The Rushes

Natale, Richard - The Rushes [Avidbook, MM, Contemporary, Romantic Comedy/Drama, New/Young Adult] Chapter One Carson Thorne meticulously layered the froth on the cappuccino like a championship barista. Pausing for a moment, in one rapid motion, he tossed back the styled, prematurely-silver locks from his forehead while simultaneously pressing the speed-dial button on his cell: his best friend, Jamie Alford. Maneuvering the phone into the cleft between his chin and right shoulder he dusted a layer of cinnamon atop the froth, and successfully fought back an incipient sneeze. Jamie picked up on the third ring. “Hey-o.” Carson bristled at the hollow echo. “Take me off speaker this minute,” he snarled. “All right, all right,” Jamie said apologetically into the mouthpiece. “Now, tell me what’s so important?” “Are you sitting down?” Carson began. “I work in an editing bay,” Jamie reminded him. “…because I am about to blow your mind,” he continued and was about to launch into his spiel, when a voice roared from across the office. “My cappuccino! Not tomorrow. Now!” “Gotta go. The beast awaits,” he said and the phone line went silent. Jamie placed the receiver back in its cradle and shrugged. He seriously doubted that Carson’s news would be earthshattering; probably some pedestrian Hollywood celebrity gossip culled from a woefully unreliable source; a shred of truth painfully distended beyond recognition. Regardless, he would have enjoyed hearing it; anything to alleviate the tedium of frame-by-frame editing fixes. While Jamie himself rarely indulged in innuendo, he relished Carson’s breathless rumor mongering. Always had. It was a hallmark of their dynamic, part of the cement that bonded them. Jamie thrived on his friend’s vibrancy and panache. Whatever Carson’s failings, being boring was not one of them. In turn, Jamie helped him harness that energy, focused it. They yinged and yanged perfectly. Jamie was the unfailingly sober-minded one in the friendship. On a color chart he fell into the neutral spectrum. Not in the sense of being bland or colorless but rather by being complementary. His arresting symmetrical features and low-key, convivial personality never clashed with his surroundings. And while he didn’t talk much, when he did, people listened. He was smart and insightful. He always had a unique take. Everyone said so. Even Carson. Especially Carson. Carson was, at the very least, electric crimson. Bold looking and extrovert, he jangled people, got under their skin, but also challenged and excited them. He was savvy and witty with a defiant air of confidence. He could be intimidating at times, especially on a priapic pub crawl. But those who dared to engage him were rewarded. Once bitten was rarely enough; at least for them, but hardly ever for Carson who, post-conquest, immediately lost interest. * The two young men had been friends since their first year at Westford, an exclusive prep academy nestled in a remote pocket of Southern Oregon, which they later described as ‘The Shining’ if it was directed by Buster Keaton. Carson was the first out gay person Jamie had ever met in the flesh. Initially, when he equivocated about his own s****l orientation, Carson said, pointedly, “oh you’re gay, definitely, and I’ll prove it to you.” He pushed Jamie through an exit door in a remote corridor and down an abandoned stairwell where, over the period of several sessions, Jamie emerged no longer confused about his proclivities. The mutual s****l exploration was short-lived, however, a mere footnote in their continuing friendship. Their true passion was a mutual love of movies – watching them, rewatching them, breaking them down, reading about them – and the shared desire to become filmmakers. Being movie geeks, not their gayness, was what set them apart from their peers; and not long after they became BFFs, they embarked on their filmmaking careers, shooting and editing shorts with their mini-cams and posting the finished products on YouTube. Carson served as producer, director and writer (though his partner, who had a better grasp of movie language and structure, usually contributed an un-credited rewrite). Jamie was responsible for all the technical aspects, camera, lighting, sound and editing. The videos transformed them from pariahs to minor celebrities at Westford; and soon, all the guys who’d ragged on them for being geeks, were practically begging to perform in their movies. * Standing at the vending machine in the dank hallway outside the editing room, Jamie inserted four quarters and retrieved a bag of salted peanuts. He nibbled on them idly as he doffed his woolen cap and his shoulder-length hair tumbled free. Gathering it back, he twisted it into a modified ponytail and turned his attention back to the mundane CGI warriors frozen on the computer screen and expelled an involuntary groan. Whatever Carson