Enjoy the Dance

by Heidi Cullinan

  “You two are good together.” Duon pointed this out at every opportunity, but one day he added, “You should take it to the next level.”

  Tomás, who was driving Duon to a Saturday rehearsal at the time, raised an eyebrow. “What next level is that?”

  Duon gestured vaguely at the air above the dashboard. “You know. Move in. You practically live with us as it is.”

  Tomás couldn’t say he hadn’t wished for such a scenario too. But in addition to it being too soon, there were complications. “I have to live where I can be there for my nieces and nephew. And I don’t know what that does to Spenser’s suitable other placement for you.”

  “Then marry him. They gonna pass the law any second now. Then you can get married right here. Move into a nice house in the burbs.” Duon made a face out the window at Oakdale. “Maybe not this uppity one. But somewhere nice. With a yard. You could get a dog.”

  Which was to say Duon could get a dog. And a yard. And two dads. “You do understand you’d have three young siblings as well. And grandparents.”

  “It can be a big house. Your mom can cook. She loves it. Your dad can do the yard and stuff. I’ll help clean. I’m good at it. Ask Spense. He’ll tell you how good I am.”

  It was a pretty picture that Duon painted, for himself and for everyone. “I don’t know if Spenser’s school would like it.”

  “Whatever, man. I’m sick of this shit. We gotta worry about nonsense every time we turn around. My social worker. Your sister. Spenser’s job. The stupid government and their rules about who can get married. It’s horseshit. You love Spenser. He loves you. We make a good team. It’d be a kickass life, in a house in the suburbs. All of us in there. It’s fucked up there’s all this shit in the way.”

  Tomás couldn’t disagree, not even with Duon’s cavalier assessment of Tomás’s feelings for Spenser. But the shit was all in the way. And it bummed him out to admit he didn’t know how they were supposed to clear the path. The more he thought about it, the more Tomás wanted that life, the house Duon described. The more he wanted Spenser at the heart of it all. But he couldn’t have him, once again, because of complications and obligations he’d had no hand in creating.

  At the top of the list of the people making the complications was Tomás’s sister.

  Alisa had never had a problem with him being gay per se, but then he’d never been in a relationship before, not to the degree that she came home to pick up the kids and saw her brother flirting with another man. She was fine when he’d first introduced them, a casual pass on her way out the door. But one night when she saw Spenser reading with Jasmin and Ashton on his lap, the kids staring starry-eyed at Spenser and ignoring their mother, she pulled Tomás aside.

  She’d been drinking, not enough to cause alarm but enough to make her punchy. “I don’t like this white faggot spending all this time with my kids.”

  The slur caught Tomás unawares, making him stammer his reply. “You…what? What did you say?”

  Alisa gestured vaguely at the bedroom where Spenser was. “You heard me. It’s fine if you need to fuck him. I’m no bigot. But you can’t have him around my kids. It’s dangerous. And gross.”

  Where the fuck was all this coming from? The blows kept knocking Tomás for loops, and he couldn’t find his ground. “But you’re okay with this faggot around them? I can’t believe you’d actually say this to me. You know what I do for this family. You know how much I work. You know what I do to keep Mom and Dad here. To keep your kids here.”

  She waved her hands at him, flashing her cheap jewelry at him. “You think you’re such a saint. You don’t know what I do. You don’t know.”

  Tomás studied his sister more closely and got a better look at her pupils. “You’re not just drunk. You’re on something.”

  She went on as if he hadn’t spoken, aiming her acrylic nails at his face. “You don’t know. You don’t know how hard it is for me. To be without my kids. To know you all hate me. Blame me for all your problems.” She pulled a nasty face. “Saint Tomás. Sacrificing for everyone. You think you’re so great. Think there should be a saint candle for you burning on the kitchen counter. Think you’re better than me. Maybe you are. Maybe you’re not. But I know what is true. I can tell you not to let that cocksucker around my kids.”

