Page 45 of Everything We Thought Was True
One of them.I knew that was what was going on but had thought she would use some other sorry excuse. Instead, she’d said it as plainly as could be.
“What do you mean, ‘one of them’?” I wanted her to spell it out. To say it out loud. I had to hear it.
“You know... a fairy.”
Wow.She’d said it so matter-of-factly, like she was giving me the score of a baseball game.
Heat crept up my neck and into my face. Beads of sweat broke out on my upper lip, and I felt my heart rate speed up. I was afraid one of my panic attacks was coming on. Thank God I was already sitting down.Breathe, Lena, breathe.I counted to myself:One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.I was relieved to feel my breathing steady.
I knew I should just leave it alone. I wasn’t at work—no longer on the clock. But I couldn’t help myself. “Listen, what you just did—refusing to serve someone because of who they are—that’s illegal.”
Diane kept buffing my nails and took her sweet time responding. “What’re you, a lawyer or something?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Well, this is a small establishment. Privately owned. We can serve who we want, okay?”
“No, actually, you can’t. There’s a state law in place that forbids not serving a customer who’s part of a protected class. And sexual orientation is one of those.”
She shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable.Good. That makes two of us.She chewed on her lip. We were both silent for a beat.
“Hmm, well, okay, then. I guess now I know,” she said perfunctorily.
Her response wasn’t an apology for what she’d done. Or the epithet she’d spewed. I wanted to demand more. To make her take back what she’d done, what she’d said. To force her to stuff her homophobia down her throat.
I thought of the look on the man’s face—defeated. It reminded me of the look on my dad’s crumpled face when he’d told me years before that he was gay—the way his shoulders had sagged like he was the child and I the parent—humiliated and belittled by merely being who he was. I thought of all the times he’d been made to feel like a freak just because he loved someone like I loved Kevin. I sat there, dumbstruck, unable to take this woman to task, wondering where the lawyer who spun words for a living had gone.
Diane changed the subject with a wave of her hand as if she were dismissing what just happened as not important enough to even continue talking about. She started blabbering about a television talk show she loved and one guest who’d been on it that morning. I didn’t pay any attention. I was totally inside my head, having a debate over what I should have said while the man was in the doorway, how I could have handled the entire situation better, and what a coward I was.
After a few minutes, the fog in my head lifted, and I stared at Diane’s red hair, so sad that I was afraid I would cry right there. I knew exactly what I wanted to say now. It came to me way too late. What I wanted to say was “That could be my father. I am the daughter of a gay man, and I definitely won’t be getting my nails done here. You just lost a customer. Be careful of what you say... you never know who’s sitting across from you.” But I didn’t say anyof that. Not a word.
I was ashamed of myself. I’d missed an opportunity to stand up not just for the gay man in the doorway, or gay men in general, but for my dad in particular. But I didn’t stand up. I just sat there.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TERESA - JOHNSTON, NY
1983
Teresa saw the car in front of her momentarily inch forward and took her foot briefly off the brake to follow suit. She was trying to snap out of the funk she’d been in since Rosa’s death. That night, she’d picked Lena up from track practice, but she wasn’t in any mood to cook so was at McDonald’s, in line at the drive-through. She had no interest in going inside and being around strangers. She looked over at Lena, who appeared lost in thought.
Teresa’s thoughts wandered to Frank, who took up so much space in her mind even though she’d ignored him in the weeks since her mother had died, only speaking to him in cryptic sentences when absolutely necessary.
He tried to engage her when they were alone, making excuses for his behavior. “It’s not what you think. It doesn’t mean anything. I won’t see him anymore. I slipped up, but it won’t happen again.”
Lies and more lies but no apologies.Is this how it ends—sixteen years of marriage dismissed with a few angry words and a closed elevator door?
Teresa knew in her heart that figuring this out would be insurmountable. Her patience was as brittle and thin as a sheet of ice ready to melt. Frank would never change. She could never make him change. The situation with Frank had stripped away all herinnocence, and the only answer that kept coming to her wasGet out. But then this voice in her head would reply,Easier said than done.
Some couples divorced and survived it. It didn't look easy. She’d have to get a full-time job. Frank would have to pay child support, and they’d have to set up a visitation schedule for Anthony and Lena.
She cringed, realizing she’d be a divorcée. Many married people viewed divorce as a communicable disease. It branded a woman as someone who couldn't make her marriage work and was now prowling after other women's husbands to steal them away so she’d have a man again to provide for her and her children.Jesus.
Even worse, not only couldn't she get her marriage to work, but she couldn't even get her husband to want to be with a woman, or at least not with her. People would view her as a total failure. A dread filled her, seeping through her blood like an injection of ice water.
He should leave.I should have kicked him out years ago.It wasn’t enough anymore that they had children together. Teresa didn’t want Anthony and Lena to be children of divorce but worried about hurting them more by staying in a sham of a marriage. She didn’t want them to see her resentment and anger and wonder why she’d allowed it to go on so long.
She pulled up to the drive-through window and ordered a Big Mac for Anthony, a Quarter Pounder for herself, and a small hamburger and fries for Lena.
