Ask the Passengers (23 page)

Before seventh period, I drop in and tell Ms. Steck I’m skipping lit mag this week. She nods as if she already knew this.

“Did you see those?” she asks, and points to the blackboard. There are two more signs like the one I pulled off the wall yesterday. One says
DYKES NEED DICK!
Same lettering as the sign in my backpack. “I’m starting a collection,” she says. “Kids can be so clever.”

The other sign reads
ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE
, which is wholly unoriginal.

“Yeah,” I say. “People here are really bright.”

Ms. Steck says, “Just remember it’s a small minority.”

I reach into my backpack and find the
MS. STECK
’
S PUSSY
sign from yesterday, and I take it to the board and straighten it out. We tape it there together, and I draw an arrow in chalk to the apostrophe and write
UNNECESSARY APOSTROPHE. FAIL.

There are three afternoon announcements after the usual list of kids who need to report to the vice principal for disciplining. The first one is about a change in tomorrow’s lunch menu—not chicken patties but turkey cheesesteaks. The second one is about how Monday’s schedule will change because for third and fourth periods, the entire school will recognize a Day of Tolerance with an assembly and a “No Hate” pep rally. I don’t hear the third announcement because I’m too busy hearing the blood pulse through my ears and feeling like there is a hot direct spotlight on me.

WHEN I GET HOME
, Mom is sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. With Dad. Ellis is upstairs playing her music too loudly. Something is really different, but I can’t figure out what it is.

The letter from the district magistrate’s office is at my place setting, opened.

“Hi, Mom,” I say. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

I look past her into the living room. I make out three distinct shapes. The ironing board. The iron, on, with its little red light glowing. A pile of—what is that?

“Ellis tells me that you’re having a hard time this week at school,” she says.

“Actually, it’s not that bad.”

“Hmm. Well,
she’s
having a bad time this week at school,” she says.

Dad says, “And this Tolerance Day next week is something she can’t do. It’s too difficult for her after… this.”

I shrug.

She adds, “You know people are saying it about her now, too, right?”

“Saying what?” I ask, even though I know exactly what she’s talking about. But if we’re all so New York City open-minded, then why are we making such a big effing deal out of this?

“We want to know if you’re gay,” Mom says. “We can’t really go any further with you until we know the truth.”

“You can’t go further with me? What does that mean?” I ask. “As parents?”

Dad says, “We’re doing the best we can, but with all your lying, we don’t think we can get you back on track until everything is out in the open.”

Back on track. Can’t go any further. Sounds like they’ve been watching Dr. Phil or something.
“I didn’t know I was off the track,” I say. I go to the cabinet and fetch a few Rolaids and chew on them.

“You didn’t?” Dad says.

“For Christ’s sake, Astrid, look at you!” Mom says over him.

I look at myself. I look exactly the same as I did a week ago, before Atlantis got busted. I look exactly the same as I did five months ago, before I started kissing Dee in the walk-ins. “I don’t look any different than I did last week, do I?” Frank hops up onto the kitchen counter, crosses his arms and snickers.

“I think your mother means your criminal record.”

“And the lying!” she adds.

“And the lying!” Frank says.

“Oh,” I say. And then I notice what’s different: It’s the curtains. All the curtains are down. Even the privacy lace ones. That’s what’s in the pile next to the ironing board. Mom is washing and ironing all of the curtains.

Which is why it’s so bright for a dreary November afternoon.

“Well? Can you tell us the truth?” Dad asks.

“How come you’re ironing the curtains?” I ask.

“What?”

“That must have taken you all day. Why didn’t you get them washed and pressed at the dry cleaner?”

Dad leans forward. “Does this mean yes?”

“Yes?” I ask. I already forgot the question.

“Are you gay?” Mom asks.

I sigh. “I have no idea,” I say. Frank sighs and rolls his eyes.

Mom perks up. “So, we went from
I’m not gay, I was just in a gay club to dance
to
I don’t know
.”

“Right,” I say.

“So does this mean yes?” Dad asks again. I look at Frank Socrates, and he says, in my head,
Settle for nothing less than the truth. Even if the answer is
I don’t know.

“No,” I say. “It means I don’t know. It’s really not as easy as you’re making it.”

“Don’t give me that,” Mom says.

“What?”

“It’s not a choice. Either you’re born gay or you’re not born gay,” she says.

“While I appreciate your strict categorization and policies of gayness, I can’t say that I know one way or the other. So, logic tells me that if I was born gay, then I should know that I am gay, which means, by your rules, no. I am not gay. Because I don’t know.” They stare at me. I start writing a list on a piece of notepaper as I talk. “But if it’s about love and attraction to people of the same gender and a possibility of maybe being in love with a girl, then the answer could be yes. But I wouldn’t call myself gay. It just wouldn’t seem right to real gay people. Especially if they were born knowing for sure, like you say they were.”

“Jesus Christ! Can you just cut the sarcasm and answer the damn question?” Mom yells.

“I just did answer the question,” I say, still writing without looking up.

“You can’t give us a yes or a no?” Dad asks. I can tell he’s dying to get out to that garage as soon as humanly possible. He’s nearly drooling.

