Getting It (4 page)

A lump knotted in Carlos's throat. Sal ride the bus home with him? What would his friends say? What would the others on the bus say?

“Wa-wa-wait,” Carlos stammered.

“What?” Sal raised an eyebrow as though reading Carlos's thoughts.

Carlos bit into his lip. “Um, never mind.”

Sal gave a shrug. “Meet you after school.” He stepped toward the cafeteria, sliding Carlos's bills into his wallet.

Carlos slumped against the hallway wall, not the least bit hungry, and wondering,
What have I gotten myself into?

To complicate matters, Playboy invited the group to go over to his house after school—to help him create a profile for one of those teen websites where guys and girls could post photos and hopefully hook up.

During afternoon classes, Carlos tried to think of a way out of his dilemma, with no success. After the last bell he shuffled reluctantly toward the main door. From behind him, someone yanked his sweatshirt hood off his head.

“Hey,
pendejo!”
Playboy swung an arm around Carlos's shoulder as they stepped outside into the sun. Alongside him were Toro and Pulga. “Did you come up with some ideas for my profile?”

“Um …” Carlos slowed his steps as he approached their bus. “Why don't we do it tomorrow? So I have more time to think.”

“I can't tomorrow,” Toro said. “I've got wrestling practice.”

“Come on, boys!” The bus driver revved the motor, signaling she was about to leave.

Carlos let his friends board ahead of him and glanced over his shoulder. Sal was nowhere in sight. Maybe—hopefully—he'd forgotten. Or perhaps agreeing to help Carlos had only been a ruse to get twenty bucks. If so, it was a small price to pay for chucking the whole wacky idea.

But just as Carlos was about to climb aboard the bus, a voice called behind him, “Hey! Sorry I took so long.”

Carlos's heart plummeted. Quickly, he suggested to Sal, “Um, why don't we just walk?”

“How far do you live?” Sal asked.

Carlos shifted his feet. “Not far.”

“How far?” Sal insisted.

“Um …” Carlos scratched his neck. “About twenty blocks.”

“Screw that!” Sal stepped onto the bus.

Carlos watched from the sidewalk, debating. Maybe he should let the bus leave without him—or just wait till it started moving and accidentally throw himself in front of it.

The driver revved the motor again. “You coming or aren't you?”

Carlos heaved a sigh and climbed on board as the bus began its bumpy ride.

“S
IT HERE!”
C
ARLOS
told Sal, grabbing the first empty bus seats—as far away as possible from his back-row buds. Unfortunately, that meant sitting beside Vicky Vasquez, a girl Carlos had been friends with till middle school, when she began dressing weird—in porkpie hats, polka-dot stockings, and other uncool stuff that made people start to call her “Freaky Vicky the Lesbi.”

Carlos didn't know what dressing weird had to do with being a lesbian. Yet, out of concern for his own rep, he began avoiding her, reasoning that she'd brought the stigma upon herself.

“Hi, Vicky!” Sal now called out.

“Hi, Sal,” she yelled across Carlos, ignoring him as he peeled off his backpack. “What are you doing on this bus?”

“Going to Carlos's,” Sal shouted back.

Carlos slunk down in his seat. Did Sal have to announce the fact loud enough for the entire bus to hear?

“Be careful,” Vicky warned Sal, darting a scornful glance at Carlos. “He'll turn on you.”

Carlos cringed, wishing he could disappear. Not only had he ditched his friends and had the school queer inform the entire bus he was going to Carlos's, now Vicky had reminded everyone she used to be his friend. Carlos's entire high school rep seemed to be careening out of control.

The instant the bus reached his stop, Carlos whispered to Sal, “Come on!”

“Hey!” Vicky called after him. “You forgot your backpack.”

Carlos grabbed it and hurried out the door. As the bus pulled away, he peered from beneath his sweatshirt hood toward the rear window. His buds' faces stared back at him, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Why are you so stuck-up?” Sal asked as they walked toward Carlos's white-stucco apartment complex.

“I'm not stuck-up,” Carlos muttered, shoving his fists into his hoodie pockets.

“Yeah, you are,” Sal insisted. “You didn't even say thanks to Vicky for handing you your backpack.”

