Three
“That was the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” Garrett says, relaxing into his chair.
The remnants of salad and rigatoni and homemade gelato rest on the table in the glow of candlelight.
Aunt Liz went all out, insisting on using china from the display case in the front hall.
It could be bought tomorrow, but tonight it is covered in pomarola sauce made with tomatoes from the back garden.
“That sandwich thing. What was that called?” Garrett asks.
I eye him from across the table. He’s once again polite and charming, nothing remaining of the accusatory, judgmental boy from the doorway of my bedroom.
“Cudighi,” Emma answers.
“I’ve never had it before.”
“Probably not,” Aunt Liz says. “You can’t find it outside of the U.P.”
“The U.P.?”
Garrett seems genuinely interested, but considering he referred to Irontown as being in the middle of bumfuck nowhere an hour ago, it’s hard for me to read his curiosity as anything besides pandering to my family.
In a week, he’ll be back in the city, laughing with his friends about the hicks whose house he crashed at for a night.
“The Upper Peninsula,” Emma says. “The part of Michigan that’s basically Canada.”
Garrett’s polite-or-patronizing interest sets Dad off on a long-winded history of Irontown, helped along by his empty glass of wine.
There are two types of people in the U.P.
: people who are in love with it—the food, the geography, the unextraordinary history—and people who are just waiting to get out of it.
Dad and Aunt Liz fit squarely into the first category, but I’m not sure which group I fall into.
Every time I decide I want more than what this town can offer, I experience a stomach punch of guilt and anxiety at the thought of leaving behind everything I’ve ever cared about.
“Enough about our town,” Aunt Liz says, changing the subject. “Tell us about you.”
Garrett clears his throat. “I play football. I do debate. And next fall, I want to attend Ellison University in Atlanta for pre-law.”
The same list he gave us on the ride from the airport. He’s practiced this.
“What made you choose Ellison?” Aunt Liz asks.
“It’s a good school. Close to home. Has a great pre-law program.”
“Have you thought of Ellison, Enz?” Emma pipes up, always unhelpfully interested in my plans for next year.
“I probably shouldn’t,” I say. “I’m too gay.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Emma asks.
“They were in the news recently,” Aunt Liz explains, walking a tightrope between my comment and Garrett’s darkened expression. “They, um, failed to renew a professor’s contract right after she came out as lesbian. Big lawsuit and everything.”
“I didn’t say I agree with all their policies,” Garrett says, hands raised in surrender.
“But you’re going there,” I say.
“It’s all good,” Dad says. “Enzo will get a free ride to the Michigan School of Mines.”
“He’s going to be a miner?” Garrett asks.
I shift in my seat, avoiding eye contact with Dad.
He’s never said he wants me to be a miner, but he’s also never said he doesn’t want me to be one, and will drop casual comments like this that imply there is one path for my future better than any other—a path that starts at a school with the word mines in its name.
The mine pays well, and it prevents young people from moving away, since a chance at a steady salary is not easy to come by in our town.
But it’s also a mine. A massive, open pit south of town where my career choices might include driving a dump truck the size of a small house or blowing up several-ton chunks of rock with explosives strong enough to level a school.
I doubt most of the guys who work there could tell the difference between an oboe and a bassoon.
“The School of Mines has more programs than just mining engineering,” Dad answers. “And it’s close. And, as I said, Enzo could go there for free.”
Close. Free. Each word is half a pair of handcuffs tying me to a future I don’t want.
“Only downside is that it’s a sucky college,” I say.
Dad runs his tongue across the front of his teeth and turns to me. “I went there,” he says. “Your mother went there. Your Aunt Anna and Aunt Julia went there. What are you saying about us with that statement? Where would you rather go?”
I shrug. I have an answer to that question, though I haven’t told anyone: Burton-Clark Conservatory in Los Angeles.
Mr. Campbell mentioned it to me last year.
It’s small, private, and expensive, but it tops all the lists of best composition programs in the country.
Their notable alumni include half a dozen of my favorite film composers.
I’ve had the school’s website bookmarked since last spring, and I’ve nearly memorized their faculty list. The whole place has become my fantasy, a musical wonderland contrasted with the crushing practicality of the School of Mines.
But unlike Garrett, my family doesn’t have the money to help me plant myself in a city on the other side of the country, so I haven’t told them about it.
“Garrett,” Aunt Liz interrupts, attempting to cut the growing tension in the room. “I bet the football team could use you this year.”
Dad looks at me for a second longer, then shifts his attention to Garrett. “She’s right. The senior lineup is crap.”
