The late-in-the-game change of terminology didn’t entirely placate Tom, but he retreated to the quiet kind of angry. Bridge, who hated the thought of making anyone feel bad in any way, was close to welling up with a mix of hurt and sympathy and just general sad.
Then there was Jennifer.
Jennifer was sitting very still, and Peter said, definitely on her behalf, “James, mate, believe me, not all straight people take having kids for granted.”
I liked to think that, had I been in James’s position, I’d have handled things better, but who was I kidding? I’d have gone completely to pieces. Especially because, teams-wise, things seemed to be lining up into “James and James” and “everybody else.” So on the whole, he could probably have said something a lot worse than, “I’m sorry, Peter, but it’s simply not the same.”
Okay. Maybe nota lotworse.
“Ex. Fucking. ’Scuse me,” said Jennifer in a voice so slow and so careful you could almost miss the rage and pain in it. “Do you want to talk about getting poked and prodded and made to fill out forms? Do you want to talk about being made to feelinadequate?”
“You shouldn’t feel inadequate because you’re not using your body as an incubator,” cut in Amanda.
Which I think she’d intended to be supportive, but it didn’t land that way with Jennifer. “Well, I do anyway.”
“Well, that’s fucked in the head.”
Charitably, Amanda meant that it was fucked in the head on a societal level, but, once again, it didn’t land that way with Jennifer. “Oh,sorry, Amanda,” she snapped. “I forgot that feeling sad because I might never have children of my own makes me a bad feminist.”
“And what does ‘children of my own’ mean?” demanded James Royce-Royce.
Oliver, who for this whole conversation had just been staring into his bowl of rice, lentils, and malicious lamb, took a measured breath. “I think that these are complex topics, and clearly we’re very—”
“Oh, forfuck’s sake,” half bellowed Brian, “can’t you have a fucking opinion for once in your fucking life?”
Okay, this was past teams and into an all-against-all knife fight. I got as far as “Hey” before Brian barrelled on.
“We came out here,” he said, “to have dinner. Not to have baby shit rammed down our throats.”
The softer spoken of the James Royce-Royces raised a pale eyebrow. “Choice of words?”
“You’re ourfriend,” pleaded Bridge, now properly crying. “You should care about our baby shit becausewecare about it.”
“Please”—Amanda stood up in a decisive kind of way—“carry on telling me what I should care about. That’s exactly what I want from a dinner party.”
Jennifer, having spoken her piece, had gone deadly quiet, but Peter—one arm around her shoulder—still had voice left in him. “It doesn’t matter to me what you do or don’t care about, but if you could go five minutes without pissing on everybody else’s life choices, that would be fab, actually.”
“Particularly,” added James Royce-Royce, “when those life choices have come at such immense personal cost.”
Brian was on his feet as well. “Right, of course. Because we’re the ones who are doing it wrong, aren’t we? Because we didn’t hit thirty and suddenly decide to change our entire personalities overnight.”
“Our personalities didn’t change overnight,” Bridge protested. “It’s just…well—it’s hard to explain.”
Amanda folded her arms. “Yeah, yeah. Brian and Iwouldn’t understand, would we? Because being a parent is so magical and transformative and we’re denying ourselves the wonders of life if we don’t shackle ourselves with a hungry squealing money sink for the next twenty years.”
“I mean, I think they stop squealingeventually,” I tried, which earned me anI love you but that didn’t helplook from Oliver.
“Well, I’m sorry.” James Royce-Royce had joined the standing crowd, and James Royce-Royce was sitting beside him trying desperately to tell him not to through eye movements. “But the real simple truth is that ever since Baby J came into our lives—even though he’s notour own child”—he glared at Jennifer, whoin the interim had also started crying, albeit with barristerial reserve.
“James,” she managed, “I really didn’t mean—”
“I have never,” James Royce-Royce continued, “experienced suchjoyor suchprideas I have with Baby J. Especially—”
In our immediate circle, nobody could do a face like thunder quite as well as Brian. I think it was the beard, which made him look a bit like a friendlier version of Thor. Well, normally friendlier. “Especiallywhat? Especially compared to selfish pricks like me and Amanda who waste our time and energy on crap the rest of you have grown out of?”
“Youdoplay a lot of video games,” said Tom, whose catty streak I’d almost forgotten in the decade since we dated.
“Especially,” James Royce-Royce finished, “because Baby J will be under a microscope his whole life because, unless things get radically better in the next twenty years, nobody will ever let him forget that he’s the adopted son of two gay men.”
