Mine (12 page)

“Landry.”

His father, Neil Carter, held out his arms, and it was obvious that Landry was supposed to go to him, not the other way around. He moved after a second and they did the guy clench, but that was it. I was surprised at his father’s lack of emotion and warmth, but at least it was real. The handshake the man gave me, with the added squeeze of my bicep, seemed friendlier. At least it wasn’t just pleasant. He was really very pleased to meet me.

Landry’s brother Scott stepped in beside his father and gave Landry the same greeting, but the handshake I got could barely be called one. He didn’t want to touch me at all.

Jocelyn, Landry’s sister, was next, a female version of him, but smaller boned, like a bird, with flawless skin and sharp-angled model features. Her husband, Hugh, looked like he belonged in a magazine with her with his perfect smile, perfect hair, and perfect suit. She hugged her brother tight, leaned on him, and told him how much he’d been missed. Hugh shook his hand and told him how pleased he was to finally meet him. It didn’t feel real to me, but I was used to my loud “grab you tight and steal your breath” family.

When my father passed away, at the funeral, his parents, my grandparents, walked right up to my mother and begged her not to disappear from their lives. They wanted to make sure, even though my father was the youngest of six and they had plenty of other grandkids, that my sister and I would still be around. They didn’t want to miss out on seeing us grow up. My mother started bawling, and my grandfather wrapped her up in his strong arms. I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe some of my mother’s hesitancy about waiting so long to date stemmed from how close she still was to my father’s family. It had been a blessing for me and my sister having so much family, so many people who kept tabs on us and cared. And we knew we were loved.

Either side you chose, my mom’s Cuban contingent or my dad’s African American camp, everybody hugged and kissed and force-fed you and held your hand and got up in your face if they had a question. I was loved, I knew I was, and there was no way to miss it. Seeing how quiet everyone was at Landry’s home, how subdued, I didn’t wonder why he so adored my family. The level of “showing” that Landry required, the physical demonstration, the verbal assurances, the ordering for him to come and sit his ass down and eat and talk—he knew he was loved to pieces in my world; he had to have floundered in his.

“I’d like you to meet my boyfriend,” he told his sister.

I leaned forward and shook her hand, shook Hugh’s, and smiled.

“Will,” Landry said then, and I realized that he was talking to the guy standing behind his sister.

“Your folks thought it would be nice for you to see an old friend,” he told him, walking forward, arms out. “And I was thrilled to hear that you were finally coming home.”

Landry took a step back and offered Will his hand instead of the hug the other man had obviously been expecting. “Thank you.”

Will was hurt; it was in his eyes even as he tried to smile and shook the hand that had been thrust at him. “I can’t wait for you to meet my family; I’m bringing them with me tonight to your welcome home party.”

Landry withdrew his hand. “Your family?”

“Yes, my wife and children.”

“You’re married?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

Landry nodded and reached for me.

I took the questing hand in mine and squeezed tight.

“This is my boyfriend, Trevan Bean. Trev, this is my old friend Will.”

“Oh.” He was very surprised, downright stunned to be looking at me. “Your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” was all Landry said.

“But I thought you—”

“What did you think?” Landry asked quietly. “That I did what you did?”

He was staring at Landry, trying to understand something.

“We were never the same,” my boyfriend said icily.

“No,” Will agreed, and I saw all the pain and all the longing on his face.

It made me uncomfortable, seeing another man utterly grieving for a lost love who was standing right in front of him. I offered him my hand to break the spell.

He didn’t take it; he just looked at me. He didn’t even lift his hand. It was very obvious that he had no intention of touching me at all.

“You must be starved,” Cece announced into the awkward silence as she walked back over to us, taking Landry’s hand, patting it. “Come sit down and eat. I want you to tell me everything.”

The table was big and round, so nobody was stuck sitting at one end or the other. It was also lavishly set like nothing I had ever seen. There were water goblets already filled and an orchard
of fruit on each place setting. My mother would have loved it. Our idea of Sunday morning breakfast was a serve-yourself line in the kitchen where everyone piled on their own food and you got utensils and a napkin at the end. At my apartment, there was a paper towel roll instead.

