End of the Innocence Page 4

  “Did you know about him?” I asked softly.

  “That he liked guys?” she more asked herself than me. “Not really. Well… most guys who play sports are always all over each other after three beers. Every party I’ve ever been to has ended up with two or three guys on the ground wrestling each other for no real reason, so he wasn’t gayer than anyone else. But I’ll be honest; even when he’s with you, he doesn’t seem gay.”

  I felt my chest seize up as she began to voice all my inner fears out loud.

  “But I can see when he smiles at you how much he loves you. The first time I saw it, I sat there and thought to myself, ‘Oh, that’s real emotion. Why didn’t I see that before?’ It was like seeing a whole other person.”

  Now I was just confused again. “So you aren’t mad at him?”

  Her sigh pretty much said it all. “Of course I am, but I’m trying not to be.” And then she gave me that thousand-watt smile, and it was easy to believe she was the best-looking girl in this town. “But I’m not mad at you, honest.”

  She had that same aura of believability Brad had when she talked. There was a quality about her that made you want to like her, and it was easy to see how the two of them made a couple. But I knew how much of Brad’s façade was complete crap, so I wondered how much of hers was just as insincere. “Did you really drop a bucket of Coke on him?” I asked, smiling a little.

  She covered her mouth, but she barked out a laugh before she could suppress it. “One of those huge cups they sell at the Vine!” she confirmed. “He looked like a drowned rat.”

  That image made me laugh with her.

  “And then I threw his ring at his head, and it bounced off across the lobby.” Her voice was getting higher as she began to laugh more and more.

  I held up my hand. “This one?”

  She nodded as she struggled for breath. “There was no blood on it when he gave it to you? Because I chucked that thing at him pretty hard.”

  It shouldn’t have been funny, but it was. It was part imagining cock-of-the-walk Brad Greymark getting dowsed with a Coke and then hit in the head with a ring by a girl, and part having someone else to talk to about this stuff. Sitting there in her car, it became painfully obvious to me that I had no other friends, period, much less ones I could talk to about being gay.

  How sad was that?

  “God, it’s nice to be able to laugh about that with someone,” she said once we could talk and breathe again. “All my friends just start trash-talking Brad every time he comes up, and that gets old fast.”

  The most popular girl in the school doesn’t have anyone to talk to? She had more friends on Facebook than I had ever even seen in real life. It was surreal to think someone with that many people wanting to be near her would have trouble finding someone to talk to. I couldn’t put it into words, but I felt the world shift beneath me when my horizons widened just a bit. I realized things were tough all over.

  “Okay, enough of that,” she said, dispelling the mood instantly. “Come on.” She gestured for me to follow her as she got out of the car.

  Again, I had no idea what we were doing.

  I guess the store would be considered more consignment than thrift, but it was all the same in my mind. It was a place where you bought other people’s shit. I honestly had never once thought about shopping at a place like this, no matter how financially challenged I was. I followed her, but I was concerned why someone like her would be in a place like this. The store was called Twice Upon a Time. A small bell rang in the back when we walked in.

  I will admit, I expected it to smell like a thrift store, that weird stale smell that made walking into them as unappealing as possible. Instead, it smelled just like any other store downtown.

  Well, downtown in a real town.

  A skinny guy stood behind the counter. He wasn’t that much older than we were, maybe twenty-four or so at the most. His dark hair was gelled up to make his bangs look spiky. I know that doesn’t sound too exciting, but in Foster he had cutting-edge style. Every guy I knew wore his hair cut short and off the neck. He knew Jennifer, since he called out to her across the store. “Girl! You did not cut that hair!” He didn’t exactly shriek, but from the inflection in his voice, he’d obviously decided to warn us he was gay.

  Jennifer cupped the back of her hair as she struck a pose like a model. “You like?”

