all the world's a stage (but we're still waiting in the wings) 2/3
Part One
Evan switches weekend shifts with a psych student going to the local college. He doesn’t mind working on Sundays, although he catches grief about missing mass from his mom. She’s always going on about him quitting since he doesn’t really need a job but Evan’s adamant. He needs to beef up his extracurriculars since he decided to stop running for student body to exclusively focus on hockey.
He usually just hangs out with Camille and does his homework. He’s known her since he was eight. She likes flirting with him and he likes the attention. She’s probably the hottest girl in the city and is saving up for law school, so to say that his ego’s being stroked is like saying the Stanley Cup’s just some gold-plated lawn ornament.
Evan’s doodling plays on the edges of his Integral Calc worksheet while Camille attends to the flock of preteen figure skaters clamoring for juice and salad. A few of the girls start staring at him and not-so-discreetly whispering at each other. He’d be flattered if it didn’t creep him out so much.
He’s idly wondering if Johnson’s good enough to pull off a wraparound or if he’ll have to sit out in favor of Bauer. Evan’s making a mental note to drill them on that later in the week when he hears someone clearing their throat next to him.
He looks up and then down to see little Angie Trotter staring at him with her hands on her hips. She’s tapping her foot, calling attention to both her impatience and Barbie sneaker. Her twin brother, Andrew, is standing next to her, sipping noisily at a cup of juice.
“What can I do for you, Angie?”
She pulls a face at him. “Erika Saunders says you’re hot like burning. I think she’s making things up.”
Evan blinks. “What?”
Angie sighs at his obviously really stupid answer. “So I told her I’d come here and check to see!” The duh goes unspoken but is strongly implied.
Evan stares at her for a long moment before shifting his gaze to Andrew. Andrew just shrugs at him and makes a face that clearly says: girls are crazy, how’m I supposed to know? Evan is deeply sympathetic. He has two crazy sisters to Andrew’s one. He wants to tell the kid that no, it doesn’t get easier with time; it gets more complicated, watch out for the hormonal mood-swings, buddy.
“So can I?”
Evan shifts his attention back to Angie. “Can you what?”
Angie rolls her eyes for a good long time. Evan’s worried they’re going to get stuck that way. “Feel your forehead!”
Evan decides to err on the side of diplomacy. “Sure,” he says, ducking down so she’s at eye-level. “Be my guest.”
She immediately smacks his forehead with her hand. He winces, not because it hurt, which it didn’t but it did sting a bit, but because her hand’s sticky. He doesn’t want to think about why her hand’s sticky. He’d been her age, once, and he wouldn’t want his seven year old self touching his face with his unwashed hands either.
She frowns. She’s a cute kid. Loud and obnoxious, sure, but cute, so he puts up with more shit from her than he would from any other person who isn’t his coach or Chrissie. She smacks her brother on the forehead too. It would seem like she’s comparing their temperatures. Then she smacks herself on the forehead. Evan thinks it evens out in the end.
“You’re not hot,” she whines. “Erika’s stupid. Or lying. Or she’s a stupid liar.”
Evan laughs.
“This looks nice.”
Evan looks up and immediately pulls away from Angie. Weir’s just plopped down his tray on Evan’s table and is smiling. He pulls out the chair across from Evan and takes a seat, fussing with his red RUSSIA sweatshirt and arm warmers. Evan sneaks a quick peek at the Trotter twins and sees them staring up at Weir with hearts in their eyes.
Weir smiles down at both of them. “So,” he starts, leaning close to them. “What are we doing?”
Evan sees Andrew open his mouth, and the kid’s about as tactful as his sister, so he cuts him off. “Nothing. We were just messing around.”
Weir spares him a quick glance. He’s clearly amused. “Really?”
“Nuh uh!” Andrew pipes up, shaking his head vigorously. “We was checking to see if Evan was hot like burning ‘cos Erika said he was but we didn’t think she was telling the truth!”
“Really?” Weir’s biting his lower lip to stop himself from smiling.
Evan inwardly groans. Seriously, how is this his life?
Andre nods, wide-eyed. Angie, uncomfortable with the lack of attention, plasters herself to Andrew’s side thereby drawing Weir’s attention. “Really! And he wasn’t! Evan’s not hot at all!”
