“You talk to her yet? Tell her what’s going on with you?”
“You know I haven’t. She’ll tell my dad. And Glenda, the stepwitch. It’s over when that happens.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Jed said. “I mean, I didn’t freak out when you told me you were gay, did I?”
“Yeah, but you’re different. It’s not like you could do anything about it. But my dad? Oh, he’s gonna do something terrible.”
Jed turned toward Noel. “Hey, man, to quote Geraldine Gilbert, the world-famous psychologist, ‘it is what it is.’”
Noel had started wondering what was wrong with him when he was thirteen. When he was sixteen he fell for a guy in his theater class and realized he’d known since way before he was thirteen, he just couldn’t put a name to it. He’d told Jed when they were both seniors. Jed wasn’t the perfectly evolved high school senior; the news caused him to jump back about six feet in shock and probably fear. His best friend, gay? That just wasn’t right.
But Noel and Jed had grown up in a part of the world where being gay wasn’t exactly breaking news. Plus Jed had a mom who dealt with difficult issues on a daily basis and while being gay in itself might not be a case for a social worker, coming out was rough, and could lead to all kinds of issues that ended up in case files. Jed’s dad worked with a few gay guys in the prosecutor’s office and what homophobic attitudes Jed might have expressed when he was younger were pretty much worked out of him by the time he hit junior high.
But Noel’s dad, Rick, the football coach, was a classic homophobe. He made frequent bigoted remarks about fairies, limp-wristers, queers. Not around the high school where he taught and coached, because that could get him in trouble, but at home he laid it on pretty thick. He liked physical, athletic, masculine guys who seemed to leave no doubt—but of course, Noel could enlighten him, it wasn’t always obvious and some of those guys were actually gay. Noel had girls all over him all the time—way more girls than Jed had ever had around. His dad found that impressive.
Noel had a couple of gay friends who shared an apartment and he spent a lot of time there where he felt most comfortable, free to be himself. He had managed, with some difficulty, to keep his parents from meeting his friends because they would know at once—they weren’t hiding their sexual orientation the way he was.
Jed and Noel talked for a while about the complications of their lives, their parents’ lives. They were about halfway through their second joint when they heard a deep male voice. “Evening, gentlemen.”
They both jumped in surprise. Jed quickly tossed the joint and it landed on the grass just a few feet away. There before them was a cop on a bike—park police. Riding up within seconds was his backup officer. “Go ahead and put your hands on your heads, all right?” the first one asked pleasantly.
“Aw, c’mon, go bother someone else,” Noel said.
“Shut up, man,” Jed warned him. “Just shut up.”
Great! Jed thought. It wasn’t as if it was his first joint, but he wasn’t a frequent user, and he’d never been caught before. Not only did his girlfriend, Tracy, disapprove, but his dad had told him a long time ago that if he ever got picked up for anything that could embarrass him in his job, he should just assume Daddy wasn’t going to step in and try to cover for him. Jed was on his own—he’d have to face the music and his father wasn’t going to make any excuses or reel in any favors. Figures it would have to be drugs. Jed was more likely to have a few beers—and he never drove under the influence. Oh, no, his driving violations were all totally sober—his mother always pointed out he could be an idiot without the assistance of pot or beer.
The cops patted them down. Jed had been seen tossing the joint, which the first officer picked up. Noel, however, had a small baggie of marijuana and some rolling papers on him—that made the situation a little more serious. It wasn’t quite enough for felony possession, and he didn’t have the paraphernalia to be dealing, but he could actually go to jail if the police decided to take things to the extreme. If they didn’t like Noel’s mouthiness or were in bad moods, they could hook him up and call for a prisoner pickup. Jed had learned these things as a prosecutor’s son.
