The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy

by B. T. Gottfred

  FATHER PERSON

  Meeting is better?

  No. I don’t know. But I respond:

  ME

  Yeah.

  FATHER PERSON

  What works for you?

  Are you free tomorrow?

  No. Yes.

  Why’d you make me do this alone, Mom?

  ME

  Yeah.

  art

  I wake up in the morning to a room so cold I wonder if I slept until December. It’s past nine a.m., but outside it’s as dark as dusk and the clouds are black and that means, in Chicago in August, that it’s going to rain any moment. Not just rain. It’s going to pour.

  I close the window, get back under my covers, and check my phone because Zee must have texted me by now.

  Except she hasn’t.

  So I decide I’m not leaving the house until Zee texts me or the thunderstorm ends.

  Except there is no rain or texts by ten a.m.

  Nor by eleven a.m.

  Nor by noon.

  Nor by four point two minutes after noon.

  ZEE

  My dad …

  I don’t think I can call him that.

  Arshad … yeah, okay … Arshad suggested we meet at a coffee shop called The Forest, which is next to Lanrete Laedi College on the far north side of Gladys Park. No one from Riverbend that I knew ever went to that part of town, as it was a bit sketchy. And strange. But I preferred sketchy and strange to being seen by anyone, so I told him yeah.

  Laedi College is this small private school for experimental artists, so it draws an eclectic collection of kids from around the country, even the world. Gladys Park itself is already strange enough. It was the manufacturing headquarters for Triple S Motors a hundred years ago and then when Triple S went under during the Great Depression the city became a ghost town until Laedi College opened in the 1970s. They finally opened a train station connecting Gladys Park to Chicago a decade ago, which started the ongoing transition from dead industrial city to up-and-coming suburb. All this means that Gladys Park—with its mix of artsy college kids, new suburbanites, and ancestors of a ghost town—makes for a dark, mysterious sister town to the Disney-ish sheen of Riverbend.

  I know a ton about Gladys Park because my mom grew up there (her grandfather worked at the Triple S factory during the depression) and we lived there on and off during my childhood depending on my mom’s job—or lack of job—situation. But Riverbend’s school system is better, so she always made sure we had a Riverbend address when registration time came around.

  * * *

  Even though I knew a bunch about Gladys Park’s history, my mom and I had never explored much of the north end. Like I said, sketchy. And so, even though The Forest is sort of famous as far as coffee shops go, I had never been there. Or seen it. So it isn’t until I park out front that I realize it’s located in a century-old gray brick factory building. A gigantic gray brick factory building surrounded by other gigantic factory buildings except the other ones are missing walls and roofs. These surrounding ruins blot out the view of the college campus to the east and Gladys Park downtown back to the south and make me feel like I’ve walked into black-and-white archival footage of post–World World II Berlin.

  And then after I pass through a stone revolving door—yeah, stone—the inside of the café is even more trippy than the outside.

  Trees.

  Yes, trees.

  A lot of trees. Guess that’s why they call it The Forest.

  And so much green on top of the trees, grass and plants and birds and, listen, this is a just a huge green house, like you would find on a space station in an old science-fiction film. Even though it’s this super-bizarre dark, cold, cloudy summer day outside, inside it’s super bright and warm. There are tables on cobblestone paths and students reading books on small hills as if everyone forgot that this isn’t a neighborhood in Paris or New York but the inside of a football-field-sized coffee shop in Midwest suburbia.

  I drift down one of the paths toward the center of the cafe where there is a tree-free clearing and a large circular bar with a half dozen baristas working cash registers and espresso machines. A bunch of red leather booths, most of them filled, line the ridge of the clearing. Tiny tables and wiry chairs fill the space between the booths and the bar. I sit down in one and, yeah, I guess I just have to wait … but …

  All the surreal visual stimulation combines with the terror of meeting my dad to make me nauseous. I could have used the predictable environment of a Starbucks, Arshad! Christ. I almost text him I couldn’t make it—how am I going to spot him anyway? I still have no idea what he looks like. I mean, I guess he could look like me, but I can’t help thinking he’ll be this male version of my mom. Small, pale, soft. But two of that type wouldn’t make one of me. I should have asked to be texted a picture. Or, Mom, you could have shown me one!

