by A J Walkley
“What are you saying?” I asked the room, hanging my head in my hands. “What are you doing?”
***
I came home from swim practice with the intention of taking a nap before dinner. Dropping my backpack at the bottom of the stairs, I took them two at a time, practically running to my room at the end of the hall. I stopped in my tracks when I saw Emily lying across my bed, my journal in her hands.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” I screamed, rushing forward to grab the book as she scrambled to stand up.
“I – It – I saw it sticking out of your mattress! I was just curious!”
I pierced her with my eyes. “WHAT DID YOU SEE?”
“Nothing, Greer, I swear!”
“Emily, tell me what you saw.” My voice had become surprisingly calm as I considered what my sister could have come to learn from even a five-minute perusal.
She hesitated, her eyes glazing scared. She picked at a hair she couldn’t seem to find on her sweater.
“Just – something about being in love.”
I blanched. Had I mentioned Becca in that entry? I couldn’t remember. I had a habit of keeping secrets, even from my own diary.
“Are you in love with Cameron, Greer?” she asked.
I let my breath out. “That’s none of your business,” I replied huffily. But I second guessed myself and looked at my sister. “Em, can you keep a secret?”
Becca and I were the only ones who knew. Now that she had given me an opening, the idea of confiding in Emily didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Of course!” she smiled, sitting back down on my bed once more.
I took a seat beside her, playing a hand over the cover of my book. I breathed in deeply.
“Em, I’m not in love with Cameron.” I glanced her way. Confusion had clouded her features.
“But, he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
A sliver of doubt made me pause longer than normal. Would she understand?
“Yes, but there’s someone else, too.” A rash of words came to me at that point. A long-winded explanation of having feelings for your girlfriends was one way to go. I could have simply given Becca a male pseudonym too, for that matter. “It’s Rebecca, Em,” I heard myself say.
Emily took in air sharply. She understood.
“I knew it,” she whispered, catching me off-guard.
“What?”
She took my hand and smiled. “It’s okay, G. I kinda expected it. I mean, I’ve seen her sneak out your window before.”
Damn, I thought we were being careful!
“Plus…” She blushed.
In shock I managed, “Plus what?”
“Well, you’re not exactly SILENT, you know?”
“Oh, geez.” I buried my face in my hands and fell back into my pillows.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else heard.”
With my eyes still covered I asked, “What do you think, Em? Is it weird? This is strange for me.”
“Uh,” she paused, thinking it over. “No, I guess not. I love my friends, too.”
“But it’s not only that, Em. I’m in love with her.” I peaked out from between my fingers. Emily had turned towards me, but was staring at her cuticles, picking at them mindlessly.
“Like a boy, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, realizing that was probably the best way to explain it to her. “Like that.”
“So, what’s the big deal then?”
Instinctively, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me so she was lying in my arms. “You have no idea what that means to me, sis!”
“So, are you going to tell Mom?”
“Ha!” escaped before I could stop it. “Not now, maybe sometime soon.”
“Why not?” Em asked, completely innocent. “I’m sure she’d understand.”
At that point I hadn’t seen a lot of gays on TV or in the movies, but I knew enough to understand the problems associated with ‘coming out of the closet,’ especially where parents were concerned. Kids were kicked out, beaten up, put into therapy. While I couldn’t imagine my mom and dad doing any of those things, I couldn’t be sure. This was unexplored territory in the MacManus household.
“You’d be surprised, Em,” I finally replied. “Not yet.”
***
Becca’s Jetta flew down the freeway. The windows were open and two arms weaved through the air on either side. Sitting next to her in the passenger’s seat, I perched my feet on the dashboard in front of me. Both of us were singing along to a song on the radio.
I turned around and ruffled through my bag in the back seat.
“Looking for something?”
“Hold on a sec.” A moment more and I turned around, a joint in hand.
“Let’s Hot Box it!” I closed the windows while Becca turned to look at me critically.
“Jesus Christ. I’m driving, you ass.”
“Oh please. One joint isn’t gonna kill you.” I put the joint in my mouth and lit it. I puffed on it until it pulled. I took a long drag and passed it to Becca, blowing smoke into her face.
“Come on, Becs, you know you want it.” Becca took the joint.
“One hit. That’s it.” She took a drag and passed it back to me. “So, where’re we headed, G?”
I smoked slowly, playing with my lighter in my right hand.
“Let’s just drive. I wanna smoke this, listen to some music and just zone out for a while. That cool?” Becca turned to me and gave a smile.
“Sounds good.”
We drove for two hours around the back roads of our small community, weaving through the dirt roads. It was a perfect December day in Arizona.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about talking to my mom about us,” I laid it out there.
Without hesitation, “Oh yeah? You think that’ll work out okay?” Becca asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, she knows people who are, you know.”
“Gay?” Becca tossed it out like it was any other word – “Computer,” or “Fork,” or “Normal.”
“Yeah, I guess. So, it’s not like she’d be one of those parents who would be like, ‘No way, it’s a mortal sin,’ or whatever. I mean, we’ve never gone to church, or temple, or anything religious, that I can remember.”
