Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones
“You can’t find the what?” he shrieks at Emily.
She is pointedly trying not to stare at the crotch area of his too-tight chinos. I know this because she told me this is often a problem. When he struts up to our science-lab table he always stands on the Emily side and his genital region is pretty much the same level as her nose.
She fidgets with her fingers. She puts her hair behind her ear. She fidgets with her fingers some more.
She seems to have lost her gift of words. I evilly wish this had happened in the cafeteria when she told everyone about the state of Dylan’s and my relationship. Then I feel guilty for having such a thought, so I bail her out. “We can’t find Pamela’s spleen.”
Mr. Zeki’s eyebrows raise. “Pamela?”
I cough. It feels like the whole science room’s listening. “Um. Yeah. Pamela. We named our fetal pig Pamela after Pamela Anderson, the actress with the really big, um . . .”
Em’s face turns the color of roasted ham. Anna, who is at the lab table in front of us, starts laughing.
So does Mr. Zeki. He recovers quickly. His too-tight groin area shifts closer to us, our pig, and Emily’s head. “I see. Let’s see if Pamela has a spleen, shall we? Or maybe her other endowments have taken over her entire anatomy.”
The class laughs. Emily puts her head in her hands. Pamela just sprawls there, waiting for the exploration.
“I hate Mr. Zeki,” Emily says later.
“Me too.”
“I know we have an above-normal quota of freaky teachers here, but he’s the worst.”
“No, my German teacher is the worst. He dresses up like a woman,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, slamming books in her locker and pulling out her gym clothes. Emily has PE last period. I have German. “I was really worried about you at lunch, and then when you ran out.”
I shrug. “My mom would say I’ve become unstrung.”
“I know I didn’t run after you, but I thought that would make it even a bigger deal and Shawn said Tom would take care of you, that he’s good at stuff like that. Breakdowns and stuff. Must be because his dad’s a cop. Tom took care of you, didn’t he?”
I shrug again and lie, “I did not have a breakdown.”
Emily looks at me, really looks at me, wipes my growing-out bangs away from my face. “It’ll be okay, you know. You still have six more days of whining.”
I try to smile but I can’t do it. “Think I’ll make it?”
Emily grabs my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Yeah. Yeah. I think so.” She fumbles her camera out of her duffel bag and as she snaps a picture of me, her tiny sports bra drops out of her bag onto the floor and some idiot sophomore boys start pointing and laughing. She scoops it up, hauls out her middle finger, and waves it at them. She turns to me and says with a big sigh that hits all of her, “Me? I’m not so sure.”
Because I’ve been dreading German I walk really slowly down the halls. It feels like everyone’s staring at me, whispering about me and Dylan, me and Dylan. People like Rachel Austin and Callie Smith say hi and ask how I’m feeling, and I know that today I am in the hot topic in the Eastbrook High School hallways and in the notes everyone passes each other instead of listening to the teacher, and don’t forget all the text messages.
“Did you hear Belle Philbrick passed out at lunch?” Katie Vachon says to Travis Bunker as I walk by. “She and Dylan broke up.”
“Did you hear he’s gay?”
“No way,” Katie says. She used to have a crush on Dylan. We run spring track together. I used to think she was nice, until right now.
“Yeah-huh. Somebody saw him kissing a guy with no hair at parking lot of the Bangor Mall.”
“Wow.”
“Double wow.”
“She booked it out of there, too.”
“She fainted?”
“Swear to God.”
“Mimi says she’s totally mental.”
I ball my hands into fists and wonder if they think I can’t hear them.
Shawn passes by and says, “Hi.”
Some people nod.
Some people turn their heads away. Some people turn their hearts away. Some people turn, turn, turn.
Totally mental.
Some people like Rosie Piazza ask me how I’m doing, if I’m okay.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
Dylan isn’t the only one who knows how to lie.
I slip into my chair, hoping no one will notice me. Tom’s desk is right behind me, but I don’t look at him. I’m afraid to look at him. I’m afraid to look at anybody in here, but there’s one person I really want to look at. There’s one person I want to stare with x-ray-vision eyes, just stare and stare and stare and ask him, “How could you?”
