None of the Above(65)

I didn’t want to be someone he’d just met. “Was it really? I only ask because I know I haven’t been good company lately.”


I paused, weighing my next words, wondering if I really wanted to go there. I decided that I did. “Someone told me tonight that I needed to get over myself, that I’ve been so caught up in my . . . my diagnosis that I’ve basically been a shitty friend. And paranoid too,” I added. “I can’t forget the paranoid part.”

“Did you tell them to go screw themselves?”

I smiled. “No. Because I think they’re right.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Darren said after a bit. “It takes a lot of hard work to be truly, top-notch paranoid, and I’m afraid you don’t quite make the cut. Sorry.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I have to say you’re kind of an also-ran in the shitty friend department, actually.”

“I don’t know about that.” I sighed, and flexed my grip on the steering wheel. “I basically accused my best friend of telling the whole school that I was a hermaphrodite. I wasn’t wrong. But I was blaming the wrong best friend.”

“Oh. Crap.”

“So, shitty friend.”

“Okay, so maybe you’re in the ballpark. What did you do when you found out you were wrong?”

“I apologized.”

He made a game-show buzzer sound. “Sorry, you’re out of the running again.”

“But I was a jerk. Do you know how much it sucks to be the jerk?”

“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”

I groaned, even as part of me warmed at the banter. “It was a rhetorical question.”

Darren stretched in his seat, and ran his hand through his hair. “Rhetorical or no, the answer is yes. When my father first came out, I was a total *.”

“Weren’t you, like, ten?”

“That doesn’t excuse me. Nor does the fact that he ran off with a guy who’d been my student teacher in fourth grade, leaving my practically suicidal mother in sole custody of me and my hormonally challenged older sister.”

“God. That must’ve been awful.”

“Yeah, my life pretty much blew. Anyway, I blamed it all on my dad. Not on my mom, who, it turned out, actually knew that my father was gay. Or at least bi.

“The thing I hated the most was that he had played the straight guy for so many years. Couldn’t he have just kept his dick in his pants, or at least waited until I’d gotten through the hardest years of my life before taking off? Don’t answer that question. I know it wasn’t the most mature thing to think. But like you said, I was ten. So I threw tantrums whenever I had to go to his house. I deleted his emails without reading them. In other words, yes, I know what it’s like to be the jerk, and to have to deal with the suck when you realize that you’ve been in the wrong.”

“Oh, Darren.” I tried to imagine how a ten-year-old could’ve handled the betrayal and guilt. “What helped?”

“Several thousand dollars of therapy.”

“Well, I’m working on that, at least.”

“Time. Chocolate. And more therapy. But you know what? All those sessions with a shrink really only taught me one thing: To not be too hard on myself. Or my dad.”

When we pulled into Darren’s driveway, the light in his kitchen was still on. “Your mom’s up late.”

“Yeah, she’s got a big event tomorrow, and she said she’d be up late experimenting with different éclair fillings.”

“Oh my God, your mom’s éclairs,” I said wistfully. “Worth killing for.”

“You aren’t kidding,” Darren said as he opened the door to get out. “Come on in. She’s always up for some taste testers.”

“I can’t,” I protested. “It’s too late. What would your mom think?” More importantly, what would Becky think?

“Bull. Shit. My mom loves you. Come on, I don’t want to be held responsible if you resort to justifiable homicide to get one of those éclairs tomorrow.”

Darren walked around to open my door, so how could I refuse?





CHAPTER 39


Darren’s house was pretty much like I remembered it, with the exception, of course, of the baby paraphernalia that had infiltrated every room. We took our shoes off next to the stroller by the door, and walked through the living room strewn with burp cloths and soft toys. Even the kitchen had been compromised by a huge bottle-drying rack. Ms. Kowalski sat at the center island with an icing bag, surrounded by pastry shells.

“Hey, Mom,” Darren said. “I brought you a set of taste buds.”

“Kristin!” Ms. Kowalski exclaimed when she saw me. She got up and gave me a handless hug, careful not to get any sugar on me. “It’s been ages. My, you’ve become such a gorgeous woman.”

I glanced at Darren, who nodded his head ever so slightly. His mom knew. I closed my eyes and leaned into her hug, breathing in the scent of flour and butter.

“You came at the perfect time,” she said. “My client is a horticulturist, and wanted a floral theme for the reception. I’m trying some new lavender and rosewater fillings, and I need to know if they’re too overwhelming.”