Rusty Summer (8 page)

“Hey, Rust, do you know this guy Scott?” they ask, joking. “Says he's friends with the birthday boy.”

“Yeah, he probably is,” I tell them. Beau laughs—he's standing right there. “Let him in.”

Beau says hi to the wives and hugs Scott. I notice them touch hands for a moment longer than is strictly necessary. I say hi and greet him warmly. He has a nice face, light brown hair with blond streaks (natural) and kindly dark eyes. His voice is low and kind of awesome. I like him immediately and go out of my way to introduce him around and make him feel welcome.

I find out from Beau later that they have a pre-college nursing class together. No wonder I like him right off the bat—he's studying to be a nurse too. Just like all my favorite people!

The party continues revving up and finally we bring out the cake.

Beau's eighteenth-birthday cake! It's so awesome. We ordered it from Remo's Bakery and it's devil's food, filled with raspberry goo, covered with butter-cream white chocolate frosting and is gigantic. It has a bunch of Chinese words that say (we hope) “happiness,” “success,” and “love.” Also a giant number 1 and a giant number 8 candle, side by side, and in front of them one little sparkler candle to grow on.

It's definitely a photo-op and everyone makes like paparazzi!
Flash!
And posted!

And, of course, eventually we all sing like maniacs: “Happy birthday dear Bo-oh, happy birthday to youuuuuuu!” And I look over and Beau is there, flushed and happy, smiling, and I think I'm
so
glad I met him, my best friend, and how much worse my life used to be, before Beau and Leonie.

Beau sees me looking at him and does this tiny wink, so cute and funny that I just get gladder.

 

The epic party rocks and rolls and eventually winds down. I wander out to the backyard and see Leo and Paul and Beau and that guy from Beau's school, Kurtis, as well as a couple other people I don't know. I go back inside, finally relaxing because, yay . . . no parental trauma after all! Everyone loved the olds. My mom left first but it was amazing that she stayed for as long as she did. Aside from her social jitters, Saturday night is like a work night for her because of getting up for church in the morning. As she was leaving she reminded me to bring Leo home in time for Mass, if she wants to go. I said sure, that I'd be happy to—and I am.

Let Leonie take over eternity.

 

Later, when the party has died down even more, hearing voices, I return to the porch after peering at the impressive mess to clean up tomorrow, which is the result of the hoopla tonight.

The light is out and no one can see me.

I hear Paul's voice. He's talking quietly.

“No, see, Brandon is Bruce's kid and they're both buried just a little ways away . . . up on top of Capitol Hill. It's like the most awesome view in the city, and there are a bunch of pioneers and stuff, and some civil war guys on the other side . . . and Nordstroms.”

I cover my mouth to laugh noiselessly. He means the
real
Nordstrom family, in their gargantuan graves. Not the store—the Seattleites. Paul's brief information sessions are always hilarious.

I can hear the smile in Leo's voice. So that's who he was talking to.

“Oh, yeah?” I can't tell if she is mildly interested or just affectionately bored.

“Yeah. It's pretty cool. Huge big ol' monuments and this giant angel and . . . all kinds of stuff. I'll take you sometime when I have the car.”

“'Kay.” I can hear the fondness and amusement in her tone.

Paul starts to say something else and stops himself. Then he starts to tell her about hanging out at the dojo with his friends in this halting, adorable way, with such a sweet quality in his voice that it suddenly dawns on me what's up.

Paul's falling in love with Leo.

And immediately, out of the blue, I panic.
OMG!!!
NO!!

I don't want Paul to fall for Leonie, even though I love her a lot. But he can't!

It's not her fault . . . or his. He's just a little kid—well, almost seventeen—but to me he's still a baby—and she's WAY too experienced. Plus, she's too confused about men. She could hurt him so bad; never on purpose, ever, but by accident!

No way! I suddenly get all choked up.

It breaks my heart to think of my lil' bro with a broken heart.

I start to step forward so I can interfere....

Then I stop. I step back. Literally.

