Adam (7 page)

Ethan's here!

 

When Adam got back to the apartment, Casey, June, and Ethan were sitting around on some milk crates sharing a six-pack that Ethan had brought. There wasn't a fourth milk crate, so Adam tried to look casual leaning against the wall.

“'Sup, dude,” said Ethan, popping open a beer and handing it to Adam. “I'm Ethan.”

“I'm Adam,” said Adam. He took a swig and his beer immediately foamed all over his shirt. Ethan chuckled, but it wasn't mean. It actually made Adam feel kind of warm.

Ethan was really good-looking—the kind of expertly-tousled-hair-movie-star guy that girls in Adam's class went nutjob for. He was wearing a clean white T-shirt and crisp dark jeans with brand-new bright white Adidas. Adam looked down at his own shit-caked dork Reeboks, a flash of them dangling off Kelsey Winslow's bed. He needed to go shopping immediately. What was he even thinking dressing the way he did? Obviously, cool clothes were the way to get girls. He wondered if Ethan would notice if he showed up the next day in his own brand-new Adidas.

“Yeah, it's shit pay, but I can see all the movies I want for free. I can hook you guys up, too.”

Casey and June were hanging on Ethan's every word. Casey looked positively entranced, and June looked as if she were being batted back and forth between her own entrancement and jealousy of Casey's entrancement.

“I'm working at this YMCA summer camp,” said Casey. “It's, like, nine dollars an hour, but I really love kids, so it should be fun.”

“I'm still looking,” said June.

No one asked Adam what his job was going to be, and he didn't volunteer. He had forgotten until this moment he was supposed to get one.

They talked about when the mattresses were being delivered and who was going to take which bedroom. Ethan said he really didn't care, and June
insisted
that Casey take the large one. Like Casey was June's pregnant wife or something.

Ethan busted out his iPod dock and put on some weird electronic music while everyone moved their stuff into their respective rooms. All of Ethan's things looked new and expensive. An iMac, with a 36-inch monitor. Some kind of recording gear. A plastic tub lined with spotless sneakers: Pumas, Nikes, more Adidas. Maybe he and Ethan were the same size? Adam also noticed that all of June's stuff looked like shit. She walked into her room carrying a CD-player boom box that still had cassette decks.

Adam dumped his bags into his room and examined the closet-size space. It looked like solitary confinement—no windows, low ceiling. He wondered if it would make him go crazy. The idea was sort of exciting. He saw a small object in the corner he couldn't identify and went over to examine it. It was a black plastic square, about an inch and a half long on each side, with a round plastic circle on top. The whole thing was caked in dust. Adam poked it with his toe. Nothing happened. He considered picking it up, but then decided to leave it. He'd put his mattress on top of it and pretend it wasn't there.

***

That evening Casey and June were going to some girl's apartment for an
L Word
party. The girl's name was Schuyler, and she was a friend of their friend Roxanne from college. Schuyler was older and lived in Williamsburg. Casey and June seemed really excited to have been invited.

“We're in the neighborhood now,” said Casey. She was leaning against the wall drinking from their third six-pack of the day. “We're not some dorks all the way up on Morningside Heights.”

They'd plugged a couple of the desk lamps in and set them on the floor, giving the near-empty living room a cozy glow. Casey, June, and Adam were all drinking, but Ethan was in his room. Adam wished he would come out.

“I was totally down to go with Roxanne when she used to go,” said June. “You were the one who was always like, ‘It's too far! It's a school night!'” June followed this with a nervous laugh, waiting to see if her poking fun at Casey would fly.

“It's not like I actually gave a shit about schoolwork,” said Casey. (Adam was pretty sure she did—Casey was obsessed with doing well at school.) “It would have been embarrassing to trek all the way across the city just to watch a TV show with people we barely know. It would totally look like we were trying too hard.”

June nodded as if she'd already thought that herself.

“This is way more casual,” continued Casey. “It's like, we're in the neighborhood; sure, we'll stop by.” Casey took a nonchalant swig of beer, and Adam instinctively did too. He was feeling nice and buzzed.

