Philadelphia

by L B Winter

  “That’s enough discussing Paul for one night,” I said, standing up, almost too embarrassed to look Jamie in the eye. “Thanks again, Steve-o. Night, Reese, Jamie.”

  They said goodnight, but from my room, I could still hear them talking, and I laid awake for half an hour trying to pick out Jamie’s voice. He was talking to Steven. Odd. I couldn’t guess what they were talking about, so I didn’t try. Mostly, I just remembered that smile on his face and the feeling I got when I realized he was happy that I was me.

  CHAPTER 14

  Anybody Special

  __________

  “Paul, come talk to your Aunt Karen!”

  I sighed. Mom liked to call every single one of our relatives on Christmas. It usually took all day, and today was no exception. She had taken a break to make a pie before dinner, but I guess she was back at it. I wondered if I stayed very quiet, maybe she’d think I was sleeping.

  It was Christmas day. Jamie had moved into the guys’ apartment over break since our dorm was closed, and Taylor and I had been in New Tower since the semester ended earlier in December. Trent and Steven were visiting family in Ohio, and Lynn was spending Christmas with her new boyfriend, and Taylor was coping like a champ.

  “Paul!” Mom shouted.

  “Coming!” I said, finally swinging my legs off of the bed. I guess even if I was sleeping, that wouldn’t exempt me from family Christmas greetings.

  “There you are!” Mom said when I came into the living room. “Karen, he’s here,” she said, holding out the phone toward me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Hi, Aunt Kay. Merry Christmas!”

  I chatted with my Aunt Karen, then Great Uncle Joe, and then Grandma Wilson, my mom’s mom who lived in a nursing home near her brother’s house in Florida.

  “It was 80 degrees and sunny there,” I told Mom after I hung up.

  “Great,” she answered, taking the phone from me. “I suppose I’ve tortured you for long enough.”

  I smiled and reached into my pocket for my phone. Steven had texted. It was a picture of him and Trent kissing in front of a Christmas tree, with the caption, “Public displays 4 Xmas!” I cracked up.

  Mom looked over my shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Who wrote to you?”

  I sighed, feeling annoyed with her for asking, although I was just mature enough to know that she wasn’t doing anything wrong. I stood up to walk back upstairs. “Just Steven.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Upstairs.”

  She sighed. “Oh. I was hoping you would help me with dinner. Everybody is coming over in a couple hours.”

  Mom was making a big dinner with roast leg of lamb, twice-baked potatoes, corn on the cob, beet salad, and three kinds of pie. I had contributed by baking rolls and cooking up some mint jelly to garnish the lamb. Nothing really needed to be done anymore; the oven was going to do the work at this point. The remaining tasks were really a one-person job.

  I opened my mouth to say as much, but then I stopped myself. I hadn’t really spent a lot of time with my mom this break. Thinking of Jamie, all alone and isolated from his family, made me realize that I was really lucky to have my mom. So I slipped the phone back into my pocket. “Sure, Mom. I can help,” I said. “What do you need?”

  She smiled and put her arm around my shoulder, kissing the side of my head. “Would you fill the relish tray?”

  “Sure.”

  Mom and I went to the kitchen, where I was surprised to find that there really was still plenty to do. While I stacked a tray with pickles, olives, beets, and cheese sticks, she set out plates and glasses, mixed iced tea, and started reheating the corn cobs that Dad had grilled earlier in the day.

  “I see you’ve been on your phone a lot,” Mom said in a voice that was obviously intended to sound casual, but was anything but. I nodded. “Anybody special you’ve been talking to?”

  “Mom!”

  “What? It’s just a question.”

  She was too curious. “Don’t use the phrase ‘anybody special.’”

  “Fine. I apologize; I didn’t know that phrase was off-limits.”

  “It isn’t off-limits, I just—”

  “I guess I’m not allowed to ask my son about personal things anymore. My son, whom I carried in my body for 9 months—”

  “Mom…”

  “And raised and cared for, and still care for.”

