When Erika leaned over the crib railing the next morning, rubbing her stiff back from a night on a mattress that was way too soft on a bed that was way too empty, Etsuko was quiet. She’d been up more than once, but now finally seemed comfortable for the long haul. It was a late practice day, and the hour was early, so Erika decided to head back to her own room. She stopped at the door, slightly ajar, dragging the sheet behind her again. Her make-believe tantrum had made its point. One night alone, maybe she would wake Billy up for make-up sex. She could hear him softly snoring and could see his bare gut heaving in and out. Billy always got too warm and the covers often came off partway through the night. They were down right now to the base of his dick. Almost as if on purpose, all that showed was red hair and a hint of the whitest flesh Erika had ever seen, all thick and pale.
“No. I’m awake. I’m glad you called.” It was Tom Alan’s voice. Erika pushed the door open wider. He was in bed with Billy—again! “I miss you.” He had Milo on Facetime. “I’m closing my eyes to pretend you’re here.”
Erika cooed. “Aww. Now open them.”
Tom Alan did. “Whoa.”
“I look that bad?” Erika tried to smooth out her tousled hair.
“No,” he said. “You’re…”
Billy rolled over and smacked his lips to ease into waking. “I wasn’t lying. She looks amazing, huh?”
“I’ve never seen you more beautiful.”
“Let me see,” Milo said, and Tom Alan turned the tablet toward Erika still in the doorway, the gathered sheet in her grip at her chest. “When you’re right, you’re right.”
“Stop.” She felt herself blushing.
“Don’t touch a thing.” Billy crawled out from under the covers, making his way to the bottom of the bed. He was still naked—and apparently no longer shy about it. “Come here.” He yanked opposite sides of the sheet and brought her to the bed, where he pulled her down beside Tom Alan.
“I should go back to my own room,” he said.
“How’d you all end up in one room without me? Now I am jealous,” Milo said.
“It was just me and Billy. We had a good long talk. My endless blathering kept putting him to sleep, though.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. And I give as good as I get.”
“Do you, now?” Milo asked.
“You would know. Oh.”
“He kept waking up saying ‘Don’t go…I’m listening.’ I guess at some point I fell asleep, too.”
“We’ve covered all the letters now, Fisher. Rika’s mom is the L; you and Kensuke, you’re the G; I have the B going on; Jesse’s doing the T; and now Tom Alan is at Q—for questioning. That letter can go two ways. So will he, most likely.” Billy thought he was clever. “Cool, huh?”
“Never thought I’d turn to Bill Wahl for a sex talk, Milo, but there I was at one A.M. confessing I’m in love with two people…in love in a way that still surprises me, Kiki.”
“Oh.” Erika, now settled between them, didn’t know what else to say.
“You knew,” Tom Alan said. “All along?”
“I hoped.” Erika gently touched his face. “I knew how I felt…confused at first, selfish, unfaithful…”
“I went through all of that, but Milo and Billy…they both helped me through it…once I stopped acting like a complete jerk. How lucky are we to be with these two?”
“Very.”
“I wish I was there,” Milo said. “All squeezed in between you. I bloody hate it here, Skater Boy. There are four of us crammed into one staff dormitory.”
“Like a frat house?”
“I wish. I’ll never complain about Flower’s flannel on the hot water knob again. No one will even talk to me. Must be because I’m a foreigner.”
“Yeah. Some people still are bent out of shape over that whole Revolutionary War thing,” Billy said.
“It’s only a few more days.”
“Too many, love. So…I know what Flower’s got on. What’s everyone else wearing? Skater Boy?”
“Boxers.”
“I’m naked.” Billy smirked.
“Show me,” Milo said again.
“Where are you?” Tom Alan asked.
“Outdoors on the smoking bench all by my lonesome. Show me willie.”
“I don’t know if I can get a good angle.” Tom Alan turned the tablet toward Billy. “He’s under the covers.”
“I meant you, love. I miss your body.”
“We’re not alone,” Tom Alan reminded him.
“I don’t care. If I can’t touch you, I want to see you.”
“You’ve seen it almost ev—”
“Here.” Erika grabbed the tablet.
