Waterways (29 page)

“Oh.” He shoved his paws into his pockets. “Yeah. I mean, yes, we talk about stuff all the time. He didn’t tell me to yell at my mom.”

“No, that sounded like it came from your heart. I just want to be sure that the decisions you’re making are your decisions. It is often easy to become tempted into alluring unknowns when we are fleeing a too-familiar known.”

“Better the unknown than the known, sometimes. Like for Malaya,” Kory said.

The tall sheep bent his head gracefully. “I hope the worst is over for her as well. She’s lucky to have friends to help her.”

“It’s hard to get her to take help, though.” Kory sighed. “She’s so stubborn and independent.”

“So many young men and women are.” Father Joe smiled. “That is our delight and our frustration with the young. Did you tell her what I told you about God, this spring?”

“Once,” Kory said. “She said it sounded like your God was nicer than hers.”

Father Joe laughed. “She sounds like quite a personality.”

“She is,” Kory said. “I don’t know what she’s going to do now, though. She won’t be happy at the Center, and she can’t go back to her father. She has grandparents in the south, but she’s already threatened to run away again if she’s sent there.”

“Often,” the priest said after a moment, “God selects the challenges he sends us for a reason. They are not to punish us, nor to test us, but to make us stronger. But it is up to us to meet the challenge, to face it and respond to it, not to flee it.”

The word ‘flee’ reminded him of the door of his house—his mother’s house—slamming behind him. He shifted from one foot to the other, rustling the leaves. “She’s had a lot of things to deal with,” he said.

“So have you.” They had reached the churchyard fence. Father Joe stopped to lean on it, looking out over the houses below. “I gather you’re living with a school friend now, not your other friend?”

“No,” Kory hesitated. “He wants me to move in. They have room in the basement and they say I’d be welcome.”

“But you haven’t made that decision yet.”

Kory shook his head. “They’re not that well off. I don’t want to take their food unless I can pay them for it.”

Father Joe turned his head towards Kory. “That’s remarkably considerate. I don’t know many young people in love who would have that much restraint.”

Kory fidgeted, looking at the reddish leaves over the green grass. “It’s also just not convenient. For school and stuff.” After the conversation with Nick, his arguments sounded hollow, but the more direct question lodged like a lump in his throat. He swallowed.

A bird sang in the tree above them. Father Joe and Kory both craned their necks to look at it. When it was silent again, Father Joe said, “I think you might want to spend a little time thinking about yourself. It’s difficult to let yourself love another if you don’t feel you yourself are worthy of love. It’s always good to start with God at times like that. He always loves you, Kory.”

“I wrote an essay about that.” Kory had revised and revised it, only stopping because he was tired of reading it.

“Really? I would like to see it.”

“I’ll bring it over.”

The sheep bobbed his head. “Thank you. How are the college applications going?”

Kory snorted. “I don’t know. I think I need to eat more.”

“Eat more?”

He held his arms out at his side, as if curved around a wide belly. “I need to be more well-rounded.”

Again, Father Joe laughed, and Kory shared his smile. “I think you’re going to be a fine student,” the priest said. “You are already a fine young man.”

Kory’s ears flicked at the unexpected compliment. “Thanks.”

Father Joe pointed a finger at him. “I believe that. And you should, too.”

He didn’t. But as he walked home, he remembered the earnest openness in Father Joe’s warm, brown eyes, and he resolved to try.

“I liked your essay,” Perry told him after the college prep class.

Kory nodded. “Yours was better.” He’d finally given in to the wolf’s pestering the previous week, and had been depressed to read the clever essay Perry had written on how Star Trek related to the current political climate. It showed a breadth of experience—a well-roundedness, Kory would have said if he didn’t hate the phrase so much by now—that the otter desperately hoped for.

“You think so?” Perry’s tail wagged.

“Sure,” Kory said. “I mean, mine was all just this introspective garbage.”

“No, I thought yours was good. I mean, you got all that philosophy stuff in it, and you included some life experiences.” Perry bobbed his head. “And then you added that bit from Dostoevsky that we did for extra credit in English. I think it really showed your well-roundedness. I just, if I had one suggestion?”

Kory stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Uh-huh?”

“Why didn’t you include some stuff about the homeless kids you work with? I mean, they’ve got great stories, at least the ones at my shelter do, and I’ve only been there a month.”