This time, Evan does groan out loud. “Oh, God.” He resists the all-encompassing urge to repeatedly bang his head on the table.
Weir gives him a sideways look from under his lashes. “Are you sure? Because I think you might be mistaken.”
Evan feels his face turn bright red. Fuck. Is he being hit on? Is he being hit on by a dude? Is it one of those cultural things he doesn’t get? Oh, right, Weir’s American. Is it a gay thing? Do they think this is what passes for casual conversation? Wait, should he beat the shit out of the guy?
Angie stomps her foot. “I checked! He didn’t feel different from me and Andrew!”
Weir nods at her, looking contemplative and serious. “Okay. I might be the one in the wrong.”
Angie smiles wide, showing off her missing front teeth, transforming into a cute little girl now that she’s been validated.
“Can I have a hug?”
Weir turns to Andrew and pretends to think over his request. “Alright,” he says, holding out his arms. “Just don’t tell the others or else they’ll get jealous.”
Andrew launches himself at Weir. Evan wonders how Camille’s going to take this seeing as she’d been Andrew’s crush since the summer.
“Me! Me! I want a hug too!” Angie’s holding out her arms and glaring imperiously at Weir.
Weir laughs and pulls her close. “Same goes for you too, princess.”
And Evan can see that Weir sure knows how to handle kids; he can practically see Angie putting up Weir’s posters all over her bedroom.
Angie manages to breathe out, “Wow, you smell real good!” when they finally break apart.
Weir taps her on the nose. “And you’d better get back to practice before your coach has my butt.” He looks down at Andrew who’s clinging to his other arm. “Same goes for you too, kiddo.”
The Trotters walk away with a lot of frantic waving and backward glances. Weir smiles and waves back.
Evan starts to fidget. “Uh, so...”
Weir picks up the little cup of dressing on this tray and pours half of it on his salad. “So, I never actually got your name.”
Well, that wasn’t what Evan was expecting.
“Oh, yeah. Uh, hi,” he holds out his hand. “I’m Evan.” They shake and Evan can’t help but feel clumsy and huge when he sees how normal-sized and delicate Weir’s hand looks next to his.
“I’m Johnny,” Weir smiles.
“Yeah, I know.” And there’s that eyebrow of amusement again. “I mean,” Evan stutters. “Like everyone’s talking about you, or well, I know people who say that everyone’s talking about you.”
Johnny laughs.
“That didn’t come out right.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“It’s a small place,” Evan clarifies, hoping he isn’t digging himself an even deeper hole. “So, you know, when a junior world champion moves here it’s like a big thing.”
Johnny’s face suddenly closes off. His eyes are fixed on his salad, which he’s picking at with his fork. “I’d rather not talk about that.”
“Um,” Evan says, not sure what he said wrong. He doesn’t know if he’s overstepped any boundaries or breached etiquette since he’s never been any good at those things though he’s positive he didn’t say anything offensive. Maybe mentioning past victories is taboo in figure skating? “Sure. Sorry.”
“No, no,” Johnny smiles at him. It isn’t the same as his previous smiles. Evan wants to know when he started sounding so gay in his own head. “It’s my bad. Let’s wipe the slate clean.” He makes a wax-on-wax-off gesture. “Hi, I’m Johnny and I want to know which colorblind monkey designed your costumes.”
“Costumes?” Evan manages to get out.
“I feel sorry for your team. Orange and purple together is flattering on absolutely no one. Well, maybe on Jake Shears. Definitely not on your teammates.”
“Okay, hold up. First of all, uniforms, not costumes. And second?” Evan slouches into his chair and looks Johnny up and down. “You’re one to talk.”
Johnny tosses his head back haughtily. “I wouldn’t expect a hockey player to appreciate high fashion.”
Evan snorts. “Sure, whatever you say, man.”
“Nice as it has been chatting with you, Evan, I have to go.” Weir slips his purse over his forearm and picks up his tray. “My mistress awaits.”
“Yeah, go,” Evan waves him off. “The Galinazi doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“You do know she’s Russian and not German, right?”
Evan makes a face at him. Johnny smiles beatifically.
