Zack woke up late on Sunday morning with a mild hangover and a muted sense of dread. His confusion about John had almost made him forget that he still had dinner with his family to contend with. For once, he wished he had work instead.
He stretched his arms above his head until he felt his joints pop pleasantly. Ziggy was asleep at the foot of the bed, snoring with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Throwing off his sheets, Zack plucked his phone off the nightstand. The clock read 11:09 a.m., and he had a text message. It was from his sister, informing him that she was going drive him to their parents’ house. She would be there at six.
“Well, fuck me,” Zack cursed. Ziggy started at the noise and shot him an injured look. Zack leaned forward and scratched him apologetically behind the ears. “This must be worse than I thought if they’re sending Bianca to get me. Maybe they think I’ll skip town otherwise.”
Ziggy licked Zack’s hand.
“Oh, come on, that was one time.”
He rolled out of bed and dressed quickly. He had a few errands he needed to take care of before his sister arrived. He put a leash on Ziggy and brought him along, grateful that his neighborhood was generally dog friendly. He stopped at Eddy’s Market and grabbed some groceries, including a decent bottle of wine to take to dinner. Then he found an ATM and checked his balance. He swore when the number flashed on the screen. If he’d gotten a fifteen-dollar bottle of wine instead of a ten-dollar vintage, he’d be in serious trouble.
When they got back to the apartment, he busied himself with chores for the next couple of hours. It kept him from thinking too much about the slow torture he was about to be put through. Five o’clock inevitably rolled around, however, and he had to start getting ready.
He begrudgingly changed into some of his nicer Sunday dinner clothes: black slacks and a blue button-down shirt. He completed the look by putting on a pair of shiny brogues his father had given him last Christmas. He even slicked his hair back with pomade. He checked himself out in the mirror and was pleasantly surprised. He looked downright dapper. Satisfied, he returned to the living room and flopped onto the couch. He pretended to flip through channels, but he had an ear cocked the whole time.
Just before six, a knock rattled his flimsy front door. He crossed the room in an instant and yanked it open.
“Wow,” said a petite woman with large, brown eyes. Her hand was still poised to knock. “That was fast.”
“Bianca,” Zack said with a smile. He bent down to hug her, burying his face in her soft brown hair. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Like I’d let my little brother take the bus.” She beamed at him. She looked more polished than he remembered, possibly due to the string of pearls around her neck and her conservative, beige dress. He felt about twelve years old in comparison. “How have you been?”
Zack shrugged. “Same old, same old.”
“Come on, my car’s over there. Let’s go before someone steals my tires.”
He grabbed the wine, locked his front door, and followed Bianca to a blue Honda Civic parked by the curb. Sometimes he thought the differences between their personalities could be summed up in their choice of cars.
They climbed in and began the forty-minute drive to the suburban outskirts of Los Angeles. Zack watched as derelict restaurants and abandoned shops morphed into parks and neat houses with children playing in the front yards. Their old neighborhood never seemed to change, no matter how many years passed.
“So, are you excited to see everyone?” Bianca asked, breaking Zack from his reverie.
“You mean am I excited to get ganged up on?”
Bianca grimaced. “Did Dad warn you? Ugh, I should’ve known. Not for nothing, but I hope you meditated or did some deep breathing this morning. You’re pretty much in for the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
She smacked him on the shoulder, and Zack laughed. “Look, I can handle Mom. She’s been pestering me to become a respectable member of society for years now. I’m used to it.”
“Fat chance that’ll ever happen.” She glanced at him. “Are you still, uh . . . you know?”
“Still a sex worker? Yes. Feel free to clutch your pearls if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Hey, I’m not judging, I swear. I just think Mom may have a point. You need to get a real job.”
Zack narrowed his eyes. “I do have a real job. Just because I’m in the sex industry doesn’t mean—”
“—that your job isn’t a perfectly legitimate and satisfying occupation,” Bianca finished in a monotone. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me. Many times. ‘Sex workers are people too, and it’s the oldest occupation there is, and blah blah blah.’ Like I said, I’m not judging.”
“Well, I do odd jobs on the side too.”
