by Rachel Cohn
Finally, about ten minutes later, I received a text back from him:
I’m safe and sound. Have a good night.
That was it. No apology. No explanation.
Which was so not like him. It was, in fact, more like me. To be so careless.
I texted him again, asking what was going on. Neal, Art, and I left the club and headed to a diner for a three-in-the-morning three-stack of pancakes. We found a larger gay-boy contingent there and pulled up chairs to join them. I was totally in my scene: all the flirty banter, all the caustic observation, all the naked desire for affection . . . this was a game I played well. But instead of playing, I spent the whole time looking at my phone, waiting for him to text back. With other boys, I would have just called back and left a fuck-you message on their voice mail. But the point of Bruce is that he isn’t one of those other boys. He’s Bruce.
Now it’s four days later, and we’ve only had two conversations, both of them rushed, neither of them satisfying. I tell the Dairy Queens that he said he wants to figure things out. He apologized a lot for leaving, but he hasn’t made any effort to come back.
“This isn’t good,” Neal says, shaking his head. “This is like an orange alert, breakup-wise.”
“And orange is such a difficult color,” Art adds.
I am too conscious of having Shaun here. He’s a reminder of everything I’ve done wrong before. It became, for me, a pattern as common as plaid: I’d throw myself on someone, then throw him out. Shaun was different from most of the rest, because he’d actually thrown my actions back at me, yelling and crying as I dumped him, telling me that I was going to end up graduating NYU with a major in Fuck & Run. Because that’s what I was: an F&R boy. Shaun had seen me do it to other guys, which made him feel even more stupid when I did it to him . . . and made me feel even worse. Like I should have known. But the hardest thing was that I always believed in it at first—I never F’d with the intention of R-ing. But in the end—when we got to the end—the boys never believed this. Only Naomi did, really. After Shaun had it out with me, I went straight to her, sobbing. “It hurts to hurt people when you never mean to, doesn’t it?” she’d asked. And I’d said yes. It really, really hurt. When it was casual, when everything was understood ahead of time, it was fine. But when you really wanted it to work, when you really thought it could become something—well, then the F was never worth the R.
But Bruce was supposed to be different. With Bruce, I tried to be more careful. I tried to trick the pattern. I decided that if we didn’t jump to the F stage, then I wouldn’t jump to the R stage. I tried to slow things down—which is not an easy thing for me to do. And I found that slowing down the sex thing actually quickened the heart thing. It was like I’d set up this test, and I was passing it for a reason: I liked him. A lot. The sexual attraction was still there—I wasn’t so deluded as to think I could hold out for someone ugly—but I tried to focus on all the other attractions. To his goofiness. To his goodness. To his sincerity. It made me want to be attractive in those ways, too.
We didn’t F; I didn’t R. I was doing everything right.
And then he was the one who ran.
I can’t say all of this to the DQs, not with Shaun right there, because I know we’re still at the stage where he hears himself in anything I say about boyfriends. So I don’t talk about before and what I was like before.
Instead I say, “I tried. I really tried. And it’s so frustrating that none of that matters.”
“You did try,” Neal says, trying to comfort me.
“You did,” Art echoes.
And it’s Shaun who says, “So don’t stop trying now.”
There’s a remnant of anger in his voice, and I think, Yes, I deserve that—I really deserve that. But I realize he’s not as angry at me for what I did to him as he is annoyed at the fact that it seems I’m wussing out.
It’s like Naomi’s talking to me, calling me on it.
“Listen,” she and Shaun say. “You’re giving up. You’re slipping into being miserable, because if you’re miserable, then it’s all about you again. But it’s not all about you. Love doesn’t work that way.”
Neal looks at me with sympathy in his eyes. “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?” he asks. “You didn’t think there was a way that you could be so fabulous and so fantastic and so perfect that it would actually be easy? It’s never easy for anyone. Don’t you know that?”
I don’t know why this gets to me. Because, yes, I guess there was a part of me that thought it could be easy. That something that is worth so much could just be given to you. Because you were cute. Or sexy. Or on your best behavior. It can sometimes make it easier, but it can never make it easy. I thought when I found the right person, it would be easy. He would be mine and I would be his and that would be that. And with Naomi. I would be hers and she would be mine and that would be that. The perfect friendship. The ideal. What kind of tension could a straight girl and a gay boy have? None. Easy.
No. No no no no. It is not easy. Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.
“Ely?” Neal asks. I haven’t answered his question yet; instead I’ve started laughing at myself. For being so foolish. For not getting it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, not wanting the DQs to think I’m laughing at them. “It’s just that . . . I really did think it could be easy. For me.”
At this, Neal leans over and puts his arms around my shoulders. Ink laughs along at me. Shaun gives me a look that says, Yes, you are a stupid one, aren’t you? Art just pats my leg, like I’ve learned a new trick.
I get it now. I swear, I get it. And it’s like this was the thing I needed to know in order to make all the other things I knew make sense.
