The Perfect Family (36 page)

“You sure you want to do this?” Jamie asked trying to keep up with Luke’s brisk pace.

“Yep. Fuck the Red Cross. We’re not hiding what’s between us.” He stopped short and focused wide eyes on Jamie. “Unless you don’t want to. You backing out on me?”

“No, I’m just not sure of the timing.” When Luke seemed unconvinced, Jamie said, “Hell, Luke. I’m worried about you. After yesterday—and the pills—I don’t know how much more you can take.”

Instead of getting angry, Luke sighed. It was the very first time Jamie realized how much Luke cared about him. Jamie took a second to savor the moment, to revel in the joy of having this guy in his life.

Luke said, “I’m okay. As long as you are.”

“Let’s go, then. It can’t get much worse, can it?”

As they neared the table outside of the cafeteria, they found Julianne selling the tickets. Oh great. He watched her as she took care of the few people ahead of them. But instead of the pretty teenager sitting there, he saw the two of them when they were three, playing dress-up and having tea parties; at five, learning to swim together; in junior high, going to their first formal dance as a couple. So many years of closeness insignificant now because of who Jamie was.

When their turn came, Jamie stepped up. “Hi, Jules. We need Junior Prom tickets.”

“You do?”

He whipped out the money for one ticket and Luke stepped up next to him with his own cash in his hand.

Julianne looked down. “Okay, um…” She fumbled with the metal box, her hands shaking as she took their money and then gave them tickets. She picked up a pen. “You guys are going stag, right?”

“Why?”

“Because I need to write down who your dates are. If they’re from a different school, they have to sign a statement of agreement with Sherwood High’s polices.”

“No, Julianne,” Luke said coldly. “We’re not going stag. Jamie and I are going together.”

“As a couple?”

“Yes.”

“Jamie, you can’t do that!” She’d dropped her voice to a whisper.

Luke’s entire body stiffened.

“We can, Jules,” Jamie said with calm he didn’t feel. He wanted to puke. “And we are.”

“I-I told you it’s okay you’re”—she couldn’t even get the word out—“but you can’t, you know, be with a guy.”

“Who the hell are you to decide that for me?”

Behind him he heard a buzz of voices. Several kids were waiting for tickets. Among them were jocks from Luke’s team and some of Jamie’s friends from the play, including Nick and Paul. The two of them got out of line and came to stand behind Jamie and Luke.

“What’s up?” Nick said casually.

No one spoke.

Paul asked, “You okay, Jame?”

“Yeah. It’s Jules here who has a problem.”

Julianne’s face hardened as she scanned all four of them. “I don’t have a problem. I’m a Christian. I stand for Christ.”

“Christ hated bigotry.” Jamie spat out the words. “He loved everybody.”

Her voice rose a notch. “The Bible says homosexuality is a sin.”

“Forget it, Jame.” Luke grabbed his arm. “Let’s go. We got the tickets.”

Julianne grasped his other arm. As an actor, the staging didn’t elude him. Two sides of his life were literally tugging at him.

She said, “If you do this, Jamie, have this relationship, we can’t be friends. God wouldn’t want me to associate with you.” She glanced at Nick and Paul. “Any of you.”

Speechless, Jamie was rooted to the ground. Nick and Paul didn’t say more either. Now that he’d caused such a scene, Jamie didn’t blame them.

Ms. Carson, who was senior class advisor, came out of the cafeteria. “Hi, guys, Jules. Is there a problem here?”

“Yes. With them.” Julianne’s confidence further assaulted Jamie.

Frowning, Ms. Carson cocked her head.

“We’re done here.” Luke yanked on Jamie’s arm, began dragging him down the hall. Everybody stared openly at them.

And at that moment, Jamie understood why Luke had collected all those pills.

Maggie entered the cool interior of their house, relishing the quiet. It still smelled of bread she’d baked yesterday and of fresh potpourri she’d placed in bowls scattered throughout the rooms. For some reason, she thought of the smell of the house she’d grown up in—stale cigarette smoke, old coffee and mildew, in the dark corners, which she was expected to clean but could never completely remove.

Today, she needed the serenity of her home after the upheaval of the last weeks, and especially after the debacle of the blood drive. Mike was away on a business trip so she had some blessed time alone. Setting her bag down in the den off the front foyer, she headed upstairs to her bedroom, hoping an hour’s sleep would refresh her.

But when she passed Jamie’s room, she heard sobs. Somebody was crying. Hard. She knocked on his door. “Jamie, are you in there?”

No answer.

“Jamie, it’s Mom. Are you all right?”

A muffled “Yeah.”

“I need to see for myself. Can I come in?”

“No.”

She gripped the doorknob. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

A longer pause. “All right.”

The room was dark for midafternoon because Jamie had drawn the blinds, casting the room in shadows. His computer hummed eerily in the half-light, flashing a screen saver of one of his favorite rock stars. Some of his treasured pictures, those he’d matted and framed, lay on the floor. The wood was broken. Shards of glass dug into the carpet. Scanning the room, she recalled a time when she’d babyproofed it. She wished she could babyproof the world for him, but she’d come to realize she could no longer protect Jamie.

He was stretched out on the bed, propped up on pillows.

“What’s going on, honey?”

No response.

Maggie picked up a shattered frame. The picture had been torn by the glass—one of Jamie and Julianne at the Valentine’s Ball they attended together last winter. She’d thought how masculine Jamie looked in the tux, a complement to Julianne’s feminine frills.

“Did something happen with Julianne?” He’d mentioned she’d been acting weird and now the destroyed pictures of her.

And once again, Jamie burst into tears.

