The Man Who Told the World Read online

  “It’s not that,” Conor said. “I think she’s mostly upset about her album. What if, after all this, you don’t get to make the music you want? That would suck.”

  Jesse shrugged, unconcerned. “Your second album can be for you.”

  Conor flopped on his bed, sighing noisily. “Okay, but what about right now? Doesn’t it bug you the way the show tries to make us into something that we’re not? They push us to sing certain songs, dress a certain way. Even the stuff we say on camera, the way they put it together, it’s not really us.” Conor had been talked into watching a few episodes of the show with Darleen and Toby the other night, and been horrified at how young and sarcastic he seemed. Also how many eye rolls he did per episode. He was going to have to start rationing them around the cameras. “I mean, I hope it’s not really us.”

  “It’s a game, Conor.” Jesse had started laying out clothes on his bed, hoping to uncover the magical combination of shirts and pants that would unlock fame and fortune for him. “We all have to play a part.”

  “But what if, in this game, we’re not knights or kings, but the little pawns? Or prawns, if you want to think bottom of the food chain.”

  “Hmm?” Jesse said, his eyes on the outfits.

  Conor got up. The conversation was frustrating enough and if he stayed, he and Jesse might start making out, which would be frustrating in a different way. “I’m going downstairs for a while.”

  Jesse nodded absently. “’kay.”

  Darleen and Toby were in the music room, and Emerson and Zane were watching something sporty on the TV, so Conor went outside and sat on the patio, looking up to where the stars would be if he could see them through the lights and smog of L.A. He tapped at the solid outline of his phone through his pocket, but he knew he had no messages, and sent none out. He just wished he had some kind of certainty within himself about what he was doing, how he felt. If there were any answers in the night sky, Conor couldn’t find them.

  The contestants had the next day off, but leaving the house seemed to require too much effort, so Conor ended up spending the morning doing yoga with Darleen and Zane out on the patio. Darleen had taught yoga back in Portland, and she was always trying to get the others in the house to join her. Shawna had been one of the few regulars—though Toby usually gamely tried a few poses—so Conor figured he and Zane were there to make Darleen not feel bad about Shawna’s absence. Or maybe Zane was some kind of yoga ringer, because he turned out to be really good, and very bendy. Just one more thing Zane was better at than Conor, along with playing the piano, singing sensitive songs, and looking cool in old t-shirts and jeans. There wouldn’t be room for the two of them on the show for much longer.

  Conor wobbled in his pose. He was thinking like Jesse, seeing everyone in competition with him. Still, it was better than his earlier train of thought, when they’d been on their backs, stretching their legs up and out, and Conor kept thinking that a lot of these poses would work as sex positions. Maybe that’s why people did yoga? Fortunately, the somewhat upside down position could explain why he’d been blushing.

  Darleen kept saying they should clear their minds, but there was just too much in Conor’s head—clearing one thing just made more room for everything beneath it. As he lay on his back in what Darleen called “corpse pose”—which struck Conor as the least relaxing name ever—he tried to imagine himself back in his room back home. It had been narrow and dusty, what with all the posters and books and stacks of his mom’s old CDs, but it had been the one place he could go and feel safe, even if it was a place where he was always alone.

  Except Derek had sat there, on the bed, studying or sneering, or touching him. Conor hadn’t spoken to him in a few weeks now. He hadn’t texted or emailed. Derek had said he wanted out and Conor supposed he should let that be the end of it. Conor just wished he had someone he could ask about Derek; find out how he was doing, if he was passing his classes, if he was okay. But no one back home knew about them; his aunt Linda had known vaguely that there was someone, but he hadn’t dared tell her Derek’s name—his fearsome reputation had likely reached even the elementary schools where she was a substitute teacher. Conor had never even told his friends, Ali and Megan, that he was gay—saying that he had hooked up with Derek, the most hated bully of their school, would likely break their brains.

  It did seem impossible now, as Conor lay on a yoga mat, shaded from the California sun, that any of those months with Derek had actually happened. How had Derek seen him, through all of Conor’s careful layers of invisibility? And even stranger, how had Derek come to want him, and to love him? That was the most impossible thing of all. Kai had wanted him, and Jesse cared for him, but Derek’s presence in his life was caught on a knife-point between a terrible accident and a miracle, and Conor could never decide which way it fell.

  “Conor?”

  He blinked up. Darleen was standing over him. They were alone on the patio; Conor wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there.

  “You seemed pretty deep in meditation,” Darleen said. “Or a little bit asleep? Either way, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Sorry. It was definitely the meditation thing—except my mind doesn’t exactly feel clear. I guess I just have stuff to figure out.”

  Darleen looked at him seriously even as her hands rolled up a yoga mat. “Meditation can reveal truths that we already know.”

  Conor tried to smile. “I think I’d need to be meditating for a lot longer for that to work. Like a million years.”

  Darleen shrugged and tucked back her hair. “Then sometimes you just gotta tell the universe to screw it. Let’s go get smoothies instead.”

  She pulled him up off the ground and they went into the house.

