Autoboyography
Page 2
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“Badass.”
“You could, too, if you talked to Mr. Fujita,” she says. “You have the grades. You’re a good writer. Plus, he loves your parents.”
“Nah.” I’m expecting acceptance letters to colleges anywhere but here—Mom begged me to only apply out of state—and a yes from any one of those schools will be conditional on my grades this last semester. Regardless of how easy I think this might be, this is not the time to be taking chances.
Autumn picks at a beleaguered fingernail. “Because then you’d have to, you know, finish something?”
“I finished your mom earlier. I think you know what I mean.”
She pulls my leg hair, and I screech out a surprisingly feminine sound.
“Tanner,” she says, sitting up, “I’m serious. It would be good for you. You should take this class with me.”
“You say that like I would want to.”
Glaring at me, she growls, “It’s the Seminar, asshole. Everyone wants to.”
See what I mean? She’s got this course on a pedestal, and it’s so nerdy it makes me a little protective of Future Autumn, when she’s out in the world, battling her Hermione Nerd Girl battles. I give her my best smile. “Okay.”
“Are you worried about coming up with something original?” she asks. “I could help you.”
“Come on. I moved here when I was fifteen—which I think we can agree is the worst time to move from Palo Alto, California, to Provo, Utah—with a mouth full of metal and no friends. I have stories.”
Not to mention I’m a half-Jewish queer kid in a straight and Mormon town.
I don’t say that last part, not even to Autumn. It wasn’t that big a deal in Palo Alto when, at thirteen, I realized I liked the idea of kissing guys as much as kissing girls. Here, it would be a huge deal. She’s the best of my best, yeah, but I don’t want to risk telling her and finding out she’s only progressive in theory and not when a queer kid is hanging out in her bedroom.
“We all had braces, and you had me.” She flops back on her bed. “Besides, everyone hates being fifteen, Tanner. It’s period emergencies and boners at the pool, zits and angst and unclear social protocol. I guarantee ten out of fifteen students in this class will write about the perils of high school for lack of deeper sources of fiction.”
A quick scan through the Rolodex of my past gives me a lurching, defensive feeling in my gut, like maybe she’s right. Maybe I couldn’t come up with something interesting and deep, and fiction must come from depth. I’ve got two supportive—maybe overly supportive—parents, a crazy but wonderful extended family, a not-too-terrible-although-dramatically-emo sister, my own car. I haven’t known a lot of turmoil.
So I balk, pinching the back of her thigh. “What makes you so deep?”
It’s a joke, of course. Autumn has plenty to write about. Her dad died in Afghanistan when she was nine. Afterward, her mom—angry and heartbroken—cut ties with the Mormon Church, which, in this town, is a huge defection. More than 90 percent of the people who live here are LDS. Being anything else automatically leaves you on the outskirts of the social world. Add into the mix that on Mrs. Green’s salary alone, she and Autumn barely scrape by.
Autumn looks up at me flatly. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to do it, Tann. It’s a lot of work. And you’re lazy.”
• • •
She baited me into adding the stupid class, and now, as we drive to school together the Monday after winter break, she’s being brittle and clipped because I told her I got in.
I can feel her heated glare on the side of my face as I turn onto Bulldog Boulevard. “Fujita just signed your add card?” she says. “That’s it?”
“Auddy, you’re insane if you’re pissed about this. You get that, right?”
“And . . . what?” she says, ignoring my rhetorical and turning to face forward. “You’re going to do it?”
“Yeah, why not?” I pull into the student lot, scanning for a spot close to the door, but of course we’re running late and there’s nothing convenient here. I slip into a spot along the back side of the building.
“Tanner, do you realize what it is?”
“How could I attend this school and not know what the Seminar is?”
She gives me an aggressively patient look because I’ve just used my mocking voice and she hates it. “You’re going to have to write a book. An entire book.”
When the end of my fuse appears, it is predictably mild: a rougher than normal shove of my door open into the frigid air. “Auddy, what the hell? I thought you told me to add it.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t do it if you don’t want it.”
I pull out my best smile again, the one I know she likes. I know I shouldn’t, but hey, you use the tools you have. “Then you shouldn’t call me lazy.”
