“If anyone is going to produce Mondragon babies,” he said, at length, “it’ll have to be you,
hermano.
It isn’t going to be me.” He paused, flicked an ash. “I’m gay.”
Michael felt the air whoosh out of him. He looked straight ahead and rode out the news, his emotions rising and falling with the hills. He heard the words
I’m gay
again, but couldn’t grasp them. Not Bobby. Not a Mondragon.
Yet, from somewhere deep in his mind, he had to admit that he wasn’t really shocked. He’d always wondered about Bobby, but wrote it off in his mind. Bobby was eccentric. Bobby had style, good taste, culture. So what if he was thirty-one and didn’t have a girlfriend? He just wasn’t sexual. Better asexual than homosexual. Everyone in the family thought this, hinted at this, but dared not voice it directly. Such things were not discussed. Secrets, especially important ones, were best held close.
Michael’s mind felt numb as the miles passed uncomfortably in his silence. He kept thinking of how he’d missed all the signs. Bobby’s mannerisms, the tone of his voice, his having a lot of friends who were girls, but no girlfriends. He was careful with his dress but never flamboyant. His father had noticed this, too. He used to laugh at Bobby’s double breasted suits, his fine leather shoes, his attention to detail. What did Papa call him? A man-about-town? But always with a hint of pride in his voice, that his son was so good looking. A Mexican man showing the gringos how it’s done. Papa especially liked the scarf tied around Bobby’s neck. Thought it was Mexican. Such fools they were. The scarf was not a bandanna. It was Hermés.
“Does Papa know?”
“What do you think?” He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Haven’t you noticed that Papa and I are—” Bobby searched for the word “—incommunicado?”
Michael nodded and cleared his throat. “Sure,” he replied uneasily. “He’s never easy to get along with. I figured that he’s still angry at you for not taking over the business.”
“Oh, yeah, he was,” Bobby replied, his sarcasm unable to disguise the depth of his bitterness. “Still is…especially since you took off, too. It’s sad.” A long drag on his cigarette. “Papa and I used to be so close. Once he was proud of my murals, especially the ones about Mexican culture. When he used to point them out to his friends, it made me feel proud, you know? Like what I did had value. Even if it wasn’t the family business.” He shrugged. “I guess he thought that I’d just give the murals up as I grew older. Like my painting was just some little boyhood hobby.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“What? About being gay? Jesus, I told you I was gay, not nuts.”
“He should know. It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
Bobby burst out laughing. “
Esse,
you think I don’t tell him because I’m ashamed of being gay? Who is being naive here?” His dark eyes were scornful. “I’m gay. It’s who I am. I have no problem with that. But Papa?” His expression turned bitter and his eyes glittered with scorn.
“You grew up in the same house I did. What do you think would happen if I told him?”
“I can’t even guess.”
“Well I can. First off, he wouldn’t believe me. He wouldn’t even hear the words. And even if he did, well, he’d probably beat me to a pulp. To get the demon out.”
“I wouldn’t let him beat you.” Michael ground out the words.
“God damn it, Miguel,” Bobby shouted back. “I don’t want you fighting my battles anymore. I’m a man, too. I don’t need you to defend me to my own father!” The car swerved a bit, chewed some gravel, then settled back on the pavement.
“Take it easy…”
Bobby’s face was red and he was breathing hard. He took a minute to gather his emotions, then said in a quiet, steady voice,
“I don’t want you to tell him.”
“All right. I won’t.”
“Swear it.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
“Promise.”
Michael sighed and leaned his head back. “
Sí
, Roberto.
Yo te promiso.
” He paused and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s your decision. It’s just a damn shame that you can’t talk to your own father.”
“When could we ever?”
Bobby made the usual exit off the highway. When they hit the back roads, he reached into his pocket and pulled out another of those thick black cigarettes he favored.
“Does Mama know?” Michael asked more softly.
Bobby looked haunted but merely lifted his shoulders.
“We never spoke about it, of course. But when the family gathers for Sunday dinners, birthdays, saints days, whatever, she doesn’t ask me about my girlfriends anymore. She suspects but will never pry. She’s afraid of the truth. No, little brother. She won’t ask.
Mamacita
only wants to know if I’m going to church. To confession.” He let out a short laugh.
Michael refused to see the humor.
“They pushed the truth down so deep that they never had to deal with it. Or accept it. It’s easier to tell themselves that I’m a crazy, good for nothing artist with an artist’s ways.”
“Roberto…”
“No, I mean it. They’ve never come to visit my apartment. Not once.” He lit another cigarette in precise, angry movements. After a long drag he exhaled a steady stream. “It’s a nice place, too. I have good windows.”
