Man Enough

by Beth Burnett

“Hi Davey. I just emailed your office.”

  “I know, you ordered ten tickets?”

  “Yep, I told Whitmore all about it. He said he would buy some tickets if I would go represent. So, I scored a couple of tickets and he’s going to give the rest away to some clients.”

  “I’m so excited! I can’t believe you’re going to be there! I wonder if I can scrape up the money to buy a ticket for Leah.”

  “Forget it,” Lynne says. “She can have my second ticket.”

  “What? What about UPS girl? Or Sarah? You two might be back together by then.”

  “Even if we are back together, I’m not taking her to some fancy party where she’ll be trashed halfway in and embarrassing the hell out of me.”

  “Good point. What about UPS girl?”

  “Um. Not really her scene.”

  “Well, if you want to give your extra ticket to Leah, that would be awesome.”

  “I’ll call her and tell her.”

  “Thanks, Lynne.”

  “We going to Janie’s tonight? We missed last week.”

  “I know. I do want to go. I’ll call Andy and have her pick me up. We’ll meet you there.”

  “Good. I look forward to hearing about your evening last night.”

  “My evening?! You’re the one who had some weird naked party in my apartment.”

  “See you tonight, Davey.”

  I hang up and shake my head. Steve and Erik have wheeled their chairs closer to my desk. “Naked party?” Steve says, raising his eyebrows.

  “I am not going to even begin to get into it.”

  I pick up my desk phone, so it will look like I’m working. “Andy, what’s up?”

  “Davey-baby, I miss you.”

  “What are you doing for lunch?”

  “I’ll be biking all day. Are we going to Janie’s tonight?”

  “I want to. Can you pick me up at work on your way?”

  “No problem, see you this evening.”

  While I’m doing the phone thing, I might as well call Danny.

  “Davey.” He sounds thrilled to hear my voice.

  “Hey,” I say, softly. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

  “I miss you already. Do you want me to pick you up from work?”

  “Thursday is girls’ night out. I should have the apartment to myself tomorrow, do you want to come over?”

  “I would love it. Should I bring dinner?”

  “No, actually I can cook. Come over around six.”

  “I have to drive right past your office to get to your house.”

  “All right,” I laugh. “Pick me up at five at the office. We’ll go to my place together. But I can’t guarantee the ladies will be gone by then.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he says, dryly. “They aren’t going to be naked, are they?”

  “We can only hope.”

  I hang up the phone and lean back in my chair, smiling to myself.

  I eat lunch on a bench outside the office, reading a Terry Pratchett book. When in doubt, go for humor. Every few seconds, though, I have to stop reading and stare into space, thinking about Danny. I’m about to go in, but there’s a woman crossing towards me. She looks familiar. Ah, it’s Jonah Astor’s mom. I stand up to greet her.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Astor.”

  She looks up and smiles slightly.

  “Hi, I’m Davey. I work in the fundraising department.”

  “Davey, it’s nice to meet you. Please call me Nancy.”

  “Nancy, please let me say, I am so sorry for your loss.”

  She sits down on the bench and motions me to sit down.

  “Do you have any children?” she asks me.

  “No. I never did. I mean, I wanted to, but there just really wasn’t the right guy. Not that that’s so important, but to me, I just always kind of thought I would meet a man, marry him and have a child or two. It somehow…” I stop myself. “Davey, stop talking,” I whisper.

  Nancy Astor chuckles a bit. “I met the right guy. I fell in love with him and had five beautiful children. Jonah was my youngest and, please don’t tell anyone I ever said this, but my favorite.”

  “It’ll be our secret.”

  She runs a hand through her hair. She looks like someone’s mom. She looks the way my fantasy mother used to look when I was a teenager. She’s wearing mom jeans and a pullover shirt. Her hair is cut short and streaked through with gray. She’s kind of pretty, in a mom sort of way. She has laugh lines around her eyes and she looks tired. She leans her head back on the bench and closes her eyes for a minute.

