Hello Groin (19 page)

As I watched, Dad picked up his sponge and went back to work, soaping the car. Without warning an arc of water hit him in the butt, and I realized that Mom had picked up the hose and turned it on him. Dad whirled around, earning himself a full-frontal soaker, then charged Mom and wrestled the hose from her. A moment later she was also drenched, her office clothes plastered, her blouse completely transparent. The effect on Dad was immediate. The hose dropped to the ground, his arms went around her, and my parents started making out in the driveway like two teenagers in a wet bathing-suit contest.

Okay, I thought, watching until they broke off. So maybe they weren’t
exactly
your typical Ms. and Mr. Canada. But they were definitely not a scene out of
Foxfire
either.
Foxfire
was a great book, but that was all it was—a story—whereas the scene in front of me was real life, where I belonged. If I worked hard at it and kept my stupid queen mouth shut, that scene in the driveway could be me and Cam in ten years.

Picking up the knife, I got back to work. No matter how much it bugged me, I thought grimly as I chopped away, those censor strips were just going to have to remain in place over the library display
and
my mouth. No matter how much other kids got on my case, wanting to know what the original titles had been, from this point on my best course of action was silence and a mystery smile. Yeah, that was it, I thought, my head coming up—a silent mysterious grin. Before going to bed, I would put in some time with my dresser mirror and figure out the exact angle of mystery
to put into my smiling lips when refusing to answer a question about the censored titles.

I would also have to work harder at holding the gaze of other kids, so my eyes didn’t flick away the way they had with Len’s. Looking away was a dead giveaway. It meant you had something to hide, and what I had to impress upon everyone right now was that I was squeaky clean. I had no secrets, no skeletons in my closet. Yeah, look inside me and I was virtually empty.

Hail, Basti, who comest forth from nothing, even my heart was eaten
.

After supper, Dad gave me a rundown on his discussion with Mr. Brennan while we stacked the dishwasher. Basically Brennan had agreed with Dad—he should have covered the display and talked to me before any changes were made. I was certainly welcome to return to his office and talk about it again if I wanted, he’d said, and he wasn’t bothered by the censor strips. In fact, he’d told Dad that he thought they were an intelligent response, and he respected it. At the same time he was adamant that Ms. Fowler’s substitute titles remain in place. Neither
Foxfire
or
The Once and Future King
could appear in the silhouettes’ groins, and that was where he and Dad had left it.

It took me all of two seconds to shrug off Mr. Brennan’s invitation to rehash things. Why bother, if it wouldn’t change anything? Besides, the last thing I wanted to do right now was discuss my reasons for putting
Foxfire
into the girl silhouette’s groin with anyone, much less my school principal. I was starting to wish I’d never heard of that crazy girls’ gang. Why hadn’t Mr. Cronk assigned us a normal, average, run-of-the-mill book to read like
Lord of the Flies
?

Grumpily I scrubbed off the burnt bits stuck to Dad’s casserole dish and put it into the dishwasher. Then I started down the hall,
intending to head upstairs to my room and get to work on some homework. But as I passed the living room doorway, I overheard Keelie say something that brought me to a dead halt.

“Who’s that guy, Danny?” she asked, pointing at the TV. A weekly sitcom was on, one she normally wouldn’t have been watching. By now she was usually in the tub, singing to her rubber duck—because of Dad and Mom’s garden-hose frolic, things were a little behind schedule.

“Which guy?” asked Danny, so absorbed in the show that he was only half-listening. Or not listening at all. Because it was obvious which character Keelie was asking about—a gay architect who lived next door to the main character.

“
That
guy,” said Keelie, pointing again at the screen.

“Oh,” said Danny. “He’s a faggot.”

“A what?” asked Keelie, screwing up her nose.

“A fag, Keelie,” said Danny, half-glancing at her. “That means he likes guys.”

“Oh,” said Keelie. A confused frown settled onto her face and she stared at the TV.

“C’mon, Danny,” I said, stepping into the room. “You can’t talk to her like that. How’s she supposed to know what it means?”

Danny shrugged easily. “You explain it,” he said, without glancing away from the screen.

For a second I hesitated, then sat down beside Keelie. She gave a little wriggle, working her way in against my arm, then looked up at me with an expectant wide-open expression on her face. Whatever I told her next was important, I realized. She was going to take it deep into herself and believe it completely.

