The Best Kind of People (36 page)

He clicked to Facebook, where his entire page was filled with outraged speculation. He deleted his account, leaned his body all the way back against the dock, and called Jared.

“Okay. I need you this time, honey. I mean it.”

“
T
HIS IS
A
NDREW
Woodbury and I want to say on the record that the rumour about myself and the coach at school is not only patently ridiculous, and obviously fuelled by small-town homophobic attitudes, it’s libellous. If you don’t retract immediately, I will be serving you with a lawsuit.” Andrew hung up the phone.

Joan was running in circles around him, mopping the kitchen floor. “Your coach? Really, Andrew? Is this true?” This news would have gutted her a year ago, but he supposed that now it probably didn’t seem so bad, by comparison. He felt a bit of relief at her finding out, knowing. But he didn’t want to add to her grief, either.

“Yes, it’s true. It’s not a big deal. He was in his early twenties, I was seventeen — hardly a difference at all.”

Andrew felt a strange, protective feeling for Stuart. This was the kind of thing that would just devastate him.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, the only excuse he could think of to leave the room. “Jared will be here any minute.”

THAT EVENING, WHEN
Jared pulled the car into the Woodbury estate driveway, Andrew met him outside and convinced him to go to Icons!

“Let me take my bags in and get settled, don’t you think?”

Andrew nodded impatiently, helping him with his suitcase. Jared hugged Joan while Andrew took his things upstairs. Then he told his mother they were going out and wouldn’t be long. Jared drank a glass of water and shrugged his shoulders at Joan and Sadie as he followed Andrew out the door. Andrew headed to the car as Jared called after him, trying to keep up.

“Is this about Stuart? How are you feeling now that the secret is out?” Jared asked, getting into the passenger seat. “What made you change your mind about inviting me here?”

“No one else would get it. I need your support.” Andrew adjusted the mirrors and plugged his phone into the stereo, turned his music on and then up. Jared turned the volume down as Andrew backed out towards the gate.

“I can support you about everything, Andrew. You don’t need to be alone. This is a heavy secret to come out.”

“It’s not a secret, Jared. It’s just my life. It’s not uncommon and I’m not ashamed of anything. I’m just worried about Stuart, what it’s going to do to him.” He turned to point the remote control gate opener through the gap between their seats and then clipped it back onto the sun visor.

“You’re worried about Stuart? That’s interesting.”

“Interesting? He doesn’t have much, Jared. Just his job, just this small-town life. Being gay around here isn’t easy.”

“I know, honey, I know. But he’s an adult. He was
always
an adult. And this is one of the wealthiest, whitest areas in the country. Forgive me if I don’t play a tiny violin for him.”

“Gay men of his era are constantly told they’re privileged, but do you know what they went through? Most of them had terrible isolated childhoods, then lost half their friends to
AIDS
. Can you imagine if twenty of our friends just up and died?”

“Stuart’s not
THAT
much older than us, Andrew. He decided to stay closeted, and live with the associated misery. I just don’t feel bad for him. I feel bad for you, in this situation.”

“Oh Christ, not you too.”

“I’m not trying to pathologize you or use the
abuse
word, but don’t you ever think about it? That it was wrong?”

“No, it wasn’t wrong at all.”

“Okay,” he said, pausing for a moment. “Okay. I believe you.”

“No, you don’t. You’re placating me because you don’t want conflict,” Andrew said. “That’s not very New York of you.”

“No, I understand it’s not always black and white in these situations, and seventeen is old enough to know what you want and with whom. I get it. I do. I’m just protective of you, babe. I just want you to be okay.”

“I’m totally okay,” Andrew said, turning the music back up and gunning the engine. The Beastie Boys prevented any further conversation.

Andrew could have driven this route in his sleep, and had driven it drunk so many times in his youth, pretending to be coming home from a late theatre rehearsal or from watching movies at his best friend’s house. He’d bet he could close his eyes and still get there in one piece.

Jared laughed when he saw the parking lot outside Icons! “Is this where icons are murdered? It’s an unmarked cement block. It’s like the fucking 1950s. It’s kind of … romantic. How does anyone know what it is?”

“That’s the point. Someone has to tell you,” Andrew said, turning off the car.

