Fate

Chapter 1: First There Was Brian-3

She took a seat five feet or so away from me. My heart leapt to my throat as I stared at her, at the blonde hair, shorter now, straighter, at the blue eyes, now behind glasses, at the features, still pretty though older looking, more mature. I’d been seven when last I saw her. As with Brian, the memories were beyond fleeting. Still, I had the photo albums. I looked at them from time to time. I knew what she looked like. And if this wasn’t her, it was certainly a close second.

She turned just then, turned to catch me staring. She squinted. The place, like I said, was relatively dark. Ma hadn’t come on yet. She was on next, just before the headliner. I turned my head away. It was rude to stare, but when I turned it again, she was still squinting my way.

Eddie? she mouthed.

My heart nearly exploded from within my chest. It was her! Lisa! In Oregon. In this Podunk town in this Podunk bar.

Lisa? I mouthed in return.

She smiled, and at last I knew for certain.

She hopped up and walked my way, super-fast, her arms around me before I even knew what hit me. “Oh my God!” she hollered in my ear, above the noise of the bar, of the comic on stage. “It’s you!”

I fairly melted in her arms. She’d always worn this perfume, always smelled of it. The memories came flooding back as I inhaled. “What are you doing here?” I managed to ask.

She took my hand and pulled me out back. There was a smoking area outside, a small patio, now mostly empty while the show was on. “You’re not going to believe this,” she squealed.

“I already don’t.”

She smiled. It looked like she was holding back a sob. “Ted is at a conference in Portland.”

My body was strangely buzzing, vibrating. “So you still live in Pittsburg?”

She nodded. “And you? Your mom and dad and sister?”

I also nodded. “The same. Dad and Elsie are home.” I didn’t ask her about Brian. I don’t know why. It just seemed like I’d be admitting something I wasn’t yet ready to vocalize. “But this isn’t Portland. Nowhere near it, right?”

Her smile grew brighter. She was still so pretty. I felt seven again. “We were out exploring for the day.” She said we. My heart stopped beating. But she was alone. I only saw her in the club, no one else. “I got turned around. My GPS wasn’t giving me the right directions. Somehow, I ended up out here, and then, when we passed the club, I saw your mom’s name on the marquee. I knew it had to be her. It just had to be.”

“And it is,” I said, my smile as wide as hers. “And here you are. Is everything, you know, okay with, um, you?” It wasn’t what I wanted to ask, though it was the next best thing.

She hugged me again. God it felt good. She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she said, “You’re all grown up.”

“Getting there.”

“And so handsome.”

“Ma likes to think so. Has a whole routine about me worked into her act. I come across a bit whinier and geekier, but the crowd seems to like it. Better than her v****a jokes, at least.” I blushed.

She laughed. “Those were always my favorite.”

“Ma’s too,” I said.

She broke the hug and got a good look at me. Then she blinked and snapped her fingers. “Brian!”

My heart went lub-dub in double time. “Brian? What about Brian?”

She squeezed my arm. “He’s still in the car. I didn’t think they’d let him in.”

My face froze. “They wouldn’t. Ma screams bloody hell, in fact, until they let me in.”

“Sounds like her.”

I nodded. “Loudly. And in stereo.”

Again, she laughed. “The car’s out front. Go and say hello. I know he’d like to see you.”

And still I remained frozen. Brian was barely just on the opposite side of the building, not in Pittsburg. What did he look like now? What would we say to one another? Once I got over the initial shock, I replied, “Ma’s on next. Maybe in another two minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll wait. Then we can all go out for a cup of coffee or something. I’ll call Ted and tell him where we are and not to worry. Now go say hi to Brian.” Again, she squealed in delight, and again my heart pounded in my chest, a teenage zit instantly working its way to the surface of my chin in nervous reply.

Still, I went. How could I not? We were old friends. It would be good to see him. He’d have a laugh at seeing me, and then that would be that.

I walked through the club on autopilot. I made my way out through the main entrance. I squinted into the darkness. Across the parking lot sat a lone figure inside a darkened car. He was facing my way. It had to be him. I waved. He didn’t wave back. Why would he? He didn’t know I was there. My face reddened as I slowly walked toward him.

And then, when I was twenty feet away, his face changed. I saw it, even in the dim light. I saw the eyes first, the blue, the blond hair, darker now. His jaw sort of hung open, like he’d just seen a ghost. Perhaps he had. Perhaps we both had.

Again, I waved, smiled, paused. He got out of the car. The night was silent. Or maybe it was noisy. I don’t know; my head was spinning too much by that point to tell. There he was, so much taller than before, taller than me by a foot at least, and skinny, lanky.

“Eddie?” he asked.

I nodded. “Um, surprise.”

He closed the gap between us. He looked me up and down, while I did the same to him. “Big surprise. The biggest.”

He reached his hand out. I took a hold of it and gave it a shake. “I can’t believe it. You don’t look like you,” I said.

