Without Annette

by Jane B. Mason

  “Really?” my dad wanted to know.

  “I give up,” my mother said, sounding completely exasperated. Maybe all the testosterone in the house was getting to her. Maybe she missed me after all.

  “Well, don’t go cheating on Annette,” Ben advised. “Or I’ll have to pound you at Christmas.”

  My family knew I was gay, and they knew about Annette—none of us were good at keeping secrets. I didn’t tell my parents right away, though—I needed some time to sort things out in my head. For a long time I didn’t tell anyone. And then, all of a sudden, I told my parents I wanted to have a powwow. Half an hour later, my mom, my dad, and I were all in the kitchen.

  “What’d you do this time, Josie?” my father asked, pulling out a chair at the table. “Crash the car?”

  “I don’t think that’s it, Peter,” my mother said quietly.

  My dad heard the tone in her voice, and the creases on his forehead instantly revealed themselves. He leaned forward, linking his fingers together on top of the table. “What is it, then?”

  The words felt heavy to me, and I wished I hadn’t called this little meeting. Why had I felt compelled to tell them? It wasn’t like I was in trouble or anything.

  “Just tell us.” My mother’s voice was quiet, but steely. “I’m sure we can figure out what to do.”

  My father looked confused for a moment, and then his face crumpled. He shook his head slowly. “Oh, Josie, no.”

  All at once I understood what they were thinking, and wanted to laugh. Of course that’s what they would think. How could they help it? Virginia Falls High had a couple of teen pregnancies every year—it was the obvious guess. But nothing could have been further from the truth …

  “I’m not pregnant,” I said.

  “You’re not?” my mother asked.

  “Of course she isn’t, Caroline. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend,” my father explained rationally.

  Well, that was true.

  “Oh, thank God,” my mother said. “You’re so young, Josie! But when you find the right boy, just let me know and we can make an appointment at Planned Parenthood. The nurses there are excellent, and there are several preventive choices these days.”

  My mother could be oh so helpful. “Um, that’s the thing,” I said slowly. I could feel my face flushing, and my palms were all sweaty. It wasn’t that I thought my parents were going to freak out. I knew they loved me, and telling them I was gay wouldn’t change that. But I suddenly had the feeling I was somehow letting them down.

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t think I’ll be getting a boyfriend anytime soon.”

  “There’s no rush!” my mom babbled, the relief visible on her face. She looked like I had just gotten an A in geometry. Problem was, me getting a boyfriend was even more unlikely.

  I opened my mouth to do some calm explaining. “I’m gay” is what came out.

  My dad’s eyebrows shot up. “What?” he exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

  “Peter!” my mother scolded.

  He clamped his mouth shut and sat back, rubbing his hands over his thighs. He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Could this be a phase?” he finally asked.

  “Um, no.” I tried to ignore the fact that he was making me feel like a moldy piece of cheese. I sighed. “You like girls,” I pointed out.

  He stopped thigh rubbing. “That’s true,” he agreed. “I do. And one girl in particular. Two, actually,” he added, reaching out to squeeze my hand. He looked into my face and smiled, a real smile, and I knew that we would be okay. There would definitely be more to talk about, but my dad and I were still us. I felt relief wash over me, then looked in the other direction. “Mom?” I ventured.

  She fiddled with the paper square at the end of her Lipton string and stared down at the table, saying nothing.

  “Mom?” Her silence was making me nervous, and I shifted in my hard kitchen chair while panic started to rise.

  Finally she looked up. Her bright blue eyes were glistening, but, thank God, she was not actually crying. Her eyes, though, were full of sadness.

  “Look on the bright side, Caroline,” my dad said. “She’s not a druggie, she didn’t crash the car, and she’s not pregnant. Heck, she’s not even having sex.”

  That was only mostly true, but since he probably meant heterosexual sex, I decided it was close enough. And I was grateful to him for trying to lighten things up, even if he was kind of missing the point. Being gay had little to do with not doing or being those other things.

