Hard Love

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It slipped out. I forgot.” He withdrew his hand.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t use it!”

  “I know! I’m sorry! What else can I say? Mea culpa, for God’s sake.”

  “What word?” I asked, brushing liquid off my clothes.

  “The F word,” Marisol said.

  “The F word? Everybody says that.”

  “Well, I don’t. And you better not say it around me either. It’s not just a swear word; it’s a hateful word. It’s a violent word. It’s not about sex or love or anything like that. It’s ugly. It just means I want to hurt you.”

  “It’s been stricken from my vocabulary,” I assured her.

  “Oh, yeah, he kisses up now that I’ve made one little mistake,” Birdie complained.

  “One?” Marisol said. “That’ll be the day. Going off on somebody like that …” Suddenly her face got very flat and pale. She was looking over my shoulder. “Jesus!”

  “What’s wrong?” I turned to see what she was looking at. A large, bouncy woman in slacks and thick sneakers was waving at us as she came down the path. Her short, straight hair flapped happily around her cheeks.

  “Oh, look!” Birdie said. “Here comes Dorothy Hamill; she must have skated here from Oz!”

  “I can’t believe it. She followed me.” Marisol shook her head.

  “Helen!” Birdie exclaimed as the woman closed in. “It’s so nice to see you again. It’s been … hours!”

  “Mother, what are you doing here?” Marisol asked.

  “Nothing, sweetie. I was planning to look into a few shops, Laura Ashley and such, and I just happened to see you sitting here with your friends. …”

  She glanced hopefully in my direction. “You must be Gio.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand, then retracted it and stood up first, then stuck it out again. It was a graceless performance.

  “The pleasure is mine,” she assured me. “Are you from the North End? Not that I think all the Italians in Boston live in the North End, but it is such a wonderful community.”

  “No, I’m from Darlington. Up on the North Shore.”

  “Oh, what a lovely spot! How lucky you are!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lovely my ass. I was having a hard time believing this big lady with the gray face and wide pants was Marisol’s mother. Of course she hadn’t borne her, but still, it was incongruous to imagine the two of them living in the same house, eating the same food, putting their laundry in the same washing machine. I mean, this woman looked like Eleanor Roosevelt, if only Eleanor had had the fashion sense to chop her hair off in a straight line from one earlobe to the other.

  “Okay. You’ve done your research. Better get on to Laura’s now,” Marisol said, not unkindly.

  “Well, I’m so glad I saw you sitting here.”

  “Mmm. What a happy accident.”

  “Have a lovely day, dear.” Mrs. Guzman looked over her shoulder twice as she retracted her steps up the path and waved each time.

  “What a hoot!” Birdie said, laughing. “She’s a stitch!”

  “You don’t think it was a coincidence she showed up here?” I asked.

  “My mother leaves nothing to chance.”

  Birdie lay back on the ground to rest from his hysteria. “Helen came for the same reason I did, only her hopes were rather skewed in the other direction.”

  “Hope springs eternal,” Marisol said. “She was hoping to find that you were straight.”

  I snickered. “Let me know what she thinks. Maybe we ought to take a poll. I could decide my sexuality based on the conclusions of a survey.”

  But Marisol wasn’t laughing with me. “Don’t you care, one way or the other?”

  “Not particularly.”

  But my smile got shaky when Marisol stared at me, her dark eyes snagging mine like a fish hook. “Well, you should,” she commanded. “If you don’t know who you are, how is anybody else supposed to get to know you?”

  When she put it like that, it was something to think about.

  “That’s assuming anyone else wants to bother,” Birdie added cheerfully.

  Chapter Five

  “You walking home?” I called over to Brian. He was fumbling around in his locker, trying to extricate his jacket from under a pile of books. Papers snowed out around him and fell on his shoes. I’d bet you at least half of those papers had “Organization!” written across the top in red ink.

  “Yeah, but I’ve got rehearsal first.”

  “Again?”

  “That’s the way you do a play. You rehearse every day.”

