Astrid Amara (2 page)

on occasion.

I would watch him from afar, pointlessly torn between desire and a seething hatred.

After all, Ethan was the only guy from my neighborhood who had played on the intramural

soccer team. He was the basketball team captain, the guy who girls swooned after, who was

Homecoming King, who had perfect grades, who got into Harvard Medical School, who

worked at a homeless shelter on weekends, delivered the paper every morning, was an

apprentice cantor at the synagogue, who fixed my mother’s sink and rototilled her garden

every year.

He also won the state spelling bee in sixth grade.

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His mother loved him and talked about him incessantly. And because his mother and

my mother spent every waking moment together when I was growing up, my mother ended

up constantly rehashing the pro-Ethan monologue.

“Why can’t you get a summer job at the synagogue?” my mother would demand.

“Rabbi Oblat told Ethan that he can clean up after shul and make a little extra money.”

Or, “Ethan got a scholarship to Harvard, Jonah. Maybe you should consider getting a

scholarship to Harvard.”

As if the only thing between me and a scholarship to Harvard was sheer will.

So I resented him for being everything I wasn’t -- beautiful, talented, popular. His

parents took pride in him. Which was more than could be said for my own parents, and

understandably so.

In high school I was awkward, all limbs. I did poorly in team sports and I was almost

cripplingly shy. And as I would walk home, I would see Ethan with his friends, confident

and laughing and beautiful, and I wanted him, I wanted him almost as much as I disliked

him.

Even now, he made me nervous. He smelled so good. He looked so handsome. He had

such easy confidence about himself. Even in a blizzard he drove one-handed.

I asked him to pull over at a convenience store. Inside I bought myself a pack of

cigarettes and a lighter to replace the one airport security had taken from me. Ethan raised

an eyebrow as I stuffed the pack into my inside coat pocket, but didn’t say anything. He

turned back onto the snowy highway.

“When did you move to Seattle?” I asked.

“Last month,” he said. “I still don’t know my way around very well. I’m hoping you can

take me to a few good restaurants.”

Take him, as opposed to tell him about? Interesting choice of words.

I gulped. “Why’d you move? Can’t be for the weather.”

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Astrid Amara

Ethan laughed. “People keep warning me about the weather but I tell you what: I’ll

take three dreary weeks of rain over this.” He squinted into the blinding nothingness.

“So why did you move then?” I asked.

“Maybe I just wanted to see more of you.” Ethan flashed me another confusing smile,

which sent a chill down my spine, and I shivered.

Ethan, always the gentleman, turned up the heat.

“I was offered a job,” Ethan said finally. “Northwest Gastroenterology needed a

specialist in my field.”

“Gastroenterology? You’re a butt man?”

“Yes. Yes I am.” He smiled.

“I always wondered what makes a man choose a body specialty,” I mused. “I mean, did

you decide that in med school? Did you suddenly say one day, ‘You know, I don’t care about

arms or hearts. I’m really only interested in the colon.’ Is that what happened?”

“Funny guy.” Ethan shook his head.

“You’ve probably heard every single shit joke invented by mankind,” I said, realizing I

was treading on well-worn comedic ground.

“You’d be surprised. As a species we have a real knack for inventing bathroom humor.”

“Not just humans,” I pointed out. “Did you know chimpanzees crack up when they

poop on each other?”

“See, I learn such useful things when I’m with you.” Ethan laughed.

I looked away, ashamed. I’d been sitting in the same car as Dr. Ethan Rosenberg for five

minutes and already I had plummeted to poo jokes? With horror I realized I felt horror,

which meant I was horribly nervous, which could only mean one horrible thing; I still had a

crush on him. I forced the thought from my mind. I remembered the wise guru who once

said, “Turn your love into loathing.” That’s right. Loathe Ethan. So much easier on the ego.

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9

“I like medicine,” Ethan said. It took me a moment to realize he was picking up our

former conversation and not just randomly stating preferences.

“Why?” I asked, trying to focus my loathing.

Ethan shrugged. “I like helping people. There are some fascinating diseases that affect

the digestive tract. I’ve found a real niche in the study of unusual manifestations of

diverticulitis.”

I looked at Ethan’s face. How did he shave so close to the skin? Did he have one of

those razors with fourteen blades? Why did he always smell like the forest, all fresh and

outdoorsman-like?

Ethan glanced over again and caught me staring. I quickly darted my eyes away.

“Come on, admit it,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “You just want to look at sexy asses

all day.”

“When people come to me, sexy is not really a term to be applied.” He smirked. “But

I’ve learned how to admire a good ass.”

“How relieving to know the future of medicine is in your hands.”

“You, for example, have a great ass.”

I choked on my response. I stared out the front window at the blinding nothingness,

feeling my face turn bright red.

Damn, damn, damn…

I didn’t dare look over at Ethan, in case he saw how flustered I was.

Was that a come-on? Or was he just teasing me?

Twelve years ago, when we were both eighteen, Ethan called me a fag in the locker

room after gym class. I can still remember the rage, the shame, and the heartbreak at the way

he had laughed. And when my face grew bright red back then, when I reacted so badly,

stuttering, saying it wasn’t true, he and his friends only laughed harder.

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Astrid Amara

It was one of the worst moments of my life.

That and getting beaten up by the basketball team for the next two months.

Hartford’s skyline blurred past the car. I stared out the window, swallowing my anger.

I was certain he mocked me. He had unearthed my secret years ago and was still looking for

chances to deride me for it.

“Jonah?” He appeared concerned. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“You looked a little sick for a second,” Ethan said.

I stared out the window. Cars drove alongside us in a slow, silent jam to the suburbs.