  God, I want her here.

  * * *

  I should leave. But I can’t. Don’t know why.

  As I sit in this stiff chair that has one uneven leg, in the middle of this crazy coffee shop with its trees and factory stone walls, waiting to meet a man who is fifty percent of the reason I exist, I notice this boy staring at me.

  A boy. A guy. My age probably. Sitting by himself at a booth, legs up on the seat, paperback book open in his lap.

  Boys don’t usually stare at me (besides Art), so it adds another degree of anxiety to my already off-the-charts level. The boy is dressed in black jeans, black Nikes, and a bright white button-down, sleeves rolled. His skin is darker than mine, and he has this mini-Afro that I’m weirdly jealous of. And I’m trying to look away, but I’m starting to freak out inside and I never freak out and then I notice his eyes—and it’s pretty odd I can notice his eyes from twenty feet away—and they’re green. Puncturing-my-brain green. So green eyes and probably—no definitely—the most aesthetically perfect face I’ve ever seen. Who is this must-be-a-supermodel-from-another-dimension and why is he staring at me while I’m waiting to meet a man who abandoned me before I was born?

  “Zee?” A voice. Behind me.

  I jump. Literally fucking jump. Not high. My heart feels like it jumps right through the skylights a hundred feet above me, but my actual body just lifts a couple inches off the chair. I mumble yeah, I think, or sort of, and I turn and there’s this man.…

  I should have left.…

  I want to run or scream help … but I can’t do that, can I? No, because this man … this man is … damn, I wish it wasn’t … but it is … this man standing next to my table, waiting for me to respond to him … this man is my dad.

  art

  “She’s not going to text you if you keep looking at your phone,” Bryan says.

  “Yes, she will because I’m sending telepathic text messages,” I say, and then I shoot his Call of Duty character in the head even though we’re supposed to be working as a team.

  “Bitch.” He’s called me this seven times since I showed up at his house out of a desperate need to not be alone.

  “Should we start calling hospitals?” Because amnesia is the most logical scenario I’ve conjured up so far as to why Zee hasn’t texted me in twelve hours.

  “Oh-my-god, Art, next time you want to talk about Zee, please remove my fingernails instead. I’d enjoy it more.”

  “Friends are supposed to listen sympathetically when the girl their friend loves has vanished!”

  In response, he shoots my character in the head. His mother descends the stairs holding a snack tray filled with cute tuna sandwiches—crust cut off because Bryan gets whatever he wants except me—and Arnold Palmers over ice. In her sweet but secretly evil way, she says, “Did I just hear you have a girlfriend, Art? That’s wonderful. Does she have a friend you can set Bryan up with? I just know he’d make the right girl so, so happy.”

  Bryan sinks into his recliner, probably wishing it would swallow him up and take him to a new house with new parents who want their kid to be happy more than they want thei
r kid to be straight.

  I say to her, “Bryan would make the best boyfriend ever to whatever person was lucky enough to get him.” See how I went gender neutral? I’m awesome.

  “He would. He’s so lucky to have a friend like you, Art,” she says, this chirpy innocence in her voice. Bryan’s mom really is nice. If it’s later discovered she skins cats alive and then eats their boiled flesh I won’t be surprised in the slightest, but besides that possibility—and, of course, her medieval homophobia—I just adore her.

  * * *

  After his mom goes back upstairs, I shoot Bryan’s character in the head just because and ask, “When are you telling them?”

  “Never. Don’t be a bitch.”

  “Quit using that word. You sound like a stereotype brainwashed by the Bravo channel.”

  He shoots me in the head. It’s that kind of day.

  “I’m serious, Bryan, just tell your parents. They’ll get over it faster than you think.”

  “When are you telling your parents?”

