As the days went by I began to pack up all of my things and started to make daily trips to my new apartment. I took Zac with me often so he could help set up with me, but mostly he wanted a place to be away from home for a while just as much as I did. He wanted to leave home more than I did, especially recently, but he's not technically allowed to leave just yet. One thing I have noticed is that whenever he's over here, whether he's helping me or not, he's on the phone with Ginger.
"I was thinking," I said to Zac as he was helping me put my bed together, "maybe we can tell Mom that we have a lot of work to do and you should just stay here tonight. That'll give you a clean getaway in the morning to go to Denver."
"Okay," he said. "Is that okay with you?"
"Yeah. Of course you're going to be sleeping on the floor."
"The floor? Oh, you mean I can't sleep in the big bed with you, Tay?"
"Don't call me Tay," I immediately said. Zac stood up straight, giving me a confused look. I looked up at him.
"Why not?"
"I just don't like it," I told him.
"I always used to call you Tay!"
"I know," I said. "You always used to, 'use' being the key word there. I'm not a kid anymore, Zac, I don't need you to treat me like one."
"Zachary." I gave him a look. "I'm sorry but that's just bullshit, Taylor. Are you going to start correcting everybody now? Zo� won't call you anything but Tay."
"Zo�'s five years old, Zac. She doesn't know any better," I told him. "I mean you don't correct her when she calls your Zakky and if I ever called you that I'd be in a headlock gasping for breath." Zac nodded, agreeing. Zac hates that nickname more than anything in the world but he doesn't seem to have a problem with Zo� calling him that. She's a little girl and that's what little girls do. "You know I can't help but notice that you don't talk to Ginger at home anymore."
"So?"
"Well every time you're over here you're talking to her, and you're over here a lot more than you're at home. What, are you not allowed to talk to her at home anymore? Is the endless pillow talk getting too R-rated for the kids?"
"Funny, Tay," Zac said. I gave him a look. "It's not that I'm not allowed to talk to her at home, it's just whenever Mom passes by�and she passes by often�I get a dirty look. Mom doesn't like her."
"Mom's never even met her!"
"I know!" Zac said. He sat down on the floor on the other side of the bed frame that's only supposed to take five minutes to put together, but we've been stopping and talking so much it's been nearly an hour.
"Why doesn't Ma like her?"
"Well�" Zac said, sighing, "you know how I mentioned Ginger's a writer?" I nodded. He's only "mentioned" that about a million times. "She kind of writes trashy romance novels."
"Isn't she, like, seventeen?" I asked. He nodded. "What the hell is she doing writing trashy romance novels at seventeen? That's like porn for women!"
"I know, I know," he said leaning back against my nightstand. "I don't know how she got into it, but she's been doing it for years. She had a bestseller when she was fifteen and she didn't even lose her virginity until she was sixteen. It's all weird but apparently she's supposed to be really, really good. Mom evidently has read one of her books and when I told her I was dating Ginger Stevens she went whacko on me and told me I shouldn't be dating a tramp like that. Whatever."
"I seriously doubt she's a tramp," I said.
"She's not! I mean, you would know." I gave him a look. "Sorry. Well, anyway, I don't like Ma hovering over my conversations so I just decided I would not call her in the house anymore." I shrugged.
"Whatever, Zac."
"You know if Mom finds out I'm going to Denver tomorrow she's going to have me by the balls until I can move out of there."
"Maybe it's better than way," I said. "I mean you're barely seventeen, Zac."
"Like you weren't chasing every fricken skirt in town at my age. I'm hardly as bad as you were."
"You don't want to be as bad as me. In fact, I don't want you to be anything like me," I told him. "I don't get any respect as a person because I don't treat anybody else with respect. It's not great being the laughing stock of the family."
"You're not the laughing stock of the family, Tay." I glared at him. "�lor. Yeah, I like to poke fun at it, but not everybody does."
"It's embarrassing, Zac," I said, standing up. "Why do you think I moved out?"
"You know you could always not sleep with random chicks every night." I thought about it. It was actually a credible thought. But, instead of taking Zac's advice, I shook my head.
"Nah."
"Well, don't say I never tried." Zac stood up as well and we continued to put the bed together. A couple of minutes later the bed frame was together and we were lugging in the box springs. "Hey Taylor?"