“Teaching guitar lessons once a week does not count as a side job. Neither does fixing the next-door neighbor’s sink every now and then. I just think you’d be happier if you didn’t have to lie to Mom and Dad about what you do.”
“Don’t you mean they’d be happier?”
To her credit, Bianca considered the question before answering. “Both. I mean, you haven’t told me much about your job—and please, continue to spare me the details—but I’ve seen your apartment. It’s a dump. You said you were only going to work this job until you paid off your student loans. Have you made any progress on them? If you were rolling in money, it’d be one thing, but . . .”
Zack’s face burned. He knew his apartment wasn’t great, but to have it shoved in his face like that was mortifying. He stared out the window to hide his red cheeks.
“Do you even like your job?” Bianca asked. “If this is your dream career, I’ll shut up right now.”
Zack started to lie but then stopped. Bianca would see right through him. “Not really. To be honest, it’s kind of boring.” John popped into Zack’s head, and he smiled. “It’s been a lot better these past few days, though.”
“I’m glad, but who knows how long that will last.” She glanced at him again. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but why don’t you borrow money from Mom and Dad to pay off your loans?”
Zack burst out laughing.
She glared at him. “If I were to look at your bank account right now, would you still think this was funny?”
Zack’s laughter died in his throat.
“That’s what I thought. Would asking for help really be so bad?”
Zack didn’t have a good response, so he stared at his lap until Bianca nudged him with her elbow. “Just something to think about, okay, kiddo?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling a shoulder. “I get it. ‘Get your shit together, Hall.’ Doesn’t make it easy to hear.”
“Consider this a pep talk before the real witch hunt begins.”
Just then, they turned onto a familiar street. Zack’s stomach lurched as they approached a blue two-story house with a large front porch. The house had a neat row of hedges on the side, a manicured lawn, and three cars parked in the driveway.
Bianca pulled up to the curb and shut off the engine. She turned to Zack. “Ready?”
“Nope. Let’s go back.”
She laughed and opened her door. Zack had no choice but to grab the wine and follow. Together, they walked up the driveway to the front door. He rang the bell before his stomach could convince him to bolt. The door opened almost instantly to reveal a brunette woman of middling height, with large eyes identical to Bianca’s.
“Hi, Mom—” Zack began.
“My children!” she said as she grabbed them both to her.
Zack got a faceful of his mom’s perfumed hair. “And Dad says I’m dramatic.”
Mom gave him a purposeful squeeze before examining him at arm’s length. “You actually look presentable. Santa must have read my list. Come on in.”
Zack followed her through the entryway, down a corridor covered in family photos, and into a large kitchen. There were several pots on the stove, all filled with food in various stages of cooking. The walls were painted a buttery green and decorated with oversize cutlery. To the right, an older man and a girl in her late teens were seated at a rectangular wooden table. They had a deck of cards and some poker chips scattered between them.
“Samantha,” Zack said, nodding to the girl, “and Uncle Robert. Long time no see.”
“Zack,” replied Sam. She grinned and stood up. She was athletic and almost as tall as Zack, with a lopsided smile and skin so tan it looked brown. “’Sup, big cuz?”
“Nothing much. You?” Zack set his wine down on the table and gave his cousin a hug. He then stuck his hand out to the middle-aged man sitting across from her. Uncle Robert took it and flashed a grin that matched his daughter’s. “You clean up nice, kid.”
“Thanks. You don’t look half-bad yourself.”
“How about you crack open that wine and play a hand with us?”
Zack agreed and fetched some wineglasses for them before sitting down. He glanced into the living room, but his dad was nowhere to be seen. Zack sighed with relief, though he knew the reprieve was only temporary. Dad was probably in his office. He’d appear as soon as he smelled Nana Gemma’s sauce.
“So, how’s work?” Uncle Robert asked as he dealt out the cards. “You still doing odd jobs around your apartment complex?”
“Yeah,” Zack lied smoothly. He’d told this story so many times, it didn’t even make him nervous anymore. “Mostly just fixing squeaky hinges and leaky sinks. It’s not the most exciting work, but it pays the bills.”
“I hear that.”
“Don’t you encourage him,” Mom called from the stove, pointing a wooden spoon at them. “I still want Zack to go back to school and become something respectable, like a doctor or a lawyer.”
