Changing Jamie Read online

  With all those important distractions, Occam’s razor didn’t stand a chance.

  “Uh, Occam’s razor… yeah… um… it’s a… um….” Brilliant answer. Give that boy a gold star.

  Mrs. Sero sniffed, wrinkling her nose at me as if I were a hot bowl of ear wax and snot, and thankfully turned her attention to Mary Jo Parker, class brainiac. I dimly recall hearing Mary Jo’s answer, something along the lines of Occam’s razor stating that the simplest explanation was usually the correct one.

  What do you know? I learned something. Harvard, here I come.

  It wasn’t that I wanted to sit and waste my time not paying attention. I wanted to get decent grades and go to college. I wanted to get a car, a job, and out of this crummy town. I wanted a life. I just couldn’t help myself. Most of my brain cells were constantly involved in creating interesting new fantasies starring Dylan, and I had very few left over for cognitive thinking.

  The bell rang and I virtually shot out of my chair, stuffing my books, pens, and whatnot into my backpack, out the door before it had stopped buzzing. My next class was the one I looked forward to each day, the one that dragged my sorry butt to school rain or shine, the reason I had perfect attendance that semester. It was the one class I was never late to, never missed, and actually did my homework for: English IV.

  Not that I was particularly interested in whether my participles were dangling or in writing a term paper worthy of a Pulitzer. The reason I loved English IV was because it was the one class I shared with Dylan.

  He sat directly in front of me, in fact. For forty-five minutes each day I got to stare at his broad shoulders and the smooth, tanned patch of skin between his inky black hair and the neck of his tight T-shirt. I’d watch the way his muscles moved under the thin fabric as he flipped a page in a book or zipped a spitball across the room at one of his buddies. I was so close to him, I could smell his cologne, when he wore some.

  For forty-five minutes each day, I was in heaven.

  It was important to me not to look like a total idiot in front of Dylan when Mr. Grayle called on me, so I made sure to take time from my normally tight schedule of rocking the house on Guitar Hero to do my homework. Not that I always answered him correctly—I wanted Dylan to think I was smart, but not loser-smart. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t have a life and spent all my free hours with my nose in a book. To that end, I came up with a schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I answered to the best of my ability. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I dumbed it down a little.

  It was a formula that seemed to work for me. As a result, English IV was the only class I had where I usually scored As. Go figure.

  At the moment, I was staring at the hairline at the back of Dylan’s head. His hair had just reached that need-a-trim stage and was beginning to curl. I wondered what shampoo he used; his hair looked really soft.

  Suddenly, a loud sound startled me, making me glance up. Grayle had slammed a textbook onto the top of his desk. That had to be Number One on the US Department of Education list of Things to Do to Scare the Crap Out of Your Students. Every teacher I’ve ever had has used it at least once, and it’s never failed to work. All across the classroom, heads snapped up as though a herd of antelope heard the roar of a lion.

  “SATs, people!” Grayle shouted from the front of the classroom, “This will be your last chance to get into a good college and become productive members of society. Mess up, and you can forget about ever owning a Porsche or a house that doesn’t sit on wheels.”

  I almost swore I could hear Grayle capitalize the words “Last Chance.”

  Grayle continued listing all the exciting career opportunities that would be available to us should we fail to score at least a 1550 on the SATs, including arson and robbing convenience stores, as he strolled up and down the aisles, depositing our latest graded test papers on our desks.

  I heard Dylan swear under his breath as he picked up his paper. English was not Dylan’s strongest subject. I saw the grade marked in red at the top of his paper when Grayle had plopped it on his desk. He’d scored 62 out of 100, which equated to a big fat D.

  I was on the track team; I knew Dylan needed a C average to continue as a starter, and I was willing to bet that his test grade was going to put a serious crimp in his chances at the athletic scholarship I’d overheard him talking about. Add that to Grayle’s overly dramatic announcement about the SATs, and I wasn’t at all surprised by Dylan’s colorful language.

