Hard Love

  When I didn’t laugh with her, she swallowed hard. “Okay. I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise to listen, to understand what I’m saying.”

  “I promise,” I said, ready to agree to just about anything for another glimpse of her unguarded emotions.

  She looked down at the sand, her ugly little boot digging itself a hole. “I lied to you too.”

  “What? When?”

  She sighed again, as though the news she was giving me was bad news. “When you asked me to the prom, I pretended to hate the whole idea. But I didn’t. I was flattered and even … happy.”

  “You were?”

  She poked her finger at me. “Not because I wanted to start dating you—are you listening to me?” She glared at me, and I worked to disguise my sudden glee. “Just because I felt so comfortable with you. I almost never feel very comfortable with anybody. I liked being with you. It made being close to someone feel like it might be … safe.”

  We were both quiet for a minute, but I had to ask her. “Was that the initial mystery?”

  She nodded and kicked a chunk of seaweed back into the water. Then, so low I could barely hear, she said, “I even liked wearing that goddamn dress.”

  Laughter spurted out of me. “You did?”

  She smiled her cockeyed smile. “It’s dumb, isn’t it? I mean, I could wear a dress any time I wanted to, couldn’t I? There is no rule that says a lesbian can’t wear a dress once in a while!”

  “Why, you little phony,” I said as I put my arms around her. She returned my hug immediately, her head pushing into my chest.

  “Thanks for telling me I looked beautiful. You’re the first person who ever said that. If I don’t count my mother.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for … touching me.”

  In a moment her embrace relaxed. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I miss you already.”

  “Me too,” she assured me, then pushed away and headed for the stairs. She turned around though, halfway up and gave me one last gift. “Hey, I love you too, Gio,” she said. “As much as I can.”

  Then she disappeared.

  I didn’t go up to watch them drive off. I didn’t want to see Mooney Juney tucking herself snugly into the backseat next to Marisol. I stayed down on the beach, hugging myself against the wind and trembling uncontrollably. I was shaking so much that not only were my teeth rattling, but even my jaws seemed to be knocking together. In a funny way it was wonderful.

  The sun was announcing the new day by the time I forced myself to go back to Pumpkin to stand under a hot shower and thaw out.

  Before long people will be gathering outside for breakfast. Bill will blow his horn in front of all those feline-labeled doorways, and some people will emerge from their shacks all pissed off that it’s time to get up, and some people will come out all jazzed up and happy to get another crack at life. Diana probably wakes up singing.

  I’m ready, I think, to join them. Very anxious, more than a little scared, susceptible now to anything that might happen.

  Hard Love

  lyrics by

  Bob Franke

  I remember growing up like it was only yesterday,

  Mom and Daddy tried their best to guide me on my way.

  But the hard times and the liquor drove the easy love away,

  And the only love I knew about was hard love.

  It was hard love, every hour of the day,

  When Christmas to my birthday was a million years away,

  And the fear that came between them drove the tears into my play,

  There was love in Daddy’s house, but it was hard love.

  And I recall the gentle courtesy you gave me as I tried

  To dissemble in politeness all the love I felt inside.

  And for every song of laughter was another song that cried,

  This ain’t no easy week-end, this is hard love.

  It was hard love, every step of the way,

  Hard to be so close to you, so hard to turn away,

  And when all the stars and sentimental songs dissolved today,

  There was nothing left to sing about but hard love.

  So I loved you for your courage and your gentle sense of shame,

  And I loved you for your laughter and your language and your name,

  And I knew it was impossible, but I loved you just the same,

  Though the only love I gave to you was hard love.

  It was hard love, it was hard on you I know,

  When the only love I gave to you was love I couldn’t show.

  You forgave the heart that loved you as your lover turned to go,

  Leaving nothing but the memory of hard love.

  So I’m standing in this phone booth with a dollar and a dime,

  Wondering what to say to you to ease your troubled mind,

  For the Lord’s cross might redeem us, but our own just wastes our time,

  And to tell the two apart is always hard, love.

