Sugar and Spice Read online

  If he did leave his house, where would he even go? He couldn’t be outside. That came with too many variables. He couldn’t get on the highway and he didn’t want to go anywhere crowded like the beach or a shopping mall. He’d want to be somewhere dark and private where he could hide and easily observe his surroundings.

  Still pondering, he got up and refilled his water bottle. The creakiness of his joints barely even fazed him at this point. Then, something from his very first session with Connie suddenly clicked in his brain. He sat on the idea for nearly twenty minutes. He must have picked up and set down his phone more than a dozen times. Finally, when he was firmly certain that he wasn’t about to have a sudden flashback and burst into tears, he dialed Jesse’s number and hit send.

  Jesse picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” he said sounding happily surprised and a little out of breath.

  Oscar could picture him perfectly; probably wearing those tight board shorts he was so fond of with a pastel shirt, his hair slightly mussed from the wind and from running away from his crew to take this phone call in private. Oscar took a deep, grounding breath.

  “How would you like to go to the movies with me?”

  Jesse was silent for a moment. Oscar didn’t blame him. He was probably trying to figure out if he was joking or not.

  “Go to the movies as in go to the movies, or go to the movies as in watch something at your apartment?” he asked finally.

  Oscar badly wanted to take the easy out that Jesse had so conveniently provided for him, but he didn’t.

  “Go to the movies,” he clarified. “Emphasis on the go.”

  There was a slight rustling on the other end of the line. When Jesse spoke again his voice was soft and tinged with all kinds of jumbled up emotions that Oscar had no idea how to interpret.

  “When?” he asked.

  Oscar closed his eyes and took another deep breath, envisioning the stern look on Connie’s face. It was now or never.

  “I was thinking right now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jesse was finding it very difficult to keep his eyes on the road. He kept subconsciously glancing over at Oscar’s hunched form in the passenger’s seat of his Jeep. He was wearing baggy jeans and an oversized black hoodie with the hood pulled as far up over his face as it would go. His knees were tucked close to his chest and his eyes were obscured by dark sunglasses, but judging from his soft chanting and tense posture, Jesse was pretty sure they were closed underneath. Jesse kept having to forcefully turn his gaze back in the proper direction.

  He still couldn’t believe that Oscar was actually here. Or at least, in body he was. His mind seemed hundreds of miles away still. Jesse hoped, naively he knew, that wherever his boyfriend’s thoughts were taking him, it was someplace forgiving and kind. Jesse thought about turning on the radio or offering Oscar his hand, but he didn’t want to startle him. He seemed to be having a hard enough time as it was.

  “Would it help if I talked to you?” he inquired after a couple of miles.

  Oscar didn’t answer, so Jesse took that as a no and kept driving.

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to dingy independent theater in a less than savory part of town. The theater was so low budget that it didn’t even have a marquee. Evidently you had to go inside to see what was playing and buy tickets.

  The location had been Oscar’s idea. He wanted to be somewhere where nobody in their right mind would be on the lookout for celebrities. It didn’t matter that he was completely covered from head to toe, that he’d aged twelve years, or that he was completely indistinguishable from any other late twenties Mexican man in the city. They still had to take every precaution.

  Jesse parked as close to the entrance as he could, even though he was nervous about leaving his expensive car unattended in a neighborhood like this, and quickly ran to the passenger side to coax a shaking Oscar out of the vehicle. The whole thing was similar to watching a baby doe being born.

  By the time Jesse had gotten off the phone with Oscar, rushed through the rest of his shots for the day and sped all the way to Oscar’s apartment, it was already late afternoon. Now the sun was just starting to dip lower in the sky. Oscar was staring up at it, dumbstruck, which made Jesse glad that he’d opted for the sunglasses.

  Jesse reached out and put a hand on Oscar’s back and gently started urging him forward. Oscar was walking with one arm outstretched in front of him like a blind person, but that illusion was immediately ruined by the fact that his head kept whipping in all directions, desperate to take in every new and exciting facet of the parking lot. He looked like an insane person, which was a good thing, Jesse thought. Maybe it would keep them from being robbed.

  When they entered the lobby, Jesse’s eyes were instantly assaulted by stained purple carpet that was peeling up toward the edges, movie posters that hadn’t been swapped out in a decade, and the permeating smell of stale popcorn. Oscar kept his head down and his sunglasses on as they approached the young woman at the counter. She was glancing down at what appeared to be some sort of magazine, but upon closer inspection turned out to actually be a comic book. Jesse’s initial opinion of this girl improved by several notches. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

  The girl, her name tag read Casey, fumbled with her comic book in an attempt to hide it from sight even though the cat was already out of the bag.

  “Welcome to Village 8 Cinema,” she said. “How can I help you guys today?”

  Jesse gave her one of his patented smiles.

  “What are you guys playing here?” he asked.

  She diligently spouted off five different movie titles, only one of which sounded vaguely familiar. Jesse asked for two tickets for that one.