  “Mrs. Astor? Nancy? Are you all right?”

  She opens her eyes. “Jonah was my favorite,” she repeats, softly. She looks straight at me. “My husband died when Jonah was two. He wasn’t a rich man, but he worked consistently. I was able to stay home with the kids. I think that makes a difference.” She stretches her legs, looking off into the distance. “I don’t care if children are raised by gay parents or straight parents or somewhere in between parents. I just think they are more welladjusted if there is one parent at home to raise them.”

  I nod. “I agree. I was mostly raised by my grandparents and my grandmother never worked. It made a difference that she was always there. I trusted in that.”

  Nancy smiles. “Of course, once Rick died, I had to find daycare for the kids and go to work. The other kids were all ready to start school by then, which made it easier. But Jonah had to be in daycare, all day, every day.”

  “I’m sorry about your husband.” I never know what to say in these situations. I wish someone from the counseling department was here.

  “I hated Rick for dying when he did. I hated him for dying at all, but I especially hated him for dying when he did. I couldn’t even grieve him, I had to go into a whirlwind of trying to support my children through the death of their father.”

  “You didn’t have any local family,” I ask.

  “No, none. My parents died when I was young. Rick’s family hates me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. I’m starting to sound like a broken record. I wish I knew the right thing to say to make her feel better.

  “I worry all the time about whether Jonah would have been happier if I had been able to stay at home with him. Or if I had worked fewer hours. Or volunteered at his schools. Or, or, or. There are a million regrets.”

  “The blame lies on the jerks who made his life miserable at school. And the administrators who refused to step in.”

  She shakes her head. “I still blame myself. But in the end, the blame lies with Jonah. He didn’t trust me when I told him it would get better. I wish I had made more of an effort to make him understand that.” Her voice cracks a bit on the last word and I take her hand.

  “We all need to make more of an effort to make all children understand that,” I say.

  “I’m fighting desperately to make sure my remaining children understand that. They’re all adults now, but I still worry about them constantly. And of course there are grandchildren now. I hope to God I have raised my children well enough that if their child comes to them for help with gender or orientation struggles, they will be able to handle it.” She pauses for a second, wiping at tears with her hand. I dig in my purse and find a napkin. She takes it and wipes her eyes. “Jonah was my little boy. He was too young, in my opinion, to start transitioning. I was afraid of what the hormones might do to him. I didn’t know enough about it.”

  “I think you were right,” I say. “His body would already be going through so many changes at that age. Better to wait for that to pass before adding more chemicals to complicate the mix. You did the right thing. You supported him, you helped him learn how to be a man.”

  She nods, then lets out a little sob. I tighten my grip on her hand.

  We sit in silence, holding hands for a while. She cries for a few minutes, then gives my hand a squeeze. “Thank you, Davey. I appreciate you listening.”

  I smile at her. “Anytime. Ju
st ask the front desk for the fundraising department.” I reach into my purse and find one of my business cards. “And here’s my number if you ever need anything.”

  She takes the card and stands. “I’m meeting Ron to talk about the benefit. Will you be attending?”

  “I will.”

  “Good,” she says, smiling at me. “I look forward to seeing you.”

  I watch her walk away, then take out my cell phone.

  “Leah.”

  “Hi darling, how’s your day?”

  “It’s fine. I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”

  “I love you, too, darling. Is everything all right?”

  I paused for a few moments, unable to speak.

  “Davey? Sweetheart, are you all right?”

  “Yes, Mom. Everything is fine. I just don’t want you to ever doubt that I love you.”

  “Sweetie, I never have.”

  The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur, and I am more than ready to go when Andy comes to pick me up.

  “Oh, Andy, you sexy beast!” Steve is going into spasms of joy at the sight of her.

  “Stop it,” Andy says. “Control yourself.”

  Erik laughs. “He can’t help it. You’re so fucking sexy.”

