The Distance (14 page)

The pink, two-story home Kai shared with his family was an oddity by San Francisco standards, because it was actually free-standing, instead of being sandwiched between other buildings like the majority of houses in the city. It wasn’t fancy, but it would have been worth a fortune in the current real estate market, especially given its great location right across the street from the wide open expanse of Bernal Heights Park. Kai told me his grandparents had bought it in the nineteen-sixties, back when the city was still relatively affordable. They’d totally scored.

After we ate our preempted breakfast in the sunny kitchen, Kai went to change into some work clothes and I waited for him in the living room. The almost rural view through the picture window and the comfortable family home felt surprisingly nostalgic. I squatted down and ran my hand over a braided area rug, and flashed to a memory of my brother Jed and me playing with toy cars on a rug just like that when we were kids. I wasn’t expecting the flood of emotions which accompanied that memory and blinked repeatedly against the prickling at the back of my eyes as I straightened up and took a breath.

When Kai came back downstairs a few minutes later in sexy ripped jeans and a tight t-shirt, he said, “You really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I feel like an asshole for putting you to work the first time you’re at my house.”

“This is fun for me. I hardly ever get to do DIY.”

He looked skeptical. “Okay, but feel free to bail out at any time.”

The back deck wasn’t huge, and we worked for maybe an hour sanding the rough spots and the chipping paint. A beat-up radio was tuned to a classic rock station, and I kept catching Kai silently mouthing song lyrics, which I thought was very cute. Whenever he’d notice me watching him, he’d get embarrassed and stop. I finally said, “Just sing! I’m not going to judge. In fact, I’ll join in on the songs I know. Come on, I already know you have a good voice.”

“Based on what?”

“I walked in on your one-man concert last night, remember?”

“Oh hell. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Come on, don’t be shy. I’ll go first, even though I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, just to prove you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie started playing, which I happened to love, and I exclaimed, “Oh my God, perfect!” I got to my feet and used the sanding block in my hand as a microphone as I belted out the lyrics.

Kai chuckled and got up too, brushing his hands off on his dusty jeans before picking up his own sanding block microphone and joining in. He ended up taking Freddie Mercury’s lines and I took Bowie’s, and we circled around each other on the deck and really got into it. When the song ended, I cheered and applauded, and Kai grinned at me. Then he said, “I think I just found our musical common ground. Classic rock’s not really your thing, right?”

“It’s not usually my go-to, but I do like it.”

“I think I know what you’ll enjoy more than this radio station.” Kai jogged into the house and returned a few moments later with a stack of tapes. “These used to be my dad’s, in case you’re wondering about the cassettes.”

He popped a tape into the player, and Bowie’s Space Oddity enveloped me. “God I love this song,” I said, closing my eyes and swaying a bit as I let myself get lost in the music.

Kai came up behind me, slipped his arms around my waist and moved with me. After a minute, he began to sing along, and I smiled and leaned against him. He took my hand and spun me slowly, then pulled me into his arms and danced with me as he continued the serenade.

When the song ended, I admitted, “I cried when Bowie died.”

“I teared up, too. My dad was always playing his music, it was a part of my childhood. So it kind of felt like losing another piece of my father when Bowie died.”

“The tattoos of the ravens on your back represent you and your dad, don’t they?”

He nodded. “Not the most subtle symbolism, but I came up with the idea and got those tattoos when I was fifteen. My mom took me on a road trip to Boise to get them, because she knew how important it was to me.”

“Why Boise?”

“You have to be eighteen to get a tattoo here, but you only have to be fourteen in Idaho if your parent signs a consent form.”

“You have the most supportive mom ever.”

“She really is. I think she would have done just about anything to help me cope with the loss of my dad.”

“What does the tattoo on your ribs say?”

He grinned at me. “I’ll explain it next time you get me naked.”

I grinned at that too and pulled him down to my height and kissed him. But then I stepped back and said, “This is me distracting you, just like you said I would.”

“No you’re not, it’s break time. Let’s lie down for a few minutes, my back’s knotted up after all that sanding.”

He took my hand and led me down the stairs to the little yard. A faded floral quilt was draped over an Adirondack chair, and he unfurled it and let it drift onto the tidy lawn. We both stretched out and held hands as we watched the clouds drift across an impossibly blue sky. “What a perfect day,” he murmured. I had to agree, and it had nothing to do with the weather.

After a moment, I said, “Teddy bear.”

“Love muffin.” There was a sparkle in his dark eyes when he turned his head to look at me. “Are we coming up with terrible nicknames for each other?”

I chuckled at that and said, “I was naming a shape I saw in the clouds.” I pointed to the east with my free hand.

