With or Without You (6 page)

The tightness that had locked my shoulders disappeared and I exhaled gratefully. We could be boyfriends. I leaned in for another kiss but he pulled back.

“Evan, do you love me?”

Love hadn’t entered my mind. I wanted to be with someone who was the same as me. When he confronted me with the word, I knew what I felt for Davis wasn’t love. It was deep and strong, but it was brotherly and nothing like romance. It took Davis saying the word, it took almost making another mistake, before I understood not what love was but what it wasn’t. Love wasn’t desperation. Heavy shit when you’re thirteen.

I muttered something like, “Man, I’m stupid.”

“Pretty much,” he agreed, elbowing me in the ribs. I laughed and slugged him back. There it was: my first rejection. And I survived it with most of my dignity intact. More or less.

We made it to the front of the line, where Davis bickered with the stoner in the ticket booth, who was so zoned it didn’t take much to convince him that we were seventeen. Now that’s stoned.

I thought the movie was kind of funny. Davis hated that everyone in the audience was saying the lines and singing the
songs and tossing toilet paper in the air. To him, it was just one more joke he wasn’t in on, one more clique he didn’t belong to. I tried to convince him we should keep coming back until we knew the songs and lines. I even suggested we could get costumes. But by then, the Boing was gone.

Second memory—my second date with Erik, last summer.

For our first date, we met at State Street Brats on a Sunday afternoon for brats, fries, and Cokes. We talked about art and Madison and college and a hundred other things that all took backseat to one simple fact: We were talking. After a couple hours, we did that awkward “do we kiss on a first date?” dance, talking about dumb stuff and praying the other guy would make a move. We ended up shaking hands, and we went our separate ways. I assumed I’d never see him again.

Ring, ring. Hot College Guy, line one. Something about a second date … ?

Erik had friends in a choir that was singing with the Madison Symphony at Monona Terrace—did I want to go? I almost said no. Things had gone so perfectly the first time around, why give him another chance to run away screaming? But I made it work once. Making it work twice would be a cinch. Maybe.

My dates with Erik became a doctoral dissertation on building the ultimate relationship. One minute I was the class punching bag, the next I was strolling along Monona Terrace
with a gorgeous guy. It took some getting used to. Every bit of stimuli introduced a new reaction from my body. My breath caught in my lungs when he slipped his hand into mine. My brain found religion.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

My heart was the next bit of anatomy to rebel when, later that night, we walked down State Street and ran into some of Erik’s friends from school. They invited us back to somebody’s apartment to watch a movie.

“Whatcha watching?” Erik asked.

“Brazil.”

Then, at the same time, Erik and I said, “Where the nuts come from.”

We looked at each other. We didn’t giggle. We didn’t say, “Jinx!” We just smiled a knowing smile. And Erik said to his friends, “Maybe some other time.” And then, with his friends right there, under the Orpheum Theater sign, he kissed me.

Cue heart attack.

Boing.

As the King of Evasions, I’ve become adept at the story.

Inventing plausible mishaps to explain away the physical evidence of a troglodyte encounter. Playing Artful Dodger between the time I figured out I was gay and when I actually told my family. I always had a story ready for any situation, doling out explanations with the guile of a blackjack dealer. I don’t enjoy lying, not to my family or to anyone else. But while I don’t enjoy lying, I happen to be very, very good at it.

I have, in my mind, very good reasons for not telling anyone about Erik. Bitter as it sounds, I just don’t think my parents deserve to know. I’m pretty sure the only reason they’ve never said much about my sexuality is because they don’t think it’s something I’d actively pursue. If I told them I was dating, if there was even a hint that I might be
being
gay, I don’t know what they’d do. Kick me out? Send me to therapy? I don’t worry about
that. I won’t tell them about Erik because they haven’t earned the right to know that I’m happy.

Davis. Davis is complicated. I sometimes think that my dating someone would be like abandoning him. Or at least, that’s how Davis would see it. I never said a word, even when things got serious with Erik and I wanted—needed—someone to talk to about all the incredible and horrifying feelings of having a first boyfriend. Part of me wants to think Davis’d be happy for me. But I’m afraid of how it might change our friendship. So, until I can figure out how to do this, Erik remains mine and mine alone.

