In Stereo Where Available (29 page)

“My family’s so much
simpler.”

“Just be thankful that the rest of my relatives won’t be there. One of my cousins is a member of the American Communist Party, and when you get him together with my born-again Christian aunt and my gay stepbrother and his partner—”

Jerry held up one hand. “Stop. Just stop for now. I love you. I really want to marry you. Tell me about these people
after
the wedding, once it’s too late to change my mind.”

When we got to my father’s house, most of the driveway was occupied by a shiny, cherry-red pickup truck with temporary tags and a Dale Earnhardt sticker on the back window, the slanted number three. On the chrome back bumper was another sticker that said, “Protected by Smith & Wesson.”

“Whose car is that?” asked Jerry.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen it before.”

He parked the Jetta at the curb, and we walked up to the front door. Madison let us in. She had on a short, strapless pink dress, her boobs floating out of the top like the bobbing-for-apples game at our class Halloween party.

“
Phoebe!
” She gave me a big hug. “You
look fantastic
! And
this
must be Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

“You, too!” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a shimmery, lopsided pink circle. “The mystery man. Finally we meet.”

Rhett had stood up from the sofa and was hovering behind Madison, one hand in his pants pocket and a can of Budweiser in the other hand. He wore normal clothes, a pair of dark-washed Levi’s and a green oxford shirt with the sleeves folded up above the elbow, instead of all the sweaters and smoking jackets they’d put him in on the show. His dark hair flopped down onto his forehead, pushed out of the way of his eyes. He looked shorter, somehow, in real life. Jerry was an inch or so taller.

“You must be Colby,” said Jerry.

“That’s me,” he said. He switched his beer can to his left hand and shook Jerry’s with his right. Beside me, I could feel Jerry shrinking back into his unfamiliar-territory mode. Rhett could see it, too. He smiled wider.

Jerry sat down on the sofa and Melody, my stepmother, sat down in a chair across from him. She wore a long emerald green skirt and a flowing top that matched, her blond hair falling all the way to her elbows. She was fifty-five years old, five years younger than my mother. If I stood close to her now I could see the silver in her hair, but she was holding out amazingly well. So was my father, who had always been a good-looking guy. It didn’t improve my mother’s opinion of either of them.

“So you’re Alexa’s English teacher,” said Melody. “It’s so nice to meet you. Alexa’s told me so much about you.”

That was unlikely. My half sister was sitting on the sofa reading a novel, the headphones of her iPod tucked into her ears. A whisper of fuzzy, unidentifiable music buzzed softly around her. She met my eyes in acknowledgement but otherwise didn’t move.

“Yeah. She’s one of my more advanced kids.”

My stepmother beamed. Rhett put his feet up on the coffee table and smiled his thousand-watt grin.

“A high-school English teacher, huh?” he said. “There’s a living.”

“I like it,” said Jerry.

“What do you teach?” asked Rhett.

Jerry gave him one of those smart-kid-talking-to-the-class-moron looks. “English,” he repeated slowly.

“I mean like what books,” Rhett tossed back, as though Jerry was the one who was an idiot.

“All kinds of books.
A Separate Peace. Their Eyes Were Watching God
. Right now I’ve got my eleventh-graders working in A Catcher in the Rye.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Rhett. “That about farming?”

My stepmother coughed. Jerry turned his head a little more toward Rhett, his eyes narrowing. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “It’s about this country boy named Holden Caulfield.”

“We’re kin to some Caulfields. Say, you ever read
Romeo and Juliet?”

“I think I’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, that’s like me and Grace, right there. We’re just like them.” He winked at my sister. She smiled back at him. She actually seemed to like the guy. Madison, really, wasn’t all that picky. She liked any guy as long as he was attractive enough, and Rhett was pretty darn attractive, even without a hairstylist and professional lighting. It wasn’t that Madison was phony. She was, as I’d insisted all the way through the TV season, a loving person, and she was happy to find something she could sincerely love in any guy as long as he fit the rest of her criteria.

“That’s very romantic,” said Jerry.

“Well. It must have been so much fun for you to be on that TV show,” said my stepmother cheerfully, lacing her hands together over her knee.

