Adam (30 page)

“No, I won't!” said Brad. “I can lie! I'm a better liar than this dumb-ass.”

“That ‘dumb-ass' is trying to help you get twenty-two-year-old lesbian pussy,” said Ethan. “So I'd shut the fuck up.”

“All right. Word,” said Brad. He took an awkward, overly conscious sip of beer. “So, what's my story?”

“We met playing tennis at the Claremont,” said Adam. “You're nineteen, I'm twenty-two, and we just started rallying one day and kept meeting up after that. You graduated from EBP two years ago and are kind of a bum, living at home with your parents.”

“This is supposed to help me get a girl? How about I went to Berkeley High? EBP's such a fag school.”

“Try Allyson Academy where I went,” said Ethan. “Talk about a fag school . . .”

“Anyway,” continued Adam, “you're at home because you were really good at baseball—college recruiters were all into you. But then the summer after graduation, you got drunk one night and fucked up your arm in a car wreck—your best friend riding shotgun almost died, and the guilt fucking kills you.” Adam had no idea where this story was coming from, only that it was flowing from his mouth as if he were watching a movie on the insides of his eyes and just reporting what he saw. It was that easy. An image appeared, and he described it.

“So I'm a bum who lives at home and almost killed his best friend.”

Ethan guffawed.

“The injured-best-friend thing is good for sympathy,” said Adam, “makes you seem tragic. Trust me. Now you help take care of your grandma, who also lives at home with your folks—”

“Both my grandmas are dead.”

“Your arm is better, and you've had some calls from colleges again, but you don't want to leave your grandma. Your mom is mean to her. Abuses her. You think she might be slowly trying to poison her.”

“What?!”

Ethan had to spit his mouthful of beer into a leftover coffee mug.

“That shit's not that important though,” said Adam, laughing. He felt silly, goofy. This was all just so stupid. But it was
fun.
He took a sip of his beer. “The main thing is, you want to stay until she dies, which could be any day—she's ninety-five—and then you're ready to play college ball and, fuck it, maybe even go pro. Also, you're in between girlfriends. But you and Sandy were super serious. Even talked about marriage. You're just kinda romantic like that. Also you got her pregnant, but you guys put the baby up for adoption, and every morning you pray to God that one day your son will try to contact you.”

“You're fucking retarded,” said Brad.

And now they were all laughing. Really laughing, the kind where it feels like you might actually injure yourself. Adam looked at Brad and Ethan, their bodies bobbing, beers sloshing in their hands.
My two best friends.
He felt
happy.

“So what did you
actually
tell Gillian about me?” said Brad, catching his breath.

Adam felt a pang in his heart for Gillian but buried it.

“Well, maybe not
all
of that . . .”

Brad kicked his feet up on the coffee table, put his arms behind his head, and leaned back on the futon. “OK, so I'm nineteen, Claremont tennis, sick grandma, best friend car accident, what's my best friend's name?”

“Whatever, it doesn't matter,” said Adam. “Marvin?”

“OK, Marvin. My best friend in the whole wide world, Marvin.”

And they all busted out laughing again.

“You're coming out with us tomorrow too, right?” Brad said to Ethan. “So you can back me up and shit?”

“As much as I would love to witness this . . .” said Ethan. He took a swig of beer and kicked his feet up on the coffee table too. “I gotta say, I see some tragedy in the future.”

“What? We can do it!” said Brad. “I can totally pull this off!”

Ethan raised his eyebrow in doubt and then turned to Adam.

“Just don't let this fool fuck up what you got going? OK?”

Adam loved Ethan. He fucking loved him.

“No shit,” said Adam. And he and Ethan reached across Brad and clinked beers.

“
LET'S PLAY PRETEND
You Don't Know Me.”

Gillian smiled big as she explained the game to Adam. Her flushed cheeks and her dimples and her huge blue eyes. “I run ahead and lean up against that wall, and as you pass, you pretend you're seeing me for the first time and try to imagine what you would think of me.”

“OK,” said Adam, “but I'm just gonna think you're beautiful.”

“No!” said Gillian, blushing. “I mean, you have to try to imagine what you think my life is like—like what kind of person I am.”

