Gold Standard Read online

  “Uh, no.” Kory looked around. “Just felt like a change of scenery, you know.” He certainly didn’t want to tell Samaki about the poem, or about Jenny. “How about you? I don’t see many foxes at Caspian usually.”

  “Oh, I like to mix it up. Got to keep in shape since I dropped track. Swimming’s easier on the knees, anyway.”

  “So you used to run?”

  Samaki nodded. “Along with every other fox in HPS. Dropped it when I started working last summer. You do any sports?”

  “Nah.” Kory drank his coffee. It was sweet and milky, but the coffee taste came through clearly, a nice nutty flavor. “Only thing I’m good at is swimming, but I never wanted to do it all organized with rules. That ruins it.”

  Samaki nodded and smiled. “I wasn’t very good at track, if that helps. I never got to go to any of the meets, just the practices after school.”

  “I don’t have anything against jocks,” Kory said. “My best friend’s on the swim team.”

  “Good. We’re not all peanut-brains. Some of my teammates have actually learned to read.”

  Kory chuckled. “I know. Just.” He shrugged, taking another drink of his coffee to think of something else to say. “Never that interested in sports.”

  “Me neither, if you want the truth.” Samaki tipped the cup to his narrow muzzle again, and then looked at the otter, his long tail twitching at the tip. “I’m just a decent runner. If you’re good at something, you should go ahead and do it and not be ashamed of it, don’t you think?”

  Kory frowned, but the fox’s eyes were casual and innocent, and it wasn’t possible that the remark had been pointed. Still, the words made him squirm slightly. “Yeah, I guess.” He looked back. “So what else are you good at?”

  The violet eyes widened slightly. “This and that. I do okay in classes. How about you? If not sports, then what?”

  “Classes. Books. I like to read.”

  The fox cocked his head. “What do you read?”

  “Science fiction and fantasy. And some biographies.”

  “Nice.” Samaki nodded and took another drink. “What’s the latest thing you read?”

  “Uh.I’m reading the Foundation trilogy. Just picked it up a month ago.” Kory remembered that he was supposed to be asking the questions. “What about you? Do you read much?”

  “Some science fiction. I haven’t gotten to Foundation yet, though. Asimov, right? How is it?”

  “Not bad.” Kory relaxed. Telling someone you read science fiction often got you a glazed look, an uninterested nod, or a smirk. Either that or they would ask if you’d seen “Event Horizon” or some such drek. Most kids considered books something you needed to read to pass English, not something you wasted precious free time with. “Some interesting theories, I guess, for the fifties. Story’s a little slow.”

  Samaki grinned, and they talked about books for another half hour. The fox knew Clarke and Heinlein, liked McCaffrey and Lackey, and adored Harry Potter, as Kory did. They discussed whether Hermione would end up with Ron (Kory’s opinion), Harry (Samaki’s), or neither, until Kory’s cell phone rang.

  He took it outside, flipped it open, and said, “Hi, mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Where are you?”

  “Just getting out of the pool. I’m heading right home.”

  “All right. See you when you get here.”

  “Okay, mom.” He snapped his phone shut and headed back in.

  “Sorry,” he said, picking up his empty cup. “Parents. I should get back.”

  Samaki stood and nodded. “Me too. It looks like your head’s okay.” He paused. “Just in case, though, maybe I should call to check up on you.”

  Kory hesitated only a moment. “Sure,” he said, and gave the fox his number. Samaki took out his own phone and tapped the number into it. “How do you spell `Kory’?”

  “K-O-R-Y.” The otter peered at the phone. “Can I get your number?” The question popped out and Kory couldn’t quite figure out why he’d asked, so he added quickly, “So when I have to go to the hospital, I know who to call when they ask if there’s anyone I want to sue.”

  Samaki laughed. “You got it.” He rattled off his number and Kory tapped it into his phone, getting the fox’s name right on the first try.

  “Thanks for the coffee and for being concerned about me,” he said as they walked back to the bus stop.

