Silvio, my weekend was really special, and I hope yours was, too. I hope the second attempt to read "Fortinbras" was not postponed, again owing to weather, this time due to bitter cold.
Andrew came to get me Friday at 3:15--he was a little late, a result of getting all his stuff in the trunk, he said, as well as traffic--and I went out to meet him with my stuff. He asked me whether my roommates were at home, and I said no, they were not. He asked me "Then may we go into the house for a minute, so that I can kiss you?"
Well, I was hardly going to say "no" to that, was I? So we went into the house, and Andrew held me completely close to him and he kissed me for a long time, and then he said "Do you realize that yesterday was the first day we have not seen each other since we met? And do you realize that we met exactly two weeks ago this afternoon?"
I told him I was well aware of both facts--well aware.
Andrew looked into my eyes very deeply, for a long time, and then he said to me "I made a terrible mistake. I left you alone, and you haven't slept, have you? You haven't eaten, either, have you?"
I had done neither, but I told him I had survived, and he said "We have to get you something to eat. Right now. And then get you to bed. As soon as possible. We'll worry about getting the weekend started early tomorrow morning. I should have just taken you home with me Wednesday night after dinner at Judy's, and damned the reaction of others."
I told Andrew I was fine, and that I wanted to get the weekend started now.
"No, we have to get you something to eat. What do you want?" he asked.
"Really, nothing" I said.
"Well, if you don't know what you want, then instead of taking you to a restaurant I am going to take you home and fix you something--breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever you want, anything, unlimited choice. Then we will decide if you want to go straight to bed or get the weekend started" he said.
"Won't your roommates be home?" I asked.
"Probably not until later, but does it matter?" Andrew asked. "They are used to you by now."
And Andrew took me home, Silvio, sat me down in his kitchen, and asked me what I wanted to eat. "Nothing too heavy" I said "Or I might go to sleep."
"That's exactly what you need--something substantial to make you sleep" Andrew said. "What if I fix you a breakfast? Does that sound at all appetizing to you?"
I said that would be fine because breakfast would have the advantage of being quick and easy to fix, so Andrew made me a wonderful full breakfast--grapefruit, cranberry juice, orange juice, milk, granola with fruit, scrambled eggs with cheese and flour and onions and tomatoes, bacon, fried potatoes with onion and green pepper and cheese, toast--and then he wanted to know if I wanted pancakes and sausage, too!
While I ate, he said "What I think we should do is this: you go to bed as soon as you are done eating, and sleep in my bed. I will sleep on the sofa tonight, and when you get up tomorrow morning we shall decide what we will do. That way you can begin the weekend well-rested."
"No" I said. "I don't like that idea, Andrew. And I don't want to sleep in your bed unless you are in it, too. I would prefer to wait and then sleep when we arrive wherever we are going."
"Well, that's OK, too, because you also can sleep in the car, or we can stop anywhere along the way if you get too tired" Andrew said. "Have you given any thought to what you want to do, Josh?" he asked me.
"I think you should make the decision" I said.
"I think YOU should" he responded. "I already told you that the weekend was your choice. Did you have any ideas of your own?"
I told Andrew that I had had no ideas that were better than his suggestions, so he asked me "Which appealed to you the most?"
I said that all four of them were equally appealing to me.
"Then what kind of weekend do you want?" he asked.
"I'm not sure what you mean" I said.
"Well, if you are looking for something that is really interesting and stimulating, with lots of different things to do and see, then I think Williamsburg/Norfolk is the best bet. If you want just to chill out, and hole up, then Westfields is the best bet because it has comprehensive sporting facilities, an excellent dining room, luxurious guest rooms, and a wide selection of in-room movies. If you want an artistic weekend, Baltimore might be a good bet because of the two museums and the Baltimore Symphony and Center Stage. If you want a weekend filled with household drudgery, then by all means pick New York."
I told Andrew I really wanted to go to New York. He told me that I was just saying that solely out of kindness to him because I knew he wanted to see his brother. I told Andrew I was not saying that solely out of kindness, and that I really WOULD like to go to New York most of all--both because I wanted to meet his brother and because I had not been to New York since I was a kid.