  He was an expert on drama now. “Not on the weekends,” I pointed out.

  “Well, of course, not on the weekends.” He stuffed all the crap he didn’t want back into the metal coffin and slammed the door.

  “Fine,” I said, but I was actually a little bit disappointed. I felt like talking for some reason. Marisol hadn’t been able to meet me last weekend, and it was like I’d gotten used to having a conversation with somebody at least once a week. I missed it. Not that Brian had anything nearly as interesting to say as Marisol.

  But it turned out he did have something kind of surprising to tell me. “Hey, John, you’ll never guess what.” He practically pinned me to my locker so he could whisper it without the whole hallway hearing him. “I met a girl!”

  I pushed him back; he was making me claustrophobic. “What do you mean ‘met’? You mean you spoke to one?”

  “Yeah, a bunch of times. She’s in the play. She’s a freshman. She’s a nun.”

  “You met a fourteen-year-old nun? She sounds perfect for you.”

  “Shh!” He glanced around for eavesdroppers. “In the play she’s a nun,” he whispered. “Her name’s Emily Prine. Do you know her?”

  “You know I don’t know any girls. Not even Violet Weevil.”

  “Neville. Who, by the way, I’m losing interest in.”

  “Thank the Lord.”

  “Now that I’m getting to know her, she’s kind of shallow.” You could tell he was real proud of coming up with that insight.

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m going to ask Emily to go out with me Saturday night. Today I’m going to ask her.” He was cracking his knuckles so hard I was afraid he might accidentally definger himself.

  “Did you bring your inhaler? Want me to wait around in case you need CPR?”

  He gave me a shove. “Get out of here, Mr. Cool. You better find yourself a girl pretty soon.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because the Junior Prom is only a month away.”

  Of course, this warranted a laugh. “And you think I’m going to the Junior Prom?”

  Brian shrugged. “Everybody goes to the prom. The whole class. It’s fun. There’s a dinner before and a breakfast afterward.”

  “I can probably rustle up my own grub for the evening, Bri. I don’t think the food is supposed to be the highlight of the event.”

  “You jerk. I’m going. If Emily will go out with me this weekend, I’m going to ask her to the prom.”

  I looked at my watch. “Don’t let me make you late for your butler rehearsal.”

  Old Bri shot me his meanest look—kind of like a frustrated squirrel—and stomped off down the hall.

  By the time I walked home I was feeling a little frustrated myself. Edgy, at loose ends. It didn’t help matters to be met at the door by my mother on her way out.

  “I’m going to the store for shrimp. Al’s coming for dinner, and I want it to be nice. We can all … talk about things. You know.” Mom had finally given Al the go-ahead last week, and now they were constantly sitting around planning things.

  “I’ll just eat in my room.”

  “No! We want you to eat with us! Al does. So we can talk.”

  “Talk about what? The wedding?”

  “Wedding? No, no. About the three of us. Afterward. You know, where we’ll live and everyth
ing.”

  “Live? We’re moving?” Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that this marriage was going to change my life very much. Now here she was talking about moving?

  Mom sighed. “I want to get to the store, Johnny, so I can get back and make dinner. We’ll discuss this later.”

  “Or not,” I said, turning to climb the stairs. No way was I moving. Where to? That big old haunted house in Chesterfield where Al lived with his mother? Not likely.

  Possibly Mom slammed the door a little harder than necessary.

  * * *

  I was sure when we exchanged phone numbers in the park I’d never call Marisol. I was glad to have the number—I’d even memorized it in about two seconds before folding the paper into my wallet—but I hated talking to people on the phone. Nobody ever sounded right when you couldn’t see them, when you were connected by the magic of fiber optic cables. They either sounded fake happy, like they were so excited you called, or else they grunted and grumbled as if they’d have to go get the Prozac if you intended to talk much longer. That’s how my mother always sounded if I had to call her from Dad’s house. She sounded the way a bassett hound looks.

