by Julia Kent
Mrs. Ross was giving me the once over like I was an immigrant domestic worker being considered to clean her toilets and found wanting.
“And you,” I said to her, finally getting my bearings and squaring my shoulders, realizing that with a woman like this you had to kill her with kindness. Or a well-timed poison, but matters hadn’t come to that.
Yet.
She ignored decorum. Left me hanging with my hand outstretched and a smile plastered on my face like decoupage glaze.
“You’re Darla. The Darla that my Joe talks about once in a while.”
Once in a fucking while?
My smile faltered. Her eyes gleamed, the change so slight it wouldn’t be caught by most people.
I’m not most people.
“You manage the band.” She said “band” like trash.
“I do,” I said, upping my perky notch by a factor of two. Again, with people who use their assholery as leverage to gain control, the best approach is to pretend it doesn’t get to you.
I was dying inside, but fuck all if I’d ever let her see that.
Yet she did. This one was a Jedi master of assholery. The Bitch of all Bitches. I may have met my match. But hell if I was backing down easy.
“And you do this professionally?”
“For now, yes, but it doesn’t pay well.”
She snorted. “Of course it doesn’t.”
I was about to mention the national tour when a ruckus at the door drew our attention. Rick began to play the song “Random Acts of Crazy” slowly, the one Trevor wrote for me, just as my sun god walked in, a carefully neutral half smile on his face.
His eyes met mine.
They screamed, “What the hell are Joe’s parents doing here?”
Mine screamed back, “PLEASE HIT ME WITH THE FIREPLACE POKER AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY.”
He approached me, slid a calming arm around my waist, and gave me a chaste peck on the cheek. Then he turned to the grown ups in the room (we didn’t count) and said, “Hi, everyone.”
His dad said, “We invited Herb and Joanne because we haven’t seen them for so long.”
Joanne snorted. “Because you haven’t invited us, Doug!”
Trevor’s mom maintained her mask, the fake smile immutable, but her eyebrow twitched.
This was going to be a very long night. I wished for some of them concentrates Joe offered freely the other day.
And a capsule of cyanide. Just in case.
Trevor unwound his arm from my waist, the lack of skin making me feel abandoned, and he walked over to Rick, murmuring something in his ear. Rick nodded, then changed to a quiet Bach, the sound a bit disturbing and soothing at the same time.
I only knew it was Bach because Joe insisted I learn the name of composers when we listened to classical music in the car.
I heard a soft chirping sound and looked down to the left of the piano. A tiny little gerbil sat in a bunch of paper shavings. Ah. Rick’s gerbil. Mr. Fluffer (don’t blame me...I didn’t pick the name). It went with Rick everywhere. The music seemed to soothe the little beast. Too bad it didn’t have that effect on the adults.
You ever feel like two distinct people at the same time, and like one of them is screaming at you nonstop while the other one keeps going about your life like everything’s perfectly normal? It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s likely to drive you mad. I don’t mean like you’re hearing voices the way schizophrenics do, or like some neurotic thing where you loop through layers of anxiety over and over again.
I mean the kind of perfectly understandable split in your brain when something’s just not right.
And yet you’re expected to pretend it is.
We don’t have these fucked up games back in Ohio. You don’t like someone? You just say it. Then again, we’re all from the same hometown and have known each other forever, so we get the fights out of the way by eighth grade or so. If you’re gonna be enemies with someone, it’s likely because they bullied you in fifth grade or stole your boyfriend in ninth.
Not because you drive the wrong car or don’t have the right degree from a good Ivy League school.
Joe’s mom had a way of putting a wall around herself and walling in the throne she clearly thought she lived on, the weight of her crown freezing her eyebrows in place. And good for her. If that was important to her, then she could feed off that all she wanted.
The problem was my own reaction to it.
Back home, I just did what I did and said what I said and was what I was, even if I hated it sometimes.
