Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (6 page)

Reluctantly, he set it back down. “Anyway, Damon is a dog person. I know he doesn’t say much, but I like him. His hair is so touchable, and he’s bigger than me. He’s definitely got possibilities.”

“And maybe cooties, too,” I said, giving up in disgust.

Birdie laughed, knowing he’d won. “I’m gonna fix up this teddy bear. Just you wait and see. In two weeks’ time even you’ll think he’s adorable.”

I put Noodles on the floor and picked up the stuff that had fallen. “He better be the most adorable person I’ve ever met, because if he’s not, he’s out, Birdie. You got that?
Out
.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be out
very
soon,” he said, giving me a knowing smile. “Now, just give us a hand with the futon, and then you can go back to being Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf or whoever you are.”

I don’t know why, but Birdie can talk me into things I would never allow anybody else to. I went downstairs with the two of them, and we hauled and dragged and pulled the heaviest futon on earth up three flights of stairs, wedged it into Birdie’s room between his bureau and a wall of CDs, and then collapsed on it.

“That was hard,” Damon said, breathing heavily, “even with your muscles, Superman.”

Birdie flexed a bicep. “Don’t blame me. You two weren’t holding up your end.”

Damon reached over and caressed Birdie’s arm. “My God, how did you
get
those arms?”

“Lifting weights,” he said, rolling back his T-shirt sleeve to show off the other one too.

“Dumbbells,” I said. “Isn’t that what they’re called?”

“I don’t care what they’re called,” Damon whispered to Birdie. “They’re amazing!”

“They’re yours,” Birdie whispered back.

Bad enough I had to break my back lifting the cement-filled futon of my new, unwanted roommate into my apartment, but now I was being subjected to this inane flirting on top of it. It was too much. I deserved a lover more than Birdie
did. Yes, I was jealous. It wasn’t fair that I was going to have to listen to their squirrelly lovespeak all the time when I—who was so ready—should be the one beginning a great new romance. It was
my turn
.

I left the boys to stare into each other’s eyes, or test the futon, or whatever came next for them. The first line of my novel was starting to race around in circles in my brain, and I ran to my desk to get it down on paper.

Christina had always believed she was born lucky—smart, funny, and just good-looking enough to get pretty much everything she wanted, except, of course, the thing she longed for most: love.

H
ARVARD
S
QUARE KEPT LATE HOURS
, especially in September, when everybody was still pumped about starting the new school year. The booths at the Mug were all full at eleven o’clock, so when Lee came in, she slid onto a stool at the counter.

I shot her a smile over a tray of pies I was busy delivering around the room. “Hey,” I said. “You’re out late.”

She shrugged and waited for me to get back behind the counter. “I went to a movie at the Brattle,” she said.

“What did you see?”

“
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
They’re having a Tennessee Williams film festival. Last week I saw
A Streetcar Named Desire
.”

“Really? I’ve never seen either of those. They always seemed like they’d be so testosterone-soaked,” I said. “Marlon Brando in a ripped undershirt.”

“Oh, they’re much more than that—they’re Tennessee
Williams
!” she said. “Nobody writes like him!”

“I guess.” I was unconvinced. “My school put on
The Glass Menagerie
a few years ago. It seemed a little silly, with the sister who was afraid of her shadow, and that shrieking mother.”

Lee stared at me in abject disappointment—like Noodles when you ate in front of her and didn’t share.

“Although,” I said, “maybe it was just because this awful girl was playing the mother. Probably if I saw a better performance of it—”

“You would!” Lee said. “Oh, you’d love it. I mean, you’re a writer—you’d have to love it!”

Typically, the hair stands up on the back of my neck when somebody tells me what I
have
to love, but I couldn’t get mad at this foundling.

“If they show the movie of
Glass Menagerie
, maybe we could go see it!” she said, bouncing on her heels.

“Maybe.” But not likely. The women in those stories were always half nuts and pining away for somebody—not good role models for Lee in her present state. I poured hot water over a tea bag and did not look at her puppy eyes.

“You hungry?” I asked her. “Sophie made a lemon meringue pie before she left, and nobody’s touched it. It’s so good. When I was a kid I called it cloud pie or sky pie and made my mom get it for my birthday instead of a cake.”