“Yeah, it was great,” agreed Rhett. “Getting to go out with all those girls. None as pretty as Grace.” He grinned at my sister. “Don’t ask me how they picked ‘em, though. I told them I wasn’t going to pick no black girls, and they had one in there anyhow. Like I could have brought
her
home to Momma.”

Melody blinked rapidly. On the sofa beside me, Jerry stifled a laugh by taking a drink of root beer from the can. Jerry was a pretty solid Democrat, but even
he
would have called my stepmom a bleeding-heart liberal. This could get entertaining.

“Oh, I’m sure she was a nice woman,” she said.

“Could be. Each their own, I guess. I figured I’d let the queer guy have her.”

“Excuse me?” asked Melody. She hadn’t actually watched the show. As far as I knew, she didn’t watch TV at all. Sitcoms and comic strips confused her. She didn’t get the humor.

“Les, the Ashley guy. Queer as a three-dollar bill. You didn’t see him?”

“Um, I’m afraid not.”

“Oh, he was a fairy if ever I saw one. Hell, I’m not biased against homosexuals and such. I just made sure they didn’t try to stick us in the same trailer. You never know when one of ‘em’s going to try any funny business.”

“Well, perhaps I should finish getting dinner ready.”

Melody smiled and rose from her chair. As soon as she left the room, Alexa tugged the headphones from her ears and set her book on the coffee table.

“Hey there, Lex,” I said to her.

“Hey,” she muttered back, not looking at Jerry. Her black-dyed hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of her neck, her thin shoulders squarish under her black Linkin Park T-shirt. She was probably going to make a voodoo doll in my likeness for bringing her English teacher home to meet her parents.

“So your mom’s an English professor, huh?” Jerry asked conversationally. He craned his neck to look at the bookshelf across the room and Alexa shot me a look of wide-eyed terror. It was the shelf on which Melody kept her old ‘70s and ‘80s copies of
Delta of Venus
and
The Joy of Sex
and
My Secret Garden
. She supposedly kept them out in the open so her daughter would grow up with a healthy attitude toward sexuality. I understood at once, with sisterly intuition, that if Jerry saw what was on the bookshelf, Alexa would instantly vanish in a puff of humiliation.

“The good books are on the shelf in the dining room, actually,” I said, jerking on Jerry’s hand a little too firmly.

“Oh, yeah?” Jerry stood up and wandered over to the other bookshelf, and Alexa offered me a smile of pained and abject gratitude. Once again, I felt sorry for her. Every child should be entitled to have two sexually repressed parents. It was so much healthier, psychologically.

Madison plopped herself down beside me in the spot that Jerry had just vacated and handed me an envelope. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

I took the envelope from her. “A little late, aren’t you?”

“You’ll forgive me. It’s two tickets to Jamaica for Valentine’s Day. You want ‘em?”

I laughed. “Sure. You just happened to have them lying around?”

“Sort of. Colby and I were supposed to do an appearance at a resort, but they changed the schedule on us again. Now we’re going to be in Miami. I’m getting
sooo
sick of Florida.”

I tore the envelope open and took out the sheaf of tickets and brochures. “Hotel and everything? Why doesn’t the studio just cancel?”

“Oh, by the time they get around to it, it’ll be Easter. The flight leaves Friday afternoon. I know it’s kind of short notice, but I figured you wouldn’t have any other plans. So, Lexie—did you watch my show?”

“Not really,” said Alexa, politely ignoring the glare I was giving Madison. “I don’t watch TV.”

“Oh, you should have. Not even the finale? When your own big sister’s in the final four?”

“Everyone at school told me enough about it,” Alexa sneered. “They teased me nonstop. Even more than when you were in that breath-freshener commercial. Couldn’t you just get a normal job? Like be a waitress or work in a store or something?”

“You just wait, Lexie,” Madison said patiently, patting her on the knee. “I’ll bring you to the Emmys with me. I’ll take you to the spa and we’ll get massages and manicures and pedicures and anything else you want. Then you’ll have the last laugh, just like I’m having it right now.”

Alexa looked down at her stubby fingernails. “Can I get black?”

Suddenly the door swung open and along with a blast of chilly wet air came my very tall stepbrother, stepping through the doorway in his black wool coat with a scarf tossed cavalierly around his neck. “Hell-oooo!” he called.

Madison and I jumped up at once. “Pete!” we both squealed.

