Trace spent Seven Minutes in Heaven with Corinne Dennis. He didn't know Corinne all that
well, except that she was new in school and a year older than the rest of the freshman class
because her family moved around so much that she was behind. She was blonde, but she said
that her father was half Cherokee, and she had a thunderbird tattooed on her hip. She let Trace
see it; he had to kneel down in front of her where she pulled the edge of her jeans down to see it
in the dark of the closet, and when he stood back up he kissed her.
He didn't really know her at all, except that she was the only freshman to get a choir solo in the
winter concert.
"Nobody likes her," Nick told him. Nick was still in the choir. "She's all, she thinks she's too
good for everybody. But she's the best singer in the whole school."
"Justin," Trace said. He hadn't meant to say it out loud. It was weird to hear it; nobody really
said Justin's name anymore, at least not around Trace.
Nick gave him a strange look. "Justin doesn't go to our school anymore, remember?"
Trace slammed his locker door shut, and everybody went back to not talking about it anymore.
Which was okay by Trace.
Corinne was hot. She didn't say much to anybody, definitely not at school and not even really at
the party, and she had this way of kind of glaring at people for no real reason, but she wasn't as
hard to kiss as Trace thought she might be. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him
put his hand on her breast, and she seemed softer than usual, almost relaxed against him. She
liked him, maybe.
*
He quit the soccer team, and his dad was pissed off at him. Not that he could say that, of course.
He just said a lot of things about sticking with stuff even when it was hard. Trace told him, it
wasn't hard. He did fine in drills, in practice; he didn't ever get to play because freshmen never
did, but he didn't care about that. He just didn't want to do it anymore.
"What do you want to do?" his father demanded. "You quit choir, you quit soccer-- "
"Juan," his mother said under her breath. "Back off, okay?"
"You don't get these years back again, you know. By the time you're my age, you'll have a
hundred things you wish you'd done when you had the opportunity to do them."
Trace kept eating dinner. If he didn't say anything for long enough, it would have to be over
eventually, and he could go back up to his room.
He was in the kitchen putting his plate in the dishwasher and he could still hear his parents
talking in the dining room, his mother saying, "These aren't the best years of everybody's
life. You put too much pressure on him."
It's not that he didn't appreciate her trying to help, but that wasn't it. Trace didn't feel pressured,
like if he wasn't the valedictorian or the captain of the soccer team he'd be in trouble or
something.
He'd been suspended from the team anyway, him and three other guys who hardly ever got to
play, for fighting in the locker room. Trace couldn't even remember what started the fight, if they
called him a spic or a faggot or what, but it was something like that. Something he wasn't about
to repeat to his parents, or his coach, for that matter. The coach was cool; he hadn't wanted to
suspend anyone at all, but he had rules to follow. He said he thought there were better ways to
handle a situation than punishment, things that would help teach them how to act like a team. He
was a nice guy, and Trace hadn't figured out how to tell him yet that he wasn't coming back after
his two weeks were up.
That team thing. Trace didn't see the point. Just because he liked soccer, that didn't mean he
wanted to spend half his life with thirty other guys who didn't have anything in common with
him except that they liked soccer too. It was bad enough with all those hours of practice, and
then away games, stuck on a bus and sometimes in a hotel with no one cool to talk to, but then
there were all these supposedly social events, pizza parties and crap like that to make them act
like -- not even to act like a team. To make them act like friends. And they weren't.
They had to be drug tested, too, on the soccer team. Now that Trace was quitting, he might be
able to go out with Nick and his friends from the school play. They always had pot at their
parties, so maybe he could just get stoned and no one would expect him to talk much.
He didn't know if they ever invited Corinne to come. Nick said they didn't like her and all, but
they were a cast, and that was like a team. Nobody on the soccer team liked Trace much, but he
still had to go to the parties.
*
Justin called, but Trace couldn't really talk to him because it was always noisy and crazy in the
background; sometimes Trace could barely hear him. "Michelle stuffed her bra with some kind
of beanbag," Trace told him, instead of telling him about the fight or quitting soccer.
"No way!" Justin crowed. "Michelle Randolph?"
"No, dumbass. McAllister."
"Oh. Okay, that makes more sense. And you know this for sure because?"
"One fell out in the cafeteria." Justin laughed as hard as if he'd been there. Trace put his fingers
up to the holes on the mouthpiece of the phone and held them there for a minute. It wasn't really
anything like how he used to put his hand on the back of Justin's neck to steady them both while
they staggered over each other because they were laughing so hard, but.
"Hey, come on!" someone yelled in the background. "Other people gotta call their girlfriends
besides you, you know."
