St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (4 page)

pleasant shudder trailed its way up my spine. I

kissed him harder; I seized the zipper of his jacket

and pulled it down.

He pulled back.

I laid my hand on his shoulder, concerned. Had I

read him wrong? I'd thought he wanted--

"I don't know what to do," Rafael said.

Oh, I thought. And when I really thought about it--

we were both boys. Dad hadn't included boys in

his severely awkward "When You Become a Man"

speech five years ago.

Tentatively, I tugged his jacket down his

shoulders. I reached for the hem of his shirt. He

didn't take his eyes off mine; and consequently, I

couldn't look away.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

I tilted my hand.
Sort of.

"How?" he blurted out, frantic.

I frowned at him. I squeezed his shoulder. I didn't

mind if he wanted to stop--I just wanted him to

calm down.

"I mean--I've never had another--you're the first

person I've ever--"

I pressed my finger to his lips.
Calm down. It's

okay.

Rafael went on looking at me, flustered, eyes

earnest and blue.

I took my hands away and signed to him slowly.

I've done this before. Just not with a guy.

Rafael's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "I

didn't know you liked girls. I mean. Like that."

I don't.

Rafael hesitated. "So, like...it was a mistake?"

I shrugged and smiled.
I guess so.

"It wasn't a mistake?"

I rubbed my forehead--not with annoyance; nothing

about Rafael could possibly annoy me. It's just

that I was starting to feel the onset of a headache. I

hate when you've got this concept sitting in your

head, but you don't know how to put it in words,

and even if you know the words, you can't say

them.

It was a mistake, yeah.

Rafael scrutinized me silently, chewing on the

inside of his mouth. I couldn't tell what was going

through his head. I didn't have his crazy mind-

reading powers.

"When did you..."

Eleven years ago.

Rafael looked at me. And I saw his eyes dilating,

but slowly. And I suddenly felt that whatever was

going through his head, I didn't want to know it.

"Who--I mean--tell me about it," he said. His

voice was firm, but I couldn't help noticing his

stammer.

Eleven years ago
, I signed slowly. I didn't think

Rafael knew enough sign language for a

conversation like this. I knew he knew the ASL

alphabet. I decided I'd just fingerspell any word I

thought he was unfamiliar with.
After your dad--

I started again. I didn't want to bring Rafael's

father into this.
A year after Mom died, Dad

signed me up for therapy.

He nodded, to show that he was following.

The problem is, I didn't know any sign language

back then. So I had no way of talking to anyone.

The poor psychiatrist who got saddled with me

just didn't know what to do with me. After a

while, she started bringing in dolls. That was

nice. We played house. I really wanted to play

action heroes, but she's a girl. You can't make a

girl play action heroes if she doesn't want to.

"Yeah, they suck like that," Rafael murmured. "Go

on."

I rubbed my right hand.
We played dolls together

for a couple of weeks. You know, they were these

anatomically correct dolls--the creepy ones cops

sometimes use when they're interviewing kids.

Anyway, one day she said--'Watch me.' She

undressed the guy doll. She said, 'Have you ever

been touched right here?' I shook my head. So

she said, 'Would you like to be?'

I stopped signing when I realized Rafael wasn't

looking at me anymore. I touched his shoulder

again, worried. He jumped like a livewire.

Are you okay?

"I shouldn't be here."

My heart plummeted. I shouldn't have told him, I

thought.

"I should have never--you should have--just--what

the hell?" he said shakily. "Why didn't you push

me away? I didn't know!"

I don't like girls. I promise. You're being kind of

ridiculous.

"You don't get it, do you?"

Helplessly, I shook my head. I glanced warily at

the door. I was afraid Rafael was going to wake

my dad.

"Does your dad--did he know about it?"

I stared blankly. How could I have told him?

Rafael dropped his head into his hands. I reached

for his shoulder a third time. He jumped a second

time.

"I've gotta go," Rafael muttered.

He pushed the window open and swung his leg

through. I tried to kiss his cheek--the same as

every night--but he slipped right past me. He

gripped the side of the log cabin and lowered

himself to the ground.

I pulled the window shut. I turned off my lamp. I

couldn't bear to watch Rafael walk home.

This was shaping up to be a pretty crappy summer.

It was pandemonium in Annie's house the

following morning.

"I
hate
you!" Lila Little Hawk screamed. She was

Annie's little sister, a twelve-year-old. She was

my favorite little brat. But I hardly recognized her

with the tantrum she was throwing. She stomped

out of the kitchen and into her bedroom, where I

heard the door bang shut.

Annie rolled her eyes and kneaded her hands

through a bowl of wojapi.

I touched Annie's shoulder.
Is everything okay?
I

asked.

"Oh, it's fine. Lila's just going through the change

is all."

The change?

"You know."

Oh
, I said, embarrassed.
That change.

"Yes, that change," Annie said placidly. "We're

building her isolation tent tonight. Of course, she

doesn't want to go."

I thought about Rafael. He'd wanted to know for

the longest time what went on in the women's

isolation tents. He'd tried sneaking into one when

he was a little boy, only for the elders to throw

him out.

