Apple Pie

I've recently re-read my short story collection, Alone With All These Men, that I wrote as part of my master of arts degree from the University of San Francisco. It's been a long time since I took a look at them and I think they hold up pretty well. This one was my favorite and it closed the collection. If you read closely, as with all my stories, you'll see a lot of what makes me in there...
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Apple Pie

“My God, Ralph. If you grip the steering wheel any harder you’re gonna break it in two.”

I relinquish my hold on the rental car, take a deep breath and manage a half smile at my boyfriend. “Oh. Sorry. Boston traffic makes me nervous.” We left our hotel on Cape Cod over two hours ago, and at this rate, with the sea of red brake lights ahead, it will take even longer to get in and out of the city. A two hour drive to my parent’s house is turning into an all day event.

“Try not to be so nervous.” Brian leans over and kisses my cheek. His hand absentmindedly massages my thigh. “Relax. It won’t be so bad. I love you, you know.”

I did know that—I had to know that—otherwise I wouldn’t be taking him to meet my parents. Brian and I have been together ten months. Two weeks ago, our relationship took a huge step. I moved in with him. Not even my psychic could’ve predicted that shopping at Safeway would change my life. 

“The Granny Smiths are way better,” Brian had said when he saw me picking a bunch of Macintoshes. “More sour.”

He was beautiful. What I like to call a thick man. If we were going apple picking I could climb him to reach the top of the tree. No ladder required. 

Even at our first meeting, I was a flip son of a bitch.. “My mother told me I should only use those to bake apple pies. If I make you one, I’ll be sure to buy them.”

“You have to have dinner with me, first. Then I’ll try your desserts.” 

He flashed a smile and winked—which caused me to topple the entire apple display. We made our first date while we chased rolling apples in the Safeway produce aisle. 

The traffic now is maddening. We’ve moved two inches in the last ten minutes. Despite having the air conditioning at full blast, I’m sweating.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Brian slaps my thigh. “Later. Not here.”

            I hold back a smile, remembering I got a different reaction when I swore as a kid. The first four letter word I said was in that song about Leroy Brown. He was bad, the baddest man in the whole (is it okay if I say this mom?) damn town. Seemed to me all those four letter words were off limits, even the one that started with ‘L’. I can’t pinpoint one single time that my mom and dad ever said it to each other.

            I tell Brian that my parents are like a quilt with two panels that don’t quite belong next to each other, but they’re stitched together anyway. Mismatched, too late to take apart. I realized when I was a kid they weren’t meant to be together, but no ten year old tells his parents that they should get a divorce. Even today, I try to imagine that they were once in love. You’d think over forty years of marriage would make two people comfortable enough to say that four letter word to each other.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of stitching holds me and Brian together. I’m waiting for the realization that we don’t belong together to hit me. Even though he never stops telling me how much he loves me, I can count the times I’ve told him on one hand. I stare at the cars ahead of us, willing them to speed up at my command. 

“Maybe visiting my folks was a bad idea.”

“Too late now, Einstein,” Brian says. “Besides. Who’s it bad for? Me or you?”

Us. Then I smile. “Oh look. We’re going a whole five miles an hour now.”

            He laughs. “All this anticipation is killing me. What’ll I say to your dad? ‘Hi sir, I’m the guy who’s fucking your son.’” 

            “Stop that.” I smack his hand and toss it off my leg. “You’ll be lucky if my dad even says ‘boo’.”

            “So I’ll say it to your mother then.”

“And she’ll say something like, ‘that’s okay, dear. As long as you love him.’” I burst out laughing at the image in front of my eyes.

            Times like this make Brian feel so right, and I tell myself he’s my reward for all those times I tried loving in the past. I’ve told him very little about the man who’d shattered my heart. All he knows is that I met him in the winter. I’ve never even said his name, though I referred to him once as Mr. December. It’s turned out to be a fitting nickname since that man is still the cause of the ice that forms over my heart. 

            It felt cold enough to snow when I’d met him in a bar right before Christmas.  I spent the night with him. In the morning he made me hot chocolate laced with amaretto and asked to see me again. I was hesitant to turn a one night stand into anything else, but he was persistent and four months later, he whispered that four letter word.

“Why are you laughing at that?” he asked me.

            “We’re having sex, that’s why.”

            He looked at me with the same intense stare that met my eyes across the bar. He sat up in the bed and pointed to the corner. “I can stand over there and tell you I love you from across the room.”

            I pulled him back on top of me, silencing him with my kiss. I didn’t want to hear another proclamation. Not another word. Not then. And not in bed. 