Kai smiled and looked at the sky, and while he did that, I studied his handsome profile. “That looks nothing like a teddy bear. That, however, looks exactly like a Star Destroyer.” He pointed to the west.

I looked up and asked, “You mean that slice of pie?”

“You see pie, I see cool ships from Star Wars.”

We kept playing the cloud game for another twenty minutes or so as Bowie sang in the background. Finally I stood up and held a hand out to him as I said, “Come on, let’s get back to work. I really am distracting you, and I don’t want your project to go unfinished because of me.”

He took my hand, but didn’t really use it to hoist himself up, since that would have pulled me right over. Kai kissed the tip of my nose when he got to his feet and said, “The worst part’s almost over, sanding is a chore. Painting’s fun though, and it’ll probably go pretty quickly with the two of us.”

“Let’s do this thing,” I said and returned to work with a bounce in my step.

*****

He was right. After the surface was sanded and cleaned thoroughly, we took a lunch break, then tackled phase two. The white deck paint went on easily. When we finished, we both stood on the lawn and admired our accomplishment. “That’s why I enjoy painting. It’s such instant gratification,” he said.

“It looks great.”

“Hopefully it’ll be completely dry by the time my daughter gets home. She’ll definitely want to run around on it.”

“What time are they getting home tonight?” I asked.

“Actually, it won’t be until midafternoon tomorrow, so the paint can cure for twenty-four hours. Izzy has Monday off from school for Presidents’ Day and my sister and mom are off work, so my family’s taking full advantage of the three-day weekend.”

“In that case, you should change your mind and have dinner at Nana’s tonight. It’s always a good time, especially if she decides to film an episode of her cooking show while she’s preparing the meal.”

“She films from home?”

“Yup. The show’s totally low-budget and somewhat less than professional. It airs once a week, late at night on a cable TV network. She always has at least a dozen episodes in the can, so she films randomly, whenever the mood strikes her.”

“In the can?”

“Slang for done and ready to be broadcast.”

“Ah.”

“So, do you want to come over?”

Kai grinned and said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

“It will be, I promise.”

He pulled me into his arms and said, “Thank you for helping today. I’m sorry my power sander was on the fritz and that all ended up being way more labor-intensive than it should have been.”

“I had a great time.” He raised an eyebrow, and I said, “Seriously. I wasn’t kidding when I said I enjoy doing DIY projects.”

“Well, I really appreciate your help. I would have hours of work left today, but you cut the time in half. You were great company, too.”

“So were you.”

He kissed me tenderly, then said, “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.” We started walking hand-in-hand to the side gate, but he stopped abruptly and said, “Shit, I screwed up.”

“How?”

“I didn’t put my house keys in my pocket when I switched to this pair of jeans. We won’t be able to get in the front door, and the back door’s inaccessible with the wet paint.”

“You never lock doors. Are you sure we can’t get in the front?”

“I always lock up the house automatically, to keep my family safe. We can go check, but I’m sure we’ll find the front door’s locked.”

Kai was right. After we went around to the front and jiggled the handle, we circled the house looking for open windows. When we returned to the front yard, I said, “That looks like the only way in.” I pointed to an open window directly below the peak of the pitched roof. “Is that the attic?”

“Yeah. It’s also my room. I’m too big to fit through that window, though.”

“But I’m not. Wait here, I’ll let you in.”

“Be careful.”

I climbed onto the roof of the front porch, and when I stood on the highest point in the center and stretched up, I was just able to reach the windowsill. I grabbed onto it with both hands and hung there for a moment, and Kai called, “Please don’t fall.”

“I won’t.”

“Do you want me to come up there and give you a boost?”

“I’m not sure the porch roof would hold you, it doesn’t seem very sturdy. Just give me a minute.” My arms were tired from all that sanding and painting, but I managed to pull myself up with some effort. After I shimmied through the window and landed on a desk, I sat there for a moment and shook out my hands.

From down below, Kai called, “You okay?” I stuck my hand out the window and gave him a thumbs-up.

The attic had pale blue walls, which were covered with posters of American muscle cars and slanted sharply with the pitch of the roof. The only place to stand up straight was a four-foot section right down the middle. A twin bed was centered under a bigger window at the opposite end of the attic, and a dresser, a few storage chests, and a rowing machine were tucked under the eaves. I slid off the desk and paused to look at the framed photos clustered on top of his dresser. Just like in the shop, there were a lot of snapshots of Kai and his dad, and several photos of Izzy.

I climbed down a retractable wooden ladder and emerged in the hallway on the second floor. There were four small, decidedly feminine bedrooms and a very pink bathroom off the hallway. I jogged downstairs and opened the front door for Kai, and he thanked me.

