Cupid Painted Blind Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  About the Author

  Cupid

  Painted

  Blind

  Written by Marcus Herzig

  Story by Marcus Herzig & Andrew Yuuki

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and trademarks are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. The use of any trademarks within this publication was not authorized by, nor is this publication sponsored by or associated with, the respective trademark owners.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Marcus Herzig

  Cover design copyright © 2016 by Andrew Yuuki

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Marcus Herzig

  244 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016-2817

  U S A

  http://www.marcus-herzig.com/

  https://www.twitter.com/Marcus_Herzig

  For awkward teenagers everywhere

  CHAPTER ONE

  One day I’m going to write the next Great American Novel, with intriguing characters, a unique, original plot, and a killer opening line.

  This is probably not it.

  Call me Matt.

  Most people call me Matt. When someone calls me Matthew, I know I’m in trouble. Most of the time I manage to stay clear of trouble though. I’m not particularly prone to drama or tragedy. I’m just a regular guy, and my name is Matt, and I’m gay.

  Zoey knows all this, apparently.

  I didn’t know she did. I thought she only knew my name.

  I didn’t know she knew I’m gay.

  Aghast, I say, “You knew?”

  She smiles and shrugs and says, “Kinda.”

  Zoey is my sister.

  She’s a junior at Brookhurst High School. I, as of today, am a freshman. A proud and anxious freshman.

  It is a bright warm day in September, and the clocks are striking seven-and-a-half. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times and all that crap. I’m excited to start high school for an infinite number of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s a major step toward adulthood. Adulthood means freedom and independence and driving and plenty of passionate, steaming, red-hot sex.

  Or so I’m told.

  Yet at the same time I’m anxious about starting high school because starting high school means meeting lots of new people. Meeting lots of new people means plenty of opportunities to make a first impression.

  I don’t know that I’m good at first impressions.

  What if my first impression makes people also kinda know I’m gay?

  “How?” I say.

  Zoey pushes her glasses up her pointy, freckled nose, takes a bite out of her apple, and says, “I don’t know.”

  She doesn’t know how she kinda knew.

  Like most things in life, I find that profoundly confusing.

  I think I know how I know most of the things I know.

  “You love show tunes,” she offers.

  “Oh please,” I say, hating how I’m such a cliché. “Not everyone who loves show tunes is gay.”

  “You binge watch Modern Family on Netflix.”

  “False positive,” I object. “Again.”

  She looks at me. “How so?”

  “I’m not watching it because of the gay couple.”

  “I know. You’re watching it because you have a crush on that dopey kid. What’s his name again?”

  “Luke.”

  “See? You even know his name off the top of your head.”

  If I should ever write a book about my sister, I will title it The Girl Who Knew Too Much.

  “Look at your fingernails,” Zoey says.

  I look at my fingernails. “What about them?”

  “They’re pristine and never dirty.”

  “What’s wrong with pristine fingernails?”

  “Nothing,” she says, “but have you ever looked at other guys’ nails?”

  As a matter of fact, I have. Not specifically at their fingernails, though. I find guys’ hands in general rather worthy of inconspicuous visual inspection. I have a thing for handsome hands, especially long, slender hands with bony, spidery fingers.

  Like E.T.’s.

  I’ve once seen a YouTube video of some guy from Romania or Bulgaria or someplace with fingers so long and agile, he could solve a standard-sized Rubik’s cube using just one hand. I watched that video nearly a dozen times in a row until I realized how my subconscious self was imagining those long, spidery fingers touching me in inappropriate places. Forget about being gay; I’m a closeted arachnodactylophile and I should probably get therapy or something.

  “There are other little things,” Zoey says. “Like the way you flail your arms when you’re really excited about something, or the way you look at other guys sometimes.”

  “I do not!” I protest, not because it’s not true but because I always thought my surreptitious glances at cute boys were surreptitious enough for no one to notice.

  “And now you’re blushing. That’s cute,” Zoey says, and it makes me blush even more. “But don’t worry. I don’t think anyone else would notice. I’ve known you since forever, so maybe I know you a little better than most people.”

  “So when were you going to tell me?” I ask.

  “That you’re gay? I wasn’t. I thought you already knew.”

  “No, I mean … when were you going to tell me you knew?”

  “I wasn’t. There’s a reason it’s called coming out and not being dragged out, you know?”

  “Right,” I say with a wry smile. “Hey listen, not a word to anyone, okay?”

  She squints at me. “You don’t want to stay in the closet forever, do you?”

