Dan came into Mason’s room with the phone Wednesday morning.

            “I didn’t know the phone rang,” Mason said, sitting up and taking it from his uncle’s hand. “I didn’t know you were here, either,” he whispered as he turned his attention to the call and said, “Hello?”

            “Is this Mason Darrow?”

            Dan whispered, “I snuck in.”

            Mason answered the phone. “Yes, it is.”

            “My name is Jared Parker from Genoa College.”

            “Oh…” Mason said.

            “Is there something wrong?”

            “Well,” Mason confessed. “I know why you’re calling, but not exactly why you’re calling me. I mean… It was my friends who had arranged for something and—”

            “Oh, I already talked to your friends,” Jared said. “I talked to one… Sullivan.”

            “Yes. Did he tell you—”

            “He told me you were thinking of going to art school. In town?”

            “Yeah,” Mason said. “I actually was. My mom went to this school and so did my dad and—”

            “Well, I’m being pushy, Jared said. “Because I get paid to be pushy, but I think I might convince you that Genoa has a very good art school and, you wouldn’t just want to do art anyway.”

            Mason was minorly amazed that some student at some school he’d never seen was going to tell him what he wanted to do, what he didn’t and how he needed to be at Genoa.

            “My friend Sal is going to take all of your friends around Genoa and I’m going to show you the art. How’s that? Give me the day to convince you that Genoa at least might be for you. Alright?”

            “Well, how can I say no?”

            “How can you?” Jared laughed. “We’ll both be in the welcome center when you all come on Friday night. Neither one of us does the party thing. Sal will have baggy jeans on. I will not. Sal will have lots of hair. I will not.”

            “And you’re going to show me the arts at Genoa.”

            “I’m gonna show you,” said Jared.

 

Sullivan Reardon and Dan Mitchum both stopped equidistant from the dog.

            Sully had been approaching Mason’s house and Dan had been leaving his shed when a yellow retriever puppy came running up and then threw itself on its backs wagging its legs.

            “Whaddo you think that’s all about?” Dan said.

            “I think…” Sully frowned. “I think it wants its belly scratched.”

            Dan got down on his knees. And together they began rubbing the puppy’s belly. Dan looked at Sully and laughed. Again Sully was surprised by how young Dan looked, like they were the same age, and how small he was.

            “I’m one hundred and fourteen pounds,” Dan told Sully, as if he realized that was what Sully was thinking.

            “I’m one thirty and they say I’m small.”

            “You are small,” Dan told him. “I’m just tiny. And you’ve got that whole height thing going. You must get all the boys.”

Sully laughed at that.

“What?” said Dan.

“It’s just… No one would say that. Usually they’d say I bet you get all the girls—”

“But you’re gay, right?”

“Well, yeah, but… It’s just. I’m used to having to come out. Not to just being already out.”

“Well, I imagine that would be rather inconvenient.”

“It would be,” Sully grinned. “I mean, it is.”

He kept scratching the dog’s belly.

“Heyya boy,” Dan told the dog, playing with its ears and running a finger over its wet nose. “I bet you belong to somebody. I bet you do. How about you come with us until we find them.

            They both got up and Dan said, “That goes for you, Sullivan. Visit for a bit?”

            Sully nodded. He admitted he sort of had a crush on the guy with the sharp nose and the white blond hair.

            “So how are you holding up?” Dan said when they entered the house, Sully cradling the puppy whose tail was shaking.

            “With life or with my break up that everyone seems to know about?”

            “My experience with break ups is that when they’re fresh its sort of hard to distinguish them from the rest of life. They sort of are life.”

            “Well,” Sully looked around the room, collapsing on the mattress. “Yeah. That is the size of it. I don’t know… I was going to say I thought it would last forever. I don’t know what I thought. I just don’t want to get stupid again.”

            Dan looked at him quickly. “It’s not stupid to love someone.”

            “Oh,” Sully said. “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean last time I ended up entangled in a really… dumb situation. Because I was hurt and lonely.”

            Dan sighed and blew out his breath.

            “See, now that’s too bad. You’re… eighteen?”

            “Nineteen.”

            “Yeah,. That seems too young to get entangled in a bad relationship and all.”

            “Have you?”

            “Rebounds. Things that should never have started that you can’t get out of. Well, yeah,” Dan admitted. “But I’m not nineteen. It just seems like being a teenager should be… More carefree.”

            “For some people I hear it is,” Sully said. And then they both laughed at this for a long time.

            “I stole my first and last car when I was thirteen,” Dan said suddenly. “I did it to impress Mason’s aunt.”

            “Savannah?”

            “Yeah.”

            Sully thought about it for a moment and said, “She was impressed. Wasn’t she.”

            “Hell, yeah she was,” Dan stroked his goatee. “I was thirteen when I stole a car. Uh… seventeen when I had my first entanglement. So I know all about…”

            “Growing up too fast,” Sully supplied.

            “That is what it is, isn’t?” Dan said.

            Sully nodded.

