Hard Love

  I like No Regrets a lot. Another good zine is Escape Velocity—have you ever seen it? My friend Marisol Guzman writes it. I’m enclosing a copy of my zine, Bananafish, in case you’re interested.

  I spent a long time trying to decide how to sign the thing (or whether to mail it at all), and then finally I just signed it: John Galardi, a.k.a. Giovanni. I had to stop all this lying about dumb stuff like my name. I mean, there might be a good reason to lie about something important from time to time, but not about stuff like that. And besides, I already told her who I was in the letter. Having an ethnic name wasn’t going to change whatever opinion she already had. Besides, I’d never meet her anyway.

  Chapter Eight

  I went to hear the nuns sing both nights. What else was there to do? Since my room in Darlington wasn’t as well equipped as the one on Marlborough Street, I had to leave it periodically, which meant the possibility of running into Al, which was fairly uncomfortable even if he wasn’t in his underwear. Rather than feel like a prisoner in my own home, I escaped.

  The play was corny as hell, of course, but I kind of enjoyed it anyway. What a riot to see Brian up there, bowing and yes-sirring so seriously. Vincent Brazwell’s voice was pretty grating, but Violet was passable, and those damn nuns were actually good. That last song, every time I heard it, I had to look away and think about something else. For some reason, even though I knew these were a bunch of high school kids whose idea of courage was taking advanced placement physics, I couldn’t stop thinking about the real people who had to leave everything behind them and hike out of their country at night with only the few things they could carry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me lately. It’s like that sad/hopeful stuff gets to me a little bit.

  So there I was Friday night, feeling kindly toward the butler and the nun as we sat in a booth at the coffee shop at midnight. Of course, Emily started talking about the prom again and how she could help me get a date. I guess what happened was I felt like such a loser sitting there across from Romeo and Juliet. If you want the truth, I suppose I always felt a little bit superior to old Brian. Like I could have gotten dates if I’d wanted to, but he, who was dying to go out with a girl, couldn’t even get a female to speak to him. Well, Emily was speaking to him, and apparently a whole lot more.

  So one minute I’m sitting there trying to figure out how to get out of this prom thing altogether, and the next I hear a fully developed story coming out of my mouth I didn’t even know I was cooking up. Apparently I’ve now become a completely incorrigible liar.

  “Actually, I do have a girlfriend,” I said. “In Boston. I’ve been seeing her on weekends when I stay at Dad’s. That’s why I haven’t wanted you to come in with me lately, Bri.” Didn’t that sound absolutely plausible?

  “You do?” Brian’s eyes were round as Ping-Pong balls. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Easy. “Well, I didn’t want to make you feel bad. I mean, this started before you met Emily, so …” What a friend.

  “I’ve been going with Emily for weeks already. You could have told me. How’d you meet her?” Brian looked kind of hurt, but Emily was only curious.

  “What’s her name? What’s she like? Is she coming to the prom?”

  All of sudden I panicked. Where was this lie headed? “Her name is … Marisol. I met her at Tower Records; she’s a zine writer, like me.” No lies there.

  “A what writer?” Emily wrinkled up her face.

  “Zines. They’re like homemade magazines,” Brian explained. “Only you just put your own writing in it.” I had given Brian a copy of my first issue, so now he was a font of knowledge, even though he probably hadn’t even read the thing.

  “Wow. You both do that? How cool!” Emily was impressed by anything. She dumped a fourth packet of sugar into her cappuccino, which made me a little more sympathetic toward her than I had been.

  “Anyway, that’s how I met her, and now we go out almost every weekend. Not this weekend, since I stayed here for the play.”

  “I bet she’s mad,” Emily said.

  I shrugged. “We don’t own each other.” Apparently Emily couldn’t see my nose expanding like zucchini in August, but I suspected Marisol would take it in at a glance.

  “So, you asked her to the prom, then?” Brian looked suspicious.

  Some fast talking would be needed now. “Well, that’s the thing. I mean, Marisol is very cool, you know? She’s a city person. We like to just hang out in Boston, take in the scene. She’s not really the prom type, if you know what I mean.”

