or be drowned in blissful confusion, part 9
< part eight
Master Post
Megan arrived at their house the following afternoon on a bright orange boy's bike that she left tipped over in the middle of their front lawn. She was wearing a pink and orange striped hat and glasses Kris hadn't ever seen her wear before. Daniel stood in the doorway to the living room as Kris let her in, the expression on his face saying something like oh, that's Megan, the hot blonde one. Kris, in return, told Daniel wordlessly to stop being gross and go away. Daniel ignored him, so he had no choice but to introduce them.
"This is my brother Daniel," he said. "Daniel, this is Megan."
"Hi," Megan said, dropping her hat and coat on the couch. She was wearing overalls, and an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt---only half of Oscar's face was visible over the top of her overalls, but his trash can lid hat made him easy to identify anyway.
"He's going to go away now," Kris said, and Daniel rolled his eyes, but shuffled off down the hall.
"Should we---" Kris said, and Megan was talking at the same time, and they did a little you talk, no you talk dance for a while before they ironed out that this time, there wasn't really a recording they could play and sing along with, because they were mixing the two versions, so they'd just have to start from scratch. And it really was like they were starting from scratch, for a while. Whether it was the lack of a recording or the fact that it was sort of weird that they were at Kris's house, everything bumped along all stuttery-awkward, like they were strangers paired up for a school project and Kris had learned to play guitar two days ago instead of two years ago. He hated that they had to settle into the way this worked all over again, and he wondered if being in a band would be like this, too. It couldn't be, it had to be more like orchestra (but less boring), where you practiced more than once every two months so there wasn't any time for things to revert back to their factory settings and make you feel stupid. He'd have to ask his dad about that later.
Kris wasn't used to singing---seriously singing, not just sort of mumbling along to himself---while he played guitar, so that messed him up, and there wasn't a recording to help them get their tempo and the actual timing of their vocal parts straight, so that messed both of them up, and Kris liked to stop playing when he messed up and go back to the beginning rather than just ignoring it and going on, and he thought that was maybe sort of pissing Megan off, and then Megan stood up and stretched and he thought she was maybe going to give up and leave for a second, but she flopped back on the couch and said: "I am starving, is it rude to ask if we can have something to eat?"
So Kris put his guitar down (which felt a little bit like a relief, which in turn made him feel guilty) and they went to the kitchen. Megan offered to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and something about her bustling around Kris's kitchen asking for a spatula---no, not a metal one, this is a nonstick pan---and requesting that Kris cut tomato slices, please, made things feel normal and cool again. He felt like Megan lived here, like maybe they were in college sharing an apartment and this was something they did, made grilled cheese sandwiches and talked about their favourite Ninja Turtles.
It was a little startling how vivid that idea was to him, and how quickly. Kris's thoughts about his life after high school were generally just a nebulous blob in his head, vague stuff about a dorm room with a linoleum floor and his guitar and studying at the library for finals when everyone got stressed out and had sex behind stacks of old books (if the TV was telling him the truth about college, which it probably wasn't). But this felt real to him, real and specific, this random and ridiculous idea of him and Megan sitting around in a kitchen arguing about what the best kind of bread was for various sandwiches, and then Adam would come home from a play rehearsal with wind-mussed hair and a thousand stories to tell, and he'd throw his bag on a chair dramatically and steal half of Kris's grilled cheese.
All of this---this whole other fake life, which he could feel in his head the way he'd felt the somehow-blue atmosphere of his dream yesterday morning---flashed through his head in just a couple seconds, not even the time it took Megan to arrange tomato slices on her sandwich. For a few shining seconds before he realized how insane it was (he barely even knew Megan and Adam, and they were two years older than he was anyway, he wasn't even thinking about college yet), it was perfect. It was music and laughter and complaining about the crappiness of the apartment they lived in but not really caring that much and staying up late eating cookie dough out of the tube and watching movies. (Back when he and Brett had daydreamed about college, the Staying Up Late part had always been really important. That was their entire concept of college as twelve-year-olds, actually, that they'd be roommates and stay up late all the time playing video games and watching TV and also go on road trips and it would be awesome.) And even as it made him feel a little silly, just imagining it made him feel better. Like just the thought of a possible future where maybe he and Megan had done a hundred songs together and didn't hate each other yet meant that this was all going to work out okay.
"Do you want me to get that?" Megan said, waving her hand in front of Kris's face. Kris had a mouthful of sandwich, and the phone was ringing.
He shook his head and tried to indicate with hand gestures that Daniel could get it, even though he half wanted to let Megan answer it to see what she'd say, since this wasn't her house.
"Yeah, he's here," Daniel said, walking in from the hall. "He's in the kitchen eating sandwiches with some girl."
"You're such a dickwad," Kris said, jumping up from the table to grab the phone. Megan laughed a little, so at least Daniel's attempt to make their grilled cheese seem like a secret date wasn't bothering her. "Hello?" he said into the phone, fully expecting it to be Katy, because trying to make Katy think Kris was having a semi-cheating-sandwich was completely something Daniel would do. It turned out to be Kevin, who played cello in Kris's sometimes-we-do-weddings string quartet, calling to ask if Kris was free on January 27th, because the church organist who was supposed to play at his cousin's wedding was going on a cruise. Daniel appeared to be trying to talk Megan into making him a sandwich, too, so Kris threw a balled-up napkin at him. Kris said that yeah, he was free, scrawled "January 27th wedding 5 PM" on a post-it, and hung up.
"That's the day after the dance," Megan said, looking at Kris's post-it.
"Are you guys really doing a Wizard of Oz thing?" Daniel said.
"Yes. And if you want to come, you have to dress as one of those Munchkins and sing about lollipops," Megan said, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "It'll be fun."
Daniel looked at Kris to find out if Megan was serious, so Kris nodded gravely. He didn't have much hope that it would work, but it was always worth a try. The thought of Daniel actually believing that he had to wear a Munchkin costume made him happy.
"You're just messing with me," Daniel said, not sounding entirely sure.
"I am not," Megan said.
"Does Kris have to be a midget, too?"
"Nope, he's going to be a flying monkey."
Kris groaned. "I was hoping you forgot about that."
"Did you know the flying monkeys are like, blue?"
"Wow, I just remembered, I have to play at this wedding the next day, so I probably can't even go to the dance," Kris said, loud and overdramatic.
Megan crossed her arms. "Yeah, that's not gonna work."
"I know," Kris said, reverting to his normal voice. "Katy would kill me. But I'm really not dressing as a flying monkey, okay?"
"Fine," Megan said, with a big fake-exasperated sigh. "Back to the song?"
"Back to the song," Kris said, and Daniel skulked off to his room again without even being glared at.
Possibly due to the magical powers of grilled cheese, or of being slightly mean to Daniel, or just the self-fulfilling prophecy of Kris's this will work feeling, the song started to come together. Megan suggested that maybe they should try singing along to the duet recording of the song a couple times, just to see if it would help them get a handle on the timing and rhythm. Which it did, even if singing along with the superfast version made him feel like he was playing guitar impossibly slowly when they turned off the tape and tried it again on their own.
The process was slower than it had been the first time, but Kris could feel it starting to work, each moment when things began to mesh together and sound good a tiny, beautiful surprise. The tongue-twister lyrics seemed easier, singing with Megan was becoming more familiar and comfortable, and he found himself playing and singing simultaneously without thinking as hard about it. Which was when he let himself get distracted and screw up.
The song had this whole call-and-response thing where Megan sang every day I love him just a little bit more, and he loves me the same and Kris sang every day I love her just a little bit more, and Kris, who was musing to himself a little bit about whether he could maybe learn to play ska guitar---not in time for the open mic, but just in general, how cool would it be to have a band with a horn section---wasn't paying enough attention when it was his turn to echo Megan, and he sang her line back to her, every day I love him just a little bit more and stopped himself short, laughing.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, curling his hand around the neck of his guitar to stop the sound. "I was trying to speed up the guitar so I just sang what you sang instead---"
Megan waved him off. "No problem. Anyway, if you sing it that way at the actual open mic, Adam will freak out, he loves it when people sing songs without changing the pronouns. Like this one time, that Nick guy---this is probably why Adam likes him so much, actually---did that Fiona Apple song 'Criminal'? You know, the one that starts with the line about being a bad, bad girl?" Megan sang the song's opening line, her voice an interesting and semi-decent Fiona Apple impression that tempted Kris to ask her to sing a few more lines. But that wasn't the point of her story, this was a story about Adam and that dumb-goatee Nick guy, so he let her continue. "Anyway, Nick did that song, and Adam was all oh my god, that's so cool, he didn't ruin it by sitting there and switching it around so that he was a bad bad boy being careless with a delicate girl, he just sang it! And then one time Sonic Pork Chop did 'My Sharona,' but their whole...chanting thing sort of ruined it. But anyway, I'm just saying, even if you mess it up, you'll still have a fan. Not that you're going to mess it up!"