  Andy is wearing jeans, worn low enough to hang around her hips. On top, she has a muscle shirt that’s fitted enough to curve around her small breasts and short enough to allow occasional glimpses of the vee of her abs.

  “It’s true. You should have been a gay man.”

  Andy rubs a hand over her shaved head. “Well, I do have a giant cock.”

  Steve pretends to faint. “Oh, I’m swooning,” he calls in a high pitched Southern accent.

  I roll my eyes and grab her hand. “Come on, we have a date.”

  Steve and Erik jump up to hug Andy goodbye. I peck both of them on the cheek and we head out the door.

  “I parked at Janie’s” she says, as we walk out into the sunshine. “We’re early, it’ll be a nice walk.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  She takes my hand and we walk towards the bar.

  “Listen, Davey-baby. I guess I owe you an apology.”

  I look up at her. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s just … I shouldn’t have been an asshole to Danny.”

  “I just don’t get why you were acting like that,” I answer. “You’ve never been like that toward anyone I have ever dated.”

  She looks down at our hands. “You’ve never dated anyone with whom you’ve had such an instant connection. It scared me.”

  “Andy, you are never going to lose me, no matter what.”

  “It’s kind of along the lines of you getting pissy when I was flirting with Lynne.”

  I purse my lips. “It’s kind of nothing like that!”

  Andy throws her head back and laughs. “It’s actually a lot like that. We have a dynamic and none of the men you have ever dated have posed a threat to it, because all of the guys you have dated before this have been dicks. Even when you were with Joe, I knew it was only a matter of time before you wised up and moved on.”

  “Yeah. I mean, it didn’t feel that way at the time, but yeah.”

  “Anyway, you obviously have these strong feelings for Danny and I’m afraid of getting thrown aside. Or worse, I’m afraid you’ll marry him and become like Lynne; only able to see me once a week on Thursday because Danny has a class that night.”

  “Andy, you should know I would never be like that. I have never given up our friendship for a man, not for any man, ever in my life.”

  We turn a corner and Janie’s comes into sight. Andy lifts my hand and kisses the back of it.

  “Davey-baby, I don’t think Danny is just any man.”

  “Neither do I.” I look up at her.

  “I’ll make more of an effort to get along with him,” she says.

  “Do you still think he’s hiding something?”

  “Do you?”

  “Do you think it’s fair to answer a question with a question?”

  “I’m serious. I want to know what you think.”

  “Andy, I don’t think he’s hiding anything.”

  She nods. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I want to get my nipples pierced.”

  “What?” I’m in my bed, just coming out of a sound sleep. I look over at Leah who is lying next to me, staring at me.

  “Do you think I’m too old to get my nipples pierced?”

  “Leah, I was sleeping!” I groan and look at the clock. “Come on, I still have twenty minutes until the alarm goes off.” I flip over angrily and pull one of my pillows over my head.

  Leah plucks the pillow off of me. “Davey, this is important.”

  “Leah, I drank too much last night, I have to work today, and I have a date with Danny tonight! Please let me have my twenty minutes!” I glance at the clock. “Nineteen!”

  “You are too young to be so worried about sleep. Now, come on. Let’s talk.”

  I flip back over and stare at her. “What would Sheila do?”

  “Sheila believes we should celebrate our bodies in whatever way feels best to us. She has a full back tattoo that goes from her neck to her waist. It’s beautiful.”

  “Well, a tattoo is far more permanent than a piercing. If you want to get your nipples pierced, go ahead and do it.” I look at the clock again and sigh.

  “You’re right. When should we go?”

  I open one eye. There’s no point in even trying to argue about this. “Have you picked out where you’re getting it done?”

  “Yeah, Lynne’s UPS girl is pierced in several places. She showed them to us the other night.”

  I shake my head. “All right. Find out if they are open on Sunday. If not, make an appointment for Monday.”