"I hope you realize that, if we go to New York, we may not be out and about all that much, at least for this weekend" Andrew said.
"I have no problem with that" I said.
"Well, we can go to New York, if you really want, but then we will have to go a second time sometime very soon, and on that second trip devote the entire weekend to sightseeing and having fun. I'm sort of afraid you may not have that much fun this weekend in New York, because I will have to help my brother and his wife. But at least you can nap there, and get lots of rest. That will be a good thing."
I told Andrew I wanted to experience all four types of weekends with him. "OK, we will, we'll do all four" he said. "I Promise. Between now and graduation. Promise. Scouts' honor."
"I'd really like that" I said.
And then Andrew cleaned up the breakfast dishes, and asked me if I was almost ready to go. I said I would be ready as soon as I used the bathroom. "Then we'll leave in twenty minutes" he said. "I'll load the car now. It will take me a while."
"I thought you had already loaded the car" I said.
Andrew said "Oh, when I go to New York, I always take lots of stuff, like food and household cleaning products. They are much cheaper here, and it's no fun lugging that stuff around the streets of New York, especially when you have a baby."
Silvio, when I came out of the bathroom, Andrew had already loaded the car and was busy making sandwiches (chicken, beef and salmon) and coffee and gathering carrots and celery and fruit juices and oranges and apples and grapes and nuts and raisins and bananas and trail mix and cookies together for the trip. "This is for you, in case you are still hungry, or get hungry again on the way" he said. "We won't have dinner until we get to New York City."
"You've got to be kidding" I said. "You don't think I'm going to eat all this, do you? And have dinner, too, afterwards?"
"I'll be there if you want it or need it" Andrew said. "You don't have to eat it if you don't want to."
Then he got some pillows and a blanket, Silvio, and he said "These are in case you want to sleep on the way. Traffic will probably be heavy all the way, and it may take a while to get there. You can sleep in the back seat if you get tired."
And just past 5:30, Silvio, we were off.
I was totally rejuvenated, not only by the food but also by Andrew's energy and his excitement and his extremely solicitous care and concern for my needs. He DOES look out for the welfare of others before he looks out for himself.
One of the first things Andrew did after getting in the car was to call his brother's wife and let her know that he WAS coming to NYC this weekend, and that he WAS bringing a friend, and that we were leaving right now and that he would call again when he was 10 minutes or so from their coop.
Silvio, Andrew talked to me the whole trip, and it was the best talk we ever had. We talked about everything, we talked about nothing, we talked about serious things, we talked about silly things. We talked about what we might be able to see and do in New York if we had time. We talked about Andrew's brother and his wife and their baby boy.
We talked about the future, too.
"I have given things a lot of thought" said Andrew "and I have been trying to come up with something that has a realistic prospect of working, and making everybody--by which I mean you, me, and our parents--happy. I don't want to be premature, but this is the only thing I think will work, and I want you to give some thought to it--not now, not this weekend, not this week, not this month, but between now and, say, May 1, or about a month before graduation.
"I think after graduation I return home to Minnesota and take the bar exam but postpone my start date at work until after Labor Day. That will give me two months of the summer totally free. You come home with me for the entire summer, but we live not at my parents' house but at their house on the lake. We can also go places during the summer, like to Oklahoma, if your parents want that.
"Then, after Labor Day, you go to Boston, I start work, and I fly to see you every weekend. We spend holidays together--and there are a LOT of school holidays, Josh, over the course of a full school term--whether in Boston, Minnesota or Oklahoma. Then, after your first year at law school is over, you decide whether you want me to move to Boston with you. If you do, you spend the following summer together with me back in Minnesota again, and I use that time to take the Massachusetts Bar Exam--it will be too soon for me to waive in--and find a job in Boston. I hope--and perhaps this is only a farfetched hope--that either my Dad or your Dad can help me find a job in Boston at that point.
"I want you to think about all of this over the next ten weeks, and if you decide it might work out, then we prepare a plan to tell our parents about all this between the end of final exams and graduation.
