Consenting Adult (13 page)

“Allowances for him!” He no longer sounded cheerful and her heart sank. Give him leeway to adjust! I tell you It’s not his life, It’s my life.”

“It’s everybody’s life, and we could all declare a moratorium on problems.”

“You said you weren’t going to make a big deal about it. You’re putting it to me pretty hard, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to, but okay, I’ll quit If you don’t come down, I’ll dream up some damn good fib for the family, you can count on a good one.” Her voice was lighter. Beneath it she thought, All this ghastly hypocrisy. Leeway. Allowances. If we stumble. God, I’m as brave as a rabbit.

“Whatever fib you hit on,” he said unexpectedly, “it would only set everybody speculating.”

“It might.” She shrugged. “Anyway, enough! What I drove up for, to say all this, is said, and seeing you is lovely. You really do look marvelous.”

“Yeah. This was a great meal.”

“Would you like to drive the car a bit before I start home?”

“Would I ever. Let’s go.” Good humor leaped alive in him and before they were through with the check and the tip, he said, “I might get a ride down Wednesday night sort of late.” Again he thought of the station wagon and Hank and again he blocked the thought. He had never seen Hank again, never gone near “Gremlin’s” again. The moment Hank let him off, half a mile from school, he realized he didn’t know Hank’s last name or the name of the firm he worked for. Hank had said nothing after it was over. It was he, Jeff, who had finally asked, “What made you wait outside the restaurant?”

“You looked low. I was low myself.”

“Did you have any reason to think I’d go along with it?”

“No way. In fact, the opposite. But you can’t win ‘em all, so you try it on.”

There had been some comfort in that, but for days afterward, every time he saw a station wagon he was stabbed with the fear that it would stop; each time it drove past he gulped with relief. It was days before it began to dawn on him that he might never see Hank again, that Hank might be one of those guys who wanted to be anonymous, wanted one-time shots, wanted never to see anybody a second time. He shuddered. That was even more degrading.

Now his mother said, “Is there any show or musical you want to see? I might get us some tickets for Friday or Saturday. Wait, maybe you’d rather go with Pete or somebody.”

“Not Pete,” he said quickly. “We’ve had a spot of—well, never mind, no sweat. Could you get tickets for
Toys in the Attic,
or is it too big a smash?”

“I can try.”

“Gee, that would be great. So is this.” He turned the key in the ignition, backed expertly, and then grinned at her as they drove off. They stayed away from the parkway, choosing country roads instead, Jeff glorying in the process of driving. He had learned to drive, as a kid, illicitly enough, and by the time he could be licit, he had become an expert, not only at the wheel but at repairing virtually anything that could go wrong with a car. Now he was so absorbed in his own pleasure at driving again that an answering pleasure arose in her.

Had Jeff told Pete? The hunger to talk of your deepest feeling to your best friend was a universal, to talk it out in your own language, on your own level, not to a parent, not to a doctor, but to a friend—it was vital. Often it was compulsive, a drive to share the hidden pressure and thus divide it or diminish it.

Jeff turned the car into a narrow pebbled road and the look of country deepened. “This could be Vermont,” she said, “or Maine. What’s it called?”

“Just a detour, but it’s nice. In the winter we come here to ski.” He pointed ahead and she saw that they were approaching a crest, beyond it nothing but sky, and a downhill slope that would make a good ski run. “About those tickets for Toys
in the Attic,”
he said casually. “I wonder if Sue is going to be around. She might want to see it.”

“Sue? Suzy Wister?”

“That’s the only Sue I know. Suzy, if you still call her that. She hates it.”

“I didn’t know she did. I suppose she’s around or will be for the holiday.”

“I thought I might ask her, and if she hasn’t seen it, she’d probably want to, wouldn’t you think?”

“I’d think yes.” Careful, she thought, don’t assume anything, don’t sound anything. Matter-of-factly she said, “If it’s a dead sellout, have you a second choice I might try?”

“Nixville. Unless you know something else that’s good.”

