“Sounds fun,” I say. “But I need my beauty sleep if one day Prince Charming is going to gallop down Main Street and sweep me off my feet.”
“Wow,” she says. “You’ve been listening to Claire again.” Kristina is allowed to call her Claire, so that’s what we call her when we talk about her. I have to call her Mom to her face. “She’s so jacked up on that these days.”
She reaches for her phone and brings up a text message. It’s so Claire. Kristina, WHEN r u going to find a good boy like Justin 4 Astrid?
“I wish she’d just mind her own business,” I say.
“Right?”
“Last time I dated anyone, she just nitpicked me about him anyway.”
“Yeah. That was Huber, wasn’t it?”
I look at the message again and wonder how many moms text their daughters’ best friends behind their backs like this. I wonder why she uses text-speak. It irks me so much that I almost want to reply. Hi Mom. Y r u being so creepy n txting my frnd?
“Yeah. Huber,” I answer. I don’t like to think about Tim Huber.
“She thinks you’re not over him yet.”
“That was a year ago,” I say. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, though.
“Yeah,” she answers. “Isn’t it hilarious that she asks for a boy just like Justin?”
This should be when I tell her about Dee, but I can’t. Even though she’d totally understand, she might tell just one person. And that would be just one person too many.
“Shit,” I say. “I’d better go. The world will explode if I don’t have my room clean by three.”
“Thanks for waking my ass up for nothing,” she says. “Tell my mom to bring me some coffee on your way out, will ya?”
It’s four o’clock. My room is clean, and I’m out on my table looking at the sky. I’m thinking about Dee. About how inadequate I feel. About how her hands know what to do but mine don’t. About how I always have to stop her when she wants to keep going.
My brain people say: Astrid baby, it’s because you’re not gay.
They say: You’re not strong enough to be gay.
They say: Mom would never forgive you if you’re gay.
I try to stop thinking about it, which is easier on weekdays when I’m distracted by school stuff like Zeno of Elea, lit mag, and the dirty looks I still get from Tim Huber’s friends. But now all I can think about is Dee and how this all started. How she told me how gorgeous I was. How flattered I felt. How exhilarating it was to be wanted. This is why I doubt. It’s the loophole. It’s the question no one ever wants to ask.
Am I doing this out of desperation? Is it some weird phase I’m going through? And why, if any of the answers are yes, does it feel so right?
There is a 747 high, leaving a crisp white line through the cloudless autumn sky. I ask the passengers: Am I really gay?
But they don’t answer me. They are reading their in-flight magazines and sipping ginger ale. I send them love—as much as I can gather. I ask them: What do I do now?
PASSENGER #54627563
ELAINE HUBBINGTON, SEAT 3A FIRST CLASS
FLIGHT #4022
CLEVELAND TO PHILADELPHIA
MEMBER OF WINGS ELITE CLUB #HU3456
I know about two hours into the flight home that I have to leave John. Call it a moment of clarity. Call it a message from God. I stare out the window at the sky and feel this smack of reality right in my heart.
He hasn’t done anything to deserve it. He’s loyal and sweet. He still buys me thoughtful presents on my birthday and on our anniversary. I just don’t love him. It’s not fair that he’s wasting his life on me, a person who will never return his feelings. And it’s early. Married only five years—no kids yet.
Yet.
Our last discussion was groggy. I’d set the alarm for four and was pulling on my socks when he rolled over and lightly stroked my back.
“When you get home, let’s talk about a family again.”
“Mmm hmm,” I said.
“We have the space.”
Is that the most important factor for deciding to have kids these days? Space?
His comment echoed the whole flight to Chicago. We have the space.
What I should have said was, “Why don’t we go shopping for antiques? That would fill some space.”
What I should have said was, “How about a home gym? Or a flat-screen TV with surround sound?”
When did I go from human being to baby machine to fill your space? That’s what I wanted to say to him. But instead, I just held off calling until after dinner. Each sticky-sweet thing he said made me want to puke. “I miss you” vomit. “I’ll keep the bed warm for you” gag. “I love you” heave. I wanted to say, “I think I loved you, too, once, but I don’t anymore. Find yourself another uterus to fill your goddamn space.”
Instead, I said, “I miss you. Keep the bed warm. I love you, too.”
Lies.
The blue sky at thirty thousand feet asks me uncomfortable questions. It asks: Why did you marry him? Did you ever love him? Will you?
It asks me: What do you do now?
The blue sky at thirty thousand feet gives me answers. It says: You never loved John. You hit thirty and panicked. You’re too selfish to admit you made a mistake.
The sky says: Stop being so selfish. Everybody deserves a chance at real love. Only once you let him go will you find yours. Do what feels right.
7
ASTRID TO HOME PLANET: PLEASE RESCUE ME.
“IT’S SATURDAY… let’s go somewhere fancy!” Mom says after galumphing downstairs from her office at ten after five.
Dad, Ellis and I are in the den. I’m reading the beginning of Plato’s Republic for humanities class. Ellis is watching a documentary about triathlons. Dad is in his Saturday stoner clothes. He has white paint on his dark brown hiking shorts. His T-shirt gives the illusion of having been sweaty and dried out again. His hair is Hollywood windswept. He’s got a graying goatee, and if you look close enough, you can see Cheetos dust in it. The only thing he did while he was “cleaning out the garage attic” was take a few hits from the pipe he hides up there and exhale out the exhaust fan toward Bob’s house. Technically, my father is The Dude from the movie The Big Lebowski, only he’s totally in the closet. (Jones closet tally: 2)
Mom looks at him for an answer.
Dad says, “Nothing fancy for me. I’m beat.”
“What do you have to be beat about?” she asks. “You didn’t even work today.”
Dad says, “Weekends off. The perks of working for the man.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I have to read this, and I have to get up early for work.”
I don’t even know why we answer. Dad and I both know she wasn’t really asking us. She looks to Ellis and puts on an annoying high-pitched voice. “A Mommy and Me night?”
As always, mere mention of this tradition makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Ellis chews on her lower lip for a second. I think she may roll her eyes to herself as if she knows how annoying this is to the rest of us. Then she claps her hands together and says, “Let’s get really dressed up, too!”