"Just think about it at this point. Examine it at leisure, compare it with other possibilities, and we can continue to explore other options between now and May 1. You may have far better ideas than I do. Does this sound feasible enough to you to warrant, at the very least, some serious consideration?"
I was totally floored, Silvio. Andrew's tentative plan was far better than anything I had envisioned. I asked him whether he had already talked to his father, and got the idea of the scheme from his Dad. "Oh, no, I have not said a word to my father" Andrew said. "It is far too early for that."
"Did one of your brothers recommend this?" I said. "No, I have not said 'boo' to my brothers about you" said Andrew.
"Well, I assure you I will think about it. It's better than anything I have been able to come up with" I said. "My only idea was to forget about law school and move with you back to Minnesota, which would provoke my parents no end and also end a life-long dream of mine" I said.
"I never considered, even for a second, your opting out of law school" said Andrew. "That cannot and will not happen. That item was never even on the table."
I said to Andrew "My worst fear is that I act up between now and May 1, and kill any possibility of carrying through any plan at all."
"We'll deal with whatever we have to deal with" said Andrew, and that's all he said about the matter.
Out of curiosity, Silvio, I asked Andrew how many times he had talked to Judy since she met me, and what she had had to say to him about me.
He answered "Well, let's see: I didn't talk to her on Sunday, as you already know, because I was with you all day Sunday. I talked to her briefly Monday night, when I was extremely depressed about what happened on Monday. I talked to her for an hour on Tuesday afternoon, between the time you left a message for her and the time she called you back. Of course, I talked to her Tuesday night when she called when you were over at her house, and you heard that conversation. I never talked to her on Wednesday, but of course we saw her that evening. I talked to her briefly last night, when I told her that I had asked you to spend time with me this weekend, and I told her what my suggestions were for the weekend."
"What did she say?" I asked.
"She said she thought my weekend ideas stunk. She thought Williamsburg sounded like a high-school field trip; Westfields sounded like a low-security prison; Baltimore sounded like--well, like Baltimore--and New York City would be wonderful if it were not to be spent at my brother's place. 'Boy, you know how to have a good time!' is what she said. I asked her to give me a better plan and she suggested Paris."
"What did she say to you for that hour on Tuesday?" I asked.
"Well, she wanted to know what was going on. Of course, from your message to her, she knew something was up. She already knew, briefly, about Monday, but she did not know, until we talked on Tuesday, that I had gone over to you very late Monday night and spent the night with you. During that Tuesday conversation, I told her that I was very depressed and I told her almost exactly the same thing I told you Tuesday while we talking at your place before I left."
"Does Judy like me?" I asked.
"Yes, very much. Can't you tell that?" Andrew asked.
"Well, I thought so, but I wasn't certain. I thought perhaps she was nice to me only because I was a friend of yours" I said.
"If Judy did not like you, I assure you that you would know that, and very, very clearly" Andrew said. "In that event, there would be no doubt where you stood in her book."
"Did Judy tell you whether she thought this would ever work out?" I asked.
"She would never say. She would find that to be out of place" said Andrew.
"Did she say anything about whether she thought I would be successful in improving my behavior?" I asked Andrew.
"No" said Andrew. "Once again, she would find that to be out of place. And, Joshua, you can't allow yourself to make too much of this. You do not have behavioral issues--not at all. I do not want you to use the word 'behavior'. I detest that word. Somehow I am not satisfying your emotional requirements, but I will figure out how to do that with a little more time, experience and thought. Trust me on this one, OK?"
"Well, what are your thoughts about that?" I asked.
"I will always try my very, very best, Josh. And I know you will always do your very, very best. I know both of us will try very, very hard. I know your instincts are only the very finest, and I hope my instincts can match yours.
"However, I want to say something to you, and I want you to promise me that you will not get mad. I want you to promise me."
"I promise" I said.
"And I will NOT stop the car and I will NOT let you get out and walk home, even if you insist. We are over 150 miles from Washington, and it's freezing outside. So promise, please."
"I promise" I said.
"I think you are talking to one of your gay friends about us, and I think you are getting bad advice. Do you want to know why I say that?" Andrew asked.
"Tell me" I said.
