Fan Art (25 page)

“I just drew it, like, without thinking.”

I can tell a lie when I see one. “That so?” I ask. “Then why the geek-girl convention?”

“Please, Jamie,” Eden whines. “Please don’t look at it.”

Slowly, I unfurl the mashed corners, and reveal the offending image. It’s damn near perfect. The lines and the colors. The post-prom hotel room. The hazy, romantic atmosphere. The disheveled bed. The trail of bow ties and boutonnieres that litter the floor. The kiss—steamy yet sweet. The hands drawn in exact detail, tanned and strong and caressing my freckled cheek.

It looks exactly like me.

And Mason.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

FORTY

Instead of hanging out with my
friends and joining in on the last-day-of-senior-year craziness, I’m alone in my room after school. I pull the crumpled ball of drawing paper from the bottom of my backpack. I gently pull on the edges as if I’m unwrapping a gift the size and shape of a heart. I smooth the wrinkles against my knees and see the drawing by the light of my bedside lamp—this time without an audience. Without Challis’s scorn and Eden’s horror, I don’t feel the need to be shocked by the picture. Instead I let myself slide into it. I inhale, imagine I smell Mason’s Speed Stick and the starch on his shirt collar. I close my eyes and my room morphs into a dimly lit hotel room. I press my face into his hand, lean into the kiss just as Eden drew it—fan art, fairy tale, and daydream merged into one.

This. This is what I want, who I want to be. I want Mason to be my more-than-friend. I want to kiss him,
hold him, protect him from the storm of words his father unleashes on him. I want to be his everything. But I can’t, so I fold the picture in half and put it in my nightstand drawer, where it will be safe from the prying eyes of art-geek girls. And I wonder,
How can the art-geek girls and I want the very same thing? And why do we want it so badly?

I don’t have answers. I just know that Eden’s drawing isn’t supposed to exist—wanting something in the privacy of your own heart is different than advertising it with art. The art has the power to be public, to be out in the world, where it can hurt someone. And that someone is Mason. If he’s straight, it’ll sting. If he happens to be bi or gay, it will out him against his will. And no matter what he is, the drawing has to stay hidden for the sake of our friendship.

I know I need to say something to Eden—and it won’t be that I like her drawing. I’ve been around my mother long enough to know that this is one of those situations that requires a conversation, but I don’t know what to say. Not yet.

Inevitably my phone buzzes in my pocket as I push tater tots around a lake of ketchup on my plate. Ann Marie is screaming, and Elisabeth has made mashed potatoes out of her tots, only they are a disgusting shade of pink due to the ketchup. My mom is in the other room on the phone
with Frank. I lift Ann Marie from her highchair with one arm and fish my phone out with my free hand. “Yeah?”

“Hi, Jamie. It’s Eden.”

“Hey,” I say, and bounce my sister on my hip.

“Is this a good time?”

Elisabeth takes a handful of mashed tots and puts them in her mouth. My stomach goes queasy, but I don’t stop her. “We’re eating dinner. Or we were eating dinner.”

“Oh,” she says. “I can call back later.”

I think about the drawing. And, knowing I need to talk to her about it, my stomach feels worse. I’m clearly not ready to talk. “Maybe it’d be better if you didn’t.”

“But, Jamie, I—I’m sorry!”

Ann Marie wails in my other ear.

“Please let me make it up to you. I didn’t draw it to hurt you.”

“Look, Eden. I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Um, you’re pissed. Angry. You think I’m stupid. And insensitive.”

“What?” I ask her.
I was supposed to say those things.

“I have an older brother,” she reminds me over Ann Marie’s whimpering and Elisabeth’s banging on her tray for more food. “He doesn’t communicate so well either.”

“Okay. Yeah. That’s how I feel.” I pick up my plate and slide my uneaten tater tots onto Elisabeth’s.

Eden’s quiet for a minute, then asks, “You want to
go to the senior bash?” meaning the alcohol-free, school-sponsored party with the pool and the rock wall.

“I’m not in the mood,” I say, because I
am
angry and I
do
think she’s insensitive.

“I’ll be your date,” she offers.