  Ugh.

  “I’M KIDDING, ART!” He’s so dramatic. I love it.

  I say, “Unlike my parents, who barely register I exist, your parents worship you. They will throw themselves a two-day pity party and then start pointing out boys you should ask out.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You hate that you love me.”

  “BITCH!”

  “Ugh, stop saying that! You’re my best friend because you’re original!”

  Bryan is pouting because he’s always looking for a reason to pout.

  “Art, do you even know why people have kids?”

  “Of course I do: because they hope they hit the lottery and have me as a son.” I’m the best.

  “They have kids,” Bryan begins, after calling me a bitch with just his eyes, “because they want to have little versions of themselves so that those little versions will have more little versions of themselves. Basically, people have kids so they can delude themselves into believing they have cheated death and are now immortal. So do you know what happens when two people have one child and that one child is gay?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “The delusion of immortality dies. IT IS MURDERED BY GAY CHILDREN! And when the delusion of immortality dies, a part of them feels like they’re already dead. That’s why my parents and other parents are terrified their kids are gay. All the church, religious, moral stuff is just a bunch of baloney. It just allows parents not to have to admit the truth. Saves them from having to sit down, look their kid in the eyes, and say, ‘But, Bryan, we only had a child so you would have a child so that our DNA can live forever and now that you have killed our family tree we wish you were never born so we could travel more.’”

  Um, wow. Honestly, this is the most intelligent thing Bryan has ever said besides “Art, you’re the best person ever.” Ha, ha. I’m sorry for making jokes! It’s uncomfortable to discover your best friend might have all these profound thoughts in his head he has never shared with you!

  My lack of response leads to him shouting, “Why aren’t you saying anything?!”

  “Because…” Oh, just one more joke. “… I’m finding you attractive for the first time ever.”

  And Bryan is out of his recliner, hoisting me out of mine, and body-slamming me into the couch so fast that if that were a sport, he would be the world champion. “You’re so annoying!” he says as he’s shaking me up and down against the cushions.

  I have to say, “Okay, I submit. You can kiss me.”

  Except my joke doesn’t inspire more unrequited love physical frustration. Nor does he laugh. He lets me go and falls back to the floor, pounds all four of his limbs against the carpet in a three-second temper tantrum, and then goes still.

  Ugh, I’m such a jerk. I crawl on the floor next to him and try to hug him. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I really am! But he pushes me off of him. Doesn’t even look at me. Just keeps staring at the ceiling. So I start my apology again. “That was…” Time to be sincere. “… beautiful. Everything you said. Seriously, I’m sorry I made those jokes. I just do it because…”

  “Because you’re a bitch.”

  And he smiles, so I smile, and continue, “… because it’s how I deal with tension and heavy stuff like your so-brilliant-we-should-put-it-on-YouTube-and-get-a-billion-views explanation of your parents’ weird gay fears. I mean, really, you might be almost as smart as me after all.…”

  He kicks me. A best friend kick.

  “Bryan, I do love you…”

  “Just not in ‘that’ way…”

  “I wasn’t going to say that!”

  “I WAS MAKING A JOKE, ART! You don’t have a monopoly on funny!”

  I mean, I almost do. Ha.

  From lying down, he jumps to his feet without using his arms. Jeesh, he’s like the best athlete in school and nobody knows. He says, “Come on, let’s go run a mile or eat Ben and Jerry’s until we feel sick.”

  ZEE

  My dad’s Arab. Or Middle Eastern. Or something this sheltered and shallow suburban white girl never thought he’d be. But my cracking identity points out this means I’m not even really white anymore.

  He’s tall. Thin like me. His hair is thick, curly, in a ponytail that falls to the top of his back. His beard needs to be trimmed, especially the gray splotches. He’s dressed annoyingly similar to me: cargos (gray), hoodie (gray), and work boots (brown). Did he see a picture of me and think this would be a way to fucking bond?

  I hate the way he looks. I hate myself for feeling it and I hate myself for agreeing to meet him and I hate myself for being related to him.

