Chapter Twenty-Three
VESCIO’S IS a classic Watertown first date spot. It’s not too fancy, but it’s fancy enough — a couple steps above Olive Garden, at least.
Tad can’t get out of the car.
Before he left the house, he lay on his bed, Hetty a cat loaf on his chest, and tried to take deep, centering breaths. He doesn’t feel centered. He just wishes he was alone with his cat. He’s already five minutes late, though. And he really shouldn’t stand Jenny up.
Deep breath in.
You can do this, Tad.
Deep breath out.
Maybe.
When he was a kid, he saw a speech therapist for years. At first it was because he didn’t close his teeth right when he made an S sound and it was developing into a lisp. It turned into a kind of therapy for his social anxiety, which everyone said he’d grow out of.
Except he never grew out of it. It stopped being a thing to grow out of right around the time he finished elementary school, and it became something wrong with him.
The E in Vescio’s is flickering.
He closes his eyes. Clenches his hands into sweaty fists.
He can do this. Go inside, tell Jenny the truth. Just lay it out there. Surprise! I’m gay! Insert jazz hands. But we can still have dinner if you want? The breadsticks are good.
God, it’s going to be awkward.
A shock of cold air hits his face when he opens the car door. He hurries across the parking lot and into the restaurant before he can think about how fast his heart is beating. The hostess brings him to a table, which Jenny Clark is already occupying.
At least she doesn’t look like she made a huge effort. Perfunctory makeup, an outfit that looks like office-casual, and brown hair in a messy bun. Tad’s in a button-up, and he bought some styling cream and heinous cologne at CVS, which he sprayed on in the parking lot. He’s afraid he’ll smell like sweat otherwise.
“Tad?” Jenny gets to her feet. “You look so different!”
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
No. Fuck. He has a plan. He’s coming out tonight—to her, to his family, and he’s going to stop living a lie.
Which sounds so dramatic.
“Uh.” Tad clears his throat. Clears his throat again. His face feels hot, and the longer he stays silent, the hotter it gets. His fingers are tingling. That can’t be normal.
Jenny leans forward. She looks sad and nervous. Tad wishes he had a straight friend to set her up with .
He clears his throat for a third time. “You,” he says.
Cool! Great!
Now Jenny’s brow furrows. “Is everything okay?”
“Um. Jenny.” He pulls the chair out but doesn’t sit.
The expression on her face is halfway between constipation and resignation, like she knew this was a bad idea and had to talk herself into coming anyway. “You remember me, right? Sydney’s younger sister? You guys used to be friends.”
“Sydney, yeah.” Tad’s throat is closing up. Is he allergic to something in here? Is he going into anaphylactic shock?
He makes himself shake her hand, but he feels like a robot doing it. She obviously thinks something’s wrong with him. Something is wrong with him. He needs to act like a human being.
His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Jenny looks like she’s starting to wonder if he’s a psycho, like maybe he’s going to start flipping tables or screaming at servers.
The words are right there, sitting at the back of his throat, but nothing will push them forward, and so he’s just standing here, arms limp at his sides, as he stares and she stares back, her expression growing progressively more confused and troubled.
I’m gay. I’m gay! I’M GAY!
Two words. That’s all it will take. If he could just get those two words out, the floodgates would open. He knows they would. And maybe she’ll be horrible about it. Maybe she’ll be embarrassed. Maybe she’ll think it’s funny and they’ll have dinner together anyway.
All of that is just a pipe dream, though. He has to actually say the words .
“Is everything okay?” Jenny asks nervously.
Nothing is okay. He’s almost thirty years old and he’s so committed to not disappointing his parents that he’s on a date with a woman.
“Um, fine,” Tad manages to force out.
He hates this. He hates how his stupid brain won’t make his stupid mouth just say the words. He doesn’t even know what he’s afraid of. That she’s going to think he’s weird? She obviously thinks he’s weird! What does he care if this random woman who he’ll probably never see again thinks he’s weird?
But if he could logic his shyness away, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not about this situation. It’s something deeper, a fear that he’s going to be laughed at or shunned embedded so far inside him that the specifics don’t matter.
This was supposed to be a freeing moment. This was supposed to be where he was finally true to himself.
A waitress approaches. “Is everything okay?”
God, he really wishes people would stop asking that.
It’s not okay, and he has to get out of here. Jenny will hate him, but whatever. Her sister has hated him since ninth grade so it’s not like he’s losing some meaningful connection.
“I have to go,” he says so quietly that he’s not sure she heard him. When her eyebrows go up, he knows she did. “Sorry,” he adds, but it’s not true. All he wants is to get out of here. The entire restaurant is staring. They might even be recording the freak, but he can’t bring himself to look around for the raised phones.
Suddenly he’s in his rental car. In the dark. Hands clenched around the steering wheel. Door shut. How did he get here? He has no memory of walking out of the restaurant, or getting the key from his pocket, or opening the car. He’s just… here, and he’s shaking, and he’s choking on a sob that’s as trapped as his words were back there.
There’s something wrong with him. He’s weak, he’s a baby, he’s incapable of the most basic speaking up for himself that everyone else just does without struggle.
Once, he and John got in a huge fight, where John yelled at him that he was so terrified of disappointing someone that he ended up disappointing everyone, and maybe he should care less about the conditional approval of people he lied to so they’d keep loving him.
Later, John apologized, but Tad heard the words thrashing right underneath the surface: you can choose to stay in the closet like a coward, or you can choose us.
In the end, John made the choice for him. Or he thought Tad made the choice and acted accordingly.
Mom’s going to be so disappointed with him for fucking up this date. Dad will get that look on his face, like, what do you expect from Tad . Tomorrow at Thanksgiving dinner, Mom will tell Walt the whole story like it’s a funny anecdote instead of a raw, pulsing wound Tad is trying to staunch.
The sob claws its way out of his throat. Crying is exactly what he needs to add to this tableau: sitting in a rental car in a strip mall parking lot after failing to tell a stranger he’s gay and crying about it.
Tears spill out anyway. He dashes them away with the back of his hand. To add insult to injury—or maybe the other way around—he somehow manages to hook a finger into his nostril, and he yanks , and it fucking hurts , and he cries harder like the baby he is.
His forehead thunks down on the steering wheel and all he wants is to be home. Not his parents’ house. His apartment in Manhattan. He wants to cuddle Hetty and listen to her purr and he wants to be surrounded by his plants in his own space where he can be himself, where no one wants anything more of him or to make him into someone he’s not capable of being.
The car key jabs his thigh as he shifts his leg. There’s nothing actually stopping him from going home, is there? His parents will be upset, but his parents are already going to be upset. Well, Mom will be upset. Dad will get upset because Tad had to go and ruin Thanksgiving.
He almost starts crying again.
The car clock reads 7:09. If he leaves now and only stops to get Hetty and his stuff, he could probably be home by midnight.
The jumping in his throat calms at that thought, and he’s able to take a full breath for the first time in ten minutes. He reaches into the glove compartment, gropes for his wedding ring, and slides it back on his finger.