String Boys Read online

  His father shook his head and sighed. “Well, you know, I didn’t really expect you to leave in the middle of the year. You have until June. At least until the summer program starts. Then there’s the scholarship for next year. You know that, right?”

  Seth squinted at him. “No. Dr. Boyle said Christmas.”

  “That was for everybody else, Seth. Have you, I don’t know, noticed anybody sitting through your practices in the last month?”

  Seth shrugged. “We had a guest conductor. He audited the advanced orchestra class and then conducted a song or two. I guess he was going to be doing ‘1812 Overture’ over Christmas.”

  Dad grimaced, and in light of his story—and remembering that Seth had been afraid he’d be getting a stepmom—Seth had a terrible, terrible realization.

  His father wasn’t old.

  His father was… was young. Thirty-five? That was old for a kid but not old for a grown-up, was it?

  And Seth was all he had.

  “Do you remember where the guest conductor was from, Seth?” Dad was asking patiently.

  Seth searched his memory and came up with studying the complicated first violin part for “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” which they were doing with the choir and Dr. Boyle assured them would be a fan favorite.

  “No?”

  Dad made that now-familiar, “I don’t believe this!” face that Seth always associated particularly with himself. “Well, he came from Bridgford. Seth, he’s been in that class for a month scouting you.”

  “Mr. Pantalone? No.” Mr. Pantalone was young for a grown-up—about ten years younger than Seth’s dad. He had shoulder-length curly hair, fuzzy sideburns, and wicked gray eyes. Seth had always found him appealing in an absent sort of way. Oh wow, maybe Seth could have had a crush on his teacher if he hadn’t had a raging heart-on for his best friend’s brother.

  “Mr. Pantalone, yes. He’s spent a month at your school to see if he can convince you to come to Bridgford. They extended the deadline for you until June, just in case.”

  Seth scrubbed his hands through his hair, which had grown long enough to form tiny ringlets after the rain had hit the oil he used daily. His dad was good at buying him things—Shea butter for his skin, oil for his hair—that most white people wouldn’t know black people used. He had a moment of remembering his mother, right before she’d died, telling both of them, him and his dad, about the oil and the butter and how his dad had to make sure he had butter on his shoulders and lower back.

  His dad had never forgotten.

  Even when he’d been drinking, and Seth had worried, every day, about his father yelling, or sometimes hitting, his father had never forgotten that he had a son. Had never forgotten his wife telling him how to care for his son.

  “You’ll forget me,” he blurted. “You’ll forget to eat. To bring food. You’ll forget to go to your meetings and drink. You’ll forget me!”

  His dad looked like Seth had shot him in the heart. “Never,” he croaked, eyes squeezed shut. “I swear, Seth. I’ll never forget you. I’ll never go back to drinking. I promise, if you go away, I’ll always be right here when you need me, okay? I won’t disappear like… like everybody did on me. I swear.”

  “No,” Seth whispered, not wanting Chinese food or ice cream or any other bribe. “I have another year and a half. We… we can go for ice cream after performances. We can go to the movies on Saturdays like we always do. Kelly can come listen to me practice.” Oh, he hadn’t meant to say that. “I can play funny songs for his sisters on their birthdays.”

  Seth’s Dad nodded and bit his lip, his eyes too bright and rimmed with red.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “That’s our plan for now.” He took a deep breath. “I… I gotta say, Seth, I’m glad I made home safe for you. But I’m so sorry I didn’t do that soon enough for you to trust it would always be here.”

  Seth rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “I just don’t want to go,” he said. “Not now.”

  “I hear you.” Dad let out a sigh. “I…. C’mere, kid. I really need a hug.”

  Seth did, feeling too tall and too awkward, his hands and feet seeming too big. But his dad stood, and Seth was only two inches shorter than he was, and his shoulders used to seem so big, but Seth’s were almost as wide, and Seth was on the slender side.

  Dad was younger. He was smaller. And he was more afraid than Seth had ever dreamed.

  Yet somehow this all made him harder to leave.

  MR. PANTALONE kept Seth after school for half an hour. Seth was practically dancing in his need to get away, even though Kelly was sitting quietly in the room, doing his homework, apparently not hearing a word.

