Shelby looked at her pointedly. “But you already have someone, remember? Your big day is just over four months away.”
Shelby leaned back against the bed and looked at her friend. “Your aunt Melba was making her rounds tonight, making sure she talked to everyone she could. She pulled me and Hunt aside and told us that we should not let the world tell us who we are as individuals or as a couple, and if we decide to be together, let it be because we have decided that weathering the storm together is better than weathering it separately.
“Now that I think about her advice again, I realize that I shouldn’t be afraid. I already know in my heart that I’d rather face the stares, the ugly comments, and the reality that some people will ostracize us, if I can be in his world. Otherwise, I’ll be flailing about trying to find Mr. Right and working overtime to make him fit some set criteria.”
“Like me,” Indigo said softly.
She began to weep, because the message Aunt Melba shared with Shelby provided the answer she had needed all along. Now the question became, what was she going to do about it?
B
rian hadn’t slept well since his visit to Jubilant, and his mother had noticed.
“What’s with the bags under the eyes, Son?” she asked one morning over breakfast. “You aren’t in officer training anymore—you can sleep in as much as you’d like.”
She sipped her coffee and watched him.
Brian squirmed under her gaze. He had always believed she had a built-in lie detector with his name emblazoned on it.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Only you can answer that,” Mary Harper said. “You’re the one looking run-down, not me. How’s Indigo?”
Now she was probing, trying to determine what could be stressing him out or keeping him awake at night. If she really knew, she’d be repulsed. Brian was.
He smiled at her and stroked her cheek. “I’m twenty-five years old, but I’ll always be your baby, won’t I? Even when I’m forty and balding.”
“Even then,” she said. “Nothing you can tell me, or do, will ever change that.”
Nothing?
“I’m going away for a few days this weekend,” he said suddenly, changing the subject. “I leave tonight.”
Mom seemed surprised. “You were in Jubilant just last week. Are you going back already?”
Brian shook his head. “I’m meeting a Navy buddy in New York. We’re going to catch a show on Broadway and just hang out. You know—kind of a bachelor thing before I get tied up in flight school and come back for the wedding.”
Mom looked pensive. “No, I don’t know. Who is this . . . friend? Why aren’t you taking Indigo to the theater?”
“Why do you look so worried?” Brian asked. He shifted his deep brown eyes away from her matching ones. She didn’t need to know that he hadn’t mentioned the trip to Indigo. Indigo had been tied up with helping Aunt Melba settle back into her home, and was busy this weekend squaring away everything she’d need for grad school. He hadn’t wanted to bother her. At least that’s what he convinced himself.
“Are you meeting that guy Craig?” Mom asked.
Brian stopped breathing. “Why . . . why did you bring him up? How do you even remember him?” he stammered.
“I met him when we came up to Newport for visitors’ weekend, remember?” she said. “I pegged him then for someone who had an interest in you. So what is this weekend about, Brian? Is there something that you need to tell your dad and me? Or Indigo?”
Brian averted his eyes again. His mind traveled back to the dinner two weekends ago when Rachelle and Gabe talked about the importance of living in truth. He wasn’t sure he had that kind of courage. Then again, that’s really what this trip to New York was about. He wanted to find out once and for all what was going on with him. He needed to discover the truth for himself before he could think about sharing it with Indigo, or anyone else.
Mom sat there waiting and he remembered she had hurled a series of questions at him.
“Everything is okay, Mom. Indigo and I are trying to get plans finalized for December. She’s got a lot of great things going on between now and then, and so do I. I’m just letting my hair down with a friend.”
But in his mother’s eyes, he saw a truth that he wasn’t ready to accept. She knew, or at least thought she knew, something about him that the rest of the world didn’t. The revelation he saw there wasn’t accompanied by anger, pain, or shame. He still saw his mother’s love, mingled with a little pity, perhaps, for the fact that he felt the need to run from himself.
She reached for his hand and covered it with hers. “You’re right, Son, you’re twenty-five, and it’s time that I let you grow up. You have a great weekend, and just know that I love you and I’m praying, as always, for God to guide you and bless you.”
