Third Grade
Blaine reviewed the list of Santana's birthday guests. "You have a lot of friends," he said, nibbling on a cookie.
"Always have," she said, not boasting, just stating a fact. "You've got to learn, Blaine, you have to be a little bit mean to make people want to hang out with you."
"I don't think I'll ever know how to do that," Blaine said.
"Nope. You're way too nice." Santana shook her head at this obvious fault. "But you can still come to my birthday party."
"Good. Because I want to meet all your friends." He'd been hearing about her friends for three years, but he'd never been able to go to her parties in the past. He was only lucky this year because his father was out of town and his mother was staying home because there was nobody to stay at the house with Blaine for the weekend. His father never approved of him playing with Santana because of who her mother was, but that didn't make any sense to Blaine. And Santana's mother, Marisol, was great, anyway. She made awesome cookies, for one. He took another of them.
"You're one of my best friends, too," she pointed out.
"I'm not a school friend, though," he said, around the cookie, and blushed at the compliment.
"I think everybody will be able to be there. We'll be at Faurot Park. It's going to be perfect." Santana surveyed the list with satisfaction. "Brittany, of course."
Blaine nodded. "She's your best friend."
"Yes. And Noah; I've known him since we were really little. His Ma and my mother are friends. And Kurt."
"Who's he, again?" It was hard to keep all of Santana's friends straight in his head. He had imagined what each of them might look like, but he wasn't sure how close his imagination would come to reality.
"He's a lot like you, actually." Santana tilted her head and looked at him sideways, in that way that always made him feel like she could see inside his skin. She waved her hand in the air. "He likes books and things. Dress up. All that. But . . ." She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth and dropped her voice to a whisper, "he's been sad a lot. Something's wrong with his mom. She's really sick, something the grownups like to talk about but I don't really understand. He'll be at the party, he told me so, but he might not feel like doing party things."
"That's terrible," he whispered, leaning across the table. "I hope she'll be okay."
Santana shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think so. Kurt missed almost the whole week of school last week."
Blaine imagined what it might be like to have another friend who liked to play dress-up. A boy. His father was already cracking down on his imaginative play at home. He'd made Blaine pack his dress-up collection into a box and put it in the pull-down attic above the third floor east wing hallway. It had hurt to see all those pieces of his childhood get put away, as if, just because he was nine, he wasn't allowed to pretend anymore. Blaine had kept a few things, had hidden them from his dad the way he and Santana used to hide their My Little Ponies, but he didn't dare to take them out. Just knowing they were there was enough.
"What do you want for your birthday this year?" he said, changing the subject. Santana always knew what she wanted. Blaine mostly looked at the toy catalogs and picked something that he figured his father wouldn't object to, and then after a few weeks he put it on the shelf and forgot about it. Except for books - he never failed to read those at least twice.
Santana named the items on her wish list. "I want the Polly Pocket Hangin' Out House, and the Capsela Bug Builder, and the Bratz Stylin' Salon. And Brittany will pick out some clothes, because she's totally stylish like that. And riding lessons, but I don't think my mother will go for that." She grimaced. "It's been three years since she took me riding, and I think she's still traumatized."
"Who would have expected the horse to bolt like that?" Blaine shrugged.
"And was that my fault?" she protested. "She's punishing me because she's afraid to get near them. I mean, I would get my Papi to drive me, if it came to that."
Blaine had taken horseback riding lessons for the past two years. He didn't talk much about it with Santana, because he knew she would feel jealous. And, anyway, he didn't really care much for riding. It was just something he was expected to do, as all Andersons could play polo with the best of them.
Marisol breezed through the kitchen, clearing the plates from the table and leaving behind glasses of chocolate milk. "Don't forget to do your homework, Blaine," she said. Her voice was stern, but Blaine knew what that meant, and he wasn't worried.
"Yes, Marisol," he said. He lifted his bag from under the table and pulled out his math book and the social studies worksheets from yesterday.
Santana was scowling at him. "What?" he asked.
