somebody. Maybe they were all screwing each other. Probably. I don’t know. And Mom knew it before Dad. She was trying to tell him. To warn him. And he wouldn’t listen. But later he finally figured it out. And Ryan and my dad ended up hating each other.
Making it unanimous, I said.
Right. And nobody was happier than Randy. We didn’t have to pretend anymore. Because Ryan had been hitting on her. He got the idea that she was his property. Dad was his, and if Dad was his, so was Randy.
Gross, said Dorita.
Beyond gross.
Jake paused. He wiped his eyes. He looked exhausted. Excuse me, he said. He went to the bathroom.
Dorita looked at me. I looked at her. We heard the water running. She shrugged. I shrugged. We weren’t sure.
I hope he doesn’t throw himself out the window, she said.
There’s no window, I assured her.
Jake came back.
What more do you want to know? he asked, looking at me.
Dorita cut in before I could respond.
As much as you want to tell us, she said gently.
Jake took a deep breath.
Ryan was a major-league prick, he said. He wanted to get back at Dad. For whatever. And at Randy. For disrespecting him.
How had she disrespected him? I asked.
Not marrying him. Marrying him?
He wanted her to marry him. It was like an arranged marriage thing, in his head. Dad owed him. He was going to take Randy. As payment.
Jesus, I said.
Yeah. And before the big fight, Dad was almost on his side. It was a sick situation. But it got sicker.
Jake wiped sweat from his forehead. We waited.
I don’t know how he did it. But he got a picture. Must have had some PI guy or whatever. He got a picture.
What was in the picture? Dorita asked.
Randy. Naked. And me. On the bed. In her room.
Were you naked too?
No. I was in my track shorts. Listen, I know it sounds bad. It looked bad. He gave it to the paper. But it wasn’t what it looked like.
We waited.
Jesus. I never told anybody this.
What? said Dorita gently. What didn’t you tell anybody?
That I’m gay, he said.
I almost choked on my Scotch. This was not where I’d thought it was going.
Nothing wrong with that, Dorita said.
No. Not here. Not now. But then. And there. You didn’t tell people that. You might as well just kiss your life goodbye. So when the picture came out. What was I going to do? We loved each other, Randy and me.
He looked at me with pleading eyes.
But not like that, he said. She was the only one who knew. About my…thing. We shared everything.
His eyes misted up again.
I was trying to reconcile this revelation, if that was what it was, with the Jake I knew. The poker-playing, backslapping, hard-drinking guy. I thought back. Yes, I could see it. It could be. All that angst. All those hints of deep dark secrets and the unfairness of the world. The drinking. It all fit.
Though it fit some other theories too.
We were in her room, he said. I was her kid brother, for God’s sake. She knew what I was. She knew she could be free with me. She knew she could share anything. God.
His voice choked up.
We waited while he composed himself.
She was always very self-conscious. Sure, she was the star. The valedictorian. The girl the guys all wanted to take out. But it never was enough for her. She wanted more. She wanted to be a real star. Out in the world. Somebody at the college had approached her. Asked her to model. That was going to be her start. She was going to the big time. But she was still so insecure. She never thought of herself as beautiful. It didn’t matter how many guys asked her out. Drooled over her. She never believed it.
We smoked a little dope, he continued. We stole a little gin from Daddy’s stash. We were pretty wasted. I was trying to convince her she was beautiful. She thought she was too skinny. A bag of bones, she said. I laughed at her for that. Look, she said. Look at me. She was out of control. She took off her dress. She had nothing underneath. She liked to be that way. Nobody ever knew but me. She could sit there in church, and only she and me would know.
He broke down. He cried. Dorita went to him. Put her arms around him. He melted in her arms. She looked at me. She raised her eyebrows. I shrugged. Damn.
Once he’d calmed down a bit he went on.
So she’s standing there in front of the mirror, naked, and she’s yelling, ‘Look at me, I’m nothing.’ She was hysterical. I’d never seen her like that. I was trying to calm her down. And I guess that’s when the bastard took the picture. He was at the window. He had to have been there. Next day a bunch of reporters show up. Jesus.
He told us the rest of the story. The police. The newspaper stories. Daddy found dead with the top of his head on the bedroom wall. Mom breaking down, inconsolable. Catatonic. They took her to the hospital. She never spoke again.
Their lives were ruined. They couldn’t even look at each other. It was all too painful. They got the hell out of town. He went to Chicago. She went to L.A. They didn’t talk. They didn’t write. They needed to expunge, erase, forget the ugly past.
Jake, I said when he was finished. There’s something that doesn’t make sense to me.
What? he said.
He was tired. Resigned.
You said you were gay.
Yeah?
When Dorita was hustling you, tonight?
Yeah.
You weren’t acting like a gay guy.
He looked at me like I was stupid.
I was trying to impress you, Rick, he said.
Oh man. What else had I missed?
I found out soon enough.
Mom died, last year, he said. And I thought about it all. I thought to myself, I said to myself, we were all we had. Randy and me. I had her. She had me. We didn’t have anyone else. Back then. And I still didn’t have anyone. Anything. I had this stupid acting thing. It was going nowhere. Auditions. Humiliation. Building bookshelves.
He gave me an ironic smile.
I smiled. I nodded my head.
So I decided to look her up. I’d find her. It wasn’t that hard. I knew where she’d gone. I called some people. I traced her from L.A. to here.
And?
And I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to see me. I didn’t know what kind of life she’d built here. How deep she’d buried the past. So when I found out she was married, had a kid, had a life, I figured I had to go slow.
Of course, Dorita said.