            But from that moment on, everything changed. I couldn’t get enough of him. Walking hand in hand, sitting on a blanket, licking chocolate frosting from his lips, munching on Fritos in the park and watching him breathe as he lay next to me, exhausted from our days together. Once, we went to Disneyland, and the crowds were uneasy seeing us walk with our fingers intertwined through the Magic Kingdom. I knew what they said. I could read their lips. I could read everything in their eyes. And, when he whispered those words again to me in the darkness of the Haunted Mansion, nothing else mattered. I wanted to crawl inside him and wrap his body around mine.

Then it started to fall apart. He grew distant. The more time I wanted to spend with him, the less he had to give me. For our one year anniversary, I bought plane tickets to Boston. That night, when he slept in my bed, I whispered “I love you.” In the morning—over breakfast—when he spoke, he sounded like a child who discovered there was no prize at the bottom of the cereal box.

“You should be careful what you whisper to people when you think they’re asleep.” He took the syrup from me. I watched it ooze over his blueberry pancakes.

It’s so ironic that the first time I whispered those same words to Brian we were in bed. He was asleep. His arm draped over my chest. I could feel his breath on my face. I’d woken up—just to be sure he was still lying beside me. Then I traced his expression with my finger. I closed my eyes, inhaled his scent, wanting to bottle it so I could keep it with me for the entire day. 

I was so afraid when I said those words that I could hardly hear them. I  sounded so timid and I repeated myself. I was trembling—remembering the last time.

Brian’s lips moved. “I heard you the first time, hunbun. Go to sleep.”

            I put my finger to his mouth. He parted his lips. I can still feel his warmth.

          

 

“How are your mom’s waffles?” Brian asks me.

“What?” I slam on the brakes as the car in front of me comes to an abrupt halt. “Her waffles?”

“I’m wondering what she’s going to make us for breakfast tomorrow.”

“You’re assuming that we’re going to be spending the night in that house.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Brian, are you nuts? My parents’ house?” I grip the steering wheel. “You want me to sleep in my parents’ house?”

“Us. I want us to sleep in your parents’ house. Jesus, you’re jittery. It’s your house too. You grew up there.”

“And you want us to have sex in my old room?”

“I didn’t say anything about having sex there.” He taps the dash. “Pay attention. Traffic’s moving.”

I shake my head. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.” Then I see Brian’s eyes dance. “Don’t even say it.”

Finally the cars start to accelerate and I maneuver the car over to the fast lane. For some reason I’m in a hurry. Brian’s humming to himself in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the dull industrial scenery. 

“My grandmother used to work in that old factory,” I point out.

“Which one?”

“The one with all the broken windows.”

I forget what my grandmother did in that old warehouse. I can still see her, and feel her arms around me. I adored suffocating in the rolls of her skin. She’d always tell me what to be when I grew up, tell me how to behave and act like a little man. Always pinching my cheek and leaning down to kiss me. If she had lived, I wonder if she would’ve told me what to do when someone falls out of love with you. 

Brian taps my shoulder. “Uh, honey. Speed limit’s only fifty-five.” I ease my foot off the gas. Two more miles. “These roads must be a bitch in the winter.”

“The winter?” My face gets flushed. “Why do you want to talk about the winter?”

Brian chuckles. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just an observation. Driving these streets with twenty inches of snow piled up on it must be a bitch. You do remember New England snowstorms, don’t you?”

            I snap. “That’s one reason I moved.”

“What is your problem, Ralph? If you’re gonna be this touchy before we even get to your folks, maybe I should take the car and go back to the hotel.”

“I’m not touchy.”

Brain talks through his teeth. “Whatever you say.”

“I just don’t like to be reminded of snow. That’s all.”

“I see.”

I exit the freeway and stop at the red light.

“What do you see?”

“I’m not a fool, Ralph. You’re thinking about that asshole.”

I’m silent.

“You get like this every time that fucker pops into your head. If you didn’t want to take me here, you could’ve said so.”

“Brian. No. That’s not what I’m thinking. Really.”

“Really.”

“It’s just that I haven’t been home in a few years. And-”      

“And I wasn’t the man you thought you’d be bringing home.”

Shit. This conversation can’t be happening. I concentrate on the road and turn down my old street.

Brian runs his hand across the back of my hair. “Did you ever stop to think that I’d never have met you if that fuck head was still around?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You never do.” His hand stops and he looks out the window. 

My voice is edgy. “I wasn’t thinking about him,” I lie. 

“Don’t bullshit me. I’m always right when you get snippy.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Yep.” Brian leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “I know you too well, babe. This visit better make the fact that I love you finally sink into that thick ass head of yours.”
            “I do not have a thick ass head.”

“Well, tight doesn’t describe anything about you either.” Brian messes my hair as I park the car.

“Brian?” He turns and stares into my eyes. Jesus. I can be such an idiot.

