or be drowned in blissful confusion, part 5
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Master Post
[most recent update begins here.]
He wanted to go down to the music wing and see if there were any guitars he could help baby-sit today, but he ended up tagging along to the cafeteria with Katy before homeroom because he wanted to copy her English homework. He was anxious about the GSA meeting---he had been since Katy reminded him the student council members were coming. He couldn't help but feel like having people at a GSA meeting who weren't actually in the GSA was a bad idea. He worried that they'd be rude because they secretly wanted to host the dance (although why anyone would actively want to host a dance, he still wasn't sure). Or that they wouldn't get the good-natured craziness that was the GSA's default setting and would ruin it by standing around looking confused and superior. Or that they'd say something mean to Adam.
His head was full of scenarios in which student council members in polo shirts made snide comments about Adam's makeup or the fact that he was gay and Kris rushed in to defend him, to tell them to fuck off because Adam could do whatever he wanted and was much cooler than they were in the first place. Which was insane, because no one was going to come to a meeting of the Gay-Straight Alliance and insult Adam for being gay (at least Kris really hoped not), and Adam was clearly capable and willing to stand up for himself even if they did. Telling himself that didn't help, though, and by the time he and Katy and Marie actually arrived at the meeting, he was half-afraid he was going to do something stupid like yell at some random student council kid for eating too many of their cookies.
(Alicia's baked goods contribution to this meeting was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, to which Megan's response was: "Chocolate chip cookies? That seems half-assed. I wanted a soufflé. With kiwi-mango sauce."
"Shut up," Alicia replied. "Chocolate chip cookies are classic. Everyone likes them. They say 'oh, hi, look how welcoming we are. Give us your money and go away.'")
Only three people from the student council showed up---Marcus Monroe, who Kris knew from when the JV baseball team had scrimmaged with varsity sometimes last year, and who he'd forgotten was student council president---and two girls. None of them were wearing polo shirts, which Kris decided was a good sign. He was relieved enough that things were going well that he even forgot to be bored for the first ten minutes or so of the dance-budget discussion. The decorations weren't going to be that expensive, because the GSA and various theater minions were going to make most of them (Kris was beginning to regret not listening to previous dance discussions very well, because he'd probably signed up to paint a giant mural of Munchkinland without realizing it), but the student council was willing to split the cost of the DJ with them and help stock the snack table. There was one tense moment, when Adam brought up not voting for a king and queen and court at the dance.
"Why, because you can't have two kings?" said one of the student council girls, who Kris immediately hated.
"No," Adam said, in an overly patient tone that almost made Kris want to laugh. "Because it's a pointless popularity contest that makes people feel stupid when they should be dancing and having fun. And it also doesn't go with our theme."
"You 'crown' the same few people king and queen and duchess or whatever at the homecoming dance and prom," Nina added. "Why do it three times?"
"They have a point," Marcus said. "I look like an idiot in those stupid crowns."
"Like you'd win anyway," said the other student council girl, who Kris decided not to hate just yet. "Is this going to be, like, a costume dance?"
"Only if people want," Adam said. "I mean, it's still the winter formal, so...dresses and ties and everything, but if anyone wants to do stuff for the theme, too, that's awesome."
Kris tried to imagine how anyone was going to combine Wizard of Oz costumes and formal wear. Probably sparkly red shoes would be involved somehow. The meeting wound down, and he left Katy talking to Jess about where to rent helium tanks for the dance and/or Jess's sweet sixteen in February. Adam was standing by the blackboard, twisting and untwisting the cap on his bottle of water, and he smiled as Kris walked over to him.
"I think that went pretty well," he said. "And now I almost want to join the student council. Marcus is seriously cute."
"Yeah," Kris said, just to be agreeable, because Adam looked a little unsure, like he didn't know if it was okay for him to talk to Kris about guys being cute. But then he thought hey, why not, and looked across the room at Marcus, tried to see him the way Adam might see him. It wasn't difficult, he was kind of cute. His eyes were a light brown that stood out and looked almost golden against his dark skin, and he had a warm, contagious sort of smile. Plus he was wearing a green plastic afro pick in his hair, which Kris thought said good things about Marcus's sense of humor. "I like his eyes."
"Me too," Adam said, and for a moment he just looked at Kris like he'd said something baffling or surprising, and Kris almost wanted to apologize, even though he wasn't sure what for. "I can't believe I missed your singalong yesterday. Of all the mornings to actually go to my homeroom..."
"Does everyone know about that? Did Sarah Klein talk to you, too?"
"No, Megan told me. Wait, Sarah Klein? The alto with the headbands? Why would she---"
"No, never mind," Kris said. "Long story. And I went down there to talk to you in the first place."
"You did?"
There was something so bright and excited in Adam's eyes that Kris forgot---just for a second---what his big compelling reason for going to the choir room to talk to Adam had been. He wasn't sure why he even needed a better reason than I wanted to talk to you, but then he remembered the CD and his crazy dream and the guitar tabs and it all fell into place in his head. "That CD is so amazing."
"What, Unplugged? I know, right?" Adam sounded almost exactly the way Kris had imagined he would. "Grunge is so not my usual thing, but I love that CD."
"It's really..." Kris made a motion with his hands to try and describe it. "It almost makes you feel like you're there, and the music is just..."
"They filmed it, too, you know. That concert. They still air it sometimes on MTV, we should---you should keep an eye out for it."
"Cool. I probably---I won't keep the CD for too long, I just have to make myself a tape of it."
"Don't worry about it," Adam said. "Or actually, keep it for a while, but we're getting my dad a CD burner for Hanukkah, and then I'll burn you a copy. The sound will be better."
"Thanks. I really want to learn like, all of those songs on guitar, I started learning 'Pennyroyal Tea' yesterday..."
"Do all Nirvana songs really only have three chords apiece? I think someone told me that once."
Kris laughed. "It's more than three. 'Pennyroyal Tea' is like, five or six, I think..."
"So did you get your new guitar?"
"Not yet, my dad had to do something else. I think we're going to go this weekend."
"What are you going to name it?"
"What, my guitar?"
"Yeah. Aren't you supposed to name them? A girl's name, like, 'this is my guitar, Betty.'" Adam said the last part in a weird voice that was maybe supposed to be Elvis, Kris wasn't sure.
"...I just call mine 'my guitar'."
"Well that's no fun," Adam said. "We're going to name the new one. But not Betty. Something better."
"Okay." Kris liked that we, it made him wonder if Adam would want to come over to his house and meet his new guitar, once it actually existed, like a guitar baby shower or something. He imagined them sitting in the garage, singing it lullabies and Nirvana songs all afternoon.
"Adam, come over here and tell Katy she has to let us make her a costume," Becky yelled from where she was sitting on the classroom's broad windowsill with Katy and Marie.
Adam raised his eyebrows at Kris in a way that clearly said he had no idea what this was about, but he was inviting Kris to come find out with him, and the two of them walked over to the windowsill.
"...you can always find 80s dresses at thrift stores," Becky was saying. "You know, with the giant puffy sleeves? I think Glinda had puffy sleeves, or the whole dress is just really puffy, but that's easy, we'd just need a bunch of tulle. You would be like, the prettiest Glinda ever."
"I always wanted to be Glinda when I was little," Katy said.
"And we'd do your hair in like, really soft, big curls..." Becky reached over and curled some of Katy's hair around her fingers, which was weird for Kris to watch. Usually he was the one doing that.
Adam leaned in and spoke to Katy in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "You can trust her. She does costumes and stuff for drama club, she's good at this."
"Okay," Katy said, nodding at Becky. "I think I'll be Glinda."
"Maybe I'll go as one of those flying monkeys," Kris said absently. He regretted it when Becky turned to him, her eyes lighting up.
"You should," she said. "We could make you some wings, and a tail..."
"I was joking," Kris said.
Becky ignored him. "And the monkeys have those little hats, right?" She drew a circular shape in the air around her head.
Kris looked at Adam for help, but Adam was just standing there laughing.
"You should see how horrified you look," he said after a moment, and patted Kris on the shoulder. "Don't worry, no one is going to force you to wear wings and a little hat."
"Speak for yourself," Becky said, eying Kris in a way that was sort of scary.
"I'll distract him while you put the wings on," Katy said, and Kris glared at her. She just grinned and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him closer to her.
"A bunch of us are going to go to thrift stores over Christmas break to get stuff to wear for the dance," Becky said to Katy. "You should come."
"Sure, that would be awesome," Katy said, and she looked so honestly thrilled about it that he couldn't even pretend to stay mad about the monkey wings. Kris looked around for Adam, who'd disappeared.
He turned out to be standing near the now-empty cookie plate, talking to Marcus and Jess. He was talking to Marcus like he was just talking to anybody, not like he thought Marcus was cute (seriously cute, even). He wasn't doing any of the stupid crap Kris had found himself doing before he and Katy had become a couple---fidgeting or looking at his shoes or laughing too much.
His first thought was that Adam was just better at not being a spaz than he was, but then he realized that although that was true, Adam didn't exactly have the luxury to be a spaz around anyone he was crushing on in the first place. It made him wonder how Adam had learned to hide how he felt, or when he'd learned to hide how he felt, and how he'd decided to stop hiding it. Not for the first time, Kris regretted that he'd only met Adam this year, that so much of who he'd been, what he'd been through before now was a mystery. He didn't know if he was allowed to ask about it.
He thought about things he was allowed to ask about. He'd forgotten to find out what Adam's favourite track on Unplugged was, for one thing, and even though they'd just talked about the CD, Kris felt like they hadn't had the conversation he'd wanted about it. He still had more to say, things he wasn't sure he even knew how to say, but he wanted to try.
But he could wait.
Adam was still talking to Marcus, and Kris found himself having to try and convince Katy, Becky, and Megan that no matter how many pairs of plaid golfing pants there always were in thrift stores, he really, really didn't want any.
Kris's first guitar had been a gift---not a surprise, exactly, because it was the only thing he asked for that year, but it had turned up under the Christmas tree without Kris making a trip to the nearest music store. He generally picked up a guitar or two just for the hell of it when he was there for other stuff, but he was learning that there was a huge difference between idly messing around with the guitars and trying to select one to pay a bunch of money for and take home.
He realized he'd been expecting some kind of almost-magical moment, that he'd pick up the Right Guitar and just know. There were definitely wrong guitars---ones that sat weirdly in his arms or sounded off or that he just thought were ugly---but the ones that weren't immediately wrong all seemed pretty good to him. He'd spent what seemed like hours looking at the store's various guitars, playing them plugged and unplugged (he even wasted a while on a black and white electric he knew he had no intention of buying, just because it was so pretty) until he ran out of things to play. He felt guilty about wasting his dad's Saturday afternoon, and his brain was beginning to feel fuzzy and out of tune---the guitars had started to sound and feel the same to him, turning into one giant guitar-shaped blur in his head. He wanted all of them, but he was also thinking of giving up entirely and buying something crazy like a djembe or a cowbell instead.
"How do I pick one?" Kris flopped down on a chair next to his dad, who was playing the chorus of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" on an unplugged acoustic electric.
His dad shrugged and handed Kris the guitar he'd been playing. "That's always a problem. Here, try this one."
Kris sat up straighter and played the some of "Yesterday," and he wasn't sure if it was just because the guitar was still warm from his dad's hands, or because it was really similar to the guitar he already had, or just a result of his general guitar fatigue, but he liked this one. He felt like he already owned it, which wasn't some lightning bolt of Right Guitar magic, but maybe it was good enough. He nodded to his dad, and went to plug it into one of the store's amps and fiddled around with the tone and volume controls until he liked the sound. He tried out the picking intro (which he sucked at) and first verse of "867-5309," and despite a brief, Pavlovian craving for some Froot Loops, he was still happy with the guitar. He'd gotten over the initial novelty of hearing his playing through an amp after the first handful of guitars he'd tried out, but playing this one and knowing that he was already semi-serious about buying it made it newly exciting. He felt in focus again, and the guitar sounded bright and crisp in a way that reminded him of those time-lapse movies of flowers blooming.
