Adam (18 page)

Meanwhile, the latest around the apartment was that “the Jews” had left a giant refrigerator on the landing, blocking the front door so it would only open a crack, and you had to squeeze through to get in and out. Adam and June had managed to push the thing a couple inches forward but couldn't do much more without completely blocking the neighbor's entrance. The only space for the refrigerator to go was down the stairs, which required some sort of hand truck. And even that seemed scary to manage. June was in an uproar over the whole thing. Agnes was apparently done, and June now channeled all her energy into ranting about the “selfish fucking Jews.”

“I should call and threaten to get a lawyer! That's what I should do! It's a fire hazard. You guys do know it's a legal fire hazard, don't you? Guess we'll all just have to burn to death and then they'll be sorry. Or not!”

June paced up and down the living room in front of Adam and Casey, who were hanging out on the futon, Adam watching TV and Casey messing around on her laptop.

“Plus the bathtub drain!” June continued. “I mean, it's only been, what, a
month and a half?
That's a legal hazard too! We all probably have some horrible bacterial infection from the cesspool! I've been feeling sick!”

“Yeah, we should call and tell them we're gonna get a lawyer,” said Casey. Her eyes didn't move from her computer. She was on Hazel's Facebook page. Casey was either talking to Hazel on the phone, talking about Hazel, or staring at Hazel's Facebook page. Mention of Boy Casey had been scarce since Saturday night.

“It's not like I haven't called them fifteen fucking times already,” said June. “It's pathetic. It's
illegal.
”

Ethan padded out of his room toward the kitchen. He looked like shit. His clothes were rumpled, and there were bags under his eyes.

“Hey, um, Ethan?” said June. “Would you mind giving the Jews—I mean, the landlords—a call if you get a chance? I mean, I hate to say it, but I really think this is gonna mean a lot more coming from a man. That's just the way those fucking assholes roll.”

“Get Adam to do it,” said Ethan. He poured himself some grapefruit juice.

“Adam sounds like a girl,” said June.

Adam gave June the finger. But then he felt a spark. Sounding like a girl, if you were pretending to be trans, was a good thing. As soon as Adam thought this, though, his mind doubled back.
He could not keep pretending.
The whole thing was ridiculous. Absurd. He needed to tell Gillian the truth on their date. He would just say he had been nervous, everyone at the party was gay, and he panicked.
“I'm not trans. I'm seventeen years old.”
If she really liked him, she shouldn't care, right?

Of course she would care! Gillian didn't want to date some dork teenage boy. She didn't even want to date a
boy
at all. She'd say,
“Uh. Wow. OK. Look, I'm sorry, but . 
.
 . I can't do this.”
And she'd walk away. Walk away! He absolutely could not tell her.

No, he had to tell her. She was going to find out eventually: there was no way around it, if they ever got to make out—have sex!—which was the
whole point
, right? So he had to tell her. But maybe if he didn't tell her right away . . . just waited a little bit longer . . . made sure she really,
really
liked him, so she wouldn't care if he wasn't trans, was only seventeen, because by then she would like him so much it wouldn't matter what he was. Yes, the right thing to do was continue to pretend for as long as he needed until he was absolutely sure she liked him enough.

No. He had to tell her, and he had to do it tomorrow. Everyone knows the longer you tell a lie, the worse it gets. And, besides, what was he supposed to do—just
never
make out with her? Once they started doing anything, she would “discover” the truth—the poking, protruding penis,
“Hi!”
—and then she would
really
hate him, she would stare in horror, she would gag and throw up, she would spit in his face. He had to tell her.

There was no way in hell he could tell her.

Adam felt his brain wheeze with exhaustion.
Tell her. Don't tell her.
The world's worst tennis match on eternal replay.

“Please, Ethan?” said June.

“Yeah, yeah, I'll do it,” said Ethan. He shuffled back to his room with his glass of juice.