I want to grab him by the shirt and haul him up out of his chair like I’m one of those ripped action-movie stars. I want to beat him over the head with a guitar until they both splinter into pieces on the floor. I want to haul his squat butt up and say, “How could you? How could you? He was mine!”
But that was never true, was it? He never was mine.
He always belonged to himself. He always belonged to Bob. I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know anything.
“Guten Tag, Belle,” says Mr. Reitz, Herr Reitz we’re supposed to call him.
So much for being invisible.
“Guten Tag, Herr Reitz,” I say real low, so I almost can’t even hear myself.
He saunters up to me and smiles. He’s wearing lederhosen today, which is better than when he wears his clown outfit or dresses up like a female opera singer. That means we’ll be doing Beatles songs in German. You can always tell what the lesson plan is by what Mr. Reitz wears. First, though, he decides to torment me.
“Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?” he asks.
What did I do this weekend? I slouch down lower and say the only thing I can remember in German right now.
“Ich habe im Atlantik letztem Wochenende geschwimmen.” I swam in the Atlantic. It’s a lie, but it’s better than, “I found out my boyfriend was gay, passed out at lunch, cried for hours, and wished I could die.”
Herr Reitz, always the actor, grabs his arms and shivers. “War es kalt?”
Yeah, I tell him, it was really freaking cold. “It was so cold that the chickens were lining up at the KFC, begging to jump into the pressure cooker.”
That throws him. That throws everyone, and Herr Reitz bends over, clutching his lederhosen-clad stomach. I let myself smile.
When he finally rights himself he says, “Can you say that in German?”
I shake my head.
“You don’t have to. That was too funny. Somebody write that down!”
Then he goes back into German Teacher Mode, moves on to Bob and asks him the same thing, “Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?”
Bob flinches and behind his glasses, his twitchy little eyes look at me. His twitchy little eyes look at me and it’s all I can do not to get up and pound him. Behind me, I can hear Tom let out a breath real, real slow. I grip the edge of my chair and will myself to be still.
Herr Reitz waits for Bob’s answer.
We all wait for Bob’s answer.
“Ich habe gesungen,” he says.
I sang.
Once when Emily was driving us to one of his jazz choir concerts I asked Dylan about it, about why Bob was always hanging around him but never around us.
“He’s shy,” Dylan said.
Emily and I gave each other looks and he leaned in from the backseat, his voice all emphatic.
“He’s got a lot of baggage,” Dylan said. Em turned down the music. “His mom has multiple sclerosis.”
We knew that. Everyone in Hancock County knew that. Bob?
??s mom used to be the band teacher, but she had to retire early because of her MS. There were all sorts of fundraising concerts for her. Dylan and I both performed in them. Still, Em nodded, all sympathetic. I stared out the window feeling evil, but I wouldn’t let it go.
“He looks at you funny, just hangs around you,” I said and I wanted to say, eating up your popcorn words and your sing me songs like I do. Like I do.
Dylan put his hand on my shoulder. “He just needs a friend. We’ve always been friends.”
“But why can’t he hang out with all of us?”
Em took a picture of us then. Dylan’s face all twisted and angry and me angry and sad and stupid all at once.
“Don’t get all hyper about it, Belle. It’s not a big deal,” his hand left on my shoulder. Em snapped off another one-handed picture and swerved. “I’m just helping him out. Is that some sort of bad thing?”
I shook my head. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “No, it’s not.”
I want to know. Do they make music together? Does he play the saxophone and does Dylan sing and is it sweeter than it was with me? Is it a bebop melody or a lullaby?
Our test is translating lyrics to German songs.
The universe is tormenting me.
The songs?
Love, Love Me Do
She Loves You
Eleanor Rigby . . . the one that has the line about lonely people and how they are everywhere.
Across the aisle, Bob hums under his breath. It sounds like a mosquito that roams around your head when you go to bed at night. It sounds like a pin pricking the tips of your fingers over and over again. It is hard not to throw my Deutsche text book at him. It is hard not to scream.
Finally, finally, finally, Tom says, just low enough for Bob to hear, but not loud enough to alert Herr Reitz, “Shut up, Bob.”
Rasheesh, who is about four feet tall and a wicked brat goes, “Yeah, Bob, shut up. You sound like a drugged-up black fly.”
Bob stops for maybe two minutes and then he starts up again.
