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Samantha
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SHE TIPTOED UP the stairs and into the darkened kitchen.
Her parents thought they were so sly with the sexing. Every Saturday, after Dad got home from golfing they’d wait until the kids went to bed, then they’d shut their door and lock it.
Jamie liked to joke that her parents only had sex once, just to make her special. Har. Har. But Samantha had seen so many nature shows she couldn’t even kid herself. In fact, it had recently become quite handy, this Saturday night business. It had become her “meat night” when she could scour the fridge for random samplings, enough to slake her cravings but not so much that anyone would notice. Unfortunately, the only meat in the house tonight besides frozen deer was one ragged slice of roast beef. Samantha stashed the deli bag under her t-shirt, gingerly closed the fridge door and slipped quietly downstairs. She opened the sliding glass door to the backyard, walked out to the patio, and sat down on an iron chair, the mesh chilling her thighs. The night sky was clear. The air smelled green and peppery like geraniums.
Samantha unfolded the bag. What was she going to do with the evidence? She couldn’t bring herself to flush it. But leaving it in any of the trash bins might get it noticed and then the puckhead would guess who took the last slice and boy would he be proud of himself. No, she would take the bag to school and trash it before she met up with Jamie.
She looked to the stars, dangled the slice above her mouth, and slowly lowered it.
Sweet, sweet meat.
The kind that gets stuck in your teeth.
What a treat. Meat.
“I’m sorry cow,” she said to Orion. “And I thank you.”
Behind her, the sliding glass door hissed.
“Sam, what are you doing still up?” came mom’s soft voice.
“Hmmm?” Samantha wiped the grease from her lips with the back of her hand. Her tongue rapidly scoured her teeth. “Just stargazing.”
“Thought I heard someone in the kitchen.” Mom and Chuck walked over. She sat down on the glider and he loped off to pee in the new hostas unfurling along the fence. “Wondered if we could talk for a few minutes.”
“Oh! Sure. Yeah.” Frak.
“I feel like you’re holding onto something.
—Double frak—
I mean, not that I need to know every little thing, but you’re skulking around like a thief these days.”
Samantha leaked a muffled chirp with a shrug.
“I think I know what it is.” Mom stared up to the sky and then leveled her eyes back on her daughter. She looked kind of severe in the mostly dark.
“Awww, Mom, I’m such a fraud.”
“What? Sweety you could never be that.” Mom kept her voice low, glancing at the neighboring windows. “I only want to know that you and Zev, and you Jamie are being—safe.”
“Huh? Mom.” Then Samantha hushed her voice too. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a lesbian? I only like Zev.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll never mention it again.” Mom chuckled and drew her fingers across her chest in an X as if that were somehow holy. “But you and Zev need to be safe.”
“Of course, Mom. We’ve only kissed.”
Mom squinted at her but Samantha had nothing to hide—when it came to Zev.
“Wait, what makes you a fraud then?”
Down the alley a basketball hit a backboard and then came the rubber splash of dribbling. Again, the basketball hit the backboard and the hoop twanged.
Samantha pulled the waxed-paper deli bag out from under her thigh.
Mom bit back a smile. “Wow, roast beef.” She held out her hand and Samantha tossed her the bag. Mom balled it up in her fist and tucked it in her robe pocket. “That’s like, the heroin of meat.” Her eyebrows danced.
“It’s not funny. I feel terrible.”
“Your grandmother could be right. You may be anemic. Think I’ll schedule your physical earlier this year.” Mom dangled her legs off the glider and pushed it back and forth with her toes. “Blood will spill, Sam. It spills every day. With or without you.”
“I don’t want to be complicit. All the mechanized slaughter? All those lives started—and then stopped?” Samantha held herself. “This world is just madness sometimes.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom patted the glider. Samantha came over and sat down, leaned into the terrycloth robe and her mother’s breast. Mom draped an arm around her. She smelled like home, would always smell like home. “It’s beautiful too sometimes. The best thing going. You know, your dad and I spend a fortune buying only organic stuff for you.”
“I know. But it’s not enough. Once you learn about animals and how they think, it starts looking like a holocaust.”
“God, you sound like me at your age. I like how you remind me of the ideals I forgot. Maybe it’s time we all ate less of it.” Mom’s head lolled back so she could see the top of the sky. “Yunno, you don’t have to be exactly like Jamie to show solidarity. Is she pressuring you—to go full vegan?”
“No. Not really. Well, maybe.” All those stars, so far gone in space and time, made tracers with the motion of the glider. “Didn’t Lucy pressure you to try new things?”
“Sure.” Mom looked away. The glider slowed. “Everyone shapes us, I guess.”
It was probably time to tell Mom about the blog, but she just couldn’t find the words. She sensed it would change everything between everybody. They sat silent for a while. The basketball player had stopped. A few blocks down a small dog was yipping. Chuck stopped sniffing around and grumbled.
“You know how people who wear glasses look sorta bleak when they take them off?” Samantha asked. “Lucy kinda looks like that.” She set her mother with a casual stare. “Except when she’s around you.”
Mom drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. She surveyed the yard like a queen appraising her queendom. “Luce and I had a special bond. Like you and Jamie.”
“Kinda, but not quite. Like more, right?” Samantha crossed her arms. “Jamie’s dad told her that Lucy once sang for you up on the Leap.”
“Yeah, it was totally embarrassing.” Mom laughed easy and low. “I loved it. And then I hated it.”
“And did you love her?”
Mom’s nose wrinkled. “I was too young to understand that stuff.”
“I understand love. You were my age.”
A tiny gust parted her mother’s lips. She shook her head as if somehow she was surprised by this. “Yeah. I did. I really did.”
“I’m sorry she’s letting you down.”
“She’s letting us all down, Sam.”
“But mostly herself.”
“Mmm.”
B L O G G I N G M Y S O J O U R N
One Woman’s Journey from Gay to Straight
Got back from the Family First Expo yesterday. Hoped I’d return to more business on the horizon but, apparently, one must have the patience of a sloth in heat to run a Bed and Breakfast. We have guests trickling in and exactly one reservation for a month from now. Anyway, I met lots of well-meaning people, scored a huge bag of swag: pencils with Bible verses, clappers for Jesus, sunset-filled bookmarks, CDs of inspirational rock that’s actually well-produced, etc.
In the trash it goes.
What they have done to us, the young ones in particular, I cannot forgive. I can almost forgive those people who tried to erase me from their lives back when it was the norm, but to know it’s still going on decades later?
Sorry, not sorry.
I mean, hell, what else is there to do around here? Repent? Please. If there’s any praying to be done, it’s to pray that I still have the courage to pull this off the right way.
I think the town may have a betting pool on when I’m going to jump from this bluff. Honestly, I have never felt more alive. I don’t get depressed in the traditional sense. Sure, I’ve been abused, taken drugs, been robbed of my hormones. But none of those things cracked my core. And my core runs hot. I’m not going to drop off a cliff like some cold stone. I’m going to burn out in the sun’s corona.
Anyone who truly knows me knows that. I thought Vicky knew me but she is no longer mine to hope for. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is anyone else who truly knows me. I’ve never been sure how to reveal myself to others but through art and mirrors and acting out.
So I think it’s more disappointment than depression actually. Yeah, I’m existentially disappointed that people haven’t lived up to their worth.
Praise Jesus?
Posted by Liesl ~ 3:00 PM ~ 2 comments
Patrice commented:
t’s all I can do to keep reading this blog.
Rolf68 commented:
And yet here you are.
You’re waking up, Liesl. Rub your eyes some more. And get back on the carousel. Have you lived up to what you could have been to Vicky and her family? Her friends?