Royally Crushed (29 page)

“Sure, make yourself comfortable. We’ll be starting our
meeting in just a minute. There’s coffee and soda, if you’d like a drink.”

I tell her thanks, I’ll grab a Diet Coke (because I need one, bad), but then she gets all squealy as someone else—a woman about my mom’s age—walks through the door.

It’s the freaking Twilight Zone in here.

John pops the top on a Diet Coke and hands it to me. In a hushed voice he says, “Yolanda’s always like that. The rest of us are much closer to normal.”

I take the drink and give him a grateful smile.

“Your mom just dumped you here without warning you, didn’t she?”

“It’s that obvious, huh?” I can’t help but like the guy. I get the impression he’s being genuinely nice and that he hasn’t been coached to say this just to make me comfortable.

He shoves his hair out of his face. It’s scruffy brown and too long to be stylish, and he’s wearing an old Kenny Chesney T-shirt. He’s not bad-looking—he’s got a killer bod and a decent enough face—but he’s definitely not the kind of guy who hangs with the in crowd.

Which, of course, means he probably realizes I’m not exactly cool either.

“My parents brought me without telling me what it was
all about the first time either,” he explains. “My mom’s not here today, but she still comes sometimes.”

How do I ask this? “So, is your dad, um—”

“No. My older brother, Brad. He came out last year.”

“Oh.” I can’t imagine a buffed-up, grungy guy like John with a gay brother, let alone a gay brother named Brad, which sounds like a pretty non-gay name. He just doesn’t look the type.

Then again, what’s the type? Do I look like the daughter of a lesbian? And what’s a non-gay name?

I take a long sip of my Diet Coke, telling myself that I must be way more shallow than I thought for making such an asinine snap judgment about John. Or for making judgments like that about anyone.

“The group’s not so bad,” he says, keeping his voice low. “The first time I came, I was pissed off like you wouldn’t believe. Couldn’t believe my parents were dragging me to something like this. So I know where you’re coming from.”

“And you’re here by choice now?”

One side of his mouth crooks into a smile. “Yeah, believe it or not. I don’t come to all the meetings, but most of ’em. I’m going to NYU next year, and between making college plans and everything that’s been going on with my
brother, I’m completely stressed out. This helps me keep my head on straight.” He pauses for a sec, then adds, “So to speak.”

Did he just make a gay joke? In a room full of people who are probably sensitive to the issue?

“I was planning to share an apartment with Brad in New York, since he’s already at NYU, but now I’m not sure, you know? I mean, what if he gets a boyfriend or something?”

“Yeah, I can understand that.” That would suck way worse than my situation.

Yolanda starts herding everyone toward the folding chairs, so I quickly grab a seat as far back as possible. It’s a small room, though, and with only a dozen people in it, I can’t really hide out.

Especially since Yolanda is now pointing at me. “We have a new member today.” Her voice reminds me of a varsity cheerleader. Or worse, a wannabe varsity cheerleader. “Everyone please welcome Valerie!”

There’s a murmur of hellos, then Yolanda says, “Valerie, why don’t you tell us why you’re here today?”

“Ummmm . . .” Because my mother tricked me? And what about Gabrielle telling me I didn’t have to talk if I didn’t want to? I want to give Yolanda the Valerie Shrug, but every single person is staring at me.

I’m going to
kill
my mother.

“I guess I’m just here to listen,” I finally say.

Thankfully, Yolanda seems to accept this, and moves on to talk about her week. Apparently, her daughter, Amy, is gay. Sounds like they get along well enough, but Yolanda’s worried about Amy moving into a new apartment complex, and that Amy’s older, more conservative neighbors will treat her differently or will say nasty things when they discover she’s not coming with a nice young husband, 2.5 kids, and a minivan.

“Amy doesn’t seem too concerned, though,” Yolanda tells the group. “She admits that the neighbors will probably react badly, but she doesn’t think they’ll pay enough attention to her to figure it out right away. So I’m just trying to trust in Amy, and trying not to worry.”

A few people offer encouragement, which makes Yolanda smile. “So, anyone else with something to share? Anything happen in the last two weeks?”

She points to a guy in the front row with his arms crossed over his chest who’s raising a finger in the air. Not a hand, just a finger. He says his name is Mel (for my benefit, I’m sure, though I can guarantee I won’t remember his name five minutes from now). Mel, a balding guy with a beer gut and tattoos on his knuckles, talks about meeting his son’s new partner for the first time last weekend. How
he felt strange seeing his son kiss another man, even though there wasn’t full-on tongue action or anything.

“Caught me completely off-guard, I’ll tell ya. I guess I should’ve seen it comin’, though,” he says with a sarcastic laugh. “Ever since Jake was little, I figgered the day’d come where he’d call and tell us he met a young lady—someone from college or from his fancy office—and that he wanted to get married and give me and my wife a bunch of grandchildren.”

Mel scratches his chin for a minute, then adds, “I’ve adjusted to the fact he ain’t never gonna have a wife. But seeing him kiss another man just—” He stops for a second and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he says, “I guess it just hit home all over again that everything I pictured for my boy ain’t gonna come to pass. I drove home from the restaurant mad. Real mad.”

I start thinking about Mom kissing Gabrielle, and I can totally identify with this guy. Even if he is, like, sixty or so. And I’m willing to bet he has anger issues regardless of his son’s sexual orientation, if his deep frown lines and rough voice are anything to go by.

“Did the kiss make you question your love for your son?” A woman sitting in the front row, on the opposite side of the C-shape from Mel, asks.