She lets out this savage growl I think I like. “You’re so lucky and you don’t even know it.”
I ignore her, grabbing my backpack from the trunk. She is confusing as hell.
“Do you see what I mean, though, that it was so easy for you?” She jogs after me. “I had to apply, and interview with him, and, like, grovel. You walked into his office and he signed your add slip.”
“It wasn’t exactly like that. I went to his office, chatted him up for a bit, updated him on my folks, and then he signed my add slip.”
I’m met with silence, and when I turn, I realize she’s walked in the other direction, toward a side entrance. “I’ll see you at lunch, best friend!” I call out. She raises her middle finger.
The warmth inside the hall is heaven, but it’s loud in here and the floors are soggy with dirty, melting snow knocked off boots. I squeak down the hall to my locker, sandwiched between Sasha Sanderson and Jack Thorne, two of the best-looking—and nicest—people at Provo High.
Socially, things here are mixed. Even two and a half years later, I still feel like the new kid, and it’s probably because most of the students here have gone to school together since kindergarten and live within a handful of wards—meaning, they’re in the same congregation and see each other for about a million church activities outside of school. I essentially have Auddy, Eric, and a few other friends who happen to be LDS, but cool, so they don’t drive us too crazy and their parents don’t worry we’re corrupting them. Back in Palo Alto, my freshman year, I was sort of dating another guy for a few months and had a whole group of friends I’d known since kindergarten who didn’t blink when they saw me holding Gabe’s hand. I wish I’d appreciated that freedom more at the time.
Here, girls flirt with me, sure, but most of them are Mormon and would never, not in a million years, be allowed to date me. Most LDS parents hope their children will marry in their Temple, and that just can’t happen with someone like me, a nonmember. Unless I converted, which . . . is never going to happen. Take Sasha for example. I feel something brewing between us; she’s super flirty and touchy, but Autumn insists it could never go anywhere. To an even greater extent, the same is true of my chances here with guys, LDS or otherwise; I don’t get to test those waters in Provo. I’ve had a crush on Jack Thorne since tenth grade, but he’s off-limits for three important reasons: (1) male, (2) Mormon, (3) Provo.
“You could, too, if you talked to Mr. Fujita,” she says. “You have the grades. You’re a good writer. Plus, he loves your parents.”
“Nah.” I’m expecting acceptance letters to colleges anywhere but here—Mom begged me to only apply out of state—and a yes from any one of those schools will be conditional on my grades this last semester. Regardless of how easy I think this might be, this is not the time to be taking chances.
Autumn picks at a beleaguered fingernail. “Because then you’d have to, you know, finish something?”
“I finished your mom earlier. I think you know what I mean.”
She pulls my leg hair, and I screech out a surprisingly feminine sound.
“Tanner,” she says, sitting up, “I’m serious. It would be good for you. You should take this class with me.”
“You say that like I would want to.”
Glaring at me, she growls, “It’s the Seminar, asshole. Everyone wants to.”
See what I mean? She’s got this course on a pedestal, and it’s so nerdy it makes me a little protective of Future Autumn, when she’s out in the world, battling her Hermione Nerd Girl battles. I give her my best smile. “Okay.”
“Are you worried about coming up with something original?” she asks. “I could help you.”
“Come on. I moved here when I was fifteen—which I think we can agree is the worst time to move from Palo Alto, California, to Provo, Utah—with a mouth full of metal and no friends. I have stories.”
Not to mention I’m a half-Jewish queer kid in a straight and Mormon town.
I don’t say that last part, not even to Autumn. It wasn’t that big a deal in Palo Alto when, at thirteen, I realized I liked the idea of kissing guys as much as kissing girls. Here, it would be a huge deal. She’s the best of my best, yeah, but I don’t want to risk telling her and finding out she’s only progressive in theory and not when a queer kid is hanging out in her bedroom.
“We all had braces, and you had me.” She flops back on her bed. “Besides, everyone hates being fifteen, Tanner. It’s period emergencies and boners at the pool, zits and angst and unclear social protocol. I guarantee ten out of fifteen students in this class will write about the perils of high school for lack of deeper sources of fiction.”