  “Thanks a lot, John!” Emily let her mouth hang open in mock shock. “I guess we’re just not cool enough for Marisol. We’re prom types.”

  “That’s not what I meant …”

  “I am so sick of this Mr. Cool attitude, you know that?” Brian said, shoving his empty cup across the table. “For years I’ve had to listen to you dis everything and everybody because you think you’re better than they are. Well, you’re no better than the rest of us slobs, John. You’re not!”

  Just then a bunch of other actors from the play came in (nuns and Nazis, not stars) and rushed over to exchange hugs and kisses with Brian and Emily, like we were all on Broadway or something. Not one of them had managed to get all the makeup off their face, but I figured they probably liked it that way, so people could see what professional stage-meisters they were. It was weird to see Brian so comfortable around people I didn’t even know. He wasn’t alone anymore; he had friends, interests, Emily.

  When the actors went to their own booth, I apologized. “I just meant I feel funny asking her to the prom. I don’t know. Maybe she’ll go, but if she doesn’t want to, I don’t want to go with anybody else.” That sounded good.

  “But you’ll ask her?” Brian prodded. “It’s not going to kill you to ask her.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll ask her,” I said, promising myself this was my last major lie. When I told them later that she didn’t want to go, it would be gospel truth.

  “What kind of name is Marisol?” Emily asked, happy again.

  “Spanish, I guess. She’s originally from Puerto Rico.”

  “Oh, my God, she sounds so awesome! I can’t wait to meet her!”

  An event, I decided, which must never take place.

  * * *

  Of course, there was no reason to even mention this silly prom business to Marisol herself. But then Saturday turned out to be such a terrific day. Marisol came flying down the block toward me as I walked up Newbury Street. I’d kind of forgotten in two weeks how amazing she looked. And here she came, running to see me.

  “Guess what? Are you busy tonight? Do you want to go to a concert with me?” She waved tickets in my face. “I can’t believe I got two tickets. My mother got them from some client of hers who’s in the record biz. She’s trying to get on my good side. This might just do it, too. Can you believe it?”

  I was trying to see what band was printed on the tickets, but she kept waving her arm around and I couldn’t see. “Hold still!” I said, grabbing her wrist. “What concert?”

  “Ani. Ani DiFranco. At the Orpheum. You know her, don’t you?”

  I read the name on the ticket. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Who is she?”

  Marisol let her head fall back and looked for heavenly inspiration to describe her idol. “Omigod, she’s so incredible. Her voice is like a razor. She’s a poet, really. She writes this beautiful stuff that just blows me away.”

  I guess I didn’t seem overly excited.

  “You don’t wanna go? I’m offering you a free ticket to the best concert you’ll see this year, and you don’t wanna go? Fine!” She grabbed the tickets out of my hand. “I’ll call Birdie. I thought I was doing you a favor, but …”

  “Hold on a minute. I didn’t say I didn’t want to go. I just never heard of her.”

  “She’s an independent. They don’t play her stuff on those trashy rock stations you probably listen to.” She was glaring up at me from under her spiky bangs.
br />   “Marisol, if you say she’s good, I believe you. Besides, I’d want to go even if she was awful. The more time I spend with you, the less time I spend at Dad’s place.”

  “Oh, thanks for the compliment. You like me more than your father, the lecher, but less than … what? Your grandmother, the jewel thief?” She was warming up again.

  “No. You beat out Granny, too. Besides, she’s not a jewel thief; she’s an ax murderer.”

  Wow. A real smile. Held down at one corner, of course, and kind of squished up into her nose so that I wouldn’t think she was really feeling kindly toward me, but still, a smile.

  Suddenly her voltage meter shot up even higher. “Oh! I almost forgot my other good news: I got into Stanford!”

  “You did? That’s great. In California, right?” I said, feeling a lot less happy than I had a few seconds before.

  “California!” she said dreamily. “Land of escape!”

