We decided the next day to finish the map, then start memorizing the capitals and populations to go with the countries.
“Forty-eight is divisible by twelve,” Tanner told me. “I think we should learn them twelve at a time. I checked and found the first group is countries beginning with A through C. The next is D through K, then next L through P, and the last P through V. I thought it was pretty neat that only in the L-P list does the list end with one P country remaining; the twelfth in that list is Poland and the next list begins with Portugal. The A-C list ends with Czech Republic, D-K with Kosovo; no more C or K countries in the next groups.”
I was enthusiastic. “My idea was that we could do them in alphabetical order going by the first letters of their names, six or seven countries at a time, but your way is better. My way, some days we’d only have one or two countries to learn, and then would just have to fool around for the rest of the time.” I couldn’t help myself: I wiggled my eyebrows.
Tanner gave me a steady look for a long moment, then a twisted grin. “Fool around?” he asked, his voice deep, and then he broke out laughing.
“Hey, I didn’t mean that. I meant swim or go for a walk or, or—”
“You sure? It didn’t sound like that. It sounded all flirty and sexy and seductive, plus you wiggled your eyebrows.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t do any of that!” Well, I had, but just a little. I probably sounded panicky. Sure, truth be told, I’d have loved to do stuff with Tanner, the stuff he was alluding to. I had a crush on him by now stronger than any I’d had before on anyone. But I knew he wasn’t like that, and I didn’t want to put our friendship at risk.
He was still looking at me, and then he said, “Well, what if I’d not have minded?”
My eyes stretched open wider. Could he mean that? I didn’t know what to say. Flustered, that was me.
He laughed. “Well, you might have given me a chance at least. Anyway, moving on, let’s get started. Albania through the Czech Republic. Twelve countries.”
≈ ≈ ≈
The next day at lunch, Tanner told me there was a problem.
“My stepmom was all over me when I got home. She said I was spending way too much time at your house. She just wants me home so she can control me. First it was the soccer and football training I used as an excuse to stay away, and now there’s this, and she doesn’t like it at all.”
“But it’s a school assignment! How can she object to that?”
“See, you’re being logical. My stepmom doesn’t go by logic. She works on emotions.”
I was getting mad. This was so good for me, us working together. I didn’t want some interfering, overemotional nut job ruining it. “What are you going to do?”
“I told her we were assigned to work together for this project, you have a better computer than we do, which makes it easier and much faster, and I’m going to continue going to your house, and if she objects, she can talk to Mr. Montgomery.”
“Is there any way she can force you not to come to my house?”
“I’m not sure how she could do that. But we need to talk to Mr. Montgomery. If she does call him or go in to talk to him, we want him to be prepared. We need to tell him we’re doing well working together and do not want to be separated after we’ve already done a lot of work on the project.”
We were still working on memorizing the first twelve countries and capitals. We were both smart enough, but we were also young, and focused concentration on boring stuff isn’t what our age group is famous for. So, we were memorizing but also just talking and, by doing that, wasting time. Therefore, the project was taking longer than it could have. But we had a lot of time to get it done, so it was no real problem. Besides, I loved to be able to spend that time with him.
Tanner ate dinner with us several times over the next few days. We had the ready excuse for his stepmom that we were making good progress on our assignment and didn’t want to lose steam now while we were humming along.
“She’s getting more and more unhappy,” he told me one afternoon. She’s seeing the little control over me slipping away, and it’s infuriating her.”
“Would it help, do you think, if you took me over and introduced me?”
Tanner looked a bit tongue-tied and then embarrassed. I knew why. The adults in that household were anti-gay, perhaps even his stepmom was; after all, she’d grown up surrounded by that attitude and then married about as macho a man as she could. So, should Tanner introduce an obviously gay boy—or at least an obviously effeminate boy—to that group? Of course not. It would only harden her resolve to separate us. But that’s what I’d proposed to Tanner, and he didn’t want to insult me with his answer. I’d tongue-tied him. My fault.
So, I gave him an easy out. “Okay, maybe not the best idea I’ve ever had, but, you know, there is one thing about meeting her that might be good, might mollify her. She can see with her own eyes that I’m way too young for you, and you’re way too old for me, so there’s no chance of any feelings to develop, or, heaven forbid, any hanky-panky. After all, at our age, a two-year age separation is enormous.”
