Never Look Back. Robert Ross

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      She stopped, looked up at him, and stepped around him without a word, her eyes dropping immediately back down to the sidewalk again.

      Mentally, he smacked his forehead as he turned and watched her continue on her way. Smooth move, stud, he berated himself, and started walking after her. You’re only going to be here for a few more weeks, and if you don’t talk to her soon, you’ll never get a chance.

      Almost six feet five, Chris had just turned sixteen a few months earlier. He’d always been tall and skinny, always the tallest boy in his class, and kids who didn’t like him called him “Ichabod Crane” or “Beanpole.” When he was ten years old, he was already six feet. He didn’t understand where the height came from—both of his parents were under five eight, and none of his relatives were tall. I’m just some kind of genetic freak, he thought whenever he was at a family gathering. His relatives always teased him—more kindly than the kids at school, but it was still teasing. Do you play basketball? How’s the weather up there? Can you see the Pacific Ocean? So funny. Har-de-har-har-har.

      He tended to slouch, so as not to seem as tall, but his mother, Lois, always made him stand up straight. “Don’t hunch like that, Chris,” Lois lectured, “you’ll end up with a hunched back. You’re tall; be proud of it.” Easy for her to say, he always thought resentfully.

      His parents had bought a house in Truro the previous spring. But as beautiful as the Truro beaches were, there was no there there—no downtown, no shops, no anything—so most days Chris hitched a ride on the shuttle and headed into P-town for the day. Here the crowds were crazy to watch: wacky drag queens, leather-clad lesbians, freaky clowns that ogled the tourists and made grabs for the girls’ tits. Chris had spent the whole summer watching the crowds. Especially the girl dressed all in black.

      His parents both taught at Boston College—his father in philosophy, his mother in women’s studies—and both were secure in their positions enough to not teach summer sessions. Their little house tucked away into the Truro woods was nothing like the big house in Boston they called home; it was snug and cozy and, in Chris’s opinion, a little cramped. His mother was working on a book about the suffragette movement; he wasn’t really sure what his father was doing, but he spent hours in front of his computer typing away at something.

      Chris didn’t pay any attention when his parents talked about things—his mind just drifted away. He’d learned early on that as far as they were concerned, he just had to listen—or at least give the impression he was hanging on every word. Mostly they talked to each other about any number of things, subjects either that he didn’t care about or that went straight over his head. All he to do was just tune in for a little while, nod his head, then tune back out again. They didn’t really want his opinion on anything—their discussions, their work, or his life. He’d heard his mother tell a colleague once how proud she was that she wasn’t “one of those domineering mothers who made her child goose-step along with her decisions about his life. Chris fully participates in every decision about his future.”

      Chris couldn’t help but laugh. He’d just rolled his eyes—behind her back, of course—and nodded assent as though it were gospel. But every decision affecting his life had been made for him—all that was required of him was to meekly bow his head and go along with it. He didn’t want to go to Thomas More Prep—he was painfully shy and had trouble making friends, and he wanted to stay with the kids he’d been with since grade school. But going to Thomas More Prep would almost certainly get him “into Harvard,” his mother said, “and then your future will be assured.”

      He didn’t really want to go to Harvard, either, but that was another story.

      He was also a virgin, a deep secret he kept from his classmates at Thomas More Prep, the all-male boarding school in Connecticut he’d begun attending as a freshman. He was relatively certain that most of the other boys were virgins too—all the talk around the dorm and the locker room was just talk. The boys bragged about their girlfriends back home, about the easiness of the local town girls, or scoring with the girls at their sister school, St. Isabelle’s. Chris was shy around girls, could never think of the right thing to say, and always flushed with embarrassment. Instead, he channeled his sexual frustrations and energies into his workouts. The gym was a release for him, a way to go into his own little world where he didn’t have to worry about having friends or getting laid or what his mother wanted him to do. There, he just was able to focus on what he was doing, on the effort and energy he needed to move the weights, to push the pedals on the stationary bike, and build his muscles up.

      He didn’t play any of the sports at Thomas More Prep, either—his mother didn’t believe in team sports (“they don’t teach individuality—just a pack mentality, and no son of mine is going to be in a pack”). That was fine with his father, who was short and overweight and completely blind without his glasses, and who had no interest in sports at all—other than to complain about all the money Boston College poured into its athletics department at the expense of academics. It was one of the few things Chris had in common with his dad, the total indifference he felt toward athletics. Most of the guys on the sports teams at More Prep were the biggest assholes at school. But Chris’s height and his devotion to weight training made him seem desirable to the coaches.

      There were times, late at night in his dorm room, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, when he thought it might be nice to belong somewhere.

      His roommate, Josh Benton, had no such qualms. Josh played football, was on the wrestling team, and pitched for the baseball team in the spring. Josh spent as little time in their room as possible, which was fine with Chris. Josh was always out with his teammates, and spent as much of his time as possible in the nearby town of Suffolk, trying to get into local girls’ pants—and if he was to be believed, he scored more off the football field than on it.

      Josh is okay, Chris thought as he tried to keep his eye on the girl in black as she pushed through the throngs of people, if a little sex-crazy. Josh didn’t tease him or call him beanpole the way some of the other boys did—although, Chris realized, a little smile stretching across his face, since he’d started lifting weights he wasn’t tall and skinny anymore. He was filling out quite nicely, his muscles thickening and hardening.

      Too bad the girl in black hadn’t noticed.

      He’d seen her the week he’d arrived—saw her walking up the street with her bag and her head down. He’d been exploring, and had just gotten an ice cream cone at the Ben & Jerry’s when she walked by. Something about her stuck in his head; there was something about her eyes that seemed to pierce into his soul. He knew that sounded weird, but he couldn’t help it. It was just a reaction he had; he couldn’t deny it. It wasn’t just that she was pretty—she was, even though she didn’t seem to care about styling her hair. She had a heart-shaped face with a strong chin, a nice little nose, and her eyes were round and big and pretty. More than her looks, however, it was the air of loneliness about her that he recognized. So he’d followed her, just to see where she was going. He had nothing else to do, and it would help kill some time before he had to get back home. Maybe he’d be able to talk to her, ask her out, make a connection with her, and they could date all summer, and maybe she’d be able to help make this summer bearable. He was smiling as these thoughts filled his mind—and then in front of the post office, a group of kids across the street starting yelling at her as she passed.

      “Hey, Spook, where you off to?”

      “Spook, do you have anything that’s not black?”

      “Going a-haunting, Spook? There’s a house on the east end that needs haunting!”

      “It’s not Halloween yet, Spook, why ya wearing a costume?”

      And then they СКАЧАТЬ