It’s funny how much easier it makes it, to know that it’s not going to be easy.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
I’m saying it to all of them. But really, I’m saying it most to Shaun. To Bruce. To Naomi. Not because I think it’s all my fault—I know it’s not all my fault. I guess I’m sorry is a way to say I want it to be better. Even if it’s difficult. Even if it hurts. I have to stop hiding behind who I am. I have to stop hiding behind the things other people expect from me and the things I expect from myself. I have to try.
I tell this to the Dairy Queens. I tell them I have to figure out where to start.
And then I say, “Any suggestions?”
NAOMI
EXPECTATION
Living a life separate from Ely across the hall is easy. It hasn’t been fun, certainly—but it’s completely doable. We can break out physical territories just fine. The last six weeks, give or take a few misdemeanor encounters, have proved that.
I guess I can let go of Ely after all. It’s letting go of the future mental expectation for Naomi & Ely that feels impossible. No, impossible is the wrong word. I know it’s possible. We’re living apart already. Unfair is what it is. The one fantasy that’s comforted me through my life so far, that’s given me a reason to go on and to hope for my—for our—future, is just that: F-A-N-T-A-S-Y.
Ely and I would finish college, get married, buy a and a , and have a We’d be a family just like a , totally ignoring the impossible obstacles right in front of us. La-la-la, Ely is queer; la-la-la and ha-ha-ha, Naomi fell into that tired old trap of loving someone who could never love her back the same way. Naomi & Ely just stuck with the same old program because it’s what expectation told them to do. Joke’s on them, fools.
It must be expectation that Mom can’t let go of, either. I mean, I don’t think she expects Dad to waltz back into our apartment and everything to be all right again. We wouldn’t have him back even if he wanted to come back. Yet we still live in this apartment, where all the hurtful memories exist not as ghosts but as neighbors. It’s not fantasy or mirage: They’re there. The photos of Dad with us as a family still linger on
our tables and walls, his clothes still hang in a closet we don’t dare open, his mail even still comes here. It’s like he left and time just stopped. We continued on, but only because we had to. The apartment’s shell remained the same (less that small section of the living room wall Mom destroyed back when she was feeling the pain rather than numbing it), but the inside we can’t see, the emptiness we don’t acknowledge—because how could we; the physical props of Dad’s presence still exist, right in front of us—have eaten us alive.
It’s as if Mom somehow expects a magic potion will come along and fix this lie we’re living in; ’til then, she’ll sleep.
I wake her by spraying Evian spritz onto her face. This method is not only gentle, but good for our shared milky-smooth complexion. Every magazine says so.
Her eyes pop open and the hazel-eyed look of simultaneous anger and love she flashes me reminds me how much Mom and I look alike. Ely always envied me that I could look at my mom and know exactly where I came from. He doesn’t look like anyone in his known family. I always liked that this face I share with Mom was worthy of Ely’s envy. Yet, as with all things, he bested me in the envy contest, too. Maybe he got the mystery face, but he also got the functional family, the one that survived and worked things out instead of just falling apart. The family that can survive and then thrive is so much more worthy of envy, in my opinion. That’s work. A beautiful face passed down from a mother? That’s just a gift.
“What are you doing, Naomi?” Mom murmurs. She closes her eyes again and turns over, away from me. “If you’re not here to watch Oprah, then go away.”
I jump over to the other side of the bed. And spray again, a direct shot onto her face, then her hair, her arms, her . . .
“NAOMI! What are you DOING?”
She’s furious, but I smile at her, cuddle into her. There’s no need for shouting. “Wake up, Mom,” I murmur back.
She pulls me to her, tight. “I’m up,” she whispers into my ear. Then she grabs the Evian bottle and takes a turn to spray my face.
“That feels nice,” I say. “Refreshing.”
“Naomi.”
“Right.”
“Naomi, what are you doing?” Mom doesn’t wait for my answer. She reaches for the TV remote. I grab it from her hands before Oprah can overtake my efforts to get Mom out of bed to deal with her own problems rather than tune in for Oprah to fix everybody else’s.
I stand up on the bed and jump up and down, up and down. “GET UP GET UP GET UP!” I sing these words, but it’s not until the chant is over that I make the connection of what I just did, the Sunday-morning make-us-breakfast routine I just replayed.
“Ely,” Mom says. “Isn’t he supposed to be here double-teaming if you’re going to pull this act?”
She’s got me there. He should be here.
“We have to move,” I tell her.
“What? You’re crazy. Don’t you have homework to do, or something?”
“He’s not coming back.”
Silence.
She knows I’m not talking about Ely.
Then:
“I know,” she acknowledges.
“You wouldn’t want him to come back even if he did.”
“I know that, too.”
“So why are you still in bed?” His bed. Their bed.
Mom doesn’t stand up, but she at least sits up. But it’s like the view from Awake is too bright. She places her head down into her hands. “I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know. I don’t know what else to do. I hate my job. I can’t afford for us to move. I feel trapped.”
