How They Met, and Other Stories(13)
Author: David Levithan

“Your dad wasn’t in the drama program,” I pointed out. “And I think he was there before Vietnam.”

It helped that my first-choice college was in the same city as Thom’s. We’d vowed that we wouldn’t think or talk about such things. But of course we did. All the time.

We were trapped in the limbo between where we were and where we wanted to be. The limbo of our age.

The day of the alumni interview, we were both as jittery as a tightrope walker with vertigo. We spun through the day at school, the clock hands spiraling us to certain doom. We found every possible excuse to touch each other—hand on shoulder, fingers on back, stolen kisses, loving looks. Everything that would stop the moment his father walked into the room.

He gave me a ride home, then drove back to his house. I counted to a hundred, then walked over.

Thom answered the door. We’d agreed on this beforehand. I didn’t want to be in his house without seeing him. I wanted to know he was there.

“I’ve got it!” he yelled to the study as he opened the door.

“Here we go,” I said.

He leaned into me and whispered, “I love you.”

And I whispered, “I love you, too.”

We didn’t have time for any more than that. So we said all that needed to be said.

I’d never been in Mr. Wright’s study before. The man fit in well with the furniture. Sturdy. Wooden. Upright.

It is a strange thing to meet your boyfriend’s father when the father doesn’t know you’re his son’s boyfriend—or even that his son has a boyfriend. It puts you at an advantage—you know more than he does—and it also puts you at a disadvantage. The things you know are things you can’t under any circumstances let him know.

I was not ordinarily known for my discretion. But I was trying to make an exception in this case. It seemed exceptional.

Thom stood in the doorway, hovering.

“Dad, this is Ian.”

“Have a seat, Ian,” the man said, no handshake. “Thank you, Thom.”

Thom stayed one beat too long, that last beat of linger that we’d grown accustomed to, the sign of an unwanted good-bye. But then the situation hit him again, and he left the room without a farewell glance.

I turned to Mr. Wright as the door closed behind him.

I can do this, I thought. Then: And even if I can’t, I have to.

Mr. Wright had clearly done the alumni interview thing a hundred times before. As if reciting a speech beamed in from central campus, he talked about how this interview was not supposed to be a formal one; it was all about getting to know me, and me getting to know the college where he had spent some of the best years of his life. He had a few questions to ask, and he was sure that I had many questions to ask as well.

In truth, I had already visited the campus twice and knew people who went there. I didn’t have a single question to ask. Or, more accurately, the questions I wanted to ask didn’t have anything to do with the university in question.

Thom says you’ve never in all his life hugged him. Why is that?

What can I do to make you see how wonderful he is? If I told you the way I still smile after he kisses me, is there any possible way you’d understand what he means to me?

Don’t you know how wrong it is when you wave a twenty-dollar bill in front of your son and tell him that when he gets a girlfriend, you’ll be happy to pay for the first date?

And then I’d add:

My father isn’t like you at all. So don’t tell me it’s normal.

I am not by nature an angry person. But as this man kept saying he wanted to get to know me, I wanted to throw the phrase right back at him. How could he possibly get to know me when he didn’t want to know his son?

Taking out a legal pad and consulting a folder with my transcript in it, he asked me about school and classes. And as I prattled on about AP Biology and my English awards, I kept thinking about the word transcript. What exactly did it transcribe? It was a bloodless, calendar version of my life. It transcribed nothing but the things I was doing in order to get into a good college. It was the biography of my paper self. Getting to know it wasn’t getting to know me at all.

Sitting in that room, talking to Mr. Wright, I knew I had to get all of my identities in order. I realized how many identities I had, at a time when I really should have been focusing on having one.

“I see that you haven’t taken economics,” Mr. Wright said.

“No,” I replied.

“Why not?” he harrumphed.

I explained that our school only offered one economics class, and I had a conflict. A complete lie, but how would he know?

“I see.”

He wrote something down, then told me how important economics was to an education, and how he would have never gotten through college—not to mention life—without a firm foundation in economics.

I nodded. I agreed. I succumbed to the lecture, because really I didn’t have any choice. Judgmental. I considered the word judgmental. The mental state of always judging. His tone. I knew he wasn’t singling me out. I knew this was probably the way he always was.

There were times I had gotten mad at Thom. Argument mad. Cutting-comment mad. Because his inability to be open made me a little closed. I didn’t want to be a conditional boyfriend. I didn’t want to be anybody’s secret. As much as I said I understood, I never entirely understood.

Can’t you just tell them? I’d ask. After they became the excuse for why we couldn’t go out on Saturday. After they became the reason he pulled his hand away from mine as we were walking through town—what if they drove by? But then I’d feel bad, feel wrong. Because I knew this was not the way he wanted it to be. That even though we were sixteen, we were still that one leap away from independence. We were still caught on the dependence side, staring over the divide.

It was different now, bearing the brunt of his father’s disapproval.

I understood. Not all of it. But a little more.

“…too many of you students ignore economics. You dillydally. You spend your time on such expendable things. Like Thom. You know Thom, right? No focus. He has no focus. He wouldn’t be right for this university. You show more promise, but I have to say, you need to make sure you don’t spend time on expendable things….”

And suddenly I was sick of it.

I looked to the door and saw something. A shadow in the keyhole. And I knew. Thom had never left me. He was on the outside of the door, holding his breath for me. Trying to keep quiet. Staying quiet, because his father was around.