Black Cake(22)

But only for now, Benny told herself, as she sped away from Joanie’s house, hands tight on the steering wheel. Only for now, she told herself the following week, as she drove home to California, eye on the speedometer, trying to stay under ninety miles an hour.





The Bennetts





Thanksgiving Day, 2010, right here in this house. When Benny’s father finally grasped what Benny had been trying to say about her love life, he raised his voice. And Dad was not the voice-raising kind. She tried to interject but her dad kept talking over her. Then he stood up.

“I don’t see how you can manage to live a decent life with this kind of confusion,” Bert said.

“Decent?” Benny said. “Are you saying I am not decent?”

“Don’t you raise your voice at me, young lady,” Bert said.

“Daddy, you are the one who is shouting at me. You are the one who asked me if I was dating someone. You are the one who said, why don’t I bring someone home? I was just trying to explain that it might be a him or it might be a her.”

“So your mother and I are supposed to be okay with you sleeping around?”

“I am not sleeping around, Daddy. I’ve been with the same woman for four years. I’ve only dated a couple of people, ever. But that’s not the point….”

“The point is, you’re not even sure what you want.”

“Yes, I am sure, Daddy. This is who I am. I’m Benny.”

There was a look in her parents’ eyes that she had never seen before. Everything went quiet, like that second before a pot of water comes to a boil. She looked over at Byron but he was just sitting there, looking at the floor. He wasn’t going to help her, was he? Benny had feared it would come to this. She breathed in and out slowly, letting the hurt of what she was thinking run through her until she heard herself saying it.

“It’s you who aren’t sure, Daddy.” Benny worked hard to keep the quiver out of her voice. “It’s you who aren’t sure if you love me anymore.” At which point her father turned away from her and stalked out of the room, her mother following after him, saying, “Bert, Bert.” Benny hadn’t intended to spend Thanksgiving Day all alone, but she didn’t see how she could stay, what with her dad saying she was indecent, and her mother wet-eyed and trailing after her father, and a bunch of people on their way over to the house for dinner.

The Bennetts usually entered and exited by the back door of their family home, the one that led directly into the kitchen, but instead of crossing through the house as usual, Benny headed straight for the front door. It took a couple of tries to get the door to open, its tendency to stick being one of the reasons why they’d always preferred the back entrance. When Benny finally tugged it open, she went through without saying a word.

She left the door open. She figured her brother would follow her out, but he didn’t. When she got home, she checked her messages, thinking Byron would have called her, would have grumbled, What the heck were you thinking? But he hadn’t. At least the long drive back to Arizona had its advantages. By the time she turned onto her street late that night, the holiday was over, and she was not the only person on the block to be seen trudging up the walkway, turning a key in the lock, and switching on the lights in an empty unit.

Benny tried to take comfort in the fact that lots of people didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

The problem was, that wasn’t how Benny had been raised. This was a time of year when Benny’s family gathered together with friends and took time to be grateful. It was the being together that counted and Benny had just been excluded from it all.

In the weeks that followed, the landline at home would ring and the caller ID panel would light up with the word Private and Benny would punch the button to answer, but no one would speak. Benny would tell herself that it was her mother calling, because it wouldn’t have been her father. Sometimes, after a pause, a telemarketer would greet her in that buoyant tone that a person tended to use when bracing themselves for rejection.

Benny was always polite when she said no to the telemarketers because she understood that they were just trying to earn a living, they were just trying to get through the week, they were just hoping for a sign of acceptance.

Hoping for acceptance. Benny knew a thing or two about that.

She started sorting through her things that very night. What to take with her to New York, what to donate. There was that charity group that sent around a truck that made you feel better about having to part with stuff. You could tell yourself you were doing something good for someone. When Benny moved to New York soon after, hoping that, in time, Joanie would forgive her, she didn’t even bother to send her new address to her folks. They had her cellphone number, anyway, and they hadn’t used it in a while, now, not since she’d texted them to say that she’d be spending the Christmas holidays elsewhere.





Byron on the Tube





In the years after her move to New York, Benny’s brother became so popular that she could see him every day, if she wanted to, on the television news, on a late-night talk show, on her laptop. Lately, Benny has been keeping a link on her smartphone that takes her to a documentary where a camera crew is following Byron around. TV Byron feels much more accessible right now than that other Byron who is out in the living room with Mr. Mitch.