Calling Calling Calling Me Read online

When Patrick’s mom expressed some nervousness about the fact that Freddy was a bartender (and oh God, Patrick wanted to die), Freddy gave her a cheerful smile and said, “I would never contribute to the delinquency of a minor, ma’am,” before disappearing out the door in a cloud of cologne.

  “You all seem like very nice boys,” Patrick’s mom said as they chowed down on pizza from a place around the corner (and even pizza tasted better in San Francisco—seriously). “I’m just a bit concerned because Pat is so much younger than you all are.”

  Oh my God, Mother, Patrick wanted to say, but refrained. This is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you along.

  “I’m only twenty-one,” Josh volunteered. “I’m in college too, same school, even. And I’m a theater major—you’re into theater, right, Patrick?”

  Patrick blinked.

  How does Josh—oh, right, the email.

  He was surprised Josh remembered that. Patrick nodded.

  “It’ll be like he has a lot of big brothers,” Josh said, and gave Patrick’s mom a winning smile.

  Patrick really, really didn’t want to think of Josh as his older brother, but he couldn’t exactly say that.

  Instead, he said, “I can take care of myself too, Mom. I’m not a little kid.”

  His mom looked at him fondly, and for a second Patrick felt bad for acting so bitchy when all his mom wanted was for him to be okay.

  “I know that, Pat,” she said. “I do.”

  Patrick flicked his eyes away from his mom and caught Josh staring at him, a tiny smear of tomato sauce forgotten at the corner of his mouth. He had this twinkle in his eyes like he wanted to tell Patrick something, but couldn’t.

  All Patrick could think was: This can be my life, this right here. Screw high school. I can be one of the cool kids now.

  2

  At his parent’s house on a Sunday evening, Josh dropped his bag onto the kitchen island and shouted, “Hey, Mom!”

  “You don’t have to shout, Joshua,” his mother’s lilting voice came from the living room. “I’m in here. I was just watching NOVA.”

  “What episode?” Josh asked, padding into the living room.

  His mother was lounging in a giant leather armchair that made her look like Edith Ann, a glass of red wine in one hand and a joint in the other.

  “Something about volcanoes,” she said.

  “Oh, I remember that one,” Josh said, settling onto the floor next to her feet. “Can I—”

  She passed him the joint. He took a hit, then passed it back.

  “Almost the beginning of the semester,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse. “Your last year.”

  “I know,” Josh said.

  “You don’t want me to ask,” she said.

  Josh sighed. “I mean,” he said. “No, not really.”

  “It’s okay that you don’t have a plan, sweetie,” she said, in this tone that meant exactly the opposite.

  “My plan is theater,” Josh said. “Or music. Or musical theater.”

  She passed the joint back to him.

  “You know that is not a plan,” she said. “As talented as you are, that is a dream.”

  “I thought you wanted me to have dreams,” Josh said.

  “Of course, I want you to have dreams,” she said. “But I also don’t want you to starve.”

  Josh exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  Sometimes he wished he could be the perfect Jewish son: motivated, high-achieving, on a professional track. Excited to marry a Jewish girl or a shiksa who’d raise their children in a liberal-leaning, bi-cultural household. But instead, Josh was queer as a three-dollar bill, determined to make it on Broadway, and not ready to settle down now or possibly ever. Yes, he was only twenty-one, but Isaiah was twenty-four and he’d been dating the same girl for three years. Oh, Isaiah: dependable, perfect, monogamous Isaiah. Josh loved his brother, but he wished he wasn’t always being compared to him. It made Josh feel like he was forever behind the curve, and that all his parents wanted was for him to be setting it.

  Exhibit A: While Isaiah was in New York booking gigs for his fairly famous indie band, this summer had been a bit of a wash for Josh. He’d started out as a camp counselor at a theater camp in Oakland and had done that for six weeks. It had entailed many hours of running around after little kids, telling them to get in formation so they could rehearse some song from Oliver! or Les Mis, or practice trust falls, or do some self-expression exercise that inevitably ended in tears. He’d never been so exhausted in his life.

