Know Not Why: A Novel (13 page)

“Fine,” Cora says with an ‘I’m so over this’
sigh. “You think that’s gonna help? Here.”

She grabs my hand and plants it firmly on her
boob.

“Do you like this?” she demands.

And, well, what kind of a question is that?

“What?” I ask, trying to look at her like she’s
nuts. Not so hard. “Yeah. Of course. Why are you even asking me
that?”

“Because there are some guys,” she replies, “who
prefer rippling pectorals.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, forcing myself to scoff,
“I’m not one of ‘em.”

We sit in silence.

I really just – I want to move my hand. I get
that she put it there and all, but this seems rude.

“What do you like about it?” Cora asks then.

Seriously??

But the expression on her face tells me that,
yeah,
seriously, so I figure I’ve just gotta answer this
question and answer it good.

“It’s … plump,” I say, feeling around a little,
feeling terrible doing it. I’m fairly certain my mother raised me
to be better than this. “Kinda squishy, but you know, not – too–
Fuck, I don’t know, Cora!” I move my hand away. I can’t do this
anymore. “It’s a tit. Guys like tits. It’s the rules.”

“What
rules
?” Cora demands, sitting up
taller and fixing me with a glare that could easily take on even
Amber’s fiercest. “The rules of frigid heterosexuality?”

“Well, yeah!” I shout without thinking about
it.

“You know what, Jenkins, I’ve enjoyed a tit or
two in my time,” she tells me, eyes blazing. “Am I a guy?”

“You’re a lesbian?” I ask blankly. Now that I
think about it …

“And give up my chance at scoring Gerard Butler
someday? I don’t think so.”

“You’re bi,” I surmise. I’m starting to feel
dizzy.

“I’m gonna be with whoever I want to. Whoever
makes me feel good. I’m not going to let some stupid, like,
societal need to categorize tell me that that feeling’s wrong, no
matter who’s making me feel it.”

“What if it was, like, a goose?” I challenge. I
don’t know. It’s starting to make too much sense, to sound too
logical the way she says it, and I don’t want any of that.

“Geese don’t tend to make me horny,” she replies
without missing a beat. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m a chicken man,” I retort.

This shocks a smile out of her. A laugh, too.
And even though this is currently rivaling a certain fake flower
aisle kiss for the craziest moment that I have ever had, stuff
relaxes a little.

“Howie,” she says, drawing my name out. She
reaches over and I get a little nervous, but then it’s just to
brush a hand against my cheek. That’s not so bad. “You know what?”
she asks, looking right into my eyes. “Honestly? You make me sad.
And I’m not saying that in a bitchy way. I’m just saying it in a
true way. You’re so, like … you’re like the most trapped person
I’ve ever met. Out of
anyone
.”

“What, because you think I’m gay?”

“Because I think you’re really, really into
Arthur,” she replies. She says it simply, like it’s a thing that’s
even remotely okay. “And you won’t let yourself know it.”

“God,” I say, hating hearing it out loud. I’ve
never had to hear it out loud, I never
planned
on hearing it
out loud. I bury my face in one hand. “God, that is so not …”

“And Arthur’s a good guy. I can’t stand the
bastard most of the time, but he is. And, you know what, he’s
pretty damn trapped too.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, pulling my
hand away to look at her. “He’s out. He’s gay. He had a – Patrick,
or whatever.”

“Like that’s the only way to be trapped?”

How one person so little and so crazy can sound
so
right
when she says stuff is just … beyond me.

“I’m not …” But I know that no matter what I
say, she’s not going to believe me. And right now, that’s not a
battle I want to fight. I’m tired. “Shit, I don’t know.”

“Hey,” she says, knocking her shoulder against
mine. “I have a great idea.”

“What?” I ask wearily.

“How ‘bout you give me a ride back to my car,
and then you go somewhere and think about this enlightening
conversation?”

“Sure,” I say. Mostly because the prospect of
being rid of her? Such a good one.

“And don’t drive your car into a lake or
something,” she adds, squeezing my knee. “Because then I’d have to
feel bad, and I don’t really have time for that right now. We’ve
got tech rehearsals starting this week.”

I promise her I won’t drive into a lake.

“Why did you even …?” I ask her once we’re both
properly front-seated and on the way back to the store. I’m not
really sure how to finish the question.

“Dude, I’ve been doing theatre my whole life.
You think I haven’t learned to recognize that special glint of
oh-God-I’m-gay fear in a man’s eyes?”

