Page 18 of Love It or List It
Joe dropped the photo album into a box with Meg’s name and gestured at the book.“You ever read?”
“Yeah.”Austin set the book onto a pile that he’d been setting aside.He didn’t know if Meg’s family would want to bother with them.
“Could never make it through the series,” Joe said.“Got bored in the first book.”
Austin shrugged.“It picks up.”He didn’t add that the copy he read had belonged to a foster parent who hadn’t had a TV or the internet and whose library had mostly consisted of stuff for little children or dull, long-winded history textbooks.
Austin had read every novel in that house, cover to cover, as a way of relieving the boredom generated by a 5:00 p.m.curfew and no TV.
He pulled out a few more books and set them aside.Joe broke the silence as he flipped through a copy ofCall of the Wild.“Still no sign of the dog?”
“No.”Austin’s mouth twisted.He was beginning to think they wouldn’t find it.He hoped that was because it was safe and not because it had gotten hurt.“What if we left some food out?”
Joe turned and gave him a look.“Yeah, no.Not unless you want something else to come visit, like racoons or worse—like the coyote that Linda suggested our mystery dog was.”
Austin conceded the point but couldn’t help but pout.“Fine.”He pulled over a new box, flipped it open, and stared.Then he slammed it shut, face burning.“Why would DeeDee have a box ofPlayboys?”
“What?”Joe lunged for the box and leaned into Austin’s space, practically sprawling across his lap.He tore the flaps back and breathed with delight.“Oh my God.”He reached into the box.
Austin covered his eyes.
“Why are you hiding?”Joe demanded.“This is amazing.”
“Did you forget the part where I’m very gay?Besides, I don’t want to see someone else’smagazinecollection.”
“Okay, one, you are making assumptions here, buddy.Because, two, these are from, like, the ’70s, and in pretty decent condition, and—” Joe looked back in the box and shifted some magazines around.“There’s also some Archie comics and gardening magazines in here, so I bet this is another one of her thrifting or junk collections.You know, the oldPlayboyscan have value, like anything else vintage.”
Austin’s shoulders untensed, though he didn’t want to take a closer look at the magazine Joe was actually flipping through.
Joe sat back and then shot Austin a look.“Ooor, maybe they were DeeDee’s and she kept them for the articles.”
Against all Austin’s better judgment, he opened his mouth.“What kind of articles doesPlayboyhave?”
Joe shrugged.“I don’t know—let’s find out.”He plopped a magazine in Austin’s lap and flipped back to the beginning of his own, like he was looking for a table of contents.
Austin still felt like he should be wearing gloves, but so far none of the magazines had crackled with anything suspicious, so he opened the cover.
And—all right.The pictures of naked or nearly naked women didn’t do anything for him, but they weren’tgross, other than in the exploitative way pictures like this were inherently gross.Bisexual or not, Joe didn’t seem to be lingering on them either.Maybe he thought so too.Or maybe he was having the Dad Reaction, imagining Meg being photographed like that.
Austin grimaced and putthatthought out of his mind, to focus firmly on the words in front of him.
Then, blinking, he flipped back to the front cover to check the magazine’s date.
“Huh.”
“Mmm?”Joe asked beside him and leaned to look over Austin’s shoulder.
Austin paged back to the article and read the line that had caught his attention.“About AIDS being a ‘gay’ disease: It’s not.There’s no such thing.Germs can swing both ways, and they don’t care whom their hosts sleep with.”He paused and let that sink into him—the reality of a magazine printing those words in October of 1983.“Is it weird that I’m now kind of hoping these actually were DeeDee’s and that shedidread them for the articles?”
Joe already had his phone out.“I mean, I’m asking Meg right now, so….”
“In the group chat?”Austin asked, imagining the chaos that would ensue.
Joe glanced up, warm eyes dancing in the light of the single lamp plugged in on the floor two feet away.“They give me so much shit, you don’t even know.It’s karma.”
Needless to say, they didn’t get much sorting accomplished that night.Instead, they spent an hour reading each other bits and pieces of the unusual treasure they’d found.Many of the magazines had short stories by authors Austin had read before—Vonnegut, Oates, le Carré.At the bottom of the box, they found a truly ancient issue that had a story set in a dystopian future where everyone was gay and people marched against heterosexuality.
“I’m not going to lie.My mind is totally blown right now.”