“Who’s got me?” Milo feigned panic as she gave him an unsteady shot of the ceiling.
“Me.” She climbed down off the bed, fighting the sheet, more off than on. “Strip for him.” She expected Tom Alan to offer resistance, but his shirt was already up, revealing his gut when she got to the other side of the room. “Wait. Let me get the shot.”
“Oh.”
“You want to see it come off, right?”
“Absolutely,” Milo answered.
“Do I have all of him?” Erika asked, peeking over the tablet to see Tom Alan smooth his shirt back down.
“Both of them, actually. Lose the sheet, Hockey Puck.”
“Okie doke!” Billy was up on his knees. The light blanket beneath the duvet seemed to float as it attached itself to his hard dick.
Erika grinned. “I think he’s game.”
“Wait.” But was Tom Alan? “Are we really venturing into this territory? Because once we do…”
“No…Yeah…” Billy sat back on his heels.
“We’re all in.” Erika turned Milo so she could look at him. “We’ve talked about it…right? Discussed it as much as necessary?”
“I’d say so,” he answered. “Separately and now together.”
“But you’re not even here,” Tom Alan said.
“We can wait, if you want. Or…you can cum for me…on your foot, Skater Boy.”
“You can do that?” Billy asked, raising himself up again, letting the blanket fall this time.
“Figure skating makes a guy limber,” Milo said. “Now get him naked.”
“You want me to strip him?” Billy asked.
“Yes.” The answer came quickly, from both Erika and Milo.
Billy held out his arms, calling Tom Alan to him with the same “Come here” hand motion he used for Etsuko. Tom Alan still seemed bashful as he got to his knees, but he let Billy pull his Ani and Otouto T-shirt over his head, as Erika watched with her bottom lip clenched between her teeth and Milo no doubt got hard some hundreds of miles away. “I used to beat off listening to you two doing it through the walls at that crap apartment,” Billy said, stroking himself now.
“Get his knickers off him,” Milo ordered, and Billy immediately obeyed. Tom Alan lifted each knee, so they could come off all the way.
“Now wank him.”
“Yeah?” Billy asked Tom Alan, not Milo. He got consent—after an interminable wait by Erika’s estimation that was likely only a second or two—with a nod, followed by a shudder.
“His hands are rough.”
“I know.” Erika loved the feel of them, especially where she now touched herself.
“Can you, where you are?” When Tom Alan looked up from Milo on the screen to meet Erika’s eyes, she knew he had taken in all of her on the way. The sheet had fallen, and she stood there completely nude. He swallowed hard. She watched his throat, and then his tongue as he licked his lips.
“Already at it, despite the nip in the air,” Milo said.
“Show us.”
“I’m covered by my cardie.”
“Chicken,” Erika teased.
“Someone could come out for a fag.”
“Won’t they be surprised to find one with his willie out?” Tom Alan’s British accent still wasn’t very good.
“Ha! Talk dirty, Skater Boy.”
“Pretend my tongue is in your arse,” he said. “Or me willie…Which would you rather?”
“Hard choice there, love. Can I get both?”
“Not at once. I’m not that flexible. How’s about my dick and Bill’s tongue.”
Billy flinched—or shuddered. It was hard for Erika to tell without seeing his face.
“You filthy honking American stu-u—argmmoh!” Milo laughed.
“Did you…?” Erika turned the tablet to face her.
“Show us,” Billy said.
Milo’s cummy hand took up the whole screen. Erika turned it toward the others. A similar sound immediately came from Tom Alan, followed by three words, “I’m gonna come,” as Billy continued to tug on his dick.
“Look at me.”
Tom Alan’s eyes found Erika’s, but then moved down to her hand, not the one that held the tablet, but the other, with three of its fingers up inside her.
“Fuck!” The expletive came from Billy, as an eruption came from Tom Alan.
“What’s happening?” Milo asked.
In Erika’s sexual euphoria, the growing tingle between her legs and the prickling jolts it sent throughout her whole body, she’d forgotten about poor Milo, now left with only a close-up view of the highboy beside them. “Sorry. Here.” Breathless, she passed him over to Billy.