  “Least I could do,” Samaki said. “I still feel like a total stooge. Guess I need to practice swimming a little more.”

  “Come down to Caspian sometime,” Kory said. “I’ll show you our Starbucks there.”

  “Ooh, I can only imagine. Is it fabulous?”

  “Oh, so fabulous.” Kory grinned. “Hey, there’s my bus.”

  “Nice meeting you, Kory.” Samaki shook his paw quickly. “Take care of that head!”

  “Thanks again. See you!” Kory ran for the bus and made it to the stop just as the bus pulled up. He got on, paid his fare, and sat down on the side of the bus facing the sidewalk. Samaki was standing on the sidewalk, one paw tucked in his pocket, the other waving to Kory, his black tail flowing behind him.

  Kory settled back into the bus seat and smiled. It was worth the bump on the head to have met someone he could talk about books with, who was engaging and intelligent. Most of the people he knew like that lived in other states and were only reachable through his computer. Here was one who was a short bus ride away. He reviewed the afternoon in his mind, looking for something that might not be right, but all he could come up with was, again, the feeling that Samaki was waiting for something else from him that he hadn’t given. He spent enough time worrying about this that he forgot to prepare for his arrival home.

  “Where have you been?” his mother snapped as he walked through the door. He could see her craning her head from the kitchen to look at him. “Dinner’s almost ready. Go clean up.”

  The lightness he’d felt on the bus vanished, and now he felt the throbbing in his head acutely. He walked across the living room, skirting the edge of the central pool that joined all the rooms of the ranch-style house, and walked across the bridge and down the short hall that led to his and his brother’s rooms, opening the door on the left wall and closing it behind him.

  Through the window to his right, he saw his brother walking up from the back yard. He dropped his stuff on the bed under the window and flopped down on it. Just lying in his own bed in his cozy room made his head feel a little better.

  Outside, he heard the splash as his brother dove into the pool from the back yard, and a moment later the younger otter’s head bobbed up in the small corner of his room that was open to the pool.

  “Hey, Kory,” he chirped.

  “Hey, Nick.” He turned his head to look at his brother. Nick had the same broad muzzle and dark brown fur that Kory did, but where Kory had his father’s brown eyes and small ears, Nick’s eyes were blue like their mother’s, and his ears stood up over the tuft of fur on the top of his head even when it wasn’t lying flat and wet, as it was now.

  Last year, Nick had insisted that they stop calling him Nicky; at thirteen he wanted to grab whatever dignity he could. At the time, Kory hadn’t thought he would be able to, but now Nick had grown into the name, both in stature and, surprisingly, maturity. Kory almost felt that the little screaming brother who told tales and threw dirt at him had been exchanged for a wiser, quieter brother when he’d dropped the `y’ from his name.

  “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “I know. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Nick rested his arms on Kory’s floor. “Where’d ya go today? I went to the pool but I didn’t see ya there.”

  “I just wanted to get away for a bit. Who was at the pool?”

  “Nobody. I just went there to look for you. I was over at Mickey’s.”

  That meant Mom had asked him to check up on his brother. Kory lay back again. “You going to swim to dinner?”

  “Well, I don’t have time to dry off.” Nick snort
ed.

  “Mom’ll flip.”

  “So what else is new?”

  “Okay, hang on.” Kory rolled out of bed and stripped down to his swimsuit. “Race ya,” he said as he dove into the water beside Nick.

  His brother yelped, but he only heard the first part of it as the water closed around him.

  Nick was on the swim team, and had been faster than Kory for years. Only by tricking him could Kory hope to win. He did this time, barely, popping out of the water and scrambling to the kitchen table, dripping. His mother gave a little squeak, and turned to glare at them. “Kory James,” she began, but Nick interrupted her.

  “Cheater,” he said, and stuck his tongue out at Kory.

  Kory glanced at his mother, feeling the flush in his neck and chest he got when he’d done something fun that he knew was wrong. “Nick did it too.”