There was a choice: strawberry crepes, eggs Benedict, or something else I couldn’t pronounce. I went with the crepes, wishing we had stopped somewhere. What I really wanted was steak and eggs and lots of salsa and pancakes and… just more.

I had never seen a waiter in a house, but there were two, bringing us a hot washcloth to wipe our hands on and then juice and coffee.

“Landry, darling, what do you do?”

As I sat there and listened and ate and drank the coffee that I would have died without, I realized again how different it was from what I had imagined. There was no tearful emotional scene. Landry did not attack his parents; they didn’t tell him how sorry they were. It was all so civil, so “
Are the crepes to your liking?” “Oh yes, they’re lovely, thank you.”
My stomach started to flutter with how fake it all was.

Landry explained about his business, and his sister, who was in pharmaceutical sales but had just launched her own Christmas ornament line on Etsy, was very interested to hear how he was doing. He gave her the web address so she could look him up and then passed her his phone so she could see the pictures of his gallery.

“Ohmygod, Lan.” She beamed over at him. “It’s beautiful, and your pieces are just gorgeous. I, uhm—” She cleared her throat. “—couldn’t get you to—”

“I brought something for you and Mom,” he told her, turning to get into his messenger bag, which was hanging on the back of his chair.

“You did?” Cece lit up, excited.

“Yeah, Chris already got his.”

“Let me see,” Jocelyn demanded.

Chris rolled up the sleeve of his cardigan and showed them all the triple-wrap amber bracelet. Jocelyn leaned over to examine it.

“You sew each one of these beads in. That’s amazing,” she told him.

“And his has a piece of carnelian beside the toggle clasp to ward off the evil eye.”

“I love this; where’s mine?”

He chuckled, turned, and passed his mother her gift bag, and then he stood to lean across the table to offer another to Jocelyn. They were drawstring bags, lightly beaded, a navy one for his sister and a maroon one for his mother. The velvet bags he put his jewelry in all had his logo and “Asil” in Parchment font stamped into a leather piece on one side.

“I love this bag.” Jocelyn smiled at him as she touched it. “It reminds me of a Middle Eastern bazaar or something.”

“Exactly,” he agreed and grinned at her.

“What does ‘Asil’ mean?” she asked him.

“It means pure in Arabic.”

“Oh, I just love stuff like this.”

He seemed very pleased at the compliment, but again, as he would be from a stranger in his store. When my aunts complimented him, he puddled into goo.

She leaned forward, still not even opening it. “Lan, your packaging is stunning and your place is just… your sense of style…. I’m so impressed and so happy for you.”

“Thanks.” He sighed. “I wanted to go green, you know, but the recycled boxes and bags just didn’t go, and so the brilliant man sitting at my right suggested we have bags that people can bring back or trade up—we have lined and unlined—and keep forever and use as jewelry bags.”

Her eyes flicked to me. “Brilliant.”

“I have my moments,” I told her.

“We have small sandalwood satchels with the Asil logo on it that we sell too.”

“To go with the idea of jewelry bag, scent a drawer or a box.” She nodded. “Of course.”

He shrugged in agreement that it was a no-brainer.

“I love everything about this.”

His hand went to my thigh and squeezed. He was nervous, and I had no idea why.

“Look at this,” his mother gasped.

All eyes were on her as she held up the hammered gold chain with green jade accents. It looked like it was five necklaces because the beads were different sizes and the chain itself was thick and thin in places. It looked rustic, and I knew it was one of his biggest sellers. He’d made many, but each one was breathtaking.

His mother was overwhelmed. “Oh, Landry, I adore it.”

“Ohmygod!” Jocelyn almost shrieked.

Hers was blue quartz and Tahitian freshwater pearl, and because it was a long piece, it could be worn either draped to her stomach or double-wrapped around her neck. Again, it was one of his best. It had been thoughtful, and his mother and sister were gushing. I was reminded of Christmas every year.

