by P. S. Power
Not that he cared personally.
If anything his family was only loosely Christian, not that they went to church or anything, but they didn't dance around sacrificing goats for the solstice either. His mom wanted to be a big deal in the local lawyer scheme so that meant that they were “Christian” if anyone asked. So they'd do Christmas. His mom hated it though. Probably because she felt so alone at that time of year, being when his dad had just left, almost without warning. Who didn't get lonely though? She really needed to find someone.
A few years before it would have been a little hard for him to take if she had. The whole “hope that the parents would reconcile” thing wasn't it though, just a bit of selfishness on his part. They got so little time together that sharing it at all would have been hard back then. He'd never said anything about it and she never brought anyone home for him to meet. Now though, well, he got how lonely the world could be. If she could find someone, he could deal.
Would deal.
Better than her working seventy hour weeks trying to hide from herself at least.
He got to bed just after ten, not having anything better to do. Sometime later he heard the front door open and close and a soft female voice. It was Joanie he realized, who sometimes got his mom back to the apartment to make sure it was safe and then slept on the sofa in the living room. That meant it was late. His mother didn't drive well if she got too tired. It was really cool of Joanie to make sure she got in like that.
Sleep returned and Josh didn't think about anything for a while. It was nice. He always liked that part of the night.
In the morning, sure enough, Joanie was camped out on the couch using her blanket and pillow, the ones they kept just for her in the linen closet. Her blond hair was tossed and she still slept, mouth hanging open a bit. It wasn't a pretty look for her, but then who'd judge a person by what they looked like in their sleep? Not wanting to bother her he just sat down and read the next color in the notebook.
Orange.
It took about half a page to work out that it was Craig, the guy that almost always had the lead in the plays. Good looking, popular and apparently filled with an extreme conviction that everyone hated him. It was just about the only thing he wrote about.
They all hate me.
It was overly dramatic, which fit the boy's personality perfectly, but also wrong. Horribly wrong. Everyone loved him. Everyone. He was a senior and had been voted class secretary without even running. Someone just suggested it and over three hundred people wrote him in. Only four hundred odd had even voted. It was huge. Josh didn't figure that four people in the whole school even knew his full name, much less three hundred.
He hates me most. The cold one. The monster. I know he's out to get me, to take my spot and the few friends I have.
Working through the book slowly, because Craig did not have good penmanship, he realized that “him” in this case was Marcus, who really did probably want the lead in the plays. They always vied for them. Craig had gotten the last three, even though Mark was better looking. Amy had gotten the female lead in Dracula the year before, as a sophomore, which was a bit of a coup, with Craig brooding his way into a decent Dracula performance. Marcus had some role in it too, but for the life of him, Josh couldn't place who he'd played at all.
By the end of the Orange pages, which was written in black ink, Josh kind of wondered if the guy was paranoid or just so stuck on himself that he thought everything in the world hinged on him?
There was a noise from the sofa behind him and a softly muttered word.
“Fuck?” Joanie said, which would have been under her breath if she wasn't five feet behind him. The woman blinked blearily, not having her contacts in yet. At this distance she was probably having problems making out who was in the room with her.
Josh turned and grinned, “well... OK, sounds fun... I think I'm under aged for this state though. What is the age of consent here anyway?” He said conversationally, the words just rolling out, because the woman, who had to be at least in her thirties was always playful with him. And cute. That made her fair game and... safe, since he knew that she'd just flirt back and not get mad at him.
Joanie looked at him, hair still a mess, no make-up on and lines on the side of her head, obviously shocked by what he'd just said. Or Josh thought so, for about six seconds. It was just acting though.
“God.” She said, her eyes going wide. “Sixteen. I just realized you're old enough.”
She ran across the few feet between them and hugged him, “take me darling!”
Then she let him go and they both started busting up loud enough that Mercy worked her way out to the living room looking exhausted still.
“Morning... What's so funny?”
Joanie winked at him, a huge and obvious thing. “Why, nothing, of course, sleep well?”
Mercy frowned, a look that wasn't real, but that didn't seem all that happy somehow anyway.
“I leave for a few hours and they all turn against me...” She shook her head, then smiled. “Coffee on the way to work? Or here? You have some clothes in the closet and the rest of what you need?” This got directed to Joanie who sighed and nodded, rubbing her eyes for affect.
“I'm into the shower then. Anyone want to join me?”
Mercy looked... shocked, almost taken aback. So much so that Josh nearly lost it again and started laughing, fighting the look off his face was impossible, but a hand over his mouth kept the sound in.
Barely.
Finally Mercy shook her head. “Don't corrupt my son yet, he's the only one I have after all.”
“Oh, alright. Just give me twenty minutes?” Joanie winked at him again on her way past.
Josh stared at her butt as she left the room. Not trim, but the nicest offer he'd ever gotten, joke or not. He sighed, but when he looked back, his mother was looking at him a bit angrily. He hadn't meant anything by the staring, but apparently she thought that he had?
Great.
Instead of the riot act about proper decorum around her coworkers or a discussion on hormone control, she pulled one of the chairs out and looked at all the stuff on the table.