  But after an hour of staring out the window watching two little kids argue about the right way to hit a baseball (and kind of hoping they’d break a window or something testing their techniques), I was starting to lose it. I dialed the number without even looking at the paper.

  “Lo!” came the familiar voice.

  “Marisol?”

  “Yup. Who’s this?”

  “Umm, Joh … Gio. It’s Gio.”

  “Hey! Hi! Watcha doing?”

  “Not much. Just trying to stay sane.”

  “Tell me about it. I have to go to some bullshit Gifted and Talented Awards dinner tonight with my parents. I was going to ditch it, but my mother found out about it from the mother of some other G and T bozo and now I have to show up.” She sounded fine, just the way she did in the café or sitting in the park.

  “I guess that means you’re gifted and talented, huh?”

  “Yeah, me and two-thirds of the graduating class. That’s what the parents are paying for at a private school, you know. Rich people can’t bear the idea that their kids are just ordinary. We’re all gifted and talented.”

  “You probably really are, though.”

  “Of course I am. You need to ask?”

  Something she’d said before had just registered. “You’re graduating? You’re a senior?”

  “I am graduating and getting the hell out, Gio. Escaping!”

  “Where to? You’re going to college?”

  “I guess so. It’s the easiest way. My parents can’t legitimately fight it. I applied all over the country, everywhere except New England. I’m hoping for Stanford. California seems just about far enough.”

  “Wow. I haven’t even started thinking about college. I’ve got another year, though.”

  “Well, get on it, brother! If you sit on your thumbs, you’ll end up at a state college or something. They’ll want you to keep living at home or some damn thing. You better start making plans!”

  I wasn’t really in the mood for a lecture on life-planning, besides which it was one of my father’s favorite topics. “Hey, Marisol, would you mind … could I read you something I started writing? I guess it’s for the zine, but I’m kind of stuck on it. Maybe you can help me.”

  “Sure. I got a half hour before I have to polish up my brains and go show off for my parents’s friends.”

  “Great.” I picked quickly through my backpack and pulled out the notebook I’d been writing in at the bagel shop. I took a deep breath and read her the unfinished piece, the one about whether my parents would even notice if I escaped. I tried to make it sound humorous, but I could tell it wasn’t coming off that way.

  “Your parents are way different than mine,” was Marisol’s first comment.

  “I guess.”

  “I know you were probably exaggerating …”

  “A little. I mean, it’s not like my mother just leaves a banana on the stairs and takes off. She’s getting remarried. You know, there’s lots on her mind.”

  “Uh-huh. And the part about your dad being so happy you’re gone?”

  Why had I read her this piece? It was nothing but depressing. And dumb. “That part is probably true. It doesn’t work, does it? I mean, I wanted it to be funny, but …”

  “No, Gio. Don’t try to make it funny. Write the truth of it. It might turn out to be funny or it might not. Don’t worry about that part. Just write it the way you’re feeling it.”

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of a waste of time.”

  From downstairs I could hear Mom yelling. “Al’s here! We’re going to eat soon. Come down and say hello!”

  “I’m on the phone!” I yelled back, covering the mouthpiece. “Hold on!” I was almost glad I had an excuse to hang up. Marisol was getting on a wrong track here. Sure, she wrote some serious pieces, but I did humor, not this soul-searching stuff.

  “Listen, my mom’s boyfriend is here. I’ve got to go have dinner with them. They’re suddenly into us being a ‘family’ or something. It’s creepy.”

  “Write it down, Gio. After dinner go to your room and write down what happened and how you feel about it. Your writing is good—it really is. Just don’t run away from the feelings.”

  I had to laugh. “Who are you to tell me not to run away? You can’t wait to escape.”

  There was no sound for a minute, and I was afraid I’d made her mad.

  “Marisol?”

  “I don’t run away from myself, Gio. I don’t lie,” she said finally. Her voice sounded strained, as if she was talking while doing something very difficult, like balancing on a tightrope. “I have to leave to find out who I really am inside this person my parents have tried to manufacture. But I don’t run from my feelings. Believe it or not, I love my parents. Sometimes it scares me to think about leaving them and going off by myself. What if I can’t make it on my own?”

