Chapter Fourteen - Maddie
As we exit the elevator, I’m terrified. Because this feels…not at all terrifying.
Tyler next to me, heading to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family, feels as familiar and normal as anything in the world. Because, in a way, it is. It’s not the first time Tyler and I have had dinner with my folks. But it is the first time we’ve done it since Scotty died. And it’s obviously the first time we’ve done it since we’ve become… whatever the hell we are.
And that’s what’s scary. Because with all the unknowns, there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen. And I know there’s never any way to predict what’s going to happen in life. I know that. But the good thing about everything being shitty and broken is that then you can believe that whatever’s waiting to happen will be a good thing. Will lift you up. When everything’s going OK, the uncertainty of the future tends to come in the form of the good things being burned to the ground.
It takes a really long, hard time to build something up. And almost no time at all to tear it down. Just ask the guys who built the World Trade Center.
This is a pretty morose thought to be having right now, but I’ve got to protect myself. This day will end, my parents will leave again, and who the hell knows what will happen with Tyler. He’s still totally Tyler. Which means unstable. And unpredictable. And as uncertain as an uncertain future can be. And I have to guard my heart. I don’t want to. But I have to. Because I won’t be broken again. I won’t let it happen. I’ve had enough tragedy and heartbreak for this lifetime.
And then, of course, there’s Carlos. Which is its own special brand of anxiety. Yeah, the climb continues. No resting yet. I’m nowhere near the top.
Mom and Dad are sitting in the lobby, near the restaurant, waiting. As we approach, Dad says, “We were getting worried maybe you got lost in that suite!” He and Mom and Tyler all give a hearty laugh. I give a half-hearted one. I still just don’t wanna risk having to talk about me and Tyler.
Mom sees what I’m wearing—one of her wrap dresses; a black one with pretty flowers on it—and gushes, “Oh, honey. That looks fabulous on you. You should keep that. It looks better on you than it does on me! Why don’t you go through and see if there’s anything else that would look good on you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I saw a couple of things…” Tyler says, with a shit-eating grin on his face. I swear to God, I will punch him in the dick.
“Nonsense!” Dad says. “George, you look amazing in that dress. Why don’t we just take Maddie shopping tomorrow and get her some stuff? Black Friday!”
I feel like I’m gonna cry, and it’s totally unexpected. But my folks wanna take me shopping. For clothes and shit. Which I don’t really care about in and of itself, but they want to take care of me. And suddenly I start thinking…what’s wrong with that? Why not let them? Why not just tell them what’s going on (or at least as much of it as I think they can stomach) and get their help? They’re my family after all. They love me. They want to help me. What’s all this pride about anyway? It hasn’t done shit but jam me up.
That’s right, Maddie.
Fuck. What is that?
It’s me. The angel.
Oh, Jesus. Are you still here?
Yep, bitch, and I am too. You can’t get rid of us that easy.
Fucking hell. Why now?
Maddie, the angel says, Yes. Let them help you. There’s no shame in it.
Sure, you fucking quitter. Let somebody else bail you out, says the devil.
This is confusing. I figured the devil would be all like, ‘Yeah, fuck them, get what you can, take what’s yours, etc.’
That’s not my job. My job is to argue with the angel. Point-counterpoint. Basically, I’m just here to make sure you don’t turn into a total fucking dishrag. And if you take shit from people, you owe them. You wanna be indebted to your mommy and daddy? You’re twenty-five, bitch! Fuck is wrong with you?
They are family. Family is there for each other, says the angel.
Yeah? Satan and God were family once too, and look how that turned out.
That doesn’t even—
Fuck you! It makes sense!
I don’t need this shit right now.
“Everybody ready to eat?” Mom says, jolting me back into the present.
We all nod a ‘yes’ and are just about to head into the restaurant when from behind us, I hear…
“Georgina? Simon?” We all turn to see a man approaching from across the lobby. He’s wearing a kind of ill-fitting suit with a Mandalay Bay nametag on it that says “Jack.” The Four Seasons doesn’t have a casino in it, but it connects to Mandalay, which most certainly does. Jack is one of the pit bosses there. I know because I know him. Or used to anyway.
Jack Morgan.
Tyler’s dad.
He reaches the four of us, walks right past me and Tyler and straight up to Mom and Dad. I look at Tyler to see if I can get any read off him at all.
Nothing. His eyes are dead. All the light is gone.
“What’s up you guys?” Jack wheezes, wrapping them in a hug. Mom, in particular, cringes. “Whatcha doing in town? You’re not still in Monaco?”
“Oh, yeah, we are,” Dad says. He kind of steps in between Jack and Mom. Jack Morgan was well known to have tried lots of inappropriate things in inappropriate ways with many women. Oftentimes the mothers of his sons’ friends. To the best of my knowledge, nothing ever happened with Jack and my mom, but there were some whispered stories that maybe something almost did. A couple of times. “But,” Dad continues, “we’re just in for a few days for Thanksgiving to see, uh—” He nods in my direction.
Again, I look at Tyler. Again, nothing.
“To see…?” Jack echoes as he turns and sees me and Tyler standing there. And suddenly, there is recognition in his eyes. “Oh. My. God. Is that Maddie?”