“God, if Casey isn't there, I'm gonna kill myself,” said Casey.

June gave a weak smile. “Isn't Casey, like, Schuyler's best friend? I wouldn't worry about it.”

Casey sighed. “This is a good outfit, right? I look hot, right?”

“You look hot.”

June still annoyed Adam, but he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her. It was just too tragic.

“Wait, you have a crush on someone named Casey?” he asked Casey.

Casey laughed and rolled her eyes. As if she'd heard it a million times but wouldn't mind hearing it a million more. “
Yes.
I have a crush on someone named Casey. I
know.
”

“I guess that's just something you have to deal with when you're gay,” said Adam.

Casey and June exchanged a look.

What?
That
was offensive?

“OK, we should leave in, like, fifteen minutes,” said Casey, moving on, “and I need to be at least thirty percent drunker.” She guzzled her beer.

“What are you up to tonight?” June asked Adam. Adam shrugged.
What was he up to? How the hell was he supposed to know?

Casey stood up, wobbled a little, and walked toward the faint music coming from Ethan's closed door. She paused and gave June a teeth-clenched nervous grin. June mirrored the grin back. Casey knocked lightly on the door.

“What's up?” said Ethan, poking his head out.

“Uh, we're going to an, um,
L Word
party over on Lorimer Street . . . if you wanna come?”

Ethan does not want to go to a fucking
L Word
party
, thought Adam. He imagined Ethan stepping out, declining the invitation, then mentioning a hot club in the city he was going to tonight and saying,
“They don't card. Adam, you wanna come with?”

Ethan gave his customary little chuckle. “No thanks. I'm gonna stay in tonight.” And he shut the door.

Fuck.
Was Adam just supposed to stay here in the apartment while Ethan was in his room with the door locked? That just seemed so awkward . . . so pathetic. Whatever Ethan was doing in his room was definitely cool, but the only thing Adam could think to do alone in his room was surf Internet porn. And, the truth was, he was too scared to go out into the city alone. He wouldn't even know where to go. Adam saw Casey looking at him. He could never hide how he felt from her.

“You wanna come?” she asked. “I know you like
The L Word
—even if it's for the wrong reasons.”

Adam liked
The L Word
because it showed hot girls making out. Isn't that why Casey and all her friends liked it too? He glanced back at Ethan's closed door.

“Uh, sure, whatever,” he said. And he started to chug his beer, too.

***

Outside, the warm New York night spread out exciting and exposed. Police cars with their sirens blared by, and groups of older guys slouched and murmured in the corners. Adam wondered if they were drug dealers. He imagined a phone call to Brad back home.
“Yeah, picked up an ounce from the guys on the corner. 
.
 . 
.
Naw, they give me a good deal. Neighborhood price. It's gonna blow when I get back to the Bay and have to pay regular again.”
Brad had mentioned coming to visit him for a week, but Adam wasn't so sure. Everything would have to be perfect. He'd need to have a girlfriend, all new clothes, and a gang of cool dudes he hung with that were not Casey's lesbian friends. He imagined Brad being jealous of Ethan.

“What, so now this guy's your best friend?”

“We live together; you just get super tight that way.”

“Isn't he, like, twenty-one? Why's he hanging out with a seventeen-year-old?”

“He, like, didn't even know how old I was for a couple months . 
.
 . He was totally shocked when I told him.”

A man pushing a ratty ice-cream cart jostled up next to them. Casey and June bought Chocolate Eclairs, and Adam got a Cherry Bomb pop. He took a sweet, icy bite, and as he swallowed was hit, blindsided really, by a sudden, momentary elation. For those two seconds, he knew—he just
knew
—everything in New York was going to turn out exactly as he dreamed.

 

“Hola,”
said a lesbian, opening the door. Schuyler wasn't far from how Adam had imagined her. Short cropped hair with bleached tips, lip ring, boy's clothes.

“This is my brother, Adam,” said Casey.

Schuyler looked Adam over. “Nice lipstick.”

Casey looked at him. “The popsicle.”

