“What did your father say?”
“Well…” I cleared my throat. “I think he said, ‘your tie is crooked.’ And last summer I told my father that I was living with my boyfriend, and he said, ‘I have a conference call. Gotta jump!’ He just refuses to hear whatever doesn’t work for him.”
“How did that make you feel?”
I almost roll my eyes. “What do you expect me to say? It’s not ideal. But there are guys whose families throw them out on the street, and there are kids who are beaten. So I’m not going to complain.”
“When’s the last time your parents called you on the phone?”
“Um…” I give in and rub the back of my neck. I feel twitchy answering these personal questions, but this is what I signed up for. “I think I heard from them in February. My father wanted to schedule dinner the week my team played Boston. But after my boyfriend got sick and my face was plastered all over the Internet, he rescinded the invitation.”
“I see,” Dennis says, and he tilts a sympathetic face toward camera number two.
Gag me.
“Tell me about your boyfriend. He must be pretty special. You’re taking a lot of flak for being with him.”
I smile, because I like thinking about Jamie. But these questions will be the hardest to answer, because I want to respect Jamie’s privacy. “We became friends at thirteen when we started going to the same hockey camp every summer. He’s a great guy, and a great defensive coach. And he puts up with me, mostly.”
“You weren’t always a couple, though?”
I shake my head vigorously. “It took me a good nine years to tell him how I felt. But it was worth the wait. See…” I catch myself staring off into the studio’s darkness while I try to form my thoughts. Like a good little interviewee, I look Dennis in the eye. “I trust who I am with Jamie. He’s known me since I was a pimply thirteen-year-old when we used to argue about video games. He doesn’t see me as Toronto’s rookie forward. He doesn’t care about my scoring average. I don’t try to impress him.”Except with my ability to deep-throat. But we won’t talk about that on prime time.
“He’s your family,” Dennis suggests. “More than your real family.”
“Absolutely,” I agree.
“Do you think you’ll get married?” Dennis asks with a smile. “Wait—am I putting you on the spot?”
That bastard. He’s poking me in a sore spot just to lock in his ratings. But I stay cool. “Oh, it’s not me you’re putting on the spot. It’s Jamie. I’d marry him in a hot second, and I’m sure he knows it.”
“Have you asked him?”
Dennis is pushing his luck, and he’s well aware of it. I should save face with Jamie and bail out of this line of inquiry. A beat goes by while I consider my options.
In for a penny, in for a pound. “I haven’t asked him. In case you didn’t notice, we’re having a pretty rough year. It would be, like, ‘Hey, babe, I know that ever since you landed in the hospital someone sticks a camera in our faces whenever you leave the house, and the whole world suddenly wants to dissect our sexuality. So wouldn’t you like to put a ring on this?’”
My interviewer chuckles. “So you’re saying the right moment hasn’t come up?”
“It most definitely has not.”
After that, Dennis turns to the subject of hockey and my teammates. And since hockey is the easiest thing to talk about in the world, I finally relax.
TWENTY-SEVEN
JAMIE
The last time I came to California upset, my mom let me sulk in peace. But not this time.
Yesterday I helped her stock the shelves at the church food bank for three hours, then we made deliveries all afternoon. Today I mowed and edged an elderly neighbor’s giant lawn and pruned my mother’s rose bushes.
I practically hacked up a lung out there in the back yard from all the exertion, but Mom just whacked me on the back and told me to keep cutting.
And that’s not counting all the time I’ve spent with my siblings.
The weird thing? It’s working. I still don’t feel like my old self, and none of my problems are solved. But moving around has helped me a lot. The more I work, the less I worry. And my appetite is back. We ate dinner an hour ago, but already I’m foraging for a snack.
“Ryan called last night.”