  There were times in life where nothing short of dropping the f-bomb sufficed. For Dylan, that would have been one of them.

  Grayle finished distributing the test papers and returned to his desk at the front of the room. He waited until he had our attention again, or at least as much of it as he was likely to get.

  “In light of the coming SATs, I’m going to set up after-school peer-tutoring sessions. Take advantage of it, people. I’ve posted a list on the board on which I’ve paired tutors with students. On your way out of class today, find your name. I strongly suggest participating if you want a chance at a decent SAT score, college, and a future that doesn’t involve the fast food industry. Tutors will be given study packets, and there will be a test at the end of each week on the material.”

  The class moaned as a single, collective unit. It was one of those infrequent moments in high school life when all the barriers melted away and differences ceased to exist, when everyone—male, female, preppies, geeks, beauty queens, jocks, goths, gays, straights, what-have-you—become kindred spirits, united in their common hatred of being forced to do something they otherwise wouldn’t do without a gun held to their heads.

  Then it was gone, and things went back to normal.

  Grayle would never assign Dylan to me for tutoring. It was too much to hope for, I told myself. I just wasn’t that lucky. No, I’d get stuck tutoring Molly Fredericks, who had yet to develop a working relationship with deodorant and firmly believed that everyone from the school janitor to the President was involved in one conspiracy or another. Or Frank Hughes, who I suspected tortured small animals in the comfort of his basement, and who would no doubt be featured on a future episode of Cops.

  When the bell rang, I wasted as much time as possible putting my things into my backpack. I wanted everyone—especially Dylan—gone before I checked the list. I took a deep breath, feeling like I was walking to death row instead of the few feet to Grayle’s desk, and looked up at the paper tacked to the bulletin board on the wall behind it. I ran my finger down the list of names until I found mine, there at the bottom, wedged between the names Vincelli and Young. Waters, James, it said under the column marked Tutors.

  The name next to mine was Dylan Anderson.

  Chapter Three

  BILLY WAS waiting for me in the cafeteria at our usual table—the one shoved up against the wall between the tray return window and the boys’ bathroom. No one else ever sat there—probably because of the funky smell of tuna fish and urinal cakes that clung to it. That was fine with Billy and me. We could talk without worrying about being overheard, and considering that a conversation with Billy usually included references to cute guys with cuter body parts, that was probably for the best—for me, anyway. I wasn’t out to anyone else and had no intention of coming out of the closet anytime soon. It was bad enough most people thought I was anyway because of my friendship with Billy—I didn’t need the added grief of telling them they were right.

  Today I felt like I did on the rare occasions I was sick and running a fever: a little goofy, a little buzzy, and a whole lot unbalanced. I sat down next to Billy, grinning like the freaking Cheshire Cat.

  “What’s with you?” he asked, fighting with the spout of his milk carton. It was one of the rejects, the ones you suspect they’ve sealed with super glue. It wouldn’t open right, the cardboard separating in the wrong places, until Billy finally had to punch a hole into it with a pencil and pry it open.

  “Guess who’s a tutor in English and guess who was assigned as s
aid tutor’s student?”

  Billy’s eyes flicked up toward me. “No… really? Dylan Anderson? You’re going to tutor Dylan? Girlfriend! You and him?”

  I fell from my high with the velocity of a brick dropped from a fifth floor window. First, I hated when Billy called me “girlfriend,” especially in public, even when I knew no one else was listening. It was just one of those things that irritated the hell out of me. Second, hearing another human being say “you and him,” meaning “me and Dylan,” made me realize the truth. This wasn’t some private fantasy whipped up in my post-pubescent head. It was real. It was going to happen.

  Me and Dylan. Together. Alone.

  Oh, crap.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t. I’d have to talk to him, for God’s sake. What would I say to him, Billy?” I asked, feeling the blood drain out of my head and pool in my feet.

  “You’ve talked to him before. What’s the big deal?”