  “Mom, come on.”

  “I guess his life is just none of my business now.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  I sighed. I knew she wouldn’t give up unless I gave in, so I finally said, “Just now I was texting Steven. Sometimes it’s Lynn, sometimes Trent. Usually Taylor a couple times a day. And, since I know you’re dying to ask, never Jamie.”

  “Jamie? The boy from Thanksgiving?” I love my mom, but she is not an actress. She couldn’t possibly have looked less surprised. “Why do you mention him?”

  “Because you think something’s going on. But nothing is.”

  Mom squinted at me for a few seconds before speaking. Then she said, “What’s he up to this Christmas?”

  Mom knew a few things about his situation that I’d told her since Thanksgiving, and I was sure she was wondering why I hadn’t invited him home. What she didn’t know is that I had invited him home with me, that I’d wanted him to come, but that he had emphatically declined. It turned out, he’d asked Trent and Lynn if he could crash at their place while the dorms were closed, and since Lynn was going to be around the whole time, nobody had any problem with it.

  I’d texted a couple of times, but Jamie hadn’t responded. Worried, I’d called Lynn, who reminded me that Jamie’s phone was a burner he paid for by the minute, and he couldn’t afford to text. Then I felt stupid, and also a little bereft, like I would have fought harder for him to come home with me if I’d known that leaving would mean we couldn’t talk at all.

  “He wanted to spend Christmas in Philadelphia,” I said.

  “Alone?” Mom asked, looking alarmed. “You could have asked him to come here, honey. You know there’s always room.”

  “He isn’t alone; Lynn’s there, too,” I answered.

  “Oh, they both could have come!” Mom said.

  “Lynn wanted to stay, too. Her boyfriend lives there.”

  “She has a boyfriend now? Oh, I’m so glad, honey! I’ve been praying she would find somebody nice.”

  The doorbell rang, and I wasn’t sorry for the excuse to end that little interrogation as I ran to answer the door.

  “Happy Christmas!” Taylor shouted when I opened the door. He was using his fake British accent, and I cracked up and caught the wrapped present he had tossed in my direction.

  “Happy Christmas,” I said. Over his shoulder, I saw his mom and dad getting out of their car, Mrs. Reese holding a bag of gifts and Mr. Reese with a pie plate.

  I jogged out to help them, and Mrs. Reese set down the bag and gave me a big, warm hug. “Merry Christmas, Pauly,” she said. Since Taylor and I had been fighting at Thanksgiving, I hadn’t seen her in months. Probably not since our high school graduation parties, I realized as she gave me an extra tight squeeze. “You’re filling out so nicely,” she said, patting my cheek.

  “Mom,” Taylor groaned, “that’s like saying he’s getting fat.”

  “Is it? Am I?” I glanced back at Taylor, who had followed me back up the driveway. I guess I’d noticed that I was getting a little bit more muscular since going to college, but I definitely wasn’t out of shape. But Tay smirked at me, and I knew he thought he was hilarious. I flipped him off, and he cracked up.

  “No, that’s not what I meant!” Mrs. Reese said, with a disapproving look at her son, who only laughed and shrugged. “I meant you’re looking less like the boy I’ve always known, and more like a man.”

  I turned to pick up the bag of gifts so she wouldn’t
see how embarrassed I was. Mr. Reese walked around to shake my hand, and we all went up to the house together.

  “I have to show you something,” Taylor said when we got inside, while his parents went into the kitchen to ask Mom if they could help with anything. Mom and Dad weren’t always great friends with the Reeses, but after Tay and I became best friends, they all just sort of started hanging out with each other by default.

  “What is it?” I asked as Tay pulled out his phone.

  Silently, he handed it to me. On screen was an email from the college with the subject line, “Congratulations.” My eyes briefly scanned the page.

  “You got it?” I said.

  He nodded proudly. “I got it.”

