Gym Candy (14 page)

"Hey, Mick," Drew said. "What's up?"

"Nothing," I said, glad to hear his voice.

"Really?" he said in disbelief. "You really got nothing going? I thought you had every minute of the summer planned out. Workouts at your gym and work for your dad and all that."

"I'm taking a short break from my workouts. I just power-washed the house, and it's got to dry out before I can paint. So I've got nothing going."

"Well, that's great," he said, his voice excited, "because I was hoping you'd want to hang out some but I didn't figure you'd have time."

"I've got time."

"All right, then, here's the deal. DeShawn and I have been going to Green Lake in the afternoons to play volleyball with Natalie, Heather, and Kaylee—that group. Brad Middleton has been coming, but he just left for Scotland with his family. We need another player." He paused. "It'll be fun, and Kaylee especially will like seeing you. She's got a thing for you, I think. What do you say?"

"When's all this happening?" I asked.

"Now," he said. "Well, not right now, but in half an hour. The big field across from Starbucks."

I felt like a drowning man in the ocean who suddenly sees a boat heading his way. "I'll be there. I can give you a ride if you want."

"Thanks, but I don't need one. I got my permit last week. My dad will drive down with me. He wants me to get practice on hills."

***

First I had trouble finding a parking spot near the lake, and then, as I walked toward the lake, a feeling of panic came over me. I hadn't hung out with anyone for a long time. I wasn't sure I knew what to say or how to act. I considered turning around and going home, but Kaylee saw me and waved. She was wearing light blue shorts and a white tank top. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her whole body was tan and somehow seemed to glow.

Heather and Natalie were there, too, along with Drew and DeShawn. I joined in the large circle and tried to warm up with them. I felt useless until Kaylee took me to the side and showed me how to bump a volleyball. Sometimes I was decent, but about every third hit would go careening off wildly. I felt certain I'd ruin the game for everyone, but Kaylee only laughed. "You'll get it, Mick. It takes time."

Nets were set up for pickup games all around the field. The rules were simple. Win and you keep playing; lose and you sit out. DeShawn and Kaylee were great, the other girls were good, Drew was okay, and I was up and down, occasionally making decent shots but at other times fouling up easy balls. We lost more than we won, but nobody seemed to care.

Around five we went over to Guayma's and ate
nachos, and then we walked around Green Lake, paired up. "See you tomorrow?" Kaylee said when we were back at the field.

"Yeah," I said. "See you tomorrow."

For the rest of the week, I spent every afternoon playing volleyball and then walking around Green Lake afterward with Kaylee. Every time I looked at her, she seemed brighter and more alive. Sometimes talking to her was awkward, but other times we'd get going and the words came naturally. On Thursday and Friday, I drove Kaylee home. "It's cool that you have your license," she said.

"I didn't get held back or anything," I said. "My dad just didn't start me when I was five."

"My parents did the same thing with my younger brother," she said.

Saturday the plan was to play volleyball, walk the lake, eat at the Green Lake CafÉ, and then see a movie at the Majestic Bay. When I left the house after lunch, I told my mom I'd be home late. "Good," she said. "Glad to hear it."

Parking was much harder than usual by Green Lake. As I neared the field, I could tell something was different. Instead of pickup volleyball games, a tournament was going on. Around the outside of the field were booths selling volleyballs, visors, kneepads, and ankle braces—all that stuff.

It was a hot day, the hottest day of the summer. I spotted Kaylee and the others under a tree in a circle, bumping the volleyball. The girls were wearing shorts and bikini tops. Kaylee's was white, and it made her tan more golden.

I joined the circle. "Can we play in the tournament?" I asked.

"We can play," Drew answered, "but it costs fifty bucks to enter."

"Fifty bucks," I asked.

"Fifty bucks," he repeated. "And when we lose twice, we're out."

We bumped a little longer, until finally Natalie Vick caught the ball. "We've got to decide."

"I say no," said DeShawn. "We got no chance. It's a waste of money."

"So what are we going to do instead?" Kaylee said.