  Their mother appeared, pushing them apart as she addressed them in rapid-fire Spanish, telling them to calm down, to behave. Tomás didn’t want to. He wanted to punch Alisa in the face. Wanted to tell her to get out. Wanted to show her the fat file from the Department of Human Services, the letters and emails and notices they got every damn week. Wanted to show her his pay stubs, the hours he’d worked. Wanted to rub her nose in Spenser’s awards and praise for his teaching. Wanted to demand to know how she dared call him names and imply he was bad for children when she was the one who came to pick them up drunk and high.

  But he didn’t. He let his mom and dad separate them, talk her down quietly, and put her to bed in their room so they could sleep on the sofa again. He told them not to bother, that they should go to his bed because he was going home with Spenser.

  He made love to Spenser in the dark quiet of his room, but it all felt desperate somehow. He lay awake long into the night, marinating in his anger. The truth was, his sister could get her way, if she wanted it. She could make him keep Spenser away, because if she pitched a fit, the whole scheme would fall. His parents would get deported. The kids would go to foster care. She had them over a barrel, and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

  But of course that wasn’t true. Not if Tomás got over his guilt and pulled out his own barrel. The one with an immigration lawyer inside.

  He called first thing in the morning before his rage mellowed out and made an appointment for the next week. Of course within a day or two he regretted making the call at all. He tried to forget about it until it was time to meet the lawyer, but he couldn’t. He ping-ponged between fury and guilt, and there was no safe ground.

  If Spenser had heard Alisa yelling, he never said anything about it. He had his own troubles with his school, where his principal beat the drum harder every day, insisting Spenser attend one of the anti-equality rallies. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to attend one,” he confessed early one Saturday morning as the two of them lay together in Spenser’s bed, enjoying a moment before Tomás had to go off to work.

  Tomás hugged him closer, kissing his temple. He wanted to say no, Spenser shouldn’t, but who was he to tell him how to handle his job? “I can go with you, if I’m not at work. Or send my mom.”

  Spenser threaded his fingers through the hair on Tomás’s chest. “I keep wondering if I shouldn’t get a different job. If I work at a public school, they can’t fire me. I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

  “We need equal protection laws. National ones.”

  Spenser laughed. “Yes. Unfortunately I think we’re as likely to get them as we are immigration reform, unless we get the country to vote in Democrats across the board in 2014 and 2016.”

  “Maybe they will.”

  Spenser snuggled in closer, wrapping his body tighter around Tomás. “This is my favorite part of you. You always have hope. I never do. I think the world is a terrible, dark place full of awful, selfish people. I don’t trust them to do anything for me, ever.”

  And yet that was all Spenser did, do things for other people, usually strangers.

  By the time Tomás got to his appointment with the lawyer, he was still torn between guilt and anger, but what he had cemented was his resolve. Right or wrong, he was going to do this. His parents were less convinced, but Alisa’s displays were becoming more and more alarming, and even Renata’s bright outlook couldn’t illuminate a path where their current situation would continue to work. He went to the law office in a new shirt and khakis—new to him, anyway, his mother’s latest thrift store find.

  The lawyer was kind, shaking his hand and smiling genially as he encouraged Tomás to have a seat in his office. Whe
n Tomás assured the man he had some money saved for a retainer, the lawyer waved him down. “It’s taken care of. I’m working this pro bono as a favor to Oliver Thompson.”

  Tomás blinked at him. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I’m not charging you. No worries on payment. You have influential friends.” He winked. “If you thank anyone, thank Laurence Parker. It sounds like this was his doing.”

  The lawyer went over the things Tomás had expected from the meeting: forms, documentation on himself and his parents. He said to expect phone calls from several different clerks, and he gave the names so Tomás could pass this information on to his parents. He gave him an additional card as well, explaining this was a lawyer they were consulting with who specialized in immigration law. “We work with her often on these kinds of cases. She and her staff all speak Spanish, so your parents will be able to converse with their entire office in their native language.”

