Strings Attached (27 page)

She hung up, then flipped on the stove burner and bent low to ignite her cigarette with the pretty blue flame. She sucked in a heavy drag, then saw through the plume of smoke that her hand was trembling.

She needed to eat something quickly. She grabbed a Coke from the fridge and gulped a few swigs. Then after her blood sugar rose a bit, she would take her insulin and eat.

She pressed her fingers heavily into her temples and massaged them, scrunching her eyes shut against the swelling headache.

Shit.
Her son was gay. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he had some kind of major quirk, considering his upbringing. She hadn’t ever talked to him about sex; she’d figured that he’d learn whatever he needed to in school—that was the teacher’s job, after all. And she guessed that being a queer wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone; at least he had money now and could do whatever he wanted in life. Not like her. She’d always had to fend for herself. No one had given her anything.

Could he do something about my hair color?

As she dug two of the pizzas out of the freezer, a frosty glass bottle buried in the back caught her eye. She reached in and pulled it out: a brand-new bottle of Malibu rum with the paper seal intact. She used to drink this crap with Dr. Pepper as a teenager. Could it really have been in here for the past twenty years? Or had Bill shoved it back there behind the pizzas when he dropped off those flowers.…

She placed the bottle on the counter, peeled the wrappers off the pizzas, and threw them in the oven.

There was a gentle rap on the front door. “Who’s it?” she hollered while hiding the rum back in the freezer.

“It’s Arthur.”

She found him shivering under an umbrella, holding the handle of a child’s red wagon piled high with firewood covered in plastic. She scanned him from head to toe and back.

“Didn’t you used to be that hotshot football player two years ahead of me? The one that joined the Marines right out of high school?” She chuckled, one hand on her hip. “Well, look what working here’s done to you.”

“And weren’t you that gorgeous girl who married one of the best-looking, richest guys on the West Coast?” Arthur grinned slyly. “So the years have taken their toll on us both. Let me in, or I’ll dump this load right here.”

“Come in. Actually, it’s nice to see you again, and I don’t say that to many people around here.” She threw the door open wider.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tyler. And it’s good to see that you’re looking well. I must say the rumors appear to have been greatly exaggerated.” He pulled the tiny wagon over the threshold, spilling two of the smaller logs onto the floor. “Would you like me to build you a fire?”

“That would be great, sure. I’ve gotta get something in my stomach before I pass out. You didn’t bring any leftovers with you, by any chance?” She drew the sash of her bathrobe tighter around her waist and made her way to the kitchen, while he opened the fireplace screen and began stacking logs carefully inside.

“No, but I made sure everything was stocked when I heard you were coming.”

“Right. Thanks.” She leaned against the counter, downing more of her Coke. She was relieved to see that her trembling was starting to diminish, so she could probably take her insulin now. She made her way into the bedroom and retrieved the small black satchel where she kept her blood sugar paraphernalia. She dropped it on the counter, unzipped it, and withdrew the contents, which included a calculator-size machine and a fresh syringe.

“You have to inject yourself with that stuff now?” Arthur asked as he knelt down, and then struck a match.

“Yeah, but it’s not as bad as it looks,” she answered, while retrieving two tiny glass bottles from inside the refrigerator door. She held them up to the light and shook the clear liquid inside back and forth. “I just pretend I’m Billie Holiday.”

Arthur poked at the growing fire while Tiffany fiddled with her glucose test strips. “Arthur,” she asked him, “how is Jeremy, really?”

He looked up and grinned at her. “He’s a wonderful young man, and he’s got the world going for him. He’s grown up so much in the past few months, it’s remarkable.”

“He’s gay, isn’t he?” She dragged deeply on the cigarette in her hand, her eyes moony.

He froze for a moment, then zipped up his jacket and inched his way toward the door. “You need to ask him that yourself. Just be prepared to be honest with him about how you feel. He’s smart, and if you’re hiding something, he’ll know it.”

“I’m not so sure; I’ve always hidden the fact that he means the world to me,” she said, tapping an ash into the kitchen sink. “And I don’t think he knows that yet.”

“Well then don’t keep it such a big secret anymore,” he replied, grasping the doorknob and twisting it. “Those sacrificial lamb chops in the oven are probably cooked by now, so I gotta go. Call me if you need anything else. I’ve got an errand to run, but I’ll be back later.”

“Arthur?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for looking out for him.”

