by Kim Green
“I thought you were dating. . .” In a flash, I realize the extent of the feat that Micah has pulled off, weaving social fact and fiction together so snugly that even I, his mother, cannot be sure where his crushes begin and end. My son’s girlfriends are legion, yet I cannot pinpoint a single paramour by name. “What do you want me to say?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. What’s there to say? I’m a fucking fag. Get over it.” Micah hitches up the towel and smiles. For the first time ever, my son’s smile is cracked, afraid, grotesque.
“Why Ronnie?” The world has shifted, earthquake-jostled bits settling into new places. Micah gay I can deal with, I think. Sure, there is disappointment there, and fear. A lot of that. But also a trickle of understanding, of floating particles slotting into context, that provides relief: Taylor’s comment about Micah’s whereabouts the other day—how, how, how could my daughter have guessed (or known) and not I?—the gradual yet unmistakable reduction in Micah’s willingness to confide, the niggling feeling that my son has been lying to me in small, fractious ways.
Micah’s face reddens. “I don’t know. It just happened, I guess. We . . . you know . . . love each other.”
I am simultaneously horrified and proud. See how my son talks openly about his feelings like a sensitive, evolved male? See how I raised him to emote fully? See how, like a woman, he is going to get his heart filleted and broiled alive on a spit?
“You’re just a kid. Love? Well, that’s. . . well.” With great force of will, I stop myself from expelling that old chestnut: Love stinks.
“Mom.”
“I’m sorry. I just . . . I wish you had told me sooner, that’s all. I could have helped you.”
“With what? You think I don’t know what love is because I’m seventeen? Or because I’m queer?”
“Don’t say that!” Why not, Raquel?
“It’s just a word, Mom.”
“Look at it from my perspective, okay? I know your feelings are real, honey, but it’s my job to protect you. I know this is going to sound harsh, but do you think this is a good idea?” My voice has risen, shrieking upward on a fulcrum of dismay.
“He knew it was going to be like this,” Micah says furiously. “That’s why we didn’t tell anybody. I wanted to, but Ronnie says his parents will freak. I was, like, ‘My mom won’t—my mom’s cool.’” His voice turns shrill as he mimics me. “‘Do you think this is a good idea, honey?’ It’s not an idea, Mom, it’s fucking reality! God, you think you’re so evolved, jetting around San Francisco like some fucking artist-in-residence, palling around with your little queer society friends, but you don’t have a fucking clue what it means to really accept someone, do you?”
Micah gets up off the other lounge chair and knots his robe tighter around his waist. Through the bulky strata of walls, windows, and bad feeling, we hear the unmistakable seal of a car door and the patrician rev of a sports-car engine. We both know it is Ronnie, sailing away from confrontation in his hand-me-down Miata. The emotion leaches out of Micah’s face as if through a shower drain.
For a pause, Micah and I stare at each other, the moment etched in dismay. What constitutes best parenting practice for these things? Should I hug my pain-racked child before he wiggles away, or is that insulting? Am I supposed to call Phil sobbing and commiserate about the abrupt decrease in our statistical likelihood of becoming grandparents? Or do I invite Barb and Ron Senior over and play meet-the-inlaws?
“That’s not what I meant,” I whisper finally, but Micah has already gone.
Unlike your child’s vaccination schedule, life does not calendar traumatic events in decently spaced intervals. She is inconsiderate that way.
I am shocked out of sleep shortly after midnight by the doorbell. Heart pounding while my pupils adjust to the smear of darkness, I wait for Phil to get up and do a recon with his trusty Louisville Slugger, only to realize a millisecond later that my husband is not here because I kicked him out. Instead of serving as resident male presence and protector of La Famiglia Rosa, my husband is tucked into bed at Extended Stay America, dozing off to the tail end of Conan O’Brien.
I am alone.
Reaching under Phil’s side of the bed, I am gratified to feel my hand close around the baseball bat. Without turning on any lights—Perhaps the sudden sight of my ravaged visage at the door will frighten away the rapist-intruder—I creep toward the entryway. Stella and Willard, the two bassets, are nowhere to be seen. From day one, when Phil brought them home from the pet shop yowling in a ribboned box, there has been something worthless and louche about these dogs, a sense that, if forced to choose between saving our lives and downing a bowl of kiblets, they’d take the food and munch happily while home invaders cleave our brains and steal the Cuisinart.