  “Have you ever been there? I mean, how do you know you’ll like it?”

  “Gio, I would like any place that’s three thousand miles from here.”

  I tried not to take it personally. “Because of your parents, you mean? They won’t be looking over your shoulder all the time.”

  “That, sure. But I’m tired of the East Coast too. I want a change. Change makes things happen, you know?” Her shoulders trembled with excitement as she looked into the future.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said crabbily. “I live in Darlington, remember? We’re allergic to change.”

  “You’ll get out too. You’re too good a writer to get stuck in the suburbs. Think big, Gio! Imagine what comes next and make it happen!”

  That picked me up again, Marisol saying I was a good writer. Listening to Marisol talk, you started to believe a terrific future was a real possibility and not just some childish fantasy.

  After our usual coffee, we went to the Institute of Contemporary Art (Marisol’s idea), where they had a group show of local artists. Going to a gallery is not something I usually do; as a matter of fact, I’d never gone to one before. Oh, yeah, Dad had dragged me to the Museum of Fine Arts a few times when I was a kid, but he gave up taking me places years ago. Walking around the ICA made me feel grown-up in a funny way. I mean, I didn’t exactly know why people went to art museums—how are you supposed to look at paintings and what do you say about them?—but being there with Marisol was so cool. She belonged in that kind of place.

  “Look at these colors. Don’t you love this—the way she drapes this form around that one? With that yellow? I always wanted to paint, didn’t you?”

  “No. I was never any good at art.”

  “I’m not either; I just want to do everything. Why can’t we all do everything we want to? I’d be a writer and a singer and a painter and a politician and … maybe an Olympic track star.”

  “In one lifetime?”

  “Why not? Sleep less.”

  By the middle of the afternoon we were back at Tower Records, looking at zines. Marisol went inside to the non-freebie racks, and I followed after a few minutes. She’d already found what she was looking for.

  “You’re in Factsheet 5!” She held the magazine out to me.

  “A review?”

  “A good one! Read it.”

  I was so excited I could hardly hold the floppy newsprint still, barely make my eyes focus on the small type. But there it was:

  Bananafish #1

  I was impressed with this funny, irreverent peek into Giovanni’s psyche. The poetry got a little obscure sometimes, but the recipe for “Mothers Soup” (“1/2 teaspoon Random Act of Kindness for every 2 cups of Self-Sacrifice. Serve in unused running shoes.”) was hilarious. My favorite piece, “Interview with the Stepfather.” was wise and witty and even a little poignant when Boy admits his real father’s ineptitude. A slim first issue but look for more good stuff from this guy. Will trade. Price: $1 and 2 stamps. Giovanni, P.O. Box 98, Darlinggton, MA.

  “Not bad, huh? Almost as good as my first review,” Marisol said.

  “What’s he mean, ‘poignant’?” I asked.

  “He means it goes deep. It’s touching. It’s not an insult, Gio.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to be touching.”

  Marisol rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, don’t tell me you left your closet door open a crack and somebody looked in! What were you thinking?”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Gio, this is a great review. People will want to read Bananafish now. Are you complaining?”

  “No! I’m just … surprised. It is good, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head and gave me an elbow in the ribs. “Buy it and then let’s go have a celebratory dinner before the concert. Because we are such total winners, and because I’m starving to death.” For a small person she sure liked to eat.

  I called and left a message on Dad’s machine that I’d be out late at a concert (as though he’d care), and we went in search of a Thai restaurant Marisol remembered. It was small and dark and partly underground.

  A waiter seated us at a table in the corner, lit the candle, smiled kindly. I let Marisol order because I wasn’t that familiar with Thai food.

  “How come you know so much? I mean how to talk about art, and what to order in a Thai restaurant, and the difference between caffè latte and café con leche. Really. You’re not even a year older than I am, and I don’t know any of that stuff.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s growing up in Cambridge. My mother’s from one of those cosmopolitan-type families where everybody instinctively knows how to handle any situation with ease by the time they’re three years old. You can’t shock or surprise them. They know too much. I hope I’m not like that. I hope I can still be surprised.”