Family, friends, all the women who knew Landry waited in breathless anticipation for his gifts. My sister would scream and squeal and take pictures of herself and post them on Facebook and link them to his website the day after her birthday or Christmas. She loved his jewelry—everyone we knew did—and once I started sporting the wrap bracelets, my male cousins and even some of my uncles started wearing them. The difference was that Landry never handed out pre-made things to my family or to me. Every piece he made was lovingly crafted with us in mind. All my mother’s jewelry had some shade of purple in it because he knew it was her favorite. Everything I owned had a ruby on it somewhere because, supposedly, a ruby symbolized love. I had teased him once because my green jade leather wrap bracelet had no ruby on it and he had shown me the small, inconspicuous stone under the clasp.

“What are you thinking about?”

I came out of my thoughts to find him looking at me, his eyes worried for whatever reason. “You. I was thinking about you and how nuts the women in my family go every Christmas.”

He cackled evilly, waggling his eyebrows at me. “They do, don’t they?”

“Yeah.” I leaned sideways and kissed him because he was too cute, and the worry that had been behind his eyes poofed away, and he was oozing happy all of a sudden.

“So Landry, where did you go to school?” his father asked him.

“University of Michigan,” he explained. “I have a marketing degree, obviously.”

There were lots of questions after that, and I sat and listened, watching everyone, seeing Chris’s eyes flick over to me worriedly. He was concerned, I was sure, about what he’d said to me on the plane.

Jocelyn was really interested in Landry’s answers and pressed him for more and more. I could tell that she had really missed him. Her husband Hugh was very interested as well. I noticed Landry’s father watching him, studying him, and I wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for.

Landry’s mother explained about the leukemia and the hard road it had been and how the remission was a blessing.

“The party tonight,” she said, smiling at all of us, “is to welcome you home, Landry, and to celebrate my new lease on life.”

Everyone clapped, and he leaned against me.

“We have the rooftop of one of the best hotels rented out for the party,” his father explained. “And tomorrow we’ll have brunch here for us and a couple of close friends.”

I heard Landry catch his breath.

“Once you’re settled into the guest house, you’ll have to come back up and sit with us. We have over eight years to catch up on.”

Landry made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and I understood that he needed to be alone with me to decompress, to breathe, maybe even to scream. “Okay,” he told them, and then he turned his head and caught me in his blue-green gaze, willing me to fix it, to make it stop.

“And where is the guest house?” I asked, standing, putting my leather bomber jacket back on. It was cut long, and I liked that. I pulled my scarf back on as well, concerned about leaving anything behind.

“There’s more than one but I know where they are,” Landry told me, standing up beside me. “We’ll be back.”

No one said anything, and it was just weird. If I hadn’t seen someone I loved for eight years, I would have been sitting on top of them until I got every one of my questions answered in rapid succession. At gunpoint, if necessary.

We walked first back up to the living room—showroom—retrieved our luggage, and then we went down another set of stairs and came out on the side by the trees. There was a cobblestone path that led to a small gate opening onto a huge rose garden. It looked like something out of
Alice in Wonderland
.

“Jesus.”

“Come on.”

“I need the tour map,” I said snidely. “Can I get one at the gift shop on our way back?”

He snorted out a laugh. “You’re funny.”

I grunted, but I was watching him. “Why wouldn’t you just lie to them, let them pay for school and be gay thousands of miles away?”

“Because I didn’t feel like lying about who I wanted to love for the rest of my life. It seemed counterproductive. My father said I could go to the same retreat as Will and he would still send me to school. I told him no.”

The blanks were starting to fill in.

“I thought you came out to your folks the night you graduated from high school?”

“No, my father found out the day he caught me—well, whatever, that’s a whole other story—but no, the day he and Will’s dad found us, that was the day my father found out.”

“And what happened to Will?” I asked, even though Chris had told me already.

“Will went into one of those programs where they un-gay you after we graduated, and I left for college.”

“Did your mother know what happened?”

“Of course.”

He was so calm.

I realized that I didn’t want to have the floodgate-opening talk right there in the open. I cleared my throat. “I had no idea you came from this kind of money.”