"As soon as you got in the car last Friday afternoon, you instantly asked me whether I had ever had sex and whether I had ever dated. No 'good afternoon and how are you doing' or anything like that--instead, straight to Final Jeopardy. That was very atypical of you. Both of us have always tended to ease into personal questions. And let me make sure you understand that I am not objecting to the questions you asked me, and I told you, quite specifically at the time, that you were entitled to ask those questions. In fact, I had already told you, indirectly, answers to both of those questions before.
"And then the same thing happened again on Monday.
"We spent last weekend in each other's company, and remained together until 8:30 a.m. Monday morning. Everything was bliss. At least that's what I thought.
"Then, six hours later, at 2:30 p.m., you got into the car and--without any 'good afternoon and how are you' or anything--you went straight to Final Jeopardy again and you announced that you would not be seeing me on Wednesday or Thursday, and you immediately insisted that I provide you with a reaction to your announcement. I felt like I was being subjected to an examination, but I was not sure what answer I was supposed to give. Was I supposed to express curiosity about what you would be doing, or I was I supposed to express disappointment that I would not be seeing you, or was I supposed to affect indifference about not seeing you, or was I supposed to express something else? I did not know what answer I was supposed to give, and I tried to give you a totally neutral answer, if you recall. I tried to hedge.
"Well, I flunked the test--that much was immediately clear to me--and I could not help but observe, once again, how atypical it was of you to start off with something like that. What had happened in the six hours between 8:30 and 2:30? Well, clearly, something had happened.
"My conclusion--and I may be totally wrong, and I readily admit that I may be totally wrong--is that you have been talking about us with one of your gay friends, and he has been telling you things to ask me and things to do to see what my reaction is. On Monday, especially, I felt like I had been dropped, unwillingly, into an episode of "Sex And The City."
"And if you are talking about us to your gay friends--and I have no problem whatsoever if you talk about us to your friends, gay or otherwise--my sense is that their advice may be good advice about gay dating in general, but I am not sure that their advice is good advice if someone is serious about someone else.
"And, like I say, it was only because you did this twice--once right before a weekend we spent together and once right after a weekend we spent together--and did it in such an atypical fashion for you, that I started to wonder if someone had put you up to this.
"So, to answer your question, am I confident that all emotional conflicts are over between us?
"NO! Not in the least! But let me explain! Please! We will ALWAYS have emotional conflicts, even if we are together for 70 years! Everyone does. My parents, after 33 years of marriage, have emotional conflicts and they love each other very much. But it is how we MANAGE those conflicts that will the tale--whether we can reach long-term resolutions with each other.
"So, if you are asking me whether we will ever have another emotional conflict, I can answer you, with 100% confidence, that we will have a lot of them.
"But if you are asking me whether I am afraid we will have lots more episodes like Monday, my guess is that we may have a few isolated ones, but not on a regular recurring basis--unless someone is giving you really bad advice and is prompting you to do certain things you would not otherwise do, and you listen to that advice and take it out on me.
"You know, I don't live life in the fast lane and I am not suited to life in the fast lane, but a lot of gay people live life in the fast lane and sometimes their perspectives may be better adapted to life in the fast lane, or their personal experiences are a reflection of life in the fast lane, and what they say may be more properly applicable to life in the fast lane."
After saying all this, Andrew paused for a long time. Then he said, very softly, "You're pretty quiet. Are you bored, asleep or just praying that I shut up?"
And, Silvio, I was stunned by what Andrew had just said. I was absolutely dumbfounded.
I myself paused for a long time, and I said to Andrew "Let's pick this up, right at this very point, on the way back home. Is that all right with you?"
"Yes, Joshua, that's fine. We can even drop the point, if you like. I was only trying to answer the question you posed, and I was trying to give you a very serious and thoughtful answer. We can drop this entirely. I am happy to drop it, completely, totally, permanently."
"No, I want to continue this, but not right now" I said. "I'm tired, mentally and physically, but I want to finish this. And I have something to tell you when we return to this point."
"No problem" Andrew said.
As we got closer and closer to NYC, I asked Andrew more questions about the brother we would be visiting.