  The rest of the day brought no answers, just a rare and precious lazy feeling that actually had Conor savoring his boredom as he opened and closed cupboards in the kitchen, wondering what to eat. Jesse came in from his late afternoon run, skin glowing lightly with sweat and the muscles in his arms flexing as he poured himself a glass of water. Conor’s idle glance focused on Jesse as he tilted his head back and drank; a few stray drops of water mingled with sweat to slide down a slow line from his mouth and jaw, onto his throat.

  Jesse caught his look. “I need to head upstairs.” His voice was carefully neutral but his eyes spoke volumes. “Change out of these sweaty clothes.”

  “Well, you do have your outfits for the week all picked out,” Conor said wryly. He wasn’t sure what Jesse’s boundaries were now, or how he himself felt about them, but it seemed like making out was something they were both okay with, and it was a warm afternoon, one that called for long kisses and unhurried touches while lying on cool sheets. So, after a lightspeed moment of internal debate, Conor inclined his head towards the doorway that led to the stairs. Jesse smiled and set his glass down, heading for that doorway, just as Emerson walked through it.

  “Yeah, that’d be a bad idea,” he said to Jesse.

  Conor froze. He and Jesse were keeping their—whatever—secret from everyone. That everyone included Emerson was a bonus.

  “What is?” Jesse asked mildly.

  Emerson pulled a box of cereal out of the cupboard and poured some into a bowl, but not before turning the box brand-side out to the wall-mounted camera in the corner and offering a big smile. It was a jokey habit shared by the contestants that Conor had actually started, though he didn’t think Emerson was doing it ironically.

  “Let’s just say you’re not the only one happy about ol’ Jean-Michel heading home last week. Might want to hold off if you’re going upstairs. It’s gettin’ a bit loud up there.”

  Toby had shared a room with Jean-Michel. Even though the camera in the kitchen had no microphone, Conor lowered his voice. “You mean Toby’s in his room… with someone?”

  Emerson looked at him like he was an idiot and Conor started a mental tally of the remaining contestants and available crew, but before he finished, Jesse said, “Darleen, huh? About t
ime.”

  Emerson snorted. “You think this is a recent development?”

  Between them, Emerson and Jesse could run a very effective spy agency.

  Jesse folded his arms, considering. “They could play this better.”

  Emerson smirked. “From the other side of my wall, it sounds like our Toby’s playing pretty well.”

  Conor had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

  Jesse ignored Emerson and went on, running through his own thoughts. “Darleen’s been in the bottom three the last two shows. Judge’s weren’t too happy with Toby’s song last night. A romance angle would be a smart move right now.”

  Conor was surprised. “You mean just let everyone know that they’re—whatever?”

  “Why not?”

  “But it’s private, personal.”

  “It’s a good story. If it helps either of them stay on the show longer, go for it.”

  Conor blinked.

  Emerson patted Jesse on the shoulder. “Let me know if you wanna borrow a shovel for that hole you’re digging.” He strolled out of the kitchen and Conor stared after him, before turning back to Jesse.

  “So you’ll do whatever it takes to win? Except, you know, admit that you’re bi and with me.”

  Jesse glanced up at the camera and kept his face smiling. “It’s not the same thing and you know it.”

  “So if you’d hooked up with one of the girls, you’d be broadcasting it? Was that originally part of the plan? Did you have your eye on someone and she got cut?”

  Jesse poured himself more water, his smile still in place but his words growing more clipped. “Don’t get all self-righteous. You wanna look at your own history? I’m what—number three on list of dirty little secrets? Some might call that a pattern.”

  Conor drew himself up, not caring how it might look to the camera. “None of that was my choice.”

  Jesse dropped the smile, but his face was still calm as his voice softened. “And when you make that choice? What is it going to be?”

  Conor had no answer for him.

  Darleen was cut the next week.

  The contestants had been rehearsing their farewell songs since the start of the show. Everyone usually got a run-through with the stage band once a week of the song they’d have to sing when they were cut, so there was always a little extra reminder of what would happen if they didn’t get enough votes. Not that anyone needed reminding.

  After they’d reached the Top Ten, Darleen had asked Conor to accompany her on the piano if she was cut before him. He’d been practicing with her back at the house, but he was surprised by her request.

  “The stage band is way better than I am,” he said to her.

  “I don’t know them,” Darleen replied. “It wouldn’t mean the same.”

  “But what about Toby? He’s great on piano.” Conor had yet to see an instrument that Toby couldn’t play.

  Darleen smiled. “I love Toby—um, as a friend, of course—but, well, he’d make it all about him. Not even intentionally, just….” Conor understood what she meant, Toby’s outgoing style did make him the center of attention whenever he was onstage. Darleen reached out and tugged on his hair. “Come on, for redhead solidarity?”

  He’d agreed, even though Darleen still had those unfortunate blonde streaks from the makeover day—and even before that, it’d been a little too red to be believed—but he liked her warm and funny manner, the way she worried about what he ate, and their long discussions on old music. Darleen was his friend and it did mean something when he sat down at the piano onstage behind her to help her say goodbye.