“What's this?” She waved a little blearily reaching for the card first.
He nearly grabbed for it but then didn't. It didn't mean anything really, did it?
“Christmas card from my friend Amy. I guess I haven't been as good of a friend as I should be.” He wanted to leave it at that, but Mercy was a lawyer. A criminal lawyer. She caught the half story in his eyes and frowned at him, shaking her head.
“The whole thing Joshua, no half tales here.”
He... froze.
Really of the world's possible conversations, this was the one he least wanted to have with his mother. He'd have rather talked about sex again and that one had scarred him for life the first time. Still, who did he have to talk to about it? It wasn't a big deal. Not if he didn't make it into one.
“Uhg... I... OK, so there's this girl I like. I love her actually. I mean as in really love, capital “L” and all, as stupid as I know it sounds coming from a teenager. Amy. Only well, she's incredible and I'm... just me, so when she got a new boyfriend I just kind of backed off, because, you know, why cause problems? I want her to be happy, right? We just talked sometimes, so no big issue. I mean, it hurt a little, but I figured that she wouldn't notice at all, right? Apparently that chatting meant we were friends though, so now I have to do something to fix the mess I made or she'll think I hate her, which is the exact opposite of the problem.”
When he finished talking he blushed. It wasn't something he did a lot of but he could if the situation called for it. This one clearly did, so he decided to turn a deep scarlet color. Her gaze found his and she nodded somberly.
“I see. Well, that's less than perfect. Still, don't undersell yourself. Here's little a secret, when you're sixteen you always judge yourself way more harshly than anyone else ever does. You freak out over every zit and blotch on your face, worry about
wearing the right clothes constantly or if your hair is just so, and really, by and large it doesn't matter. Just smile a lot and be yourself. That doesn't mean you'll actually get the girl in the end, but if you don't give her the option of turning you down, you'll never know if it would have worked at all.” Mercy made a face at him, one that spoke of having been someplace similar herself, maybe more than once.
“Trust me in this. It's a thousand times better to be rejected out of hand now than to hold back and never know. That eats at you for years. Decades. Don't let that happen.” Her words held weight in them and she wrinkled her nose playfully. “Not that being turned down out of hand is all that great, but it really is better in the end, if that's the situation you find yourself in.”
Shrugging Josh smiled and held his hand out for the card, which got delivered quickly enough.
“You should put that up on the mantel. I was thinking that we'd decorate a little this year, if that's alright with you? I know that you'll end up doing most of it...”
Josh almost couldn't believe his ears. He tried to figure it all out for a second and then shook his head a little, in disbelief.
“Say again? I thought you were a little anti-holiday in general, especially this one. Something up I need to know about?” Josh was trying to be playful about it, but it was just the truth.
His mother made him fight each year for a small tree and while she got him presents without complaint he had a strong feeling that Joanie had actually picked them all for the last several years. They were pretty much best friends, his mom and Joanie.
Mercy had dark brown hair, which wasn't its real color, but she'd found out a few years prior that studies showed professional women with dark hair were taken more seriously. Her normal blond coloration shouldn't have worked with it, but somehow did. Her face looked odd though, strained suddenly. More than just tired. Worried? No... Scared.
“OK... well... I hadn't really planned to have this talk with you yet, maybe after you went off to college, but, well,” she gestured to the card from Amy. “I think you might be ready for it. I...”
She took a very deep breath and then held it.
After a few seconds she let it out with a soft hiss and shook her head. Josh just sat, wondering what it possibly could be that he'd be able to understand now. Some unrequited love? If so he might just have a handle on it. Awkward friendships too. He was halfway to expert there. He just needed to pass the test to get his black belt in that one.
Finally she looked down at the table and spoke softly, “I've... been seeing someone. For a long time. A couple of years actually. I didn't want to make your life more difficult, but I'd really like to actually be a family now, I don't know if it will work, or how you'll feel about it...”
He smiled encouragingly. After all, she needed a man in her life. It would be strange trying to get used to having someone new around, but he'd deal. She deserved to be happy, didn't she? If she had someone already, why shouldn't she have a real life? Worse come to worse, he was out of the house in a year anyway. A year and a half. Josh could suck it up.
“OK. I can set up the decorations and stuff. When do we meet? I guess I should get him a present or something. Which by the way you get to pay for, since I went all out on your stuff already. You really need to give me some time for things like that so I can plan ahead.”
Across from him his mother, who'd he seldom seen be anything other than very confident started chewing her upper lip.
“Um... well,” she took another deep breath.
“It's Joanie.”
Chapter three
“Oh,” Josh felt like his stomach had fallen out and hit the floor. It wasn't that he hated gay people, couldn't actually care one way or the other most of the time, if he was going to tell the truth. He certainly didn't think anything less of Sarah Teasdale for wondering who she liked, did he? Except that one of those people was Amy, and how could he blame her there? Who wouldn't like Amy? So the feeling was just that the whole thing kind of blindsided him.
That... was because he was a moron no doubt. Joanie was around nearly as much as his mom was after all. More sometimes. That really wasn't normal, was it? She slept on the couch though, when she came over, but a lot of times she left in the morning before he got up... Ah. Definitely stupid of him not to figure it out. She'd been “spending the night” for years.
