Between Mom and Jo

by Julie Anne Peters

  “What do you want to talk to me about?” I holler.

  Jo looks over and narrows her eyes.

  I’m in deep shit. What’d I do?

  She exits the highway and squeals to a stop at the bottom of the off ramp. Swiping the gritty window with her sleeve, she peers through the sleeting rain, then signals to hang a right. My headache registers off the Richter scale, so I turn down the radio. Take a breather.

  Jo says, “You’ve got stuff to talk to me about. I figure we’ll kill two birds.”

  I don’t know what she means. Except . . . I do. How does she know I’ve been wanting to discuss this problem? It’s like she can read my mind. At the moment, I wish she’d read my burning desire to bail and go back to bed.

  “No hurry.” Jo swerves to avoid a sinkhole in the road. “We’ve got the whole wet weekend.”

  I groan again and shrivel inside my poncho.

  We rent an outboard at Jake’s Boats and stow our gear under the seat. At the Bear Lake Bait and Tackle, Jo buys a bucket of minnows and a can of worms. I hear the owner tell her it’s a little early in the year for largemouth, but she might try the north shore, around the rocks. Jo asks, “What about crappie? They biting yet?” He tells her some, but she’ll need short shank hooks and jigs. He tells her she’ll have to troll pretty deep.

  While they’re discussing rod weights and hooks, I leaf through the fish magazines. There’s a cool photo spread on rainbow sharks. I wonder how they’d do with my Gouramis and loaches. The Red Tail sharks I had for a while were so aggressive they terrorized a whole tank. I never saw them kill, but I’d isolate them in a separate tank before I put my docile fish at risk again. “Oh, hey, good idea.” Jo sneaks up behind me. She pulls out a plastic-covered Playboy and searches the shelf over my head for another. She locates a Penthouse. I’m too embarrassed to accompany her to the cash register.

  The rain’s stopped by the time we shove off. In the east, the sun’s peeking over a jagged ridge, rippling the sky with orange and pink and aqua waves. The only sound is the steady putt, putt, putt of our outboard.

  Jo keeps looking at me. What? Whatever it is, she’s enjoying this. Enjoying making me miserable. I’m not totally, but I’d never give her the satisfaction of knowing that. The dawning day, the waking lake. It’s awesome.

  Jo slices an index finger across her throat, and I cut the motor. We rock for a moment, then drift. Jo baits a hook and hands me a rod.

  As I cast out, she says in a hushed voice, “Keep the lure moving. Watch your bobber.”

  I scoff. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Oh yeah. I forgot. You know it all, Einstein.”

  Glad to hear she acknowledges my superior intellect. The lake reflects the wash of watercolor sky, and I lean over to see if it’ll reflect me too. Jo says, “Open your mouth a little wider and they’ll jump in.”

  I ignore her. I note my headache’s gone.

  It’s peaceful. We’re the only fishing boat on the lake; the only people alive in the world. That’s what I imagine. Jo and I are the last two human beings on Earth. Not excluding Mom, but she hates to fish even more than I do — if that’s possible.

  Jo gets a nibble and yelps. “Whoa. This is no crappie!” Her eyes are wild. She reels in a monster — a two-, maybe three-pound largemouth bass. She’s so excited, I reach over and give her a knuckle knock.

  Jo holds up the fish. “What do you think? Abigail?”

  “That hummer’s gotta be a male,” I say. “Abernathy.”

  “Abernathy?” Jo curls a lip. “God. He’s gonna get razzed.” She unhooks the fish’s jaw and lets him slither down her fingers back into the lake. I’m glad we’re only catching and releasing, but I still think a hook in the lip has to hurt. Through cupped hands, Jo calls, “Tell them to call you Abe.”

  Jo baits her hook again and casts out. As she’s trolling, she says softly, “We need to talk about sex, Nick.”

  “Again?” I yawn. “What do you want to know?”

  Jo answers, “Are you having any?”

  My cheeks flare. “Like I’d tell you.”

  She fixes on me. She’s serious.

  “No,” I tell her. “And it’s not because I don’t know how.”

  She snorts. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve got the technique down. I saw some of that porno shit you printed off the Internet.”

  I cough. It’s not entirely faked. If she saw all of it, everything from my trash can . . . “Am I gay?” I blurt.