“Oh.” Kory pretended to think about that. “I didn’t even consider it. Thanks.”

The wolf’s tail wagged. “If you add those in, I think it’s a real winner.”

“Thanks,” Kory said.

Perry tugged at his polo shirt. “So, uh, what would you change in mine?

Kory pushed open the school doors, stepping into the late afternoon sun. “I don’t know,” he said. “It all looked good to me.”

“There has to be something,” Perry persisted.

Kory shook his head. “Really, it was good. I’d just go with it.” He walked past the bus he’d used to take home, feeling only a little strange about it now. Sal had pulled up in the student parking lot across from the buses and waved to him. “I gotta run, Perry. See you in English.”

“Yeah, okay.” The wolf raised a paw. Kory didn’t look back as he crossed to Sal’s car and got in.

“Who’s the feeb?” Sal said.

“I told you about him,” Kory said. “Perry. He’s in the college prep class with me.”

“Figures.” Sal snorted and pulled the car out of the lot.

Kory tossed his bag in the back seat. “He’s not bad. Just a little too, I dunno, eager to be my friend.”

Sal grinned. “Maybe he’s hot for you. Is your gaydar going off?”

“Shut up!”

“What? I thought all you guys had that.”

Kory folded his arms. “Look, I’m not… don’t do that.”

Sal made the turn onto the main road toward his house and glanced sideways at Kory. “What, don’t call you gay because you’re dating a guy?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Sal laughed. “Really? Cause I learned if you’re straight, you date girls. If you’re gay, you date guys. This isn’t like experimenting in summer camp, you know. You’re, like, serious about him.”

Kory stared out the window and didn’t respond. After a moment, Sal continued. “Spike, I told you there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m cool, totally.”

“You experimented in summer camp?”

“Only with girls.” Sal leaned back in the seat, steering with one paw, his tail swishing lazily through the seat behind him.

“That’s not experimenting. Experimenting is like when your mom makes kidney paste.”

“I can’t believe it tasted like vomit, it really did.”

And the conversation moved on from there, even if Kory couldn’t leave it quite so easily.

He studied the essay again that evening. Perry was right. It needed more of his personal experience with the kids from the Rainbow Center. It needed more of himself in it.

“So put in Malaya’s story and the stuff with your mom,” Samaki said on the phone that night. He sounded tired. “I don’t think that’s a big deal.”

Kory stared up at the ceiling. “I think I can do that. Did I tell you Father Joe wants to see it when I’m done?”

“That’s nice. You going to let him see it before you send it off?”

“I think so. I’ll try to finish it before Thanksgiving.”

“I’m looking forward to that.” Samaki perked up as he mentioned Thanksgiving. “Mom said you’re not allowed to say no.”

Kory grinned. “I’ve already said yes. Hey, would it be okay if Nick came over too, for a bit? He’ll have to be home for dinner, but…”

“Course.” Samaki replied immediately. “Just let Mom know when.”

Kory settled back in his bed. “Ready for your history final? Want to go over anything?”

“I’m good. How about your math test?”

“I could run through some of it if you have time.” He settled back in his bed and talked math for the next fifteen minutes.

“I need to get going,” Samaki said. “Going to finish up the form for that Drew Fortunas scholarship.”

“Okay. I’ll think of you tonight when I brush.”

“Me too. Be sure and brush very thoroughly.”

Kory grinned, resting a paw on his sheath. “You too.”

 
November rolled into Hilltown with surprising force, a howling winter storm that Kory and Sal sat watching, guessing back and forth how many inches of snow would drop. The light flurries promised more to come, but when they got up in the morning, there was no accumulation and the buses ran as normal. Outside school, Kory found Nick and asked him when he could come by to get his winter clothes. “I wanted to use the snow day but…” He gestured out at the barren, snowless lawn.

“Tonight’s good,” Nick said. “I’m not going out ’til later and Mom’ going out to dinner with the Jeffersons.”

“She’s letting you get dinner on your own?”

“No, she’s making dinner before she goes.” Nick shrugged. “She lets me come to pizza with you, at least.”

“I’ll come by after dinner, then.” Kory couldn’t help but marvel at how well he and Nick had adapted, together, to their new situation.

