“Divorce didn’t look like too much fun when my parents were doing it,” he agreed. “Although, having a fantastic child like myself to tear apart during the process seemed to soften the blow for them somewhat.”
Thank God Molly would be out of the state for the next round of fun; Suzanne was sure they hadn’t fooled her much by not arguing directly in front of her. When things got heated—as they often did—both of their voices had carried all the way to the garage. They could always tell when Molly could hear them, because she’d turn her music up deafeningly loud. It was a point Suzanne got immediately, and it hit her like a stake through the heart.
She decided she did like Brandon, after all; it was kind of too bad he wasn’t Molly’s boyfriend. He had a way, this kid, of dropping little bundles of potent information about himself but in such a way that they were wrapped in self-deprecating humor. And since they’re not having sex, she reasoned, he’s bound to be around longer. There were only two cigarettes left in her pack before she was going to have to run across the street to Joe’s Newsstands and replenish her supply.
“Can I offer you a slightly disabled American Spirit? It kind of got crushed in my coat pocket.”
“Hard packs. Always ask for the hard packs,” he scolded. He automatically reached out, but at the last minute reluctantly drew his hand back. “No, I can’t. I finally quit smoking, and if I have so much as a puff, I’m back to a pack a day.”
“Sure, I get you.” Suzanne put the pack back in her pocket. “I’ll smoke later, when you’re not around to tempt.”
“No, don’t be silly—smoke all you want,” he insisted. “Just don’t let me have one, ever, even if I beg.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. Look, there’s a grandmother, three college kids, and two nursing mothers smoking within a stone’s throw, okay? I gotta get used to seeing it and not doing it.”
“Okay.” She scratched the match on the back of her Governor’s Inn book of matches, watching the head burst into flame, smelling the brief whiff of sulphur. Then she touched the very top of the flame to the cigarette waiting patiently in her pursed lips. Waving out the match, she took a deep drag, held it for one second, then exhaled the smoke; it was almost a sexual experience.
“It is a satisfying little ritual, I’ll give you that,” Brandon said enviously. “I’d ask you if you wanted a cigarette, but you’re already smoking one.”
She cast her eyes sideways, wondering if she should ask him the question that had been on the tip of her tongue ever since he and Ava had been hitting the AA circuit like the Seacoast’s weirdest couple. He and Molly were leaving in two days; this might be the last time she was alone with him.
“Listen,” she asked hesitantly, “I know it’s none of my business, but I’ve been been meaning to ask, aren’t you just a tad young to be completely sober and all that stuff?”
Brandon smiled broadly, knowingly, as if he’d answered this question a hundred times or more. “Would you really want me spending so much time with your eighteen-year-old daughter if I wasn’t?”
She laughed, wondering how that point could have slipped so easily by her. “I’ll give you that one.”
“I thought you might.”
The next question she had for him was harder, and she struggled with herself, arguing both sides of the discussion. His private life was his private life, and she had no reason to ask him anything about it . . . Except that his private life might give her some insight to her daughter’s private life, and it was this information she desperately needed. “Actually, I, um, I . . .”
“ . . . have another question for me,” Brandon said in that damned likable tone of his. “Shoot.”
“When did you,” she groped for an appropriate way to phrase it, “know?” She rolled her hand in front of her, indicating a sensitive topic.
He frowned, not getting it. “When I did I know?” he repeated, mimicking the hand gesture.
“Yeah, you know,” she repeated, “when did you know know?” A moment passed, Suzanne trying to convey the words with her eyes.
“Oh.” He winked at her, suddenly understanding. “When did I know know?”
“Yeah, that’s it, when did you know know?” She glanced at the drugstore, not wanting Molly to sneak up on this particular conversation.
“Well,” he thought back, “let’s see . . . back in grade school, I . . .”
“In grade school?” she cried, stunned. Had she been in the dark about Molly for over a decade?
“Sure. Think about it, Suzanne.” He stopped himself. “Oops. Sorry, can I call you Suzanne?”
“Honey,” she looked at him over the top of her sunglasses, “if you’re giving me insights into my kid’s sexuality, I think we’re way past the first-name basis by now.”
“Suzanne, then. See, the thing is, sexuality begins at a very young age. At an obscenely young age, in fact.” He held his hands up. “Don’t kill the messenger; it’s just plain old biology. No one ever wants to talk about it, but it’s true. Think way back to the very first time you felt that curiosity, that small little pull towards a boy.”
Suzanne tried to remember.
She thought it might have been the time James LaPointe had given her a kiss on the cheek in the treehouse in second grade, and that funny tingle she’d felt every time she thought of it for weeks after. She’d been seven, and she could still remember how the light of the sun had glinted off James’s hair through the tree house window.
She suddenly remembered how Steve used to tell the story, of how he was on the school bus and some little girl turned to him and said, ‘Mom’s having another baby, can you believe the stuff parents have to do to have a baby?’ And Steve said, ‘Yeah, it’s weird all right . . . Wanna try it?’ Suzanne thought he’d been eight or nine at the time; if he’d been older, it wasn’t by much.