"Yeah?" I asked. We set the box spring down on the bed frame.
"Do you think you'll ever settle down?" I snorted.
"Come on, Zac," I said. "I'm nineteen. I have the rest of my life to deal with that. I'm just having fun right now."
"Well what if you meet someone tomorrow that you just happen to fall head over heels in love with?"
"In the very unlikely event that would happen," I said, giving Zac a look, "then I would be head over heels in love with her."
"Or him."
"Ha, ha, very funny."
"Hey, you called me gay the other day. I'm just getting my retaliation," he said. "But, anyway, do you honestly think you'd be able to just do that?"
"Why not?"
"Well you've been like this for years, Taylor. Honestly, do you think you could just stop?"
"Sure! Whether it's sex with one chick or sex with a whole bunch of different chicks, it's still sex, isn't it?"
"I love your values, Taylor."
"What? Am I not right?"
"I cannot wait for you to fall in love," Zac said. "All right, do you want to attempt to get that mattress in here?"
"Do you think we can't get it in here by ourselves?" I asked.
"Well, I could," Zac said, gesturing to himself. "I'm not entirely sure about you."
"I can chew you and eat you, little brother," I told him. He snorted.
"My ass."
"Do you want to go?" Zac made a start for me but I backed up. "Hey, you even attempt it and you can find your own way to the airport tomorrow." He lunged for me anyway and we fell on the floor. I don't like saying it, but my brother is twice my size and much stronger than I am. I'm a little twig and anybody who looks at me knows it, so I wasn't at all surprised when he'd pinned me on the floor. "All right, all right, I give!"
"That's better," he said, getting off of me. He stood up and brushed his hair out of his face. My brother still had his long hair. The record company continues to ask him to cut it, now that Ike and I had gone for shorter hair, but he stood by his decision to not cut it. I admired him for that. He loved his long hair. It'd be nice if he washed it every day, but despite that he still loved his hair. I hope he doesn't cut it, just to show those fat cats down at the record company that he didn't have to listen to anybody.
"So?" I asked, standing up. "Do you want to attempt the mattress?"
"Yeah." We walked out of the room.
The next day Zac flew out to Denver. I told my mother that he was staying over at my place and she didn't seem to mind. In the morning I took him down to the airport and she's none the wiser. She called around noon to ask where he was, but I told her we were hard at work with various things around my apartment, so she let me get back to it and she hasn't called back since. He'll be back in an hour and I have to go pick him back up from the airport.
Most of my furniture had been delivered over the past few days and my apartment was starting to look more like an apartment instead of a big empty space with walls. The more I furnished, the more I liked the place. I called up my friend Leo and we took to painting the extra bedroom. It was a pale pink, the only thing I hated about this place, and I didn't want it to stay that color any longer.
"So," Leo said, stepping back from the wall, "who's this chick Zac's in love with?" I looked over. Leo's been one of my best friends since I was a kid. He's close with everyone in my family, naturally, but he's my best friend. I don't spend as much time with him as I would like anymore, what with me never being at home, but whenever I am in Tulsa I always find an excuse to hang out with him. Most of the nights that I go out on the town to pick up a chick, Leo is with me. He reminds me a lot of Ike at times; he's got that kind of dopey yet lackadaisical humor that Ike sometimes gets when he's in a good mood. Leo's tall and skinny like I am, although he's got brown hair and green eyes, and whenever we're together around my mother she feeds us heaps of food. When it's just me she doesn't seem to notice how skinny I am but when we're together she thinks we have eating problems and makes us scarf down food, although neither of us really seem to mind.
"Her name's Ginger," I said. "She's a seventeen-year-old romance novelist that my mother apparently thinks is a whore and doesn't want Zac hanging around with."
"A seventeen-year-old romance novelist?" Leo asked, looking over his shoulder at me. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. He's in Denver with her right now. She's on a book tour and since we had today off, he flew out there to see her. Of course Mom wouldn't let him go so as far as she knows he's over here helping us paint."
"Do you think it's healthy for that kid to be in love with a chick like that?" Leo asked. "I mean, yeah Zac has a habit of falling madly in love without much warning, but that's just crazy."