He played a little more---a few random chord progressions, some of "Big Yellow Taxi" just for the hell of it; a few chords of "Pennyroyal Tea;" and the opening of Journey's "Faithfully" to make his dad smile. He turned off the amp and went to sit down again.
"Is this a good guitar?" Kris's heart sped up a little. He knew, he already knew, that his dad was going to say it was, and this guitar was going to live at the foot of his bed. After the brief time he'd spent in guitar-overload limbo, this felt important again.
"It sounded good to me," his dad said, taking the guitar back from him and turning it over in his arms, looking over the body for scratches. It seemed to pass inspection.
"Okay." Kris gave the guitar a friendly pat. He thought about Adam and his insistence that the new guitar have a name, and that made him like this guitar even more, somehow. (He still wasn't sure it actually needed a name, though.) "I think this is the one."
"Are you sure? This is your last chance for an electric..."
Kris clapped his hands over his ears. "I can't hear you! I decided, I'm getting this one."
"Fair enough," his dad said, and handed the guitar back to Kris. "That black one was a classic, though. I liked it."
"Me, too."
But he barely felt even a pang of regret about the abandoned rock-star-cool black and white electric as he took the guitar up to the counter. He didn't feel bad counting out the money for it, either, even though it was more money than he'd ever spent on a single item before. He was paying for half with money he'd earned working over the summer, and his parents were paying the other half as an early Christmas present, which his dad said entitled him to a quarter of the guitar. Kris didn't know how serious he was about that, but assured him he could play it whenever he wanted. ("Yeah, as long as I feel like sitting in the garage," his dad said.)
He got a soft case because it was cheaper and lighter to carry, and sat with it leaned against his knees on the way home. His dad obviously understood and didn't ask why the guitar was riding with them, and not in the backseat or the trunk. Kris petted the fabric of the case as they drove and thought about the first song he was going to play. He thought he should pick one, purposefully, that that was the right thing to do even though he'd already played the guitar a bunch in the store.
His mom wanted to see the new guitar when they got home, so he dutifully unzipped the case and showed it to her. She was appropriately excited, and he had the distinct impression that his parents were sort of smiling at each other over his head (even though his mom was shorter than he was). The guitar looked different under the lights in their kitchen---a different colour and somehow warmer---and Kris wondered if it would sound different here, too. He zipped it back into the case and headed toward the garage.
"You don't have to go out there, honey," his mom said. "Daniel's at a friend's house."
"The amp's out there, though," he said. "Or...do you mind if I put the amp in my room for now? I won't put it up too loud."
"Go ahead," his mom said, and he put the guitar down next to the fridge so he could give her a hug.
He took the guitar into his room first, took it out of its case and left it on his bed---it looked perfect there, but possibly just because he was already used to seeing his admittedly similar guitar sitting in the same place---and went to drag the amp in from the garage. He had to crawl under his desk to plug it in, and just flicking the power switch on and hearing the faint electrical hum of feedback sent a shivery little thrill up his spine. Plugging the guitar into the amp, however, created crackles of static that hurt his ears, and he dove onto the floor to turn the volume down. He called out an apology, but no one responded, so maybe his parents had the TV on. He sat on the floor cross-legged for a while within easy reach of the amp, playing random chords and messing with the various tuning dials until he liked the sound and wasn't getting static anymore, and then moved to sit on his bed.
He'd considered playing "Good Riddance" as his first song, because it was the first thing he'd ever tried to learn, but that felt wrong. That was a goodbye song---not a song to say hi to a new guitar with---and he felt a little afraid (and a little stupid about feeling afraid) that just playing it would summon up the sadness he'd felt when he first picked up his dad's guitar three years ago. He settled on the Beatles' "In My Life," because the sweet six notes that opened it kept chiming in his head, and if it was sort of a mushy song, well, he felt sort of mushy. He loved the new guitar cradled in his arms, he loved his parents for paying for half of said guitar and understanding that this meant something to him, he even loved Daniel for not being here this afternoon so that he didn't have to freeze his ass off in the garage.
The opening notes sounded just as good as he thought they would, clear and sharp but mellow at the same time, and after playing an experimental verse, he went back to the beginning and sang the words, quietly. He messed up the guitar part a little bit, the guitar was a little different than his acoustic, and playing and singing at the same time made it harder to compensate for that, but it felt good anyway. There wasn't really any reason for him to be playing it plugged into the amp right now, he realized, except that it did plug into the amp, which seemed like reason enough.
He'd been right, the guitar did sound different here than it had in the store, the way he and Megan had sounded different in every room they'd done "Big Yellow Taxi" in, and he suddenly wanted to take this guitar to as many places as possible, to hear it everywhere. He played until dinnertime, when his mom (who usually just yelled for him from the kitchen) leaned into his room to tell him that it sounded nice, so he played her a few bars of "Amazing Grace" followed by the chorus of a random Reba McEntire song he'd learned for her birthday last year.
He called Katy after dinner, and even though she usually hated it when he played guitar on the phone--they'd gotten into a stupid fight about it a couple weeks ago, in fact--she asked him to play her a song. He'd brought the amp back out to the garage, though, and for some reason he didn't want to play her a song without being able to hug her, so they decided she'd come home with Kris's family after church the next day to hang out and meet the new guitar.
She petted the guitar when Kris took it out of the case, like it was a friendly golden retriever who'd just leaned its head up against her knee.
"I like it, it's pretty," she said.
"Adam thinks I should name it," Kris said, because seeing it get petted like it was alive had reminded him of that again.
"When did Adam see it? You just got it yesterday." She sounded confused, and Kris felt annoyed (just for a brief, ashamed second) that he had to explain it, when if he'd said Charles thinks I should name my guitar she wouldn't have thought it needed any clarification.
"No, before. Last week. I told him I was going to buy a new one, and he said I should name it."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know." Kris shrugged and sat down on one of the crappy lawn chairs that were the garage's only seating, unless random plastic crates counted. "It seems like kind of a weird thing to do."
They stayed out there for a while, and Kris played all the songs he knew she liked, even "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which he always made a show of pretending he hated. Sometimes he sang, sometimes she sang along, sometimes they just talked over the guitar.
Katy sat perched on the amp for a while, which was amazingly sexy. Kris mentally replaced her church-clothes tan dress pants with a tiny schoolgirl skirt and knee socks and imagined her flowered button-down shirt halfway unbuttoned, her hair falling loose around her face, and it looked amazing in his head, like she should be on an album cover or a giant glossy poster advertising a brand of amps. It wasn't her exactly, but he liked it, the idea of this Bizarro World version of her, Katy as a rock and roll comic book heroine. He wanted to take her picture, or draw her, or just pull her into his lap, except that his lap was full of guitar. He also didn't know if the lawn chair would take their combined weight. If he was going to be practically living out here, he was going to need better chairs. A couch, maybe, and some Christmas lights, and some plywood on the crates to make a table...
"Kris?" Katy said, and he realized he was still playing without really thinking about it, just staring into space. He hoped whatever he'd been playing sounded okay.
"Hi," he said, sliding off his chair so he was kneeling in front of hers. He rested one hand on her knee (he needed the other hand to make sure the guitar didn't slip and hit the floor) and leaned into kiss her---not for very long, since his mom had already popped into the garage twice to offer them hot chocolate (which they'd accepted) and sweaters to wear (which they hadn't). Kris found it funny, flattering, and annoying all at once that his mom obviously wanted to check up on them, like she thought Kris was capable of having wild monkey sex with Katy and playing guitar at the same time.
____________
The week of a school concert always resulted in a weird mix of ordinary boredom interrupted by forty minutes of chaos as Mr. Shapiro got increasingly more stressed out by the orchestra's general suckage and the more high-strung members of the orchestra let that stress them out. Melissa the crying violin girl was no longer the only one bursting into tears at random intervals, which Kris figured must be reassuring for her, but sucked for everyone else. Watching people cry or get yelled at was painful and awkward, for one thing, but it was also a waste of rehearsal time, which led to Mr. Shapiro yelling about how they had no rehearsal time, which sometimes led to more random crying, depending on what the emotional barometer reading in the room was. Kris usually liked orchestra, because playing boring music was still better than math class, but concert week made him think wistfully about quitting and taking art instead. (He couldn't draw for shit, but he was pretty sure as long as it looked like he was trying, he would at least pass the class.)
The choir wasn't immune to pre-concert insanity, either, as Kris discovered when he went to the choir room on Monday morning and found Megan, Adam, and the girl with the Jane-from-Daria hair arguing with a bunch of girls in pastel sweaters about whether the concert dress code was classy or lame and fascist. He left and went to hang out with Charles in his homeroom, but not before Alicia gave him some peanut M&M's and told him she'd let Adam know he'd stopped by. Kris decided that avoiding the music wing when he didn't actually have to be there would be a good idea this week, especially since he kept ignoring half of his homework to play guitar and homeroom was a good time to try and catch up on it.
He missed the choir room, even its soundtrack of bad piano playing and people using the computer to play horrible quality MIDI backing tracks for pieces they were trying to learn. (Kris and Adam had agreed on Friday morning that these tracks reminded them of the music from the Mario games on the original Nintendo, all electronic and tinny and awful but somehow impossible to ever get out of your head. Adam had chased a couple freshmen away from the piano and the two of them figured out how to play the song that came on when Mario was in the underground levels, which wasn't hard since it was only a little more musically complicated than the two-note Jaws theme.)
When he walked into the GSA meeting on Wednesday, expecting craziness, he was surprised to find everyone quietly ensconced with various sections of the newspaper. Becky and her boyfriend and Jess were collectively working on a crossword puzzle, Nina and Vanessa were reading over what looked like the classifieds, and Adam and Megan were lounging on the windowsill. Megan was lying on her side with her head resting in Adam's lap, and he was holding a folded section of the newspaper in one hand and petting her hair with the other. It was chilly and raining outside, and the scene in here felt sort of...warm and domestic. It gave Kris the sweet, nonsensical feeling that he'd just woken up and walked into a kitchen where someone was cooking him pancakes.
"Don't sit over there," Megan said as he put his backpack down at a desk. "Come sit with us." She patted Adam's knee as she said it, like Adam's lap was a reasonable seating option for Kris. And actually, Megan was only leaning on Adam's right leg, so there was still space available. But that was a bad idea for lots of reasons, and there wasn't any room on Adam's other side for Kris to lie down and sprawl out the way Megan had, anyway. There was room for him to sit, though, so he squeezed in, sitting cross-legged at right angles to Adam. His left knee was nudging into Adam's thigh.
"Hey," Adam said, with this smile like he was offering Kris a cup of hot coffee. Kris didn't drink coffee, but that didn't seem like the point.
"Hi," Kris said.
"Read him his horoscope," Megan said.
"Yeah, okay," Adam said, taking his hand out of her hair and flipping through the paper. "What sign are you?"
"I don't know." Kris hurried to continue before Adam thought he was an idiot and patiently asked him when his birthday was. "Sometimes it says I'm a Gemini, sometimes it says I'm a Cancer. My birthday's June 21st."
"You're on the cusp," Adam said, and Kris nodded like that made sense to him. "This says you're a Cancer, but I'll read you both. You can pick the one you like better. Okay...Cancer...'When you take pains to maintain a good opinion of yourself, you emit enormous self-confidence.'"
Kris made a face. "I thought they were supposed to be predictions. Like..."
"You will meet a tall dark stranger and find a nest of badgers," Megan said.
"The Gemini one is better," Adam said. "'Gravitate toward activities that allow you to express your opinions.'"
"We're an activity that...does that." Megan sounded like she was falling asleep.