Gillian ran ahead. She, Adam, Brad, Nadia, Jackie, and Jackie's friend Lionel walked down the street toward the karaoke bar. It was sundown and the sky hung pink between the cracks in buildings. They were in Chinatown, and the trash-scattered sidewalks and restaurants with their bright red Chinese character signs and Peking ducks swinging in the windows made Adam feel cool and like he was showing Brad the
real
New York. They'd all met outside the subway station, and everyone was already drunk. Brad and Adam had finished a six-pack at the apartment before they'd left. Gillian and her gang appeared to have done something similar.

“Let's play it too!” Nadia said to Jackie, and she ran ahead and joined Gillian, reclining against a brick wall.

Jackie rolled her eyes at Adam, and he rolled them back. At first Adam was worried Brad would be disappointed there were more guys than girls hanging out (Jackie counted as a guy), but Brad was so enamored with Nadia, it didn't matter. That she was obviously with Jackie didn't faze him at all—that was almost part of it. “Lesbian pussy, here I come,” he'd whispered to Adam, definitely too loud, when they'd first met up with everyone.

Part of the reason Adam had gotten so drunk was nerves—that Brad might actually blow his cover or Gillian might refer to something trans, even though she knew Adam was stealth with Brad and shouldn't. He had thought getting drunk would soothe him, make him chill out, and feel like everything was going to be fine, but instead it made the anxiety worse. He felt unhinged, not in control, his surroundings slippery and grease-covered. He wished Brad and he had just stayed home with Ethan. Ethan who knew the real him and the real Brad, and there were no lies; it was all just jokes and comfort, and Adam felt solid and safe. He never should have agreed to Brad hanging out with Gillian and her friends. Brad had seen Gillian; he knew she was hot—there was no reason for them to see each other again. But Brad had gotten so excited about meeting his own lesbian, and Gillian had said on the phone, “It's sweet seeing you with your friend, even if he's kind of a douche. I like watching you guys together,” and Adam had felt trapped. Ethan had said, “I see some tragedy in the future,” and as Adam recalled that now, it felt like an omen. He remembered that first night in New York, walking to the
L Word
party down Lorimer, sucking on the Cherry Bomb pop, and that fleeting second of elation when he'd known—he'd just known—everything would turn out right. Now, drunk and stumbling down this twisted alleyway, the sidewalk all buckled and cracked, he felt a murky insistence in his body that something, some thing he couldn't conceive of yet, was going to go horribly wrong.

“What did you think?” said Gillian. She ran back and grabbed Adam's hand as they continued walking. She was so cute when she was drunk. Her voice got really high.

“I thought you looked Jewish,” he said.

Gillian punched him.

“Prostitute?” Jackie was saying to Nadia.

Brad almost walked into a bus stop pole.

“Someone do me!” said Lionel. “Everyone do me!” and he ran ahead and posed against a building like Gillian and Nadia had.

Adam could tell Lionel was trans. He was short and his hands were tiny. He had hair on his face but in a patchy trans-guy way. His hips and butt swelled out of his Dickies. His voice was tranny nasal. Something about him just seemed like a fucking girl. And that stupid fucking name. Everyone on the Internet had names like that: Lionel, Elias, Aiden, Asher, Tucker, Tristan. Adam was sure Lionel passed to Brad—that wasn't a worry—the question was whether Jackie had told Lionel that Adam was trans and whether Lionel would start running his mouth. Gillian knew not to tell people, but Jackie's alliance was to Lionel, not Adam. I mean why was Lionel even here?
“Adam's this really cool trans guy; you guys should be friends.”
Adam had caught Lionel looking at him, checking him for trans giveaways too.

The karaoke bar was empty when they arrived. Empty, except for one old Chinese man hunched at a table in the back who looked up with a cracked-tooth grin at Gillian and Nadia as if they had come there to meet him.

The gang packed themselves into one of the red booths while Jackie ordered a round of drinks. Nadia and Lionel pored over the thick karaoke song binder. The emptiness in the bar felt oppressive. Adam could not imagine anything more awkward than someone getting up and singing right now.

The bartender—a too-old-for-her-outfit Chinese lady—came over with the drinks. Adam watched Brad guzzle his whiskey, his teeth crunching the ice louder than any other sound in the bar.

