Freddie turns to me, interrupting the two star-crossed lovers on-screen in the midst of their picnic. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. I’m processing is all.”
“Processing? It’s not like someone died or something.” And then I sort of feel like a jerk, too, for snapping at him. I take a deep breath and decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. After a few moments, I ask, “Am I your only gay friend?”
“I mean...” He pauses, and fidgets with his hands, like he would when we were kids and he was in trouble with Agnes for something like sneaking snack cakes before lunch. “I know gay people, but yeah. Basically.”
I guess in most parts of the world, this might come as a shock, but down here, not so much. It’s not that there aren’t any gay people in the South; it’s that our cliques and circles are a little tighter than they might be elsewhere. So it’s not all that weird for a guy like Freddie to not have any gay friends.
I cross my legs toward him and practically turn my back to the movie, which has progressed into the rom-com’s version of a training montage, where the beautiful couple traipse around town and rub their beautiful love in everyone’s faces.
With a mouth full of popcorn, I say, “Tell me aboutViv.” I want to prove to him that I am the same Ramona I was last night and the day before and all those years ago. It’s not like I think he’s some bigot. He’s ignorant, and sometimes ignorance is as dangerous as bigotry.
He straightens up a little. “We met on swim team.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his pictures to show me one of a black girl with muscular curves and hair cropped short against her angular face. Every inch of her looks deliberate.
“She looks intense,” I say.
“She was. She is.”
“So did you guys click or what?”
He shakes his head. “No way. She transferred to my school in the middle of ninth grade. She hated me at first.” A slow smile spreads across his lips. He’s probably reliving some memory in his head. “Kept calling me smug. I asked her out three times before she said yes, and when I asked her why she’d kept saying no, she said it was ’cause she didn’t like quitters.” He laughs to himself. “You know how some people are easy to be with? Viv was never like that. She made you work for it.”
It was never like that with Grace. Maybe things would have been different if we’d met at school or while she was with friends.
“Me and Viv would always race after practice. I never stood a chance. She loves winning. More than anything. You know how people always tell little girls that if a boy is mean to you, that’s how you know he likes you? Well, that’s how Viv was. She was always name-calling andtalking trash and kicking my ass in the pool.” He laughs. “Her own horrible way of flirting.”
“Were you guys on again and off again?”
“A few times. There were a few times.” His gaze drifts for a moment. “So are you seeing someone now?” he asks hesitantly.
I sigh long and hard. “Grace.” I shake my head. “Everybody down here has summer flings all the time, ya know? Including me. And then I met Grace back in June. So when you like someone, you’ve got the whole ‘Do they like me back?’ thing to contend with, but when you’re gay, you sort of have to also feel out if other people are, too. It’s like a double unknown. And with Grace it was hard to tell. I knew she liked me, but I didn’t know if shelikedme.”
“Don’t you have, like, gaydar?”
I laugh. “Well, I mean, sometimes I get vibes, but sometimes girls are just friendly. And I get that I stand out, but I think some people have this idea of what a lesbian looks like, and I don’t always fit that image. But with Grace, God, it was painful for the first few days. We met while I was filling in for a few weeks at Palio’s Bike Rental down on the beach. I’d already seen her around town a few times. I had a big line that day, and everyone was hot and annoyed. This guy got to the front of the line and started mouthing off at me for going too slow, but the paperwork for Palio’s is intense, and they still use only hard copies. So anyway, Grace was standing there in this great swimsuit with the sides cut out and huge sunglasses painted likewatermelons.” I know I’m going into way too much detail, but I can’t help myself. “She was taller than average for a girl, but not nearly as tall as me. Anyways, she tapped the guy on the shoulder and pointed over to his kid and was like, ‘Um is that your son trying to eat a live hermit crab?’”
Freddie laughs. “She sounds pretty ballsy.”
“Yeah. Yeah, she is.” I’d never thought of Grace as ballsy, but I guess this whole summer was new territory for her, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that it takes some amount of bravery to live your life one way and then suddenly diverge from that path.
I pull out my phone to take my turn and show him a few pictures. I linger for a moment on one of her and me in her room. Me sitting on the floor with her between my legs, resting against my chest like an armchair. She took the picture without me knowing. It was a reflection of us in the floor-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. Her soft green gaze was directed at the camera, while my face was nuzzled into her shoulder. Her black hair against my blue waves looked like a day-old bruise.
I’ve always loved this picture, but now, looking back, it sort of makes me uneasy. Me looking at Grace; her looking at our reflection.
I’m being ridiculous, I tell myself. But the seed of a thought still buries itself in a recess of my brain.
“So how did you know she really liked you?” Freddie asks.
“Well, I hung out at her place a few times. WatchingTV and stuff. And then I spent the night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I spent the whole night wide-awake as she kind of scooted in closer to me. I guess I started to get the hint. And if I hadn’t by then, the extra-long hug when I left the next morning was a solid clue. I’m talking full-body hug.”
“Man, I wish Gram would’ve let Viv spend the night.”
I grin. On the screen in front of us, the heroine is sobbing into a bowl of popcorn. “There are some benefits,” I admit. “But it can be pretty confusing, too. I don’t get invited to slumber parties or girls’ night outs or anything like that. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t have many friends.”
“But you’ve got Ruth, right?”
I nod. “Well, that’s true.”
“Have you guys ever... ya know?”
