Year of the Monsoon (9 page)

When she was sixteen, Nan began playing the piano accompaniment for the church choir. Her mother insisted on their going to church each week – not from any sense of piety, but because it was the thing to do – “if you don’t want people talking about you,” though Nan noticed it never stopped her mother talking about others. When Nan was offered the invitation to play for the choir, she jumped at it. If she had to be at church, at least this way she had an excuse for not sitting with her family.

The church had hired a new choir director, Marcus Oakley. He brought new energy, “and new music,” Nan said enthusiastically. One evening, she was in the chapel practicing some of the new music before the choir’s next rehearsal, repeating the phrases until they felt comfortable. She began singing along.

“Wow, you have a beautiful voice,” said Marcus, startling her.

“I thought I was alone,” Nan mumbled, burning a deep red.

“I mean it,” Marcus said with a dazzling smile. He was young, just twenty-three, fresh out of college with his music degree, making the most of his first job. He was tall, handsome and black.

There had been a sudden surge in female choir applicants since he arrived, but Marcus showed no interest in any of them. “He must have a girlfriend back home,” they whispered.

He sat down next to her on the piano bench. “Let’s try something else,” he said, picking another piece of music. He played so she could concentrate on singing. “Wow,” he said again. “I’d like you to be a soloist.”

“You’re crazy,” she protested. “Don’t you know what they would say?”

The choir at Water Street Presbyterian Church was an elite – and elitist – group of mostly older church members, and Marcus had indeed been approached by several of them already, all telling him how the choir was to be run.

“Yes, I’m crazy,” he agreed with a grin. “But I know good when I hear it.” He became serious. “It would mean extra practice time during the week, though. Would it interfere with school?”

Leaping at the opportunity to become involved in something that was as different as possible from her brother and sister’s activities of sports and cheerleading, the choir became Nan’s sole focus outside of school. Marcus took her on as a sort of apprentice, tutoring her at a master level on the piano as well. He taught her about choral arranging and conducting and transposing. She took in everything he taught her, and though she and Marcus never discussed anything personal, he saw a lot.

He saw the disappointment in Nan’s eyes when she sang magnificently, glancing toward her mother, hoping to see some sign of pride only to see her mother whispering to someone throughout her hymn, not listening at all. He saw the way Nan isolated herself, hiding behind the piano rather than socializing with the other choir members, and he found her in the church at all hours, practicing, always by herself.

Then one day, “Did you hear?”

“Wait till I tell you...”

Nan was revolted by the malicious delight with which the rumors were whispered and spread among the congregation.

Marcus had been attacked. What at first seemed like an ordinary mugging was soon revealed to be a hate-motivated bashing as Marcus left a gay bar one night. But the physical beating was only the beginning. Before he was even released from the hospital, a movement had begun, spear-headed by Linda Mathison, to have Marcus fired as the church’s music director.

“You can’t do that!” Nan argued. “So what if he’s gay? He’s the best music director we’ve ever had!”

Linda’s face was livid. “He’s despicable and vile!” she spat venomously. “To think we allowed someone like that into our church, let him work with our children. Those homosexuals don’t deserve to live among decent people.”

The day Marcus was released from the hospital, Nan told her mother she was going to the library.

“Nan,” Marcus said, opening his door to find her standing on his stoop. “You shouldn’t be here.” But he stepped back to let her in.

“I had to come,” she said, trying not to stare at his bruised face, one eye swollen shut with stitches along the brow.

He eased himself painfully onto his couch. Nan tentatively sat beside him.

“You can’t stop this,” he said, reading her mind.

“But I have to try!” she blurted out. “I have to stop her.”

Marcus shook his head. “Even if you stop your mother, someone else will step in and follow her lead,” he said. “I do not want you getting caught in the middle of this.”

Nan’s eyes filled with tears. “But I’m like you,” she whispered.

Through his one open eye, he looked at her sympathetically. “I know,” he said gently. “That’s why it’s especially important for you to protect yourself. And me. If you tell them about yourself now, they’ll blame me for turning you gay. It will only make things worse for both of us. I don’t want you to go through anything like that.”

Nan hadn’t even thought of it that way, but instinctively, she knew he was right.

“I didn’t know you played piano and sang,” Leisa said in astonishment, going to the bed where Nan stood, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“I don’t anymore,” Nan replied, her eyes focused on the past. “I did what Marcus asked. I kept quiet. I let them fire him. I let my mother think she’d won. For more than twenty years, I’ve regretted that decision and lived with that act of cowardice.”

“What you did was necessary,” Leisa said gently.

Nan turned to her, her eyes filled with angry tears. “It might have been necessary, but it doesn’t make it any easier to live with. My only act of defiance to my mother was refusing to ever set foot in that church again.”

She wiped her hand across her eyes. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m not ashamed of us. But I would not want to put you through what I know my mother is capable of.” She reached for Leisa’s hand. “Both of your parents’ obituaries listed me as a daughter-in-law. Even if my family got to the point of accepting you privately, they would never acknowledge you publicly. They’re too afraid of what people might say.”