Michael knew that Bobby was struggling to make this easier for both of them. He felt ashamed, like he’d let his brother down. He should have been here, to protect him, as he always had. He wondered what Bobby had to go through during the past years while he was gone. Was he discriminated against? Mocked? Or worse? He’d heard about gay bashing.
He looked over again at Bobby staring out through the windshield. His face, like his secrets, was masked. Michael felt a rush of compassion and affection. Bobby was his brother. He’d go visit his brother’s apartment, he decided. Meet his friends. See his windows.
When they arrived at the nursery Bobby turned his head around and met his gaze, almost reading his thoughts. His troubled expression lessened, and his frown shifted into a crooked smile. Then, in the same manner of their father, Bobby leaned over to wrap an arm around his shoulder in a typical, masculine embrace.
Michael flinched. It all happened in mere seconds. A simple reflex. An involuntary movement. One flinch, but they’d both felt it. Bobby drew back, his face ashen as though he’d just been slapped.
Michael wanted to take it back. He hadn’t meant it.
“Bobby…” he said, reaching out to him as Bobby retreated, opening the car door. He grabbed his shoulder.
Bobby shrugged him off. “I’m sorry if I repulse you.”
Michael raised his empty hand to his forehead and rubbed hard, cursing his own stupidity.
“Bobby!” he called as he leaped from the car, slamming the door and running after him.
“Leave me alone,” Bobby snarled back, waving him away.
“God damn it, wait,” Michael shouted, hot on his heels. When he didn’t slow down, Michael reached out and grabbed Bobby’s arm, spinning him around. Bobby’s eyes glowed with anger, his jaw was locked with hostility.
“What the hell did you expect?” Michael ground out, anger flaring. “You dump a load like that on me and expect me to smile and say, ‘Oh great. You’re gay. Let’s go get a beer’?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Bullshit. You knew that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Yeah, right again. I did. More’s the pity. Call me an optimist, but I’d hoped you’d be sympathetic. I didn’t know you were so fucking homophobic.”
Michael looked at his shoes, ashamed. Looking back up, he saw the hurt in Bobby’s eyes more than the anger. “I’m not afraid. I’m just a guy who wasn’t ready to hear all that from his brother.”
Bobby looked at him with a strained expression, as though he wanted to argue the point. He pressed his fingers to his lips, eyes squinting, then simply shook his head.
“Well, I’m just a guy who happens to be gay. It’s your problem how to deal with being my brother. Not mine.” Then he whirled around and walked away down the gravel path, disappearing into the darkness.
C
harlotte woke up two days later to discover Michael Mondragon pacing the width of the lot outside her bedroom window. She was peeking out at the day’s weather when her hand froze on the curtain. She gasped and the lace fell back across the window. She told herself it didn’t matter what she wore, but she tossed away two dresses before she chose the simple mint green sheath, slipped into sandals, splashed her face with cold water and hurried out to meet him.
Michael smiled when he saw her, thinking the day just turned sunnier. She was a vision with her pale blond hair caught in the wind and her long, slender legs looking like they went on forever under that short summer dress. She took long, graceful strides across the lot. When she drew near, he was moved by the eagerness in her eyes.
“Hello,” she said with a tilting glance, her hand smoothing her hair in the breeze. “You can’t be finished with your drawings already?”
On another woman it might have been a coquettish gesture, but there was nothing intentionally come-hither about Charlotte.
“I am. Time was of the essence, since you’re leaving in a few weeks. I should have called, but I spent most of the night finishing them and drove out here at first light. I doubted you were up that early this morning.”
“Just woke up now, as a matter of fact.”
He tucked his hands behind his back and stood erect, holding back his enthusiasm. His thick dark brows had a way of angling down to his straight nose in a serious, almost scowling manner. It made his boyish excitement all the more endearing.
“Well, let me see them. I’m dying of curiosity.”
He began to unroll the designs, but the wind tugged at the thin sheets of paper.
“This won’t do,” she called out, chasing after one and catching it midair. “Let’s go inside. I’m desperate for a cup of coffee, anyway. How about you?”
“You’re an angel of mercy.”
“How do you like it?”
“Strong and black, please.”
Of course, she thought to herself, glancing back. His lush black hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail again today. Thanking her stars that she’d scoured away Melanie’s lasagna mess last night, she led him to the kitchen, where he spread out the designs for her on the hardwood table, using utensils as weights. The sugar bowl rested on the magnolia tree, a fork lined a row of rhododendrons, a spoon rested on the perennial bed, and a salt shaker held down a few Australian pines. Charlotte slipped down into the chair, her chin in her palm only a few inches above the wood, staring like a child at a picture book story.
