Kevin Corrigan and Me Read online

  When we reached the lighthouse, Lane said, “We can’t go inside; they keep the door locked.”

  I was fine with that. My stomach still felt queasy after our boat ride, and I didn’t feel like climbing a lot of stairs right then. We visored our eyes with our hands to watch a cylindrical light fixture at the tower’s apex slowly rotate.

  Lane said, “There used to be an old-style lantern inside a glass box up there, but then they finally replaced it with an aerobeacon that doesn’t require constant tending. Now no one lives out here.”

  I looked around me. Aside from the clearing we stood in, the rest of the island seemed to be forested. Lane led us to a brick road maybe twenty feet wide, lined on either side by Sabal palms, and we strolled down the road while Lane talked.

  “You have to understand, at one time nearly two hundred men were stationed out here at Fort Dade. It was like a small town, with a movie theater, a mess hall, and barracks. A lighthouse keeper lived out here with his family too. Trucks and horse-drawn wagons used these roads to haul stuff to and from the dock.”

  The day was warming up, and we both stopped to remove our jackets. After we slung the jackets over our shoulders, Lane took my hand in his. “There’s hardly anyone out here today,” he said. “I think we’re safe to walk like this for a while.”

  The road branched off here and there, with the side roads leading to abandoned cinder-block structures of varying sizes. Most of the structures had lost their roofs and windows; they looked forlorn and lonely, and it was hard for me to imagine the island as a beehive of military activity.

  The remains of Fort Dade sat on the island’s northwest corner. Built mostly of poured concrete, it too had a forlorn look to it, as if the structure knew its usefulness had long since passed. But the views from atop the fort’s ramparts were spectacular. We could see Ft. De Soto on the other side of the channel we’d earlier crossed. The water on the island’s western shore was emerald in color. Two families with small children picnicked on the beach below us where the sand was as white as table sugar.

  We wound our way back toward the boat, passing through a junglelike forest of trees I didn’t recognize. Again, Lane took my hand in his. Then, when we came to a dark and secluded spot, he pulled me to him. We dropped our jackets onto the bricks. Our lips came together. I explored Lane’s mouth with my tongue while he squeezed my butt cheeks through the seat of my jeans.

  Lane pulled his mouth from mine. He looked into my eyes, and then said, “I’ve always liked it out here, but never so much as now. Having you with me makes it special, know what I mean?”

  I nodded while a shiver ran through me.

  Twenty minutes later, we shared our lunch at a picnic table in a shaded area near the lighthouse clearing. A breeze tickled fronds on nearby Sabal palms while we dined on our ham and cheese sandwiches and slurped from soda bottles.

  “Is there anything special you’d like to do tonight?” Lane asked me. “Other than, you know…”

  I lowered my gaze to the tabletop, then returned my gaze to Lane’s. “I have the money I earned this week tending yards. I want to take you out to dinner, someplace decent. How about it?”

  “Sure,” Lane said. “We’ve never gone on a date before, have we?”

  “No,” I said, “and it’s about time we did, don’t you think?”

  He nodded. “Does Kevin ever take you out places?”

  I pursed my lips and shook my head. Then I told Lane about the time I’d gone in search of Kevin at the Keating High School dance and how Kevin behaved when I found him. “He made something clear that night: his time spent with me is something he’ll always keep separate from the rest of his life.”

  Lane made a face. “It almost sounds like he’s ashamed of what he shares with you.”

  “Yeah, I think he is.”

  “Are you ashamed?”

  I shook my head.

  Lane looked left and right, then stroked my cheek with a fingertip. “You’re beautiful, Jesse. No guy should ever feel embarrassed about what he does privately with you.”

  I lowered my gaze while a lump formed in my throat. Lane, I knew, was right. From the beginning of my sexual relationship with Kevin, he had always treated me like a dirty secret he didn’t want to share with anyone. He’d never told me I was attractive, and more than once, he’d cut off seeing me as easily as turning off a water tap.

  Didn’t I deserve something better?

