Personal Statement (15 page)

“See ya back at school,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say.

Mac and I are standing on the curb outside the B&B front gate. He’s ready to walk the nine or ten blocks to the train station, his backpack on, his duffle at his feet. I offered him a ride in my mother’s car (which is still parked on Church Street), but he politely declined. Normally I’d have tried to convince him to come with me or make up a pathetic excuse about why I should leave the car here and take the train with him. But it didn’t seem right. I can already feel that our relationship will never be the same. My infatuation sated, the allure no longer mystical, Mac is (I hope) just another cute boy on a long list of cute boys that I will fall in and out of love with, enjoying a luscious hook-up between the lust and the disappointment. Mac was never going to be “the one.” I see that now.

He
will most likely chalk this up as his “one gay experience.” A secret he’ll share with no one. Not his wife or three strapping kids. Not his work buddies, drinking buddies, fraternity buddies.

I’ll see him at the Choate reunion—the twentieth, most likely. We’ll all be nearing forty and will have settled into our future selves and future lives. He’ll introduce me to his wife, Melissa, an attractive but forgettable blonde with freckles on her nose and one of those figures that doesn’t look pregnant except for the volleyball-sized bump in her belly. He’ll be nervous and fumbling, unsure what to call me: his friend from high school? His roommate? His one and only homosexual fling? I’ll be cool and demure. Shaking Melissa’s hand as she’s being pulled on by little Hamish MacKenzie—a six-year-old with the devil in his eyes, a mini-Mac that will no doubt break many hearts when he grows up, both male
and
female, a chip off the old block. Melissa will excuse herself (“Hamish, get back here; don’t go under that nice lady’s dress!”) and Mac and I will be alone. We’ll talk about our jobs and families. I’ll point out my current boyfriend across the dance floor, a savagely tan Nuyorican who looks like a cross between Ricky Martin and Bobby Cannavale: buff, tough, and romantic. Mac will blush, paranoid that someone will make the connection between me being Mac’s former roommate and our having hooked up one drunken summer night during the false, furtive hurricane that was never meant to be. He’ll politely make chit-chat (where do you live, did you see so-and-so), desperately waiting for an escape which I’ll graciously provide, saying I need to say hello to some other friends by the dessert station. Relief will waft over him and he’ll become the charming and dashing Mac that I knew, one last time. He’ll offer a manly hand, and we’ll shake firmly. When he lets go, he’ll pat my upper arm and shoulder casually, but I’ll know he’s secretly feeling my toned muscles and fondly remembering that sweaty summer evening together, a memory he’ll never fully forget, one that will come to him at inopportune times, like when he’s making love to his wife after she’s had their third child, and he’ll question his sexuality for the briefest of moments and it will make me happy, in my loft in Tribeca, to know that I will never be forgotten by Mac, that I will always be a small part of his life.

“See ya in a couple weeks,” I tell Mac, standing on the sidewalk outside The Tao of Peace.

I wish I could say more. I wish I could tell him what he means to me, all these thoughts I have about us and what our future holds, that’s it’s okay, it’s going to be awkward for a little while, but it doesn’t have to be, and just acknowledging that it’s awkward will by definition alleviate the awkwardness.

But I don’t. We soldier on. Do what boys do. Say nothing. Refuse to discuss our feelings. Allow our friendship to be forever-strained and altered and damaged. And ruined. It was so much better before, when I coveted him secretly (or not-so-secretly, as it turned out, but at least I
thought
no one knew). I was ignorantly blissful and miserable at the same time. And we danced the dance and played the game and it was wonderful and awful. But now we’ve crossed the line, named the unnamable, and our friendship is over. I’m sure we’ll be cordial to each other in class and at the cafeteria and walking by one another on the quad. But the late nights studying and talking and flirting are gone. Swept away by Calliope and her fickle trade winds.

Mac slings his duffle over his shoulder and heads down the street. I watch after him, hoping he’ll turn around, say one last poetic thing, offer one last romantic gesture. The romantic-comedy version of my life would surely include a final ray of hope at this moment, when it seems like things are at their worst. But this isn’t a rom-com. This isn’t even a bad afterschool special. It’s life. My life. And nothing spectacular or romantic will happen to me. Not while I’m living in this God-awful state, surrounded by these God-awful people. My lot in life is to suffer through this torture. It will make my spring awakening in Europe so much more meaningful.

Soon after Mac disappears around the corner, my phone rings (“Parents Just Don’t Understand”) and I answer with a ready apology.

“I’m fine, Dad. Everything is fine. The storm missed us and I’m coming home now.”

“…Good,” my father says. “Your mother and I were worried about you.”

“
You
were worried?”

He clears his throat. “What time do you think you’ll get home?” he asks, ignoring my little dig.

“Uh. I don’t know. Couple hours?”

“Okay. We’ll be here.”

“You mean you’re there? In Westport?”

“Mm. Got in this morning.”

“So you
did
evacuate the Vineyard?”

“Yeah… you know how your mother worries.”

“Uh-hunh.”

“Summer was almost over anyway. Time to get back home.”

There’s a silence that he doesn’t seem eager to fill, so I finally say, “Okay. See you soon then. Love you guys.”

“Right… We love you, too.” And he hangs up very quickly.

I stare at the phone, stunned. He said it. He actually said it. For the first time in my adult life, the first time I can
remember
, my father said he loved me. Technically he said ‘we,’ lumping him and my mom together, but it still counts. On a technicality, my father told me he loved me. It may be the last time I ever hear him say it until he’s on his deathbed or something, so I look around, trying to make sure I remember this exact moment, standing on the sidewalk outside The Tao of Peace in Cawdor, Connecticut, a few hours after Hurricane Calliope passed everyone by.

I soak it in. Every detail. The paint chipping off the white picket fence. The American flag lying limp against the porch post. A few seagulls overhead, breaking an otherwise pin-drop quiet afternoon.

And I realize that as I was saying goodbye to my dad, saying goodbye to Mac, the B&B, and the town of Cawdor, I’m also saying goodbye to Connecticut, to my life here, my life as a teenager. Twelve months from now, I tell myself, I will be in Paris—on the road I’m supposed to be on. This day, this trip, this year, is but a blip, a tiny blip on the journey that is my life.

I pop in my earbuds, find the song on my iPhone that I want (“Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson), and walk off toward my mom’s car.

Au revoir
, Connecticut.
Bonjour
, my new life.