“He didn’t come on his foot.” Billy swiped the back of his hand on Tom Alan’s instep. “How’s that? Or I can, if you want.” His smirk turned to a grimace. He’d need an answer quickly.
“Yes.” Erika offered one as she stepped to the side of the bed. Grabbing hold of Tom Alan’s hand, she put it with hers, where she was hot and moist. He wrapped the other arm around her, like he would on the ice, and they kissed, as Billy’s warm, wet eruption hit them both.
“Holy moly.”
“Holy fuck.”
Their disparate vernacular tickled Erika, with humor and also one last shock where she wanted the two very different dicks to tease and fill her next time. “I hope I can skate after that.” She was out of breath and sweaty, one hand on Tom Alan, the one left wet from her climax at Billy’s lips.
“I’ve never seen a woman post-shag look so happy,” Milo said, once the other three collapsed back onto the mattress.
Tom Alan snorted with laughter. He had one side of the tablet, Billy had the other. “Have you ever seen one at all?”
“I think I’ve seen just about everything, love.”
“Whoo.” Billy hooted again, albeit rather quietly, planting a kiss on Erika’s back. “I love you, babe.”
“We love you,” Tom Alan and Milo said in unison.
“The countdown is on, Fisher. Get back to us quick.”
“I’m dying to,” Milo said. “I can’t wait to walk through that door, take all my clothes off, and crawl right up in there with the three of you. Come Tuesday, nothing’s gonna stop that from happening.”
* * * *
Billy was pretty worked up by the time his little brother arrived after school Thursday afternoon. He had brought a late lunch—hot dogs and little bags of popcorn. The notion that Peanut was B-boy had been planted in his head, thanks to Tom Alan. He hadn’t taken a single bite of anything. Burgess dating Jesse wasn’t a problem, he claimed. He just couldn’t wrap his head around the thought of his baby brother being on Grindr. “My mom and dad were pretty lenient with me.”
“And you turned out fine.”
“It’s a whole new world, babe. Mom and Dad wouldn’t know to snoop around to see if Peanut’s on Grindr. Mom and Dad probably don’t even know what sexting is.”
“Are you sure you’re not more worried about your brother being gay than you are about how he’s meeting people?” Erika had asked.
“You know me better than that.”
“I do. I don’t mean you wouldn’t accept him. It wouldn’t be out of line to worry about him, though. Even in 2016, being a gay sixteen-year-old isn’t always an easy thing.”
“No. Everyone has a bullseye on their hoodie for something in high school.”
The topic Burgess had in mind wasn’t all that deep. He was hoping to round up some adult volunteers to help out with the drama club. “I told Mr. Daley you might work on the sets with us, Tom Alan, because, ya know, you draw your comics and stuff.”
“Definitely.” Tom Alan seemed rather excited.
“What show are you doing?”
Erika was pretty sure Burgess said it was The Wizard of Oz. One had to listen very closely to hear Burgess speak.
“And maybe you and Milo might be our choreographers.”
“What about me?” Billy asked. “Don’t you want me to help?”
“With what? There’s no hockey in The Wizard of Oz.”
“I can do other things,” Billy huffed. “If everyone else is going to be involved…”
“What…you guys do everything as a foursome these days?”
Billy came close to a spit take after chasing a handful of popcorn with a huge pull from his Sunny Delight.
“Are you auditioning?” Erika asked, feeling a bit flushed herself.
“Naw. I’ll be in the pit.” Burgess never looked at her but rather made faces at Etsuko in her toddler seat.
“She loves her Uncle Peanut. Say dada for Uncle Peanut. Dada? Dada?” All Billy got back was giggles and orange drool a similar shade to Billy and Burgess’s hair. “How’s English going?”
“Alright. Mr. Schwabb seems pretty cool, actually.”
“No kidding. Maybe people do change,” Billy said.
“Guess the parade this year will be in his honor.”
Burgess looked at Erika. “Huh?”
“Never mind,” Billy said. “Hey. Hand me your phone a sec?”
“For what? Yours is right there.” When Billy reached out, Burgess brought it closer to his chest.