A quick scan through the Rolodex of my past gives me a lurching, defensive feeling in my gut, like maybe she’s right. Maybe I couldn’t come up with something interesting and deep, and fiction must come from depth. I’ve got two supportive—maybe overly supportive—parents, a crazy but wonderful extended family, a not-too-terrible-although-dramatically-emo sister, my own car. I haven’t known a lot of turmoil.
So I balk, pinching the back of her thigh. “What makes you so deep?”
It’s a joke, of course. Autumn has plenty to write about. Her dad died in Afghanistan when she was nine. Afterward, her mom—angry and heartbroken—cut ties with the Mormon Church, which, in this town, is a huge defection. More than 90 percent of the people who live here are LDS. Being anything else automatically leaves you on the outskirts of the social world. Add into the mix that on Mrs. Green’s salary alone, she and Autumn barely scrape by.
Autumn looks up at me flatly. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to do it, Tann. It’s a lot of work. And you’re lazy.”
• • •
She baited me into adding the stupid class, and now, as we drive to school together the Monday after winter break, she’s being brittle and clipped because I told her I got in.
I can feel her heated glare on the side of my face as I turn onto Bulldog Boulevard. “Fujita just signed your add card?” she says. “That’s it?”
“Auddy, you’re insane if you’re pissed about this. You get that, right?”
“And . . . what?” she says, ignoring my rhetorical and turning to face forward. “You’re going to do it?”
“Yeah, why not?” I pull into the student lot, scanning for a spot close to the door, but of course we’re running late and there’s nothing convenient here. I slip into a spot along the back side of the building.
“Tanner, do you realize what it is?”
“How could I attend this school and not know what the Seminar is?”
She gives me an aggressively patient look because I’ve just used my mocking voice and she hates it. “You’re going to have to write a book. An entire book.”
When the end of my fuse appears, it is predictably mild: a rougher than normal shove of my door open into the frigid air. “Auddy, what the hell? I thought you told me to add it.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t do it if you don’t want it.”
I pull out my best smile again, the one I know she likes. I know I shouldn’t, but hey, you use the tools you have. “Then you shouldn’t call me lazy.”
She lets out this savage growl I think I like. “You’re so lucky and you don’t even know it.”
I ignore her, grabbing my backpack from the trunk. She is confusing as hell.
“Do you see what I mean, though, that it was so easy for you?” She jogs after me. “I had to apply, and interview with him, and, like, grovel. You walked into his office and he signed your add slip.”
“It wasn’t exactly like that. I went to his office, chatted him up for a bit, updated him on my folks, and then he signed my add slip.”
I’m met with silence, and when I turn, I realize she’s walked in the other direction, toward a side entrance. “I’ll see you at lunch, best friend!” I call out. She raises her middle finger.
The warmth inside the hall is heaven, but it’s loud in here and the floors are soggy with dirty, melting snow knocked off boots. I squeak down the hall to my locker, sandwiched between Sasha Sanderson and Jack Thorne, two of the best-looking—and nicest—people at Provo High.
Socially, things here are mixed. Even two and a half years later, I still feel like the new kid, and it’s probably because most of the students here have gone to school together since kindergarten and live within a handful of wards—meaning, they’re in the same congregation and see each other for about a million church activities outside of school. I essentially have Auddy, Eric, and a few other friends who happen to be LDS, but cool, so they don’t drive us too crazy and their parents don’t worry we’re corrupting them. Back in Palo Alto, my freshman year, I was sort of dating another guy for a few months and had a whole group of friends I’d known since kindergarten who didn’t blink when they saw me holding Gabe’s hand. I wish I’d appreciated that freedom more at the time.
Here, girls flirt with me, sure, but most of them are Mormon and would never, not in a million years, be allowed to date me. Most LDS parents hope their children will marry in their Temple, and that just can’t happen with someone like me, a nonmember. Unless I converted, which . . . is never going to happen. Take Sasha for example. I feel something brewing between us; she’s super flirty and touchy, but Autumn insists it could never go anywhere. To an even greater extent, the same is true of my chances here with guys, LDS or otherwise; I don’t get to test those waters in Provo. I’ve had a crush on Jack Thorne since tenth grade, but he’s off-limits for three important reasons: (1) male, (2) Mormon, (3) Provo.
