Someday, page 8
She paused. “Well, I guess with her having to work, she doesn’t have as much free time. It’s good she tries.”
Then she began to make her mashed potatoes, with short orders to Dalton for cream and real butter. She used the mixer with her right hand and took a sip of her iced tea with her left. Then she held it high. “Dalton, dear, slip some vodka in this for your mother. Not too much!”
Vodka?
Dalton got a pained expression on his face, took the proffered glass, and left the room.
Vodka in her tea?
Lucas knew she was no teetotaler, but vodka in your tea? What happened to martinis? The ones she trained Dalton to make when he was a kid, that were pretty much why Lucas had guessed his boyfriend—
(Boyfriend! He still couldn’t believe it.)
—had all but stopped drinking himself.
When Dalton came back, she was adding the butter to her potatoes and hardly glanced his way as he handed her the glass.
“You didn’t put too much in?” she asked, loud enough to be heard above the noise of the mixer. “You know when I have too much I lose my tongue, and I must keep that tonight!”
The comment did nothing but make Lucas all the more nervous.
When she was finished with her mixing, she was also half-done with her cocktail. She wasn’t playing around tonight. At least with her martinis, she sipped. She put a lid on the pot with the potatoes, checked the roast in the big oven set in the stone wall, and then asked them if they “would like to retire to the living room?” She lagged behind, and it was only when she sat down on the chair next to the love seat that Dalton had insisted he and Lucas use that Lucas saw why. Her tea was near full again and suspiciously lighter in color.
“So how was your day, boys? The summer is almost over. What did you two get up to?” She crossed her legs, and Lucas noticed she was wearing hose. Lucas couldn’t believe it. His mother hated them with a passion. She didn’t like wearing hose at work as an administrative assistant—
“Glorified secretary is what I am,” she would state with a sigh.
—and she certainly wouldn’t wear them at home. Not even for company, and definitely not for Dalton, a boy she had known for pretty much his entire life. So why was this woman wearing them? For Lucas? He hadn’t ever noticed her wearing them before. In fact, she’d always worn pantsuits or obviously expensive and even ironed jeans (and who ironed jeans?).
“We went swimming,” Dalton said.
“At Wagner Public?” she asked.
Dalton shook his head. “No. Smithville,” he answered. Which was a lie. They’d gone to a pond that a nearby farmer had dug up in the middle of one of his cornfields and let the rain fill. Apparently he’d made it for local gay naturists, which meant skinny-dipping. Dalton had heard about it from Diego Hernandez and actually gone with a group of guys almost a year ago—
(which made Lucas very jealous until Dalton promised that he hadn’t done anything with Diego or any of the guys)
—after he turned eighteen. Lucas wasn’t quite eighteen yet, but Dalton reasoned that it would only be the two of them. What could happen?
“You didn’t drink, now, did you?” she asked and took a healthy swig herself.
Dalton assured her that it had been nothing but colas. Which was true. What they’d done was make love. Twice. Dalton had even insisted Lucas top him, which wasn’t Lucas’s favorite thing (it almost seemed wrong—it was only the second time he’d done it), but still, it had been bliss. Dalton had loved it, cried out in joy, and being inside Dalton had felt amazing.
That’s what I make him feel, and the thought was wonderful.
Mrs. C turned to Lucas and quite without warning was looking directly into his eyes. She seemed to be watching the porno movie in his mind. He blushed hotly, as if she really had seen what he had been seeing up there. She pursed her lips, nodded once, and looked away.
For a second Lucas thought he would puke.
Then she started talking about what she’d done that day: breakfast with Sharon Solomon and then a meeting for the annual Kingston Charity Dinner—of which she was secretary—and how she was concerned with the lack of donations with any real worth for the auction.
“I mean, please,” she was saying as Dalton’s father came into the room. “A necklace of only six carats? Last year we had one that was 18.6—and I thought that one was rather cheap. How chintzy are people getting?”
“Next year they’ll be donating cubic zirconium,” Mr. Churchill added, standing in the doorway like some ancient god.
They all turned in unison.
Lucas actually trembled.
“Exactly,” Mrs. C said.
