The Lovers in Rossford
10 Mar 2023 56 readers Score 9.2 (5 votes) PDF Mobi ePub Txt
Four
Mostly about love
Dylan Mesda loved his father—by which he meant Tom Mesda—but sometimes, times like this, he wished he were at the home of his other father. He knew he could explain himself to Fenn, though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to just now, but he felt so good. He felt confused but happy, and maybe this was the happiness he needed.
Tonight, in the theatre, while Laurel had been texting away—and who else could she be texting but Layla?—Lance had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and Dylan waited a long time before finally he got up too, fidgety, feeling stranger about Lance than he had in a long time. He went up to the top of the theatre, and when the door swung opened letting in light, it was Lance. He was grinning and he said, “You surprised me.”
“I was just wondering what happened to you.” “I wanna sit by you.”
“I can ask Amanda to move over.” “Cool,” Lance said.
They went down the steps, and why was Dylan’s heart beating? Why was he humming like this, why were the two of them acting so foolish? They moved back into their seats, the disappointed Amanda moving a little so that Dylan could have her old seat, and on one side of Dylan was his cousin and on the other, in the darkness, was Lance. The energy of Lance’s closeness was making him shake. He was trembling with it, the sound of his breath, the smell of it. He wanted to touch him.
Then, in the dark, Lance Bishop’s hand lifted up and went lightly to his thigh. Dylan’s hand lay over Lance’s holding it there. It felt so good like that, and then Lance began stroking his thigh, moving up. Suddenly Dylan’s breath was catching. He couldn’t take it anymore. He took Lance’s hand and opening his legs, he placed his hand there. Lance gave a little groan, and Amanda turned over and looked at him before Lance just smiled in the dark.
And then Lance’s hand was touching him there, stroking him, making him feel so good, and he slipped his hand over in the dark, and they closed their eyes. The movie didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. They were doing this to each other. They’d done things before. If no one else knew about them, they knew about each other. They’d been friends since they were twelve. Lance was why Dylan knew he was gay. As a noise escaped his mouth and Laurel, whose eyes missed nothing, turned to him and saw his flushed face, looked long enough to see Lance’s hand where it was, Dylan turned red.
Laurel turned her head as if embarrassed, and Dylan closed his eyes letting Lance continue. Why tell him to stop? Lance didn’t know they’d been caught, and Laurel wasn’t any type of snitch. She was his best friend, and when she had fooled around in the dark and he’d seen it, he’d kept her secrets? Right?
On the way home she said, “So it’s Lance?”
Dylan went so red he looked sick.
“I’m not judging,” Laurel said. “I was just asking.”
“Look,” Dylan said in a lower voice, as they approached Denham Street, “It’s not like this is new.”
“I know,” Laurel said. He had never told her, but she knew him after all. “I just didn’t know how far it went. I didn’t know how serious it was. You know I try to give you your privacy.”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Well, usually it’s just stuff that makes us feel good but he’s still just Lance. I mean he’s my friend, but… I don’t know. Today....”
“Are you falling in love with him?”
“I hope so,” Dylan said. “I’d like that. I’ve tried to.”
“I have. And… being in love with Lance means not being in love with Ruthven.”
“Ah…” Laurel nodded.
Then she said, “You live that way and I live the other. Are we going to stand here, or is one of us going to walk the other home?”
“You could call your mom and tell her you’re staying with me?”
“Alright,” Laurel agreed, and they went up Row Street.
“I just want to get Ruthven and everything that happened with him out of my head, and Lance would be sensible. I mean the way we were vibing with each other. I wish it could be like that all the time. Maybe it will be.”
It was just beginning to be chilly, but the air was filled with the late summer chirping of insects. A car passed by slowly and Dylan said, “Laurel, are you still a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you ever ask me questions like that?” Dylan asked her.
Laurel said, “Because I don’t really want to know.”
“But what if I want to tell?”
Laurel felt more uncomfortable than she expected.
“I want to think that you are, and that we’re equally innocent,” she said. “And I get afraid cause I don’t know all the things you do, Dylan. But I think it’s more than a little experimenting. I think… I think the truth might kill Fenn.”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” Dylan said. Even as he said this, he felt like he was lying. At least a little.
“Me and Lance sleep together,” Dylan said. “We have sex sometimes.”
Laurel didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Dylan said. “I know you didn’t want to know. But I had to tell someone.”
“We’re fifteen,” Laurel said. “You’re fifteen.”
“I know that,” Dylan said.
“But you were acting like you had never really done that much with him.”
“No,” Dylan said. “I said I never felt that much for him. That’s what I mean, Lor. We… we’ve had sex with each other and it’s nice. I mean it’s real nice and a little confusing. But I don’t feel like I’m in love with him. Not anymore than I’d feel in love from having a really good backrub. It’s just bodies rubbing together. But… the last few times. And today…”
“There’s a spark?”
“There’s a spark. And I see the way he looks at me…. And his eyes. And the way he touches me. It’s… I really think we’re falling in love.”
Because Laurel Houghton didn’t know what else to say she said, “I hope so.”
“I hope so too,” Dylan told her, and for him it was true.
When Sheridan woke the next morning, Chay was already up and getting dressed.
“I want to finish this exam up,” Chay declared, “and then I’m going to come back here and crash, no doubt.”