  When camp ended, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands. When Alexis bailed on them with little notice, he’d thrown himself into the roommate search because it meant something to do. Then he got that email from Patrick, and he knew his search was over. Patrick was the only person who’d actually answered their ridiculous questions in his response, and he seemed to have thought about them too. Even Josh didn’t have that strong an opinion about Cher.

  “We found a new roommate,” Josh said.

  “Oh, good!” she said. “I was worried when—what was her name, the loud one—”

  “Alexis,” Josh supplied.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know how steep your rent is, and she didn’t give you very much notice.”

  “She’s in love,” Josh said, and his mother waved her hand, dismissing this ridiculous notion.

  “Even people in love can give proper notice,” she said.

  This was incredibly typical of his mom: embracing of emotions and dreams, but less so if they interfered with payment of the rent.

  “He’s really cool,” Josh said.

  “Hmm?”

  “The new roommate,” Josh said. “Patrick.”

  “How is he ‘cool’?” his mother said.

  Josh had known the second he’d read the email that Patrick was not your average applicant, and he’d been excited about that. Patrick was like a poster child for the kind of kid who fled Fresno for San Francisco: creative, into theater and writing, lots of feelings about Cher. Even in this age of Silicon Valley colonization, San Francisco still attracted kids like Patrick as if it had some kind of all-powerful, rainbow-colored, glitter-encrusted magnet.

  Josh knew he was lucky. He’d grown up in San Francisco, and that meant he’d never had to look far for anything queer. When he thought about growing up in Fresno, he got chills. It could be worse, sure. It could be Alabama. It could be Russia. But Fresno was almost crueler, because it was only a few hours away from two of the queerest cities in the world.

  He wondered if he should read some Steinbeck in advance of Patrick’s arrival to understand the struggles of the Central Valley. Then he promised himself that this evening he would make it a priority to punch himself in the face.

  “I guess he seems very much himself,” Josh said finally.

  “Like you, then,” she said.

  Josh twisted around to look at his mom. She was smiling in her Mona Lisa way.

  Josh loved his parents so much, and they loved him, and they had given him everything he ever wanted. This meant that sometimes Josh forgot all the small, important ways they didn’t know him at all.

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “Like me.”

  * * *

  Josh was supposed to come to his first playwriting seminar of the semester with an idea for a short play. They’d had all summer to do this.

  However: his writing partner, Alan, was a slacker. Alan also happened to be one of his best friends who’d known him since he was four, and thus he never took him seriously about anything.

  Alan and Josh had done a lot of theater in high school, but Alan didn’t care about theater the way Josh did. For Alan, theater was a fun way to get attention and pass the time, but it wasn’t a real career possibility. He’d ditched his theater major the second his parents had given him some huge lecture on making practical decisions about his life. Another one bites the dust, Josh had thought when Alan told him he was declaring a computer science major because he’d always been weirdly goo
d at coding, and oh, also, applying for that Google internship because it would be hella cool, man, have you seen their perks?

  Fine, Josh had said, but can you at least do this playwriting class with me? We have to do partner stuff and I don’t want to get someone random.

  Sure, Alan had said, puffing himself up. I know it would be hard to find someone as brilliant as me.

  Alan always joked that Josh’s main problem as an artist was the lack of adversity he’d faced in his life. How can you be a tortured actor if you’ve never experienced pain? Alan would say. How will you ever develop your compensatory drug addiction?

  Josh would argue he knew about adversity, and not only because he was trying to figure out how to write something halfway decent for his playwriting class in less than a week, and all his partner could talk about was the board books of their childhood.

  “What if,” Alan said, “we wrote about how soft baby blankets are? Baby blankets and also, like, those Pat the Bunny books with the fur you can touch? Do you remember those?”

  “Okay, but why are we writing about these things?” Josh said. “I’m confused.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Alan said.

  “Why am I always the one who has to figure it out?” Josh asked.

  “Because you’re the man with a plan,” Alan explained.

  “I don’t have a plan for this, though,” Josh said. “I really, really don’t.”