  Hours later, after we’d returned to Lane’s and hung the boat from the Davises’ dock davits, we spent an hour in Lane’s bedroom, getting lusty. We took a lazy shower together afterward, and then Lane loaned me a long-sleeved shirt with his initials stitched onto the breast pocket. I wore it with a pair of chinos I’d packed in my bag. Lane dressed pretty much the same way, and aside from our long hair, we must’ve looked like two prep school boys.

  The sun had already set and the temperature was plunging while we turned on all the Davises’ outdoor Christmas lights. I wore the jacket Lane had loaned me the day before to ward off the cold; it was the same jacket I’d worn on the trip to Egmont Key, and in a way, I felt like the jacket belonged to me now. I liked it and wondered if maybe Lane would sell it to me if I asked.

  I took us in the Dart to the Kingfish Restaurant at John’s Pass, not far from where I often fished. The place was packed when we arrived, and we had to wait fifteen minutes or so before we got a table. The restaurant’s walls were paneled in shellacked knotty pine. Several taxidermic fish hung on them, including a tarpon nearly six feet long with a glass eye that seemed to stare at me. Lawrence Welk music wafted from a pair of wall speakers; the schmaltzy tunes mixed with the sounds of forks clicking on plates, of ice tinkling in glasses, and the crush of human conversations. Odors of frying fish drifted from the kitchen whenever its swinging door opened into the dining room.

  The hostess seated Lane and me at a window table for two, with a view of the pass and the bridge. After we hung our jackets on our chair backs, we studied menus, bathed in the glow from a table lamp. The lamp’s shade had a nautical motif on it: a mix of anchors and sea ropes and lanterns. I felt very grown up, sitting there with Lane and knowing I was treating him to a meal, just like normal guys did on dates with their girlfriends.

  I was still deciding what I might order when I heard a woman’s voice speak my name, and when I looked up, Mrs. Corrigan was standing by our table with a purse in her hand. She looked thinner than the last time I’d seen her, but she still looked nice in her dress and pearls. Her face was made up with lipstick and powder.

  I stood to give her cheek a peck, then introduced her to Lane, who also rose to shake her hand.

  “What a surprise to see you,” she said while her gaze flitted back and forth between me and Lane. “I talked Kevin into coming here tonight, since he didn’t have plans.” Then she pointed across the room. “Our table’s right over there.”

  Kevin sat in a corner booth. He wore a sports jacket over a white shirt and tie, and he buttered a roll with a knife. Even from across the room, I could tell he wasn’t happy to be where he was. His chin was lowered and his mouth was a thin line.

  I turned to Lane. “I’m going to say hi. I’ll be right back.”

  When I approached the Corrigans’ table with Kevin’s mom, Kevin looked up, and as soon as he saw me, he gathered his eyebrows. He looked into my face and narrowed his eyes.

  “Look who’s here,” Mrs. Corrigan said.

  I raised a palm. “Hey, Kevin,” I said while I shoved both my hands into the hip pockets of my chinos.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, as though I should be anywhere but the Kingfish Restaurant.

  I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “Lane and I are having dinner.”

  Kevin glanced over at Lane. Then he looked back at me, and when he did, his gaze lighted on my shirt pocket. After he studied the monogram there, he raised an eyebrow. “Whose shirt is that?”

  “It’s Lane’s. I didn’t have a fresh one to
wear out, so he loaned me this.”

  Kevin didn’t say anything; he just stared into my face with his eyes narrowed.

  “Look,” I said, “I need to go; I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Enjoy your dinner,” Mrs. Corrigan said, and I turned on my heel without saying another word. Everything around me turned into a blur as I made my way back to our table, and when I got there, Lane looked at me funny.

  “Your face is as pale as an egg,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  After I sat down, I shook my head. “I can’t believe they’re here tonight, and at just the same time we are. How could my luck be any worse?”

  Lane crinkled his nose. “Why do you care if Kevin and his mom are here?”

  I pointed to my chest. “He noticed your monogram; he asked whose shirt it is.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t understand: more than once he’s asked if you and I fool around when I spend time with you. I’ve always told him no, but now you and I are out together at a restaurant and we’re all dressed up. Kevin’s not stupid; he’s going to know I lied to him.”

