“Welcome home. You must be hungry.”
I sat down at the table in front of the stove. Aunt Minerva brought me hot fritters. My eyes began to close after one bite. Then I felt Aunt Cleo’s hand patting my knee.…
Proud Road is another country. You’d probably think it’s the middle of nowhere or even the end of the world. I think of it as the land of softness in honor of the quilts and pillows my two aunts gave me to take up to a loft, where I slept for a week.
The wind was harsh, but I recall
A curl of smoke, thread through my hair
On my mittens, on your coat
A curl of smoke, weaving air
Footsteps when I first saw snow
In my brain forever branded
Slain bough of an apple tree
Rock me sweetly up to heaven
Now I lay me, downy quilt
Intermission
I’m gonna take five, so I’ll ask Marilyn Chin to come up and play the bass!
Icky Digits will come down and take your orders, soon as he turns the lights up.
If anybody wants to stretch their legs and get a closer look at Ray’s masterpiece—which I’m not supposed to be looking at—be our guest. Right, Ray? How you doin’ back there, anyway? Don’t forget—more than one horse isn’t allowed! Has Raynor Grimes been painting horses all this time? Don’t tell me—he better not be.…
See you guys in a bit.
SECRETS
Do you have a secret? I won’t ask you to tell, don’t worry. I just want you to think about it for a moment.
There are all kinds of secrets, of course. Little secrets that rest in a corner of your mind, neatly as a thin dime fits in the fold of your pants pocket; then the other kind that hides in your bones waiting to jump out. That’s the big kind of secret, the dangerous kind that requires a lock on your face. That’s my kind.
My secret didn’t start off that way. It started off as a small bubble of surprising joy right in the center of my chest. I first felt it the day I met Lissa flying her kite. I felt it when we were walking home together, when we sat next to each other on the school bus, or when we were at her house. It got so I couldn’t wait to see her so I could feel that little bubble of joy. Pretty soon just thinking of her made it rise inside me. Was I in love with her even then? If I was, I didn’t know it. And I certainly didn’t think about hiding the fact that I was indescribably happy to have her as a best friend. We gave each other big bear hugs back then.
But in fifth grade, my bubble of joy had turned into a small geyser. Lissa had a habit of grabbing my hand and sticking it into her own coat pocket on the playground. That’s because one of my gloves was always missing; she was trying to help keep my hands warm. When we were ten, that little gesture made me feel cozy; when I was eleven and a half, it made me feel electric. So one freezing day when she grabbed my gloveless hand on the playground and stuck it into one of her own coat pockets, I jerked away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
It felt too good, that’s what was wrong. But I couldn’t say that. Not that I’d ever dream of breaking off our friendship at that point. She was like my other half. But our friendship was definitely changing, at least for me. Along with the pleasure of her company, there was a slight hint of panic. Could it be that I was one of them? One of the people that Rupert called “fairies”?
Pretty insulting term, huh? Sorry. It’s the only one I knew at the time. Rupert said it when we went to the ice cream parlor. Once not long after Nadine died, he and Ruby and I went to get malteds. Two men came in after we’d ordered. They sat across from each other in a booth on the other side of the room. Our malteds arrived and then their order came, too, one big double sundae with everything on it and two spoons. They began to eat out of the same dish and one of them smiled at me. I’d been staring at their ice cream. But Rupert had been staring at them. Suddenly he pulled me up out of my seat. Ruby jumped up, too.
“Come on, Orphea. We’re going.”
“But I haven’t—”
“We’re going.”
He practically dragged me out of the place with Ruby scurrying behind, leaving three barely touched malteds on our table.
“I haven’t finished!”
“Hush,” said Ruby, “we have ice cream at home.”
By now we were outside. Rupert took a deep breath. “I’m not sitting across from a couple of fairies.”
I turned and looked through the window. All I could see were the two men. Their sundae was almost finished. One of them was saying something and the other was laughing. “What fairies?”
Rupert glared. “Them. Stay away from those kind of people.”
The man who had been laughing noticed us staring and quickly turned away.
I got the message. There was a new kind of fairy—they were bad and also scary. I could feel the fear in Ruby’s body as she led me to the car. And the disgust on Rupert’s face—as if he’d swallowed a rat. I never forgot it. So, when my hormones began to rage and my best friend became the object, you bet I felt panic.
I’m a fairy, a little voice whispered inside. What am I going to do? Then again, I thought, maybe I’m not a fairy. Maybe this is the way a person is supposed to feel when they’re with their best friend in the world.
By the time we were twelve, things came to a head. Every girl in class liked a guy. Every girl except me. Even Lissa had a crush on our friend Mike. I went along with it, listening to her rave about him as if he were a rock star and she were his groupie. Not that Mike wasn’t a great guy, but I didn’t think he was cute. But Lissa …
“He has such a cute mouth! He has cute muscles! He wears his jeans in such a cute way! Don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
“I think Mike would make a good father. I think we should have three children, named Amy, Keith, and Marvin.”