"At least one of us thinks so," Kris said, putting his guitar pick down and flexing his fingers. "Also, I don't think Adam counts as a fan. I mean, he has to tell us we're good, he's our friend."
"That's what friends are for," Megan said. "Actually. Can I---I know I'm going to sound like a kindergarten teacher right now..."
"Did you want to tell me about shapes and colours?"
"Yes." Megan picked up Kris's guitar pick. "This is a triangle. Sort of."
"And it's orange," Kris said.
"Good job!" Megan put the guitar pick back down and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It's just...it's cool that you're friends with Adam, you know? When he and Mark---when he came out, there were just all these guys who would barely even talk to him, and I mean, they're in the drama club, so you'd think they'd be okay with it. But they all got freaked out, like being gay was contagious or whatever, and then the most of the guys who were cool about it graduated last year, and it's not like he doesn't have all of us---me and Nina and Alicia and everybody, and obviously we're awesome---but then a lot of people like...they say they're okay with the fact that he's gay, but then..."
Kris knew what she meant. He'd seen people treat Adam that way, careful and nervous and talking too loud, like they were scared he'd bite them or something but were also congratulating themselves for getting this close, like they didn't realize that they were still treating him like a freak. It reminded him of the way he'd seen his great-uncle talk to a black waitress in a restaurant once, and all of it made him want to take his guitar to a tiny island with a single palm tree and hide out until people stopped being so generally horrible. Not that he thought there was much chance of that happening, ever.
"That would make me a total asshole," he said.
"Well yeah," Megan said. "But not in like, a surprising way."
"So it's surprising that I'm not an asshole."
"In a good way! It's like finding $20 in the bottom of your bag, not a surprise like, oh my god, a spider just dropped into my cereal! It's...obviously, don't tell Adam I said this, he'll accuse me of being like, his mom or whatever, but I think it means a lot to him that you guys are friends."
Friends, Kris thought, and that sort of snapped him out of it. Not that he'd been in anything enough to be snapped out, not really, but he'd been revisiting it in his mind occasionally, that moment on Megan's couch when he'd thought he and Adam might be about to kiss. It was one of those maddening things that seemed different every time he thought of it, like he was turning a kaleidoscope. It wasn't any clearer to him, even in hindsight, whether the moment had even been real, whether he'd done the right thing. But Megan saying friends made the kaleidoscope-beads in Kris's head shift again. He and Adam were friends, and new friends at that, and assuming that Adam had maybe wanted to kiss him just because he was a guy and he was there was sort of just as insulting as Daniel thinking there was something going on with Kris and Megan just because Megan was a girl and she was there. If Adam wanted to kiss anyone, he probably wanted to kiss older, cooler guys who could grow goatees and sing about being bad girls, not random dorky sophomores.
He wished he could curl his hand around the pang of absurd disappointment that that made him feel and mute it, the way he could with his guitar. There was nothing to be disappointed about, he wasn't supposed to want anyone but Katy to kiss him anyway, and Adam was a guy and that made things even more complicated and there was no way it could end well so it was good that it hadn't started. That whatever this it even was, it was just a figment of Kris's imagination. There hadn't been an almost kiss, there'd just been a confusing movie and dim light and Kris had been sleepy and warm and one of those words that meant sort-of-drunk, and now everything was back to normal. Kris's brain supplied the phrase in the harsh light of day, and he knew he was lucky that the light wasn't really that harsh at all---he hadn't messed anything up, and apparently Adam liked that they were friends even though Kris didn't know what glam rock was, and he could stop revisiting fake-moment-ville and work on this song.
Which was getting better, slowly and steadily, and when they finally made it through the entire song without any guitar or vocal fumbles and subsequent stops to apologize to each other, Megan got up and did a little dance. She then decreed that it was time for a break, and launched into a story about how much all the members of Optional Mango hated this other band Mango Reconnaissance, which struck Kris as pretty hilarious. Megan agreed, but told him that he could not mention this around Spencer.
"He's usually pretty chill," Megan said, "But he is like, rabid about Mango Reconnaissance, first because he's sure they ripped off the mango thing from Optional Mango, but their lead singer says that they were called Mango Reconnaissance first, except they hadn't played any shows, so no one knew about it, and then they totally stole one of Spencer's songs because he played it for this girl he was trying to impress who ended up being the bassist of Mango Reconnaissance's sister's best friend..."
"...How did she steal his song?" Kris said. "Did she write down the chords on a napkin while he wasn't looking or something?"
Megan laughed. "I don't know if she stole the chords, but Spencer's song was apparently about going on a date to Wal-Mart, and then a week later Mango Reconnaissance had a song about going on a date at K-Mart. And it had like, half of the exact same lyrics, there was this part about riding bikes through the aisles or something, and Spencer was so pissed..."
"This is like a soap opera." Kris was fascinated.
"I know, right?" Megan looked delighted. "Soon someone is going to get amnesia."
"Maybe Spencer will," Kris suggested. "And then Mango Rebellion---"
"Reconnaissance."
"They'll all trick him into being a member of their band. Or no, wait, he'll be this brainwashed zombie-roadie-guy who carries their amps and writes them songs---"
"Which they take credit for!"
"Yeah, and then Optional Mango has to rescue him."
"By playing a song! They all show up at a Mango Reconnaissance show and start playing...I don't know, something by the Clash, and Spencer gradually remembers his true identity!"
Kris strummed the opening chords of "Should I Stay or Should I Go."
"You know a Clash song!" Megan squealed.
"Why is everyone shocked when I know music?" Kris asked, and that led to a discussion of songs everyone knew or should know, and he was in the middle of flat-out refusing to teach Megan the main riff to "Smoke On the Water," because he was in no way being responsible for one more person only knowing that particular handful of stupid power chords, when his parents got home.
"Hello," his mom called out as she opened the door. "Kristopher, Daniel, are you all home?"
"We're here," Kris called, leaning his guitar up against the couch. "Daniel's in his room."
"Kristopher," Megan said under her breath.
Kris rolled his eyes at her. "What did you think Kris was short for?"
"Hi, Mrs. Allen," Megan said, having decided to be a little more formal now that she was actually in their house. Kris appreciated it. He wasn't sure how his mom felt about being addressed as "Kris's mom."
Everyone made small talk about how their song was going and what was for dinner, which reminded Megan that she had to go home and slice up some eggplants for parmesan, so she gave Kris a one-armed hug and left, and Kris brought his guitar back to his room. He thought about playing some more, but his fingers hurt, so he went into the kitchen to grab some soda instead.
"Did you two have fun?" his mom asked, like he was eight years old and he and Megan had been playing Legos on the carpet.
"Yeah," he said, because Legos or not, it had been fun, and now everything felt too quiet, like the absence of music and stories being told had left a miniature black hole in his head.
"I guess your dad and I aren't allowed to come see you sing, right?" she said, and she looked so hopeful that Kris almost wanted to say yes, except that this song had some sort of questionable lyrics, and singing anything in front of people was scary and bizarre in enough ways already without the added weirdness of singing about getting high and getting off in front of his mom.
"I don't..."
"It's okay," she said. "We'll get to hear you sometime."
"You hear me all the time," Kris said. "Just ask Daniel."
His mom laughed at that, and then put him to work stirring some pasta while she made a salad.
____________
Katy was babysitting on New Year's Eve---Kris's dad joked that she should be getting overtime for it---so Kris went over to Charles's house to play Playstation and eat hors d'oeuvres that came in boxes from the freezer section, which Charles's mom always made for New Year's. They were in the middle of a plate of miniature quiches and a Knockout Kings marathon (totally unfair, since Kris didn't own the game and didn't remember the combos for all the fun stuff like headbutts and haymakers), when the phone rang. Charles's mom brought it into the living room.
"Kris, phone for you," she said. Kris figured it was his mom, calling to tell him they'd be late or early picking him up, depending on what time they'd decided to leave the potluck dinner at the church. Luckily, he didn't say hi, mom into the phone, because it was Katy.
"Hi," she said, and Kris could tell just from that one word that she was planning something, that this wasn't a hello, how are you call. "I'm right near Charles's house, do you want to come over for a little while. I wanted to...you know, say hi, give you a New Year's kiss."
"But you're babysitting," Kris said. "Won't you get in trouble?"
"I thought it was your mom," Charles said, and Kris motioned for him to shut up.
"It's only 9:30," Katy said. "They won't be home for a while."
"Yeah, sure," Kris said, because it was the only possible answer. "What's the address?"
