Tell Me Three Things(30)
“?‘Long national nightmare’? Seriously?” I ask.
“What the hell, Rachel? It’s just a f*cking dinner,” my dad says, and that’s when I know it’s serious. My dad rarely curses, opts instead for the faux cursing favored only by ten-year-old girls and Southern women and Dri: shut the front door, holy sugar, eff off. “I need to study.”
“It’s an important work dinner, and it’s not unreasonable of me to want my husband there. We’re married, remember? This is important to me,” Rachel says, and I wish I could see through the door. Are they standing or sitting? Is Rachel the type to throw things, to smash the thousand-dollar accessories that litter the house? But who needs a six-foot-tall white porcelain giraffe anyhow? “Forget it. Maybe it’s better if you don’t come.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. It means nothing.” Oh, the passive-aggressive type. Says things without saying them. Agnes would hate her. “You and I both know this is not about you needing to study. You already told me you can take that test in your sleep.”
“Fine. I’ll admit it. I wanted one night to myself. One night when I did not have to be judged by all of your friends. Do you think I don’t see how they look at me? How you look at me when they’re around? I even let you take me shopping so I can dress the part, but come on! Enough,” my dad says, and now my cheeks flame. No doubt, I feel out of my element at Wood Valley, but it never occurred to me that my dad would have trouble adjusting to life in LA too, that all this fitting-in stuff doesn’t end in high school.
“No one is judging you,” Rachel says, and her voice turns coaxing, soothing. “They all like you.”
“So sue me that I don’t want to watch some indie movie about a Bengali leper who plays the harp with his toes. And you have some nerve correcting my drink order the other night, like I’m a child. I wanted a beer with my steak. Not an overpriced glass of cabernet. Sorry if that offends your high-class sensibilities. That sort of stuff doesn’t matter to me.”
“I was just trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself,” Rachel says, and her voice starts to quaver. Tears are imminent. I don’t feel sorry for her. “At a place like that, you don’t order beer. You just don’t. I was just trying to signal to you—”
“I don’t need signals. I’m a grown man, and just because I prefer burgers and beer to organic freshwater fancy-ass fish doesn’t make me a barbarian. You knew who you were marrying. I’ve never pretended to be anyone else. Anyhow, I thought it was cool to be different out here. Isn’t that why you bought me those ridiculous sneakers? It’s like you’re training a pet.”
“It’s one thing to have simple tastes. It’s another to be downright antiintellectual. Would it hurt you to read a book once in a while?” Rachel asks. Turns out I was wrong. She’s not going to cry. She’s doubling down. She’s rearing back.
“Seriously? You’re insulting my intelligence now? I’ve never seen you read a book. All that’s on your night table is Vogue. Actually, the only person who reads around here is Jessie. She’s the only sane person in this house.”
“Jessie’s the only sane person in this house? Wake up, Bill! She has no friends. None. I was thrilled to send her to Wood Valley, but aren’t you worried about her? Teenagers are supposed to go out and have fun,” Rachel says.
Oh, so I’ll be the one who will end up in tears. Of course, that’s the way it goes these days. I want to yell back, right through the door. I’ve made friends! I’m doing my best. I don’t need help. It’s not my fault my mother died, that we moved here. I’ve had to start all over from scratch in every way that matters. My dad chose her, and even more inexplicable, she chose my dad, and I didn’t choose either one of them. Sure, my dad’s a nobody pharmacist from Chicago, but he’s smart, damn it. Brilliant, even. So what if he loves WWF and action movies? My mom loved poetry, and even though my dad never did, they made it work. She let him be himself.
My life is a shit sandwich, with a side of jizz veggie burger. I don’t have the strength. My eyes are blurry with tears, and I slide down the wall to the floor. Theo looks at me.
“She talks crap when she’s mad. Ignore her,” Theo whispers. “She just likes to get her way.”
“You’re one to talk about parenting.” My dad’s voice. “My kid is amazing, so don’t you dare. Have you looked at your kid lately? The way Theo gallivants all…” My dad stops, thank God. Oh, Dad, please don’t say it.
“All what?” Rachel asks. “My son is gay. So the hell what?”
Rachel is goading him now. It sounds like she wants to fight. For a moment, I think it would be preferable to listen to them have sex. This is somehow even more intimate, more raw. Even worse than witnessing her midnight tears. I don’t want to be so close to these grown-up things. It’s all so screwed up.
Suddenly, I wonder if this is what happens when people meet on the Internet. A connection without context. A good first impression so much easier to make because it can be manipulated. But they met in an online bereavement group, not a place normal people click for a hookup. It’s hard picturing someone like Rachel turning to the Internet to help with her grief. She’s always so put-together. The opposite of needy.