In the end, they were issued tickets. Nineteen-year-olds didn’t have a call placed to their parents. They’d have to appear in court, deal with the mood of the judge, at least pay fines, maybe get stuck with community service. Who knew what the end result would be? Noel didn’t have to go home and tell his mom and dad what happened in the park, and he hadn’t been exposed as gay, so his big secret was still safe. But Jed knew his dad was going to hear about this. If someone in the court system didn’t pick it up and tip Phil Gilbert, then the press might. They were all over the prosecutor’s office, looking for stuff to embarrass them. If the press could, they’d try to find a case where Phil came down hard against a person for a pot possession, then would claim he’d watched his own son walk away with a pat on the butt.
The officers left them with their tickets. “Hey. Sorry, man,” Noel said.
“Not your fault. I was smoking when they came up.”
“Yeah, but I never told you I had a bunch of stuff.”
“I don’t care about that. That’s your stuff. But I gotta go. I have to think about what to do. What to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” Noel said. “We go pay a fine—”
“You don’t understand,” Jed said, shaking his head. “At our house you can’t keep a lid on this kind of thing.”
“Lid.” Noel laughed. They called a few ounces of cannabis a lid. “Funny.”
Jed wasn’t feeling high or giddy at the moment. His parents had split, both of them were leaning on him for help, Tracy wasn’t going to like this, it wasn’t going to be nice. “I gotta get home.” He grabbed Noel’s upper arm. “Try not to lip off at the judge. Trust me—that’s the way to six weeks in a soup kitchen.”
“Soup,” Noel said, laughing. “I’m kinda hungry.”
“Aw, Jesus,” Jed said. “I’ll see you later.”
Jed plunged his hands in his pockets and headed for home. If he remembered, Jessie was out with friends, and Matt was somewhere overnight. When he was leaving a little before ten, his mother was nodding off in front of the TV in the family room with a stack of reports in her lap.
When he snuck into the house, those pages had slipped onto the sofa beside her and she was leaning her head against her hand, sound asleep.
He went to the kitchen to forage for food, conscious that he was moving slowly, making noise. It wasn’t long before he heard her snort, shift. “Jed?” she called out.
“Yeah, Ma.”
“You’re home?”
He laughed. “Nah, I’m still out.”
“Hmm,” she responded, not moving from the sofa.
Jed started building a sandwich very methodically. Between layers he stuffed handfuls of potato chips into his mouth. He heard the sound of a noisy car, the laughter of boys. The front door opened with a crash, and he heard scuffling, more laughing, and the sound of rapidly departing footfalls, the racing of a motor, the squealing of tires. Then his mother screamed, “Jed!”
He moved toward the foyer of their house and what he saw made no sense. His mother was crouched in front of Jessie, who was sitting on the floor slumped against the wall, apparently passed out. “Jessie, come on, Jessie,” his mother was saying, patting her cheeks.
“Hmm?” Jessie asked sleepily.
“Jessie? Whew, are you drunk?”
“Oops,” Jessie said. Then she hiccupped and giggled without ever opening her eyes.
Gerri looked over her shoulder and up at Jed, who was towering over them, staring stupidly.
“Help me out here, will you?” Gerri asked, pulling at Jessie, who was completely limp.
Jed leaned over, but lost his balance and instead wobbled backward a couple of feet. Gerri frowned at him. “Can you help me here?” she asked. “I have to get her upstairs to her bedroom, check her over, make sure she’
s all right.”
“Call Dad,” Jed said.
“Just help me!”
“I can’t, Ma. I’m stoned.”
Her mouth hung open for a second. Then she slowly looked between her two oldest kids, muttered a disgusted curse and dashed for the phone in the kitchen, moving pretty fast for an almost fifty-year-old who’d been asleep on the couch for an hour. She dialed Andy’s number. “Help. I’ve got my hands full—one kid’s drunk, one’s higher than a kite.”
“The high one was with my high one,” Andy said.
“If you can leave yours, I need help with Jessie. I’ve got a potentially terrible situation.” She hung up and rushed back to her daughter who was vomiting in the front hall. The smell of secondhand beer filled the air. Gerri found herself thinking, at least it was beer, probably enough to create this disaster. There could also be drugs, the type of which she didn’t even want to think about yet.