"High five," Charles said, holding up his hand as Kris hung up the phone. Kris didn't know whether it was refreshing or annoying that he didn't even pretend not to have been listening to the whole conversation like a cat who'd just heard a can opener. "You can take my bike if you want."
"Thanks." Kris grabbed his jacket from the hooks by the front door.
"And these!" Charles was rummaging in the hall closet, and emerged with a knit hat---complete with pom-pom on top and earflaps---and mittens, in red and white with a pattern of pointy geometric snowflakes.
"What the hell are those?"
"My aunt's idea of a Christmas present. I think she knitted them. Or bought them from Peru, or something."
Kris put on the hat and mittens reluctantly. He probably looked like a complete idiot, but it was freezing outside.
"If my mom calls for some reason---" Kris began, once they were in the backyard and safely out of parental earshot.
"I'll tell her you went over to John's to borrow a Playstation game or something. That's what I'll tell my mom, too. Don't worry."
"Thanks, man," Kris said. "I owe you."
"Remember, if the timing seems right, you can always tell her that it's the new millennium and the world might end tonight, and you don't want to die a virgin."
Kris rolled his eyes. "I think you're a year late with that one."
"No, I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel!" Charles insisted. "The millennium doesn't actually begin until 2001. So the world could still end! Tell her. And take some pictures for the less fortunate if she takes her shirt off. You can borrow my camera---"
Kris tried to give Charles the finger, but forgot he was wearing mittens and ended up just emphatically holding his snowflake-patterned lobster claw in the air. The sound of Charles's laughter followed him down the street.
He didn't get to forget he was wearing mittens for long, they made it really hard to hold onto the bike's handlebars, and the stupid hat kept almost slipping into his eyes, and he imagined a newspaper headline reading Local Boy Killed In Bicycle Accident Caused by Winter Clothes, Still a Virgin the whole way to the house where Katy was babysitting, but he arrived unscathed. His heart was racing a little as he left Charles's bike behind a shrub and climbed up the steps to the front door. He shoved the hat and mittens in the pockets of his jacket and rang the doorbell, crossing his fingers that it would be Katy answering the door and not an angry got-home-early parent who would report him to the police for trespassing or call his parents or chase him off with a pitchfork.
It was Katy who opened the door, and he felt stupid for halfway expecting her to be dressed like she was at a New Year's party in a movie---a black dress and big sparkly earrings, something like that. But she was just babysitting, so she was wearing jeans and a grey sweater (her sweater with the lowest neckline, Kris noticed), and the star necklace he gave her for Christmas.
"Hi," she said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek and rearrange his hair. "Come in. My sister is upstairs with the kids."
"Your sister is here, too?"
"Yeah. We might end up staying here all night, depending on what time the Mullanes get home, and my parents didn't want me to be here alone. Don't worry, I bribed her. She's not going to tell anyone, I told her I'd pay for her next two movie tickets."
"Cool," Kris said. He tried not to feel weird about Katy bribing her sister so they could...whatever it was that they were doing. He suddenly imagined Katy snuggling up to him and saying you know, the world might end tonight... and wanted to laugh. He felt sort of jangly and nervous. He didn't know what they were doing, how he'd wandered into this teen movie scenario and was now sitting on some strangers' couch, staring at their family portraits on the wall. "Are these the kids we took trick or treating?"
"No, that's the Martins," Katy said, sitting down next to Kris and then standing up again. "Sorry, did you want a soda or some crackers or something---"
"I'm fine," Kris said, pulling her back down onto the couch. She tipped half into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Happy new year," she said softly, her lips brushing softly against his ear, and she climbed the rest of the way into his lap, straddling him, and it was suddenly crystal clear what they were doing, and the uncomfortable thought of Katy's sister sitting upstairs doing her own version of Charles's cat-and-can-opener avid listening quickly fell straight out of Kris's head. Katy was so soft, everything about her was soft---her hair and her lips and her sweater, the way her hands rested on him---and Kris felt cocooned in it, insulated and fuzzy like they were wrapped up in feathers. He slipped his hands tentatively under the back of her sweater, her skin so warm and silky and perfect under his fingers that he wanted to sigh and then maybe write a song about it, a thousand songs all full of lullaby guitars and drums played with brushes, all whispery-quiet. Soft songs, to listen to under a blanket while it rained outside.
Katy stopped kissing him, shifted backward a little, and leaned her forehead against his, her eyes closed. He couldn't even focus on her face when it was so close, she was just a blur of blonde hair and dark eyelashes. He realized that his hands were resting just below her bra now, like he was thinking of undoing the clasp without even actually thinking of it, and he wondered if that was why she was pausing. Take some pictures if she takes her shirt off, he thought absently, and decided to punch Charles when he got back to his house. Not like, in the face or anything, but---
"Is this...um, is this okay?" Katy said, one of her hands trailing down from Kris's shoulder to his lap, where she ran her fingertips lightly over the swell of his erection through his jeans.
"Yeah," he said, and stopped himself from adding please. She'd done this much before, a couple times, just lightly brushed her fingers over his dick like she was saying hello and sort of...considering it, and it always made him embarrassed and hopelessly turned on at the same time, but this time it felt like the beginning of something instead of the entire gesture. They were alone (Mostly. Kris remembered Katy's sister upstairs and hoped that they were talking quietly, he had no idea if they were talking quietly) and inside on a real couch and it was New Year's Eve and who the hell knew, maybe Katy had watched the same Discovery Channel thing Charles had and thought the world was going to end in a few hours.
"I don't..." She stroked her fingers over him again, harder this time, and he bit his lip to avoid making a noise. "Could you...show me?"
"Okay," Kris said, after a pause that he thought probably made him seem slightly slow. The air felt momentarily cold against his skin as he slid one hand out from underneath Katy's shirt and nudged the hand she had in his lap a little upward and to the left, because she had the right idea, but she was a little off, and he actually liked that, liked the slight wrongness of it, how different it felt, but he didn't know how to explain that, didn't really want to try. He glanced up at her face, briefly, and she was looking down at their hands, and the concentration and curiosity in her eyes made him want to laugh and kiss her at the same time. He thought laughing would probably hurt her feelings, so he went with the kissing, brushed her hair back and ducked his head down to press his lips to her neck just above her necklace. The fake-flowers, almost candy sweet smell on her skin made him imagine her standing at the mirror in her room, holding the little bottle of perfume Jess gave her for Christmas and planning this, and he smiled and leaned his face into the curve between her neck and her shoulder.
She sighed a little and moved her hand, almost imperceptibly, but Kris definitely percepted it---perceived, insisted some disturbing vocabulary-word part of his brain---and he thought maybe he was still supposed to be showing her (God. Showing her, like she wanted to see how he jerked off, like she wanted to know, and for some reason that idea almost made his dick twitch under their stacked-up hands.), and he could feel himself blushing a little as he tried to guide her hand without being pushy about it, tried to give her an idea of where to stroke and how hard. He closed his eyes, felt his eyelashes brushing against her skin as he did, and moved their hands, slower and lighter than he would have if he'd been doing it himself, just himself.
Katy shifted a little, pushed up a little more onto her knees, and Kris let his face tip downward so his cheek was resting against the curve of her breast and moved his lips in a soft semi-kiss that was mostly him kissing the fabric of her shirt. She wove her free hand into the back of his hair and maybe made a little sighlike noise, so he did it again, more firmly this time. He could feel his lips pressing a temporary dent into the weird little foam layer of her bra, and he wanted that out of the way, he wanted her skin against him everywhere, and he slid the hand under her shirt up to the little metal hook things on her bra, left it there for a moment like a question, hoping she'd get it without him having to ask out loud, and that was when there was a loud crinkling-plastic noise, followed by the hollow thunk of a microwave door opening---it was weird how distinctive that noise was---and the whir of it running.
"Shit," Katy hissed, and she was off Kris's lap so quickly he almost got dizzy. "I told her...I'm so sorry, just hold on a second."
She straightened her sweater and stormed off toward the kitchen, and Kris just sat there gazing into the blank TV for a second before he realized that fuck, if Katy's sister---he hoped it was Katy's sister, and not some random little kid, oh fuck---had come downstairs, she'd probably seen them on the couch, Katy straddling his lap with her hand on his dick, his face pressed into her boobs, and he whipped his head around to look for the staircase, which (thank god) wasn't visible from here, which had to mean that the couch wasn't visible from the staircase. He hoped. He took another look around to make sure there weren't any children hiding in corners peering at him, adjusted his dick in his pants, and smacked his head into the back of the couch a few times for dramatic effect. (Not that smacking his head into pillows had any satisfying dramatic effect.)
He could hear Katy's voice from the kitchen, angry but indistinct, and then her sister (at least it was her sister), who helpfully pitched her voice louder so Kris could eavesdrop.
"Haley wanted a glass of water," she said.