"Don't let that corn burn, Skylar. We're grilling it,

not blackening it."

Quickly, I took the pan off of the wood-coal

burner. I took the lemon juice out of the icebox.

"Are
you
okay? You don't usually stare off into

space like that."

Just daydreaming about the change
, I joked. I

couldn't very well tell her that I was feeling

pensive because Rafael didn't want to sleep with

me. The Shoshone have unspoken rules about

those kinds of things, and a conversation of that

caliber breaks about a thousand of them.

"You're a terrible liar, but alright. Can you hand

me that pot?"

It was ten in the morning when we had finished

cooking. We set the corn and the wojapi aside to

be warmed again in the evening. Annie and I went

outside her house to wash our hands at the water

pump. Annie's little brother, Joseph, was playing

on the rope swing with their grandfather, a round-

bellied, ruddy-faced man who was as insouciant as

he was friendly.

"Hello there, Nancy Boy!" Grandpa Little Hawk

greeted me. That's what I'm talking about.

Dad at the lake
, Joseph signed.

I smiled at him.
Excited for the raft race?

Joseph blushed and hid behind the curtains of his

long brown hair.
Dad and Annie and me.

Can't Lila play, too?
Annie signed, suppressing

the faint smile on her lips.

Joseph shook his head emphatically.
Scaring me.

Another child lost to hormones. It was a real

tragedy.

I checked my wristwatch. I was due at the radio

tower with Morgan Stout. I waved goodbye to the

Little Hawk family and followed the beaten path

through the woods.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't keep my eyes peeled

for any sight of Balto. But of course I didn't see

him; you almost never spot a coywolf unless he

wants to be seen. I walked the path to the lake, a

touch disappointed, where the men were sitting in

their fishing boats, dipping their nets into the

crystalline water. I spotted Dad on the water with

Mr. At Dawn and waved to him. I walked the

edge of the lake to the latticed radio tower and the

tiny studio underneath.

Morgan Stout was already waiting outside the

building for me. "Hello, Mr. St. Clair," he said. A

soulful, solemn, dark-eyed little boy, he was the

same age as Lila, and her best friend, too--

provided that she was in a good mood. His auburn

hair came from his grandmother, an Irish woman.

"Um, there's a problem..."

I tilted my head.

"Well, I was waiting out here for you, and then

Miss Gives Light came up out of nowhere, and--"

He didn't need to say another word. I took him by

the hand and led him into the sound studio.

The little studio was one room, square, with

carpeted walls and a drop ceiling to absorb

sound. The little old lady who controlled the

airwaves, Martha Grace, looked up at us, then at

the glass partition, perplexed. I saw why.

I don't know how better to describe Rafael's big

sister than hell on legs. She was twenty, her

makeup shockingly neon, her hair teased to

scandalous heights, and she didn't own an article

of clothing in any color besides purple or black.

The problem wasn't really the way she dressed. It

was the way she scared the living daylights out of

you just by virtue of being--well--her. She was

brash, vulgar, irreverent, opinionated, and

probably the most fearless person on the planet. I

kind of idolized her.

She was standing behind the glass partition,

plugging her bass guitar into an amplifier.

I picked up Morgan's hand and led him through the

door to the sound room. Mary looked up at the

two of us and grinned. She set her bass down and

pulled us into crushing hugs.

"My little buddies!"

Ow
, I mouthed against her bony shoulder.

"Um, hello..."

Mary let go of the two of us and started tuning her

bass.

I felt myself in an odd position. Because, of

course, this was a Plains music station, and a bass

guitar wasn't a Plains instrument. But I had no way

of conveying that to Mary; she didn't know sign

language. I looked sideways at Morgan.

"Miss," Morgan started, "we're supposed to be

recording now, and..."

"Great! What are we playing?"

"Um...Enchanted Canyons," said Morgan, defeated.

"So start already, brat."

We picked up our plains flutes. Morgan started--I

could tell he was reluctant--and I joined in on the

second verse. Then Mary jumped in, surprising

me. The bass line, heavy, deep, added a new

dimension to an old song. I checked the console to

make sure we were recording.

Mary stifled a long yawn when we had finished.

Morgan looked through the hand-written catalogue

for songs we hadn't played before.

"Guess what?" Mary said to me. She bared her

teeth in a devilish grin. "Rosa's knocked up!

Found out just this morning. We're gonna add a

nursery to the house."

I didn't know whether to laugh or start clapping. I

settled for both. Gabriel and Rosa were having a

baby? They must have been really excited, I

thought.

"I'm gonna have another baby brother! Or sister.

Sister? God, I hope it's not a girl. Boys are easier

to push around."

There's no word for "cousin" in the Shoshone

language. Traditionally, Shoshone consider their

cousins to be their brothers and sisters. In fact, the

word for "uncle,"
atapu
, literally means "little

father." To an outsider, a Shoshone family can get

really confusing, and fast.

Morgan and Mary and I left the recording studio

around noon; I waved to Mrs. Grace and she

beamed at us while we walked out into the fresh

air. A few yards away the In Winter kids were

playing tag, skirting the shallow lakeshore.