Love Rules Read online

  “Does your aunt know that you’re . . .”

  “We didn’t really talk about it, but she kept handing me certain books as they came in—‘you might like this,’ she’d say, and it almost always had something to do with lesbianism.”

  “What about her? She’s not married. Is she a lesbian?” I ask, secretly wondering if it might run in families.

  “No. There’s always a man in her life, but she’s never wanted to be tied down to marriage.”

  “But the books?”

  “She has books on everything. That’s the kind of store she runs.”

  Finally, after two in the morning, it seems like Kit has said as much as she possibly can, and I’ve heard as much as I possibly can.

  “Bedtime,” Kit says.

  We go into her room. I get my sleeping shirt and toothbrush and take them into the bathroom. Always before, we’d get into our sleeping stuff while we stood in Kit’s room, talking. But tonight I don’t want to undress in front of her. I know she said I wasn’t attractive to her in “that way,” but I’m uncomfortable anyway.

  In bed, I stay way over on my side, practically hanging off the mattress.

  We’re quiet for a long time, then Kit whispers, “I really need you to stay my spirit sister.”

  “For life,” I say.

  Finally, all of the hours of wakefulness catch up with me and I fall into a deep, heavy sleep. When I wake up, the sun is shining full into the bedroom window. It’s after ten, and Kit is already up. Here’s what I notice though. As deeply as I slept, I’m still all scrunched up on my side of the bed. Will I ever again feel completely comfortable with Kit?

  CHAPTER

  5

  It’s October now. The annual heat wave has lifted, and although afternoons are still smoggy, we’ve not had a Stage Three Alert for at least ten days. A Stage Three Alert, for those of you who don’t live in the Los Angeles Basin, advises that children not be allowed to play outdoors. The elderly, those with asthma or heart disease, pregnant women, all should stay inside. But the infamous basin is more conducive to life, now that it’s fall.

  And about that conversation Kit and I had a while back? She’s right about always hearing anti-gay stuff at school. Once I started paying attention, I heard faggot, dyke, lesbo, queer, and lots worse stuff, too. All the time. Just like she said.

  Conan waits for me outside of English now, so we can walk together to PC. After school, if his football practice and our volleyball practice get out near the same time, he takes me and Kit home. He drives an old, beat-up Hyundai and sometimes it seems like it won’t make it up the hill to my house. I don’t care if we have to pedal, I just like being in the same car with Conan.

  Lately Conan’s been dropping Kit off in front of her house, and then driving around the block to my place. When he doesn’t have to rush off to baby-sit for his four-year-old sister, Sabina, we sit in my driveway and talk. Sometimes we talk about religion. Or books. Conan reads a lot. He read The Color Purple years ago, and it wasn’t even an assignment. Sometimes we talk about more personal stuff.

  Conan’s dad gives him a hard time, wanting him to be super macho. He tells Conan that football comes first. There’s big money in football, for someone with Conan’s size and talent. Conan wants academics to come first, then football.

  His grampa thinks Conan should go into politics, do something important for his people. His mom wants him to go into business administration. Like the dad, she wants him to get rich, but she doesn’t want him to get beat up doing it. It sounds as if they all argue about what Conan should do, and no one pays attention to what Conan thinks.

  “What about Sabina?” I asked him once, during one of our driveway conversations. “Does she have an opinion on how you should live your life?”

  Conan laughed. “Sabina just wants me to be her big brother.”

  On my side, I’ve told Conan how I sometimes feel lonely, with just me and my mom. And how it used to bother me that my dad only managed to see me about twice a year. I told him about how awful it was, seeing my gramma waste away with cancer, and how guilty I feel that I didn’t spend more time with her when she was sick. That whole thing is something I hardly ever talk about. As much as I’ve talked with Conan about private things, I’ve not told him that Kit is a lesbian. I promised not to tell, and I won’t. Besides, what would he think?

  I suppose you’ve figured out that I’d like to be more than friends with Conan. I think he feels the same way, but I’m not sure.

  Yesterday he’d asked, “What are you doing Saturday night?”

  “No plans,” I’d said, all hopeful.

  “Me, either,” he’d said.

  Then he started talking about his car, or something totally unrelated. What was that about, I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t have the nerve.

  On Monday morning, after the Saturday that neither of us had plans, Conan is waiting for me in the driveway when I walk out my back door.

  “Want a ride?” he asks.

  “Sure. But Kit’s coming over to walk with me.”

  “No problem. There’s room for three.”

  We sit on my back porch steps, petting Wilma and waiting for Kit.

  “I almost called you Saturday night,” he says.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want me to.”

  He’s looking down at Wilma, scratching her head as if he’s not said a word.

  “I wish you had called,” I say.

  He turns to me with a broad, open smile.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Not much. Kit came over for a while. I did some laundry. Wilma and I practiced frisbee.”

  “This mutt’s not going to make it in any frisbee competitions. Her ears slow her down,” he says, laughing.

  “She’s good!” I say.

  He just laughs all the harder.

  “She’s a mutt” he says. “But she’s lovable.”

  Then he turns serious.

  “You’re lovable too,” he says, so softly I can hardly be sure I’ve heard him right.