“Huh,” I say. It’s not like it’s a confession,
or some big revelation, or anything. It’s ‘huh.’ Slightly more
sophisticated cousin of ‘uh.’ It means next to nothing.

“And besides,” she adds after a little bit of
quiet, “kinda been there. What?” she adds, laughing a little at the
look I must be giving her. “Believe it or not, I haven’t always
been the masterpiece of blazing self-esteem you see before you
today.”

I gotta admit: that’s comforting. I guess I
always figured Cora sprang fully formed and badass from Shirley
Manson’s forehead. “Oh yeah?”

She smirks. “Is anyone ever a masterpiece of
blazing self-esteem in middle school?”

In another five minutes, we’re outside Artie
Kraft’s.

She pecks me on the cheek, then climbs out.

“Thanks for a splendid evening,” she tells me in
this fluttery ingénue voice.

“Yeah, sure,” I reply, scowling.

“And thanks for dragging me out of there,” she
adds, becoming Cora again. “That movie still makes me cry like a
fucking baby.”

With that, she slams the door and jogs to her
car. I watch her go, and in spite of the mad sick hell she’s put me
through, I don’t hate her.

I stare at the store for a second, not really
knowing why. Then I pull out of the parking lot and back onto the
street. I find myself turning right, even though I need to go left
to get back to my house. I decide that I need to make a quick stop
first. I’ve given Kristy a ride home a couple times. I know the
way.

Chapter Ten

“Howie,” Arthur says, surprised, when he opens
the door.

“Is Kristy here?” I ask quickly.

“No, she and Nikki went out. I can tell her you
stopped—”

“Good. I need to ask you some stuff.”

“Um. All right. Come on in.”

I follow him inside. The apartment is nice and
warm. There’s opera floating through the air, and even though I’m
not exactly a big fan – like, at all – it seems to match. Make
things warmer. Nicer. Plus, the air’s full of the smell of
something delicious cooking. My mouth starts watering a little,
even though the last thing on my mind right now is food.

And then there’s Arthur himself. He’s not
wearing a tie, marvel to end all marvels. The top button of his
shirt is undone. He looks all relaxed, and – well, good, he looks
good, I think he looks good. Which brings us back to the problem at
hand.

“Nice tunes,” I remark. Stupidly, inanely. I
don’t break the ice; the ice breaks me.

“La Boheme,” Arthur says in this way that’s sort
of self-indulgent, accompanied by a little half-embarrassed smile.
The way my mom would say, like, The Carpenters.

“Cool,” I say. I don’t have anything else to say
about La Boheme.

“Would you like something to drink? There’s …
well, water, and diet Sprite, and some sort of … fruit punch. All
Kristy and Nikki’s, I’m afraid. And I was going to open a bottle of
wine with dinner, if—”

“No, that’s okay—” I pause, because I’ve just
followed him into the living room, and amongst the pastel colors
and the fairy lights strung across the walls and the eighty zillion
cute throw pillows, there’s— “What the hell is that?”

I know what it is. It’s a poster. A poster
of—

“Kittens,” Arthur says, with great resignation,
“dressed like angels. Well,” he amends, “cherubs, to be precise, I
think. Ergo the—”

“Diapers,” I say, mesmerized.

“Precisely,” he sighs.

“That one’s holding a harp. How is that even
possible?”

“An ungodly act of Photoshop, I suspect.”

I wince. “Sorry, man.”

“I try pretend it’s not there when I go to sleep
at night,” he replies grimly.

“How’s that goin’ for you?”

“Better. Slowly.”

I laugh. Like, genuinely.

“I’ve just got to check on the stove really
quickly,” Arthur says. The kitchen’s right opposite the living
room, separated by a breakfast bar counter. There’s a big pan on
the stove contentedly puffing out steam from beneath the lid.

“Sure, go for it,” I reply.

Another thing about Artie (I muse as I watch him
go over to the stove): he says his adverbs when he’s supposed to.
That’s tremendous and weird and sort of awesome. How many people do
that these days? Say ‘really quickly’ instead of ‘really
quick’?

And then suddenly I realize, watching him, that
opera and delicious-smelling food aren’t exactly the makings of a
solo evening.

Oh, jeez, what if he’s getting back with the
mysterious Patrick dude? Not that I care, but, I don’t know, that
guy strikes me as sort of an asshole. Really shady. Not the sort of
person anybody should be dealing with, even Artie. Not that it’s my
business. “Are you having people over or something? Because I can
take off. I don’t really—”

“No, no, it’s just me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“And you made … that?” I stare at the
skillet.