I tiptoe down the hall, bat in hand. The threadbare rugby jersey and men’s boxers I’m wearing provide scant protection against the probing of rapist penises. Unlike Ma, I have not barricaded myself under a belted jumpsuit and five layers of granny panties in my husband’s absence. From this point on, I have only my wits and the Slugger as defenses.
“Aaaah!” I yell, heart hammering as my foot comes into contact with a warm, inert, now snarling body.
At the sound of my scream, Stella grunts and retreats toward the comfort of the kitchen, toenails clacking, where I hear her dig in to her food with gusto.
“Damn dog,” I say, and open the door.
Sue and Sarafina stand there. In spite of a mild case of first-trimester bloat, my friend looks waifish and wan. A half-asleep Sarafina leans against her, a Dora doll clutched in her hand, outgrown baby blanket trailing. Their midnight getaway has conferred on them an appearance of both frailty and homelessness. The Breakup Diet: Wearing Pajamas Full-time and 100 Other Tried-and-True Ways to Look Thinner Now!
“It’s over,” Sue says as she falls into my arms.
CHAPTER 21
You Can’t Help Whom You Love . . .or Can You?
“He kept saying ‘queer,’” I say to Laurie. “It’s like he was trying to shock me. Queer, queer, queer”—my hand does a nervous jig around my face— “it was kind of shocking, actually.”
My sister’s finely arched, honey-toned brows are nearly levitating off her face. This is a sign of disapproval. I am fairly sure she is uncomfortable with my choice of venue—Caffè Museo—for this revelation. In fact, Caffè Museo, with its dainty wedges of organic frittata and messenger-bag-made-ofrecycled-seat-belt-toting patrons, has probably been suburban-matron-screeching-“queer”-free until now.
Since I told her two weeks ago that I did indeed have carnal (if incomplete) knowledge of her husband, Laurie and I have entered into a Partial Relationship Embargo. The PRE is a handy mechanism that grants you the right to draw on familial resources in the event of a Serious Crisis, even if you are presently in a declared state of war with the other family member. Although what constitutes a Serious Crisis has yet to be clearly defined, there seems to be a general consensus that it could involve such catastrophes as TV-show cancellation, rapid unexplained weight gain, or spousal infidelity. Into this pot I would also throw gay awakenings. Walking in on your underage children in flagrante delicto? Definitely.
“I’m sure he’s just venting his frustration,” Laurie corrects me. “You were just a convenient target.” Laurie pauses to accept a paper menu that a fan is handing her. Smiling brilliantly, as if there is nothing more enjoyable than penning her autograph during a conversation about my son’s sexual adventures with his best friend, Laurie signs her name with a flourish and lets the woman grasp her hand reverently before turning back to me. “Have you talked to Micah more about this?”
“We talked,” I say slowly, feeling disingenuous, a word I cannot pronounce but seems just right for what I am feeling at the moment.
“About?”
“Being. . . gay?” Is this the right answer?
“And?”
“You know what he told me? Last year, when he wrecked the car wi
th Ronnie, it was because Micah came out to him and Ronnie was so freaked that he dropped his thirty-twoounce Coke on the shifter and Mikey’s hand slipped and that’s when he crashed into the 7-Eleven.” I wipe my eyes, which are burning. “He told me they were high, Laurie. Instead of telling me he was gay and his best friend couldn’t deal with it, he let Phil and me believe he drove stoned. That made me incredibly sad. Are we that bad? Did we fail our son that badly?”
Laurie sips her Chardonnay. “Of course not. You have to put yourself in Micah’s position. Everyone has an idea of him as a person, how he should be. The fact that it’s somewhat—or largely—at odds with what he knows himself to be must be incredibly pressuring. I can’t imagine what he’s been going through. There is so much more at stake for him than just disappointing his parents. Coming out means potentially changing his whole world. I think you and Phil are open, nonjudgmental parents, I really do. I think whether Micah learns to trust you with this depends a lot on how you handle the next few conversations. Whatever you do, don’t forbid him from seeing Ronnie. It’ll backfire, and Micah will gravitate toward him even more. It might make him demonize you. I know he’s still your child, but he’s seventeen years old, not twelve or thirteen or even fifteen, and he probably feels like you’re holding him back from his adult sexuality, even if you aren’t. Remember how we felt right before college? Remember how excruciating it was to wait for the chance to reinvent yourself?” As she says this, Laurie’s focus seems to drift to some faraway, melancholy place, her normally cheery visage replaced by something barren.