  “No! I mean … no. Of course not. But I want to get this right. And I want to do it myself if you don’t mind.”


  “Yeah, whatever,” she says.

  With screeching brakes a bicycle scoots past Zoey from behind and skids into a halt right in front of us, blocking our way. Startled, Zoey jumps and grabs my arm.

  My big sister seeking my protection makes me feel all grown-up and manly.

  “¿Hola, que tal?” El Niño says with that silly but adorable grin of his.

  El Niño is my affectionate nickname for Alfonso.

  Alfonso is my best friend.

  His full name is Alfonso Alonso, because his parents have a dry sense of humor.

  “Fonso!” Zoey shouts at him, placing her hand on her chest and taking a deep breath. “You scared the hell out of me!”

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” he says and leans forward. Zoey lets go of my arm to give Alfonso a quick hug.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey.”

  Alfonso raises his right hand toward me. “Hey, Matty.”

  Matty is Alfonso’s affectionate nickname for me.

  I grab it and we do a quick shoulder bump. When he places his hands back on the handlebar I cast an inconspicuous glance at his fingernails. They’re nowhere near as pretty as mine.

  I still like Alfonso’s hands, though. At first glance they may look a bit chubby, but when you shake his hand, what superficially looks like chubbiness turns out to be all muscles. That’s because Alfonso is a fruit picker.

  That is not a euphemism for someone who bullies gay people.

  He is an actual part-time fruit picker, and he spent the entire second half of the summer holidays out in the fields, doing whatever it is fruit pickers do, which I assume is picking fruit.

  Don’t bother calling child protective services or immigration. There is nothing illegal going on here.

  Alfonso’s parents came to the U.S. from Argentina some time in the nineties, and by the time Alfonso was born they had started their own fruit picking business and become U.S. citizens. Today Alfonso’s dad is the fruit picking king of Brookhurst County with a couple of dozen employees and a son who’s eager to volunteer whenever he can.

  “So,” he says, “what were you guys talking about?”

  “Nothing,” I hurry to say.

  “Oh really?” he says, eying me suspiciously. “Geez, I could have sworn I’ve seen you talk about something, but I guess I must have been mistaken.”

  In my mind I perform a quick calculation that involves multiple variables such as the loudness of our voices, Alfonso’s braking distance, and the wind speed and direction to gauge how much of our conversation Alfonso might have overheard. Meanwhile Zoey smiles at me with an expectant look, but if she thinks I’m going to come out to Alfonso in passing on a public sidewalk during the morning rush hour and in front of a witness, she knows me a lot less well than she thinks she does.

  “Nah, we were just …” I say to Alfonso with a dismissive and hopefully not too camp wave of my hand, “… I was just saying how exciting everything is, first day of high school and everything. It is exciting, don’t you think?”

  Alfonso shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s gonna be all that different from junior high, to be honest.”

  Alfonso turns his bike around and we take him in the middle as we continue our way down Vine Street.

  “Matt doesn’t like meeting new people,” Zoey says, “because he hates making first impressions.”

  “I don’t hate making first impressions. But let’s face it, first impressions tend to stick. Just imagine, first day, first class, a bunch of new people, and you say or do something incredibly embarrassing or stupid. That’s so gonna stick with you through high school, the entire four years. So I think I’m gonna try to keep a low profile.”

  Zoey shrugs. “Whatever. Just try not to be too much of a wallflower. Did you know that thirty-four percent of echo boomers marry someone they met in high school or college?”

  Alfonso frowns. “What are echo boomers?”

  “It’s a fancier word for millennials,” I say. “And I bet that’s thirty-three percent college and one percent high school sweethearts.”

  Zoey sighs. “You need to work on your attitude, Matthew. For all you know you might meet your future spouse today.”

  I hate how she says spouse to make it extra-ambiguous. Then again, I should probably be grateful she didn’t say husband.

  “I think I can already see her,” Alfonso says, flicking his head toward the other side of the street where Sandy Lauper is flailing her arms and calling out to us as she’s waiting for a gap in the early morning traffic on Vine to cross the road.

  “Guys, guys! Wait up for me!”

  My affectionate nickname for Sandy Lauper is Hurricane Sandy.

  For the record, I don’t name all of my friends after weather phenomena, just Sandy and Alfonso. That’s because they’re forces of nature, both of them.

  “Oh no, not the limpet!” Zoey says, rolling her eyes. “Can we just keep on walking and pretend we haven’t seen her?”

  “That would be so rude,” I say and stop. “She knows we’ve already seen her.”