I asked Andrew what his brother knew about me (absolutely nothing--he does not even know that your Dad is a friend and law-school classmate of our Dad), whether his brother knew Andrew was gay (yes), whether he knows that I am gay (no, but he will assume that you are, because you are the first guest I have ever taken to my brother's place and he knows that I would not invite a garden-variety friend to go there for the weekend), whether he will think we are friends or more than friends (he will assume, by the very fact that I invited you to accompany me, that we are more than friends, but he will also realize, instantly and accurately, that we are in the very early stages of getting to know one another and that we are not yet intimate), whether I am welcome in his home (yes, of course, or I would not be taking you there), whether he will be friendly to me (I assure you that he will be very friendly to you and will do everything possible to make you feel at home), whether he will like me (definitely), whether he will report back to your parents (I will ask him not to just yet, and explain why to him, and he will respect my wishes--otherwise, he would be on the phone to them and my other brother the minute we are out the door).
Silvio, I ate all of the food Andrew had packed for me during the trip--every bite of food was gone by the time we got to Newark! Andrew knew I was hungry and needed food, and he took care of me.
Not long after we got into Manhattan, Andrew called his brother and told him we were about 10 minutes away. He explained to me that his brother would meet us at the front entrance of his coop, and bring his garage card and drive Andrew's car into the parking garage of his building.
And that's exactly what happened. In front of the building, Andrew got out of the car, his brother slipped behind the wheel, and Andrew got into the back seat. Andrew introduced me to his brother, who said hello, and his brother drove into the parking garage.
After parking the car, Andrew's brother opened the trunk--which was absolutely loaded with food, Silvio! Andrew had done a monstrous amount of grocery shopping for them because, his brother said, the stores in New York were so small, so expensive and had a rotten selection. Apparently Andrew does this every time he goes to visit them. There were two coolers full of nothing but meat alone. Andrew said to me "Now, do you understand why I told you that it took me awhile to pack the trunk?" Seeing all this food, I now understood. It took the three of us three trips to take all this stuff upstairs!
Andrew's brother and his wife live on the 21st floor of their building. His brother is 31 and works for a hedge fund. His name is Alec, and he is the oldest of three brothers--another is 28, and Andrew, the youngest, is of course 25.
Alec's wife is British. Her name is Lizbeth and she is a psychiatrist. They have a baby boy who is just over four months old. Alec used to work in London, which is where he met Lizbeth.
Alec is a very handsome man--exceedingly handsome, one of the most handsome men I have ever seen--but he is nowhere near as handsome as Andrew, who is THE most handsome man I have ever seen. Alec also has the same dark blonde hair and the same beautiful blue eyes that Andrew has.
Alec is taller than Andrew--Alec is 6'3", Andrew 6'1"--and he is more solidly built than Andrew and he is very outgoing, very outgoing indeed. He and Andrew love each other very much, which was immediately apparent to me, but I also knew this in advance by the way Andrew talked about both of his brothers. Alec calls Andrew "Baby Brother" and he hugs him and kisses him and ruffles his hair and makes a fuss over him and treats Andrew with the greatest possible affection.
Lizbeth also loves Andrew, which was very obvious. She was extremely happy to see him and, like Alec, made a great fuss over him. She is very attractive, and she also has blonde hair and blue eyes. She has a captivating personality and has the typical British trait of making anyone feel at home instantly.
Both Alec and Lizbeth were exceedingly welcoming to me, and went out of their way to let me know how delighted they were to have me as a guest in their home.
It was after 11:15 once we had completed moving the hordes of food into the apartment, and Lizbeth asked us what we wanted to eat. She said, almost apologetically, that she and Alec had already eaten because they knew that we would not arrive until almost midnight, and that they had been too hungry to wait that long.
Alec said "I betcha these boys want steak!" and he asked us "Now what do you want to go along with your steaks?"
Before either one of us even could answer, Lizbeth said "Let me make you a salad, and Alec, you cut up potatoes for the French Fries, and I'll tell you when to put the steaks on."
Lizbeth continued "Now you guys get settled in. You will have to stay in our guest room because we moved Tim [the baby] into the day room. Joshua, Andrew can show you everything you need. If he can't help you, ask us. Your food will be ready in 15 minutes."