I expected him to agree that that would be one avenue we could take if we wanted to do the introductions. I expected him to smile and nod and say that would bear some thinking about. That isn’t what happened.
“That isn’t true!” he said and actually showed some emotion.
“Huh?” I said confidently. “I’m twelve. You’re fourteen. Two years. What are you talking about?”
“I was talking to your dad.”
As though that explained anything. I did know he’d spoken to Dad a few times when I’d been helping with the dishes or doing some chore or something. Dad really liked him, he’d told me so a couple of times, actually. He also had told me that Tanner, being tall, strong, handsome, smart and very nice would be someone I’d find awfully easy to get a serious crush on. He told me he’d seen how I looked at Tanner on occasion. He told me that he doubted very much that Tanner was gay; he’d probably start dating girls soon, and I had to be very careful not to let my feelings develop too far so I wouldn’t end up with a broken heart.
But that had absolutely nothing to do with our two-year age difference.
I shook my head. “So, you talked to Dad. So what? What has that to do with the price of rice in the lowlands of Tibet?”
“Does Tibet have any lowlands?” he asked, looking very serious and doubtful. Times like this, I wanted to murder him, and I showed it by diving on him. He was sitting on my bed, and I knocked him back flat on his back. Well, he ended up flat on his back. I’m not sure my puny weight had all that much to do with it.
We’d sort of play-wrestled before. Put two guys our age together, that will happen sooner or later; it’s almost guaranteed.
My problem with doing this is that I almost immediately got hard when we did it. I did this time, too, and I had to roll off quickly. He knew I was gay, so I’m sure he knew why I was disengaging so quickly. Yeah, I was gay, but I didn’t want him to feel my hard-on against him. Too embarrassing.
I rolled off, sat up looking at him lying there, a silly grin on his face, and said, “So, you talked to my Dad. We’re still two years apart.”
“No, we’re not. He told me when your birthday was. You’re only a couple of weeks away from turning thirteen. I just turned fourteen. We’re thirteen months apart in age. I wouldn’t call that two years. Would you?”
Thinking about this later, which I did several times, beating it to death, really, I wondered who brought up my birthday date. Did he ask? If he did, why? Did he want to know just how much age separation we had? I couldn’t come up with very many reasons why he’d want to know that other than the obvious one. And the obvious one gave me tingling feelings all over.
≈ ≈ ≈
We swam almost every day he was at my house. No doubt we’d have made much faster progress on the project if we hadn’t had a pool!
I thought maybe he’d be embarrassed when I tried to help him improve his stroke and his breathing; I even showed him how to do flip turns at the wall. He wasn’t embarrassed. He was very coachable, and the fact he was an athlete and I wasn’t didn’t seem to bother him at all. He didn’t even seem to notice that I wasn’t an athlete. Come on! It was obvious just looking at me.
But he said we should do more than just swim. He spoke to my dad, who bought some weights. Installed them in the basement. And we began lifting weights. Every time he was there, which was most days. I was woeful at first.
Mom started to say she’d have to sell more houses because our grocery bill was about double now that he was eating dinner with us at least four times a week. She saw the look on my face and quickly told me she loved having him here. She said I was much happier now—more lively, more talkative, more invested in life around me, whatever that meant—and if that required buying four steaks instead of three, or a five-pound chicken instead of a four-pound one, she’d do it in an instant. She said she was just teasing me. So I hugged her and said thanks.
As he was so good at letting me coach him in the pool, I had to grin and bear it when he showed me how to lift weights. He was a good teacher. He explained why for everything he had me do. I was very capable of resisting when things didn’t make sense. He made them make sense, and I did what he asked.
I was surprised not too long after we began with the weights when I put on my khakis for school one morning and saw they were too short. The waist still fit without a belt, but they were too short. I was experiencing a growth spurt!
Unless you’ve been a very short boy in a class of taller ones, you have no idea how much it means to see you’re finally growing. I suppose I might have expected it. I’d noticed a few hairs growing now where the sun didn’t shine. Hard to imagine, but it was all happening like it was supposed to.