  So I’ll tell you that I love you even though I’m far away,

  And I’ll tell you how you change me as I live from day to day,

  How you help me to accept myself and I won’t forget to say,

  Love is never wasted, even when it’s hard love.

  Yes it’s hard love, but it’s love all the same,

  Not the stuff of fantasy but more than just a game.

  And the only kind of miracle that’s worthy of the name,

  For the love that heals our lives is mostly hard love.

  —Bob Franke

  © 1982 Telephone Pole Music Co.

  Used by permission

  Here is a sneak peek at

  the companion novel to Hard Love,

  Love & Lies

  Chapter One

  I WOULD NEVER HAVE AGREED to room with Birdie for the year if I’d known he intended to pick up every stray that wandered across his path. The cat (which had shown up on the fire escape) had already shredded my favorite sweater, the puppy (from a box at the farmers’ market) was a crotch sniffer, and I had put my foot down at the first glimpse of that smelly ferret crossing the threshold. But I was too dumbfounded to come up with an appropriate response when he showed up with a lost human being.

  I’d taken Noodles, the pug-poodle mutt, out to pee, so I was already late for my shift at the Mug when Birdie appeared in the doorway with a gorilla looming over his shoulder.

  “Oh, great, you’re still here!” Birdie said. “I wanted you to meet my new friend, Damon. Damon, Marisol.” He flipped his hand between us. “Damon is in the theater department at Emerson too!” Birdie exclaimed, as if it were miraculous that he’d met someone from his own program. “Don’t let Marisol fool you,” he continued. “She’s small, but she bites.”

  Damon smiled nervously and extended a large paw in my direction, but when I clasped it, there didn’t seem to be much life in it.

  “Damon is brilliant,” Birdie continued. “Oh my God, every word out of his mouth!”

  There didn’t seem to be all that many words in his mouth, but he was cute in a blushing, bearish sort of way, so I assumed “is brilliant” was Birdie’s euphemism for “turns me on.” Whatever.

  “Listen, I’m late,” I said. “I already peed the dog, but both animals need to be fed. I should be back around nine tonight.”

  “Okay,” Birdie said. “We’ll be here!”

  We? I gave him a questioning look; he knew what I meant. “You know, Marisol, living in a dorm is so hideous. We are really lucky we found this apartment in Somerville.”

  “Your mother found the apartment,” I reminded him. “You just don’t know!” he continued. “I mean, you could get anybody for a roommate—it could be an absolute abomination.”

  I waited impatiently.

  “Poor Damon here lost the lottery. I mean lost it. He has been put into a room with a creature from the hellmouth; I am not kidding. You can smell him before you open the door.”

  Damon nodded,
then actually spoke. “He’s a pig. He threw up in my shoes last night.”

  “That’s too bad, Damon,” I said. “I guess you’ll have to put your shoes in the closet from now on.”

  “Well, the thing is,” Birdie said, smiling at his new buddy, “I thought Damon could just move in here. And be my roommate!”

  “I’m your roommate,” I reminded him.

  “There’s plenty of room for three of us. Damon has a futon, and you’re out half the time at your job anyway, and we’ll be in classes …”

  I glanced at Damon, whose eyes now seemed slightly watery. Birdie sure could pick ’em.

  “Damon, why don’t you go make yourself some tea?” I suggested. “The kitchen is right through there, and the kettle is on the stove.”

  He nodded and left the room, hunching his shoulders just a little to fit through the kitchen doorway.

  “I can tell you didn’t meet this one at the gym,” I whispered.

  “Abs are not the only thing I look for in a man,” he said, running a hand fondly over his own clothed six-pack.

  “No? Pecs too? Biceps?”

  “Marisol—”

  “Birdie, if I wanted a bunch of roommates, I’d be in a dorm. Do you remember why I deferred college?”

