To the Max

by Julie Lynn Hayes

  “I don’t know. Why, does it matter?”

  “No, no reason,” she waffles, pulling on her oven mitts and taking a casserole out of the oven. Damn, but she’s acting odd.

  “What did you want help with?” Conference over, back to the battlefield again. In answer, she makes three plates, hands me two, follows me in with the other. I lay one before “our” (read “her”) guest. Sit down with mine. Pour myself more wine, don’t need his help or permission, thank you kindly. And no, I am not being childish. Chug it, hoping it will relax me a little bit.

  Or not.

  “You are truly blessed to have a mother like Juliet.” Damn, he’s talking again. “And a good friend like Amy.” I concentrate on my dinner, mumble something.

  Luckily he needs no encouragement to keep flapping his gums. Just another body in the same room. Although I suspect that when he’s alone, he’s more than happy to talk to himself. I sneak a peek at my mother. She sits there, apparently transfixed by this man. Her eyes have this strange glow, as if she’s been secretly irradiated by some of the fallout from Chernobyl, her lips parted in some sort of breathy anticipation. Damn, I don’t like this. Not one little bit. I make a mental note to discuss the Amy aspect of this with Rachel, find out what she knows about it. Or about any of it, actually.

  Now he’s talking about his plans for the expansion of the church, raising funds to build a new structure on some land that has been very generously donated by one of the church patrons. I am only half-listening, working on getting sloshed and not actually interested, but my attention is caught when I notice Juliet’s blush at those words, and I raise my head to watch her now. Don’t tell me she’s funding the son of a bitch? Not that I care what she does with her money—it’s hers after all. I’m doing very well myself, Richard and I are financially secure, and we always tell her to enjoy her life, spend my inheritance, and Diana’s too (which usually earns me a smack from my sister). But I hate to see her throwing it away on this creep and his sideshow.

  He seems to be going out of his way to be friendly to me. Very friendly. And yet patronizing at the same time. My mother has inched her chair closer to his, listening intently as he pontificates on this, that, and the other thing. Dinner ends, and still he goes on. And on. And on and on and on…. Ad infinitum.

  More wine, please. I see I’ll have to find another bottle soon, if I keep lapping it up at this rate. Juliet has stopped paying attention to how much I am drinking, luckily. ’Cause I anticipate drinking more.

  A noise attracts my attention, the front door actually. I cock my head, listening. It might be Diana, or Jackson, but I am hoping that it’s—

  It is. It’s Richard. Thank goodness! I’d know his step anywhere. He enters the house without knocking, naturally, passes by the living room, now he’s entering the dining room, and he’s right here with us. At last, I breathe a sigh of relief. I barely have time to notice the peculiar look of dismay on my mother’s face—no time to analyze it either—my lover is standing behind me now, one arm wound round my neck, while one hand tilts my head back for a kiss, smiling at me warmly. “Hello, love.” Either Richard hasn’t noticed the stranger in our midst, or he is too intent on me to pay him any attention. I prefer to think the latter.

  I say hello with my lips. Nothing says I love you better than a good kiss. Unless, of course, you own stock in Hallmark.

  Richard slides into the chair next to me, scooches it over by me, and remembers his manners. “Hello, Juliet,” he greets her. Then he looks toward the now silent minister.

  Which is when I realize that he is indeed silent, whatever diatribe he had been spouting cut off mid-sentence. He is looking at us oddly, almost in some sort of disbelief, and I can see him and Juliet exchange glances. This can’t be good, I think to myself, even as he rises and excuses himself, leaving the room, Juliet hot on his heels after giving the two of us an enigmatic look of her own.

  “Who the hell’s that? And where’s your new girlfriend?”

  “Reverend Fuckface from that quack church of Amy’s. No girlfriend, just him.”

  “Ah, I see,” Richard says thoughtfully.

  I turn to face him, still wondering what the hell is going on.

  “Darlin’.” He answers my unspoken question. “I think I see a problem here.”

  “Problem? What problem? What do you mean?”

  “I think the preacherman is a homophobe.”