“You always want to get the last word, don’t you?
Johnny smiles even wider. “Only when it comes to you, honey.”
*
“I hear you’re friends with Johnny Weir now,” Chrissie declares when Evan comes down the stairs one Saturday morning in October. She’s sacked out on the coach, pressing away at her GameBoy with occasional glances at the Scooby Doo rerun playing on the TV.
Evan detours into the kitchen, dumps half a box of Wheaties and half a box of Lucky Charms into a punch bowl, grabs a spoon, a bottle of orange juice and a carton of milk. He makes his way back into the den and flops down next to Chrissie. She makes gagging noises at his choice of breakfast.
They sit in relative quiet for a good while - long enough for Evan to finish a third of his bowl and figure out who stole the painting and Scooby’s snack - before Chris decides to be nosy again.
“Since when have you been such BFFs with Johnny Weir?” Her GameBoy makes a series of bleeping noises. That sound is all too familiar to Evan. It means Mario’s just keeled over and died. He’s never been any good at that game. Chris, on the other hand, is obsessed with it. She claims to have reached level seventy-six. Level seventy-six of who knows how many levels, they’re not quite sure. Evan suspects it’s infinite or unwinnable. Chris is determined to prove him wrong.
Evan swallows his mouthful of cerealy goodness. “Since never. I’ve talked to him a couple of times, that’s about it.”
“That’s not what Shawna says.”
“Who’s Shawna?” Evan grabs the remote and switches to Nickelodeon.
Chris whacks him on the arm. “Are you kidding me? She’s only been coming over since we moved here. Tall? Thin? Cornrows down to her ass?”
Evan tries to picture her in his head. Chrissie’s friends are a blur of high-pitched shrieks, overpowering perfume and too much make up in his head. It’s weird that Chrissie, a tomboy in every sense of the word, likes hanging out with a bunch of bimbos.
“Uh, yeah, I sorta remember her,” he lies, shoving another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
“God,” she huffs. “You are such a loser. I don’t know how we’re even related.”
“You could always pretend to be adopted.”
“With this nose?” She points to the appendage in question and grabs his. “Who do you think are we gonna fool?”
He bats her hand away. “Why are you so interested in Johnny anyway? You want his autograph or something?”
There’s complete silence on her end. It’s so out of character that he turns his head to look at her.
“God, Evan,” she sighs. “How are you so completely useless?”
He shrugs. “It’s a gift. Like how you’re so totally annoying.”
She shoves him. Hard. He nearly spills his cereal on the couch. And this discussion ends like all things do between them: with a wrestling match.
*
His monthly duty of washing the plexiglass boards is Evan’s idea of Zen time. Give him one of his dad’s Led Zeppelin CDs in his discman, jujubes in his pocket, a bucket of soapy water, a rag and his squeegee any day over that weird Buddhist chanting music and incense sticks Lim had the team try out once.
Buddhist monks have nothing on him when it comes to Zen. Chrissie calls him a spazz and says it’s not meditation, it’s just him zoning out. He thinks she’s an idiot who’s talking out of her ass. He consoles himself with the thought that if she only tried it, she’d stop having shitty seasons and being so irritable.
He’s only vaguely aware of Johnny, the Galinazi and some bug-eyed, frizzy-haired bag lady on the ice. He’s too busy making sure that he wipes the clockwise the same number of times he’s wiped counterclockwise, all to the beat of The Lemon Song.
He wouldn’t have noticed if an earthquake struck but Johnny’s slumped too close to where he’s squeegeeing that he has to stop and maybe ask him to move if he doesn’t want to get wet.
He pulls off his headphones and opens his mouth to ask Johnny to get out of the way when he notices that Johnny’s busy talking with the bag lady.
“Oh God, she hates it,” Johnny moans, banging his fist on the boards.
“We can change it, it’s not a problem,” the bag lady pats him on the back.
Johnny grunts. It’s a surprising sound to be coming from him. “We’ve got a week until Sectionals. I just, argh! You know? Priscilla never had any - ” He cuts himself off and visibly shakes himself. “Okay. Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s okay,” she says. “I can do it fast. Don’t worry. I’ll just wait for you outside, okay?”