The blue ink transformed the blocky terrain of her lot into a rounding, graceful living space filled with flowering bushes, a few well chosen trees and swirls of perennial beds, ground covers and tiered annual beds.
“It’s more than you asked for, so don’t get worried. I like to get a picture in my mind of what can be done, then we can pare down together what you want and can afford. It’s not a hard sell, believe me. It’s only to give you choices.”
“Who said I was worried? I’m just speechless. It’s hard to believe it’s the same lot. It’s…wonderful.”
His eyes sparkled in pleasure. “It’s all about using space to its maximum. People don’t need a lot of land to feel like they’ve got a beautiful place to come home to.”
She’d always wanted a beautiful place to come home to. “What’s this one?” she asked, leafing through the several drawings and pulling out one that included sketches for the house.
“You weren’t supposed to see that one,” he said, pulling the design sheet out of the pile.
“Please let me. I’d like to see your ideas for the house.” She shrugged. “Even if it’s way beyond the possibility.”
He traced his long index finger around the blue lines that extended the house’s left side to encircle the tile patio facing the cliff. The skin under his rolled up, long sleeved white shirt was deeply tanned and marked by tiny crisscrossed scratches from vines or maybe roses.
“I couldn’t help myself. It’s so painfully obvious to me what this house needs.” He swept his fingers across the design, as though sweeping away the fantasy. “I know it’s a rental, but I wanted to draw it out for my own pleasure. It’s been a while since I’ve done an architectural drawing.”
It was clear that the house, not the garden, held his heart. “Why did you leave architecture?” she asked.
His face clouded, and he placed another garden design over the house design. “I didn’t. I’m working at the nursery for a short time to help the family.” He paused, then added in a quieter, slightly troubled voice, “Sometimes, family needs take priority.”
She felt more attracted to him for his loyalty to his family and his reticence to talk about his personal life. Michael Mondragon had a quiet reserve that she resonated to.
“Do you build houses?”
“I can,” he replied easily. “But I prefer skyscrapers. To build something that literally scrapes at the clouds is thrilling.”
“From the earth to the sky. That’s quite a leap.”
He smiled then, thinking in an odd way that this girl understood. Looking at the design, he asked, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’ve just made a leap into movies. No mean feat that.”
“If you only knew,” she muttered, playing at a corner of the paper. “I’ve been very lucky. I always wanted to act but never believed I’d actually get the chance.” When he looked at her quizzically, she added, “Let’s just say I was a gawky child.”
He laid down his pencil and sat down beside her. “Beautiful women always say that. How ugly they were as children. Why is that? It strikes me as a little phony sounding.” He leaned back in his chair. “I can’t believe you were ever ugly. I’ll bet you came out of the womb perfect.”
Charlotte forced a smile on her face and turned her head. Inside her stomach, the coffee burned. “Believe me, I was ugly.”
He seemed skeptical. “The ugly duckling turned into a swan story.”
“Something like that.” She swung her head around, her eyes defiant. “Why is that so difficult to believe? You tell me you can make that ugly space of land out there turn into this beautiful garden and expect me to believe you.”
He held out his hands in surrender. “You win. I believe you were an ugly child.”
Hearing the words took her breath away. She wanted suddenly to be honest with him, to say, “Yes, that’s right,” then tell him all about the teasing, the cruelties. The surgery. Maybe, too, how she’d met him once before. In the elevator. She was that ugly girl—did he even remember her?
Impossible, she thought. He could never know that. He’d think she was some kind of freak. She’d made her decision back in Chicago. Charlotte Godowski was gone. She was Charlotte Godfrey now. Charlotte Godfrey was the woman Michael Mondragon knew. Pushing the shy, embarrassed girl deep down inside of herself, Charlotte focused on the garden designs on the table.
“I’d like the magnolia near my bedroom, so I can see the blooms. My mother loved magnolias.”
Resting his palm on the table, he leaned again to quickly alter the design, moving a tree with a few sharp strokes of his pencil. Her stomach fluttered as his shirt breezed against her cheek.
“Done. And I think you should definitely do the annuals. Here…and here.”
His closeness was suffocating. She couldn’t believe that he didn’t feel the intensity that their nearness provoked.
“You make it look so easy. I can’t even draw a straight line.”
“I owe it all to the nuns and the Palmer Method of Handwriting.”
She laughed, remembering the Palmer Method herself. “Row after row of loops.”
“Where did you grow up?”
Her laughter faded and she sat back in her chair. “Chicago,” she replied cautiously.
“No kidding? Small world. Where?”
“Oh…” Her mind scanned possible locations that would be vague enough, nice enough. Somewhere her mother might clean houses. “Out in the western suburbs.”
“Which suburb?”