  Goddamn, no wonder she wanted me to call Richard, so that he wouldn’t show up while loverboy is here.

  Oh good Lord, save me from anti-gays, and religious ones at that.

  Fighting prejudice to the max. But in my own home?

  Chapter 12

  Serpent’s Tooth Reversed

  I SIT at my computer, hands poised on the keys, ready to type, wanting to type, needing to type. The letter which I am attempting to answer waits patiently on the screen for me to deliver my sage words of wisdom. But I cannot type. My fingers refuse to cooperate with me, mainly because my mind is too far from what I am supposed to be doing, which is solving the problems of my reading public, but it is locked instead on what happened at my mother’s the night I met him. The night she and I got into the biggest fight we’ve ever had in my life.

  It’s bad enough when a mother tries to set up her gay son on blind dates—and not just any blind dates, but with women for crying out loud!—and tries to connect him with any female she can put her hands on no matter how incompatible or how unsuitable (and believe me, all women are simply incompatible to and unsuitable for me, and always will be), but then when that same mother tries to deny her son for who and what he really is, which is what it comes down to, after all, all I can say is that it really hurts.

  Almost as if my fingers have a mind of their own, I find myself bringing my Yahoo! search engine onto the screen, and I type “Reverend Terranova Fisher” and click on search. Interesting. The first match I find is the official website for the Church of Divine Providence. So, this obnoxious man with antiquated thinking is modern enough to be acquainted with the power of the Internet, is he? There he is, the smarmy bastard, a fairly recent picture, I see, and there all his adoring parishioners, or followers, or whatever they are. I press my face closer to my flat screen and peer intently at the image. The figures standing behind him are a little indistinct, but I can still make out my mother. And Amy. Both wearing the same glazed expression, the same look of rapture, as if they have just witnessed the Second Coming or something.

  Gah!

  JULIET managed to somehow talk him into coming back into the room, and it was if nothing untoward had happened. He apologized for his actions, claiming some bullshit about a sudden attack of indigestion. Right.

  And then he began to pontificate again. Damn. At the same time, he was spreading the preacherly charm on with a trowel and my mother was eating it up. Richard laid his hand on my knee beneath the table, anchoring me, keeping me from exploding. He can be very perceptive at times, especially when it comes to me. In most ways except one, that is.

  Mother served dessert: a black forest cheesecake she had made herself. I barely tasted it, even though normally I love this particular confection, and I usually tend to inhale it. My appetite was just a little off, although I had no problem with the wine.

  Fisher tried to get on my good side. “I enjoy reading your column every morning. I find it quite amusing.”

  Feeling my mother’s glare on me, I managed to mumble something resembling thanks or I’m glad.

  “Max is a very talented writer,” Richard spoke up, which earned him a grateful smile from me. He squeezed my knee reassuringly in response.

  “Yes, he is a very talented writer,” came a voice from behind me. Oh, oh, what now? I didn’t have to look to know whose voice that was, and within seconds I could see her, using my most excellent peripheral vision, as she greeted my mother with a big hug, shook the Reverend Dimwit’s hand, and headed toward Richard and myself.

  “Surprise, Max!” Amy s
miled at me. I hugged her, of course, and so did Richard. Was it my imagination or did she give him a strange look? Or maybe it was just too much wine on my part.

  She made herself at home at the table, as my mother cut her a piece of the cheesecake. “It’s only a matter of time ’til Max’s column is in every country in the world!” Amy boasted.

  “I don’t know about that,” I demurred, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. Will someone please change the topic of conversation? Now?

  “Well, I do,” Amy continued. “You’ll have the world beating a path to your door, sweetie, and they’ll simply adore you, like everyone that knows you does.”

  At about this point, I wanted to crawl underneath the table and quietly expire.

  “I have an idea!” my mother exclaimed, clapping her hands together with enthusiasm. I braced myself and squeezed the hand on top of my knee. “Max, why don’t you play for us? Max is quite the pianist.” She turned toward her would-be boyfriend; it was obvious to even me now that she had quite a thing for him, and it seemed to be requited. He smiled the requisite polite smile of dubious interest, spoke the proper words of encouragement.