For a split second I am sucked into Laurie’s vortex. I am one of my sister’s disciples—needy, intoxicated, and completely in awe. Her psychosocial prowess—not to mention the fact that she, for the first time ever, complimented me on my parenting—blows me away. I am tempted to question her claim of possessing an urge toward self-reinvention—why would popular, athletic, prettier-than-Lindsay-Wagner Lauren Schultz want to be anyone else?—but instead I draw the conversation back to the real matter at hand.
“Phil,” I say.
“Phil,” she echoes. Laurie and I may not see eye to eye on everything, but there are three areas in which we have achieved real—if unacknowledged—confluence: Ma’s madness, Ren’s gorgeousness, and Phil’s obtuseness in the face of familial drama. There are some things I implicitly trust and defer to my sister on. How to best manage Phil during a reign of terror is one of them.
“Do I tell him?” I ask.
Laurie ponders. “Depends what your goal is. Do you want to use this as a jab at Phil’s competence as a parent or really figure out together how to best help Micah?”
“How to best help Micah while jabbing Phil,” I say without thinking.
“Why?” Laurie’s eyes bore into me. I am nearly squirming.
“I caught our son having sex in our house, for chrissake. Okay, I was supposed to be gone, but my God . . . I guess I feel like why should I get stuck holding the ball, like always, just because Phil decided to screw Tate Trimble and decamped to a hotel? I mean, I get that Micah is gay. I can deal with that. But he’s so angry, Laur. At both of us, I think. Or, oh shit. . . is it just me?” My thoughts erode into a mist of confusion. What do I want? Micah to be happy and safe, right? How do I achieve that? Is Micah supposed to tell Phil himself, or am I obliged to initiate this little sit-down? Am I so angry at Phil that my own judgment is compromised? Why does everything have to be so complicated?
Laurie eats a spoonful of fat-free salad, a meal she professes to like. “We can’t help whom we love,” she says, her words as bitter as the arugula on her plate.
We can’t help whom we love.
Here’s the thing: While it’s inarguably factual, doesn’t it feel a little less true when you are the one abandoned for the One True Love? It’s all well and good when you’re the object of his affection, but try this nugget of wisdom on for size when your heart hurts so fiercely that the mere act of opening your eyes to daylight seems to have been mandated by the Antichrist. You might think, Well, perhaps you can help it, or, more succinctly, He’s mine, bitch. Even if there’s no third party involved, no femme fatale in diamond studs and a polo shirt, it hurts. Look at Sue. After her pregnancy and her confrontation with Arlo and his defection, she found herself rootless, homeless, and helpless. Her home, she said, was tainted by betrayal; she couldn’t sleep there. So she and Sarafina moved in with me, where she proceeded to drown herself in yogurt-covered raisins, Chinese soap operas—she claims to know what’s going on, but I suspect she just likes the boys’ genial, sable-haired prettiness—and knitting. In spite of the fact that Arlo Murphy has been a complete cad about the pregnancy— he refused to even discuss her decision to keep the baby— the mere mention of his name sends Sue into black despair laced with tears.
We can’t help whom we love.
Laurie’s comment sticks with me after I leave the restaurant. It floats, pesky and gnatlike, above my left ear as I storm through the parking garage, memories buzzing. When I hand my nine dollars to the parking attendant, instead of seeing his round Filipino face, I see Ren White’s college-age visage, his aristocratic nose and floppy forelock, his broad tan chest dusted with fine white sand as he hoists me onto trembling legs. I grit my teeth and the image dissolves, only to be replaced by one of my parents’ house, circa late November 1982.
Ma and Dad are waiting for us in the vestibule with the front door open wide, making it patently obvious that the prospect of their eldest daughter bringing a man home for the holidays is extraordinary enough to warrant a new waxy-leaved potted plant and a receiving line. As we shut off the car, I launch into a lengthy list of warnings about my family that I’d not only written but memorized. Ren interrupts me.