  “What?” Jo’s eyes enlarge. She looks stunned. She stops trolling and wedges her rod between the slats in her seat. Leaning forward, elbows on knees, she gazes deep into my eyes. “You tell me,” she says.

  I look away and swallow hard. This is the question I’ve been asking myself. Am I? I’m pretty sure of the answer, but this thing, it’s eating me, it’s making me have doubts. “There’s this guy in my bio class who . . .” This is hard. “Who . . .” Too hard.

  “Who you have the hots for?” Jo sounds surprised.

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t. But I think he does for me.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes bulge. “You haven’t led him on or anything, have you?”

  “No. Geez. What do you think I am?” I yank my line. Phantom bite. “He knows I’m not interested. At least, I think he knows. He just got the wrong idea about me.”

  Jo’s head tilts. “How’d that happen?”

  I lick my lips. I wish I’d brought ChapStick. I wish I could phantom myself out of this conversation. “I get called fag a lot,” I tell her.

  She sits back. “Kidding, you mean. Like ‘Hey, fag.’ ‘You’re so gay.’ That kind of thing?”

  “Yeah, usually. But sometimes . . .” I swallow. “Sometimes they’re not kidding.” Methodically, I reel in my line.

  “Maybe it’s that sissy ponytail you wear.” Jo shoots out a hand and tugs it.

  I wrench away. I like my hair long, and so do the girls. “Kids have been calling me gay since kindergarten,” I tell her. “Since ‘Dickless Nicholas.’”

  She starts. “You still remember that?”

  I shrug. Some things you never forget.

  She watches me tie a chartreuse fly onto my hook. Crappies flock to chartreuse, for some reason. Most animals are color blind. Bees, I read somewhere, seem to be attracted to ultraviolet yellow. I think there’s a color spectrum beyond anything humans can see. It makes sense. Animals are ten times more sensitive than we are to natural phenomena like light and sound. Anyway, I hate killing minnows if we’re catching and releasing. I hate hurting fish, period.

  “You think they assume you’re gay because your mom and I are?”

  I widen my eyes at her. Duh.

  Jo gazes over my head, across the lake. A long, slow breath escapes from her mouth. “We never meant for you to — you know — carry our burden.”

  “I know,” I say. “Forget it.”

  “We both just wanted kids so bad. We wanted you. I figured you took some crap, but you never complained about it, never told me you were being bullied or harassed. Are you?”

  I open my mouth to answer, then shut it. Not bullied in the way she means. Nothing physical. Or threatening. More subtle. The feeling of being different, being looked at in a judgmental way. People drawing conclusions about me based on my moms.

  Jo touches my knee. “You would’ve told me if there was a problem, right? You would’ve come to me.” Her eyes seek mine and linger. “Right?”

  “Right,” I say. “There’s no problem. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  She nods. “People can be cruel. We thought we could protect you. Shelter you from the world, you know? Stupid. Naïve. I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry it’s been hard for you.”

  “It hasn’t. It’s no big deal,” I tell her. It’s not her fault. I think she needs to hear this. “It’s just sometimes . . . I wonder. Since you and Mom are gay, does that mean I am? I read it’s in the genes. Like, inherited. Am I going to turn gay someday?” My bobber dips below the surf
ace, and I automatically jerk my rod. I snag something. “Hey, got one,” I announce.

  As I reel in a fish, Jo’s smiling. “I don’t think you’re gay, Nick. If you were, you wouldn’t be wondering about it. You wouldn’t be asking me. You’d know. And it’s not, like, lying dormant in your system, ready to spring on you.”

  Her words send a ripple of warmth through me. I didn’t think I was, but it’s nice to have confirmation.

  “What are you going to do about this other guy?” she asks. “Pull up. Pull your line.”

  I jerk my rod. “Tell him I’m not a fag wad like him.”

  Jo smacks me upside the head.

  “I’m kidding. God.”

  She pokes me in the chest. “Be kind, all right? He’s going to have a hard enough time. He probably already is. I bet he’d appreciate having you for a friend.”

  My fish breaks the surface while I consider that. Could I be his friend without people thinking I was gay? No. Should I care what people think? No.

  But I do.

  “So you know all about sex,” Jo cuts into my thoughts. “Gay sex? Straight sex? You’ve seen it all?”