“So, Brad,” said Gillian, “you dating anyone?”

Brad glanced at Nadia, who was murmuring lyrics, psyching herself up to sing.

“I'm dating this girl Sandy,” said Brad. He stuck his pinkie in his ear. “I mean, I
was
dating her, back in high school, at Berkeley High.”

“You haven't dated her since high school?” said Gillian. She took a sip of her drink, giving Brad a weird look over the rim of her glass.

Brad's pinkie pulsed in and out of his ear. “Yeah. Not since my arm injury.”

Adam leaned in, poised and ready to take over if this got any worse. Gillian was drunk. He had that on his side. Things were sloppy, confusing. Things could be explained as something else at a later time.

“Your arm injury?” said Jackie. “Can I ask what happened? I'm in med school, so . . .”

“Hey, Adam,” said Lionel, “you wanna get in on this Backstreet Boys duet with me?”

“I hurt it playing baseball,” said Brad. “I mean, in a car wreck on the way home from baseball practice.”

“Uh, sure,” said Adam to Lionel. He turned to Brad. “You just sprained it; it wasn't a big deal.” He needed to reel Brad in—they weren't supposed to actually
use
that retarded story. What was wrong with Brad?

“‘Tell me why,'”
Lionel sang disturbingly loud. Lionel wasn't drinking, but he kind of seemed like he was on crack or something.

“Yeah, I just sprained it,” said Brad. “Mainly it just hurts when it rains and shit, you know?”

Brad looked especially pleased with himself for having ad-libbed this detail.

“That could be cold agglutinins,” said Jackie. “It's when antibodies cause red blood cells to clump together in low temperatures and can cause pain. Or your pain could just be the increased pressure from the temperature drop. That shouldn't happen with an old sprain though, only breaks.”

“It might have actually been a break,” said Brad, finger returned to his ear. “It was a while ago.”

“Hey, Adam, you're from the Bay, right?” said Lionel. “I got my top done with Brownstein in Oakland, so I was there for a week last March.”

“Word,” said Adam.

“Pretty sick town. And Brownstein was the shit.”

“How do you know Adam?” Jackie said to Brad.

“Tennis,” said Brad, eyeing Adam.

“Are you sure about that?” said Gillian, laughing. “You look uncertain.” Gillian looked at Adam.

“Who'd you go with?” said Lionel.

“Fischer,” said Adam.

“Sweet. My friend Beaumont used her.”

“What?” said Brad.

“Where I got my surgery, you know,” Adam said, and he gave Brad a barely perceptible head nod. Then quietly, but catching Gillian's attention too, Adam said, “Appendix.”

“Oh, yeah!” said Brad, acknowledging this must be part of some previous lie Adam had told: Adam's own tragic story involving an inflamed appendix and possible near death. Tragedy breeds sympathy. Brad kicked Adam under the table and grinned.

Gillian gave Adam a knowing look and then leaned over to Lionel. She gestured at Brad with her head. She was trying to tell him not to out Adam in front of Brad, but Lionel wasn't getting it.

“You're good at this,” Brad said to Adam under his breath.

More people were coming into the club now, filling up the other red booths and thickening around the bar. Adam smiled. He
was
good at this. His whole body felt electrified, ready for whatever came at him next. He imagined his brain as a jigsaw puzzle of lies, everything fitting perfectly, a 1,000-piece Van Gogh painting.

“Hey, Nadia, can I get you another drink?” said Brad, noticing Nadia's empty glass.

“How old are you?” said Nadia.

“Nineteen.”

“Last time I checked you had to be twenty-one to buy alcohol.”

Jackie laughed as Brad turned red. She was amused by Brad's crush on her girlfriend.

“You know what I have no desire to ever do?” said Nadia, staring out as if in reverie.

“Yeah?” said Brad.

“Have sex with a man,” said Nadia.

Jackie laughed really hard.

“Do you work out?” said Lionel to Adam. “You look awesome.”

“Uh, a little,” said Adam.

“I just don't like the idea of a guy fucking me. It's like he thinks he's getting something. Or getting away with something,” continued Nadia.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Gillian. She caught herself on the last word and looked quickly at Adam.
It's different with you
, her expression said.
No problem, of course
, his expression said back.