“Not really,” I say. “Sorry.”
However, I can give you a leave-me-the-hell-alone-why-does-it-matter-so-damn-much-and-it’s-none-of-your-goddamn-business. Love you.
“It’s just not as simple as you’re making it out to be. I don’t think every gay person can be clearly defined and kept in a nifty little box, you know?”

After a minute of silence, Dad says, “So you’re not going to tell us.”

“I just told you.”

Mom says, “Frankly, I’m even more disappointed than I was before we started.”

I sigh. I’m exhausted by them. I’m exhausted by me. I’m exhausted by having to be me, with them.

I finish my list. It reads:
Here is a list of things you can put in a box: Puppies. Lipstick. Jump ropes. Jewelry. Card games. Hair accessories. Love letters. Spoons. Office supplies. Nail polish. Art projects. Leaves collected on an autumn walk. Cereal bowls. Popsicle sticks. Used staples. Books. Action figures. Weapons of mass destruction. Model cars. Pictures of loved ones. Thumbtacks.
I put it in my pocket.

Mom says, “Kristina’s mother says that going to that bar was your idea. We can’t figure out where you’d come up with that idea if you haven’t been lying to us. I’d like to know when you first went there, and I want to know how you got in and—”

“Wait. What?” I look at her. “What did you just say?” This particular piece of bullshit was fine as a stupid high school rumor, but this is different.

“I talked with Kristina, too. She told me you had to drag her there.”

I stare at her. I become Very Serious Astrid. I sit up straight. I take a deep breath. “Kristina said that I dragged her to Atlantis?”

“Yes. She said she’d never thought about it before because she and Justin were meeting their
friends
on those double dates they used to take.” She winces a bit with the term
double dates
.

“That’s complete bullshit,” I say. “I can’t believe she said that.”

Frank says, “Really? I can.”

“I don’t have any reason to disbelieve her, do I?” Mom says.

Mom sits there with her eyebrows up in a judgmental arch.

“Like—only her
entire freaking life
was a lie, Mom. And all of you bought it! Only a few weeks ago you were asking me about her and Justin and Homecoming. How about
that
lie?” I yell.

“Well.” She stops for a second as if she’s about to say something nice. “Until she and her mother come here and tell me they lied, I believe them. They’re good people.”

“And I’m not?”

“I didn’t say that,” she says.

“She dragged me there after bugging me for months. She didn’t even know about—uh.” I stop.

“About what?” Mom asks.

“About any questions I might have about stuff like that.” I send love to myself for playing that so vague.
Astrid, man, you’re smooth. I love the way you just made that completely obtuse. Nice save.

“So you’re saying the exact opposite? That Kristina dragged
you
there?” Mom says.

“Yes.”

Dad sighs. “I don’t see why this even matters.”

I say, “It matters to me because my best friend just screwed me over when it was all her idea. I’ll never trust her again. Maybe the only friend she has in this house is you now, Mom.”

Dad looks concerned. Mom looks a mix of confused and smug. Frank S. looks hungry. He gets up and looks in the fridge.

“I checked the story with the few people in town who I trust. They said that’s the version they heard, too.”

I stare at her. “That’s because they’re repeating what they heard… from Mrs. Houck, probably.”

“Either way, my daughter dragged a fifth of the town’s Homecoming Court to a gay bar and got them all arrested.”

“That’s bullshit and technically, we didn’t get arrested.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know why I bother to try to get an honest answer out of you. You haven’t said anything… meaningful to me in years.” She goes into the living room and turns on a table lamp and begins to attack the curtains with the hot iron. I sit there and have thoughts about attacking
her
with a hot iron.
Meaningful?
As if she wasn’t too busy dressing Ellis up in diamonds and velvet to hear me if I ever did offer anything meaningful. As if she’d ever think anything I said was meaningful. Jesus.

Dad gets up and goes out the back door toward the garage, and I almost want to follow him and ask him if I can have a toke off the pipe just so I can unhear what she just said.

Instead, I go to my picnic table. As I lie here, bundled in my winter coat and scarf, I can smell Dad’s wafting pot smoke, and I find three planes all flying in a row in the dusky sky. Once I let go of how mad I am at Mom, I realize that I’m steaming about Kristina. On fire. Smoldering. Exploding.

I think of all the bossy moments and the perfect ponytail moments and the pressuring moments and what she made me do to Jeff Garnet. I’m too angry to lie here. I get up and walk to the edge of our yard and then back to the garage. Then I go past the side door and out onto the street and then over to
Kristina’s house, where no lights are on and the minivan is still missing from the driveway. I sit on the back porch and swing on the swing.

I look around for something to vandalize. Something to punch.

I walk over to the back storm door and write
LIAR
on the glass with my finger, but it’s so clean, I don’t think anyone will see it. I write it again on the siding by the back door and the stone and the pear trees that line the back path. I write it on the garage door. Five times.
LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR.

They say:
Did you see Astrid Jones acting crazy over at the Houck place tonight?

They say:
I told you they broke up.

Then, after one last
LIAR
on the black mailbox, I walk across the street to our house and get back on my table.

I find airplanes in the sky. I watch them. I picture the passengers. But I can’t find any love at all to send to them. I try my mantra.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
It’s hollow and stupid.

I don’t love anyone right now. Not even me.

“This is the longest Wednesday in the history of man,” I say to Frank S., who is sitting in his favorite spot on the bench by the back patio door.