Either way, I know I’ll have to talk to him eventually.
I prepared myself for this, didn’t I? Wasn’t that the point of all that pep-talking in the hotel bathroom mirror an hour ago?
“So embarrassing,” sighs a woman at my side. “I was so chubby back then. Ugh, and look at what I was wearing!” The laugh she lets out is mixed with horrified anguish. “Who picked this photo? Do they hate me?”
“Probably,” I answer without even looking at her, then glance at the rest of the montage of photos. “I’m not even on this wall.”
“Count yourself lucky.” She points toward the end. “Imagine having to be Tanner Strong today and seeing how much hotter and fitter you were ten years ago. Phew. He made a great prom date.”
I roll my eyes. What is it with all the prom references?
My silence clues her in. “Oh. Crap. I just remembered.”
I glance at her, finally confirming her identity to me. “It was a strange time in my life.” I give Lindsay Randall half a smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Lindsay. You’re looking gorgeous as ever.”
The woman is glowing in a satiny white blouse with a flowing, silky pant that gives her all the curves in the world. Her dark curls of hair are done up in a pretty up-do, some loose strands dangling delicately down the rich, bronze skin of her long neck. She was the head cheerleader of Spruce High, and she and Tanner made the perfect prom dates. I can’t remember if they were named king and queen. I guess my focus was elsewhere.
You know. Drying my tears. Sitting at home bitterly. Drawing and coloring beautiful dresses on paper. Cursing loudly whenever the tip of a pencil broke.
It wasn’t a lovely night.
Lindsay smiles back at me. “Well, you’re some kind of hotshot now, aren’t you?”
I chuckle. Hotshot. “I guess I’ve done alright.”
“More than alright. I’ve heard all about you, Lance. What is it with Spruce’s best people running as far away from this town as possible? My little sis Camille can’t get enough of Europe. She’s a free spirit, always will be. I was the one who stuck closer to home.”
“There was a time everyone thought you and Tanner would be the couple of Spruce,” I admit, thinking back on my senior year. “I mean, everyone also presumed he’d run off to the major leagues and get famous playing football. Not that he’d turn out to be gay and marry—” I sigh, suddenly unable to say his name.
“Billy,” she says for me, “and I think you mean the NFL, not ‘the major leagues’, which sounds more like baseball to me.”
I sneer playfully at her. “Do I look like a sports guy to you?”
She lets out a strained laugh, sips her drink, then peers at me for a second before asking, “So did you know he was gay?”
I look at her. “Billy? Oh, definitely. It was more than obvious, especially when I’d pass him in the halls and we’d—”
“I meant Tanner.”
Oh. “Tanner? Tanner Strong? I … well, uh … I guess it’s more a question of … of, um …”
Is she expecting a specific answer? Is she trying to work out some sexuality puzzle that’s bugged her for ten long years? Is she still bitter about their awkward, senior-year, post-prom breakup?
I don’t know how openly I can explain the whole repressed-athlete, peer pressure, masculinity crisis thing to her, and how it’s a surprisingly common thing for secretly gay or queer athletes to be shamed into silence.
Or to even deny the truth to themselves for years and years.
Or for one simple, unassuming prom night.
“It’s okay,” Lindsay says flatly, letting me off the hook. “Your face says it all.”
I blink. I wasn’t aware my face was saying anything. “What?”
She nods at me. “It was nice catching up, Lance.” She turns to leave, stops abruptly, then spins right back to face me. “But why didn’t you say anything, if you knew? I mean, we knew each other well enough, you and I. We had so many mutual friends in the theater and choir departments, not to mention Lana and Georgina in dance. Why didn’t you tell me Tanner was gay?”
My jaw practically drops. “Lindsay, I didn’t—”
“Did you guys have a secret thing back then?” she asks at once, searching my eyes suspiciously. “Between football games? Behind everyone’s backs? Did you do stuff with him in the locker rooms?”
“Oh my God, no,” I blurt out, blindsided by Lindsay’s sudden paranoia. “I didn’t date anyone at our school.”
“No one? I find that hard to believe.”
“Lindsay, there wasn’t anyone to date, or see, or do secret nasty things with in locker rooms. Yikes, I mean, I have standards here. My first boyfriend wasn’t until freshman year of college, and he was a royal disaster, for the damned record, and—” And now my best friend is marrying him, but I’ll leave that part out. “—and I wouldn’t deign to do anything with a guy who’s already with someone else.”