Hard Love

  “the more you talk

  the more I get

  the sense of something

  that hasn’t happened yet …”

  “That’s from one of my favorite songs. Isn’t it great? I get that feeling sometimes, like something is getting ready to change, something important is getting ready to happen. Do you ever get that feeling?”

  “I do. Actually I have it now.” I wasn’t lying either.

  “Really? There’s another part in that song that reminds me of you,” she said hesitantly.

  “i am so many white people

  i mean where do I start

  i got lots of personalities

  i just can’t tell them apart.”

  “That’s me? A WASP with multiple personalities?”

  “Um hmm. And always asking, ‘Where do I start?’”

  “Well, where do I start?”

  Marisol grabbed my arm almost roughly, then slid her black-gloved hand around my elbow. “You’ve started already, white boy. You just don’t know it.”

  Chapter Nine

  A cloud of smoke swirled through the crowd as we jostled our way outside, everybody lighting up as soon as they hit the lobby. All around us people were calling to each other, pushing past to reach old friends, or maybe they were people who barely knew each other, but now, meeting at an Ani concert, they recognized each other as soul mates.

  It was a very good concert, and I had that after-a-good-concert feeling: the world can’t be such a rotten place if I’m surrounded by this many people who appreciate the same artist I do. The music had been loud and exhilarating, and I was definitely an Ani fan now. I felt like I’d made some kind of electric connection with her, but then everybody else must have felt that way too. All around us people seemed really wired as they came down into the lobby.

  It was raining a little more heavily than when we walked over, but it was still warm enough that you didn’t mind too much. The scene outside the theater was very mellow, everybody circling around like they didn’t want to leave yet, didn’t want to admit it was over. Marisol came outside and immediately put her hands up in the air and belted out the first lines of an Ani song about walking in the rain.

  Several people joined in or whooped or said, “You go, Girl.” There were more women than men in the crowd, and probably more gay people than you’d find in a random sample too.

  “Shit! Look what time it is!” Marisol said suddenly.

  “Twelve thirty. What’s the matter? You lose your glass slipper?”

  “I missed the last Red Line train to Cambridge. Damn it! I promised my parents I’d make that train. They’ll be really pissed off about getting out of bed to drive over here in what they refer to as ‘the middle of the night.’ Maybe I could walk home.”

  “To the other side of Harvard Square? By yourself? In the middle of the night?” She weighed ninety pounds; perverts would come out of the cracks in the sidewalk.

  “You wanna walk with me?”

  “No.”

  “My hero.”

  “It’s too far.” An idea surfaced in my brain that seemed to have been there all along. “Why don’t you just stay at my dad’s place overnight? He won’t even know. He wouldn’t care anyway.”

  Marisol bit the inside of her lip and thought it over. Apparently we were both mulling over the same question. “Where would I sleep?”

  I was ready. “You can have my bed. I’ll put a sleeping bag on the floor.”

  “I’ll use the bag.”

  “I don’t mind using the bag.”

  “I don’t either.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever you want.” I meant that sincerely. She could call the shots. Because as soon as the idea occurred to me, I began to anticipate it eagerly. Not because I thought anything sexual would happen (between a lesbian and a neuter?); I just didn’t feel like saying good night to her yet. I wanted to be her closest friend, closer than Birdie, someone with whom she’d be comfortable sleeping in the same room.

  Marisol stuck a strand of hair in the corner of her mouth and chewed another minute. “Okay. I’ll take the bed. But just so you know ahead of time, there’s no way I’m inviting you to share it. I don’t care how uncomfortable the floor is. Are we clear on that?”

  “Man! Give me some credit, will you? I offered to sleep on the floor. I know you’re a lesbian, okay? You don’t let me forget it for a minute.”

  “No? Sometimes I’m afraid I do.”

  We went back inside, and she called her parents from the lobby phone. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it seemed to go pretty smoothly.

  “So, they’re all right with it?”