Sidestepping the mess, she sat on the bed and dragged him up. For longer than she thought possible, he cried in her arms. Not sniffles. Not a burst of emotion. But deep, wrenching sobs from his gut. She wondered how much more of this he could take. For a stark moment, she thought again about the statistics on suicide among gay teens.

“Shh, shh,” she said, rubbing a hand over his back. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is.”

“All right, then, we’ll work through it together.” When he drew back again, she nodded to the floor. “Julianne let you down?”

He slouched onto the bed. “Uh-huh.”

She took his hands. “What happened?”

Her son didn’t look at her when he spoke. Instead he stared at the Van Gogh poster on the wall across the room. “Before it got around I was gay, I told her about me. She seemed okay with it. Said she’d pray for me.” His hand tightened on hers. “It sucked but she’s entitled to her beliefs.”

Maggie waited when he paused.

“She belongs to that fundamentalist church on Parson Road. They’re really conservative. They believe all that shit about women being subservient to men. Their service is practically a gospel rally.”

“Yes, I know.”

He closed his eyes. Finally, he asked, “Can you rub my back?”

“Sure. Scoot over.”

He yanked off a shirt that said
Carpe Diem
and lay down on his stomach. She stretched out beside him and began the ritual that he always asked for when he was upset. “Tell me the rest, Jame.”

When she began to knead his shoulders, he continued. “Luke and I went to get our tickets to the prom. Luke was so pissed about the Red Cross, it was like he wanted to do something to fight back, or thumb his nose at the school, or…I don’t know. Anyway, we’re going to the prom together so I thought, why hide it? What can they do?”

Maggie panicked. They were going to the prom together? Oh, dear Lord. Would they be safe? As far as Maggie knew, no one had openly taken a person of the same sex to a Sherwood High prom. Though kids often went in groups of girls or guys, an honest-to-goodness boy/boy date hadn’t yet happened. Jamie’s foray into that uncharted territory would be trailblazing and possibly dangerous. Her mother’s heart beat faster at what he might endure. On the heels of that, though, she felt pride in his courage to be who he was, especially after the knocks he’d taken lately.

“How does Julianne fit into this?”

“She was selling the tickets. She looked like she was gonna barf when we told her we were going as a couple.”

“Oh, buddy.”

“She sounded worse than Dad.”

Maggie rubbed his neck, where the muscles were knotted. “About the Bible and homosexuality?”

“Yeah.” He buried his face in the pillow. She had to strain to hear what he said. “She doesn’t think we can be friends anymore, which I knew she might do, but still…” He trailed off.

“Jame.”

Turning slightly on his side, he raised his head to see her. His young face was ravaged. “What did I do to deserve this, Mom? I’m just trying to be who I am.”

“There is
nothing
wrong with being yourself. I told you that at the blood drive. Julianne and anyone else who makes you feel bad about being gay are the ones who are wrong.”

“Even Dad and Bri?”

“Even them.”

“I’m so mad at all of them.”

“That’s okay, too.”

He lay back down. “Thanks for not saying this will all work out.”

“It might not, honey.”

Neither of them voiced who it might not work out with—Julianne or Mike and Brian. Maggie couldn’t bring herself to entertain the thought that it might be the latter.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen, Jame. But you can count on this. I’ll be here no matter what happens.”

*

Early the next afternoon while Maggie was waiting for Mike to return from his business trip, the phone rang. Neither boy was home, so she answered the call.

“Maggie? This is Shirley Lewis.” Shirley was a neighbor of theirs who had a son Jamie’s age. She had her own set of friends and Maggie didn’t often socialize with the woman, so she knew there must be a reason for the call.

“Hi, Shirley. How are you?”

“I’ve been well.” A hesitation. “I have to talk to you. I’m on my way home from playing golf and was wondering if I might stop by your house.”

“Sure, come over.”

“Don’t fuss. I can’t stay. I’m exhausted.”

The woman arrived a few minutes later, dressed in what Jamie called the country club uniform—a white collared shirt and a golf skirt. She’d exchanged her cleats for tennis shoes.

“Come out to the deck, Shirley. There’s a nice breeze.” Maggie added, “Do you want a drink? Iced tea, maybe?”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.” She followed Maggie to the deck.

When they were seated, Maggie noted her neighbor’s youthful face—Gretta said she’d had cosmetic surgery—was almost blank. Maggie couldn’t fathom why the woman had come to see her.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve come to ask for your help.”

“With what?”

“You know we’re having the party before the Junior Prom.”

Like the one Maggie and Mike had had for the Valentine’s Ball. “Yes, of course. Brian went to your house last year when Susan was a junior. Your gardens are a lovely backdrop for picture taking.”

Her hand twisted in the fold of her skirt. “Well, I’ve heard, I know…” She cleared her throat.

Maggie’s heart started to thud as awareness dawned.

“I don’t know how to phrase this.”

“Just say it.”

“Kyle came home and said it’s all over school that Jamie’s…” Again, she trailed off, her face reddening.

“Jamie’s gay, Shirley. You can say the word.”

“It’s more than that. Kyle said he’s going to the prom with another boy.”

Maggie held her gaze unflinchingly. “Yes, he is.”

“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t coming to our house with, you know, a
boy
, for pictures. I mean, that would be awkward.”

“For whom?”

“Oh, come on, Maggie. You can’t be serious. Sherwood isn’t a big city like Rochester where these things are accepted. My parents will be there, for God’s sake. Some people from the club are coming. Natalie Anderson told me her husband would never attend if there were two boys—” Shirley cut herself off, probably realizing she’d just admitted she’d gossiped about the situation. “Of course, if they brought more people, we could try to pass it off as a group of boys going together.”

“I don’t think Jamie would want that. He and Luke are clearly a couple.” She couldn’t help but add, “They’re even exchanging boutonnières.”