How Long Has This Been Going On (28 page)

"I've got your sandwich right here," said Luke.

Tom imitated the laugh of a mad scientist in a Saturday-afternoon thriller. "Give me, give me," he chanted, reaching for the plate.

Luke watched Tom eat the sandwich.

"People don't realize how important a cheese sandwich can be," said Tom between bites. "They want steak or caviar. French stuff. Roast lamb where they put a little white paper hat on it for no goodly reason. But it's simple things that work best. Basic things."

He put down the sandwich, his head falling and his eyes clouded. He said, "I figure I've got about thirty seconds before I lose consciousness." Smiling at Luke, he slowly got to his feet and began to move.

Luke grabbed Tom just before he fell, and helped him struggle upstairs to his room. By the time he hit the bed, Tom was totally out, and Luke started pulling off Tom's clothes. Shoes, pants, shirt. Tom was down to shorts and socks, faceup, and Luke was trying to get him under the bedclothes, but Tom was so dead he was too heavy to move. Luke sat on the bed and looked at his friend. Stroked his hair, his arms, his legs. Pulled Tom's shorts off, thinking, I'm really doing this. Jumped up and threw his own clothes off till they were both down to socks, keeping an eye on Tom, fearful that he would suddenly wake.

"Tom?" he whispered, coming close to him. This is very close. This is Luke parking himself on the bed, line for line with Tom, and taking him in his arms, and making love to him.

Luke had pictured this countless times; he knew exactly what he wanted to do. His hands were all over Tom, fondling details he had memorized sometime long before: for instance, the hairs that had begun sprouting along Tom's chest, so fine they were virtually invisible unless you broke the rules and got this close; or the slight suggestion of an arrowhead in the tip of Tom's cock.

Luke was not shy. He kissed Tom's dead lips, his eyes and chest, and he ran his tongue over Tom from top to toe. Then he got down at the very center of Tom, hiked Tom's legs up to rest on Luke's shoulders, and began to swing on Tom's cock like the first pope happening upon the first altar boy. It wasn't one of your precedent-shattering dates, perhaps, nothing for the
Kama Sutra.
But it was close, very close; and for a small-town teenager who had never had all-out sex, much less nonconformist sex, it went rather well. By the end of it Luke was rubbing himself against Tom, terrified to see that Tom's eyes had opened but too caught up in his passions to back off; and Tom had his hands on Luke, expressing passions of his own, the two of them raging hard against each other, wet and gasping; and the two of them came.

Panting, winding down, thinking about it, Luke stared at Tom as near to unblinking as can be. But Tom's eyes were unwaveringly closed. He had done his homework and he was really asleep.

Luke got a towel from the bathroom and cleaned both their bodies of semen and sweat. Taking his friend by the sides and very gently turning him over, Luke managed to pull down the bedding and cover them both. Summer nights can be cool in that part of the world, and it felt fine under the covers with Tom, like so much of what they did and said a secret thing for them alone. Luke permitted himself the luxury of whispering Tom's name as he held him and nuzzled the back of his neck. He felt protective toward his friend, though he had taken advantage of him—cheated, perhaps even raped, him. In truth, the guilt that had begun to seep into him just after climax was now a flood. Yet it made Luke hold Tom all the more tightly: for he felt guilty not because he loved Tom but because he was abandoning him.

It must have been between ten and twenty minutes that the two boys lay so. Then Luke said, "Tom?," and gave him a little shove. He was feeling braver, and a bit whimsical. He was feeling close; that made him happy.

Tom was clearly out for the night, so Luke got up, showered, dressed, and, just before he left the house, stood over Tom and said, "I won't let you down, buddy," and "You sleep well, now," and "Good night, Tom."

Now, directly after that night, three things occurred that altered forever how the three friends saw themselves and each other.

First, Tom became very changeable in his humors, sometimes so ebullient it seemed a performance, but more often withdrawn, almost inert.

Second, Luke told Chris, in end-of-the-world confidence and under the direst penalties if she told even an animal or a stone—an oath the three had respected since childhood—that he was planning to go back on the letter of acceptance that he had mailed to Berkeley.