  “I am?”

  “Uh, huh . . . Am I?”

  “Yes,” I say, glad he asked the question.

  He takes my hand and holds it until we hear the slam of the back gate. We stand and wave to Kit.

  “Want a ride?” Conan calls to her.

  “Do I! My legs are still stiff from the workout Terry put us through on Friday.”

  I climb into the back seat, to leave room for Kit. She and Conan are talking about sports conditioning, comparing the workouts the football team does to the workouts our volleyball team does. Usually I’d be interested, but right now, I’m floating somewhere above it all, hearing lovable, lovable, lovable, hardly able to believe Conan said that about me. On the way to first period, Conan takes my hand again. Holding hands doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes it is.

  The lunch table where Kit and I always sit is near where the jocks sit. Usually Holly and Nicole sit with us, but on Mondays they have a meeting with the school newspaper staff. Conan sits with the jocks. Tammy and a bunch of other cheerleader types hang around that table, too. It starts the first week of school—areas are chosen, and then nothing changes. The skaters sit at one place, and the rockers at another. Also, there are the Goths, the skinheads, the gangbangers, even a few rednecks. We never divided up like that back in elementary school.

  Did I say nothing changes? Here comes Conan, moving from the jock table to sit next to me. And Robert follows him. Robert Pomeroy—the guy who hangs around Kit. He’s on the football team. too.

  In PC, Woodsy has written the week’s schedule on the board. Monday is group work for our projects. Tuesday is individual reading from a stack of books and magazines that she’s collected. Wednesday we have speakers from Project Ten. Thursday is class discussion and Friday is more group work. Although this class may not be as important to me for college as Advanced
Placement English, or econ, it’s probably the best class I have as far as holding my attention. Today though, my hand still warm from Conan’s touch, the word lovable replaying in my brain, my sense of Conan’s presence in the chair behind me, all conspire to keep me from concentrating on what Woodsy is saying. It’s just my luck that she calls on me.

  “What might that mean, Lynn?”

  “What?”

  She pauses. Just a beat. Long enough to let me know that she knows I’ve not been paying attention.

  “Project Ten,” she says, pointing to the board, to the announcement for Wednesday’s speaker.

  “Ten people?” I say, making a wild guess and feeling the familiar blushing response creeping up the back of my neck and across my face.

  “Ten percent,” she says. “A certain ten percent of the population will be the topic of our discussion on Wednesday. What segment of the population might constitute ten percent?”

  “Poor people?” Kendra says.

  “No, but that’s a good guess. I’m afraid poor people constitute more than ten percent of our population, though I’m not certain of the figures. Who’s working on the ‘poverty in America’ topic?”

  Yvonne, Carmen and Joey raise their hands.

  “When you get to your group work in a few minutes, will you please see if you can find a percentage figure that relates to poverty?”

  Carmen nods, while the other two look puzzled.

  “What other groups might constitute ten percent of the population?”

  There are a lot of guesses. Teenagers, alcoholics, people who make over $100,000 a year, people who are deaf, blind, paralyzed. People with cancer. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, on and on until Brian says it’s fags.

  Ms. Woods points to the big “NO PUT-DOWNS” poster on the bulletin board.

  “That’s not a put-down, it’s a description,” Eric says, and he and Brian laugh like maniacs.

  “That’s a derogatory term, Eric, and it is a put-down. It’s as bad as nigger, or chink, or any of the other demeaning words I sometimes hear on this campus.”

  “There shouldn’t be any fags and then we wouldn’t have to have names for them,” Brian says, prompting more laughter from Eric and a few others.

  Woodsy stands looking at them, as if she’s trying to decide how to respond.

  “What other terms might you use, that wouldn’t be derogatory, to identify the ten percent group which you referred to?”

  Neither of them answers.

  I sense Conan stirring behind me and turn to see his hand raised.

  “I know what Project Ten is,” he says. “There was a group at the school I went to before I came here.”

  “Tell us, Conan,” Woodsy says, apparently relieved to turn her attention away from the Brian/Eric comedy team.

  Eric whispers something to Brian, who nods and smirks. They are both totally immature. What did I ever like about Eric? Was it only that other girls thought he was a big somebody? And Holly kept telling me what a cute couple we made? Was that all there was to it? If so, then who am I to be talking about immaturity? Uh-oh. There goes my wandering mind. I don’t care. I think focus is overrated. I like my wandering mind. Except now I’m not sure what’s going on in class. Conan’s not talking anymore and Woodsy’s looking irritated about I don’t know what. So I focus.

  “Fags,” Eric says.

  “And dykes,” Brian adds.

  Laughter.

  Woodsy turns on them.

  “Use either of those terms in this class again and you can sit out the rest of the period in the office.”

  Woodsy reaches into her desk, pulls out two referral slips and hands one to Eric and one to Brian.

  “Write your names and the dates on these, just in case we need to use them,” she says, then turns her attention to the rest of the class.

  “Conan is right. Project Ten is a group for gay and lesbian students, and also for straight students who want to offer their support.”

  “I don’t think it’s ten percent,” Sean says. “That would mean

  three people in this classroom are homosexual.”