“I just wanna see…”
Erika willed Billy to come up with a good lie.
“My personal business?” Burgess asked.
“Maybe. I’m curious. What are you into? Who are you hanging out with? We don’t talk like we used to…and Mom and Dad say you never bring any girls around…or any guys.”
Erika looked to Burgess for a reaction.
“They’d be fine with it, you know…whoever you want to date. We all would.”
“Cool.” Burgess’s hair was wild, almost like Milo’s during his skating heyday, though no one could ever match the untamed, almost primitive quality of that. He was really tall—Tom Alan’s height—and rail thin. He looked a bit like a scarecrow with an orange yarn wig and nerdy glasses. There was some definition to his body, though. It showed when he reached for the bowl and his sweatshirt pulled tight across his chest. “I mean, after all this,” Burgess made an imaginary circle around Erika, Billy, and Tom Alan with his pointer finger, “as long as my love life isn’t discussed as a hot topic on some talk show like yours, Tom Alan’s, and Bill’s, I figure I’m one up on him. No offense,” he said to Erika.
“None taken.”
Tom Alan was grinning.
“Do you smoke weed? Are you on Grindr?”
“Gotta go.” Burgess stood. “Bye, baby…Oh.”
Etsuko had nodded off in barely a moment. Erika envied that. She was still having troubling dreams, as her papa seemed to be warning her of impending doom. She’d lie awake dreading them, and then wake up, unable to fall back asleep.
“Bye, bro. And of course I’m not on Grindr. How could I be? I’m not eighteen.”
“By checking the box that says you are, same as I did when I was too young for all the good stuff on the web. They had Internet way back then, you know? I used Dad’s birthday.”
“I use yours.” Burgess headed for the door. “Thanks, you two. I’ll have Mr. Daley and Ms. Fiedler give you a call. Good luck this weekend,” he hollered back, as the door closed behind him.
“Well, so much for the direct approach,” Billy said. “When Etsuko’s sixteen, we’ll sneak a look at her phone while she sleeps.”
* * * *
Tom Alan was practically skipping by the time Saturday rolled around, from the hotel to the team bus, from the bus to the ice arena in the Big Apple, from the locker room to the rink for day two of the second qualifying event.
“One more day!” he said as he and Erika stood at the boards waiting for their names to be announced for their free skate.
“One more month before Skate America. One more minute before your long program,” Irina Mischen reminded him.
“You know it. We’re ready.”
They were in first place after the short program had gone exceptionally well. Tom Alan was all smiles, and as he’d put his hands on the most intimate places on Erika’s body to send her twirling into the air or lift her over his head, he had been not the least bit tentative or awkward. She looked to the stands where she knew Billy and Etsuko were sitting. She offered a smile, though she couldn’t actually see them.
“We doing the quad?” Tom Alan asked. His expression said he was all in. His cheek muscles would be the sorest ones on his body when all was said and done.
“We’re doing the quad.” She gave his hand an extra squeeze.
As Freddie Mercury hit the beginning of the climax to the song, Erika took a deep breath. The moment would soon be upon them, right before the instrumental section, where they rocked out for their footwork sequence. She was up. The rotation felt good. Both blades might have touched ice on the landing, but she was certain she went around four times and she was definitely still on her feet. The crowd seemed to concur. Their ovation nearly drowned out the guitar riffs.
“First place!” Tom Alan called Milo the minute he and Erika finished speaking with sports press backstage, albeit in smaller numbers than what they’d gotten used to. “And full credit for the quad.”
“Our GOE wasn’t great.” They had beaten the other teams by double digits for gold.
“Congratulations, love.”
“In just a few hours, you get to congratulate me in person—maybe both of us.”
“And me,” Billy said.
“What did you accomplish, Hockey Puck?”
“I found the car in the parking structure in under ten minutes.”
Back home, the three of them considered sleeping together. It was Billy’s idea. “Come in with us,” he’d said, once Etsuko was settled.
“Naw. I…want to wait for Milo.” Tom Alan looked at the floor, until Billy brushed his cheek.
“Hey. Just sleep. It’s been such an exciting day…I hate to see it end. Come on.”