  Lane shrugged. “Maybe it’s about time he knows he has competition. He might treat you with more respect if he does.”

  I chewed my lips while I studied my menu. Maybe Lane was right. What was I gaining by hiding my relationship with Lane from Kevin?

  We ordered our food. Lane chose fried flounder, and I picked red snapper stuffed with crabmeat. The meals came with salads and baked potatoes, and the food was tasty. But I couldn’t help glancing over at the Corrigans from time to time, to see how Kevin was behaving. More than once, I caught him staring in our direction with a scowl on his face.

  He knows.

  Kevin and his mom left the restaurant before we did, and they didn’t say good-bye before they did so, which was fine with me. Once they were gone, I could finally relax, even to the point of sharing a piece of pie with Lane.

  After dinner, we strolled along the docks where commercial fishing boats were tethered for the night. The briny scent of moving Gulf water was strong in the air. Boats rocked and their lines squeaked. Above us, a three-quarter moon glowed while hundreds of stars twinkled in the cloudless night sky.

  “Dinner was great,” Lane told me. “Thanks so much.”

  I nodded. “Sorry if I seemed a little distracted. It’s just that Kevin—”

  Lane groaned. “Forget about him, will you? This is our weekend, and he shouldn’t intrude on it.”

  “You’re right,” I said, then glanced at my wristwatch. “It’s only nine thirty. Do you want to go someplace?”

  “Like where?”

  I thought for a moment. Then I said, “Do you like to bowl?”

  “Heck, yeah. Let’s do it.”

  A half hour later, we were lacing up our shoes at a bowling alley in South Pasadena, not all that far from where our high school was located. The place was packed with kids our age, mostly boy-girl couples on dates. The rumble of heavy balls rolling down twenty hardwood lanes mixed with the crash of tumbling pins. A gaggle of boys gathered about four pinball machines that made ringing noises when their lights flashed. Cigarette smoke hung in the place like a stage scrim.

  Lane, of course, bowled gracefully, and I loved watching him dance toward the foul line with his ball hanging from his fingertips. Each time, he released the ball so closely to the lane’s surface that the ball barely made a sound when it landed. His aim was deadly, and I quickly realized I wouldn’t stand a chance of beating him no matter how many games we rolled. But I didn’t care. Wasn’t it enough that I was with Lane and I had him all to myself? How lucky could a guy get?

  Of course, we couldn’t show any real affection toward each other in the bowling alley, but when one of us rolled a strike or picked up a difficult spare, the other guy could show his approval with a shoulder squeeze or a back slap, and every time we touched, I felt a sexual charge pass between Lane and me.

  By the time we returned to the Davises’, the time was close to midnight, and both of us were yawning. We extinguished all the outdoor Christmas lights, then went inside. By mutual agreement, we postponed sex until the next morning. Instead, after we undressed in Lane’s bedroom, we crawled beneath the covers and held each other. The room’s windows were open and the air entering from outside was cool. After Lane switched off the nightstand lamp, we lay in darkness. He ran his fingers through my hair and kissed the crown of my head. Off in the distance, an outboard engine hummed. The bay’s salty aroma wafted into the room while Lane’s breath tickled my cheek.

  “It’s been a great day,” I said.

  “It sure has. Everything felt so easy and so right, like it was all meant to happen. Why do you suppose that is?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew Lane was looking for some sort of declaration from me, a statement that something beyond friendship and sex was growing between us. But if I made that sort of statement, it would mean I was gravitating away from Kevin. Maybe Lane would expect me to end things with Kevin, and then what would I do?

  “I think we get along really well,” I said, “but we shouldn’t rush things. Let’s take it one step at a time.”

  “I’m not trying to pressure you,” Lane said.

  “I know that,” I said, “but let me explain something: Kevin’s been my boyfriend for a year and a half. Life’s been hard on him lately, what with his dad passing and his knee injury, so I don’t want to hurt him even more.”