"You're making popcorn!" Katy had raised her volume to match, and this all would have been kind of funny if Kris hadn't been completely mortified.
"God, I'm not allowed to eat now? It's not like I don't know Kris is here, I don't see why I have to stay upstairs like Anne Frank---"
"Oh my god," Katy said. "What is wrong with you? You're so---" She stopped herself and started talking more quietly again so that all Kris could hear was the staccato cadence of her voice lapping like angry little waves around his head.
Everything felt wrong now, dirty and too real and messed up. He'd known Katy's sister was there the whole time, but something about that idea being made so concrete and unavoidable changed things, made him feel guilty and furtive. The feather-soft, hushed and thrilling forbiddenness had disappeared almost instantly, and he was left trying not to make eye contact with a wall full of other people's family pictures.
He felt---somehow at the same damn time---that he'd already done something bad, even though he hadn't pushed or asked for anything and Katy had been the one asking him; and like he hadn't been bad enough, like he was wussing out, knowing already that he was going to call this whole thing off when she got back. Like he was supposed to jump at any chance to get off, want it badly enough to ignore Katy's sister and the upstairs full of kids and the general air of what-the-fuck-ness that being interrupted always caused.
Because he knew that Katy's just hold on a second was impossible, that she couldn't just walk in from the kitchen, climb back into his lap, and pick up where they left off. There was no way in hell. She was going to come back here and they wouldn't be able to look each other in the eye, and they'd both apologize a billion times for nothing, and he wanted to skip it, just leave her a note (Had to leave, happy new year, see you at school, Love, Kris) on the coffee table and go back to Charles's house and goddamn it, he had to ride Charles's bike back there in the cold, with a hard-on, and of all the ways that visiting a girl at a babysitting job could go wrong, he thought this might be a new one. It was like the solution to a game of Clue: the Sister, in the Kitchen, with the Microwave Popcorn. (Which, it had to be noted, was better than the classic and horrifying the Parents, Getting Home Early.)
But popcorn or no popcorn, he thought, everything would have been a mess anyway. He felt suddenly, hopelessly sure of it, that there'd always be some moment when the gauzy, go-with-the-flow haze lifted and reality crept in, all sharp corners and awkwardness. His fantasies about sex with Katy seemed absurd, all full of soft-focus fairytale crap that was obviously never going to happen---magically appearing beds and magically disappearing clothes, both of them knowing exactly what to do and not having to stop and think about it and let it start to seem wrong.
If he believed even a fraction of the conversations he heard at school, everyone was having sex all the time, and Kris wondered how that was even possible. How did they find the time and place to do it? How did they do it at all, without getting so fucking embarrassed and tangled up in all the hows and whys and whats that everything about it became as daunting as juggling chainsaws and kittens at the same time?
Maybe it was just him, which was even worse. What if everyone else was okay with this stuff, and it was just him who was this mentally defective, to be happily thinking about wearing a naked Katy like a blanket one minute and wanting to write her a kiss-off note and roll under the couch like a dust bunny the next? He felt like that line in "Karma Police," the one about being like a detuned radio, like the inside of his head was just layers and layers of static and dissonance, the noise of all the ways he was crazy and stupid and doomed to fuck things up.
It's okay, he tried to tell himself, and he realized it wasn't him telling himself, he was remembering something, someone else's voice. He was remembering Adam, at the very first GSA meeting, saying whatever you feel, it's okay, and just Adam's voice in his head (Adam, sitting next to him on another unfamiliar couch, saying Kristopher Neil Allen. It works. so quietly that they became the last two people in the world) made him feel a little better, like Adam was here with him, patting his shoulder and saying don't worry, you're not insane, Katy's sister will forget about this in two seconds, let's go get ice cream.
He took a deep breath and stood up as Katy walked back into the room. She didn't really meet his eyes, but it wasn't quite as bad as he'd been expecting.
"Sorry," she said. "She didn't---um, my sister was just making popcorn. She didn't...see anything."
"It's okay," Kris said, and grabbed his jacket from the arm of the couch. "I should---I should go, though, because my parents are going to pick me up at Charles's house, but I don't know what time---"
"Are they at the potluck dinner at church?"
"Yeah. Yeah, and they weren't sure if they were staying late or not, so I'd better..." He motioned toward the door.
"Oh, okay. Okay." Katy walked him to the door, holding his hand carefully, like they'd just started going out yesterday.
Kris pulled Charles's hat and mittens out of his pockets and put them on, which worked exactly the way he'd hoped.
"Where did those come from?" Katy said, laughing.
"They're Charles's."
"...Those would look really stupid on him," Katy said, and Kris loved her.
"They really would," Kris said, and hugged her close to him.
"Happy new year," she said, her voice right against his ear again.
"Happy new year," he said, and kissed her goodnight. She stopped him before he went out the door to tie the tassels attached to the hat's earflaps into a big goofy bow under his chin.
____________
"So?" Charles stage whispered once Kris was back at his house, cold and grumpy and shedding his borrowed snowflake knitwear.
"Her sister was there," he said, and let his tone do the talking, let Charles assume whatever he was going to assume.
"Oh," Charles said. "Wait, she didn't want you all to like...sit down and play Scrabble or something, did she? Because that would just be wrong---"
Kris, true to his earlier musings, punched Charles in the arm. Hard. Charles even had the sense not to complain about it too much. Then they put Knockout Kings back on and ate miniature black and white cookies until Kris's parents showed up around eleven.
"Did you have a good night?" Kris's mom asked as he climbed into the backseat of the car next to Daniel, who'd also been at a friend's house.
Not so much, Kris didn't say. Katy was going to give me a handjob but then she didn't and I almost got strangled by Charles's hat and I think there might be something seriously wrong with me.
"Yeah. We had mini quiches," he said, and avoided looking at the rearview mirror in case she'd be able to tell if she looked into his eyes. He wasn't even sure which part of it he wanted her to know about least.
He jerked off in the shower when they got home, more out of a sense that he should than out of actually wanting to, and then promptly regretted it because it felt weird to jerk off in the shower and then stand around in the living room with his family, but it wasn't the most uncomfortable thing that had happened to him today. They watched the ball drop, drank some champagne (Kris and Daniel were allowed half-glasses), exchanged happy-new-year hugs, and headed off to their bedrooms. Kris was tired, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, so he plugged his headphones into his walkman and listened to both versions of "Saw Red" and then kept the tape on, listening to Megan's mixtape from ex-boyfriend Jeff. It pretty much summed up how he felt, in some way---crappy songs that were a remnant of someone else's failed relationship.
The tape wasn't all bad, though. It had Creed's "With Arms Wide Open" on it, which Kris liked even though he thought he probably wasn't supposed to. And "American Pie," the original Don McLean version, not the awful Madonna cover. The song struck Kris as a baffling choice for a love-note-to-a-girlfriend mixtape, but hearing it cheered him up a little. He almost stretched out his hand for his guitar to play along (he knew at least some of the chords) before he remembered it was late and his guitar was forbidden. "American Pie" was followed by a quickly cut-off burst of DJ chatter, and then by that "Angel" song by the rap-reggae guy. Shaggy.
Shaggy sang about some girl being his darling angel (She'd been there for him while he was in jail! She was even closer to him than his peeps!) and Kris tried to imagine anyone thinking that Megan would be impressed by---or even vaguely want to listen to---this song.
And from "American Pie" to Shaggy? he could hear Adam telling her. Worst transition ever. Jeff is a moron.
He had to bury his face in his pillow to muffle his laughter. It was almost one in the morning, but he couldn't shut the tape off, he had to see what other surprises Jeff had in store. He fell asleep with his headphones still on somewhere between Sting's "Desert Rose" and Sugar Ray's "Every Morning."
Jeff was totally a moron.
____________
Music!
(of which there is rather a lot.)
The Beatles' Drive My Car
Brad Nowell's Saw Red, in a chilled-out duet version. This isn't exactly how I imagine Kris and Megan's version, but it gives you a general idea of how the song might sound with two voices, but a little slower and with more minimal instrumentation than the original.
Fiona Apple's Criminal
My Sharona, in its original version by the Knack, and also performed by Veruca Salt, in case you wanted to hear a version with sort of semi-catatonic female vocals.
The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I was going to link you to one of seven million tutorials about how to play the riff from Smoke on the Water, but I decided not to.
Radiohead's Karma Police
All eight and a half minutes of Don McLean's American Pie, and the soul-hurting Madonna version.
And a bunch of other radio-friendly early-2000s music, the googling-and-selecting of which made me laugh and laugh: Creed's With Arms Wide Open, Shaggy's Angel, Sting's Desert Rose (...I remember watching this video on MTV on a tiny TV in my friend's cousin's room, LOL.), and Sugar Ray's Every Morning.
