Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit

by Jaye Robin Brown

  “Maybe it will be okay.” I squeeze harder and nuzzle in closer.

  A doctor emerges from behind double swinging doors. “Mr. Gordon?”

  Dad hops up and goes over to her. Mrs. Foley follows. Tater stands with me and puts his arm over my shoulder. “Think we’re going to get our dinner?”

  I stare at him like he’s insane. “Does that matter?”

  “You’re right, sugar. Just trying to lighten the moment.” He doesn’t move his arm, just squeezes my shoulder tighter, and I lean in.

  Dad’s listening to the doctor in earnest, then he hugs her, a smile cutting his face. Relief courses through me. Elizabeth’s mom is smiling now, too.

  Dad motions for Tater and me to join them. “We’d hoped to tell you today, Joanna, then the whole family during dinner, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag. We’re going to have a baby. In mid-June.”

  “Going to?” I ask, hoping that means what I think it means.

  Dad nods. “God willing. The baby’s safe for today. Heart is still beating strong. But she almost miscarried and there’s still a risk. Elizabeth is going to need all our help for a bit. The doctor prescribed bed rest and no stress.” He looks at me. “You think you and Tater can rescue dinner after you say hi to Elizabeth? I’m going to stay and visit for a while and I know Elizabeth will want her mom to stay, too.”

  “Sure thing.” Tater squeezes me again. “Joanna and I will get it all ready to go. Though we might be having KFC instead of turkey.”

  Dad breaks down in tears. “I’m just so glad they’re going to be okay.”

  At home, Tater and I whip cream for the pies and reheat the sides. The turkey won’t be ready until it’s time for leftovers, so he takes my car and runs out for fried chicken. It leaves me with time to think. Three is pregnant. I’m going to be a sister. Dad’s going to have another child. A child who will grow up with Mrs. Foley as a doting grandmother and the fine people of Rome knowing it and loving it. A child who, in all likelihood, won’t be gay like me. My emotions are a twist around it. Happy, freaked, the tiniest bit jealous, maybe even worried. Will Dad love this baby more than me? It’s a stupid and irrational thought, but there it is.

  At around four, Elizabeth’s brother and wife and their two sons show up. Eventually Dad and Mrs. Foley arrive. We gather around the table and bow our heads. Dad leads us in a prayer to babies everywhere, and instead of seeming sad he seems hopeful and full of thanks. I squash down my insecurity. It is a day of gratitude. I smile at him and his eyes sparkle. I don’t often think about my mom but today I feel her in the room, and some part of me hopes she had a hand in talking that baby into sticking around a little longer. When we’ve all stuffed ourselves on KFC, sweet potatoes, and broccoli casserole, we lounge in the family room.

  I get out my old Chutes and Ladders game and set it up on the floor for the boys and me to play. The adults settle in chairs and Tater puts on ESPN with the volume muted.

  “How are you enjoying Pastor Hank?” Elizabeth’s mom asks me as she watches her grandsons roll the dice.

  “He’s nice,” I say. “Seems to like his job.”

  She makes a chipmunk noise under her breath.

  “What?”

  “I find him too liberal.”

  My dad speaks up at this. “Come on now, Virginia, the youth have a different way of looking at things, the world is changing, and some of those changes need to be interpreting the Bible for our current times. We can’t live our life based on a doctrine written two thousand years ago. It’s like jamming a square peg in a round hole.”

  “Anthony, I’m not getting into an argument with you today of all days, but I don’t enjoy your sermons either.” Mrs. Foley reaches out to her younger grandson’s head and strokes his scalp with her fingernails. He leans back against the couch, burying his little arms under the cushions.

  Dad smiles. “It’s okay. Each to his or her own, and today is too blessed to argue about interpretation of doctrine.”

  Elizabeth’s mom acquiesces with another throat noise and lifts her hand back from the top of little Dustin’s head. He pulls his hands from under the cushions. There’s an emerald green bra locked in his fist.

  Crap. I meant to nab that and take it back to my room but I completely forgot.

  “What do you have, Dustin?” His mom, my aunt I suppose, leans forward.

  He unfurls it. “It’s like yours, Mommy, just not as big. And green! Like the Hulk.”