Foxfire
, I thought, looking down at her.
Will you ever read that book? Will it screw up your life as much as it’s screwed up mine?

“‘Fag’ isn’t the right word, Keelie,” I said, thinking my way slowly into what I wanted to say. “It’s ‘gay.’ And what ‘gay’ means
is...,” I took a deep breath. “Well, it’s what Danny said. It’s when a guy falls in love with a guy, or a girl falls in love with a girl. The word for two guys who are in love with each other is ‘gay,’ and the word for two girls is...”

Pausing, I took another deep breath. “Well,” I added reluctantly, “it’s ‘lesbian.’”

One of my power blushes kicked in, eating up my face, but Keelie didn’t seem to notice.

“Lesbean?” she demanded, staring up at me. Beside her, Danny gave a muffled snort.

“Not lesbean,” I said, trying to
think
down the temperature of my face. “LesbiAN.”

“LesbiAN,” Keelie echoed loudly. She repeated it just as loudly several times, then looked up at me again and said, “That’s two girls?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, feeling my face heat up a few more degrees.

“And they’re like Mommy and Daddy?” she asked. “Sort of,” I said. “A mommy and a mommy, I guess.” Another confused frown appeared on Keelie’s face. “But how can they make a baby without a penis and a vagina?” she asked, putting her hand on my arm.

A gurgling sound came from Danny and he shot me a grin. “That question is definitely yours,” he said.

“Well,” I said helplessly. I knew Mom and Dad had given Keelie the basic facts on baby production. Obviously they hadn’t gotten around to cluing her in on the gay scene yet. “Gay and lesbian couples don’t make babies,” I said carefully. “They just live together and love each other.”

Keelie’s dark eyes bored into mine. “Do they sleep in the same bed?” she asked.

“Probably,” I said.

She tapped her toes together thoughtfully. “But Mommy and Daddy loved each other to make me,” she said slowly. “Daddy told me he put his penis into Mommy’s vagina and his sperm found Mommy’s egg, and then I growed into a baby and got born.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s true. But lots of times Mommy and Daddy love each other without making a baby. They just love each other because they like doing it.”

Danny gave a loud unhelpful snort and grinned at the TV.

“Like kissing and hugging?” asked Keelie, ignoring him.

“Yeah,” I said quickly. Finally, a
G
-rated question.

“And putting his penis into her vagina?” Keelie added.

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. “Except it’s different when there are two daddies or two mommies.”

“They do something different?” asked Keelie.

“Yes,” I sighed. I was going to have to figure out how to put the brakes on here. I mean, Keelie was taking us down the road to sheer and utter pornography at breakneck speed.

“WHAT?” she demanded loudly, getting to her knees and poking her face into mine. At the other end of the couch, Danny let loose with a howl of laughter. I wanted to slug him.

“Whatever...they want,” I said finally. Reaching around Keelie, I gave Danny a shove.

“Oooooooooooooooh,” Keelie said thoughtfully. I could almost see the gears spinning in her brain. Hundreds of questions were forming there—eager, hungry, detail-specific questions.

“Mom,” I shouted, getting up hastily from the couch. “Is Keelie’s bathwater ready yet?”

“Send her up,” called Mom. Quickly I lifted Keelie down from the couch, and she took off like a shot, hollering at the top of her lungs.

“Mommy, Mommy,” she bellowed as she climbed the stairs.
“Dylan just told me about lesbiAN and gay. It means there’s a mommy and a mommy, or a daddy and a daddy, and there’s no penis and vagina, they do whatever they want.”

“Oh,” said Mom in a startled voice and I dropped back onto the couch, horrified at the mishmash Keelie had made of my explanation. Beside me there was a thud as Danny rolled off the couch and hit the floor, howling in glee. Grabbing a throw cushion, I began bashing him mercilessly about the head.

“No penis and vagina,” he spluttered, clutching his stomach. “They do whatever they want.” More howls claimed him. “Wait ‘til Cam hears this one,” he moaned.

Instantly my body went cold. “No,” I said, leaning into his face. “Don’t tell Cam, okay?”

