Shiny! (14 page)

Will sighed and leaned over the table with the blue checked plastic tablecloth and tried not to surmise if it was tree dander or animal dander sticking to the spot in front of him.

“So,” his mother said, setting down his iced tea before sitting on the bench across from him.

“So?” He smiled encouragingly—it was his first visit
alone
since their rather surprising phone conversation. Since his mother wouldn’t question him about anything personal in front of Aunt Cara, he was expecting a delicate and ladylike filleting from the comfortably middle-aged woman across from him.

“So I guess we can stop trying to fix you up with Cara’s assistant after all,” his mother teased, and Will grinned until his cheeks popped.

“Aunt Cara already knows,” he said, trying to sound serious. “So
that
mission is definitely a no-go.”

Anne Lafferty had his same chipmunk-cheeked grin. “Well,
now
it is,” she said, rolling her eyes. Suddenly she dropped her voice conspiratorially. “And don’t tell
anyone
I said this, but I think Nina sort of has a crush on your aunt Cara anyway.”

Will’s eyes widened. “Really?
Really?
Really!” He laughed a little, thinking about his last conversation with Cara and her sudden thoughtfulness about whether she should be scoping out Christina Aguilera. Boyfriend after boyfriend had wandered through Cara’s life, but they’d all been scared away by her outdoorsy job and her way of calling a fool an asshole and an asshole a waste of fucking skin. And maybe by a reluctance in Cara too. Maybe. “What makes you think that?”

Mom shrugged and drew little pictures in the condensation on her oversize tea glass. “Nothing… just, you know—Nina has this look on her face. Like she’s crushing bad.”

Will took a sip of his iced tea and tried not to look dubious. And failed. “You can
tell
when someone’s doing that?” he asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

“I don’t know, Will. I could never tell when
you
were doing it!” His mom laughed and relaxed some of her June Cleaver pose, leaning over the table and letting her shoulders drop a little. It was like once she’d dispensed with serving him, she could be his funny, quirky confidante again.

“I never
was
doing it,” he confessed. “I never, you know, felt
passionately
about someone before.”

His mother put down her iced tea and tilted her head. “But you do now?” she asked, and he shifted uncomfortably.

“Good tea, Mom!” he said brightly and then proceeded to drain his glass so quickly he got brain freeze. While he was going “Ow! Ow! Ow!” his mom brought him the pitcher and a tray of cookies, then sat down and looked at him with such bland interest that he felt like he sort of had to fess up.

“Stop feeding me cookies,” he said between mouthfuls of chocolate chip goodness. “I’m trying to lose weight.”

“And you look wonderful,” she said because she was his mother and she had to. “So, who are you trying to impress?”

He swallowed his cookie and then took a slower, saner drink of tea. “Uhm… Kenny?” he said, wondering how candid she wanted him to be.

His mom reached across the table and took his hand. “You know,” she said gently, “I used to be in theater when I was in college.”

Will looked around the small backyard of the house in Carmichael. It was mostly grass, with a little concrete apron for the picnic table, and climbing flowers draped all over the little fence. Small, yes, which was why doing one of the few “manly” chores his father used to do wasn’t a hardship in the least. It was the place he’d grown up—it felt familiar and cozy, and he didn’t worry about being anybody but Will here. It was a comfort that had seen him from the days of wondering if he was just the biggest social abomination known to man to the days of not really giving a crap.

“Theater?” he said, trying to keep his voice casual. In fact, he was
wildly
interested.

“Yes,” she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling into one of those truly secretive mom smiles that revealed a whole life their sons knew nothing about. “I wasn’t great at the front of the house, but I used to work back of the house. I had fan
tast
ic gaydar. You name a gay man at Sac State, and I had a crush on him.”

Will laughed in spite of himself. “Yeah?”

His mom nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s one of the reasons I was so crazy about your father. I mean, a great communicator he was
not
, but he
wanted
me. I mean, that’s a compliment right there. To be wanted? Not just for your body but for yourself.”

Will swallowed and tried really hard not to think about how badly he’d started to want Kenny. “See,” he said like he was continuing a conversation, “the thing is, we’re friends.”

“That’s good,” his mom said, petting the back of his hand. “The best relationships start as friends.”

“Were you and Daddy friends?” he asked baldly.

His mom stopped and thought about it. “We were partners,” she said after a pause. “And sometimes that’s more important.”

“But we’re partners too!” Will protested and then blushed. “I mean, Kenny and I. We’re doing a project together—you know, sort of a graphic novel thing?”

His mom smiled indulgently, and even though he was pretty sure she didn’t get it—fantasy and science fiction had never been her thing—she listened to him babble endlessly about Calandra and Kenny’s awesome graphics and how they were going to make their own book. When he was done, his mom nodded and then seemed to file his entire other world in the mental box marked “elsewhere.”

“So, friends, partners—does he know you’re sort of in love with him?”

Will spit out his iced tea and his mom dissolved into giggles. “It’s not funny!” he complained, and she sat back, her hand in front of her mouth, and did her very best to humor him.

“No, of course not,” she agreed, but it was hard to hear her through the whoops of laughter.

He cleaned himself off and waited for her to calm down, and then took another drink to hide his embarrassment.

“That wasn’t nice,” he grumbled, and she nodded—while again hiding her smile behind her hand.

“Which part? The laughing or the bitter truth?”

“How do I know I’m even in love with him?” Will asked seriously. “He’s the first gay man I’ve ever really known.”

“But he’s not the first
man
you’ve ever known,” his mother said, dabbing at her eyes with a paper napkin and recovering herself. “And he
is
the first man to make you figure out this important thing about yourself. Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“But Mom!” Oh God. Twenty-eight years old and whining to his mother. “He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. How do I blow that by telling him he’s my first real crush?”

