The Sea of Light (35 page)

Great, I thought miserably. Great way to fling myself out of the closet. Well, gather around, everyone. If it was any kind of secret before, it certainly isn’t now.

“No! Like you being sick! I mean, maybe I didn’t
know
what to do! Maybe I was just scared!”

“And maybe you’re just a spoiled brat!” I wrapped my scarf on, so tight it felt like a choker. “You know what, Babe? When you grow up, ask your dad for a quarter. He can spare it—he’s a lot richer than mine. Then stick it in a phone and call me. But not until you grow
up.”

Her eyes met mine, dark and fierce. “Go to
hell!”

“Thanks, but I’ve already been there.”

“No you haven’t, Ellie,” she said quietly. “You haven’t ever been there.”

I was walking away, though, heading out of our cone of silence for the door. Passing tables of morons who stared, who giggled, who ignored me.

“And furthermore,” she called, “you don’t even know the first thing about it!”

I just kept moving. My feet didn’t exactly take me faster than the speed of sound. It still hurt a little to breathe. The door creaked open and I fell right back into the world—which was very real again, and ugly, and cold.

*

Our war lasts almost until Christmas break. Which we get a lot less of than everyone else, because of practice; we wind up staying later than most of the rest of them, then having to come back earlier. I scrape through final exams and makeup papers by the skin of my teeth. Definitely B-grade stuff, but even though I’m feeling better every day I am still all worn out, and what I do is what I can manage. Most of the professors take pity on me.

The week just before Christmas consists of nothing more than tests and double practice. Babe doesn’t show up much at afternoon workouts; she is really slacking off, just when she needs to be gearing up. When she does show up she puts in half effort, evoking Brenna Allen’s quiet wrath, but she doesn’t really seem to care. I catch her glancing over at me sometimes, in the locker room, with hurt and anger in her eyes. I stare back once in a while, at other times try to ignore it.

Then, on December 23rd, I spot her in the Donut Hole. She’s sitting there alone, among the mostly empty tables, stirring a cup of coffee, looking big and healthy and beautiful and dejected. I am sitting across the room in a booth alone, stirring a cup of tea, probably looking small and sick and ugly and dejected. I don’t know why, but it occurs to me that I have something of hers, and I should just go over and give it back.

She doesn’t look surprised when the worn copy of the bookstore paperback, with a bad illustration of a ship and sailor on the cover, falls into a saltshaker next to her coffee. She just glances up. A tear winds out of my eye.

“I’m sorry, Babe.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, no, it’s not. I hurt you and I didn’t even want to. I mean, maybe I
thought
I wanted to, because
I
was hurting too, but I didn’t
really
want to.”

My hand rests on one of her big shoulders. She reaches for it, massages it suddenly, gracefully. “God. I thought you were just going to stay away forever.”

“No way.” I smile. Another tear drips down my nose. “You couldn’t get rid of me that easily. One thing I have, is staying power.”

“You forgive me?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be my friend?”

It’s gray and cold outside, but a benevolent light washes the world. Looks like snow: silver-tinged sky, leafless trees glowing dark against it. To the west, piney hills are dusted white like half-frosted cakes. We drift from the Donut Hole side by side, with our deep coats and bulging booksacks. Occasionally, our arms brush.

“What bus are you taking, Ellie?”

“The six o’clock.” I puff out a white cloud of breath. “That should get me into Boston around nine-thirty. I figure if I get the last train for New York, I’ll miss dinner—that’s one less pig-out—plus, I’ll show up incredibly late and they’ll be too tired to ask a whole bunch of questions.” We laugh. “What about you? Do your folks bug you, too?”

She shrugs. “Not really. Um. Well, my mom, sometimes. But I think—a lot of times I get the feeling they’re scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I don’t know.”

We pause, halfway across the quadrangle on this sleet-frozen path. Our eyes meet—for the first time, really, since before I got sick—clumsily, shyly. She shifts her booksack from shoulder to shoulder, then reaches to touch my cheek with gloved fingertips. It feels soft and a little odd, vaguely uncoordinated, like some other movement might be made, some other thing said. But she drops her hand and smiles. “Listen, you have a good time.”