Erika was nearly hyperventilating, waiting for a consensus.
“Because, really,” Billy added, “this isn’t just about sex.”
“I know.” Tom Alan kissed Erika atop her head, just like he always did with Milo. “But…I still think I should wait.”
* * * *
Practice resumed the next morning. There was no time off with the elite season quickly approaching. Then, finally, Tuesday came. “Milo’s calling or texting me every hour,” Tom Alan said as they approached the rink’s entrance. “‘One more down,’ he says, ‘elev—’” Tom Alan’s words were interrupted by the squeal of tires peeling out from behind the rink. “Jackass.” They whirled around in time to see the red Camaro speed off down the road. “He better not have pulled some kind of crap.”
“Like what?”
“Graffiti, broken windows…I wouldn’t put anything past him. Or maybe he was smoking.” Tom Alan looked down as they walked to the side of the building, presumably for evidence to hang Kensuke without a trial.
“I thought we were going to start giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just wanted to talk to us.”
“I doubt it.” Tom Alan walked around the entire span of asphalt and crushed stone. Erika followed, because it seemed like the thing to do. He even parted the branches of shrubbery to peer in between them and looked under the three or four cars parked there. When they got to the front again, he stopped to place a call. Erika wondered for a second if he was calling the cops. “The number you are calling has been disconnected,” he mimicked. “He probably upgraded to a more expensive phone and got a new one. Spoiled brat.”
“You’re being harsh.”
“You’re being a sap!” So much for Tom Alan’s good mood.
“Did you find anything?”
“No. Did you?”
“A red plastic string and…” She stopped for a breath she had to remind herself to take.
“And what?”
“A black marble.”
“How did I miss…?” Tom Alan took the string. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh…”
“Uh-huh what?” Erika rolled the marble Tom Alan had no interest in between her fingers as she tried to recall more about her dreams. “Kensuke’s eyes…”
“This red strip…it’s like that piece you pull to start unwrapping the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes, right?”
“Maybe. Do they still open like that? Either way, it’s one hell of a drive for a smoke break.”
“Inconvenience be damned. He’s mocking us.”
“Or…Think back to when you were in school and had the hots for Mr. Kobayashi. How many times did you wander down to his classroom for some phony reason only to turn around and bolt before knocking at the door?”
Tom Alan smiled a moment at the recollection. “I wasn’t self-destructive.”
Erika challenged that lie with a look.
“I wasn’t a troublemaker.” Tom Alan’s expression softened with his stance. “Beyond protecting what’s ours, I don’t even know why I care.”
“Because that’s how you are. Your anger isn’t hiding what you’re feeling deep down. You were lost at that age, too—cutting yourself…”
“Okay. I get it.”
“You like him.”
“I do, Kiki. I tried.”
“Maybe try again. Let’s get inside before Mrs. Mischen gets here and decides to give us detention.”
“No way am I staying late tonight.” Tom Alan’s phone rang. “I don’t know how he’s sending these while working, but another hour down.”
* * * *
Etsuko ended up in Tom Alan’s arms the moment she arrived with Billy at lunchtime. They were all going to Skype with Kyoko in Japan a bit later.
“Dada.”
Everyone froze.
“Over there,” Tom Alan said after a moment. “See.” He tried to turn Etsuko toward Billy, but she only had eyes for the man who held her. “Go see dada? Go see dada?” He tried to hand her over, but her shrieks indicated she’d rather stay where she was.
“She’s been stuck with me all day,” Billy said. “She missed you. I figure half the reason she can’t sleep at night is ‘cause she misses Fisher, too. I know she’s been morning cranky because of that. He was the one who usually got her up, right? The first person she sees. The one she…she wants.” Billy looked from Tom Alan to Erika.
“She didn’t mean it.” Tom Alan made his case to her, too, for some reason, as she bent over tending to a shoelace. “It was just…a sound. And even if it was on purpose, she’s just repeating what she hears. She doesn’t know what it means.”
The front door clicked. They hadn’t moved far from it. Erika looked up in time to see Billy head back outside before anyone could catch how upset he truly was—or so he must have thought.