“Just doing my job,” he replied. He gave her a sweet smile and opened the door, then faded into the drenching blackness of the storm, with the empty wagon banging noisily behind him.

Tiffany bolted herself in, punched the alarm code into the keypad, and then sat at the barstool to take her blood sugar. She only had to wait a moment after pricking her finger, swabbing it, and inserting the swab into the machine before the LCD beeped and announced its verdict. She looked at the number.
That’s way too high.
She checked her pocket chart, then drew the corresponding measure of insulin from the glass vial into the syringe. Then she remembered the freezing bottle of Malibu in the freezer and sucked in another couple of cc’s, just in case.

Delicious wafts from the baking pizzas filled the room as she stuck the needle into her bicep and gently depressed the plunger. After the liquid had emptied, she pulled out the hypodermic and dropped it into the trash container under the sink. Then she hopped off the barstool, shuffled to the freezer, and withdrew the white frost-covered bottle, with its thick, rich liquid sloshing promisingly inside. She set it down carefully on the sink and returned to the barstool to finish her cigarette and to think.

Four months of gut-wrenching sobriety in that shithole hospital. And if she hadn’t been clever, it would have been six. Four months of individual therapy and group therapy and checkups and urine tests and pathetic addicts and condescending staff. All for what? So the employees could justify their jobs to the board of directors, who would continue receiving their foundation grants and overcharging MediCal under the guise of helping others, while avoiding the real issue, which was, how in fact do you get someone to give up something that feels as good as a few cocktails?

Alcohol. During group therapy, they were asked to put into words how it made them feel. After listening to such inadequate answers as “…like I’m flying…” and “…really, really relaxed…” it was her turn. She took a while to respond, which was OK, as Dr. Bourfay himself employed long, pregnant pauses. “A booze high—” she began “—is like this: think of an orgasm being like a ball of clay.” They all looked at her as if she were nuts. “Now take that ball of clay and rub it between your hands until you’ve got a long snake.” She pantomimed this concept. “That snake you’re holding…” she held her hands wide, with her fingers pinching something invisible between them “…is four cocktails.”

The group nodded enthusiastically.

Dr. Bourfay had only replied,
Yes, but no drink tastes as good as sobriety feels.
And everyone in the group turned to look at him, and every pair of eyes said the same thing:
you are such a dumbfuck.

And booze was a snake for her, she couldn’t deny it. After all, the doctor indicated that her endocrine system was living in dog years, and her roaring case of diabetes was only kept to a hum by twice-daily shots. And she had to admit that abstinence from alcohol was making a difference; after all, was it any coincidence that she was only now developing a relationship with her nearly grown son at the same time that she was regaining bladder control?

But to surrender to a lifetime of complete sobriety?

I’d rather die.

So what about that day at Arbor Vitae after she’d earned floor-cleaning detail for pulling off Athena’s wig during group, when she’d overheard some of the doctors debating the pros and cons of something called Learned Moderation, a treatment for alcoholism favored in Great Britain and Australia, where incidents of the disease were low, though most of the population drank regularly? She’d eavesdropped around an open doorway, dripping mop in hand, as the pair of doctors argued heatedly about the subject, one saying it was just an excuse for drunks to drink, while the other kept insisting that complete abstinence programs like AA have a high failure rate because they don’t advocate a middle ground.

She had gotten goose bumps standing there, for not one of her doctors or substance abuse counselors had ever advocated a middle ground for her, or even suggested that such an approach existed. It had always been
all or nothing.

She knew that
all
hadn’t worked in the past, and neither had
nothing.

And if she was doomed to a heavy relapse, how could she ever face her son again? She considered that by telling herself she could never drink at all, not
ever ever ever
again, she was, in fact, guaranteeing another failure for herself, and another episode for Jeremy to be disappointed in, and even disgusted by, her. And she couldn’t let that happen again. Not now that they’d come so far together.

Not now that she had Katharine to compete with—
once again.

It was certainly worth a try.

She unscrewed the cap and poured two fingers into a glass, raised it to her lips, and threw the contents down her throat. Then she poured herself a second shot, and after that a third.

The sweet rum seemed to wash through every cell in her body like golden light, spreading Happy from head to toes and out to fingertips.

Hello, old friend.

She shuffled her way over to the entertainment center across from the sofa and began reading the titles of the DVDs that lined the shelves. A few old John Hughes movies, some Laurel and Hardy movies, and two Adam Sandler films.

Who the hell picks these things out?

