I tried to get his eye. He wouldn’t look at me. We hadn’t talked about it, but I’d thought he’d have the sense to shut up about us, since we were only seeing her this one night. What was the point?
My mother said once that coming out to strangers was a little like knocking over a wineglass at a dinner party. You stopped the flow of conversation instantly. There was the mop-up; the assurances it wasn’t your fault, it could have happened to anybody—all the boring business of attending to all that.
Then Alex said, “And she was there to hear this new George Michael album.”
“She?” said Huguette. “Who’s she?”
“Lynn”—his father’s name for me. “The love of my life.”
I’d never heard Alex describe our first meeting. I didn’t mind that I was in the third person with a sex change. As he talked, that moment went from the usual glib cover-up to something dizzy and sweet. I knew from his tone he felt it, too.
“So where is she?” Huguette asked at the end.
“She lives in New York.”
Alex used to say that in that closet we all tried so hard to come out of were all the letters you wrote home changing he to she; all the memories of saying “Hi, there!” brightly to someone getting off a train you haven’t seen in ages and want to hug to death; all the secret, long looks across the crowded room; all the times you didn’t say who you were with last night while others did say; all the artifice, evasion, subterfuge, and hiding that goes into being gay.
Alex gave me that look that always made me feel my blood jump in my veins.
Then we heard a low buzzing hum, and Huguette looked at her watch. “Eleven fifteen. Is that Uncle Ben already?”
“He said we had until eleven thirty!”
“Come on,” she said, and we followed her out into the hall, where a tiny screen monitored the action down by the gates.
“It’s the Aurora,” Huguette said, “so it’s Franklin. But what’s this? He has a girl with him.”
I almost didn’t recognize Franklin in a sport coat and pants, instead of the usual dark suit. But I recognized my mother. Franklin had gotten out of the sleek white car and gone around to help her from the passenger seat. He was about to walk her down the path to our cottage.
“He does have a girl with him!” Huguette said. “Where did she come from?”
“The same place I come from,” I told her. “The caretaker’s cottage.”
“Your mother?” Alex said. “Is he her date?”
“It looks that way,” I said. “We’d better go too.”
“But I was just going to ask you about yourself, Lang.”
“Another time,” I said.
My mother was already in her room by the time we got down to the cottage.
There were two bedrooms in the place, mine and hers.
The couch in the small living room was made up with sheets, a cotton blanket, and a pillow. Same as the night before. Same as always when Alex came to visit. A silent reminder from my mother that no matter where we were for the summer, it was her home and we played by her rules.
Alex laughed. “Next week Nyack!”
“Nyack?”
“My parents’ twentieth anniversary, remember? You promised you’d come with me.”
Then he sat down and began taking off his shoes. “I like Huguette,” he said, “but I wish she’d told us about Cali instead of Marten. Maybe next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said.
“How are you going to avoid her? She’s going to be right up there for the rest of the summer.”
“I just am,” I said. “The masquerade is over, although I liked hearing your version of our first meeting.”
“I meant everything I said, Lynn.” He chuckled and held out his arms.
Later, the shock of seeing my mother with Franklin gave me insomnia. I didn’t even know if Franklin was his first name or his last. I only knew he reminded me of one of these snooty salesmen in a high-class men’s store, or a mortician. I couldn’t remember him ever smiling.
I was still awake when I heard the rottweilers announce Nevada’s return.
SEVENTEEN
I WAITED UNTIL MONDAY afternoon, when Alex was on the jitney headed into New York.
Then I said, “Since when do you date Franklin?”
“Since last night. We only went to dinner—a very late dinner thanks to you, Alex, and Huguette.”
“Eugette,” I said. “If you say her name Yougette, you get nothing.”
“We had to wait until you got back to Roundelay.”
“Why didn’t you just say you were going out with him?”
“Look at your face. The answer’s right there.”
“Well, I’m not overjoyed, you’re right. For God’s sake, Mom, he moves like a robot.”
“He’s a little wooden, that’s true, but he’s pleasant.”
“It’s a little hard to take, you with Franklin.”
“Oh, and you with Alex is easy to take.”
She had me there. I grumped around for a while as she reminded me that she was only thirty-seven, not quite dead yet, not a nun who’d taken vows of celibacy, and not averse to having a life beyond our life together.
We were in the middle of this discussion when a knock came at the door.
Huguette was standing there in these tight gray sweats that rode low on her hips, and a white half shirt that showed she’d been sunbathing at some point when she didn’t have on that outfit. There was a wide gap of white skin above her waist.
“Can you do me a favor?” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Drive me into the village?”
I opened the screen door, but she shook her head and said, “I’m not coming in. You come out.”
I walked through the door and we stood in the small yard, a few feet away from the field with the dandelions and the snakes.
“How long will this take?” I asked. “I don’t mean just this one time, either.”
“Uncle Ben says he doesn’t like me out driving around alone. Besides, he’s not sure my French license is good in the United States.”
“I was