Master Post
Megan arrived at their house the following afternoon on a bright orange boy's bike that she left tipped over in the middle of their front lawn. She was wearing a pink and orange striped hat and glasses Kris hadn't ever seen her wear before. Daniel stood in the doorway to the living room as Kris let her in, the expression on his face saying something like oh, that's Megan, the hot blonde one. Kris, in return, told Daniel wordlessly to stop being gross and go away. Daniel ignored him, so he had no choice but to introduce them.
"This is my brother Daniel," he said. "Daniel, this is Megan."
"Hi," Megan said, dropping her hat and coat on the couch. She was wearing overalls, and an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt---only half of Oscar's face was visible over the top of her overalls, but his trash can lid hat made him easy to identify anyway.
"He's going to go away now," Kris said, and Daniel rolled his eyes, but shuffled off down the hall.
"Should we---" Kris said, and Megan was talking at the same time, and they did a little you talk, no you talk dance for a while before they ironed out that this time, there wasn't really a recording they could play and sing along with, because they were mixing the two versions, so they'd just have to start from scratch. And it really was like they were starting from scratch, for a while. Whether it was the lack of a recording or the fact that it was sort of weird that they were at Kris's house, everything bumped along all stuttery-awkward, like they were strangers paired up for a school project and Kris had learned to play guitar two days ago instead of two years ago. He hated that they had to settle into the way this worked all over again, and he wondered if being in a band would be like this, too. It couldn't be, it had to be more like orchestra (but less boring), where you practiced more than once every two months so there wasn't any time for things to revert back to their factory settings and make you feel stupid. He'd have to ask his dad about that later.
Kris wasn't used to singing---seriously singing, not just sort of mumbling along to himself---while he played guitar, so that messed him up, and there wasn't a recording to help them get their tempo and the actual timing of their vocal parts straight, so that messed both of them up, and Kris liked to stop playing when he messed up and go back to the beginning rather than just ignoring it and going on, and he thought that was maybe sort of pissing Megan off, and then Megan stood up and stretched and he thought she was maybe going to give up and leave for a second, but she flopped back on the couch and said: "I am starving, is it rude to ask if we can have something to eat?"
So Kris put his guitar down (which felt a little bit like a relief, which in turn made him feel guilty) and they went to the kitchen. Megan offered to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and something about her bustling around Kris's kitchen asking for a spatula---no, not a metal one, this is a nonstick pan---and requesting that Kris cut tomato slices, please, made things feel normal and cool again. He felt like Megan lived here, like maybe they were in college sharing an apartment and this was something they did, made grilled cheese sandwiches and talked about their favourite Ninja Turtles.
It was a little startling how vivid that idea was to him, and how quickly. Kris's thoughts about his life after high school were generally just a nebulous blob in his head, vague stuff about a dorm room with a linoleum floor and his guitar and studying at the library for finals when everyone got stressed out and had sex behind stacks of old books (if the TV was telling him the truth about college, which it probably wasn't). But this felt real to him, real and specific, this random and ridiculous idea of him and Megan sitting around in a kitchen arguing about what the best kind of bread was for various sandwiches, and then Adam would come home from a play rehearsal with wind-mussed hair and a thousand stories to tell, and he'd throw his bag on a chair dramatically and steal half of Kris's grilled cheese.
All of this---this whole other fake life, which he could feel in his head the way he'd felt the somehow-blue atmosphere of his dream yesterday morning---flashed through his head in just a couple seconds, not even the time it took Megan to arrange tomato slices on her sandwich. For a few shining seconds before he realized how insane it was (he barely even knew Megan and Adam, and they were two years older than he was anyway, he wasn't even thinking about college yet), it was perfect. It was music and laughter and complaining about the crappiness of the apartment they lived in but not really caring that much and staying up late eating cookie dough out of the tube and watching movies. (Back when he and Brett had daydreamed about college, the Staying Up Late part had always been really important. That was their entire concept of college as twelve-year-olds, actually, that they'd be roommates and stay up late all the time playing video games and watching TV and also go on road trips and it would be awesome.) And even as it made him feel a little silly, just imagining it made him feel better. Like just the thought of a possible future where maybe he and Megan had done a hundred songs together and didn't hate each other yet meant that this was all going to work out okay.
"Do you want me to get that?" Megan said, waving her hand in front of Kris's face. Kris had a mouthful of sandwich, and the phone was ringing.
He shook his head and tried to indicate with hand gestures that Daniel could get it, even though he half wanted to let Megan answer it to see what she'd say, since this wasn't her house.
"Yeah, he's here," Daniel said, walking in from the hall. "He's in the kitchen eating sandwiches with some girl."
"You're such a dickwad," Kris said, jumping up from the table to grab the phone. Megan laughed a little, so at least Daniel's attempt to make their grilled cheese seem like a secret date wasn't bothering her. "Hello?" he said into the phone, fully expecting it to be Katy, because trying to make Katy think Kris was having a semi-cheating-sandwich was completely something Daniel would do. It turned out to be Kevin, who played cello in Kris's sometimes-we-do-weddings string quartet, calling to ask if Kris was free on January 27th, because the church organist who was supposed to play at his cousin's wedding was going on a cruise. Daniel appeared to be trying to talk Megan into making him a sandwich, too, so Kris threw a balled-up napkin at him. Kris said that yeah, he was free, scrawled "January 27th wedding 5 PM" on a post-it, and hung up.
"That's the day after the dance," Megan said, looking at Kris's post-it.
"Are you guys really doing a Wizard of Oz thing?" Daniel said.
"Yes. And if you want to come, you have to dress as one of those Munchkins and sing about lollipops," Megan said, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "It'll be fun."
Daniel looked at Kris to find out if Megan was serious, so Kris nodded gravely. He didn't have much hope that it would work, but it was always worth a try. The thought of Daniel actually believing that he had to wear a Munchkin costume made him happy.
"You're just messing with me," Daniel said, not sounding entirely sure.
"I am not," Megan said.
"Does Kris have to be a midget, too?"
"Nope, he's going to be a flying monkey."
Kris groaned. "I was hoping you forgot about that."
"Did you know the flying monkeys are like, blue?"
"Wow, I just remembered, I have to play at this wedding the next day, so I probably can't even go to the dance," Kris said, loud and overdramatic.
Megan crossed her arms. "Yeah, that's not gonna work."
"I know," Kris said, reverting to his normal voice. "Katy would kill me. But I'm really not dressing as a flying monkey, okay?"
"Fine," Megan said, with a big fake-exasperated sigh. "Back to the song?"
"Back to the song," Kris said, and Daniel skulked off to his room again without even being glared at.
Possibly due to the magical powers of grilled cheese, or of being slightly mean to Daniel, or just the self-fulfilling prophecy of Kris's this will work feeling, the song started to come together. Megan suggested that maybe they should try singing along to the duet recording of the song a couple times, just to see if it would help them get a handle on the timing and rhythm. Which it did, even if singing along with the superfast version made him feel like he was playing guitar impossibly slowly when they turned off the tape and tried it again on their own.
The process was slower than it had been the first time, but Kris could feel it starting to work, each moment when things began to mesh together and sound good a tiny, beautiful surprise. The tongue-twister lyrics seemed easier, singing with Megan was becoming more familiar and comfortable, and he found himself playing and singing simultaneously without thinking as hard about it. Which was when he let himself get distracted and screw up.
The song had this whole call-and-response thing where Megan sang every day I love him just a little bit more, and he loves me the same and Kris sang every day I love her just a little bit more, and Kris, who was musing to himself a little bit about whether he could maybe learn to play ska guitar---not in time for the open mic, but just in general, how cool would it be to have a band with a horn section---wasn't paying enough attention when it was his turn to echo Megan, and he sang her line back to her, every day I love him just a little bit more and stopped himself short, laughing.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, curling his hand around the neck of his guitar to stop the sound. "I was trying to speed up the guitar so I just sang what you sang instead---"
Megan waved him off. "No problem. Anyway, if you sing it that way at the actual open mic, Adam will freak out, he loves it when people sing songs without changing the pronouns. Like this one time, that Nick guy---this is probably why Adam likes him so much, actually---did that Fiona Apple song 'Criminal'? You know, the one that starts with the line about being a bad, bad girl?" Megan sang the song's opening line, her voice an interesting and semi-decent Fiona Apple impression that tempted Kris to ask her to sing a few more lines. But that wasn't the point of her story, this was a story about Adam and that dumb-goatee Nick guy, so he let her continue. "Anyway, Nick did that song, and Adam was all oh my god, that's so cool, he didn't ruin it by sitting there and switching it around so that he was a bad bad boy being careless with a delicate girl, he just sang it! And then one time Sonic Pork Chop did 'My Sharona,' but their whole...chanting thing sort of ruined it. But anyway, I'm just saying, even if you mess it up, you'll still have a fan. Not that you're going to mess it up!"