had been about to tell him had to be more entertaining than Dreadlock Warriors, the poorly conceived video game trailer he was helping finish. The words “means to an end, means to an end,” echoed repeatedly in his mind as he moved the cursor across the revivified image and clicked in clean-up commands. It was the mantra he and Carson reiterated on the nights when they returned to their apartment exhausted, near comatose from the demands of their entry-level Hollywood jobs. Each morning, they traveled to their windowless offices just as the sun was about to put in an appearance and departed only after it had retired for the evening. Lunch consisted of a brown bag usually containing something microwaveable, which they downed at their desks. The only opportunity to get a dose of Vitamin D-enriched rays was when they were dispatched on an errand. “But at least we have jobs,” Carson reminded Jamie – and himself. “Most of the guys we went to film school with are waiting tables, sending out fifty resumés a week and trolling LinkedIn like it was Grindr.” And truly, apart from those with relatives in the industry, Carson and Jamie were among the select few who could actually claim to be working in ‘the business’. Admittedly, they were pretty far down the food chain, earning below subsistence wages. Were it not for their moms, who regularly packed the freezer with prepared meals, they would be forced to choose between eating and paying the exorbitant rent on their cramped two-bedroom apartment. And the only reason Jamie occasionally agreed to break bread with his hateful born-again father was on the off chance he might slip him some guilt money, enough to buy groceries and maybe go out, have a couple of drinks and, with any luck, get laid. Speaking of which, what was the name of that guy he hooked up with last week? Peter? Paul? Something apostolic. Anyway, he’d phoned yesterday but Jamie let it go through to voicemail. Enviable abs, he recalled, but only meh under the covers. Still, the guy had a pleasant patter and few annoying mannerisms. He should call him back, he thought. Then he’d be relatively certain of getting some this weekend. Mediocre nookie was better than no nookie at all. Right? But for now, it was back to Dreadlock Warlords. His superior, Jeb Kantrowitz, said he needed the polish by six, and it was almost four. * Jamie fought to keep his eyes open as he inserted a key into the apartment’s top lock. He’d been up since seven a.m., at work since eight, and hadn’t left until after nine in the evening. He had completed his edit on time at six, only to be advised that further revisions were needed. “It’s just not there yet,” Jeb Kantrowitz said after reviewing Jamie’s effort. The supervising editor could be maddeningly unspecific and whenever Jamie tried to pin him down, he would simply reply, “I can’t say for sure what’s wrong, but I’ll know when it’s right.” Whatever that meant. Finally, after two more passes, Jeb signed off. On the way home Jamie picked up a prepackaged chicken wrap at a convenience store and scarfed it down. While disgusting, it definitely killed his appetite. The apartment he shared with Carson was an overpriced shoe-box in the tiny West Side neighborhood of Brentwood, in the shadow of palatial homes with mudrooms twice the size of their living space. When they began their search, Jamie and Carson discovered that the term ‘two-bedroom apartment’ was fungible: from generously apportioned with tons of closet space and a balcony in Sherman Oaks (Jamie’s choice) to the Brentwood version, which consisted of closets masquerading as sleeping quarters – at twice the price of the larger apartment. To Carson’s way of thinking, however, perception trumped square footage. “Would you prefer to be thought of as a Valley boy or a West Sider?” he asked, rhetorically. “Besides, we’ll be working ninety hours a week. Other than sleep, changing clothes and showering, we’ll hardly ever be at home.” Jamie realized that it was useless to argue. He acquiesced only because he viewed the arrangement as temporary. While he adored Carson, he had no intention of living with a roommate indefinitely, unless it was with the runner-up in the man of his dreams contest. He’d already lost the winner. All the lights were on when he walked in and the stereo was blasting an Arcade Fire compilation. Carson was, as usual, multi-tasking, astride a treadmill, reading a script and eating dry cereal out of a giant bowl, his toned body clad in nothing but a pair of skimpy gym shorts. He’d found the discarded exercise machine on the street a few months back and hauled it up to the apartment, promising to have it rehabilitated as soon as he had the money. Then Norman, the hunky ‘straight’ guy who lived upstairs mentioned that he was handy with machinery. He offered to fix the treadmill in return for temporary refuge in Carson’s bed on