“The more I see of your house, the more I understand your man cave at the shop,” I told him. “Do you get ready every morning in that pink bathroom?”

“I have no choice, since there’s only a half-bath on the first floor. I don’t mind the color scheme so much, but it’s kind of a pain when everyone’s trying to get ready at the same time. Beggars can’t be choosers though, and I’m damn lucky Izzy and I get to live here. This city’s way too expensive for me to afford a place of our own.”

“You own the garage though, right?”

“Well, the bank does and I’ll be paying it off for the next twenty years, but basically.”

“Have you ever thought about building an apartment on top of it? The roof’s flat, so it seems fairly straightforward.”

“I think about that all the time. Like most things in life though, it comes down to money.”

“We just need to figure out how to get the garage to turn a profit,” I told him.

“We?”

I grinned and said, “Sorry, I know that sounded presumptuous. I like helping my friends in any way I can, that’s all I meant by that.”

He grinned, too. “It’s nice that you think of me as a friend.”

“Of course I do.” My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket and read the text. Then I told him, “The cooking show’s a go for tonight, and Nana asked if I can be there in an hour to help her out. I’m her on-air assistant.”

“I didn’t realize you appear on TV with her. Where can I find episodes of this show?”

“You sound impressed, but you shouldn’t be,” I said as I shot a text back to Nana. “The show is…well, you’ll see. Mostly what you’ll find are outtakes on the internet. I can’t even call them blooper reels. They’re more like disaster footage.”

He said, “I look forward to seeing them. Now let’s get cleaned up and get going so you’re not late.”

I flashed him a big smile and said, “We should probably shower together to save time.” Kai smiled too, and we almost ran to the pink bathroom.

Not surprisingly, showering together ended up taking a lot longer than showering separately. We ended up making out and jerking each other off, so I was running a bit late when I finally pulled into Nana’s driveway. Kai parked down the street, and I chatted with a couple go-go boys while I waited for him. When he walked up to the house and took in the spectacle of Cockstock, he said, “Your household takes being out to a whole new level.”

“Feud with a neighbor. Kind of a long story.” I introduced the dancers to Kai, then asked them, “Are you guys hungry? If so, come on in and I’ll make you some snacks.”

“Thanks,” a blond, buff dancer named Will said, “but Nana’s been stuffing us all day.” He patted his flat belly. “I’ll need to step up my gym time to twice a day at this rate.”

Once I was sure the dancers didn’t need anything, we went inside and I found Zachary hovering in the doorway of the kitchen. “Hey, you’re early,” I said, giving him a hug.

“Nana asked Chance to come at five and bring his camera, and he was my ride. I guess she wants him to take some photos for a cookbook she’s had on the back burner for a while now,” my friend said. He then noticed Kai behind me, and his dark eyes went wide.

“Zachary Paleki, Kai Kahale. I need to run upstairs and change. Do you guys want to come with me or stay down here?”

“Come with you,” they both said simultaneously.

When we got to my room, I shut the door behind us and tossed the plastic bag with my soiled clothes in the laundry hamper. As I took off the big t-shirt Kai had lent me, Zachary moved my bear to the desk and sat on the one chair in the room. I asked him, “How did today go at the restaurant?”

“It was alright. Like I told you, I waited tables before, so I know how to play that role. You smile for the customers, you pretend you’re outgoing, and you try not to mess up their orders. That’s pretty much all there is to it,” he said quietly. He stole a glance at Kai from beneath his lashes and frowned almost imperceptibly. Almost.

I told Kai as I pulled a yellow polo shirt over my head, “Zachary just got hired at Nolan’s in the Richmond District. It’s an Irish pub and sports bar.”

“I love that place,” Kai said. He was sitting on the foot of my bed and looking around curiously.

“In that case, you should come have lunch with me when I visit Zachary at work.” I glanced at my friend, who frowned again, and hoped he’d be able to gain a fresh perspective on Kai, like I had. I changed the subject by asking what was on Nana’s menu that evening.

“Seafood. I don’t know what exactly,” Zachary said, studying the floor.

“That could be problematic.” I flashed back to a cooking show episode with Nana, me, and a geoduck clam, which had ended up far more phallic than intended. It still made our friends chuckle whenever anyone brought it up.

I pulled on a pair of briefs and a decent pair of jeans, and as I tucked my shirt in, I asked Kai, “How do you feel about seafood?”

“Like you, I’m not picky. I’ll eat most anything,” he said.

After I put on shoes and socks and ran a brush through my hair, I asked, “Okay, are we ready to face the madness?”