  “Dude! That’s awesome, congrats!” Taylor had applied for an internship at a medical research lab in Philly for the spring semester. It came with a stipend and was supposed to be crazy hard, and only two students per cohort are offered a placement. It took a moment to sink in that Taylor must have been one of the best students in his year for him to get it. I stared at the phone for another minute, just in awe of my friend. “You are really fucking smart,” I said, handing it back to him.

  “Language!” our moms cried in unison from the kitchen.

  Taylor grinned. “Thanks, man. I can’t believe I got it.”

  “I can,” I said, even though it honestly felt surreal. “Wow. I guess we know how you’ll spend every single free moment next semester, huh?” Then instantly I felt like a jerk for saying it, because obviously his doing this was more important than me seeing him less. So I added, “I will help you with anything you need—though I can’t promise you good grades if you outsource your homework to me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, no, I wouldn’t probably want that.”

  I cracked up. “Thanks a lot.”

  “I will be busy, though. I hope my grades don’t slip too much.” He looked worried.

  “They won’t,” I said. “You’ll be fine. They wouldn’t have given you the internship if you weren’t up for it, dude.”

  “I guess,” he said. “Still kinda nervous, though.”

  “Are your parents excited?”

  “Yeah.”

  That was all he said, and I didn’t want to push it, so I changed the subject and we chatted until suppertime.

  Dinner was the usual crowd, but this time felt just a little bit different. There were a few notable faces missing—the Kleins, one of the families from church that had been less than welcoming at Thanksgiving, hadn’t been invited, and my old Sunday School teacher, a widow who was always on the invite list, had declined to attend. I guess she would rather be alone than spend Christmas dinner with me.

  One thing happened that I didn’t expect, though. Tay’s phone was on the table between us, and I saw that he was getting a phone call while he was in the kitchen helping his mom with her pie. The name on the caller ID was Marissa. Huh. I hadn’t known they were talking again.

  When Taylor got back to the table, I whispered, “Hey, you got a call on your phone just now.”

  “Oh, really? Who was it?” he said, picking it up with a look of genuine curiosity and surprise. But when he saw who’d called, it was clear that he hadn’t been expecting to hear from her any more than I had been.

  “Marissa, right?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know what she wants,” he answered, and the uncertainty in his voice reminded me of when they’d first broken up. Stupid Marissa, making my confident, awesome best friend feel insecure.

  I said, “You don’t have to call her back if you don’t want to, you know.”

  He glanced up at me from the phone he’d been staring at. “Oh, well. Yeah.”

  “At least not right now,” I smiled. “It’s Christmas dinner; your mom will flip out.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “She hates Marissa now.”

  “Does she really?” That was a surprise, too. Mrs. Reese was always Marissa’s biggest cheerleader—literally. Rissa was on the girls tennis team at our high school, and even after Tay went off to college, Mrs. Reese kept going to her matches. That is, until she broke her son’s heart.

  “Yeah, she was all, ‘Good riddance to that disloyal little hussy.’”

  I raised my eyebrows and frowned, nodding my head a little. “Huh. ‘Hussy’ is not a word I’ve heard in a while.”

  “I just don’t know why she would call me,” he repeated, looking back at his phone.

  “Maybe she just wants to say Merry Christmas,” I replied.

  “Yeah?” he glanced back at me again. “Don’t most people just text for that?”

  “Sure, but—look, I don’t know. But you aren’t together anymore, so you’re not obligated to call her back.”

  “I know that,” he said.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t mean—” he sighed. “I just wasn’t expecting this. She hasn’t said a word to me since we broke up.”

  It hadn’t been that long, either—only about a month. If Tay still had feelings for her, it was pretty understandable. My feelings on the topic hadn’t changed since Thanksgiving; he was still way too good for her.

  He decided to wait and see if she called again, and he turned his ringer on so he wouldn’t miss her call. Before he and his parents left for the night, I said, “Hey, let me know how everything goes.”

  “I’ll text you,” he said.

  When I got back to the dinner table, Mom was cleaning up dishes from the pie we had all just enjoyed, while Dad was alone at the head of the table, having just said goodbye to the last of our guests.