“She's a freak.” Carlos defended himself. “Just look at how weird she dresses. No one talks to her.”

“Dude, it's called being an individual. That makes her a freak?”

Carlos kept silent, uncertain how to respond. On
Queer Eye
they hadn't told the straight guy to talk to some freakazoid lesbian. As Sal and he crossed the parking lot toward his building, a panicked thought crossed Carlos's mind: Was Sal planning to turn him into a freak?

C
ARLOS SWUNG OPEN
his apartment door and stepped inside. But Sal remained standing outside, scowling as if Carlos had just farted in his face.

“Um, what's the matter?” Carlos asked.

“Dude …” Sal gave a sigh. “When you're with someone, don't just barge ahead of them. Open the door and let them go first.”

Carlos flushed warm from embarrassment—and annoyance.
“Dude,”
he echoed sarcastically, “you're not a girl.”

“Doesn't matter,” Sal shot back. “It shows you're considerate—or
not.”

Carlos narrowed his eyes, debating whether to tell Sal,
Go blow yourself!
Grudgingly, he stepped back out to the corridor and stood aside.

“Thanks.” Sal strode past him into the living room.

“You're welcome,” Carlos grumbled, silently adding,
pendejo.

As Carlos closed the front door, the phone began to ring. He jogged to get it, but upon seeing Playboy's number displayed on the caller ID, he stopped short and let the call roll to voicemail.

“You want something to eat?” he asked Sal.

Inside the kitchen, he tossed packs of snack cakes, corn chips, and marshmallows onto the kitchen table. “Grab whatever you want, man.”

Sal stared at the pile. “Have you ever read the ingredient labels for this junk? It's all fat and sugar.”

“So?” Carlos ripped open a snack cake, stuffing it in his mouth. “It tastes good.”

“Yeah, and it does nothing to help your skin.”

Carlos winced and stopped chewing, embarrassed by his pimples. “For real?” He couldn't help notice Sal's skin—not completely unblemished but definitely clearer than his own.

“Haven't you got anything more healthy to eat?” Sal replied. “Like fruit or something?”

Carlos's ma constantly nagged him to eat more fruit, but she'd never suggested it might be better for his skin. He opened the fridge and grabbed a couple of apples, tossing one to Sal. Then he pulled out a two-liter bottle of Coke.

“You should lay off that, too,” Sal told him. “It's total sugar and stains your teeth.”

Carlos clamped his lips together, hiding his teeth and feeling even crappier about himself. Wasn't a makeover supposed to make him feel better?

“Just water for me,” Sal told him as Carlos downed a glass of Coke.

Before Sal could get a chance to pick on something else, Carlos led him toward his room, remembering to stand aside, muttering, “Ladies first.”

“Whoa!” Sal stopped in the doorway, scanning the chaos. “Did a bomb explode in here? And why do you keep it so dark? It's like a cave.” He stepped in, kicking aside a soccer ball as he drew open the window blinds.

The second-story bedroom looked out over the apartment complex playground, where Carlos's pa used to play with him when he was little. Now Carlos usually kept the blinds down.

Sal turned back toward the room. “How can you live like this? You must feel like a mess.”

“I don't feel like a mess,” Carlos argued, though it did frustrate him every time he couldn't find a schoolbook or clean shirt.

“And what's that awful smell?” Sal waded across the room, poking
the toe of his shoe at heaps of DVDs and video games—till he bent over a dirty clothes pile and unearthed Carlos's favorite pair of sneakers—a gift from his pa. Although they were frayed and no longer fit, Carlos had kept them, unmindful of their smell. Till now.

“I should've worn a biohazard suit.” Sal fanned a hand in front of his nose. “You do wear socks, right?”

“Um …,” Carlos mumbled.

Sal rolled his eyes. “No wonder these stink. You've got to wear socks—clean ones,
every
time.”

Carlos burped—the effect of the Coke.

“Hey!” Sal shot him a look. “I know this may shock you, but no one wants to hear your bodily functions. Now, can you get us some plastic bags?”

As Sal turned away, plucking clothes off the floor, Carlos secretly sneered at him. Then he went to get some bags from the kitchen, wondering,
What's cleaning up my room got to do with getting a girlfriend?
But he recalled the queer guys on TV redecorating the straight dude's apartment. And even Carlos's friends called his room a pigsty.