  “I’m still the same girl, Mom,” I said softly. “I’m still your Josie.”

  My mom did something funny then. She lifted my hand off the table and kissed the back of it. “Of course you are, Jo,” she said. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

  “You had no idea?” I asked. I’d often wondered if they’d been suspicious. I mean, I was almost fifteen and had never shown any interest in boys.

  “Of course not,” my dad said. “How would we …” He trailed off, and I could almost see the lightbulb—a hundred-watt—glowing above his head. “Annette?” he asked.

  What an idiot! I’d practically led him right into that one. I hadn’t planned on telling them everything—not yet. But maybe this was my subconscious at work. Maybe since I was at it …

  “Yes, Annette.”

  My parents were silent for several minutes, no doubt trying to count the number of times Annette had slept over in the past two years, which was about a zillion.

  My father exhaled really, really slowly. “How long?” He wanted answers now. No more kidding around.

  “How long what?”

  “How long have you been … intimate?”

  He bit down on that last word, and I could tell he was trying not to blow his top. Part of me wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but that wasn’t the way we were in my family. Everything was pretty much everybody’s business, like it or not. I sighed. “Over a year.” Actually closer to two, depending on your definition of the word intimate.

  My mother gasped.

  “Mom, I’m practically fifteen.”

  Dead silence. I had to start talking, fast.

  “I know this is probably pretty freaky for you. But Annette and I have known each other a long time. I honestly don’t remember when we realized how we felt, but I know I’m lucky to be with her. Lots of girls date boys who treat them like crap. Annette and I are a team. We decide things together. We talk about stuff. She’s my best friend.”

  More silence. Finally, my dad cleared his throat. “You should be a lawyer,” he said grimly. He looked across the table at my mom. “She has some valid points, Caroline.”

  “Of course she does,” my mom said. “And we all love Annette—she’s practically family. It’s just hard to find out you had no idea what was really going on.”

  “Or that the girl you think of as a second daughter is dating your actual one,” my dad said bluntly.

  A wave of guilt washed over me. “I know,” I agreed. “I totally get that. I wasn’t trying to be deceitful—it’s just not an easy thing to say.”

  “Or hear, apparently,” my dad admitted. We were all quiet, but it was a comfortable quiet this time, and I was so relieved I wanted to cry.

  “Josie?” my mom’s voice came through the phone line. “You still there?”

  I rolled back to the window. “Yeah, still here,” I replied. “But I’ve got stuff to do, so I’ll let you people get back to your little freak show.”

  “Call anytime!” my mom said.

  “We love you, Josie,” my dad added.

  “Love you guys, too. I’ll call you next week. Bye!” I hung up the phone and brought my knees up to my chest. I felt the tears and willed them away, but they didn’t listen. Through the blurriness, I could see Annette had joined the group by the pond. She was wearing a flowered skirt I didn’t recognize. Sunlight reflected off her ponytailed head.

  Why didn’t I know how hard this would be? I wondered as I wa
tched Annette stretch her legs out on the lawn. My girlfriend was sliding into our new life as easily as a cracked egg slid into a mixing bowl. Walking down the hall exhausted me, and she was going out for cross-country. It was as if she’d taken a course called How to Fit In at Boarding School and had passed with flying colors. Not that that fact was surprising. Annette loved new places, new people, new experiences. She saw them as opportunities for something different, something good. Life at Annette’s house wasn’t pretty, so something different was almost certainly something good, or at least something better. So really, her sliding in was to be expected. What hadn’t been expected was just how hard totally different would be for me, and I felt like a fool for allowing myself to be blindsided by my own plan.

  Get over it, I told myself. The pond party was still happening, and for a moment I considered rallying. But it was almost dinnertime and I was wiped. So I lay there watching the pond posse until my eyes drooped and my breathing slowed. The next thing I knew, someone was kissing me awake all over my face.

  “Hey there, sleepyhead.” Annette was standing on the bunk bed ladder, leaning over my pillow.