“Yuck.”
“Don’t you like those names?”
“No.”
“Well, help me think of some others. After all, you’ll be the godmother.”
I snorted. “Thanks a lot.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “You act as if you’re jealous.”
“Jealous? Me? Of course not.” I couldn’t admit to that. If I was jealous of Lissa and Mike, it meant I really was a fairy.
“I think it’s great that you like Mike,” I volunteered. “He’s cute.”
Now, you may wonder where Mike came into all of this. That’s the odd part. Mike didn’t like Lissa at all. It turns out that Mike had a crush on me! Lissa was the one to break the news.
“I have something for you.” She handed me a piece of paper folded into a tiny square.
“You wrote me a note?”
“Not me.” She was pouting. Her gray eyes were angry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mike likes you! That’s what’s wrong. He was supposed to like me. Look at this!” She snatched the note back and read it for me. “Dear Orphea. I want to touch your velvet body!”
I laughed. “That’s so corny.”
“Do you like him? Yes or no?”
I thought for a minute. “Yes.” I didn’t like Mike in that way, of course, but I thought that I might try to. If I could like Mike, I wouldn’t like Lissa, and that would be the end of my problem.
“You like him?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
She grabbed my hand. “That’s okay. If I can’t marry Mike, at least my best friend can.”
“I never said I was going to marry him. And I’m not naming my kid Marvin.”
“Fine,” she said. “But let’s just write him a note.”
So the two of us carried on this love letter thing with Mike for a few weeks. It was fun. Lissa and I would write him letters together and I’d sign my name. Then he’d write letters back to me and Lissa would open them up and read them to me. Things were perfect; I was writing love letters to a boy, proof positive that I wasn’t a
fairy. And the best part was that since Lissa and I were writing to Mike together, I was spending even more time with her. Things came to an abrupt end when Mike wanted to go to first base.
Lissa was sick one day. Mike got off at my bus stop. He walked me up onto the porch and wham! Tongue and everything. I did my best. But he tasted like cardboard, and his lips were a little hairy.
“Sorry. I don’t love you. I think we better break up.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” He wasn’t too heartbroken.
After that, things fell back into place. Lissa and me; me and Lissa. She started wearing white-framed glasses then, which other people thought looked dorky. But I thought they looked great. I fell in love with those dorky glasses. I fell in love with Lissa.
Then came the rumor. It began on the school bus with two girls who sat across the aisle. They had never seemed to notice Lissa and me. It was spring of seventh grade and Lissa and I became interesting. That’s what I thought. That’s what you want to think when people are constantly glancing your way and whispering. You want to think that they’re saying, Wow, how cool those two girls are; don’t we wish we were like them? Anyway, it didn’t take long to figure out that’s not what they were saying. The glances became a tad sharper and the laughter a bit more sarcastic. Lissa didn’t seem to notice. And I pretended not to. I hardly knew the girls’ names; they weren’t in class with me. What did I care what they thought? It worked, until one of them found me alone at my locker and grabbed my arm.
“Tell me one thing,” she whispered in my ear. “Are you a dyke or what?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I stared her down. I acted so cold. But inside I was shook up.
It’s true, I thought. That’s what I am. Only now there’s a new word for it.
There was only one thing to do—be very, very careful. That way no one would ever find out.
Maybe I should have stopped being Lissa’s friend then. But I didn’t. Not being with her would have been like cutting off an arm. So, I was careful. I never touched her. I didn’t smile at her in public. When we played softball, I didn’t choose her for my team. Poor Lissa, at first she didn’t understand. We’d been holding hands on the playground since the age of ten. Now I was treating her like she was poison ivy. But she came to understand without my ever explaining. Probably because when we were alone, not too much changed. When we were alone, I still gave her bear hugs; we still talked every night on the phone. When we waited alone outside the diner, she laid her head on my shoulder. And when we were together, the charge was always there.
We have a secret, I thought. A delicious and frightening secret that we share. That’s what I thought. But I never asked her how she felt. I was afraid to know the truth either way. One way could mean the end of our friendship. The other way could mean something even worse: that we’d be cut off from everyone we knew—like the edge cut off a pie crust, the dough rolled into a little ball and tossed into the garbage.
Are you still listening? Sorry to be going on and on. How old are you out there? Some of you look about Ray’s age—fourteen. Some of you look older than me. When I was fourteen, I was terrified of time. I didn’t want to grow up. By then I knew I’d never be a woman in an ad for brandy. You know the kind of thing—she’s in a strapless gown standing next to some tall guy with a glass of brandy in his hand, only he’s not looking at the brandy, he’s peeking at her boobs. Not only would I not be that woman worshipped and adored by a man, but when I grew up, I was going to be somebody’s idea of an insult. I don’t know about in your school, but in mine, one of the worst things you can call someone is “faggot” or “dyke.” Not that there were any actual faggots or dykes in my school; nobody would ever own up to that, being gay I mean. I didn’t own up to it either. You don’t own up until you say it out loud. And I hadn’t, not until that very last night. I had kept my secret locked inside. I was sixteen and my secret had grown up with me. The bubble of joy in my chest had been like a sprite, but now my secret was a giant, rattling to be let out.
