Traces of Desire
Copyright© 2025 by Big Ed Magusson
Chapter 5
The next morning, Len and I headed to Target to get stuff we needed for our room. Like a stepladder. Climbing up to my bed using my dresser had already gotten old. Len also wanted a lamp he could clip to his headboard so he could read in bed without disturbing me. I had to admit, I liked that idea, too.
We walked almost two miles and amiably chatted, mostly about high school. He had had a busy social life, he’d said. He’d also been on the school Knowledge Bowl team.
“Why Knowledge Bowl?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It was kind of fun. I just remember things, you know?”
“Sort of.” I had to work pretty hard to memorize stuff.
“We didn’t practice much, but the tournaments were fun.”
“I hated track practice,” I said, “the year I did that.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It took forever.”
He nodded. “Lori ran cross-country.”
“Ah.” I found that interesting and filed it away as a future conversation topic.
“What else did you do?”
“I was on the yearbook staff.”
“Really?” he said. “That’s so cool.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t do the portraits.”
“No, I didn’t think you did.”
“Just the features pages. You know, clubs and teams. And the candids.”
He chuckled “Still sounds fun.”
“It was.” I immediately thought of two or three times I’d enjoyed having my camera around school.
“Still doing it?”
“Photography? Nah. Too expensive.”
Len furrowed his brow. “But you have a camera?”
“Nope. I used the school camera.”
“Okay...”
“Even then, film gets pricey, not to mention the processing.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Mom has a friend that developed her pictures.”
“She’s a photographer?”
“She’s dabbled.” He paused and smiled. “She was good, actually.”
“Why’d she stop?”
“Got into painting.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah...” He smiled and appeared to be remembering something, so we just walked casually along for a while. I’d had a lot of fun taking pictures...
I framed the shot just as the goalie dived for the soccer ball. He got it easily, but then it was just a drill and not an actual game. I’d probably go to the varsity game on Saturday, but it was always harder to get good shots with a crowd.
I lowered my camera and checked the picture count. I had four more on this roll but thunderclouds were rolling in. I was pretty confident I’d gotten some good pictures and wasn’t sure I wanted to start another roll. Besides, once the storm hit, they’d stop practice anyway.
A few students were sitting in the bleachers watching. I raised my camera and scanned the crowd, looking for good candid shots. I took two before a blonde standing at the top row caught my eye. She was smiling down at the field, her face aglow in the remaining afternoon light.
I took the shot. A good shot, I knew at once.
I lowered the camera as she began descending the bleacher steps. The whistle sounded, ending practice, and one of the players rushed toward her.
I blinked. It was Kelly. They shared a quick kiss and then he slid his arm around her waist. They pulled apart a little when they saw me approaching, but he still kept his arm around her.
I smiled. He’d been talking about someone and this must’ve been her.
“Hey,” Kelly said to me, “This is Ann.”
“Ah.” I nodded a greeting. “Kelly’s told me about you.”
“Good things, I hope.” She grinned at him.
“Absolutely.”
“Yeah ... she’s great.” He squeezed her and they shared a smile.
“Well, congrats,” I said.
They looked so happy, I couldn’t resist. I raised my camera.
“I’ve got one shot left. Mind if I take your picture?”
They moved closer together and smiled.
We arrived at Target to find the parking lot jammed with college students. With college students and their parents. With college student and their parents and their cars. With college students and their parents and their cars that could carry all their stuff back to the dorm.
I watched one guy carrying several pillows and I realized we’d made a mistake. After we bought everything, we had to walk back.
“We need to make friends with someone with a car,” I muttered.
“No kidding,” Len agreed.
“I should’ve thought about it earlier,” I groused.
He gave me a quizzical look.
“How are we gonna carry the ladder back?”
Len smirked. “We’ll figure something out.”
I grimaced, but he was so self-assured, I ended up nodding.
So we went in and found what we needed. We filled the shopping cart. With each thing we added, my sense of dread increased. It was a long walk.
But Len remained cheerful. So when we got into one of the checkout lines, I wasn’t completely surprised when he went “Ah, got it.”
“Got what?” I asked.
He gestured at the checkout line next to us. “I saw her at breakfast.”
“You saw her at breakfast?” We’d eaten together and I didn’t recognize anyone.
“Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
He strolled over to two women that looked kind of familiar. I didn’t quite remember them from the dorm, but they certainly could’ve been there. I couldn’t hear what Len was saying to them, so I just looked them over. The willowy Asian woman’s stance reminded me of a model. She was far too thin for that—Cindy Crawford had nothing to worry about—but she had the bearing. The shorter blonde was far more average, but not unattractive. She had bigger breasts, for one.
As Len talked to them, the Asian woman’s face lit up and she smiled at something Len said. He gestured at me a couple of times, and I just smiled back. Thankfully, when I reached the cashier at the front of the line, he hurried back.
“Liz has a car,” he said.
“She’s...?”
“The taller one. The other one’s Sandy.”
“Okay. And they’re in Sewall?”
“Mmm hmm. Third floor, our wing.”
Well, that was convenient.
I nodded and looked over the women once again. Liz was talking to the cashier but Sandy kept looking our way. Mostly at Len, I realized. If he noticed, he didn’t let on.
After we’d finished checking out, Len introduced me and then Liz led us to her car. I didn’t recognize the model, though the symbol reminded me of a Star Trek communicator.
“What model’s this?” Len asked.
“An Acura,” Liz answered. “They just came out.” She sheepishly smiled. “My parents got it for me for graduation.”
I stifled a cough. Her car was nicer than anything my parents had ever driven. But the trunk was big enough for my small stepladder, and that was what mattered. We loaded our stuff easily and I headed for one of the rear doors.
“I’ll ride in back,” Sandy volunteered.
I paused. “Um...”
“You’ve got longer legs,” she quickly added.
I shrugged. It looked like there was plenty of footroom, but I wasn’t going to pass up even more.
“So, what’s your major?” Sandy asked Len as we started to drive back to the dorm.
“Business. You?”
“Communications,” she quickly answered. “Maybe journalism. I haven’t decided.”
“But why communications?”
“Oh, uh, well...,” Sandy said, “like, it sounded fun. I was, like, on the school paper my senior year.”
“Oh? That’s cool. What’d you write?”
“I did features.”
“Ah.”
“What about you?” Liz asked me. The conversation in the back continued, but I needed to pay attention to Liz.
“Pre-med,” I said.
“Oh. You, too?”
“Yeah.” I blinked. “You wanna be a doctor?”
She shrugged. “Both my parents are doctors.”
“Ah. So you’ll follow in their footsteps.”
“Maybe.”
The doubt in her voice was too obvious to completely ignore, but I wasn’t sure what to say.
“So what sort of medicine do you want to practice?” I finally came up with.
“Sports medicine. Or something related.”
“Oh, why?” I’d only heard a little about that specialty.
“My high school golf coach.” She smiled. “He was a sports therapist.”
“Wasn’t he a fag?” Sandy threw out from the back seat.
Liz bristled.
“So?” Len said.
“Well ... uh...”
“Why is it anybody’s business what he does in his bedroom?”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Liz looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s gay as long as he’s a good person,” I continued.
Liz smiled.
“Well, uh, yeah...” Sandy said, “Well, like I suppose...”
Len changed the subject. “You were talking about the newspaper.”
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