  “Like the way your mother handled it when you came out to her.”

  “Right. She read some books, made a few phone calls, and within twenty-four hours she knew more about homosexuality than I did. Wait, how did you know that?”

  “Read it in Escape Velocity.”

  She laughed. “God, I put my whole life down in print, and then forget people actually read it. It’s a little scary. I mean, you know things I wouldn’t ordinarily tell somebody I didn’t know very well.”

  I must have gotten a funny look on my face or something. I mean, it did hurt me a little bit because I was thinking we knew each other pretty well now.

  “Don’t pout,” Marisol said. “You’re the only straight guy I would ever invite to an Ani DiFranco concert. And here’s another thing I wasn’t going to tell you: The one and only other time I ate in this restaurant was with Kelly.” She frowned into the candle flame. “So let’s make it memorable. I want to wash that other evening out of my mind.”

  It was memorable, at least for me. We talked about all kinds of things. I told her about the argument I’d had with Dad two weeks ago, about Mom riding the exercise bike and listening to ABBA, about the singing nuns and Brian’s new confidence. She told me about how she used to go fishing with her father, and to the opera with her mother, and how she’d raised cockatoos on their sun porch for three years. And then, somehow, just as we were cleaning up the last of the pad Thai, we got onto the topic of our high schools, which made me think about the stupid prom, and then, before I knew it, the unthinkable question popped out of my mouth.

  “Speaking of high school, you wouldn’t be willing to go to the Junior Prom with me in two weeks, would you?”

  Just the look on her face made little bubbles of sweat burst through my skin. Now I’d ruined everything.

  “What?” she whispered, leaning across the table as though she couldn’t possibly have heard me correctly.

  “I don’t want to go that much myself, but my friend, Brian …”

  “Okay, I’m still capable of surprise! Gio, do I look like a person who goes to a prom?” She pulled at her hair spikes. “No offense to darling Darlington, but God, Gio. Why would anybody want to go to a dorky, suburban prom? I never thought you would.”


  I never thought I would either, but listening to Marisol put the place down like that, I had to defend it a little bit. “It’s not the ninth circle of hell, Marisol. It’s twenty-five minutes from Boston, not in some backwoods somewhere.”

  “So?”

  “So, I just thought it might be fun to do something … normal. For a change. Just to see what it’s like.”

  “And you think it’s normal to date a lesbian?”

  “It wouldn’t be a date. A lot of people go with friends. You don’t have to be engaged.”

  “A prom is … romantic. You have to dance. I’d have to wear a dress. A fancy dress. I’d have to do some kind of Barbie number, with hair and makeup. Lesbian Barbie—that would be cute. Gio, how can you ask me to do this?”

  Why had it ever seemed like a plausible plan? “Okay. So it was a bad idea.”

  Marisol shivered her shoulders. “I mean, like spaghetti straps or something.”

  “Let’s drop it. I had a moment of temporary insanity. You aren’t going. I’m not going. We are both definitely not going.”

  “Gio, if you want to go, you should ask somebody who’d enjoy it. Some girls are dying to do this stuff. It’s all they talk about.”

  “They aren’t dying to do it with me.”

  She smacked her hand on the table. “Oh, please. You’re such a monster? They should be happy somebody with a mind asks them out, instead of the usual brain-dead example of masculinity.”

  I shrugged. “There’s nobody I really want to go with anyway. Most of the girls in my high school are such … girls.”

  “Gio, you are radically confused.”

  “I know.”

  She ordered us a sweet rice pudding dessert to cheer me up, which was nice of her. I guess she could tell I was kind of hurt, but she didn’t make too big a deal out of it. Later, as we walked to the Orpheum, it was just starting to rain a little. It was a warm night for April, and there were lots of people out on the street. It made me feel like things weren’t so hopeless, like I wasn’t the biggest fool on earth, like summer was coming and proms weren’t important and Marisol was all the friend I needed. She started to sing some Ani DiFranco lines for me.