  I grab it from him and feel the color heat my cheeks. “Um, sorry about that. It got tight while I was watching television.” I scramble to my feet.

  Dad’s laughing at my embarrassment. I’m just glad he doesn’t have any clue about the real reason it was shoved under the couch cushions.

  Later that night, after the dishes are put away, the leftovers parceled out to Elizabeth’s family, and Dad’s back home from the hospital again—Elizabeth refused to let him spend the night and leave me alone—we’re snuggled on the couch watching the first showing of Rudolph for the approaching holiday season. It’s like old times. Five months ago I would have been beating at the door to have a night like this, but tonight it feels stiff. I know he said he was going to tell me today they were pregnant, but I feel left out and the baby’s not even here yet. “Elizabeth and the baby are going to be okay?”

  Dad shifts to look at me instead of poor baby Rudolph, so different from the other reindeers. “With God’s grace, a dash of luck, and a sprinkling of the two of us doing all we can to help.”

  “You seem happy.”

  He mutes the television. “I am.” A pause. “Are you?”

  At a different time, this might have been the moment to ask about me and Mary Carlson and would it be all right if I had a girlfriend after all, but her comment still rings in my head. We’re going to light up Rome. On the television screen, Rudolph’s nose glows and the other reindeer boys laugh and jeer at him. He gets a happy ending, but not until he leaves, faces the Abominable Snowman and lands on the Island of Misfit Toys, causing a lot of angst and drama for his parents and Santa in the meantime. I tuck it away.

  “Yeah, I’m happy,” I say.

  “Brother or sister?” Dad asks.

  “What do you want?” I ask back.

  “Healthy, full-term. Alive.”

  “Same,” I say.

  Dad pulls out his phone and punches in the number for the hospital room. He puts it on speaker.

  “Hello?” Elizabeth sounds tired but not asleep.

  “Hi,” I say. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Grateful. And kind of hungry for Thanksgiving leftovers. Think you can bring me a plate tomorrow? But not too early or I won’t be able to stomach it.”

  Dad speaks into the phone. “I’m hoping you’ll get to eat those leftovers here tomorrow.”

  I chime in, “We’re your loyal servants.”

  “So you’re excited?” Three’s happiness flows through the phone.

  “Best news ever. You’re going to be a great mom, Elizabeth.”

  “And you’re going to be a great sister, Joanna.”

  She and Dad talk for another minute. I half listen and half watch Rudolph. I’ve never really thought about the parallel before. The misfit reindeer. The gay daughter. I’m just wondering how I’m going to get this new family of reindeer to see my nose as normal, without disrupting their flow.

  Twenty-Six

  DAD WAKES ME UP WITH his whistling. There’s another voice layered underneath the happy notes, but I can’t place it from upstairs. I change out of my sleep shirt and pull on a sweats and T-shirt combo and go in search of leftover pumpkin pie and coffee. I’m surprised to see Mrs. Foley sitting on a kitchen stool, in slacks, not her usual skirt and panty hose.

  “Good morning,” I say.

  “Good morning, sweetheart.” Dad’s voice rings across the room. Mrs. Foley lifts the edges of her mouth in acknowledgment.

  “What’s going on?” My step-grandmother’s appearance in our kitchen firs
t thing in the morning has the potential to be a serious buzz kill.

  “Virginia stopped in to chat about Elizabeth and what we might need for the next few weeks.”

  “Oh.” I bob my head in agreement even though I really want to cut past them toward the French press.

  “Yes,” she speaks up. “I’d suggested perhaps you could come live with us until Elizabeth and the baby are in the clear, but your father seems to think that won’t be necessary.” This time I see teeth as she lifts the corner of her mouth, and could it be, a slight creasing of the cheeks? Did her smile actually reach the upper limits of her face?

  Dad grinds the beans for me.

  I think about what she said. “In the clear?”

  Dad answers. “Yep. Doctor Klein has prescribed strict bed rest through the end of the year, maybe longer. Your baby brother or sister is already the ruler of the roost. We don’t want any shaking about while he or she nests for fear of flying away.” His whistling starts again as he fixes the press for me, then hands it off so I can put it on the stove top. When I get it going, he hugs me and doesn’t let go.