  Lane’s leg fuzz tickled mine when he shifted his weight. “You know what I think? If you broke things off with Kevin tomorrow, he’d just find someone else to use. That’s the kind of guy he is, and you shouldn’t worry so much about him ’cause he sure doesn’t worry about you.”

  I lay there in the darkness, trying to decide whether Lane’s view on Kevin was accurate. Was Lane trying to come between Kevin and me? Or was he simply telling me truths about Kevin that I needed to face?

  I spent Sunday morning at Lane’s. We ate cornflakes in the kitchen, then bundled up. Our breaths steamed in the chilly air while we sat on Lane’s dock, squinting in the brilliant morning sunshine that warmed our shoulders and made the bay glimmer like a mirror. We sat close enough that our shoulders and hips touched. A sailboat chugged by with its sails furled and its diesel engine clanking.

  “I hate to see you leave so early,” Lane said. “Are you sure you can’t stay through the afternoon?”

  I nodded. “I have a ton of homework due tomorrow, plus we have that test in Trig this week. I’ll need to study for it.”

  Lane bobbed his chin. “Got plans for next weekend?”

  I pursed my lips while I watched a dozen brown pelicans fly over us in V-formation. “Kevin will probably want to stay at my place since I didn’t spend time with him this weekend, but I don’t know that for certain. He’s probably mad at me right now, so I might not even hear from him.”

  “I’d like to see you if possible,” Lane said. “It doesn’t matter when.”

  I nodded and said, “I’ll do my best.”

  When it came time for me to go, Lane and I kissed in his foyer for at least ten minutes before he walked me out to my car, and I hoped none of his neighbors noticed the bulge in my jeans when he did so.

  After I climbed into the Dart, Lane leaned on the sill of the driver’s door. He looked in at me and moistened his lips. “If you get a chance tonight, take a few minutes and give me a call. I’ll be missing you, so hearing your voice would make me feel a whole lot better, okay?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

  While I backed the Dart out of Lane’s driveway I felt a hollowness in the pit of my stomach, as though I were rapidly descending in an elevator. My eyes itched and I felt short of breath, and then I wondered, as I waved good-bye to Lane, if I was falling in love with him. Already I missed him terribly, and knowing how he felt about me made me wonder if I’d be an idiot not to commit myself to him.

  And then I recalled what Lane had said a
bout Kevin the night before.

  “You shouldn’t worry so much about him ’cause he sure doesn’t worry about you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Monday afternoon, at the end of classes, I met with my guidance counselor, Carmen Valenti, a stout woman known for her flaming-red hair, muumuu dresses, and Bakelite bracelets. We sat in her cramped and windowless office in my school’s administration building. Overhead, a fluorescent ceiling fixture flickered and hummed. Valenti sat behind a wooden desk littered with file folders and educational publications. She spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent as she explained the federal government’s student loan program.

  “From what you’ve told me about your family’s financial situation, I’ve no doubt you’d qualify for a loan. Your grades are excellent, and that makes you a good candidate for one of the state’s universities, but you’ll have to take the SAT in order to apply for admission.”

  I nodded, then told Valenti about the book Lane’s folks had bought for me.

  “That’s good,” Valenti said, “because preparing for the test can have a huge impact on your score. That’s a statistical fact.”

  “How do I sign up for the test?”

  Valenti’s knees crackled when she rose. She opened a drawer in a file cabinet next to her desk and produced a registration form she handed to me. “Fill this out and return it to me, along with a check for eight dollars, payable to the testing service. The test will be given in the cafeteria on the second Saturday in April; that’s the thirteenth.”

  I studied the form a moment or two, then looked up at Valenti. “But if I attend community college and live at home, I won’t have to rack up so much debt. Maybe I shouldn’t go to a university, at least not until after I earn my associate’s degree.”

  Valenti closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she wagged a finger at my nose. “Don’t let borrowing money spook you. Education’s the best investment of time and money a young person can make. I’ll get you a student loan application. You can pick it up when you drop off your SAT registration papers.”