  It was hours and hours of that kind of thing, questions and interviews and explanations, and when Tomás left, his head was spinning. He knew he needed to thank Laurie, and he would when he went to work in a few hours, but first he needed to talk to his parents. He went home, and he told them everything.

  “They’re building a case against Alisa. They plan to take custody and argue the two of you are integral to their well-being. I guess they can use this to keep you in the country. You might have to leave, briefly, while they process your application for citizenship, but they’re trying to get that waived too. They’re going to come and talk to you, some clerks and a lawyer who speak Spanish. You can tell them everything, and you need to be honest. They can’t build a case without the facts.”

  Renata dried her eyes and whispered a prayer while José frowned at Tomás. “But this sounds expensive. How will we pay?”

  Tomás felt dizzy simply thinking about it. “It’s free. He’s doing it all as a favor to my boss’s godfather.”

  José kept shaking his head. “But this isn’t right. You said it would be many thousands of dollars. We have some saved, enough for the retainer. Give them the money. Tell them we can pay.”

  It took Tomás almost an hour to get his father to understand what pro bono meant, and even then he was sure José would be calling the number on the card as soon as he was out of earshot. Tomás left for the studio in a daze, but when he parked, he realized he was about to go in to Laurie and face him, to thank him, and he couldn’t move. He sat there for ten minutes, trying to psych himself out of the car, when the passenger door opened and Ed got in.

  “Hey there. You okay? For a second there I thought you were having a seizure.”

  Tomás forced his mouth to work. “I met with the lawyer. They’re doing the case for free.”

  Ed smiled, something easing in him. “Oh, good. I’d hoped they would. Laurie hinted they might.”

  Tomás fought to breathe, and when he spoke, his throat was thick. “It’s not right.”

  Ed frowned at him. “Why? What do you mean? Laurie doesn’t mind, and honestly Oliver loves to—”

  “It’s not right.” Guilt returned now, but for a different reason. “Do you have any idea how many people need this kind of help but don’t have someone who can pull a favor for them? Even if they have the money, they don’t begin to know where to go.” He wiped at his eyes, but the tears, once spilled over, wouldn’t stop now. “It’s not right. It’s not right.”

  Ed put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing small, soothing circles through Tomás’s jacket. “You’re right. It’s not. But that doesn’t mean you can’t accept the help.”

  Tomás couldn’t stop crying, the dam broken now. “Three jobs. I’ve worked three jobs for four years, sometimes four jobs, once five. I only have a car because my dad fixes it. We’ve been crammed into that apartment my whole life, always wondering if today was the day we’d lose our family. And now, just like this, it’s done? Or on the road to being done?” He thought of his savings, the thousands of dollars which, if this lawyer were to be believed, was now money saved. He laugh-cried, snorting snot out his nose, then fished around for the spare napkins in his glove compartment.

  Ed found them first and passed them over. Then he caught Tomás’s arm, squeezed it, and held on until Tomás looked him in the eye. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you and your family. But I’m so glad we’re able to help you. You’re a good man. A good son. And your parents are good people. Your nieces and nephew are good kids. You deserve this.”

  “A lot of good people deserve this,” Tomás whispered into his napkin.

  “You’re right. But you’re the people we can help right now.” Ed squeezed his arm again. “Come on inside. At least you’ll be able to blow your nose into an actual tissue.”

  Tomás tried to laugh, but he still felt overwhelmed. When he entered the studio, the first person he saw was Laurie, and his emotions bubbled over almost immediately.

  Laurie looked concerned, but after a whispered word from his husband, he led Tomás into his office with an arm around his shoulders.

  “Thank you.” Tomás did his best to keep himself level, to not fall apart while he spoke, but it didn’t work. “Even if this doesn’t work, I owe you and your godfather for the rest of my life.”

  Laurie pulled him into an embrace, holding him tight. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re my friend. I’m glad Oliver was able to help you pull some strings.”