“What?”

“I-”

And then my mom is running down the drive. I shake my head. I’ve got the timing of a broken watch.

“I take it that’s your mom?”

“Oh, you’re too smart for me.”

“You got that right.”

Then Brian’s out of the car. “You must be Ralph’s mother. I’m Brian—the guy who’s—”

“Mom!” I slam the door and run over to her. “God, you look great.” 

My mother seems to have shrunk in the years since I’ve been in California. I hug her and she squeezes me with a strength that belies her tiny frame. I kiss her on the cheek. Her skin is still as soft as it was when I was a kid, she smells like rose water, and for a second, I’m ten years old again. 

“Mom. Mom. You can let go now. I have someone I want you to meet.”

My mom releases me and looks at my boyfriend. Brian towers over her, standing with his back straight, as though he were an MP on duty. In one quick second, I see the man who flirted with me over tumbling apples. Silently, I thank the Safeway produce clerk for stacking too many Macintoshes.

“Mom, this is Brian.”

“It’s a pleasure, Brian. I’ve heard so much about you.” 

Brian glances at me. “Have you?”

“Come inside. I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.” Mom turns to me. “I’ve made up your old room, Ralph. You are staying the night, aren’t you?”

“Well-we didn’t really plan on-”

Brian kicks my foot. “We’d love to stay Mrs.-”

“Francine.” Mom interrupts him. “None of this Mrs. stuff.”

“Okay. We’d love to stay, Francine.” Brian turns to me. “I stuck a suitcase in the trunk.”

My eyes widen. Brian winks at me.

“You know. Just in case.”

“Wonderful.” My mom takes Brian’s hand and leads him back to the house. “I hope you like my dessert. Ralph tells me you love apple pie.”

Brian leaves me to get the overnight bag in the car. “Only with Granny Smiths.” Brian takes his hand from my mom and places his arm around her waist. “So what else does your son tell you I love?”

I watch them walk up the drive. It’s almost like Gulliver leaning down to a Lilliputian. I unlock the trunk to get the mysterious overnight bag. Taped to the front is a note.

 

I told you we’d be staying. Kiss me later.

I lock the car and start walking up the path I used to run up and down so many times as a kid. The house needs a new coat of paint. It’s peeling white facade has seen too many Massachusetts seasons. It’s obvious the front yard is my dad’s latest hobby. There’s a new row of flowers along the side of the house. The bird bath in the center of the lawn has been replaced by a trickling fountain with an out of place Winged Victory replica in the center of it. I dip my hand in the water and splash the statue. My father has obviously been strangely inspired, but by what I can’t imagine. He must be getting old. 

The past winter must have been especially brutal for my father to repave the drive, and the walkway leading up to the front has a new layer of asphalt. Painting the house is bound to be the next project. I just knew if I lived here I’d be roped into helping with the labor.

I open the front door and stand in the foyer, staring back at the road. I’d stood in this very spot, watching for my grandparents so many times in the past, smelling the aromas from the kitchen permeating every room in the house. The garlic overpowering every other seasoning, just like today. I take a deep breath and taste all the dinners I ate in this house. Then I put the suitcase down and straighten the throw rug. The old, faded, varnished corner shelf that I made in shop class—in the shape of an oversized flower—is still hanging by the door. I place the car keys on the bottom level and walk into the kitchen.

“Where’s dad?” I ask my mom, who’s stirring a huge pot of spaghetti sauce that’s large and deep enough to feed the entire US Army. Her apron is tied too high across her waist and a sauce stained dish towel is draped over her shoulder. I look around the room. “Where’d Brian go?”

“Your dad’s taking a nap. Brian’s using the bathroom upstairs. I told him to check out your old room while he was up there.” She raises the wooden spoon to her mouth and tastes the sauce. She crinkles her nose and then reaches for the spice rack next to the stove. “He seems like a lovely man, Ralph. You are definitely in love.” 

“Am I?” I put my arms around her waist, give her a hug, and inhale her rose water scent.

She squeezes my hands, then taps a dash of basil into the pot. “I saw the way you looked at him before we went in the house.”

“And that tells you I’m in love.”

“Don’t answer me with that tone, Ralph.” She slaps my hands and wiggles out of my grip.

“What tone?”

“The one you always get when someone tells you what you already know.” She adds more olive oil to the sauce. “Besides, of all the men you’ve dated he’s the only one you’ve brought home. I was beginning to think you lied about being gay just so you’d get out of marrying Cynthia Girard.”

I grab the wooden spoon out of her hand and stir. “Why would I do that?”

“You two were such good friends.”

“Mom, we went to grammar school together.”

“And high school. I just loved her parents.” She wipes her hands on the towel. “You two used to pretend you were husband and wife, remember?”

