Two Imaginary Boys (3/5)

"So, uh, Elodie says you two are pretty sure that our aunt's—uh—targets are Marcus Academy students. Right?"

I nodded. "What else did she figure out?" I asked after I swallowed the bite of sandwich I was working on.

"She thinks they're going to burn down Whitby Hall on the night of the twenty-first. Technically very early in the morning on the twenty-second. And, she thinks students from a specific homeroom are the ones meant to be the actual sacrifices, and they're being—uh, the word she used was 'prepped'—somehow, magically, I don't know—by their homeroom teacher." Leo paused, presumably to give me time to think or respond.

"Okay. Sounds like roughly the same level of weirdness she was at before so far."

He chuckled at that. "Uh, yeah, I'll say. Anyway, so now she wants to a) stop their teacher from prepping them and b) try to get as many students out of Whitby Hall on the night of the solstice as possible."

"Did she say how she's going to do that?"

"Yeah. But, um—this is where this starts to have real-life consequences even if none of the rest of it is real. If I tell you any more, you'll be—um. Involved. Are you sure you want—"

"Leo. I'm already involved." I glanced at the door that lead back to the shop, but it was of course closed, so I couldn't actually see if anyone was listening. Not that I expected anyone to.

"Right. Yeah. Okay, so. The teacher in question is Katherine Catesby. Her method is a class motto—uh, all the homerooms have their own mottos. In Latin. Usually the students come up with them, but I'm guessing Catesby was told to assign a specific one for this class. Or maybe everyone was and only Catesby's was—like—magic. I don't know. Anyway. The class motto is an incantation, and it's supposed to somehow make them sleep through the night of the twenty-first without waking up for any reason if they repeat it enough times."

"Go on."

"You're taking this a lot better than I did so far. Right, so, Ms. Catesby. Elodie's going to do something to get her out of the way. She promised me she wouldn't actually hurt her, so, uh—yeah. That doesn't sound fishy at all, right? Here's the best part: I'm supposed to run her classes in her absence."

I couldn't help but giggle at that. "Oh my god. But we—you just graduated, right? Anyone who's not a freshman will recognize you."

"Jamie. I'm six feet tall. I wear a size forty jacket. And you're worried about people recognizing me?"

It took me a minute to put together what he was saying. "Wait, so, you're not just going to sub for Ms. Catesby. She wants you to pass yourself off as Ms. Catesby?"

Leo nodded, eyes wide.

"Like, is she—um—tall? Or what?"

"She's not exactly short, but she's not as tall as me, either. And she's definitely thinner. Elodie says she's going to glamour me for it and I just have to believe it'll work. And wear makeup and a women's suit. Luckily for me her hair's about the same length as mine."

"Can't wait to see it," I told him.

He laughed. "Uh, yeah. Like, I always thought it was unfair that I couldn't wear the uniform skirt when I was in school just because I'm supposed to be a boy, but this is not what I had in mind."

'Supposed to be a boy' were the exact words he used, and they haunted me from the moment he said them. I didn't have language to describe myself then, and I strongly suspect Leo had the same problem. I'd already felt a growing sense of kinship with him over the course of that summer, but that choice of words seemed to confirm everything I'd dared wonder about him. I was dazzled by how useful and accurate a phrase it was, too, for a feeling that had been evading me since I'd started puberty. It's never exactly been that I was a man, or a boy. But I was only supposed to be a woman. Thank god no one cares anymore.

In the moment, all I could do was laugh giddily with him. "Wait, you have to actually teach her classes, too."

Leo nodded gravely. "Elodie's going to grade the homework and make the lesson plans, which is good because actually coming up with class material is completely beyond me. And she's going to buy me some clothes and makeup. Getting people to cover me at work without Dad noticing is going to be—um—fun. But I think I can pull that off, at least."

"Sounds like an adventure," I told him. "I'm envious."

And then his eyes lit up in a way that made me immediately regret my last sentence. "You're envious, huh?"

"No," I said, but the tone of my voice betrayed me.

"You know, if there's a sub every once in a while—say, if Ms. Catesby has—oh, I don't know, some kind of recurring illness—you could cover for me."

