Woods has always been serenely controlling. I’ve always gone along, easy breezy, because in elementary school I didn’t have the skill to make deep connections on my own. Woods made them all for me. Tied up friends with neat little bows and presented them to me like birthday presents. “For you, Billie McCaffrey,” he seemed to say of Fifty and Mash and himself. He saw I was oddly confident and confidently odd, which meant I was wildly unpopular. And lonely.
Part of me gets lonely landing on these pre-Woods memories.
I am the one who acquired Janie Lee and welcomed her to the group, but Woods is the one who cemented her feet in place.
I took for granted that they knew me. I took for granted that Woods would always be right.
There’s another truth here. One I’d rather not look at dead on. Maybe, when it comes to sexuality, my foregone conclusions are not all that foregone. Sometimes tomboys are gay. Sometimes they’re not. I wonder which kind of tomboy I am or if there is room to not know until later.
“Tell me,” he says softly.
“I . . .” When I left my room this morning, I thought I’d never admit the sex dream to anyone. Not ten hours later, I want to ladle these thoughts from my head into Davey’s soup bowl. “Have you ever had a dream about someone?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Like a dream-dream? A dream.”
“Billie, everyone has dream-dreams.”
“Not like this,” I say.
He asks for the details. I hit the high points quick and fast—guy, sex, Janie Lee. He shifts in his seat, considers a response. “I’m glad you’re not carrying this around by yourself,” he says first. “I don’t think it necessarily means you’re gay or transgender. And no one is asking you to choose because of a whiteboard or a sex dream.”
“I know.”
“But you still feel pressured to choose?”
“I feel pressured to assess,” I say. “It all has to mean something. But I can’t tell if my being attracted to Janie Lee means I’m attracted to girls.”
“So, do you think there’s any chance that’s how she feels about you?”
“Maybe.”
“And do you think you’re not overly excited about the Corn Dolly because you’re wrestling with what it means to be a girl?”
“Maybe.”
He says, “I think that’s normal.”
“I feel stupid that I didn’t see this coming. I’ve always been so fixated on a future with Woods, and she was right there too. I should have realized.”
“Why?”
“Because I should have.”
“We all have blind spots, Billie.”
I release my grip on the door handle. “I don’t want things to change, and I want the freedom to explore. Am I even making sense?”
“You are making sense.” He reaches for the tie hanging from the rearview mirror, stops, grips the wheel instead. “What does your gut say?”
“My gut . . . well, my gut put on a dress this morning thinking it was a solution, so let’s not go with my gut right now.”
“Let’s take this stuff one decision at a time. Are you sure you’re over Woods? I have a hard time believing you’ve been in love with him forever and now, poof, all gone, game over. On to Janie Lee.”
“It’s not poof, all gone. More like a switch flipped. More like I wasn’t actually in love to begin with. We kissed . . .”
“And . . .”
The passing cornfields are devoid of color, the gray sky swallowing their radiance. I tell him everything. It comes out of me fast—liquid being sucked from a two-liter bottle. Gulping. Fizzy. Gone. “So there’s nothing sexual between us. Like literally nothing,” I conclude.
“Oh.”
“Is it wrong that I want more than that?” I’m asking as if he is an expert, when really I have no idea.
“You should be with someone who makes you the best version of yourself,” he says.
“Like you are with Thom?” I ask, gently probing.
He averts his eyes from the road. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, when you’re with him, your face relaxes.”
“Hmmm.”
Hmmm, I love him? Hmmm, he makes me feel safe? Hmmm, I don’t know about Thom any more than you know about Janie Lee?
At this cue, he commandeers the radio and forces me to listen to Lyle Lovett and David Bowie. I am tired from my confessions. As I’m nodding off, he strokes the tie hanging from his rearview mirror with longing and I wonder if he misses his father.
When he nudges me awake, we’re parked in a driveway.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Not somewhere my face relaxes. Not yet,” he replies.
18
Large white columns stretch two stories to meet an impressive rectangular roof. The house belongs on the coast. With its large porches, stacked one on top of the other, an American flag hanging from the topmost railing. With its off-white siding, black shutters, and heavily manicured landscaping that perfectly frames every corner and edge with a splash of color. It is not that the house itself couldn’t exist in Otters Holt—we do have some hundred-year-old architecture. But there would be toys in the yard, or perhaps a large ornamental chicken, or maybe algae on the siding, or even a Beware of Dog sign tacked to the tree in the front. It would be lived-in. This house was built like a display—not to play with or abide in, but simply to exist.
“This is where I grew up,” he says. It doesn’t take a genius to see he is embarrassed. “We’re going to meet Gerry and Thom later for dinner, but I need to pick something up first.”
When he opens the car door to get out, I do the same.
It is nearly five o’clock. I ask, “Will your dad be home?”
“I hope not. I’ll text him later and say I stopped by to get a few things from downstairs.”
I stay close, just behind, choosing not to walk in step with him. He unlocks the front door and walks so swiftly through the entry hall that I don’t have time to think anything except: the inside aesthetic matches the outside. Davey opens one of several doors in a side hallway. Steps lead down. We take them two at a time, arriving in a large open space that is outfitted the way Youth Suite 201 should be: pool table, five arcade games, a working foosball table.
I do not tell him this room is nice. He knows.
He’s acting cagey, and I have to guess what he’s thinking. I halfway regret getting out of the car and intruding in this space while simultaneously feeling better that he does not have to be here alone.
He rummages in a closet, and I stay behind, bouncing a pool ball along the rails with my hand, hoping this will end soon.
“You need anything?” I call.
“No, but come see this if you want.”
We’ve created many memories since he moved to Otters Holt, but my picture of him is still full of holes. I like being invited to fill in the spaces.
He’s squatting on the floor, searching for something. We are inside an oversize closet that is more organized than my garage has ever dreamed of being, and equally interesting. Large wire racks line the left and right walls. Bins are labeled: eye makeup, clown, horror, Marvel, jewelry black, jewelry gold, jewelry colorful. There must be a hundred plastic storage boxes—some very large, containing toy guns and swords, and some very small, promising colored hair and skin. One long closet bar hangs across the back of the closet. Costumes are wedged between the walls.
“This is all yours?” I ask.