Simon Says (21 page)

"Here, give me your hands. Now it's going to sting, I'm afraid."

How did we get into Rachel's office? And was that satisfaction in her tone? I sit on the hard chair, and she's half propped against her desk, half bending down over me, her straight soft hair Ming forward like a veil. She's wearing a dark blue dress with a high neck, a small gold cross dangling from a chain around her throat She was dressed for the funeral. I realize I'm still wearing the jacket and tie, not even noticing the choking tightness at my throat, welcoming it perhaps. She dabs my left palm with a damp cloth and it burns, and I welcome that, too, pressing my hand against hers through the cloth.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn't satisfaction in her voice, maybe it was tenderness. After all, she doesn't just take her puzzles (
manuscripts, authors, paintings
) to pieces, she puts broken things back together, better than they were originally. But I can't be put back together and improved. Neither can Graeme.

She's looking at me strangely, holding my hand now, and looking deep into me, through the mask and into my mind's hidden den, where my consciousness hides and twists, trying to make itself small and innocent and hopeful again. But her eyes can see it. They tell me she was never deceived by the sketches I made—she knew
what I was hiding in my studio. They tell me she knows all about me, she accepts me, I have to accept her, we are alike—

No! I thought Graeme and I were alike (
I wanted him to be like me, and he wanted to be whatever I wanted
), and I was a fool—a fool and then a murderer. I took more than Graeme's life—I killed everything he might have become. He never had a self before, but he didn't miss it I decided he'd never have one at all. But what if I was wrong? I stole his hope. And he dragged the shreds of it together to make one last gesture, and it was nothing more than a sham, because of me!

I'm not like you!
I want to scream at Rachel, and still her eyes bore into me, promising acceptance, offering—love? It's as though she sees my paintings in my eyes, and she wants to love me for what I do, what she thinks I am (
Does she want to be who I want her to be, too?
). But she doesn't know what I am—a murderer, a destroyer. The shaking inside my head is so great it must bring the student center crashing down around our heads, but nothing happens.

"Charles, you're trembling." Her voice is low.
Graeme's voice was low, an invitation to whatever I wanted, another storm—

Rachel leans closer to me. She reaches out one hand to caress my cheek, gentle and cool as a clean brush filled with watercolor. Then her lips press against mine, and at their touch everything inside me is shaken to pieces. My mind shatters all the safety catches that keep my two worlds apart.

She has no right to study me, to think she could fix
what's wrong and love the improved me. I wanted to punish myself for what I did to Graeme (
for becoming the ultimate Simon to him
). Now I want to punish Rachel for what she's trying to do to me (
for becoming who I want her to be—but that's not what I want! If I made her think I needed her, though, I can make her leave me alone. I can make her hate me—I should have made Graeme hate me before he
—). My breathing is ragged, and the room turns black as if an entire ebony tube were smeared thickly across the canvas with a palette knife, and I leave rusty streaks of drying blood on the sleeves of her silky dress, gripping her arms as if I would crush her, and at the same time as if she were made of infinitely precious spun glass.

I'm out of the chair and pressing her back against the wall of file cabinets in the crowded office, crushing her mouth under mine, gripping her head between my throbbing hands, feeling the satin smoothness of her hair, then twisting my fingers in it. Now she'll know what I'm like, how I destroy things, and she'll stop trying to fit the pieces together. She'll stop wanting me. But—She should be pushing me away, as I tried to push her away before. Now that I've turned against her, she should be screaming at me. But the only sound is my pounding heart, and her hands aren't shoving me away, but reaching for me—why? Pulling me closer?

I push myself upright, away from her, my aching hands against the cool metal of the file cabinets, and look at her clear eyes, eyes still reaching into me, more confident now, compassionate—
controlling?
I recoil, shaking my head.

"Charles—"

My left hand, always truer, slides up the smooth metal to the top of the cabinet, gropes, my eyes never leaving her face. Then my fingers close around one of her puzzles, polished wood and pale cord. I grip it, the braided cord scraping my raw palms, and hurl the pieces to the floor.

"No!"

Finally I've spoken aloud.

"I don't want you to take me apart!"

