Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [244]
“Not kissing, but hissing,” says Boyce. “Like ‘not waving but drowning.’ Stevie Smith.”
“Boyce, shut up for a minute,” says Larry irritably. They seem to know each other quite a lot better than Roz has assumed. She’s thought they’d just met the one time, at the Father-Daughter Dance, and then a few nods at the office, as Larry came and went. Apparently not.
“But you went to her hotel room a lot,” says Roz. “I know it for a fact!”
“It’s not what you think,” says Larry.
“You realize she’s dead?” Roz says, playing her ace. “I just came from there, they just fished her out of the fountain!”
“Dead?” says Boyce. “Of what? A self-inflicted snakebite?”
“Who knows?” says Roz. “Maybe somebody threw her off the balcony.”
“Maybe she jumped,” says Boyce. “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, they jump off balconies.”
“I just hope to God you had nothing to do with it,” says Roz to Larry.
Boyce says quickly, “He couldn’t have, he was nowhere near her tonight. He was with me.”
“I was trying to talk her out of it,” says Larry. “She wanted money. I didn’t have enough, and I could hardly ask you for some.”
“Talk her out of what? Money for what?” says Roz. She’s almost yelling.
“For not telling you,” says Larry miserably. “I thought I could keep it secret. I didn’t want to make things any worse – I thought you’d been upset enough, because of Dad, and everything.”
“Judas Priest, for not telling me what?” shouts Roz. “You’ll be the death of me!” She sounds exactly like her own mother. All the same, so sweet, Larry trying to protect her. He doesn’t want to come home and find her flopping around on the kitchen floor, the way he did before. “Boyce,” she says, more gently, “have you got a cigarette?”
Boyce, ever prepared, hands her the package and flicks his lighter for her. “I think it’s time,” he says to Larry.
Larry gulps, stares at the floor, looks resigned. “Mom,” he says, “I’m gay.”
Roz feels her eyes bugging out like those of a strangled rabbit. Why didn’t she see, why couldn’t she tell, what’s the matter with her anyway? Nicotine grabs at her lungs, she really must quit, and then she coughs, and smoke billows from her mouth, and maybe she’s about to have a premature heart attack! That’s what she’ll do, fall to the floor in a heap and let everyone else deal with this, because it’s way beyond her.
But she sees the distress in Larry’s eyes, and the appeal. No, she can handle it, if she can bite her tongue hard enough. It’s just that she wasn’t prepared. What’s the right thing to say? I love you anyway? You’re still my son? What about my grandchildren?
“But all those bimbos you put me through!” is what she comes out with. She’s got it now: he was trying to please her. Trying to bring home a woman, like some kind of dutiful exam certificate, to show Mom. To show he’d passed.
“A man can but do his best,” says Boyce. “Walter Scott.”
“What about the twins?” Roz whispers. They are at a formative stage; how will she tell them?
“Oh, the twins know,” says Larry, relieved that he’s got at least one corner covered. “They worked it out pretty fast. They say it’s cool.” That figures, thinks Roz: for them, the fences once so firmly in place around the gender corrals are just a bunch of rusty old wire.
“Think of it this way,” says Boyce affectionately. “You’re not losing a son, you’re gaining a son.”
“I’ve decided to go to law school,” says Larry. Now that the worst is over and Roz hasn’t croaked or burst, he looks relieved. “We want you to help us decorate our apartment.”
“Sweetie,” says Roz, taking a deep breath, “I’d be glad to.” It’s not that she’s prejudiced, and her own marriage wasn’t such a terrific argument for heterosexuality, and neither was Mitch, and she just wants Larry to be happy, and if this is how he plans to do it, fine, and maybe Boyce will be a good influence and make him pick his clothes up off the floor and keep him out of trouble; but it’s been a long day. Tomorrow she’ll be genuinely warm and accepting. For tonight, hypocrisy