"Get bent, Fatone!" Justin yelled back, but he was still laughing, and Trace could tell by the way
that he said it that it wasn't for real. There wouldn't be a fight or anything. Justin only ever said
nice things about the other guys. Trace was pretty sure it was the kind of team his soccer coach
wished he got to work with.
"I'll talk to you later," Trace said. Maybe at Thanksgiving they'd have a chance to ride their bikes
out by the river. That was where they usually were when they really talked to each other, and
maybe there, out walking their bikes across the railroad tracks toward the bluffs, Trace could tell
him about the fight, and Corinne Dennis, and the last away game when most of the team got
drunk in the hotel and fucking Jeremy Marks caught him alone getting the backpack he left off of
the bus and pushed him down in the seat and touched his thigh and acted like he really thought
Trace was gonna kiss him. Trace hadn't hit him, because he was kind of pathetic and out of it,
reeking like Cherry Coke and booze with this weird kind of desperate look in his eyes, so Trace
felt bad for him, and kind of pushed him off and said he'd walk back to the hotel with him. That
was probably the only reason Jeremy hadn't been one of the guys who called him a spic or a
faggot or whatever in the locker room, even though they were all his friends. He sort of owed
Trace a favor -- not a big enough one to try to break up the fight, but enough to stay out of it. "I'll
talk to you at Thanksgiving," Trace said, and what he meant was please, I need to talk to
you.
"Yeah, definitely," Justin said blithely. "Okay, I have to go. I love you. Oh, and Mom says hi."
"Yeah," Trace said. "Hi."
*
It took Trace half his lunch period on Monday to even find Corinne. He thought she might be
downstairs in the snack bar where most of the drama kids ate, but she wasn't, and he finally
found her on the benches by the east doors where you really weren't supposed to have food, but
people did all the time and nobody ever got in trouble for it. He sat down beside her and she
stared at him for a minute, surprised and not really thrilled, but not in a way like she didn't want
to be seen with him. More, he thought, like she didn't know why he was there.
"Is that all you're eating?" he said, gesturing with his fork at her plate. She had a salad and
spaghetti with no sauce.
"I'm a vegetarian," she said.
"Still," he said. "You want my brownie?"
She looked at him a long minute, and then her expression relaxed. She didn't smile, but she got
less tense all of a sudden, and Trace remembered the way she leaned on him a little while they
kissed. "No," she said. "But thanks."
*
His dad took him and Brandon both to a Rams game, and Trace liked it more than he thought he
would. He mostly liked basketball better and he almost never even watched football except for
the Super Bowl, but there was something about the stadium, when the giant light panels came on
and he had to zip the collar of his coat almost up to his nose against the wind. Live games of
anything were always better than on television, and he shouted himself hoarse and won a two-
dollar bet off his brother by pouring the last half of their tray of nachos into his mouth all at once.
Then they both started laughing, and Trace sprayed cheese and chips and spit on the coat of the
guy sitting in front of them. His dad said, "I think there's something just plain not right about you
kids," but Trace could tell he was happy with them. He wasn't happy with Trace very often
lately.
The Rams won 30-10. Brandon called shotgun on the trip home, but he got overruled by
parental decree. "Let your older brother ride up front, okay?" Dad said, which made Trace a little
nervous, because every time one of his parents pointed out that he was the oldest, it was always
so they could follow up with some kind of extra responsibility that he supposedly had because of
it.
It wasn't a responsibility thing, though; it was bonding. After they wore out half an hour or so
recapping the game and surfing around to find a radio station, his dad said, "So. How are you
liking high school so far?" in that very casual tone of voice adults used when they hoped you
wouldn't notice they were prying.
"It's okay," Trace said. "It's not that much harder."
"Do you miss-- " his dad said.
Justin, he thought in a flash, and everything stopped.
"-- soccer?" he finished. Trace slumped down in the seat, leaning his head against the window.
"Nah," he said. His hand was shaking on the door handle, and he stuck it in his coat pocket.
"Your mom mentioned something from the newsletter about a winter formal. Thinking about
going to that?"
Trace hesitated. "Freshman don't always go," he hedged. Which was literally true -- they didn't
always go -- but usually it was mostly freshman and sophomores at the winter formal,
while the upperclassmen saved their money for prom.
"You're not gonna take your girlfriend?" Brandon said in a sing-song voice from the backseat,
and Dad's head snapped around to look at him.
"You gotta watch the road," Trace reminded him.
He made a little face and said, "I think I can handle the driving, thank you very much. Who's this
girl?"