Here? Right now? I couldn’t be me. I had to pretend.
And while everything in my life had improved nearly two years ago when I moved out to Boston to work with Josie and be with Joe and Trevor, this was the one part that overshadowed all that. Especially now.
The shadow grew.
You can’t live long without sunlight.
But you can limp along until you can crawl out from under the shadow and feast on the rays when you can.
Or you can move the fucking shadow.
That was the difference. Back home, if someone was doing the shit Joe’s mom was doing right this very minute as she chatted up Trevor and his parents, and her own husband—but ignored me and Rick—I’d just leave. Or say something and get up in her grill.
Being unempowered is the sickest feeling of all. It strips you of your center. Even when you know you’re not using your power for all the right reasons, a judicious decision that has purpose, it doesn’t make it feel any better.
Maybe after, but definitely not during.
“Darla’s a writer,” I heard Trevor say in a loud, proud voice.
I turned and looked at him with a shy smile. I didn’t like to talk about my writing, but I would follow his lead. His eyes rested on mine and for a second, I found a little anchor.
Then it slipped away from the muck and silt and I was unmoored again when Joe’s mom said, “Oh, everyone thinks they’re a writer. Anyone can slap up a blog these days.”
Ouch.
Trevor realized his error, eyes going dead, and then he said, “What are you cooking, Mom? Smells great.”
“Ribs and salmon. And grilled tofu for Joanne.”
“Oh. Here,” Joanne said. “We brought you free range eggs.” She took a carton from Herb and shoved it in Doug’s hands.
“I thought you were vegan,” I blurted out.
Two red, glowing eyes turned to me. “I was. I eat my own home-grown eggs now.”
“How do you home grow eggs, Joanne?” Trevor joked. “They don’t grow on trees.”
I laughed. It was lame, but we were nervous.
All the parents gave tight smiles.
“You always were an annoying little boy, Trevor,” Joanne said with a tight smile, patting his cheek. “Do I really need to delve into the difference between a colloquialism and a fact? Weren’t you tested for Asperger’s in the third grade when Rick was diagnosed with autism? Maybe they missed something,” she said faintly as she walked past the group and into the living room, plunking her tiny little ass down on a footstool near the piano.
Rick stiffened and changed to a minor cord.
This was going to be the best dinner party ever.
Trevor
I thought I’d come home to an uptight mom and dad who would gradually relax as dinner progressed and they got to know Darla. Darla would find my parents nice enough, and then I’d get chewed out by Darla for not being open about the whole threesome thing.
I’d been dreading it all.
That was like fucking heaven compared to this.
Mom and Dad brought Rick home? And invited the Rosses? My cheek burned from where Mrs. Ross had touched it, her gesture more of a light slap than an amused pat. Mom and Dad shot each other an indescribable look when Mrs. Ross made that crack about Asperger’s, which was so fucking offensive on multiple levels. She knew damn well I’d been tested—you don’t have a severely autistic kid and not test the others—but
she also said it because I’d made her look bad, I guess, by making a simple, light-hearted joke.
We didn’t spend much time at Joe’s house when we were kids.
Now I remembered why.
Should I open my mouth and say something back? God damn it, I wanted to. The sting of her words was worse than the feeling of overwhelm at seeing Mom, Dad, Rick and Darla in the same room, much less the robotic Rosses.
But Mom’s eyes cut to me and she pursed her lips, eyes going half lidded. The gesture seemed to say, Let it go.
Is this what it meant to be an adult? To be treated like I’d bridged up into the layer of society where the grown-ups lived? Because if so, it was going to be a long fucking life of six or seven decades of this.
Fuck that.
These microinsults were everywhere. I didn’t need them in my childhood home. Darla’s fingers laced through mine and she squeezed. Hard. Her hip swished against mine and I started to relax. She knew. She got it. She was on my side, and although my mom and dad expected me to suck it up, Darla was neutral. I could be who I was. If I snapped back, she’d be there. If I kept my mouth shut, she’d be there.