  She grunted. “I think they’re thrilled.”

  “That you missed the train?”

  “That I’m staying with a boy.” She shook her head.

  “Sorry.”

  “As long as you’re not thrilled.”

  That was a little too close for comfort, but I finessed it. “Hey,” I said, “I’m totally bummed about the whole thing. Filthy sleeping bag. Floor like fossilized stone. This suspicious crab-ass in my bed.”

  She belted me with one of those skinny, hard elbows, then broke into another Ani song as we headed back to Marlborough Street. We were pretty wet by the time we got there. Dad wasn’t home, of course, so we took turns showering. I gave her a pair of Dad’s pajamas to put on, but they were so big on her that the top alone was longer than most women’s dresses. She had to roll the sleeves up about eleven times.

  “Your dad actually wears silk pajamas?”

  “I don’t ask him, Marisol. I don’t like to imagine what his bedtime behavior entails.”

  I’d put clean sheets on my bed while Marisol was in the shower, so she crawled in between Dad’s Ralph Lauren plaids. Before she did though, I got a quick look at her legs. I couldn’t help being curious; all she ever wears is pants. They were muscley, and covered with a thin layer of fine, black hair.

  “So, does he have girlfriends over while you’re here?” she asked, pulling the blanket up over her knees.

  “It’s happened. Usually he stays at their places, though.”

  “Wild!”

  “It’s not wild. He’s just an old fart trying to act like he’s twenty again. I think it’s disgusting.” I could just imagine him walking in on this scene: the girl tucked in the bed, and me on the floor in sweatpants and a T-shirt, cuddled up with my pillow. He’d laugh his ass off.

  “You never talk to him about this stuff?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “You know what you should do? You should write letters to him. I don’t mean you should send them, just write them. Put down everything you ever wanted to say to him, good or bad.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  She shrugged. “My therapist suggested it. Since I write all the time anyway, she said I should try writing letters to my mother. My birth mother.”

  “I didn’t know you saw a therapist.”

  “My mom’s a therapist, so, you know, she believes in them. She got me started with Claire around the time I came out, although what we usually end up talking about is being adopted. Anyway, writing the letters has helped me figure out who my mother is. Or, at least, who she isn’t.”

  “Who isn’t she?”

  “She’s not me. Which you might think is obvious, but it isn’t. When I talk to her like that, in a letter, she becomes real, and I can get mad at her, and then, you know …” She looked down at her tar-painted fingernails and lowered her voice. “… forgive her. I write to her a lot. I wrote a letter this morning in the Trident before you came.”

  “You did? Can I read it?”

  She screwed up her face. “No! It’s too personal!”

  “So who do you show it to? Your therapist?”

  She shook her head. “Not usually. Only if I want to. She doesn’t grade me or anything.”

  I glanced at her backpack, where it lay in the corner. “Is it in there?” I said, grinning. I guess I just wanted to
lighten the mood a little.

  “Gio! Don’t you dare!” She leaped up and crawled across the bed.

  I thought she knew it was just a joke. I got to my knees and reached out toward the pack; I could have grabbed it if I’d wanted to. But Marisol wasn’t laughing. She smacked my forehead with the back of her hand, which I wasn’t expecting, and I sprawled backward on the sleeping bag. She jumped off the bed and grabbed her pack, hugging it to her chest like a wounded child.

  “I can’t believe you’d do that, Gio. I trusted you!” Her voice was shaking and cracking like I’d perpetrated a major betrayal.

  “Do what? I was kidding, for God’s sake. Shit, you really creamed my head.” There were two little trails of blood where her black nails had grazed flesh. “I don’t want to read your silly letter.”

  She stood in the corner glaring at me for another minute while I wiped my face with a tissue.

  “I didn’t think you would act like that, like one of those high school boys who tease all the time. I didn’t expect it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad to see we’ve built up such a trusting relationship.” I hurled the red-spotted square in the direction of the trash can.