Trace shrugged. "Just this girl. She's not...she's not really my girlfriend. I mean, we don't go out
on dates or anything. We just eat lunch together and stuff like that."
"Don't you think she's probably waiting for you to ask her out on a real date?"
Trace wondered about that. He was pretty sure Corinne liked him, but she wasn't -- she wasn't
exactly like other girls. It was hard to imagine her liking things like... Trace didn't even know.
Flowers. Or the winter formal or whatever. He'd never even seen Corinne in a skirt except when
she had to wear one for the choir concert. "I don't know," he said.
"Does she have a name?"
"Corinne Dennis," Brandon said. Trace turned around and glared hard at him. How did he even
know stuff like that, anyway? He didn't even go to Trace's school. Brandon smiled back,
unaffected. "She's in the choir."
His dad didn't say anything for a minute, and then he said, "Aha. A chanteuse." After a minute
he said, "You know Lynn's first husband was a musician."
Trace rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dad. I know Randy."
"You've met Randy," his father corrected. Trace thought about saying, really, wasn't that all you
could say about anyone, but it didn't seem worth it. "There's a certain kind of person who wants
that. Do you know what I'm saying? And that kind of person isn't usually going to want to be in
one place forever. Certainly not in Millington."
"Randy's back in Millington." He was married again, but Trace couldn't remember the wife's
name. Mrs. Timberlake. He saw her at the movie theater with some friends the other weekend,
and she looked pregnant. Justin hadn't said anything about that to him, though.
"He wasn't back in Millington when he had a son growing up here."
"Corinne doesn't have any kids," Trace said, in the deliberately snotty tone of voice that usually
got him in trouble. Right then, a lecture about his attitude would be a relief.
But he didn't get lectured. His father took a deep breath; Trace could almost hear him counting
to ten before he spoke. "All I'm trying to tell you," he said, "is that there are some people in this
world that you just can't count on."
Trace closed his eyes and put his forehead against the cold window. "There are some people you
can, though," he said softly.
*
"I don't know if I can," Corinne said. "I'm kind of grounded."
"Oh." Trace wasn't sure if he was disappointed or not. He didn't really care about the winter
formal, but most people he knew were going, and he didn't want it to be one of those things
where people notice if you're not there and wonder what's the matter with you. "What'd you do?"
Corinne rolled her eyes. "Nothing. I ran up the phone bill."
"Calling who?" Corinne moved around all the time, but she never talked about friends from
other schools or anything.
"My grandmother." She passed him the cigarette and drew her knees up to her chest, setting her
heels on the edge of the curb. She was still wearing shorts, even though it was November and
fifty-five degrees out. Corinne had long, long legs, smooth and pale. She was taller than Trace,
of course.
He put his arm behind her, his hand resting on her hip while he took a drag of her cigarette. They
could never get away with this outside Trace's house; his mom knew the whole neighborhood,
and he'd definitely get caught. He didn't really know anyone who lived out by Corinne's house.
"I can't really get in trouble for that. My mom spends more time calling Florida than I do."
"What's in Florida?"
"I -- these friends of ours. My mom's best friend Lynn and her son."
Corinne turned her head toward him, tucking her wavy blonde hair behind one ear. Trace kind of
wanted to nibble on her ear, but he was afraid that was the kind of thing that looked cute in
movies but was just kind of weird in real life. "Is that Justin? Who used to have the tv show?
People in the choir talk about him all the time."
"What do they say?"
Corinne shrugged. "That he was good. That they knew he wouldn't stay here. You think he'll be
famous someday?"
"I don't know," Trace said. "Maybe." He put out the cigarette on the pavement and touched her
hair, pulling her across to kiss him. Her eyes closed before he even touched her lips, and she put
a hand on his knee for balance.
After a minute she moved away and said, "I still have a dress. From -- I went to the Spring Fling
dance last year in Arizona. My first freshman year," she added wryly. "It's pink, though. It's
pretty disgusting."
"Pink's okay," he said, and kissed her again, lightly.
"I could talk to my mom about it. She's always worried about my socialization and crap like
that."
*
"I'm going to the winter formal," he told Justin. "I mean, it's stupid, but. Everyone's going."
"It's not stupid," Justin said. "It's cool. Believe me, I'd rather be going to that then whatever the
hell they're going to be making me do down here that night."
"You're lying."
"Well." Justin laughed. "I'm not really lying. I mean, there's not a lot I miss about
school, but it happens occasionally. I'd go if I could. Not, like, home for good or anything. But
to the dance."
"I have a date," he said.
There was a long silence, except for the pause music on Trace's game of Rebel Commander.
"With who?" Justin finally asked.