“I’m both terrified and looking forward to seeing what happens,” Zachary said with a little half-smile. “I was a bit disappointed last time I was here, when everything actually went according to plan and Nana just cooked a nice pasta dish. Although it was delicious.”

When we went back downstairs, we found Nana perched on a barstool as Mr. Mario put up her white hair in an elaborate twist. Zachary took a seat at the kitchen table in the corner with Chance’s brother Colt and Colt’s boyfriend Elijah while I waved hello to everyone and led Kai over to Nana.

“Hi boys!” She grabbed her glasses off the counter and put them on so she could assess Kai, and exclaimed, “You’re a handsome one! Are you a gay homosexual?”

“A, um…what now?”

“That’s Nanaspeak for gay. She has her own unique spin on how to be politically correct,” I explained, then introduced Kai to Nana, Ollie, Mr. Mario, and the dogs. “The big one’s Tom Selleck, and the little one’s Diego Rivera. Tommy used to have a crush on me, but I’m pretty sure he and Diego are now in a committed relationship.”

Kai grinned at that, and I pointed across the room and introduced the teenagers at the table with Zachary. Then I said, “The brunet behind the camera is Trevor. He’s married to Vincent, the tall guy with glasses right beside him. Vincent is one of Nana’s grandsons.” They all exchanged greetings, and I asked the couple, “Where’s your son?”

“Josh and his friend Emma are out back, along with a few other people. They wanted to see how Skye’s sculpture is coming,” Trevor said as he adjusted the tripod.

“Do you have everything you need to begin filming, Nana?” I asked as I surveyed the ingredients lined up on the kitchen island. A large Styrofoam cooler was at one end, which I assumed contained the seafood.

Mr. Mario finished what he was doing, and Nana hopped off the barstool and adjusted the jacket of her pale yellow suit. We matched. She said, “We’re all set. Vinnie, will you call in everyone from the backyard? This is going to be our best episode yet, I can feel it!”

While her grandson did as she asked, I turned on the stage lights that had been installed over the kitchen island, preheated the oven and put a big pot of water on the stove to boil. I knew from experience that it was good to be as prepared as possible before the cameras started rolling.

“Can I help with anything?” Kai asked.

Nana told him, “Absolutely. You stay right up here with Jessie and me and give us a hand. We’ve got a lot of recipes to get through.”

“Oh. Okay.” Kai seemed nervous all of a sudden and re-tucked his black, long-sleeved T-shirt into his jeans before smoothing his hair.

“You look great,” I told him.

He said, “I’ve never been on TV before. What if I mess something up?”

“You have nothing to worry about. It’s pretty much the norm for things to go wrong on this show, so there’s absolutely no pressure. The show airs late at night on cable TV, and a lot of viewers turn it into a drinking game and do a shot whenever Nana drops the F-bomb. Since she does that a lot, the audience will probably be way too wasted to notice if you make a mistake.” He gave me a nervous smile and I squeezed his hand.

As everyone filtered in from the backyard, Chance came over to say hello, and I introduced him to Kai. My friend snapped a couple pictures of the ingredients on the counter with the big camera around his neck, and I asked, “Did Zachary tell you I want to buy some of the photos you posted on the internet the other day?”

“Yeah, but I’ll just give them to you,” Chance said. “I’ll email you a link so you can download high resolution copies of whatever you want.”

“But I want to buy them. You’re an amazing photographer, Chance, and you should be making money from it.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but I’m not going to charge you for some snapshots.”

“They’re not snapshots, and step one to becoming a professional photographer is actually accepting money for your photographs.” Chance looked like he wanted to argue, and I said, “I want to pick out ten photos, and I’ll pay you fifty dollars apiece for them.”

“Oh come on. That’s five hundred bucks!”

“That’s a fraction of what they’re worth. I wish I could afford to pay more.”

“No way,” Chance said. “Even five bucks apiece is too much.”

“How about if I give the money to your brother on your behalf?”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to,” I insisted.

“You’re very stubborn.”

“So are you!”

Chance sighed, and after a moment he grinned at me. “Fine, I’ll agree to five dollars each, and you can give the money to Colt. He’s been saving up for a game console, so he’ll be thrilled.”

I grabbed my wallet and pulled out fifty dollars, which I handed to Chance as I told him, “Speaking of Colt, it looks like he’s trying to flag you down.”

“Thanks. Be right back.”

When Chance crossed the room and gave the money to his ecstatic-looking brother, Kai asked, “What was that about?”

