Talker

love.
    “Two?”
    “Yeah. I’ve got some shit to do in the meantime.”
    The first thing he had to do was get the night off work. He
    made some calls—one of his coworkers had a new baby and was
    constantly broke. Brian knew for a fact that Tuesdays were Ray’s
    usual day off, and Ray was grateful for the extra shift.
    “What’s the deal?” Ray asked over the phone. “G ot a hot
    date?”
    “Naw,” Brian mumbled, his palms sweating already. “Just
    boyfriend troubles.”
    “Bummer,” Ray said, his voice unsurprised. “Wel , good luck
    there, buddy.” There was a cry in the background—but close
    enough to the phone to give Brian the image of a baby being
    rocked by Ray Ruiz, the closest thing he had to a friend at work. “At
    least you not going to end up with no baby-makes-three!” he said,
    his voice rising as the noise escalated.
    Brian laughed politely and rang off, wishing Ray had been able
    to talk for a minute. E ven though Brian was horrible at small talk, he
    wasn’t looking forward to this next part of his plan.
    If you want him to buy it, you need to sel it.
    I’m just dressing the part, baby.
    Two of the people he cared about most were talking in his ear,
    and he couldn’t shout them down. Besides, he thought miserably as
    he stood in front of the mirror with the clippers that Tate kept in the
    bathroom for daily touch-ups, it’s only hair.
    It was only hair—but it was his hair, and he liked it, and he
    even liked it long, although he usual y kept it that way because
    Talker | Amy Lane
    34
    haircuts were expensive and it was easier to get it cut short and go
    a long time between them than it was to keep them up. As he took
    the clippers, set at three, cleanly along the side of his head from his
    temple to his nape, and then along the other side, he tried not to
    whimper. Long swaths of wheat-colored hair fel into the sink, and
    his face emerged from the fal of it, stark and rectangular, with an
    angular chin and a lean mouth. Too exposed, he thought, shivering,
    and he looked dolefully at the hair. As he cleaned it up, he consoled
    himself with the idea that, when this was over and he’d made his
    grand romantic gesture, he’d fix it. When Tate was all right, he’d let
    it grow out on the sides and treat himself to a nice, conservative
    wedge-cut.
    He grabbed some of Tate’s smal black elastic bands and put
    the remaining long strip of hair from his forehead to his crown in a
    punky-looking ponytail, and took stock.
    It wasn’t enough, he thought dismal y. He was definitely going
    to need Aunt Lyndie’s help. But first he had to come clean—and
    maybe not with his secret alone.
    The drive up to G rass Val ey was real y long without Tate
    plugging his iPod into the cassette player and talking Brian’s ear
    off. The last few times he’d been up to see Lyndie, Tate had been
    by his side, excited about getting out of Sacramento, since, short of
    the col eges they went to on their track meets, it was the only town
    he’d ever known.
    Lyndie was working in her garden, wearing a pair of man’s
    workout shorts and a man’s sleeveless tank top, both of which were
    full of holes and bleach stains, and Brian wondered if Lyndsey
    hadn’t been raiding her neighbor’s G oodwil castoffs again. She’d
    done it when he was a kid, with impunity and no remorse. As Brian
    had grown, most of his “play clothes” had come from the castoff pile
    that got put out with the trash three times a year. The neighbors
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    35
    had seen him in their clothes after a bit and started just leaving the
    good stuff on Lyndsey’s porch. She was grateful enough to paint
    them a lovely little watercolor of their house in the sunshine, down
    the red-dirt hil and surrounded by pine trees. The neighbors had
    been impressed enough to start throwing in some new clothes in an
    appropriate size for Brian—and he’d managed to make it through
    his weekly visits with the homeschooling cadre without too much
    ridicule.
    He’d been grateful enough to mow their lawn whenever he
    mowed his aunt’s, and the cycle of being good neighbors and
    resourceful human beings had continued. It was a part of his
    upbringing he’d always be grateful for.
    As was Lyndsey’s enthusiastic, no-holds-barred hug as he
    stepped out of his twenty-year-old green Toyota.
    “Hey there, baby!” she said sweetly. Her hair—which should
    have been gray right now—was dyed a solid, raven’s-wing black,
    and it hung