            “Sometimes,” Sully began, leaning in, “I feel like none of my friends, my best friends really know what I’m going through. Like they don’t know what its like to be a teenager and feel… forty. That’s how I feel sometimes. I used to think that… When I was involved with that guy last summer I thought that I felt dirty. But that wasn’t it. I felt old. I felt cheated and when it was over I just wanted to sort of get it back.”

            “Your innocence?”

            Sully waved that off. “I don’t even know that means. Or maybe I didn’t. It wasn’t my innocence. Not if you mean purity. I wanted to get back the feeling of being young, free. Of… not having a past. And I thought I had.”

            Sully was quiet for a very long time. He could trust Dan. He knew that some people you could just trust. He told him:

            “I don’t think I ever will.”

 

 

 

SAVANNAH’S GRADUATION OCCURRED AROUND THE same time that Keisha decided she had to be free. In fact, it happened the very same week. When Dan’s parents heard they came up to Cartimandua bringing him. They all stayed in the house on Owens Street, but soon Dan made his way to the larger house, the one where Sidney had grown up, where Savannah lived now. They spent a great deal of time in the coach house.

            “I could have gone to your graduation too,” Savannah told him. “If you hadn’t of dropped out.”

            “I had other things to do.”

            “Like that great job at Subway that was calling your name?”

            “Ouch.”

            “I just think you should have stayed in school,” Savannah ribbed him in the stomach.

            “Maybe I just don’t want to sell out to the man,” Dan said, stretching out across the bed and yawning.

            “So graduating from high school is selling out to the man?”

            “Well, what are you going to do now that you’re out?”

            “Go to college,” Savannah said. “Go in the fall like all the other sensible people!”

            “And then after that?”

            “Go to work?”

            “Go to sell out to the man.”

            “Wait a minute,” Savannah shook her head. “Wait. The only difference between the work I’ll be doing then and the work you do now is I’ll be getting paid salary and you get paid by the hour. I mean… the man eats submarine sandwiches. Doesn’t he?”

            Dan laughed and made a “doh!” noise.

            “I guess you got me,” he sat up and scratched his hair. It was butter colored and sticking up. “I’m not resisting the man. I’m just fucking around.”

            He kissed her. They kissed for a long time, tangling together, Dan wrapping his leg over Savannah’s thigh, and then he stopped..

            “Well, that’s the only fucking around I think you’ll be doing now,” Savannah told him.

            Dan laughed and moved his leg. They sat on the bed side by side.

            “I don’t ever want to fuck around with you. With us the word fuck will never apply.”

            “What about,” Savannah whispered mischievously, “if it’s really, really good and that’s the only word we can use? In the dark when we’re being all nasty and shit?”

            “We don’t even know if it’ll be any good,” Dan was turning red. They weren’t looking at each other, but playing with each other’s fingers.

            “Oh, it’ll be good,” Savannah told him. “It’ll be fucking good.”

 

 

“Dan!”

            Savannah was knocking on the door, and then she just came in with a folder.

            “I brought you something,” she said. “I don’t know if you want it or not. I was being practical and I know how much you hate that chiefly because I hate it too, but I thought you could use the money and maybe not be bored so…”

            Dan took the manila envelope from her and pulled out the sheaf of papers.

            “Cartimandua Public… Oh… the library.”

            “Yeah, Adam is head of circulation or… something like that,” Savannah admitted. “I always forget. Anyway, they’re hiring., Full time. Part time too. Thought you might be interested. Sort of seems up your alley.”

            Dan made a sort of noncommittal noise and gave a half smile.

            “I know that look,” Savannah said. “I’m not saying definitely go and get it. I’m just saying it’s there if you want it and Adam seems to like it.”

            “I’ll look at it.”

            Savannah cocked her head.

            “What?” Dan said.

            “I don’t believe you,” she discovered, smiling.

            “How does your Adam like it?”

            “I told you, my Adam likes it a lot. Why don’t you come to dinner and meet my Adam?”

            “Oh,” Dan frowned and went pale, the tip of his nose seemed to fold over and touch his chin. “I don’t know. I… think that would just be weird.”

            “Why?”

 

From the house they could hear the party music playing, but it was just William, Liane and the older folks who were still awake. Some people were coming in and out. A wind could be heard through the trees, but the curtains all around the coach house were pulled. The main sound was of the creaking of the bed insistent, louder now, quicker now, the bedstead hitting the wall. He grunted a little. The sheets were soaked. He was soaked. He let out a gasp and she whispered:

            “You have to… You have to quiet down.”

            The bedstead hit the wall harder and harder. Knock. Knock. Knock.