"How about we go swimming?" Drew suggested. "We could swim and then walk around the lake to dry off. "

Within minutes the girls were in the water, with
Drew right behind them. DeShawn had been wearing high-top basketball shoes, so it took him time to unlace them. "I'll stay up here and watch everybody's stuff," I said to him.

"Nobody's going to take anything," he said.

"I don't feel like swimming."

DeShawn shook his head. "It's a zillion degrees, there are three girls out there in little bikinis waiting for you, and you don't feel like swimming? You're nuts."

He turned, ran down the beach, and dived into the water. I saw Kaylee talking to him, and then she swam toward me. "Come in the water, Mick," she called out. "It's not cold. Really."Then Heather and Natalie started calling for me to join them.

I didn't know what to do. I'd been taking the Nolvadex for nearly a week. I thought my nipples had pretty much gone back to normal, but I still had some zits on my back and chest.

The girls kept waving and calling. Other people on the beach were starting to stare. I felt like an idiot, so I took off my shoes and shirt and raced into the water until it was knee high, then dived and swam out to them. I stayed hunched down, treading water, only my head visible. The girls were doing the same thing, hiding their bodies.

We splashed each other for a while, and then
DeShawn and Drew swam over to a pier that juts into the water, climbed up, and dived off. Soon Heather and Natalie started diving, too. "You want to dive?" Kaylee asked.

"Not really," I said.

After about ten minutes, the rest of them climbed out and sat on the pier in the sun, talking and sunbathing. "You want to sit on the pier?" Kaylee asked.

"You go ahead. I'll just go back to the beach and dry off."

"I'll get out, too," she said.

"No, don't," I said. "Stay with them."

"Only if you do."

What could I do? I liked her; I didn't want her to think I was weird. Besides, I wasn't really sure if anybody would notice anything. It's not as if I were the only high school guy in the world with a few zits on his chest and back. So I swam over to the pier, grabbed hold of the ladder, and pulled myself up. Kaylee had climbed up before me and was just sitting down. As soon as I stepped onto the wood planks, she looked at me. She'd been smiling, and then her face dropped.

I looked down at my body. In my bathroom with a night-light on, my chest hadn't seemed too bad. But out in the bright sunlight, there was no pretending. My
nipples were still oddly puffy, and my zits were red and angry.

Kaylee had caught herself. The revulsion was gone from her face; in its place was a phony cheerfulness. The rest of them were the same. When they looked at me, they made sure that they looked only from the neck up.

I forced myself to sit there, for a minute ... for two minutes ... for three. Then I stood. "I've got to go now," I said. "My dad needs me to help him paint." Before anyone could object, I walked the length of the pier, back to the beach.

I dried myself a little with my shirt and then pulled it on. How stupid could one person be? I looked back for a split second. Kaylee had stayed on the pier with the rest of them, which was where I wanted her to be.

Once I got into my Jeep, I turned the radio on full blast and drove, taking every turn hard and fast. I drove east on Forty-fifth, away from Green Lake, from my home, from Shilshole High, from Popeye's, from everything. I was headed nowhere, just away. I wasn't sure if I wanted to think or if I wanted to keep myself from thinking.

I followed Forty-fifth out to I-5 and headed south. When I saw the turnoff for I-90 a couple miles later, I
took it and then drove up into the mountains toward eastern Washington, where I used to go camping with my dad. As I drove, my mind was racing. What did I want, really?

In Ellensburg I bought a sandwich in a supermarket and ate at a picnic table at a rest stop. Then I got back in the car and drove another hour. Just outside Yakima I filled the tank at an Arco station. After I paid, I headed back to the freeway. I could have kept driving, through Yakima and south into Oregon, but what was the point? I was tired of thinking, tired of driving, tired of everything. When I exited the gas station, I took the Seattle on-ramp.

Instead of being crowded with a million thoughts, my mind shut down on the ride home. The setting sun turned the brown hillsides outside Yakima to gold. By the time I reached the mountains, it was deep twilight, the trees like shadows of themselves. I cleared Snoqualmie Pass a little past ten and reached the house around eleven.