“I think that ship has sailed, Mom.” Zack shrugged. “Well, not sailed so much as sunk to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again. You know, because I’m dumb and stuff.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Mom whipped around.
“You are not dumb,” she hissed. “You’re a perfectly intelligent young man, much as you love to act like you’re not.”
“I reckon that’s true,” Uncle Robert agreed. “Zack here’s smart enough, if you tilt your head and squint. That doesn’t mean he can’t make a good, honest living with his hands, though.”
Zack had to stare at the table to keep from laughing. It was such a shame his family wasn’t the sort you could make sex jokes with.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Can we not start our monthly discussion of Zack and his failures just yet? For once I’d like to get some food in me before I have to listen to another impassioned speech about how he needs to apply himself.”
“Well, somebody sounds jealous,” Zack cooed. “I bet you wish the family spent all their time talking about you.”
“Oh yes, you caught me. I’m dripping with envy.”
Mom sighed in a long-suffering way and began grabbing plates out of a cupboard. “Well, everything’s just about ready. Zack, go get your father, will you?”
Zack grimaced. “Can’t Bianca go get him?”
Mom sent him a withering look. He jumped to his feet. “On second thought, I could stand to stretch my legs.”
He could feel his mom’s eyes boring into him as he left the room.
“Italian mothers,” he muttered to himself when he was out of earshot. “There is no force more terrifying on the face of the planet.”
He wove through the house until he arrived at the door to his dad’s office.
“Dad?” He poked his head inside. “It’s time for dinner.”
Zack’s father was seated behind a large, imposing desk and had a newspaper open in front of him. The walls were lined with bookcases, and gauzy curtains fluttered in front of two large windows in the far wall. Mr. Hall was well into middle age, but he still had a head full of black hair, much like Zack’s. He looked up at his son with sharp, dark eyes before folding the newspaper and laying it on the desk.
“Come in here, Zack,” he said. “Let me have a look at you.”
Zack held back a sigh and moved the rest of the way into the room.
“Not bad,” Dad said as he scrutinized him. “Would it have killed you to shine your shoes, though?”
“I don’t know,” Zack sniped, “I’ve never tried it.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
Dad blinked slowly at him in a way that made him feel about eight years old.
He took a shallow breath and said, “Sorry. We need to go, though. Mom’s waiting.”
Dad stood up and gestured for Zack to lead the way. He was wearing a collared shirt and pressed khaki slacks. In twenty-one years, Zack had never once seen him in anything less than business casual.
Zack walked stiffly back to the kitchen, and his father followed. He returned to his seat and poured himself a large glass of wine. The cards had been cleared away, and six places had been set at the table.
Zack forced himself not to chug his wine as Dad took his customary seat at the head of the table and Mom fussed with serving bowls filled with salad and bread.
When everything had been placed on the table and they’d all taken their seats, they said a quick prayer—more out of formality than anything else—and began passing plates around. Zack piled his high with spaghetti and then slathered it with sauce, forgoing salad in favor of wonderful, life-affirming carbohydrates.
He focused on eating as his family chatted around him. Bianca and Sam were discussing college: Sam was a freshman, whereas Bianca was working on her doctorate. Dad and Uncle Robert were talking about the stock trade or Peruvian basket weaving or something else Zack didn’t understand. His mother was talking to him, or rather at him.
“Eat up, Zack. You’re far too lean for your age.”
“Mmff,” he replied through a mouthful of pasta.
“Have you been taking the vitamins I sent you? It’s almost flu season.”
“Mmff,” Zack said again.
“And make sure you start wearing sunscreen every day. If I see any more of those freckles pop up on you—”
He swallowed hastily and said, “They’re not freckles, Mom. They’re beauty marks. You know, because I’m beautiful. Besides, I’ve been covered in them since I was a kid.”
“Well, they could be cancerous for all you know. You should go to a doctor and have them checked out. You’re on our health insurance for a reason.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “You worry too much.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at your mother,” a stern voice interrupted.