I stumble inside the house, and stand, face-palmed and panicking, because it hits me:

I cannot help. There is nothing I can do except make it worse.

I will have to be careful and stealthy if I'm going to be benevolent and protective.

I have to think . . . I have to plan.

Like how it would be good if Paul went to a nice foreign boarding school for a couple years.

I'll broach the subject to Mom. Possibly some school offers a nice karate scholarship in South Africa, or Antarctica . . . or Mars.

 

The next morning has become the next afternoon by the time we wake up. It's like twelve thirty when I finally drag my sorry ass down the stairs.

I drank only two beers but I'm blaming my headache on them. I'm not too hot on beer. I barely drink it. Plus it makes my breath like a car wreck.

I stagger into the kitchen. Beau is already up, showered, and in a great mood.

“'Sup, Rye!” he warbles. “Did you have a good sleep?” He's already made coffee.

“Morning, sunshine. You're in a good mood.” My throat grates. Talking hurts.

“Dude! You can't be hung-over! On one beer?” He's messing with the stove.

“Two. And I am.” I lurch over to a reupholstered dining room chair (Gina) and sit down. “Ow.”

“Coffee. Now.” Beau hands me a cup. “Here—strong like bull.”

“Your bull is strong like bull,” I tell him inanely. I take the cup. He makes killer coffee. It helps.

Bright and early, at least for us, the doorbell rings.

Figures.

Kurtis is here for breakfast. More civil unrest to plot.

I glare at Beau. He smiles and shrugs as he heads for the door.

Whatever.

Kurtis is this new friend of Beau's. They met in makeup Math, which is a pre-college class you take if you need more math credits. Beau tutors there for extra bank.

Kurtis heard about Beau because of the lawsuit and now he wants him to keep up the momentum: Protest. Agitate. Fight the Power.

What I mean about Kurtis is he is an activist. That is not my problem. I like activists.

But he is also seriously pushy. He lectures Beau to be radical and protest, which he defines as not only marching with signs, but also getting violent and setting fires and chucking things at people—even if they're only chucking glitter bombs and pies. I don't think that is at all helpful. I think it's just another type of violence and lowers everyone to that level.

Kurtis, however, disagrees. He's ready to throw down (or glitter) for the cause anytime. He has drastic theories like, “you don't mean it till you're in jail.”

He's so angry. He
hates
the other side.

I don't think hate helps anything—on either side. It wastes time. We gotta work it out.

I find Kurtis aggravating. He's always nagging Beau.

Beau confided that he totally agrees with Kurtis, but doesn't want to be an anarchist. He realizes he's already an activist just by living his
life,
since he brought the lawsuit (which nets him a lot of vicious hate mail and threats online). Beau says he'll do what he feels is right, but someday he wants to just live a regular life, and be considered boringly normal.

So after he told me that, I said I thought maybe ol' Kurtis needed to dial it down.

And ol' Kurtis can sense my issues with him, so he is nonstop snotty to me. But it's okay. We are snotty to each other. I totally let him know he gets on my last nerve. It is mutually abrasive fun times at the ranch, just snarking along.

Beau hasn't gotten exasperated with us yet, which—knowing Beau—is amazing. He's hoping if he gives us time we'll be friends, like cats. I, however, do not believe this to be the case.

Kurtis stomps into the kitchen. That's another annoying thing about him: He just bangs around like he weighs a ton, which he does not. He looks like a whippet, with a scraggly long mustache and limp hair. His expression always looks like he is judging a turd contest.

I clutch my coffee cup instead of cuddling it, like I had been doing. We eyeball each other and mutter a grudging good morning, for Beau's sake.

We settle. I look for a topic. Silence.

“So I guess I didn't get Leo back in time for Mass this morning,” I throw out, just to say something.

“I heard her get up. Then she went back to bed. Maybe when she really gets up you can find out,” Beau says. We are both being very formal and fake nice for Kurtis's sake.