  “Hey,” I replied, opening my eyes and smiling into her face.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said, smiling back. “I’ve got some good news.”

  “Awesome,” I said, stretching a little. “What is it?”

  “I made the cross-country team.”

  I felt my smile fade despite the excitement on her face. Recognizing my less-than-thrilled reaction, Annette hopped down to the floor, her back to me.

  I searched for the right thing to say but was utterly unable to figure out exactly what that right thing was.

  “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” she asked, pacing a little.

  I sat up. “Congratulations.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t sound so sincere, Josie.”

  “I’m just being honest,” I said in my defense. “Annette, you hate running, and I don’t see how moving halfway across the country could change that.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed.”

  “In a week?”

  She shrugged.

  “Any other changes I should know about?”

  “That’s not fair, Josie.”

  It wasn’t fair, I knew, but I was at a loss. Annette was supposed to be the one thing at Brookwood I truly understood, but her decision to go out for cross-country was something I didn’t understand at all.

  I was also struggling with our in-the-closet status. Even though Annette and I had agreed not to be an obvious couple right away, now that we were actually here, it felt icky and wrong. It had only been a week and I was tired of it.

  “I need you to be happy for me about cross-country.”

  I wiped the sleep from the corner of my eye and hopped to the floor. “I’ll try.”

  “That’s the best you can do?” her voice sounded stretched, like Toby’s slingshot just before he let something fly.

  “I want to be happy for you,” I said slowly, “but I still don’t understand why you chose something you dislike so much.”

  Annette raised her chin, eyes flashing. She looked like her mother. “It was my decision.”

  “Of course it was,” I agreed. I didn’t want to fight with Annette—it just seemed silly, and I needed her. “Maybe I’m just jealous,” I admitted. “So far Brookwood isn’t exactly smooth sailing for me.”

  Annette’s face shifted. “I know, Jo,” she said, “but you’re actually doing fine.” She bit her lower lip. “Maybe you should try to stop overthinking.”

  This wasn’t the first time Annette had given me this advice. “I don’t feel fine,” I said. “I feel weird.”

  “Well, you are kind of a weirdo …” she teased. Except right then it wasn’t the slightest bit funny.

  “I really don’t like lying about who we are,” I told her.

  “We’re not lying.” Annette stepped closer and tucked aside one of my overabundant wayward curls. “We’re just not telling.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “No, not exactly.” Her fingers wrapped around mine. “I still need a little more time. I’m not like you, Josie—I don’t stand out. I need people to see me for myself before they see me with you.”

  Ooof. That was a lot more reasonable than I wanted to admit, especially since I was the one who stuck out. I was louder, more sarcastic, more opinionated. I had a hard time keeping my thoughts to myself.

  “Can you just wait a little longer?” She was asking with her eyes as much as her voice.

  I wanted to say no, to tell her that I couldn’t. I was that tired of pretending. But I also wanted Annette to be happy, and knew that her feelings counted just as much as mine did.

  “Oh, all right. But hurry up and show everyone how fabulous you are, will you? Patience isn’t exactly one of my strengths.”

  Annette chuckled as she let go of my hand and linked her own fingers behind my back, drawing me toward her. “You’re the absolute best. Thank you.” She ducked her head and her lips fell onto mine, warm and open and soft.

  “Oh, Annette, that’s perfect,” Becca said, pushing the desk chair aside and giving my girlfriend a nod of approval in the full-length mirror. We were piled into Annette and Becca’s room, putting the finishing touches on our Dress to Impress getups. Or at least the others were. I was scoping out the space, noting how Annette had transformed her half into a miniature version of her room at home and wishing we were living together for the hundredth time.

