Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
When the night is over, after an army of volunteers has stripped and scrubbed Blue Plate Picture Palace of all evidence of
festivities, Efraín and I find ourselves alone.
Ms. Sinclair entrusted the keys to me when she left after the party. Now that we’ve stowed the last folding tables, there’s
no reason I shouldn’t lock up and go home.
No reason except for the way Efraín’s looking at me, that is.
I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that smolder. I must look a mess. I undid my bow tie, loosened my collar, and rolled
up my shirtsleeves hours ago. My curls are frizzy, in total disarray. This can’t possibly be a good look for me.
Then again, tousled hair, sweat-slicked biceps, and that rumpled skirt make for an excellent look on Efraín.
We’re loitering in the lobby, and I’m twirling the key ring between my thumb and forefinger. I look up at Efraín and admit,
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Then let’s not go home.”
I’m about to object. I may not want to go home, but we have a bargaining meeting tomorrow morning. I need sleep if I want to have my wits about me . . .
Efraín plucks the spinning key ring right out from between my fingers and slips it into his vest pocket. I could get it back,
but he’s wearing that roguish smirk that shouldn’t be charming, and yet, I am, against my better judgment, charmed. I am utterly
defenseless when he leans down and whispers, “Meet me in the theater.”
He’s off before I can ask where he’s going.
But I humor him. In the theater, I claim our regular seats. I sit and wait and—
The screen lights up. I blink up at the familiar image. I put two and two together and get episode fourteen, “Grapevines of
Wrath.” Of fucking course.
It takes longer for Efraín to figure out how to turn down the house lights than it does for him to find me once the lights
dim.
He slides in beside me and kisses my cheek. “Knew you’d get the sweet spot.”
“They’re the best seats in the house,” I state because it is an objective fact, and we’ve been over this.
“The best seat in the house is the one next to wherever you’re sitting,” he counters.
I can’t stand the depth of his raw sincerity, so I squirm in my seat and turn back to the screen. I look at Art and Harry, twenty feet tall, and shake my head. “How did you even do this?”
“I was with Ms. Sinclair in the projection booth earlier when she was programming everything. Did you know how easy it is
to use a digital movie theater projector? All you have to do is push the right button.” He shrugs, like it really is that
easy to do something so profound for another person. “Ms. Sinclair set up a few extra episodes.”
I understand why Ms. Sinclair would pick this episode, but I don’t know why Efraín would pick this one out of a lineup. He
just says he liked the title.
We settle in, his arm around my shoulders. He’s watching the episode, and I’m watching him. He’s an intent viewer, so intense
in his concentration. That tilde between his brows is one of my favorite recurring characters.
After a while, Efraín says, “This is pretty good. Not exactly Steinbeck, but—”
“Can I ask you something?” I blurt.
He looks at me, the tilde asserting itself full force. “Yeah, of course.”
“Now that our jobs are safe, and I’m almost certainly going to be allowed to wear a pronoun button, things are going to be
different.”
“That’s not a question.”
I lick my lips, unsure how to ask in a language he’ll understand.
“Ever since the first night you kissed me, I’ve been trying to make it make sense.
I still don’t understand what changed this summer.
Mutual antipathy does not a crush make, so—” I really regret having this conversation side by side in a movie theater where I have to crane my neck to look at him.
“So, some part of me worries that you care about me because you care about the Cause, and one day, you’ll realize I’m just me and not some symbol. ”
He looks at me, assessing. A tense moment of judgment—of truth—before fond exasperation melts his frustration. “God, you’re so wrong. You gave me so many speeches about how we save each
other, but you have no idea, do you?”
“Well, I know you don’t like me because of the way I sling on my backpack strap.”
Efraín shakes his head, thoughtful, like he’s composing a persuasive argument in his head, arranging the components to make
the most compelling case. “I like that you listen to me, even when you don’t agree with me.”
I agree with him more often than he thinks, but admitting that would undercut his point.
“And even when it annoys the hell out of me, I like the way you argue with me—that you’re not afraid to argue with me, even when you know you’re about to say something that’s going to annoy the hell out of me.”
“It’s not about fear, just that I can’t shut up.”
“And I like that you can’t help yourself. That you can’t just shut up—”
“I freeze half the time when people say transphobic shit to me—”
“Not as often as you think, and when it’s about other people, it’s like you just can’t help yourself. You say it doesn’t make
sense, and you don’t even realize—hell, I didn’t even realize what that means. You call out the world when it doesn’t make sense because it’s fundamentally incomprehensible to you that anyone would intentionally do the wrong thing when it’s obvious what the just, fair choice would be.”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”
“You’re resourceful. I see now that you do want to solve problems—in unconventional ways, even—even if we disagree about means.”
Finally, finally, he touches me, his hand ghosting over my cheek. “I like your freckles. Especially the one on the bridge
of your nose.”
“That’s actually a mole. Potentially precancerous. I’ll probably need a dermatologist to freeze-dry it off someday.”
“And I do like that you’ve been using the same backpack since seventh grade, and don’t think I didn’t notice that you ironed an NS logo patch over the hole on the front pocket or, yeah, sewed over the top seam on the strap when it started to rip.”
“Oh,” I whisper, but there’s no “right, of course” because in no universe would I have guessed any of that. I melt against
him, not with an ulterior motive, just to be here, with him. “In the spirit of reciprocity—”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, I want to.” I crane my neck, just so. “The whole ‘we save each other’ schtick? I may have given you the wrong impression. That’s not what I like about you.”
“Isn’t it?” It’s not a condemnation or a dismissal, just a statement of the World According to Efraín, and my heart breaks
for this boy who thinks the only way to make the world love him is to break his own heart into a million pieces and scatter
the dust over the ruins of a graveyard of lost causes.
“You’re so much more than what you can do for the world; it’s about who you are, how supremely good you are—not just your bones, but all the way through. But you’re constantly trying to prove yourself, and it’s never enough,
is it? So, I just want you to know. I don’t just like you when you’re out doing the work. I like you when you’re standing
still.”
I don’t know if he believes me, and I’m still not entirely convinced I understand him. But as we stay here, sitting still,
I realize we don’t have to. We have all the time we need to learn each other, to learn to believe and understand each other.
We have time to figure it out together.
Tonight, we’re here, his arm around my shoulders, my head resting on his. We’re bathed in cool blue light projected on a larger-than-life
screen. We’re here for forty-seven minutes, but we’re not confined to this episode.
Our story won’t end when the credits roll.