter could help me keep it away, but he couldn’t. “It’s not you, Peter. You don’t want me. You can’t want me.”
I snatched my bike from the ground and started to leap on it so I could pedal away. Anger and fear drove me, and I couldn’t stop moving.
A hand grabbed my arm. Peter’s hand. Hot as a chemical fire. “Hey,” he said. “What I want is to find out for myself.”
Run, I thought. Flee. Hide.
But I stayed. For a little bit.
I barely remembered riding home after we left the park. Dad was still up and waiting for me in the stuffy living room, book in hand.
“I thought rehearsal got out at ten,” he said narrowly. “It’s quarter after eleven.”
“My bike chain popped off.” I held up my grease-stained fingers, which I had thought to wipe across said bike chain before I came in. “It was a bitch to fix in the dark.”
“Language,” he said. His eyes were hard, and I knew he was suspicious, but hey, my story was plausible. My bike broke down all the time. And it wasn’t like I was out dealing drugs or getting drunk.
No, said my stupid inner voice. You were kissing a guy.
“I’m gonna wash up and go to bed,” I said, and I fled before he could say anything else.
In the bathroom I scrubbed my hands with soap. My reflection above the tiny sink duplicated my movements. Did Dad really know something? Or was he just still mad at me from before?
I stared at the mirror. Blue eyes stared back. Did I look different? I brushed my hair away from my forehead with damp fingers. Wow. He had kissed me. And I had kissed him back. It was hard not to spread my hands and shout. I never thought it would feel like this, like I was touching everything in the whole wide world.
I slipped into my room to undress for bed, though I wanted to spread my wings and leap into the air. I wanted to shout and sing. I had a boyfriend! A significant other! A BF! Maybe! Probably! But who could I tell? If word got around that Kevin Devereaux was queer… shit. Some of my euphoria slipped away, and I tapped Robbie’s picture three times. This was so bad.
But it felt so good.
It took a long time to fall asleep.
The boy huddles on the ground in a circle of male figures. The others shout and yell and pump their fists.
“Kick his ass!”
“Smash his face!”
“Bash his nuts!”
“Come on dude—fight!”
“What are you waiting for? Come on!”
A fist falls. A foot kicks. A chain swings. A rock crushes.
The boy shrieks, “Leave me alone!”
I shot awake. The sheet was bunched around my waist, and my hair was stuck to my scalp. More sweat ran down my stomach. My heart beat terrible rhythms inside my chest.
The dreams wouldn’t go away. I didn’t know what to do. I really wished that Peter—
No. The darkness pressed in around me. I was glad Peter wasn’t there. He’d know I was a loser for sure.
I curled sideways in my bed and waited for the next dream to come.