"Nobody you know. I mean, she's new this year. Corinne. She's cool." He laid back on his bed
and counted the dead bugs stuck in the glass dish covering his overhead lightbulb while Justin
gathered his thoughts.
"Well. Good," Justin finally said. "You'll have to get your mom to take pictures and everything.
I want to see you in your tux."
"Mom already told me that you guys aren't coming back for Thanksgiving," Trace said, to put
Justin out of his misery. Justin sucked at breaking bad news.
He exhaled with the relief of having it done for him. "I can't," Justin said. "You know I wanted
to, but...it's not up to me. There's people that I work for, and they need me here. But, Christmas.
And then you'll come spend the rest of vacation down here, like we already planned. That hasn't
changed."
"Yeah," Trace said, his voice hard. "Nothing's changed, right?"
"Don't," Justin said, soft and thin, almost a whimper. "Don't do that. I'm doing the best I can,
okay? And I meant it. Everything I said to you, I meant it. I still mean it."
"Okay," Trace said, relenting. "Yeah, I know you do. It's okay. But you owe me so much Space
Mountain. There's not enough Space Mountain in the world for what you owe me."
Justin laughed. "Okay, I promise. Ten times on Space Mountain and about eight days in line.
Whatever you want."
"Get some sleep. You sound tired."
"I am. I will. I just wanted to call and-- Happy birthday."
"Thanks."
"I sent you something, but it's probably not there yet."
"No, I got it." Trace touched the watch, its heavy black leather band and long rectangular face,
the kind with no numbers that you can't actually read except by figuring where the numbers
belong on a real watch. "It's great. It came today."
"I love you," Justin said. His voice didn't sound as nice as usual -- scratchy or something. He
was tired, and Trace thought they were making him sing too much. Not that he was an expert or
anything, but Justin didn't sound normal. "I miss you."
"I know. Thanks."
*
His mom took him on the Friday after Thanksgiving to take the written test for his learner's
permit. He passed, and the sheriff clapped him on the shoulder when he handed him the stapled
pink and white copies of his paperwork. "You gonna be helping your folks out at work once
you're driving?" he asked.
"Yeah, probably," Trace said. His parents went most weekends to estate sales all over Tennessee
and Arkansas, looking for things for the store, and he already had to go a lot with his mother, to
help her pack and carry the heavier antiques, furniture and things. He didn't know if they'd be
letting him drive out by himself and pick things out when he was sixteen, but it had to happen
eventually. They wanted him to have the store when they retired; it would actually be in
everyone's name, his and Brandon's and Brittany's, but Trace was the oldest. People brought that
up a lot. He was the oldest, so he was responsible for making sure the three of them didn't run
their father's business into the ground.
They went out for lunch at Applebee's to celebrate, and his mom ordered him a virgin daiquiri.
"Did you get a lot of homework over the holiday weekend?" she asked.
"No."
"Not even in geometry?" Geometry was the only class Trace had a C in last quarter. He had an
A in social studies, but social studies never seemed to come up in conversation. They were doing
Africa, and he was making a map of Egypt, with all the pyramids labeled in different colors
according to dynasty. Trace had always wanted to go to Egypt, ever since the first time he saw
pyramids in Indiana Jones. Justin used to say when he was rich and famous, they'd go together.
"No. We had a test Wednesday, and the new unit starts next week."
"How do you think you did?"
"Don't you want to save up any conversation for dinner?" he snapped. "I could just go through it
all one time and it would be over."
His mother sighed, and said, "Fine, have it your way. We'll just sit here."
In the car she said, "I'm on your side, hon. I wish you realized that."
*
Kyle and his girlfriend Julie broke up in the hall between sixth and seventh period, in a big,
screaming fight where she threw her three-ring binder at him and the papers came loose and
scattered everywhere. "Girls, man," Nick said sympathetically. "Scary."
Trace just shook his head and spun the dial on his locker to clear it, because he'd forgotten where
in the combination he was before he got distracted. "They only got back together last time
because Julie wanted to be the one to dump him. They have this whole weird thing."
Andy Vaughn, whose locker was right across the hall from Trace's, said -- shouted at them,
almost, really, "Now that your little friend is single, which of you do you think he'll ask to the
dance?"
Nick narrowed his eyes and looked away. He did that, the same way that Justin did, ignoring the
assholes with a look on his face that suggested they were just too generally disgusting to
associate with in any way. Trace turned around. "Who're you taking? Kristen? Then
you must be the guy who has those incriminating pictures."
Nick chuckled, and smacked the back of his shoulder. "He doesn't get it. Maybe give him some
time to think it over."