“Sure,” she said, squeezing out a smile. “I had some nasty frozen stuff from my sister’s freezer for dinner. Left over from the Ice Age.”

I cut Lee a big piece of sky pie and set it before her with a flourish. The crowd was starting to empty their pockets onto the tabletops and leave, so I cut a piece of pie for myself, too, and poured a cup of coffee. “So, what have you been doing all day? Weather is so great this time of the year I just want to be outside.”

She shrugged. “I slept late. Had lunch with my sister and her boyfriend at some Chinese place. They had plans for the afternoon, so I pretended I had homework to do. Took a book and sat down by the river for a while.”

“I love it down by the river. You know, next weekend is the Cambridge Arts Festival all along the riverfront. People making and selling art, music groups, theater groups, jugglers, fire eaters . . . a little bit of everything. It’s fun. You should go.” It occurred to me that a nicer person would have said “we” should go. But that would have made it seem like I was asking her on a date or something, and I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. I mean, it was fine to hang out with her, but she was kind of new to the game, and she might think I was giving her signals when I wasn’t. This time I was choosing the girl, not letting her choose me.

She nodded and sighed. “Maybe I will,” she said without much enthusiasm. She wasn’t scarfing down Sophie’s pie the way I would have expected, either.

I leaned over the counter so she’d have to look at me. “What’s wrong? You aren’t deciding to flee back to Indiana, are you?”

“No, although I do think about it. I mean, I like it here—it’s pretty and there’s lots going on—but it’s so different from where I grew up. It’s
too
pretty or something. It seems like everybody is rich and smart and perfect. That whole Harvard thing. How do you ever feel like you belong here? If you’re not part of it, I mean.”

I didn’t have an answer for that one.

“I guess you
are
part of it, so you wouldn’t know,” Lee said.

I’d really never thought of Cambridge as someplace you belonged or didn’t belong. It was just my home. “I’ve never lived anyplace else,” I said.

“Do your parents work at Harvard?”

“No, my mother is a psychotherapist, and my Dad teaches at MIT.”

She smiled. “MIT—same difference. You’re a dyed-in-the-wool Cambridge brat, aren’t you?”

I shoveled in a big chunk of lemon filling. “Let’s just say this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called a brat.”

Lee sipped her tea and bounced her fork off the meringue.

“So, do you miss your parents?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t miss all the craziness that’s been going on since I came out to them. But, yeah, I guess I do miss them. We were always pretty close . . . before. And I miss my best friend, Allison. I could tell she was freaked out, even though she said she wasn’t. It’s not like I had a crush on
her
or anything—which I told her—but she hasn’t even e-mailed me since I’ve been here. It’s like Indiana has disappeared off the face of the earth. Or I have.”

“That sucks. You must be close to your sister, though. I mean, she wanted you to come out here and live with her.”

“Yeah, that was a surprise too. I mean, I’m nothing like Lindsay—I never was. She’s really pretty and obviously smart enough to get into Harvard—always had a million friends, while I had, well, Allison. Lindsay’s a really hard worker, and I’ve always been kind of lazy, which drove her nuts. But I guess she feels sorry for me now. The gay thing doesn’t bother her, though—she says it explains me.”

“What does she mean by that?”

“Like, why I’ve always been kind of quiet, why I never joined stuff or spoke up in classes or made myself visible in high school, like she did.”

“Does it?”

“Partly, but I’ve never been as outgoing as Lindsay anyway. And I don’t like the way everything I do now, she assumes it’s because I’m gay. Like, ‘Oh, you’re wearing cargo pants? I guess that’s because you’re a lesbian.’ Or, ‘You’re a vegetarian now? I guess that’s because you’re a lesbian.’ ‘You’re reading a book by a woman? I guess that’s because . . .’ God! It’s just stupid. It’s like being gay is my entire definition now—it’s the only thing I’m allowed to be. And I hate that!”

Interesting. Had that happened to me? I thought it probably had, but that I just didn’t mind it as much as Lee did. I was about to respond to her when Doug came in to get the night’s receipts. He was prowling around in back of me, not happy that I was yakking to a friend.

