Hard Love (8 page)

And so it begins. I have to tell them, “Look, I’m not moving anywhere. You two can feel free to go, but I’m staying right here. I have one year of school left, and I’m not starting all over at some new place. So get it out of your heads that Granny and I are going to be roomies.” I can see where this is going so I shove in more food.

Al says he understands it’s a little upsetting to me; Mom says the decision is not mine to make. I say, okay, move me, but I’m still going to school in Darlington.

“Do you know how much it costs to go to school in a town you don’t live in?” Mom says. “And there aren’t any buses that go directly. Chesterfield is only a half hour away—you can come back to see your friends whenever you want to.” (What friends are those, I wonder?)

“I’ll drive in then,” I tell her. “I’ll get a job and pay for the school myself. And drive here every day.” I’m not even sure why I’m fighting so hard, because I don’t like my school anyway. Nobody besides Brian would even know I left, and now that he’s smitten with some freshman, he wouldn’t care either. All I know is my mother marrying this bald guy is weird enough; I don’t want anything else to change right now.

“Drive?” she screams. “It’s too far!” After she just said it’s “only” a half hour.

“Well, if I can’t drive and there aren’t any buses, how do you figure I’m going to come and visit all my dear old friends? This sucks, you know that? It really sucks!”

And finally the time has come to make a dramatic exit. I’ve eaten all the shrimp and most of the spaghetti anyway. It’s time to retire to my room and allow them to reflect upon the damage they intend to do to mother’s poor boy. I detour through the kitchen on my way to the stairs to grab an ice cream bar from the freezer. No reason to skip dessert.

It was funny enough. Smart. Nasty. I could show it to Marisol on Saturday. It was the part I didn’t write down that bothered me, though. The part that happened later, when Mom came up to my room after Al left and sat on the very end of my bed, far away from where I was leaning against pillows, and blinked back half a teaspoon of moisture. She never cries, so this was a little unnerving.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Johnny,” she said, staring down at the old Indian print bedspread that used to be hers. “But I have to think of myself now. You’re almost grown. Pretty soon you’ll leave me too. And, God help me, I do love Al. So if he wants to live with his mother, then we will. Because I just couldn’t bear to lose him now.”

She was bawling over Goofy! I couldn’t believe it! “You think Al’s going to leave you because you won’t share bed and board with his mother?”

“You may not understand this, John, but it was hard for me to let anybody get close, after so many years. Now that I’ve done it, I’m not taking any chances,” she said.

“Jesus, don’t you have any pride?” I said. That was really mean, I know. Like I said before, sometimes when I know what will hurt people, I can’t stop myself from saying it. I’ve noticed, though, that I’m hardly the only person with this affliction. And at least I feel pretty crappy afterward.

She looked like she wanted to slap my face, but she didn’t. Of course. That would mean touching me. Instead she just stood up and walked out.

I started thinking about what had happened at the table—Al leaning over and rubbing her shoulder. It wasn’t whether or not they were having sex that was shocking. It was that
he
was allowed to
touch
her. He’d done it so casually, and she’d accepted it without a twinge—this had not been the first time. Did the guy even realize what that meant? He’d actually made contact! Broken through the invisible barrier. He was allowed to touch my mother, and
I wasn’t
!

For some reason that hurt so damn much, I felt like crying myself. But, of course, I didn’t. I probably don’t even remember how.

Chapter Six

“I thought you might like to order in tonight, John. Maybe Chinese for a change.”

I didn’t know what was going on. Dad had been weird ever since he picked me up. We’d had the same Friday evening routine for a hundred years now: He pulls up in the Lexus, I’m waiting behind the door with my duffel bag, he honks, I sprint down the sidewalk and hop in the front seat. He doesn’t even have to turn the motor off. He also doesn’t have to talk to my mother, which is just fine with her too.

But today it was different. I was waiting as usual, the car pulled up, I sprinted, but he was out of the car by the time I was halfway down the sidewalk.

“Just wanted to say hello to your mother, John. Give her my congratulations.”

He passed me as he walked up to the front door and knocked. I didn’t go along, but I did watch. I was half afraid Mom would open the door and pass out; I didn’t know when she’d last seen the guy. She did rock back on her heels a little, but then she steadied.