"At least one of us thinks so," Kris said, putting his guitar pick down and flexing his fingers. "Also, I don't think Adam counts as a fan. I mean, he has to tell us we're good, he's our friend."
"That's what friends are for," Megan said. "Actually. Can I---I know I'm going to sound like a kindergarten teacher right now..."
"Did you want to tell me about shapes and colours?"
"Yes." Megan picked up Kris's guitar pick. "This is a triangle. Sort of."
"And it's orange," Kris said.
"Good job!" Megan put the guitar pick back down and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It's just...it's cool that you're friends with Adam, you know? When he and Mark---when he came out, there were just all these guys who would barely even talk to him, and I mean, they're in the drama club, so you'd think they'd be okay with it. But they all got freaked out, like being gay was contagious or whatever, and then the most of the guys who were cool about it graduated last year, and it's not like he doesn't have all of us---me and Nina and Alicia and everybody, and obviously we're awesome---but then a lot of people like...they say they're okay with the fact that he's gay, but then..."
Kris knew what she meant. He'd seen people treat Adam that way, careful and nervous and talking too loud, like they were scared he'd bite them or something but were also congratulating themselves for getting this close, like they didn't realize that they were still treating him like a freak. It reminded him of the way he'd seen his great-uncle talk to a black waitress in a restaurant once, and all of it made him want to take his guitar to a tiny island with a single palm tree and hide out until people stopped being so generally horrible. Not that he thought there was much chance of that happening, ever.
"That would make me a total asshole," he said.
"Well yeah," Megan said. "But not in like, a surprising way."
"So it's surprising that I'm not an asshole."
"In a good way! It's like finding $20 in the bottom of your bag, not a surprise like, oh my god, a spider just dropped into my cereal! It's...obviously, don't tell Adam I said this, he'll accuse me of being like, his mom or whatever, but I think it means a lot to him that you guys are friends."
Friends, Kris thought, and that sort of snapped him out of it. Not that he'd been in anything enough to be snapped out, not really, but he'd been revisiting it in his mind occasionally, that moment on Megan's couch when he'd thought he and Adam might be about to kiss. It was one of those maddening things that seemed different every time he thought of it, like he was turning a kaleidoscope. It wasn't any clearer to him, even in hindsight, whether the moment had even been real, whether he'd done the right thing. But Megan saying friends made the kaleidoscope-beads in Kris's head shift again. He and Adam were friends, and new friends at that, and assuming that Adam had maybe wanted to kiss him just because he was a guy and he was there was sort of just as insulting as Daniel thinking there was something going on with Kris and Megan just because Megan was a girl and she was there. If Adam wanted to kiss anyone, he probably wanted to kiss older, cooler guys who could grow goatees and sing about being bad girls, not random dorky sophomores.
He wished he could curl his hand around the pang of absurd disappointment that that made him feel and mute it, the way he could with his guitar. There was nothing to be disappointed about, he wasn't supposed to want anyone but Katy to kiss him anyway, and Adam was a guy and that made things even more complicated and there was no way it could end well so it was good that it hadn't started. That whatever this it even was, it was just a figment of Kris's imagination. There hadn't been an almost kiss, there'd just been a confusing movie and dim light and Kris had been sleepy and warm and one of those words that meant sort-of-drunk, and now everything was back to normal. Kris's brain supplied the phrase in the harsh light of day, and he knew he was lucky that the light wasn't really that harsh at all---he hadn't messed anything up, and apparently Adam liked that they were friends even though Kris didn't know what glam rock was, and he could stop revisiting fake-moment-ville and work on this song.
Which was getting better, slowly and steadily, and when they finally made it through the entire song without any guitar or vocal fumbles and subsequent stops to apologize to each other, Megan got up and did a little dance. She then decreed that it was time for a break, and launched into a story about how much all the members of Optional Mango hated this other band Mango Reconnaissance, which struck Kris as pretty hilarious. Megan agreed, but told him that he could not mention this around Spencer.
"He's usually pretty chill," Megan said, "But he is like, rabid about Mango Reconnaissance, first because he's sure they ripped off the mango thing from Optional Mango, but their lead singer says that they were called Mango Reconnaissance first, except they hadn't played any shows, so no one knew about it, and then they totally stole one of Spencer's songs because he played it for this girl he was trying to impress who ended up being the bassist of Mango Reconnaissance's sister's best friend..."
"...How did she steal his song?" Kris said. "Did she write down the chords on a napkin while he wasn't looking or something?"
Megan laughed. "I don't know if she stole the chords, but Spencer's song was apparently about going on a date to Wal-Mart, and then a week later Mango Reconnaissance had a song about going on a date at K-Mart. And it had like, half of the exact same lyrics, there was this part about riding bikes through the aisles or something, and Spencer was so pissed..."
"This is like a soap opera." Kris was fascinated.
"I know, right?" Megan looked delighted. "Soon someone is going to get amnesia."
"Maybe Spencer will," Kris suggested. "And then Mango Rebellion---"
"Reconnaissance."
"They'll all trick him into being a member of their band. Or no, wait, he'll be this brainwashed zombie-roadie-guy who carries their amps and writes them songs---"
"Which they take credit for!"
"Yeah, and then Optional Mango has to rescue him."
"By playing a song! They all show up at a Mango Reconnaissance show and start playing...I don't know, something by the Clash, and Spencer gradually remembers his true identity!"
Kris strummed the opening chords of "Should I Stay or Should I Go."
"You know a Clash song!" Megan squealed.
"Why is everyone shocked when I know music?" Kris asked, and that led to a discussion of songs everyone knew or should know, and he was in the middle of flat-out refusing to teach Megan the main riff to "Smoke On the Water," because he was in no way being responsible for one more person only knowing that particular handful of stupid power chords, when his parents got home.
"Hello," his mom called out as she opened the door. "Kristopher, Daniel, are you all home?"
"We're here," Kris called, leaning his guitar up against the couch. "Daniel's in his room."
"Kristopher," Megan said under her breath.
Kris rolled his eyes at her. "What did you think Kris was short for?"
"Hi, Mrs. Allen," Megan said, having decided to be a little more formal now that she was actually in their house. Kris appreciated it. He wasn't sure how his mom felt about being addressed as "Kris's mom."
Everyone made small talk about how their song was going and what was for dinner, which reminded Megan that she had to go home and slice up some eggplants for parmesan, so she gave Kris a one-armed hug and left, and Kris brought his guitar back to his room. He thought about playing some more, but his fingers hurt, so he went into the kitchen to grab some soda instead.
"Did you two have fun?" his mom asked, like he was eight years old and he and Megan had been playing Legos on the carpet.
"Yeah," he said, because Legos or not, it had been fun, and now everything felt too quiet, like the absence of music and stories being told had left a miniature black hole in his head.
"I guess your dad and I aren't allowed to come see you sing, right?" she said, and she looked so hopeful that Kris almost wanted to say yes, except that this song had some sort of questionable lyrics, and singing anything in front of people was scary and bizarre in enough ways already without the added weirdness of singing about getting high and getting off in front of his mom.
"I don't..."
"It's okay," she said. "We'll get to hear you sometime."
"You hear me all the time," Kris said. "Just ask Daniel."
His mom laughed at that, and then put him to work stirring some pasta while she made a salad.
____________
Katy was babysitting on New Year's Eve---Kris's dad joked that she should be getting overtime for it---so Kris went over to Charles's house to play Playstation and eat hors d'oeuvres that came in boxes from the freezer section, which Charles's mom always made for New Year's. They were in the middle of a plate of miniature quiches and a Knockout Kings marathon (totally unfair, since Kris didn't own the game and didn't remember the combos for all the fun stuff like headbutts and haymakers), when the phone rang. Charles's mom brought it into the living room.
"Kris, phone for you," she said. Kris figured it was his mom, calling to tell him they'd be late or early picking him up, depending on what time they'd decided to leave the potluck dinner at the church. Luckily, he didn't say hi, mom into the phone, because it was Katy.
"Hi," she said, and Kris could tell just from that one word that she was planning something, that this wasn't a hello, how are you call. "I'm right near Charles's house, do you want to come over for a little while. I wanted to...you know, say hi, give you a New Year's kiss."
"But you're babysitting," Kris said. "Won't you get in trouble?"
"I thought it was your mom," Charles said, and Kris motioned for him to shut up.
"It's only 9:30," Katy said. "They won't be home for a while."
"Yeah, sure," Kris said, because it was the only possible answer. "What's the address?"