“Aww, baby girl. You love your daddy. You love him so much.”
The door reopened almost immediately.
“Honey, she—oh.”
It wasn’t Billy. “Hi. Am I bothering you?”
“No, Jesse, not at all,” Erika said.
“I called Coach Wahl this morning. He told me you’d be here today—and just said go on in.” Jesse chewed the inside of his cheek. “I was wondering if any of you guys have heard from Kensuke.”
“Seen him,” Tom Alan said. “For about a second.”
“You haven’t?” Erika asked.
Jesse moved his head side to side. “That’s what Coach said, but I had to check. Kensuke hasn’t been in school since the first couple days and his cell is disconnected.” Jesse scraped his feet on the floor, like he had that first day on the ice. “I even tried to Facebook him, like, ya know, it was 2010 or something, but he didn’t hit me back.”
“He was here,” Erika explained, “but he didn’t get out of the car, he just drove off.”
“His parents moved away.”
“What?” Tom Alan spun around. “Away?” The movement made Etsuko giggle, but no one else was laughing.
“Back to Japan,” Jesse said.
“Japan! Does Kensuke have someplace to live?”
“I don’t know, Tom Alan. I just found out. I went over there and the place was up for sale. The neighbor, like, said they were gone…back over there. You sure he didn’t go with them?”
“Yes.” Erika put a hand on Jesse’s arm, a calming one, she hoped. “He was definitely here.”
“Why wouldn’t he say anything? God.” Tom Alan was nearly as distraught as Jesse. “They just deserted him?”
“He’s an adult,” Erika said softly. “He hasn’t been their responsibility for a while. Following Japanese culture…”
“This isn’t Japan,” Tom Alan huffed. Had they been outside, he probably would have shown her the flag. “He’s still in high school! They abandoned him, and so did I.”
“Now you’re going to turn your anger at him on yourself?”
“Everything I said about him might still be true, but now at least he’s got a good excuse. You pegged it from the start. He was acting out.” Tom Alan searched his phone. For what, Erika didn’t know. “I think he sent that pic of himself through e-mail and not his phone,” he said. “Right?”
Erika didn’t know that either.
“I have his e-mail address, but he won’t answer that either.” Jesse tapped the screen on her phone, and then handed it to Tom Alan.
While he fiddled with both, Erika turned her attention back to Jesse. “How did things go with your first psychiatric appointment?”
“Good.” Jesse’s demeanor changed a bit. “I had two, actually, and it was, like, great to be able to ramble. I’m kind of leaning toward starting the hormones right away, but we decided—well, discussed—waiting until I’m twenty-one for the surgeries. That’s what I wanted to tell your mother. Dr. Mitch wondered if I might not consider experiencing the changes one at a time to see when I might feel whole. I liked that, right? ‘You’ll know when you feel whole,’ he said. He asked me if I was getting ahead of myself, and I kind of, like, had to say maybe I was. Eighteen feels like the end of something, he said. The end of childhood. Sometimes when a young man or a young woman hits that age, they think everything has to be mapped out. We feel like our adult life is starting and suddenly we gotta be who we’re going to be for the rest of it. I like this part, too,” Jesse said. “He goes, ‘You’ve most likely got way more life ahead of you than behind you.’ Dr. Mitch is on fleek, huh?”
Erika wasn’t sure what that meant, but she smiled.
“That way of thinking puts things in, like, perspective, right? And if you think about it, it’s really, really true. Even you guys have more life ahead of you than behind.”
Erika laughed. “Even us old folks, yup.”
“Almost certainly,” Tom Alan said. “At least that’s how it should be. Eighteen was right down the middle for my mom. That was an exception, I hope. I pray every night no one else I care about has their life cut so short.”
Erika touched his arm.
“Huh?” He seemed surprised, as if he’d been talking more to himself.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You just…”
“Typing a note to Kensuke.” Tom Alan frowned. “Begging for forgiveness. Insisting he write back. Pleading with him to write back. I’ll edit it before I hit send.” He shrugged. Etsuko smiled. “I don’t know, Kiki. When do we walk away? Like Mrs. Wahl said, I can’t raise someone else’s kid.”