  As Casey was ringing him up and printing out the tickets, she gave Jesse a curious side-eye, the kind of look that said, you look oddly familiar. It made him feel a little bit nervous, or maybe it was just residual nerves radiating from Oscar, who was standing at his side and hanging onto his arm for dear life.

  “On second thought,” Jesse added, just to put both of their minds at ease. “How much to buy out the whole theater?”

  Casey’s eyebrows shot up skyward and her fingers paused on her cash register.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “I’d like the whole room to myself,” Jesse elaborated. “How much?”

  “Uh, give me a second,” she said skeptically. She then turned away and had a whispered, but still completely audible conversation with her manager via walkie talkie. The consensus seemed to be that he was out of his mind, but if he really wanted a theater to himself he could achieve so with just three hundred measly dollars. Jesse forked over the cash like it was nothing.

  “Uh, did you want me to print out all fifty stubs?” Casey asked.

  Jesse shook his head.

  “Just the two will be fine, thanks.”

  She handed them over and pointed them in the direction of the correct theater, as if they could get lost when there were only five options to choose from. Jesse thanked her and slid one of the stubs into Oscar’s back pocket.

  “A souvenir from our first date,” he said.

  Oscar smiled, but it looked ghastly and pained, reminiscent of when Jesse’s father had developed kidney stones but didn’t want to worry them all. Jesse bought a large popcorn from a bored pimply boy and led Oscar into their private screening room as fast as he could. Oscar wanted to sit in the very front right next to the exit, but Jesse managed to convince him to move a couple of rows back to save them both the neck strain.

  Oscar kept his hood on and his arms crossed, but he did finally take off his sunglasses. His eyes were fleeting rapidly between the screen and the ramp through which they’d come. Jesse forewent the armrest in favor of snuggling in close to Oscar and squeezing his hand tight. Physical contact, he’d noticed, was one of the few things that helped Oscar come back to himself during the roughest of times.

  After a couple of minutes,
the lights dimmed and the brightly-colored commercials gave way to dark and suspenseful movie trailers, followed shortly thereafter by a reminder to turn off all cellular phones. Neither of them heeded the warning since they were the only ones in the theater. Then the production company’s logo was flashing and it was time for the movie to begin.

  Oscar stayed tense and vigilant all throughout the opening credits. Jesse wasn’t having the easiest time relaxing either—he was too worried about Oscar—but from what he could gather, the movie was a typical dumb action flick. There was a buff guy with guns and a terrible Russian accent running through the desert while landmines exploded behind him for no reason. The scene dragged on for the longest time without telling us what he was doing or why, but in the movie’s defense, it did look pretty cool. Finally, when the first sequence was over, it was time to meet another character. She was evidently the main guy’s daughter, whom Jesse was surprised and delighted to find was being played by none other than Ava Rose. She was wearing a blonde wig and tattered clothing while looking at her sweaty action dad in exasperation. Jesse laughed out loud the second he saw her narrowed eyes and puffed out lips blown up across the 30-foot screen.

  “Remember that girl my mom set me up with?” he whispered in Oscar’s ear.

  Oscar kept his eyes on the screen and nodded.

  “That’s her.”

  At that Oscar finally seemed to loosen up. He glanced casually at Jesse and then back at the screen.

  “Her wig cap is showing,” he said, deadpan.

  Jesse snorted and offered him some popcorn. Oscar took a generous handful and shoved it all into his mouth at once. His shoulders were slack for the first time this evening and his eyes seemed to be moving across the screen like he was reading the pages of a book. He was so focused on every detail that he seemed to have momentarily forgotten to be a nervous wreck. Jesse rested his head on his shoulder happily.

  The movie ended up being much more fun to make fun of than it was to watch. Oscar was an expert at picking out continuity errors; apparently it was impossible to grow up on a set without picking up on that kind of thing. Also, Jesse had funny stories about at least a dozen people in the supporting cast. There was Ava and Lavender whom he’d fake dated, Benjamin Bradshaw whom Leah had dated for real at one point, plus the people he only knew based on half-drunk encounters at celebrity nightclubs. Oscar was loving the commentary and kept asking Jesse follow-up questions. By the time the second half rolled around they were both cackling, throwing popcorn at each other, and taking turns imitating the main guy’s accent. Jesse didn’t want it to end.

  But just like all good things in life, it couldn’t last forever. The old light sconces on the walls re-illuminated, and the ending credits started playing to a song that didn’t fit the tone of the movie at all. Jesse stood up and offered Oscar his hand. Oscar took it and pulled himself up, hood flopping back and exposing his gorgeous face. Although he had stopped smiling, Jesse was happy to note that Oscar had not gone right back into being closed off. His posture was awkward, but in the shifting light from the letters moving across the screen, Jesse could see that his eyes were fully present. He was looking at Jesse with a heartbreaking mixture of hopefulness and regret. Jesse brought his hands up and cupped his boyfriend’s cheeks.

  “Hey,” he whispered, trying to convey all the love he felt for Oscar through his eyes and fingertips. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Oscar closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with me being like this.”