That was such a part of her beauty.
She was just there.
“Where do you go to school, Darla?” Joanne asked, her legs crossed primly, hands on her knees. She wore a long, flowing gauze skirt, the kind that’s shorter in the front and longer in the back, and a crossed tank top that showed off a belly so flat it’s as if she’d worked double time to eliminate all traces of Joe from her body.
“Harvard Extension School,” Darla said pleasantly in a matter of fact tone that caught me short. Normally she glowed with pride when she told it. Why the change?
My mind rushed to compute the thousands of details in the room, from Herb Ross’s impatient, slow exhale to my mom’s nervous worrying of her beaded necklace.
Darla knew before she even opened her mouth that Harvard Extension School wouldn’t be good enough for Joanne Ross. So she muted herself in advance, as if that would soften the known, pending blow.
God fucking damn it.
This is why I ate a metric ton of peyote two years ago and just fled. Rick flees sometimes. They call it elopement when an autistic person or an elderly person with dementia or Alzheimer’s does it. What a fancy term. Elopement.
Joanne just sniffed. “How nice for you.” Tight smile.
Darla gave it right back. And then she asked, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
Not quite true. Joe’s mom had been a lawyer. She was just getting started on her career when she had Joe, and then she’d been a stay at home mom. Even I knew that.
“Where do you practice?” Darla asked.
“I’m retired.”
“So you were a lawyer.”
The room went cold.
“No, I am a lawyer. Northwestern Law.”
“You still have your license?”
My dad suppressed a smirk. Joanne Ross was not accustomed to being cross-examined like this. Darla’s tone remained pleasant and inquiring, just dinner party talk. Right?
Right.
Joanne spat the single word out like she had accidentally eaten a piece of shit. “No.”
“Oh.” Darla let that ring out. Rick switched to ragtime, a jaunty tune that somehow managed to make everything even more uncomfortable.
“What about you, Darla?” Joanne asked without making eye contact. She flattened her skirt over and over across her knee. “What do you do when you’re not,” she paused to clear her throat, the condescension clear, “managing Trevor and Joe’s band.”
“I’m an operations assistant.”
“Where?”
“For a dating service.”
Joanne’s eyes narrowed. “That’s your career?”
Dad startled suddenly, really giving Darla a good look. “Which one?”
Oh, shit.
I hadn’t thought about this issue. Darla worked at a threesome dating service. A controversial one, too. Good Things Come in Threes was in the news sporadically. So was her boss, Laura, and her... husbands? I guess that’s the closest word to what Mike and Dylan were to her.
“Um,” Darla started, looking to me for a cue.
Rick stood fast, tipping the piano bench over onto Joanne’s foot and walking into the dining room, where he sat at the table and peeled open a strange container of something white.
“Well,” Mom chuckled nervously. “Guess that’s our sign that it’s time to eat.”
Dad gave Darla a curious look, but followed Mom into the dining room. Darla’s eyes caught mine and she lifted one shoulder, as if to ask what to say.
“Just stay vague,” I whispered in her ear as I watched Joanne push the bench back in place and give Herb a laser-eyed glare.
I was starting to understand Joe more. This felt like we were walking in an emotional minefield, where nothing we said was safe from scrutiny or negativity. Like machine gun fire, rat-a-tat-tat, you never knew which comment you made would be met with some negative twist. It was endless and eternal, gaping wide open without end, and it made my shoulders move up toward my ears.
Even Darla seemed tense, her muscles tight. Like someone expecting a blow.
How do you live like that? My parents could be high-pressure assholes, but in a totally different way. I really, really began to feel bad for Joe.
Then again, Joe wasn’t here. He didn’t have to face the shit his mom dealt out right now.
Joe
I was working on the endnotes for a huge paper I just needed to email to my professor, and then I was done. Blissfully done. My summer was wide open, an internship at a smaller firm in Boston ready for me. Because the tour wouldn’t even happen for another four to six months, my summer could be spent doing law shit.