She pushed her chair from the table and headed upstairs, but not before Brian saw that her eyes were moist.
His heart stung. That alone should have led him to cancel this trip, but he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Mom dropped him off at the airport at 4 p.m. so he’d have plenty of time to catch his 5:30 p.m. flight. He kissed her cheek before stepping out of the car and grabbing his bag. Her eyes raised the question he knew her heart was asking: Would he come back the same?
As he waited to board the plane, he prayed.
Show me what’s what, God. Help me figure out whether I’m doing
right by Indigo or whether I’m being selfish. Help me see the truth and
give me the courage to accept it. Most of all, help me to please you.
Brian was afraid of this prayer, even as he uttered it. What if the truth were too ugly?
The answer that sufaced in his spirit settled him. If he were going to trust God in other ways, he had to trust him in this too.
S
o why did you want to meet me? I thought you were done with me,” Craig said as he and Brian walked through Times Square, on their way to Virgil’s, for a late-night barbecue dinner.
The city that never slept was as busy at nine o’clock tonight as most other places were at noonday.
“I don’t know,” Brian said. He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, and looked everywhere but at Craig.
Craig stopped abruptly and blocked Brian’s path, oblivious to the rush of people who were forced to navigate around them.
“You had me take the train to New York to meet you, and you don’t know why we’re here? My time is valuable. I’m heading back to Connecticut tonight.”
Brian’s stomach flip-flopped at the anger etched into Craig’s features. His nostrils flared, his eyes were bulging, and a vein in his right temple pulsated rapidly.
“Come on, Craig,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure things out, and I knew I could talk to you about it, because you’ve been there. Shelby’s cool—she’s not going to say anything. I made sure of that. I thought I could get your help working through some things.”
“What?” Craig yelled. “I’m not a psychologist! I don’t want to get into your messed up mind. You need to grow up and stop playing games, man.”
Brian stood there and took in Craig’s fury. Craig was right: Brian couldn’t expect a quick fix or answers to come from someone else. He had to look inside himself and honestly examine his thoughts and feelings.
“I’m sorry, man, you’re right,” Brian said. “I shouldn’t have had you come here. I’ll pay you back for your ticket.”
With that, Craig’s anger deflated. He led Brian from the middle of the sidewalk and they leaned against the side of a building. Brian watched yellow taxis squeeze into impossible spaces between cars and wondered how one learned to maneuver that effortlessly through life.
“What is it, Brian? Why are you fighting so hard with yourself?”
Brian looked at Craig. “I want to know why you aren’t fighting. Have you accepted that you’re . . . gay or bisexual?”
Craig frowned and shifted from one foot to the other. “Why do we have to label everything? Isn’t that what women do? I haven’t ‘accepted’ anything. I just live from day to day and do what feels good and most comfortable. I don’t have a problem with experimenting with whoever happens to have my attention at a particular time.
“I’ll probably settle down at some point and get married and have a few kids. I see that in my future. But until then, I’m okay playing both sides of the field.”
“Would you tell your wife?”
“Why would I? What I’ve done in the past wouldn’t affect her. She’ll have a history too. We won’t have to ‘tell all’ to build a future,” Craig said. “When did you become so Goody Two-Shoes?”
Brian looked him in the eye. “I don’t know, Craig, but I guess that’s what has happened. I gave my life to Christ after my encounter with you, and I’ve been trying ever since to figure out what led me down that path with you. I don’t know if I naturally have those tendencies, or if I was drunk and just yielded to what my body felt.
“I truly don’t know, and I want to figure it out as soon as I can,” he said.
Craig’s eyes widened with recognition. “You’re getting ready to marry Indigo, aren’t you? And you want to know the real deal before you lock her down. Well, isn’t that noble. Let me remind you—you weren’t drunk the second time we hooked up.”
Brian stared at Craig and fought the urge to beat him down. What came to mind was the Scripture his mother sometimes quoted when she found the need to distance herself from someone who wasn’t being fair or good.
Don’t cast your pearls before swine.
That’s exactly what he was doing. He had flown all the way to New York to seek guidance from someone who didn’t have a moral center or a desire to get at the truth.