It’s about loving someone do and always being true.
I break my pencil in half.
Top Ten Reasons Why I Can’t Believe
I’ve Been Dumped for Bob
He hums during German class.
His glasses are thicker than the soles on L.L. Bean hiking boots.
He smells funny, like mothballs or something, mixed with metal.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class.
He’s in band.
He scratches his head too much.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class OFF-KEY.
He wears tighty whitie underwear that show his butt because his pants are always doing that working man’s smile thing on him.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class OFF-KEY and taps his FEET in time.
He’s a boy.
The bell rings. We grab our books. I fold up my list and shove it in the bottom of my shoe, to remind me why I’m mad, and that it’s okay to be mad, even if I’m supposed to try to love everybody and all that Students-for-Social-Justice stuff. Bob skitters out of German class but he pauses at the door. He turns around and walks back, walks toward me, one step, two.
“Belle?” his voice cracks.
I keep gathering my books, but Tom’s turned still, standing at my elbow like some sort of protector dog.
“Yeah,” I say to Bob. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he says and he turns and runs before I can say anything back. My words, my emotions are peanut butter stuck somewhere behind my incisors. He’s sorry.
Tom comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and says, “I have a game but I can run you home if you need a ride.”
I shake my head. “I’ve got a Key Club Meeting.”
“Pinko Commie,” he says and scruffs my hair like I’m a black lab or something.
“Takes one to know one,” I bounce back, but it sounds flat. It doesn’t sound like our normal teasing. “And ‘pinko’? What’s with ‘pinko’?”
“That’s what all the fascists used to call the communists. Pinkos.”
“So, you’re a fascist?”
“No. Jesus. That’s not what I’m saying,” Tom’s eyes drill into mine for a minute, like he’s trying to figure things out and he finally says, “You still playing guitar?”
“Yeah. You know I play guitar.” Everyone knows I play guitar. I bring Gabriel to school every day, and lots of time I just skip out on most of lunch and go play her in an empty classroom, but maybe Tom’s just making conversation about something he thinks is safe so I shrug and think about Gabriel, lonely, stuck against the wall of my room, soundless.
“You didn’t bring it to school today,” he smiles behind his hand, which was scratching at his cheek.
“You’ve told me that, what, twice now?” This is a little snarky, but I don’t care. “I mean, it’s not like I’m attached to my guitar, like she’s some sort of security blanket or something.”
He shrugs and I feel bad for being snarky. “You were good at the talent show last year.”
“Thanks.”
He smiles and turns away and then shouts over his shoulder, “For a pinko commie.”
There’s this little cemetery up the road from my house, all hidden by trees. The tombstones have sunk into the earth. Moss and lichen mar their whiteness. Time flattened away the names on the stones.
Dylan and I would go there sometimes, when we wanted to be alone, when my mom was home. Or sometimes we’d just walk down there when we wanted some quiet. We’d hold hands and duck our heads between the low cedar branches, inhale the sweet smell of woods coupled with silence, and slip between the granite pillars that once held a gate, I guess.
We’d wander among the gravestones.
“Charlotte Block,” Dylan said. “I bet she had an affair with the good reverend, and pined her days away, looping together rugs from scraps, the maiden aunt in the corner, misunderstood, empty but for her longing.”
I squeezed his hand and then squatted by Charlotte’s grave. “Too sad. She married young and had lots of babies. She wrote poems about ferns and kittens playing with mice. She tried to be who everyone wanted her to be, but never succeeded.”
“She tried so hard to be what was expected that she lost herself,” Dylan added.
I sighed and pulled him down next to me. We leaned on Charlotte’s grave. His tan calf rested on the ground, touching mine. The sun had lightened the hairs on his leg to a gold color. It sparkled against the grass. It was so much bigger than my leg, despite all my biking. He still had bigger calves.
“Do you think everyone’s like that?” I asked him. An osprey flew over us, circling, searching for something on the ground while it soared in the air. “Hey, an osprey.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said. We stared at the v-shaped markings on its wings. “Yeah, I think everyone’s like that.”
“Everyone’s trying to be someone they aren’t?” I plucked up some grass and split the blade in two.
“Yeah. To different degrees, but yeah.”
The grass fell from my fingers. It hit Dylan’s knee. I brushed it off. “Even you?”