Now I was about to kill off my second year of what had turned out to be mental torture.
Ten more footnotes and freedom was mine.
I watched Gene park his bike next to the garage and unstrap his helmet, walking into the house—if my ears were correct—and going straight for the kitchen. A little bored and needing a break, I stomped down the stairs to join him. A cup of coffee would help me kill off this paper.
“Hey, you done?” No one in the household talked about anything except my fucking paper these days.
“Almost. Is the part of mom being played by you today?”
He gave me a quiet smile, then drank a half liter of water. Gene just shook his head.
Until this moment, as I started up the coffee machine and spooned two scoops of espresso in, tamping the handle, it had never occurred to me that having Gene live here might be...weird. Unconventional. None of my friends had their dad’s business partners living in an apartment over the garage. None of them had ever made a comment about Gene to me, but still.
So I asked.
“Gene, how long have you lived here?”
He blinked rapidly, then thought for a second. “Eleven years.”
“You like it?”
“You think?” he laughed.
“Why?” My eyes narrowed.
He froze, hand on a clementine he was peeling. “Why?” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah. Why? I mean, I know dad has plenty of money,” I said, gesturing to the house.
“He has to. Joanne makes him redo everything every two years.”
I chuckled. “It’s almost like there’s a schedule, huh?”
His face went serious. “There is. Haven’t you seen her printouts? She literally has it all color coded and mapped out in a project management app.”
“Bet she has a similar one for me and my life.”
I expected him to laugh. Instead, I got a look of sympathy.
Oh, fuck.
I turned the machine on and watched the espresso drain out of the tap, the hot liquid forming a lovely crema in my little cup. It felt good. Safe. Predicable.
“Why don’t you buy a house?”
“Yo
u want me to leave?” His words were so soft, so pained as he sat at the counter.
“No! That’s not what I meant at all!” I flipped off the machine and grabbed my little two-shot, turning to look at him. “I’m just curious. You know? Just thinking.”
“Thinking.” He wasn’t tense like my parents. Gene never tried to tell me what to do. He was a gentle guy, really into his biking and running and swimming, and he and Dad worked well together.
“Yeah.”
“I remember being twenty-four,” he said suddenly, his face splitting into a shit-eating grin. “You start to view the world differently when your entire future is spread out like a bunch of different paths you can choose. But you only get to pick one, don’t you?”
“Right.”
“And people will tell you that you only get one path. Ever. So you’d better choose wisely.”
I blew lightly on my coffee. Still too hot, but I nodded. “Mine’s been picked out for me since birth.”
“Not quite,” he said pleasantly. “More like after your surgery. When Joanne knew you’d be okay and survive.”
I cocked one eyebrow. Gene didn’t really talk like this to me. It was new territory. Paper be damned. This was worth the delay. “Really?”
“Really. I knew your parents back then. Your dad and I hadn’t started the firm yet, but I knew them.” He shook his head and let out a low whistle. “You mom was something. Smart as a fucking whip and top of her class. We all figured she would be a Supreme Court justice by now.”
My eyes zoomed in on his face, my ears on his words, like a telescopic lens in focus. “Really?” Mom and Dad had never talked about this.
“She was all ready to do a year of clerking for the Supreme Court. Just waiting on her letter of assignment. And then she got pregnant with you.”
“I knew she got pregnant just before she graduated,” I said.
“She was all ready to do it, too. And then you were born blue.”
I held my breath. I’d never heard about this side of my mom.
“The surgeries were too much. She had to withdraw. Joe, man, you think she’s uptight and OCD and overly....everything now? You should have seen her when you were in the NICU. That’s when I really got to know Herb. He was a junior associate like me, and the firm we worked for then insisted on one hundred-twenty hour weeks from us. Joanne had to do it all for you. All of it.”