Family Album

by Danielle Steel

  “No, no … you're right, John. I hadn't thought of that. And the room is free. I just thought you'd want to think about it for a while….” It was too late, he had offered the room to John and now he wanted it. He would have to live with what he'd done, no matter what the cost to himself.

  “I don't need to think about it, Li. I think the room is great.” Shit. Lionel stared at the tall dark-haired boy, with the exquisite body that had tormented him the night before, and there was nothing left to say.

  “Fine. I'll tell the other guys. They'll be thrilled. It saves them a lot of headaches.” And then, in an attempt to make the best of it, “Do you want help moving in?”

  “I don't want to bother you…. I thought I'd borrow Dad's car and move some stuff in tomorrow.”

  “Ill come pick you up.” John's face lit up like a child's again.

  “I really appreciate it, Li. You're sure it's not too much trouble?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Mom said she had a bedspread and some lamps and some other stuff.”

  “Great.” Lionel could feel his heart sink, as he wondered what he had gotten himself into as John looked up admiringly at him.

  “Can I take you to dinner tonight, Li, to thank you for all this?”

  Suddenly Lionel was embarrassed by the boy's sincerity, and he was touched. “That's all right, John. You don't have to do anything like that. I'm glad it worked out.” But he wasn't. He was scared. What if he lost control? If he did something dumb? If John found out he was gay? But suddenly he felt John's hand on his arm and a chill ran down his spine. He wanted to tell John not to touch him again, but he'd think he was nuts.

  “I can't thank you enough, Li. It's like a whole new life.” He was so relieved to get away from the kids at Beverly Hills High. He just didn't feel like them anymore. He hadn't in years, and he had hidden it for so long. Now he could start a new life somewhere else. He wouldn't have to try as hard, or listen to the jocks, or run away from the girls, or pretend to get drunk on Saturday nights … even the locker room had become a nightmare for him … all those boys … all those jocks … even Greg … especially him … and he knew he was different than they were. And yet with Lionel he didn't feel as though there were something wrong with him. He was so quiet and understanding, and he felt so comfortable with him. Even if he never saw him at the new house, it was nice to know that he'd be there once in a while, that their paths would cross, that he could talk to him sometimes. He looked into his eyes now and he wanted to cry with relief. “I've hated school so much, Li. I can't wait to get out.”

  Lionel was surprised. “I thought you liked it, John. You're a big football star.” They wandered into the kitchen, and Lionel handed him a Coke, which he took gratefully. He was even more grateful it wasn't a beer. It would have been if it had been Greg.

  “I've hated that for the last year. I'm just sick of all that shit.” He took a sip of the Coke, and sighed with relief. It really was a whole new life. “I hated every moment I spent on that damn football team.”

  Lionel was stunned. “Why?”

  “I don't know. I just never gave a damn about it. I was good at it, I guess, but I didn't really care. You know they actually used to cry in the locker room when they lost a game. Sometimes the coach cried too. As though it really mattered that much. All it is is a bunch of big guys beating each other up on a field. It just never turned me on.”

  “Then why did you play?”

  “It meant a lot to my Dad. He played in college before he went to med school. And he always used to kid me that if they smashed up my face, he'd fix it for me, for free.” John looked disgusted at the thought. “That didn't increase the appeal much.” He smiled slowly at Lionel. “Being here is going to be like a dream.”

  Lionel smiled at him. “I'm glad you like the room. It'll be nice having you around, although I'm not here much. But if there's anything I can do …”

  “You've done enough, Li.”

  And true to his word, Lionel went to pick him up the next day, put the top down on the little red Mustang, and made three trips to help him move in his stuff. He seemed to have mountains of it, but he made miracles and Lionel hardly recognized the room by Sunday night. He stopped in the doorway and stared.

  “My God, what did you do?” He had stapled fabric to one wall, hung plants, put up simple curtains and a handsome painting over the bed. Two lamps provided warm light, there were posters on the other wall. It looked like an apartment in a magazine, and there was a small white flokati rug on the floor. “Did your Mom do this for you?” Lionel knew she was a decorator and he couldn't imagine John doing all that in a matter of hours. There were even orange crates with the same fabric stapled on them, with magazines in baskets, and cushions giving the impression of a window seat. It was a small haven, and Lionel was impressed beyond words and it showed.

  “I did it myself.” He looked pleased at the effect on Lionel. Everyone said he had a talent for interior design, he had always been able to take a room and change it in a matter of hours, using whatever materials were at hand. Even his mother said he should do something with his innate ability, he was better than she was, she claimed. It took her months to achieve the effects she struggled for. “I love doing stuff like that.”

  “Maybe one of these days, you can wave a magic wand over my room. It still looks like a jail cell, and I've lived here for a year.”

  John laughed. “Anytime.” He glanced around. “Actually, I had two extra plants, and I was going to ask you if you wanted them.”

  Lionel smiled at him. “Sure. But they'll probably die the first time I walk into the room. I don't exactly have a knack with anything green.”

  “I'll take care of them for you. I'll water them when I do mine.” The, two young men exchanged a smile and Lionel looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock.