the nights his girlfriend refused to put out. She had no objections and neither did Carson. “I’m not bi,” Norman argued. “I just like doing it with guys sometimes. Labels are so five years ago.” “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” Jamie said, as he sifted through the day’s mail, struggling to keep his eyes fully open. “I need to get in my cardio tonight – and maybe do some arms,” Carson said, crunching crispy shredded wheat chunks between his molars. “Gotta be at the office extra early in the morning. The beast has a conference call with some money guys in Vietnam at six a.m.” “Vietnam? There are money guys in Vietnam?” “It appears so,” Carson said. “I’m not surprised. Hollywood has sucked Japan, China and Korea dry and now they’re looking for fresh coin. Apparently, no ethnicity is immune to throwing good money after bad in return for the chance to walk the red carpet and have their picture taken with Scarlet Johansson.” “Would you mind turning down the music? I need to get some serious shut-eye before I keel over,” Jamie said as he carefully stepped over the treadmill which cut diagonally across the abbreviated living/dining area. “Aren’t you at all curious why I called this afternoon?” Carson said. “Huh?” Jamie replied, trying to remember, to no avail. So, he bluffed. “Oh yeah. But can it wait ‘til morning?” “I guess,” he said, turning off the exercise machine. He grabbed two twenty-pound dumbbells and launched into bicep curls. “Besides, if I tell you now, you’ll probably stay up all night gnawing on it like a chew toy.” Jamie threw up his hands in surrender. “Now you have to tell me. But please make it quick.” “Well,” Carson said and paused for dramatic emphasis as he hoisted the dumbbells over his head for a set of shoulder presses. “Remember that hunk, Lance, the one who works down the hall from me? The one who put the make on you at my office Christmas party last year but you totally blew off?” “Kinda,” Jamie said. “What did he look like again?” “Tall.” Lift. Exhale. “Thin.” Lift. Exhale. “Really handsome.” Lift. Exhale. “Well anyway, you missed your chance,” Carson continued. “And you’ll never guess who he’s bonking.” “No, I won’t. Because I’m not in the mood to play guessing games,” Jamie said, his one remaining good nerve taut to the point of snapping. “So just tell me.” “Your brother,” Carson said. The words detonated a mushroom cloud in Jamie’s brain and he fell back against the doorjamb. “He’s not my brother,” Jamie said, weakly. “Hair splitter,” Carson sniped and began sucking water from the nozzle of a screeching-yellow plastic sports bottle. “But…but…but...” Jamie sputtered, his fatigued brain short-circuiting. “You’re not going to hyperventilate on me, are you?” Carson said before carefully rolling the dumbbells under the futon sofa. “But…he’s practically engaged to some girl he met at his church. Dad went on and on about what a catch she was and how excited they were at the prospect of grandchildren.” “Be that as it may; but he also happens to have a chippie on the side named Lance.” “Are you sure it’s him?” “Phone, please,” he commanded, pointing to his cell on the Portman kitchen counter. He scrolled through his text file. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, since I’ve never met him, though it’s hardly a common name.” He flashed a photo at Jamie. “Lance took these while he was asleep. Look familiar?” The images were unmistakable. The almost childlike innocence of his sleeping face, the long, virile torso that appeared regularly in his reveries. Jamie’s eyes widened and air became trapped in his larynx. The news had been a shot of adrenaline to the heart, the photo a dagger. Might as well head right back to the office and start on tomorrow’s edits, he figured. Carson was right. He would not sleep a wink tonight. * When Carson rolled out of bed at five the following morning, Jamie was already gone. In the car on the way to the office, he put on Bluetooth earphones and dialed him. “Don’t say it,” Jamie said when he picked up. “I’m not saying a word. I want to hear it from you,” Carson told him. But Jamie offered no reply. “I’m waiting,” he said, impatiently. Jamie gritted his teeth and sighed. “I’m hopeless,” he said. “Louder,” Carson said. “Hopeless,” Jamie said, more emphatically. “Again,” Carson continued. “I’m goddamned hopeless,” Jamie growled. “Are you happy now?” Normally Carson would have ribbed him in that way good friends often do. But Jamie sounded so wounded and exasperated that he lost heart. “Promise you’ll be extra nice to yourself today. I’ll see you at home tonight and we’ll think of something fun to do. Maybe watch ‘Duck Soup’ again. That always lifts your spirits.” Before clicking off, though, he got in one last jab. “You sick puppy.” Through the night, Jamie had done his darndest to banish the romantic phantoms that were keeping him