In the corner, she saw
The Perfect Storm
and thought that sounded startlingly apropos, so she pushed the plastic disc into the player and switched on the television.

By the time the opening credits rolled, her eyes were drooping, so she got up, cracked open another Coke, and had another two fingers of Malibu.

Nearly an hour later, with the first pizza distending her belly and the second cold atop the coffee table, she found herself numb and unusually heavy-headed, as if she were floating in a hot bath. “Those men are so stupid, they deserve to die,” she said out loud, watching with crossed eyes as the
Andrea Gail
sailed straight into another overblown Hollywood disaster.

Moments later, she drifted into a stuporous sleep.

An hour or so after that, the back door opened, and the
disarm
code was punched into the keypad. Then Bill manipulated her own hand to push the plunger of a second syringe of insulin into the same spot on her arm he’d watched her use on his surveillance system. Two minutes later, he reset the alarm and dead-bolted the door from the outside, then walked back to the main house with the minuscule spy cameras he’d just retrieved clicking together like giant marbles in his pocket.

Sometime around ten, she slipped from sleep into a coma. Then just after midnight, she began seizing violently and hit her head on the coffee table as she fell to the floor.

“I don’t know where the hell I’m going,” Jeremy confessed, as the foursome sped along Santa Monica Boulevard through Beverly Hills toward West Hollywood, oblivious to the black Ford pickup five cars back that had been tailing them since the Corral Canyon intersection back in Ballena Beach.

“Stay on this street until you see some cute guys holding hands,” Carlo answered, checking his hair in the visor’s lighted vanity mirror. “Then slam on your brakes.”

“Then we must be there already, because here I am surrounded by three of the cutest guys I’ve ever seen,” said Carmen from the backseat, nestled into her boyfriend’s arms. “Which reminds me, why aren’t you two holding hands?”

“Because only one of us knows we make the perfect couple,” Carlo replied, while scanning the menacing clouds through the open sunroof.

“By the way, Jeremy, thanks for coming out with us tonight to help celebrate. I know it was really last-minute, but I just found out I passed today.”

“Congratulations, Carmen, you’re going to be a great doctor. But why are you celebrating at the Frat House?”

“There’s a bartender there named Nathan that used to go to Ballena High who’s going to USC Medical now. He helped me prep for the exam and promised when I passed he’d treat me and my friends to a night there, on him.”

“He sounds cool. What’s he look like?” Jeremy asked as he slowed for a red light at the crisscross of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards. Was that a raindrop that just landed on his ear? Another tapped his nose. He pressed a switch, and the sunroof motored shut.

“He doesn’t look like Darius, so don’t get your hopes up,” said Carlo.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Darius asked, swatting Carlo’s head over the passenger headrest.

“I mean that Jeremy thinks you’re the tastiest manwich he’s ever seen,” Carlo replied, flipping down the visor again to check the damage to his hair. “Next to Coby, that is.”

Jeremy shot him a threatening look.

“Jer, are you scamming my boyfriend again?” Carmen asked, sounding bored.

“Carlo, you need to shut that big Mexican mouth of yours or I’ll leave you at the next bus stop.” He glanced at the rearview mirror where Darius’s eyes met his. Jeremy’s face suddenly felt hot. Darius grinned playfully and threw an air kiss at him. The light changed, and Jeremy hit the gas hard, throwing them all back against their seats. Carmen squealed.

“Shouldn’t you turn on the wipers?” Carlo asked, as the rain began pelting the windshield and their view became obscured.

“Oh.” He flipped a switch, and the long blades began sweeping. His thoughts about his mother and Bill, as well as where they were headed tonight, had distracted him.

“Anyhow, you better start looking for parking,” Carmen suggested. “The Frat House is down here at the end of Robertson, and parking there is impossible. In fact, see if you can find a space down this alley.” She pointed forward to the left, directing him to steer down a narrow passageway bordered by Dumpsters and chain-link fences, abandoned shopping carts and warped garage doors. Jeremy saw that about halfway down was an empty spot that he might be able to wedge into.

“Jesus, it is really starting to pour!” Carlo exclaimed, his hand resting on the door handle. “We should’ve brought an umbrella.”

“I didn’t even bring a jacket,” Darius said quietly.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll have a wet T-shirt contest tonight,” suggested Jeremy with a laugh.

“He doesn’t need a wet T-shirt to get lucky,” Carmen giggled.

“Especially here,” agreed Carlo.