Dad was being a jolly good fellow; I could hear him blowing on about how wonderful it was she’d found someone and how he hoped she’d be happy, yadda, yadda, yadda. His best wishes … If Mom said anything, I couldn’t hear it. In another minute Dad sailed back down the sidewalk with a determined look on his face, smacking his hands together. He’d gotten that job done.

We were always pretty quiet in the car. Dad would turn on NPR and listen to the news. Sometimes he’d comment on some natural disaster or political upheaval, and I’d feel obliged to murmur a noncommittal response. I don’t know why I can’t stand talking to him; I guess because I know he’d like me to. He’d probably like me to read all those dumb books his company publishes so we could have stimulating, literary conversations.

Since we’re driving against the traffic that time of day, and since Dad drives like a bat out of hell anyway, we usually make it back to Marlborough Street in record time. But today he’d come up with this cuckoo idea of stopping for takeout before going back to his place. We’d have to eat in private. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that. No restaurant noise to cover our silence, no menus to pretend to be interested in, no customers to pretend to watch. What would we
do
?

I was so distraught I gave in to the Chinese food idea. It’s my father’s favorite cuisine, so I naturally opt for almost anything else even though I like Chinese just fine. He called the order in on his car phone—(I’m glad practically everybody has them now so he can’t feel so superior using the conspicuous thing)—so we could just zip by and pick it up on our way in.

“Let’s eat at the table, like civilized folks, shall we?” he asked as he unlocked the door to his place. As though I had a choice. The big, polished table in the dining room was all ready for us—a table I’d never seen him use before except as an auxiliary desk when the one in his office was overflowing. But now there were two place settings all ready for us, napkins folded, wineglasses in back of the plates, and two brand new, never-burned candles in glass holders, waiting to be lit.

Was he getting ready to tell me some really bad news? Was he sick? Broke? Getting married too? No, not that. He used to tell Mom (in this annoyingly calm voice) that he never should have gotten married in the first place. He wasn’t the kind of man who could be happy with an enclosed life. That’s the way he put it:
an enclosed life
. Like he was so free now, Mr. Armani Suit, Mr. Car Phone, Mr. Take-Out Food.

He dumped the Moo Shu Pork, the Emerald Chicken, and the rice into bowls, put the scallion pancakes and steamed dumplings on a plate, and brought them to the table, as if he’d actually prepared dinner instead of just paying for it. He lit the candles, as if we were
celebrating
something. I’d be damned if I’d ask him what the hell was going on.

“This is nice for a change, isn’t it?” He snapped the napkin and put it in his lap.

“What the hell is going on?” I couldn’t help it; I was too nervous to eat.

He smiled but continued to spoon rice onto his plate. “You’re perceptive, aren’t you?” Perceptive? I’d have to be comatose not to smell a rat here. He sighed, but it wasn’t an unhappy sigh. “The fact is, I sometimes feel like I don’t know you anymore, John. We spend time together, but we don’t talk much.”

“Whose fault is that?” I mumbled. Now that I knew he just wanted to bullshit me, I could eat. The Moo Shu looked good, even with bullshit sauce ladled over it.

“I don’t think we need to assign blame. The fact is, you’re practically an adult now, and I’d like to think we can have a mature relationship. I thought about your outburst the other week, and I realized that I haven’t been giving you enough credit, have I? You’re a man now, and we should be able to speak to each other directly.”

Oh, wow, I was so flattered. And wasn’t it wise of him to plan a private chat this time, so his manly son couldn’t embarrass him in public a second time? “So, what are you planning to say to me now that I’m a man that you couldn’t say to me when I was a kid?”

He squeezed a dumpling between his designer chopsticks, took a big bite, and chewed carefully while he thought that one over. “What I’d like to talk to you about, John, is divorcing your mother. I hope you’re old enough now to understand that I had no choice.”

Whoa. I definitely was not old enough, and might not
ever
be old enough to hear why my father had no choice except to run off with one of his anorexic girlfriends and leave my mother sitting in the dark.