awake. The phrase “if he’s fooling around with guys again, why couldn’t it be me?” echoed in his head. He promptly chastised himself for everything from low self-esteem to early-onset dementia. He finally gave up the ghost, took a quick shower and headed back to the office. He pulled out of the apartment’s underground garage and headed East at the precise moment when nighttime was engaging in its final futile struggle to hold back the impending day. Then, for the rest of the route, he tumbled backwards to that indelible summer, which over the past six years he’d relived as often as Bill Murray in ‘Groundhog Day’, but without the funny sequences. * The average young man, gay or straight, rarely falls deeply in love at age eighteen. He can develop crushes on an almost daily basis; mad, indiscriminate yearnings for objects of desire, attainable or otherwise. But for the most part, he’s far too enmeshed in the turmoil of adolescence to give himself over to meaningful devotion. Jamie proved to be an exception. Before he’d even learned to crawl, he walked right into a man’s arms, giving himself over body and soul. He hadn’t meant for it to happen and, if he’d listened to his instincts, the whole sorry episode might have been avoided. Though the attachment was brief, in the face of all logic, he seemed incapable of disentangling his emotions, and worse, he didn’t even try. The misbegotten love affair was the culmination of a year of upheaval in both Jamie and Carson’s lives when they went from being over-privileged preppies to nearly indigent, almost overnight. With senior year approaching, the boys were busily applying to all the top film schools in the country. UCLA and NYU were their first two choices with Cal U School of Film a close third. They were so consumed by the future, they paid little heed to the present dramas unfolding in their respective homes; and both were stunned when the proverbial rug was pulled out from under their young feet. The relationship between Jamie’s parents, Greta and Desmond Alford, had been teetering on the edge for several years. The dissolution of the marriage was accelerated when Desmond took a short leave of absence from his thriving orthodontics practice to attend a month-long spiritual retreat in Indio, a desert town outside Palm Springs. Upon his return, he announced that he was born-again and wanted out of the marriage. Furthermore, since he’d agreed to tithe a percentage of his earnings to the recently created evangelical congregation he had joined, he was no longer willing to pay for Westford, nor fund Jamie’s college tuition. “Godless institutions” was how he referred to the elite prep academy and whatever film school his son planned on attending. The idea of being separated from Carson sent Jamie into a tailspin. But his troubles paled by comparison to the seismic shift across town in the Thorne household. Carson’s father, a prominent Hollywood financial manager, had been hounded by vague rumors of mismanagement for years. Thus far, Elroy Thorne had successfully fought against several threatened lawsuits. But when the U.S. government agreed to investigate on behalf of three A-list celebrity clients, his improprieties hit the front pages. Other prestige clients bolted for the door even before he was formally indicted. His income flow staunched, Thorne’s one tangible asset, the already seriously overleveraged family manse in Bel Air, went into foreclosure. His wife, Jessica, who had stood by him, was horrified to learn that Elroy had leveraged a ruinous second mortgage on the house to buy a lavish condo for his mistress and, when that proved to be insufficient, had raided his son’s college fund. Thorne was convicted and subsequently spent three years in a country club prison after which he was banned from ever going near a financial instrument. Neither his ex-wife nor his son ever spoke to him again. Carson and his mother moved out of the French Tudor mansion and into a cramped, furnished apartment in a blue-collar section of Culver City. Jessica, a former model, went back to work – as a salesperson at Saks in Beverly Hills. The upheaval and sudden shift hit Carson especially hard, though like every other rebuff, it only served to anneal his external armor. He absorbed the shock and soldiered on. At least he still had Jamie. * Jamie was accepted into his top three college choices, and in light of his grades and the quality of the shorts he’d made with Carson, was offered full scholarships. Carson, who was not as academically gifted, only got into CAL U School of Film, and received no scholarship offers. While Jamie would have preferred NYU, he settled on CAL U to be with his best friend. But first, one last summer of fun. Since they first became friends, in addition to the school year the boys were together all summer at Camp Bellflower in the Sierras. When they wrote to the camp to say they would not be attending due to financial hardship, both boys were offered counselor positions in return for teaching a moviemaking course. Carson was all set to go when his mother secured him a summer position in the men’s department at Saks, to help defray his sizable student loan. He wisely decided to take it and told Jamie that, if things worked out, he intended to stay on part-time in the fall. “I’m not going to Bellflower without you,” Jamie argued. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Carson countered. “Toby Smithers e-mailed me the other day, and he specifically asked about you.” “He did?” Jamie squeaked, experiencing a moment of weakness. He’d enjoyed several steamy interludes with Toby the previous summer. “Look. It’s not as if we can hang this summer,” Carson argued. “I’ll be working most of the time. If the situation was reversed, I’d be packed and on the plane in a heartbeat. So go. It’s your last chance to have some fun. In the fall, we have to start behaving like grown-ups.” But Jamie continued to hesitate until Carson decreed, “you’re going if I have to drag you there myself.” Jamie caved only because Carson agreed to drive him, and they enjoyed a long weekend road trip. “Now see how much trouble you can get yourself into without me,” Carson said, somewhat prophetically, as he deposited his friend at the camp. “And report back to me on a daily basis.” “I’m going to miss you,” Jamie said, suddenly overwhelmed with melancholy. “You’ll get over it the minute Toby waves that angry python in your face,” Carson scoffed and peeled away leaving a dramatic flair of dust in his wake. * Jamie was in the dinner tent chatting with the other counselors, when he was approached by a handsome if somewhat awkward young man who introduced himself as Owen Worth. “Your dad said you might be here this summer and I should look you up.” “And how do you know my dad?” Jamie asked. “Uh, he and my mom recently got engaged,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “Oh,” Jamie said, temporarily flummoxed. Though his mother had mentioned that Desmond was remarrying, Jamie had not inquired further. Just hearing his father’s name these days, riled him. He was tempted to give Owen shade though the boy bore no blame for Desmond’s callous behavior. He settled on being diplomatically aloof. “Welcome,” he said, pumping Owen’s large, warm hand. “I’m around if you have any questions,” he added and they locked eyes and held each other’s gaze as if they’d just met yet somehow knew each other very well. Disconcerting. For both of them. They were interrupted by Toby Smithers, who blew into the room and made an immediate beeline for Jamie. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, cowboy,” the big, brash ginger beamed before pulling Jamie into a friendly hug. “Guess I’ll see you around,” Owen said, making no effort to conceal how accurately he’d read Toby’s advances, which for some reason, got Jamie’s back up. Screw you, Bible boy, he thought and whispered to Toby. “We have some serious catching up to do, you and me.” “You said a mouthful,” Toby responded, and they exchanged bad-boy chuckles. A few nights later, after a clandestine nature walk with Toby and some deep-knee bends, Jamie returned to his cabin to find Owen sitting in an Adirondack chair on the porch. “Oh hi,” he said, coldly. “So how are things going so far?” “Okay, I guess. Still trying to get my bearings,” Owen said, staring down at the ground. Not quite sure why Owen was there, Jamie tried to vamp. “By the way, did you know that at Wubamunga House,” he said, pointing to a cabin in the near distance, “there are three or four Christian kids who have a prayer session every morning. You might want to check it out, I mean, if that’s your thing.” ‘If that’s your thing?’ Oh Jamie. So dorky. “Thanks, maybe I will,” he said, looking up into Jamie’s eyes as if he was searching for himself in their depths. And for the life of him, Jamie couldn’t look away. Though he was more than sated, he had the sudden urge to sample Owen’s lips. “I was wondering, if you’re not too tired, maybe we could talk for a while,” Owen said, and Jamie sensed his loneliness. He didn’t open up immediately, but after a few leading questions, Owen said he was headed to Penn in the fall where he hoped to get his bachelor’s and, eventually, an M.B.A. “I’ll be trying to finish up at Wharton in five years, which is going to be a lot of work,” he said, heaving a sigh. Then, for no reason at all, he smiled at Jamie who was hit by an old-fashioned case of the pit-o-pats. Owen was sexy in a completely unflashy manner, tall and loose-limbed, with huge, soulful heavily-lidded eyes, a droopy lower lip and the most wonderful pucker in the middle of his chin. That Owen seemed completely unaware of how attractive he was, only heightened his appeal. The desire to pounce on