He nodded. The osprey circled higher, farther away. “Yeah. Everybody. You too.”
The air heavied against us. I swallowed. The osprey shrieked. “I don’t want to make you into someone you aren’t.”
He shook his head and he put his arm around my shoulder, leaning me into him. “We do it to ourselves. It’s scary to be who we really are.”
“I don’t think I’m trying to be anybody I’m not.”
He let go of my shoulder and leaned away, obviously annoyed. “Belle. Give me a break. You don’t think you aren’t trying to live up to other people?
??s expectations?”
“Well, yeah.”
I grabbed a handful of grass and started sorting it on my thigh, separating the strands by lengths as Dylan kept talking. “When are you happiest?”
“When I’m with you,” I leaned in and kissed him. He sighed and gently pushed me away.
“Other than that.”
I pouted and then decided to answer. “When I play Gabriel.”
He nodded, excitement flushing his face. A squirrel twittered at us from a nearby tree. “Right. But you don’t play it all the time. You don’t even expect to do it for a living, do you? You’re going to be a lawyer, right? Why’s that?”
I grabbed the grass blades off my leg and scattered them. I didn’t answer. I hated it when Dylan did this psychobabble stuff. I loved that he was smart and philosophical, but I hated when he used it on me.
Up in the sky another osprey joined the first one. I wondered what we looked like to them, two tiny specks on the ground, too big to eat, but small, small, small in the scheme of things.
Dylan answered his own question. “You don’t think of being a guitarist because that’s not what’s expected of you. You don’t sit around playing guitar all day because that’s not what other people want you to do. You change your own wants to fulfill other people’s expectations.”
I stood up. “Like you don’t.”
He kept sitting there, sad taking over his face. All my anger melted away. “No, believe me, I do.”
Sometimes we would try to memorize the names of the people in the cemetery, the names of the people whose stories are long gone, who are invisible now, the unremembered. We would chant them like a mantra, with our eyes closed. Our voices overlapping each other.
Larry Rohan
Charlotte Block
Frances Block
Ebenezer Block
Cpt. John Mortan
Horatio Alley
Elizabeth Alley
“We should make up songs about all of them,” I told Dylan, propping myself up on my elbow so I could see his face.
She is pointedly trying not to stare at the crotch area of his too-tight chinos. I know this because she told me this is often a problem. When he struts up to our science-lab table he always stands on the Emily side and his genital region is pretty much the same level as her nose.
She fidgets with her fingers. She puts her hair behind her ear. She fidgets with her fingers some more.
She seems to have lost her gift of words. I evilly wish this had happened in the cafeteria when she told everyone about the state of Dylan’s and my relationship. Then I feel guilty for having such a thought, so I bail her out. “We can’t find Pamela’s spleen.”
Mr. Zeki’s eyebrows raise. “Pamela?”
I cough. It feels like the whole science room’s listening. “Um. Yeah. Pamela. We named our fetal pig Pamela after Pamela Anderson, the actress with the really big, um . . .”
Em’s face turns the color of roasted ham. Anna, who is at the lab table in front of us, starts laughing.
So does Mr. Zeki. He recovers quickly. His too-tight groin area shifts closer to us, our pig, and Emily’s head. “I see. Let’s see if Pamela has a spleen, shall we? Or maybe her other endowments have taken over her entire anatomy.”
The class laughs. Emily puts her head in her hands. Pamela just sprawls there, waiting for the exploration.
“I hate Mr. Zeki,” Emily says later.
“Me too.”
“I know we have an above-normal quota of freaky teachers here, but he’s the worst.”
“No, my German teacher is the worst. He dresses up like a woman,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, slamming books in her locker and pulling out her gym clothes. Emily has PE last period. I have German. “I was really worried about you at lunch, and then when you ran out.”
I shrug. “My mom would say I’ve become unstrung.”
“I know I didn’t run after you, but I thought that would make it even a bigger deal and Shawn said Tom would take care of you, that he’s good at stuff like that. Breakdowns and stuff. Must be because his dad’s a cop. Tom took care of you, didn’t he?”
I shrug again and lie, “I did not have a breakdown.”
Emily looks at me, really looks at me, wipes my growing-out bangs away from my face. “It’ll be okay, you know. You still have six more days of whining.”