"You're always doing what you're supposed to do," she said, unzipping her own backpack. "And that means I have to do what I'm supposed to do, too, or else I'll look stupid. It's totally not fair."
"But you made Honor Roll last semester, didn't you?" Blaine tapped his pencil on his math book and looked at her smugly. He knew she'd been secretly proud.
"Yeah, but they put those stupid lists up in each classroom at my school, and only dorks make Honor Roll." She looked down at the torn paper-bag cover on her science book. "It's embarrassing. I'm not supposed to do that well."
"You said Kurt was smart. Is he a dork?" Blaine stared at her pointedly as he carefully wrote his name at the top of the blank notebook page. "You wouldn't be friends with a dork."
"I'm friends with you," she snapped, and they both cracked up.
000*
The crowd began to gather in the pavilion along the river, and Blaine sat by himself for a while before Brittany came up to him and sat right next to him, chattering about his shoes and his bow tie. After that, some of the other kids came over, and Blaine started to be able to put faces to names. He got to introduce himself to Noah, but then he went over to tease Santana and some of the other girls. Blaine didn't feel comfortable talking to girls like that; his mother said he should treat girls with respect.
"What did you get her?" said a blonde girl - Quinn, he remembered - to Brittany.
"Clothes," Britt said, shrugging. "She always wants me to get her clothes."
Blaine noticed a quiet boy sitting by himself beside the cake. "Who's that?" he asked Britt.
"That's Kurt," she whispered, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "He's the one who's always sad."
"Why is he sad?" Blaine was curious, because even though he didn't know all the kids, he didn't think that being sad at a party was even really allowed, if there were rules for parties like there were for everything else.
"We're not supposed to talk about it," Britt said. "His mom is sick, but my mom says it's not polite to talk about people when they're not around."
"Oh." Blaine wasn't supposed to do that either, so he kept his eyes busy, glancing around at the other kids until he settled on someone he did recognize. "Is that, um. Finn?"
Brittany laughed. "Yeah. Finny Hudson. He's in our class, so Mrs. Lopez made 'Tana invite him. But he's all mad because his best friend Davey is in Mr. Tompkins' class and Davey didn't get invited."
Blaine hadn't liked Finn, that day in the park. But he would have liked to see Davey again, to swing with him and maybe have a boy at the party who wouldn't tease Blaine for the funny things he did and said.
Santana got everybody to stand in two lines facing each other to play Red Rover, all except Kurt, who just sat by himself and looked sad. Blaine wished he could go sit with Kurt and talk to him, because when he was feeling sad like that, he just wanted someone to be with him and let him know he wasn't alone, but it was Santana's party and she wanted him to play Red Rover. Even though he was terribly clumsy and didn't help her team at all.
But before they could even get to eating cake, it became clear that the weather was not going to hold out. Santana scowled at the sky, as though she could deny the rain with the force of her personality. "This is totally unfair," she fumed, as the drops began to fall. All the party guests scurried to the pavillion, huddling together in the center where they only got rain on their legs. Marisol was prepared, at least, and she had lots of huge trash bags to hold all Santana's presents and to cover the cake.
"We'll stay for another ten minutes," Marisol said to Santana over the sound of the wind, "but I'm pretty sure it's going to thunderstorm, chica, and I don't think anyone's going to have much fun if it keeps blowing like this."
The expression on Santana's face could have frozen the rain into sleet. "Not fair," she said again, but she deferred to her mother, and Mother Nature. Possibly she just didn't want her presents to get wet.
Blaine was helping Marisol get the cake covered up and ready to take back to the car when he heard his father's voice say, "Blaine." Like he really meant it, and if Blaine didn't pay attention, he was going to get it.
"Daddy," he said, pleading. His father looked really mad, but Blaine didn't know why. Unless... unless...
He reached out and took Blaine's hand, very firmly, and began to walk away. "You are going home right now."
All the kids were staring at him. He just wanted to disappear into a hole, anything to get them to stop watching. "Daddy," he said again.
"This is not a place for you," his father said. Blaine could either walk with him, or resist and make a worse scene, so he just went quietly, but they could all hear his father's furious voice, and Marisol - Marisol was watching him with such sadness in her face. She wouldn't look at Blaine's father.