  “And how much older are you than him?” She dropped a dish of potatoes on the table with a thunk. “I wish you boys would get dressed for Sunday dinner. I try to put something nice on the table, and you’re sitting there dripping all over the furniture.”

  “Mom, we dress up five days a week,” Nick said, his wet tail slapping the floor as he rearranged his seat.

  “Don’t slap your tail,” his mother said immediately. “Weekdays we don’t have much time because you have homework to do. Sunday it would be nice to sit around as a family.”

  “We can do that wet,” Nick said, shoveling potatoes onto his plate as his mother placed the fish next to them.

  Kory shifted one of the fillets to his plate and scooped the buttery sauce over it, then took the potato spoon from Nick. His mother, meanwhile, had sat down with the bowl of green beans. “Don’t forget your greens,” she said, shoveling a pile onto Nick’s plate.

  “Mom,” he said, “Not so many.”

  “Don’t fill up on potatoes,” she told him, and piled beans on Kory’s plate as well before taking some for herself. They waited until she’d arranged her own plate and then bowed their heads.

  “For what we are about to eat, for the blessing of each other’s company, and for our continued happiness, may the Lord make us truly thankful,” she said.

  They chorused, “Amen,” and dug in.

  “Kory, Nick said he didn’t see you at the pool,” his mother said after a minute. “You said you were going to the pool, and when I called, you told me you were just leaving, but you didn’t get home for another hour.”

  “I went to the municipal pool,” Kory said.

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  He shrugged. Nick said, “I know why.”

  Kory glared at him. His mother said, “Nick, let Kory tell me. Kory?”

  “Just felt like going there,” he said. “Okay?”

  “Did it have anything to do with Jenny?”

  “No.” He chewed a bite of fish far longer than he needed to.

  She looked down at her plate and took a dainty bite of green beans. “I ran into Jenny’s mother at the market this afternoon.”

  In the pause that ensued, Kory knew she was waiting for him to tell her what she already knew. He took another bite of fish and said nothing. After a moment, his mother continued.

  “She told me you and Jenny aren’t seeing each other anymore. Is that right?”

  He took another bite, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook this time. He swallowed. “I guess.”

  “I see. When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday.” He focused on getting his dinner down as fast as he could, so he could leave the table.

  “We saw them in church this morning, and you didn’t say anything.”

  He didn’t see a need to reply to that, so he crammed potatoes into his mouth. “Don’t bolt your food,” his mother told him. “I just don’t know why I had to learn about these things secondhand. Do you know how embarrassing that was? Mrs. Kish asked if you were doing all right, and I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled through flecks of potato.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She paused. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, mom,” he said. “Can I be excused?”

  She looked at his plate, which was mostly clean. “No,” she said. “We’ve got banana cream pie for dessert, and I want us to sit around and talk. Tell me what the municipal pool is like. Is it as nice as Caspian?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s smaller and more crowded.” Then he decided to give her something to worry about, to stop her asking more about the pool, because he didn’t want to tell her about Samaki yet. “I banged my head on the wall. I was trying to get out of this kid’s way...”

  It worked. His mother gasped and leaned closer. “Where?”

  He showed her the spot. “Oh, Kory,” she said. “It’s swelling up. Let me get an ice pack.”

  The rest of the dinner was spent with her fretting over him, because those municipal pools might be full of disease, you never know. He let her worry, not pointing out that he hadn’t broken the skin. The ice did help, really, and the banana cream pie (from the market, not homemade) was delicious. He was in a somewhat better mood when he swam back to his room and lay on a towel on the floor to dry off.

  Nick surfaced and rested his arms on the floor, his nose only a foot from Kory’s. “You went to the municipal pool because of the poem, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up, Nick.”

  “Hey, I think it’s cool,” his brother said. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Nick...”

  “Why do you care what those dipwads think?”

  Kory rolled over and stared up at his ceiling, where he could just see the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d put up when he was seven. “It’s complicated,” he said. “You’ll understand when you get to high school.”