  Jesse dropped his hands and dug them into the fabric of Oscar’s hoodie, pulling him close. He kissed him slowly and deeply until the screen behind them went dark.

  “Don’t apologize for being you,” Jesse whispered, voice shaking. “I love you exactly the way you are.”

  Oscar looked at him skeptically for a moment and then nodded. He put his sunglasses back on and the two of them walked out of that horrible movie theater hand-in-hand.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I left the house,” Oscar told Connie the moment she sat down for their next session.

  Her eyes widened and she adjusted her grip on her pen.

  “Really? Where did you go?”

  Oscar pulled out the movie ticket—which he may or may not have slept with under his pillow—and slid it across the card table as evidence. She held it gingerly in her hands and gave an approving nod before setting it back down.

  “How was it?” she asked, pen at the ready.

  “It was good,” Oscar answered honestly. “And bad. It was really terrifying. It still is. I had to drink three cups of calming tea and some hard liquor before I could go to sleep last night, but it was nice to spend some time with Jesse someplace else. I always worry that he’s gonna get bored of coming over here for every single one of our dates.”

  Connie finished jotting something down and looked back up at him.

  “Interesting. And you didn’t have any panic attacks?”

  Oscar shook his head.

  “No, I almost did in the car, but I knew Jesse was there, so I managed to keep it at bay. The rest of the time I was too busy taking everything in and worrying about being recognized to freak out.”

  “And is it something you think you might want to try again?” she asked.

  Oscar shrank back in his seat.

  “I don’t know…”

  Connie didn’t miss a beat.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  Oscar took a deep breath. It was time for some answers.

  “Of... of being trapped.” he said.

  “So you just trap yourself inside of your apartment instead?”

  Oscar shook his head.

  “It's different. I’m in control here. More in control than I can ever possibly be anywhere else. And if something does happen, at least I know where all the exits are.”

  Connie nodded as if that made perfect sense and asked, “And why do you think you developed this particular fear?”

  Another deep breath. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Oscar forced the words out through gritted teeth.

  “Because of my past trauma.”

  Connie set her notepad aside and folded her hands in her lap.

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  Oscar laughed bitterly.

  “Not in sixty minutes or less.”

  “I’ve got time,” Connie assured. “Consider me off the clock.”

  Oscar gave her an assessing look. She was radiating earnestness in that annoying way she did sometimes. He closed his eyes, sat up straight and started telling her his life story.

  “When I was a kid, before I landed my role on Garrett’s Guide, my family used to pack up the car and drive from El Paso to LA every time I landed an audition. It was fun at first. I always loved road trips, plus it was nice to get a change of scenery. El Paso isn’t the prettiest place in the world. After a couple of years though, it got exhausting. We never got to do anything fun because all of my parent’s extra cash was being funneled into gas and hotel rooms. My mom wanted us all to just move out here, but my dad refused to quit his accounting job until I actually booked something substantial.

  “Only, it was starting to look like I was never going to. I kept seeing all kinds of kids who were way worse at acting than me landing roles that should have been mine for dumb and usually racist reasons. One time I even had a casting director scoff at me in disgust for being a Mexican actor who couldn’t speak Spanish. He actually shooed me out of the room and shouted, ‘What good even are you then?’”

  “I was starting to get discouraged. I wanted to give up. I felt like I was wasting everyone’s money and time. My mom knew this, of course, and she had to beg me to go on one last audition. She promised that this time would be different and that she had a good feeling about it. We drove out just me and her that time. I figured my dad was mad about something or just busy with work. Either wa
y, my mom was right. The audition went great and I got a callback for the next week and eventually got the part.”

  Oscar fell quiet.

  “That’s amazing,” Connie said gently. “It must have felt like a dream come true.”

  “It was,” he nodded, “for a little while. I loved being on set, but it took up so much of my time. There weren’t as many child labor laws back then so I pretty much worked full time and went to school full time and slept in my trailer during breaks. I hardly got to see my parents and I didn’t have any friends that weren’t trying to negatively influence me in some way. Still, I was pretty happy. Even before the show hit it big, I was making good money. Enough to buy my parents a huge house and a car. My dad still insisted on working though. He didn’t want me to have to pay his way. That meant my mom was always the one on set with me while he was at his day job.

  “For some reason my mom was always a completely different person on set from the one she was at home. She dressed more provocatively and smoked all kinds of things and told me stuff I already knew just to make herself sound smart. I didn’t find out until afterwards that it was because she was sleeping with one of the producers.”

  Oscar glanced over at Connie to get her reaction, but she was stone faced and silent, so he continued.

  “From what I was told, it started off as a one-time thing. A casting couch sort of arrangement to get me onto the show. Then, over the years it just kept progressing to the point where everybody knew about it except for my father and me.

  “The day he did find out, he was so angry that he woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to pack an overnight bag and get in the car. I have no idea where he wanted to take me. Some sort of hotel probably. It doesn’t really matter.”