  “Zee?” he says a second time. But I don’t jump again, don’t say anything. I just go rigid. Like if I’m still enough, he won’t be able to see I’m there. I’m psycho right now. Totally psycho. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  I guess I nod my head, because Arshad—definitely not calling him Dad—sits in the chair across the tiny table from me. (I should have gotten a booth so there’d be more distance between us. Fuck.)

  “I’m, uh…” he starts because I sure as hell am not saying anything anytime soon, “… this is hard, isn’t it?”

  Not answering.

  He looks up. Looks around. He looks nothing like me. Or maybe he does. I have no idea because his existence has made it impossible for me to form a mental picture of myself right now. I feel so far away from my mom right now. Like she never existed. Like I should have never existed. Fuck you, Arshad, for making me feel this way. He starts again, “This place … have you been here before?”

  “No.” I speak. I can speak. For now.

  “… I thought your mom … We, uh…” He’s a fucking mess. Be a man, Arshad! This is awkward because of YOU. “… we met here … I thought maybe…”

  “I didn’t know you were alive until the day she died.” Don’t cry. Not in front of him. Don’t you fucking dare.

  “I wondered … that’s good to know. So did Katie tell you anything about me?”

  I have so much and so little to say all at once. All I say is, “No.”

  “Okay … well, is there anything you’d like to know? I’m sorry. That’s a strange question. But…”

  He stops, hopes I’ll save him. No way.

  “… I’d much rather hear about you. Your mom told me a lot over the past two years. But I’d love to hear about … school. Or CrossFit? Or Cam?”

  Fuck you. No. He waits again. He’s about to bumble on again, but I can’t take this any longer. So, fuck it, I ask, “Why’d you abandon us?”

  My question isn’t a slap to his face; it’s a shotgun blast. His eyes close. As if deciding if the blast killed him or not. When he opens them, something’s different. I don’t know what exactly. “You deserve every truth I have to give,” he says, his nervous stammering replaced by some kind of wannabe-poet bullshit.

  “Yeah,” I say, because I do, and because he deserves nothing else.

  “I told your mom…” Agai
n, he closes his eyes. OWN IT, ARSHAD! “… after she told me she was pregnant … I told her … that if she didn’t get an abortion, that she would never see me again.…”

  * * *

  I laugh.

  Truly. I laugh.

  The man who put his dick in my mom to create me just told me he wanted to murder me in her womb and abandoned us when she refused and I fucking laugh.

  * * *

  He tries to talk, to explain, to something, but I’m free—I’m so fucking free of pretending I care about connecting with this stranger—and so I smile at him, the biggest “fuck you” smile ever smiled, and say, “Bye,” and I’m gone.

  * * *

  Up, walking, outside, in the truck. SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM.

  And breathe.

  Start it up, drive.

  Mom! Mom, Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mom … Mom …

  Tears. So tired of tears. Mom …

  I grab my phone and—

  art

  At four point two minutes after two, it still hasn’t started raining and Zee STILL HASN’T TEXTED ME, so I let Bryan drag me to Ben & Jerry’s in downtown Riverbend. Only, I do something dumb and tell Abigail that’s where I am going, not thinking—not thinking at all!—that she’d show up there with Cam.

  “What is he doing here, Art?” Bryan asks the moment he sees Cam walk into the store with Abigail.

  “Oh, boy” is all I can utter because Cam used to pick on Bryan (and sometimes me) in grade school, called him “faggot” and other Neanderthal insults. He only stopped picking on him when Bryan got Cam in a headlock in the sixth-grade boys’ bathroom and told him if he didn’t stop calling him names, then Bryan would beat him up in public next time and the whole school would know that “Cam the Jock got beat up by Bryan the Faggot.” It was my favorite thing Bryan ever said until his True Origins of Homophobia theory in his basement an hour ago.

  Since I haven’t answered Bryan, and neither Abigail nor Cam has said anything, Bryan stands up as if ready to fight. “What are you doing here?”