Third, Tom dropped out of school.

He said, What difference did it make? Because he had the job all set up, and why wait? For a diploma? What was that to Tom at this point? "It's no big deal," said Tom, with a face so straight you thought he might be losing his mind.

In the tree house, Luke told Chris, "He's not talking to me again. He's always busy, or just about to go."

"It's not like before, though, is it? Before he was sulking. Now he's
evading."
A thought struck her. "Something occurred between you two, didn't it?"

Luke nodded.

"Something...
physical?"

"Sex," Luke told her.

"At last! And?"

"Oh... we... got together. I don't know, it just... sort of... came about...."

Chris was in no mood for coaxing and working up to it. She said, "Choose one of the following. A, It was an adolescent mistake. B, It was fun but impractical. C, I am his devotee, his slave, the dust in his road."

Luke laughed. "It's D," he said. "I scared him off."

"So what did happen?"

"I don't want to say in so many words. He was drunk and he passed out and I... got to him. That's all I'll say. Except for one detail that I know you will enjoy: His eyes were open."

"The whole time?"

"No. For a moment. Somewhere in it all. I'm not sure when. So he knew what was going on and he didn't stop me. But he must have drunked it away by now, blocked it out. It never happened, in a manner of speaking."

Chris felt an exquisite wave of longing pass over her. She wondered if sex could be as good as the dreams you have of it. Like that perfume ad with the male pianist leaping up to to kiss the female violinist. Is it possible, Chris wondered, that they'd be better off sticking to Mendelssohn?

"Oh," said Walt, no more than a head peeping at them from the door, the rest of him standing on the rope ladder. "I came up here to cry where no one would see."

"Come in and tell us about it," said Chris.

"And cry?"

"If you need to."

"My cousin won't play with me any more," said Walt, hefting himself inside the tree house. "There I was on President Street, wondering what to do till my piano lesson, when I see Cousin Tom heading up from Mayo

Street. So I ran up to him, thinking we could try a fast game of Trade a Punch or maybe just talk things over, man to man. Well, sir, he just told me to buzz off, and he never did that before."

Walt was getting tearful, but he didn't cry.

"He would always at least trade punches with me. He's becoming very foreign all of a sudden, and I don't know why."

Chris held Walt, said, "He's upset," and Walt held back real tight. "He's got a lot to deal with."

"He's not going to college, right?" said Walt.

"No," said Chris, releasing him. "Right."

"Do they have piano college?"

"Why?"

Walt made a face. "It looks like my parents are going to try to send me to one, because all they ever say is 'Practice, practice.' It's nothing but scales, though. It's not even songs yet." In his passion, Walt turned to Luke for support. "It's not the real thing," Walt cried. "It's not music."

"Do you like music, Walt?" Luke asked him.

"I like the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Of course, I'm very ahead of my generation. Mr. Engborn said so."

"Who's Mr. Engborn?" said Luke, smiling.

"My teacher at Minnewaska Science and Grammar School." Walt looked up at Chris. "He said I'm so bright, they should name a dessert after me."

Chris shared a look with Luke.

"You want some advice?" said Luke to Walt. "Don't get caught in a dark corner with Mr. Engborn."

"Don't you guys have anything better to do than hang around jawboning in that stupid tree house?" Tom shouted from below.

Luke, Walt, and Chris (in that order) leaped to the window and gazed down.

"He's drunk again," Luke whispered to Chris. "He's swaying."

"I know what you're saying about me," Tom called up. "And it isn't true."

"It's true," Walt cried, "that you are not so friendly."

"Yeah," Tom agreed. "That may be true."

"He is drunk," Chris murmured.

"And I'm not going to the prom, you hear that?" Tom added. "I'm
over
school. And all the things connected to it."

"What could that mean?" Walt breathed out.

No one in the tree house said anything more. Tom contented himself with pointing a finger at them, this waving finger, and staring at them, then more or less marching off.

"My cousin is drunk!" said Walt, amazed. "At three o'clock on a sunny children's afternoon! And did you notice he didn't apologize to me for being so rude on President Street?"

Chris said, "We notice many things."