In short order, Sal had helped Carlos to stuff two huge bags full of skanky clothes and carry them downstairs to the laundry room.

“You wash whites in hot water to make them whiter,” Sal explained, “and colors in cold so they don't fade.”

Carlos's ma had told him that, but he was usually too lazy to sort his clothes. “What difference does it make?”

“Because,” Sal explained, “girls notice how bright or dingy something is, even if guys don't.”

Back in Carlos's room, they sorted through mountains of crap, hauled dirty plates to the dishwasher, and organized his school stuff. In between, Carlos asked about something he'd been wondering: “So, like, um, what do you think made you gay?”

Sal popped a DVD into its case. “What do you think made you
straight?”

Carlos shrugged. “I was born that way.”

Sal snapped the DVD case shut. “And I was born this way.”

Carlos pondered that. As furniture emerged from beneath the debris, Sal commented, “It's looking better. But the place needs some drama. Something uniquely you.”

“Huh?” Carlos wondered: what the hell Sal was talking about? Then, from beneath a pile of board games, Sal uncovered Carlos's collection of butterflies, bees, and beetles pinned to Styrofoam.

“You collect
bugs?”
Sal's face twisted in disgust. “Well, I guess it makes sense with you living like this.”

He started to toss the Styrofoam panel into the trash bag, but Carlos grabbed it away from him. “No! Don't throw those out!”

Sal's brow crinkled in surprise.

“My pa helped me collect them,” Carlos explained.

Sal's glance shifted between Carlos and the bugs. “Well …,” he said at last, “then I guess they're something uniquely you. Set them aside for now.”

Carlos carefully propped the panel of bugs against the wall. Then they went to put the clothes in the dryer. As they returned from the laundry room, Carlos asked Sal something else he'd been wondering: “Do your parents know you're gay?”

“Are you kidding?” Sal laughed. “They figured it out before I did. That's why I'm so well-adjusted.”

Carlos didn't get what Sal meant. It seemed like every time he asked Sal a question, the response was never what he expected.

Amid a final pile of stuff, Sal discovered Carlos's female praying mantis. “Whoa! Now
this
is drama.” He gazed admiringly at the shiny green insect. “Hey, aren't these the bugs that eat their boyfriends after getting it on?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Carlos replied, though he'd never thought of their mates as boyfriends.

“Well, we'll definitely have to do something with this.” Sal gently laid the mantis aside and looked at his watch. “But for now, we'd better finish.”

Carlos saw the time and frowned. Nearly three hours had passed. How long would this take? The TV show only lasted an hour for the entire makeover. And yet, he felt guilty complaining; no one had ever helped him pick up all his crap before.

Sal helped him lug six garbage bags to the Dumpster, fold and put away his clean laundry, make the bed, and even vacuum the carpet.

“We'll figure out what to do with the room next time,” Sal said, grabbing his backpack to go. “Anything special you had in mind?”

“Um …” Carlos gazed around the tidied room, recalling the TV guys redecorating the straight dude's apartment. “Um, I always wanted a headboard. You know, like people on TV have. But my ma says they're too expensive.”

“Hmn.” Sal peered at him. “Let me think about it, but I'll need another twenty bucks.”

Carlos bristled, not knowing where he'd get the money. But he said, “Okay.”

He was sitting at his computer when his ma came home. She gazed around his room wide-eyed and grabbed the doorframe, pretending to steady herself from shock.
“Mi'jo! ¿Quépasó?
Your room looks great!”

She whisked across the clean carpet and gave him a big, long hug that smashed his nose. He took advantage of her exuberance to ask, “Can I have twenty bucks?”

Her arms fell away from his shoulders as she gave him a curious smile. “Oh, I get it. So that's what this is about. What do you need twenty bucks for?”

Carlos shrugged. “To fix up my room some more.”

His ma's face scrunched up. “What do you want to do with it?”

“I don't know.”

When he went to sleep that night, he still wasn't sure how cleaning up and redoing his room was going to help him get Roxy. But at least his ma had given him the money. And he did feel better about himself—so long as he didn't think about having to face his buds the next day.