And Andrew took me into the guest room which, I learned, is where Andrew's parents stay when they come to visit.
When Andrew showed me into the guest room, he turned to me and said quietly "I'm not sure what to do. There is only a double bed in this room. The day room has two single beds, and I had assumed that we would stay in the day room, which is where I have always slept before. I assume that they mean for you to sleep here, and that I will be expected to sleep in the day room with the baby or on one of the sofas in the living room. So you plan on staying here, and I will just put my stuff down here for now and await their instructions."
I said to Andrew "If there's any way, I want you to sleep here, too--even if it means your coming in after everyone else has gone to bed."
"First, let's see what they have in mind" Andrew said.
And we washed up and went back to join Alec and Lizbeth in the kitchen.
They poured us wine, and they gave us some really good cheese and crackers, and they acted like perfect hosts. When it was time for us to eat--and, believe it or not, I was still hungry!--they sat down at the table and joined us, even though they only nibbled on cheese and crackers and drank wine while we ate.
They asked us about the trip up, and the traffic, and such, and then they asked all about me. They were not being nosy, or unduly inquisitive, but only expressing a genuine interest in who I was. I liked them both a lot, Silvio. I said to myself, "Oh, I think I will like being a part of this family!"
Andrew was very relaxed, totally at home with them, and he was very relaxed and utterly comfortable having me there, too. Andrew kept his leg against mine the entire time we were sitting around the table and eating, and I have grown to learn that this is a sign that he is very comfortable and very content. We had an enchanting dinner.
After we finished eating, Lizbeth cleared things away, and Alec took us in for a peek at the baby. He said we could not turn the light on, so we would really not get a good look at Tim until tomorrow. Of course, Andrew had already seen Tim at Christmas back home in Minnesota, but this was the first time he had visited Alec and Lizbeth since Christmas, and Andrew said that, even in the dark, he could tell that the baby was almost twice as big as he had been at Christmas.
Then Alec escorted us out of the baby's room into the living room and he stopped and looked at Andrew, and then he looked at me, and then he looked at Andrew again.
Do you know what Alec said, Silvio? Right there, in my presence, he said to Andrew "I think you are still a virgin, Baby Brother, am I correct?"
Silvio, Andrew did not say anything, but he also did not seem in the least embarrassed or offended.
"Oh, Joshua, excuse me. I should explain" Alec said. "At Christmas, Andrew told me and our other brother that he was gay, but that he had never had sex. Now, you guys are seeing each other, correct? But nothing has happened yet, if I'm not mistaken, correct? So what kind of assignments should I be handing out here?"
Silvio, neither Andrew nor I said anything. We just stood there looking at each other and at Alec.
"Joshua, excuse me again, before you think I'm a jerk, but I need to let you know that Alex [Andrew's middle brother] and Andrew and I discussed gay issues at great length during our holidays, and we became accustomed to talking about this quite openly. Alex and I were fascinated about the subject--morbidly so, according to Andrew. And all we were trying to do was look out for Baby Brother's interests!"
And Alec paused again, and neither of us said anything.
After several seconds, Alec said "OK, you guys want to sleep in the same bed, right? But you are still in the puppy love stage, right? And nothing is happening yet, right? But you don't want to sleep in the same bed our parents use, right?"
After another long pause, Alec said "Anyone want to help me out here?"
And Andrew and I said, at the same time, "That's right."
"Then this is what I think we should do" Alec said. "You guys sleep in the living room--we'll pull a sofa out and make it into a bed--and you will be together, but we can all be safe in the assurance that no one's virtue is being affected right here in our living room. And you guys have no need to worry that you are sleeping in a bed that is normally only used by our parents. That way all of us can avoid anything gruesome all the way around."
Neither of us said anything, Silvio, so after another long pause Alec said "Well, I guess I've got it totally wrong after all. Does someone want to correct me, or offer some other suggestions, or at least help me extract my foot from my mouth?"
Andrew stepped up to the plate and said "Alec, you've got it right. Your suggestion that we sleep in the living room is perfect."