Tom didn't go to the prom, but he glided into the post-prom party—a secret party, one of those unknown-to-all-but-the-elite things, where the presence of parents, however earnest and dramatic, does not entirely preclude a couple's finding a spot in which to get to know each other better. Tom was drunk again. Happy and sloppy, with his shirttail hanging out, grinning sideways at everybody, and winking at Connie Dawson's parents: for of course we are once again at the Dawsons'.

Is every party the same party, every summer setting the Dawsons' pool? That's small-town life. So there's Sven Bjornson showing off his swan dive, and Butch "Gross-out" Thorson stalking around like a man who must get laid or else—fat chance—and Susanna Hohner radiating up and down the patio because she had been anointed Queen of the Prom. Another of those Sawtooth High parties.

Something new happened at this one. Tom pulled Chris close and asked her why they hadn't ever done it together.

Our Chris is very sad at this, very disappointed in her Tom and very irritated at his hypocritical bravado. Chris's tragedy, for life, is that she knows the truth about everyone, including herself.

"Stop it, Tom."

"No, I'm serious." The ridiculous young hero, running his hand along her back as if he were too hot to behave. "Why don't we do it?"

"Because you only do it with boys," says Chris.

Tom's look hardens as he grabs Chris's arm. "What'd he tell you?"

Chris carefully reclaims her arm, her face as worried as a mother's. "You shouldn't drink, Tom," she says, "because you can't hold it and it makes you angry at your friends."

"My friends aren't so great," he said; to be fair, we note that he was so embarrassed to say something so dishonorable that he mumbled it.

"Luke wants to give up college and stay home with you. Give up his
future,
Tom! Everything that—no, you
look
at me now!"

"Why don't
you
stay?" Tom asked.

"Because getting out of this place means everything to me." "I thought I did."

They looked at each other, and Tom leaned his head against hers, dropped his glass onto the lawn, and held her lightly by the shoulders.

"I thought we were the friends of forever," Tom went on, rubbing his forehead against hers, shifting his grip on her over and over, as if seeking a foolproof hold. "We were such champs here."

"Tom," Chris said, putting her arms around him only now, at this moment, "that's just high school."

Now comes life, she would no doubt have added if Tom had not, very gently, pressed his lips to hers. He kissed her beautifully, with an attack so tender and giving that she immediately regretted never having asked for this before.

This is what it's like, she thought. To see the hidden side of a wonderful boy. He is wonderful not because he is handsome and sweet, but because he is sorrowful and no one knows but me. I love that part of him because I can carry his pain with me.

"We were the pride of the town," Tom was saying, even as he kissed her. "We're giving that up."

"Who's we, Tom?"

"You know."

"But say it."

"You," he replied, between kisses, "and me," rubbing foreheads again, "and Luke."

Then he held her close, just stood there holding her, perhaps thinking over their wonderful history, and she held him for a long time.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"'Strawberry fields forever,'" sang a quavery voice, Luke's voice. He was watching them, and Chris and Tom parted and made this kind of welcoming gesture and he came in there with them, the trio of old together now as they always should be, Chris and her Twins, who's we?, the friends of forever.

"I saw you two kiss," said Luke, swaying in their arms, "and it was so lovely I wanted to be part of it."

"What was the prom like?" asked Tom, mournfully.

"Impoverished. Everybody asked, 'Where's Tom?'"

Tom's head reared back, and he was laughing. "They really did that about me?" he said.

"They really did, Tom."

The three of them together in joy. I love them like this.

"Anything special happen?" asked Tom.

"The band started playing 'Lonely Boy' and we went into the stroll," Luke told him, "and just as Earl Kohnecker and Sheila Forling began making their pass down the lane, Earl cut loose with one of his whoppers..."

"Earl farted
at the prom?"

"Right in the middle of the thing."

"That's Earl!"

"Yeah, but Suzy Dunbar and Gail Hansson screamed 'Oh, gross-out!' at exactly the same moment, kind of like a singing group, and Mrs. Erlandsson came over and chewed us out for Unworthy Behavior and she disbanded the stroll on the spot."

Tom shook his head slowly. "She banned the dance?"

"Threw us right off the floor."