That day we were at a meeting of the literary magazine. I was an assistant editor. Lissa was in charge of the art. I’d written a poem about a guy who played djembe in the diner. I was fascinated by this drummer’s hands, how they rose and fell so swiftly, making everything pulse. She drew a picture to go with the poem—the drummer’s hands.
“Perfect,” I told her.
“Thanks. Want coffee?”
“Sure, let’s go to the diner. Or we could go to my house. We can make coffee there.” I hadn’t planned on saying that.
“Are your brother and his wife at home?”
“No. They’re taking tango class.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe it. They’re so uptight.”
My palms were sweating. I wiped them on my jeans. She looked away. Could she tell how I was feeling?
“If you don’t want to go …”
She turned and smiled. “No, I want to. It’s been a long time since we’ve been at your house.”
We left school together. She had her family’s old van. “Supposed to snow tomorrow.”
“Maybe there’ll be a snow day.”
“If that’s the case, I could sleep over,” she volunteered.
She said it casually. Her eyes were glistening. I’d bowed out of sleepovers recently. I felt a catch in my throat.
“Sure we’re not too old?”
“Never too old for a sleepover. Remember how we used to make hot chocolate?”
“Yeah.”
“We can stay up all night long studying history.”
“Ugh. Let’s hope it does snow. Then there won’t be school.”
“Which means no history test.”
“Then what will we do?”
I glanced out of the window. “I don’t know. Chill.”
I would tell her how I felt that night! I promised myself. I’d been keeping it for so long.…
Why am I telling you this? Because that night was so important. I’ve gone over it again and again. Things started to unravel as soon as we got out of the car. I was on fire, and Ruby and Rupert weren’t home. We went into the kitchen and put down our books. She gave me a long look, and I kissed her.
She pushed me away.
I had read her vibes—she wanted me to kiss her, her eyes told me, her arms were beckoning. She loved me, too. But—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you think I’m some kind of queer? Is this why you wanted to get me over here? So that you could embarrass me? So that you could try and stick your tongue down my throat?”
“Sorry, Lissa. I misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood what?”
“You said that after we graduated we’d go away. We’d go on a road trip.”
“So?”
“You said we’d never come back, maybe, except to see your parents.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I took that for something else.”
“What?”
“Love, I suppose.”
She laughed. “I’m a girl. You’re my friend. That’s it, understand? I’m not queer.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not, do you hear me?”
“Okay! Okay, I heard you. So now what?”
“Now let’s study.”
“After this you want to study history?”
“It’ll take our minds off … things.”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“No.”
So we sat in the kitchen reviewing for our history test, pretending that nothing had happened. I felt like a piece of crap.
“I’m sorry, Lissa.”
She touched my hand. “It’s okay. We’re best friends. Nothing can change that.”
“Thanks.”
“Orphea?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“Sure.”
“You just startled me.”
“Fine.”
She blushed. “An
yway, I’ve always wanted to try that.”
“What?”
“Kissing … you.”
I buried my nose in the history book. My heart was racing. I was so confused.
“Well, we tried it,” I said, trying to make light of things. “So, that’s that.”
Hunched over our separate books, we kept studying. Then finally Lissa suggested that we quiz each other. Outside the snow was falling.
“You’d better get started home. The roads might get slippery.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Come on, Lissa, you don’t want to have to dig yourself out. They probably won’t send the plows out until morning.”
“I don’t care. I’m staying.”
I gulped. “You’re spending the night?”
“Sure, if it’s all right with Rupert and Ruby.”
“They love it when you’re here. Then they don’t have to deal with me.”
She smiled uneasily. “I really want to stay. I’ll just call home.”
She called her dad. We made popcorn and hot chocolate. We opened a bag of marshmallows. Then we went upstairs and stretched across my bed, doing our favorite thing, planning our road trip. Then I heard Rupert and Ruby roll in.
“Lissa’s staying over!” I called down the stairs.
“Okay,” Ruby called up. “Supposed to snow all night!”
Rupert climbed the stairs. “Done your homework?” That was always the first thing he asked.
“Most of it. There may be a snow day.”
“Finish it up.” He tossed a smile in Lissa’s direction. “Hey.”
“Hey, Dr. Jones.”
“Tell your dad I’m bringing in my car.”
“Sure.”
He turned to go. “Shovel the walk, if school is canceled. I may sleep in. That root canal I’ve got in the morning will probably chicken out. Any excuse to miss a trip to the dentist.” He flashed a smile.
“Night, Rupert.”
I closed the door. I rolled out my sleeping bag.
“You can take the bed,” I told her.
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