So far, my stories have gotten me out of every scrape. Davis believed I couldn’t make it to the RYC’s latest rave because Mom and Dad were making me work, when actually I was doing yoga with Erik. Mom and Dad bought that I couldn’t work Sundays in March because I needed more study time at the library, when I was really helping Erik cram for his anatomy midterm.

But a story won’t allow me to drive to the airport, pick up Shan, take her home, then race across town in time for my date with Erik. And now that it’s Saturday, that’s exactly the story I need.

Here’s the master plan: I work at the grocery store from open to five. Ditch the arm sling, shower quick, change, and I’m on the road to pick up Shan at the Dane County
Airport by six. Take her home. Scarf down a light dinner with the fam. Make an excuse (Davis needs help?) and leave at six forty. Hop the six forty-five bus to Thompson Boulevard and arrive at Erik’s Studio in time for our date at seven. No problem.

Problem. The universe counters with a series of cataclysms aimed at undermining my Perfect Plan. Mrs. Nash calls at three forty-five with her weekly grocery order. She’s close to ninety, so it takes a while for her to go through the list of everything she needs.

Then Jason, one of the college kids my folks hired to help at the store, shows up twenty minutes late for his five o’clock shift. It’s five thirty before I’m on the road. I smell up the car; I worked behind the meat counter all day and I stink of dead. I stop by Mrs. Nash’s and then I’m off to the airport. I arrive at five to six. No problem.

Problem. Shan’s plane is late. It won’t be in until quarter after six. I recalculate. We can be home by six thirty, I’ll skip dinner, take a quickie shower, and still meet Erik on time. He’s been dropping hints for weeks about tonight. I’m not good with anticipation. Erik’s not good at making anticipation easy on me.

Near the baggage claim, I mentally scroll through the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not strand thy sister at the airport” is nowhere in sight. But another mental calculation tells me I have more to fear from Shan’s wrath
than anyone waiting for me in the Great Beyond. Erik has never been angry with me. Shan is another story. I opt for the lesser of two headlocks and continue to sit in the airport waiting area.

Text Erik to say you’ll be late
, my brain says. I tell my brain to shut up because texting Erik means explaining that I’m picking up Shan, when originally he just knew she’d be in town. Which means he’ll tell me to bring her over so he can meet her. Which means full-on DEFCON 1 panic alert. No texting. Erik will be cool if I’m late. He gets me.

Shan arrives. Her usually long cocoa hair is shorter than I’m used to, falling just under her chin. We share our father’s nose—short without being pug—and our mother’s high cheekbones.

“Spud!” she yells, throwing open her arms to greet me, but I grab her carry-on, snatch her suitcase from the baggage belt, and lead her, running, back to the car. Under normal circumstances, shouting that nickname in public is grounds for a Wet Willy. But I want to see my boyfriend, which makes me benevolent. Then we’re in the car and on the road.

“Some brothers get all happy when their sisters come home.” She sulks, fastening her seat belt. She’s four years my senior but has an uncanny ability to devolve into our mother with just the right acid-laced tone in her voice.

“Some sisters make it to their brothers’ graduations,” I counter, matching her acid with a base. She looks away and I win.

I can tell you exactly when Shan and I first started to act like a real brother and sister. Growing up, we hated each other. She was older and favored; I was the boy so I did all the work around the house and in the store. She was the outgoing cheerleader and popular kid; I was the quiet, sensitive one. Every room we occupied together became a battleground.

But when I came out to my family, that all changed. It was like every piece of my personal puzzle finally fell into place for her. I wasn’t weird. I was trapped. She appreciated that and we became allies.

“Hail Mary, full of
slowthefuckdown
!” she screeches, reaching for the Jesus Bar above her door as I charge another yellow light.

“Sorry. M and D are anxious to see you.”

“Bet it’s been rough with D laid up.”

“‘Joan! Joan, I can’t reach my feet. Did you buy me navy blue socks?’”

She laughs and we finish my dad’s terminal lament together. “‘Jesus fricking Christ, woman, you don’t buy a color-blind man
navy blue socks
!’”