  He knew that would irritate Nick. He hoped it would end the conversation. Instead, he heard a huff, and then Nick kept talking. “Well, I think it’s dumb. What happened with Jenny?”

  “Nick...”

  “Come on, Kory. I liked her. Why’d you dump her?”

  Kory closed his eyes. “I didn’t, okay?”

  “Oh,” Nick said, his voice small.

  “Please, Nick,” Kory said, resting a paw over his closed eyes.

  “Yeah, sorry, I...” Kory felt his brother touch his arm gently. “I’m gonna go to bed. Hope you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine,” Kory said, and then felt bad. “Thanks, Nick. I’ll tell you about it later. Just don’t feel like it now.”

  “Okay.” He heard the soft ripples of water as his brother slid down and swam back to his room.

  The truth was, Kory had thought he’d be relieved to be broken up with Jenny. They’d had a nice summer together, then slept together a few times, and that had changed their relationship. Suddenly she wanted to talk about other people’s relationships, like how Sal and Allie were doing, and things Jake Conly had said to Amanda that Amanda didn’t understand, and what did Kory think of all that? He didn’t care, truthfully, and apart from their double dates with Sal and Allie, he started making excuses to avoid Jenny unless it was in a public place like the pool. He’d retreated to an online book group, until he looked forward to logging on in the evenings more than he looked forward to seeing Jenny.

  So he’d thought he wouldn’t be upset if she dumped him; in fact, he was almost trying to get her to do it so he wouldn’t have to. But he hadn’t expected her to do it Saturday, when he wanted to talk to her about the previous week of school, when he really needed a sympathetic ear. Instead, it had been all about her, and how this was really too much, and she’d been talking to Chris Stafford-Chris Stafford!-and he’d asked her to the prom and she’d said yes.

  He was surprised by how hurt he’d felt. No, he didn’t want to be dating her, but he wanted to be the one to decide to stop. He’d been in a funk for most of Sunday, except when he’d been swimming, and when he’d been talking to Samaki.

  The violet eyes and easy smile of the b
lack fox crept back into his thoughts. If their engaging talk had been any indication, Samaki would enjoy the online book group too. He turned his cell phone over thoughtfully and wondered if Samaki would really call him. He could call the fox; he had his number and it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Would the fox be eating dinner? Maybe it was a little too soon to be calling.

  Too soon? Kory laughed at himself and set down the phone. It wasn’t like he wanted to date the fox.

  Though.come to think of it, he wondered now if the fox wanted to date him. He’d certainly been very friendly considering they’d just met. And had he gotten dressed a little too slowly, maybe showing off for Kory’s benefit? Kory pulled his tail to his chest and scritched through it with his claws, thinking about the luxuriant ebony tail the fox had. Maybe Samaki had been hitting on him. He should call up and set the fox straight.

  But what would he say? He didn’t really know any gay people that weren’t in movies or on TV. It was odd to think of Samaki that way; until that moment, he’d just been a friend, with a vast unexplored landscape, as if Kory had landed on a new planet. If he were gay, then all his actions took on a different cast, and maybe he really was more alien. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. He just couldn’t ever tell his mom. But if the fox thought he might be gay...well, he should say something, he shouldn’t let that rest. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them. He picked up the phone.

  But what if he were wrong? He weighed the phone and set it down again, continuing to stroke his tail. Gay guys had a gay-dar or something, didn’t they, to let them know whether someone else was interested? Surely he’d have seen that Kory wasn’t gay. No, maybe he was just another lonely soul, with nobody to talk to about the books he was reading.

  Hard to believe, though, as handsome as he was. Kory couldn’t believe the fox would have any difficulty finding any kind of companionship he wanted. So maybe he was gay, and that explained his loner attitude.

  “Grrr.” He clutched his head. Best just to finish up his homework and worry about it next time he heard from Samaki, which would probably be never. He’d probably just asked for Kory’s number to be polite, and walked away thinking what a dork he’d just swum into at the pool.