I try to smile but I can’t do it. “Think I’ll make it?”
Emily grabs my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Yeah. Yeah. I think so.” She fumbles her camera out of her duffel bag and as she snaps a picture of me, her tiny sports bra drops out of her bag onto the floor and some idiot sophomore boys start pointing and laughing. She scoops it up, hauls out her middle finger, and waves it at them. She turns to me and says with a big sigh that hits all of her, “Me? I’m not so sure.”
Because I’ve been dreading German I walk really slowly down the halls. It feels like everyone’s staring at me, whispering about me and Dylan, me and Dylan. People like Rachel Austin and Callie Smith say hi and ask how I’m feeling, and I know that today I am in the hot topic in the Eastbrook High School hallways and in the notes everyone passes each other instead of listening to the teacher, and don’t forget all the text messages.
“Did you hear Belle Philbrick passed out at lunch?” Katie Vachon says to Travis Bunker as I walk by. “She and Dylan broke up.”
“Did you hear he’s gay?”
“No way,” Katie says. She used to have a crush on Dylan. We run spring track together. I used to think she was nice, until right now.
“Yeah-huh. Somebody saw him kissing a guy with no hair at parking lot of the Bangor Mall.”
“Wow.”
“Double wow.”
“She booked it out of there, too.”
“She fainted?”
“Swear to God.”
“Mimi says she’s totally mental.”
I ball my hands into fists and wonder if they think I can’t hear them.
Shawn passes by and says, “Hi.”
Some people nod.
Some people turn their heads away. Some people turn their hearts away. Some people turn, turn, turn.
Totally mental.
Some people like Rosie Piazza ask me how I’m doing, if I’m okay.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
Dylan isn’t the only one who knows how to lie.
I slip into my chair, hoping no one will notice me. Tom’s desk is right behind me, but I don’t look at him. I’m afraid to look at him. I’m afraid to look at anybody in here, but there’s one person I really want to look at. There’s one person I want to stare with x-ray-vision eyes, just stare and stare and stare and ask him, “How could you?”
I want to grab him by the shirt and haul him up out of his chair like I’m one of those ripped action-movie stars. I want to beat him over the head with a guitar until they both splinter into pieces on the floor. I want to haul his squat butt up and say, “How could you? How could you? He was mine!”
But that was never true, was it? He never was mine.
He always belonged to himself. He always belonged to Bob. I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know anything.
“Guten Tag, Belle,” says Mr. Reitz, Herr Reitz we’re supposed to call him.
So much for being invisible.
“Guten Tag, Herr Reitz,” I say real low, so I almost can’t even hear myself.
He saunters up to me and smiles. He’s wearing lederhosen today, which is better than when he wears his clown outfit or dresses up like a female opera singer. That means we’ll be doing Beatles songs in German. You can always tell what the lesson plan is by what Mr. Reitz wears. First, though, he decides to torment me.
“Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?” he asks.
What did I do this weekend? I slouch down lower and say the only thing I can remember in German right now.
“Ich habe im Atlantik letztem Wochenende geschwimmen.” I swam in the Atlantic. It’s a lie, but it’s better than, “I found out my boyfriend was gay, passed out at lunch, cried for hours, and wished I could die.”
Herr Reitz, always the actor, grabs his arms and shivers. “War es kalt?”
Yeah, I tell him, it was really freaking cold. “It was so cold that the chickens were lining up at the KFC, begging to jump into the pressure cooker.”
That throws him. That throws everyone, and Herr Reitz bends over, clutching his lederhosen-clad stomach. I let myself smile.
When he finally rights himself he says, “Can you say that in German?”
I shake my head.
“You don’t have to. That was too funny. Somebody write that down!”
Then he goes back into German Teacher Mode, moves on to Bob and asks him the same thing, “Was habst du letztes Wochenende gemacht?”
Bob flinches and behind his glasses, his twitchy little eyes look at me. His twitchy little eyes look at me and it’s all I can do not to get up and pound him. Behind me, I can hear Tom let out a breath real, real slow. I grip the edge of my chair and will myself to be still.
Herr Reitz waits for Bob’s answer.
We all wait for Bob’s answer.
“Ich habe gesungen,” he says.