I opened my mouth, and closed it. All kinds of doubts ran through my mind, but, "Well, I guess if you can do it, I don't see why I couldn't. How would we get me past the school's office, though? If I'm not even pretending to be Ms. Catesby." Most of those students' parents paid a lot of money to put them through that school.

Leo shrugged. "Just don't go to the office. Don't get caught."

"But—"

He winked. "You're a brilliant witch. Right?"

I'd never dared try and use witchcraft for anything like that before. Nothing that had stakes that seemed real. "But if I fail, I could get us all in real trouble. What if they call the cops on me?"

Leo shook his head. "Blame it all on Ms. Catesby. I'll take care of it."

"Can you take care of it?"

"If this works, it'll make me less likely to get caught skipping out of work. And if I get caught there, my dad will find out about it." He paused and must have seen me looking doubtful, because he added, "Jamie, if anything happens, I will do everything in my power to make sure the consequences land on me. And you don't have to do it if you don't want to. Just—I think you can do this. And I thiiiiiink you kind of want to. Far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping you."

I nodded slowly and looked at the floor. I never bought Leo's notion that he could keep me out of trouble if I got caught for a second, even though I think he was naive enough to believe it himself. But it was intriguing. And a unique opportunity to test my own craft. So I decided to take it.

That weekend, I took Saturday off and went to visit Elodie with Leo. She was doubtful at first, but he convinced her it was a good idea to let me help, and I convinced her that I was actually willing to take the risk. I got to see Leo in a skirt and makeup and he looked fantastic even if the cut and colors were a little somber for him. We talked about how to act in the classroom until well into the night. I didn't notice how late it was until Leo checked the time and said something.

That was the first time I ever collaborated with a group on any project I actually cared about, and it opened my eyes. I felt like a whole new person, or like I'd found a version of myself I didn't know I could be. It was so much fun.

A little less than three weeks after that was my first day teaching. A Wednesday. I barely slept the night before. By the time I finished gelling my fro into submission so I could put it in a bun at the nape of my neck, I was dizzy with nerves, even with the talisman I'd made. But I walked to the academy anyway, and entered where Elodie had told me to.

The classroom was easy enough to find. Leo even left me a reassuring note in Ms. Catesby's desk in enthusiastic cursive with little hearts and daisies doodled all over it. All I had to do for homeroom was explain that I was a sub (I named myself Ms. Henderson) and make sure everyone stayed in their seats and was quiet.

The most nerve-wracking incident of the day was how the seniors in Classical Mythology giggled when they saw me. When I asked what was funny, they wouldn't respond, but other than that they behaved surprisingly well. And before I knew it, classes were done for the day. I slipped out unnoticed.

Leo had a lot less free time once he started "teaching," of course. Some days, he had to go to work immediately after classes, stealing time from his shift in between to change clothes in his car and get something to eat. He stopped dropping in at the antique store in the mornings like he used to. But on the weekends, he started picking me up from work to get dinner, or meeting me at the pizza parlor.

And that was how, one very rainy night in November, I ended up staying overnight at his house. We sat on the edge of his bed while we drank our cocoa in our fresh, dry clothes.

"I'm having a lot of fun in that classical mythology course," I told him. "Wish we'd had that at my high school."

He chuckled. "Yeah, it's perfect for you. Weird for me, though. I've taken classes with most of the kids in it."

Little did we know that a couple weeks after that, a pair of boys from the class would approach us at the pizza parlor.

"Hi, Ms. Catesby," one of them muttered.

Leo turned pale and tried to pretend he didn't know what they meant. They and I had a good snicker at that.

"Enjoying your lesbian love affair?" the other one asked, emboldened but still quiet. Turned out that one was an ex of his. Leo shushed him, and they moved on.

But when we were in Leo's room, Leo still hadn't caught on that his pupils from that class knew who he was but weren't (yet) saying anything. "We wanted to see how long he could get away with it," one of them would tell me the month after.

