Dismantle the Sun - 2. Chapter 2

2.

Melina was the sort of person who’d talk your ear off if you let her. It was probably a good thing, then, she wasn’t the sort of person to wait for you to respond, as I was tuning her out while eating the sandwich I’d made for lunch. Something she said, though, pitched me back to earth.

“What?”

“I heard,” said Melina, “that you had a fight with Darius Wigglesworth’s girlfriend.”

“Who?”

“Darius Wigglesworth.”

“Yeah, who the hell’s that?”

Melina’s eyes got really wide. With her freckles and pigtails, she looked a bit like those cloth dolls you find in a museum about colonial America. “You don’t know who Darius Wigglesworth is?”

“No.”

“He was in my English class last year. He used to go to Bellarmine—you know, the all-boys private school—but he transferred here in tenth grade.”

“Wait, why’d he do that?” I’d only heard of rich parents fishing their kids out of the public school sink and shipping them off to private schools, and not the other way around.

“I heard his dad wanted him to,” Melina said. Her voice had gotten hushed, as if she were telling me something not a lot of people were supposed to know. “His dad’s on the city council, and his mom is one of the justices in the city court. I heard they live in a house that’s so big it has its own indoor swimming pool.”

“Huh,” I said. “So who’s this girlfriend?”

“Kate Landauer. She’s on the cheerleading squad.”

“Okay.”

I’d actually thought about yesterday’s encounter several times already, and I was expecting something to happen. But I’d seen neither Kate nor Alec, and I had no idea the whole thing would get so big that Melina would be telling me about it.

“I also heard that you were defending a junior,” Melina added. “Or somehow that there was this junior involved.”

“Yeah? I guess you didn’t hear what Kate Laundauer had been saying to him before I told her to fuck off.”

“No.”

“She asked him if he was a fag. And something about his dad deserving a faggot son.”

I said it all in a very low voice. My school wasn’t exactly hostile about gays, but it wasn’t one of those places where the class president was a queen. Melina kept quiet and let me shrug. She was great at this sort of thing. Besides my mom, Melina was the only person who knew about my being gay. She was also a lot more helpful about it than my mom was.

“So, uh…” I paused. “Am I in danger of getting beaten up by Wigglesworth?” That wasn’t my original question. I had wanted to ask if she knew the full name of the junior whom I’d defended, but I figured that might’ve seemed a bit—something. And this other question was important, too.

Melina shook her head. “I don’t think Darius is a jock.”

“Is he preppy?”

Melina suddenly coughed. Violently. I was patting her back when I noticed her pointing at something, but at the same time looking strangely as though she didn’t want to be noticed pointing. I looked up and realized why.

There are some people who, at first sight, make you wish they’d strut back to whatever well-waxed Porsche or Mercedes-Benz they’d slunk out of. Maybe it was because I saw Kate Landauer first, with her dangerously bulging shirt and heavy mascara, and the guy next to her second. In any case, I guess you could say that my first impressions of Darius Wigglesworth were pretty shitty.

“Does he always look as if he’s got a stick in his ass?”

Melina giggled. “I don’t think he’s too bad looking.”

My eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a crush on him, do you?”

“Of course not!”

I looked up again. I was kind of surprised I hadn’t noticed him before. I mean, you don’t see too many people wearing a tie and blazer in a ratty public school.

A moment later, they left.

“I don’t think he’ll do anything,” Melina said. “I’d be more concerned about Kate Landauer. She can be—well, a real gossip sometimes.”

I nodded. Melina was very charitable when it came to describing other people. “Yeah. And I could probably take him on.”

“Lucky you won’t have to,” said Melina, and went on about the revolving stage they’d made for Les Miserables. I didn’t bother correcting her. I’d gotten the feeling that I’d be seeing more of Darius Wigglesworth soon. If you stare someone down across a high school courtyard at lunch and have that stare met for a good three seconds, then you can expect a bit more than staring after the last bell rings.

---

I ended up spending a solid three hours helping Melina with the recording equipment. Someone had been fiddling with it since the last show, someone I would have really liked to meet in a dark alley.

“How’s it going?” Melina asked.

I grunted.

“Want a cupcake?”

You had to admit that, for all their limp-wristing, theatre people made good food. I was fairly certain that Melina had made these herself; there was something about the cupcakes that was just her. She said the same about my cooking, but I wasn’t sure if she was shitting me. My mom was the only other person I could ask, and that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

I was going in search of another cupcake, having finished testing the microphones, when I noticed a familiar face dawdling backstage, behind a scene of what I supposed was Paris burning. It was Alec.