“Well, sure, that’s basically the same thought I had before I came out to my rents,” she said.
For some reason, until that point I hadn’t even considered how Becca’s family felt about her being a lesbian. I didn’t even know if they did know.
“Oh yeah? When did you do it? How did you tell them? Did you tell them together or separately? Did - “
“Whoa, wait a minute, ha, ha. Slow down,” she put her hand up. “When I did it - well, I think the first time my mom talked to me about it was when I was in fifth grade.”
If I could have pierced Becca with my eyes deeper than I had already been doing, I would have. “Fifth grade? No fuckin’ way!”
“Yeah, young, right? My parents weren’t exactly normal, I guess. Like, fifth grade is kind of when kids start asking about sex, right? So, I think I came home one day after I heard the word and asked her what it meant. And, ha, it was kind of funny, because she got really excited, I remember, and sat me down on my bed and just started telling me every single thing there was to know.”
“What do you mean, ‘every single thing’? Like about babies and crap?” I asked.
“Well, sure, but she also told me how men have sex with each other, and women. She didn’t just tell me about straight sex, but gay sex, too.”
My mouth had fallen open. “No WAY! Your mom is the shit!” I exclaimed, still in disbelief. Becca just laughed at me.
“She’s definitely different. She also told me to swear not to tell my friends. She said this was a secret or something like that – something that you had to hear from your parents, because not all parents wanted their children to know just yet. She was obviously trying to protect me since practically NO ONE talks about gay se
x when kids start asking about babies and all, you know?”
“Well, yeah, that’s why I’m so shocked. My mom would never, ever tell me about that. Ever.” I sat back in my seat and looked back out the window. “That’s awesome, Becca. I mean, you’re really lucky.”
“So, basically, you can’t really predict how your parents are going to react based on me, Greer. I have a few gay friends who’ve told me about their coming out to their families and nobody’s is the same.”
“Then, when did you tell your mom when you knew you were?” I asked.
“G, what’s with you? ‘Gay,’ ‘Lesbian,’ ‘Dyke.’ Take your pick. Stop being such a prude.” She tousled my hair as she chastised me. “I guess it was, maybe, two or three years ago? It was the summer, and I had just gotten back from camp. I had been bustin’ on my mom to get all my pictures developed and when I got them back, she wanted to see them all. That was the summer I first met Kate.”
I shifted in my seat. She had mentioned her first girlfriend before. Even though they weren’t together and even though I had never met the girl, the thought of her made me uncomfortable.
“I’m not joking when I tell you that every single picture on my camera was of the two of us. Kate and me in the lake. Kate and me climbing trees. Kate and me making crafts. Kate and me eating s’mores.”
“Gotcha,” I said to put a stop to her never-ending list of
‘Kate and me.’
“So, my mom was like, ‘Wow, Bec, you must really like this girl, huh?’ And I told her everything I knew about her and how well we got along. I didn’t really think anything of it, until she asked me if Kate was my girlfriend.”
“What’d you say?” I already had a feeling what came next and I knew my situation with my own mother would not be the same.
“I think I said, ‘Maybe,’ or something like that, because we hadn’t put a label on ourselves. But my mom was really supportive. She was like, ‘That’s great, Bec. I’m happy for you. You should invite her over sometime so your father and I can meet her.’ And that was it!” Becca finished and looked at me. “Not very climactic, huh?”
“No, but, you know, that’s probably the best response ever. You’re really lucky.”
“Come on. You have no idea what’ll happen when you tell your parents. Maybe they won’t care at all. You just can’t know these things, you know?” she offered. “Just do it.”
I looked at her, sincerity in her eyes, along with a hint of frustration. At my naïveté? My inexperience?
“You’re right. But, I haven’t had a heart-to-heart with my mother in, well, a long time. It could be disastrous.”
***
Christmas vacation arrived sooner than I thought and I found myself trying to read by our bay window, looking out at the driveway on December 24th, awaiting my father’s arrival. He had sent me Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol the week before and I kept reading the same sentence about Scrooge’s niece over and over, looking out the window every few seconds:
“With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed – as no doubt it was…”
Just as I prepared to turn the page, I heard Emmy running down the stairs.
“He’s here! He’s here!”
I threw my book on the coffee table and ran after her out the front door, the two of us rushing Dad before he had even closed the car door behind him.
“My girls! How are you? Merry Chrismakwanzakah!” As a completely non-religious family, we didn’t actually celebrate Jesus or whatever. We did string lights, popcorn and cranberries over our trees, er… cacti and go to the movies on Christmas Day, though. It was basically our own family tradition: a mixture of my mom’s Jewish upbringing and my dad’s Catholic upbringing.
“Do you like the tree?” Emmy asked, pointing to the cactus by the mailbox. “Greer and I strung the popcorn and berries ourselves.”
“Beautiful, Emsicle,” he replied as we walked into the house. “Where’s your mother?”
“At the gym,” I told him, a touch of bitterness in my tone. “She said she’d be back soon though.”
“Well what do you think about me making some of my hot chocolate for her return?” he suggested.