  Leah gives me a hug. “You’re the best daughter I’ve ever had.”

  “Ha ha. So original. I better go take a shower.”

  “I’ll get us some coffee. How was girls’ night? I didn’t hear either of you come in last night.”

  “I’ll tell you about it over coffee.”

  I shower and dress quickly so Leah and I can chat a bit before work. I walk into the kitchen, dump some food into Harry’s bowl, check to make sure he has water, and finally, sit down at the table. “Harry is starting to grow on me.”

  Leah reaches down and scratches Harry’s head. “He’s a sweetheart. And he’s sad because his mommy is never home anymore.”

  “His mommy needs to move back into her own home and Harry will have two mommies again. All will be right with the world.”

  Leah looks at me. “I really don’t think that’s going to happen for a while. If ever. So tell me about girls’ night.”

  I grimace at the memory. “Lynne brought UPS girl.”

  Leah raises her eyebrows. “I thought Thursday was sacred.”

  “So did we. In all of the years of Thursday nights at Janie’s, none of us has ever brought a date. That is our special time. No dates, no distractions.”

  “And Lynne brought her … what is the word for a female boy toy?”

  “I have no idea. But she didn’t belong at girls’ night.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing dramatic. We had a couple of drinks, tried to talk to the child and, eventually, Andy asked if I wanted to leave, so we did.”

  “You were pretty late.”

  “We went to Andy’s house and watched a movie and drank of bottle of rum.”

  “Ah. You drink too much.” She pours me another cup of coffee.

  “Considering my life right now, I don’t drink nearly enough. Besides, you smoke pot daily. I don’t drink every day.”

  “Pot is different. It’s non-addictive.”

  I snort. “To each his own, Leah.”

  She smiles at me as I get up to rinse my cup. “Love you, darling.”

  “Love you, too. Are you and Lynne going to your class tonight?”


  “I am. Are you seeing Danny tonight?”

  “Yep, he’s coming here for dinner.”

  “Oh, I’ll spend the night at Sheila’s house then.”

  “Leah, is something going on there?”

  “No, not at all.” She tosses her hair back. “I think it would be great to be a lesbian, but I just don’t have it in me.”

  I laugh. “Well, do whatever you need to do. Are you really going to be gone all night?”

  “Yes, and I’ll let Lynne know to pack a bag before class. She can either go to UPS girl’s house, or come with me to Sheila’s.”

  “Oh, kinky.”

  “Should I call Lynne and ask her if the UPS girl wants to come to class?”

  “She came to the empowerment exercise.”

  “You should have stayed for that.”

  “I had my own empowerment exercise.”

  “Oh, I want details.”

  “Forget it.”

  Andy beeps her horn in front of my door. Leah looks up, surprised. “Are you getting a ride to work today?”

  “Yep, Andy’s taking me in and Danny is picking me up.”

  “Is something wrong with the car?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Can I use it today?”

  I hesitate for half a second. “Fine, the keys are on the rack. Why don’t you go see Gram and Gramps?”

  Leah laughs. “Maybe I should invite my mother to the sex class.”

  I shake my head and kiss her goodbye. “See you later.”

  I jump into Andy’s car and kiss her on the cheek. “Hey, studly one. You look pretty perky for someone who drank half a bottle of rum last night!”

  Andy smiles as she turns out of my parking lot. “I got up at five and did a boot camp style workout. Got the old heart pumping and sweat out the booze.”

  “Yeah,” I say sarcastically. “That’s what I did, too.”

  She laughs. “You would feel better if you did. Get up, work out hard, have a good breakfast. Speaking of which, that’s your breakfast in the cup holder.”

  I pick up a travel cup. “What is it?”

  “Banana, oatmeal, almonds and almond milk, blended with ice.”

  “Sounds delicious.” I take a sip. “It is delicious. Thank you.”

  “You should always eat breakfast,” she lectures, “even if it’s just a smoothie.”