Craig had always bragged about using any means and anyone to get what he wanted, like his father had taught him. Despite his dad going to prison for embezzlement Craig’s senior year, Craig clearly still followed that advice. He had been ashamed of his father’s conviction, but he was still determined to make his dad proud, and he hadn’t changed his tactics for achieving that goal.
Another realization struck Brian: just because he was ready to explore these questions didn’t mean he could force Craig to do the same. He was treading into areas where Craig wasn’t yet ready to go. For Craig, this was still about the thrill of the moment, the rush of the conquest.
Brian could kick himself. How much more foolish could he have been?
And yet, as Craig moved in close to him on this bustling New York street and brushed his lips against Brian’s, Brian was horrified to feel himself getting aroused.
Father God, relieve me of this . . . this curse!
That desperate prayer caused him to push Craig away and break into a sprint.
He heard Craig laughing as he got farther away.
“There’s your answer, Harper!” Craig called after him. “Stop running from what you want!”
Brian turned into the narrow alley between two buildings and fell to his knees. Tears overtook him and he didn’t try to stop them.
The problem was that he didn’t want this; he didn’t need this. But he was in a fix—he couldn’t run away from his own life and he couldn’t keep living a lie.
Finally, in this dark and dirty New York City alley, he had come face-to-face with his truth.
Now he needed to know what God wanted him to do with it, and what this would mean for his soul.
I
f Yasmin grew any more excited, Indigo decided she’d take her to the Toys“R” Us store in Manhattan and let her entertain the throng of customers.
The two of them and their parents had landed at LaGuardia Airport an hour ago and were in a taxi headed for Ford Models.
Yasmin was all dolled up, with her long hair flowing down her back in spiral curls, deep pink gloss covering her lips, and the matching black jacket and jeans that Rachelle had bought her from a Houston boutique hugging her lanky frame.
Indigo felt dowdy in comparison, but she kept reminding herself that this afternoon wasn’t about her. They would go apartment hunting for her tomorrow; today was about the family supporting Yasmin’s dream.
Indigo offered to wait in the lobby of the modeling agency so they wouldn’t look like a bunch of hillbillies from Texas, coming in four deep. But Mama insisted that she sit in on the meeting.
“You’re almost a New Yorker—you can help your daddy and me figure out if they’re trying to get over on us.”
From what Indigo could tell, however, everything was on the up-and-up. Sasha Davies, the modeling scout who requested the meeting, reviewed the portfolio that Indigo had helped Yasmin develop and seemed impressed.
“I like the range of poses and settings,” she said. “You have good form and great bone structure. Have you had any modeling training?”
“No, ma’am,” Yasmin responded.
Sasha looked up at the girl, over her horn-rimmed glasses.
“Just ‘no,’ will do, sweetheart,” she said. She looked at Indigo.
“I know you took the photo that drew our attention to your sister. Did you shoot these images as well?”
Indigo smiled. “Yes, I did.”
Sasha seemed impressed again. “These are really good. You have a great eye and solid technique.”
“Thank you,” Indigo said. “I start grad school in another month at the School of Visual Arts, and I’m looking forward to learning as much as I can.”
Sasha made a note in her file, then turned her attention to Mama and Daddy. “We’d like to sign Yasmin to a limited contract, which, for a fourteen-year-old who lives outside of the New York area, means we’ll call her on a regular basis for jobs in the Dallas/ Houston area and occasionally for anything that requires travel. Unless you’re planning to relocate to New York.”
Mama’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no,” she responded “But as Indigo said, she’ll be moving here in late August for grad school, so technically Yasmin would have somewhere to stay if she needed to be here for a stretch of time. Of course, my husband or I would want to be designated as her permanent companion.”
Sasha nodded. “I understand. Parents often sign those rights over to a modeling agent or manager, but you’re saying you’d like to retain those?”
Daddy spoke up. “If it’s in her best interest to have an agent or a manager overseeing her career, that’s fine. What we’re talking about is the chaperone piece. We’ve decided that since she’s still a minor, one of us will travel with her at all times. We’re both retired, so that’s doable for us.”