“Carmen, could you reach back and hand me my jacket and cap from the back?” Jeremy asked as they began unbuckling seat belts and opening doors.

“Where’d you get these?” She hefted the red wool jacket and black baseball cap from behind the back seat, then handed them to Jeremy, who slipped them on as he stepped down from the vehicle. The rest disembarked, and the three boys and Carmen jogged along, with their hands shielding their heads.

“My aunt gave me the coat,” Jeremy shouted over the
swoosh
of a passing car’s tires on the drenched asphalt. “It was my dad’s from when he was on the Ballena High swim team. And Arthur gave me the hat.”

“I wish studliness ran in our family…The only thing of my dad’s that fits me is his old sombrero,” laughed Carlo, “which I could use right now.”

They ran nearly a block south of Santa Monica almost to Melrose, past two cafés, a nightclub, and a hardware store. Jeremy scanned the area but could find no sign advertising their destination.

A fissure of lightning split the sky overhead. They’d better find where they were headed soon; Carmen’s eye makeup was looking gothic, and Darius’s black T-shirt was plastered to his musculature like a wet suit.

“Over here!” Carlo yelled over an abrupt crash of thunder. He was waving them into a ramshackle wooden portico held up by ivy-entwined Doric columns framing a bright yellow door, the center of which had Lambda Alpha Pi painted in sloppy red letters.

“Why doesn’t it say Frat House?” Jeremy asked, as they jumped up the steps to the door.

“They used to have a sign with nice brass letters over there,” Carlo shouted over the downpour, pointing to the right side of the building. “But someone kept rearranging them to say Fart House, so they took it down. By the way, the go-go boys here are called LAP dancers.” He threw open the door, and after telling the sullen bouncer they were on the list, the four ducked inside and were swallowed by the faintly lit interior and the rapturous thunder of the dance music.

Jeremy looked around. First he noticed the span of heavy ceiling beams overhead, from which hung two rows of old-fashioned glass dormitory lights dimmed so low they glowed like pumpkins. To his right he saw a long bar next to doors that opened onto a rained-out patio. On his left, a fire flickered inside an ancient wooden mantelpiece, around which were scattered comfortably worn sofas, tables, and chairs. And perched and sitting and talking and laughing and leaning and listening and walking around were guys.

Guys like him.

A bunch of officey-looking men stood by the fireplace. A clique that apparently lived at the gym posed by the door. Most were white, a lot were Hispanic, and more than a few were African-American or Asian. A handful looked typically gay, like you could tell from outer space. But some of the others looked like coaches or firemen or regular college dudes.

There was no denying that being here made him nervous, considering the throng of men who turned their heads, like onlookers at a parade, in appraisal of the foursome; he even noticed three or four great-looking guys falling silent and nudging their buddies to look in their direction. But he couldn’t yet meet these admiring eyes, not only because he was embarrassed by the shy smiles he was receiving but also because the place was so crowded he was afraid he might trip on someone’s feet. His companions seemed unfazed, sidling their way through to some specific destination only they were familiar with.

The foursome stopped for a moment, so he seized the opportunity to study the dark green walls and their collection of ancient fraternity photos. He smiled back at the princely, grinning young men wearing their sweatshirts emblazoned with indecipherable Greek insignias, their arms thrown over one another’s shoulders in gestures of typical, all-American camaraderie. But here, in this fraternity of a different sort, their toothy smiles and puppylike affection took on a bent suggestiveness. It struck Jeremy that these ordinary faces amidst this extraordinary crowd seemed to say,
Some of us were only able to fantasize about what y’all do every day.

“Hurry up, Jeremy,” Carlo urged, grabbing his hand to pull him through the crowd toward the rear of the building. Jeremy tensed reflexively at the contact, but then relaxed when he realized that touching was OK here. In fact, Carlo’s grip felt comforting, reassuring even. Jeremy squeezed a response, and the other boy snapped his head back to toss him a suggestive grin, his eyes sparkling.

The thumping dance song that had been playing as they entered melted into a faster, more mysteriously syncopated beat, overlaid with minor chords that swirled and spun, lazily harmonizing with a woman’s low, haunting voice. Jeremy strained his ears to catch the lyrics between the rowdy conversations and laughter surrounding him:

When she leaves

Your eyes will cry

Sadness reigns

Your heart will die

“Come meet Nathan!” Carmen yelled to Jeremy over the music, waving him toward a second bar against the wall of the room farthest back. He spotted a striking man in his twenties with pale skin and dark hair leaning his elbows on the countertop and laughing with Darius. As he approached, the man did a double take, hitched their eyes together, and smiled.

