Eight #3
Garrett breaks the kiss, looking embarrassed and proud, gives everyone a last wave, and joins me outside the circle.
Then we’re walking away from the bonfire and crossing Dana’s lawn, now dewy and wet.
I notice Kelly Chambers at a different group, making out with Riley Wilson.
She never had me introduce her to Garrett after all, not that she would have had much of a chance with Dana around.
It feels strange that I arrived here in the passenger seat of her car only a couple of hours ago.
This night seems like a surreal firelit dream that I’ll barely remember in the morning. I bet that’s what being drunk means.
We reach the sidewalk and head toward my house, the sounds of the party fading into the night. Garrett’s shoes sandpaper against the pavement. I hear his breath. We say nothing for a while.
I stop on the corner of Steel and Lincoln Streets and turn to him. “You didn’t have to do that. Back at the party, I mean. Trying to make me fit in and everything.”
He looks at me. A breeze picks up, and the wind chimes that Mrs. Phelps hangs from the maple trees in her front yard swell into a chorus of clear, melodic tones.
On the air, I catch the faintest scent of him, that Garrett smell.
Tonight it reminds me less of a forest and more of the pages of a sun-warmed book.
“Why did you do it?” I press.
He shifts, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. “Because,” he eventually says, “there’s nothing shittier than making someone feel like they don’t belong somewhere.”
I swallow. He hides it well, but there is hurt in that sentence, a soft accusation. We continue walking. A block later, I stop again, this time outside Mr. Bertolli’s house with its SACRED HEART OF JESUS yard sign.
“I’m sorry,” I say before I can stop myself. Then the beer forces me to continue. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick since you got here. I guess you weren’t the person I was expecting … and obviously that’s not your fault, but I took a lot of my own stupid baggage out on you and … sorry.”
It’s a clumsy apology. But I suppose I’m a clumsy person.
“Thanks.” He swallows. “Me too. Sorry, I mean. I haven’t exactly been the easiest to get along with.”
“You are, though,” the beer says. “And I guess that’s why I’ve been such a douche. You … I don’t know … just seem so comfortable around all these people I’ve known my whole life. Everyone loves you. And it comes so easy to you, like you don’t even have to try to be everyone’s favorite person.”
Wow, the beer is really in touch with my feelings.
His face is serious. “It’s not easy, actually. And it’s not necessarily a good thing, either. There’s a lot you have to give up to make everyone like you.”
I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. Nonetheless, a subtle change vibrates in the air between us, like when the clouds shift on a gray day and the sky gets a little less dreary because the sun is up there somewhere. We continue walking.
After another minute, he asks, “Who were you expecting? Obviously someone from a different country.”
“His name was Davit. From Tbilisi. Violin player. Board gamer.”
“Sounds like your type.”
I glance at him, looking for a knowing smirk, but he’s not making fun of me. “I doubt Davit would let me kick his ass at Madden.”
He laughs. “For the record, if we ever do play, you don’t stand a chance.”
“Safe bet, considering I had to take a gamble back there and assume Madden is about football.”
“Why were you at that party?” he asks. “No offense, but it doesn’t seem like your vibe.”
I’m hit with a fresh wave of embarrassment at whatever undeveloped part of my brain thought I might go to that party and somehow get Garrett to come out to me.
I settle for telling half the truth. “Kelly invited me … and I guess I wanted to prove that I’m not lame, that I go to parties and stuff.
For the record, I was supposed to be at a different, less cool party tonight. ”
He looks at me sideways. “Don’t listen to what Dana said back there. About your personality.”
I don’t say anything. Her comment had cut me more deeply than I want to admit.
“Some people’s only idea of fun,” Garrett says, “is getting drunk on the weekends and spending the rest of their time staring at their phone. They don’t understand people who do cool shit with their lives.”
“Music composition isn’t cool.”
The corner of his lip twitches. “Have you heard how many Oscars John Williams won?”
I want to ask him why he spends his time with people like Evan and Dana, but this thing between us feels so fragile that my fear of saying the wrong thing outweighs my curiosity.