  Annette’s bed was covered in the ancient patchwork quilt her grandma Ruby had made eons ago, and I stretched out, leaning against her pile of flannel pillows. The shelf above her desk was decorated with photos of family and friends from back home. There was the snapshot of us diving off the cliff at Turtle Lake, one from our ninth-grade school carnival, and a giant collage of the people we’d spent the last eight years going to school with. The smash of our smiling faces beckoned, making me realize that this was the first Saturday night in practically forever that Annette and I wouldn’t be heading out to Giovanni’s for pizza, overdressed salad, and a giant pitcher of Coke.

  “Josie, what do you think?” someone asked, jolting me.

  I looked up, blinking at Annette’s reflection, and gawked. My girlfriend looked fabulous. Outfitted in a denim miniskirt, giant hoop earrings, and a sequined halter top that I’d never seen before, she was definitely dressed to impress.

  “Delicious,” I said.

  Annette’s eyes glinted at me in the mirror, but the other girls didn’t seem to pick up on my slip.

  “That’s what the guys are going to think,” Becca confirmed.

  I tried to ignore that comment and shoved one of Annette’s pillows under my head, breathing in her smell.

  Annette looked uncertainly at her reflection. “It’s not too much?”

  “No way,” Cynthia Wu assured her. Cynthia, I’d learned, was Marina’s roommate. Right now she was also animal print, covered from head to toe in leopard. She even had leopard-print clogs. “Everyone is going a little over the top. Plus, Becca’s right. The boys are gonna love it.”

  My eyes stretched out to Annette’s in the mirror. I knew I’d just agreed to give her a little more time, but I so wanted her to tell them that boys were irrelevant, that the person who mattered was sitting right here. If anyone at Brookwood knew her already, it was this group of girls. Annette shook her head the tiniest bit, invisible to everyone but me.

  “The final touch,” Becca said, putting a feathery plum-colored boa around Annette’s neck and standing a little closer to her than I liked. Back yourself up, girl.

  “How’re we doing, ladies?” called a voice as the bathroom door swung open and Marina appeared. She was dressed in an old-fashioned barmaid’s getup, her breasts cinched together and spilling out over the top. Everyone stopped for a second. “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing we can do anything about,” Cynthia said, glanci
ng down at her own flat chest. Marina’s boobs were everywhere, which, from what I could tell, was exactly how she liked it.

  “I believe my work here is finished,” Becca announced. She spun my girlfriend around to face the rest of us, and everyone woo-hooed and whistled. “Beautiful work,” Cynthia declared.

  “Beautiful canvas,” I murmured under my breath. “Annette has always cleaned up good,” I said a little louder.

  “How long have you two known each other?” Marina slid into a chair and blew her bangs out of her light brown eyes.

  “Since we were five,” Annette and I answered in unison.

  “We were in the same kindergarten class,” Annette explained.

  “Alison Krupp tried to steal her away in first grade,” I added, “but I fought her off.”

  Everyone laughed, and Annette’s face relaxed into a smile. I did fight off Alison—and her bag of bribery M&M’s—with a vengeance. And that was long before Annette and I were even a couple.

  “Josie, is that what you’re wearing?” Becca’s gaze made me feel slightly compressed, as if I were vacuum-packed. Suddenly, all eyes were on me.

  I looked down at my jeans and tie-dyed tee. “Um, I thought so.”

  “It’s not that terrible,” Marina said. “I mean, her hair is already off the wall. Maybe we could do something with a tiara, or …”

  “I don’t do tiaras,” I said, bristling about the off-the-wall part. What was I supposed to do, shave my head? My hair was my hair!

  “How about a bandanna and some earrings?” Annette suggested, getting to her feet. Her eyes were pleading—she knew dress-up wasn’t my thing. But here I was in a room full of girls who were dressing up. Girls Annette was getting to know, girls she was excited about knowing. Girls she wanted me to know, too. Oh, why not, I thought.

  Hoisting myself to my feet, I walked over and plopped myself into the hot seat in front of the mirror. “Transform me.”

  Thank you, Annette mouthed.

  In a flash, Marina and Cynthia were in the closet, searching for something to swap out for my jeans. “No short skirts,” I told them. “Or high heels.”