  “No, I don’t think—” I tried to get out of it, but Amy had already taken up the cry, “Yes, Max, do please play something for us!”

  It was Richard’s endorsement of the proposed project that threw me for a loop. Surely he knew I didn’t want to be paraded like the prize hog at the county fair? But when I looked at him in surprise, I saw that his beautiful blue eyes were gleaming, and I realized that he had ulterior motives. So I swallowed my pride and agreed. “Sure,” I said, trying to be gracious about it, as both he and I rose at the same time. I began to see what he had in mind, especially when he added for the benefit of the room, “The piano isn’t hard at all to hear in here, is it, Max?”

  Ah ha! “No, no,” I hastily agreed, “it’s quite loud, actually. You’ll be able to hear it quite clearly.” And before anyone could protest or make a move to join us, or even make a request, we hightailed ourselves out of the dining room, down the hall, and into the family room where the piano sat. And kissed one another most thoroughly before sitting down together at the bench. There was always room for two on that thing, a fact we had discovered many years before.

  “Wanna make it a duet?” I asked, flexing my fingers, my joints popping like bubble wrap.

  He shook his head, stroked my hair softly. “I want to listen to you play, love,” he said softly, his eyes so warm and adoring that I simply melted at his look. “Play the sonata, will you?”

  How could I refuse? I took a moment to prepare myself mentally before I laid my fingers against the keys and began filling the house with Beethoven’s immortal work. And appropriately, a thumbnail moon was just visible through the French doors that led to the backyard, as well as to the swimming pool. And although, as you know, I am not a fan of that particular orb, tonight I found it enchanting. Swimming pool? Hmmm, interesting possibilities began to insert themselves into my mind. Was there any way to get rid of the church crowd in the other room? Somehow I doubted it. Too bad. I wondered what they would think if I just said, excuse us now, we’re going to go out in the pool and shag, so if you don’t mind not coming outside ’til we’re done? Thanks kindly! Yeah, like I had the balls to do that.

  Richard leaned in to me as I played. It didn’t bother me at all; I had learned a long time ago how to concentrate on my playing, even when he was talking to me or when he simply breathed warmly against my ear. We had even experimented with what kinds of sexual intercourse could be carried on without disrupting the flow of the music. You’d be surprised at what we found out. Maybe we’ll publish the results of our research some day. But at the moment, I knew that wasn’t going to happen, so I knew that he must want to talk.

  “Don’t let them get to you, sweetheart,” he murmured, “everything will be all right.”

  I sighed deeply. “I can’t help it. I’m a worrier.”

  “I know you are, babe, but I won’t let anything happen to us, I promise.”

  I turned my head to regard him—it’s not like I was looking at any actual sheet music, anyway, so there was no need for me to look at the keys—and our lips came together softly, lightly, no urgency, just love. Soothing, nurturing love.

  “There will always be ignorant people like him in the world, we can’t change that.”

  “But my own mother?” I whined, never missing a beat. Musicwise, I mean.

  “She loves you, Max, you know that,” he reassured me. “Give her a little time, that’s all. She’ll see him as he really is.”

  I wasn’t nearly as confident as my lover, as I changed from the allegretto to the presto agitato.

  And where did Amy fit into the scheme of things? I knew instinctively that she did, somehow. I just didn’t know how.

  “It’s you and me, babe, all the way.”

  So nice, so very, very nice… getting lost in his words now, in his touch, and in his love, and for once I forgot what I was doing at the keyboard, as I simply stopped playing. God, Richard, oh God, your kisses drive me crazy even after all these years. You’d think I’d be immune to that particular thrill by now, but I’m not. He’s got my heart doing a samba as I simply moaned and returned his kiss with all the love that I could possibly impart through my meager lips.

  It’s not until I hear a disquieting cough from the doorway that I became aware of what I was doing—or not doing actually—as I opened my eyes, turning them toward that sound. Shit! They were all standing there, grouped together like a disapproving Greek chorus. The condemnatory jury. I started to pull away, as if I had been caught doing something I shouldn’t have, but he wouldn’t let me. He’s a braver soul than I am. He put a defiant arm around my shoulder and simply faced them down.