Cry to God

He’ll only point

And laugh at you

“Jeremy, this is Nathan; Nathan, Jeremy.”

He let go of Carlo, then shook the bartender’s hand, which held on just a moment longer than was customary.

But don’t be scared

Of love or life

Kiss her cheek

This one last night

Then you’ll wish you’d had more time

To learn what’s true

“I’m glad to finally meet you,” he said. “Carlo and Carmen talk about you so much, I feel like I know you already.”

“Thanks, Nathan. You too.” He puffed out his chest, grinning. Then glancing toward Carlo, Jeremy noticed how the heat in his eyes had cooled. “Carmen told me how you helped her with her MCATs and offered to help us celebrate. That’s so cool.” He examined the evenness of his features, the full lips and gentle smile.
Definitely sexy.

“It’s nothing unless you take me up on the offer. What can I get for you?”

“I just want a Coke, maybe with lemon if you have any,” Jeremy answered.

“I want a beer,” said Carmen.

“Me too,” Carlo added. “But I’ll settle for a Coke too, at least tonight.”

“I better get a hot mochaccino,” said Darius. “I’m freezing in this wet shirt.”

“I’ve got a dry one in the back, if you want to switch,” Nathan offered, pointing. “Go change back there. And Carmen, you better go with him. I don’t want him getting molested.”

“Jeremy wants to watch,” Carlo blurted.

“Here’s your Cokes, gentlemen.” He slid the two frosty mugs toward them as their companions disappeared through the darkened doorway behind the bar.

“Carlo, what is with you?” Jeremy asked, as Nathan attended to his next set of customers.

“I’m having a great time,” he replied innocently. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you always bugging me about Darius? You know that I know he’s straight and he’s with Carmen. Why’re you trying to embarrass me?”

“I’m just joking.”

“Well quit it.”

“Sure.
Sorry.
Anything else I do that pisses you off?”

“Not really. But I’ll let you know.”

“Can I do that too?”

“Of course.”

“Well then maybe I will,” Carlo snapped.

“Go ahead.”

“Let’s sit down. This may take a while.”

“Fine with me.” Jeremy followed Carlo to a tall table in the corner flanked by a pair of barstools, ignoring the admiring leers of a trio who looked to be of Arthur’s generation. Jeremy took off his letterman’s jacket and hung it on the back of the stool, scrunching the hat deep into the side pocket. They sat together in silence for a few moments before Carlo took a deep breath, then began. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“I guess not. I’m not sure what you mean.”

“About me, about how I feel about you.”

“Go on.”

“Jeremy, ever since the first time we studied together, I knew I had feelings for you, and I kept wanting to tell you, but I knew you had to get the gay thing out of the way first. So now that it is—out of the way, I mean—I feel like I want to tell you, I have to tell you, how I feel, and how I’ve felt all along.”

“I think I know where you’re headed with this, Carlo. You don’t have to continue.” He studied his beverage.

“But I want to, I’ve got to. You still think of me as a fag because that’s what you saw me as first. Then you got over that a little and started thinking of me as a friend, but kind of the same way as you probably see Ellie now…a
girl
friend.” He shook his head. “But I’m more than that. I want you to see me as a regular guy, Jeremy. A guy that feels a lot for you, that…” he stopped, then looked around to see if anyone else was listening “…that loves you. Very much. Someone who’s listened to you and stuck up for you and watched as you discovered yourself, and then listened to you as you went on about who you were hot for. And it hurts me that you don’t think of me that way. Because I do. All the time.”

“You do?”

“What are you, retarded?”

“You don’t have to get hostile. All I mean is that you never let me know before now, except for joking about it.”

“Would it’ve made any difference?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“So…you don’t feel the same way about me.”

“I don’t know how I feel about anybody right now.” Jeremy sucked his drink through his tiny black straw, feeling suddenly like a sissy. “I mean, over the past few months a lot has changed for me. I’m still adjusting.”

“Jeremy, you’ve got to find your own way, just like I did.” He lifted the glass to his mouth and gulped down the contents, then set it down with a
clack.
“You’re right. You’ve had a lot to adjust to, and graduation is just around the corner, then college after that. You’re gonna have to get used to jumping from one situation to the next. We all will. But during those times, you’ve got to know who you can count on. And I want you to know that I’m here for you, no matter what.”