“Yeah! Yeah!” Emmy replied.
The three of us went into the kitchen and I got all of the fixings out: cocoa, milk, sugar. While my dad blended and stirred, he grilled us about what had happened in our lives since he saw us last.
“I got straight A’s for the marking period,” my sister bragged. “And Mom just bought me this pretty lavender sweater. I’ll show you!”
She raced up the stairs and out of sight.
“How about you, G-bee? How are things?”
I looked at him closely for a moment before answering. The lines under his eyes had become more pronounced than I remembered, the hair at his temples slightly greyer. I felt a knot form in my throat with the realization that he was getting older.
“Things are good. I’m not the school-whiz that she is,” I motioned to the stairs with my chin, “but I got an A in History and a B in everything else.”
“Not bad at all, kid,” he said, smiling and giving me a wink.
“What about you, Dad? How was this trip? Anything exciting happen?”
His features fell enough for me to notice, though if you didn’t know him you wouldn’t have seen a difference.
“Well, we had a couple of snags, but the majority made it fine.” Usually verbose, he ended his explanation there.
“Snags? What do you mean ‘majority’?” I leaned forward on my elbows to express my interest.
Dad looked at me with heavy eyes.
“We lost a couple of kids. They thought they could make it themselves and when we were about ten miles from the border, they left in the middle of the night.”
“Here it is!” Em returned with her newest accessory and shoved it in my dad’s face, accidentally letting a sleeve fall into the chocolaty mixture in the process.
“Oh geez.” Dad plucked it out quickly. “It’s okay, babes. This’ll come out, no worries.”
“I’m so stupid!” Em cried before leaving once more, this time downstairs to the laundry room.
Dad and I looked at each other and shook our heads, matching smirks on our faces.
“How’s Mom?” he asked. Seeing me physically draw back at the question, he said, “Uh oh, that doesn’t look good. What’s up?”
“She’s just not here. Like, ever. She’s not even here now and she knew you were coming home!” I felt my face redden, the topic getting me heated.
“Honey, she’s got a job and a lot to juggle without me here, you know?”
“Sure, but she’s got her priorities screwed up. She didn’t come to even one swim meet this season. Not one!” I was about to continue, turning my list of woes into a full-blown rant, when we heard the front door open.
“Roger?” my mother’s voice arrived before she stepped into the room. Her face split into a grin and before I knew it she was in my father’s arms, kissing his neck.
“Aw, come on, not in front of me,” I said, about to get up.
“No, stay sweetie. No more PDA, I promise,” Dad replied.
“How are you? How was the trip?” Mom had the same questions I had, but my dad told her he’d give her the details later.
“Right now, it’s cocoa time!” He got four mugs out of the cabinet and poured the requisite amount in each. “Em! Get back up here!”
“Mommy!” she exclaimed when she appeared in the kitchen once more. “Guess what happened?”
We all sat around the table, drinking and listening to Emily’s complaints. Once my mom promised to buy her a new sweater if the one she dirtied wasn’t salvageable, my sister was appeased. Everyone was smiling as the conversation turned to the next day and what movie we would go see.
Wow, I thought. This is a rare moment.
***
The rest of vacation was, in a word, familial. I hadn�
��t spent so much time with my parents in months. We took day trips to different towns, saw every movie playing at our local theatre and, best of all, my dad and I took long drives together.
Despite my mother actually acting like a mother again, I couldn’t help but resent her. She was so damn different when my dad was around. Plus, the nagging thought in the back of my head involving my evolving sexuality was a factor. I just knew she would react badly if she knew.
The irony of my situation could not have been made clearer than on New Year’s Eve, however. My mom’s friend Jill and her partner – yes, partner – visited from South Carolina. Having vacationed at the Grand Canyon the week before, they made a pit stop to see Mom before heading back east.
At 5:00 on the dot, the doorbell rang and Jill burst through the door.
“We’re here! Let’s get this party started!” The enthusiastic, 5’2” red head pounced on my mom before giving hugs all around.
“Hey, Jill,” I greeted her, blushing as I was seeing her in a different light for the first time.
“Greer! You’re getting so beautiful!” She grasped my cheeks and kissed my forehead before introducing the silent stranger behind her. “This, everyone, is Louisa. Lou, this is Karen, Roger, Greer and Emily.”
A chorus of “hellos” washed over the room.
“Please, sit,” Mom offered, motioning to the various seating options in our living room.
“Can I get anyone a drink? I just opened a bottle of Merlot,” my dad offered. Everyone in the room answered in the affirmative. “Sorry Ems, none for you. Greer, I’ll pour you half a glass.”
I smiled while Em whined, “Not fair!”
“I’ll get you a Coke,” he said firmly and walked into the kitchen to do just that.
“So, Kar, how are things in A-Z?” Jill asked, seated next to Lou on our loveseat, her hand on her knee.
“Hot, mostly. But good. I think we’ve all gotten used to it by now, haven’t we girls?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said.
“It’s cool,” Em added.
“Louisa, tell us about yourself. Jill has told me such great things about you,” my mom said.
