Soon there wasn’t much about home that could make Shane truly angry. He accepted fighting with BettyJo for the top bunk…at least they had bunk beds finally. Sheena let him copy from her homework. Chrystal lagged behind him in the mile run they did in gym, and she played softball, which was an inferior sport. (not really!)
But then there was Yuna, who had gone into high school. The homework was harder, and he couldn’t even eat lunch with her. Of course they still talked, but it was also like Shane didn’t exist to her anymore. He had to settle for inviting her baby brother over for sleepovers.
For some reason, Shane had a lot of complaints about Tavares. I only knew of him as an alright guy, aside from growing up into a homewrecker and breaking up the Diwans. Not my student Rodger’s parents, but his older brother and wife. But I don’t think ruining marriages bothered Shane at all. Tavares was kind and lazy, the worst combo.
Worst of all, he didn’t know what the taxidermy badge from scouting was. Tavares didn’t even go to an after school activity.
Sandria turned out to be an excellent ear for his woes about Yuna. Especially when everyone could hear them in the dead silence of the library.
“…no, I’ve never had a girlfriend worth talking about,” she said. “But we need to finish this extra credit so you don’t repeat 8th grade. Does she really want a guy who stayed back?”
“I don’t think she cares,” Shane said. “Can I send her a card or somethin’?”
They went to the post office right before closing that night.
As time went on, Shane grew up. He shared a birthday month with BettyJo, which used to only mean competing for attention. Then again, BettyJo was a girl, and Yuna was a girl. Girls liked boys, and no further introspection was expected. (Shane later said that his coming out story was sudden and boring, and for Brice too. Same here)
He could outrun her on the treadmill and outside. Only one of them was hoping for a professional sports career.
At first, his encounters with Yuna were all in secret and on “the other side of town.” She still kept her mother close by, who didn’t seem to disapprove of any of that. It was hard to try and kiss her, though. They’d get lost in laughing about what happened at lunch or which teacher farted during their lecture.
Sheena and BettyJo liked to invite Yuna over to their poor excuse for a house. She didn’t flinch, but none of their school friends did. It was a typical house on the edge of town, albeit more unkempt than usual. Sandria and the kids redid the wallpaper in the main room and even helped out with an extension to the house. Things were getting too crowded at breakfast otherwise.
Yuna didn’t reject Shane outright, so he had to get his “hint” about a conflict from a different source. It had to come from the enemy herself, when they skipped school as they often ended up doing.
“What, you want Yuna?”
“Yeah, she’s really cute,” said BettyJo. “And my lab partner, so this’ll make biology even better.”
“Wait, you got Yuna as a lab partner and never told me?”
“Look, I don’t think any of us have a chance with her. I mean I don’t even know if she likes girls. We have backups…don’t we?”
“Yeah…crazy to think that we wouldn’t.” Shane did not have a backup. And he knew who BettyJo could easily settle for but I wanted to leave that part of the story to her instead. So he was desperate and forced to play nice so Sandria wouldn’t get more stressed out. The nicest thing he could think of was a game, maybe “baseball winner wins Yuna’s heart too.” She liked baseball…right? It would be doomed if she didn’t.
Turned out that Yuna was a fantastic pitcher, like a machine. But matched against at least one other athlete too. At Perfect Park, Shane was hitting balls out into the desert horizon. Meanwhile, Betty Jo reminded everyone that…she was a runner and a hobbyist at that. 5Ks and baseball innings bore no resemblance to each other.
Shane got first dibs on talking to her afterwards. The sun started to set, BettyJo walked away for some water, and everyone was hungry and wondering if Yuna’s dad would save them later. He produced a wonderful variety of diner leftovers every night. Usually crispy bacon or red chili, two of their favorites.
“So, what about prom?” he asked her.
“Silly to ask, prom’s not for another six months.”
“Everyone else is paired off and your two choices are standing right here in this park.”
“You’re right, I should ask the old groundskeeper after all,” said Yuna, rolling her eyes.
“Nah, save him for BettyJo when she gets desperate. I mean, I’ll even go to your field hockey games since our seasons don’t overlap. I promise.”
“Are you always this nice?”
In spite of everything Shane promised Yuna, she ended up kissing BettyJo without hesitation. BettyJo pulled her in for a sunset makeout for a whole hour…or five minutes. Shane did not stick around to see how it ended.
Sandria was worried when Shane started fishing by his lonesome. He usually had a sister or all of them to join him, even if he was the most passionate about the sport. There were dangers. Not the one about a sandstorm lifting him, even if that was always in the back of her mind. But the Yuna story of the day drifted to her like a tumbleweed. She sighed and muttered “BettyJo, she’s not the one for you, give it up.” She just didn’t know how to handle teenager drama. Or being in a relationship at all.
She was not a fisher. She was not descended from fishers either. Her thousands of years of ancestors survived and thrived on those parched lands instead. And with that logic, some of Shane’s did too. But she couldn’t hunt prairie dogs either, something frowned upon in Lucky Palms when fishing was not. There was a hatchery/sports fishing facility downtown. Sandria surprised Shane with a reservation to fish there one night.
“So…I don’t think Yuna and BettyJo will work out,” Sandria said. “But in case it does, there’s a surprising life after high school.”
“Well I know where surprises lead you,” he said, all while catching a shark with grace.
“It’ll be better than my life, just don’t get a creative writing major and settle for a DCS job. Or any major. Play sports for god’s sake.”