They talked about plays but she scarcely knew what she was saying. An incredible emotion suffused her, one she dared not acknowledge, one she dared not let him suspect. She talked of a new theater-ticket broker Tom Quales had mentioned at the last staff meeting and was glad when they turned back toward Placquette. They parted at the entrance drive to the school, Jeff saying, This was swell, the dinner and all,” and she was glad to drive off alone, uninhibited as to what she might think, free to speculate without monitoring her expression or voice. She was impatient to be at home again. There would be no need to tell Ken now that Jeff might remain in analysis for another full year, nor any point in bringing up his choice of Yale. But she knew she would mention the tickets he wanted for Toys in
the Attic,
that Suzy Wister would come into it, and that without making much of it, she would somehow manage to let Ken know that taking Suzy was Jeff’s own idea.

Behind her, watching the car drive off, Jeff thought, Brother, why didn’t I think of that before? A swell way, easy, and perfectly fair to Sue or anybody, just taking her to a theater, how could that be anything but okay? A dart of gratitude to Dr. Dudley nicked him, perhaps for the first time. It was the visit after the one about the station wagon, and Dr. Dudley still said nothing directly about that. But he had asked, a couple of times, whether he was dating any girls or whether he planned to. The doctor so rarely said anything positive that it had sounded almost like an order: Date a Girl. Date a Girl Soon. Remember the Wonders of Nature’s Intentions—Jeff had expected the plastic models to appear next, but they didn’t, and in his relief, he had been like a kid trying to be teacher’s pet. He sure would give it a try, soon, really soon, uptight or not, he would go ahead and date a girl soon.

And now he was about to do just that. If he knew his mother, those tickets would be bought if she had to turn into Mrs. John D. Rockefeller to buy them. That was the sickening part of it, how she sort of lighted up when he asked. Oh, God, Parents.

Back in the dorm, he told Pete about their supposed falling out, so he could have the tickets for Sue instead, and Pete just lapped it up. You always had to say small things like that to parents, Pete said, to swing things the way they should go. And then he asked, “Who’s this Sue anyway? She’s one you never even mentioned, you old fox, so give.”

And for once Jeff didn’t have to grab wildly at bits and pieces. No Joanie or Gloria or Connie, just real talk about somebody he actually knew. He tossed it off, keeping it all cool and steady, but it was what she looked like and where she lived, what school she went to—it had a good ring of truth. That was something new, and he liked it. The idea had come in a flash the moment his mother got talking of a show, and now here he was, feeling great about telling Pete. Now Pete would mention it in front of a couple of guys, and the whole school would know. What’s more, he couldn’t wait for his next hour with Dr. Dudley.

Waiting on Thanksgiving eve was harder than Ken had imagined it. Jeff was due at about nine, and by eight there was a physical sensation of discomfort to contend with. Within his rib cage, everything seemed to be stiffening and turning, as if there were a great mass of dough there being kneaded, thumped and flipped over and kneaded once more by bony hands. When at last Jeff’s key turned in the lock and he heard the inevitable “Hi” to Tessa, he called out “Hi” himself. To his astonishment, no sound came from his lips.

As Jeff came in, he tried it again and this time it was vocal. “Hi, Dad,” Jeff answered, and they looked at each other. Ken was careful not to look strained, but inside, the stiffening dough seemed to be rising, crowding out air from his lungs, removing space in which his heart could beat freely. He stood motionless, waiting for air and space to return, and as Jeff turned to his mother and then headed for the kitchen, he began to feel easier.

A small victory arose in him, but with it a rising tide of warmth, not a pleasant warmth but the tight flush that meant a sharp climb of blood pressure. Alarm buzzed its warning at him and he sat down carefully, laying his head slowly against the high cushioned back of his wing chair and adjusting his breathing purposely to a slower rhythm. In, pause. Out, pause. In. Out. You are not going to let this break through somewhere in your brain. This is only about four minutes of time since he opened the front door and there are four whole days ahead. You owe it to Tessa, you owe it to him, to control what you feel. You also owe it to yourself.

For the hundredth time he wondered why he felt so hopeless about Jeff, why he could not share Tessa’s optimism or trust or faith or whatever it was she seemed to feel. Clearly she had no inkling of the dangers that could beset any young homosexual, or any young man with a tendency or curiosity about being homosexual. She seemed never to have heard of the hustlers or cruisers who might accost him, in a park, at a movie, in a public toilet, seemed totally ignorant that a Vice Squad cop might seek to entrap him, beat him up, arrest him, even shoot him. It was unthinkable to ask her point-blank whether she knew of any of this; one new reason for his silences was this dread of blurting out any of it to her and enlarging the scope of her fear.