"Santana's my best friend, Daddy," he protested, but quietly.
"That is not acceptable." His father's icy tone made him shiver, even in the warm weather. "We're going to need to discuss this friendship with your mother. You spend entirely too much time with those... those people."
There was nothing Blaine could do but get into the car, wet and shivering, and burst into tears, which just made his father more angry. "Blaine," he said, with frustration and concern. "Why do you have to be like this?"
Blaine didn't know what he was like, but he knew it wasn't good.
000*
The rain was still coming down in buckets when Blaine rang Santana's doorbell. She looked a little surprised to see him standing there, but she didn't tell him to go away, so he figured it was all right.
"Britt's here," she said. "We're having cocoa. You want some?"
"I'd love some," he sighed. She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
"Is he done being mad?"
He shook his head. "Not even close. The stupidest thing is that I don't even know what I did."
She hesitated. "I think I know why," she said, in a low voice. "The way my Papi talks about African-Americans... it's not fair, and he's almost always wrong about it. Racist, my mother says." She didn't look at Blaine. "I guess your dad is, too, but about people like me."
Blaine felt a rush of anger. "You're right," he said. "It's not fair."
Brittany came into the kitchen, carrying a wet box. "Here's the rest of your cake. It's not too soggy. Hi, Blaine."
"Hi," he said, peering into the box with interest. Santana got three forks from the drawer, and they all dove in. She went right for the frosting roses, but Brittany seemed to prefer the chocolate cake part. It worked out perfectly.
"You want to play Go Fish?" Britt suggested. They dealt the cards amidst splotches of frosting and spilled cocoa. Blaine felt the envelope in his pocket, but waited until Santana had won two games before he pulled it out.
"Happy birthday," he said, handing it to her.
"Hey, thanks," she said, smiling at him. "You already got me a present."
"That was my mom," he said, shaking his head. "This one is from me. Just from me."
He held his breath as she ripped open the card and looked at the funny cartoon on the front long enough to laugh, but when she opened it, she stopped laughing. "Blaine? What -?" She pulled out a computer printout of a picture of his quarter horse, Peanut, wearing his English saddle and looking very handsome, with his three white socks and white blaze down his nose.
"You didn't get me... a horse?" she said, confused.
"Sorry, no," he giggled. "Um, but I did get you horseback riding lessons."
Brittany's eyes were as big as her cake plate. "Whoa."
Santana held her hand over her heart. "Dios mio. Riding lessons?" Her voice was a squeak, and Blaine could see that she was shaking lightly. "Real lessons? On a real horse?"
Blaine giggled again. "Yes. Real lessons. On Peanut. At my house, even, so your Papi doesn't have to drive you."
"You were right, San," said Britt, licking frosting off her finger. "He is smart. And nice." She grinned. "You don't have a girlfriend, do you?"
Santana held Blaine's eyes for a second before whipping her head around and smiling at Britt. "Blaine doesn't like girls, do you Blaine?"
Blaine felt his face go pink as he stared at Santana's bobbing ponytail and her sickeningly sweet smile. He stuttered over what to say, but then she was patting him gently on his arm. "It's okay. I don't think Kurt likes girls either. And besides, I'm the best secret keeper. I won't tell anyone."
That's good, thought Blaine, his stomach churning. Because I think my father would actually kill me if he thought... if he knew...
"But San?" Britt swirled her fork through some frosting before sucking it off the tines. "You just told Blaine about Kurt. That's not being a good secret keeper."
"Oh, please," Santana huffed. "It doesn't matter if the person I'm telling also doesn't like girls. That's not telling a secret, that's just like a public service or something. So that Blaine doesn't think he's the only one."
Blaine hadn't even gotten as far as thinking he was really... like Santana said, but it did make him feel a little better to think that there might be other boys like him, somewhere out there.
It made him feel even better when Santana came around his side of the table and put her arms around him, hugging him tightly, and whispered into his ear, "Thank you, Blaine - that was the best present I ever got."