"Exactly." Adam put the paper down on the half of his lap Megan wasn't occupying. Watching him in profile like this made Kris think of talking to him while he was driving, like he and Kris and Megan were all on a road trip right now, and maybe it was getting late, the night air rushing in through the windows of the car, and Megan was dozing off in the backseat so they'd have to talk more quietly, turn the volume down on the radio, and then Adam---the real, here and now, non-road-trip Adam---looked over at Kris again. "Do you have an opinion you'd like to express?"
"Yes," Kris said, just because it was clearly the right thing to say. He drew a blank about what to say next, and it occurred to him that his horoscope was right, that this was a place where he could basically say anything. He could say his opinion was that badgers were a really weird animal and he always got them confused with wolverines, and Adam would laugh and Megan would probably high-five him. "I want to go on a road trip right now."
"That sounds good," Adam said. "We could drive to somewhere where it's not raining."
"Does that count as an opinion?" Megan said, tilting her head backwards to look at Kris. "It's more of a...something you want. What word am I looking for? You look weird upside-down." She sat up, using one hand braced on Adam's side for leverage.
"Ow," Adam said, shaking off her hand. "Giant bruise."
Megan looked strangely excited. "Ooh, it bruised? Let me see!"
"There's nothing to see, it looks like a bruise."
"Come on," Megan wheedled. "It's like, a battle scar. I wanna see it."
"Fine." Adam rolled his eyes, handed the newspaper to Kris, and stood up. He pulled up the left side of his shirt just enough to reveal an vividly purple-and-greenish-yellow bruise that sort of wrapped around from his side to his back. It did look battle-scar impressive, but also like it hurt, and Kris almost reached out to trace the outline of it with his thumb before he realized whoa, no, not okay. "Happy?"
"Yes. That's disgusting. It's awesome," Megan said.
"Your approval is not helpful," Adam said, pulling his shirt down and flopping back on the windowsill.
"What happened?" Kris asked, swiveling around so he wasn't facing Adam in profile view anymore, because that felt like staring all of a sudden.
"We went to see Spencer's band this weekend---so not school dance friendly, by the way---and some girl elbowed me."
"On purpose?"
"Nah, it was just a whole...mosh pit situation. She kind of fell into me. It's not that bad, it just looks bad because my skin is like, death pale."
"Do you---" Kris stopped and laughed at himself. "I was about to ask you if you wanted some ice for it. I don't know where I thought I was going to get ice."
"It's the thought that counts," Adam said, leaning over and bumping Kris's shoulder with his.
They talked about Spencer's band (which was called Optional Mango, apparently did a lot of punk covers, and was semi-notorious for throwing a bucket of Jell-O on the audience at a show last year), and Kris found himself wishing he'd been at the show with them. It sounded chaotic and fun and he liked the idea of hopping around in the semi-dark to music so loud he could feel it resonating in his chest, of having to stand up on his toes and yell into Adam's ear just so they could hear each other.
The rest of the GSA arrived gradually. Zoe and Clare brought a bunch of cupcakes which were only slightly squished from their day in Zoe's locker; and Spencer brought Patricia and Jacob, the drummer and bassist of Optional Mango. It was one of those meetings that never really became a real meeting, the only vaguely official GSA thing they did all afternoon was decide who was bringing what for their Christmas party next week. (Kris had expected Katy to veto his let's just bring some chips idea, but she didn't.) Kris spent the rest of the sort-of-a-meeting planning a post-concert Nutcracker Suite sheet music bonfire with Rob and Justin, eating a cupcake, participating in Becky's informal poll about who the school's worst history teacher was, and talking to Megan about the next open mic.
Kris and Charles went to their friend John's house that night to study for the test on The Great Gatsby they had the next day, which meant fifteen minutes of looking at the study guide their teacher had handed out and skimming the Sparknotes on the book and then playing Madden for two hours.
He got home to find his dad playing the new guitar (unplugged) for his mom in the living room, which was somewhere in the grey area between weird and sweet, as far as Kris was concerned. Kris assumed from the way the phrase kept repeating that the song his dad was singing was called "Reconsider Me," and he actually liked it. He stood in the hallway by the front door and just listened for a while, and then made a bunch of noise dropping his backpack on the floor so they'd know he was there as he walked into the room. (Not that he thought they were making out or anything----not that he wanted to even consider that possibility---but there was no such thing as being too careful.)
"It's your turn to play me a song," his mom said, patting the couch cushion next to her the way Megan had patted Adam's knee that afternoon to say come here, sit down.
Kris sat with them for a while, just playing and sometimes sheepishly singing and musing out loud about how he wanted to get a couch, or at least some non-lawn-chair seating for the garage, which his parents said they'd think about. His dad got his own guitar and taught Kris a couple new songs, his mom brought them a bag of pretzels, and Daniel emerged from his room and made a song request instead of complaining. They didn't usually just hang out like this, and Kris felt like they were in the holiday episode of a TV show. He could tell it made his mom really happy that they were all in the same place at the same time without a meal being involved, and it was sort of stupidly sweet.
Which just made starting the next day with a test on a book he'd only half-read seem worse. Kris knew he should have expected a question about the stupid green light, it had been on the study guide. All he could think of was Charles (who was taking driver's ed this semester) saying the green light means Gatsby can proceed through the intersection. His other equally helpful thought was that a green light meant that the power was on. They'd read half-assedly about the green light on Sparknotes, but now that the test was actually on the desk in front of him, the only thing Kris could remember was that Gatsby staring at the light meant he was obsessed with Daisy and then something confusing about the future and how much it sucked, which didn't seem to have anything to do with Daisy or lights of any colour.
The green light symbolizes Gatsby's love for Daisy, he wrote, hating himself for not having read the Sparknotes page just a little more closely. Everything he does in the book is to impress her and make her see that he is better than her husband and even though she is so close that he can see the light at the end of her dock, she's still out of reach. Because she's married and because she was born rich and Gatsby wasn't. The green light represents the future that he wants them to have together that never happens.
He shuffled through the rest of his day feeling sort of grumpy and distracted until lunchtime.
"Adam and Nina were in my study hall today," Katy said when Kris sat down at their table. "I think they were cutting their gym class. Adam did my nails!" She stuck out her hands, and her nails were painted a deep, shiny blue that reminded Kris of having a blue pen explode in his backpack. He couldn't stop watching her hands, the dark nail polish made everything she did---gesturing as she talked, picking up a carrot stick---look dramatic and purposeful. He wondered what she and Adam had talked about, if the nail polish belonged to him, if he'd ever worn it himself.
He had some time to kill at the end of the day, just waiting around for his friend Joey so they could take the after-school bus to his house. His brother had a guitar Kris could borrow, so they were going to sit around in Joey's basement messing with songs on guitar and bass. Kris was sitting on the floor trying to find a history worksheet in the bottom of his locker, so he saw Adam at first just as a pair of combat boots (and it was totally unfair of Adam to wear boots with heels, even low heels, because he was already tall) and too-long jeans with the hems shredded in the back.
"Hi," Kris said, dumping a pile of papers back into his locker and standing up.
"You seem like someone who can keep a secret," Adam said, which was an ominous way to begin a conversation, but Kris decided to just go with it.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Don't worry, it's not---it's probably nothing you'd want to tell anyone anyway. Just...don't tell anyone."
"Okay..."
"Justin came out to me." Adam sounded like he couldn't have kept from saying that for a second longer, he was almost bouncing.
"Wait, Justin from the GSA? So he's gay?" Kris's first thought was that Justin didn't seem gay, and he immediately hated himself for thinking it. They'd talked about this stuff at the GSA, that all the ways you were supposed to be able to look at someone and just know they were gay were just stereotypes, complete bullshit. But it was hard to shake, the idea that he should have guessed somehow. Justin was a year older than him, and Kris didn't know too much about him except that he was friends with Rob and played cello and hated cookies with raisins in them. And now he knew that Justin was gay, which changed...exactly nothing, Kris realized, but also everything. He had no idea how something could be such a big deal when in so many ways, it didn't matter at all.
"Yeah. Well, he thinks he's probably bi. But he felt comfortable telling me, he said he wanted to talk to me first, before he talked about it at a meeting or anything, and this is why I started the GSA in the first place, and I just feel like I'm finally doing something right, you know?"
"You were always doing something right," Kris said.
"Thanks." Adam was giving him this look that Kris could only describe as soft, but bright at the same time. He was obviously really happy about this, which was so sweet, and his happiness was contagious. It made Kris feel like the lighting in the hallway had suddenly improved. Adam reached out like he was going to pat Kris on the shoulder, and without really making a conscious decision to do it, Kris opened his arms and hugged him instead.
It seemed like a bad idea at first, Adam froze and made a surprised sound somewhere above Kris's ear, but then he hugged back, tightly enough that Kris swayed on his feet, pulled slightly off-balance. This felt different than when they'd hugged at the open mic, maybe because it was daytime this time, or because Adam was wearing a t-shirt instead of a dress shirt, or because they were at school instead of Pony Espresso, and none of those reasons really made any sense, but that was okay. He leaned his face into Adam's shoulder and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew the things he was supposed to be thinking---that this should be awkward, or that someone was going to walk down the hall and see them and think it was weird---but those thoughts felt irrelevant, like they belonged to someone else.
His brain had plenty of other stuff to do, anyway. His mind seemed to be split into two distinct halves---one that was whirring with questions (about Justin, about what fabric softener Adam's mom used) and another that wanted to doze off right there, standing up in the middle of the hallway. He understood how blissful Megan had looked yesterday, lying around with her head in Adam's lap. Everything about him felt like the perfect place to rest.
"Do I say congratulations? I mean, that he trusted you and everything." Kris's voice was muffled because he was talking into Adam's shirt, and he had a bizarre momentary urge to grab a fold of the fabric between his teeth and just hold it there.
"Sure, I guess," Adam said, and Kris could feel his voice as he talked, this warm buzzy feeling against the side of his face where it was pressed against Adam's shoulder. He wondered if Adam could feel his voice, too, if his collarbones were picking up the vibrations like radio antennae. It made him want to talk all day.
"Congratulations," he said, squeezing Adam a little tighter, which made him rock forward and feel off-balance again. He shuffled his feet a little closer, bumping into Adam's knee and hip with his own, and Adam took a step back, let Kris go and fidgeted around with his bag, shifting it on his shoulder. Kris thought maybe there was someone else in the hall with them, and he was going to tell Adam that he didn't care if people saw them hugging, he was ready to get indignant about it, but when he looked around, it was still just them, and he felt cold and confused. Then he remembered the bruise on Adam's back that he'd probably just wrapped an arm around and winced inwardly. "Sorry, did I---you have that bruise---" He reached out without thinking to pet Adam's side, gently this time, but Adam put a hand up to stop him.
"No, it's fine. You didn't---it's fine." He met Kris's eyes for a second, then looked away and started picking at some chipping paint on one of the lockers. Kris wanted to ask Adam what was wrong, if he'd done something wrong, but he thought that would probably make it worse.
"So did Justin just like...come up to you and say 'hey, guess what, I'm gay'?" He said it mainly just to say something, but he was also curious. He didn't think Justin and Adam knew each other that well, and he couldn't imagine how that would work, walking up to some person you saw once a week and taking a deep breath and telling them something that big. Just thinking about it---just saying the words out loud, even if he was saying them as Justin---made him a little nervous.
"No. Well, sort of, actually. He didn't start with 'hey, guess what,' though."
"But that would make it more fun," Kris said.
"Yeah, probably." Adam sounded distracted, almost like he was talking to himself, but he got more animated as he kept talking, and he was looking at Kris again. "He said that a couple of his friends already know, he told Rob already. Which explains a couple conversations I had with Rob, actually. I thought he was doing that whole thing where it's like 'oh, my friend thinks he might be gay...'"