  “Pretty much. What do you think?” I hold up my catch. “Butch or Beauregard?”

  Jo clicks her tongue. “Definitely Beauregard. He looks a little swishy to me.” She cocks a wrist. “Send him home, Saint Nicholas.” Her bobber sinks, and she retrieves her rod from under her foot. Standing, she reels in her line.

  As I unhook his jaw, carefully, and toss Beauregard back, Jo sits again. “False alarm,” she says. She spears her pole through the slats and reaches under the seat. “I guess I might as well junk these girlie ’zines if you’re not interested.”

  I snatch them away from her. “It’s going to be a long weekend.”

  She laughs. “Don’t tell your mother. If she knows I’m filling your mind with filth, she won’t let us play together anymore.” Jo yawns and stretches her arms out to the side. “Time for breakfast.” She retrieves the tubs of KFC, breaks into one, and hands me a drumstick. “We are going to talk about sex this weekend,” she says, digging around and plucking out a wing. “I want you to know the facts about straight sex and gay sex and lesbian sex and any other kind of sex you can think of.” She strips meat off the bone with her teeth. “I take that back.” She chews and swallows. “If you’re thinking about any other kind of sex, you’re one sick puppy.”

  I fake a pant at her.

  “But mostly we’re going to talk about love.” Her eyes deepen. “Because sex without love is wrong, Nick. I want you to understand that. Sex is more than just a physical act. It means something, something special. It’s the most beautiful expression of love two people can share.”

  I stick out my tongue in a gag. I think about Sasha McLaren and how I feel about her. I wonder, not for the first time, if I’m in love with her. I might be, but I’ll never know. That dance I missed last September was my Last Chance Dance. Two weeks later, Sasha’s dad got transferred or something and she moved to Oregon.

  Jo’s talking, waving her wing around, and I realize I’ve tuned out half her sermon. “It doesn’t matter who you love — a guy, a girl — love is love. And it’s the most important thing in the world. If you have love in your life, you have everything.” Jo tosses her greasy bone into the lake.

  I say, “I still don’t have Xbox.”

  She just looks at me. “May I continue?”

  “You will anyway.”

  “Sex,” she says, “is this total giving of yourself to another person. Think about that. Don’t give yourself away too easily.” She digs in the bucket and comes up with the biscuits. “And before you even think about having sex with a girl, love her enough to marry her. Respect her and cherish her and treat her like a goddess. Because that’s what girls are, Nick. Your role in life, as the inferior sex, is to worship us, obey us, and indulge our every whim.”

  “Bite me,” I mutter. I gnaw on my drumstick.

  Without warning, she attacks me. She grabs the straps of my life vest and yanks me off my seat. Before I can react she has me pinned to the bottom of the boat and she’s on me. She’s smashing a biscuit in my mouth. I’m flailing and trying to free my arms, and her face looms inches away from mine as she snarls, “One more thing, sissy miss. Most girls could beat the crap out of you, and don’t you forget it. You’re a geek and a wuss.” She twists the biscuit until it crumbles, then blows chicken breath on my face.

  “Get the hell off me.”

  Jo slugs my arm. “Don’t say ‘hell.’”

  I say the F word and we have a biscuit battle to the death.

  I saved a chartreuse fly from that trip. And the Playboy centerfold, which reminded me of Sasha — from the neck up. I didn’t think I’d be exploring her lower regions. I elevated fishing with Jo to my list of Tolerable Things to Do. Jo said I should live more in the moment, and I tried. I try. But it’s only in retrospect that you appreciate the best times you ever had. You know?

  Mom

  Neenee and Poppa rent a clubhouse to celebrate Mom’s graduation from law school. Hordes of people come. Aunt Liz and Uncle Derrick, my cousins and their girlfriends or wives and kids, friends of Mom’s from school and work. Mom looks totally cool in her cap and gown. I can’t remember the last time she smiled and laughed so much. She links her arm in mine and leads me over to the gazebo. “Let’s get some shots of the two of us together,” she says.

  Jo’s in charge of recording The Big Day. She bought a camcorder for the occasion. “Hold up the diploma,” she instructs Mom. “Okay. Now let Nick wear the cap.”

  Mom sighs wearily, but removes the bobby pins and positions the cap on my head. It fits me perfectly. I think someday I’ll be wearing my own cap and gown. Recording my own Big Day. Maybe I’ll even go to law school.