him, however, would happen only in the privacy of his own mind, he concluded. Fantasy and reality – never the twain shall meet. Owen then shared a sad, personal story about his younger sister, who had died of meningitis at the age of seven. The family was torn asunder by the tragedy. His father took it particularly hard and developed a serious drinking problem, which exacerbated his already frail health. He passed suddenly during Owen’s freshman year of high school. Looking for solace from her grief, his mother turned to religion and convinced him to join her. “I’m sorry about your sister and your dad,” Jamie said. “Thank you. I just wanted you to understand my mom a little better. She may be a little intense but she’s not really a bad person. And she’s all I have left,” he said, and despite himself, Jamie was moved. “I’ve never met your mom. So, I really haven’t formed an opinion,” Jamie replied. “My problem is with my dad.” “I get it. And it’s okay if you take sides.” Owen said. “But I’m pretty sure your dad misses you.” Jamie found that hard to fathom. He and Desmond had been increasingly estranged since he first came out to his family when he was thirteen, a memory that still stung. “Well, thanks for stopping by. But if you don’t mind I’m going to turn in,” he said and hurried inside. The next night, Owen was again sitting out front. “I’ve been canoeing all afternoon and I’m kind of beat,” Jamie began. “I won’t stay long. Promise,” he said. “I just came to apologize for last night. I’m usually not much of a talker but I spent the whole time monopolizing the conversation. I really wanted to get to know you. I mean, your father seems to think you’re a good guy….” “No, he doesn’t.” Jamie scowled. “We’ve never really hit it off and…” Then he had a brain flash. “Hey, my dad didn’t want us to meet so you could bring me some old-time religion, did he?” Owen winced slightly. “I can’t say for sure, but if my mom had anything to do with it, then it’s possible. Since she became born-again she can’t stop trying to convert everyone. But don’t worry; I’ll just say I tried to lead you to the path of righteousness,” he said, raising his palms in the air like a sidewalk preacher, “but that you weren’t buying.” “Truer words,” Jamie joshed. “I’m the original devil child.” His comment seemed to tickle Owen. “Well, you are a little scary, now that you mention it,” he confessed, then quickly doubled back. “That was my idea of a joke. Just in case you thought I was serious.” Wait a second. Did Owen just check out your jewels? No, Jamie, you’re imagining things. Owen bounded to his feet. “Well, I’ll let you get some sleep,” he said and a few steps down the path he turned and added, “But, hey, do you mind if I come back tomorrow night? I really like talking to you.” “Gee, I’m going to be busy supervising a film class until at least nine,” Jamie said. Owen nodded, recognizing the brush-off. “But you can come by then, if you like,” Jamie said, relenting. Where was Carson when he really needed some backbone? * Jamie got caught up in a lively after-class discussion and later, a few sloppy kisses with Toby behind a tree (they both decided it was too warm for full body contact), so he didn’t get back to the cabin until after ten. Owen was sitting in the same spot, waiting for him patiently. “Am I making a pest of myself?” he asked sheepishly. “Because you can tell me. I won’t be offended.” “Brothers are allowed to be pests,” he joked, curiously pleased to see Owen again. “We are going to be related somehow, right?” Even as he said it, he shivered. But we’re not related, not really, he told himself, thus giving himself permission to fantasize about Owen. “I guess,” Owen said, tugging at his short sleeve shirt collar. “Boy, it really hasn’t cooled down much tonight, has it?” “Uh uh,” Jamie said. “Want to go for a walk by the lake? There might be a little breeze down there.” They walked abreast but exchanged few words as they made their way along the trail to the lake and followed its banks for a half mile. When they arrived at a small jetty, Jamie suggested, “Let’s go for a swim,” and almost immediately remembered that he wasn’t wearing underwear. “Good idea,” Owen said, stripping down to his Jockeys and cannonballing off the jetty. When he resurfaced, Jamie was still fully clothed. “Aren’t you coming in?” he asked. “I’m not wearing briefs,” Jamie admitted, scrunching his mouth. “You’re far enough away from camp. No one will see you,” Owen said and turned around to give Jamie privacy. * “Brrr,” Jamie said with a shiver. He gave himself over to a momentary fantasy: That Owen would swim over and give him a warming hug but immediately shook it out of his head and swam back to the embankment, tossing himself onto a patch of grass. A moment later, Owen plopped down beside him. “That felt good,” he said and broke into a huge smile, those pearly whites