It was like something from a movie. One moment Alec was staring at the backdrop, bored, and the next he’d looked up, as though he’d felt my stare, and broke into the same smile I remembered from the day before.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t know you were part of this thing.” He indicated the mess around us.

“I’m actually just helping Melina with the recording equipment. You know Melina?”

“Yeah,” said Alec, and he smiled again. “She’s the queen bee.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“I’m actually not really part of this either,” Alec said. “I’m doing for the extra credit. I’m in drama ‘cause I couldn’t get any other elective to fit, and Mrs. Holton’s giving us extra credit if we go in to do extras.”

I nodded.

“So I’m not in it either,” Alec added. “It’s just the extra credit. I’m pretty bad at drama anyway.”

I nodded again. “Yeah, sure. It must be, uh, pretty tough, having to show up at all the rehearsals and everything.”

“Yeah, but it’s not bad. I mean, everyone is pretty cool, and there’s good food.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” I said. “Melina’s a great cook. You should see her in the kitchen. She’s intense about baking. Almost as intense as she is about theatre.”

Alec chuckled. “Yeah.”

There was a little silence. I think we both felt it. I wasn’t a talker, and I wager Alec wasn’t either. That was okay, though. I mean, words are only good for filling up spaces that you’re scared of open up, and the best things tend to come when the cracks get big enough that you breathe in ways you didn’t know you could.

At this point, though, I was still wracking my brains for something to cover the ever-lengthening silence. “That… girl,” I said at last. “She’s not giving you any trouble, is she?”

“You mean, Kate Landauer? No, she’s—she’s been leaving me alone.”

“Good,” I said, nodding.

Another silence, this one a lot less comfortable. You know how sometimes you wish you’d picked a better subject to change to, but can’t anymore? This was one of those moments.

“D’you know her boyfriend?” asked Alec. “Darius Wigglesworth?”

“Know of, but only because Melina was warning me about him. Sounds like he’s pretty loaded.”

“Yeah,” Alec said. “Yeah, he is. Pretty loaded, I mean.”

“I heard his dad’s on the city council and all.”

“Yeah. He is.”

“And his mom’s a court justice.”

“Yeah.”

The smile on Alec’s face had shrunk to a grimace the moment I mentioned Kate Landauer, and had been getting more and more strained. I guess Wigglesworth was something of a sore spot, but he was like a goddamned sink in the conversation. I was trying to think of something else to say when Melina arrived.

“Hey Nick, how’s the recording system?”

I jumped, literally. “Good,” I mumbled. “Almost done.”

“That’s great—I was a bit worried, but, well, I figured you’d have it running by tonight. And I didn’t know you two knew each other?”

“We met—yesterday,” I said.

Melina’s eyes widened, and she got that Raggedy-Ann-doll look again. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t know it was you—” She stopped for a very awkward pause, and then gave me a smile that struck me as much too knowing. “Well, that’s lovely, isn’t it? I’ll go get some cupcakes. You want some, Nick?”

“No,” I lied. “I think I’ll go back to the microphones.”

Alec’s gaze had gravitated to the ground, as though something really fascinating were happening on the black wooden planks. But he looked when I paused. “See you later,” I said. “And have fun with the, uh, rehearsal.”

Alec gave a wan half-wave. “You too, Nick.”

I don’t usually do a lot of thinking while at work. I kind of just cruise through, kind of playing the routine. But every so often, something would come up that would stick to my brain and not let go, even when I’m spreading basil or sending a pizza into the open-flame oven.

Alec, I found out, was one of those things. Alec, with his half-open lips and a mess of hair that I bet would feel real soft between my fingers. I’d seen him only twice, and both times he was wearing the same dark blue zip-down sweater and jeans, but I was already picturing what he’d look like in only a shirt and boxers. He had solid shoulders and, from what I could tell, a pretty tight ass. Without so many clothes on, he’d be cute. Scratch that. Cute was definitely the wrong word.

You can do a lot of thinking while working in a restaurant. But it’s harder to surreptitiously to rearrange your crotch while kneading dough and taking orders.

I thought about the conversation we had backstage. It had been awkward, but, well, I guess that’s mostly because neither Alec nor I were the talky type. But I knew the hesitation came from more than that. I wondered what Alec’s life was like, if he had any close friends. I wondered what his dad was like. People like Kate Landauer were full of shit, but there was usually something truthful buried under all the crap they came up with. Deserve a faggot son, eh? There’d been something fishy with the way Alec had insisted that he was only doing the theatre stuff for extra credit. I suspected some serious mind-fucking. Assuming that Alec wasn’t just another skittish straight guy, of course. I have the gaydar of a goat, but I was pretty sure that my guess was more than wishful thinking. And I was pretty sure I hadn’t imagined the one or two times he’d glanced at me with his eyes turned down. I knew that sort of glance too well, knew it with a warm jolt at the pit of my stomach.

