“And you’re just now telling me?” I pushed through the swinging doors. “What do you expect me to do? Mama’s being Mama.”
“Talk to her,” he pleaded. “Business is picking up and one of these times she’s going to say the wrong thing to the wrong customer and it’s going to sink everything we’ve been working to build.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to her.” It wouldn’t get Grant his cannoli, but I’d do it for my brother.
Mama was sitting at the end of the bar nearest the door. She liked greeting our customers every day, but by the end of the night, her feet gave her trouble. I sat next to her and signaled for Tabatha to grab Mama a glass of wine and a beer for me.
“Mama, you know I love you, right?” I started, hating that I was about to lecture the woman who’d given birth to me. She nodded, but stared out the front window as she sipped her wine. “You can’t withhold dessert from paying customers.”
“Then they should remember they’re not in the privacy of their own homes and act decent,” she responded. “Not everyone is comfortable with people like that flaunting themselves in public.”
Ouch. The tired ‘they should keep their gay at home’ line stung when uttered by Mama. It confirmed all my fears about coming out to her.
“They have just as much right as any other couple who walks through those doors to act like two people in love,” I argued. “Did any customers complain about their behavior?”
“No, but that’s beside the point. This is a family establishment.”
“And from what I saw, they’re each other’s family.” I drained my first beer and held it up so Tabatha knew I needed a refill. “Just because you don’t approve of their relationship doesn’t give you the right to scold them. They’re customers, not your children.”
That got her attention. Mama straightened and slowly turned her stool to face me. “No, they’re not. If theyweremy children, I might have a few choicer words for them. That sort of behavior cannot be tolerated in public.”
“What? So you think they should just keep their hands to themselves until they’re behind closed doors?” Tabatha slamming a cooler door made me acutely aware of how loud I was being. She didn’t realize that Mama had just struck a raw nerve. I was terrified of what I was about to do, but I was just as certain now was the time I needed to tell her my truth.
“Don’t you talk back to me. I raised you better than that.” She shook her and tsked.
For a minute, she had me convinced I was the one who was wrong. I was just about to apologize to her when I realized I had jack shit to apologize for. “You’re right, Mama. You did raise us better. You raised us to love one another. To respect others and treat them the way we’d want to be treated. So why can’t you live by the same rule?”
“What they were doing is unacceptable in public,” she said again. I was getting awfully tired of her trying to gloss over her bigotry by implying gay couples can do whatever they want, but only in certain places.
“What constitutes in public to you, Mama? Is it because this is a restaurant? Should they hide when they’re walking down the street or grocery shopping? Or is their behavior equally unacceptable to you when they’re visiting family?” I drained my second beer. “Every weekend, straight couples fill this restaurant and you never say a damn word about what they do. And if you’re being honest, you’ll admit many of them cross the lines of what’s acceptable in polite company. But you pass that off as young people in love because it’s normal for a man and a woman to show what they mean to one another. Well, those couples in the back room, they’re what the new normal looks like.
“What would you say, Mama, if one of us showed up to the house with a boyfriend we happened to be in love with? Because it’s going to happen, and I truly hope that when it does, you won’t tell me that the home I grew up in isn’t a place where I’m allowed to love the man who’s brought me back to life.” I looked up to see Tabatha gaping at me before she pulled the drawer out of her register and closed the doors to the bar behind her, leaving us in private.
Mama sipped at her wine and stared at me with sad eyes. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, I suppose that would depend…”
“On what, Mama? I can’t believe you, the queen of unconditional love, would only accept Calvin as my partner if we meet certain demands. I love him, Mama, and I haven’t told you because I knew you’d be like this about it. He’s everything to me, and I want to be able to share him with my family. But if you’re going to tell me we can’t hug or I can’t kiss him on the cheek the same way Papa used to kiss you whenever he could reach you, that’s not okay.” A lump formed in my throat, and I regretted doing this here. No, that’s not true; we needed to get everything out in the open but being confrontational wasn’t going to make Mama listen to me.
“Would either of you talk about wearing sexy lingerie while in mixed company?” I spluttered beer across the hardwood bar.
“Of course not!”
“And would this gentleman of yours discuss the intimate things he wants to do to you once you get home?”
“Never.”
“Well, then it seems to me you’d better tell this Calvin of yours to be at the house for Sunday night dinner next weekend.” I might’ve stopped breathing for a moment, waiting for the catch. Mama took my hand in both of hers. “Frankie, I’ve had many years to prepare myself for the possibility that one of my boys may be a homosexual. I hope you won’t be offended when I tell you it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it’s you.”
Actually, that shocked the hell out of me. When Mama slid off her stool and wrapped me in her arms, I lost it. Tears streamed down my face as I apologized over and over for not trusting her to still love me even if she didn’t approve of my life. “Do you mean it? You want to meet him?”
“We’ve met, but I’d like to get to know him better if he means so much to you.” She rubbed my back the way she always had when we were upset. “I love you, Francesco. Nothing will ever change that. Ever. I’m glad you finally told me, even if you didn’t mean to. I know it was eating away at you.”
“How?”
“A mother always knows.” She drank the last of her wine and pushed her glass to the rail. “I’m going to go home. Tomorrow, I’ll deal with your brother and tell him he’s also a fool for thinking he can hide from me.” After one final hug and a kiss on the cheek, Mama grabbed her handbag and walked towards the exit. “Oh, and tell Antonio those boys still can’t have their cannoli. They need to understand not everyone needs to hear the details of their exploits. And yes, Frankie, I get upset even when it’s a man and a woman. I’m from a different era, one where you kept your private life private no matter who you love.”
For the third night in a row, I found my ass planted on a stool at the end of the bar at Club 83.
19