“And I’m not blaming your mother. I’m really not. But I had to get out of there, John. It was home to her, but it was killing me. That small-minded community, everyone so concerned about trimming their shrubs, and growing their roses, and, and …”

“Raising their kids?” I suggested.

He smiled at me, like he was proud I’d managed to zing him. “Well, that too, I suppose. I never was much of a soccer dad. Do you remember the first year you played baseball, Farm Team or something? You were about eight, I think, and the coach asked me if I’d help him, be an assistant. I had to laugh at the poor guy. He’d gotten himself roped into it, and now he was trying to get another sucker involved. No, sir.” He shook his head at the guy’s naïveté.

My appetite had suddenly disappeared. I poked at a dumpling with my chopsticks, ripping it to pieces, remembering how much I hated picking up that heavy bat and taking my turn at the plate, the opposing team screaming, “Easy out! Easy out!”

“Eight was too old to start baseball. All the other kids had played for years. I was never any good compared to them.”

Dad swatted that complaint out of the air. “Oh, well, all that sports stuff is a waste of time anyway. You were too smart for baseball. You didn’t need it.”

“You mean
you
didn’t need it.”

“If you’d really wanted to play, your mother could have driven you.”

“How was I supposed to know what I really wanted? I was eight. Besides, she did drive me to swimming lessons and karate lessons and day camp. She was busy too, you know. She worked. She had a life. You just didn’t want anything to do with either of us. You were an urban hotshot, and we were too small town for you.” I tossed the chopsticks aside.

“John, can you honestly tell me you enjoy living in Darlington? For children I suppose it’s fine, but for someone your age, it must be deadly boring.”

Of course it was boring, but I damn well wasn’t going to admit it to him. “I guess it’s boring for people who have no inner resources. It seems fine to me.” I scooped up a big batch of Emerald Chicken, hoping that if I got my inner resources filled up a little more, they’d stop churning.

He gave me an exasperated look over the top of his glasses and maneuvered the last of the Moo Shu onto a pancake. “I can see this subject is still difficult for you. I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s forget it. I bought coffee ripple ice cream for dessert.”

“Oh, well, that will make everything okay then. Yum yum. Real men eat ice cream.”

That really cheesed him off. I was acting
so
immaturely. “John, I can do without the sarcasm.”

“I know you can. You can do without me, too.” I got up and smacked the chair into the table. “By the way, I
don’t care what your excuse is. I’ll never be old enough to forget what it felt like when you walked out and left us.”

*   *   *

Marisol was hunched so closely over the pages there was barely room for her coffee cup to slip between the table and her lips. I watched her narrow her eyes and sip. She was on her third reading and had already shushed me once when I tried to interrupt to ask what she thought. If I’d known she was going to take it so seriously, I might not have even brought the thing.

Finally she looked up, her finger stabbing at the page before her. “There’s the moment of truth,” she said. “That’s what makes it worth reading.”

“Yeah?” I leaned over the table to see what she was pointing to.

“‘All I know is I don’t want anything else to change right now.’ That’s the line that lets me know this cocky guy is real, that he’s not just a slick jerk who doesn’t care about anything.”

I sat back in my chair. “You think I sound cocky and jerky?”

“It’s your style: cool, unmoved, seeing it all from a distance. Don’t tell me that surprises you. This last paragraph? You throw a tantrum, then reflect calmly on how upset they’ll be as you pick up an ice cream bar on your way upstairs. Come on. You’re not going for vulnerability here.”

“Well, why should I?”

“You shouldn’t necessarily. But that style doesn’t let your reader see much of the person behind the writing. Which is probably your intent. You’re such a hidden person anyway.”

“What?”

“Please, you aren’t going to argue about
that
? You won’t even decide if you’re gay or not. You don’t want any
information
attached to you; you don’t want to give away any clues.”

I felt like she’d pinned my wings to a board, and now she was zooming in with the microscope.

“When I read something, I like to feel I’ve gotten to know the writer a little bit,” she continued. “For me, page after page of this kind of sarcasm gets annoying.” She put her hand up. “Don’t get me wrong. You write very well.
Very
well. It’s funny and it’s strong, and actually, I’m pretty impressed. If I wasn’t, I’d just shut up about it.”