"Swell" said Alec. "At last. I was starting to think that we were going to stand here discussing this until 3:00 a.m." And he grabbed Andrew and he hugged him and he tussled his hair and he kissed him and he rubbed him and then he put his arm around Andrew and then Alec put his other arm around me and he asked me "What do you think of Baby Brother here?"
"That's not a fair question" Andrew said. "Josh, you don't have to answer that."
I didn't know if I should say anything, Silvio, and Lizbeth, who apparently entered the living room at some point in time during these proceedings, said "Alec, leave these poor boys alone and help them get their bed ready. They're probably tired. They've had a long drive, and the last thing they need right now is your teasing. They need sleep." And she came across the room, and told Andrew and me to get ready for bed and said that she and Alec would have things taken care of in five minutes.
So we went into the bedroom and brushed our teeth and got into our "sleep gear" and, when we returned to the living room, the bed was already made for us--and we were ready to go to bed.
"We're turning in" said Andrew. "Have a good night" said Lizbeth and she kissed Andrew and then she turned and kissed me. "Sleep well, Baby Brother" said Alec, and again he hugged Andrew very hard and very long, and again he tussled Andrew's hair. And then Alec turned to me and he tussled my hair and said "You sleep well, too, Joshua."
They left the room, and as he was leaving Alec said "And no funny stuff during the night, you two."
And we went to bed and went to sleep.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
February 18 and 19, 2006: The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Days I Knew Andrew
Silvio, I did not get up until 12:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
I remember first waking up at 10:00 a.m., and Andrew was still with me--actually, he was on top of me. He was already awake.
I woke up again at 10:30, when Andrew got up. When he left me, he said "I have to get up now and help out. You stay here, Josh, and sleep as long as you need" and he kissed my forehead and got out of bed and enveloped me in the covers.
I woke up again at 12 Noon, and then snatched another 30 minutes of sleep before I finally got up. I obviously had been very, very tired.
No one seemed in the least affronted by the fact that I had slept half the day away. I went into the kitchen and drank coffee in my "sleep gear" and everyone was entirely friendly to me. Andrew asked whether I wanted breakfast or lunch, or both, and Lizbeth told me that they were just slowly poking around themselves, too, and that they would all be happy to have breakfast with me, if I wanted breakfast. She said they had all eaten a bowl of cereal when they got up but nothing more since, and that if I wanted breakfast that she would have Andrew make omelets for everyone.
I said that sounded wonderful. Andrew asked me "Do you want us to do it now, or do you want us to wait until you have a chance to get cleaned up?"
I said "Give me thirty minutes, and I will be ready."
And we all had breakfast at just past one o'clock, and then we all just stayed in the apartment for the rest of the day. No one went out, in large part because of the bitter cold.
Alec did most of the work for the baby that day, even though Andrew and I also held Tim and fed him his bottles. Apparently Alec does most of the "baby" work on weekends to give Lizbeth a break.
Andrew and I spent the entire afternoon cleaning the kitchen. And I mean, Silvio, that we CLEANED that kitchen. Andrew took the stove apart, and cleaned every individual part. He removed everything from the refrigerator and cleaned every removable component. We cleaned all the cupboards, and all the cabinets, and all the closets. We cleaned every single kitchen appliance, large and small. We cleaned and waxed the floor. There was nothing in that kitchen that was not absolutely spotless by the time we were done.
Andrew told me I did not need to help, and that I should just go into the living room and watch basketball games, or go into the guest room and take a nap, or just talk to him while he worked in the kitchen. I told him I preferred to help, and I did so, and he seemed to welcome my help. Alec and Lizbeth kept going back and forth all the time between the living room and the kitchen, talking to us, and telling us that we seemed to be taking our work far too seriously. However, both of us seemed to enjoy the work, and we talked--to each other and to Alec and Lizbeth as they came in and out--and the afternoon passed by in a flash.
When everything was clean, we put away all the stuff that Andrew had brought up from D.C., and he pronounced, "OK, Lizbeth, you are good for another two months."