knocking the wind out of Jamie. “Yeah, it did. My friend Carson and I used to skinny dip out here and sometimes fall asleep. We got into so much trouble,” he laughed. Recalling the antics of summers past, Jamie felt the beginnings of a b***r coming on and flipped over onto his stomach. “Mind if I ask you something?” Owen said. Uh oh, Jamie thought. “Mind if I ask you something” was one of those fraught phrases: right up there with “we need to talk” and “do you want to tell me what’s going on?” “Sure thing,” he said somewhat hesitantly. “So, what’s the deal with you and that guy, Toby? The two of you seem to spend a lot of time together.” “We’re friends,” he said, somewhat defensively. “Toby’s a good guy. Lots of fun.” “Fun,” Owen repeated. Two syllables. “Yeah, fun,” Jamie said, this time more insistently. Where is he going with this? “Look, it’s not like I don’t know you’re gay. Your dad and my mom pray for you every day.” “Gee, I wish you hadn’t told me that,” Jamie snorted. “and you? Do you pray for me too?” “No, that stuff doesn’t really matter to me.” “Oh, I think it does or you wouldn’t have brought it up.” “It doesn’t,” Owen said, louder than he’d planned. “It’s just that, I mean, uh…forget it. I’m being a doofus.” Owen was so obviously embarrassed, that Jamie forgave him. “Yeah,” Jamie said. “But in a good way.” “None of this is really my business anyway,” Owen said. Leaping to his feet, he loomed over Jamie with a panicked look on his face – and a notable outline in the front of his still wet underwear. “I don’t know what’s happening here,” Owen said, his breath bated. Jamie reached up and caressed him. Owen closed his eyes and collapsed on top of him. And there on the lakeshore, the twain of fantasy and reality miraculously crashed. * If it had only been a one-time thing, Jamie would have written off the encounter as the byproduct of adolescent hormonal fever. Even the most devout young man can succumb to temptation. But the next night, Owen was sitting outside his cabin again. And the next night and the next. Each evening, they headed for the lake where they swam naked and kissed and held on to one another for dear life. And each night the lovemaking got better, until Jamie couldn’t believe that a few nights earlier, Owen had been a virgin; that he’d never even been kissed. Now Jamie finally understood what it was all about; why wars were waged, kingdoms upended, hearts decimated. All for love. No, it’s not love, Jamie, it’s lust. You’re too young to be in love. But what may have begun as lust was growing into something more. He and Owen shared intimacies and affection and laughter. Even during the day, whenever they were within sight of each other, an unmistakable electrical charge passed between them. It was hard to miss, and even Toby picked up on it. “Hey, what’s up with you and Big Bird?” he asked. Jamie deflected by mentioning the family connection, but the explanation was paper thin. “Spare me,” Toby said. “I’ve mooned over guys before. I know the look when I see it. You’re not fooling me and I hope you’re not fooling yourself.” It was all happening so quickly that Jamie seesawed between euphoria and angst. The most telling sign that his emotional equilibrium had been compromised came during his phone calls to Carson, during which he did not allude to Owen, except for that one time at the beginning of the summer when he mentioned meeting him. “He’s just about what you’d expect. Total loser.” As far as Carson was concerned, he was still hooking up with Toby. And whenever he inquired, Jamie carefully steered the conversation back to Carson, which required very little effort. Jamie had long ago made peace with the fact that Carson’s favorite topic of conversation was himself – with movies running a close second – and used it to his advantage. Carson was also in the middle of a summer romance. He’d started dating another Saks employee, an ‘older man’ (Twenty-five), and he described their intimacies in far greater detail than necessary. Jamie felt disloyal about lying to Carson, even if only by omission. But if Carson even suspected, he would drill him mercilessly. And Jamie was conflicted enough without being subjected to his friend’s withering third degree. Three weeks into the summer affair, at the end of an insanely passionate session, Jamie was cuddled beside Owen. They were listening to the water lapping against the shore, the only sound except for the distant echo of an occasional loon or meadowlark. Bliss. “Do you think that this here, what we’re doing, do you think it’s love?’ Owen asked. “I have no way of gauging. Is this how you feel with other guys?” How could Jamie explain that the gamut of emotions Owen had unleashed – from glorious to excruciating – were not common and unlike anything he’d ever experienced? “Owen, don’t. Just hold me,” he said, punting. Later, half asleep on his chest, Jamie looked up at Owen and said, “This...what we have…this…can’t possibly end well, can it?” “No, I don’t believe it can,” Owen confessed, though he almost choked on the words. “Then shouldn’t we stop?” Jamie asked. “How would that make a difference?” Owen asked. “I guess it wouldn’t. We’re screwed either way.” “Can we sleep out here tonight? All night, just like this?” Owen asked. “We’re going to get into terrible trouble.” “I don’t care. Do you?” “Nope. Not even a little,” he replied, giving him a kiss that grew into more than a kiss, that grew into oblivion, heady oblivion. * The affair ended horribly just as Jamie had feared. Owen offered the predictable excuses: his mother, his religion, his age, his refusal to identify as queer. Jamie listened and felt his insides collapsing like a structure that was being razed through controlled detonation. When Carson drove up to Bellflower to pick him up, he immediately sensed something was wrong. “You look like s**t,” he said with his usual tact. “Thanks. Nice to see you again too,” Jamie quipped. But as they were loading the bags into the trunk, Jamie came undone and began sobbing uncontrollably. A few miles north of Fresno, he finally unburdened himself. “Honestly, I can’t let you out of my sight,” Carson said. “How deep a hole did you dig yourself into?” “I’m so in love with him and I’m almost sure that he’s in love with me.” Carson didn’t minimize his friend’s pain or try to contradict him. If Jamie had avoided mentioning the affair all these weeks, he must be pretty far gone. “What I want to know is, who in their right mind falls for a whack-job Bible thumper?” Carson said. “But he said it didn’t matter,” Jamie argued. “You’re not so dumb as to believe anything a guy says when he’s horny, are you? Listen, I’m sorry you got dumped but you’ve got to get a grip.” “I’m trying. But I want to be with him so much. I feel so alone,” Jamie cried. “Alone? Hello! Remember me, the guy who dragged you kicking and screaming out of permanent childhood? Now forget about this Scripture quoting Great Dane. We are on the road….” he stopped short and then, with dramatic emphasis, floored the accelerator, “Back to the future.” The wacky movie reference gave rise to a little gurgle in Jamie’s throat. “I love you, Carson,” he said. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.” * Six years later, sitting in the dank editing room, Jamie still remembered every detail of their last night together at camp. He could still see Owen standing outside the cabin, the bug-filled overhead light washing across on his face, the blood-red tee-shirt he was wearing over a pair of faded blue jeans torn at the knee and wanting to caress the exposed patella just to feel the sensation of Owen’s skin against his. To his credit, Jamie didn’t break down, not even when Owen lost control and wept and said that he just wanted to die. They agreed not to tell their parents what had happened. If asked, they would claim they hadn’t really hit it off. “I hate having to lie about it,” Owen wailed. “You’re going to pretend that you’re not gay, and that’s the part that bothers you?” Jamie said with a sneer. “I don’t know for sure that I am gay,” Owen said. “But I know that I don’t want to be. As soon as I get settled at Penn I’m going to find some help.” Those words were just the splash of acid Jamie needed to snap him to. “You don’t mean like conversion therapy, do you? ‘Cause that s**t doesn’t work.” “Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. But I have to give it a try,” Owen replied. “You do that. And thanks for making what I thought was going to be an incredibly hard decision much easier,” Jamie said, his eyes narrowing, his voice frosting over. “I’m going inside to finish packing. Take care, Owen. Oh, and one last thing: Go f**k yourself.” Those were the last words they had ever spoken and Jamie had regretted ending on that bitter note ever since. If Owen had put himself through the pointless agony of conversion therapy, it had been for naught. While his career in banking had started strong and he was courting a nice Christian girl, all the while he was messing around with Lance, that tall drink of water who worked down the hall from Carson. And he was probably beating himself up about it every night and twice during the day as well. Yet Jamie was hardly one to cast stones. How could he still be so smitten with Owen that he would even consider being dragged down into a quagmire of deception and self-hatred? “Get back to work, Jamie. Let it go already.” He picked up his phone and searched for the text message from that guy (whose name turned out to be Phil) he’d tricked with the previous week. He typed out a text inviting him to dinner. The distraction would do him good. If he went home alone he might fall prey to mental self-abuse – lying awake all night and thinking about Owen. Hopeless.