  “I’ve been explaining to Virginia how proud I am of you. How you’re settling in, how your grades are holding steady, and how you’d never do anything to put the baby at risk. You’re as excited as we are, aren’t you, big sis?”

  “Uh, yeah. It’s going to be awesome.” What kind of freak-a-zoid is jealous of an embryo? I can’t believe I even had a minute of thinking that way. If I were five it’d make sense, but at seventeen? Not so much. A baby. I’m going to be a sister. Which is great. But I wonder, will they let me tell my sibling I’m a lesbian? Or will it always be “Oh look, here’s your sister and her friend.” My promised tell-all deadline to Mary Carlson comes zooming into my frontal lobe and a feeling of dread follows on its heels. This baby on the brink complicates things.

  “And there’s one more thing I have to brag about when it comes to my eldest child.” Dad fishes through the week’s stack of mail and pulls out a crumpled piece of Wings of Love notepad paper with his chicken scratch penned all over it. “This got pushed to the side between the holiday and the miscarriage scare, but I have good news.”

  Mrs. Foley peers over the kitchen bar and I try to make sense of the page.

  “It’s the interest ratings for your first two episodes of Keep It Real.” His voice is teasing.

  My emotions lurch and I grip the counter. “And?”

  Dad dances me around in a little jig, then stops when we’re facing Mrs. Foley, his hand draped over my shoulder, the paper dangling like a National Religious Broadcasting Award. “Like father, like daughter. They love you.” Then to his mother-in-law, “You see? There’s no reason to think a teenager in the home is going to create stress for Elizabeth and the baby. Not when that teenager is my Joanna. Not when she’s convinced thousands of radio listeners to love her, too.” He pulls me to him and kisses the top of my head and I swear I feel its warmth sink through my skull, ricochet through my brain, circle around my heart a time or two, before settling at the pit of my stomach.

  The listeners need me. Elizabeth and the baby need me. Dad needs me.

  But Mary Carlson says she does, too.

  “Again? Is this becoming a thing with you?” Dana’s eyes go wide on the computer screen.

  “It’s a big day, Georgia versus Georgia Tech.” Dana had Skyped after Dad left for the hospital to see if I wanted to come down the next day for some after–Black Friday shopping, of the legal variety, with her mom.

  “Hold up. Let me get this straight. You, Jo Guglielmi, are going to a house filled with testosterone-laden guys more pumped up on testosterone than usual because they’re watching sports ball.”

  “I’m focused on the appetizers. Chicken wings. Artichoke dip. Little pecan pies. And Mary Carlson, of course.”

  “See, I knew this would happen. Blowing me off for the girlfriend. Becoming a small town sports dyke.”

  “Actually, I need your advice.” I fill Dana in on Dad and Elizabeth and my graduation gift of a sibling. How Elizabeth has bed rest orders from her doctor for the next four weeks.

  “So what’s the issue? Sounds like a fucking wonderful thing.”

  “The issue is that Mary Carlson has finally discovered herself and I’m the only thing keeping her from coming out to her friends and family. On the one hand, it’s completely rad how she’s owning it. She’s this fearless change warrior, not scared at all of the consequences.”

  Dana laughs. “Maybe I like her after all.”

  “But,” I say.

  “You’re worried about upsetting your apple cart.”

  “Yeah, I mean, the baby thing is a real issue, though I imagine Mary Carlson would understand. If she likes me enough, she’d keep hiding, right?”

  “So do you really want my advice?”

  “I do.” On the wall opposite my bed are the photos Mary Carlson printed out for me to hang up. Me and her and B.T.B. in a selfie snapped outside Paradise Gardens, the day of our first kiss. Another with George, Gemma, Betsy, and Jessica in the youth group room at church. And the bold one, of the two of us, cheek to cheek in a grin that gives it all away. At least I think so.

  Dana’s face gets serious on the screen. “Dude, remember how I said you have to tell her or break up with her?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Well, you have to tell her . . . or break up with her. You can’t keep this shit up.”