“Then let’s change the mental expectation. Let’s not think of being trapped. Let’s think of our situation as . . . a maze we have to find our way out of. The thing about a trap is you get caught and can’t get out. A maze has an exit. You just have to find it.”
“And how do we do that, O abruptly wizened daughter?”
“We can start by selling this apartment and moving, Mommy.”
Her head pops up to throw a Naomi brand of stare-glare face at me. “It needs to be fixed up in order to get it on the market. There’s the damage in the living room. The kitchen and bathroom need to be retiled. The blinds are falling apart. The list called Impossible goes on and on.”
“We can get help.”
“Are you listening, Naomi? I HAVE NO MONEY.”
“But you have options. We could ask Grandma to help. She has lots of money.”
“She’s too controlling. There’s always a price to be paid for her quote-unquote ‘help.’ ”
“So what? Pay that price. Visit her every couple of months. Let her tell you to get a divorce and get back into circulation. Say thank you when she offers up completely bad career advice.”
Mom laughs. It’s a start.
I watch her my-face churning in thought. Then she sparks. “Maybe we could ask Gabriel if he’s interested in taking on a side job—help out with some of the work that needs to be done on the apartment? He’s a nice guy, huh? Maybe he’d help out, and we’d get a chance to get to know him at the same time?” She appears serious, but her voice teases. “You liiiiiike him.”
I love my mom.
“Maybe,” I allow.
My real challenge is to figure out how the hell we find a Realtor willing not only to take on this falling-apart apartment but its falling-apart mother-daughter sellers. “Guess what?” I say.
“That’s what!” Mom answers.
“I’m kind of failing out of school and should probably just drop out.”
Mom’s head falls back into her hands. “Oh Lord,” she sighs. Her head’s bounce back upward to look at me is surprisingly quick in response—and no glare this time, either. “I knew it was coming. Not this, exactly—but something like this. Your teenage years were too easy. Just tell me now, get it over with. You’re not pregnant or doing drugs, are you?”
She’s right. I did go easy on her in my high school years. Yes, I had my moods. Every teenager does. Especially me. I could earn a degree in moodiness. I’d pass that course of study with all honors. But I wasn’t raging teen rebellion, either. Mom was such a wronged party then. Just not by me. I didn’t want to add to her pain.
Ely bested me in the teen rebellion contest, too. He totally acted out with Ginny when all that horrific shit was going down with our parents. He was awful to her, but protective and kind with Susan—a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality with his own parents. And now, if he’s allowed to have boys spend the night, or if he stays out all night with no recrimination from them, it’s not because he’s reached college age or they’re too passed out to notice. It’s because of the precedent he set—no, that he demanded—when he was still in high school. That freedom he won too soon was the price his parents paid for the mess the collective parents made. Grew him up too soon. Grew both of us up too soon, I guess; we just acted it out in different ways. Ely turned promiscuous. I chose fantasy.
His promiscuity that I can no longer choose to tune out probably has a lot to do with why Ely plays with so many boys . . . yet none have turned out to be keepers. That is, until he stole my boyfriend. Woke me up.
“I’m not pregnant,” I acknowledge to Mom.
“Shit,” she mutters. But at last she stands up. She’s out of bed.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
She reaches for the phone. “We both need help.”
Here’s the ? I would ask a potential therapist: Can we live without the fantasy and still expect a fair and happy path? There’s no pill for that, is there. (Not a question.)
Mom wouldn’t take Dad back. But it’s true. I would— should—take Ely back.
He didn’t do anything wrong other than be who he is.
I love who Ely is.
I hate that I probably owe Ely asking him back rather than waiting for him to make the first move, for him to fix it for me, like he always has in the past. But I haven’t reached that part of the maze yet. One step at a time.
I may have gotten Mom out o
f bed and into action, but as for:
I still don’t see the way out.
But I don’t feel like we’re trapped, either.
ELY
CORNER
I wait for her in the stairwell off of floor six. Our hallowed ground. Suburban kids had the deluxe tree houses; we lived in Manhattan, so we had to create our own spaces. The corner of the floor six stairwell was ours. We liked the overhead strobe lighting, all flickery and buzzing. We played endless games of Sorry!, Rummikub, Apples to Apples, and our own version of Trivial Pursuit, where we’d use the board but make up our own categories and questions, usually about the other building residents. We even hung our school artwork up on the stairwell walls. When we were in middle school, the stairwell served as a stage when we played disco musical. I built the sets and she named our characters—she was Lavender and I was Butterscotch. (That memory can definitely be stuffed into the Repression Closet. I mean, the disco part was awesome, but Butterscotch? I let that bossy bitch call me Butterscotch?) Later, we took sanctuary here when our parents fought. And we wrote our first No Kiss Lists here, memorizing them before they were destroyed.
I officially came out to her at the very spot where I’m standing now. We were fifteen, and I told her even though we both already knew. I deliberately chose the very place where we’d once carved our names into the wall.
I’m looking at it now. The imprint we scratched when we were twelve still remains:
