Russel Middlebrook: Double Feature Part 18

"But, Kevin," I said, "don't you see? You had your chance. I'm sorry that you blew it, but you did. Now he needs a chance to love Otto."

Kevin let his arms fall to his sides.

"What are you saying?" he whispered.

Suddenly I realized why it had been so essential that I follow Kevin, and why I was conversing with him now. "I'm saying," I said, "that you need to tell Russel you've changed your mind. That it's over, and that he has no chance with you."

"What? I can't do-" 109 "And then you need to leave him completely alone!" I went on. "Otto lives eight hundred miles away. As long as Russel thinks you two might still work out, and as long as you're right here in town, he's never going to be able to love Otto. So you need to cut him out of your life completely. It's the only way he'll ever have a chance with Otto, the only way Russel can ever really be happy with him."

"But-" Kevin raised his hands, as if to struggle again. At that moment, however, he caught sight of something behind my back.

"Here he comes!" whispered Kevin. "You have to get out of here!"

I stared at him a moment longer. "You know this is the right thing," I said. "Please. Do it for Russel."

I didn't wait for Kevin to answer, or even look to see his reaction. There wasn't time-Russel might have already spied me as it was. I hustled off into the bushes.

I knew it wasn't right to eavesdrop on Kevin and Russel, so I immediately started trying to work my way around the park and back to my car. Unfortunately, the greenbelt was dark, and the undergrowth thick. Under my shoes, cold mud squished, releasing the smell of wet clay and rotting 110 leaves; it mingled with the strong odor of methane from the swamp. The whole area was impossibly still, almost like time itself had stopped. That stillness, and the acoustics of the park, made it so I could hear absolutely everything, every whisper and every little gasp, that was going on back at that gazebo, where Russel had just reached Kevin.

"Who was that?" I heard him ask Kevin.

"Huh?" I heard Kevin respond.

"That guy I saw you talking to. Who was it? He looked older." Russel had seen me in Leah's coat, so he'd also mistaken me for a guy. He'd thought the jacket was an overcoat, making me look like a man. In the dark, the epaulets had probably also made my shoulders look broad.

Kevin didn't answer. Was he going to tell Russel the truth, that it had been me? I wasn't sure how I would ever explain why I'd been talking to Kevin, but I supposed I would think of something.

"He was older," said Kevin at last. "In his twenties. He was. .h.i.tting on me. I've seen him here before."

I stopped in the bushes, confused. What was Kevin saying?

Russel was befuddled too. "Kevin, what are you talking about? What do you mean you've 'seen' him here?"

"What do you think?" said Kevin. "Russel, relax. I 111 haven't done it that many times." I turned back toward the gazebo, which I could still make out through the leaves.

Russel and Kevin were both black-and-white silhouettes now, and I could only see Kevin from behind, but his arms hung limply from his sides. He wasn't thrashing against imaginary chains now.

" 'That many times'?" said Russel. "Are you serious?"

"Look!" said Kevin. "What'd you want to see me about?"

"Well, I'm confused," said Russel. "Last week you were all moony-eyed over me. You came out to the whole school so we could be together. Now you tell me you've been out picking up old guys in parks?"

"Well, it's not like we were together then," said Kevin. "And it's not like that has anything to do with us anyway. That's just s.e.x."

Finally, I understood what Kevin was doing. He wasn't just telling Russel that it was over between the two of them, as I had suggested. He was going one step further: he was trying to make Russel hate him. He was telling lies so that Russel would never want to have anything to do with him again. The result would be far more effective than what I 112 had had in mind. If Kevin succeeded, Russel wouldn't even love him anymore. The question was, would Russel truly believe it? "So it was all lies?" Russel was saying. "When you said you still loved me? You were just messing around?"

"Hey, I'm an athlete," said Kevin superciliously. "It's a game. And this was one game I wanted to win. I lost the first time around, so I wanted a rematch. I wanted to prove I could win. And I did. I got you to pick me over Otto. But that's all it was. Just a game."

This is what I had accused Kevin of. He had said it to Russel like it was the truth, even though I now knew it wasn't. If there had been any doubt in my mind before about whether he really loved Russel, there wasn't anymore. He loved Russel so much he was pretending to hate him, just so Russel could have a real chance with some new guy. What kind of person made a sacrifice like this? Who was really that selfless? Maybe Xena, Warrior Princess, but she is a TV character, not a real person.

I'd been completely wrong about Kevin. He wasn't a selfish weasel. If he ever had been, he had somehow changed in the last eight months. Otto was still right for Russel, and they deserved a chance to see if the relationship could work. Kevin, meanwhile, had once done a very bad thing to Russel, and it was a past mistake that he definitely had to atone for.

Still, by stepping aside to make way for Otto, Kevin was 113 making amends, and more. I, meanwhile, was the only one to witness it. Would Russel see through his ruse? In order for Kevin's impossible sacrifice to work, Russel could never know the truth. He had to believe Kevin's words completely. If he ever learned what Kevin had done for him, Russel would just love him even more.

I was dying to hear what Russel would say, how he would react. Meanwhile, somewhere overhead, the treetops rustled quietly, like the sound of sand slipping down through an hourgla.s.s.

* * * I, of course, had my own problems. Even after the episode in the park was over, I wasn't ready to go home, so I went for a walk. Somehow I found myself back on McKenzie Street, the same place where Leah and I had come twice before. It wasn't yet nine, so college students still ambled along the sidewalks, Christmas shopping and stopping into the cafes for late bites to eat.

I was so confused. I liked Leah a lot; I had thought that maybe I could even love her. That said, there are certain lines in life that are firm, that shouldn't ever be crossed, and tolerating bigotry crosses one of those lines. What did it say about me that I would even consider dating a person 114 who asked me to violate my principles? Next she would be asking me to stop dyeing my hair, or to slip out the back door when her friends stopped by. That would mean I was right back to where I had been with my first girlfriend, Terese, with a relationship in hiding. That was not a place that I was ever willing to go to again.

As I neared the end of the street, I saw that Leah's friends Dade, Savannah, and Alexis were back out soliciting donations for their papier-mche turkey.

This was very stupid on my part. Why hadn't it occurred to me that her friends would be here again? I was all set to spin away in disgust. At the last second, however, something about them caught my eye. I decided to watch them for a moment. I wasn't worried about them recognizing me; I was a good twenty feet away, and they didn't seem like the type who paid too much attention to faces.

They were dancing to the sound of a tinny Christmas carol emanating from one of the storefronts. As the three of them swayed and twirled, the guys pa.s.sing by on the sidewalk definitely took notice.

How, I wondered, could these possibly be Leah's friends? What was next, letting frat boys stuff donations into their G-strings?

Dade lifted a tiny pink plastic wand and started gently 115 puffing out glimmering soap bubbles. Savannah and Alexis dipped their wands into the container of soap and blew some bubbles of their own. They fluttered out at the pa.s.sers-by. Dade laughed, motioning people toward the papier-mche turkey bin. Savannah flirted with a college professor type; he blushed at the attention but dug into his wallet for a contribution.

Okay, so maybe their dancing wasn't overtly s.e.xual. Maybe they were just flirting and having fun, trying to drum up some donations.

They were having fun. A lot of it. Good, innocent fun, all in the name of a legitimate cause. Suddenly something occurred to me. This scene- the bubbles, the laughing, the twirling to late-night Christmas carols-was exactly what I was asking Leah to give up. If she came out as a lesbian, it was a good bet that she wouldn't be standing on a sidewalk next Thanksgiving, laughing and blowing bubbles at the frat boys with her high school cheerleader-friends. Moreover, this was only one of the many moments that she would have to forfeit. Sure, she'd have her own fun with her new lesbian and lesbian-tolerant friends, but she'd definitely be sacrificing something.

116 Suddenly Dade looked over at me.

"Min?" she said.

"Oh," I said. I hadn't expected to be recognized. "Yes." There was no point in trying to evade them now, so I toddled closer.

"Hi, Dade," I said tentatively. "Hi Savannah, hi Alexis.

I didn't quite recognize you guys."

"We recognized you!" said Savannah. "How could we not? G.o.d, you're all Leah talks about these days." This surprised me. "Leah talks about me?" I said. "Yeah," said Dade. "She really likes you. She wants us to like you too." She blew another shimmering chain of bubbles. "She doesn't have to worry about that. Any friend of Leah's is a friend of ours." She held her plastic wand out toward me. "Hey, you wanna blow some bubbles?" "No," I said. "That's okay. But thanks."

Leah talked about me with her friends, and she wanted me to be friends with them?

I confess, now I was really confused.

117.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The next day, Sat.u.r.day, I had another early morning makeup call. Leah didn't show up at the movie set, which 118 was fine with me, because I didn't know what I would say to her if she did. Russel and Otto weren't there either, but I'd expected this, since today was the day when Otto was flying home. I was dying to hear Russel's version of what had happened the night before. Kevin was another noshow.

Makeup and wardrobe dressed me as a zombie again, but for the first time, they didn't transform me into a cheerleader. Today, I became a zombie-goth, with a coat of smeared black makeup underneath my zombie makeup. It was pretty funny when you thought about it: the idea of some high school student who worshipped death turning into a zombie. I had been stripped of my pom-poms, but at least I got to keep my purple hair at last.

The first scene was back in the computer lab. Brad and Christy, the two movie leads, discover exactly how someone is turning the whole school into zombies. It's an online computer game so mesmerizing that you can't help but play it; but the more you play, the more it drains your soul, until, finally, you turn into a zombie. In other words, Russel had been right about why the students were transforming into zombies, even if I still didn't know exactly who was responsible.

They weren't shooting close-ups, and the whole com puter sequence was a special effect that was going to be 119 added later, so I had no idea if the computer game actually looked mesmerizing or not. The zombie extras, including Gunnar and myself, just had to sit in the back of the computer lab, mindlessly punching at the keyboard. The joke, of course, was that certain kids are so geeky that they're still online even after being turned into zombies.

"They won't let me see the rushes," said Gunnar glumly as we waited for them to get the cameras ready.

"What?" I said.

"The daily rushes. That's the footage that is shot on a movie in any given day. They show them every night in the school auditorium. I heard one of the production a.s.sistants talking about it, and I asked if I could sit in. But they said no. They said only the 'name' actors can see the rush prints."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Can we talk for a sec?"

He looked up from his blank computer screen. "Definitely."

I elucidated everything that had happened since we'd last spoken.

"I think I understand Leah's point of view," I said. "She's not a bad person. She just doesn't want to have to choose between her friends and being a lesbian. And she 120 has been honest with me, more or less. But I just wonder if someone like her and someone like me are a good match. We're in such different places. So I can't decide if we should even be together."

Gunnar stroked his chin, looking uncommonly selfconscious. "That reminds me of this story," he said.

Great, I thought. Suddenly everyone felt the need to tell me a story.

"Every summer my family goes to Echo Lake for vacation," he said. "It's way out in the middle of nowhere."

"Yes, I know," I said. "So?"

"So a few years ago, I decided to go for a walk in the woods. I walked all afternoon, way up into the mountains. I could tell the trail wasn't used very often, but I kept walking anyway. Finally, I decided to turn around. But as I was hiking back to the lake, I came to this fork in the trail. I didn't remember a fork in the trail! I started to panic. Which way had I come? How did I get home? I knew I had to choose, but both trails looked exactly the same to me."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"I knew I had the answer somewhere inside me. I had come this way before, right? So I relaxed my brain and centered myself, and I tried to cast my mind backward. I stared at both trails until I thought I knew which one was right. Finally, I looked at the trail on the right and thought, That's the one. So that's the one I went down." 121 "And it was the right one," I said. "Gunnar, I'm not sure-"

"No!" said Gunnar. "I'd picked the wrong trail! Before I knew it, I'd walked right into this patch of nettles. And that's not all! I ended up all covered in ticks. And later, I got sick, and I was certain that I'd contracted Lyme disease."