Jared pointed towards the only other building in sight, a brick block painted purple that stood a few feet away from Icons! “What’s that building?”

“That’s Sappho’s Muse,” he said.

“You are
JOKING
.”

“I’m not, babe.”

“It’s so rough trade,” he said.

“Woodbridge is an industrial town, serious poverty. This is the only gay bar for three counties,” Andrew said, gritting his teeth, feeling a bit embarrassed that Jared was seeing him here.

“Were you scared of this place when you were a teenager? I mean, your childhood photos look like they’re taken from 1990s J.Crew catalogues,” Jared said.

Andrew knew then why he’d resisted showing Jared this side of his past. Jared grew up in Brooklyn, the son of leftist artists. Small-town gay life was fascinating to him — the secrecy, the danger, the customs. Andrew knew the bar would end up being an interesting anecdote he told at parties back in the city, weaving it into the narrative he understood to be Andrew’s life before New York. The truth was, Andrew didn’t share much about his childhood, preferring to refer to it in general terms such as
typical suburbia
,
nothing special.

“This is bananas,” said Jared as they walked towards the entrance. “They don’t even have a sign! It looks like a biker clubhouse!”

INSIDE THE BAR,
a group of ragtag queens were giving a show, all of the performers sitting at a table up front and taking turns getting up at the mic. The place was fairly packed. Jared was, as expected, thrilled to be watching the performers rotate through the seventies classics. He found a stool by the bar and took it all in, pumped.

Stuart was at his usual table, just as he was the night Andrew went dancing with Clara. “Don’t look right away, but that’s Stuart,” Andrew whispered to Jared, who looked right away. Andrew swatted his leg.

“Wow, he’s … a jock. He looks like Tim Allen. Introduce us,” Jared said.

“No!”

“Come on.”

“Let’s get a drink first.”

They ordered pints, and as they sipped their beer, he told Jared stories about his time as a regular fixture at Icons!, with an
ID
that read
James Patterson
. Every once in a while he stole a glance at Stuart, who was now sitting beside the same young companion from the last visit. Stuart didn’t look happy to see Andrew.

“I feel like I’m in an Andrew Holleran novel!” Jared said.

Andrew frowned and wished he’d come by himself. It was disorienting to be both his regular self and his old self at the same time.

They were almost done their pints when Stuart approached Andrew at the bar.

“Reporters have been calling me non-stop,” he said. “They came to the school. It’s all over the Internet.”

Jared shimmied closer to them, proffering his hand for a shake. “Stuart, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Jared.”

Stuart turned to Jared, confused. “Who?”

“Jared — Andrew’s partner.”

Stuart shook his hand, gave him a quick scan, and turned back to Andrew.

“The principal told me I have to get a lawyer,” he said. “I can’t afford that.”

“I have no idea where they got this information. I called the original reporter and denied it. I threatened libel.”

“Oh honey, don’t do that. You know that if you did sue, they’d find someone who knew us. Someone would talk. It would just be worse,” Stuart said, sloshing some beer around, which landed on Andrew’s leg. Andrew dabbed at his jeans uselessly with a cocktail napkin, listening to Stuart slur his words and repeat himself. Jared gave Stuart the sympathetic look he reserved for old people or the homeless.

“Okay, okay. I thought I was doing the right thing, denying it.”

Stuart nodded. “Let’s just not speak to anyone at all. It will die down. We shouldn’t be seen together.” He looked around, scanning the crowd, none of whom were paying the slightest bit of attention to them.

“It will be okay. The media is mostly obsessed with my father. I’m sure you’ll be forgotten.”

“Except everyone thinks I’m gay now, you know, at work and stuff.”

“Well, who cares? It’s not a crime. Take a positive from this and use it to be more open about it. There are other gay teachers at the school, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Everyone thinks gays are pedophiles, and fuck, this is, like, their proof.”

“You should be more careful about your, uh, date over there,” Andrew said.

“Oh, that’s Jay. He’s twenty-three,” Stuart said. “Don’t worry about Jay.”

Andrew nodded and regarded the young man at the table again. He looked even younger than Andrew remembered. Stuart wasn’t being careful at all.

“Did he used to go to Avalon?”

“Why does that matter now?” Stuart yelled, drunkenly. People turned to look at him.

