Rainbow Road (4 page)

“But won’t she miss you?” Jason smiled and tried to hand the dol back, but Melissa wouldn’t take her.

“Nope, she wants to be with you for when you get lonely.”

“Okay,” Jason agreed, though he had no intention of actualy taking the dol. How could he possibly be lonely with Kyle and Nelson around? But he played along, figuring his sister would forget about it later.

He set the dol on his desk chair, recaling Nelson’s Aladdin dol, which led him to think about Debra’s comment about being patient “when you guys get on each other’s nerves.”

Jason was glad to be taking time to say good-bye to everyone, but with each encounter, he was having more second thoughts about the trip.

On his next morning off Nelson took his car to the service center for its checkup. Not til lunchtime did they finaly inform him that the car needed new front brakes (the scraping sound) and a right axle (the rattle). They couldn’t figure out the shrieking noise at ignition but suggested a tune-up and oil change. When the attendant quoted him the total estimate, Nelson made his own shrieking noise.

Panicked, he phoned his mom. “They told me it’l cost five hundred and thirty-seven dolars!” In a low voice he added, “I think they’re trying to rip me off.”

“No,” she responded. “That sounds about right. Cars cost money.”

That wasn’t the response he’d expected. “Wel,” he said in his sweetest possible voice. “So … like … um … wil they bil you?”

“Not me,” his mom replied. “As you said, it’s your car.”

“You mean I have to pay for
all
that? Can’t you at least pay half?”

“No. You decided you didn’t want to start colege next year and you wanted to work.” That wasn’t exactly true. Putting off colege had been his idea. Making him work had been
her
idea.

“I gave you the car,” she continued, “and I’m paying the insurance. As far as I’m concerned, I’m already doing more than enough.”

“But this is a chunk of change, Mom. It’s half my savings.”

“Nelson, you decided you could afford to take time off work for this trip.”

As she spoke Nelson realized what this was realy about. “You just don’t want me to go, do you?”

“Wel, it doesn’t sound like you’re in a financial position to.”

“Thanks a lot, Mom.” Nelson hung up on her, steaming. Why was she being such a witch? First she’d begun charging him rent because he hadn’t wanted to go to colege yet. Now he had to pay car repairs, too?

He thought about caling his dad and asking him for the money, but then the old fart would talk to his mom and Nelson would end up getting blamed for upsetting her.

Grudgingly, Nelson told the attendant to make the repairs.

That night his mom asked, “Is everything okay with the car now?’

“Yeah,” Nelson grumbled. “But I stil think they’re crooks.”

His mom offered no sympathy. “We got new health insurance cards in the mail. Here. Make sure you carry it with you on the trip.”

“Mom, nothing’s going to happen! Would you stop worrying?” But he took the card anyway.

* * *

“You’re so good at anal stuff like that,” Nelson reasoned. “And besides, without you how am I going to get up so early?” They listened to CDs, deciding which ones to take on the trip, as Nelson danced around the room, plucking clothes from drawers and tossing them onto the queen-size bed while Kyle neatly folded them.

“How much are you taking?” Kyle asked. “There’s not going to be any room for Jason’s stuff.”

“Good.” Nelson grinned. “The less clothes he wears, the better.”

Kyle did not return Nelson’s grin.

“Just kidding, Kyle. That’s why I need you—to help me decide what to take. It’s hard being a supermodel.” While Kyle sorted out priority piles (definitely, maybe, and why this?), Nelson kept tossing stuff on the bed in between phoning friends to say good-bye.

Around nine o’clock Jeremy came over. So far he’d been the only boy Nelson could claim to actualy have dated during his otherwise patheticaly love-lacking life.

But Jeremy was HIV positive and Nelson was HIV negative. They’d both decided the difference in status was too big an issue between them, but they also liked each other too much to stop being friends. And at moments Nelson wondered if they stil couldn’t somehow make a relationship work.

Now Jeremy handed Nelson a gift-wrapped box. “I tried to think of something just right for your drive through the sunny South.” Nelson tore off the wrapping and opened the box, revealing a vintage pair of sparkling 1950s women’s cat’s-eye sunglasses. “Woo-hoo!” Nelson jumped up and down, snapping his fingers. “Multi-multi snaps!” He put them on and smacked Jeremy a kiss. “What do you think, Kyle?” Kyle glanced over from the piles of neatly folded clothes he’d organized. “I think they go great with your hair. The rednecks wil love them.” Nelson gazed into the mirror, admiring the union of pink and green. “They do, don’t they?” Near midnight Kyle finaly convinced Nelson that no more of his stuff would fit into the car, and Jeremy yawned that he needed to go home.