Dalton’s father was a tall man, taller even than Dalton’s own six feet, and his face looked as if it had been chiseled from stone. His features were hard, and his hair barely looked real, cut military short on the sides with the top in short frozen waves. He wasn’t as blatantly muscular as Dalton, but he was wide-shouldered and very fit. Dalton said he ran five miles every morning before work. He also said the ladies loved him, but Lucas couldn’t see it. The man was as cold as marble. Always had been.
Mrs. C had been the warmth of the family.
It amazed Lucas that Dalton was as passionate as he was. And in retrospect—the sudden understanding hit him in a way that almost made Lucas gasp aloud—that had surely been yet another reason Dalton had taken so long to proclaim his love.
“Good evening, Lucas,” Mr. C said as Mrs. C got up and headed for the bar.
“Good evening, Mr. C,” Lucas replied, trying the honorific he had used growing up and Mrs. C had insisted on earlier.
“Dinner is pretty much ready,” Mrs. C said over the clinking of ice against glass. “All I have to do is put the rolls in. Ten minutes. You want me to do that now or give you a chance to sh—”
“Now will be perfect, dear,” he said, interrupting her as she slipped him a short glass filled halfway with a tea-colored liquid. Of course, Lucas knew that wasn’t tea in his glass. Scotch? Whiskey? Lucas had no idea. His mother wasn’t a drinker—not even wine. There had been no alcohol in the Arrowood household while Lucas was growing up. No martinis to learn to make. “Dalton, would you take my briefcase up to my study? It’s in the hall.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dalton said, and once again Lucas was alone with one of these unknowable people.
“Yeah, sure,” Mr. C said in a gently mocking tone. “Can you believe that, Lucas?”
“Sir?” Lucas all but squeaked.
“There. See? ‘Sir.’ I don’t know what’s happened to Dalton this past year. He’s lost all sense of respect. I suppose it comes with his age. Thinking he’s a man—”
He is a man.
“—thinking he’s old enough to make the decisions that will affect his entire life.”
Mr. C laughed, and Lucas felt a chill. He opened his mouth to say “Don’t you think he’s old enough to make his own decisions?” because he felt Dalton was old enough, was a man. There were countries where a boy became a man at thirteen. But then he closed his mouth and left it unsaid. He could see that Dalton’s father didn’t agree. Not at all.
“Can I get you a drink, Lucas?” Mr. C asked.
Lucas. Not son. Mr. C had called him son for as far back as Lucas could remember.
He was getting a very bad feeling.
You’re letting your imagination get away from you. You’re just making mountains out of molehills.
Nervous about Dalton coming out. Coming out as gay. Coming out about their being lovers.
“No, thank you, Mr. Churchill,” he answered, all thoughts of calling the man Mr. C abandoned. “I’m not old enough. I’m only seventeen.”
“Seventeen?” the cold giant said quietly. “Really?”
“Not old enough for what?” asked Dalton, returning to the room.
“Of course, he’s only seventeen,” said Dalton’s mother, one step behind. “He’s a year behind Dalton. He’s always been a year behind Dalton, darling.”
“Not old enough for what?” Dalton asked again.
“For a cocktail,” Mr. Churchill stated, almost vaguely, almost as if Dalton weren’t even in the room.
“Dad!”
God! I’ve stumbled into The Addams Family or something.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” said Mr. Churchill.
Lucas gulped. “Thank you, sir. That’s okay.” And truth to tell, he wasn’t interested. The thought of alcohol always made him think of a certain forever-ago day with spin the bottle and vanilla-flavored vodka, which had burned and tasted nasty and not anything like the bottle had suggested.
“Suit yourself,” Mr. Churchill said.
Thankfully dinner came as quickly as promised. There was no grace, not even the simple, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen” that Lucas’s mother insisted they say before every meal. And the meal was amazing. Mrs. C had always been a good cook.