  He eased around the end of the counter, and I saw he was wearing the skinniest pair of black jeans I had ever seen on a person before. He wore a pair of steel-toed boots made of black leather that just screamed “I am not from Foster!” I don’t mean this in a mean way, seriously, but he was the gayest guy I had ever seen in the city limits.

  “You bitch!” he said, walking around her in a circle to see the whole haircut at once. “I would kill for locks like this.”

  “You would look horrible as a blond!” she said, swatting his hands playfully.

  “I hate you,” he replied, laughing. “So what brings you into my domain of your own free will?”

  “Dracula,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. They both looked over at me, and it felt like a spotlight was thrown down on me from on high. “That’s from Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” I said, trying to explain myself.

  “Oh, and you brought me an offering,” he said with a smirk on his face.

  I felt myself begin to sink into the floor slowly.

  “Hands off,” Jennifer warned. She might have sounded as if she was joking, but there was an edge of seriousness in her voice. “He’s taken,” she added walking over to me. Putting her arm around my shoulder, she said, “Robbie, this is Kyle. Kyle, this is an old drag queen.”

  “Fuck off, Mean Girls Barbie.” He moved over to me with a hand extended. “I’m Robbie; pleased to meet you, Kyle.”

  I shook it and mumbled a “Hi” under my breath.

  “Oh, and he blushes!” he exclaimed, laughing.

  “Ignore him,” Jennifer whispered, knowing Robbie could hear us. “That part of the brain that allows people to edit what comes out of their mouth was killed long ago by alcohol poisoning, so just nod and pretend to be nice.”

  “Nod and pretend to be nice,” he said, sounding shocked. “Don’t you have that tattooed somewhere on you?”

  She flipped him off, and they both laughed.

  “So seriously, what are you looking for today?” he asked, gesturing to the displays behind him.

  “Well, The Party is this weekend, so I need something that doesn’t look like a laundry bag.” She looked over to me. “What are you going to wear?”

  I paused, not sure what she was asking for a moment. “To the party?” I asked, not putting the emphasis on the words. She nodded. “Clothes?”

  “And show me something to make him look cute,” she said, turning back to him.

  “That he already is,” Robbie said, heading toward a rack of blouses. “You look through here and see if you can find something that doesn’t make you look like a total bitch.” He gave her a small grin. “I’d suggest something that covers your face.”

  “I hope you die in a fire,” she said, pushing him out of the way.

  “You,” he said, pointing at me. “Come with me.”

  I looked over at her, and she nodded. “Go ahead, he’s all bark.”

  I followed him to the other side of the store where the men’s clothes were. “So what is your style? Preppie? Hick?” He gave me a look over. “You are rocking that whole nerd thing something fierce. You want to go with that?”

  I shrugged, not knowing what he was talking about. What was my style? Did I even have a style? I put on clothes and hoped they didn’t fall off in front of people; that summarized my thoughts about clothes.

  “Okay,” he said, looking back at the racks. “Let’s just build on what we already have.” He flipped through a few shirts before pulling out a white shirt with thin blue stripes. “Hmm—let’s start with this.” He handed it to me and then walked over to another rack and pulled out a
black vest with a gray back on it. “With this.” I grabbed it too as he walked over to some pants. “And then let’s go with some slacks….” He looked at me again and then back to the pants. “You’re what, a twenty-eight waist?”

  “How did you know that?” I asked, shocked.

  “It’s one of my superpowers,” he said, pulling out a nice pair of pleated, black slacks. “And these.” He put them over my arm with the rest of the clothes. “Okay, so go try them on.”

  “Here?” I asked forcing myself not to stammer.

  “Well, as much as I would enjoy that, we do have dressing rooms.” He nodded to the back of the store.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid now. “All of them?”

  He laughed. “Well yes, they are meant to be worn together, but that’s up to you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do. My first instinct was to tell him there was no way I could afford any of these clothes, but that sounded so pathetic I could have cried. I half shuffled toward the dressing room, and when I hesitated, he shooed me into motion again. “Well, they aren’t going to try themselves on.”