“I don’t know,” Erika admitted. She reached for the baby. “I guess that’s up to him. And maybe he already has.”
She excused herself a minute or so later, after glancing toward the big clock over the door. She wanted to get to Billy with Etsuko before they logged onto Skype with Kyoko. She told him about Kensuke being there when they’d arrived and also what Jesse had just said about the Satos skipping the country. “Tom Alan and Jesse are going to try and get ahold of him through one of his other friends.”
“Oh,” Billy said.
“He has ‘about a million’ according to Jesse.”
“Ah. I’ll try, too. Maybe he’ll answer for me.”
“So how are you doing?” Erika asked as Billy typed.
“I’m good.” Etsuko reached for her daddy. “Hey, Little Angel.” He traded his phone for her. “Hit send, babe, will ya?”
Erika did.
“I was just out here wondering what it’s going to be like for her growing up. If she goes to school and tells the other kids she has three daddies and one mommy, are they going to be mean to her? I want her to love them. I really do. But…” He kissed his little girl. “Is it wrong I want her to love me a little bit more?”
“No.”
“Ya know what? The last week or so has been kind of,” Billy whispered, “kick ass. Except, God help me, I miss Fisher. Our little family unit is pretty frigging unusual. People would be saying, ‘See. We told you gay marriage was immoral.’” Billy squatted, so Etsuko could stand on the pavement and play with a blade of ornamental grass in a large planter at the side of the building. His muscular thighs and a little bit more were on display up the leg of his shorts.
“How would they even know? Tom Alan and I did our time splashed across tabloid magazines. We don’t plan on making a public spectacle of our sex life anymore. Who can say what goes on in other people’s homes? The Mischens might have swinger parties with Katarina Witt and Bela Karolyi for all we know.”
Billy chuckled. “Okay, but seriously, what happens on parents’ night at Etsuko’s school? Would we all show up? Probably not. There are going to be times when we have to…pretend…for her sake that we’re just like everybody else. Every time I think of a solution,” he kissed the top of Etsuko’s head, “I think of another problem.”
“The most important thing,” Erika bent over and kissed the top of Billy’s, “is that Etsuko is happy and that we are, too. Your childhood was picture perfect, you say, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Tom Alan’s was terrible and Milo’s had its ups and downs. Mine…my papa’s lack of affection—at least outwardly—was what it was, and we’re all in a pretty good place right now.” Why did Ku areba raku ari come to mind? “I think we need to stop looking for problems that haven’t arisen yet.”
“I guess.”
The big, gray, metal door beside them opened slowly. “Um, sorry to interrupt, Kiki,” Tom Alan said. “Kyoko is on.”
“We’ll be right there.”
“She’s not in Japan.”
“No? Where is she?” Erika asked.
“Thailand.”
“Oh. We’ll come now.”
Erika let Billy and Etsuko enter the building first. She wasn’t far behind. Brushing Tom Alan’s arm as he held the door, she offered him a faint smile.
“Say hi to grandma. ‘Hi, Grandma.’” Billy pointed at the laptop, leaning over from where he stood behind Tom Alan and Erika’s chairs.
“How’s…everything?” Tom Alan asked.
That wasn’t the question Erika would have led with.
“Dada.”
Whether Etsuko said it to Billy or because Tom Alan spoke, who knew? She touched the computer screen, so she may have been referring to her grandmother.
“Oh! Baby girl!” Kyoko marveled. “She’s talking.”
“A little,” Erika said.
“Did it sound British to anyone?” Billy asked. “It sounded British to me.”
“Well, it will come faster now,” Kyoko said. “She’ll enjoy the attention she gets from using words. Congratulations again on your win.”
“Thank you.” Tom Alan and Erika spoke in unison.
“Your Japanese fans are quite excited fall is nearly here. The entire country cannot wait to see you.”
Erika knew the exaggeration was only slight. “Jesse’s here!” She hoped to steer her mother toward the reason for her unexpected trek to Thailand. Surely she wasn’t…
“How are you, Jesse?”
“Good, Mrs. Tsuchino. Everything’s good. Mostly. How are you?”
