Heteroflexible

We make our way for the annex, which opens to a very large outdoor spread of tables set in front of a great stage that’s been erected in the yard.

It’s a stage that Jimmy and I were supposed to perform on.

Right now, it appears members of the Spruce High orchestra are performing on it instead. A Mozart piece, I think. I’m not sure.

My heart grows twice as heavy as it was before, just looking at that stage.

“You okay, sweetheart?” asks my ma.

I’m not looking at her, my eyes glued to the stage and the scattered guests sitting and walking among the tables, mingling while the orchestra pours over their ears. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say emptily, my eyes as blank as pools.

I follow my parents to a table of catered T&S sweets where, at one end of it, we run into Nadine Strong herself. The tall woman wears the biggest, tightest, most-rehearsed smile in the world as she talks to Mrs. Cissy McPherson, both of them decked out in elegant gowns that look worth a whole semester of tuition for me.

The two women are having a light conversation with glasses of white wine dangling from their long, heavily-bejeweled fingers when we approach.

It is clear that Nadine has done a lot of speaking into mirrors preparing mentally and emotionally for the event tonight, since it was originally supposed to be at the Strong ranch, after all.

“Oh, some friendly faces!” Nadine lets out with delight, giving my ma a big hug. She then presents me and my parents to Cissy McPherson, who greets us and thanks us for coming. Some more pleasantries are made before Mrs. McPherson is pulled suddenly to attend to some other guests, then heads off to the party with an apology and a sweet-voiced goodbye to us.

When the woman is gone, a mask seems to drop right off of Nadine’s face, and she looks relieved at once. “Oh, am I so glad to see you all here,” she says, facing us. “Some real friends.” She lets out a giggly, nervous, uncharacteristic laugh. “Oh, have y’all seen the art yet? The paintings, they’re just beautiful!”

My ma’s voice is just as buttery and soft as it always is. “Are you doing alright, Nadine? We haven’t spoken since … oh, was it church last week?”

“I think it was! And I’m just peachy, thanks for askin’, doll.”

My parents are approached by some friends from church, and their attention is stolen away with another conversation, leaving me and Nadine standing awkwardly at the dessert table together.

She gives me a reluctant glance, at last turning her eyes onto me—as if she was afraid of addressing me at all until now.

She offers a tiny, shriveled little smile. “Hello there, Bobby.”

I’m certain she knows about the fight at the theater involving her son and Anthony, and how it resulted in my losing my job as well as giving me a black eye.

She has nothing at all to do with it, so I put her at ease at once with a warm, “Good evening, Nadine,” and a welcoming smile.

It does the trick. The relief is instant. She leans in toward me and, under her breath, says, “If you ask me, I think Anthony Myers is a little shit, and it’s he who should a’ lost his dang job, not you.”

She reaches her bony hand out and gives my shoulder a rub. She’s got twenty rings on those fingers of hers, and my shoulder feels every one of them.

I smile, despite my stomach spinning. “Thank you, Nadine.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s just the plain truth. You know, so much has happened to me this summer, what with the Cold Spoon goin’ under, and all the drama down at the restaurant … it really makes one reevaluate what’s important in life.” She bites her lip, then peers off. “Billy has been a … a really great man for Tanner. There was a time when I thought that football-kickin’ son of mine would never be happy, y’know that? And now look at him.”

I follow her line of sight and spot both of them, Billy and his husband Tanner, dressed up in fancy tuxes standing by the long table full of an assortment of decadent desserts. Billy is feeding Tanner something sweet and chocolaty, and the pair of them look lost in a dream, smiling into one another’s eyes.

It pains me, to look at them.

I want to be happy for them. I want to see what Nadine sees. But all I see is what I’ve lost.

And it hurts.

“Maybe it’s about time I let go of the past,” Nadine decides. “I’ve wasted so much time competing with the McPhersons, or the Whitmans, or the …” She sighs, unable to utter any more names of her alleged rivals. “Really, I ought to just set my eyes on important things. My sons. My husband. My friends. And …” She nods with resolve. “And the future of Nadine’s. The Cold Spoon has had its run, and it was a good, long run.”