I sang.
Once when Emily was driving us to one of his jazz choir concerts I asked Dylan about it, about why Bob was always hanging around him but never around us.
“He’s shy,” Dylan said.
Emily and I gave each other looks and he leaned in from the backseat, his voice all emphatic.
“He’s got a lot of baggage,” Dylan said. Em turned down the music. “His mom has multiple sclerosis.”
We knew that. Everyone in Hancock County knew that. Bob?
“He looks at you funny, just hangs around you,” I said and I wanted to say, eating up your popcorn words and your sing me songs like I do. Like I do.
Dylan put his hand on my shoulder. “He just needs a friend. We’ve always been friends.”
“But why can’t he hang out with all of us?”
Em took a picture of us then. Dylan’s face all twisted and angry and me angry and sad and stupid all at once.
“Don’t get all hyper about it, Belle. It’s not a big deal,” his hand left on my shoulder. Em snapped off another one-handed picture and swerved. “I’m just helping him out. Is that some sort of bad thing?”
I shook my head. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “No, it’s not.”
I want to know. Do they make music together? Does he play the saxophone and does Dylan sing and is it sweeter than it was with me? Is it a bebop melody or a lullaby?
Our test is translating lyrics to German songs.
The universe is tormenting me.
The songs?
Love, Love Me Do
She Loves You
Eleanor Rigby . . . the one that has the line about lonely people and how they are everywhere.
Across the aisle, Bob hums under his breath. It sounds like a mosquito that roams around your head when you go to bed at night. It sounds like a pin pricking the tips of your fingers over and over again. It is hard not to throw my Deutsche text book at him. It is hard not to scream.
Finally, finally, finally, Tom says, just low enough for Bob to hear, but not loud enough to alert Herr Reitz, “Shut up, Bob.”
Rasheesh, who is about four feet tall and a wicked brat goes, “Yeah, Bob, shut up. You sound like a drugged-up black fly.”
Bob stops for maybe two minutes and then he starts up again.
It’s about loving someone do and always being true.
I break my pencil in half.
Top Ten Reasons Why I Can’t Believe
I’ve Been Dumped for Bob
He hums during German class.
His glasses are thicker than the soles on L.L. Bean hiking boots.
He smells funny, like mothballs or something, mixed with metal.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class.
He’s in band.
He scratches his head too much.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class OFF-KEY.
He wears tighty whitie underwear that show his butt because his pants are always doing that working man’s smile thing on him.
He hums BEATLES songs in German class OFF-KEY and taps his FEET in time.
He’s a boy.
The bell rings. We grab our books. I fold up my list and shove it in the bottom of my shoe, to remind me why I’m mad, and that it’s okay to be mad, even if I’m supposed to try to love everybody and all that Students-for-Social-Justice stuff. Bob skitters out of German class but he pauses at the door. He turns around and walks back, walks toward me, one step, two.
“Belle?” his voice cracks.
I keep gathering my books, but Tom’s turned still, standing at my elbow like some sort of protector dog.
“Yeah,” I say to Bob. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he says and he turns and runs before I can say anything back. My words, my emotions are peanut butter stuck somewhere behind my incisors. He’s sorry.
Tom comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and says, “I have a game but I can run you home if you need a ride.”
I shake my head. “I’ve got a Key Club Meeting.”
“Pinko Commie,” he says and scruffs my hair like I’m a black lab or something.
“Takes one to know one,” I bounce back, but it sounds flat. It doesn’t sound like our normal teasing. “And ‘pinko’? What’s with ‘pinko’?”
“That’s what all the fascists used to call the communists. Pinkos.”
“So, you’re a fascist?”
“No. Jesus. That’s not what I’m saying,” Tom’s eyes drill into mine for a minute, like he’s trying to figure things out and he finally says, “You still playing guitar?”
“Yeah. You know I play guitar.” Everyone knows I play guitar. I bring Gabriel to school every day, and lots of time I just skip out on most of lunch and go play her in an empty classroom, but maybe Tom’s just making conversation about something he thinks is safe so I shrug and think about Gabriel, lonely, stuck against the wall of my room, soundless.
“You didn’t bring it to school today,” he smiles behind his hand, which was scratching at his cheek.