He grabs me in a hug and I can smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. Not new cigarette smoke. Years of cigarette smoke. I gag a little. Which is entirely to do with the hug and not at all to do with the smoke.
“Jesus, look at you,” he says, backing up to take me in. “Wow. I ain’t seen you in, hell, must be, what? Ten? Years?”
“Um, probably more like twelve,” I say. “At least.”
“Ho-ly cow. Ain’t that something. Look. At. You. Look just like your mother, which is a compliment! Believe me!”
The light in the usually sunny lobby seems to have almost all but disappeared.
“So you’re all staying at the Four Seasons? Well, ain’t you in high cotton?”
I don’t even really know what that means.
It is notable to everyone present that he hasn’t yet acknowledged Tyler.
And then… He does.
Kind of.
“Hey, I’m sorry, man,” he says to Tyler. “Jack Morgan. How ya doing?”
He sticks his hand out to Tyler for a shake.
Time stops.
Jack’s hand just hangs there in the space between him and Tyler. Tyler stares down at it, still not moving, his eyes still dead. I can see Mom fading further and further back from the scene. She’s almost at the wall. And Dad is fidgeting, clearly debating whether he should turn on his politician smile and make a joke, or just let this play out on its own.
For my part, I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to take Tyler’s hand, tell Jack that this is Ford Aston, a guy I’m dating, and make it go away like that, so we can (maybe) joke about it later. But not only is that stupid, if I do that Mom may remember the phone call we had a few weeks back when I told her a story about a soldier that I was seeing whose name I refused to give her, and start putting two and two together.
Another part of me wants to grab Tyler and run. Again, stupid.
And another part wants, for reasons I cannot even begin to understand much less explain, to help Tyler beat the shit out of his dad here in the lobby of the Four Seasons.
None of these seem like any good will come of them, so I do. Fucking. Nothing.
Finally, Tyler takes Jack’s hand, shakes it slowly, and says, “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good, good,” says Jack. Then, “Sorry. Didn’t catch your name, chief…?”
I know that I don’t, but for a second I swear I can hear a clap of thunder somewhere in the great, wide distance.
I see the place on Tyler’s cheek where his upper and lower jaw connects tensing and releasing. It looks the way a fish’s gills do when you pull it out of the water and it’s gasping to stay alive.
“My name?” Tyler asks.
I swallow.
“Yeah! I didn’t catch it.”
Tyler blinks. Once. Slowly. “I’ll give you a hint,” he says.
Jack’s brow furrows and he snorts out a laugh. “OK,” he says.
“OK,” Tyler says. And then, still holding Jack’s hand, he draws him in close. Tyler’s a good five inches taller than his dad, so he has to lean down to put his mouth next to Jack’s ear. Which he does. And I hear him whisper… “I’m your son.”
Unconsciously, I hug myself around the waist, like I’ve been kicked.
Jack’s eyes narrow and then widen, and he says, “Tyler?”
“You got another kid you need to tell me about?” Tyler says.
“I—Jesus. Tyler. What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you was…”
“Yeah? Thought I was what? Please. I’m curious to know.”
This is awful.
“I didn’t—uh…” Jack stammers.
I notice that Tyler still grips his father’s hand. His father’s hand that looks like it’s being crushed. Tyler hasn’t moved otherwise. Or blinked. Or breathed, I’m pretty sure.
Suddenly Jack lifts his free hand to the ear piece he’s wearing.
“Uh, yeah, yeah, this is Jack. What’s that? Oh, yeah? OK, I’ll be right there.”
It’s a pretty lousy performance.
“Guys, I’m sorry, I, uh—” Jack mutters out. “I, uh, shit, it’s so good to see ya, but I gotta, dammit…”
He wrenches his hand free from Tyler’s grip, which is not easy and looks painful, and continues his bullshit.
“I wish I had known you was…I’m sorry I gotta…but somebody’s…” He goes on like that as he scurries across the lobby and out of sight. It doesn’t really matter what he’s saying, so none of us try to say anything back.
Mom is so close to the wall she could be wallpaper. Dad is a lost satellite, trying to figure out if he should go to Mom or come over to Tyler or what.
I stand as close to Tyler as I can, letting my fingers touch his. He makes no attempt to take my hand. Just continues to stare ahead, unmoving.
“Tyler…” I say.
He doesn’t look at me or shift his eyes in any direction, in fact. He just takes a step forward, says, “Sorry, guys. Please have a good Thanksgiving,” and with four long, purposeful strides, he’s out of the lobby, onto the street, and out of sight.
Halloween night, when I found out the guy I’d been having sex with was Tyler, I was… knocked into another dimension. Pulled completely out of my body and thrown to the wind. This isn’t like that. Now I’m hyper-aware. Because this has nothing to do with me. And yet, in my gut, it feels as though it does. I’m in suspended animation.
It’s a perverse scene with Dad trying to figure out what he should do to help, Mom hiding in the corner, trying to disappear, and me stuck in a space between going after Tyler, staying here, or closing my eyes and hoping to make time spin backwards a decade or so.
People buzz by, coming in and out of the lobby, smiling and patting each other on the back, puttering along, happily lost in their own worries and concerns. And we. Are. Statues.
And suddenly the devil appears on my shoulder and says, Gee whiz. Know what? I was wrong. Family’s fucking hilarious.