“I will. You do too.”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“Sure.”

“See you.” I head past the History Building, for home and suitcase. Then stop, turn. She is loping after me.

“Hey!” She waves. “Hey, can I call you? Over break, I mean.”

“You want to?”

“Definitely.”

We take off gloves, take out pens and paper scraps, trade parents’ phone numbers. Now she is the one who walks away first; and I stand there feeling the pleasurable damp chill against my cheeks, the subtle shivering of my legs, that used to be strong. I stand there watching Babe until she’s disappeared around a building corner. Feeling entirely good, and a little mystified by how good I feel. Until I realize: In this moment, I am happy. Happy. When was the last time you were happy, Mizz Mawks? A month ago? Longer? It’s a good thing, now, like an unexpected gift. Even if it lasts just moments.

Christmas Dinner

(
JACK
)

Mom and Dad.

Lucy and Ricky.

Ricardo. Delgado.

A couple of fighting machines.

One day, though, they’ll bust a fucking gasket. It’ll be like some scene in a movie, only you won’t be able to figure out whether it’s a horror or a comedy: she’ll be bitching at him, he’ll be sniping back at her, and all the time they’ll be driving this car, a gray BMW, and they’ll get so pissed off they start screaming and forget to steer and before you know it they’re over a cliff, boom, screeching down into a gully in the California countryside. Or Massachusetts. Wherever.

Anyway, it’ll definitely be pancake time. For them, and for the car—scrape the whole mess up with a spatula.

“Jack! Jack!”

I don’t answer.

“Jack! Where are you?”

I wonder how long I can
hold out.

“James Delgado! Please come downstairs this instant!”

Around here, you always prepare for a hasty getaway. I shove my wallet into a back pocket, grab keys and a CD and shades, and thunder down each step like I’m squashing something evil. Supershades on, reflective mirrors hiding my eyes, hard to see anything but who cares?! Now all I need is, like, a fucking sawed-off shotgun. Like the film where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cop and he parks in front of some joint and flattens a couple of scumbags with one open-handed blow. Then he pulls out this twelve-gauge automatic number and turns around to see all the
compadres
of these flattened scumbags, who are sitting on his car being worthless—and he’s wearing his own mirrored supershades, too—and he waves the twelve-gauge at them and says something like, By the way, my name is John Kimble, and I love my car. Then he busts into the place and starts blowing everything apart.

Everybody go home, he says, the party’s over.

Who are you? someone asks.

He looks at them from behind the supershades; he doesn’t change expression. And he says: I’m the party pooper.

I saw that one with Cindy. We spent some time in the back row in the dark making out, she let me touch her tits under the bra and they were soft, gushy almost, a little wet with sweat, the skin felt satiny. We were kissing with our tongues and I thought I’d lose it, I thought I’d bust right through my zipper. There was this high, hot and cold, rushing feeling in my stomach and chest that almost hurt, brought tears to my eyes, made me say the words—not to her, thank God, but to myself, in my head: Cindy, I love you.

Maybe she heard them anyway, in her own head, and freaked. Maybe that’s why she pushed my fingers gently out from under her bra and her shirt, and whispered, Ja-ack! Let’s watch the movie!

I was glad in a way, too. Because I didn’t miss the line about the party pooper.

*

But this is one party I will not poop out of, with or without my supershades—Christmas dinner, the two of them going at it like rabid dogs, the way they have basically been doing since Babe went away to school again. And just in case things aren’t dicey enough, our grandparents are coming in the afternoon—not the Delgados, but the Johnson Fennelsworths—so the old man is uptight and the old lady’s a fucking maniac.

Teresa’s playing with toys near the tree. Roberto isn’t in sight, probably jerking off somewhere. There’s the smell of cooking pineapple and ham, fresh yeasty bread; the glint of silver and gold Christmas angels bouncing off my one-way supershade mirrors, and I cross from stairway to fireplace, hitch my jeans, give a thumbs-up to Toots, head for the dining room and kitchen.