  “Seth, are you sure?”

  Oh, Mr. Pantalone was pretty. His name was really weird—he said it was Italian—but his face was narrow and sort of fox-shaped. He had gray eyes with black lashes, and his mouth was even plusher than Kelly’s.

  But Seth couldn’t look at him as the man tried to get Seth to leave his home. He could only see Kelly.

  Kelly stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth when he was working.

  In the third grade, it had been really adorable.

  In the sixth grade, it had still been cute.

  Now that Kelly was in high school, Seth wanted to kiss his tongue and suck on it, and suck on Kelly’s chin, and his cheeks and—

  “Seth!” Mr. Pantalone snapped in exasperation. “Stop mooncalfing over your friend and pay attention! This is your chance to get out of your neighborhood! To get out of this town!”

  “I like Sacramento,” Seth said, confused. “Have you ever swam in the river—”

  “Kids die in that river!” Mr. Pantalone argued.

  “Only sometimes,” Kelly said, without even looking up. “It’s not bad.”

  Seth smiled at him, and Kelly looked up and grinned.

  “What does it mean?” Kelly asked. “That word you just used. The one about the cow?”

  Mr. Pantalone looked confused. “Mooncalfing?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “It means to sort of space out over, to get distracted by.”

  Kelly’s grin lit up the room. “Were you really?” he asked Seth. “Were you really just spacing out on me?”

  Seth’s face heated, and he studied the frets on his violin. “I… uh….”

  “I’m pretty, right?” Kelly pressed. “Like, like I’m whatwuzit? Mooncalfable.”

  “You are pretty,” Seth blurted, and then looked at Mr. Pantalone in horror.

  Mr. Pantalone was rubbing the back of his neck like he was in pain. “It’s like herding fish,” he mumbled. “You want them to go one way, and then you’re riding a mooncalf in the river.”

  Kelly chortled. “He’s funny! And pretty!” Then he gave Mr. Pantalone a scowl. “Now, if he’d stop trying to get you to leave Sacramento, I might be able to stand him.”

  Mr. Pantalone eyed Kelly speculatively. “You could visit him,” he said pleasantly. “It’s a fine arts school—sort of an experiment. A bridge for fine and performing arts students. There’s an art department. And galleries. And field trips. You might even qualify yourself.”

  Kelly cocked his head. “Pretty and smart,” he observed. “I have sisters to take care of. No fancy schools for me. But you want him to go, why?”

  “Because he’s insanely talented,” Mr. Pantalone told him, dead serious. Seth’s mouth dropped open. People just didn’t say that about kids, did they? “He’s insanely talented, and I want him to go somewhere where he’ll find a way to make a difference. I want that thing he does, where he makes the instrument in his hands cry and laugh and sing? I want him to share that with the world. And he can’t do that if he goes to American River College. I mean, he could, and then he could transfer to Northridge, and he might still have a career, but I want him to have it now. I want him to have the best teachers and the best opportunities. I want the world to hear him.”

  Kelly’s lips parted slightl
y, and he licked the upper one in thought. “You want him to be important,” he said, nodding.

  “Yes.”

  “I think that’s a good thing. What do you think, Seth?”

  Seth had to shake himself. He’d been concentrating on Kelly’s lips.

  “I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “I… I just want to play.”

  Mr. Pantalone looked at him in resignation. “You think about it, okay? The offer’s open until June.”

  “So after my parents take us camping!” Kelly said, nodding like Seth knew about that already. Which he didn’t. “And then I could visit you next year!”

  Seth opened his mouth and closed it. “You want me to go?” Oh God. He said that. He said that in front of a teacher.

  And Kelly—Kelly’s happy, excited, shining expression dimmed suddenly, like a cloud in front of the sun. “I don’t want you to go,” he said, completely sober. “I want you to be important. You’ve been playing for me for years. I want you to play for the world.”

  I just want to play for you. “I—”

  And at that moment Matty stalked in. “You done yet?” he asked, rolling his eyes. “Oh my God—Seth! We’re going to miss the bus!”