Nick’s gaze slipped up over Kory’s shoulder. “Okay. See ya tonight, then I’ll call when she leaves.” He moved forward to embrace Kory, and the walked off with a quick, “Seeya.”

Kory caught the smell of wolf and freshly laundered shirt before he turned. “Hey, Perry,” he said.

Perry’s ears flicked up. His tail started wagging as he fell into step beside Kory. “That’s your brother?”

“Yeah, Nick.”

“So, uh, he still lives at home?”

Kory stared fixedly ahead. “Yep.”

Perry swallowed a couple times. “You know, uh, you never said what happened. I mean, I just thought you were getting a friend to pick you up. When Jessica said you weren’t living at home anymore, I said, I said that wasn’t true. I thought you’d tell me if something happened.”

“It was no big deal,” Kory said. “I’m just staying with Sal for a while.”

“But why?”

Perry even followed him to the door of his homeroom. Inside he could see Sal looking past him at the wolf, and rolling his eyes. “My mom just has to get some things in her life together,” Kory said, “and it’s better for me not to be around, and I’d really rather not talk about it. Okay?”

Perry’s ears folded down, and he ducked his head. “Sure, I understand. Thanks for telling me. And if y’ever want to talk, y’know.”

“Thanks,” Kory said curtly, and raised a paw to wave, turning to go to homeroom.

“Looks like he has a crush on you,” Sal said, first thing when Kory sat down.

“Bite me,” Kory said, pulling out his books to check on his homework.

“Can’t believe the stupid weather.” Sal doodled the logo of Limp Foxxkit on his math book cover. Kory wouldn’t have known the band a month ago; now he was quite familiar with the pounding chords he heard issuing from behind Sal’s door. “Not supposed to be this cold without snowing.”

“This happens every winter,” Kory said. “Hey, speaking of, can you give me a ride over to my mom’s place tonight? I need to grab my winter stuff.”

“Sure. Right after school?”

“Nah, she’s going out to dinner, so she’ll be home early. Nick said he’d call when she’s gone.”

“Oh.” Sal dug his ballpoint pen into the paper. “I was gonna head over to Life of the Party.”

That was the bar over by Forester, where Sal liked to go to pick up college women. Kory had found that his ideas of his friend’s success at that had been wildly overblown. Sal had gone to that bar six times since Kory’d been living across the hall from him, and had come home alone each time. He’d claimed once to have gotten a hand job from a cute ringtail out behind the bar, but the sketchy details and Sal’s overconfident tone had failed to convince Kory that he was telling the truth. “Well, you can go after, can’t you?

“Why don’t you come along?” Sal said. “You can be my wingman.”

“Wingman?”

“You know, tell girls how cool I am.”

“You don’t need a wingman,” said Geoff Hill behind them. “You need a complete makeover. Maybe you could get on Queer Eye.”

Kory bristled at that, and Sal saw it. “Just ignore him,” he said. “Seriously, come with me tonight. You never come out. It’d be good for you.”

After one more glare at Geoff, Kory nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

The twinges of homesickness when he visited his mother’s house were fewer now. Going into his closet, he felt like an archaeologist exploring old ruins.
A-ha, a valuable trove of woolen protective clothing. This civilization was obviously quite familiar with the change of seasons.
He didn’t voice that aloud; Samaki would have appreciated it, but Nick and Sal wouldn’t have understood. He threw the winter gear into a bag and hugged Nick, then drove off with Sal.

“We going to stop for dinner somewhere?” he asked as they pulled away.

“The bar has appetizers,” Sal said, navigating smoothly. “We’ll just eat there.”

Appetizers, Kory found, consisted of bowls of pretzels on the counter and half-congealed fried cheese sticks with ketchup. Squinting at the menu, he thought he saw fish strips, but the music was so loud that he ended up having to point to the menu to order from the bartender, and what the bartender handed him was a pile of something greyish with curls of sickly steam rising from it. It smelled of vegetables, with maybe potatoes, and there was cheese involved, of course. Everything at the bar was either fried, or covered in cheese, or both.

After trying to decipher what on the menu their dish could possibly be, and seeing Sal survive a mouthful, Kory decided that whatever it was would be better warm than cold, and he was hungry, having let Sal eat most of the cheese sticks. For an otter, Sal certainly didn’t eat a lot of fish, but then, Nick didn’t seem to want much fish when he wasn’t at home either.