Tell Me It's Real (25 page)

“Paul’s very…
particular
… when it comes to money,” Sandy said.

“That makes me sound cheap,” I growled at him.

He shrugged. “You just screamed at this woman about the price of a bike. You sort of are.”

“I am
not
. I just want to know why a
bicycle
has any right to cost this much. You know, I bet those poor blood-diamond children have never even
seen
a bicycle before, and here we are exploiting them just so we can ride in luxury!”

“You’re not doing any riding,” Sandy reminded me. “Well, not of the bicycle variety.” He winked at Jenny. “Paul prefers the reverse cowgirl position.”

Jenny smirked. “I sure hope Vince knows this about him. I think that’ll make his day.”

“I wouldn’t be sad if either of you were kidnapped by Serbian nationalists,” I said, grinding my teeth.

“Are you going to buy this bike or not?” Sandy asked. “And if you are, can you please be my sugar daddy too? I like blood diamonds. Lots and lots of blood diamonds. As a matter of fact, I want a tiara made of nothing but.”

“This will probably guarantee you all the reverse cowgirl you want,” Jenny said. “I know if someone bought this for me, I’d let them tear my vagina apart.”

Sandy and I both stared at her, horrified.

She glared at us. “Oh, you two can talk about getting it up the butt, but I can’t talk about my vagina? Men. So typical.”

“We’re
gay
,” Sandy said. “Paul, give her your credit card so we can leave before she starts using words like
clitoris
and
cervix
. What is the service industry coming to?”

“No.”

“Paul.”

“
No
.”

“Paul.”

Before I could respond by running out of the shop, Sandy moved quickly and snatched my wallet out of my back pocket like he was some Cockney thief out of a Dickens novel. I made a grab for him but ended up almost plowing into an innocent bystander who was checking out the pretty bike with the streamers and basket. Before I could recover and apologize profusely, Jenny already had my credit card in her hand and had run it through the machine. She handed the card back to Sandy, who put it back in the wallet and then handed it back to me. I grabbed it out of his hands and held it to my chest. “My precious,” I snarled at the both of them.

“And I just need you to sign right here,” Jenny said.

“You can go fuck yourself.”

Sandy stepped forward and forged my signature. “That’s a federal crime,” I told him. “Punishable by three to five years in a minimum-security prison. You’ll get passed around like condiments at a barbeque.”

“My hole is already quivering,” he said.

Jenny grimaced. “I can’t talk about my vagina, but you can talk about your asshole quivering?”

We both glanced at her. “Uh,
yeah
,” Sandy said. “We’re
gay
.” He shot me a look that said,
What is up with this chick
?

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response because I was pretty sure he was now my mortal enemy.

“Vince is going to go through the roof when he sees this,” Jenny said. “Cyclists go through withdrawal if we can’t get a ride in.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s just awful,” I said. “I don’t know how you guys survive.”

Either she didn’t hear the sarcasm or she’d already found a way to be able to ignore it. “I just want Vince to be happy,” she said. “We love him here, and were so happy when he moved back to Tucson. He’s been coming in here since he was fifteen years old, and it’s nice to see him home again. I just wish it was under better circumstances. It’s got to be hard on him, given his dad and all.”

“His dad?” I asked. “What does his dad have to do with anything?”

She didn’t understand my confusion. “His dad,” she said again. “You know, the mayor of Tucson?”

Oh. Fuck.
“His dad is Andrew Taylor?”

“The
Republican
?” Sandy said, sounding a little gut-punched.

Jenny’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

“I’ve only known him a week!” I tried to think back as to what he’d said about his parents, but I could only remember a couple of off-the-cuff remarks about his dad that made me think they didn’t have that great of a relationship. That must have been an understatement when your own father was essentially a political homophobe who publicly decried passing gay civil-rights laws, saying they were unconstitutional. I remembered hearing a few years back that he had a gay son and thought how shitty it must have been to know that your own dad didn’t believe you should have the same rights as everyone else.