  People look around, giggling and pointing fingers. Woodsy says she hopes we will have matured by Wednesday when the Project Ten group comes.

  The rest of the period we spend working on our projects. Conan. Sean and I have chosen the topic of drug de-criminalization. My first choice topic was teen pregnancy, but when I learned that Conan was choosing drug de-criminalization, that became my first choice.

  Conan has a late football practice today, and Kit and I get out early from volleyball practice, so we walk home together. There is a slight breeze—enough to have blown the smog away. Overhead we have a clean blue sky with cottony clouds, and it feels good to breathe deeply without worrying about pollution particles.

  “Are you getting that Project Ten thing in your PC class, too?” I ask Kit.

  “Yeah. Cool, huh?” she says, smiling a big smile.

  “I guess.”

  “Ten percent of us out there? Can you believe it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I believe it. And I feel better knowing I’m not a one in a million freak. I’m a one in ten freak,” she says with a laugh. She’s all jazzed on the subject.

  “Look at it this way. There are twenty-five hundred students at Hamilton High. So do the math. There must be two hundred and fifty who are gay or lesbian. Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But I only know one,” I say.

  “No. How about Frankie Sanchez, in choir? I bet he’s a ten percenter.”

  “Why? Because he choreographs the music numbers?”

  “Partly. And I don’t think he’s ever had a girlfriend.”

  “So?”

  “And he’s kind of . . . you know . . . delicate.”

  “Stereotyping, Dr. Dandridge?”

  “Maybe. But I’m going to talk to him about Project Ten.”

  “He probably doesn’t even know about it. You didn’t, until

  today.”

  “If he doesn’t know about it, maybe he should.”

  Kit stops at my house before she goes home. I get the frisbee from its place inside the garage and we play keep away from Wilma. We laugh hysterically as she makes huge, spinning leaps. Half the time she catches it, no matter how hard we try to keep it from her. Each time she drops it at my feet and looks up at me, I swear she’s smiling.

  When we tire, we sit on the front lawn, Wilma between us, nudging the frisbee first to me, then Kit, then back to me—her way of begging us to get back to the game.

  Kit’s black hair shines in the sun. Her smile is infectious as she gives in to Wilma and tosses the frisbee. I can’t help thinking how pretty she is, and how she could have practically any guy she wanted. I don’t say that, though. I’m sure she wouldn’t like to hear it. I’m learning.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Each of the Project Ten speakers tells his or her own story. “His or her” takes on a whole new meaning with one of the participants because she used to be a man, Leonard, but now she’s a woman, Leona. She says she’s a transsexual. She also says there are a lot of transsexuals in the world, which is news to me.

  Just looking at her, you wouldn’t know she used to be a man. Maybe her skin is a bit coarse, but no more so than my great aunt Doreen’s. Leonard/Leona is tall for a woman, but not unbelievably tall. The clothes she’s wearing are what I guess you’d call business attire. A nice suit, skirt above the knee, two inch heels (pumps, I think my mom would call them), pantyhose, make-up, the whole thing.

  At first I’m totally freaked by her. Why would anyone go through all of those surgeries and hormone treatments, all that physical pain? And this is weirder still. She has a thirteen-year-old son who used to call her Dad and now he calls her Auntie Leona. How creepy would that be?

  My mind drifts from Leona to my own dad. He’s not great the way he is, but what if he came for a visit and he’d turned into a she?

  I
don’t think I could handle it. I feel sorry for Leona’s son.

  “Why didn’t you just stay the way God made you?” Eric asks.

  Leona gives Eric a long look, like she’s trying to decide how to answer him.

  “I have stayed the way God made me. God, or the creator of the universe, or the life force, whatever, made me want to be a woman. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known I was female. My deepest longing was to have my body reflect the real me. God gave me the longing. My doctors gave me the body.”

  She doesn’t go into detail about her operation, but even so, the mere mention of surgery is enough to draw groans from the boys. Their body language says even more than the groans. Every single boy in my line of vision has his legs crossed and his hands folded low on his lap, as if protecting that particular region of his anatomy. I turn back to look at Conan. He, too, has taken the protective position.

  Even though the idea of such a surgery repulses me, I begin to understand Leona’s choice. She’s doing the best she can to live the life that seems right to her. I can respect that.

  There are three more people on the panel besides Leona. There’s a gay man who’s probably in his thirties, and a younger lesbian, and an older woman who is straight, but is part of a support group.

  Raymond, the gay guy, talks about how difficult life as a teenager was for him—how isolated he was. Then he talks about how good life is now. He has a good job, his family has finally accepted him as he is, and he’s in a loving, committed relationship. He takes some pictures, 8x10s, from a folder and holds them up for us to see. There’s one with his partner and their golden retriever, and another with them decked out in running gear, numbers on the front, ready to run the L.A. Marathon.

  “We have a life together,” he says.

  Then he shows a picture taken at their wedding. They are both in tuxedos, standing at the altar of a big, fancy church. They are facing the congregation, beaming. There are flowers and candles, and it looks like any other wedding picture, with the one major exception of there being two grooms and no bride.