  “Are you kidding? Yeah, I’ve talked to him. I’ve said, ‘Great run, Dylan,’ and I’ve said, ‘You were robbed, Dylan,’ depending on whether or not he won or lost a race. I’ve said ‘Thanks’ when he’s passed back a paper in class. That, Billy, is the entire history of our verbal communication.”

  “You’re panicking over nothing, Jamie. Talk to him like you talk to me.”

  “He’s straight, remember? I doubt if he’s going to want to discuss whether Zac Efron or Shia LaBeouf has the better butt.”

  “We talk about other stuff too,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “What about movies or video games? What do straight guys like to talk about?”

  “Girls.”

  Billy made a face. “Well, that’s out. Yuck.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  Billy drained the last of his milk, putting the container down and turning toward me, placing his hands on my shoulders. He had a milk mustache decorating his upper lip, which made it a little difficult to take him seriously. “You’re overreacting about this entire thing, Jamie. This isn’t a big deal. This is not a date. You are going to tutor him, for God’s sake. You’ll be talking about school stuff. Dylan is straight. Even if he was gay, he’d be way out of your league.”

  My mouth fell open and I blinked, but Billy continued before I could say anything.

  “He’s not going to want to make casual conversation with you. He’s not going to care what you’re wearing or whether you brushed your freaking teeth. He’s only going to care about getting through it in time to go boink his girlfriend before curfew. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

  “Wow. Way to let the air out of my tires. Thanks, pal,” I said sarcastically, shrugging off his hands. Sometimes I really hated Billy—especially when he was right. One thing he’d said really bugged me, though. “Out of my league? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No offense, Jamie, but let’s face it: Dylan is hot. You’re… well, lukewarm at best. It’s nothing personal; I just calls ’em as I sees ’em. Now, let’s move on to more important things, shall we? What do you think I should wear on my date with Robbie? The Abercrombie jeans or the Diesel? I was thinking about layering my—”

  “First of all, I don’t give two craps about what you wear. Wear the Abercrombie. Wear the Diesel. Go naked, if you want; you’ll end up that way anyway,” I said snottily. “You’ll go out, blow him, and never see him again.”

  Billy’s jaw dropped and, for once, nothing came out.

  I was being pretty harsh on Billy, but I couldn’t help it. Here I was, presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, time alone with the guy I’d been crushing on for three years, and all Billy could think about was himself and his date with Robbie-the-Hunk. Plus, he’d insulted me first.

  It was no secret that Billy had experience—lots of it. He dated with a regularity that was amazing, but he seldom dated the same guy more than two or three times. I doubted he could remember the names of everyone he’d gone out with during the past six months.

  I knew everything there was to know about Dylan. I could tell you his eye color, weight, height, address, parents’ occupations, dog’s name, and what kind of flowers were planted in his front yard. I knew he was right-handed and had a tiny mole behind his left ear. I could recite his track stats, knew he was hoping for a sports scholarship to State, and preferred his sandwiches cut on the diagonal.

  Billy didn’t even know Robbie-the-Hunk’s last name.

  Besides, what was this crap about me not being in Dylan’s league? I knew I wasn’t good-looking, not like Dylan. I was shorter and skinnier, my hair never did what I wanted it to do, and I had an occasional breakout, but why did Billy feel the need to rub it in? He was supposed to be my friend! Didn’t friends stretch the truth a little when it came to stuff like that? At the very least, they didn’t throw it in your face.

  I shoved my uneaten meatloaf sandwich into my backpack and stood up, slinging the strap over my shoulder. “Secondly, I’m sick and tired of everything always having to be about you. You’re really a butthead sometimes, Billy!”

  “What did I do?” Billy asked, spreading his hands. He actually looked wounded, as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. “Jamie? Jamie!”

  I stomped off in a classic snit, the blood pounding in my ears drowning out anything else Billy might have called out after me.