“I am well. Your grandmother and I spoke. She is a devoted and loving guardian. You are quite lucky.”
“I am.” There was a hint of regret, possibly, for what Jesse had put her through over B-boy. “I love her.”
Are you still a her, Mother? Erika wanted to ask.
“I shall make you wait no longer, as you all probably wonder why I am in Thailand. I assume it was the first thing Tom Alan revealed when he retrieved you.”
Tom Alan looked away. “Kind of,” Erika said.
It is funny how life works out. Had it not been for Jesse, I am not even certain how I would have broached the topic of yet another significant change in my life—the reason I am here.”
Erika let out a breath. “I like to think we’d have been understanding and supportive either way.” Whatever she would like to think, Erika was pretty sure she’d have had a ton of questions, a slew of comments, and possibly even an accusation or two. She still might. A transgender teenager she hardly knew and her transgender mother presented two very different scenarios. “As long as you’re both happy.”
Billy gave Erika’s hand a loving squeeze.
“We are. I will be home by the end of October to see your debut.”
“How different will you look by then, Mother?” Erika asked.
“Kiki…”
“Well…Weren’t you wondering the same thing, Tom Alan?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t ask it.”
“How different will I look?” Kyoko seemed baffled.
“Have you been taking the hormones all along?” Erika tried to be more straightforward. “Or did you just start once you got over there?”
Kyoko burst out laughing. It was far more raucous than Erika had ever seen.
“Mother, it’s not funny.”
“Oh, but it is. It really is. I am not transitioning, Erika.”
“Oh. Your girlfriend is?”
Kyoko laughed again. “What would even lead you to such an idea?”
Erika wasn’t certain herself. “Thailand…I guess. “
Kyoko sighed. “You have led an interesting life—what with Milo’s father first, and then my coming out…”
“And Billy…”
“Rika!” Billy’s pale skin reddened as Kyoko continued to titter, which stretched out the rest of her pronouncement.
“I suppose we have exceeded the ten percent standard, and it is no wonder you now see a sexual orientation plot twist at every turn.” She inhaled deeply—twice—and then went on. “No one is transitioning, Erika. Midori is a journalist. She is doing an in-depth report on gender dysphoria. That is how I knew what I did. That is why we are here and why I thought it would be good for Jesse to consider coming here when he is ready.”
“Oh.”
“I promise you.” She still had a difficult time keeping a straight face. “The shocking developments are over. At least from me. From now on, we just live. Now then,” Kyoko focused on Etsuko, “let me talk to my magomusume.”
They chatted another forty minutes, often in Japanese, with Erika translating for Jesse and Billy anything that they might be interested in hearing. Just as they were about to sign off, Tom Alan got a phone call. “It’s Milo. I’ll put him on speaker. Hey you.”
“Hi, Milo!” The rest of the voices rang out like a chorus.
“Dada.” Etsuko bounced up and down as Billy held her at the waist.
“Quite a greeting,” Milo said. “Guess where I am.”
“Umm…D.C.?”
“Closer, Skater Boy.”
“Philly?” Billy guessed.
“Someplace great…closer to New York,” Milo said.
“Jersey.” That was Erika’s guess.
“Bloody Yanks. I’m in Westchester County. Surprise! I got out early and hopped the first train I could.”
“Sweet! I missed you so much. Where are you exactly?” Tom Alan asked.
“Second to last stop. We just now pulled out. I’m only twenty minutes away. Can you come get me?”
“You bet I’ll come.”
“So, Hockey Puck’s picking us up?”
“Pig,” Billy said.
“On speaker,” Erika reminded them both. “With Mother.”
“Hello, Kyoko.”
“Hello, Milo.”
“I’ll leave right now,” Tom Alan said. “We’ll see you in a—Milo!” He jumped to his feet.
Erika turned. “What happened?” She’d heard the sound—an awful one—a frightening one.
“Milo?” Tom Alan shook his phone, as if that would get Milo back. The noise had been quite loud, a shrieking of metal, and maybe some shouting. It had lasted barely a second before everything went quiet, before Milo was cut off.