“God, and all I want right now is to take a fucking bath!” said June, staring up at the ceiling, as if she were actually addressing God. Despite the drain situation, June had become obsessed with taking baths. She would empty the dirty water from the tub cup by cup into the toilet, scrub it down with Ajax, take a three-hour bath while everyone else held their pee, and then leave the tub full of her grimy water. No one complained though, since taking baths seemed to be the only thing that gave her any remote pleasure.

June heaved another sigh and retreated to her room.

What did “pretending to be trans” even mean, anyway
, thought Adam. Besides the obvious, that Adam had a dick and trans guys didn't. Adam tried to recall the interactions he'd had with Boy Casey and Jimmy. What made those guys different? Boy Casey talked about being trans all the time, but Jimmy never did. Adam wouldn't have even known Jimmy was trans if he hadn't seen his ID. And there was something about Jimmy that made it seem like bringing up his trans-ness was
not
OK. Like Jimmy would just stare at you and say,
“What the hiz-ell you talkin' about?”
Adam wished Casey was still dating Boy Casey so he could gather more information. This Hazel girl was useless to him. He needed Boy Casey back in the picture
now.

“What's going on with Boy Casey?” Adam asked, turning his head from the television.

Casey continued staring at her laptop. “I dunno. Catching herpes from someone.”

“You still gonna see him?”

“Not really in the mood to get herpes right now . . .”

“Hazel could have herpes.”

“Hazel does
not
have herpes. Anyway, we have safe sex.”

“Safe sex? With a girl? What is that?”

Adam felt weird about how personal they were suddenly getting, but now he needed to know this stuff.

“Safe sex is important for lesbians
too
,” said Casey. She shut her laptop and turned to Adam. She was revving up for a lecture.
Good.

“There's dental dams, latex gloves, condoms for toys . . . and you should always boil.”

“Boil what?”

“Your dildo, if you're using one.”

“You do all that stuff?”

Casey gave Adam a weird look. She wasn't used to him being so nosy. He needed to be careful. Back off a little.

“Or whatever,” he added. Eyes back on the TV.

“Well, I
have
. . .” said Casey, instantly wanting the attention back. “With Hazel, it's . . . different.”

“Why do you like Hazel so much?” said Adam. “Boy Casey wasn't that bad . . .”

“You hated Boy Casey! Hazel is just . . .” Casey paused to stare into space as if she was conjuring Hazel's perfect image. “I just really like her . . . Did you know she got sixteen hundred on her SATs? When she was nine, she, like, built her own computer.”

Adam thought about how Casey always had to dumb herself down around Boy Casey. It wasn't that Boy Casey was stupid, just that Casey was clearly smarter than him and this was apparent in any conversation. Probably the thing that annoyed Adam the most about Boy Casey—more than his self-centeredness—was that he
thought
he was just as smart as Casey when he obviously wasn't. Adam was pretty sure Boy Casey even thought he was
smarter
than Casey—which was just another example of him being less smart. Adam would never admit it to Casey, but she was pretty much the smartest person he knew.

“Her favorite authors are Philip K. Dick and Donna Haraway,” said Casey, still on Hazel. “She identifies as a cyborg.”

“She what?”

“Hazel identifies as a . . . never mind.” Casey turned back to her computer.

“Well . . . I actually didn't think Boy Casey was that bad,” said Adam. “He was kinda cool.” The trans lie paled in comparison to this one.

Casey shrugged.

Adam's eyes returned to the television—an old
Friends
rerun. He tried focusing on the show, but his brain just started volleying back and forth again.
Tell her. Don't tell her.
Everything each character said seemed to steer him violently in one direction or the other.

Adam turned off the TV and walked into the bathroom. He shut the door and stared at himself in the mirror. He remembered the scary thing that had happened just five days ago, the night before the rally. That would never happen again. He had Gillian now. He had a good fucking thing in his life, and he had to hold on to it at any cost. The thing had happened when he'd realized he had nothing. Was nothing. Did you really need another person to make you who you were? Yes.