  Kelly’s eyes got intense for a moment, and Seth could practically hear him thinking, Not my brother. Not now. Seth looked away and started packing up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pantalone. This is the day Matty has soccer. We’ve got to hurry!”

  Mr. Pantalone gave Seth the same steely-eyed, resolved look that Dr. Boyle had given him when he insisted that Seth could too play that concerto, even if it killed him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Seth. You too, Mooncalf. This isn’t over yet!”

  Kelly rolled his eyes. “I don’t even have this class. What makes you think—”

  But Mr. Pantalone cut him off with a quick shake of the head. “Tomorrow, Mooncalf. Not now.”

  “Whatever. Let’s hurry. Matty’ll be foul if he misses his damned game!”

  Together they hustled through the school and toward the bus stop, catching up with Matty as he stood in front of the bench.

  “What was that all about?” he asked, only mildly interested. His soccer team had made it to the District Cup this year. The indoor game they had that night was to practice for the outdoor game right before Christmas vacation.

  “They’re offering Seth a scholarship to a fancy school,” Kelly said excitedly. “It’s like, a bridge between high school and college, and it’s made for performers, like Seth.”

  “And artists,” Seth said loyally. To his dismay, Kelly’s mouth twisted.

  “I’m good, Seth, but I’m not ‘here’s the world on a silver platter’ good. He was using me as bait. ‘Here, come see your friend, he can come too.’”

  Seth grunted. “That’s low.” Mr. Pantalone didn’t look so pretty anymore.

  “Yeah, well, he’s getting desperate. You’re not hearing him, and you need to.”

  “My dad and I talked about it last night,” Seth told him reluctantly. He didn’t mention his dad much still, mostly out of habit, but partly because even though his dad was eight years sober, Seth didn’t want to jinx it. “I told him I didn’t want to go.”

  “And how’d he take that?” Matty asked, stepping back from the curb as the bus approached.

  Seth sighed. “I think it made him sad,” he mumbled. The bus hissed to a halt and lowered, doors opening, and Seth followed Kelly and Matty on board. Matty found one seat toward the back, and Kelly and Seth took the two together in the middle.

  Kelly looked back and waved at his brother, and then the bus started, noisy and chaotic, and he lowered his head to talk in Seth’s ear.

  “No telling my brother about us for a while, right?”

  Seth nodded. “Right. Would he be mad?”

  Kelly grimaced. “He’s been going to church with his girlfriend—”

  “Isela?” Last month it had been Miranda. He seemed to like tiny floaty girls who could make V-neck T-shirts look like lingerie.

  “Yeah. Isela. She’s a ‘good girl,’ which is Matty code for he hasn’t got past second base. Anyway, it’s not our church. They don’t seem to like gay people very much.” Kelly sighed and slumped forward. “Or, you know, I would have gone home and told the whole world that we finally kissed. And it was awesome. And I want to do it again.”

  Seth’s heart ached. “I want to do it again too,” he whispered.

  Kelly’s spine straightened, and his smile popped back in place, like the dimples were a lock. “I’ll run up and drop my stuff like always,” he said. “And that way, I don’t have to go watch Mr. Righteous Asshole play ball and be a jock and shit.”

  “You….” Seth swallowed. “I thought you liked your brother.”

  Kelly just shook his head. “Not when… not when every word out of his mouth is about why you and me shouldn’t kiss,” he said sharply.

  They were quiet then, and Seth opened his eyes to the damage this could do to Kelly’s life. Kelly’s family. The happy little enclave of people upstairs who had provided Seth with the security his father hadn’t.

  “I don’t want you to hate your brother,” he rasped after a few moments of the bus filling their senses.

  Kelly looked sideways at him. “That’s between my brother and me,” he said firmly. Then he perked up. “Oh! Weren’t you even curious about camping?”

  Seth let out a little grunt of frustration. “There’s a lot going on here!”

  Kelly’s burble told him he’d been unintentionally charming, and he’d take that as a win. “Yeah, there is. My folks reserved a campsite near one of those lakes near Tahoe over spring break. They were going to ask your dad if you could come. I think it’s so they have a grown-up kid with each little kid. Personally, I think it’s so they can hold hands in the woods and moon about, but I don’t care. We get to swim in the lake and see bears.”