Well.
Josh had just never thought of his mother as liking women. She'd been married after all. To a man and everything, and dad had left her for another woman, not the other way around. At least as far as he knew. It wasn't that big a deal, no matter how big his eyes went at the moment. He shook his head to clear it and then made himself smile.
“Right, well, at least I already like her, so it won't be all awkward that way. Now of course I have to feel bad about all the times I flirted with your girlfriend... No long term emotional fallout there, I'm certain... but I blame you for that, really, yeah, totally your fault there. No wonder you got that look on your face when I was checking out her behind. Hmph.” Josh crossed his arms trying for stern, but it came out goofy enough it caused laughter in his mom.
Then Mercy sobered her eyes worried still, “You're really OK with this, I... we wanted to go to the party together tonight, everyone knows at work, so it's not some big scandal, but they know not to say anything to you about it if...”
He snorted, something he'd worked on for drama class, that and a smoldering sexy look. It came up in acting situations, but the first one was more appropriate to the situation at hand. No “smoldering” with his mom. That would be creepy, even as a joke.
“Well, no need to bother with that kind of thing. I'm... just glad that you're happy. Both of you. That's the important thing.” Smiling he sat up a bit straighter, hoping he didn't sound too much like a silly little kid. “Though I do reserve the right to sit in the corner, dazed and not know what's going on later. This is kind of out of the blue for me. Maybe we should get my IQ checked to make sure I'm not mentally deficient? It's so obvious... now that I know. How I missed it all is surely a sign of something being very wrong with me.”
“You have a genius IQ and you know it. We had you tested, remember? You're also psychologically sound, if that child psychologist can be trusted.”
It had been a few years back, when he'd considered killing himself. He hadn't, so Mercy thought that it was all money well spent. Maybe it was, though he kind of thought that the extra attention from Merilee, the psychologist, was what had done it. Kept him going long enough to move forward on his own.
Standing she moved on him around the table and gave him a hug, which was a little odd for her. Not totally unheard of, but honestly he got more hugs from Joanie than his mom. Now he felt just a little bad for having enjoyed them as much as he did. Well, not his fault. Josh also wasn't sure he was going to stop. It was where most of his human contact came from.
As if summoned by the thought the woman herself came out of the bathroom, showered and dressed, and stood near them smiling.
“What's up?” She said, having woken up considerably. It made her sound more chipper and even more friendly than she had earlier.
Josh spoke first, figuring it would be less awkward that way. Maybe. Probably not. He did it anyway. Just in case it would keep his mom from several minutes of awkward stammering.
“Mom told me you two are dating. So you're spending Christmas with us, right? And from now on you two can actually share a bed, so I don't keep walking out and having to tiptoe around every weekend?”
The blond stood still for a minute, a full minute, looking first at him, and then Mercy, then back several times. He was still being hugged by his mom who nodded, happily he thought.
“It's true honey, Josh said he's fine with it and won't even check out your ass when you walk away anymore.” She started to chuckle which got them all going. It was funny in an awkward and utterly strange kind of way.
He shook his head though, catching Joanie's eye. Her
eyes were green, and kind of pretty even if her nose was a little big. So was Amy's though, so he kind of liked that about her. The girl had kind of reset what he thought of as attractive, hadn't she?
“That is definitely not true.” He held up his hand, palm out. “I mean I am fine with it, but I'm still going to totally check out your behind when you walk away. Not my fault if you have a cute butt. Wrong of me, I know, but there you go...” He shrugged in an exaggerated fashion for affect.
That started a lot more laughter and, a little awkwardly, Joanie joined the hug. It was nice. Familial. He'd deal with the rest as it came, or not, whatever. For now it was good enough.
They talked for a while, but only a few minutes, enough for him to feel better about the shock of things. It didn't matter, he kept telling himself. As long as they were both happy.
When Mercy went to get her own shower Joanie sat down and winced a little. A preemptive thing meant to keep him from talking.
“I didn't want to lie to you...”
This got waved away. “I get it. Though it wouldn't have been a big deal. This should be easier. What do you want for Christmas?”
“I... like scarves, or, you know, appropriate sex toys for the bedroom, that would be good, if you're cool with everything... You know, not going to let a few strange buzzing noises get to you... This could really open up our sex life, if we don't have to be nearly silent all the time when we're here.”
“Argh!” Josh covered his ears laughing. “Not that cool, not that cool!”
They always made each other laugh. The whole thing really could be worse, he realized. She was, in an odd way, kind of his friend already. There were some problems with it, but at least she wasn't someone that might just hate him when they met.
Looking at the table she picked up the notebook and then thumbed through it quickly, not reading just taking it in.
“Ooohh. I heard about this when I was in drama at Shilo. Crayons. It was a big thing. I was never cool enough for it though. Hmmm... Well,” She closed it without checking it out and handed it back to him. “It seems you are. Which makes sense, because you're totally awesome. I'd be jealous except I don't have to be a high school kid anymore and you do, so it all balances out.”