Adam leaned in close to the mirror and examined his skin. God, it was a fucking mess, as usual. Not “pizza face” disastrous like Raphael at school, who might as well just commit suicide, but pretty bad. Adam had three zits on his forehead under his bangs—thank god for bangs—one zit in the crevice of the side of his nose, and one to the left of his chin. His hands reached up to squeeze the chin one, but he knew that would only make it worse.
Fuck it
—he didn't care, he needed to get rid of it, and he needed to get rid of it now.

*Squeeze*

Argh!
A million times worse. Adam lathered on soap and furiously scrubbed at his face.
Ugh. Whatever.
There was nothing he could do. He'd had zits when he met Gillian on Saturday, so she wouldn't be surprised. Just unfortunately reminded.

“Whoa, sorry, dude.” Ethan opened the door to the bathroom.

Adam reached for his toothbrush to pretend as if he were doing something other than squeezing his zits.

“You nervous about your date?” said Ethan. “I always stare at myself in the mirror for at least five hours the day before a date.”

“Yeah . . .” said Adam. He put the toothbrush down.

Ethan leaned against the doorjamb. “Gillian. Did you guys make out?”

Adam was touched Ethan remembered her name. “Yeah, we kissed,” he said. The kiss replayed in his mind.

“Well, that's good,” said Ethan. “At least you don't have to worry about that hurdle. Now you can just go up and kiss her the moment you see her.”

Adam's face went white.

“Don't be scared!” said Ethan. “Seriously, it's in the bag. This girl likes you. You guys already hung out, so she wouldn't have made the date if she didn't like you. You're in a top-notch position here. Not that you don't still have to play it cool, but . . .”

“Wait,” said Adam. He felt hot and panicked. “How do I . . . play it cool?” The moment from last Saturday night of feeling cooler than Ethan had long passed, and Adam suddenly, desperately needed his advice. Ethan with his perfect clothes and chill attitude and hot ex-girlfriend. Ethan! Ethan would tell him how to make everything right.

Ethan sauntered into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. Adam closed the toilet lid and sat down, too.

“OK, well, here's the thing,” said Ethan. “Girls are strange, mysterious creatures. Guys are simple. We kind of just let you know how we feel. But girls have to play by this crazy set of rules where—OK, you know how in middle school, if you had a problem with another dude, you just punched him in the face?”

Adam thought about the time Colin had punched him in the face. And the time this kid Rodney had punched him in the face. And the time this kid Eric had punched him in the—

“Uh-huh,” said Adam.

“Well, while that was going on, girls were having their own types of fights—but instead of fists, these fights were about secrets, and backstabbing, and rumors, and lies, and calling up your best friend from someone else's phone, whispering, ‘You're a whore,' and hanging up. You know?”

Adam nodded.

“That shit doesn't just go away when you grow up and know better. It burrows into your brain and makes you crazy.”

Adam wasn't entirely sure where Ethan was going with this.

“What I'm saying is it's just more convoluted with girls. And while there's something kind of sexy about all that mystery, it's also kind of sad.” Ethan stared at Adam with fixed, intense eyes.

“So, what do I . . . do?” asked Adam.

“Just stay sensitive,” said Ethan. “Because the moment you start to feel exposed—that's the moment she's exposed too. And that's what love is . . . when someone reaches inside you, through all the blood and nasty guts—they don't give a shit how messy their hand gets—and then they pull out this perfect
thing
, and that thing is the real you.”

Adam nodded again. He wondered whether Ethan was going to get to the part about how to “play it cool.”

Ethan stood up and stretched like he was about to leave.

“I just gotta figure out how to not be so nervous,” said Adam quickly, not wanting Ethan to go.

“You'll be fine,” said Ethan. “Trust me. Once you're in it, it will just all be happening and you'll know what to do.” Ethan stood back and looked Adam over. “Now are you gonna shave first or what? 'Cause that high school–mustache look is not cool.”

Adam ran his finger across the bristle on his upper lip. His cheeks and chin were still infuriatingly smooth, no matter how many times he'd dragged the razor over them.

“You can use my electric razor,” said Ethan. “I'll switch out the blade for you. I've seen those shitty drugstore razors you use.”