Shan casts a few surreptitious hairy eyeballs my way. My face still speaks of my close encounter of the trog
kind. She’s probably been itching to ask since she first saw me at the airport. But years of conditioning prohibit her from inquiring. She knows she’d only get a story.

She gets very quiet and then says, “Look, Spud, I have something very Big to tell and I don’t want to clue in M and D just yet. But I have to tell someone. To tell you.”

I look over and her face is this odd gradient of terror and joy. I don’t know what that means.

“No,” she insists, “I mean this is really Big. So Big that I need a ransom.”

“What?”

“You have to tell me something Big too. I need a Big that I can use as leverage.”

I’ve never had a Big that could match any news Shan ever had. Things like, “Well, I went to my first Chasers meeting for lessons in gay history and watched some Asian kid get the crap choked out of him” don’t exactly qualify as Big.

Then I realize: For the first time, I have one. I have the biggest Big. I don’t know what she wants to tell me, but I’m pretty sure news of my first relationship trumps it. But I’m not ready to give up my secret yet. I like having Erik right here, inside, where he’s still just mine.

I sigh. “I don’t have any news. You know that.”

She scowls and narrows her eyes. Launch Serious Sis Mode. Her eyes glisten, the look she gets when she’s
out doing her photography, and her face flushes.

“I’m pregnant.”

The car nearly swerves off the road as I slam on the brakes. Shan screams, clutching the dashboard. Horns blare around me as I meekly pull off to the gravel shoulder and slip the car into park.

I grin. “Oh my God, that’s totally Big!”

We hug and she starts to cry. It’s not long before I’m sobbing too. So we sit with the car running on the side of the road, blubbering at each other.

“Why is it a secret?” I ask. “You have to tell M and D.”

She grimaces. “You just graduated. This is
your
time. I’ll tell them before I go home.” Shan used to eat up all of our parents’ fussing. She lost her appetite when I came out. Now she prefers to stay out of the spotlight, hoping a little will spill on me. It’s a nice gesture, but it hasn’t worked yet.

I take the biggest breath I’ve ever taken. She trusts me. And if I’m going to pull things off tonight, I have to trust her. I must be fucking crazy.

“Okay. Listen. I’ve got a Big too.”

Shan wipes her eyes. “You little turd, holding out on me—”

“You know, if you don’t want to hear—”

“Okay, cry havoc and let slip the Big.”

It sticks in my throat. It’s like coming out all over
again, only that was something I had to say so I could go on with my life. I’m afraid that if I reveal this, my life won’t go on. Everything will come to an end. But she’s trusted me with something huge (okay, something that time and an expanding belly will betray) and I feel obligated to respond in kind.

When I hesitate, she ups the ante with, “I mean, it’s not like you could top my Big but, hey, take yer best shot and we’ll—”

“I have a boyfriend.”

I have only ever whispered this to myself in bed at night.

I have a boyfriend.

I have a boyfriend.

I, Evan Daniel Weiss, have a boyfriend named Erik James Goodhue. And he rocks.

Here, now, in full voice, the sentence detonates and resonates. The car fills with noise, like the brakes squealing again. But it’s Shan shrieking, hands flailing. She reaches out and gathers me in close for another hug, this one spine-threatening. My stomach does a samba—she’s happy for me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I’m glad this is what I got. Then she pulls back with a skeptical look.

“Um, Spud … we’re not talking COD, are we?” Cauldron Of Desperation. That’s her code name for Davis. It’s not that she doesn’t like him. Even during the years she
and I were fighting, I think she’d always been grateful that I had a friend. But she’s said that she doesn’t like the effect Davis has on me. I don’t know what that means.

I roll my eyes and we sit on the roadside for another ten minutes as I tell her about meeting Erik and his square-egg-shaped head and getting his phone number and calling him and going on that awkward first date and the less awkward date when he kissed me outside the Orpheum Theater and I skip over the dates in between and I tell her that he bought me flowers every Friday during the month of my birthday and about the stupid stories I told M and D about where the flowers came from and I share the silly list I’ve made in my head, alphabetizing his best features (Awesome kisser, Beautiful smile, Considerate, Dimples …) and how his friends all like me and the reason I’ve been driving like a nutjob is because we’re getting together tonight.