Jeremy put a hand on his friend's arm, stopping Andy from coming across the hall toward Trace.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get to class."
While Trace was walking home, Jeremy pulled up alongside him, rolling down the passenger
side window at the touch of a button. "You want a ride?" he asked.
"No, not really."
"Look. Andy's a cocksucker." Trace turned his head sharply, and Jeremy lifted both hands off
the steering wheel in a small, placating gesture. "He's, he's a moron. Just don't listen to him;
nobody else does."
"I don't need advice from you; you're the one who hangs out with him."
"Get in, come on," he said impatiently. "It's fucking freezing out here."
And it was, really, so Trace got in the car. Jeremy drove a little black Mitsubishi, almost new.
They didn't talk, except for Trace giving him directions. When he pulled up in front of Trace's
house, he put the parking brake on. "Are you going to the dance?" Jeremy asked as Trace undid
his seatbelt.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Because I know some people who are going to just stop by and then go into Memphis. You
could come, too."
"Why?" Jeremy was a junior, a basically cool guy, short and wiry but still popular with girls. He
wasn't the sort of person that Trace ever hung out with, even assuming for a minute that Jeremy's
friends weren't all assholes.
Jeremy shrugged. "I just think it sucks, what happened to you. You didn't start anything, and
you're a good center; you might have started next year. They shouldn't have kicked you off the
team."
"Nobody kicked me off the team. I got suspended, and then I quit."
"The people that are going on Friday, they're not -- it's not Andy and them. These guys are okay."
"I have a date," Trace said. "She doesn't want to go get wasted with a bunch of upperclassmen
we don't even know." He was fairly sure of that. Corinne wasn't at her best in big groups, or any
groups at all, really. She could be really nice when it was just the two of them, smart and funny
and everything like that, but it pretty much had to be just the two of them.
"Some other time, then," he said. "We should do something."
"If you wanna say something," Trace said harshly, "you should just say it."
Jeremy looked at him for a minute and then said, "I was going out with Leigh at the beginning of
the year." Trace knew that. Leigh Avis; she used to sit next to Trace all through elementary
school, when the desks were in alphabetical order. "I know about y'all's eighth-grade lock-in.
She told me."
Trace had to spend a minute unclenching his jaw. He was afraid it made him look flustered,
nervous. "Marks," he said, "you don't know shit."
"I'm not trying to give you shit," he said. "I just wanted you to know that...it's cool." He put his
hand on Trace's arm. He had dark hair and a tan, but when he leaned forward Trace could see for
the first time that his eyes were actually green, not brown. Dark green.
Trace got out of the car. "You and I," he said, as coldly as he could and hoping his voice wasn't
shaking, "have nothing in common. And what you think happened didn't happen. I don't
care who told you they saw what. It didn't happen."
"Fine," Jeremy said shortly, and pulled away with his tires squealing as soon as Trace threw the
door shut.
*
At the lock-in that the middle school had for all its graduating eighth-graders, Justin and Trace
got bored, and they started coming up with ideas for a cool slasher movie of their own. They
planned to film it at the school, and they ditched out of the approved areas where kids were
allowed to be and went scouting locations. As Justin was getting all wound up on his theory
about why locker rooms were the creepiest place in a school, Trace just couldn't resist turning the
showers on, and it was completely worth it. Justin screeched like a drowning cat.
And it wasn't at all like the stories that built up around it later. They were just having fun,
dragging each other through the water and trying to see who could hold the other longest under
the spray until the victim could squirm free. And then obviously people heard them, and they
had to make a run for it before the chaperones could catch them being where they weren't
supposed to be. They hid in the front part of the PE office, the unlocked waiting-room area, and
of course someone checked there, but they were curled up tightly behind the door, holding their
breaths so they wouldn't fall apart into hysterical laughter, and they didn't get caught.
Not then. But it was three in the morning, and he put his head down on Justin's thin chest, right
over his rocketing heartbeat, and Justin put his hands on Trace's back, and they fell asleep. So
they got caught later, like that, and Trace was never sure who all was in the search party that
found them, but enough people to get the rumors started, and then that was the big thing at school
for a while. Justin and Trace ditched out of the lock-in to fool around in the PE office. Some
versions of it were more rich with detail than others, and Trace always wondered, Who comes up
with this stuff? Who is it who decides it's not a good enough story they way they heard it, and
throws that extra little bit in?