Mel thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t think so. I
love the kid, no matter what. But I sure was angry. I wanted to take a swing at his . . . his
partner
. . . just knock the fag’s head off. Never would, course. I know in my gut that this is all
my
problem—not Jake’s, and not his partner’s. But ya know, people just didn’t
do
this sort of thing where I was raised. Ya went to school, worked hard, and got married. Period. I guess what I’m saying is, I still have days where I feel like Jake’s intentionally trying to ruin
my
life. So that’s why I came this week, even though I ain’t been here in a couple months. To try not to be so damned angry.”

To my left, I hear John clear his throat. “I was really ripshit a few months ago—you know, wondering if I was going to have a place to live after I made all these plans. I wanted to call up my brother in New York and just tell him off.”

Wow. I wouldn’t use the word “ripshit” in this crowd—let alone that we’re in the basement of a
church
—but no one even blinks when John talks this way. As I look around and listen to the people whispering, I realize they all pretty much talk however they want to, and all seem to accept how everyone else talks. Even Mel calling his son’s partner a fag, which is another word I’d never use.

Not that I’m going to actually
talk
. But it is interesting.

“Anyway,” John says, “I read somewhere that a good exercise is to put all the things that bother you about a
person down one side of a paper, and all the things you love down the other side. So I made myself do that before I picked up the phone.”

“Like a pro and con list?” someone asks.

He nods. “It sounds stupid, because you sort of know it all in your head already, but when I listed everything out on paper, I could see exactly what was bothering me about my brother, in black and white.”

“And it helped you deal with those issues?” Yolanda asks.

“Exactly. And it’s been good having a concrete list of things I love about my brother, ’cause I can read it whenever I need to remind myself to chill out.”

He leans forward in his chair and pushes his hair off his face again. “Having a gay brother is really small stuff when I think about it. I mean, I’d choose having him tell me he’s gay over telling me he has cancer any day. Like Mel said, it reminds me that I’m the one with a problem, not him. It’s just part of who he is.”

John’s use of the phrase “small stuff” reminds me of the self-help book Mom sent to me in Schwerinborg a few weeks ago, and of course, that reminds me of the ridiculous cheese book. The one that said I have to anticipate change in the same way I’m supposed to anticipate that
the cheese in the fridge will go bad, and go out and get new cheese. Or something.

But now that John’s talking, I’m thinking that even though the cheese book sounded pretty bizarre, the small stuff book was kind of useful. Maybe I should give John’s list idea a chance too.

I’m not one for exercises. I mean, I hate taking those quizzes in teen magazines that are supposed to tell me what kind of guy would be perfect for me, what kind of clothes fit my personality, or all about my dosha. But this exercise seems to make sense, because as John tells the group about what he wrote on his lists, I find that I’m mentally making lists for Mom. When I can’t keep track anymore, I pick up a Methodist church flyer that’s lying on the floor under the chair in front of me and scribble, keeping the print super-small so no one else can read it.

As I keep scribbling to the bottom of the page, I realize that while the cons on my list are biggies, they all have to do with me and my attitude.

Okay, I’m not happy that my parents don’t live together anymore. I can add that to the cons list. But otherwise, as John discovered when he made his lists, most of the cons have to do with
me
being angry or uncomfortable or disappointed.

The pros, on the other hand, have to do with my mother herself: that she loves me, and that she never would have come out if she hadn’t felt like she absolutely had to. The pros are all things that won’t change. And five years from now, the cons look like things that might not matter so much.

Well, maybe not the cheating.

Maybe I need to just suck it up, deal, and grow up a little. Though, apparently, judging from Mel and the rest of the room, it’s one of those things that’s easier said than done.

I’m egotistical enough to think I have better emotional management skills than Mel, though. And if John can learn to deal—or at least try to deal—maybe I can too.

“How was it, honey?”

“Not as bad as I thought,” I admit as I climb into the back of Mom’s Toyota. I never did talk, but at the end of the meeting, I did check out the table of books Yolanda had on display. Some weren’t for me, like
Our Trans Children
(sheesh, I really hope I never need that one, though I did see one woman pick it up and she looked relieved to have found it), but there was one called
Is Homosexuality a Sin?

I grabbed that one.

Before I went outside to meet my mother, though, I hid it under my shirt. Totally immature, but I don’t care. I don’t want her to know I’m worried about this.

I mean, I’m
not
. I don’t think she’s committing a sin against God. I figure He wired her the way He did for a reason. But I still want to read the book. I have a feeling other people
do
think Mom is living a sinful life, and sooner or later, they’re going to tell me so. Some may just be concerned, like Christie (and maybe Christie’s mom—I don’t know). But what about the serious gay-bashers? The kind of people Yolanda was worried might harass her daughter when she moved into a new apartment, maybe egging her house or yelling at her to repent? I have no idea how to handle that kind of thing.

Mom puts her key in the ignition, but before she starts the engine, I lean forward into the front seat, totally ignoring Gabrielle, and give my mother my toughest stare. “But don’t ever, ever spring something like that on me again. I mean it, Mom.”

I know I shouldn’t talk to her this way, but I have to get it through her head—and Gabrielle’s—that leaving me at the PFLAG meeting without telling me what I was about to face was totally uncool.

“I know we probably could’ve handled it better,” Mom
says with a big sigh. “We’ve talked about it ever since we heard from your father that you were coming to visit. And we talked about it the whole time we were waiting for you.”

“You waited outside?”

“Down the street.” Gabrielle has the good sense to look embarrassed. “Your mom and I didn’t want you to see us out the window and come running back to the car.”

“Very mature of you both.” Freaks. I’m in a Toyota SUV with freaks.