"High five," Charles said, holding up his hand as Kris hung up the phone. Kris didn't know whether it was refreshing or annoying that he didn't even pretend not to have been listening to the whole conversation like a cat who'd just heard a can opener. "You can take my bike if you want."
"Thanks." Kris grabbed his jacket from the hooks by the front door.
"And these!" Charles was rummaging in the hall closet, and emerged with a knit hat---complete with pom-pom on top and earflaps---and mittens, in red and white with a pattern of pointy geometric snowflakes.
"What the hell are those?"
"My aunt's idea of a Christmas present. I think she knitted them. Or bought them from Peru, or something."
Kris put on the hat and mittens reluctantly. He probably looked like a complete idiot, but it was freezing outside.
"If my mom calls for some reason---" Kris began, once they were in the backyard and safely out of parental earshot.
"I'll tell her you went over to John's to borrow a Playstation game or something. That's what I'll tell my mom, too. Don't worry."
"Thanks, man," Kris said. "I owe you."
"Remember, if the timing seems right, you can always tell her that it's the new millennium and the world might end tonight, and you don't want to die a virgin."
Kris rolled his eyes. "I think you're a year late with that one."
"No, I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel!" Charles insisted. "The millennium doesn't actually begin until 2001. So the world could still end! Tell her. And take some pictures for the less fortunate if she takes her shirt off. You can borrow my camera---"
Kris tried to give Charles the finger, but forgot he was wearing mittens and ended up just emphatically holding his snowflake-patterned lobster claw in the air. The sound of Charles's laughter followed him down the street.
He didn't get to forget he was wearing mittens for long, they made it really hard to hold onto the bike's handlebars, and the stupid hat kept almost slipping into his eyes, and he imagined a newspaper headline reading Local Boy Killed In Bicycle Accident Caused by Winter Clothes, Still a Virgin the whole way to the house where Katy was babysitting, but he arrived unscathed. His heart was racing a little as he left Charles's bike behind a shrub and climbed up the steps to the front door. He shoved the hat and mittens in the pockets of his jacket and rang the doorbell, crossing his fingers that it would be Katy answering the door and not an angry got-home-early parent who would report him to the police for trespassing or call his parents or chase him off with a pitchfork.
It was Katy who opened the door, and he felt stupid for halfway expecting her to be dressed like she was at a New Year's party in a movie---a black dress and big sparkly earrings, something like that. But she was just babysitting, so she was wearing jeans and a grey sweater (her sweater with the lowest neckline, Kris noticed), and the star necklace he gave her for Christmas.
"Hi," she said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek and rearrange his hair. "Come in. My sister is upstairs with the kids."
"Your sister is here, too?"
"Yeah. We might end up staying here all night, depending on what time the Mullanes get home, and my parents didn't want me to be here alone. Don't worry, I bribed her. She's not going to tell anyone, I told her I'd pay for her next two movie tickets."
"Cool," Kris said. He tried not to feel weird about Katy bribing her sister so they could...whatever it was that they were doing. He suddenly imagined Katy snuggling up to him and saying you know, the world might end tonight... and wanted to laugh. He felt sort of jangly and nervous. He didn't know what they were doing, how he'd wandered into this teen movie scenario and was now sitting on some strangers' couch, staring at their family portraits on the wall. "Are these the kids we took trick or treating?"
"No, that's the Martins," Katy said, sitting down next to Kris and then standing up again. "Sorry, did you want a soda or some crackers or something---"
"I'm fine," Kris said, pulling her back down onto the couch. She tipped half into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Happy new year," she said softly, her lips brushing softly against his ear, and she climbed the rest of the way into his lap, straddling him, and it was suddenly crystal clear what they were doing, and the uncomfortable thought of Katy's sister sitting upstairs doing her own version of Charles's cat-and-can-opener avid listening quickly fell straight out of Kris's head. Katy was so soft, everything about her was soft---her hair and her lips and her sweater, the way her hands rested on him---and Kris felt cocooned in it, insulated and fuzzy like they were wrapped up in feathers. He slipped his hands tentatively under the back of her sweater, her skin so warm and silky and perfect under his fingers that he wanted to sigh and then maybe write a song about it, a thousand songs all full of lullaby guitars and drums played with brushes, all whispery-quiet. Soft songs, to listen to under a blanket while it rained outside.
Katy stopped kissing him, shifted backward a little, and leaned her forehead against his, her eyes closed. He couldn't even focus on her face when it was so close, she was just a blur of blonde hair and dark eyelashes. He realized that his hands were resting just below her bra now, like he was thinking of undoing the clasp without even actually thinking of it, and he wondered if that was why she was pausing. Take some pictures if she takes her shirt off, he thought absently, and decided to punch Charles when he got back to his house. Not like, in the face or anything, but---
"Is this...um, is this okay?" Katy said, one of her hands trailing down from Kris's shoulder to his lap, where she ran her fingertips lightly over the swell of his erection through his jeans.
"Yeah," he said, and stopped himself from adding please. She'd done this much before, a couple times, just lightly brushed her fingers over his dick like she was saying hello and sort of...considering it, and it always made him embarrassed and hopelessly turned on at the same time, but this time it felt like the beginning of something instead of the entire gesture. They were alone (Mostly. Kris remembered Katy's sister upstairs and hoped that they were talking quietly, he had no idea if they were talking quietly) and inside on a real couch and it was New Year's Eve and who the hell knew, maybe Katy had watched the same Discovery Channel thing Charles had and thought the world was going to end in a few hours.
"I don't..." She stroked her fingers over him again, harder this time, and he bit his lip to avoid making a noise. "Could you...show me?"
"Okay," Kris said, after a pause that he thought probably made him seem slightly slow. The air felt momentarily cold against his skin as he slid one hand out from underneath Katy's shirt and nudged the hand she had in his lap a little upward and to the left, because she had the right idea, but she was a little off, and he actually liked that, liked the slight wrongness of it, how different it felt, but he didn't know how to explain that, didn't really want to try. He glanced up at her face, briefly, and she was looking down at their hands, and the concentration and curiosity in her eyes made him want to laugh and kiss her at the same time. He thought laughing would probably hurt her feelings, so he went with the kissing, brushed her hair back and ducked his head down to press his lips to her neck just above her necklace. The fake-flowers, almost candy sweet smell on her skin made him imagine her standing at the mirror in her room, holding the little bottle of perfume Jess gave her for Christmas and planning this, and he smiled and leaned his face into the curve between her neck and her shoulder.
She sighed a little and moved her hand, almost imperceptibly, but Kris definitely percepted it---perceived, insisted some disturbing vocabulary-word part of his brain---and he thought maybe he was still supposed to be showing her (God. Showing her, like she wanted to see how he jerked off, like she wanted to know, and for some reason that idea almost made his dick twitch under their stacked-up hands.), and he could feel himself blushing a little as he tried to guide her hand without being pushy about it, tried to give her an idea of where to stroke and how hard. He closed his eyes, felt his eyelashes brushing against her skin as he did, and moved their hands, slower and lighter than he would have if he'd been doing it himself, just himself.
Katy shifted a little, pushed up a little more onto her knees, and Kris let his face tip downward so his cheek was resting against the curve of her breast and moved his lips in a soft semi-kiss that was mostly him kissing the fabric of her shirt. She wove her free hand into the back of his hair and maybe made a little sighlike noise, so he did it again, more firmly this time. He could feel his lips pressing a temporary dent into the weird little foam layer of her bra, and he wanted that out of the way, he wanted her skin against him everywhere, and he slid the hand under her shirt up to the little metal hook things on her bra, left it there for a moment like a question, hoping she'd get it without him having to ask out loud, and that was when there was a loud crinkling-plastic noise, followed by the hollow thunk of a microwave door opening---it was weird how distinctive that noise was---and the whir of it running.
"Shit," Katy hissed, and she was off Kris's lap so quickly he almost got dizzy. "I told her...I'm so sorry, just hold on a second."
She straightened her sweater and stormed off toward the kitchen, and Kris just sat there gazing into the blank TV for a second before he realized that fuck, if Katy's sister---he hoped it was Katy's sister, and not some random little kid, oh fuck---had come downstairs, she'd probably seen them on the couch, Katy straddling his lap with her hand on his dick, his face pressed into her boobs, and he whipped his head around to look for the staircase, which (thank god) wasn't visible from here, which had to mean that the couch wasn't visible from the staircase. He hoped. He took another look around to make sure there weren't any children hiding in corners peering at him, adjusted his dick in his pants, and smacked his head into the back of the couch a few times for dramatic effect. (Not that smacking his head into pillows had any satisfying dramatic effect.)
He could hear Katy's voice from the kitchen, angry but indistinct, and then her sister (at least it was her sister), who helpfully pitched her voice louder so Kris could eavesdrop.
"Haley wanted a glass of water," she said.