Johnny breathes in deep and nods. The lady leaves through the visitors’ entrance.
“Um...” Evan says intelligently.
“Oh!” Johnny straightens up. “I didn’t see you there.” There’s an awkward moment of silence. “Must be because you’ve decided to stop wearing those horrendous shoes of yours,” he finally quips.
Evan looks down at his ratty Chuck Taylors then back up at Johnny. He does a double take when he realizes that Johnny’s wearing some weird black onesie with glitter designs all over it to make it look like a tuxedo. “Wow, that’s just pot calling the kettle shit right there,” Evan points out.
Johnny cocks his head. “You don’t like it either, huh?”
And while people might accuse Evan of being thick, he isn’t intentionally mean. He’s heard how down Johnny sounded a minute ago, so he tries to not put his foot in his mouth this time. “Well, what do I know about fashion, right?” He tries to project his sincerity.
That seems to cheer Johnny up, or at least make him feel better by giving him something he can mock. Evan might have only spoken to him twice but he knows with an absolute certainty that Johnny loves bitching things out. It’s not that he’s mean, well, Evan doesn’t think so. It’s more like Johnny sincerely likes being overly dramatic and making snappy comebacks.
“Well,” Johnny starts, wrinkling his nose at Evan’s shoes. “That much is obvious. How old are those things, by the way? They look like refugees from World War II.”
“Last time, my shoes were offensively colorful and this time they’re too plain.” Evan holds out his arms. “I can’t win with you, can I?”
Johnny flutters his eyelashes. “I’m notoriously hard to please.”
“You’ve got that right,” Evan comments, tossing his rag into the wash bucket. He pops a few jujubes into his mouth and holds out the box to Johnny. “Want some?”
Johnny’s aghast expression says it all. “Are you kidding me? That’s like offering crack to Whitney! Take it away!” Johnny turns his head to the side and flaps a hand in his general direction.
Evan dumps the rest of the box in his mouth and chews obnoxiously. “Alright, you’re in the clear. They’re all gone.”
Johnny pouts. “When this season is over, I am going to eat an entire baumkuchen. I swear, I don’t care what Galina says, I am going back home to Pennsylvania and I’m going to eat steak and cake for an entire week straight.”
Evan laughs. “Don’t they feed you where you’re staying?”
“I live with Galina,” Johnny says emphatically. “She makes sure I stick to my 1500-calorie diet. Absolutely no cheating.”
Evan boggles. He basically has red meat once a day at the very least, heaping bowls of pasta every other day or so, a box of cereal every morning and he always gets two servings of dessert. His eating habits are average at best compared to the other guys on the team, so he can’t wrap his head around eating what amounts to two party-size bags of Cheetos a day.
“It’s sweet that you think I come by this perfection naturally,” Johnny smirks.
“Seriously, though,” Evan says, all kidding aside. “Aren’t you hungry all the time?”
“Silly bunny. How’s this any different from you stuffing your face until you’re this huge hulking mass of muscle?” Evan’s not convinced and it must show on his face because Johnny elaborates. “I want to be Olympic champion, so I make certain sacrifices. You get that, right?”
“More than you think,” Evan agrees.
“Well, I gotta go take this off and have Stephanie remove all the fabulosity from it. See you around, Evan.”
“Um, good luck!” Evan calls out to his retreating back.
Johnny looks at him from over his shoulder.
Evan shrugs. “You know, on your costume and sectionals and...stuff.”
Johnny laughs. “Thanks.”
*
Evan’s riding high on a great season. In the last two months, he’s been ten for ten on shutouts and both coaches from Boston U and Michigan State made contact - the Boston U coach calling him a couple of weeks ago while the Michigan State coach sat next to his mom during last week’s game. Both had made positive noises about making him their first pick and had unofficially invited him to tour their campuses.
All that’s left is his SAT scores and he’s feeling pretty positive about those too. He wrote them early so they’d be out of the way while the rest of the team’s decided to take the policy of out of sight out of mind. They’re all probably planning on taking them together in the spring. Evan hopes coach talks them out of it for the sake of their chances at the Clark Cup.