“You’ve told me that, what, twice now?” This is a little snarky, but I don’t care. “I mean, it’s not like I’m attached to my guitar, like she’s some sort of security blanket or something.”
He shrugs and I feel bad for being snarky. “You were good at the talent show last year.”
“Thanks.”
He smiles and turns away and then shouts over his shoulder, “For a pinko commie.”
There’s this little cemetery up the road from my house, all hidden by trees. The tombstones have sunk into the earth. Moss and lichen mar their whiteness. Time flattened away the names on the stones.
Dylan and I would go there sometimes, when we wanted to be alone, when my mom was home. Or sometimes we’d just walk down there when we wanted some quiet. We’d hold hands and duck our heads between the low cedar branches, inhale the sweet smell of woods coupled with silence, and slip between the granite pillars that once held a gate, I guess.
We’d wander among the gravestones.
“Charlotte Block,” Dylan said. “I bet she had an affair with the good reverend, and pined her days away, looping together rugs from scraps, the maiden aunt in the corner, misunderstood, empty but for her longing.”
I squeezed his hand and then squatted by Charlotte’s grave. “Too sad. She married young and had lots of babies. She wrote poems about ferns and kittens playing with mice. She tried to be who everyone wanted her to be, but never succeeded.”
“She tried so hard to be what was expected that she lost herself,” Dylan added.
I sighed and pulled him down next to me. We leaned on Charlotte’s grave. His tan calf rested on the ground, touching mine. The sun had lightened the hairs on his leg to a gold color. It sparkled against the grass. It was so much bigger than my leg, despite all my biking. He still had bigger calves.
“Do you think everyone’s like that?” I asked him. An osprey flew over us, circling, searching for something on the ground while it soared in the air. “Hey, an osprey.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said. We stared at the v-shaped markings on its wings. “Yeah, I think everyone’s like that.”
“Everyone’s trying to be someone they aren’t?” I plucked up some grass and split the blade in two.
“Yeah. To different degrees, but yeah.”
The grass fell from my fingers. It hit Dylan’s knee. I brushed it off. “Even you?”
He nodded. The osprey circled higher, farther away. “Yeah. Everybody. You too.”
The air heavied against us. I swallowed. The osprey shrieked. “I don’t want to make you into someone you aren’t.”
He shook his head and he put his arm around my shoulder, leaning me into him. “We do it to ourselves. It’s scary to be who we really are.”
“I don’t think I’m trying to be anybody I’m not.”
He let go of my shoulder and leaned away, obviously annoyed. “Belle. Give me a break. You don’t think you aren’t trying to live up to other people?
“Well, yeah.”
I grabbed a handful of grass and started sorting it on my thigh, separating the strands by lengths as Dylan kept talking. “When are you happiest?”
“When I’m with you,” I leaned in and kissed him. He sighed and gently pushed me away.
“Other than that.”
I pouted and then decided to answer. “When I play Gabriel.”
He nodded, excitement flushing his face. A squirrel twittered at us from a nearby tree. “Right. But you don’t play it all the time. You don’t even expect to do it for a living, do you? You’re going to be a lawyer, right? Why’s that?”
I grabbed the grass blades off my leg and scattered them. I didn’t answer. I hated it when Dylan did this psychobabble stuff. I loved that he was smart and philosophical, but I hated when he used it on me.
Up in the sky another osprey joined the first one. I wondered what we looked like to them, two tiny specks on the ground, too big to eat, but small, small, small in the scheme of things.
Dylan answered his own question. “You don’t think of being a guitarist because that’s not what’s expected of you. You don’t sit around playing guitar all day because that’s not what other people want you to do. You change your own wants to fulfill other people’s expectations.”
I stood up. “Like you don’t.”
He kept sitting there, sad taking over his face. All my anger melted away. “No, believe me, I do.”
Sometimes we would try to memorize the names of the people in the cemetery, the names of the people whose stories are long gone, who are invisible now, the unremembered. We would chant them like a mantra, with our eyes closed. Our voices overlapping each other.
Larry Rohan
Charlotte Block
Frances Block
Ebenezer Block
Cpt. John Mortan
Horatio Alley
Elizabeth Alley
“We should make up songs about all of them,” I told Dylan, propping myself up on my elbow so I could see his face.