“I guess you’re right,” she lamented.
Brandon nodded. “So, think back on that time. When all the other boys were offering to catch the girls at the bottom of the slide to try to get a peek at their underwear, I, well, didn’t. And then when all the little boys were chasing the little girls around the playground trying to get a kiss, I, well, didn’t. Just no interest at all. For a long time, I thought I was sort of asexual. I kept to myself a lot, my best friend was Little Debbie, and my waistline showed it.”
“You?” Suzanne stood up to look at him from several different angles. He was tall, maybe six one or six two, and if he tipped the scales at one seventy, she’d have been surprised. There was not one extra ounce of fat on him—anywhere that she had visual access to, that was. “You’re so trim, I can’t even picture you overweight.”
“Oh, honey,” he said wistfully, “I’ve got pictures, but if I showed them to you, I’d have to kill you. Anyway, when I wasn’t gorging myself, I read a lot, kept to myself. And I started stealing from my dad’s liquor cabinet. And my mother’s secret stash. And, well, any cough syrup or vanilla flavoring that came into the house never lasted too long. Sometimes I’d have to have a sip of each one if there was just a little of each and there wasn’t anything else in the house.”
“Eww!”
“Eww, exactly. The taste would stay with you for hours, even if you brushed your teeth.” He gazed off into space for a moment, thinking of those days. “But you know, that wasn’t even the worst of it.”
“I can’t imagine what would be worse than vanilla flavoring and Nyquil.” Suzanne shuddered.
“Oh, there’s plenty worse,” he assured her. “Remember high school, how much fun it was to go to school and see your favorite crush, to talk about boys with all your friends on the phone till the middle of the night, to dress just right just in case one of them might notice you? Remember how intoxicating that was?”
Suzanne smiled, nodding.
“I didn’t have that—not once.” He shook his head. “Since I hadn’t let myself admit that I was drawn to guys, it was buried deep, deep down, let me tell you.”
Especially with an outdoorsman stepfather and two football player brothers . . . But he wasn’t going to bring that up now. Some things were just too personal, and the way he hadn’t fit into his family since the day he was born was one of them. Every day had been, well, okay. Just okay. Plain. Ordinary. He’d come to the conclusion that he was, in fact, the loser dweeb they’d dubbed him at school, and his life would never have any excitement or romance or passion. Just a long series of struggles, waiting for someone to pick on him for one of his many social flaws. He had protected himself with layers of snack cakes and a haze of alcohol.
Suzanne looked at him carefully. His eyes had gone far away for just a second, but she was curious about that second nonetheless. Much as she wanted to pry, she didn’t—she might scare him off altogether, and then she wouldn’t get the information she hoped would help her understand her Molly.
“Well,” she said at last, “you seem pretty chipper to me.”
“Oh, you bet I am,” he grinned. “Now I am. But back then, it was a very different story. I was a different person. Believe me.”
“So, how did you transform from the chubby boozer to the super-fit teetotaler I see here today?”
“Well, one day, I was sitting in the park, studying and drinking tequila mixed with grape soda to mask the smell.”
“Ewwww! ”
“You’d be amazed how well that works.”
“I’ll just have to take your word for it. Continue.”
“Anyway, this guy—Jeff.” Just saying his name brought a small smile to his lips even after all this time, she noticed. It was kind of cute, she thought. “Jeff came over, and he sat next to me. Just plopped himself down and started gabbing away, as if we’d already known each other for years. But he wasn’t just talking, he was, you know. Dipping his head, tossing his hair, posing whenever he could.”
He demonstrated, and Suzanne laughed delightedly. Steve had done that same dip back in the day. As Jacob Winter had, come to think of it.
“And then I realized: he was flirting. With me. A guy.”
“The very thought!” Suzanne cried, holding her hand to her forehead, palm up. “Hold me, I may faint.”
“Exactly—this was eight years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday,” he nodded. “So, I’m not even sure what it was that kept me there. I kept thinking I should be uncomfortable. I kept thinking I should call him a faggot and take off, or even take a swing at him, right there in the park. I could even picture myself calling my super-macho stepfather and saying, ‘Hey, I just smashed a fairy in the park when he put the moves on me,’ if I got arrested for it. Boy, would that have made him proud.”
“Your father,” Suzanne lit up her second-to-last cigarette, “sounds like a true prince among men.”
“Stepfather,” he corrected her. “But, as big a voice as my stepfather was in those days, there was another voice too.”
“Trust me,” Suzanne tapped an ash into her empty coffee cup rather than defile the cobblestones, “I’m familiar with voices.”
“Really?” He seemed pleased. “Do tell.”
“Some other time. So, did you wind up belting the guy?”
“Nope. I didn’t take a swing at Jeff. I didn’t call him a faggot, and I didn’t storm off. And I realized, I didn’t do any of those things, because I didn’t even want to. For the first time in my life, I had butterflies. Real, actual, all-out case of butterflies. I’d heard about them before, but I’d never had them—not the good kind, anyway.”