  “I know, you want to write, but—”

  “I want to write in this apartment. Which is nice and quiet because there are only two of us in it. Which means, if you’re not talking to me, nobody is.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Damon is very quiet.”

  “How do you know? You just met him!”

  “He hardly even speaks! Besides, he’ll be in my room, not yours.”

  “Birdie, I can just barely stand having you and your two neurotic pets as roommates. Now you want to bring in some weird guy you hardly know?”

  “He’s not weird; he’s just shy.”

  I peeked into the kitchen at Damon. He was backed up against the refrigerator, staring in terror at Peaches, the pussycat, who was sniffing his flip-flops and fat toes.

  “Whoever heard of a shy actor?” I said.

  “He’s not an actor. He’s a director.”

  “I suppose he’s gay and you like him?”

  He tipped his head so his blond forelock fell into his eyes, and he grinned. “I’m not sure yet—of either thing. But I find him intriguing, don’t you?”

  “No, Birdie, I find him large and odd. And I don’t want another roommate! This is a very small apartment. You should have asked me before you offered him sanctuary!”

  Birdie wrinkled up his face in that stupid pout that has worked on his mother for the past eighteen years. But I am not his mother.

  “I’ll be back at nine o’clock. He better be gone,” I said.

  There were times I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision: taking this year off before going to college, moving in with Birdie, trying to write a novel between my tours of duty at the Mug and at my parents’ house, reassuring them that deferring college for a year was not the first step toward receiving my bag lady certification. My high school friends had left for carefully chosen schools all across the country, but I felt like I needed this year off. Stanford University would still be there next year.

  I’d gotten the idea when I went down to New York City after graduation to stay with June and her friends for a week. I’d met them in the spring at a zine convention in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, that I’d gone to with my friend Gio. I liked June and Sarah and B.J., so when they invited me to go back to New York with them, I didn’t hesitate. I was also trying to prove a point to Gio, which must have been successful, because I hadn’t seen or heard from him in the four months since. I stayed in New York for a week and then went back for another week later in the summer. But it was a little problematic, because I knew June had a crush on me, and I didn’t feel that way about her. By the end of the second week I figured I should just leave for good.

  In the meantime, though, I’d met some of their New York friends, one of whom was Katherine, an editor for a large publishing house. June had showed her copies of my zines, and she seemed to actually like them. She gave me her card and said, “If you ever write a novel, send it to me.”

  A novel? Just like that the idea lodged in my brain and wouldn’t go away. Suddenly the idea of starting college and taking freshman composition, literature in translation, and existential philosophy seemed like the most stultifying way I could imagine to spend the next year. It’s not as if Katherine had made me any promises or anything. I wasn’t doing it because I thought I’d get published. It just became the thing I most wanted to do. Just to be able to say, “I’m writing a novel.” I’m writing a novel! Oh my God. I wanted to be able to say that! I wanted to do it!

  So I deferred my entrance to Stanford and moved from my parents’ house into an apartment with Birdie. My father said that if I wanted to stand on my own two feet, I should see what that really meant, so I got a job pouring coffee and hustling cheeseburgers at the Mug in Harvard Square. As it turned out, waitressing at the Mug only allowed me to stand on one of my two feet, since rents in the whole Boston-Cambridge metropolitan area are higher than the Hubble Telescope. My mother, always a pushover, helped me to remain upright by stealthily contributing an extra couple hundred bucks a month to my survival fund.

  And then it was September, and all the schools and colleges started up again. The Square was full of students buying books and meeting new friends. Actually, the whole city was full of students buying books and meeting new friends. Even Birdie wasn’t immune to the excitement of it. I, however, was living with my best friend since sixth grade, twenty minutes away from the home I grew up in; I wasn’t feeling the thrill.