They were soon at the dining room table—it was a strangely cold room, with wallpaper that looked like burlap to Lucas—and Dalton’s parents sat at either end of the table, Dalton and Lucas across from each other. Lucas would have been more comfortable at a table like the much smaller one at home, sitting next to Dalton. Equally thankfully, the odd and disquieting conversation turned much more like the ones Lucas was used to at the Churchills’. Was Lucas sending out college applications yet? What movies were good right now? Which ones a waste of time? Mr. and Mrs. Churchill mentioned the books they were reading—Lucas hadn’t heard of either of them—and was shy when he mentioned that he was reading The Da Vinci Code. Was the book too common for them? Then there was talk about if anyone thought the Chiefs would do well this year, which meant Lucas was completely lost.
It was after dinner that everything went wrong.
11
THE CONVERSATION started with a question.
“So, Lucas, you didn’t tell me what college you’re looking at attending,” Mr. Churchill said over coffee on the patio. It was late summer, and even though it was after eight, the sky was still bright. “Or are you planning on college?”
He’d already asked that, hadn’t he? And hadn’t Lucas answered? No. He’d started to answer, and then Mrs. C had cut in, asking Dalton if he’d ever finished reading Trainspotting.
“I just figured I’d go to Wagner University,” Lucas said. “It’s a top-rated school, and town residents don’t have to do the whole dorm thing. And I’ll probably qualify for some scholarships too. I’ve got a pretty good grade-point average.”
“It’s 3.8,” Dalton supplied proudly.
Mr. Churchill barely glanced his way before seeming to dismiss his son. “And your major?”
“Not sure yet. I’ll start with the general required classes that any major calls for. Get them out of the way.”
Mr. Churchill nodded. “Dalton here”—and he pointed—“is going to the University of Missouri at Rolla.”
Lucas did a double take. What? He turned to Dalton, who seemed equally surprised. “No, I’m not, Dad. We talked about this and—”
“Sir,” Mr. Churchill said, steel in his voice, clearly correcting his son. “Or Father. What’s happening to you? Is frolicking with this boy softening your brain while it hardens your cock?”
Lucas gasped, Dalton’s mouth fell open, and Mrs. C let out a “Richard. Must you be so crude? I thought we agreed to subtlety. Ease into this.”
They know! My God, they know. Lucas’s heart leapt, and his stomach turned to lead. I knew it. He’d known something was up from the moment he and Dalton walked in the door.
“Subtlety is for pussies,” Mr. Churchill snapped. “And I didn’t realize until a week ago that was what my son was.”
“Dad!” Dalton protested.
“What did I just say?” Mr. Churchill shouted. “Father or sir!”
Shit, thought Lucas, and his stomach began to roll, dinner the worse for wear for it.
“Sir,” Dalton replied quietly.
“Now, as I was saying. Dalton will be attending University of Missouri in a few weeks. As a matter of fact, we will be going up a week early. As a family. Exploring the town. Touring campus.”
“Da…. Father,” Dalton said as Lucas watched helplessly. “I’ve already told them I won’t be attending. We can’t just show up and expect—”
“I’ve spoken to the dean,” Mr. Churchill interrupted. He seemed to do a lot of that—interrupting. “I’ve arranged everything. Explained everything. Told him how you’ve been influenced”—he shot Lucas a look that made him so unsettled that for a second he thought he would lose his dinner—“and how you need to be away from it.”
It? Had Mr. Churchill just called him an “it”?
“Like some kind of drug.” The last dripping with disgust. “I told him that a man needs to get away from his childhood home, learn to be a man. The dean—the pussy—was not sympathetic with my feeling about your perversion—”
Again gasps, both from Dalton and Lucas.
What happened? wondered Lucas as he sat there, stunned. He felt like he was underwater. One minute they were having dinner, contemplating the Kansas City Chiefs’ prospects for the coming season—to which Lucas was not able to add anything—and the next Mr. Churchill was talking perversion?
“—but he did agree about the importance of leaving the nest. And in this, your mother and I both agree, it is very important.”
“Dad,” cried Dalton, ignoring his father’s demanded title.
“It is time for you to be a man. Part of that means you can’t be around him anymore.” Mr. Churchill made a dismissive gesture at Lucas. “It’s one thing for you two to play around at thirteen, fourteen. It’s normal. Boys do that. I jerked off with my buddies….”