  “Want to go out for a hamburger?” The very words had a ring of déjà vu again, and he was reminded of Paul. It was even more eerie when John agreed and suggested they go to the very place he had gone with Paul the first time. It made Lionel silent and moody for the first part of the meal. He was thinking of that first night when he had gone to Malibu with Paul. He hadn't heard from him in months, and he had seen him drive past once, on Rodeo Drive, in the passenger seat of a beige and brown Rolls with a handsome, older man at the wheel. And they had been talking animatedly as Lionel watched, they were smiling at each other, and Paul had laughed at something the other man said. And now here he was again, with John … his younger brother's best friend. It felt odd. Even more so when they went back to the house they now shared. The other two living there just then were both staying at their girlfriends7 that night, and the others had already moved out at the end of the school year.

  “Thanks for dinner.” John smiled at him as they sprawled comfortably in the living room and Lionel put a record on. Two of the bulbs were burned out in the room's main lamp, and the light was unintentionally dim. John lit a candle on the coffee table and glanced around. “This room could use a little help too.”

  Lionel laughed. “You're going to have this place in shape in no time, but I think the other guys will discourage you a little bit. When they're here, this place always looks like someone just threw a bomb into the room.”

  John laughed too. “My sisters keep their rooms like that.” His face grew more serious. “I've never lived with men before, except my Dad of course. I'm so used to having girls around all the time, this is going to be weird at first.” And then he smiled. “That must sound crazy to you.”

  “No, it doesn't. I've got three sisters.”

  “But you've had Greg around too. I've always been so close to my Mom and the girls. Ill bet I miss them for a while.”

  “It's good training for when you get married, to have that many women around.” Lionel smiled again and wondered to himself if he was testing him. And he told himself that wasn't fair. John was just a kid … but he was the same age he had been when he met Paul … but Paul
was so much more experienced … and he was the experienced one now. Not as much as Paul had been, but more so than this boy. But where did you start? How did you ask someone something like that? He tried to remember what Paul had said to him, but the words escaped him now … he remembered that they had gone for a long walk on the beach … and Paul had asked him something about being confused. But there was no beach here, and John didn't look confused to him. He was a trifle shy, and he was far less rowdy than Greg, but he was a happy, pleasant, young man … yet Lionel could never remember seeing him seriously involved with a girl.

  They chatted on for a while, and finally Lionel got up and said he was going to take a shower. John said he'd do the same. And it was ten minutes later, when John knocked on the bathroom door and apologized, shouting into the shower where Lionel stood trying not to think of him, as rivulets of hot water purified his mind and his flesh.

  “I'm sorry, Li … do you have any shampoo? I forgot mine.”

  “What?” Lionel pulled aside the curtain so he could hear and saw John standing there, naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist. He felt his body stir, and pulled the shower curtain closed again so John couldn't see.

  “I said, do you have any shampoo?”

  “Sure.” He had already used it and his hair was wet and clean. “Here.” He handed it to John, who disappeared with a thanks and a smile, and he returned with it in a little while, wearing his towel again, his hair wet and dark, his body rippling with the muscles football had built for him, and Lionel was wandering naked around his room, putting things away and humming to himself. He had the radio on, and Lennon and McCartney were singing “Yesterday,” as John handed the shampoo back to him.

  “Thanks.” He seemed to linger in the door, and Lionel turned away, wishing he would go. He didn't want to start anything, and he didn't want anyone to get hurt. His way of life was his own and he wasn't looking to drag anyone else into it, when suddenly he felt John's hand on his back, and it was as though his whole body was electrified. It was going to be agonizing having the boy around and hiding his secret from him. Without turning, he grabbed a white terry-cloth robe from a nail on the wall, struggled into it, and turned around, but he had never seen a more beautiful face than John's, there was sorrow and pain and honesty there. And their faces were only inches apart, as John looked at him. “I have to tell you something, Li. I should have told you before.” There was anguish in the boy's eyes, and Lionel ached for him, wondering what it was.

  “Something wrong?”

  The younger boy nodded and sank down slowly on the edge of the bed, looking sadly up at him. “I know I should have told you before I moved in, but I was scared you wouldn't … you'd be pissed.” He looked up at him, frightened, but honest. He came right to the point. “I think you should know I'm gay.” He looked as though he had just admitted he had just killed his best friend, and Lionel's jaw almost dropped he looked so stunned. How simple it all was. How brave he was to speak up, not knowing what Lionel would do or say. His heart went out to the boy and he sat down on the bed next to him and started to laugh. He laughed until tears came to his eyes, and John looked at him nervously. Maybe he was hysterical, or maybe he just thought it was so disgusting it was ridiculous. It was a relief when he finally stopped laughing long enough to speak, and he was stunned when Lionel put his hands on his shoulders as he did.

  “If you only knew the things I've been telling myself since you moved in … I've been torturing myself….” It was clear that John didn't understand. “Baby, so am I.”