  THE MEATLOAF tasted like cardboard as I mechanically chewed and swallowed it. I sat alone on the bottom bleacher at the edge of the track, wondering if eating had been such a good idea after all. My stomach was in knots, bile burning my throat. I stuffed the uneaten half of my sandwich into the paper sack and set it aside.

  I just couldn’t understand Billy. I couldn’t figure him out. We were supposed to be friends, but that hadn’t been the first time he’d brushed me off, made me feel unimportant or unattractive. It certainly wasn’t the first time he wanted the conversation centered on himself either. That happened every time we got together.

  Billy was high maintenance. That was a fact I’d discovered shortly after meeting him, but he also made me laugh, and understood what it was like to be gay in a school full of straight kids. There were times when I felt like a square peg in an ocean of round holes, like I didn’t fit in anywhere. I couldn’t be myself at home, and I couldn’t be myself at school either. I always felt like I had to watch everything I said, the way I walked, the way I dressed… it was frustrating.

  With Billy, I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t; I could always just be me. That freedom had been worth the one-sided conversations and preoccupation with Everything Billy.

  I came out to him about two months after we met. It wasn’t something I’d planned or rehearsed; it had just happened, a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a rainy afternoon, and we were in my room playing—what else—Guitar Hero. Well, I played. Billy stood on my bed and danced.

  I’d looked over my shoulder at him after the song finished. He was still dancing, even though the music had stopped. That was typical Billy—he danced to the music in his head whenever he felt like it, and didn’t give a crap who was watching.

  I suddenly wanted with all my heart to be like Billy. To not care what anybody thought of me, free to do what I wanted, behave the way I wanted, dress the way I wanted. To like whoever I wanted.

  To be me, Jamie, and not somebody that everyone else on the planet thought I should be. To have someone who understood me and who wouldn’t judge me.

  “Hey, Billy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think I like girls.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “You did? How?”

  “Well, let’s see. Mindy Flagler just about got down on her knees and begged to have your babies last week and you didn’t even bat an eye.”

  “She did?” I didn’t remember her doing any such thing. Mindy had always been nice, waving and smiling at me. She’d brought me a couple of brownies she’d baked, and usually showed up at my track meets. I realized she must have been crushing a little, although I hadn’t underst
ood it at the time. I was a little ignorant when it came to the behavior patterns of the female species. I was twelve when I discovered I found boys much more interesting, and hadn’t really paid attention to girls after that.

  “Yeah, I know. You were too busy scoping out Dylan Anderson’s ass.”

  “Oh. Yeah, well, he’s got a great butt.”

  I turned back to the game console, clicked for the next song, and that was it.

  Billy just accepted it. He answered a lot of my questions too. Questions I haven’t had the nerve to ask anyone else, mostly about sex. Billy was a virtual how-to manual, a gay man’s step-by-step guide to getting laid. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to put any of his advice to practical use. He and I never connected, not in that way. To me, for all that his stories and language sometimes seemed scraped directly from the gutter to his mouth, he was completely asexual, my own personal little redheaded Ken doll. We were friends, in the purest platonic sense of the word.

  Somehow, though, looking back at our relationship, I realized I’d always felt like Robin to his Batman. Billy had the dates, he had the stories, the information, the experience, and the condoms in his Bat-utility belt. All I had was Billy.

  Maybe it was time to turn in my sidekick cape.

  “Hey, Jamie.”

  I looked up at the sound of the familiar voice that called to me. Dylan stood about a half dozen steps away, looking as gorgeous as usual, but extremely uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and his eyes were fixed at a point about ten feet above my left shoulder.

  “Uh. Hi.” That’s the way, Jamie, I thought. Dazzle him with your brilliant conversational skills.

  “Um, I guess we’re teamed up for that stupid tutoring thing in English, huh?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” Holy crap! Dylan was actually talking to me. Full sentences too, not just grunts. Oh God, please don’t let me do something stupid like burp or fart or throw up on his Nikes.