  Nah. I still want to be an ichthyologist. Make that a marine biologist. For getting straight A’s this semester, Mom and Jo bought me all the equipment to start a saltwater aquarium. Jo took me down to Fish Haven, and we picked out a pair of Barbour’s sea horses. We stocked the tank with damselfish and chromis, even some brain coral. It’s expensive to keep up, but Jo’s got this job at FedEx now that pays good.

  I’m as tall as Mom. When she turns and smiles, we’re eye to eye. Mom rests her temple against mine, and I feel her happiness flow through me. “Enough, Jo.” She holds up a hand. “I better go say hello to all these people.” She gives me a squeeze around the middle before floating off toward the clubhouse.

  Jo and I hit the refreshment table, then wander over to the chaises by the pool. We settle in. The sun makes my freckles swell. It’s a perfect Saturday, a perfect May Day, I think, as I dig out my clip-on sunglasses. Jo slides her shades on and rolls up her sleeves, exposing the dragon tattoo on her left arm. It was her present to herself for “slaying her personal dragons,” she says. “For going straight and sober.” She’d winked at me. “Not that straight.” The tattoo is awesome. I’m hoping she’ll let me get one this summer.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?” Jo says, lifting the camcorder to her face. I glance over to see what she’s filming. It’s Mom carrying a flute of champagne over to the French doors through which Kerri is emerging. Kerri leans over and kisses Mom on the cheek. She says something in Mom’s ear, and Mom laughs.

  Jo lowers the camera for a moment and I see her jaw clench. She doesn’t like Kerri. I’m not sure why, but the feeling is contagious. Mom sips her champagne and laughs again. I think she’s a little drunk. Behind Kerri, Neenee flutters out of the clubhouse, smiling. Kerri gives Neenee a hug and a kiss on the cheek too.

  Beside me Jo mutters, “Excuse me while I puke.”

  We leave the party before Mom does. I don’t know what time she gets home. All I remember is waking up in the middle of the night feeling tense. Worried. It scares me when they’re not both home at night. I’m thirsty so I wander out to the kitchen for a glass of water. In the glow of moonlight through the living room curtains, I see Jo asleep on the sofa
. There’s a bottle of champagne in her hand, clutched to her chest between her boobs. The foil seal is intact. On the coffee table beside her is the graduation present we got Mom. A maroon leather briefcase with her monogram stitched on the handle: EAT. Erin Alicia Tyler. Jo wanted to add underneath: ME. But I wouldn’t let her. The box hasn’t been unwrapped yet.

  “What do you need, Nick?”

  I jump. I didn’t realize she was awake. “Nothing,” I say. I move a little closer to Jo. She’s still dressed for the party. “You okay?”

  “Oh sure. I’m great. I’m sensational.” She presses her head into the pillow to smile up at me. “Everything’s just hunky dory.”

  I don’t like the sound of her voice. Or that smile. The deadness in her eyes. “I was just going to get a drink,” I say. “You want something?”

  She lets out a short laugh. “I want you to get this out of my sight.” She swings the champagne bottle over her head. “Throw it in the trash or pour it down the sink. I don’t care. I don’t even want to be tempted.”

  I take it from her. I have the urge to say something like, “Want to go shoot paintball? Drive to the woods? Want to go work off the pain?” But I don’t know what pain she’s in, exactly. I only feel it. I open my mouth to say, Want to talk about it? but she rolls into a ball, murmuring, “G’night, Nicky. Sweet dreams.”

  Mom and Jo

  I have everything planned for Mother’s Day. I’ll get up early, prepare their favorite Sunday brunch, and treat them to a movie. I’ve been saving my allowance for a month. Jo’s crazy for my pecan sticky rolls, and Mom likes granola with blueberries and yogurt. The dough for the rolls has to rise before they wake up. I’ll blend strawberry smoothies too. I’ll set the table with our best dishes; separate the newspaper. Sports and comics for Jo. Business and Living Well for Mom.

  Mother’s Day is big around our house. My moms don’t let me forget it. Jo usually starts dropping hints around the first of May. This year I don’t need reminders. We’ve been through a lot these last few months, and I’m grateful to have both my moms. My mom is a cancer survivor. This Mother’s Day is going to be special.