“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“None at all,” she said.
“Nope.”
“Let me tell you a story.”
I sighed. “Seriously? A whole story?”
“Once upon a time, there was a little drag queen with big dreams.”
“This sounds like it’s based on someone I know,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed.
I said, “And no commentary. Got it.”
She tapped her fingernails on the desk. “This little drag queen met a man when she was nineteen. This man was the sweetest man and he did everything for the little
drag queen. He adored her. He worshipped her. He was everything she could possibly imagine. But this little drag queen was ambitious and self-centered and didn’t appreciate the man as she should have. Eventually, she drove the man away. She told herself it didn’t matter. That she didn’t need him. That he was holding her back. It took her a very long time to realize that he was only holding her up. And when it hit her, she did everything she could to get him back. But it was too late. The man had found another who loved him as he should have been loved and they were happy. The little drag queen left him to his happiness and regretted all her choices every day thereafter.”
I watched in fascination as the mask that Mama wore slipped for just a brief moment, and I saw the man underneath and he was sweet and kind and scared. But then Mama came back and the nails stopped rapping on the desk.
I said, “Regrets are hard to live with.”
“Especially when they’re from chances lost,” she said. “Do you understand?”
“I don’t think I do,” I admitted.
“You’re a smart boy, Sam.”
“Thank you?”
“But sometimes, you’re an idiot.”
“I take it back now.”
“We hide,” she said. “The two of us. Me behind Mama. You behind your words.”
I took a step back.
“Ever since I saw you, you know what I wanted for you, precious?”
I shook my head.
She smiled, and it was warmer than any other smile I’d seen from her. “I wanted you to be happy. I wanted little Sam to find something big and wonderful in the world, a love as bright as he is. My old, shriveled heart just pounded with it. You and I are so very different, but not so different that I can’t see myself in you.”
“Self-centered and ambitious?” I asked quietly.
Her smile took on a melancholic curve. “Not quite. The ambition, maybe. I don’t know that you have it in you to be selfish. But sometimes I wish you did. Because then you’d see what should be yours for the taking.”
“I can’t,” I said, because I knew now what she was talking about.
“I know, precious. Because that’s not who you are.”
“It’s not fair.” To Justin. To Ryan.
To me.