My fingers still smelled like Alexis. They smelled like sex — if what we had done was sex. What I had done to her. On the ride home with my dad I’d held my breath in stints because I had to believe that what I couldn’t smell my dad couldn’t either. I dozed and when I woke I turned on my clock radio. Two songs in, Wicked Game came on. It was as if I had asked for an omen. The phone rang, and I bolted up to answer it.
Erika said, Why weren’t you in weight room?
I had had two messages from Erika when I got home from Alexis’s. I said, I think I might be getting swimmer’s shoulder. I pressed my thumb into my shoulder joint and felt an ache deep down.
Erika said, Why didn’t you find me and tell me?
I said, I wasn’t in the mood to go in front of everyone and talk to Coach about it. I said, Was he mad? Skipping weight room could have been a huge misstep. It could have been all he needed to change his mind for good about me and Lane Six.
Erika said, He didn’t take attendance. There were a bunch of people who weren’t there.
I pictured the dingy weight room, half full. If there were lots of people absent, nobody would have noticed that both Alexis and I weren’t there. Nobody would have figured out that we were gone together.
Erika said, Well, I was worried. Then she told me that when I hadn’t shown up she’d rallied her resolve and asked PT to be her spotting partner, and they had gone around and done the machines together, and how he was stronger than you might think, especially his legs. He’d said his friends made fun of him for being such a jock, and she loved that, how he was the least jocky jock and also that he would do what he wanted no matter what his friends thought. And he’d invited her to come see his friend’s band play at Thee O tonight, and I would come with her, right?
I said, I don’t think I can tonight.
Erika said, What are you doing?
I said, My parents want me to have dinner with them.
Erika said, The show doesn’t start until ten. You can sleep over.
It felt wrong, and I knew that if I ever needed to see someone’s friend’s band play, Erika would go with me. Erika knew almost everything about me, except what she didn’t know. I said, I’m actually going to see that guy.
Erika said, Which guy?
I said, That older guy I met. The landscaper. He called me and we’re going to — I pulled for a plausible idea — we’re going to go get coffee.
Erika said, At night?
I said, I’m meeting him when he gets off work.
Erika said, You were going to not tell me about this?
If half the team had skipped out on weight room, no one — not Erika or Greg, not Coach — would have thought Alexis, Julie, I wonder what they’re doing? I said, I was just nervous. You know how sometimes when you tell someone about something it becomes less real?
Erika said, Well, you’d better tell me about it. She said, We’re going to have a lot to talk about tomorrow.
ON SUNDAY MORNING I rang Ben’s buzzer and in the silence after it I thought that he might be with a guy. The safe thing would have been to call first but I wanted the feeling of just stopping by. Ben came down the stairs in his socks, Patty the cat in his arms. I said, I was just stopping by. He was listening to loud guitar music, which he lowered, and he poured me a cup from the metal coffeepot. He said, Hungry? He said, Shoes?
I kicked mine off. There was a nice light-blue hoodie draped over a kitchen chair. I had no clue what kind of guy Ben would go out with. I said, Whose sweatshirt is that? Did somebody leave it here? I said, Is it a bad time?
Ben said, As it happens, it’s mine. He put it on and zipped it up and unzipped it. He said, You like? He said, You’re not catching me in the middle of something, if that’s what you mean.
I said, I wasn’t talking about that.
He said, But you could also call before you come. On a Sunday morning. Just to check in.
I said, I’m sorry. I can go.
He said, No, no. Just in the scheme of things. He picked up a metal mixing bowl and banged a fork around in it. He said, Stay. I’ll make you eggs.
I let the coffee wet my lips. The same fliers were on the refrigerator. I said, Is the Anchor a gay bar?
Ben said, Yeah. Want to go?
I said, I’m fifteen. I said, I don’t drink. I said, Why are you asking me?
Ben put his hands up above his head, palms out. He said, Joking, joking. He put a plate in front of me with scrambled eggs on it and a clump of soft, slimy grass. He said, You have to try it before I tell you what it is.
The greens tasted like dirt and butter, as if the butter were there to hide the dirt, but not entirely. I said, It tastes like butter.
He said, I know, that’s the trick, right? He said, Wait for it. Sautéed spinach ends. He showed me a few left on the counter. At the bottom of the leaves of spinach, which apparently came in a bunch, were pinkish white bottoms.
I said, This is what you eat for breakfast?
He got his coffee and sat down with me. He said, I can’t take credit. My friend Luke was the inventor.
I said, Was he your boyfriend?
Ben said, If only Luke had not been tragically in love with New York City, perhaps he would have been my boyfriend.
I said, But you — fooled around with him?
Ben took a sip of his coffee. He took another sip.
I said, You don’t have to answer.
He said, No, look, I realize that I’m the one that opened this can of worms. Can of beans? Which is it?
I said, I don’t know.
He said, What if I give you, like, five questions. Or five minutes?
I said, You’ll answer them?
He said, I guess I’d have to.
I forked through the spinach ends. I said, So you’ll be like the genie in the lamp.
He said, Allow me to be your genie for five minutes.
I said, Five questions. I had to make them matter. I hadn’t come over to tell Ben about what had happened with me and Alexis, but he was the person I could most imagine telling about it. Anyone else would decide that they knew what it meant or didn’t mean, that they had a name for it. I said, How did you know you were gay?
Ben said, That’s your first question?
I said, Or when?
Ben said, Usually when people ask me that question, I like to turn it around and say How did you know you were straight?
I coughed, to cover whatever sound might have come out of me if I hadn’t. I said, You’re right, that was a stupid question. I looked at him as quickly as I could. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me.
Ben said, Stupid questions still count.
I said, I know. I wanted to get away from that question as quickly as possible. I said, Do you have a boyfriend?
Ben said, Not currently. Next?
I said, I’m sorry.
He said, Don’t be. He said, Next?
I was asking the questions but I felt as if Ben were leading the conversation. This was my chance to find out things I needed to know. It felt like a door he could see through but I couldn’t. I said, What was the other magazine?
Ben said, What magazine? Then he said, Oh. Am I allowed to pass?
I said, No.
He said, You’re right, that’s not fair. This is just between us, right? He said, It was what I guess you’d call a porn mag.