  I guess deep down it’s the answer I was expecting, though I hoped Dana would agree I could explain Three’s touchy pregnancy to Mary Carlson, play the sympathy card, get her to keep sneaking around with me for at least four more weeks, then deal with it after that.

  “Look.” Dana smiles through the computer screen. “This is not me being selfish, even though I do have one hundred and fifty legally earned dollars saved for our summer trip. This is me thinking about some chick in small town Georgia with a thousand-pound weight on her chest. If I were that girl, if I were ready to open it up for public viewing, I wouldn’t want some lying bitch trying to keep me hidden.” Dana shrugs and lifts her hands. “You haven’t really been open with her.”

  “Jesus, Dana, tell me how you really think.” I push the laptop away from me, but I also realize she’s right. It’s put-up or shut-up time.

  Dana leans closer to her webcam like she can reach me that way. “Look, Jo, don’t be pissed. But this girl, if you love her like you say you do, you’re going to need to let her do what she needs to do. And if it can’t be with you, you’ve got to be big enough to let go.”

  I can’t meet her eyes.

  She pauses, before continuing. “For whatever reason, your dad made this douche move . . . but . . . you agreed to go along with it. As much as I thought you were crazy, your radio show does have the potential to be cool for the multitudes of queer kids stuck listening to Christian radio in their parents’ cars. It’s even playing out how you planned. Reel them in, then bam, give them the good word of Jo.”

  I look up and her eyes meet mine. Her voice softens. “Now Three might lose her baby. You can’t jeopardize that because of a high school romance. You just can’t. And yeah, this Mary Carlson girl would probably keep hiding for you, but you can’t make that girl wait. What if some other excuse pops up? If the two of you are meant to be . . .” She makes her hands fly away, then return and settle above her heart.

  I feel the tears pushing up inside. This is Mary Carlson. My mind races through the memories we’ve already made. I don’t want to give her up.

  Dana taps the screen to get my attention. “Look at me. For starters, she won’t understand that you’ve lied to her from the beginning and will probably be pretty damn pissed. And hurt.” Dana shakes her head like she can feel the pain herself, which I guess given her recent experience isn’t so much of a stretch. “On top of that, what if she can’t stand the secret anymore and ends up slipping. Tells just one person to get it off her chest. And what if that one person is the wrong person.
Then it gets back to your Dad, your stepmom. Hate to tell you, but this, my friend . . . is a lie cyclone. The only way out is to jump while you have a chance to reach shore. Bad analogy, but this is a serious shipwreck in the making.”

  My mind flicks to Jessica or Mary Carlson’s dad or mom. It could even be B.T.B. How well do you really know what anyone’s reaction would be? I think about the things Three’s mom has said in casual conversation and can only imagine the shit storm of talk that’s going to happen among the families of Rome’s finest. “Fuck, Dana. Why did I even have to meet her?”

  “Aw, come on. Chin up. It won’t be that bad. Listen. If your dad eventually lets you be yourself again, and you’ve taken the high road by stepping away, you’ll seem like the admirable one. Like you were doing what was right all along. You can tell her some story about how you needed to start over with the truth. In the meantime, you’ll stay cool with your dad, keep life stress free for the baby, and eventually get to be a change maker for lots of queer teens. She’s just one girl, dude. You’re hot, and smart, and the kindest person I’ve ever known. You’ll meet someone else if it doesn’t work out. The timing’s off. Sometimes it works like that.”

  I don’t believe Mary Carlson’s just one girl. But I do know she’ll hate me if I don’t tell her the truth. Plus, she needs her own truth. Dana’s got a point.

  A point that’s chiseling a crack in my heart.

  Twenty-Seven

  I TOSSED AND TURNED ALL night thinking about staying together or breaking up, mixed in with images of my dad and Three and a tiny embryo trying to get out into the world to meet us. But I also pictured the crumpled ratings paper from the ministry. The pride in my Dad’s eyes. The kind words he said to Mrs. Foley. The people out there in radio land who are receptive to my voice.

  If I break up with Mary Carlson, I’m doing the right thing. I’m not interfering with her coming-out process. I’m not piling on shame by keeping her hidden. I’m keeping my promises and being respectful to my dad and Elizabeth.