Sheridan knuckled his eyes, went to the bathroom and stayed there for about five minutes. When he came out Chay saw saying, “I hope you sprayed or something.”
“Shut up,” Sheridan said, negligently, and went to pour himself a cup of coffee before sitting in front of the computer screen.
“I got an email from Meredith. Let’s see what she has to say.”
Chay nodded while he combed his hair, and then Sheridan said, “Shit!’
“What?” Chay turned around.
“She’s left Mathan,” Sheridan told him. “And she’s left town, too!”
One thing that had not changed at Loretto was the Music Hall. The music program was still relegated to one of the oldest buildings on campus, and there was something nice about the yellowed walls, the pinging and dinging radiators, and the drafts that sometimes rattled the large pane windows. They were so far removed from the rest of the campus, certainly from the new, shiny marketing and business building, that here there was some justification for the phrase “ivory tower.”
“If it’s not ivory, but it’s something,” Bryant was saying, as he stacked books around his new office.
This had been Dean Brigham’s office when he was here, and now it was his, and his with tenure. Imagine living out his academic days here. He was forty-seven. The wide windows looked over campus. A great walnut fan turned lazily in the molded, high ceiling, and on the bulging and bending shelves that surrounded him, all of his books could be added to the ones Dean Brigham was leaving. He stopped piling up books, rubbed the knot in his back, and then pushed his fist into his palm.
“Dean Babcock.”
He sounded out the word, “Babcock!” He said it making the words pop and taking delight in the silliness of the syllables, “Dean-Bab-cock.”
“Dean Babcock!”
Bryant jumped up and recovered as a man, possibly in his late thirties, entered after tapping on the lentil of the door.
“Yes? I mean, hello.”
“Jack Ferguson,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m part of your faculty.”
“Yes,” Bryant said, shaking his hand. “I saw you at the welcoming party the other day.”
This was an understatement. Jack Ferguson was a hard man for Bryant to miss.
“Well, welcome to the music department, and I’m probably brown nosing by being the first one to show up. I am the first, right?”
“You’re certainly the first.”
“Well good. I had a bet going with Julia Amanetti. She in charge of the choir around here.”
“Julie’s my friend. She was just an adjunct when I was here.”
“Did and still do. I’ll be taking the advanced classes. Well, actually, I do classical singing and a lot of church music. Did you know they teach jazz here now?”
Ferguson’s eyebrow raised and then he said, “For a few years.”
Bryant chuckled, “What next?”
“Rock and roll probably,” Ferguson laughed.
“Hip Hop!” Bryant joined in. “Advanced hip hop classes! What was the school thinking? Jazz?”
“I dunno,” Ferguson laughed. “Louis Armstrong!” He blew out his cheeks.
“Right! What after that? AP Wynton Marsalis! I mean, com’ on!”
` “Right! Right! Well,” Ferguson said, still chuckling, “I think we certainly know where we stand. Or at least I know you a little better. We should get on very well. You have a good day, Dr. Babcock.”
“Oh, no,” Bryant waved it off, grinning. “Bryant.”
“Alright.”
“Though I’ve been called by other names.”
“Really?” Ferguson said in a tone Bryant couldn’t quite guess. “I can’t believe that.”
And then he was gone.
“Nice guy,” Bryant reflected. He lifted the box before him, set it on the old scarred desk and, looking out at the chapel, began to unpack again.
“Damn,” he heard someone swear behind him.
“Julia?” he guessed.
“In the flesh, babe,” Julia Amanetti answered, and Bryant turned around to embrace her.
“Well, how the hell are you?” he asked.
“I should be asking you. After you disappeared like that. You should have been dean years ago.”
“Well… Everything happens for a reason.”
“Ferguson just beat me in here, I see.”
“Yeah. We were laughing about the direction the music program’s gone in.”
“How do you mean?”
“The whole jazz thing. I was telling him what a joke it was.”
Julia Amanetti froze.
“What?” Bryant said, parting from her, “I thought you were doing choir, not jazz.”
“I’m not the jazz teacher,” Julia said. “Well, good—”
“Jack Ferguson is.”
After a long space of silence, Bryant Babcock said, “Shit.”
“Shit is right, you moron,” Julia slapped him, and then she hit him again. And then, for good measure, she hit him again.
“You can stop any time.”
“He’s one of our most important professors, and you’ve just gone and…”
“He must think I’m an ass.”
“Well, hell, Bryant, I think you’re an ass! And a snob too. I can just here you now,” she affected a nasal British accent, “Jazz, how gauche! You’re such a fucking homo!”
“Takes one to know one,” Bryant said. “Oh, well, I better go apologize.”
“Yes, do that,” Julia Amanetti said. “But…”
“But what?”
“Don’t do it until I give you another piece of fun news?”
Looking at the predatory expression on his old colleague’s
face, Bryant wondered, “Am I really going to want to hear this?”
“No, probably not,” she said, gleefully.
“Well, alright.”
“We hired a new classical teacher. We hired him before you got the job. He’ll be doing all the undergraduate classes alongside you.”
Bryant, leaning against the desk, stuck his lips out and nodded, “Alright?”
“It’s Chad North.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Julia said, beginning to genuinely feel bad for him. “Shit, indeed.”