"And he didn't realize how that sounded?" Kris could imagine Rob not realizing that, actually. He was nice, but pretty clueless.
"I guess not. Or he just didn't care, I don't know. Anyway, I think Justin is going to talk about this at the next GSA meeting, so just act surprised."
Kris widened his eyes, let his mouth fall open, and gasped out loud.
Adam laughed. "Maybe not that surprised."
"I think I can manage. I got my new guitar, by the way."
"Awesome, so I should be congratulating you, too. Did you go with the---"
"Acoustic electric, yeah. I didn't name it, though."
"There's still time." Adam nodded, mock-serious.
"Do you want to go get some ice cream?" Kris said before he even realized he was going to say it. He immediately wished he had realized he was going to say it, because what if Adam thought Kris was like, asking him out? Which was ridiculous, because Adam knew Kris was with Katy, but what if he just didn't want to go for ice cream and thought Kris was clingy and crazy or something and before Kris knew it, he was babbling. "Uh, because, you know, it could be like...yay, a good day ice cream instead of today sucks ice cream. So that would be different."
"I---that would be amazing. But I have to go to this stupid soloist rehearsal, I'm already late for it---"
"You have a solo at the concert?"
"Yeah." He waved a hand to say whatever, not important. "But we could go after that? I mean, if you don't mind sticking around, or...it shouldn't be that long, since people have to catch the bus, and it's already---" he looked down at his wrist. "I'm not wearing a watch." Adam was sort of babbling, too, Kris noted, which made him feel better, like they were back on the same wavelength. A crazy babbling wavelength, but sometimes that was a good kind.
"I can't," Kris said. "I'm taking the bus home with somebody, that's why I'm here in the first place."
"Oh, okay. But another time, though. We should definitely---we should have good-day ice cream. Sometime."
Kris wanted to suggest tomorrow, because tomorrow was totally going to be a good day, he could tell, but the concert was tomorrow so that probably wouldn't work either. "Yeah, definitely," he said instead.
"Okay," Adam said, standing up straighter, and Kris realized Adam had been sort of leaning over so they were closer to the same height. "Okay, I have to go sing a non-denominational winter song now. But I'll see you tomorrow?"
"See you." It took a little bit of effort for Kris not to slam his locker shut and walk with Adam down the music wing, but he managed. He sat back down on the floor and sorted through the crap at the bottom of his locker without actually looking at any of it for a while, and realized he had to go to the music wing anyway because his viola was still in his band locker. He hoped he'd get there at the right time to hear Adam rehearsing his solo, but the voice drifting out of the choir room when he got there was a girl's, singing from one of those Christmas songs with lyrics about sleigh bells, which promptly got stuck in his head.
When Joey came to find him, Kris was sitting on a bench in the lobby, drumming his fingers on his viola case to a phantom Christmas carol he didn't even know all the words to---it had a line about pumpkin pie, though, he remembered that much. It should have been annoying, having it stuck in his head all peppy and incomplete (something turkey something something pumpkin pie!, his brain sang), but he felt impervious to that, he was just thinking about Christmas and pumpkin pie ice cream and playing guitar.
"Dude," Joey said, zipping up his jacket as they walked out to the bus. "I have had the weirdest day."
"Yeah," Kris said happily. "Me, too."
____________
Kris wasn't really a talking on the phone kind of guy. He and Brett had done the lengthy phone call thing sometimes, even before Brett moved away. He remembered the two of them staying up one night talking about cartoons for long enough that his right ear started to hurt because the phone was pressing it up against his skull. His dad eventually swung the door to his room open (without knocking, even) and said What the hell are you doing? It's one in the goddamn morning! Brett had been doing this whole Pinky and the Brain impression and it was really late so everything seemed funny and Kris had just laughed into the phone for way too long with his dad standing there glaring and Brett going Kris? Hey, Kris, seriously. What's going on? in his ear. It still made him laugh when he thought about it, and all other phone calls thereafter paled in comparison.
Katy loved the phone though, so since they'd started going out Kris had become well-acquainted with the point at which he had to switch the phone over to his left ear and the way everything sounded weird for a while after that.
"I called before, but your mom said you were still at Joey's," Katy said when Kris picked up.
"Yeah, I ate dinner over there. It was weird, he was like, impressed that I know Spencer."
"...Spencer Alicia's boyfriend? Why?"
He was glad that Katy sounded confused, because he'd been confused. Spencer seemed like a good guy, but Kris hadn't been sure why he qualified for wait, you know him? status.
"His band is kind of a big deal, I guess." Optional Mango---according to Joey, anyway---was the band all other local bands wanted to be. Besides being notorious for their Jell-O throwing, they had actual fans who weren't their close friends and a handful of original songs that people liked and remembered well enough to sing along to, which made Kris want to be in Optional Mango, too. Hearing Joey's stories about the times he'd seen them play (which led to more stories about other bands) gave Kris this twitchy, frustrated feeling that he was missing something, that there was probably amazing music going on in someone's garage or the American Legion Hall right now and he was missing it, that he'd been missing it for a while, that it would take him forever to catch up. "I thought maybe I'd go next time they're playing somewhere."
"Really?" He could almost hear Katy wrinkling her nose through the phone. "I wouldn't think they'd be your style."
"I have a style?" Kris thought of himself as someone who'd listen to just about anything at least once. Charles always said his CD collection made it seem like he had multiple personalities, one of them being a twelve-year-old teenybopper girl, which was the point when Kris usually threw something at him. It dawned on Kris that since neither of them had actually heard Optional Mango play, Katy didn't even mean that Kris wouldn't like their music---or actually, she did, but she was only guessing, like just looking at Spencer and his spiky hair and multiple earrings and general aura of punk rock badass-ness could tell her whether Kris would want to hear his band or not, whether Spencer and everything about him was Kris's style.
"I don't know," Katy said, and then she asked him a bunch of questions about if he'd liked Joey's brother's guitar and what songs they'd played, and he would have felt mean and petty bringing the thing about Spencer back up, so he didn't. It was bothering him, though. Not because he really cared that much about Spencer or his band, specifically, but just because he hated it that Katy---or anyone---thought it was possible to look at two people and determine whether it made any sense for them to be friends or even like the same music. He knew Katy hadn't meant it like that, that she wasn't saying he shouldn't like Spencer or his band, but it made him feel prickly anyway, like he should be buying a bunch of punk albums and becoming Optional Mango's biggest fan just to make a point, just to prove her wrong. He got off the phone with her earlier than he usually would have and sat around listening to music and sulking for a while.
The feeling faded away as he slept on it, and by the time he met Katy in the cafeteria the next morning he felt stupid about the whole thing. (He sort of sucked at staying mad, or even faintly annoyed, at Katy while he was actually with her, which was probably why they mostly argued on the phone.) Katy reached over to grab some Apple Jacks from the tiny box they were sharing, and Kris grabbed her hand.
"Your nails aren't blue anymore."
Katy shrugged and rolled her eyes, lacing her fingers into Kris's for a moment before pulling her hand away. "My mom hated it, she said I couldn't look like a zombie at the concert."
"A zombie?"
"I don't think she knows what zombies actually look like." Katy took a sip of chocolate milk and pushed the carton toward Kris.
"You didn't look like a zombie," Kris said. "I liked the blue."
Katy looked up at him from the little alternating green-orange-green-orange pattern she was making out of Apple Jacks on top of her notebook and gave him a half smile. "Yeah, I could tell."
____________
Kris started playing the viola in fourth grade, so he'd been in a lot of orchestra concerts, and right from the first one (which had featured, of course, an ear-splitting rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"), the concert-day rehearsal routine never changed much. The orchestra director would swear up and down that they were going to play the pieces through without stopping, exactly like the real concert, and then stop them a few bars into the first piece and frantically try to correct everyone at once. Things would only go downhill from there, until the period was almost over and the orchestra director would try to reassure him or herself that somehow, the concert would be better. Mr. Shapiro always used the last few minutes of the period on concert day to remind everyone about the theater superstition that a bad dress rehearsal meant a good performance. And with every concert Kris had been in---with the exception of the first couple, which nothing could have saved since everyone involved was eight years old---that ended up being true.
So he wasn't worried, despite the chaos. He felt detached from the whole process, from everyone else's stress, and he wondered how something with as many variables as an orchestra could get so boring, could be so much the same all the time. He thought about talking to Adam about this stuff while they sat in his car outside the ice cream place, about the difference between playing music for school and playing music because you'd decided to, on your own. He realized that that was the first time he'd ever talked about it like that, tried to figure things out beyond just saying orchestra was really boring today. He wanted to talk about it more, about whether choir rehearsal was always a disaster on concert day, too, about why it was that he could play the same song on guitar for an hour and find something new about it every time he played it, but orchestra sometimes took on a Groundhog Day feel that made Kris want to curl up behind the timpani and doze off. He'd always thought that the timpani would make a good framework for a blanket fort.
After what seemed like several hours, the warning bell rang, Mr. Shapiro told them that a bad dress rehearsal meant a good performance, and everyone stampeded for the door. Kris ended up walking next to Justin Chen as they waited to be able to get into their band lockers.
"One more time, and then we can burn these," Justin said, holding up his folder of sheet music.
"I'll bring the matches," Kris said. He put his viola away and tried to ignore the part of him that wanted to just stare at Justin for a while, like if he did he'd magically know how Justin had decided to come out to Adam, what he'd said, how it had felt, what it meant. Kris knew it wasn't supposed to mean---or change---anything in particular. He barely knew Justin, this whole thing was none of his business in the first place, but he still had the weirdest urge to clap Justin on the shoulder and congratulate him. (Kris imagined himself saying congratulations on being gay! and wanted to laugh.) He thought about every completely normal conversation the two of them had ever had at GSA meetings. While they were standing around talking about their math teachers and why the woodwinds section collectively sucked, Justin knew that he was at these meetings for a specific reason---that he was pretty sure he liked guys, that he was working his way up to telling someone. And now he had, and that was seriously brave, and maybe it was okay if Justin's being gay changed things in a good way, if this whole thing made Kris feel good about the world for some reason, like this was proof that sometimes scary things turned out okay.
He remembered Adam saying I feel like I'm finally doing something right, and felt like he knew better what Adam had meant, now. Whatever the GSA's official mission statement was, most of the time the reality of it was that they were a bunch of people who hung out after school in an English classroom and sometimes had bake sales. But this---the fact that Justin had trusted Adam enough to come out to him, that Adam was just his first stop and he was planning on trusting all of them---meant that the official mission was working. That just by hanging around and talking and generally not being assholes, they were doing something awesome. Kris had to dig back in his memory to the first-ever GSA meeting (and that was a weird thing to think about, he felt like it had been years ago, like he was a million miles away from it) for the term Adam had used. Safe space. They were making a safe space. One with cookies, even. And if it made Kris glad to know he was a small part of that...
He didn't know why it had taken almost a whole day for this to click into place in his head, for him to understand why Adam had practically been glowing with happiness yesterday, but now that he did understand, he wanted to find Adam and hug him again. He wanted to tell Adam that he got it now, that the GSA was the best thing ever and Adam was amazing for starting it and screw the concert, they'd have plenty of time to get to the concert, it didn't start until 7 o'clock, they should go get some ice cream.
He wasn't planning on saying any of that, not really (because the fact that it was all true wouldn't make it any less awkward to just blurt out), but he was disappointed not to see Adam all day anyway. He was in kind of a weird place, in his head. He was in a quiet, thinky mood, content to sit around ignoring his classes and mill things over, but he also wanted to talk. He got as far as saying the GSA is awesome to Katy at lunch before he realized that she didn't know about Justin so he couldn't tell her what he'd figured out about why it was awesome. Luckily, she didn't ask about it, she just agreed with him and started talking about something they were planning for the dance that involved an unreasonable number of poppies made out of tissue paper.
part six >
Master Post
[most recent update begins here.]