"Speaking of weird, is this—uh—" he stammered, when we were in his room and almost finished with our cocoa and had barely said a word to each other. We'd already had a little under an hour to talk at the pizza parlor. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking when I invited you up here—"

"I'm surprised you're more worried about that than your aunt," I told him, smiling and not answering his question.

Leo groaned. "Don't remind me. You want a ride home?"

"No," I told him. "Not unless you're sick of me."

"I'm not, it's just—I'm getting flashbacks, that's all."

"Flashbacks of what?"

Leo bit his lip and put his mug on the floor, then pulled his feet up onto the edge of his bed so he was hugging his knees. "Why did I say that? Now I have to tell you."

I wasn't about to correct him.

"Do you have any idea how many relationships have died in this room?"

Dramatic. A little anxiety-inducing. Highly intriguing. I mirrored the position he was sitting in. "Nope."

He chuckled. "I think I've lost count. Probably less than twenty, but not by a lot."

"Oh my god, Leo. What did you do?"

"I slept with them!” he said. “Because it was expected. At first I didn't know any better. I thought we just weren't right for each other. Then I thought maybe I was gay, but that wasn't it either, because the same thing happened with the guys. And I still miss some of them, too, but I couldn't stay with them. I couldn't stop thinking about what we'd done, and it would drive me crazy until I stopped seeing them."

"Uh, why?"

I'd done some things with several girls by then, and at the time I was still stuck in their mentality of it not counting as sex no matter how many orgasms were involved because they all wanted to keep thinking of themselves as good little virgins who'd find a nice boy and marry him some day. So I wanted to know how Leo felt, but I also wondered if he'd be able to grant me some insight into why a couple of my former friends (with whom I'd done said things with) had stopped talking to me back in high school.

"Because sex is gross," he said, like it was common sense, as he scowled at the carpet.

"Is it? Or were your partners just really bad in bed?"

"They were all different. And it was always gross. It wasn't even them. Just being inside my own body when I'm turned on is—" he shuddered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dump that on you. Please don't—uh, I guess 'break up' isn't the right word for it. You know what I mean."

I didn't know what to say to that. After a few seconds, I put my arm around his shoulders. Then I remembered what I'd said before. "Hey, I only like imaginary boys, remember?"

"Ha. Right. Sorry."

I wish I'd asked him more questions. Or at least elaborated on what I meant. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure he thought I was saying I wasn't actually attracted to him. That we couldn't have an intimate "relationship"—only an odd friendship.

I didn't want to tell him how I felt about him because I was afraid he'd think I did want sex and was simply hiding my disappointment. And for the rest of my life, I could never shake the fact that he most likely never knew how much I loved him.

The only thing that puts my mind at ease is the memory of how, in the middle of the night—since I didn't want to leave, and he certainly didn't give me the slightest hint that he wanted me to leave after we put the above exchange behind us, and there was no point putting me in a guest room where I'd be more likely to run into Orsina since we'd established that neither of us wanted to bone the other—I woke up with my arms around him. And I woke up because he was turning to face me. Maybe asleep, maybe not. And once he'd turned around, he hugged me back. And we stayed that way well into the morning, even after both of us had woken up. Neither of us ever said a word about it.

Eventually, I had to get up to use the bathroom. It would only take a few minutes. And it was only just down the hall. I didn't hear anyone else outside while I was in there. But when I opened the door, a woman I recognized but hadn't met was waiting for me.

We stared each other in the eye, poker-faced, for several excruciating seconds. She stared into my soul, but I couldn't see anything at all. The grey of her eyes was like a fog hiding everything about her from me.

Then I put on a big old smile. "You must be Leo's aunt! Sorry I made you wait," I said in a chipper, piercing voice so high it might very well have woken Jonathan (who had recently taken to waking up around noon and would never really get out of the habit). Then I made a beeline for Leo's room before she could get a word in.

"She keeps asking about you," he'd tell me the next week in his car, in a McDonald's parking lot in another town. We were too spooked to go anywhere closer to home. I started seeing her in my dreams again, too, so I stopped subbing for Leo at the academy.

"She looks about Elodie's age, but you can tell she's not," I said, to see if he'd correct me.