  She’d chosen Regina Spektor’s “Us” for her last song. For weeks, the judges had been trying to push her towards sultry ballads, packaging Darleen as some kind of retro lounge singer with a purring voice, but this song was a better choice for her. Darleen’s voice was freed to soar and dip, and make weird trills along the melody. Conor did his best to keep up, to match the piano to the journey she was on. It was an interesting song; it made him think about the fame they were all chasing, with all its lyrics about monuments and tourists—but inside, it was a song about love. A relationship so amazing that statues were built about it, history books written, debates raged.

  Everything Conor had done concerning relationships had been secret and hidden. So had all his feelings, until he didn’t know how to name them anymore. What monument would he possibly build to the stolen heat from Kai? To the safe and cozy room he and Jesse retreated to?

  If he could, though, he would hang a plaque in that stupid abandoned parking lot behind the old grocery store. Site of Conor Gillis’ first blowjob, it would read, but also in larger type, the place where Derek Folsom, after a long struggle and a great deal of alcohol, had been able to call a boy and say that he loved him, even though it made him more afraid than anything he, the toughest guy in town, had ever faced.

  Conor would have a fountain, burbling and unexpected, behind the garage of his house, on the spot where Derek had kissed him.

  He would make these monuments and maybe, somehow, when they were built, Conor could look at them as a whole and understand what it all meant.

  The song was ending, and Darleen was raising her hands to the crowd, so Conor played his last notes and let the audience send Darleen home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The L.A. airport seemed only slightly less confusing than when Conor had first arrived. Of course, three months ago he’d been trying to play it cool, while inwardly being completely terrified. Now he knew there was no chance of cool happening.

  “Conor! Woo hoo! Conor!”

  His aunt Linda started waving and calling to him as soon as she rounded the arrivals gate, followed by Tori, dragging the most violently pink suitcase he’d ever seen, and then by his dad, who was already looking sweaty in the heavy Wisconsin-appropriate jacket he was still wearing. Conor shook his head, but the wide and goofy smile he couldn’t help but wear just got bigger. He was really happy to see them.

  Now that they were getting close to the finale, Singing Sensation offered to fly the contestants’ families in for performance nights. Conor’s dad had been horrified at the expense of flying them in for only a couple days—even if the expense wouldn’t be his own—and had waited until it could be arranged that they could all stay for more than a week. Conor kept pointing out that this was going to cost everyone more—his dad and Linda would be off work; Conor suspected the show wasn’t going to pay the hotel bills for their full stay—and that Conor’s time with them was going to be very limited while he was in rehearsals, but his dad waved it all off.

  “When was the last time any of us had a vacation?” he’d said on the phone. “And your sister wants to see Disney World.”

  “Disneyland, Dad!” Tori’s indignant correction thundered from somewhere in the distance.

  And all Conor had to do was not get eliminated before these increasing complicated plans came to fruition, so he was relieved to finally have them here.

  Linda was simultaneously trying to hug him and to look at him, which involved a bit of a push-pull. “You’re taller! How is it that you got taller? You are supposed to stop growing at some point, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe you shrunk, Aunt Linda?”

  Tori started to move to hug him, only to jump back at the last second. “Like I’m hugging you. Weirdo,” she scoffed.

  Conor’s father embraced him tightly, if briefly. His voice was gruff. “You look thin. What is it that you’ve been eating?”

  It felt like a criticism and Conor opened his mouth to reply defensively, but then shut it and smiled at all of them. “Let’s get you to the hotel,” he said, and with a slightly more pained smile, picked up Tori’s sparkly suitcase.

  As they waited in the taxi line, Conor noticed a group of three teens, probably a couple years younger than him, staring in his direction. The two girls were giggling. Conor shifted away slightly from the embarrassing suitcase, but they kept looking.

  He glanc
ed again. They seemed to be looking at their phones now.

  Tori made a face. “Those girls are taking pictures of you.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look! Act natural. No don’t act like that, try and look better. You don’t want bad pictures of you all over the internet.”

  Linda peered, oh-so-casually, over Conor’s shoulder. “That’s adorable.”

  “But why are they taking pictures?”

  Tori rolled her eyes. “Because you’re on TV, doofus. It’s like you’re famous. In a weird way, ’cause it’s just you.”

  “Huh.” Conor shrugged and resolved to ignore them.

  His father frowned. “You should go over there and say hello.”

  “What? No way. They’re strangers. Strangers who are acting strange.”

  “Conor,” his dad said in one of his most dad voices, “those girls are fans of yours. Some day they may buy your records—”

  “Download,” Tori supplied.

  “You need to be respectful and grateful towards people like that,” their dad continued. “If you’re serious about having a music career.”

  Conor sighed. “Because you know so much about the music industry,” he muttered, but he was already turning and walking towards the girls.

  All three of them froze in wide-eyed panic as he approached.

  “Hi,” Conor said carefully. “I saw you and, um, did you want a better picture or something?”

  There was a silence, and Conor could feel a blush starting as he imagined this had all been a mistake, but then the girls started squealing and grabbing at him.