  Alan waved him off, like: Don’t be ridiculous.

  “Speaking of dudes you have plans for,” Alan said suddenly, pointing at Josh. “You know who I saw at the Fillmore the other day at that show I went to with Alexis?”

  Alan paused dramatically, waiting until Josh made a come on, asshole gesture with his hands.

  “Ramon Ramirez.”

  Josh’s stomach did a little dance. He stared at Alan, who had a smug smile on his face.

  “Oh yes, buddy,” Alan said. “Ramon Ramirez: the one who got away.”

  “He didn’t ‘get away,’” Josh said. “He’s straight. We were just friends.”

  “Like you didn’t have the biggest boner for him in high school,” Alan said. “Come on.”

  It was true Josh’d had a thing for Ramon, but it was a hopeless crush that never went anywhere. Ramon was a sweet guy with beautiful brown eyes and long eyelashes and a well-muscled frame. He played soccer. He did Model UN with Josh. Josh used to go to his games and pretend he cared about sports to watch him run, his body as perfect and lithe in motion as it was when it was still.

  It wasn’t only physical or superficial, though. He and Ramon were actual friends. They’d had long conversations about politics and music, and Ramon’s laugh was deep and wonderful. Josh loved making Ramon laugh.

  “Okay, I had a bit of thing for him,” Josh admitted.

  “You were DTF, dude,” Alan said. “All day, every day.”

  “Don’t be crude,” Josh said.

  “Is that drool I see?” Alan teased. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  “You’re such a jerk.”

  “My point,” Alan said, “is that Ramon was real interested in knowing what was going on with you. He’s been back from UCLA all summer and he was like, ‘Do you still see Josh?’”

  Josh didn’t know if Alan was fucking with him or not, but it had the desired effect. He had a minor inner freak out, and he felt all the blood go to his face.

  “He asked that?” Josh said.

  “You don’t talk to him at all?” Alan asked. “You were tight in high school.”

  “Do you still talk to everyone you did in high school?” Josh snapped, and Alan raised his eyebrows.

  Okay, so Josh still had some feelings there. Good to know.

  “No,” Alan said. “But I thought you did. I told him to call you. I’m not your keeper.”

  “What?” Josh said.

  “I told him to call you,” Alan said. “Or send you a text. I gave him your number just in case. He said he didn’t know if he had the right one anymore.”

  “Why did you do that?” Josh said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I thought he was ‘straight,’ and you’re ‘just friends,’” Alan said, with judicious use of air-quotes.

  “I mean, he is and we were,” Josh said. “But—”

  “Maybe he genuinely wants to catch up and be buddies again,” Alan said. “Relax. He probably won’t even call.”

  Josh flipped over his phone, which had buzzed with a text. His heart leapt.

  Hey, we are thinking mac & cheese for dinner, Kai had texted him. You down?

  Josh exhaled.

  Totally down, he texted back. After we make some progress on this play.

  Good luck!! Kai replied, and Josh tried to calm his stuttering pulse.

  After three years, Ramon shouldn’t still have this kind of an effect on him.

  You’re not in high school anymore, Josh told himself. You’re past all that. You’ve moved on.

  It felt like bullshit, because it was.

  * * *

  Post-useless-playwriting session, Josh was sitting at the kitchen table, being super-helpful to Kai by providing moral support. Kai was hard at work on some mac ‘n’ cheese recipe he’d found in his Gourmet cookbook. Kai was hardcore about food, which was good, because everybody else in their apartment had the combined culinary skills of a toddler.

  Freddy chose that moment to corner Josh in the kitchen. He was extra intense, which—considering Freddy was usually turned up to eleven, was about two shades on the side of too much.

  “I’m kind of worried we didn’t make Patrick jump through more hoops,” Freddy said. “Like. Any at all.”

  “I mean,” Josh said. “He seemed legit. His mom was here.”

  “His mom could be a total liar,” Freddy pointed out.

  Josh shot him a horrified look.