I grope for another puzzle and shove it onto the floor as well. "You can't fix me and put me back together again! No one can."

Then I take hold of one of the kaleidoscopes.

"Don't!" she cries, tears in her voice. Now, too late, she's pushing me away.

I hold the tube with its core of shattered colors out of her reach. "You can't take everything apart and think you can make it all right again. Some things just can't be put back together!" J
can't. Graeme can't. Maybe Rachel can't.

I loose my fingers and the tube rolls free, smashing into shards of glass on the floor. Then I turn my back on her and leave, willing the elevator to plummet me into oblivion at last, but it jerks its way down to the first floor in unforgiving safety. That's fair enough. Why should it offer me a way out?

Blindly, I walk again. I have to go to ground, somewhere. I'm shaking, and I don't know why. It's a spring afternoon, not winter any longer, and Houston wasn't even that cold in winter. But my teeth are chattering—
loud enough that I can hear them, like loose marbles rattling. With nowhere else to turn, I walk through the tunnel of trees. I see the green fuzz uncurling on their skeletal branches and know the birds will be back soon, if only this terrible cold goes away. And then I see my dorm past the last trees, and head for my room.

"What's wrong?"

I huddle, freezing, shivering with the cold. How can it be so cold?

"Charles?" Footsteps shuffling on rough carpet, loud scuff sounds scraping my eardrums, his whisper shouting in my head.
I'm sorry,
I want to tell him.
I didn't mean any of it—I didn't want to hurt Rachel I didn't want to hurt anyone. Forgive me. I didn't mean it to turn out like this. I never wanted to play!
But my teeth are clenched so tightly against the cold that I can't squeeze words through them.

I feel his hand on my blanketed shoulder. I tremble at the touch, my face wedged between my pillow and the wall Are there second chances?

"God, you're freezing."

The hand is gone, just the scuffing sounds sandpapering my ears. The voice is wrong. Do voices change when you die?

"Here." A rush of air, and a muffling weight settles over me. A quilted comforter, solid, thick, and no com
fort at all. But the fingers on my left hand curl around it, clutching it through the cold.
Thank you. Does this mean you're not angry with me?

A thud into the carpet, into my brain. No answer in words. Another thud. Then a sudden weight on the side of the mattress, a hand against my face, pushing the hair off my forehead, a warm, dry hand, a mother's hand. But she's far away.
Mother says...

"You've got to calm down. You'll shake yourself into pieces like this."

But I'm already in pieces. I've got to shake myself together somehow.

The weight shifts on the bed. The comforter and the covers lift, and I wait for the icy blast that will shatter me for good. Instead, there's warmth. Pressing against me, huddling with me as the covers fell back into place. Not a chill tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, but a warmth like summer, pressing itself against my back, wrapping warm arms around my chest, warm breath on my neck. Living breath.

"No!" The word explodes out of me, as though the warmth has thawed the ice clenching my teeth. "I won't—" But even as I cry out, I don't want the arms to let me go (
even though it's not Rachel, never Rachel, not after—
).

"Shh. I know."
What do you know?
"It's all right. Just calm down and try to get warm."

And I lean back against the warmth. "Please—you've got to tell me—" I'm whimpering, but I can't help myself.

"What?"

I force the words through chattering teeth. "How to play the game (
at last
) and still find some way to stay me." I'm not making any sense.

"There is no game. And you're doing just fine at staying you."

"But how do you show your art (
yourself
) and not get torn apart, if you don't play the game?"

Time stretches and the bed shudders beneath me (
us
) as I try to stop shaking.

Finally: "You don't have to play any games, Charles—just do what feels right to you. You won't really get torn apart, even if it seems that's what's happening."

No—that can't be true. "But ifs all Simon Says, every day. You do what people expect you to do, or you don't and they hate you for it"

"Simon Says?" I hear a feint chuckle. "Well, that's one way to explain life. But if you look at art that way, the artist is the one showing people what to do—artist Simon, in the center, creating options."
The mirror in the center...
"Then the viewer chooses to play along or not See? Nothing to shake yourself to pieces over."