For a few seconds, he had nothing to say to that. Then he chuckled nervously. "You know, I never thought of it that way. But you're right." We let the implication—that ten people had died for that faux youthfulness—remain unspoken. "Actually, Dad might be kind of the same. I always thought he kept his head shaved because he'd gone bald, but—but now I have to wonder."

I never did meet Mr. Marchetti, so I couldn't comment.

After we finished eating we drove, aimlessly, alternating between talking about our plans for the next month and lighter subjects. Elodie and Leo were planning a party to get the students out of the dorm on the night of the solstice, but they were still struggling to figure out where they'd hold it.

The Marchetti house was out, for obvious reasons. Most of Elodie and Leo's friends who weren't still students had graduated and now lived too far away to be helpful. Elodie knew the owners of the pizza parlor, but even if she could persuade them to help, she didn't want to get them in trouble. The best option they had seemed to be the conference room in the hotel Leo had been working in. He'd since moved on to shadowing administrators (including my own father) at the steel mill during the night shift, but he still had keys for the hotel. Even so, it wasn't a good option. Only after we ran into his students/former classmates at the pizza parlor did I have an idea.

"What if you just held it in one of the classrooms?" I asked. The fear from my encounter with Orsina had worn off by then. It was the weekend, and we were in the back room of Tammy's store for my lunch break.

"In one of the classrooms," Leo repeated uncertainly.

"Yeah. Like, most of the teachers live off campus, right? And the ones that don't live in the dorms. So—when's lights out?"

"Ten."

"Ten. So like, Elodie says the solstice is 12:20, right? Let's say students start sneaking out of their rooms at eleven. That gives the teachers time to fall asleep, but they're still out before the time they'll burn the dorms at."

Leo took another minute or so to think about it. "So on the one hand, more people will come, because it's so close. On the other hand, there's more of a risk that we get caught, because the noise and light from the party could wake teachers up."

"So hold it as far from the dorms as you can."

Leo laughed. "You're not taking the houses nearby into account. But they'll all know to be careful enough to be quiet." I could see the new idea in his eyes before he even articulated it. "Oh! The gym. There's a basement gym. That'd be perfect. We just need to get the keys and make sure the janitor doesn't see us. I guess I'll have to look into those shift times." He hesitated and smiled at the table for a minute, then kissed my cheek. "You're brilliant, Jamie."

I grinned back at him. "I know."

Elodie and Leo took care of everything else. Before I knew it, it was the week of the solstice. I hadn't planned on going to the party, but I learned that Leo had assumed otherwise.

"Elodie's coming all the way from Bryn Mawr. Bet she'll be disappointed if she doesn't get to see you," he told me the weekend before, at the antique shop just after closing.

"Leo, I'll stick out like a sore thumb. And I don't even know any of these kids."

"You're not going to be seen by anyone but the students, anyway, so there's no one dangerous to stick out to. You know most of them already."

"I can count the number of times I've met them on one hand. I barely remember their names."

"They keep asking about you, you know. The ones from Classical Mythology." Which had more or less turned into a party-planning class by then.

Leo's arguments were all beside his point, of course, which was that he personally wanted me to come. This is another one of those things that I've wondered about over the years. He was certainly persistent in his attempts to try and get me to go to the party, but it never once came off as urgent. If he knew then it would be the last time we'd see each other, he did a disturbingly good job of hiding it.

Around 10:30 on Thursday, he picked me up from the park. My outfit was as close to the school uniforms as I could get it: white dress shirt and black sweater vest, but I didn't have grey pants so I had to go with black for that, too. My blazer was grey, but too dark. I didn't have a red tie, so I made do with a maroon scarf that I wore in a bow. I wore a grey trench coat over it all, and my hair picked out. Leo wore a pink sweater under his brown peacoat, with blue hearts on a white stripe across the chest, and a bracelet made of connected clusters of little gold flowers.

He'd gotten there before me. When I approached, he came out of the car and gave me a long, lingering hug. I didn't question it. "You look so handsome," he told me after letting go.

"And you're as beautiful as always," I said back. Inwardly, I glowed from the compliment all the way to our destination.