He wanted to go down to the music wing and see if there were any guitars he could help baby-sit today, but he ended up tagging along to the cafeteria with Katy before homeroom because he wanted to copy her English homework. He was anxious about the GSA meeting---he had been since Katy reminded him the student council members were coming. He couldn't help but feel like having people at a GSA meeting who weren't actually in the GSA was a bad idea. He worried that they'd be rude because they secretly wanted to host the dance (although why anyone would actively want to host a dance, he still wasn't sure). Or that they wouldn't get the good-natured craziness that was the GSA's default setting and would ruin it by standing around looking confused and superior. Or that they'd say something mean to Adam.
His head was full of scenarios in which student council members in polo shirts made snide comments about Adam's makeup or the fact that he was gay and Kris rushed in to defend him, to tell them to fuck off because Adam could do whatever he wanted and was much cooler than they were in the first place. Which was insane, because no one was going to come to a meeting of the Gay-Straight Alliance and insult Adam for being gay (at least Kris really hoped not), and Adam was clearly capable and willing to stand up for himself even if they did. Telling himself that didn't help, though, and by the time he and Katy and Marie actually arrived at the meeting, he was half-afraid he was going to do something stupid like yell at some random student council kid for eating too many of their cookies.
(Alicia's baked goods contribution to this meeting was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, to which Megan's response was: "Chocolate chip cookies? That seems half-assed. I wanted a soufflé. With kiwi-mango sauce."
"Shut up," Alicia replied. "Chocolate chip cookies are classic. Everyone likes them. They say 'oh, hi, look how welcoming we are. Give us your money and go away.'")
Only three people from the student council showed up---Marcus Monroe, who Kris knew from when the JV baseball team had scrimmaged with varsity sometimes last year, and who he'd forgotten was student council president---and two girls. None of them were wearing polo shirts, which Kris decided was a good sign. He was relieved enough that things were going well that he even forgot to be bored for the first ten minutes or so of the dance-budget discussion. The decorations weren't going to be that expensive, because the GSA and various theater minions were going to make most of them (Kris was beginning to regret not listening to previous dance discussions very well, because he'd probably signed up to paint a giant mural of Munchkinland without realizing it), but the student council was willing to split the cost of the DJ with them and help stock the snack table. There was one tense moment, when Adam brought up not voting for a king and queen and court at the dance.
"Why, because you can't have two kings?" said one of the student council girls, who Kris immediately hated.
"No," Adam said, in an overly patient tone that almost made Kris want to laugh. "Because it's a pointless popularity contest that makes people feel stupid when they should be dancing and having fun. And it also doesn't go with our theme."
"You 'crown' the same few people king and queen and duchess or whatever at the homecoming dance and prom," Nina added. "Why do it three times?"
"They have a point," Marcus said. "I look like an idiot in those stupid crowns."
"Like you'd win anyway," said the other student council girl, who Kris decided not to hate just yet. "Is this going to be, like, a costume dance?"
"Only if people want," Adam said. "I mean, it's still the winter formal, so...dresses and ties and everything, but if anyone wants to do stuff for the theme, too, that's awesome."
Kris tried to imagine how anyone was going to combine Wizard of Oz costumes and formal wear. Probably sparkly red shoes would be involved somehow. The meeting wound down, and he left Katy talking to Jess about where to rent helium tanks for the dance and/or Jess's sweet sixteen in February. Adam was standing by the blackboard, twisting and untwisting the cap on his bottle of water, and he smiled as Kris walked over to him.
"I think that went pretty well," he said. "And now I almost want to join the student council. Marcus is seriously cute."
"Yeah," Kris said, just to be agreeable, because Adam looked a little unsure, like he didn't know if it was okay for him to talk to Kris about guys being cute. But then he thought hey, why not, and looked across the room at Marcus, tried to see him the way Adam might see him. It wasn't difficult, he was kind of cute. His eyes were a light brown that stood out and looked almost golden against his dark skin, and he had a warm, contagious sort of smile. Plus he was wearing a green plastic afro pick in his hair, which Kris thought said good things about Marcus's sense of humor. "I like his eyes."
"Me too," Adam said, and for a moment he just looked at Kris like he'd said something baffling or surprising, and Kris almost wanted to apologize, even though he wasn't sure what for. "I can't believe I missed your singalong yesterday. Of all the mornings to actually go to my homeroom..."
"Does everyone know about that? Did Sarah Klein talk to you, too?"
"No, Megan told me. Wait, Sarah Klein? The alto with the headbands? Why would she---"
"No, never mind," Kris said. "Long story. And I went down there to talk to you in the first place."
"You did?"
There was something so bright and excited in Adam's eyes that Kris forgot---just for a second---what his big compelling reason for going to the choir room to talk to Adam had been. He wasn't sure why he even needed a better reason than I wanted to talk to you, but then he remembered the CD and his crazy dream and the guitar tabs and it all fell into place in his head. "That CD is so amazing."
"What, Unplugged? I know, right?" Adam sounded almost exactly the way Kris had imagined he would. "Grunge is so not my usual thing, but I love that CD."
"It's really..." Kris made a motion with his hands to try and describe it. "It almost makes you feel like you're there, and the music is just..."
"They filmed it, too, you know. That concert. They still air it sometimes on MTV, we should---you should keep an eye out for it."
"Cool. I probably---I won't keep the CD for too long, I just have to make myself a tape of it."
"Don't worry about it," Adam said. "Or actually, keep it for a while, but we're getting my dad a CD burner for Hanukkah, and then I'll burn you a copy. The sound will be better."
"Thanks. I really want to learn like, all of those songs on guitar, I started learning 'Pennyroyal Tea' yesterday..."
"Do all Nirvana songs really only have three chords apiece? I think someone told me that once."
Kris laughed. "It's more than three. 'Pennyroyal Tea' is like, five or six, I think..."
"So did you get your new guitar?"
"Not yet, my dad had to do something else. I think we're going to go this weekend."
"What are you going to name it?"
"What, my guitar?"
"Yeah. Aren't you supposed to name them? A girl's name, like, 'this is my guitar, Betty.'" Adam said the last part in a weird voice that was maybe supposed to be Elvis, Kris wasn't sure.
"...I just call mine 'my guitar'."
"Well that's no fun," Adam said. "We're going to name the new one. But not Betty. Something better."
"Okay." Kris liked that we, it made him wonder if Adam would want to come over to his house and meet his new guitar, once it actually existed, like a guitar baby shower or something. He imagined them sitting in the garage, singing it lullabies and Nirvana songs all afternoon.
"Adam, come over here and tell Katy she has to let us make her a costume," Becky yelled from where she was sitting on the classroom's broad windowsill with Katy and Marie.
Adam raised his eyebrows at Kris in a way that clearly said he had no idea what this was about, but he was inviting Kris to come find out with him, and the two of them walked over to the windowsill.
"...you can always find 80s dresses at thrift stores," Becky was saying. "You know, with the giant puffy sleeves? I think Glinda had puffy sleeves, or the whole dress is just really puffy, but that's easy, we'd just need a bunch of tulle. You would be like, the prettiest Glinda ever."
"I always wanted to be Glinda when I was little," Katy said.
"And we'd do your hair in like, really soft, big curls..." Becky reached over and curled some of Katy's hair around her fingers, which was weird for Kris to watch. Usually he was the one doing that.
Adam leaned in and spoke to Katy in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "You can trust her. She does costumes and stuff for drama club, she's good at this."
"Okay," Katy said, nodding at Becky. "I think I'll be Glinda."
"Maybe I'll go as one of those flying monkeys," Kris said absently. He regretted it when Becky turned to him, her eyes lighting up.
"You should," she said. "We could make you some wings, and a tail..."
"I was joking," Kris said.
Becky ignored him. "And the monkeys have those little hats, right?" She drew a circular shape in the air around her head.
Kris looked at Adam for help, but Adam was just standing there laughing.
"You should see how horrified you look," he said after a moment, and patted Kris on the shoulder. "Don't worry, no one is going to force you to wear wings and a little hat."
"Speak for yourself," Becky said, eying Kris in a way that was sort of scary.
"I'll distract him while you put the wings on," Katy said, and Kris glared at her. She just grinned and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him closer to her.
"A bunch of us are going to go to thrift stores over Christmas break to get stuff to wear for the dance," Becky said to Katy. "You should come."
"Sure, that would be awesome," Katy said, and she looked so honestly thrilled about it that he couldn't even pretend to stay mad about the monkey wings. Kris looked around for Adam, who'd disappeared.
He turned out to be standing near the now-empty cookie plate, talking to Marcus and Jess. He was talking to Marcus like he was just talking to anybody, not like he thought Marcus was cute (seriously cute, even). He wasn't doing any of the stupid crap Kris had found himself doing before he and Katy had become a couple---fidgeting or looking at his shoes or laughing too much.
His first thought was that Adam was just better at not being a spaz than he was, but then he realized that although that was true, Adam didn't exactly have the luxury to be a spaz around anyone he was crushing on in the first place. It made him wonder how Adam had learned to hide how he felt, or when he'd learned to hide how he felt, and how he'd decided to stop hiding it. Not for the first time, Kris regretted that he'd only met Adam this year, that so much of who he'd been, what he'd been through before now was a mystery. He didn't know if he was allowed to ask about it.
He thought about things he was allowed to ask about. He'd forgotten to find out what Adam's favourite track on Unplugged was, for one thing, and even though they'd just talked about the CD, Kris felt like they hadn't had the conversation he'd wanted about it. He still had more to say, things he wasn't sure he even knew how to say, but he wanted to try.
But he could wait.
Adam was still talking to Marcus, and Kris found himself having to try and convince Katy, Becky, and Megan that no matter how many pairs of plaid golfing pants there always were in thrift stores, he really, really didn't want any.
Kris's first guitar had been a gift---not a surprise, exactly, because it was the only thing he asked for that year, but it had turned up under the Christmas tree without Kris making a trip to the nearest music store. He generally picked up a guitar or two just for the hell of it when he was there for other stuff, but he was learning that there was a huge difference between idly messing around with the guitars and trying to select one to pay a bunch of money for and take home.
He realized he'd been expecting some kind of almost-magical moment, that he'd pick up the Right Guitar and just know. There were definitely wrong guitars---ones that sat weirdly in his arms or sounded off or that he just thought were ugly---but the ones that weren't immediately wrong all seemed pretty good to him. He'd spent what seemed like hours looking at the store's various guitars, playing them plugged and unplugged (he even wasted a while on a black and white electric he knew he had no intention of buying, just because it was so pretty) until he ran out of things to play. He felt guilty about wasting his dad's Saturday afternoon, and his brain was beginning to feel fuzzy and out of tune---the guitars had started to sound and feel the same to him, turning into one giant guitar-shaped blur in his head. He wanted all of them, but he was also thinking of giving up entirely and buying something crazy like a djembe or a cowbell instead.
"How do I pick one?" Kris flopped down on a chair next to his dad, who was playing the chorus of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" on an unplugged acoustic electric.
His dad shrugged and handed Kris the guitar he'd been playing. "That's always a problem. Here, try this one."
Kris sat up straighter and played the some of "Yesterday," and he wasn't sure if it was just because the guitar was still warm from his dad's hands, or because it was really similar to the guitar he already had, or just a result of his general guitar fatigue, but he liked this one. He felt like he already owned it, which wasn't some lightning bolt of Right Guitar magic, but maybe it was good enough. He nodded to his dad, and went to plug it into one of the store's amps and fiddled around with the tone and volume controls until he liked the sound. He tried out the picking intro (which he sucked at) and first verse of "867-5309," and despite a brief, Pavlovian craving for some Froot Loops, he was still happy with the guitar. He'd gotten over the initial novelty of hearing his playing through an amp after the first handful of guitars he'd tried out, but playing this one and knowing that he was already semi-serious about buying it made it newly exciting. He felt in focus again, and the guitar sounded bright and crisp in a way that reminded him of those time-lapse movies of flowers blooming.