  I was so surprised. “Of course you’ll make it. If you can’t, nobody can.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. That nobody can. Not really.”

  “Oh, thanks. That’s a comforting thought.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. Well, go eat with the boyfriend. I have to figure out how to dress in something that approaches normality so my mother won’t be horrified in front of her cronies.”

  “Can you meet me Saturday? At eleven? Or earlier?”

  Again there was a pause. “I don’t know. I guess. Bring something to read me. What you write about dinner or something.”

  “Okay. You bring something too.”

  “It’s so weird that we’re, sort of, friends,” she said. “But I guess stranger things have happened.”

  * * *

  When you hear the word fiancé, you don’t usually think of an old, bald guy, do you? To me the word ought to be reserved for young couples who are at least virgins at life if not in sexual experience. But that’s what my mother’s smiley, fifty-two-year-old boyfriend calls himself: “your mother’s fiancé.”

  “Since I’m your mother’s fiancé,” he says to me, “I think we ought to get to know each other a little better.” The littler the better is my opinion, but I keep it to myself. It’s easier to just be busy when old Al shows up. This evening, however, is a command performance: a discussion of the postnuptial living arrangements.

  Now, I know perfectly well where I plan to live, right here in the same house I’ve lived in for almost seventeen years, the house in which I have raised guppies and suicidal goldfish, the house whose gutters I clogged more than once with tennis balls, the house upon whose walls my fitful growth has been recorded, the house my father gave to my mother in the divorce settlement in which she lost her good humor.

  Still, I go downstairs to eat with Al (knowing the only other option is starvation). He can hardly wait to give me the good news. Mom is still retrieving the final edibles from the kitchen when
he tucks himself under the table and says, “I just want you to know that my home is plenty big enough for all of us.”

  Mom scurries back in. “Why don’t we eat first before we discuss matters? That pasta will get cold.”

  I dump a load of shrimp and tomato sauce over my spaghetti, intending to obtain sustenance as quickly as possible in case I feel the need to throw a tantrum before too long and leave. “What home is that, Al?” I ask innocently.

  “My place in Chesterfield. It’s a big old place.” Al is barely toying with his dinner, describing with one arm the expansiveness of his manse. “Of course, my mother has most of the first floor. It’s her house, really, but she’s no trouble at all. You’ll like her,” he assures me.

  I’m sure.

  I gesture toward my mother. “So, who’ll be the lady of the house, then? My mother or yours?” A sweet smile.

  “Oh, hell … heck, they get along like gangbusters, don’t you, Annie?”

  “Your mother is a dear,” mine says tactfully. I have to wonder what the hell is in this marriage for her. Is it just redeeming some hurt pride or something? But then old Al leans over and rubs her shoulders real softly, and she smiles at him kind of shyly. God, don’t tell me it’s sex. I have to look away.

  And so it begins. I have to tell them, “Look, I’m not moving anywhere. You two can feel free to go, but I’m staying right here. I have one year of school left, and I’m not starting all over at some new place. So get it out of your heads that Granny and I are going to be roomies.” I can see where this is going so I shove in more food.

  Al says he understands it’s a little upsetting to me; Mom says the decision is not mine to make. I say, okay, move me, but I’m still going to school in Darlington.

  “Do you know how much it costs to go to school in a town you don’t live in?” Mom says. “And there aren’t any buses that go directly. Chesterfield is only a half hour away—you can come back to see your friends whenever you want to.” (What friends are those, I wonder?)

  “I’ll drive in then,” I tell her. “I’ll get a job and pay for the school myself. And drive here every day.” I’m not even sure why I’m fighting so hard, because I don’t like my school anyway. Nobody besides Brian would even know I left, and now that he’s smitten with some freshman, he wouldn’t care either. All I know is my mother marrying this bald guy is weird enough; I don’t want anything else to change right now.