His mom pursed her lips. “Well, honey, like I said. It’s nice sometimes just to be wanted. If he’s a really good friend, he’s not going to hurt you for that.”

Will sighed. “It would be
really
good if we could maybe finish our graphic novel first, you think?” he half begged.

His mom gave him one of those little pats on the hand. “Sweetheart, he’s
your
relationship. You do what you think is best.”

Will swallowed, suddenly realizing that if he was going to ask this, the current mood of gentle candor was the time and place to pitch it. When she was complaining about the Democratic president (he didn’t know
why
that was such a big deal) or pissed off at someone at work, she’d say, “William, that’s really neither here nor there,” and he’d never get a straight answer.

“Mom?”

“What?”

“What would Dad think?”

His mom’s shoulders straightened up in an uncomfortable reminder of who she used to be when she was out with his father. Her shoulders were straight and her smile was bright and perfectly proportioned. Will imagined she used to practice that smile in the mirror just to make sure it couldn’t be critiqued by his father’s business friends and found imperfect.

“Well, sweetheart,” she said after a moment, “I don’t know if he would have understood. He loved you—of that I have no doubt. But he was always sort of surprised at the amount of raising you required. I swear, he got mad when you were in the first grade because I had to leave work early to get you. He seemed to think that six years old was plenty old enough for you to look after yourself. I had to convince him it would be child abuse—and when he looked it up and saw that yes, I was right, it was child abuse, it was like he’d never seen a real child before, much less been responsible for his welfare.”

Will tried to process all of that. “But the gay thing—”

She sighed and stood up. “Here—you grab the pitcher, Will, and I’ll take the cookie tray.”

“That’s a no on the gay?” he asked doggedly, doing what she said because, well, Mom.

She got to the sliding glass door that took them into the back of the house and turned around. “I don’t know what to tell you. Five years ago the entire country was sort of rabid on the gay thing, and your dad—he was not an outside-the-box thinker, Will. He didn’t have your imagination or the way you have of looking at things and seeing how logical they can be when the rest of the world doesn’t understand them.” She took a step inside to the darkened interior with the faintly dingy walls. She was always too busy, he thought, to make sure it was all clean all the time. “Your comic book, for instance,” she continued as she led the way to the small utilitarian kitchen. “It sounds lovely. But I’m betting your dad would have thought it was some sort of left-wing propaganda because your characters are learning about peace and cooperation. That would have been very him. So, no.” She set the cookies down on the countertop and took the pitcher from him to put in the refrigerator. “If you’d have come out in college, it would have been our little secret, yours and mine, and maybe, after you’d met someone and settled down,
then
your dad would have allowed himself to think about it. But that’s not what’s going to happen with me now.”

Okay. That was fair. His mom, who could never be anything
less
than candid, had just given him a simple, painful answer.

He thought about it and decided he had to ask another painful question. “Mom, are you ever going to get married again?”

His mom leaned against the refrigerator and looked at him, obviously choosing her words carefully. She had pulled her hair back from her face with a scrunchie, which was something she’d never done when his father was alive.

“Will, I loved your father—don’t get me wrong. But our lives together—there were things he wanted from me that I gave freely, but if I ever found someone again, he’d have to not expect those things from me. I’m never giving them up again. Not for anybody.” For a moment her soft, approachable face firmed, became stern and almost fierce, and to his surprise, he understood.

“Sort of like me being straight,” he said, because
God
,
hadn’t he discovered the joy of being himself in the past month. He hadn’t needed to kiss anyone or date anyone—just knowing what he
wanted
and that he wanted it
badly—
that was a treat. That right there was ice cream and cookies every damned day.

His mom laughed—and again, it was a sound he didn’t remember hearing much when his father was alive. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly. Right now, I’m happy and you’re gay—and we wouldn’t want to change that for the world.”

He grinned at her, and they went shopping for plants together, because she enjoyed garden work
much
more than she enjoyed housework, and then they went out for dinner, because nobody insisted she cook to save money, and then he went home.

As he walked into his little apartment and looked around, he thought about Kenny and his pretty house.

They
could
be partners, he thought yearningly. There was so much about them that was right. He just needed to find a way to let Kenny see it.

T
HAT
M
ONDAY
,
he texted Kenny to say he’d be by around seven. What he got back made him break into a cold sweat.

Sorry, Will, not tonight. I’ve got a date.

But—but, a
date
? He had a
date
? But Will hadn’t… but, but how could Kenny have a
date
when he was supposed to be property of William Charles Lafferty?

“Well,
maybe
he has a date because he doesn’t know you want him like he thinks you want your ex-girlfriend,
dumbass
!”

God. He was so upset he was talking to himself.

Can you go on this date tomorrow?

Okay—if he could go on the date tomorrow, Will could get in his plug (and what a crap choice of words
that
was) for his
own
status of dating Kenny.

Will
really
wanted to date Kenny.

It’s just drinks—I’ll be home by eight. Maybe you can come by then
?

Oh yay oh yay oh yay! Just drinks! That meant probably not just sex! Except what if Kenny decided to have sex in the bathroom
during
drinks? Will had been
reading
,
dammit, and he knew very little about gay dating, but he
did
know that lots of people seemed to be having sex in bathrooms, which discouraged the hell out of him because he was six five, 230 pounds of
Will-don’t-fit-in-a-fuckin’-bathroom!

But still….

Are you going to stop at home to change? I need to talk to you about something.

Okay. His palms were sweaty and he had spots in front of his eyes, but he’d committed. He was going to ask a little question. And he’d made it important.

Yeah—he’s picking me up from home. Make it quick?

Okay. It was a window. It was something to work with. He had to phrase that question
really damned well
,
but he could do it!