Table’s set already. Perfectly white lace cloth. Linen napkins. The good china out of storage—and the crystal ware, and silver—like it is every year. White and green candles sit steadfast, complete, tall and tapered in polished silver holders, waiting to be lit.

“Jack Delgado!”

“Yo.”

She turns from the oven, her face red and aggravated. Makes her eyes
look extra blue. “What is that you’re wearing?”

“What?”

“Those—sunglasses.”

“Oh. They’re—sunglasses.”

“Well, I hope you’re not planning to keep them on all day. And please change into a decent pair of pants before your grandmother and grandfather get here.”

“Gotcha, Mom.” I dangle car keys. “Babe said she wanted me to pick her up.”

“Oh, okay. Take the Volvo.”

“Can’t I take the BMW?”

“No, you may not.”

“Why not?”

She twists a dishtowel into frustrated cords,
smooths her hair back down. “Jack, take those things off when you talk to me.”

I do. The kitchen looks larger then, brighter, less steamy, just as menacing. She glares.

“Jack, are you going to give me a hard time today?”

“No’m.”

“I’m serious. You know the way your grandparents are. God knows where your father is. Teresa’s too young to understand, and Roberto is in never-never land. Not to mention Babe. I am quite literally handling all of this myself. You can act like a brat and make it more difficult for me; or you can act like an adult, and make it easier. Which is it going to be?”

“Christ, Mom, don’t get so pissed. I’ll be cool.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “Well, go get your big sister.” She turns back to the oven, tests sweet potatoes. “And take the Volvo, Jack. The Volvo.”

I grab my black leather bomber on the way out, turn the heavy fur lapels straight up around my neck. It’s gray out, a little drizzly and cold, mounds of snow turning to sleet, washing mud all over the sidewalks. The supershades will get worn, anyway; they are glued to the bridge of my nose. I’m feeling cruel and free.

I will take the BMW. By the time she finds out, it’ll be too late—I’ll be pulling up against the curb near the train station with a wicked screech of rubber, wishing for big biceps and one of those twelve-gauge automatic numbers to take a few scumbags out, on my way to meet Babe.

By the way, my name is Jack Delgado. And I love my car.

Not that I’m the bodybuilding type.

In fact, the bunch of us on track and cross-country, the runners, can look pretty pathetic at first in the weight room. Long lean limbs. Scrawny torsos. Babe can fucking bench-press more than me. But she couldn’t ever run as fast. And I don’t mind—it lets us be friends, in a way. Plus, our team is winning all the distance shit this year, indoors and out, and the whole school knows it, and nobody would dare call any one of us a fag. Cindy says I am handsome, that my legs are hard and strong as diamonds, and personally she likes me this way.

Suck eggs, Mr. Universe.

“Where you going?”

“To get Babe.”

“Huh.” Roberto ditches his cigarette, kicks the butt into a dirty mound of snow. He exhales, long and hard, with a very serious scowl on his face, shivers inside the sleeveless denim jacket he insists on wearing all the time—until it stinks, and practically stands up by itself. “Bringing in the heavy artillery, huh?”

He’s a little shorter than me but, at fourteen, already a lot heavier. He’ll be the muscular type, like Dad, like Babe. I feel that I ought to assert myself now, for as long as I can—at least until the moron figures out that he’s stronger and could probably beat the living shit out of me—so I smack his shoulder roughly. He raises a fist.

“Cut it out, you fucking faggot.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Are you going to be an asshole today, or what?”

“I’ll be whatever the fuck I want to be.”

Oh good. What a thrill.

The guy has basically been a creep since his voice started changing, and he almost flunked Geometry and English Comp. When he was a little kid, I remember, he was an age-grouper, like Babe, and he did okay. But he never showed the promise, never had the discipline; after a while he just sort of rebelled against it, and started really bagging it, a couple of coaches got discouraged, and Mom and Dad stopped investing.