I take the dishrag off her shoulder and throw it on the counter. “I swear this thing has been over your shoulder for thirty years.”

“Don’t change the subject. I’m just joking. I got over the no daughter-in-law thing a long time ago. You could’ve brought anyone home and I’d love them just as much.” She reaches for the oregano.

“Yeah, but dad’s a different story.”

“Your father’s not bad, Ralph. It took him forever to introduce me to papa and grandma. He was so stubborn. Just like you.”

“I’m hardly like dad.”

“Neither one of you does a thing unless someone kicks you in the ass.” She pinches some seasoning between her fingers and then adds it to the sauce. “I need one more good storm and he’ll paint the house.”

“Well you should be used to him after all these years.” I hold my hand underneath the spoon as I raise it to my mouth.

“I may be used to it, but it doesn’t mean I like it.”

“But you like him so you put up with it.” I slurp the sauce from the spoon.

“Love makes people put up with a lot of things.”

“Love? You and Dad?” The sauce is hot and I wave my hand in front of my mouth. “I thought you two stopped loving each other years ago.”

Mom grabs the spoon from me and wipes it on her apron. “And what makes you think that?”

“You never talk! You never do anything together.” I reach for a glass, run the tap water and take a sip. “All he does is sleep. You cook. He goes to work. You stay home.”

“So that means I don’t love your father?”

“I don’t exactly hear love chimes whenever you two are together.” I open the silverware drawer and grab another spoon. My mother snatches it out of my hand.

“Maybe our idea of love is a bit different from yours.” She puts the spoon I took back in the drawer, covers the pot, and places the wooden spoon on the stove.

“Maybe it is,” I whisper sarcastically.

Mom pinches my arm. “You’re not too old for me to spank.”

“Punishment.” I laugh, kissing her cheek. “Are you going to send me to my room?”

“No. You’d have too much fun in there with Brian.”

“Mom!”

My mother laughs. “Mom, what? You think I’m a prude, Ralph?”

“No. No. I just...”

She wipes her hands on her sauce stained apron. “I may be your mother, honey, but I do have a life beyond this kitchen.”

“I’m going to go see what’s keeping Brian.”

“Dinner’s in an hour.”

“And what does that mean?”

She laughs and reaches for the towel on the counter. “It means dinner’s in an hour.” She slaps my butt with the spoon. “What did you think I meant?”

I can feel the heat in my cheeks. “Nothing.”

Mom dips her finger into the sauce and speaks into the pot. “I thought so.”            Shit. Someone stole my mother and left me with an impostor.

I walk past my parent’s room and hear my dad snoring. Any louder and I’d need headphones. At least some things haven’t changed. The door to my room is closed and I open it a crack. Brian’s looking at all my monster models lining the shelves. The Wolfman. Dracula. Frankenstein. King Kong, with the beauty lying at his feet because I put too much glue in his hand that she never fit. Brian picks her up and then stops when he sees the poster of the NHL logos. No doubt he’s wondering how that got in here. 

Then he pulls my high school year book off the shelf and sits on the bed. I watch him as he reads all the autographs on the inside cover. He starts leafing through the pages. I push the door open further and he looks up and smiles, his finger on my old face.

“You look like such a faggy geek in this picture. Glad you improved with age.”

“Just like a fine wine.”

“Yeah. One that’s on sale and bitter.”

I grab the book out of his hand. “What is this? Have you and my mom been secretly planning to gang up on me today?”

            “Oh shut up and sit down.” Brian grabs my hand and pulls me next to him. He intertwines his fingers with mine.

            We sit saying nothing, and I can hear my mom downstairs in the kitchen. My dad’s snoring has stopped. Brian leans over and kisses me lightly on the lips. Then he pulls back and looks at me. He smiles, and I see what’s reflected in his eyes. The image of my expression takes me by surprise. I can hear the silence between us.

            Brian’s eyes search my face and suddenly I want him to discover how much I want him and need him. And love him. I grip his hands tighter, close my eyes and feel his entire body with only the touch of his fingers. I don’t want to wait for one more storm.

            “We’d better get down to dinner,” he says.

            I lean in to kiss him. “Dinner’s not for a whole hour.”

***

            The aroma of apple pie sails to the top of the house. I smooth the back of Brian’s hair and straighten his shirt. I make a quick stop in the upstairs bathroom and check myself in the mirror.

            We stop just outside the dining room. My dad is sitting at the table. My mom’s arranging the silverware. The two of them look as if they haven’t changed places since I was in grammar school. My mom moves a dish in front of him and for a second, I think I see his fingers brush her arm when she moves away.

            I look at Brian, hold his hand in mine and walk into the room.