She started to backpedal. “It’s not that big of a deal,” she stammered. “They don’t talk that much. Not anymore.”

“Then why’d he come back to Tucson?” I asked. “What circumstances were you talking about?”

She looked away. “It’s not my place, Paul. You should hear it from Vince. Though you only have to turn on the news to know.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Sandy whispered.

“What?” I asked, looking back at him.

He looked miserable. “It’s his mom,” he said. “It’s been in the news for a while now.”

“What has?” I racked my brain, trying to remember anything I might have heard, but nothing came to mind.

“Paul, she has cancer,” he said. “They tried to keep it quiet, but it got out. She has cancer, and she’s dying.”

I’m Sorry About Your Mom. Here, Have A Bike.

P
LASMA
cell leukemia. Apparently it’s a rare type of cancer involving white blood cells called plasma cells. It’s extraordinarily aggressive and results from Kahler’s disease, in which the infected white blood cells accumulate in the bone marrow where they interfere with the production of normal blood cells.

Or, at least that’s what Wikipedia told me on my phone as Sandy drove us home.

“That’s what he’s probably doing today,” I said as we neared my house. “He told me that he had to go visit someone and that he’d call me later.”

Sandy just nodded.

Lori Taylor came out publicly with her fight against cancer last year, but only after it somehow leaked to the press. She had smiled in an interview with the local media, laughing off the rumors of her failing health, her husband by her side. She looked healthy, if a bit thin. She did admit that while traditional avenues like chemotherapy hadn’t given the results they’d hoped for, she was optimistic about her chances and would continue to fight as best she could. She looked so much like her son when she laughed that I had to look away from the screen on my phone to be able to hold myself together.

I remember one question catching my attention. The reporter said, “There was a bit of a public fallout with your son, who is openly gay. How is he doing with all of this?”

They were good, the both of them, his mother and father. Nothing was given away that they didn’t want anyone to see. “Vincent has always been strong-headed,” his father said. “But he knows that this is a time for family and that any other issues we may have are not as important as this.”

“He’s a good son,” Lori added, patting her husband’s hand.

The latest reports I could find were from five weeks ago, when inquiries were made into her health. The mayor’s office released a statement asking for respect and privacy during the difficult time, and once any further information was known, it would be released.

“Let him come to you with this,” Sandy told me before he left. I stood at the door to his car, looking down at him. “He obviously didn’t bring it up for a reason, so it wouldn’t be good to say anything. You might put him on the defensive.” Vince and I were going to meet up with Sandy at the bar after we finished at Nana’s house so that I could help him with the show. Vince had also said he wanted me to meet some of his friends and asked to meet mine. I didn’t have it in my pathetic heart to tell him he’d met Sandy and Wheels, and that was pretty much it.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “We haven’t really had the time yet for the whole ‘my dad’s a fascist prick and my mom is dying’ heart-to-heart yet. I was hoping that we could do that next week.”

Sandy reached out his car window to grab my hand. “You need to be careful with this,” he told me quietly. “I’m not saying this to be an ass, but you already sound like you’re making it about you. You can’t do that, Paul. Not with this. This is obviously a contentious situation as it is, and it’s got to be hurting him quite a bit. You can’t get pissed at him for this. You can’t. Do you understand me?”

And as much as I sort of hated him right then, I knew he was right. I didn’t feel a bit of indignation that Vince hadn’t told me who his jerk of a dad was. It wasn’t like he’d lied to me, and it wasn’t as if he’d held anything from me… not exactly. I had to remind myself again that we’d only known each other a week (well, a week that we’d
seen
each other, five days since we’d first spoken). It felt like much longer.

“I know,” I sighed. “It just sucks. I’m still sort of pissed, but only because I feel like I
should
be mad, not that I actually am. Anything that I’m feeling has got to be a billion times worse for him.” I didn’t know how much longer I would last without talking to Vince about it, not knowing what I did now. All I wanted to do right then was chew him out a little bit, then hug him until all the problems of his world went away and left him alone. It was an odd feeling, this protective one. I didn’t know what to do with it, and it was twisting me up.

