Shine - Lauren Myracle [63]
Like Robert, shifting about once we sat down in our booth and saying, “Dang, woman. I got a wedgie.”
“I am so glad you shared that with me, Robert,” I said, making him giggle.
He was as twitchy as a dog’s hind leg, though. He kept sliding back and forth on his side of the booth, chattering about bugs and guns and dinosaurs, until out of the blue, he said, “You wanna talk about Patrick, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you brought me here. Right?”
“Well, yeah.” I shrugged, seeing no reason to lie. “You said you had something to tell me.”
He nodded, pooching out his bottom lip as if he was thinking it over. “All right, then. I heard what Bailee-Ann told you when you were at my house the other night, but Bailee-Ann’s a big fat liar.” He took a big lick of mint chocolate chip, getting ice cream on his face.
“Use a napkin,” I said, jerking one from the container and handing it to him. Instead of taking it, he tilted his face as if I should do the wiping.
“Robert, you can wipe your own mouth,” I said. “You’re a big boy.”
“I sure am,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
I was taken aback. He was eleven, and in all of three seconds he’d gone from acting like a baby to tossing out a suggestive comment, or whatever the heck he was going for.
“Just tell me about Bailee-Ann,” I said. “What’d she lie about?”
“Lots of stuff.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Well, she lied about that Saturday night, for one. I mean, Beef did drop her off. She didn’t lie about that. But guess who was back half an hour later, throwing pebbles at her window?”
“Beef dropped the others off and then came back?”
“No,” Robert said scornfully. “Tommy came and got her, and they went off together.”
Tommy and Bailee-Ann? I was confused. “Why would Tommy and Bailee-Ann go off together?”
“Just because,” he said coyly.
“Just because why?” I grabbed a napkin and wiped his dang mouth off. He grinned.
“All right, I’m gonna tell you something I ain’t told nobody else. You listening?”
I nodded.
“I thought maybe it was Beef who done it. Who beat Patrick up.”
I drew back. “Robert. Beef’s Patrick’s friend,” I said. I heard in my own ears how doggedly insistent I sounded, and it frightened me.
“Duh,” Robert said. “I know that now. But Beef doesn’t like homos, even though he’s got a buddy who’s one, and so that’s why I thought that.” He leaned in. “Beef’s teaching me how to be a man, see. We’ve had all kinds of talks. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m, like, his best friend, practically.”
Robert was not Beef’s best friend. Robert was eleven. But maybe all of his hanging out with older kids had made him think he was older, too. Maybe that explained his waggling eyebrows and stupid innuendos. Maybe being with Beef and Tommy and Bailee-Ann, with their drinking and kissing and all that, had made Robert not just hyper but hyper-sexual, if there was such a thing.
Best friend or puppy dog tagalong, I didn’t want to hurt Robert’s feelings like I did with his nonexistent chest hairs. So I said, “Oh. That’s nice.”
“Yeah, only now he’s dogging me, and it’s pissing me off.” A shadow crossed his face. He did an odd head-thrust to clear it.
“Anyway, he told me about faggots and no tears for queers and all that,” he said. “So when I heard about Patrick sucking on that gas nozzle, what was I s’posed to think?”
What was he supposed to think, indeed? Faggots? No tears for queers? I thought Beef’s calling Patrick a fucking pansy had been a onetime slip.
“So what made you decide he didn’t?” I asked. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked.
Robert shrugged. His shoulder blades were as narrow and sharp as pigeon wings. “I just plain out asked him. I said, ‘Hey, homes, you beat up that faggot?’”
“Good glory, Robert. What’d he say?”
“He said, ‘No way, homes. Beating on people ain’t cool,’” Robert recited. “I said, ‘Not even homos?’ And Beef said, ‘Not even homos. Ain’t right to beat on anyone.’”
I loosened with relief. “He’s right,” I