“No autographs,” he said, grinning. He unwound the scarf from his neck and hung it on the coat tree as a shorter, tanned guy with a black crew cut came in behind him. That was Dominic, Pete’s partner. No one had been expecting either of them. They were supposed to be somewhere around Juneau.

Melody popped her head around the entrance to the living room. “Pete? Is that
you?”

“Yes, indeedy.” He and Dominic made their way around the living room, giving out hugs and shaking hands. Pete had that clean-cut minister look about him, with dark combed-over hair and a squared-off jaw, and an earnest look in his eyes, appealing yet authoritative. He had a great tan from all the time he spent around the equator, and wore stylish flat-front khakis with a navy blue sweater and a striped tie. Dominic had on baggy cargo pants and a rugby shirt. He was about five foot four, and although he was thirty years old, he looked like he was eighteen.

“I thought you were working,” said Melody as Pete hugged her.

“I was supposed to be.” He stopped at Rhett and stuck out his hand. “You must be Colby. I’m Pete Ledford. I watched your show.”

Rhett stood up and shook his hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“So to what do we owe this honor?” asked Melody.

“We’ve got a surprise,” said Pete. Dominic reached into the shopping bag he’d brought in with him and pulled out a bottle of champagne. “Guess what? We got married!”

Madison and I both shrieked as Jerry and Rhett clapped their hands. Melody ran over and gave him a big hug. “Where did you go?” she asked.

“Vancouver, BC,” he said. “Very spur-of-the-moment.”

“That’s
fantastic,”
said Melody, hugging Dominic. “Oh, I wish I’d been there.”

“We’ll have a reception next time we’re in town,” Pete promised.

Jerry shook Pete’s hand again. “Congratulations! Where are you registered?”

Pete laughed. “It’s all going to be Crate and Barrel, once we get around to it. We’re both looking for stateside jobs now.”

“Can I get on the computer?” asked Alexa. “I’ve
got
to send out an e-mail.”

“Later,” my father told her.

Rhett pulled himself unsteadily out of his chair again and shook Pete’s hand. “Congratulations to both of you,” he said. “That’s a big step to take.”

“Thank you. I’ll go get the champagne glasses.”

Dominic pulled the little wire cage from the top of the bottle and uncorked it expertly, with a little flourish.

“Have you told your family yet?” asked my father.

Laughing, Dominic slipped the cork into his pocket. “Oh, no. Maybe later. Don’t want to make my mother cry.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t,” said Melody.

“She would, she would.” He filled the glasses one at a time as Pete lined them up on the sofa table. “She gonna ask me, why, Dominic? Why no Catholic ceremony?”

We all laughed and passed the champagne flutes down the line. “To Pete and Dominic,” said my father, raising his glass. “May you have many happy years ahead.”

“Amen to that,” added Rhett. “And keep that fire burning. Your mommas ever tell you about the penny jar?”

“What’s that?” asked Pete, sipping his champagne.

“Mine says if you put a penny in a jar every time you make love the first year, and take one out every time after your first anniversary, you won’t never get all the pennies out of the jar.”

Pete laughed. “I don’t see that becoming a problem.”

Rhett chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll drink to that.”

We all sipped our champagne, except for Jerry, who had filled his glass with Sprite, and Rhett, who finished half of his in one swallow.

“So,” asked Rhett, setting his flute down on the coffee table, “where are your wives?”

Pete and Dominic looked at each other. “Our wives?”

“Yeah, your wives. Are they at home or something?”

“We don’t have wives,” said Pete.

Rhett gave them that you-must-be-stupid look that he’d given Jerry not long before. “You just said you got married,” he reminded them.

Dominic giggled. “We got married to each other,” Pete explained.

Rhett just stared at them for a moment, his mouth partly open. Finally he echoed, “To each other? You two?”

“Yes,” said Dominic.

“But you’re both guys,” Rhett pointed out.

“We know that,” said Pete.

Rhett’s face crumpled up in a look of disgust. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Oh,
man
.” He turned to my sister with a very ungentle-manly snarl at the corner of his lip. “You couldn’ta warned me about that?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know they were going to get married.”

“You couldn’ta told me they were—” He stole a glance at Pete, who crossed his legs. In a stage whisper, he said,
“You
know.”