“Evan’s a dick,” Garrett says, as if he’d been considering the same question. “And Tyler acts too cool, but he’s a really good guy once you get to know him.”
I think about that day at Lake Superior. What it must have been like for Garrett to have no friends in this new place, to latch on to the first group of people that was nice to him.
“And you get used to it, you know? There’s a certain way you’re supposed to act when you’re around the guys. Sometimes it means saying douchey things.”
“There’s no way I could ever get used to being around guys who are that straight,” I say.
He’s quiet for a few steps. “You probably could,” he tells me, “if you had to. The shit about my ‘accent’ gets tiring, though.”
“They do that a lot?”
“All the fucking time. They stop me in the middle of every other sentence to have me repeat random words. Then they all laugh and act like they made a hilarious joke.”
He doesn’t have that strong of an accent. Mostly there’s something warmer about the timbre of his words, like his voice is a legato French horn surrounded by staccato flutes.
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“And I’m not the one with the accent! That’s all yooou guys.”
“Not true,” I say.
“Enzo.”
My name is bright and clear in his voice, and I like the sound of it.
“I need at least one person in this town to understand what I’m talking about.”
“Except I don’t,” I say.
“There it is! Dohhn’t. How do you not hear it?”
I can kind of hear it, but I love how incredulous he is. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Say the word boat.”
“Boat.”
“Oh my god.” His voice is raised now, echoing off the sleeping houses. “How do you not hear the difference between the way you say boat and the way I say boat?”
“I hear it. But only because you have an accent.”
A frustrated roar erupts from the back of his throat, but he’s smiling. A full smile. It transforms his face, the expression so different from his usual cocky one-third grin.
“Okay,” he says. “When you watch a movie, do you ever think, Huh. The way they talk sounds different from the way I talk?”
“No,” I lie.
“Really? You’ve never wondered why they actually pronounce their th sounds?”
“Not fair. Only real Yoopers talk like that.”
“So you do hear it!”
We’ve reached the front path of my house. We follow it around back. The kitchen light is on, and I experience a moment of panic. “Shit. My dad is going to know we’ve been drinking. Do you have gum or something?”
“Enzo. You had a couple of beers. He won’t be able to tell. And the gum would be a dead giveaway.”
The tone in Garrett’s voice reminds me that he’s done this before, that I’m the lame one who never parties.
We find Dad in the living room, watching the late-night broadcast of TV 6, “Upper Michigan’s News Source!”
“Hey, Mr. Rossi,” Garrett says so casually that it makes me wonder how many times he’s done this with his own parents. “How was your night?”
Dad looks away from the news story—something about how a library two towns away is honoring Vietnam vets. “It’s Joe, bud. And my night was good. You two have fun?”
“We just hung out at Dana Hendricks’s place. Pretty chill.”
Dad’s eyes shift to me, and I can tell he doesn’t know what to make of the fact that I’m suddenly hanging out with people like Dana Hendricks instead of my friends from marching band.
“The halftime show was great,” he tells me. Then to Garrett: “And you played good tonight.”
“You were there?” Garrett asks.
“Of course.” Dad frowns like he doesn’t understand the question. He’s never missed one of my band concerts or oboe recitals. He’s even closed the shop early a few times to be there, something he’d never do for his own appointments.
Wrinkles form around the corners of Garrett’s eyes, and he doesn’t seem to know what to say. The broadcaster on TV 6 moves on to the second-biggest story of the day: that the approaching low-pressure weather system might include a wintry mix of precipitation.
We head upstairs and say good night to each other, something we’ve never bothered to do before. If that’s all the party has achieved, it was worth it.
Later, when I fall asleep, my dreams are a mess.
Garrett’s face in backyard firelight.
Garrett in his dirty football uniform, pressed against me.
Garrett not in his dirty football uniform, pressed against me.
Drunk dreams, I think when I wake up hard and sweaty in the middle of the night. It’s just the beer attempting to convince me of something impossible.