“Why doesn't she just tell your mom she doesn't want to go?” Kurtis asks, in a snarky tone of voice, as he gets some coffee. (Okay, possibly only
I
detect it as a snarky tone of voice.)

“Maybe because she does!” I snap, in a snarky tone of voice that
everyone
can detect. Like he even knows anything about it! They both look at me. I cool my jets.

“What I mean,” I say, nicely, for Beau's sake, “is that she loves to dress up and go to church with my mom. She, like, gets a big kick out of it.” I stretch my face muscles at Kurtis instead of smiling. He stares to the left of my head and “smiles” back.

We look like chimpanzees. I think we are having a face-off.

This is going so well.

“What I'm going to do now,” I tell Beau, “is go put some gas in the van, and get some oil to do an oil change. I've been meaning to do that since the odometer rolled over.”

“'Kay.” Beau is distracted, reading about how to make quiche. I start to joke about “real men” but then remember Kurtis does not think I'm funny, and would certainly take it wrong, so I just shut up.

I pour myself more coffee and head upstairs to change.

 

The sun is out and in my eyes as I pull the van into the gas station I usually frequent, right beside my school. It's quiet today because it's the weekend.

However when I go inside to pay it's another story.

There are a bunch of guys from our school there. Like maybe six or seven, looking for action.

I stop dead in my tracks. I didn't see their cars, so I'm surprised, to say the least.

I gather my wits about me and take a deep breath.

And here is the amazing part: I feel myself starting to grin as the door jingles shut. I'm so
glad
to see them!

(If I may digress for a minute, one of the saddest things in my life is that I didn't know these guys, whom I've essentially grown up with, till I started skating. That's when Mandeprah, who is a Roller Derby fan, brought the others and suddenly I'm friends with a bunch of the guys at my school that I'd dissed and dismissed, without even giving them a chance to be jerks. And they so weren't! These guys rock. I prefigured them for clowns because I assumed.)

I walk inside and I see the guy whose parents own the place, the Sikh guy who's the Derby fan, Mandeprah, behind the counter. He's trying to explain to his friends Eric McLuck and Riley McTurk that they can still take the pop, but they have to pay for the beer, because he always hears about it when his mom does the totals at the end of the night. Eric and Riley are flummoxed, earnestly trying to make sense of this odd new rule. Hannah, this cool girl I know from AP English, and Elroy, Riley's twin brother, are making themselves a Slurpee mountain out of all the flavors. They're laughing their asses off at the wobbly neon strata. Ian and his stepbrother, Arlo, are looking at the magazines, Arlo reading
Nat Geo,
and Ian reading
The New Yorker.
Anthony, Bianca, and our other friend Lee (a guy we randomly call El Gato to distinguish him from Leonie) are out by a van loading cables and stuff. They are all waiting for Mandeprah's cousin to show up to start his shift, so Mandeprah can leave.

Mandeprah looks up and sees me and they all shout out. It's freaking delightful! Better than Derby, even. I greet them like old friends, because they will be someday. When we are old I still want to be friends with these guys. They are kind and funny and brave.

When Beau came out and sued the school they plastered the place with these hand-painted signs that just said “Straights for Gays.” Some of them were in insanely high places because Riley can climb anything. Seriously—he's the Human Fly. The baboon boys tried to get a campaign against them too, but these guys are hilarious and hot and popular. It so failed.

In fact, it turned the tide against the monkey boys. Everyone kind of got to the place where they were like, “At long last, gentlemen, have you no decency?!”

 

“Dude!” they yell.

“Dudes!” I yell back.

“We were just talking about you,” Mandeprah tells me. “Do you think you could sew us a purple Teletubby?”

“Yeah,” I reply without hesitation, because I can, in fact, sew
anything.
“But why do you need a purple Teletubby?”

“For the vid we are going to shoot. I think we can rent one at the costume store but if it doesn't fit, that's where you come in.” Eric looks at me with his amazingly cool eyes. (He is so cute!)

“Are you the director?” I ask, though I'm sure he is.