It died out pretty fast, just the way Justin said it would. Trace hadn't heard anybody talking about
it in ages. Maybe it was old news, or maybe they really didn't remember; maybe there was
something about Justin being gone that made everything connected with him disappear out of
people's minds. It helped that school ended not long after that and everyone had better things to
think about. It figures that fucking Leigh Avis would still care enough to remember it; she was a
little fucking goody-goody, always talking about her Lord Jesus and her virginity.
"She should've kept on going out with Jeremy," he told Justin. It was one-thirty by the time
everyone in the house was in bed and Trace could make a phone call in privacy. "She wouldn't
have to worry so much about staying pure then. I bet he's better than a pledge card."
Justin didn't laugh. "Are you okay?"
"I can handle Jeremy."
"It's so insane. We didn't even do anything. Nothing like, like that, at least."
"Are you trying to convince me? I know we didn't; I was there."
"It's so unfair. I'm sorry that you're the one who has to deal with this shit by yourself."
"Justin. I can handle it." He rubbed the face of Justin's watch that didn't actually tell time. He
wondered if someone had told his parents about the whole thing; they never brought it up with
him, but his dad had practically thrown him a parade when he found three shoplifted Playboys in
Trace's closet. His mom had given him extra chores for a week, but Trace definitely got the
feeling that it was a huge relief for his father. "I wish we had done something," Trace said
recklessly. "I mean. We might as well have."
He didn't usually say things like that -- ever, in fact. Justin didn't seem to know what to say in
response.
*
He got a C- on the geometry test, but his parents didn't even give him a lecture, partially because
Brittany sprained her ankle that week at gymnastics and was taking up a lot of the family's
attention, and partially because everyone was really psyched about Trace going to the dance and
didn't seem to want to interfere with that in any way. His dad picked him up after school and
took him to buy a corsage.
"What color is her dress?" the florist asked.
"Pink," Trace said, but when she reached for pink flowers, Trace said, "She doesn't really like
pink, though, I don't think. That's just what color the dress is."
The florist grinned at him and said, "You pay attention. Now, why can't I find a nice guy like
you?" She hooked him up with a white corsage with just a little spray of something that was
painted gold.
"Don't forget to open doors," his father said before he left. "And don't make her ask you for
something to drink once you get there. You offer. This is a formal event, so, your best
manners."
"Okay, okay," Trace said. "I won't pick my nose or anything, I promise."
His mom drove him to pick Corinne up, and both mothers had to take pictures. Corinne's dress
was very pink and wrapped very tight around her; Trace was blushing by the time he figured out
how to pin the corsage on her in a way that was appropriate for mothers to see. She was pretty
much a hundred feet tall by the time she got heels on, and Trace dreaded the way he was going to
look like an idiot when they danced together. Then she took his hand when they were in the
backseat of the car together and smiled over at him, her braces flashing in the streetlights, and he
didn't mind so much.
They had fun mocking most of the music, especially that song from Friends and "What If
God Was One of Us." Corinne liked Smashing Pumpkins and Oasis and Alice in Chains, among
other things they weren't likely to play at this dance. They never played any hip-hop inside the
Millington city limits, either, except for "Gangsta's Paradise" and maybe something by LL Cool
J, if Trace got lucky, but mostly it wasn't good to get your hopes up. He remembered to get
Corinne a drink. She didn't really want to dance and neither did he, but he did let himself get
dragged out one time by Julie; she was doing it to make Kyle jealous, and he agreed because he
knew it wouldn't work, but it might make her go away, at least.
He wouldn't dance with her to the Michael Bolton song, because that was just wrong on a million
different levels, and he was pretty sure that if Justin ever heard about it, he'd never forgive him,
but he did when they played "Kiss From a Rose." Other couples clung to each other on the floor,
panting in each other's ears, but Trace and Corinne talked about Batman while they danced.
She'd always been pretty hot, Trace thought as he settled his arm around her waist, but really
when you got Corinne out of her sweatshirts and her Doc Martens, she was beautiful. She had
this sparkly rhinestone barrette holding her ponytail. He wanted to kiss her, except that he'd
probably end up remembered for all time by the Class of '99 as that guy who got busted by the
chaperones at every school function ever. It held a little appeal, but not much. When the song
ended she grabbed his hands and they didn't dance, but they sort of jumped up and down like
idiots singing along with "Runaround" really loudly, and it was fun, actually.
They couldn't really stop people from leaving the dance; all they could do was say that once you
left, you couldn't come back in again, and that was okay. When the dance got boring, Trace and
Corinne left and walked the two blocks to Taco Bell, and he used the money his dad had slipped
him to buy them both Burrito Supremes. They stayed there a little while longer while Corinne
kicked off her shoes to give her feet a break, and soon she ended up slumped in the booth with
her legs stretched out under the table so that her feet rested on Trace's leg. He rubbed them,
feeling the hot, scratchy-sleek texture of her pantyhose under his palms, while they talked.