"I know," I said. "You should see him talking about her, though. He doesn't fucking shut up. I want to hit him over the head and have him passed out on the floor for a while."
"Hey, you got away from him, didn't you?" Leo asked. "You're here."
"Yeah, but Mom hounds him at home so he spends all his time on the phone with her over here. I'll be glad when this is over."
"Hey, you never know. This might be the one."
"Oh God, kill me now," I said.
"When do you have to pick him up?" Leo asked.
"An hour," I said, looking at the time. "Granted his flight is still on time. I'll check in a minute."
"Well we better get crackin' on this wall, then," Leo said. Between the two of us we'd gotten about half of the wall done in the past two hours. "I'm not finishing it while you go off to pick him up."
"Yes you will," I said. He gave me a look and shook his paintbrush at me, getting a couple of drops on me. "Hey!" I rolled my paint roller up his arm. He did the same and before I knew it we were both covered in light blue paint. When I sat up I looked at Leo and I realized he was probably just as bad as I was, and I wouldn't want to go out looking like he did. "I wonder if Zac'll mind taking a cab."
"What, afraid some tabloid might see you in blue paint and confirm how incredibly gay you really are?" Leo asked, standing up. He grabbed the paint roller out of my hand and started to paint the wall again.
"Nice one, Leo," I said. "I'll make sure to tell them you're my lover."
"Whatever, Tay."
"Don't call me Tay," I said, standing up. He stopped painting to look at me.
"What, are you too good for Tay now?" he asked. "As if I haven't been calling you that since we were eight years old."
"It's just so young, Leo," I said. "I'm not a kid anymore."
"No, you proved that when you set the world record for number of sexual partners."
"I have not!"
"Close enough," Leo said. He started to paint the wall again. "Listen, Taylor, I know your birthday's coming up and you're on this whole stint where you've got to prove to yourself that you're an adult now, but nobody thinks you're a little kid. You're Tay. It's just a shortened version of your name. It's not like I'm calling you kiddo or anything like that."
"I still don't want you to call me Tay anymore."
"Fine," he said. "I'll start calling you Jordan." I flinched. "Ooh, how about Jordie? Hey Jordie�"
"Don't even! I'd rather you call me Tay than Jordie�or even Jordan for that matter."
"What is with you and your name? Honestly, I think Jordan's an awesome name." I hate Jordan. I don't know why I hate it, I just do. I've been going by Taylor ever since I had the power to go by Taylor and if were up to me I'd lose the Jordan completely.
"Fine, I'll just have to start calling you by your first name," I said. "Give me back my roller, Leslie."
"Shut up!" My phone rang.
"Dammit, I bet that's Zac," I said. "Well I'm not going out like this." I ran over to the phone and picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Taylor! It's Zac."
"Hey Zac."
"Um�guess what." I knew what that meant. Either Zac wasn't coming home tonight, or he was bringing Ginger with him. I had a feeling he wasn't coming home.
"What?" I asked, the annoyance in my voice very evident.
"There's a massive snowstorm and they cancelled all the flights," Zac said. I put my sticky blue hand against my sticky blue forehead.
"What the hell, Zac?"
"How was I supposed to know this was going to happen?"
"Zac, it's Denver! It's the end of February! Of course this could happen!" I sighed. "So what are you going to do?"
"Well, I'll called Mark down at the studio and he said you and Ike should come in tomorrow and just work without me. I'll be back when I can. It shouldn't be any later than tomorrow afternoon, although it is snowing pretty bad out there. Ging and I are stuck in the airport. She booked us a room already but I'm not sure anybody's getting out of here tonight."
"All right�just call me when you get back, okay?"
"I'll do that. If Mom asks about me, you don't have to lie for me. I'll deal with her later."
"Whatever, Zac. You do realize that I'm going to get the brunt of this now because I told her you were painting with me and Leo all day."
"I'm sorry!"
"You better be." I hung up the phone. "I cannot believe it! Zac's stuck in Denver," I told Leo. "There's a monstrous snowstorm and they cancelled all the flights."
"Hey, at least you don't have to pick him up now," Leo said.
"That is true." I grabbed another paint roller from the tray and continued to paint the room with Leo.