“Do you think Yuna’s gay?” Shane asked, after a moment of silence. “I mean, you’re gay, right?”
Sandria rolled her eyes. “All I can say is that she definitely doesn’t feel like the type. But she’s a nice girl either way. You should still be her friend, I worry that you don’t make enough of them.”
Shane didn’t really like Joshua Gilbert and confirmed Sandria’s fears. But along for the bus ride was Yuna, even though this wasn’t her usual route. In spite of Sandria’s comforting words, he sighed. Probably here for BettyJo. Who did not come home with them. She and the other girls were at the library.
To his shock, life was different when no one else was home.
“Hey what gives?” he said, as Yuna shoved red roses in his face.
“I know it’s a li’l weird, but I love giving out flowers and discovered something about myself!”
“So no more BettyJo?”
“Well, hopefully we’re still friends?”
“Whatever. And prom’s still months away.”
“Yeah, but I want to match outfits with you and that takes planning.”
They weren’t prom royalty, somehow Sheena grabbed a crown while going dateless. And the king was some guy named Zach…didn’t he transfer in that year? Shane and Yuna worked hard to get votes, and complained to her dad about every single one of them. To compensate, he put on some nice music outside of the diner, for the afterparty. A few other students joined them, but for the 24/7 waffles.
Most of them got stood up at prom and then drowned their sorrows, but Shane didn’t.
That thing he and Yuna had was going to last.
Shane turned 18 well before graduation. Same with Sheena and BettyJo, who were waiting for all the same things he was: fulfilling jobs, better houses…
…pretty girls!
He and Yuna spent a lot of time together before graduation. It was quieter sleeping at their house, and also more fun.
The Tanners had a pool. A true oasis as the summer heat encroached upon the town yet again. They used to have a fence and locked gate around it when the kids were young, but even Tavares was a teenager. Everyone loved to swim, though usually during the day.
For alone time, Yuna and Shane loved it at night. Sometimes they put on their swimsuits, and sometimes they set a bad example for Tavares and didn’t. Parents Romon and Aya tsk-tsk’d them for it, but eventually gave up.
Yuna loved solo swimming too. Sometimes Shane would wake up her clothes and sheets soaked through, which was unsettling at first but understandable. He wondered if he should do that too. Would the parents mind? Would Sandria chide him or swimming unattended? He was unsure if she could swim or not anyways. But Yuna could.
Unless she went out alone, right before Shane’s graduation. She survived most of them.
Shane wasn’t woken up by that, but by the commotion outside.
The news had reached Sandria and the girls, but if Shane didn’t bring it up, then no one else did. There were memorials at the school, since Yuna was a recent alum with friends (and Shane) still attending. But Shane had the option of skipping without failing, and he did. Most of the staff and teachers understood. I know I would if I was there.
But there was a memorial planned at graduation. It worried Shane for the whole drive to City Hall.
“I have to sit in front and they’re gonna see me bawl like a baby!” Shane did fall into Sandria’s arms like a little kid, in his graduation robes and all. “And the whole city can see me anyways.”
“Maybe you should switch places with BettyJo, she’s far in the back,” she said. No names in their class went past Whitehorse in the alphabet. “I know she was well-loved. You won’t be the only one crying.”
“What, will you?”
“Of course…she was so nice.”
It was a long walk down the aisle for Shane when he had to collect his diploma. He hadn’t thought about the future. He barely thought about Yuna’s future either. And not much of it was going to matter. He didn’t even want to think about being a pallbearer in the coming days, since that was agreed upon among the Tanner men. Shane brought the number up to four.
It really was a summer of long walks. Graduation, funerals, the long walk to the park where BettyJo eloped later on.
He promised me a happy ending when the story ended at Yuna’s grave. She was buried near her grandmother, Astrid.
“So Sandria and I are best friends now because she planted this huge yucca plant right on their plot. I never even asked her to do that.”
“Well I guess there’s no blaming her for what happened,” I said.
“Or anyone. We were all supposed to be asleep,” said Shane.
“Do you still swim?” I asked, as we all wore our tankinis and swim trunks.
“Just don’t do it alone, we don’t really get drownings around here.”
“Did anyone else die though?” He shook his head no. “And is there some satisfying ending that isn’t her funeral? Cmon Shane.”
He looked over at his fiancé. “I thought you could figure that one out. Coming out was boring and having a gay foster mom rocks.”
“Yeah, but I have three more siblings to track down.” But Sheena was swimming near us and staying safe. Brice was keeping an eye on her. Maybe it was mere obligation, or it was because his ex-wife was a ginger too.
Soon it was swimming time for everyone. No one drank beforehand, which was a specific request from Shane. We enjoyed seltzers and iced tea with all the ice we could ask for. It was 100 degrees out and slated to get worse that season.
Instead of swimming, I chose the pool float from Brice’s pool float collection. I blew it up by my own breaths, go me, and stuck my feet in the water when it got too hot.
Sheena followed me like a scared child. Not really. It had something to do with promising her and her wife brunch that weekend if I could get her life’s story and then I’d use that knowledge to…seduce her mum? Maybe I could use that developing indigenous history class as a clever excuse.
The sun set over the lake and turned everything golden. I was probably starting to sunburn, and Sheena still needed to say something.
“It’s not gonna take that long,” she said while treading water. “You got to the uncomplicated stories.”
“Someone died in the last one.”
“Death isn’t always complicated.”
“Fair.”
“But you know, being a parent is,” she said. “I’ll let the other girls handle that.”