  “Listen, I’m here, aren’t I?” She stashed the pack at the side of the bed away from me, then crawled back under the covers. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I’ll live.”

  She sighed. “Let’s just go to sleep. It’s late.”

  “Fine.” I got up and turned off the overhead light, then folded myself into the green nylon bag.

  “Good night,” Marisol said.

  “’Night.”

  I heard her turn over on her side, away from me, and I did the same. The little slices on my forehead burned, but I knew it was from anger more than any real damage she’d done. I was wide awake and so mixed-up I suddenly wanted to scream.

  “I hope you don’t intend to finish me off in the middle of the night,” I spit out. “You don’t have a blade in that top secret backpack, do you?”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t even rustle the covers. I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling where a column of streetlamp light sliced an angle. No way was I going to be able to fall asleep while she lay three feet away thinking I was some high school chump. Maybe it was just too much to expect a straight guy and a lesbian to be best friends.

  Ten minutes must have passed. I knew Marisol was still awake too; she was lying so motionlessly I wasn’t sure she was even breathing. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t be mad at me for such a dumb thing.”

  She snorted. “Why should I be mad at you, then?”

  “You shouldn’t. I’m harmless.”

  “I doubt that. But I guess I’ll forgive you anyway.”

  “Thank you. Now you apologize.”

  She turned over to face me. “What for?”

  “Drawing blood!”

  “What a baby,” she said, but her voice had relaxed; she wasn’t angry anymore. “Fine. I’m sorry I mutilated your gorgeous face.”

  “You’re forgiven. Now we can sleep.”

  “Thank you. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I guess I really was relieved, because I started to drift off as soon as we’d hammered out the peace accord. I was in that happy, half-dreaming place when Marisol’s voice pulled me back to wakefulness.

  “If you really want to hear it, I’ll read it to you.”

  “What?”

  “The letter. If you really want to hear it.” She clicked on the little light next to the bed.

  I had to shield my eyes for a minute. As a matter of fact, by that time I was too tired to give a damn about the letter, but not so stupid as to admit it. “Sure. I want to hear it.”

  She dug around in the pack and brought out a thick red notebook that had the legend “Letters to my Mother” inked on the cover. She opened it to the latest entry.

  “I don’t write these for anybody to read, so it’s just what I’m thinking. It doesn’t necessarily make sense, so don’t expect …”

  “I have no expectations. Just read it.” I stacked two pillows against the wall so I could sit up and listen (and so there was less chance of my falling asleep on her).

  But once she started to read, I was wide awake.

  “‘To my mother, whoever and wherever she is,’” she began, then stopped to explain, “I always start it out that way.” I nodded and she continued.

  Maybe you think it isn’t fair that I write to you and complain about my life as an adoptee (which you probably think sounds just great and why am I complaining anyway) when I never write letters to my birth father, never blame him the way I blame you. Really I don’t think that much about him. Maybe he didn’t even know you were pregnant. I know society always lets the guy off the hook and blames the mother for any child-related problems, and that’s wrong and I don’t mean to do it. But I just don’t have any picture of him in my mind. Whereas, you I see plainly, a young, brown woman handing her baby over to strangers.

  Probably that’s not fair either—how can I possibly know what the circumstances were when you were pregnant with an unwanted child? I suppose I should thank you for not having an abortion. Okay. I will. Thank you. But I don’t thank you for this: that it’s almost impossible for me to really trust anyone.

  I know it goes back to being adopted; I know this. I’m a confident person, I have loving parents, I am, for God’s sake, “gifted and talented.” And some days I’m crazy about myself. But somewhere down deep I think people don’t really want to be with me. And if I let them see that I like them (as I did with Kelly), they’ll run away (as she did, as you did). I’m afraid to have another girlfriend—I don’t even look for one, because I wouldn’t trust her anyway.