  Not that I didn’t want to meet new people. In fact, what I wanted more than anything—though I wouldn’t have admitted it to anybody—was to meet a woman I could fall in love with. I’d been out and proud for almost two years, and the only love interest I’d had (if you don’t count Gio, and I don’t) was a girl who kissed me for a couple of weeks and then took off with the first guy who gave her a second look. That did a job on me—I got scared about trusting people, letting anybody know I liked them.

  But I knew I had to get over that if I was ever going to have a girlfriend. My mother had this line about how “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.” Or princess, in my case. I was eighteen years old, for God’s sake. I had to put myself out there and start kissing frogs unless I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life.

  So, I had two goals for the year: fall in love and write a novel. How hard could that be?

  Chapter Two

  “HEY, YOU’RE LATE, MISS MARY-SOUL,” Doug, the manager, said when I hurried in the door of the Mug. “I’m bussing tables here instead of counting up my morning receipts.”

  Or jawing with the customers. “Sorry,” I said, grabbing a clean black apron from under the counter.

  “I guess it took longer than you thought to put on all that makeup, huh?” I don’t wear makeup. He chuckled at his own stupid joke.

  “Roommate troubles,” I said.

  He held out his hand like a crossing guard. “Don’t tell me about it.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Everybody tells me their sob stories.”

  “Not me, Doug. I couldn’t bear to see you sob.”

  “My roommate this, my landlord that, my husband, my wife—everybody’s got a story.” Doug shook his head.

  “Yeah,” I said, sticking change in my apron pocket. “People with lives are so inconsiderate.”

  Doug guffawed. “You kill me, kid; you kill me.” Which was why I’d gotten the job. He appreciated somebody who could take his guff and give it right back.

  The Mug was a Harvard Square institution, and Doug had been managing it since sometime soon after the Revolutionary War. It was apparently owned by a guy named Gus who was too old to even come in and drink coffee in a back booth anymore like he used to. It was a tiny place, only eig
ht booths and half a dozen counter seats in all, but during peak hours there were often people standing in line in the doorway. Different kinds of people, but you knew they all had two things in common—you knew because they told you, over and over. They all missed the old Harvard Square, the way it used to be before the big record stores and clothing chains took it over, when there were lots of funky little places like the Mug. And they all loved Sophie Schifferdecker’s pies.

  Sophie had also worked at the Mug for a few centuries now, turning out hamburgers and tuna melts by the bucketload. In fact, as Doug liked to tell me, I was the first employee to be hired in the new millennium, even though we were now well into it.

  “I don’t hire young people anymore,” Doug had said during my interview. “Too flighty. They work a few weeks, it’s not as much fun as it looks like, and they take off on me.”

  Not as much fun as it looks like? That was really bad news.

  “I promise to work for you for one year,” I told him. “But then I’m going to college. And not around here.”

  “What’s wrong with around here?” Doug had eyed me suspiciously.

  “My parents live around here,” I said. That was the first time I’d killed him.

  Since the colleges had just started up again, the Square was even busier than usual. Students weren’t behind in their classes yet, so they had plenty of time to sit around and drink coffee while they got to know their new pals. One of the Harvard guidebooks mentioned the Mug as “the place T. S. Eliot probably spent his afternoons writing poetry and warming his hands on a hot cup of Earl Grey tea.” Which you would think anyone would know was a load of crap, but every once in a while a few freshmen would come in, all wide-eyed, and order Earl Grey and grilled cheese sandwiches, and I knew from the way they looked reverently at the peeling wallpaper that they were impressed to have their hindquarters plopped in a booth where Great Literature may just possibly have been born.

  Anyway, I ran back and forth between the kitchen and the booths for about two hours until the lunch rush was over. There was a short lull after I topped off everybody’s coffee, rang up a few bills, and stuffed the tips in my pocket. I poured myself a cup of coffee and tried to decide whether to ask Sophie for a turkey sandwich or just go for a piece of pie. I was cutting myself a nice wedge of apple-blueberry when the bell over the door tinkled again.