“How’s your writing going?” he asked.

I shrugged. I promised myself I wasn’t going to lie on this trip, not to my parents, not

to anyone. But that didn’t mean I had to spout out the truth either.

“I’m working on a new novel,” I said.

“That’s great!” Ethan said enthusiastically. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about this asshole doctor who pries into everyone’s business.”

Ethan shut his mouth and turned on the radio.

Needless to say, the rest of the drive to my parents’ suburban house was tense and

uncomfortable. I couldn’t figure out why Ethan was trying to be nice. I didn’t trust him.

Why should I?

As the rented SUV fishtailed into the snow covering my parents’ drive, though, I

realized I preferred his stilted, awkward company to what awaited me indoors. I made no

move to get out of the passenger seat.

Ethan stepped out of the car and frowned at the snow, coming down hard, showing no

sign of relenting.

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11

Ethan walked around the front of the car and then raised an eyebrow at me. He opened

the passenger door. “Are you coming in?”

“You go, have fun. I’ll sleep here.”

“I’ll have more fun if you sleep there. With me.”

“What?” I stared at him. What the hell was this? Was he…flirting? If so, he was

terrible at it.

Ethan gave me a crooked grin. “Come on, be brave. It’s only your parents.”

I sighed. “Okay.” I started to climb out

“And your Aunt Goldie, and her son Matthew.”

“No.” I crawled back in the car.

“And your Uncle Al, and his two kids.”

“Please tell me you’re lying.”

“No.” Ethan laughed and grabbed my extra bag. “You can see why I’m glad you’re

here.” He hustled through the snow to the door.

And I, as always, followed in his shadow.

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Astrid Amara

“Jonah!”

I was immediately thronged by relatives.

I stepped out from the cold and into a bustle of hands and hugs and hairy-lipped kisses.

Aunt Goldie had bent in her old age and she now had a hunchback, standing at an impressive

four-feet-six in height, her eyes barely discernable under the wrinkles.

“Hello, Jonah dear,” she rasped, sounding like a man who smoked two packs a day.

“Hag Sameach.”

“Hag Sameach,” I said back to her. Aunt Goldie taught me all fifteen words I knew of

actual Hebrew. I liked her, even though she was going senile.

As she inquired after my journey and my health, I saw Ethan sneak off, the lucky

bastard. He smiled fondly at my mother and helped her bring dishes out to the table, which

was already set.

My mother had this amazing book, Jewish Home Beautiful, that came with black-and-

white photographs of how every Jewish holiday table should be set. Her own table could

have been taken right out of that book. This was not an example. This was as firm as Jewish

law. Every single doily was in the right place.

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My parent’s suburban home was large, but hadn’t been updated since the seventies.

The walls were muted brown, the carpet an off shade of orange, and everything smelled a

little like old dog, even though their last shih tzu had died right after I left for college. The

windows were covered in condensation from so many hot bodies in the room, contrasting

with the frigid temperatures outside.

“Hello, Mother,” I said, dropping my suitcase of books and giving her a hug. Her

shoulders felt smaller to me, more fragile. She looked older, her face more wrinkled, but she

still had beauty in her eyes, and her hair was tastefully piled on her head and adorned with

the gold clasp that had fascinated me as a kid.

She hugged me in return and then pulled back, frowning at my face.

“You look thinner.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not a compliment,” she warned. She shook her head and tsked. “We were all

waiting for you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” I told her. “I called from Chicago and told you my flight was

canceled.”

“We’re all starving to death, waiting for you.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“And now there’s a terrible storm outside, with all the waiting.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll go have a word with the weather office, make them see a little

reason.” I grit my teeth. Ten seconds and I already resorted to sarcasm?

“Aha, there he is!”

My father smiled and shook my hand robustly. I didn’t think his gut could get rounder,

but it was -- it was almost polished, shiny, like an egg. I was impressed, truth be told, how

his little spindly legs could hold such a girth.

My father clapped me on the back. “Did you vomit on the plane?”

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Astrid Amara

I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t thrown up on a plane since I was eight, Dad.”

Behind him, I could see Ethan trying and failing to stifle a smirk.

“Oh boy! I remember how sick you used to get!” he said, laughing.

“Dad…”

My father smiled at my cousin Daniel. “One time Jonah puked all the way across the

country. Seven hours of retching! He set off all the other passengers. They wanted to kick us

off the plane at O’Hare!”

“I get carsick,” my cousin Rachel informed me. She smiled sympathetically.

I smiled back. Rachel had just turned eighteen, and was a shy, studious girl who said

little at family gatherings. I noted she had put a lot of effort into curling her hair. Since her

mother had died, I hadn’t spoken to her at all. I gave her a hug.

“Good to see you again. You look pretty,” I said.

Rachel’s older brother Daniel was twenty-five, a child from my uncle’s first marriage.

Daniel and I used to play together as children, but after middle school we never really spent

time together.

“And you remember Matthew, don’t you?” my mother said, ushering me over to my

Aunt Goldie’s only child.

Matthew worked in an art museum in Boston, where he and my Aunt Goldie had lived

for twenty years. I rarely saw them growing up. He was short but handsome in an affluent

golfer kind of way. He had a beautiful smile and the dark brown hair of the rest of my

family. He was a few years older than I was, but looked fit and healthy. He shook my hand

with that forced strength that always made me wonder if something about my appearance

made men think I was gay, and therefore they needed to reassert their masculinity.

Lastly I embraced my thin Uncle Al. He had incredible, bushy eyebrows, striped black

and silver like miniature skunks on his face. His crown was bald but curly gray tufts of hair