A Place at the Table (11 page)

“Did you ever meet her?”

“Yeah. When I was younger Dad would sometimes take me to the restaurant at the hotel. It was this really swank place called the Oak Room. Carla, Dad, and I would all get steaks.”

Now I do turn on my side; I’m so intrigued.

“Oh my gosh. What was that like for you?”

“The thing I remember most was all of the deer heads mounted on the wall. That and how crazy good the steak was. I guess I was pretty clueless about everything else.”

“But your mom’s so pretty. I mean, why would your dad need to have another woman holed away at a hotel?”

“Mom says he did it because he could. Correction. She says ‘that bastard’ did it because he could.”

I try to imagine my father keeping a spare woman at a hotel in Atlanta. It’s impossible. Mama’s will is just too strong. She simply would not allow him to do that. I imagine Mama starting a prayer chain, calling on the women in SERVERS to pray the harlot out of Daddy’s life. I imagine them circling the parking lot of the hotel, holding hands, praying and chanting until the other woman was driven out and away forever.

I wonder why Pete and his mom don’t have any money. It seems like his mother should get a lot if his dad is rich enough to keep his mistress in a hotel suite for five years. I wonder what it would feel like to live in a cheap duplex with just your mom, your dad so far away and never coming to visit. I suddenly feel so sad for Pete that without thinking I reach out, put my hand on his forearm.

“That really sucks,” I say.

“Oh, don’t feel sorry for me,” says Pete, all breezy and nonchalant. “Were I still in Massachusetts I wouldn’t be enjoying this delightful little ditty.”

I hadn’t even noticed, but the song has switched again, and now
“Sweet Home Alabama” is playing at full force, the lasers creating the shape of a billowing Confederate flag. I settle on my back again. It seems the serious talk is over.

“You’re aware they’re referring to George Wallace, right?” asks Pete.

“Huh?”

“In the song. That bit about how much they love the governor in Birmingham.’ ”

“Who’s George Wallace?” I ask.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Where the heck is Shawna?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Sometimes I get tired of talking with Pete about how backward the South is.

“I keep telling her she should go see a doctor about how long it takes her.”

“I think she dawdles just to annoy you.”

“What kind of a word is ‘dawdles’?”

I shrug. It’s a word my mom uses every Sunday.
We have
got
to get to church on time, so don’t you boys dawdle over breakfast. You hear?

“You know what we were talking about earlier?” Pete asks.

“About your dad?”

“No. Unexpected pop-ups.”

I don’t say a word. I can’t.

“I’ve got one. I just can’t help myself. I get all fired up thinking about Dixie.”

As I roll my eyes, my gaze lands on the bulge against his shorts. And just like that, I get one, too. I can’t help it. He looks down at me and starts laughing.

“We’ve got to get these under control before Shawna comes back,” he says. “Or she’ll insist we have a threesome or something.”

“Sick,” I say.

“Think about Latham’s gym shorts,” says Pete.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I say.

At that moment Shawna appears, standing over us on the blanket, her upside-down face looming large. “What are you crazy kids doing?” she asks.

“Just enjoying this fine cultural event,” says Pete.

I laugh wildly, inappropriately.

Shawna settles back on the blanket and starts digging through her backpack, pulling out a bag of Fig Newtons. “You want one?” she asks me.

“Sure,” I say. She tosses me a cookie, which lands on my chest. Still lying down, I bring it to my mouth and bite into it, the fig seeds popping beneath my teeth. Hunter used to tell me the crunch in a Fig Newton was little dead flies that got caught inside the fig. I feel my erection start to go down.

While Shawna was gone, Pete’s and my blanket became a float, slipping over the rope that marked protected waters, drifting beyond the lifeguard’s range. Though I wanted to be alone with Pete, I am suddenly grateful for Shawna’s presence. She makes it okay for Pete and me to be together on this blanket at all. She has pulled us back to where it is safe.

•  •  •

The show ends with “Southern Nights,” which the lasers illustrate with a picture of a man in overalls casting a fishing line into a pond. As soon as the song ends, a refrain from “Dixie” comes on over the speakers. A chorus of rebel yells rises from everyone around us.

Pete leans toward me and whispers, “Uh-oh. The natives are getting frisky.”

“What did you say?” asks Shawna, but Pete waves away her question.

The lasers outline the carving of General Lee on horseback, and then they animate the legs of his horse so that the General is
first walking, then trotting, then galloping toward some destination other than defeat.