It was nearly ten, the end of my shift, and I was still letting my mind occasionally drift to Alec, when I saw two people walking through the doorway that brought such a scowl to my face even Giulietta, my boss, noticed.

“Did you overcook?” she asked, peering at the pizza I’d just hauled out of the oven.

“No.”

“I’ll cut,” she said, nudging me to the cash register. Giulietta didn’t like taking orders because she was short, had a thick Italian accent, and was half deaf in one ear. I didn’t usually mind, but I wasn’t exactly eager for Kate Landauer and Darius Wigglesworth to make their orders.

“Can I help you, sir?” I said.

I was half-expecting him to step forward with a threatening smirk. But Wigglesworth looked only annoyed proceeded to frown at the menu. I waited. I mean, it wasn’t uncommon for people to take forever to make their choices, especially if they had never been here before. Although, they didn’t usually take that long. I spent the time by looking bored and pretending not to be studying Wigglesworth. Melina was right—he was good looking, with nice jaw lines and a fifty-dollar hairdo. He would’ve looked a lot better, though, if his face weren’t caught somewhere between bored and disapproving.

My view was obstructed when Landauer leaned on the counter, bending slightly so that her cleavage was squashed against the counter and angled at my face. “Well, what would you suggest?”

I shrugged. “If you want something with vegetables, we have tomato basil, spinach, onions and pepper, mushroom, and combination.”

“But what’d you suggest?” She turned briefly to Wigglesworth before turning back with an expectant simper on her face.

“Tomato basil is good,” I said. Ever since the restaurant guide had published a review some few years back mentioning our tomato basil topping by name, Giuletta had instructed us to push it as our “claim to fame.” It was good; even I thought so, and I lived and breathed pizza fifteen hours a week.

Landauer turned her head around. “Well, Darry?”

Wigglesworth frowned. The annoyed look had deepened, though I was pretty sure that my shirt, which he was glaring at, didn’t have anything objectionable on it. More likely, whatever had crawled up his ass had suddenly decided to fester. “Cheese is fine,” he said at last.

Landauer giggled. “One cheese, and one tomato basil, please…” Her gaze wandered down to my nametag. “…Nick. And the other kid’s name is Alec! Nick and Alec!” She giggled.

I didn’t respond. I doubt I would’ve been civil if I had let myself say anything. “For here or to go, sir?”

“To go,” Landauer said. She turned to Wigglesworth as though for confirmation. I didn’t wait to see what his reaction was. The sooner they were gone, the better.

I ended getting off my shift ten minutes later than usual, just so Wigglesworth and that girlfriend of his would be well out the door when I followed suit. I didn’t exactly have a history of violence, but keeping cool definitely wasn’t one of my strengths. In a way, it was ironic that Nelson was the high school dropout smoking his brains out, and not me. We’d both been angry, violent, and self-destructive, but for a time, I’d been the one who drank harder, smoked joints down to a smaller stub, smashed windows with greater force. But I was also the one who’d flushed all the hash and tobacco I could find down the toilet, and avoided Nelson for a whole month. I’m not proud of that. The hiding, I mean. The shitty excuses I gave for not seeing him. The leaving behind of my best friend, like my dad left me behind, and my mother, and ten years I actually thought had meant something. But I had tried with Nelson. Just not enough.

Some of the things I’m glad to have left behind, though. Things I don’t like to get into—memories that are too close, as long as I know that Nelson’s only a phone call away. But, I mean, as things are, with Nelson screwing a different girl every week and spouting off shit about fags even when he’s not stoned, there’s no point. Back when we still did everything together, I used to be able to tell him anything. Like my fantasies of hunting down my dad to a dingy motel room and tying him in a chair, the way you see in Mafia movies, and letting him know with a switchblade just how much I hated his guts. It wasn’t the sort of thing I could see myself telling Melina.

But now, Nelson was for all practical purposes out of my life, and I didn’t need a bigoted bitch like Landauer and her rich boyfriend to remind me of all the anger I’d felt before I’d left. Things were hard enough without Wigglesworth’s stuck-up frown and Landauer’s cleavage jiggling in my face. But at least one thing was certain: I wouldn’t have to worry about getting beat up on. Wigglesworth probably hadn’t lifted his hand in his life, except to wipe his ass after using his fancy white toilet in his indoor-swimming-pool house.