“Not helpful,” I say, even though I know this is probably the only senior party her parents will consider letting her attend. And if I were being a good friend, I’d take her. But she hasn’t exactly been a good friend either. So it’s not like I owe her anything.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Eden.” I sigh. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

“Jamie,” she says. “I said I was sorry.”

I sigh, knowing I should accept her apology and have that talk. But I don’t feel like it.

Silence.

I try a different tactic. “I really don’t want to see Mason. Bahti said they were going together.” Bahti invited me to be the third wheel.

“So you don’t want to hang out with me and you’re avoiding Mason. What
are
you doing?”

I look at Ann Marie’s tear-streaked face, considering a total meltdown. “Nothing.”

“That’s pretty pathetic, Jamie. It’s the last day of school, senior year. You shouldn’t be alone doing nothing. Let me be your friend. We’ll have fun.”

She sounds desperate.

And I do sound pathetic. I start to cave. “I
could
use a distraction.”

“So how about a movie? Nice and quiet. My place.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

Watching movies makes me think of Mason. And the popcorn makes me think of Mason. Okay, everything makes me think of Mason—or maybe I’m thinking of Mason 24/7 and the other things are just getting in the way.

So avoiding him is a good policy. It’s better than having a friend crush on him, telling him,
I love you, man
in government, and handing him a copy of
Gumshoe
with
I’m gay
practically printed in the centerfold. If I don’t see him, I’ll have to stop thinking about him and I won’t have to talk to him. So then he’ll never ask about what I said in government or why the hell didn’t I come out to him like a normal person instead of publishing it in
Gumshoe
like a freaking idiot? And I won’t have to hear him tell me,
Jamie, you’re the world’s worst best friend
. Or
It’s cool you’re gay and all, but I don’t think we should be best friends anymore
.

Eden and I make plans to spend the weekend together so I can pretend everything is okay between me and Mason—even though it clearly isn’t—and give us a chance to talk about her drawing.

On Saturday morning, we decide to study for exams, and
I know the perfect coffee shop where we can get away from big brothers and little sisters. So I drive downtown.

When we’re stopped at a red light, I ask, “Why’d you draw it, Eden?” She doesn’t answer, so I look over at her. “The picture?”

“I know now that I shouldn’t have done it—drawn it,” she says to the passenger-side window. “But I just had this picture in my head—a picture of what
should
have happened—what didn’t happen because I let you take me to prom when you should have asked him.”

“I asked you to prom,” I say. “On purpose.”

“I know you did. And I had a great time.” She turns my way and touches my arm. “But, well, I had this fairy tale in my head. So I drew it—it was in my sketchbook. My private sketchbook.”

“But you showed it to Challis and the art geeks,” I remind her.

“Yeah,” she admits. “But only because it turned out so good.”

It was good. It looked exactly like us—well, us if we were in a comic book.

“You know what it’s like to like someone who doesn’t notice you?” she asks shyly.

Actually, I’ve been having the opposite problem. Mason noticed me all right, because I, well, opened my big mouth in the middle of government. But I nod anyway.

“I wanted her to notice me.” She chokes on her confession.

“You wanted Challis to notice you?” I ask in a whisper.

She nods. Hiccups. “She’s such a good artist. I—I wanted to impress her.”

“And it all backfired?” I ask.

“She ripped it out. Crumpled it up.” Eden swipes at a tear.

“Um, yeah,” I say, because I’m kind of with Challis on this one. “Because your drawing was of me! Kissing Mason.”

“I know.”

“So it wasn’t about you and Challis. It was about me. Did you think about that? How I might feel?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I was thinking of you. And how you should get your fairy tale. How you deserve to be happy.”

“No. If you were thinking of me—the real me—if you were, you would have known it was wrong to draw us like that. We aren’t some fictional couple you can slash together. We’re people. Real people!”

“I know,” she says, wiping another tear from under her glasses. “It was stupid for me to want you to have a happily ever after, even if it was just on paper.”

“Happily ever after?” My voice jumps up an octave. “That’s jumping the gun. I’m not even
out
to Mason.”

“I know you like him. And face it, you need to do something about it.”

“No. I. Don’t!” The light changes, and I press the gas. Hard. Slam it into second.