I stared at him. "What are you saying? You picked the wrong trail?"

"Did I?" said Gunnar cryptically. "Did I pick the wrong trail? I'm here, aren't I?"

I glowered at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I obviously made it home, right? I lived, right?" "But what about the nettles and ticks and Lyme disease?"

"Oh, sure," said Gunnar. "I wish I'd picked that other path first. But at least I picked one. Because if I hadn't, I'd still be standing up in those woods."

I finally saw Gunnar's point. Making a choice, any choice, is better than standing around dithering forever. I had to either give it a try with Leah, or not. If I did choose Leah, I had to give it my all. In the end, I'd either learn she was right for me, or I'd end up covered in ticks and nettle stings.

I was now completely convinced that Gunnar showed no signs of Asperger's syndrome whatsoever.

122 "That's a good story," I admitted.

"It better be," said Gunnar. "It's the second time in two days that I've told it." According to Gunnar, I just needed to make a decision. That, however, was easier said than done. Did I want to give it a try with Leah? That was the real question. Did I want to see if being with her led to ticks and nettles, or did I want to just walk away now with my integrity intact?

The very next scene was another one in a school hallway. This time, all I had to do was lurch disjointedly around while two zombie-cheerleaders pantomimed some mocking of my goth wardrobe; nearby, a zombie-jock was thrashing on a zombie-nerd. In the foreground, meanwhile, Brad and Christy had some dialogue together. I wasn't really listening. I was still thinking about what to do with Leah.

"There's only one person who had access to those computer labs after-hours!" said the actor playing Brad.

"Who?" said the actress playing Christy.

Suddenly the actor playing the janitor stepped into the scene behind Brad and Christy.

"So you finally figured it out, did you?" said the janitor.

"You?" said Christy. "You're the one who's been turning the whole school into zombies? But why?"

I looked directly over at the actors, even though we weren't supposed to do that while the cameras were 123 rolling. I couldn't help myself, and could only hope that I was off camera at the time. I just couldn't believe that the janitor was the culprit. How was that possible? I had been certain it was the nurse or the captain of the football team-anyone but the janitor! Having the janitor do it was a total cliche!

"I know why," announced Brad. "It's because he's jealous! Don't you remember those football trophies we found down near the furnace? They were his. For him, high school was the Glory Days. But what has he done since then? Nothing but mop floors and grow slowly older!"

"Not for much longer!" said the janitor. "Because I'm not just stealing your souls! I'm using them to grow younger!"

Oh, man! I thought. The janitor was doing all this because he was a resentful aging jock and was now trying to appropriate the teenagers' youth? That was even more of a cliche! I also couldn't help but wonder why it was Brad who succeeded in figuring everything out while Christy stood there looking clueless. Because the screenwriter was a guy, that's why. Just as I'd expected, Attack of the SoulSucking Brain Zombies was no homage to monster movies-it was just plain bad writing.

I couldn't believe I'd been wrong about the janitor. I'd 124 been so certain.

Could it be, I thought, that I'd been wrong about a few other things as well? After the shoot, I drove straight to Leah's house. I was still wearing my zombie-goth makeup, but I didn't care. Her mother opened the door.

"Hi," I said. "Is Leah here?"

"Oh," she said. "You're from the zombie movie, right?" "How'd you know?"

"Just a guess. She's up in her room."

Upstairs, I knocked on Leah's door. She told me to come in, and I entered and closed the door firmly behind me. She was sitting at her computer. When she saw my makeup, she laughed.

"A zombie-goth!" she said. "That's hilarious !"

I didn't even smile.

"I think I might love you," I said evenly.

She stopped laughing. "Yeah," she said. "I think I might love you too."

"I want to give this a try."

Leah crossed and sat on the bed. "Me too."

"I can understand how you don't want to just throw your old life away," I said. "I wouldn't either. And I won't make you. It's okay with me if you don't want to come out, and I won't tell your friends that I'm bi, or that we're a couple." 125 "Thanks, Min. I really appreciate that."

"But," I said, "I have a couple of conditions for you too." "Okay. That's only fair."