Evan’s pulling off his helmet and neck guard in a tiny storage room just off the main locker area. He’s got a weird superstition about putting on and taking off his equipment in front of people. He doesn’t like anyone seeing him with just part of his uniform on, although he’s fine with walking around buck naked in front of his teammates. It might be because he started playing when he was a lot older than most kids and had to struggle into his kit for some time before he got used to it.
He’s a perfectionist. He doesn’t like to look like he’s not in control all the time.
He tosses his helmet and neck guard on top of his gloves on the bench then starts in on his jersey. He’s peeling off his frankly grotty T-shirt and wondering whether he should ask out Imogen Cruz to the Winter Formal when there’s a knock on the door frame.
Johnny waves at him from the threshold.
“Uh, hi,” Evan says uncertainly. He’s sort of wavering between pulling his jersey back on or taking the rest of his shit off before he settles on not doing anything. Johnny’s clearly amused at his discomfort.
“Can I come in?” he says sweetly.
Evan looks around for lack of anything better to do. “I don’t know why you’d want to,” he says, finally deciding to sit down and start on his skates even though it’s all out of sequence for him. “But sure, come on in.”
“Clearly, you don’t know me very well,” Johnny drawls, settling himself next to Evan.
Evan freezes.
“Relax, cowboy,” Johnny snorts. “I’ll try not to give in to the urge to jump you. Somehow.”
Evan pulls off his skates slowly to avoid looking at Johnny. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Holy Christina Aguilera, help me.” Evan meets his eyes at that. “I’m gay, not desperate. Get over yourself.”
“Sorry,” Evan mumbles.
“Moving on,” Johnny chirps. “Congratulations on your winning streak. Also, on your shut offs. I hear that’s supposed to be a good thing.”
“Shut outs,” Evan corrects.
“Whatever,” Johnny shrugs, waving his hand in the air. “I’ve gotten you something to mark this momentous occasion.”
Evan blinks. “Um, you didn’t have to?”
Johnny waves him off, digging around in his purse. “Of course, I may be lying. I could have just gotten this because it reminded me of you and now I’m trying to pass it off as something thoughtful instead of vaguely insulting.”
“Okay...” Now Evan’s really curious.
“Ta da!” Johnny thrusts something small and fluffy at his face. Evan is momentarily cross-eyed. He grabs Johnny’s wrist and pushes it a few inches away. The thing resolves itself into a tiny stuffed coyote.
“I think I should be insulted,” Evan finally says.
“What can I say? It’s the nose.” Johnny taps him on said nose with the stuffed coyote. “Can you blame me? It’s not like you haven’t heard it all before.”
Evan makes a face. “That doesn’t mean I like hearing it over and over again.”
“I call him Sk’elep. Evan, for short,” Johnny winks. “He’s yours now, so you can name him whatever you want.”
“Congratulations to you too,” Evan says to change the topic. He feels not exactly uncomfortable, more like he’s doing something he shouldn’t be doing.
Johnny frowns. “How did you know - ?”
Evan shrugs. “I didn’t. Now I do.” He smiles cockily.
“And what would you have done if I hadn’t won?” Johnny challenges. “Risk contracting serious bad karma by insulting me?”
“Everyone’s always saying how awesome you are and, well, when you’re practicing, it looks like it’s easy as all get out to you. I just kinda assumed, you know, deductive reasoning?”
Johnny smiles, pleased. “How very astute, Sherlock. And thank you, that was quite complimentary of you.”
Evan grins.
“Hey, Evan, you done yet?” Bauer walks in the room, dripping water and clutching at the towel wrapped around his waist. He barely spares Johnny a glance before continuing. “Can we stop by Giordano’s on the way home? I’m starving for some sausage stuffed pizza.”
“Sure. Give me five minutes.”
“Get your ass into gear, man, I'm dying here.” Bauer walks away, scratching his ass.
“Charming,” Johnny comments once Bauer’s out of hearing.
Evan’s can’t figure out if his tone is insulting or not. “He’s a good guy,” he defends.
Johnny makes a complicated gesture. “I didn’t say otherwise. I’m leaving Evan in your capable hands. Don’t forget to hug him every night or else he’ll feel lonely and bite your schnauz off.”
He saunters off and Evan’s left with the tiny stuffed coyote staring up at him.
*
Part Three