  “He’s got a point,” Alfonso says and puts his feet on the ground, prompting Zoey to stop as well and turn her back toward Sandy, crossing her arms in silent protest.

  When she makes it to our side of the street, Sandy first flings her arms around my neck, squeezing me as if she hasn’t seen me in a hundred years and yanking my body left-right-left.

  “Matt!” she squeals. “I’ve missed you so much! I haven’t seen you since the last day of school. Did you go on vacation? It’s so good to see you! You look so cute! I love your T-shirt, is it new? O-M-G!”

  Her vanilla scent tickles the inside of my nose, and I don’t have time to say anything else than “Hi, Sandy,” because she’s already let go of me and is throwing herself around Alfonso.

  “Alfonso! I’ve missed you! O-M-G, look at you! Have you lost weight? You look awesome! I met Alfredo the other day, he said you were picking fruit again. Is that true? Have you taken over your dad’s company yet? I mean, L-O-L!”

  “Yeah, no, not yet,” he says, but Sandy is already moving on to Zoey who leans in to her, her arms still crossed.

  “Oh my God, Zoey! I missed you! Cute glasses! And I love you hair! What have you done with it? You have to tell me!”

  “Hello, Sandy.”

  With Sandy hanging around her neck, Zoey crosses her eyes, sucks in her cheeks and moves her lips like a fish out of water which cracks Alfonso and me up.

  Sandy, bless her, takes our giggles as a sign of joy that we’re seeing her.

  Finally letting go of Zoey, she looks at all of us. “O-M-G, you guys! First day of high school! I’m so excited, aren’t you? I was so excited last night, I couldn’t even sleep. First I was texting with Laura until she dozed off at like one a.m. and then I’ve been on Twitter and Instagram until two or two-thirty or I don’t even know. Good thing I know so many people in Europe and Australia and everywhere because everyone from around here was already asleep, obviously.”

  “That’s great, Sandy,” Zoey says, not even trying to conceal the snark in her voice. She never does when she’s talking to Sandy.

  Not that Sandy ever notices.

  “I know, right?” She squeezes herself between Zoey and me and grabs my arm as we continue on our way. “But honestly, guys, it’s so exciting, isn’t it? I mean, it’s the first day of freaking high school and everything! I can’t even!”

  “Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna be all that different from junior high,” Alfonso says, slowly rolling along to the left of me, his hand on my shoulder to keep his balance.

  It’s nice to have a friend lean on you.

  “Yeah, no, I know,” Sandy says, clinging to my arm. “But it’s still exciting to meet new people, don’t you think? And make new friends? And all the new teachers too! My sister says the teachers at Brookhurst High are really good. So what are your electives? There were so many to choose from, I didn’t even know where to start!”
<
br />   Over the summer, my mom has been asking me the same question about two hundred times. Alfonso always had his mind set on business management and—because he’s a lazy bum when it comes to academics—Spanish. I took forever to make up my mind between drama, creative writing, literature, photography, filmmaking, and about half a dozen others. I handed in my picks—literature and creative writing—two hours before the deadline.

  Not that Sandy will ever know, because she’s already moving on.

  “But you know what? You guys are so not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. I actually signed up for Chinese, can you believe it? Because Chinese is going to be so freaking important in the future, like, for real. Because my dad says there are, like, two billion Chinese, and they basically own us now because of all the debt America has. We owe, like, trillions of dollars to the Chinese. And remember how during the financial crisis the banks foreclosed on millions of homes because the homeowners couldn’t pay their mortgages anymore? My dad says that could totally happen to America. Like, if we can’t pay off our debt to the Chinese they could just walk in here and foreclose on all our resources and our infrastructure and whatnot and just say, ‘We’ll take this, fēicháng gǎnxiè.’ That means ‘thank you very much,’ by the way. My dad says we better prepare for when the Chinese claim all their money back, so I figured the best way to prepare for that is to learn the language so we can, you know, like, talk our way out of it when they knock on our door and want to ship all our bridges and national parks and everything to China. I mean, that would be better than starting a war with them, right, because they have nukes and everything. Honestly, though, can you imagine me speaking Chinese? Ching chong chow mein chop suey. I mean, L-O-L, right? It’s gonna be so freaking hilarious!”

  “It already is,” Zoey says with a pitying smile that I’m sure looks genuinely nice to Sandy. “It already is.”

  Ahead of us, some reckless shop owner sweeps waste water out of his store right into the middle of the sidewalk. I’m about to step around it when I hear screeching bicycle brakes again, and someone shouts, “Watch out!”