“Okay, well,” Andrew said, “I should get going, then, unless you have something to say to me.”

Andrew considered asking him what the fuck he’d been thinking, dating a student before hate crime legislation and gay-straight alliances were a thing, when people didn’t think twice about chasing you down an alleyway with a baseball bat for having the wrong walk. Just being gay was risky, but dating a student was crazy. He remembered the time they were making out by the ridge, and two guys had pelted them with bottles and rocks until they ran to their car and sped away, bottles smashing against the back window of Stuart’s second-hand Toyota hatchback. Was Andrew really worth the risk? Was it really love, the way it had felt for him at seventeen, when the thought of Stuart made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before? Was that what love was?

Stuart said, “No, I don’t.”

“Okay, good then. Good.”

Stuart paused for a few moments. He didn’t offer a hug, or a look of affection. The feeling emanating off him was
please leave me alone forever, don’t remind me of who I am.

Andrew wondered if Stuart had always been this sad, this un-self-aware. Then again, who would Andrew be if he had to live here again? Likely a hermit, a pothead, sitting on the dock and growing more odd by the year. Andrew was antsy to leave, kicking his feet under the stool like a child. Stuart went back to the table, and Jared ordered another two pints.

“Wow, that was intense, babe,” he said, squeezing his leg.

“Yeah. Sad, really,” Andrew said.

Another drag act came on the stage, and the crowd hollered. Before the next act, Andrew could tell Jared was catching a buzz.

“Let’s go make out in the alley! Or do they have some sort of cellar/back room situation? Is there some secret bathhouse around the block the cops might bust up?” Jared asked.

“The basement has an area …” Andrew admitted. “But I don’t want to go there.”

Jared looked at him as though he’d suggested they not visit the unicorn cage at the zoo.

Andrew turned on his stool and surveyed the room. The pulse of an old house song from the 1990s vibrated everything. The kid beside Stuart stared at Andrew, winked, and kept staring. He stood up slowly and nodded his head towards the back room. Jared squealed under his breath.

“I want to go home,” Andrew snapped. He stood and pulled on his jacket. Jared downed his drink and shrugged.

“Looks like we still got it, old guy.”

“No fucking way,” Andrew snapped.

“I was kidding. I was just trying to lighten the mood. We can go. It’s okay.” Jared reached out to put his arm around Andrew to comfort him, but he was rebuffed.

Andrew swore under his breath. If they were in the city, he’d have grabbed a cab home alone. They got in the car without speaking. Andrew squealed the tires as he pulled out of the parking lot, merging recklessly onto the freeway.
Who gives a fuck. I’m so tired of this!
Foot on the gas, heavy, heavier than it needed to be. Jared in his periphery, and everything Jared said making it worse. He felt the wetness on his cheeks before he realized he must be crying, which didn’t match the rage he was feeling. In the distance he heard Jared’s voice, at first soft and kind, and then rising in a panicked crescendo. “Pull over. You shouldn’t be driving. You need to calm down. You’re driving like a maniac. Pull over now. Now!”

“You found it
so
cute, all those pathetic fags in their sad little town,” ranted Andrew, “wanting to go make out with some kid!”

“That’s not fair. I did not want that. I was happy to know he thought we were hot, Andrew.”

“You just want a story to tell our friends back in the city about this backwoods town!” He heard himself yelling but didn’t feel he could speak any other way. It started to rain and he flipped on the wipers, still gunning it above the speed limit, playing Ping-Pong between the cars now. A semi truck slammed on his horn. Andrew knew he wasn’t actually mad about Jared being amused by that kid’s attention. That wasn’t it at all. Still, he kept drilling his point.

“Andrew, I understand you’re angry, but it’s not fair to take it out on me. Are you trying to kill us?” Jared slapped his hand down on the dashboard, and Andrew finally registered what was happening. “
Slow the fuck down
!”

Andrew pressed his foot gently on the brake, breathing hard. He saw the upcoming exit for a service centre, and he pulled off, parking in a spot near the edge. He got out and slammed the door, walked towards the grassy area beside the gas station. He tried to calm his breathing, uncurl his fists. He went into the gas station and bought a bottle of water and a Snickers bar. When he got back to the car, Jared was in the driver’s seat.