Sunday morning, my mom pleaded with my dad and me to go with her to her new church, Mars Hill. "It's different from a regular church. Vibrant, intellectual, socially committed. The people are there because they want to be there. Just once, please. Spirituality is a part of life, too."

The service lasted from eleven to noon. The sermon was about making the world better in little ways. Afterward, cookies and coffee and Coke were served in the basement. My mom, her cheeks red, a circle of friends surrounding her, seemed like a different person. I'd never heard her talk so much or so fast. My dad got a cup of coffee and found himself a corner. I felt lost, and then over by the food table I spotted Russ Diver. Our eyes locked for a moment before he looked away, pretending he hadn't seen me.

Maybe it was listening to the sermon about doing the little things right. Or maybe it was that I didn't want to play the coward. Whatever the reason, I made myself walk over to him. "Hey, Russ."

"Hey, Mick," he answered, distrust in his eyes.

"You come here much?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

"Every week."

"This is my first time."

"Yeah, I figured." We stood, awkward and silent, and then he nodded toward an overweight girl who played clarinet in the school band and whose name I'd heard but forgotten. She was holding up a paper cup and smiling at him. "I've got to go, Mick," he said. "Gina's waiting for me." He started off toward her.

"Russ," I called, and he turned back. "I'm sorry about that day."

His eyes went wide. "I should have been looking where—"

"No, Russ," I said. "It was my fault."

He nodded before quickly turning and heading off.

For the next half-hour, I stood in a corner, feeling completely out of place. Every once in a while I'd look over at Russ and he'd be laughing with Gina, or she'd be looking up at him as if he were a prince and he'd be looking at her as though she were a princess. He was the fat, blubbery loser. I was the guy on the football team. How could he have everything squared away while everything was in pieces for me?

When I got home a message from Drew was on the machine. He rattled on and on, trying to act as if nothing had happened, but I could feel the tension in his
voice. "Give me a call," he said at the end, "or just show up at Green Lake."

I listened to his message three times. It was another hot day, close to ninety. They'd want to go swimming at Green Lake, all of them, but if I was there, we could be ten feet from a lake and no one would even suggest it. They'd think they were being kind, but the silence would be humiliating. And it wouldn't just be today, it'd be all summer.

Maybe there was a way, though. Little by little, the Nolvadex was working. If I got off the train entirely, if I never took the D-bol again, then the grossness would never come back. I could swim, I could sunbathe, I could walk the lake with my shirt off. Whatever any of them wanted to do would be okay, because I wouldn't be disgusting.

I went downstairs, got into the Jeep, and headed out, not sure where. Driving along Fremont Avenue, I could feel the pull of Green Lake. Kaylee and Drew and Natalie and Heather and DeShawn—they were hanging out, talking, waiting for me. I thought again of Russ Diver and Gina. Okay, he was fat, and okay, she was nothing to look at—but still, they were happy being with each other, happy being themselves. I'd seen it in her eyes, in his. It could be that way for Kaylee and me.
All I had to do was turn left, circle around to Stone Way, and drive to the lake.

Maybe that's why I didn't do it. Because it was so simple. I could
always
make that turn and go to Green Lake. I could always stop the steroids, stop the workouts with Peter, stop going to Popeye's. I could always give up on my dream of being something special on the football field. I could always be another guy on the football team. Third row back, third from the end in the team photo.

I could always be a nobody.

Peter spotted me as soon as I stepped through the door. "Hey, Mick," he said. "Good to see you again."

"Good to be here," I said.

He lowered his voice. "How's your body doing? The stuff working?"

"Yeah, but slowly."

"You might always have some zits and some nipple puffiness. It varies from person to person."

For a moment we both stood, neither of us speaking. Then I said it. "I want to do a real stack."

He looked around the room. A couple of guys were within earshot. "Let's go in the back."

I followed him to the meeting room. "You're sure?" he said once the door clicked shut behind us.

"I'm sure."

"Why the change?"

"Because tryouts are coming up. I've got to be ready. The stuff you do—it'll make me stronger faster, right?"

"Yeah, it will." He lowered his voice. "But you're talking injections, you know, and a lot of them."

"I know."

"And you're okay with that?"