Page 92 of Still Me
“Mostly.” I hoped my smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.
“I lived in Brooklyn for two years after I left college. I still miss it.”
She shed her bronze-colored coat, waiting while Treena wedged it onto our overstacked pegs. She was tiny, a porcelain doll, with the most exquisitely symmetrical features I’d ever seen and eyes that slanted upward with extravagant black lashes. She chatted away as we went into the living room—perhaps too polite to acknowledge my parents’ barely concealed shock—and stooped to shake hands with Granddad, who smiled his lopsided smile at her, then went back to staring at the television.
I had never seen my sister like this. It was as if we had just been introduced to two strangers rather than one. There was Eddie—impeccablypolite, interesting, engaged, steering us with grace through these choppy conversational waters—and there was New Treena, her expression faintly unsure, her smile a little fragile, her hand occasionally reaching across the sofa to squeeze her girlfriend’s as if for reassurance. Dad’s jaw dropped a full three inches the first time she did it, and Mum jabbed his rib repeatedly with her elbow until he closed it again.
“So! Edwina!” said Mum, pouring the tea. “Treena’s told us—um—so little about you. How—how did you two meet?”
Eddie smiled. “I run an interiors shop near Katrina’s flat and she just popped in a few times to get cushions and fabric and we started talking. We went for a drink, and later to the cinema... and, you know, it turned out we had a lot in common.”
I found myself nodding, trying to work out what my sister could possibly have in common with the polished, elegant creature in front of me.
“Things in common! How lovely. Things in common are a great thing. Yes. And—and where is it you come—Oh, goodness. I don’t mean...”
“Where do I come from? Blackheath. I know—people rarely move to north London from south. My parents moved to Borehamwood when they retired three years ago. So I’m one of those rarities—a north and south Londoner.” She beamed at Treena, as if this was some shared joke, before turning back to Mum. “Have you always lived around here?”
“Mum and Dad will leave Stortfold in their coffins,” Treena said.
“Not too soon, we hope!” I said.
“It looks like a beautiful town. I can see why you’d want to stay,” Eddie said, holding up her plate. “This cake is amazing, Mrs. Clark. Do you make it yourself? My mother makes one with rum and she swears you have to steep the fruit for three months to get the full flavor.”
“Katrina isgay?” said Dad.
“It’s good, Mum,” said Treena. “The sultanas are... really... moist.”
Dad looked from one of us to the other. “Our Treena likes girls? And nobody’s saying anything? And just whanging on about fecking cushions andcake?”
“Bernard,” said my mother.
“Perhaps I should give you all a moment,” said Eddie.
“No, stay, Eddie.” Treena glanced at Thom, who was engrossed in the television, and said, “Yes, Dad. I like women. Or, at least, I like Eddie.”
“Treena might be gender fluid,” said Mum, nervously. “Is that the right expression? The young people at night school tell me a lot of them are neither one thing nor the other, these days. There’s a spectrum. Or a speculum. I can never remember which.”
Dad blinked.
Mum swallowed a gulp of tea so audibly that it was almost painful.
“Well, personally,” I said, when Treena had stopped patting her on the back, “I just think it’s great that anyone would want to go out with Treena. Anyone at all. You know, anyone with eyes and ears and a heart and stuff.” Treena shot me a look of genuine gratitude.
“You did always wear jeans a lot. Growing up,” Mum mused, wiping her mouth. “Perhaps I should have made you wear more dresses.”
“It’s got nothing to do with jeans, Mum. Genes, maybe.”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t run in our family,” said Dad. “No offense, Edwina.”
“None taken, Mr. Clark.”
“I’m gay, Dad. I’m gay, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been and it’s really none of anyone else’s business how I choose to be happy, but I’d really like it if you and Mum could be happy for me because I am and, more importantly, I’m hoping that Eddie will be in my and Thom’s lives for a very long time.” She glanced over at Eddie, who smiled reassuringly.
There was a long silence.
“You’ve never said anything,” said Dad accusingly. “You never acted gay.”
“How’s a gay person supposed to act?” Treena said.