“Quel,” he says, reaching for my hand in that loose, teasing way that makes me think of Scott Glenn luring Debra Winger onto the mechanical bull in Urban Cowboy. “Stop worrying. It’ll be fine. They’ll love me.” He releases my hand, hops out of the car, and inhales the cool, damp northern California air. “Do all the homes have fenced yards here?” he asks.
Later. Inside.
Ma has placed a bowl of pistachios and cheap green olives studded with pimentos directly in front of Ren, her idea of sophisticated aperitifs. Ma and I are drinking fizzy water, the kind Dad picks up at Walgreens with the horrible lime-green label that says GENERIC in large block letters. Ren and Dad have delved into Ren’s offering, a bottle of elderly Scotch from Ren’s father’s liquor cabinet. I take their tacit acceptance of his slightly underage drinking as a sign of approval.
Ren, I realize, is indeed a parent’s dream beau. He reveals enough about himself to appear forthcoming without ever hijacking the conversation. A few choice tidbits about our time together exhibit that he has made a careful study of me. His inquiries, about both Dad’s work and Ma’s causes, show maturity unusual in one so young. He takes off his jacket, a navy sport coat whose intimidating preppiness is undercut by a frayed charm. He grins rather than smiles. Judging my parents’ tolerances correctly, he makes none of the obvious mistakes (flirting with Ma, talking lacrosse with Dad). He just seems himself. Engaging. Lucky. Real.
I sense, rather than see, my sister enter the room. There is something about Laurie’s hair that captures scent—light, flowery, cotton-candy scent—and magnifies it so that you are enveloped by her before you meet her. She wafts in on a wave of spring blooms. Laurie is wearing worn jeans and a pale blue polo shirt. Her hair shines, pulled back in a messy half-knot, half-chignon whose effortless chic should, by rights, be beyond the province of a high school girl. The pinprick diamond earrings our parents gave her for her sixteenth birthday glint in her small ears. My hand goes to my own ears, the already long lobes tugged downward by bobbly, vaguely Indian gold hoops that seemed so appealing in the shop on State Street. Now they seem big, gaudy, obvious.
Dad hugs her. “This is Rachel’s sister, Lauren. Laurie, meet Rachel’s friend Loren White. Ren White.”
Ren s
hakes Laurie’s hand gravely. My mouth is full of olives. Later, I find I cannot relive the scene without registering the trenchant sting of brine in my mouth.
Laurie sits down at the table, maybe eats some pistachios. The phone rings six times; after the fifth ring, Laurie sighs and tells Ma to say she’ll call them back. Collectively, we bemoan the curse of the insanely popular. We laugh. Conversation shifts to the refugee camp killings in Beirut.
Skip ahead two days.
Laurie, Ren, and I are hiking the Santa Cruz Mountains to escape our parents.
“Have you decided where you’re applying?” Ren asks. We have been comparing college notes for the last half hour.
“I’m thinking Smith,” Laurie says into the foggy chasm of the deep canyon. The private school tuition will be twenty times that of my public institution, a fact I don’t think Laurie finds unjustified, given her potential.
Ren pauses to pluck a pinecone off the loamy ground. “Both my sisters went to Smith.”
Fear—red, raw fear—floods my gut. I don’t know then (and don’t know now) how I know, but something about that exchange, so minute, so encapsulating, terrifies me. I stumble on the brambles that crisscross our path. My lungs fail me so that I have to roll down the window on the way home over Laurie’s protests, unable to get enough air. That night I go to bed early and wallow in conscious nightmares, my childhood twin bed groaning under the weight of my thrashing.
In the morning, the day Ren and I are slated to make the long drive back to Santa Barbara, Laurie is conspicuously absent, her nonattendance at breakfast a warning siren that sends my self-assurance plummeting. Present, she might have done something, made some small error, to snuff out the ever brightening stars in Ren’s eyes. Absent, her presence is as powerful and devious as a poltergeist. I sag under the weight of it. Ren and I pack the car. I hug Ma and Dad. Ren shifts into neutral. We are two hundred miles away, approaching the seaside town of Santa Maria, when confirmation comes.