I lowered my voice and said, “I want to help my friend launch his photography career, but as you can probably tell from that conversation, he totally undervalues himself and his work. There’s a huge art show coming up that would be wonderful exposure, but he keeps making excuses for why he can’t be a part of it. I’m operating under the logic that if I buy some of his photos, then they’re my property and I can do whatever I want with them, including putting them in the show. I’m doing this behind his back, so he’ll probably be pretty mad at me. But if it ends up launching his career, I’ll gladly take the heat.”

Kai said, “You weren’t kidding when you told me you try to help your friends in any way you can.”

“I’d do anything for the people I care about.”

“He’s probably going to be pissed off that you’re doing this without his permission, but your heart’s in the right place and I hope he forgives you.”

“I hope so, too.”

Kai gently brushed my hair from my eyes, and as I looked up at him under the bright stage lights I took in every detail, from his long, black lashes, to the way his hair curled slightly at the ends, to the tiny scar above his left eyebrow. His dark eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at me, and I traced the curve of his upper lip with my fingertip. I forgot anyone else was in the room until Nana appeared beside us wearing a big chef’s hat and exclaimed, “You two are adorable together! I’m so happy you found yourself a fox, Jessie! You were single way too long. I was starting to think I needed to put up an ad for you on one of those dating sites. What’s that one called? Grind me?”

Kai and I stepped back from each other and I colored slightly as I tried to redirect Nana to the task at hand. She climbed up on her stepstool behind the kitchen island, and Mr. Mario picked up a camcorder while our audience settled in. I told Nana as I surveyed the bowls of ingredients, “I’m sorry I wasn’t around earlier to help with the grocery shopping and set-up.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said. “You were supposed to have today off, especially with all the extra time you put in this last week supervising Cockstock. I just called that new gourmet market over on Fillmore, and they delivered everything I needed. They even have a fresh seafood counter, so it was one-stop shopping.”

From behind the main camera, Trevor called, “Hang on, this battery’s low. I’m going to run out to my car and grab the second one.”

As he jogged out of the kitchen, I asked Nana, “Speaking of Cockstock, how much longer do you think you’re going to keep it up?”

“Good question. I think that fucker Humpington is getting used to it. He’s not turning red anymore when he drives past the house, and I’ve given up on getting an apology for tampering with my shit. Maybe it’s time for some kind of grand finale. We should do that tonight, I noticed he has company. If he’s hosting a boring little dinner party, let’s give him and his guests something to talk about.”

“Want me to see if a few more of the dancers can come in tonight?”

“Good idea, Jessie.” I pulled out my phone and sent a group text to every dancer who’d been working in shifts during Cockstock, and Nana said, “Send a message to my girlfriends, too. They’ll want to be here if this turns into a big go-go boy dance party.” I found the group entitled ‘Nanettes’ on my phone and sent them a text as well.

Nana yelled across the kitchen, “Mr. Mario, we’re going to wrap up the dickfest tonight, and we want to go out with a bang. Will you see if your drag queen friends want to join us?”

He agreed enthusiastically, juggling the camcorder as he pulled out his phone. Mr. Mario speed-dialed a number, and when someone answered, I could hear pulsating dance music in the background, even from a few feet away. He had a quick conversation in Spanish, and when he hung up, he told Nana, “They are coming! We will, as you say, go out with the bang!”

“Mr. Mario,” I said, “I just realized I don’t know your drag name.”

“I am Carmen Gettit,” he said, “and the fellow I’ve been dating is Dixie Normous. You see why I asked him out.”

I grinned at that and turned to Kai. “I hope you can stick around after dinner. There’s every chance tonight’s going to snowball into quite the party.”

“Love to.” His eyes sparkled with amusement as he said, “You live in Oz. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

Trevor returned and switched out the battery, then asked, “You ready, Nana?”

“Let’s do this thing,” she said, rubbing her bony hands together.

Trevor clicked a button and called, “We’re rolling,” and the audience fell silent.

“We got a lot to do today,” Nana said, looking at the camera. “That’s why I got two assistants up here. You already know Jessie, and that sexy, dark haired boy next to him is Kai. I assume he and Jessie are ridin’ the baloney pony these days, but nobody tells me anything, so I gotta reach my own conclusions.” She turned to him and said, “Welcome to the show, Kai.”

He’d gone a bit deer-in-headlights, probably thanks to Nana’s sex euphemism, and stammered, “I, um…thanks.”

She turned back to the camera and said, “I got two courses planned out here for a nice seafood dinner. We’re gonna start with a beautiful crab cake appetizer, and then we’re gonna make some linguini and clams. Now, I only got thirty minutes, because the fuckers at the cable TV network won’t give me a whole hour, so we gotta get moving. Before we do any of that, though,” Nana said, “we’re gonna start with a cum shot. Help me out, Jessie.”