Jessie wiped her mouth with a trembling hand. “Oh, Mom,” she said, starting to cry. She only cried for a second before she added to the catastrophe by retching again.
Gerri ran to the laundry room for a few towels, then back to the foyer to find Jed on his hands and knees, trying to communicate with Jessie. By the time Gerri had covered the mess in towels, Andy was in the doorway and Jed skulked away to the kitchen.
Gerri looked up at Andy with imploring eyes. “She was dropped off by a gang of boys,” she said, her voice low. “Her blouse is buttoned funny.”
Andy took just a second to absorb the meaning of Gerri’s words, then took charge, squatting in front of Jessie. “Okay, chickie,” she said. “We’re just going to take off your icky clothes, honey.” She began unbuttoning and helping her out of her blouse, leaving her in her jeans and bra. Then Gerri and Andy, one on each side, pulled Jessie to her feet and helped her up the stairs. The first stop was the bathroom where Jessie vomited again. They finally got her to the bedroom where Andy pulled back the bedcovers. Before sitting her down, they peeled off her sloppy, hundred-and-fifty-dollar jeans.
“Should we stand her in the shower?” Andy asked.
“I don’t think so. Just the clothes off—I don’t know what happened to her tonight. I don’t want to destroy any...evidence,” Gerri said.
Andy froze. Then, shaking her head with worry, stooped to removed Jessie’s boots and jeans so Gerri could ease her into bed. Before covering her, Gerri looked closely at her legs, including the insides of her thighs.
“Jessie?” Gerri asked, leaning over her. “Jessie, can you tell me what happened tonight?”
“Beer,” she said with a drunken whimper.
“Did anyone hurt you? Who were you with? Who brought you home?”
“Drew,” she said. “Oh, God!” She leaned over the side of the bed, retching. But she was down to just miserable gagging, her stomach empty by now and Gerri was quick with the trash can. Jessie lay back down on her pillows, moaning.
“Call Phil,” Andy said immediately.
“No. I don’t want Phil right now.”
“Think of him as a legal consultant,” she said. “If you need to know how to treat this situation, he’ll know.”
“I know. I’m a social worker.”
“And he prosecutes crimes. If there was a crime against your daughter, he can help you now more than I can. Besides, you know he has to be told. I’ll stay with her. Go call him. And on your way to the phone, whack Jed in the head.”
Gerri glanced at the clock. It was late, per typical. She went to the kitchen to find Jed standing at the counter, eating. She shook her head in disgust. She hoped that all three kids weren’t picking tonight to act out. She called Matt’s cell phone and it went straight to voice mail. Against all good judgment, she dialed the number of the friend where Matt was spending the night. There was no answer. Her heart was pounding and her thoughts were racing as she left a terse message. “This is Gerri Gilbert. Matt is supposed to be spending the night there tonight. When you get this message, please call me and let me know that he’s there, safe, no matter what time it is.”
Then she called Phil. She called the phone in his small, one-room, rented flat near his office in San Francisco rather than his cell phone. It was Saturday night and she wanted to know where he was when she needed him.
He answered on the second ring. “How fast can you get here?” she asked. “I’m in way over my head.”
“What’s going on?” he asked. She’d heard him say this into the phone hundreds of times when he took calls from detectives at the scene of a crime, or from his office late at night.
“Jed’s high on something, Jessie is drunk and puking and Matt doesn’t seem to be where he’s supposed to be.”
“High? Drunk? Not where— Jesus, what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet—but my big issue right now is that Jessie is completely wasted and was dropped off by a group of boys who just dumped her in the house and then ran. I don’t know if I should shower her off or if something bad happened to her while she was...”
Phil didn’t miss a beat. “No shower. Remove the clothes, bag them but don’t wash them. Keep her comfortable. Is Jed in any danger?”
“Jed?” she said, turning to him. “What did you take?”
“I didn’t take anything, Ma. Just smoked a little dope. Sorry.”
Gerri went back to the phone. “Pot,” she answered. “And there’s no answer where Matt’s spending the night.”