Both Nelson and Kyle hugged him good-bye, then Kyle unroled his sleeping bag beside Nelson’s bed.

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” Nelson told him. “You can sleep with me. Atticus can sleep on the floor.” Atticus was Nelson’s black Labrador, currently lying on the bed.

“I want to try out my sleeping bag,” Kyle replied. “I don’t mind.”

“Whatever,” Nelson said, a little disappointed. When Kyle returned from the bathroom in his pajamas, Nelson had stripped down to his underwear and was puling them off.

“Nelson, what’re you doing?”

“Sleeping nude, like I always do.”

“Since when?”

“Um, a while,” Nelson said. “You can too if you want. I don’t mind.”

He’d seen Kyle in his underwear before, but had always been curious to take things to the next level.

“No, thanks,” Kyle said, climbing into his sleeping bag.

“Oh, Kyle. You’re such a prude.” Nelson fel into bed beside Atticus. “I guess it’s just you and me, pup. Our last night together.” But Atticus jumped to the floor, curling up next to Kyle’s sleeping bag.

“Hey, where are you going?” Nelson protested.

“I set the alarm for seven,” Kyle said, turning off the light. “Good night.”

“Hey, Kyle?” Nelson whispered across the dark. “You think Jeremy and I could somehow make things work?”

“I think you should move on to someone else,” Kyle whispered back.

“Yeah,” Nelson said sarcasticaly. “Al those hunky guys knocking down my door are starting to wear me out.” Kyle yawned. “You’l find someone.”

Nelson closed his eyes, thinking about the trip, and wondered,
Will I?

Next morning Kyle woke an hour before the alarm, too excited to sleep longer. He was about to spend the next two weeks
with his boyfriend!

On the bed Nelson puffed sleepy breaths in harmony with Atticus. Kyle roled his sleeping bag into a neat bundle, grabbed his clothes, and padded quietly down the hal to shower.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Mrs. Glassman’s bedroom door had opened. Already dressed, she propped the last of a half-dozen throw pilows onto her bed.

“Good morning!” She smiled at Kyle. “How’d you sleep?”

“I woke so early, I guess I’m pretty excited.”

“I bet you are. I don’t suppose Nelson’s up yet. How about you and I have some breakfast?” Kyle recaled Nelson saying his mom wanted to talk to him. While Mrs. Glassman prepared eggs and turkey bacon, Kyle toasted muffins and poured their orange juice. At seven the radio alarm began blaring music upstairs, but the sound elicited no stirrings of life.

“Nelson!” his mom shouted out the kitchen door.

No response.

She shook her head and sighed at her uneaten muffin.

“You know …” Her eyebrows rose trustingly toward Kyle. “I’m only letting Nelson go on this trip because you’re going.” Kyle hadn’t realized that, but it didn’t surprise him. She’d often told him how glad she was that Nelson had him as a friend.

“I know how responsible you are, Kyle. Promise me you’l look after him, okay?”

“Oh, he’l be al right.” Kyle tried to sound confident, though in truth he worried about Nelson nearly as much as she did. Eager to end the conversation, he told her,

“I’d better wake him up.”

As Kyle entered Nelson’s bedroom, Atticus lifted his head off the bed to greet him, tail wagging to the radio. But Nelson stil lay beneath the sheets, oblivious to the music.

“Hey, come on!” Kyle shook Nelson’s shoulder. “I told Jason we’d be there by now.” That evoked merely a grunt. Only after Kyle tickled Nelson’s ribs, yanked open the window blinds, pounded him with a pilow, and jumped on the bed did Nelson finaly sit up, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. “Al right already!” He blinked at the clock. “Why’d you let me sleep so late?”

“Yeah, right. Hurry up!” Kyle handed Nelson the big mug of coffee he’d brought up and grabbed the phone to cal Jason.

“Hey, wha’s up?” Jason asked. “Where are you?”

“Trying to get her majesty out of bed.”

“He’s not going to pul this al trip, is he?” Jason grumbled into the phone, so loud that Kyle puled the receiver away from his ear. “Tel him he’d better get his butt in gear.”

“That’s
royal
butt,” Nelson corrected, carrying his coffee to the bathroom.