  “You're gay?” John looked appalled and Lionel started laughing again. “You are? But I never thought …” And yet that wasn't true, there had been a faint, hesitant current between them for the last year and yet neither could accept the possibility that the other understood. They talked about it for the next two hours, lying on Lionel's bed, friends at last. Lionel told him about Paul. And John confessed to two brief, terrible affairs. There had been no love in either of them for him, just terrible, anguished, tortured, guilt-ridden sexual release, one with a teacher from his school, who had threatened to kill him if he talked, the other with a stranger, an older man, who had picked him up on the street. And the only purpose the two affairs had served was to show him what he was. He had suspected it for a long time, but he had always thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. People like Greg Thayer would never have talked to him again. But Lionel was so different, he understood it all, and he looked at the younger man sympathetically now, from his vantage point of nineteen. And John was curious about one thing.

  “Does Greg know?”

  Lionel was quick to shake his head. “Only my Mom. She found out last year.” He told John how, and it still hurt thinking of how shocked she had been, but she had been wonderful to him since then, understanding, compassionate, she accepted him as he was. “Everyone should be lucky enough to have a mother like her.” She had far exceeded his hopes and dreams.

  “I don't think my Mom could accept it … and my Dad …” He almost cringed at the thought. “He always wanted me to be such a jock. I played football for him, and I kept thinking, I'm going to get my teeth kicked out doing this, and I hate it, I hate it.” His eyes filled with tears as he looked at Li. “I did it for him.”

  “I wasn't as good as you were. But my Dad had Greg to pin his hopes on. I always let him carry the ball, so to speak.” He smiled gently at the new friend that he had known for years. “It took the heat off me in some ways, but I paid a price I guess. My father has never approved of me. And if he knew … he'd die.” They had so much guilt for so many years, for what they were not, for what they could never be, and in the past year, for what they had done. It was almost too much to bear at times. And Lionel thought of it now as he looked into John's eyes. “Did you know about me?”

  John shook his head. “I don't think I did. I wished a lot though sometimes.” He smiled honestly up at Li and they both grinned, as Lionel tousled the damp black hair that framed his face.

  “You little shit. Why didn't you say something?”

  “And have you knock my teeth down my throat, or call the cops, or worse yet … tell Greg?” He shuddered at the thought, and then thought of something else. “Are all the guys in this house gay?”

  Lionel was quick to shake his head. “None of them, and I'm pretty sure of that. You get a feel for that when you live with people. And they all have girls stay here pretty regularly,”

  “Do they know about you?”

  Lionel looked at him pointedly. “I'm careful that they don't suspect, and you'd better do the same, or they'll throw us both out.”

  “I'll be careful. I swear.”

  Lionel found himself thinking again of changing rooms to the one that shared the bathroom with John, but he forgot the room and looked up at John instead, lying across his bed, and suddenly he felt relief and desire wash over him, and he remembered his dreams of the night before. He reached out to touch John, as he lay back on the bed, waiting for Li's lips and his hands and his touch, his youthful flesh rippling with excitement and begging for him, and Lionel found him with his mouth, and his tongue danced hot fire up John's thighs, as he groaned, and discovered something at Lionel's hands that he had never had before. This time there was nothing clandestine, nothing frightening, nothing embarrassing about the love that Lionel lavished on him for the next several hours, until satisfied and peaceful, they lay in each other's arms and slept. They had each found something that they had been looking for, for a long time, without even knowing it.

  CHAPTER 20

  School began in the fall without event. Lionel and John had never been happier, and no one at the house knew. Lionel changed rooms before the others came back from their summer plans, and the arrangement worked out perfectly. John and Lionel both locked their doors at night, and no one had any idea who spent the night in whose bed, as they tiptoed back and forth stealthily, whispering late at night, and keeping their moans of ecstasy dimmed. It w
as only on the rare nights when no one was there at all, sleeping at girls' houses, or going skiing over a long weekend, that they allowed themselves a little more liberty. But they were cautious that no one should know, and for once Lionel didn't even say anything to Faye. He just said that school was going well. He didn't offer any romantic news, and she didn't want to pry, although she suspected there was someone in his life from the happy look in his eyes. She just hoped it was someone decent who wouldn't make him unhappy eventually. From what she knew of the homosexual world, there seemed to be so much unhappiness and promiscuity and infidelity, it wasn't a life she wanted her oldest child condemned to. But she knew that there was no alternative for him, and she accepted that. And in November, she invited him to the premiere of their latest film. He accepted with delight, and she wasn't surprised to see John Wells with him at the premiere. She knew that John was renting a room in the same house as Lionel, and going to UCLA as well, but at the end of the evening when they went to Chasen's for supper and champagne with the twins and a number of business associates and friends, she suddenly wondered if she didn't see something special pass between their eyes. She wasn't quite sure of it, but she sensed something, and she thought John looked much more mature than he had in June, as though he had grown up a lot in the last few months. She suspected something, but she said nothing to anyone, of course, and she was startled when Ward questioned her as they got undressed that night. She was talking to him animatedly about the film, the audience response, the favorable reviews they hoped to get, and she was stunned when he interrupted her with a worried frown, standing in his trousers with a bare chest.

  “Do you think John Wells is queer?”

  “John?” She looked amazed, but in her heart she knew she was stalling for time. “My God, Ward, what a thing to say … of course not, why?”