"You're making popcorn!" Katy had raised her volume to match, and this all would have been kind of funny if Kris hadn't been completely mortified.
"God, I'm not allowed to eat now? It's not like I don't know Kris is here, I don't see why I have to stay upstairs like Anne Frank---"
"Oh my god," Katy said. "What is wrong with you? You're so---" She stopped herself and started talking more quietly again so that all Kris could hear was the staccato cadence of her voice lapping like angry little waves around his head.
Everything felt wrong now, dirty and too real and messed up. He'd known Katy's sister was there the whole time, but something about that idea being made so concrete and unavoidable changed things, made him feel guilty and furtive. The feather-soft, hushed and thrilling forbiddenness had disappeared almost instantly, and he was left trying not to make eye contact with a wall full of other people's family pictures.
He felt---somehow at the same damn time---that he'd already done something bad, even though he hadn't pushed or asked for anything and Katy had been the one asking him; and like he hadn't been bad enough, like he was wussing out, knowing already that he was going to call this whole thing off when she got back. Like he was supposed to jump at any chance to get off, want it badly enough to ignore Katy's sister and the upstairs full of kids and the general air of what-the-fuck-ness that being interrupted always caused.
Because he knew that Katy's just hold on a second was impossible, that she couldn't just walk in from the kitchen, climb back into his lap, and pick up where they left off. There was no way in hell. She was going to come back here and they wouldn't be able to look each other in the eye, and they'd both apologize a billion times for nothing, and he wanted to skip it, just leave her a note (Had to leave, happy new year, see you at school, Love, Kris) on the coffee table and go back to Charles's house and goddamn it, he had to ride Charles's bike back there in the cold, with a hard-on, and of all the ways that visiting a girl at a babysitting job could go wrong, he thought this might be a new one. It was like the solution to a game of Clue: the Sister, in the Kitchen, with the Microwave Popcorn. (Which, it had to be noted, was better than the classic and horrifying the Parents, Getting Home Early.)
But popcorn or no popcorn, he thought, everything would have been a mess anyway. He felt suddenly, hopelessly sure of it, that there'd always be some moment when the gauzy, go-with-the-flow haze lifted and reality crept in, all sharp corners and awkwardness. His fantasies about sex with Katy seemed absurd, all full of soft-focus fairytale crap that was obviously never going to happen---magically appearing beds and magically disappearing clothes, both of them knowing exactly what to do and not having to stop and think about it and let it start to seem wrong.
If he believed even a fraction of the conversations he heard at school, everyone was having sex all the time, and Kris wondered how that was even possible. How did they find the time and place to do it? How did they do it at all, without getting so fucking embarrassed and tangled up in all the hows and whys and whats that everything about it became as daunting as juggling chainsaws and kittens at the same time?
Maybe it was just him, which was even worse. What if everyone else was okay with this stuff, and it was just him who was this mentally defective, to be happily thinking about wearing a naked Katy like a blanket one minute and wanting to write her a kiss-off note and roll under the couch like a dust bunny the next? He felt like that line in "Karma Police," the one about being like a detuned radio, like the inside of his head was just layers and layers of static and dissonance, the noise of all the ways he was crazy and stupid and doomed to fuck things up.
It's okay, he tried to tell himself, and he realized it wasn't him telling himself, he was remembering something, someone else's voice. He was remembering Adam, at the very first GSA meeting, saying whatever you feel, it's okay, and just Adam's voice in his head (Adam, sitting next to him on another unfamiliar couch, saying Kristopher Neil Allen. It works. so quietly that they became the last two people in the world) made him feel a little better, like Adam was here with him, patting his shoulder and saying don't worry, you're not insane, Katy's sister will forget about this in two seconds, let's go get ice cream.
He took a deep breath and stood up as Katy walked back into the room. She didn't really meet his eyes, but it wasn't quite as bad as he'd been expecting.
"Sorry," she said. "She didn't---um, my sister was just making popcorn. She didn't...see anything."
"It's okay," Kris said, and grabbed his jacket from the arm of the couch. "I should---I should go, though, because my parents are going to pick me up at Charles's house, but I don't know what time---"
"Are they at the potluck dinner at church?"
"Yeah. Yeah, and they weren't sure if they were staying late or not, so I'd better..." He motioned toward the door.
"Oh, okay. Okay." Katy walked him to the door, holding his hand carefully, like they'd just started going out yesterday.
Kris pulled Charles's hat and mittens out of his pockets and put them on, which worked exactly the way he'd hoped.
"Where did those come from?" Katy said, laughing.
"They're Charles's."
"...Those would look really stupid on him," Katy said, and Kris loved her.
"They really would," Kris said, and hugged her close to him.
"Happy new year," she said, her voice right against his ear again.
"Happy new year," he said, and kissed her goodnight. She stopped him before he went out the door to tie the tassels attached to the hat's earflaps into a big goofy bow under his chin.
____________
"So?" Charles stage whispered once Kris was back at his house, cold and grumpy and shedding his borrowed snowflake knitwear.
"Her sister was there," he said, and let his tone do the talking, let Charles assume whatever he was going to assume.
"Oh," Charles said. "Wait, she didn't want you all to like...sit down and play Scrabble or something, did she? Because that would just be wrong---"
Kris, true to his earlier musings, punched Charles in the arm. Hard. Charles even had the sense not to complain about it too much. Then they put Knockout Kings back on and ate miniature black and white cookies until Kris's parents showed up around eleven.
"Did you have a good night?" Kris's mom asked as he climbed into the backseat of the car next to Daniel, who'd also been at a friend's house.
Not so much, Kris didn't say. Katy was going to give me a handjob but then she didn't and I almost got strangled by Charles's hat and I think there might be something seriously wrong with me.
"Yeah. We had mini quiches," he said, and avoided looking at the rearview mirror in case she'd be able to tell if she looked into his eyes. He wasn't even sure which part of it he wanted her to know about least.
He jerked off in the shower when they got home, more out of a sense that he should than out of actually wanting to, and then promptly regretted it because it felt weird to jerk off in the shower and then stand around in the living room with his family, but it wasn't the most uncomfortable thing that had happened to him today. They watched the ball drop, drank some champagne (Kris and Daniel were allowed half-glasses), exchanged happy-new-year hugs, and headed off to their bedrooms. Kris was tired, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, so he plugged his headphones into his walkman and listened to both versions of "Saw Red" and then kept the tape on, listening to Megan's mixtape from ex-boyfriend Jeff. It pretty much summed up how he felt, in some way---crappy songs that were a remnant of someone else's failed relationship.
The tape wasn't all bad, though. It had Creed's "With Arms Wide Open" on it, which Kris liked even though he thought he probably wasn't supposed to. And "American Pie," the original Don McLean version, not the awful Madonna cover. The song struck Kris as a baffling choice for a love-note-to-a-girlfriend mixtape, but hearing it cheered him up a little. He almost stretched out his hand for his guitar to play along (he knew at least some of the chords) before he remembered it was late and his guitar was forbidden. "American Pie" was followed by a quickly cut-off burst of DJ chatter, and then by that "Angel" song by the rap-reggae guy. Shaggy.
Shaggy sang about some girl being his darling angel (She'd been there for him while he was in jail! She was even closer to him than his peeps!) and Kris tried to imagine anyone thinking that Megan would be impressed by---or even vaguely want to listen to---this song.
And from "American Pie" to Shaggy? he could hear Adam telling her. Worst transition ever. Jeff is a moron.
He had to bury his face in his pillow to muffle his laughter. It was almost one in the morning, but he couldn't shut the tape off, he had to see what other surprises Jeff had in store. He fell asleep with his headphones still on somewhere between Sting's "Desert Rose" and Sugar Ray's "Every Morning."
Jeff was totally a moron.
____________
Music!
(of which there is rather a lot.)
The Beatles' Drive My Car
Brad Nowell's Saw Red, in a chilled-out duet version. This isn't exactly how I imagine Kris and Megan's version, but it gives you a general idea of how the song might sound with two voices, but a little slower and with more minimal instrumentation than the original.
Fiona Apple's Criminal
My Sharona, in its original version by the Knack, and also performed by Veruca Salt, in case you wanted to hear a version with sort of semi-catatonic female vocals.
The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I was going to link you to one of seven million tutorials about how to play the riff from Smoke on the Water, but I decided not to.
Radiohead's Karma Police
All eight and a half minutes of Don McLean's American Pie, and the soul-hurting Madonna version.
And a bunch of other radio-friendly early-2000s music, the googling-and-selecting of which made me laugh and laugh: Creed's With Arms Wide Open, Shaggy's Angel, Sting's Desert Rose (...I remember watching this video on MTV on a tiny TV in my friend's cousin's room, LOL.), and Sugar Ray's Every Morning.