Eden grabs the door handle. “What?” she shouts over the engine as I jam it into third. “You don’t think he knows you’re gay?”

The speedometer inches up over the speed limit as I shift into fourth gear. “No,” I repeat. “No. No. No.”

But she has a point. Of course he knows. Everyone knows. Michael, Lia, Holland, DeMarco, Dr. Taylor, Principal Chambers, Eden, Challis, Wesley. And the Redneck.

“You said you were going to tell him,” she says. “And slow down!”

“I tried,” I admit, and get the feeling that I’m losing this argument. I let up on the gas. “But I couldn’t do it.”

“But you have to.”

“I know. But what if he doesn’t want to be friends after?”

“What?” Eden asks, then jumps to conclusions. “You think he’s homophobic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mason is not homophobic. Give him more credit.”

“But Lia?” I ask about her former best friend who went AWOL when she came out, hoping to make my point.

“No, Jamie,” Eden says. “Mason is not like Lia. He, like, touches you all the time.”

“Does not,” I protest, but memories flood my mind: Mason messing up my hair, Mason caressing my neck, Mason resting his forehead on my shoulder. I’m lying.

“Okay, he doesn’t,” she concedes.

“Not like you’re thinking,” I clarify.

“Okay, okay. Mason isn’t gay and he doesn’t like you.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“It was all a fan-girl daydream, okay?”

I don’t acknowledge this.

She tries again. “Just a little fan-art fairy tale.”

“Okay,” I say. “Now can we forget it ever happened?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Because I’m not giving it back. No one will see that damn drawing again.”

“Got it,” Eden agrees. Then she asks, “Friends?”

“Friends,” I say, and nudge her with my elbow.

The pedestrian traffic and the lack of parking near our destination indicate that the Saturday market is in full swing. Eden decides to bail on our plans to study in favor of shopping, so I park behind my mom’s office and we walk over to Eighth Street. Twenty minutes later Eden tugs on my hand and pulls me into a booth selling pastries. “What do you want?” she asks.

“Blueberry muffin,” I say.

She pushes a loaf of bread, a paper bag containing a jar of local honey, and a bouquet of flowers into my arms. “A chocolate croissant and a blueberry muffin, please,” she tells the baker, and soon we are looking for a bench to sit and eat.

“Bookstore!” Eden says with her mouth full, pointing excitedly down the street.

“Next stop?” I ask, peeling back the paper from the bottom of my muffin.

“Definitely,” she agrees.

I feel a little lost in the bookstore—not sure where to start and not wanting to explain to anyone my utter lack of reading anything that wasn’t assigned since junior high (when I finished the Harry Potter series). But Eden appears to feel right at home. She zooms over to the young adult section and plops down on the floor, her bread, honey, and flowers piled around her as if she’s moving in. She pulls out a handful of graphic novels and starts reading. And I get the feeling we’re going to be here awhile.

I skip the girls-in-flowing-dresses section, the display of girls-with-swords books, and another of girls with mermaid tails. I find myself in the children’s section and half look for a bedtime story for my sisters—preferably one without Disney princesses and that I haven’t read a million and two times, but I know I won’t be buying a book. Not with the five dollars I have left in my pocket.

Near the register is a collection on non-book items. I try on a finger puppet, spin a display of magnets, and run my fingers through a basket of buttons. Most have silly quotes on them, others silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes, and a few the rainbow flag. I pick up one of the rainbows and run my thumb over the smooth surface.

My stomach feels queasy, but not in a bad way, as I imagine myself at college. Where I’d pin this to my backpack. And never have to say a word.

I’d be that guy in my self-portrait—the confident, who-I-want-to-be one with the squarish Adam’s apple and his eyes on the future—asking guys if they want to study or grab a cup of coffee. I’d meet people. Maybe find someone special and fall hopelessly in love with him. Not Mason, obviously. I picture the four of us hanging out: me and a boyfriend, Mason and a pretty, dark-haired girl who adores his every move. I’d be happy for him. Happy he found someone.

The bookstore employee looks up from shelving books and asks me, “Can I help you?”

I look down at the circle of stripes in my palm and take a deep breath. “Just this,” I tell her, and hold up the pin.