He laughed, his hand firmly in mine. “You look exactly like you, only bigger.” He let go of my hand, the connection broken even though my fingers were still sizzling. “What are you doing here?”

“Ma takes me on the road with her sometimes.”

“Lucky.”

And I was. I was lucky. “Your mom is going to stay for my mom’s act. Then we’re going out for coffee or something.”

He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. We’d already exhausted the conversation. “Weird,” he finally uttered.

“I know, right?”

We were friends who weren’t friends, friends who were strangers. Friends who had kissed. Would he even remember that? I chuckled, nervously. He did the same.

“So, um, what’s new?” he asked.

I shrugged. “You want the entire nine-year recap or just this week?”

He sighed. “Let’s go for a walk. Standing in a bar parking lot is making me nervous.”

My shrug turned to a nod. “Try being sixteen inside of the bar while your mom is telling d**k jokes.”

At last, he laughed, the sound rumbling through me like thunder. I’d never heard this sound coming from him before, or at least didn’t remember it. This was something new, something he’d clearly grown into. I wondered if my laugh sounded so different now. In any case, we walked around the club, along the sidewalk, illuminated by a few meager lights and a rather large moon.

“So, do you, you know, have a girlfriend?” he asked.

I gulped. “Nope. You?”

I turned my head his way, dreading the reply. “Yep. Stephanie.

She’s my age. In my homeroom.”

My mind did a mental hiccup. What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to react? So he wasn’t gay, not like me, the kiss just a kiss, like it was for our moms. I was saddened by the realization. Still, I smiled. “Cool. She, uh, pretty?”

He nodded and removed his wallet from his back pocket. Out came a picture of them, quickly illuminated by the light of a passing car. She was a girl. That’s all I saw. And she wasn’t me, which is all I felt.

“Pretty, right?”

Instinctively I increased the gap between us, though all of a sudden we felt even further apart than even that. “Right,” I choked out. “Pretty. Lucky guy.” Luckier girl, I thought.

His smile widened, his wavy, blond hair rustling in the breeze, those eyes of his shimmering like the stars above. Again, my heart pounded. This wasn’t going well, not like I dreamed about it on nights when I couldn’t sleep. He was never straight in those dreams, never even as handsome as he was now, walking side by side with me.

After that, we did another loop around the lot, then another, talking about sports, school, boring stuff like that. Stuff that strangers talked about. Twenty minutes went by like hours. It was almost painful. I wished it would end. Wished even more that it had never began.

Then my mom came out with his mom, arm in arm, loopy smiles on their pretty faces. They looked like all the pictures in the old albums. I was happy for them even though I was sad for myself. I got ready for that promised cup of coffee. I was ill­ prepared for what came next instead.

“Lisa’s coming back to our motel with us,” Ma proclaimed.

“I had a drink during her act,” Lisa admitted. “Then another after it.”

“Lightweight,” Ma chided, good-naturedly. Then she turned my way. “Okay with you if Brian crashes in your room?”

I’d felt terror before, in horror movies, on report card day, standing on the end of the diving board on the high platform, but this, this was something well beyond that. This was my mom asking me to spend the night with another boy, and Brian at that. This was the universe having a field day with my teenage acne. I thought about gulping but didn’t have any saliva left in my mouth. I turned to Brian and shrugged. “No pillow fights.”

His smile returned. He remembered. “No promises, Eddie.”

* * * *

And that’s how I suddenly found myself in a twin bed next to Brian. I was in my pajamas. He was in his underwear, seeing as I had nothing to lend him. So, to recap, me, the gay sixteen-year-old, was suddenly in bed with the straight, nearly naked boy of his childhood dreams, every nerve ending in my body shooting off Fourth of July fireworks, most of them exploding in my blanketed—thank goodness—crotch.

“Not exactly how I pictured this night ending,” I admitted.

He laughed, shaking both me and the bed. “Not the same when you’re not seven anymore, is it?”

“I don’t even remember being seven,” I said, staring up at the darkened ceiling. “If it’s not in a picture or in a story my mom tells, I have no memory of it. Is that weird?”

I felt his head shake, his heel lightly touching my big toe, a shiver riding up my leg upon impact. “For our moms, it’s like no time has passed; for us, it’s the exact opposite.” He didn’t say anything else for the longest time. The room was silent save for the sound of the sheets crinkling when one of us moved a bit. I stared up at the smoke detector, its light blinking green, my heart pounding in sync with it. “Nothing?” he finally whispered. “You, uh, don’t remember anything at all?”

Fuck, I thought. How should I reply? After all, there was one thing I remembered. In fact, the way my d**k was throbbing, there was one thing I remembered all too well. Still, far be it from me to admit either one: the memory or my boner. “Nope. Not really. Hazy things, maybe, though even those I’m not sure I’m really recalling or just remember seeing in a photo. Why, you?”