“I’ll have my cell on if anything develops. Sit tight. I’m on my way.”
She hung up and highly resented the feeling of relief it had given her to connect with Phil and have him on his way. After all, he wasn’t really hers anymore. He was secondhand—like buying back a suit from the consignment store. It was new when you first got it, then you sold it through consignment and someone else used it for a while, then put it back on the market. Someone had been in it for a couple of years then offered it back to her.
* * *
By the time Phil made it to Mill Valley, the situation had settled somewhat. Jessie was lucid though still intoxicated. She insisted nothing terrible had happened to her. However, she was supposed to have been out on a date with a senior named Drew, but they had hooked up with three other boys so it was Jessie getting drunk with four boys. Not a safe equation in Gerri’s book. Jed had come down from his high. He sat on the sofa in the family room and didn’t make eye contact with anyone. A call had come from the household where Matt was spending the night—they’d gone out for pizza and everyone was home safe.
Andy headed home as soon as Phil arrived, and Gerri got to work cleaning up messes in the foyer, bedroom and kitchen. Phil sat first with his daughter, trying to get whatever information she could give in her state of inebriation. By the time he got to Jed, Gerri had the laundry running and had gone to the bedroom, leaving them alone.
Phil sat down beside his son. “You talk to your mom about what went on here tonight?” Phil asked.
“She didn’t want to talk to me. She told me to just wait for you,” Jed said. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a ticket. “I got cited.”
Phil studied it for a moment, then looked at Jed. “Got anything to say?”
“Like?”
“Like why?”
“I was trying to chill out.” Jed looked at Phil hard, his eyes narrowed. “I guess you thought you’d be the only one a little jammed up by this thing with you and Mom.”
“No, actually I thought it would go hardest on you kids. But I didn’t think you’d take dumbass chances like this. I thought we understood each other.”
“Like you never had a joint,” Jed said accusingly.
“We went over that. I was a kid once. But you knew the risks.” Phil tossed the citation back at his son. “Says you were cited in the park. Right out in the open. Smooth.”
Jed sat forward angrily. “Listen, I’m sorry and I’ll handle it, okay? Kind of sounds like you really don’t give a rat’s ass if I have a joint, but you’d ra
ther I not get caught.”
“Oh, I give a rat’s ass,” Phil said. “I’d rather you not drink underage, too, but I know you do from time to time. So let’s at least be safe, be careful. I can’t control you, Jed, I can only give you advice. I hope that before too many more years go by you grow up. See it’s not in your best interest to dabble in drugs or take stupid chances with the use of alcohol.”
Jed got red in the face and when he spoke, he sneered. “I hope before too long you decide it’s not in your best interest to leave me holding the goddamn bag around here!”
Phil kept his cool, but he sat taller and matched his son glare for glare. “If you weren’t a little stoned and a whole lot stupid, I’d have you up against the wall right now. But I don’t think much I say is going to get through that cement block you’re using for a brain. Go to bed.”
“Fine!” Jed stood and bolted up the stairs. When he got to his room he slammed the door for good measure.
Phil knew Jed was at the end of his rope. He took a breath and wearily dragged himself to his feet. He walked down the hall to what was once his bedroom and knocked on the door. Gerri called out for him to come in.
Gerri had changed into clean sweats and a T-shirt. She sat cross-legged on the bed. “Sounds like that went well,” she said.
“Listen, Jessie had herself in a real bad place tonight—one girl and four boys in a car with a bunch of beer. I’m not convinced all’s clear there. She denies anything happened but she was very drunk, so who knows? Those boys could’ve taken advantage of her. Can you get her in to see someone this week? If she crossed the line, she needs to be better prepared—and if the line was crossed while she was unable to give conscious consent, maybe something will turn up or maybe she’ll tell a professional.”
Gerri’s spine straightened a little more with every word. “If you think that’s possible, I can take her to the E.R. first thing in the morning, have them run a rape kit.”
“You see any bruises, any suspicious marks, semen stains? You undressed her, got her down to her panties—you know what to look for.”