Meanwhile Kyle crammed his sleeping bag and pilow into the packed car. Even at this early hour, the August sun had already begun shining ferociously, though rain was forecast. When Kyle returned upstairs, Nelson stood in front of the ful-length mirror, wearing Jeremy’s dark glasses and buttoning a baggy Hawaian shirt emblazoned with bright blue ocean waves and huge red hibiscus flowers.

“And for the final touch …” Nelson capped his pink hair with a Panama hat Kyle recaled from Nelson’s junior-year English presentation on Truman Capote.

“
Voilà!
”

“You have everything?” Mrs. Glassman asked when at last Nelson made it out the door. “Your cel phone? The charger?” Kyle could see her eyes were misting up. She hugged Nelson, squeezing him so hard his hat fel off.

“Mom!” he protested and climbed into the car.

“Cal me tonight.” She leaned in the window as Nelson started backing out of the drive. “Kyle, make sure he cals me!”

“I wil,” he told her as they waved and puled onto the street. The mention of Nelson’s cel phone charger reminded Kyle: “I think I forgot my toothbrush charger. I need to get it at my house.”

That meant delaying their arrival at Jason’s. But watching Nelson say good-bye to his mom had made Kyle secretly glad for any excuse to see his own mom again.

And it turned out he hadn’t forgotten his charger after al.

“Keep us posted, okay?” His mom wrapped her arms around Kyle, and he breathed in the clean smel of her hair. “Cal us if anything happens.”

“I wil. And you have Nelson’s cel phone number, right?”

“Yes, sir,” his dad assured him and, after hugging him, pressed a fifty-dolar bil into his palm. “Here. Don’t spend it al at once.”

“That was worth going back for,” Nelson remarked, as they waved good-bye and finaly headed toward Jason’s.

When they arrived, he was in the driveway shooting baskets, his duffle and sleeping bag on the stoop.

“What took you so long?” he asked Kyle, and then did a double take as Nelson emerged from the car in his straw hat, loud shirt, and ’50 movie-star sunglasses.

“Hi, guys!” Mrs. Carrilo came out of the front door, along with Jason’s little sister.

“Don’t forget your Lacey!” She ran up to Jason, carrying the dol she’d given him.

“Aw, is she yours?” Nelson smiled at Jason. “I remember my first Barbie.”

“She’s not mine,” Jason clarified. “She’s my sister’s. Let’s get going.”

“I’l help you with your stuff.” Kyle walked up to the stoop with Jason. “Sorry we took so long.”

“Why’s he wearing those goofy clothes?” Jason asked, but Kyle wasn’t sure how to answer, except to say, “That’s just the way he is.” As Kyle helped Jason carry his stuff to the car trunk, Nelson played with Melissa, redoing her dol’s hair.

“You’d better take that flag off,” Jason told Nelson, pointing to a rainbow flag bumper sticker. “We’re going through redneck country, you know.”

“So?” Nelson gave a defiant shrug. “I’m not taking it off.”

“It’l be al right,” Kyle intervened. It seemed like they were already getting off on the wrong foot, before they’d even left the driveway.

Jason hugged his mom and sister, then his mom hugged Kyle. It was the first time Mrs. Carrilo had ever done that, and it made Kyle feel even more a part of Jason’s life.

After hugs were done, Nelson announced, “I’l drive first,” and hopped into the driver’s seat. “You two decide who rides shotgun.”

“You can,” Kyle told Jason. “I’l sit in back and navigate.” Kyle’s dad had gotten him auto club maps for al the states along the route and Kyle had carefuly organized them.

“Woo-hoo!” Nelson turned the ignition and cranked the stereo up. “We’re off!”

“You trying to blast us out?” Jason reached over and turned the volume down.

“Yeah,” Kyle agreed as they puled out of the driveway. “Can you turn it down?”

“Not so much!” Nelson nudged the volume back up. “I love this song.” He began bouncing in the seat, clapping his hands above his head.

“Hey, would you keep your hands on the wheel, please?” Kyle protested. Why was Nelson acting like such a dork? Jason glanced over his shoulder at Kyle, his eyes dark and annoyed. And then Nelson shook a cigarette from his pack.

“You’re not going to smoke that,” Jason stated flatly.

“’Course not.” Nelson glared back. “I’m going to stick it up my butt.”

Jason smirked. “I’m not spending two weeks breathing in your secondhand smoke.”

“Then don’t breathe.” Nelson lit up his cigarette.

Kyle leaned over the seat. “Can’t you wait til we stop for a break?”

Nelson scowled into the rearview. “Smoke at a gas station? Briliant, Kyle. Look, guys, it’s my car and if I want to smoke, I’l smoke.”