  “Dude,” Kai said. “Don’t talk shit about Patrick’s mother.”

  “Okay, whatever, she was fucking delightful,” Freddy said. “Still. Poor renting practices, sir.”

  “I’ll cover him if he doesn’t pay,” Josh said, and Freddy raised his eyebrows.

  “I always forget that your parents are so loaded,” Freddy said. “It’s probably because you have holes in your socks.”

  “They are not loaded—”

  “Your dad endowed an orchestra,” Freddy said. “That’s how much money he made from…whatever the thing was he made money on.”

  “Kind of a combination of things,” Josh said. “Dot com stuff in the 90s. Some really smart investments. Consulting. I’m…a little unclear, to be honest. He’s sort of a magician with money, and he doesn’t like to talk about work.”

  “I wish my dad was that baller.”

  “My dad wears suit jackets with patches on the elbows,” Josh said.

  “Like I said,” Freddy said. “Baller.”

  “I think Patrick’s going to be great,” Josh said, hoping to refocus the conversation. “I will take the blame if he’s not.”

  Freddy sighed. “Well, you do have pretty good instincts,” he pointed out. “After all, you did pick me.”

  Kai and Josh exchanged mutually sympathetic looks when Freddy finally left to go get dressed for work.

  Josh retired to his room after dinner, feeling the beginning of a carb-induced coma coming on. He leaned back against his pillow and let his eyes drag over the dance posters Kai had pasted up on the wall on his side of the room, all beautiful men and women with long, graceful limbs, Degas’s ballerinas in one corner, smudged and gorgeous.

  Had Patrick ever been to a ballet? Josh wanted to take him, to see if his eyes lit up the same way they did when Josh had told him: I think you belong here.

  His phone glowed, and Josh’s pulse quickened again.

  One week until move-in day, Patrick said. One o’clock still okay?

  Josh exhaled.

  Perfect, Josh wrote back.

  Perfect, he thought. Perfect.

  3

&nbs
p; The day Patrick drove up to move in, Kai opened the door for him with a finger pressed to his lips.

  “I—” Patrick started to say, but stopped when he saw Kai’s face.

  Kai stepped silently to the side, so Patrick had a clear view into the hallway. Josh had his back turned to them both, and he was writhing around in a way that Patrick imagined was supposed to be dancing. He had huge headphones over his ears, and when he turned slightly, Patrick could see he was mouthing the words only he could hear.

  Laughter bubbled up in his throat. He felt like a reporter on Animal Planet. A wild Josh has been sighted—

  Josh swung around in a particularly enthusiastic approximation of a jazz square, saw them both and nearly fell over. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and he pushed his earphones back onto his shoulders.

  “Duuuuude,” Kai stated. “Epic.”

  “What’s up, Patrick?” Josh said, his voice sounding a bit high and breathless. “You here with your moving truck?”

  “Oh God, right,” Kai said, slapping his forehead with his hand. “I totally forgot you were moving in today.”

  “Did you think he drove five hours up from Fresno to visit?” Josh asked.

  “Shut up,” Kai said. “We’re really awesome. Of course he’d drive five hours just to see us. You got much stuff? Let’s do this.”

  “I’m going to wake up Mike,” Josh said.

  It was nearly one p.m. on a Saturday, and yet somehow Patrick was not surprised that Mike was still asleep.

  “You want to jump on his bed,” Kai said.

  “Dude, obviously,” Josh said, and disappeared down the hallway.

  Kai rolled his eyes, then followed Patrick out to where he parked the truck. “Is your mom here?”

  As if on cue, his mom hopped out of the passenger seat, waving enthusiastically. Patrick was pretty sure his mom would have wanted to marry Kai, if she were single and he wasn’t nearly twenty years younger than her. Actually, he wasn’t so sure she cared about that last part.

  “Kai, so good to see you,” she said, squeezing his arm, and oh God, she was blushing.

  Patrick’s dad appeared then, still disgruntled from the traffic coming up, muttering something about this snotty city with no parking. When he saw Kai, he schooled his features into a polite expression and held out his hand.