Adam quickly rubbed at his mouth with his fist.

Inside, a bunch of other typical-looking lesbians lounged around on a couch and pillows on the floor. No one seemed to notice them walk in.

“You guys want some beers . . . whiskey . . . water?” asked Schuyler. “Roxanne's not here yet.”

Adam saw Casey blush, embarrassed that apparently their only excuse for being there was Roxanne.

“I'll have some whiskey,” said Casey.

“Me too,” said June.

“Me too,” said Adam.

Casey gave them an annoyed look.

“Hey, Casey,” Schuyler shouted to a super-butch lesbian talking with people in the kitchen. “Hook these guys up with some Jack.”

Adam watched his sister stare at the other Casey, panic, then check her cell phone for no reason. June looked down at her own body as if she wished she'd left it at home.

“Have a seat wherever you can find one,” continued Schuyler, then abruptly turned around. “Bitch, I know you did not take my spot! No one fucks with my
L Word.
”

Casey and June sat on the floor, leaning up against the couch, and Adam huddled by the ficus tree in the corner. He tried to catch a glimpse of himself in the window reflection to see if his lipstick was still there. Not that there was any girl here for him to impress. Every single one looked gay—like manly lesbian gay. It might be fun to talk with a girly lesbian, just for the night, even if it went nowhere, but none of these girls were even remotely hot. Why would you want to make yourself look so unattractive? And why was Casey—who
was
hot—so batshit for these girls?

Adam looked over at Casey and June, who were talking to Butch Casey. Casey was doing all her flirty stuff she used to do when Sam first started coming around. Constantly brushing her hair behind her ear. Talking really fast and using lots of hand gestures. She was also downing her drink as if it were on the verge of evaporation. June was doing likewise. Casey turned toward Adam and started waving for him to come over.
Great.
She'd probably run out of things to say and was now going to “introduce her brother” as a new conversation topic.
Awkward.
Adam made his way over, almost tripping over a lesbian in a baseball cap sitting on a skateboard. He hunkered down next to the group.

“Adam's in high school hell right now, so I'm letting him live with us for the summer,” said Casey.

Adam didn't like the word
letting
. Even if it was true.

“Yeah, high school's a cunt,” said Butch Casey. Adam stared at her. He'd seen lesbians with faint mustaches before, but this was out of control—this girl had a straight-up
beard.
What the fuck was Casey thinking? This girl was disgusting!

“Casey works at MoMA. He gets to go to any museum in New York for free.”

He? Oh. This person was a guy.

“I thought you were
gay?
” Adam blurted out to his sister. Boy Casey laughed. June made a quiet, strange little noise.

“Uh, OK, weirdo,” said Casey. “Anyway, I'm
queer
, or whatever.” She was trying to play it off like it was nothing but still let Adam know she was mad at him for saying it. How could she not expect him to be surprised? His entire life all she'd ever done was go on and on about how much she loves girls and has zero interest in guys.

Adam looked back at Boy Casey—it was insane. Right before his eyes, a butt-ugly girl transformed into an actually not-bad-looking guy. It was like that optical illusion when you look at the black vase that then turns into two white profiles facing each other. Ugly girl. Attractive guy. Same face. He could tell he was staring, so he quickly took a gulp of whiskey. He was getting drunk.

“It's starting! It's starting,” someone shouted. “Shhh! Shhh!” The TV was on and the lights went out.

The show began with a woman running out of another woman's house, both of them crying. The woman got into a car with a different woman waiting outside.

Adam had only seen the show a couple of times and didn't know who anybody was.

“Oh, Alice! I can't
believe
Dana dumped her for Lara!” someone said.

“You're telling me you'd rather have sex with Alice than Lara?”

“Well, maybe not, but . . .”

Everyone laughed.

“This is why Dana got cancer,” said someone else. “Karma.”

This time no one laughed. There was an awkward silence and then the opening credits blasted on the screen, and everyone started singing along to the theme song.

Adam was the only one not singing. He shifted uncomfortably.

A title card read,
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
, as two women, one with a giant headscarf, strolled down the street.