            Seven years they’d waited for this. It came boiling, boiling. When it came out it twisted his body like a corkscrew and he couldn’t keep quiet. He thought it would never stop coming out of him. He blinked in the darkness. For a moment he could heard clearly Marvin Gaye, out in the yard:

 

Now We're makin' love

Now We're makin' love

Now We're makin' love

Where'd you get such sweet sugar

 

 

I'll be lovin' you day and night

In and out, wrong or right

'Cause I want you, baby , for my wife

Oh girl, you're so divine

You're everything I've ever wanted

You're everything that's on my mind

Is it real

 

 

He could see Savannah’s eyes opened in a sort of shock and horror. His body was still convulsing. The oddest thought flew through his mind, related to nothing:

 

I’m Black, and I forgot about it until just this moment.

 

He collapsed on top of her and rolled over on his back gasping, in the darkness of the coach house.

 

 

That we're makin' love

That we're makin' love

That we're makin' love

Oh my my my my my…

 

 

“You all are living in the coach house,” Dan said in a business like voice, watching his white finger trace the black letters on the white application form in the bright daylight.

            “Well, yeah,” said Savannah. “Until we get our own place.”

            “No,” Dan decided. “I think… I’ll hold off on visiting the coach house for a while.”

 

 

 

“But do you think they’ll ever be friends again?”

            “Oh, hell, Matt. I don’t know,” Balliol took out a cigarette and then said, “Can I smoke in here?”

            Matt got up, turned on the fan and shut the door mouthing, “Yeah.”

            “It’s just, I used to get high handed in Sully’s house. Think I owned the place. I think that’s why till this day Tina Reardon doesn’t like me. Not that I care,” he reflected. “But I like your mother. And I’d actually like her  liking me.”

            “She does,” Matt grinned. He was different from the Matt Balliol had grown up with. Or at least different toward Balliol .Once upon a time Balliol could not have possibly imagined sitting in Matt Mercurio’s house smoking a cigarette and gossiping over their mutual friends. However the truth was that once upon a time Balliol couldn’t have imagined that his best friend would not only end up with a boyfriend and then break up with him.

            “I wish I had called you before I’d talked to Sully, so that we could have all… I don’t know,” Matt said. “You’re so much better at plans of action.”

            “It seems to me,” Balliol ashed out the window, and then frowned. “That you all had a great plan of action. I can’t keep ashing out of this window.”

            “It’s all right,” Matt told him, still grinning goofily. “I told you. To my parents you can do no wrong.”

            “That’s a first.”

            “Mason’s parents like you plenty.”

“True,” Balliol agreed. “But why do yours?”

            Matt colored and then he said: “Get ready for this.”

            “I’m already feeling unready.”

            Matt grinned. “Remember, once upon a time, when we weren’t such great friends?”

            “When we hated each other?”

            “I wouldn’t go that far?”

            “Why not?”

            Matt thought for a second and then said, “Well, all right. Remember back then?”

            “Yeah.”

            Well, I used to tell my parents what a monster you were. I mean I used to tell them all the stories about you smoking in the bathroom and the things you would say and then… one day we were friends and they were just so amazed. They thought they had to meet you. They thought you were the stuff of legend.”

            “Sort of like a tamed dragon?”

            “Yeah, only I think I was the one that was tamed.”

            “I think,” Balliol reflected, “that when Andy died we all got a little tamed. Or maybe… just a little less stupid.”

            “And now we’re going off to school together!”

            “Maybe,” Balliol tried to wave Matt’s enthusiasm down.

            “Don’t say, maybe. Say yes.”

            “We haven’t even seen the place yet.”

            “But we will. Let’s say yes.”

            “Let’s say maybe.”

            Matt sat on the edge of his desk beaming.

            “I just got a great feeling about all of this, Bailey.”

            “Better than last year when you went off to school?”

            “Oh, hell yes!”

            “You never talk about last year. I mean, the end.”

            Suddenly, just like that, Matt seemed closed off. He sort of grunted, like boys do and said, “Stuff.”

            And then Balliol knew that he shouldn’t press. This was how Matt and he stayed friends. In the last two years Balliol had learned that Matt would tell him everything, but not until he was ready. And Matt never talked about the end of his freshman year.

 

 

Sidney threw the door open to leave his house, followed by Mark Powers, the same time Matt Mercurio put his hand on it to enter and gave a little shout.

“Young Matthew,” Sidney greeted him. “Sorry to shock you.”

            “Well,” he sighed. “I should have knocked.”

            “Why?” Sidney tapped Mark on the head. “He never does.”

            “Hardy har, har—”

            “You are so white,” Sidney commented.

            “I’m not that white…”

            “You totally and completely are.”

            “Sid? Dr. Powers?” Matt said, very much wanting to get inside the house.

            “Dr. Powers?” Mark said.

            Matt looked at him uncertainly.

            “Matt!” Mark turned to Sidney and said, “How come everyone calls you Sidney and me Dr. Powers?”

            Matt opened his mouth and gaped. Sidney said, “I’m not a doctor. That’s why. Tommy and Mason are about ready.”

            “Great. Sully and Bailey are out in the car.

            At last, Sidney moved out of the doorway, signaling for Mark to do the same. On his way through the living room and down the hallway he could still hear the two older men.

            “And what’s wrong with being white…?”