  I had no argument for that and went inside the room.

  I put the clothes down on the small shelf and wondered if I put them on, would I have to buy them? I’d never really had to try on clothes before; my mom knew what size I wore and just bought me clothes at the start of the year. She knew I didn’t much care how I looked in them. Therefore she didn’t much care. Apathetic though it was, our system had served me well for the last few years, so I was reluctant to change it now.

  Of course, I had never been to an actual party before either.

  Well, that’s not true. The one and only party I had gone to was when I was in the first grade and went to Ed Herget’s sixth birthday party. I showed up late because my mom had overslept. Of course, we had not bought him a gift yet, so we ended up at Value Giant trying to find the cheapest action figure they had. We didn’t have time to go home and wrap it, so Mom tossed it in a gift bag and took off out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. By the time I showed up, they had already broken open the piñata and were in the process of giving gifts. I was so embarrassed by the whole thing, I ate half a piece of cake and then asked my mom to take me home.

  When I looked back on that day, I noticed that Ed didn’t say anything about the toy. I was too young to be aware if anyone was shocked by my mother, yet I remember being horribly embarrassed. How weird is that? It’s like I didn’t even need a reason to be ashamed, I could do it all on my own.

  And did Robbie really say I was cute?

  I took my pants off and was in the process of pulling the new ones on when there was a knock on the door.

  “You still breathing in there?” Robbie asked from the other side of the door.

  I slammed myself against the door so it couldn’t open. “Don’t come in!” I screamed, one hand clutching the pants like they were a life preserver.

  Silence fell on the other side in the wake of my hysteria, and then I heard him say, in an overly formal tone, “Just let me know when you’re done.”

  I tried to catch my breath before I pulled the pants all the way up. I hauled the shirt on over my T-shirt and buttoned it up. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tuck the tail in or not, but I was thinking not. The pants were tighter than the ones I normally wore, and if I tucked the shirt in, they’d be even tighter. The vest went on last and easiest. Suddenly I felt like I was wearing a straitjacket, there were so many clothes. The urge to just rip them off came to mind, but instead I opened the door and walked out slowly.

  Robbie leaned with his back against the wall across from the dressing room, texting someone. At first, he didn’t even look over at me and just started to ask, “So everything fit all right?” and then turned toward me. “Oh my” were his only words. Shoving the phone in his pocket, he faced me and looked me up and down. “Well, that is one way to wear it,” he said quietly. The sarcasm in his words practically dripped from his mouth. “Can I try?” he asked, holding his hands up to the vest.

  I nodded, trying not to gulp.

  As he buttoned the vest, he said in a quiet voice, “Look, you’re family, right?”

  I just stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “You’re gay, right?” he clarified. I nodded, my stomach cramping up I was so stressed. “And you’re from Foster, right?” Another nod. “Okay, then let me give you some advice. What I have been doing is called being nice. It can also be interpreted as flirting by some people. Flirting is, to most people, a compliment. Complimenting you makes me social and a pleasant guy to be around.” He buttoned the top button of the vest and then smoothed the front down. “What it doesn’t make me is some lecherous child molester who breaks into dressing rooms to cop a feel from a high school kid. I’d expect that from some of these hicks, but from a fellow Mo, it’s insulting.”

  I felt like I was going to throw up.

  “So next time, take the compliment or tell me to fuck off. But don’t act like I have a windowless van out back with your name on it, okay?” He smiled at me, but I could tell he was pissed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  “I know you are, and it’s adorable on you,” he replied, turning me around to face the mirror. “Now look Cinderella, you’re ready for the ball.” I began to tell him I hated fairy tales, but I stopped when I saw my reflection.

  I honestly did not recognize myself in the mirror.