Mrs. C’s eyes popped wide. “Richard. Please.”
Mr. Churchill turned to her slowly, eyes flashing. “Denise. Why don’t you go off and do something womanly? Make plans for your charity. Moan about the carats of that damned necklace. Count the coffers. I don’t know. I don’t really care. But if you don’t have the stomach for this, then leave.”
Lucas’s eyes went even wider. That sense of being underwater intensified. He was stunned into incomprehension.
Mrs. C stood, eyes downcast, and went inside. She didn’t even spare them a backward glance. No apologies. Nothing. Just left the room like a scolded puppy.
Mrs. C. The most formidable woman Lucas had ever known.
We were talking about the Chiefs.
Mr. Churchill, wife now discharged, snapped his attention back to Dalton. “It’s not that I don’t understand. He’s pretty as a girl.” He pointed at Lucas with his chin. “He’s got an ass like a pair of grapefruit. I’d fuck him if he weren’t underage—”
“Dad!” Dalton stood up fast.
“‘Dad’ what?” Mr. Churchill all but roared.
“That is my lover you’re talking about.”
And Lucas thought he might cry. But not from Mr. Churchill’s ugly words.
Lover. Dalton had said it. Love surged up and through Lucas, banished the stunned fear that had filled him. Dalton had called him his lover right in front of this roaring lion.
Mr. Churchill, though, growled. He actually growled. “Lover!” He flicked his hand at Lucas. “This isn’t your ‘lover.’ This is your cum dump!”
“That’s it!” Dalton declared. “Come on, Lucas. We’re leaving.”
“You step out that door and you won’t ever walk back through it. Not even for your clothes.”
Deathly silence followed. Lucas thought his heart would simply stop. Had Mr. Churchill just—
“Did you think I didn’t know? Of course I knew. I was shocked when Rebecca told me that you begged that little pansy to choose you over the Dutch faggot. Begged, she said. I didn’t want to believe it. My son begging anyone, let alone a boy. But Jesus bald-headed Christ, Dalton! He is a boy. He’s underage, and if his mother pressed charges, you’d go to prison. Have you thought about that when you’re screwing his tight little ass?”
Dalton’s eyes went wide. Dalton clearly hadn’t thought about that. Not really.
She wouldn’t, though. She said Dalton was safe. She wants me to be with Dalton…. “She wouldn’t do that,” Lucas blurted without thinking.
“Am I speaking to you, Lucas? How did you get that idea?”
“N-no,” Lucas managed.
“Then shut the fuck up.” Mr. Churchill turned back to Dalton and stabbed a finger at his son. “No. I didn’t want to believe it. But then I checked your email. Saw those ridiculous messages back and forth. You acting like some love-struck simpleton. The ‘I love yous’ and the ‘No, I love you mores,’ and dear God, the ‘I want to suck your cocks!’ You said it!” He shuddered. Then, in a mocking tone: “Oh, Lucas. I want to suck your beautiful cock.” He grimaced. “But the worst was the pictures. Cocks and asses and goddamned assholes! I thought I would puke. That was the last straw.”
“Oh my God,” Lucas whispered. And watched as Dalton’s face crumpled.
“Now you listen and you listen good. Lucas will now leave this house, never to return. And you, Dalton. You will go to University of Missouri at Rolla, and if you don’t, then you are never to return to this house either. And I’ll fuck your trust fund. See if I don’t.”
“That’s from Nana,” Dalton objected angrily.
“See if that stops me.”
Mr. Churchill spun back to Lucas, and he flinched at the expression on the man’s face. “Now I’m talking to you, you little cocksucker.”
The evening started with a question. It ended the same way. With several.
“If you actually do profess to love my son, don’t you want what is best for him? Do you really want to ruin his life? Do you really want to doom him to a life of faggotry? What kind of life can you give him? A life living in some gay ghetto? Always in danger of losing his job if anyone found out about him? About you both? When he could have a position in the community? A wife, kids? If you really do love him”—and once again, his face twisted in distaste—“then ask yourself if you want the best for him. And if you do, then get out. And if I ever see you within a block of this house again, I’ll run over you with my car.”
