Dara’s eyes widen. “I had a dream about this, just last night. Let me guess—you’re going back to school!”
“What? No!” Zoe says. “What are you talking about? I have a master’s degree!”
“But youcouldhave majored in classical voice. Vanessa, have you ever heard her sing . . .”
“Um, yes—”
“Mom,” Zoe interrupts. “I’m not going back to school for classical voice. I’m perfectly happy as a music therapist—”
Dara looks up at her. “For jazz piano, then?”
“For God’s sake, I’m not going back to school. I came here to tell you I’m a lesbian!”
The word cleaves the room in half.
“But,” Dara says after a moment. “But you were married.”
“I know. I was with Max. But now . . . now I’m with Vanessa.”
When Dara turns to me, her eyes seem wounded—as if I’ve betrayed her by pretending to be Zoe’s good friend when, in truth, that’s what Ihavebeen. “I know this is unexpected,” I say.
“This isn’t you, Zoe. I know you. I know who you are . . .”
“So do I. And if you think this means I’m going to start riding a Harley and wearing leather, you don’t know me at all. Believe me, I was surprised, too. This isn’t what I thought was going to happen to me.”
Dara starts to cry. She cups Zoe’s cheeks in her hands. “You could get married again.”
“I could, but I don’t want to, Ma.”
“What about grandchildren?”
“I couldn’t seem to make that happen evenwitha man,” Zoe points out. She reaches for her mother’s hand. “I found someone I want to be with. I’m happy. Can’t you be happy for me?”
Dara sits very still for a moment, looking down at their intertwined fingers. Then she pulls away. “I need a minute,” she says, and she picks up her dowsing rods and walks into the kitchen.
When she leaves, Zoe looks up at me, teary. “So much for her open-mindedness.”
I put my arm around her. “Give her a break. You’re still getting used to these feelings, and it’s been weeks. You can’t expect her to get over the shock in five seconds.”
“Do you think she’s okay?”
See, this is why I love Zoe. In the middle of her own freak-out moment, she’s worried about her mother. “I’ll go check,” I say, and I head into the kitchen.
Dara is leaning against the kitchen counter, the dowsing rods beside her on the granite. “Was it something I did?” she asks. “I should have gotten married again, maybe. Just so there was a man in the house—”
“I don’t think it makes a difference. You have been a wonderful mother. Which is why Zoe is so afraid you’ll want to disown her.”
“Disown her? Don’t be ridiculous. She said she was a lesbian, not a Republican.” Dara draws in her breath. “It’s just . . . I have to get used to it.”
“You should tell her that. She’ll understand.”
Dara looks at me, then nods. She pushes back through the swinging door into the living room. I think about following her, but I want to give Zoe a minute alone with her mother. I want them to have the shift and redistribution of their relationship that I never got to have with my own mom, that acrobatic feat of love where everything is turned upside down and yet they are both still able to keep their balance.
So instead, I eavesdrop. I push the door open a crack in time to hear Dara speaking. “I couldn’t love you any more if you told me right now that you were straight,” she says. “And I don’t love you any less because you told me you aren’t.”
I gently close the door. In the kitchen, I turn around, surveying the bowl of fruit on the counter, the cobalt blue toaster, the Cuisinart. Dara has left behind her dowsing rods. I pick them up, hold them lightly in my hands. In spite of the fact that the faucet and the pipes are less than a foot away, the rods do not jump in my hands or twitch or cross. I imagine having that sixth sense, the certainty that what I’m looking for is within reach, even if it’s still hidden.
Movie theaters are wonderful places to be gay. Once the lights go down, there’s no one to stare at you if you hold your girlfriend’s hand or snuggle closer to her. Attention at the movies, by definition, is focused on the spectacle on the screen and not in the seats.