“Chicken cacciatore. And, yes.”

“Why?”

“I enjoy cooking. And I guess I fell into the
habit of having decent meals. Even if I’m the only one eating
them.”

“Wow,” I say.

“Is that terribly sad?” he finishes with a wry
smile.

“Not really,” I reply truthfully. “The majority
of my meals come out of cans. Or, like, Ramen packets. Or fast food
drive-thrus.
That’s
terribly sad.”

“Yes,” Arthur agrees, “that’s alarming.”

He smiles at me, though, this ‘aw, don’t worry,
I’m just messing with you’ smile. I find myself smiling back – not
to uphold the general rules of smiling, wherein when someone smiles
at you, you return it, but because I want to.

“You wanted to ask me about something?” he
says.

“Um,” I say, “yeah.”

To be honest, I’m weirdly disappointed that he
brought it up. I dunno, just – with the warmth, and the dinner for
one, and the actual pleasantness he and I are suddenly rocking … it
seems a lot more appealing than facing the ugly maybe-truth, you
know?

But it’s not like I can say ‘Nah, forget about
it, ooh, look, chicken!’. I came here with a purpose, and that
purpose must be upheld.

Friggin’ purpose.

So I follow Arthur into the living room. He
tells me to have a seat, so I do, on a puffy pink armchair. Arthur
sits down on the futon across from me. Of course there’s a futon.
It’s got a pink-and-green quilt folded quaintly over it, which I’m
guessing he uses to sleep with.

For a few seconds, we just look at each other,
and La Boheme la bohemes around us.

“You’re gay,” I say at last, because – well,
that’s the reason I’m here. That’s the aforementioned friggin’
purpose.

Arthur nods. “Yes. That’s true.”

“So you probably know all about that stuff.”

“What stuff?” Arthur asks. Maybe this time, he’s
a tiny bit sarcastic. With him it’s really hard to tell, since he’s
that winning combination of wry and chill all the time. “Being
gay?”

“Yeah. That.”

“I’ve had some experience, yes.”

“So, like …” God, it’s hard to talk about this,
with him sitting maybe four feet away from me, looking at me with
all that green-eyed
focus
. “How did you figure that
out?”

“How did I figure out I was gay?” I don’t know
if it’s just me, or if he really is acting like that’s a weird
question. How the hell is
that
weird?

“Well, yeah! Because, I don’t know, it seems
like a pretty complicated process to me.”

“Actually,” Arthur says, “I found it fairly
simple.”

“Of course you did,” I grumble.

“Howie,” he says, frowning a little, “are you
okay?”

Gee, I don’t know, Arthur. Am I okay? My dad’s
dead; my mom excels at pretending to be all right but I’m pretty
sure she’s a vacant shell of a human being underneath all the
smiling; my twin brother’s off being an unstoppable genius, living
in the actual world, whatever that faraway elusive thing might be;
somewhere along the line my loftiest life goal became trying to
determine whether you can lie on the couch and watch TBS for
twenty-four straight hours; and just to make things really special,
just to put the fuckin’ cherry on top of the fuckin’ sundae of suck
that is my whole existence, is the fact that I can’t even manage to
like girls right
—

“I use my mom’s shampoo sometimes,” I blurt out.
“I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s lady shampoo. But it smells better
than mine, and I think my hair might like it better, and – but that
doesn’t change the fact that that stuff, that’s for
chicks
.
And, that, that’s probably gay, isn’t it? Like, at least a
little.”

“I don’t know whether—”

“And I cried once listening to ‘The Scientist’
by Coldplay. I don’t know, I was in sort of a lousy mood anyway,
but it’s not like that
excuses
that stuff. Like, that was
gay, wasn’t it?
Guys
don’t just sit around and
cry
over Coldplay.”

“Howie—”

“And I loved Mamma Mia. Like, loved it. Amber
made me watch it with her on TV once, and I didn’t want to, and
she
wound up thinking it was this sentimental piece of crap,
but I
loved
it. It was all sunny and happy and there was all
that blue sky and blue ocean, and everyone was just, like, so
chill, all bouncing and singing and being
so happy
, and I
just wanted to, I don’t know,
live
there or something. Jump
right into the screen and sing backup to Dancing Queen. That’s gay,
right? That’s queeriest queerdom. There’s no way that’s not totally
gay. It’s gay. It’s
so
gay. I’m … I …”