Never Look Back. Robert Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ long made a point of preaching tolerance. Half of their colleagues were gay or lesbian, and Chris knew them all, even called one lesbian couple Aunt Pat and Aunt Sally. He started to feel again that Jessie might be gay herself. “It’s all good,” he heard himself say. “I just don’t understand it myself, but it’s all good.”

      “Nobody’s asking you to understand. Nobody’s asking for anything—except to be left alone.”

      Change the subject, quick, before she asks you to leave her alone. “So,” Chris said, “what’d you check out from the library?”

      “You are stalking me.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. She was really pretty when she smiled. “Don’t you have anything better to do on a nice summer day? Like go to the beach? Rollerblade? Don’t you have a girlfriend or anything?”

      “No.”

      “I find that hard to believe,” she said, arching an eyebrow.

      “Why?”

      She sighed. “You’re cute. I’d think you’d be beating them off with a stick. Especially since most of the guys in town are gay, right? Hunky straight boys are in short supply.”

      “You think I’m cute?”

      “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you stalking me?”

      His heart pounding, he wiped sweat off his forehead. “What else is there to do?”

      She shook her head. “You can’t find anything better to do than stalk the local freak show?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you swim or sail or fish or all the other things guys are supposed to like to do?”

      “No.”

      She smirked. “Maybe you’re gay and you just don’t know it yet.”

      “I highly doubt that.”

      “I was joking. Not very quick, are you?”

      “Guess not.” He turned his head and watched a sailboat on the bay.

      She laughed. Her laugh sounded rusty, like she didn’t use it very often. “Well, Chris, I like that in a boy. Quick is way overrated.”

      He relaxed a little, finally. “I’ve always thought so, too.”

      “So what brings you to Provincetown for the summer? Since you’re not gay, I mean.”

      He tensed, and then realized she was teasing him. “My parents bought a summer place here. Well, in Truro.”

      “What do they do?”

      “They teach at Boston College.”

      “Oh.” She was distinctly not impressed.

      They sat in silence for a minute, watching the tourists. Chris was trying to think of something else to say when she said, “So what do you want to be when you get all grown up into a big bad adult?”

      He eyed her. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

      She held up her right hand, and he noticed her fingers were stained with blue ink. “I swear.”

      “I want to be on Road Rules.”

      “Road rules?” She stared at him. “What the hell is that?”

      “It’s a show. On MTV.” He felt his face starting to turn red again. Why was he telling her this? He hadn’t told anyone; it was his deepest secret. He knew the kids at school would make fun of him if he said anything—and God forbid he tell his mother. She hated MTV—she hated television in general. He could only watch when she wasn’t around.

      “They put like six kids in an RV and send them all over the place,” Chris said. “Like South America, or the Pacific Islands, or Australia or Europe. It’s always some place really, really cool, and they have all these really cool but hard missions, like bungee jumping or walking tightropes, or learning how to kickbox, you know, cool stuff that’s really hard to do. They have to face their fears, like heights or bugs and stuff, and if they complete all their missions they win prizes. It’s really cool. They have to learn how to work as a team and get along with each other, and they’re all complete strangers in the beginning, and they’re always really different types, and—”

      Her face was completely blank.

      “Don’t you watch MTV?” he asked.

      She gave him a withering look. “I don’t watch any television.”

      “Now you sound like my mom.”

      “Maybe she’s on to something.”

      Once again they’d hit a stalemate. Her cigarette was almost gone; Chris worried that she’d be getting up to leave.

      “So what do your parents do?”

      She looked away from him. “My father writes books. He’s away on a book tour now, leaving me with my brand-new stepmother.” Her voice sounded bitter. “She’s probably nice enough—but she’s like only twenty-two or something. It’s gross.”

      “Where’s your mom?”

      “Dead.” Jessie let out a ring of blue smoke. “She’s dead.”

      “Sorry.” He swallowed. Much as his mother annoyed him, he didn’t know what he’d do if she weren’t around anymore. “I didn’t mean to—”

      She shrugged again. “It was a couple of years ago.” She sighed. “She was pretty cool. I mean, she pissed me off now and then, but overall, she was cool. We used to do stuff together, you know? Just me and her. She was into all kinds of stuff—like birds and the sea and stuff. She wrote poetry. She liked to play the guitar and sing—and she had the best laugh.” She stared at a man walking his dog for a moment, and then turned back to him. “Do your parents know? About this road show thing?”

      “No. They’d think it was stupid. Especially my mom. She’d think it was a waste of my time.”

      “Why do you want to do it, then? To piss her off?”

      “I just think it would be cool.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “Pissing my mom off would just be an added bonus.” He grinned at her. “What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

      Jessie didn’t answer right away. She tossed her cigarette down to the sidewalk and ground it out with her black boot. “Alive,” she said finally. “I want to be alive.”

      He searched her face to see if she was teasing him, but he couldn’t read her. She was idly pulling on her lower lip.

      She withdrew another cigarette and lit it, blowing out a stream of smoke through her nose. “Do you have dreams?” she asked, turning her brown eyes back to him. “I mean, everyone dreams, but do you remember yours?”

      “Sometimes.” Most of them were erotic, about beautiful naked women who kissed him and stroked his chest and СКАЧАТЬ