And so she knew nothing of these extra ingredients in his feelings. She did know that he was not one of those Bible-Belters who cried down fire and brimstone on all homosexuals; he could no more take the punch-in-the-jaw male attitude if one of them approached him than he could yell Commie at somebody who thought the Cold War was as much our fault as Russia’s. And yet there was this stony lump lodged in his gut ever since the moment he had read the letter. Nothing would act as solvent for it, nothing could dislodge it. It’s because I know Jeff, he thought now, I see him more clearly than Tessa does. I’m not blessed with her blindness.

The very thing he admired in his younger son, his will, his stubborn following of his own impulses, his refusal to be stampeded by the family or anybody else into professing interest in their causes—all this gave a strength to Jeff, but an inelasticity as well. He was not flexible, not easy to persuade or shift or detour from his chosen path. There were plenty of kids who might change and be influenced or analyzed out of a neurosis, but not Jeff. If he had come to his eighteenth year thinking he was a homosexual, the chances were all that he was a homosexual by nature, by inclination, by whatever mysterious compulsion made people homosexual. Medicine knew so damn little about it. He himself, of course, knew even less about it, but he knew Jeff.

Tessa had followed Jeff into the kitchen and he was glad to be alone. He needed respite and would continue to need it periodically for the whole four days. That excitement of Tessa’s about Suzy Wister and the theater. She had paid a sharper’s price for the tickets, as if some magic attached to
Toys in the Attic,
as if no second choice would serve to achieve the miracle that was to be achieved. That’s what he envied in Tessa, her capacity to believe what she had to believe, to hope for what she had to hope for. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that homosexuals often took girls out in the hope of that same miracle, or, more cynically, in the hope of setting up an effective disguise for themselves in a heterosexual world.

He thought of Jeff and Suzy and the theater. Some people would think he ought to warn her, or at least her parents, but it was an impossibility. Even to think it was a betrayal of his own son, yet there it was, full-fledged, three-dimensional, not contrived, not put together bit by bit in some dementia of planning, but there in the round and therefore as legitimate as any other thought. To keep quiet, to stay loyal and silent, was to let the Wisters’ young daughter get snared up in God knows what tragedy or farce, and it might ensnare Jeff too. He knew of such farces, had heard of them or read or found out about them in the rough commerce of men’s talk and men’s jokes.

Jeff appeared again, leaning against the kitchen door, looking for all the world like a son you could be proud of. What fearful things could be thrown at a man as life went on. Last year the stroke, this year this. If only it had been another stroke instead. Over that you could triumph.

“Do you want a snack, Ken?” Tessa had a tray of sandwiches and milk.

“How’d the season wind up, Jeff?” he said, taking a sandwich. “I missed out on a couple of scores.”

“We’re tied with Redfield Acad. The final game is a week from Saturday.”

“Is it a home game?” Tessa asked. “I wish we could get up for it”

“Yeah, at home, but it will be December by then and probably freeze your butt off.”

“We’re not such softies.”

Ken shook his head, which she understood to mean, “Better drop it,” and she continued, “December! I wonder whether Margie’s going to be early with that baby. She just might be closer than the official date.”

“First babies are always unpredictable, aren’t they?” Ken asked, a note of eagerness sounding, as if nothing mattered except being on hand for Margie’s first labor pains.

Tessa thought, He’s doing his best, and gratitude warmed her. Some old protective emotion awoke also, and all at once she felt split between the two of them, between the young one her son and the old one her husband. The words ran together as if each phrase made a single noun. The two sides of an equation, she thought, the x and the
y.
But they’re not separate sides, not
x
and
y.
No matter what, they add up, we all add up. And what we add up to is a family.

T
HANKSGIVING DINNER WAS NEARLY
over when it happened. Until it did, Tessa was wryly aware that it was easy to glaze over reality with the varnish of cliché, that from the moment they had all settled into their places, all twelve of them, they might have been the living models for another of Norman Rockwell’s
Saturday Evening Post
covers of the happy family gathered to give thanks to the Lord for the bounty and delights the year had yielded. There it all was, the loving talk, the smiling faces, very young to very old, all eyes focused on the great glistening turkey, all appreciative as Ken made his first slash with the carving knife.