At some point, Zack’s father had stopped talking to Uncle Robert and had started eavesdropping on them. Zack knew better than to comment on that, so instead he turned back to Mom and said, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She glowered at her husband. “Your father and I are concerned about you is all. Speaking of which, how’s the job hunt been going?”
Zack internally sighed. It begins.
Sam groaned in an exaggerated way. “I knew it wouldn’t last. We can’t make it through one Sunday dinner without talking about what a fuckup Zack is.”
“You watch your language when you’re at my table,” Mom scolded.
Zack cleared his throat. “Honestly, I haven’t been looking for a job. I’m pretty happy where I am.” He braced himself for impact.
“Where you are?” Dad asked incredulously.
“That’s weird, there’s some kind of echo in here,” Zack retorted. As satisfying as the words were to say, he wanted to bite his tongue. He was never going to convince his parents he was a viable adult if he kept mouthing off. He took a sip of wine and visualized swallowing all of the smart-ass comments he wanted to make.
“Yeah, I’m happy,” he repeated. “I make decent money, and I like my apartment. That’s a lot more than some people can say.”
“I don’t understand how anyone could be content being an uneducated laborer,” Dad said in the slow, calm tone Zack hated most. Dad had a knack for making his classism sound like he was merely stating facts, and it irritated Zack to no end.
Fortunately, his mom interceded. “Zack, dear, what your father means to say is that you have so much potential. You’re only young once, and if you don’t finish your schooling now, you never will. Why are you throwing these years away?”
“You know who will never judge me?” Zack asked in lieu of an answer. “Pasta. Pasta will never judge me.” He stabbed his fork into his spaghetti and took a big bite.
“You can’t hide behind jokes forever, Zack,” Mom said in a gentle way that did little to unburden her words. “Eventually, you will have to give us a straight answer. What steps are you taking to either go back to school or get yourself a respectable job?”
“Now, hang on there,” Uncle Robert said. “There’s nothing wrong with being a tradesman.”
Dad jumped in again, “There is when your parents paid for you to go to college, and you threw it all away.”
“You didn’t pay for me to go,” Zack snapped before he could stop himself. “My college fund might have paid for my tuition, but I had to take out loans for room and board and books and everything else. I contributed just as much as you did.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “Then you can very well pay us back for the one year you managed to get through, since it was apparently such a pittance.”
“Boys,” Mom said in a warning tone that even Zack’s father couldn’t ignore. “Stop it.”
They both fell silent. Zack peeked across the table and saw that Bianca was trying to catch his eye. As soon as she did, she shook her head no. She wanted him to stop talking back. Zack sighed and nodded minutely.
“Zack,” Mom began, “sweetie, you have got to stop being so hostile. I know no one likes being interrogated, but you never tell us what’s going on with you. How are we supposed to know if we don’t ask? It’d be one thing if you were in school and getting good grades and dating a nice girl—” She stopped abruptly.
A dark, seething emotion welled up inside of Zack.
Mom scrambled to cover her misstep. “If we knew what your plans were, we wouldn’t have to worry so much. You’re not making things easy for us.”
Zack’s self-restraint shattered.
“So,” he said in an eerily serene tone, “what would make things easier for you, Mom? If I got a degree I don’t want? Or a job I don’t care about? Or I stopped being gay?”
His question was answered by absolute silence. Zack almost relished the discomfort in the room. Sam and Uncle Robert were staring at their plates while Bianca fiddled with her hair.
Mom pressed her mouth into a thin line. “No, Zack, you know we don’t care about that. You’re our son, and we love you.”
Dad started to say something, but Zack cut him off, directing his comment at his mom, “And I am grateful for that, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not going to give you a parenting award for tolerating me. Because let’s be real: that’s what you’re doing. You don’t trust me to make my own decisions, you think I’m screwing up my life, and the gay thing is just another way I’ve disappointed you. I don’t need you to remind me that you don’t think my choices are good enough, okay? I see it on your faces every week.”
It was Mom’s turn to get spoken over as Dad said, “It would help if we understood what was going on with you. Why did you flunk out of school?”
“I didn’t flunk out,” Zack corrected. “My grades were fine. I took a semester off for personal reasons.”
“Yeah, more than a year ago,” Mom said. “That semester off just keeps getting extended, and you’re not doing anything about it.”
