Riding With Brighton(55)

“Yeah, and she’s making a gallows out of that poor girl.”

“This is some badass shit. Is she a hardcore feminist?”

“She’s a hardcore activist.” I pull him to the next display the wall. “She wouldn’t agree with me. She just looks at it as being a mom. All these issues somehow concern me, Cooper, and Paisley. These cute little forest animals with the deformities and gas masks are her concern for the world her kids and grandkids are gonna be living in. More deformed animals… note the large breasts on those chickens…. That’s her anti-GMOs and general concern for the food we’re eating. That’s her being concerned about Cooper living in an oversexed world.”

“Jesus, that’s creepy,” he says about the little girls who manage to look like full-grown women with their inappropriate clothes, blown-out hair, and painted-on faces.

“I agree. But it’s real. Have you seen what a fifth-grade girl looks like these days?”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed.”

“I guess it’s just as much about Paisley, just like the Deconstructing the Myth pieces. Paisley loves Barbie and makeup and princesses and all that crap, and it drives Mom crazy. Actually,” I say, moving on down to The System series with all the creepy little kids with wires and buttons and zoned-out eyes, “I think she probably had to worry about me the least. All I am is gay.”

“Doesn’t seem like she would worry about that.” He snickers.

“No. Not at all.” I stop in front of the He’s Gay! Stay Away! series, which is her least offensive by far. It’s just a bunch of little boys who look like me when I was ten doing all the normal things I used to do.

Jay laughs. “That’s funny. And awesome. God, I’m such a jackass for saying that shit I did to you this morning about not seeming gay.”

“That’s the whole point of a lot of this. Deconstructing stereotypes. It’s not your fault. It’s what you were taught. And besides, I think that statement was more about you than it was about me.”

“Maybe,” he agrees. “So, you used to like to dress up like a pirate?”

“Still do.”

“Yeah? I bet you look good in an eye patch and a pirate hat.”

“So good,” I say with a smirk. He’s staring at me now, and his eyes are all flirty and the corner of his mouth is curved up and looking mischievous. So I kiss him.

God, I can’t stop kissing him. It’s about all I want to do when I look at him. When I can no longer suppress my urge to lay him down on the carpet, I pull away, shaking my head and pushing the sleeve of my sweatshirt into my mouth. “Come on. I’ll show you where she works.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, his breathing a little uneven.

I lead him to the front of the room and down the hallway. Her workspace is a completely different environment. It’s messy and chaotic and feels more like her. There are pieces of all of us in here: sculptures and bowls, drawings and paintings, books and magazines. There are even a few Barbie dolls that Paisley left behind.

“Jesus, are you guys all a bunch of artistic geniuses?” Jay asks, letting go of my hand so he can look at our art Mom has tacked on the wall.

“Honestly, I think Paisley has the most potential. Although the imagination Cooper’s got is mind-blowing.” I hop up on one of her long tables and watch Jay as he inspects every single piece on the wall.

“This one kind of sucks.” He laughs, looking at the drawing of my mom that looks like it was done by a preschooler and has my dad’s signature in the corner.

“He tries, but you know, they’re total opposites in a lot of ways. Their brains for example; they work in completely different ways.”

“But it works.”

“Yeah, it does.”

He turns and comes to me, standing between my knees, his hands gripping my thighs. “We’re opposites.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

“How so?”

“You’re spontaneous. I have a planner on my phone that I live by. You’re good with your hands, I’m not.”

“Unless it involves balls,” I remind him.

He smirks at me. “Yeah, I can handle balls. But I can’t build or create or any of that. But you can.”

“I’m a total scatterbrain, and your shit’s always neat and organized,” I offer.

“I don’t like being the center of attention, and you love it.”

I laugh at that one. “You don’t like being the center of attention Mr. Star Athlete, Golden Boy of Spring Valley High?”

“No, I hate it. But you wear all those shirts that are meant to draw attention, I can hear your voice and laughter across the cafeteria every day, and you stroll into class late and then make a scene every period….”

“Okay, I get it. Jesus, I didn’t realize I was such an attention whore.”

“You are, but it’s okay.” He leans in and kisses my neck. It sends shivers over my body, and I’m ready to be done with this conversation, but apparently he’s not. “I love math. I’m guessing you don’t.”

“Hate it,” I agree.

“I need proof, reasonable explanations, and definitive answers, and you like possibility and open ends.”