Leisa reached up and laid a hand on Nan’s cheek. She kissed her tenderly, her own eyes moist. “I’m not afraid of your mother, but I don’t want to make things worse for you. If you want me with you, I will go.”

Something in Nan’s expression hardened. “Their definition, not mine,” she repeated, more to herself than to Leisa. “Get your suitcase.”

They were waiting outside the terminal at the pick-up area with their bags when Stanley Mathison drove up in his Lincoln. He looked much as Leisa remembered, tall and thin, with scant dark hair combed over to one side and dark eyes magnified by thick glasses. He quickly helped them load their suitcases into the cavernous trunk and pulled away from the curb, threading his way among the cabs and hotel shuttle vans.

“How was your flight?” he asked Nan, who was in the front passenger seat.

“It was fine,” Nan answered.

“Leisa, how have you been?” he asked, glancing at Leisa in the rearview mirror. All she could see were his eyes, blinking at her through his eyeglasses.

“I’ve been pretty good, thank you,” she replied. “I’m sorry about your mother-in-law.”

“Yes, well…”

There was no further conversation as he drove home. Leisa almost burst out laughing from the back seat. How long could people sit in an enclosed space and say nothing to one another?

At length, they pulled into the driveway of a seventies-era brick ranch house. Linda Mathison came out to greet them as they climbed out of the car. She was thin also, all corners and angles in a slim-fitting sweater and pant set all in a matching shade of turquoise. She wore heavy gold bangles at her wrists and a heavier gold necklace around her thin neck.

“Mother,” Nan said stiffly as Linda gave her a small hug. Nan closed her eyes as she picked up the scent of alcohol through the cloud of Chanel No. 5 that wafted about her mother.

“You remember Leisa,” Nan prompted as Leisa emerged from the back seat.

“Of course,” Linda said after the slightest hesitation, reaching a bony, manicured hand out to her. She had a smile on her face, but the expression in her eyes was inscrutable. “Stanley, get the bags,” she said, leading the way into the house, passing a formal living room and dining room on either side of the foyer. Leisa had half-expected to see plastic covers on all the furniture. Everything was tasteful, impeccable – and utterly unwelcoming.

“Nan, you may put your suitcase in your old room,” Linda said, pointing down the hall, “and Leisa may use Bradley’s room,” she added as they started down the hall.

Leisa caught Nan’s eye. If Linda guessed the nature of their relationship, she was taking no chances on anything happening under her roof.

“Sorry,” Nan muttered as they went down the hall toward the designated rooms.

“It’s okay,” Leisa assured her in a low voice. “You did let them know I was coming, didn’t you?”

“Well,” Nan stalled. “I told Dad. I’m getting the feeling he didn’t exactly tell Mother.”

Nan dropped her suitcase off and went back to Leisa. “We’d better not linger or they’ll think we’re tearing each other’s clothes off,” she said wryly. “Gird yourself.”

They found Linda and Stanley sitting in the two wingback chairs in the living room, leaving the sofa for them. Nan sat tensely on the edge of the cushion, and Leisa did the same.

“Your grandmother’s viewing will be this evening after dinner,” Linda said, picking up a crystal tumbler from the end table beside her and taking a sip of the pale gold liquid within. “We’re eating at the club. Bradley and Miranda will be joining us. The funeral will be tomorrow morning and the reading of the will is tomorrow afternoon,” Linda said. “Then we’ll all go to church on Sunday.”

“We’re flying home tomorrow evening,” Nan said. “We can take a taxi back to the airport if need be.”

“Won’t they be insulted if we’re only there for a little over twenty-four hours?” Leisa had asked when she looked over Nan’s shoulder at the flight arrangements she was making on-line.

“They’re going to be insulted by something, no matter what we do,” Nan warned her. “At some point, my mother will get angry and give us the silent treatment. Just wait. You’ll be ready to go. I know I will.”

“That is simply out of the question,” Linda said now, the ice in her glass clinking as she set it down hard, her lips pressed into a thin line. “What will people think?”

Nan kept her face carefully neutral. “What people is that?”

Leisa could see Linda’s jaw muscles tense. “All of our friends, the people we socialize with. It’s just not right.”

“None of those people know us. They know you. What they think of us is not important.”

“Of course it’s important,” Linda bristled.

“No, Mother, it isn’t,” Nan insisted with a forced calm. “What other people think only matters if you let it matter. So to me, what other people think really is not important.”

“Obviously,” Linda said icily with a half-glance toward Leisa.

Leisa could feel Nan’s anger rising, and could feel her own face and neck flushing. She’d never sat through a confrontation such as this before. Defiantly, Nan reached over and took Leisa’s hand. “I came for Grandmother, not anyone else. And we may as well clear the air right now. Leisa is here as my partner, not my friend. Once I’ve said my good-byes to Grandmother, we’re leaving. We both need to get back to our work.”