Do you—
who?
—mean that? Not Rachel, who decides how to assemble fragments. Not Graeme. But I still can't ... Then I recognize the timbre of the voice, and feel the shape lying against me in the dark. Fully clothed, except for shoes. No threat No demands. Not playing games. Not tearing me apart Just holding the pieces together.

Not Graeme. Adrian.

"No—" I try to pull away from him.
Why didn't I destroy that drawing?

"Don't worry," he says dryly. "I'm not going to do anything."

Not an invitation to a storm.
I lie there, unspeaking, my eyes squeezed shut and my face damp beneath. He doesn't get up, doesn't move, just holds me. Uncounted minutes pass in the shivering, almost dreamlike darkness. You can say anything in a dream. "Aren't you afraid?" The words sound hollow, a shadow voice in the dark.

A pause. "Afraid of what?" His voice is soft, at once curious and impersonal. A safe voice.

"Afraid they'll hate you when they hear your music? When they realize who you are, and what you can do?"

Time stretches again, until, "Everybody's afraid of being rejected," he says slowly. "I want people to like my music—to get something out of it But if they don't they don't Some of them may be nasty about it, but I don't think anyone really hates me."

I think of Tyler.
They do.
"Or is it because you're gay?" I press him. "Do you just expect them to hate you because you're different and don't bother to hide it by even pretending to play Simon Says? So it doesn't matter how extraordinary your music is?"

Unexpectedly, he laughs. "It's not exactly a trade-off, you know! Hate me for being gay, or hate me for writing music, but one way or the other, you'll end up hating me."

But ifs not just any music, not even just good music—ifs extraordinary music, and that's what they hate—doesn't he realize that?

He sighs. "If I didn't know better, I'd guess you were trying to insult me."

Am I? Am I pushing him away the way I pushed Rachel away? But I wanted Rachel, and I didn't trust her. I don't want Adrian, and yet he's here, and I don't want him to go. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

He doesn't draw back. "That's all right."

Then I ask, "If they hate you, can you change?"

"Well," he says slowly, his voice serious again, "some things you can't change. I can't change the fact I'm gay. I can't change the feet I compose music. But other things—you change as you rim up against life, as you see things about yourself you like or don't like. As you make decisions, or choices, you change. Not just because you think somebody doesn't like you." After a few moments of silence, he adds, "Believe it or not I don't really expect everyone to hate me. Do you?"

The words are out before I think. "Of course I don't hate you!"

"Well, thank you for the backhanded compliment"—and I can hear the smile in his voice—"but I meant—do you expect people to hate you? Are you afraid to show your paintings because of that?"

If it weren't for the dream state around us, I couldn't answer. In the freezing dark, however, I breathe, "Yes."

He considers this. Finally he says, "I can't believe anyone could hate you for your art. Be jealous, maybe, but that just goes along with talent."

"No—not jealousy." He's got to know the truth. Maybe I am trying to push him away, like I did the others. "Everyone (
Mother, Father, Steve, Cindy, Graeme
) who sees my paintings turns on me. They—they hate me and want me to be someone different (Or
they love
me and kill themselves...)
I'm afraid I'll change too much—become who they expect—lose myself."

"You don't have to lose yourself," he says quietly. "That's not the sort of change I meant. Choosing to change isn't the same thing as feeling pressured into changing into someone you're not" After a moment he adds, "It sounds as if you've shown your work to the wrong people. Or maybe you're being too hard on yourself."

"But you don't know what I've done," I whisper, cringing.

"Whatever it is, I don't hate you." He pauses. His voice is serious, not his light teasing tone, and his arm around me is a promise. "You don't have to play Simon Says here."

Adrian pulls the comforter up to my neck, and his hand brushes mine. My stiff fingers, dried blood still rimming the nails, close around his. And I sleep.

"Very nice, Mr. Weston. I'm truly pleased that patience paid off." Mr. Wallace smiles smugly at the arrangement of dead flowers on my canvas. A cut-glass vase, half hill of water, with a scattering of cut flowers on the table in front of it, a pair of shears dropped beside them, and a collection of purple and white buds against a ferny background. "Excellent perspective, and a luminous quality to the light through the glass and the water."