  “I’d settle for deer,” Seth said practically. “Why bears?”

  “I wanna see it all. I wanna see bears and deer and elk and birds and eagles and hawks and fish. I wanna see a hawk catch a fish while dive-bombing a deer. I wanna feed one of my little sisters to something bigger’n me. It’s gonna be like frickin’ Christmas, and I want you to be there.”

  Seth could only see one downside. “We won’t be able to kiss,” he said softly.

  Kelly grunted. “Well, maybe Matty will calm down by then about God hating gay people. And even if he doesn’t, this is… you know. Us. Like we are, without the kissing. That’s still good.”

  Well, of course. Anything with Kelly was good. Seth’s stomach tingled, and he could barely stay still in his seat.

  “Excited?” Kelly whispered in his ear.

  “Yes,” he whispered back.

  “Me too. I want to kiss all the parts of you.”

  Seth let out a little moan, and knew his groin, which had stayed rather quiet through several years of awkward sex ed videos, was swollen.

  His balls hurt.

  He’d never wanted something so bad his balls hurt.

  How delicious.

  They saw their stop coming up, and Kelly leaned over and said, “Now remember, I have to go say hi to everyone. Get your practice out of the way then!”

  Seth nodded and they stood, Matty behind Seth as they walked toward the front and waited for the bus to stop.

  That moment—that moment in his life, he knew exactly what he wanted.

  Wingman

  KELLY GRIMACED as they lined up to get off the bus. “Shit,” he muttered, seeing the faces at the bus stop as they pulled near. “What’s he doing there?”

  Matty sucked in a breath. “I’ll deal with him. You guys go home. I don’t even want him to see you.”

  Seth pulled his attention away from, well, hopefully Kelly’s lips, because Kelly had been looking forward to that all day, and finally noticed the skinny, narrow-eyed white boy with brown dreads standing a few feet back from the bus stop.

  “Who’s that?” he asked with distaste.
br />   Yeah, well, the kid hadn’t done well after his two-year expulsion from his home district. Wherever his parents had put him had apparently been thug-training, because Castor Durant had come back a certified “weapon-toting drug-abusing dirt-under-his-fingernails dyed-in-the-shitty-dreadlocked” criminal.

  “Castor Durant,” Matty muttered. “Heard he’s been hanging around the junior high, passing out free samples.”

  “Free samples of what?” Seth asked fuzzily, and Kelly grimaced. He loved the guy—oh God, he loved him with his heart and his hormones and everything, but holy crap! Whatever planet Seth spent most of his mind on, it must have been awesome because he didn’t come to Earth for anything but Kelly and his goddamned violin.

  “Of meth!” Kelly growled. “Bad shit too. They had to take two kids to the hospital because it was cut with drain cleaner.”

  Matty gave him a hard look. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “A kid in my art class has a little sister at the junior high. Parents are transferring her to the one Seth went to. Castor Durant is bad news.”

  The bus slowed to a halt and swerved to the curb. “Okay, we’re gonna get off this bus talking loudly about my damned soccer game, okay? And we’re gonna breeze right by him like he’s a ghost. You hear that, Seth? No wandering brain like you get. Talk about my soccer team like it’s the frickin’ Bible, you understand?”

  Kelly double-checked Seth’s nod to make sure he was with them. He was, but he was also scared shitless—his big eyes made that clear. Kelly winked at him, and then the doors opened and Kelly started down the stairs, chattering for all he was worth.

  “So tell me that idiot who kicked the ball in your face isn’t playing again,” he called over his shoulder. “Because that was supposed to be a pass and you almost lost all your teeth!”

  “That was bad,” Seth said seriously. “Next time, he needs to hit the basket.”

  Kelly’s eyes got really wide—he could feel it. So he hopped down the step and laughed, because that’s what he’d do if this was a real conversation. “In the basket! Good one, man! D’you hear that, Matty? Make sure the ball hits the basket!” He was a couple of feet down the curb now, and Castor Durant was still waiting to get on the bus. Kelly turned toward his brother, hoping the moron would see it was his turn to talk loudly and without meaning.