Chapter 13
Emily’s father wanted to take her out for a family dinner to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. “Why don’t you invite Kim or Meredith? Make it more fun.”
Maybe it was the sullen August heat or because Emily hadn’t seen him since Christmas, but although she sensed that he wanted her to say she’d have more fun with just him and his family, the sound of his jovial voice on the phone provoked her.
It made her seek to thwart him by choosing what she wanted instead. “Can I take my friend Gen?”
“Haven’t heard that name before.”
“Can I?”
“Sure, I suppose. Tell her to bring her parents, too, why don’t you, so that Denise and I will have someone to socialize with, since I bet you kids won’t want to chat with us old folks.”
“Gen lives with her grandmother.”
“Huh,” said her father. “Well, okay.”
Gen, sitting in the hayloft’s recliner, eyed Emily warily. “What am I supposed to wear?”
“Whatever you want.”
Gen pressed her knuckles against her mouth, winced, then opened her hand with a flourish that indicated skeptical, yet good-humored, surrender.
“You could borrow one of my dresses.”
“Nope.” Gen smiled. “But maybe you should, you know, remind me how they work.” She touched the hem of Emily’s sundress. “For example: buttons. What do you do with all these buttons?” Gen undid them, one by one, from the bottom up.
They went to a restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet because Sara-Lynn and Courtney loved getting multiple desserts.
The little girls sat on either side of Denise, well-behaved as they ate, though their expressions held compressed impatience when their mother said that they needed to finish their vegetables before they could have ice cream.
They did as they were told, then went to the buffet on the far side of the restaurant and returned with their first round of dessert.
Denise told Nella how much she admired her earrings, which were small, gold drops.
Nella said that they had been a gift from her father to her mother for their golden anniversary.
“You can’t get things like that anymore,” Denise said.
“That quality. Such a sweet tradition. We gave each other themed gifts for the first few years, didn’t we, Phil, but gave up around leather or wood or—what was it? Copper?”
“I get you gifts,” said Emily’s father, irritated.
“Of course you do. Just not themed ones, is all I meant.” To Nella, Denise said, “Fifty years of marriage! Your father must have been proud to see your mother wear those earrings.”
“I don’t know,” Nella said. “I think he wished they were real gold.”
“Oh.”
“She loved them, though.”
“Well, they are beautiful.”
“They are indeed.”
Gen, across from Emily and next to her grandmother, shifted in her seat.
Gen’s silence seemed watchful. She had, in the end, chosen to wear suit pants and a white, ironed, button-down shirt.
Her light brown hair, which Emily had never seen fully loose before, was longer than she had realized and brushed to a shine.
Denise asked her where she was going to college and Gen told her, but the answer was cut short when Emily’s father set down his fork and said, “I want more chicken. Emily, don’t you? ”
Dread flashed across Emily’s chest. Unsure of what was coming, yet worried that it would be worse if she didn’t obey, she joined him at the buffet. Rectangular piles of meat and vegetables steamed. The stiff green beans were cut at sharp angles.
He said, “I don’t like how she looks at you.”
“What?” But she knew exactly what he meant.
“This was supposed to be a nice dinner. Your sisters are here. You couldn’t think for one moment about them and the example you set?
” He tossed the tongs onto the pile of chicken, then must have seen the panic on Emily’s face, because he said, his manner softened, “Oh, Ladybug. You’re so young. You didn’t know about her, did you?”
After an awful moment, Emily nodded, then saw that what had taken all her courage to admit was misinterpreted as the answer her father had wanted.
His relief was plain. Yes, Emily didn’t know.
Of course not. How could she? A thing like that.
Although Emily had been nervous when she had nodded, she realized only now, when she saw her father’s open disgust for Gen and his relieved belief that his disgust needn’t include his daughter, that she had hoped that her simple nod—yes, I knew—would change her father’s anger to understanding.
Yes, I know, and I’m like her, Emily could have said after she nodded.
Then his disgust would disappear, because he loved her.
He would think differently, for her sake.
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. She was ashamed.
“You had me worried,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said something. But you’ve got to know about the world sometime, the way that it is.” He led the way back to the table, where Emily, empty-handed, realized she hadn’t taken her plate with her to the buffet.
“So, Gen.” Her father’s expression indicated that he had decided to be polite and weather the situation, yet resented his decision. “You’re going to Ohio State on a full ride.”
“That’s right.”
“On an athletic scholarship.”
“Yes, for track.”
“Seems you beat everyone, don’t you? Everyone on the team, even the whole state. You must be pretty fast.”
“I guess.”
Nella said, “She doesn’t like to brag.”
He said, “It must be easier for girls like you to win.”
Emily was filled with fear. It was exactly as if someone had poured a pitcher of it into her, right up to the crown of her head.
She didn’t know how to stop what was about to happen.
No—that wasn’t true. She knew. She could interrupt, draw attention to herself.
Change the subject. Or tell her father to stop, just stop, shut up, shut up.
But Emily said nothing. She wanted to hide, even if that meant leaving Gen exposed.
“Girls like me?” Gen said.
“You know.” His tone was conspiratorial. It could even be mistaken as friendly. Gen drank from her water glass, and for a moment Emily thought that her father would say nothing more and everything might still be okay. He said, “Girls with a bit of boy in them.”
At first, Nella looked confused. Emily saw the moment when Nella shifted from not knowing about Gen to knowing, and to knowing about Emily, too.
Gen set down her glass. It was the first time Emily had seen her angry. Gen’s gaze flitted sideways to her grandmother, then to her own hand on the glass. She released it and her fingers wobbled for a moment before she placed her palm flat against the table. “You mean I win because I’m gay.”
“I didn’t say—”
“The fact that I’m gay has nothing to do with it. I win because I’m good.”
Silence spread like cold water.
“I’m sure that this is not an appropriate topic for conversation.” Denise looked meaningfully at Sara-Lynn and Courtney, who had progressed from ice cream to cake.
“No, it is not,” said Emily’s father.
Gen looked at her grandmother, eyes anxious. Emily’s fear compounded: she felt Gen’s fear now as well as her own. Emily pressed her mouth shut. She wanted to protect Gen, but wanted more to protect herself. She hadn’t known before how it felt to betray someone.
Nella placed her hand over Gen’s and held it, the gesture gentle and firm—steadying, as though helping Gen find her balance. “I want to make a toast.” Nella raised her glass. “To my granddaughter. I love you. I love everything about you. I am so proud.”
Then she said that she was tired and wanted Gen to take her home.
Emily saw her mother’s car in the driveway when her father dropped her off. Her mother’s bedroom door was shut. She took her mother’s keys.
Maybe Gen had seen her drive up, headlights cutting across the high corn. Gen sat on the porch, waiting, the farmhouse windows lit behind her.
“Can I come inside?” Emily said.
“I don’t know.”
“Can we talk?”
“What do you want to say? Are you here to break up with me?”
“No! Gen, I’m really sorry.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Please.” I’m not sure that’s good enough . “Don’t.”
“I felt really alone. Like you weren’t even there.”
“If my dad knew, he wouldn’t love me anymore.”
Gen rubbed her eyes. She looked tired, her long frame hunched, elbows propped on her knees. Emily wanted to say, You’re not being fair, because even with her keen sense of fault, she was jealous of Gen: that toast, Nella’s glass lifted in the air.
“That was awful,” Gen said, then added slowly, “but it was awful for you, too. It makes me sad.”
“Are we okay, you and me?”
“Yes,” Gen said, and Emily believed her—out of need and because, at least then, Gen seemed to mean it. “We are.”