Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [140]
Jude twisted the hospital bracelet around his wrist. He was barefoot, nothing on his body but his boxers and the gown.
“Dad, you know any fags?”
The waiting room was full, but his voice was low, one of many. A baby was wailing.
“Don’t call them that, champ. Say fairies or queers.”
“Do you—”
“Look, champ, if you’re trying to tell me you bat for the other team—”
“No, Dad.”
“I’d accept you. Your mother would accept you. You’re a good kid, despite the hell you’ve put us through this year, but look, I deserve it. Maybe if I’d been there to provide some masculine influence—”
“Dad, I’m not a queer!” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I like girls.”
“You sure?”
“I like Eliza. She’s a girl.”
“So you have—”
“We haven’t—done anything. We made out. Yesterday. That’s it.”
“Jude Keffy-Horn, you little shit.”
“Is that weird? Since you used to go out with her mom and all?”
Les rocked his head back and forth, thinking. “It’s a little weird.”
Jude’s heart lumbered forward. It was exhilarating, saying it out loud. “I don’t know if she likes me, though. I mean, I think she’s pissed at me.”
“Why is she pissed at you?”
He replayed the scene in his head. Kissing her had been like playing a song, or eating a meal at one of the nice restaurants Di had taken him to. The kiss had steps, phases—a bridge, a chorus, an appetizer, something to cleanse the palate. It had a shape, a momentum—and then it had stopped. Jude had stopped it.
“I liked it. It was great and everything.” He left out the part about the breast milk. “I guess I just got a little weirded out. I’m supposed to be straight edge.”
“True.”
“And she’s pregnant. With Teddy’s kid.”
His father placed his soda on the table beside them. “It’s a little weird,” he said, not unkindly. “But soon she won’t be pregnant.”
Jude leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and sank his forehead in his hands. Away from Eliza, in the noise of the waiting room, her pregnancy now seemed a small matter to overcome, a curable condition. It would be as if the baby—and Teddy—had never been born. It was the worst possible outcome. They had let Teddy down. They had held this miracle in their hands, nurtured it, fought for it, and then, together, they’d dropped it.
He felt it fall: a baby over a ledge. He felt it fall many, many stories, never landing, just diving through thin air.
But what then to do with this immense relief, this joy rolling out like a carpet before him, the surprise gift of their youth returned to their hands?
He wondered if his own birth mother, unburdened by him, went on to live her life and kiss boys.
“Will they let you outside in that getup?” Les stood up, stretched, and crushed his soda can. “I need a smoke.”
First Avenue was sleepy with Sunday-evening traffic. A school of taxis swam together from light to light. Cigarette butts littered the sidewalk around Jude’s bare feet, and the air was warm with restaurant grease and petrol, the uriney stink of trash. Still, it felt good to be outside. The air wasn’t as pure as Vermont air, but it was just as rich, just as distinctively laced. He inhaled.
“You know what I think, St. Jude?” Les lit his cigarette. “I think it’s time we were roommates again. I’ve missed New York. Now that Lady Di isn’t a crazy woman anymore, I’m going to talk to Davis about getting my old place back. What do you say?”
“I don’t know,” Jude said. “I guess I’d have to think about it.”
“Don’t worry about your mother,” Les said. “Now that she’s got a man friend, she’s not so alone. Isn’t this groovy, all this love in the air? Your mom found someone, you found someone. Now I just have to—”
“A man friend? Wait, who did she find?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Les exhaled out of the corner of his mouth. “She’s got a man friend. A P.I., of all things.”
“A P.I.?” Jude could only picture Tom Selleck.
“Di hired