“You started checking out yet?” he asked me. Obviously, I hadn’t.

“Those two tables haven’t paid yet,” I said.

“Well, you can get a start on it, can’t you? I want to get out of here quick tonight.” He grumbled and banged open the cash drawer.

There were open tables now, so I nodded to Lee. “I’m done at midnight if you want to wait over there for me.” She slid off the stool and slunk over to a table. I felt bad having to brush her off when she was in the middle of her big story about feeling out of place, but what could I do?

“You want me to do that?” I asked Doug. He was tallying the credit card slips and writing numbers in his book.

“I got it,” he grumbled. “Get those tables wiped down and refill the salts, peppers, and ketchups.”

He wasn’t usually this grouchy, at least not with me. “There a problem?” I asked him.

He grunted. “I wanna finish up here so I can get back to the hospital.”

“Is somebody sick?” I didn’t think Doug had any family.

“Gus is in the hospital. Heart trouble.”

“Gus? You mean
the
Gus? Who owns the place?”

“Who else would I mean?” he barked as he flipped up the levers that held the bills in place in the drawer. “Nobody around anymore to help him out but me.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. I hope he’ll be okay.”

“He’s eighty years old, and his ticker’s wore out. One of these days he’ll be gone . . . and this place will disappear with him.” He glanced up. “Pay attention—that table’s ready to leave.”

I couldn’t tell if Doug was upset about Gus being sick or just annoyed that he had to go back to the hospital so late at night. I knew he was a creature of habit; any change of schedule irritated him, so it could be just that. But maybe he and the mysterious Gus were friends. It would make sense after all these years. And was he just being overly dramatic about the Mug having to close if Gus died? Surely somebody would take it over and keep it going.

“How long have you been working for Gus?” I asked.

“Long enough to know that you have to refill the salts,
peppers, and ketchups every damn night!” he bellowed.

“Okay!” I yelled back. Nothing pissed me off more than being yelled at unfairly.

The last table of paying customers headed for the door as I grabbed a rag to swab down the tables. Lee was huddled in a booth slimed with coffee and spilled cream. She moved her elbows so I could wipe it clean.

“I could never work for somebody who yells like that,” she whispered.

“He’s okay,” I said. “Just in a bad mood tonight.”

“He’s staring at me. I’ll wait outside, okay?” She slid out of the booth and scurried to the door.

“You don’t have to,” I called, but she was halfway out the door already. “I’ll be out in twenty minutes.”

I rounded up the salt and pepper shakers from the tables. “Thanks for scaring off my friend,” I said to Doug, hoping he’d lose count of his ones.

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty . . . Next time get yourself a friend who ain’t such a scaredy-cat.” He banded the twenty ones and went on counting.

I finished up my closing duties and threw my apron in the laundry bag.

“You on tomorrow?” Doug asked.

“Not till Monday afternoon. I hope Gus is okay.”

Doug nodded and kept on counting. I’d never seen him look so morose before. I guessed even if your friend was eighty it was still hard to think of him dying.

Lee was waiting for me in the pit by the T stop. There were a bunch of skateboarders and skanky-looking high
school girls hanging out there too, making too much noise for my present mood.

“Let’s go sit down there,” I said, pointing to the concrete triangle in front of a row of shops on Brattle Street. During the early evening there were usually street performers out there, doing magic or mime or something of interest to tourists and five-year-olds. But this late at night there were only a few couples scattered around, sitting on the walls talking.

Lee pulled a pack of sugar-free gum out of her pocket. “Want some?”

“I don’t chew gum—it goes bad too fast and then you have to figure out where to spit it out.”

She nodded. “I know. It’s a nervous thing for me. Better than smoking, though.”

“That’s for sure.”

She ran her hand through her messy curls again, obviously another nervous habit. “Listen, I’m sorry I was telling you all about my stupid life back there. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got it so bad or anything. I know that.”

“I don’t mind listening. But I have to warn you, I’m one of those people who tend to want to fix things. You know, don’t just bitch about it; change it.”

“Right,” she said. “You’re right. So tell me what you did today.”