He played a little more---a few random chord progressions, some of "Big Yellow Taxi" just for the hell of it; a few chords of "Pennyroyal Tea;" and the opening of Journey's "Faithfully" to make his dad smile. He turned off the amp and went to sit down again.
"Is this a good guitar?" Kris's heart sped up a little. He knew, he already knew, that his dad was going to say it was, and this guitar was going to live at the foot of his bed. After the brief time he'd spent in guitar-overload limbo, this felt important again.
"It sounded good to me," his dad said, taking the guitar back from him and turning it over in his arms, looking over the body for scratches. It seemed to pass inspection.
"Okay." Kris gave the guitar a friendly pat. He thought about Adam and his insistence that the new guitar have a name, and that made him like this guitar even more, somehow. (He still wasn't sure it actually needed a name, though.) "I think this is the one."
"Are you sure? This is your last chance for an electric..."
Kris clapped his hands over his ears. "I can't hear you! I decided, I'm getting this one."
"Fair enough," his dad said, and handed the guitar back to Kris. "That black one was a classic, though. I liked it."
"Me, too."
But he barely felt even a pang of regret about the abandoned rock-star-cool black and white electric as he took the guitar up to the counter. He didn't feel bad counting out the money for it, either, even though it was more money than he'd ever spent on a single item before. He was paying for half with money he'd earned working over the summer, and his parents were paying the other half as an early Christmas present, which his dad said entitled him to a quarter of the guitar. Kris didn't know how serious he was about that, but assured him he could play it whenever he wanted. ("Yeah, as long as I feel like sitting in the garage," his dad said.)
He got a soft case because it was cheaper and lighter to carry, and sat with it leaned against his knees on the way home. His dad obviously understood and didn't ask why the guitar was riding with them, and not in the backseat or the trunk. Kris petted the fabric of the case as they drove and thought about the first song he was going to play. He thought he should pick one, purposefully, that that was the right thing to do even though he'd already played the guitar a bunch in the store.
His mom wanted to see the new guitar when they got home, so he dutifully unzipped the case and showed it to her. She was appropriately excited, and he had the distinct impression that his parents were sort of smiling at each other over his head (even though his mom was shorter than he was). The guitar looked different under the lights in their kitchen---a different colour and somehow warmer---and Kris wondered if it would sound different here, too. He zipped it back into the case and headed toward the garage.
"You don't have to go out there, honey," his mom said. "Daniel's at a friend's house."
"The amp's out there, though," he said. "Or...do you mind if I put the amp in my room for now? I won't put it up too loud."
"Go ahead," his mom said, and he put the guitar down next to the fridge so he could give her a hug.
He took the guitar into his room first, took it out of its case and left it on his bed---it looked perfect there, but possibly just because he was already used to seeing his admittedly similar guitar sitting in the same place---and went to drag the amp in from the garage. He had to crawl under his desk to plug it in, and just flicking the power switch on and hearing the faint electrical hum of feedback sent a shivery little thrill up his spine. Plugging the guitar into the amp, however, created crackles of static that hurt his ears, and he dove onto the floor to turn the volume down. He called out an apology, but no one responded, so maybe his parents had the TV on. He sat on the floor cross-legged for a while within easy reach of the amp, playing random chords and messing with the various tuning dials until he liked the sound and wasn't getting static anymore, and then moved to sit on his bed.
He'd considered playing "Good Riddance" as his first song, because it was the first thing he'd ever tried to learn, but that felt wrong. That was a goodbye song---not a song to say hi to a new guitar with---and he felt a little afraid (and a little stupid about feeling afraid) that just playing it would summon up the sadness he'd felt when he first picked up his dad's guitar three years ago. He settled on the Beatles' "In My Life," because the sweet six notes that opened it kept chiming in his head, and if it was sort of a mushy song, well, he felt sort of mushy. He loved the new guitar cradled in his arms, he loved his parents for paying for half of said guitar and understanding that this meant something to him, he even loved Daniel for not being here this afternoon so that he didn't have to freeze his ass off in the garage.
The opening notes sounded just as good as he thought they would, clear and sharp but mellow at the same time, and after playing an experimental verse, he went back to the beginning and sang the words, quietly. He messed up the guitar part a little bit, the guitar was a little different than his acoustic, and playing and singing at the same time made it harder to compensate for that, but it felt good anyway. There wasn't really any reason for him to be playing it plugged into the amp right now, he realized, except that it did plug into the amp, which seemed like reason enough.
He'd been right, the guitar did sound different here than it had in the store, the way he and Megan had sounded different in every room they'd done "Big Yellow Taxi" in, and he suddenly wanted to take this guitar to as many places as possible, to hear it everywhere. He played until dinnertime, when his mom (who usually just yelled for him from the kitchen) leaned into his room to tell him that it sounded nice, so he played her a few bars of "Amazing Grace" followed by the chorus of a random Reba McEntire song he'd learned for her birthday last year.
He called Katy after dinner, and even though she usually hated it when he played guitar on the phone--they'd gotten into a stupid fight about it a couple weeks ago, in fact--she asked him to play her a song. He'd brought the amp back out to the garage, though, and for some reason he didn't want to play her a song without being able to hug her, so they decided she'd come home with Kris's family after church the next day to hang out and meet the new guitar.
She petted the guitar when Kris took it out of the case, like it was a friendly golden retriever who'd just leaned its head up against her knee.
"I like it, it's pretty," she said.
"Adam thinks I should name it," Kris said, because seeing it get petted like it was alive had reminded him of that again.
"When did Adam see it? You just got it yesterday." She sounded confused, and Kris felt annoyed (just for a brief, ashamed second) that he had to explain it, when if he'd said Charles thinks I should name my guitar she wouldn't have thought it needed any clarification.
"No, before. Last week. I told him I was going to buy a new one, and he said I should name it."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know." Kris shrugged and sat down on one of the crappy lawn chairs that were the garage's only seating, unless random plastic crates counted. "It seems like kind of a weird thing to do."
They stayed out there for a while, and Kris played all the songs he knew she liked, even "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which he always made a show of pretending he hated. Sometimes he sang, sometimes she sang along, sometimes they just talked over the guitar.
Katy sat perched on the amp for a while, which was amazingly sexy. Kris mentally replaced her church-clothes tan dress pants with a tiny schoolgirl skirt and knee socks and imagined her flowered button-down shirt halfway unbuttoned, her hair falling loose around her face, and it looked amazing in his head, like she should be on an album cover or a giant glossy poster advertising a brand of amps. It wasn't her exactly, but he liked it, the idea of this Bizarro World version of her, Katy as a rock and roll comic book heroine. He wanted to take her picture, or draw her, or just pull her into his lap, except that his lap was full of guitar. He also didn't know if the lawn chair would take their combined weight. If he was going to be practically living out here, he was going to need better chairs. A couch, maybe, and some Christmas lights, and some plywood on the crates to make a table...
"Kris?" Katy said, and he realized he was still playing without really thinking about it, just staring into space. He hoped whatever he'd been playing sounded okay.
"Hi," he said, sliding off his chair so he was kneeling in front of hers. He rested one hand on her knee (he needed the other hand to make sure the guitar didn't slip and hit the floor) and leaned into kiss her---not for very long, since his mom had already popped into the garage twice to offer them hot chocolate (which they'd accepted) and sweaters to wear (which they hadn't). Kris found it funny, flattering, and annoying all at once that his mom obviously wanted to check up on them, like she thought Kris was capable of having wild monkey sex with Katy and playing guitar at the same time.
____________
The week of a school concert always resulted in a weird mix of ordinary boredom interrupted by forty minutes of chaos as Mr. Shapiro got increasingly more stressed out by the orchestra's general suckage and the more high-strung members of the orchestra let that stress them out. Melissa the crying violin girl was no longer the only one bursting into tears at random intervals, which Kris figured must be reassuring for her, but sucked for everyone else. Watching people cry or get yelled at was painful and awkward, for one thing, but it was also a waste of rehearsal time, which led to Mr. Shapiro yelling about how they had no rehearsal time, which sometimes led to more random crying, depending on what the emotional barometer reading in the room was. Kris usually liked orchestra, because playing boring music was still better than math class, but concert week made him think wistfully about quitting and taking art instead. (He couldn't draw for shit, but he was pretty sure as long as it looked like he was trying, he would at least pass the class.)
The choir wasn't immune to pre-concert insanity, either, as Kris discovered when he went to the choir room on Monday morning and found Megan, Adam, and the girl with the Jane-from-Daria hair arguing with a bunch of girls in pastel sweaters about whether the concert dress code was classy or lame and fascist. He left and went to hang out with Charles in his homeroom, but not before Alicia gave him some peanut M&M's and told him she'd let Adam know he'd stopped by. Kris decided that avoiding the music wing when he didn't actually have to be there would be a good idea this week, especially since he kept ignoring half of his homework to play guitar and homeroom was a good time to try and catch up on it.
He missed the choir room, even its soundtrack of bad piano playing and people using the computer to play horrible quality MIDI backing tracks for pieces they were trying to learn. (Kris and Adam had agreed on Friday morning that these tracks reminded them of the music from the Mario games on the original Nintendo, all electronic and tinny and awful but somehow impossible to ever get out of your head. Adam had chased a couple freshmen away from the piano and the two of them figured out how to play the song that came on when Mario was in the underground levels, which wasn't hard since it was only a little more musically complicated than the two-note Jaws theme.)
When he walked into the GSA meeting on Wednesday, expecting craziness, he was surprised to find everyone quietly ensconced with various sections of the newspaper. Becky and her boyfriend and Jess were collectively working on a crossword puzzle, Nina and Vanessa were reading over what looked like the classifieds, and Adam and Megan were lounging on the windowsill. Megan was lying on her side with her head resting in Adam's lap, and he was holding a folded section of the newspaper in one hand and petting her hair with the other. It was chilly and raining outside, and the scene in here felt sort of...warm and domestic. It gave Kris the sweet, nonsensical feeling that he'd just woken up and walked into a kitchen where someone was cooking him pancakes.
"Don't sit over there," Megan said as he put his backpack down at a desk. "Come sit with us." She patted Adam's knee as she said it, like Adam's lap was a reasonable seating option for Kris. And actually, Megan was only leaning on Adam's right leg, so there was still space available. But that was a bad idea for lots of reasons, and there wasn't any room on Adam's other side for Kris to lie down and sprawl out the way Megan had, anyway. There was room for him to sit, though, so he squeezed in, sitting cross-legged at right angles to Adam. His left knee was nudging into Adam's thigh.
"Hey," Adam said, with this smile like he was offering Kris a cup of hot coffee. Kris didn't drink coffee, but that didn't seem like the point.
"Hi," Kris said.
"Read him his horoscope," Megan said.
"Yeah, okay," Adam said, taking his hand out of her hair and flipping through the paper. "What sign are you?"
"I don't know." Kris hurried to continue before Adam thought he was an idiot and patiently asked him when his birthday was. "Sometimes it says I'm a Gemini, sometimes it says I'm a Cancer. My birthday's June 21st."
"You're on the cusp," Adam said, and Kris nodded like that made sense to him. "This says you're a Cancer, but I'll read you both. You can pick the one you like better. Okay...Cancer...'When you take pains to maintain a good opinion of yourself, you emit enormous self-confidence.'"
Kris made a face. "I thought they were supposed to be predictions. Like..."
"You will meet a tall dark stranger and find a nest of badgers," Megan said.
"The Gemini one is better," Adam said. "'Gravitate toward activities that allow you to express your opinions.'"
"We're an activity that...does that." Megan sounded like she was falling asleep.