  Tomás understood Laurie would never know. That he couldn’t, rich white man that he was, had always been. “If you ever need anything from me, if I can ever do anything at all for you, name it and it’s yours.”

  Laurie waggled his eyebrows. “How about you quit your weekend job and maybe dial back a little at Starbucks so I don’t watch you dance and worry you’re about to pass out?”

  Tomás laughed, more mirth than sob this time. “Yeah. I think I can do that for you.”

  It moved Spenser to see how much the meetings with the immigration lawyers affected Tomás and his family. Nothing exactly was happening, only interviews and law clerks taking notes, but the forward momentum clearly meant the world to the Jimenez household. Even Alisa’s children seemed happier, probably because there was less stress around them. Alisa herself was off on another one of her benders, almost as if she’d heard the news that her family needed her to perform as poorly as possible while so many people were watching and documenting her behavior.

  It was good to see his boyfriend’s family so happy, obviously. Spenser and Duon spent more and more time at the Jimenez family table, Renata and José making it clear they already considered them part of the clan. Duon for his part ate it up.

  Spenser enjoyed it too. Except sometimes it hit him too squarely in the chest.

  He hadn’t done so in a while, but spurred by the Jimenez lovefest, Spenser looked up his sisters again, and after several bottles of beer late one Saturday night, he also searched for his mother. But though his searches didn’t turn up anything, the simple act inspired him to drink more, until he was drunk, at which point he felt guilty for being drunk when he was supposed to be taking care of Duon. When Tomás came home from covering a late shift at Starbucks and dropped by to say hi, he got worried when he saw how troubled Spenser was, but Spenser refused to tell him why and let him think it was general upset over his school. Which, granted, there was more than enough unhappiness to warrant tears. But when he gripped his boyfriend tight and chased pleasure as he welcomed him into his body, it wasn’t his job Spenser was trying to forget. It was his family.

  The family he knew he would never have a happy reunion with, that a skyscraper full of lawyers couldn’t rescue from so much as a garbage bin.

  When he woke, once he had enough coffee and painkiller in him to make him human, Spenser called his adoptive mother.

  She answered on the third ring, launching directly into her usual effusive greeting. “Spenser, what a delight. I haven’t heard from you in months. How are you?”

  He gripped the phon
e tighter. “I wondered if you had time to meet. Maybe for dinner.”

  “For you, sweetheart, I can meet anytime. How about today? Are you free now? I could take you to this lovely brunch place I found.”

  This was what ended up happening, Clara picking Spenser up in front of his apartment building in her shiny black Mercedes, greeting him with a frail hug and a kiss on each cheek as he got into the car. She beamed at Spenser. “Look at you. Handsome as ever.”

  Spenser smoothed a hand over his hair. “Thank you. You’re looking well yourself.” She was, but she also appeared older. He felt guilty for putting off visiting her. He had nightmares of getting a phone call one day, hearing she was dead, or worse, calling her at a moment like this and finding out she’d been gone for eight weeks.

  She was with him now, though, and as she drove him into the eastern suburbs, she babbled animatedly about several charities she was helping organize as well as the charming widow she was dating. “She married a man, the poor thing, though she knew she could only ever be attracted to women. Has three boys, all Republican like their father.” She chuckled. “Oh, but she loves using me to scandalize the family.”

  “Do you ever think you’ll go back to being a host home for Avenues? I know you stopped when Betsy became ill, but I wondered if you might start up again eventually.”

  “Oh, no, darling. Getting too old, and it truly was more Betsy’s project than mine.” She reached over and patted his leg. “I love you all, and you know full well you were always my favorite. But I’m focusing on helping them raise money now. They want to open a shelter in Brooklyn Park, and I’m trying to help them do it.” She waved a hand. “Enough about me. What’s going on with you? Tell me everything.”

  Spenser rubbed his cheek. “Well, to start, I suppose you could say I took your place in the host home program.”