I’ll Give You the Sun(45)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Then a deeper groan, which must be Guillermo’s. Because they’re lovers! Of course. How stupid could I be? The English guy is Guillermo’s boyfriend, not his long-lost son. But he sure seemed straight when he was taking pictures of me in church and when he was talking to me outside the studio yesterday too. So attentive. Did I misread him? Or maybe he’s bi? And what about all Guillermo’s hyper-heterosexual artwork?

And not to judge, but cradle-rob much? There’s probably a quarter century between them.

Should I leave? They seem to have settled down and are now just bantering back and forth. I listen closely. The English guy is trying to convince Guillermo to go to some type of sauna with him later this afternoon. Definitely gay. Good. This is great news, actually. The boycott will be a snap to maintain, oranges or no oranges.

I make a bunch of noise, stamping on the floor, clearing my throat several times, a few more stomps, then step around the corner.

In front of me is a fully clothed Guillermo and a fully clothed English guy on opposite sides of a chessboard. There’s no indication they were just in the throes of passion. Each has a half-eaten donut in his hand.

“Very clever, aren’t we?” the English guy says to me at once. “Never would’ve suspected you of such subterfuge, whoever you are.” With his free hand, he reaches into the messenger bag resting beside him and pulls out the orange. In a flash it’s airborne, then in my hand, and his face has broken into five million pieces of happiness. “Nice catch,” he says.

Victorious, he takes a bite of donut, then moans theatrically.

Okay. Not gay. Not lovers, they both just appear to like donuts more than your average bear. And what am I going to do now? Because my invisibility uniform doesn’t seem to work with this guy. And ditto the vinegar-soaked mirror and extinguished candle stub.

I stuff the orange in with the onion and pull my cap down.

Guillermo gives me a curious look. “So you’ve already met the resident guru? Oscar is trying to enlighten me as usual.” Oscar. He has a name and it’s Oscar, not that I care, though I do like the way Guillermo says it: Oscore! Guillermo continues. “Every day, something else. Today it is Bikram yoga.” Ah, the sauna. “You know this yoga?” he asks me.

“I know that’s a real lot of bacteria in one hot sweaty room,” I tell Guillermo.

He drops his head back and laughs heartily. “She is so crazy with the germs, Oscore! She think Frida Kahlo is going to kill me.” This relaxes me. He relaxes me. Who would’ve thought Guillermo Garcia, The Rock Star of the Sculpture World, would have this soothing effect on me? Maybe he’s the meadow!

A surprised look has crossed Oscar’s face as he studies Guillermo, then me. “So how did the two of you meet?” he asks.

I rest my portfolio and bag against an easy chair that’s smothered in unopened mail. “He caught me on the fire escape spying on him.”

Oscar’s eyes widen but his attention’s back on the chessboard. He moves a piece. “And you’re still sentient? Impressive.” He pops the remaining piece of donut in his mouth and closes his eyes as he slowly chews. I can see the rapture taking him over. Jesus. That must be some donut. I tear my eyes off him, hard to do.

“She win me over,” Guillermo says while studying Oscar’s move. “Like you win me over, Oscore. Long time ago.” His face darkens. “Ay, cabrón.” He starts muttering in Spanish as he nudges a piece forward.

“G. saved my life,” Oscar says with affection. “And checkmate, mate.” He leans back on his chair, balancing on the rear legs, says, “I hear they’re giving lessons down at the senior center.”

Guillermo groans, for the first time not donut-related, and flips the board so pieces go flying in every direction. “I kill you in your sleep,” he says, which makes Oscar laugh, then Guillermo picks up a white bakery bag and holds it out to me.

I decline, way too nervous to eat.

“‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,’” Oscar says to me, still balancing on the back legs of his chair. “William Blake.”

Guillermo says to him, “Yes, very good, one of your twelve steps, Oscore?” I look at Oscore. Is he in AA? I didn’t know you could be an alcoholic if you weren’t old. Or maybe he’s in NA? Didn’t he just say something about no drug being as good as that donut. Is he a drug addict? He did say he has impulse-control issues.

“Indeed,” Oscar says with a smile. “The step known only to the in crowd.”

“How did you save his life?” I ask Guillermo, dying to know.

But it’s Oscar who answers. “He found me half dead from pills and booze in the park and somehow recognized me. According to him: ‘I hoist Oscore over my shoulders like a deer’”—he’s slipped into a perfect Guillermo Garcia impersonation that includes hand gestures—“‘and I carry him across town like Superman and deposit him in the loft.’” He turns back into himself. “All I know is I woke up with G.’s monstrous face in mine”—he laughs his god-awful laugh—“and had no idea how it had gotten there. It was mad. He started barking orders at me right away. Told me I could stay here if I got clean. Ordered me to go to ‘two meetings a day, understand, Oscore? The NA in the morning, the AA in the evening.’ Then, maybe because I’m English, I don’t know, he quoted Winston Churchill: ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ Understand, Oscore? Morning, noon, and night he said this to me: ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going,’ so I did. I kept going and going and now I’m at university and not dead in a ditch somewhere and that is how he saved my life. Highly abridged and sanitized. It was hell.”

And that is why there are several lifetimes in Oscar’s face.

And he is in college.

I glance down at my sneakers, thinking about that Churchill quote. What if there was a time when I was going through hell too, but I didn’t have the courage to keep going? So I just stopped. Pressed pause. What if I’m still on pause?

Guillermo says, “And to thank me for saving his life, he beat me at chess every single day since.”

I look at the two of them mirroring each other across the table and realize: They are father and son, just not by blood. I didn’t know that family members could just find each other, choose each other like they have. I love the idea. And I’d like to trade in Dad and Noah for these two.