“How much would you pay me to yell, ‘God bless Sherman!’ at the end of this song?” asks Pete.

“Don’t,” says Shawna. “I’m serious. You’ll get the crap beat out of you.”

“Aw, let em try,” says Pete, all punchy and confident. “I’m small, but I’m slow.”

“Well, there’s a ringing endorsement,” I say.

“Wait. I mean I’m small, but I’m fast.”

“You are fast. My track times are so much better this year with you on the team. I’ve never pushed myself this hard.”

“You inspire me!” gushes Shawna. Shawna rarely goes a moment without being sarcastic. But neither, really, does Pete.

“I do it for Latham,” says Pete.

“And his big, sweaty balls,” says Shawna.

“Sick,” I say.

The show ends with fireworks. As soon as the last spark fades into the sky, Pete jumps up and starts gathering up our blanket and our trash. Shawna tells him that it doesn’t matter how fast we get to the car, we’ll still be stuck behind a thousand others trying to get out of the lot. Pete says not if we race. He is all hyped up. As we rush to the parking lot he keeps putting his hands on my shoulders and jumping, using me like a bench vault.

I can’t stop smiling. Everything is beautiful. Pete is beautiful, all lean and defined. Shawna is beautiful in her baggy overalls and her long braid. The night air is beautiful. Even life at home is okay. So much better than it had been. Tolerable. After what I did to Hunter, my brother keeps his distance, an easier thing once Mama finally allowed Hunter to take over Troy’s old room. Hunter is scared of me, and so Hunter leaves me alone. And when it comes to my brother, I can’t ask for much more.

Mama mostly leaves me alone, too, but that is only painful and not a relief. Still, I have gotten used to it, am able to forget about it much of the time, like at this moment, the soft night air blowing through the open windows as we wait behind a line of cars to get out of the parking lot, the three of us squeezed together in the cab of Shawna’s truck.

•  •  •

Back in Decatur, we stop for snacks at the 7-Eleven. I get Dip-N-Sticks, while Pete gets an Almond Joy and Shawna gets Big League Chew bubble gum. We tease her about it, ask her if she’s going to join the softball team with all of the other lesbians, and she tells us to shut up, but then she glances at her watch and gasps, “Oh shit!” saying that she has to get us home right away because it’s already 11:40 and her curfew, which her parents are really strict about, is midnight.

“Don’t worry about taking me home,” says Pete. “I’ll just sleep over at Bobby’s.”

When Shawna pulls up to my house all of the lights are off but the one in my parents’ bedroom. Hunter is probably sleeping at his friend Rocky’s house, where he spends most weekends. Rocky is the youngest of six kids and his folks have lost all interest in being parents, so they let Rocky throw parties and do whatever he wants. I am surprised Mama and Daddy let Hunter go over there. Surely they’ve heard rumors. But maybe not. Maybe because Rocky is the quarterback of the football team they just assume he’s well reared.

I let us in with the key. It takes me a few times to get it inside the lock, but eventually I manage. Once inside Pete goes to my room while I go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out with Scope. Then I walk to my parents’ room, knocking on their closed door.

“Come in,” calls Mama.

She and Daddy are both sitting up in bed, reading. Mama wears
a white nightgown with lacy shoulder straps. Daddy has on his old blue-and-white-striped pajamas from Brooks Brothers. Mama looks so pretty that for a moment I feel like a child again and I imagine myself rushing to bury my head in her chest, which would smell of Jergens Lotion and Laura Ashley Number 1 perfume.

“Is it okay if Pete sleeps over?” I ask, praying that there is nothing funny or slurred about my speech.

“Did he check with his mother?” asks Daddy. He is reading a book that his men’s group is discussing at church, titled
Dare to Discipline
.

“She’s fine with it,” I say, knowing she’ll probably be happy to have the apartment to herself for a night. Still, I’ll remind Pete to call her from the extension in the kitchen, farthest away from Mama and Daddy’s hearing range, so they won’t know we waited to ask for Mrs. Arnold’s permission until after they gave us theirs.

“All right then,” says Daddy. “Now tell me, how was the show?”

“Neat. Same as last year.”

“Do you need help setting up the trundle bed?” asks Mama.

“I’ve seen you do it. I can figure it out.”

“Son, those are words a father likes to here,” says Daddy.

“Yes, sir. Well, good night.”

“Good night, son,” says Daddy.