  I spend my time with Birdie and Gio now, but sometimes I’m even afraid with them. Mom gave me two tickets to a concert for tonight, and I’ll ask Gio to go with me. We have fun together, and sometimes I almost trust him. Since the tickets are free, he’ll probably go, but maybe not. It means spending an entire day with me, which is probably a lot more than he bargained for. He likes to talk to me about writing, but he didn’t sign up to be my best friend. Nobody ever does, which might be my own damn fault, but, Mother dear, today I feel like blaming you.

  Your daughter,

  Marisol Guzman

  I can’t explain all the thoughts and feelings that were buzzing through my body. It was almost too much information to take in all at once, but I wanted to take it in; I was thrilled that Marisol was giving it to me. I forced myself to stay there on the floor where I was, even though I wanted to touch her, to reassure her. But what would touching her mean? I imagined my hand on hers would jolt us like an electrical shock, sending us running in opposite directions. For a minute we both sat in silence, although I was anything but quiet inside.

  “Now you know why I didn’t want you to read it,” she said at last, not looking at me. “Okay. Time for bed.” She reached over and clicked out the light, then slid back down under the covers.

  I was glad the light was out. It helped me think what I wanted to say.

  “Thanks for reading it to me. Really.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I have just one question. Where’s the sign-up sheet?”

  “What sign-up sheet?”

  “Where I sign up to be your best friend.”

  She didn’t say anything for a second, but I thought her breathing sounded a little ragged. “Go to sleep, goofball,” she said finally.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I promised.

  “Not if I see you first,” she said, pretending to be the grumpiest girl in the world.

  * * *

  He must have been standing right outside my door. “Wake up in there! Hot coffee and croissants from the bakery!”

  What in the hell was going on? Usually I didn’t even see my dad on Sundays until the middle of the afternoon when he was ready to drive me
back to Darlington. I grabbed the clock off my night table: 10:08 A.M.

  Then I heard Marisol groaning and twisting in the covers, and it came back to me suddenly why I was sleeping on the floor. Jesus! How was I going to get her out of there without running into Dad?

  “Marisol!” I called up to the lump in the bed. “My Dad’s up! He wants me to have breakfast with him!”

  “Who’s stopping you?” she mumbled.

  Maybe if I went out and had a cup of coffee, he’d leave me alone, and Marisol could sneak out later. “I’ll be back,” I told her, pulling a flannel shirt on over the T-shirt I’d slept in. I eased out the door and closed it behind me.

  Dad was in the kitchen arranging pastries on a big platter, enough for a half dozen people, it looked like. “You’re up kind of early, aren’t you?” I asked him.

  “John!” he bellowed.

  God. Why hadn’t I thought about this problem?

  “Where’s your friend?” he asked.

  “What friend?” He really caught me off guard.

  The old turnip gave me this sly grin. “You thought I wouldn’t notice those size two black jeans hanging over the shower rail?”

  Damn it; why hadn’t I thought of that? “Oh, yeah. Well, she’s still asleep.”

  His eyes grazed my forehead, and he smiled. Before I could stop it, my hand flew guiltily up to check on the twin trails, skinny but swollen.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Uh, Marisol. Look, Dad, this is going to sound crazy, but could you call me Gio while she’s here? The thing is, she thinks …” This was too humiliating; he was chuckling already.

  “Gio? Like in Giovanni?”

  “It’s not that important.” Who cared? She was bound to find out anyway.

  “No, no, Son. Whatever you say. I don’t want to screw your thing up for you.”

  Screw my thing up? This was getting ridiculous. I hadn’t seen the old bum so happy in years. I guess he was thinking, “like father, like son,” or some such bull.

  “Do I smell coffee?” Dad and I turned around so fast we bumped into each other. There was Marisol, puffy-eyed, wearing my father’s pajama top, her hair relaxed around her face as if it hadn’t woken up enough to get mad. Dad got this goofy grin on his face, and it occurred to me he was kind of excited to see a young woman inside his own slinky sleepwear.