  “Merry Christmas, Pauly,” he said with an affectionate smile at me.

  “Merry Christmas, Dad,” I answered, sitting down beside him. “Hey, I never thanked you.”

  “Thanked me?”

  “Yeah. For, uh…for the email you sent when I came for Thanksgiving. That was really cool.”

  Dad reached up a hand and fluffed my hair for a second. “I’m glad you thought so. It wasn’t the most popular move I’ve ever made at our church, but it needed to be said.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “Well, a few families stopped attending the church in consequence. Not many, but a few. In fact, in numbers, we’ve got more people attending regularly now. A few families that hadn’t felt welcome before they’d received the email—and I’d never had any idea. I think it was a good thing to do, and it felt like the right instruction for our church. But still, it’s a hard thing, to have people you’d always known and loved and cared for who decide that they aren’t going to be a part of this body anymore, all because of me.”

  “Not because of you,” I said quietly. “Because of me.”

  “No,” Dad answered emphatically. “No, you’ve always been you. I chose to use you as an example for the church, and to publicize what you’ve always kept private. That was my choice, Pauly, and you were gracious enough to let it happen. But I never expected the church to react the way it did, and I feel its lack of welcome for you was a reflection on my leadership. Changes needed to be made. I just wonder whether I handled them well. Did I lead them the way I should have to this moment? Would things have gone differently if I’d led them differently?” He sighed again. “I don’t know, and I guess I’ll never know.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. I’d really meant to thank him because I’d been grateful, but now I wondered if he didn’t regret everything that he’d said.

  My parents, though. Always surprising me, and in the best possible way. He said, “No, son. Don’t ever be sorry. All you’ve done is open my eyes to the depths of God’s love and mercy. I’m better for it, and I’m eager to share that good news with my church.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I had been so sure, not too long ago, that being gay would mean my parents would never be able to accept me or want me home with them again. Now, I could see that they’d worked hard to change and to be the kind of family I needed. Even if my dad still wa
nted me to be “gay, but not gay,” he was trying. He was really trying, and that was a big step in the right direction. And Mom—she was a whole different story. She really wanted me to date. If I could see myself in the rearview mirror now, the Paul from two years ago in Philadelphia would never have believed it. Wow—was it really only two years ago that I thought I’d never go home again?

  I got up and helped Mom with the dishes, but when my phone rang, she soon sent me away to answer it. It was Taylor, and I ran upstairs to talk to him.

  “So, Marissa called me again,” he said, “and I answered this time.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To get back together.”

  I almost choked on my bottled water. “What? Seriously? What did you say?”

  “I said no.” His voice was confident, but a little sad.

  “Wow,” I said. “Is that—I mean—is that what you wanted to say?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I mean, if we had never broken up, that would be different, but now, with my internship coming up—I don’t know. I just don’t think I have the time for this right now, you know?”

  This was easily the most Tay had ever said about his relationship with Marissa to me since breaking up. I said, “That seems like the right thing, Reese. That seems really smart.”

  Taylor told me a little more about her phone call, and I could tell he just felt really sad about it. Having had a girlfriend for so long that he cared about so much was a big commitment; it was always going to hurt when it ended, if it ended. I listened to him, but I didn’t really know what to say in reply.

  When he said he felt guilty because Marissa was crying, I said, “Look, man, this was her choice, okay? She broke up with you. You don’t owe her anything now. If she’s crying because she regrets hurting you, well, then good. She should regret it.”

  “Ouch. Where is this ‘no mercy Paul’ coming from all of a sudden?”

  “It’s not ‘no mercy,’” I said. “It’s just that it isn’t fair for her to do something that hurt you, and then make you feel guilty about reacting to that. Like, you have no reason to trust her. You have no reason to make the kind of sacrifices you would have to make to get back together. She’s given you zero incentive to do that, so why would you? And if it makes her feel bad, then that’s on her. That’s all I’m saying.”