“G’night,” murmurs Mama, her eyes having already returned to
All Things Wise and Wonderful
.

•  •  •

Pete waits in my room, shoes off, sprawled on his back on the bed, lying smack below the overhead fan, which whirls at full speed. “Do those still work?” Pete asks, pointing to the fluorescent glow-in-the-dark stars dotted on the ceiling that Mama stuck on years ago.

“Yeah,” I say. “But they’re pretty old. They glow for about two minutes, then fade.”

“Do you have any more booze in the house?”

“Hello?” I say, taking my house keys out of my pocket and putting them on the plate on my dresser. “Have you met my dad, Pastor Banks?”

“They don’t even drink behind closed doors?”

“Nope.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“If you say so.”

“Hey,” says Pete. He looks at me. “Turn off the light. Let’s see the stars.”

“They’re kind of lame.”

“Let me see.”

I flip off the light. Suddenly my room is all shadows. Pete looks like a bump across the bed, lit only by the stars’ fluorescent glow.

Pete thumps the bedspread. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

My heart.

Pete thumps the bedspread again. It is the same one I’ve had for years, red with white sailboats printed on it.

I sit on the bed’s very edge. Pete, still lying down, rolls toward me and puts his head in my lap.

I say nothing. To speak would be to confirm what is happening.

“Hi,” he says, turning his head so he is looking up at me.

Silent, I put my hand on his chest, pressing down on his T-shirt so I can feel the hard spot of bone between his pecs. He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed so that he is sitting beside me, our thighs touching. And then his face is coming toward me. His mouth smells of bourbon. I feel his lips, which are soft and warm and full, pressing. He puts his hand on my cheek as he kisses me, his tongue going into my mouth as if he has done this a million times before. I cannot fight this. I do not want to fight this.

I kiss him back softly. Trying not to think of how much I want him. Instead I tell myself that we are just practicing, for our future girlfriends, our future wives. We are drunk and we are practicing. We are such good friends. Such good friends that it is hard to find a way to show our affection. This is not a homosexual thing; this is a really-good-friends thing, like Jonathan and David in the Bible.

The overhead fan cranks and whirls, stirring the air around us. This delicious, cool air.

And then Pete pushes me back onto the bed, suddenly and with force, and I let him, let him straddle me with both legs, pressing his crotch against mine. I feel his erection. He must be able to feel mine. I don’t say a word. To say a word would make it real and this is not real. This is not real. This is the best I have ever felt in my whole life. Except it can’t be happening. For it to be happening would mean we are like that skinny man with the mustache at Piedmont Park. And we aren’t like that, we aren’t like him, we can’t be. We are just two really good friends. We are just really, really good friends who love each other, who are finding a way to show how much we love each other.

Pete is lifting up my shirt and pulling it over my head, the way Mama would when I was little and she would help me into my pajamas, only Pete’s motion is urgent. He is kissing my chest, letting his lips linger and tug on my nipple, and it feels so good I cannot say
stop.
I cannot say anything except to let out a little moan because nothing has ever felt as good as what Pete is doing right now, unbuttoning my fly and pressing his hand against me. And oh God, oh God, this cannot be happening, it isn’t happening, because it is so wrong, wrong, wrong; I know it is wrong even as I am bucking my pelvis up toward Pete. I want him. I know it is wrong, but I cannot say a word about the wrongness of what we are doing because if I do he might stop, and right now, with the fan spinning above me and him touching me, nothing is worth more. Nothing. Not Mama, not Daddy, not God. Pete slides two fingers inside the elastic band of
my underwear and I am thinking,
Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop
. And then something does stop, though it takes me a moment to recognize what it is.

The fan. The overhead fan has stopped spinning. There is a noticeable silence in place of its whirl. A light shines in from the hallway. Pete jumps off me. Mama, so pretty in her white nightgown with its lacy straps, stands in the doorway, the door open, and she is saying something, but I can’t understand because language makes no sense. I am dizzy. I might pass out. Pete looks at me and there is fear in his eyes and, weirdly, this calms me because I want to be strong for him. Daddy must have been just a few steps behind Mama, because I see him in the doorway now, too. I see him scan the scene and I see his self-assurance, so much a part of him, just fizzle right out. He is a balloon, punctured in the air, deflating as it lowers to the ground. And still I do not say a word, even though Daddy has asked me to do just that, to explain to him, please, what in the name of God we think we are doing.