"Exactly." Adam put the paper down on the half of his lap Megan wasn't occupying. Watching him in profile like this made Kris think of talking to him while he was driving, like he and Kris and Megan were all on a road trip right now, and maybe it was getting late, the night air rushing in through the windows of the car, and Megan was dozing off in the backseat so they'd have to talk more quietly, turn the volume down on the radio, and then Adam---the real, here and now, non-road-trip Adam---looked over at Kris again. "Do you have an opinion you'd like to express?"
"Yes," Kris said, just because it was clearly the right thing to say. He drew a blank about what to say next, and it occurred to him that his horoscope was right, that this was a place where he could basically say anything. He could say his opinion was that badgers were a really weird animal and he always got them confused with wolverines, and Adam would laugh and Megan would probably high-five him. "I want to go on a road trip right now."
"That sounds good," Adam said. "We could drive to somewhere where it's not raining."
"Does that count as an opinion?" Megan said, tilting her head backwards to look at Kris. "It's more of a...something you want. What word am I looking for? You look weird upside-down." She sat up, using one hand braced on Adam's side for leverage.
"Ow," Adam said, shaking off her hand. "Giant bruise."
Megan looked strangely excited. "Ooh, it bruised? Let me see!"
"There's nothing to see, it looks like a bruise."
"Come on," Megan wheedled. "It's like, a battle scar. I wanna see it."
"Fine." Adam rolled his eyes, handed the newspaper to Kris, and stood up. He pulled up the left side of his shirt just enough to reveal an vividly purple-and-greenish-yellow bruise that sort of wrapped around from his side to his back. It did look battle-scar impressive, but also like it hurt, and Kris almost reached out to trace the outline of it with his thumb before he realized whoa, no, not okay. "Happy?"
"Yes. That's disgusting. It's awesome," Megan said.
"Your approval is not helpful," Adam said, pulling his shirt down and flopping back on the windowsill.
"What happened?" Kris asked, swiveling around so he wasn't facing Adam in profile view anymore, because that felt like staring all of a sudden.
"We went to see Spencer's band this weekend---so not school dance friendly, by the way---and some girl elbowed me."
"On purpose?"
"Nah, it was just a whole...mosh pit situation. She kind of fell into me. It's not that bad, it just looks bad because my skin is like, death pale."
"Do you---" Kris stopped and laughed at himself. "I was about to ask you if you wanted some ice for it. I don't know where I thought I was going to get ice."
"It's the thought that counts," Adam said, leaning over and bumping Kris's shoulder with his.
They talked about Spencer's band (which was called Optional Mango, apparently did a lot of punk covers, and was semi-notorious for throwing a bucket of Jell-O on the audience at a show last year), and Kris found himself wishing he'd been at the show with them. It sounded chaotic and fun and he liked the idea of hopping around in the semi-dark to music so loud he could feel it resonating in his chest, of having to stand up on his toes and yell into Adam's ear just so they could hear each other.
The rest of the GSA arrived gradually. Zoe and Clare brought a bunch of cupcakes which were only slightly squished from their day in Zoe's locker; and Spencer brought Patricia and Jacob, the drummer and bassist of Optional Mango. It was one of those meetings that never really became a real meeting, the only vaguely official GSA thing they did all afternoon was decide who was bringing what for their Christmas party next week. (Kris had expected Katy to veto his let's just bring some chips idea, but she didn't.) Kris spent the rest of the sort-of-a-meeting planning a post-concert Nutcracker Suite sheet music bonfire with Rob and Justin, eating a cupcake, participating in Becky's informal poll about who the school's worst history teacher was, and talking to Megan about the next open mic.
Kris and Charles went to their friend John's house that night to study for the test on The Great Gatsby they had the next day, which meant fifteen minutes of looking at the study guide their teacher had handed out and skimming the Sparknotes on the book and then playing Madden for two hours.
He got home to find his dad playing the new guitar (unplugged) for his mom in the living room, which was somewhere in the grey area between weird and sweet, as far as Kris was concerned. Kris assumed from the way the phrase kept repeating that the song his dad was singing was called "Reconsider Me," and he actually liked it. He stood in the hallway by the front door and just listened for a while, and then made a bunch of noise dropping his backpack on the floor so they'd know he was there as he walked into the room. (Not that he thought they were making out or anything----not that he wanted to even consider that possibility---but there was no such thing as being too careful.)
"It's your turn to play me a song," his mom said, patting the couch cushion next to her the way Megan had patted Adam's knee that afternoon to say come here, sit down.
Kris sat with them for a while, just playing and sometimes sheepishly singing and musing out loud about how he wanted to get a couch, or at least some non-lawn-chair seating for the garage, which his parents said they'd think about. His dad got his own guitar and taught Kris a couple new songs, his mom brought them a bag of pretzels, and Daniel emerged from his room and made a song request instead of complaining. They didn't usually just hang out like this, and Kris felt like they were in the holiday episode of a TV show. He could tell it made his mom really happy that they were all in the same place at the same time without a meal being involved, and it was sort of stupidly sweet.
Which just made starting the next day with a test on a book he'd only half-read seem worse. Kris knew he should have expected a question about the stupid green light, it had been on the study guide. All he could think of was Charles (who was taking driver's ed this semester) saying the green light means Gatsby can proceed through the intersection. His other equally helpful thought was that a green light meant that the power was on. They'd read half-assedly about the green light on Sparknotes, but now that the test was actually on the desk in front of him, the only thing Kris could remember was that Gatsby staring at the light meant he was obsessed with Daisy and then something confusing about the future and how much it sucked, which didn't seem to have anything to do with Daisy or lights of any colour.
The green light symbolizes Gatsby's love for Daisy, he wrote, hating himself for not having read the Sparknotes page just a little more closely. Everything he does in the book is to impress her and make her see that he is better than her husband and even though she is so close that he can see the light at the end of her dock, she's still out of reach. Because she's married and because she was born rich and Gatsby wasn't. The green light represents the future that he wants them to have together that never happens.
He shuffled through the rest of his day feeling sort of grumpy and distracted until lunchtime.
"Adam and Nina were in my study hall today," Katy said when Kris sat down at their table. "I think they were cutting their gym class. Adam did my nails!" She stuck out her hands, and her nails were painted a deep, shiny blue that reminded Kris of having a blue pen explode in his backpack. He couldn't stop watching her hands, the dark nail polish made everything she did---gesturing as she talked, picking up a carrot stick---look dramatic and purposeful. He wondered what she and Adam had talked about, if the nail polish belonged to him, if he'd ever worn it himself.
He had some time to kill at the end of the day, just waiting around for his friend Joey so they could take the after-school bus to his house. His brother had a guitar Kris could borrow, so they were going to sit around in Joey's basement messing with songs on guitar and bass. Kris was sitting on the floor trying to find a history worksheet in the bottom of his locker, so he saw Adam at first just as a pair of combat boots (and it was totally unfair of Adam to wear boots with heels, even low heels, because he was already tall) and too-long jeans with the hems shredded in the back.
"Hi," Kris said, dumping a pile of papers back into his locker and standing up.
"You seem like someone who can keep a secret," Adam said, which was an ominous way to begin a conversation, but Kris decided to just go with it.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Don't worry, it's not---it's probably nothing you'd want to tell anyone anyway. Just...don't tell anyone."
"Okay..."
"Justin came out to me." Adam sounded like he couldn't have kept from saying that for a second longer, he was almost bouncing.
"Wait, Justin from the GSA? So he's gay?" Kris's first thought was that Justin didn't seem gay, and he immediately hated himself for thinking it. They'd talked about this stuff at the GSA, that all the ways you were supposed to be able to look at someone and just know they were gay were just stereotypes, complete bullshit. But it was hard to shake, the idea that he should have guessed somehow. Justin was a year older than him, and Kris didn't know too much about him except that he was friends with Rob and played cello and hated cookies with raisins in them. And now he knew that Justin was gay, which changed...exactly nothing, Kris realized, but also everything. He had no idea how something could be such a big deal when in so many ways, it didn't matter at all.
"Yeah. Well, he thinks he's probably bi. But he felt comfortable telling me, he said he wanted to talk to me first, before he talked about it at a meeting or anything, and this is why I started the GSA in the first place, and I just feel like I'm finally doing something right, you know?"
"You were always doing something right," Kris said.
"Thanks." Adam was giving him this look that Kris could only describe as soft, but bright at the same time. He was obviously really happy about this, which was so sweet, and his happiness was contagious. It made Kris feel like the lighting in the hallway had suddenly improved. Adam reached out like he was going to pat Kris on the shoulder, and without really making a conscious decision to do it, Kris opened his arms and hugged him instead.
It seemed like a bad idea at first, Adam froze and made a surprised sound somewhere above Kris's ear, but then he hugged back, tightly enough that Kris swayed on his feet, pulled slightly off-balance. This felt different than when they'd hugged at the open mic, maybe because it was daytime this time, or because Adam was wearing a t-shirt instead of a dress shirt, or because they were at school instead of Pony Espresso, and none of those reasons really made any sense, but that was okay. He leaned his face into Adam's shoulder and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew the things he was supposed to be thinking---that this should be awkward, or that someone was going to walk down the hall and see them and think it was weird---but those thoughts felt irrelevant, like they belonged to someone else.
His brain had plenty of other stuff to do, anyway. His mind seemed to be split into two distinct halves---one that was whirring with questions (about Justin, about what fabric softener Adam's mom used) and another that wanted to doze off right there, standing up in the middle of the hallway. He understood how blissful Megan had looked yesterday, lying around with her head in Adam's lap. Everything about him felt like the perfect place to rest.
"Do I say congratulations? I mean, that he trusted you and everything." Kris's voice was muffled because he was talking into Adam's shirt, and he had a bizarre momentary urge to grab a fold of the fabric between his teeth and just hold it there.
"Sure, I guess," Adam said, and Kris could feel his voice as he talked, this warm buzzy feeling against the side of his face where it was pressed against Adam's shoulder. He wondered if Adam could feel his voice, too, if his collarbones were picking up the vibrations like radio antennae. It made him want to talk all day.
"Congratulations," he said, squeezing Adam a little tighter, which made him rock forward and feel off-balance again. He shuffled his feet a little closer, bumping into Adam's knee and hip with his own, and Adam took a step back, let Kris go and fidgeted around with his bag, shifting it on his shoulder. Kris thought maybe there was someone else in the hall with them, and he was going to tell Adam that he didn't care if people saw them hugging, he was ready to get indignant about it, but when he looked around, it was still just them, and he felt cold and confused. Then he remembered the bruise on Adam's back that he'd probably just wrapped an arm around and winced inwardly. "Sorry, did I---you have that bruise---" He reached out without thinking to pet Adam's side, gently this time, but Adam put a hand up to stop him.
"No, it's fine. You didn't---it's fine." He met Kris's eyes for a second, then looked away and started picking at some chipping paint on one of the lockers. Kris wanted to ask Adam what was wrong, if he'd done something wrong, but he thought that would probably make it worse.
"So did Justin just like...come up to you and say 'hey, guess what, I'm gay'?" He said it mainly just to say something, but he was also curious. He didn't think Justin and Adam knew each other that well, and he couldn't imagine how that would work, walking up to some person you saw once a week and taking a deep breath and telling them something that big. Just thinking about it---just saying the words out loud, even if he was saying them as Justin---made him a little nervous.
"No. Well, sort of, actually. He didn't start with 'hey, guess what,' though."
"But that would make it more fun," Kris said.
"Yeah, probably." Adam sounded distracted, almost like he was talking to himself, but he got more animated as he kept talking, and he was looking at Kris again. "He said that a couple of his friends already know, he told Rob already. Which explains a couple conversations I had with Rob, actually. I thought he was doing that whole thing where it's like 'oh, my friend thinks he might be gay...'"