“Is he coming here?” Sandy asked.

I shook my head. “He’s supposed to meet us at Nana’s house.”

“Just take it easy on him, okay?”

“You sure you don’t want to go? I could use a little help with this. I feel like I’m going to open my mouth and say the wrong thing. Which, to be honest, isn’t really a new thing for me. This just seems like it’s worse, though.”

“I gotta get ready for the show tonight, baby doll. You’ll be fine. The best thing for you to do is to be a supportive partner and let him come to you with this.”

I snorted. “Partner. Jesus Christ. This has been the weirdest week of my life.”

Sandy grinned at me. “You told him about
your
parents yet?”

“No! And I’ve already warned them to keep their mouths shut! I don’t need him finding out that Mom and Dad got married a week after they met. That’ll put ideas into his head that I don’t want to be in there. For fuck’s sake, he’s already told me he’s halfway in love with me. I am
not
going to end up like my parents.”

“You mean having a loving marriage thirty-five years later? Yes, Paul. That sounds freaking awful. I don’t know how you’d survive. The social ramifications alone would destroy you.”

“You know what I meant,” I said with a scowl.

“Apparently I don’t. Maybe you should try and beat their time instead. You’ve still got a few hours left.”

I gaped at him. “You… crazy… the fuck you talking about… I don’t even….”

He squeezed my hand tightly. “Breathe, Paul. Just take a breath.”

“Yeah, that’s
exactly
what I need. Getting married would solve
all
our problems.”

“And what, might I ask, do you and Vince have problems over?”

I opened my mouth to speak… and nothing came out. Not a single damn thing. I couldn’t think of a
fucking
thing. “Oh
shit
,” I whispered.

“Sounds like a little bit of love to me,” Sandy said, laughing.

“Or it could just be the first week of a relationship,” I snapped at him, trying to calm my thundering heartbeat. “It’s called the honeymoon phase. There
shouldn’t
be any problems at this point. That’d be a problem itself if there
was
.”

Sandy’s eyes flashed and Helena came forward. “I know you think sometimes that you don’t deserve to be happy. I’ve done my best to try and make you see otherwise, to show you that you’re fine just the way you are. But I can only do so much. Vince can only do so much. You have to do the rest yourself. And I swear on everything that I have that if you fuck this up because of some misplaced sense of pride, I will never let you forget it. You do
not
get to let Vince walk away from you. You do
not
get to push him away. You get me?”

“I get you,” I said, even though I was more worried then about what I’d do to fuck it up.

“Give me a kiss, sugar,” Helena purred. I did. “I’ll see you tonight, okay? You tell that fabulous boyfriend of yours that he may come up to the dressing room with you when you arrive.”

I was shocked. Helena
never
let anyone else up into the room aside from Charlie and me. Even the bar owner, Mike, had to steer clear or face Helena’s wrath. The fact that Vince had already shot past so many people’s defenses was knocking me off-center.

“You sure?” I asked, starting to sweat a bit.

“Positive,” she said with a grin. She threw her car into reverse. “Kisses,” she said. And then she was gone.

O
N
THE
drive over to Nana’s house, I debated whether to tell my parents about Vince’s mom and dad, but in the end, I decided not to. I didn’t want anything to be said until I could talk to Vince on my own, and I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, especially given how uncomfortable this situation was already going to be. I had tried to warn him that Nana could be pretty…
blunt
, but I didn’t think he was taking my warnings seriously, especially after meeting my parents and practically worshipping the ground they walked on. I felt a bit guilty after thinking that, given what I knew now about his own parents. I knew Mom and Dad liked him quite a bit, even after just one short meeting, but I didn’t want that to turn to pity if Vince didn’t need it.

Of course, best-laid plans and all that.

“You ride a bike over here, son?” Dad asked as he opened the door at Nana’s house.

I pushed past him, wheeling the bike inside. “No. It’s….”
Shit, I haven’t told them I hit Vince with my car.
“It’s a… present. For Vince.”