Suzanne smiled faintly, remembering distantly what those were like. She wondered if Laura was right that she could have them again. But it seemed ridiculous; she was a thirty-six-year-old mother going back to school with no steady income. She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t have men lining up at her door. Or that there wouldn’t be a suitable suitor sitting next to her in English 101.
“So,” Brandon continued dreamily, “when he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, I said yes. When he asked me if I wanted to listen to some new CDs, I said yes. I’d never felt like that before in my whole life. Things were . . . tingling.”
“I get the idea,” Suzanne cut him off. “Look, if you’re not comfortable giving me details then don’t. But if you are, then don't leave anything out!!”
“Let me give you just one detail, then.” He draped his arm around her shoulders.
She exhaled the lavender smoke and looked at him sideways, waiting.
“When we were back at Jeff’s place, and he finally leaned over and kissed me,” he said softly, “I got it.”
“You got it.” She repeated his words, but her eyes told him she didn’t get what he meant at all.
“That’s right,” he said. “I got it.”
She waited for a moment, hoping his meaning would suddenly become clear. “I’m sorry, hon,” she said at last. “I’m just not following. Exactly what did you get?”
“What did I get? Everything.” He jumped up on the bench and spun around. “I got the whole world. I was fifteen years old. I finally got every song ever written, every movie ever made. It all made sense now, and it was a relief!” He pumped his fist in the air. “It was such a freakin’ relief. And it changed everything. From the way I dressed to the way I formed my opinions, to . . .”
“Being gay,” she interrupted him, “actually gave you that much identity?”
He looked at her for a long moment, and Suzanne had the strangest feeling—not for the first time—that he was the older, wiser one, and he was speaking gently down to her, who still remained an ignorant child. “No, being gay did not give me that much identity.” He put his hand on her arm. “Being me did.”
Suzanne let that sink in a moment. “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about that with Molly. Molly’s always had great self-esteem. How could she not? She’s an amazing person, and everyone’s told her so all her life.” Laura’s words suddenly filtered in her ears. If you don’t know what you’re doing, fake it, and people can’t tell the difference. Had Molly been faking it? No, it just wasn’t possible. She’d have noticed, she’d have seen, she’d have sensed something was off if Molly had been aware of this for years and just hiding it because she thought her mother couldn’t handle it.
But Molly, since the second she was born, had been the most important thing in Suzanne’s life, and whatever else she was doing should have taken second place. She had always thought she and Molly were buddies, that they were close, but as one of her friends had once told her, it was important to let your child know, ‘I’m not your friend, I’m your mother. This is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship.’ Suzanne had crossed that off a long time ago as being as ridiculous as the phrase ‘Who needs a cow when the milk’s free?’ but now she wondered if she’d done Molly a real disservice. Maybe Molly didn’t need someone who respected her privacy and treated her like an adult; maybe she’d needed someone who looked at her more closely, searched her room occasionally, and demanded to know what she was thinking when she locked herself in her room for hours at a time. She thought it was to get away from the invariable tension between Steve and her; it had never occurred to her that she was in there thinking of other things entirely. All alone.
She shook away the choking feeling of guilt. It couldn’t be true.
“If there was one thing I did right in my life, it was to instill her with a sense of self-worth.” She pointed a finger at him. “This is a patriarchal society, don’t you forget, and it just hates confident women, so you’d better be pretty damn confident to deal with that . . . So thank goodness she is. That didn’t come out of nowhere—I taught her that. And because of my telling her repeatedly and her own accomplishments, she knows how amazing she is.”
“Sure. In a generic, academic sort of way, she knows she’s a hot shit,” Brandon acknowledged. “But she could still stand to hear it every now and then. Especially,” he nudged her, “from her super-cool, finally-rid-of-the-loser-dad, trying-to-make-something-of-her-life mom.”
“I
told you.” Suzanne laughed, but inside she was starting to feel a little impatient. “Molly already knows I think that.”
Brandon didn’t respond.
“I mean, she does know that, right? Doesn’t she?”
He only looked at her with a soft, gentle gaze. It was absolutely unnerving.
She fastened her sandals and gathered her purse. Brandon had been spot-on about a lot of things, but that didn’t mean he was right in this case. If nothing else, she had made sure that every single day of Molly’s life, she’d told her how wonderful and amazing she was, how lucky she felt to be her mother. So, of course she knew how her mother felt about her. Or was this just something else Suzanne had screwed up?
It was too much, all at once, and she had to get away from here, away from him, and away from Molly, who’d be returning in just a minute. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, noting with relief that Laura was just entering her store, right up the block from the park.
“Can you tell them I had to get home to work on the divorce papers? If I don’t get this done, I’ve got nothing.” Before he could reply, she was off, heading in the direction of Goddess Treasures; she hoped Brandon didn’t notice, because he’d probably deduce they didn’t keep her divorce papers there. And then he’d probably tell Molly.
As Suzanne walked swiftly away, one thought, and one thought only pounded itself in her head. Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong? And whatever it is . . . why is Molly the one being punished for it?
SEVENTEEN
A n urgent pounding on the front door was damn near the only thing in the world that could have woken Buddy up from his Maggie Smith dream; she was wearing her costume from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
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