  “Wow” was all I could say. The vest made me look super skinny, which would have sucked, but the shirt helped make my chest stand out so I didn’t look like I was seven. The pants actually hugged my legs so they weren’t just huge, shapeless blobs that ended in my sneakers. At first I couldn’t describe it, but then it hit me. I looked my age for once.

  “See?” he said over my shoulder. “That was what I was complementing you on earlier.” I honestly couldn’t talk. “So take them off so we can ring you up.”

  That got my tongue working in a flash. “I can’t afford these!” I said quickly. “I live at the end of East Avenue in trash apartments, and my mom would kill me if I asked her for clothes I was only buying to wear to a party!” I was horrified that I was saying all this out loud, but once my mouth opened I couldn’t stop. “I didn’t even want to go to this stupid party, but my boyfriend wants to bad, and I don’t want to go and make him look like an idiot, which is what I’ll do if I dress normal!” I leaned up against the dressing room wall. “I wish I was dead!”

  Robbie waited for me to draw breath and then asked, “You done?” I nodded as I forced myself not to cry. “Okay, good. Look, if you don’t want to go to this party, then don’t go. It’s that simple. And if your boyfriend is embarrassed to be out with you unless you’re dressed to suit him, he is an idiot.”

  “It’s not like that,” I tried to explain. “It’s just Brad lost everything because of me, and I know he wants to get some of it back, and if I go to this party dressed like a reject, then everyone is going to look at him and go, ‘He went gay for that? Ugh!’ I couldn’t take that.”

  “Brad?” he asked. “As in Jennifer’s Brad?” I nodded. “Oh shit! You’re that Kyle?” I nodded again. “Oh well, that changes everything,” he said with a smile. “I just thought you were one of Jennifer’s friends. Look, you want to go to this party?” I sighed and looked away, but I nodded. “Okay then, this is what we’re going to do. You have a job?”

  “Like a paying job?” I asked stupidly.

  “If you ain’t getting paid, it’s not a job. Yeah, that kind of job.” I shook my head. “Look, I need someone to help go through inventory and pricing. How about you start after school and work off those clothes, and if you work out, you can make your own money. Sound good?”

  “You’re offering me a job?” I blurted in amazement.

  He paused and then raised one eyebrow. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something. Didn’t I just offer you a job?”

  “That would be wicked!” I sai
d, overjoyed.

  “Calm down, newbie. It’s a job as a stock clerk, not a slot on American Idol. Take those off so I can ring them up. Can you start Monday?” I nodded quickly. “And tell no one I did this, or my reputation as a bitch would be ruined.”

  “Thank you!” I said. Overcome with emotion, I hugged him.

  “Oh, see? Now this, this is sexual harassment,” he remarked, not hugging me back. “Get off me before people think I’m molesting you back here.”

  “Sorry,” I said, letting go of him.

  “Oh jeez,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “It’s a joke, Kyle. You are going to need to learn how to take that stick out of your ass, or you’ll drop dead at thirty.” He turned to walk away. “Now get in there and change. Shoo!”

  I looked at myself in the mirror again.

  I had no idea who that was staring back at me, but I relished the idea of becoming him.

  BRAD

  WHEN I came down off my baseball high, I realized today’s practice wasn’t the worst I’ve had, but it was easily in the bottom ten.

  I had been so distracted by Kyle and Jennifer and The Party that I would have caught more fly balls sitting in the stands than I did out on the field. Thankfully, we were on the last week before Christmas break, so everyone sucked equally, but I knew I was sucking for completely different reasons than the rest of the guys were. I waited in the coach’s office for the showers to open up, another way my life had changed since Kyle. My whole gym experience had gained about twenty minutes on either side since I had to change out in the coach’s office beforehand and then wait after practice for the showers to open up so I could rinse myself off and not head out smelling like a dirty sock.

  I wondered every day what they thought I was going to do differently than I had for the past ten years.

  Coach Gunn came in to his office and jerked a thumb toward the shower. “All yours. Hurry it up. I want to get out of here.”