“Isn’t it too late to join?” Garrett asks.
Dad shakes his head. “Not with this year’s team. What position do you usually play?”
“I played wide receiver back home.” He gives me a condescending look, adding, “That means I can run fast and catch things.”
“I know what a wide receiver is,” I say.
I have no idea what a wide receiver is. I make a mental note to look it up when I’m alone.
Garrett and Dad devolve into football talk, and Dad’s anger and disappointment in me morph into excitement over the prospect of Garrett lifting our team out of mediocrity.
Garrett tells a story about a play he made last season, his gestures expansive, and by the end, Dad is roaring with laughter and clutching Garrett’s shoulder.
He’s never talked with me about music like that and has only listened with polite interest when I’ve tried to explain music theory and film scores.
Emma, uninterested in sports, pulls out a book and begins reading at the table.
As his story draws to a close, Garrett notices her and asks, “Is that the second book in the Centaurus Chronicles?”
Emma’s eyes widen, and the two of them spend the next few minutes in their own world, gushing about their favorite characters and the plot twists they didn’t see coming and whether or not the author will write a companion series.
“I tried to get Enzo to read it,” Emma says, rolling her eyes, “but he doesn’t like sci-fi. He only reads historical fiction and classics without a plot.”
“That tracks,” Garrett says without looking at me, and Emma laughs.
It’s the second dig from him in a row, and I don’t want to let it slide. But before I can think of something to say, Garrett turns to Aunt Liz.
“Thanks again for an amazing dinner. I should call my parents before it gets too late.”
He offers to help with cleanup, but Dad waves him off. “Go talk to your parents, and make sure to let them know I’ll be calling GYA tomorrow about all this.”
“Yessir.”
As soon as he’s out of earshot, Aunt Liz addresses the table, wide-eyed and gleeful. “Well, he’s a keeper.”
“Except he’s literally not,” I say. “Since he’s not the person we picked.”
“Enz hates him,” Emma teases.
“It’s okay,” Aunt Liz tells me. “You’ll find something you have in common with him, too.”
“I don’t care if I have anything in common with him,” I say. “It’s not like I’m jealous that Emma and Dad get along with the random dude spending the night in the guest room.”
Aunt Liz stands and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “Of course not.”
“We’ll see what GYA says about the whole situation tomorrow,” Dad says, stacking plates. Then, almost dreamily, as if he’s been charmed by the high school football star who joined us for dinner, adds, “It’s a shame he wasn’t assigned here. He would be a great fit.”
From what Garrett told us earlier, I know that he was, in fact, assigned here, but I don’t feel like explaining that to Dad at this point.
Later, as I trudge up to my bedroom, I think about what Dad meant by Garrett being a great fit.
Emma was the one who had the idea of hosting an exchange student in the first place.
She had complained that we never travel and that this could be a good way to learn about a different culture, to build a connection that might lead to us visiting a far-off country.
Dad and I agreed. Our house is big, and the idea of another person around seemed like it could make our family even fuller.
I wonder if, for them, this year was always less about the place the exchange student was from and more about how they’d shape our family.
I pause on the top step because I hear Garrett’s voice drifting down from behind the closed door of his room.
“… They don’t think I’m supposed to be here. I feel like I’m squatting at someone’s house.”
A pause.
“Why would they? They expected some dude from Georgia. The country.”
Another pause. And when he speaks again, his voice is vulnerable in a way I haven’t heard before, and he’s just a boy begging for something he can’t have. “Mom. Dad. Can I please just come home?”
During this pause, I can hear the raised voice of his dad on the other end of the line.
Then: “Yessir.”
Pause.
“Yeah.”
Pause.
“Okay.”
Pause.
“Good night.”
Then his door opens and he steps out, holding his toothbrush, and I’m pretending I just got here.
“The bathroom is at the bottom of the stairs,” I say.
He nods and moves past me, both of us acting like we don’t know that I overheard his conversation. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs, he turns around, unmoored in a house he doesn’t belong in. “Could I possibly borrow a towel?”
I hurry down, feeling more and more like an asshole with each step. Hearing him plead with his parents to go home makes the shitty things I said earlier even shittier.
I show him into the bathroom and open the linen closet.
“And I didn’t bring shampoo or bodywash or anything … TSA rules.”
I point him to mine and he thanks me, and I almost consider apologizing or saying something to make things better between us.
I open my mouth, trying to think of the right words, but before I can, he closes the door.
I hear the water running in the shower, rinsing away the small connection we almost had.