“Okay,” said Danny, going quiet. Rolling onto his back, he studied me curiously. “If you want. But what’s the big deal? He’d get a real kick out of it. You should tell him, he’d—”

“No,” I repeated firmly, getting to my feet. “Just don’t tell him. And y’know those titles that used to be under the censor strips? You haven’t told anyone what they were, have you?”

“No,” said Danny. “It’s your secret. Guys have been bugging me, but I kept mum.”

“Thanks,” I said, flashing him a relieved smile. “Just keep on keeping mum, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, obviously bewildered.

My eyes slid from his and I started for the door. “Thanks again,” I added lamely. “I really appreciate it, Danny.”

With that, I headed to my room. The stairs to the second floor seemed longer than usual, and the air kind of heavy, in a way I hadn’t noticed before. But I managed to shrug it off, and got to work on a history assignment that was due the next day. When I finished, I spent some time practicing my mystery smile in front of the dresser mirror. Then I crawled into bed, but though
I lay waiting for the phone to ring, Cam didn’t call. This wasn’t unusual. He didn’t call every night, and if he didn’t call me, I didn’t always call him. There was a natural rhythm to it, sort of like breathing, something I’d taken for granted. Tonight, however, I lay in the dark, waiting out the silence and willing him to call. My whole mind formed itself into a hook, trying to snag him with my thoughts.

C’mon, Cam
, I kept thinking.
Call me, man-of-my-life. Please, just call
.

Several times I reached for the phone, but my hand always stopped midair. About me the silence deepened, and the darkness grew more intense. Finally, with my hands above my waist and my pajama bottoms firmly tied, I fell asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Just as I’d figured, the phone patrol had been active last night. I got a rundown on their basic chitchat from Joc when I picked her up the next morning.

“Caitlin van Doer called me last night,” she said, hanging on tightly as I pushed off from the curb. “She said you said something about Len Schroeder’s dick having been everywhere, and you’d wait longer than five minutes before letting him stick you with every STD known to the human race.”

“Actually,” I said, pedaling grimly down the street, “I said two weeks. And I didn’t say anything about STDs. Lucky for me, Caitlin didn’t think of leprosy and the mad cow virus too.”

Joc gave me a sympathetic forehead thump on the back. “Don’t take a hairy,” she said. “The STDs were my extra little bit, just to perk you up.”

“I’m feeling quite perky already, thanks,” I said, turning onto the Dundurn Street bridge. “And would you mind terribly much keeping that extra little bit to yourself from now on? I’m in enough shit with Julie Crozier already, without your creative additions getting back to her. Why didn’t you call me last night and tell me about this?”

“Because you would’ve started freaking out, just like you’re freaking out now,” Joc said reasonably. “And then you wouldn’t have slept a wink and been a very grumpy owl all day today. Besides, Dikker called right after Caitlin hung up. We had things we needed to discuss.”

Dikker had called Joc, but Cam hadn’t called me. A sick feeling oozed through my gut.

“I am in such deep shit,” I moaned. “I apologized twice to Julie, but she’s never going to forgive me. Never ever
ever
. She likes holding grudges. It’s like a badge of honor to her.”

“So what?” said Joc. “You’re such a worrywart, Dyl. Y’know what I told Caitlin when she told me what you’d said to Julie? I said, ‘Three cheers for Dylan. It’s about time someone put Len Creep-Meister in his place.’”

As usual, Joc wasn’t
getting
it. “For your information,” I said heavily, “Len Creep-Meister happens to be Cam’s friend. So is Julie.”

Gloomily I swerved my bike onto Diefenbaker Avenue and the Dief came into view, looming ominously at the end of the block. “Well, I suppose Julie and Len are my friends too,” I added reluctantly. “Sort of, because I’m going out with Cam. Otherwise they wouldn’t bother.”

“Pack of werewolves,” muttered Joc. “Vampires. Soul suckers.”

“Yeah, well, my parents like them,” I said, coasting up to the bike racks. “And anyway, since when is Dikker’s rep any better than Len’s?”

“That’s just talk,” snapped Joc, sliding off the seat. “At least
he
doesn’t hang around with fucking pricks the way your boyfriend does.”

With that she took off, leaving me standing openmouthed by my bike.
Fucking pricks?
I thought, watching her stalk into the
surrounding crowd. Maybe a
little
overdone—as an in-depth character sketch, that is. But, as with most things Joc said when angry, it bordered on the truth.