When they were ready to go back to the pay phone in the school parking lot and call Trace's
mom, Corinne carried her shoes instead of putting them back on, and when they got to school her
hose were all torn up by gravel and rough pavement. "See, that doesn't look any less painful," he
said while she sat down on the hood of someone's car to pull her foot up and inspect the damage.
"You don't know how painful it was before."
"And all so you could be a foot taller than me. That's great, I appreciate you going the extra mile
to make that happen." She grinned at him, and he put his hand on her ankle and leaned in to kiss
her neck. She had this unidentifiable girly smell, mixing with the smell of her leather jacket, and
when she breathed in sharply and arched her back just a little bit, it was sexier than anything
Trace had seen on late-night Cinemax. He kept kissing down to her cleavage; he didn't know if
his father would consider that gentlemanly, but hey, at least he'd consider it heterosexual.
When his mother dropped Corinne off, Trace walked her to the door. He touched the back of her
neck lightly and brushed his lips against hers. "It's cool that you got ungrounded for this," he
said. "I'm -- this was fun. Going together."
"Yeah," she said, and kissed his cheek. "Come back over," she whispered in his ear, putting her
warm hand on his arm. "Around to the back door; I'll let you in."
*
"Have you ever?" Her skin was slickened just a little, and she smelled like something rich, like
coconuts maybe, some kind of lotion that she hadn't smelled like earlier that night. Trace ran his
hand up under her flannel shirt, under her breasts, and popped the last two shirt buttons open
with his other hand.
"Yeah," she said. When she laid back, her hair fanned out all around her. She was wearing the
same necklace she'd worn at the dance, a gold cross, but not the little, plain kind; it was heavy
and sort of Russian looking, with a small red stone in the middle, and it looked more like
something Madonna would wear than Leigh Avis. "You don't have to whisper, though. My
dad's out of town, and my mom is...out cold. Nothing wakes her up."
He sucked slowly on one of her nipples, running his hand up and down her hip, across the satin
of her underwear. He slipped two fingers underneath it, up her thigh and her hip, and then just
left them there, stroking her skin slowly while they kissed. He jumped a little when she started to
pull his t-shirt up, and she smiled against his mouth. "It's okay," she said. "It's okay, everyone's
nervous the first time."
"Oh, you're that sure it's my first time. Thanks."
"No," she laughed, "not because of you. It's just, who would it have been, you know? There
obviously isn't anybody in this pathetic little town who can see how wonderful you are."
"Are you buttering me up?"
"What for? I already got into your pants. Well, not literally." She smiled wickedly at him and
reached between them to unzip his jeans. "Still, I think we're pretty much past the seduction
stage."
He meant to say something, but instead he groaned and thrust against her hand.
Corinne had been in twelve schools in the last seven years. He thought about that while he
pulled her satin panties down over leg and leg and more leg, then off of her blistered feet. She
wasn't a girl from Millington, and she wouldn't stay there. Trace didn't know what it was about
everywhere but here that sounded so good to him. It wasn't so bad a place, Millington. There
were a lot of good things about it, but for some reason everything great seemed to move on
eventually. He shucked off the last of his clothes and crawled back up her narrow bed with its
brown gingham bedspread and kissed her. She put her hands rather chastely on his shoulders and
kissed back deeply.
The condom turned out to be the trickiest part, and he messed up one completely and had to start
all over. The rest was pretty easy, at least for Trace, other than those few seconds after he was
inside her when he literally could not make himself think clearly enough to remember what you
were supposed to do after that. But she pulled her knees up against his hips and rocked up at the
same time that she used her legs to urge him deeper in, and suddenly it made sense again.
Her hand was lying on the pillow, after, and he laced his fingers together with hers and let his
eyes focus again on her face -- the gloss of sweat, her slightly open mouth, the smudges of
mascara under her eyes. "You're beautiful," he said, and she shivered when he brushed his
fingers around the outside of her breast.
"Good thing," she said. "I'll never make it on my sunny disposition, will I?"
"It's not that people can't see that you're terrific. You just don't let them, most of the time."
"Why should I? I won't be here that long. Anyway, I was talking about you."
"I guess I don't plan to be here all that long, either."
*
The last time Trace saw Justin was in the middle of August. They were earning ten bucks apiece
by washing both the Ayalas' cars in the carport around back while Brandon was at camp, Brittany
was at a friend's house, and his parents were out of town at a sale. It was eighty-eight degrees
and sharply, annoyingly sunny, and Justin was doing most of the work. Justin was better at
cleaning things.