  There was complete and total silence, which was broken at last by Richard’s exaggerated yawning as he moved his arm and pretended to stretch. “Max, I think we should go home and go to bed, love. We have a busy day tomorrow.” It took all my self-control not to burst out laughing at this.

  I decided against asking the Right Reverend Bigot if he liked what he heard. Why push it?

  We made our good-byes and headed gratefully out the door. Freedom! I breathed a big sigh of relief to be out of there at last. It had been a damn long evening. All I wanted at that moment was to go home, with my Richard, and forget about all of this. I spoke too soon.

  “Max?” Damn. My mother. Right behind us. She caught up to us, the leftover cheesecake wrapped up in tinfoil in her hands. “I thought you might like to take this home with you.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I took it from her.

  “Thanks, Juliet, you know how much I love your desserts.” Richard smiled, ever the gentleman.

  “Um, Richard, would you mind?”

  He kissed me sweetly. “I’ll go start the car,” he said aloud, but then, only loud enough for me to hear, he whispered, “Love you. Stay strong.”

  My mother waited ’til he had actually started the Monte before she began to speak. “Max, I’d like to see you at church with us.”

  “Mom,” I whined, “you know we don’t go to church.”

  “Then you come, with Amy.”

  My eyes narrowed angrily. “You want me, but not Richard, is that it?”

  “If he doesn’t want to come—”

  “I said we don’t go to church. Remember that: he and I are a we, no matter what you might like or what your holier-than-thou friend might like—”

  “Don’t talk about Terranova that way!”

  “Why? You don’t seem to care how you talk about Richard. When will he ever be good enough for you?”

  “He’ll never be good enough for you!”

  I thought of oh-so-many things that I could have said to her, epithets I could have hurled, insults I could have slung, but I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it, even though she had just stabbed me right in the heart. “Staying strong,” I muttered to myself. Instead, I pushed the cheesecake
back into her hands. “Feed it to him!” I snarled, and I turned around without another word, got into the Monte, so mad that I was actually shaking as I slid over as close to Richard as I could get. He didn’t ask me anything, just put the car into gear, wrapped his arm about my shoulder, and we pulled silently away.

  I didn’t even look back.

  THAT was Friday night. Today’s Monday, and I still can’t get it out of my head. And worse, I can’t even work.

  I refused to answer the phone all weekend, petulantly shut it off, no communication with the outside world whatsoever. Never set foot outside the house once. I re-organized my books, cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, scrubbed the floors, and blasted Tchaikovsky’s cannons ’til even Richard had had enough and took the CD away from me. But to be fair, he didn’t leave my side once, and every time that I needed him, he was there for me. And I needed him quite a bit.

  I hear the front door open and shut. Shit! How long have I been staring at this thing, and not a bloody word to show for it? I hear him clattering in the hall closet, putting some of his equipment up. He tends to be very careful with that, as a lot of it is rather expensive stuff. The cameras themselves get stowed in our room for safekeeping. He heads that way now, putting the cases into our joint closet. I know his routine as well as I know my own.

  He’s standing behind me now, and I know he’s looking at the screen. This is the same screen he saw me staring at when he left me this morning. Great progress, Max. Good thing I’m always ahead of my deadlines. But still…. He winds his arms around me, hugs me tight; his lips are soft, his voice encouraging. “I think someone needs a break.”

  “From what?” I ask, but I only half-heartedly resist as he pulls me away from the computer and walks me out onto the front porch. He sits down lengthwise on our big porch swing, the one that came with the house, the one we fell in love with the moment we saw it. And yes, we’ve broken it in, a long time ago. He takes my hand, pulls me down onto the swing to fill the space between his legs, his arms going around me as I settle into place, leaning against his warmth, his security. He shifts his weight to start the swing moving in a gentle arc, and I am content to just lie there in his grip. It is hours before we move again.