“How do you know what I’m doing?” Zack accused. “You complain about how I don’t tell you anything, but then you make all these assumptions about my life. When was the last time you asked me what my plans are?”
“We ask you all the time,” Mom said.
“No, you ask me when I’m going back to school or when I’m getting a better job. You’ve never asked me what I want to do with my life. Maybe I don’t intend to go back! Maybe I didn’t want to go to college in the first place!”
Silence descended on the kitchen again, though this time it was deafening. Zack decided he’d had enough. He jumped up, rattling the table. His mom grabbed his elbow, but he shook her off.
“I need air,” he offered as a catchall explanation.
The second Zack got outside, he put his hands on his knees and breathed deeply. It took him a few moments to get his temper under control. Once he did, his head slowly began to clear, and he realized that leaving in a fit of pique was likely not the most mature exit. He wiped his face with both hands. Of all the ways he’d hoped this dinner would go, storming out had not been high on the list.
“God,” he muttered to himself, “I’m such an idiot.”
“No arguments here,” said a light voice at his elbow.
Zack straightened up. “Bianca.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose you’re here to tell me Mom and Dad had a complete change of heart and want to apologize.”
“Not quite,” she replied. She was standing with her arms behind her back, looking out toward the street. “Dad is telling Uncle Robert everything that’s wrong with millennials, and Mom is aggressively clearing the table.”
Zack cursed under his breath. “I should have pretended to be sick. Dad even told me what was going to go down at this dinner, and I still didn’t have the sense to cancel.”
“Yeah,” Bianca agreed, “but there is a plus side.”
“What’s that?”
“I grabbed the wine on my way out.”
Bianca produced the bottle from behind her back and grinned impishly.
“You are the best sister ever.”
Bianca passed him the bottle, and Zack took a long swig from it before passing it back.
Bianca did the same and then tapped it thoughtfully with her fingernail. “You know our parents love you, right?”
“They have a funny way of showing it.”
“To be fair, you’re the one who lost your temper and stormed out like a moody teenager.”
Zack frowned, mostly because he couldn’t deny it. “Well, they should learn to leave me alone already. Clearly I’m a lost cause.”
“Look, you’re only twenty-one. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to do with your life. I agree that Mom and Dad need to realize that you’re not going to make a decision until you want to. But you’re going to have to forgive them for wanting to know what you’re up to. And for being stuck in the mind-set that going to college is the only path to a good life.”
“How the hell did my big sister get to be so smart?” Zack asked, ruffling her wavy hair affectionately. “It’s hard to believe we come from the same family sometimes.”
“Nah, you’re definitely my brother. Though sometimes I do wish you’d catch on a bit faster.”
Zack let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Is that right?”
“Of course. Don’t you remember when I was packing up to go to college? I kept emphasizing to you how great it was to attend school out of state and how many schools there were that were hundreds of miles from our parents. I never have to come up with excuses for missing Sunday dinner, because I can always just say I’m too busy to make such a long trip.”
“Damn,” Zack said, “and here I thought you were just bragging.”
“Like I said, if only you’d been a bit less slow on the uptake.” Bianca pulled her keys out of her purse. “Want a ride home?”
Zack considered it. “Yeah, if you don’t mind ducking out early.”
“I’d love to.” Bianca started toward her car and then stopped short. “Zack, about what you said inside . . .” She looked uneasy. “You know Mom and Dad don’t care that you’re gay, right? I mean, did you just say that because you were angry?”
Zack pressed his lips together and looked down. “I know they don’t care per se, but honestly, I think some part of them believes I’m only gay because I want to be difficult.”
Bianca’s expression was so sad, Zack couldn’t quite look at her. “You don’t mean that.”
“Think about it,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you asked them, ‘Why do you think Zack decided to come out?’ do you think they’ll say ‘Because that’s who he is’? Or do you think they’ll laugh and say, ‘Because nothing is easy with Zack’?”
Bianca looked up at the streetlights, a worried line etched between her brows. With her face half cast in shadow, she looked less like an adult and more like the uncertain little girl Zack remembered from his childhood.
“Come on,” she eventually said. “Let’s get you home.”