"And he didn't realize how that sounded?" Kris could imagine Rob not realizing that, actually. He was nice, but pretty clueless.
"I guess not. Or he just didn't care, I don't know. Anyway, I think Justin is going to talk about this at the next GSA meeting, so just act surprised."
Kris widened his eyes, let his mouth fall open, and gasped out loud.
Adam laughed. "Maybe not that surprised."
"I think I can manage. I got my new guitar, by the way."
"Awesome, so I should be congratulating you, too. Did you go with the---"
"Acoustic electric, yeah. I didn't name it, though."
"There's still time." Adam nodded, mock-serious.
"Do you want to go get some ice cream?" Kris said before he even realized he was going to say it. He immediately wished he had realized he was going to say it, because what if Adam thought Kris was like, asking him out? Which was ridiculous, because Adam knew Kris was with Katy, but what if he just didn't want to go for ice cream and thought Kris was clingy and crazy or something and before Kris knew it, he was babbling. "Uh, because, you know, it could be like...yay, a good day ice cream instead of today sucks ice cream. So that would be different."
"I---that would be amazing. But I have to go to this stupid soloist rehearsal, I'm already late for it---"
"You have a solo at the concert?"
"Yeah." He waved a hand to say whatever, not important. "But we could go after that? I mean, if you don't mind sticking around, or...it shouldn't be that long, since people have to catch the bus, and it's already---" he looked down at his wrist. "I'm not wearing a watch." Adam was sort of babbling, too, Kris noted, which made him feel better, like they were back on the same wavelength. A crazy babbling wavelength, but sometimes that was a good kind.
"I can't," Kris said. "I'm taking the bus home with somebody, that's why I'm here in the first place."
"Oh, okay. But another time, though. We should definitely---we should have good-day ice cream. Sometime."
Kris wanted to suggest tomorrow, because tomorrow was totally going to be a good day, he could tell, but the concert was tomorrow so that probably wouldn't work either. "Yeah, definitely," he said instead.
"Okay," Adam said, standing up straighter, and Kris realized Adam had been sort of leaning over so they were closer to the same height. "Okay, I have to go sing a non-denominational winter song now. But I'll see you tomorrow?"
"See you." It took a little bit of effort for Kris not to slam his locker shut and walk with Adam down the music wing, but he managed. He sat back down on the floor and sorted through the crap at the bottom of his locker without actually looking at any of it for a while, and realized he had to go to the music wing anyway because his viola was still in his band locker. He hoped he'd get there at the right time to hear Adam rehearsing his solo, but the voice drifting out of the choir room when he got there was a girl's, singing from one of those Christmas songs with lyrics about sleigh bells, which promptly got stuck in his head.
When Joey came to find him, Kris was sitting on a bench in the lobby, drumming his fingers on his viola case to a phantom Christmas carol he didn't even know all the words to---it had a line about pumpkin pie, though, he remembered that much. It should have been annoying, having it stuck in his head all peppy and incomplete (something turkey something something pumpkin pie!, his brain sang), but he felt impervious to that, he was just thinking about Christmas and pumpkin pie ice cream and playing guitar.
"Dude," Joey said, zipping up his jacket as they walked out to the bus. "I have had the weirdest day."
"Yeah," Kris said happily. "Me, too."
____________
Kris wasn't really a talking on the phone kind of guy. He and Brett had done the lengthy phone call thing sometimes, even before Brett moved away. He remembered the two of them staying up one night talking about cartoons for long enough that his right ear started to hurt because the phone was pressing it up against his skull. His dad eventually swung the door to his room open (without knocking, even) and said What the hell are you doing? It's one in the goddamn morning! Brett had been doing this whole Pinky and the Brain impression and it was really late so everything seemed funny and Kris had just laughed into the phone for way too long with his dad standing there glaring and Brett going Kris? Hey, Kris, seriously. What's going on? in his ear. It still made him laugh when he thought about it, and all other phone calls thereafter paled in comparison.
Katy loved the phone though, so since they'd started going out Kris had become well-acquainted with the point at which he had to switch the phone over to his left ear and the way everything sounded weird for a while after that.
"I called before, but your mom said you were still at Joey's," Katy said when Kris picked up.
"Yeah, I ate dinner over there. It was weird, he was like, impressed that I know Spencer."
"...Spencer Alicia's boyfriend? Why?"
He was glad that Katy sounded confused, because he'd been confused. Spencer seemed like a good guy, but Kris hadn't been sure why he qualified for wait, you know him? status.
"His band is kind of a big deal, I guess." Optional Mango---according to Joey, anyway---was the band all other local bands wanted to be. Besides being notorious for their Jell-O throwing, they had actual fans who weren't their close friends and a handful of original songs that people liked and remembered well enough to sing along to, which made Kris want to be in Optional Mango, too. Hearing Joey's stories about the times he'd seen them play (which led to more stories about other bands) gave Kris this twitchy, frustrated feeling that he was missing something, that there was probably amazing music going on in someone's garage or the American Legion Hall right now and he was missing it, that he'd been missing it for a while, that it would take him forever to catch up. "I thought maybe I'd go next time they're playing somewhere."
"Really?" He could almost hear Katy wrinkling her nose through the phone. "I wouldn't think they'd be your style."
"I have a style?" Kris thought of himself as someone who'd listen to just about anything at least once. Charles always said his CD collection made it seem like he had multiple personalities, one of them being a twelve-year-old teenybopper girl, which was the point when Kris usually threw something at him. It dawned on Kris that since neither of them had actually heard Optional Mango play, Katy didn't even mean that Kris wouldn't like their music---or actually, she did, but she was only guessing, like just looking at Spencer and his spiky hair and multiple earrings and general aura of punk rock badass-ness could tell her whether Kris would want to hear his band or not, whether Spencer and everything about him was Kris's style.
"I don't know," Katy said, and then she asked him a bunch of questions about if he'd liked Joey's brother's guitar and what songs they'd played, and he would have felt mean and petty bringing the thing about Spencer back up, so he didn't. It was bothering him, though. Not because he really cared that much about Spencer or his band, specifically, but just because he hated it that Katy---or anyone---thought it was possible to look at two people and determine whether it made any sense for them to be friends or even like the same music. He knew Katy hadn't meant it like that, that she wasn't saying he shouldn't like Spencer or his band, but it made him feel prickly anyway, like he should be buying a bunch of punk albums and becoming Optional Mango's biggest fan just to make a point, just to prove her wrong. He got off the phone with her earlier than he usually would have and sat around listening to music and sulking for a while.
The feeling faded away as he slept on it, and by the time he met Katy in the cafeteria the next morning he felt stupid about the whole thing. (He sort of sucked at staying mad, or even faintly annoyed, at Katy while he was actually with her, which was probably why they mostly argued on the phone.) Katy reached over to grab some Apple Jacks from the tiny box they were sharing, and Kris grabbed her hand.
"Your nails aren't blue anymore."
Katy shrugged and rolled her eyes, lacing her fingers into Kris's for a moment before pulling her hand away. "My mom hated it, she said I couldn't look like a zombie at the concert."
"A zombie?"
"I don't think she knows what zombies actually look like." Katy took a sip of chocolate milk and pushed the carton toward Kris.
"You didn't look like a zombie," Kris said. "I liked the blue."
Katy looked up at him from the little alternating green-orange-green-orange pattern she was making out of Apple Jacks on top of her notebook and gave him a half smile. "Yeah, I could tell."
____________
Kris started playing the viola in fourth grade, so he'd been in a lot of orchestra concerts, and right from the first one (which had featured, of course, an ear-splitting rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"), the concert-day rehearsal routine never changed much. The orchestra director would swear up and down that they were going to play the pieces through without stopping, exactly like the real concert, and then stop them a few bars into the first piece and frantically try to correct everyone at once. Things would only go downhill from there, until the period was almost over and the orchestra director would try to reassure him or herself that somehow, the concert would be better. Mr. Shapiro always used the last few minutes of the period on concert day to remind everyone about the theater superstition that a bad dress rehearsal meant a good performance. And with every concert Kris had been in---with the exception of the first couple, which nothing could have saved since everyone involved was eight years old---that ended up being true.
So he wasn't worried, despite the chaos. He felt detached from the whole process, from everyone else's stress, and he wondered how something with as many variables as an orchestra could get so boring, could be so much the same all the time. He thought about talking to Adam about this stuff while they sat in his car outside the ice cream place, about the difference between playing music for school and playing music because you'd decided to, on your own. He realized that that was the first time he'd ever talked about it like that, tried to figure things out beyond just saying orchestra was really boring today. He wanted to talk about it more, about whether choir rehearsal was always a disaster on concert day, too, about why it was that he could play the same song on guitar for an hour and find something new about it every time he played it, but orchestra sometimes took on a Groundhog Day feel that made Kris want to curl up behind the timpani and doze off. He'd always thought that the timpani would make a good framework for a blanket fort.
After what seemed like several hours, the warning bell rang, Mr. Shapiro told them that a bad dress rehearsal meant a good performance, and everyone stampeded for the door. Kris ended up walking next to Justin Chen as they waited to be able to get into their band lockers.
"One more time, and then we can burn these," Justin said, holding up his folder of sheet music.
"I'll bring the matches," Kris said. He put his viola away and tried to ignore the part of him that wanted to just stare at Justin for a while, like if he did he'd magically know how Justin had decided to come out to Adam, what he'd said, how it had felt, what it meant. Kris knew it wasn't supposed to mean---or change---anything in particular. He barely knew Justin, this whole thing was none of his business in the first place, but he still had the weirdest urge to clap Justin on the shoulder and congratulate him. (Kris imagined himself saying congratulations on being gay! and wanted to laugh.) He thought about every completely normal conversation the two of them had ever had at GSA meetings. While they were standing around talking about their math teachers and why the woodwinds section collectively sucked, Justin knew that he was at these meetings for a specific reason---that he was pretty sure he liked guys, that he was working his way up to telling someone. And now he had, and that was seriously brave, and maybe it was okay if Justin's being gay changed things in a good way, if this whole thing made Kris feel good about the world for some reason, like this was proof that sometimes scary things turned out okay.
He remembered Adam saying I feel like I'm finally doing something right, and felt like he knew better what Adam had meant, now. Whatever the GSA's official mission statement was, most of the time the reality of it was that they were a bunch of people who hung out after school in an English classroom and sometimes had bake sales. But this---the fact that Justin had trusted Adam enough to come out to him, that Adam was just his first stop and he was planning on trusting all of them---meant that the official mission was working. That just by hanging around and talking and generally not being assholes, they were doing something awesome. Kris had to dig back in his memory to the first-ever GSA meeting (and that was a weird thing to think about, he felt like it had been years ago, like he was a million miles away from it) for the term Adam had used. Safe space. They were making a safe space. One with cookies, even. And if it made Kris glad to know he was a small part of that...
He didn't know why it had taken almost a whole day for this to click into place in his head, for him to understand why Adam had practically been glowing with happiness yesterday, but now that he did understand, he wanted to find Adam and hug him again. He wanted to tell Adam that he got it now, that the GSA was the best thing ever and Adam was amazing for starting it and screw the concert, they'd have plenty of time to get to the concert, it didn't start until 7 o'clock, they should go get some ice cream.
He wasn't planning on saying any of that, not really (because the fact that it was all true wouldn't make it any less awkward to just blurt out), but he was disappointed not to see Adam all day anyway. He was in kind of a weird place, in his head. He was in a quiet, thinky mood, content to sit around ignoring his classes and mill things over, but he also wanted to talk. He got as far as saying the GSA is awesome to Katy at lunch before he realized that she didn't know about Justin so he couldn't tell her what he'd figured out about why it was awesome. Luckily, she didn't ask about it, she just agreed with him and started talking about something they were planning for the dance that involved an unreasonable number of poppies made out of tissue paper.
part six >