He was nothing if not persistent. What would happen if she said,
Oh, actually, the western part of the city. On Harlem Avenue, in one of those apartment buildings an architect like you would just love. Right next to Burger King and Stella the Star Gazer. She tells fortunes for ten bucks a pop.
She looked up at him as he waited for her reply. Would that make her any less desirable? she wondered. Would she want him if it did?
“Oak Park,” she replied, coughing on the lie. “It’s a city, actually. Just off the Eisenhower Expressway.”
“Of course I know where it is. The Frank Lloyd Wright museum is there. Some great houses of his, too.” He looked at his hand, then asked in a casual way, “Did you live alone?”
“No.” She held back her smile when his brows knitted.
“I lived with my mother. She needed me and I felt I should stay with her.”
He couldn’t conceal his pleasure.
“And you?”
“I live downtown. I still have a loft on Printer’s Row.”
She arched a brow. “That’s a nice area. Very artsy and chic.”
“It’s convenient, close to the museums and the library. It suits me.”
She imagined it did. Very well. “You must miss it.”
He shrugged. “You must miss your mother.”
“I do…I do.” She thought quickly. “She’s very active, has lots of friends. She had this lovely old house that she’d lived in forever, but it got to be too much for her, you see. Especially since I was leaving for California. So she had to sell it. Now she lives in a condo. It’s very nice,” she hurried to explain. “Everything she wants at this point in her life. Elevators, it’s near shopping and the church. All her friends are close by. You know, a no-muss-or-fuss style of living.” Charlotte wiped her brow, feeling the beginning of a headache in her temples. “I’m sure she doesn’t miss me.”
“I find that hard to believe. I’m sure she must miss you very much.”
She looked away. “Let’s talk about the garden,” she said, pursing her lips and squinting as she made a show of studying the plans. Then in sharp precision she pointed to areas of plantings.
“If I understand it right, we’ve got the annuals here and here by the front door…the magnolia here…I can wait on the ground cover…a few yews here, and oh, yes. I must have this bed of lilies. Done. How much is that?” She raised her gaze to his, all business. “With labor included. And, of course, whatever you need to bring the soil up to speed. Compost, peat moss, whatever. I want the plants I put in to thrive. I’d rather start small but with a good foundation.”
Michael wondered what he’d said that made her suddenly so cool and unapproachable. He hadn’t meant to press. He thought he’d been careful. Still, he couldn’t help but be impressed. She was able to make quick decisions, and her instincts were good. He’d have advised her to make the same choices.
“A three dollar hole for a one dollar plant, my father always says.” He made a few notations on his designs while she watched, leaning far over the table, her face inches from his. Her hair smelled sweet, like shampoo. He closed his eyes and inhaled it, then cleared his throat.
“Would you rather I leave this here for you to look at? You can call me at the nursery if you have any questions. Or perhaps you’d rather Bobby called?”
“No,” she replied quickly, sitting back in her chair. “I’d rather you stayed.” Their gazes locked, and she saw with some amazement that it wasn’t only she who was feeling nervous. She’d never thought that someone like him might feel awkward, especially not with someone like her. She reached out to touch his arm.
“Stay, please. Do you think I would know what questions to ask?” she said through a small smile. “I think that I’d rather you explained it all to me. Very carefully. There’s no hurry. I’ll make that coffee. And I’ve got scones. Have you had breakfast?”
The morning lingered long past the point where she’d selected the annuals, added a few more perennials and changed to a cluster of rhododendrons near the front door. Michael had already decided that he’d do a large portion of the labor himself, at his own expense. It would give him a good excuse to be near her. Charlotte wanted Michael to add one small feature to the plan.
“I’d like a small kitchen garden, for Melanie. Tomatoes, herbs, those kind of things.”
Michael cocked his head. “Are we thinking of the same Melanie? She made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with a garden.”
“Not flowers or bushes, nothing like that. But she loves to cook, and I’d like to do something special for her. Nothing that would require a lot of work,” she added, thinking of Melanie’s manicure.
“I’ll do whatever you like, of course.” He paused, scribbling. “The two of you are an odd pair,” he said. “You’re.. different.”
“I suppose. She can be very sweet. She knows a lot about things I don’t, like the smarts of filmmaking. And makeup.” She looked at her own ruined manicure. The day after they were done she’d ruined her nails by scrubbing the floors with hot, soapy water. Melanie had taken one look at the chipped polish, hurried for her kit and wiped it all off. Charlotte smiled at the memory.
“I don’t think you saw her best side the other day.”
His eyes lit up. “I’d say she has any number of good sides.” Relieved that she chuckled, he considered the plan again. “I was thinking,” he said, tapping the pencil. “What about pots on the patio? It’s quick, easy, attractive. I think even Melanie would approve.”