Justin leaned against the door of the truck, and he'd accumulated enough water on him that Trace
could almost see through his tank top, or would have been able to if it hadn't hurt to open his
eyes more than a slit. He needed to go in and find a pair of sunglasses, but he was just too lazy to
do it. He was on vacation.
"You never asked me how that audition went last weekend," Justin said. Trace looked at him
strangely, and Justin rolled his eyes. "Hello, I flew to Florida? I was gone three days? What, do
you not even miss me when I'm gone?"
Trace grinned. "I remember. I'm just messing with you. No, I figured you didn't get whatever,
or else you would have told me."
Justin took a deep breath. "Actually, I did." He smiled, a little uncertainly, and spread his hands.
"I got it."
"Well, great. I mean, that's good, right? I don't know what it is, so I'm just guessing, but they
picked you, so that's good."
"It's -- well, it's nothing yet, exactly. But it's going to be a vocal harmony group."
"Okay, I don't know what that means."
"You know, like New Kids On the Block. Only me and Chris sing better. And JC; Chris hasn't
met him in person yet, but that's kind of a formality. You know JC, he's the best there is."
"So, wait." Trace's head was spinning a little from the heat. There was something he didn't like,
too, about the way Justin kept throwing this guy Chris's name in there like he was someone Trace
was already supposed to know. "Is this a record deal? You got a record deal?"
"Not yet," Justin said. He wiped some water or sweat off his face with his palm, and it left a
streak of dirt on his cheek. "Not nearly yet, but we've got this investor, and.... Yes, this is good.
This is very good. And I'm going back to Florida -- right away. To help audition a few other
guys."
Trace had to think about talking, had to form each word in his head before he said it out loud.
"For how long?" Justin looked at him silently. "Dammit, Justin!" he said, and his voice sounded
awful, high and sort of crazed.
"I know, but-- "
"But what? You can't go now. We start high school in two weeks. You're my fucking
locker partner! You can't just...up and leave, just like that."
"Can't you please be excited for me? This might be the biggest thing I've ever done."
"This is the biggest thing I've ever done. When is it, when is it my turn to have the things
that are important to me be important? I know it's just high school and whatever, just like
everybody else in the world, but still, it's my life. And you promised me, when you came back,
you fucking promised we'd finish school before you did anything else major."
Justin's wet, soapy hands grabbed him by the wrists and pulled him close, and Trace had avoided
getting too messed up so far, until he was wrapped up in a soaking wet Justin. "I'm sorry, I know
I said that, but. I can't. I fucking hate it here. You know I do. I can't do this for four more years,
I'll go completely batshit. Trace, I have to do this. I don't belong here."
He pulled away, some dazed part of his brain aware that they were in his backyard. "So...what
about you and me?"
"I want you to come with me."
"You know there's no way."
"I know. But I'm just telling you, that's what I want."
"So, what's Plan B?" Trace asked bitterly. "I just wait for you?"
"We both wait. Until you're eighteen and you can do whatever you want, and then I come back
here and get you and we go -- anywhere. Everywhere. California. Egypt. Paris in the
springtime, who fucking cares? We call and we write and we visit and we wait."
"You won't come back," Trace said. He put his fingertips tentatively against Justin's chest, and
Justin stroked up his forearm slowly. "It's three and a half years. You'll change. I'll change. We
won't...we'll barely know each other anymore."
"I will come back," Justin said, and for the first time, Trace could feel something besides echoes
inside of him, because when Justin used that voice, he always meant it, and it always happened.
"I won't leave you here, okay? You are not going to grow up and take over the fucking furniture
store and live and die in Millington. You're better than that."
But it was always Justin who was good, better, best. He took Trace by the arms and pulled him
back until they were pressed flat against each other. Justin laced his fingers behind Trace's head,
and Trace was staring up at him, into the sun so he couldn't see anything. "I love you," Justin
said. He'd said that before; Justin was a naturally affectionate person.
"If I have to wait...I guess I can." He always said, anything. For Justin, anything in the world.
He just didn't think it would be this.
They had their first kiss tangled up in each other and leaning against the door of Trace's dad's
pickup truck, and everything smelled like soap and wax and late-summer flowers in the garden,
and Justin kissed like he meant it; even though Trace had only kissed a couple of girls before, he
could tell what sincerity felt like. Trace knotted up his hands in the back of Justin's shirt and let
Justin curve his hands around the back of Trace's head.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
bide: 1. To remain in a condition or state. 2a. To wait; tarry. 2b. To stay. 2c. To be left;
remain.