Why were we cleaning the kitchen in the first place? Because, Andrew said, Lizbeth just doesn't have time, what with the newborn. Andrew had last performed this project during Veterans' Day weekend, shortly after Tim was born.
When we were done, Andrew asked me whether I wanted to go to a show or something else that night. I answered him "It's so cold--only if you do." Andrew said he was more than happy to stay in, but that he would also be more than happy to go out so that I could see something of New York. "Otherwise, we might as well be in Peoria" he said "and I am afraid that you will be disappointed with your New York weekend."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon stay here" I said, "and I AM enjoying my New York weekend. I'm here to be with you, not to see New York." Andrew said that it was perfectly fine with him if we stayed in.
And we had a nice dinner in the apartment, and everyone watched television for a bit, and we all took turns holding the baby, and then everyone went to bed early.
In bed, Andrew asked me whether I wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art early tomorrow morning--"it is so close, we can be there in minutes" he said--and then have lunch in the Founders' Dining Room, which he said he was entitled to use. "If you want" I said. "What time were you looking to get up if we were to go?"
"Well, 7:30 to 8:00, something around there" he said.
I said to him "Well, if you want to go, let's go. But if you want to go only because of me, I would prefer to sleep in."
"Then let's sleep in" was his response.
Saturday night was the first night we slept together in which we did not fall asleep almost immediately. On the previous five occasions we had shared a bed, we had always been extremely tired, but on Saturday night we were well rested, and we talked in bed for about an hour before we fell asleep. We were laying on our sides, looking at each other, talking, and also kissing, and I rubbed and held Andrew' and he rubbed and held me. I finally asked him a question I had been dying to pose: "When we make love, Andrew, how do you want to do it?"
I thought the time and the timing was right for this question, Silvio.
[I omit this extended juvenile discussion.]
After waiting for a few seconds, I asked Andrew "When?"
"I think this coming week" he said. "I'm not 100% sure, but I think this coming week. If you want to."
"Yes, I want to" I said. "Should we make any advance plans, like getting a room, or something?"
"No. I want to play it by ear" said Andrew. "Maybe I'll surprise you. But I think we will both know when the time is right. And that time is coming soon. Don't you think we'll both know when the time is right?"
I thought about Andrew's question for a minute, and at first I was not certain whether he was right or not. But the more I thought about what he said, I started to think that, yes, he was right. We would both recognize when the time was right.
And the more I continued to think about it, I realized that, yes, he really WAS right. I thought back to exactly a week ago tonight, when I first briefly made a move, and Andrew had pulled away. I decided that, yes, he had been right that night--that the time was just not quite right. Not only was the location NOT the right venue--his apartment, with his roommates nearby--but the timing was too early.
And I also realized that, in just the last week, I had grown to know Andrew much better and that I had grown to love him much more deeply than I had only a week ago, and that we were much closer to each other now than we were only a week ago.
I was asking myself why we were so much closer than only a week ago, and I wondered whether we were closer because of all the dreadful events of Monday and Tuesday, which we somehow successfully got through. I was asking myself whether surviving those episodes had made us closer--you know, Silvio, on the premise that what hurts you but doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and all that--or whether it was a mere matter of additional time together. I don't know the answer to that last question, but there is definitely something more there now between us, something additional, that was not there a week ago. Andrew and I are unmistakably closer now than we were just seven days ago.
I also trust Andrew more now--I trust him to make the right decisions with respect to us. I did not have this same level of trust only a week ago. But because of what we went through this past week, and because Andrew seemed to make the right decisions all through those events, I now trust him more to look out for MY interests and I now trust him more to look out for OUR interests.
I guess I did not have the same degree of comfort a week ago and I wonder, had I enjoyed my current level of comfort only six days ago, whether I would ever have precipitated Monday's events. I was uncertain on Monday, but I am not so uncertain now. What was I so uncertain about? I was uncertain of myself, I guess, and I was uncertain about the depth of Andrew's feelings for me, and the extent to which he would tolerate "guff" from me and nevertheless remain with me.
I had been mean to Andrew, I had said terrible things to him, I had provoked him, and what did he do in response?
He didn't get mad at me, he didn't say terrible things back to me--well, only one: "Now the next big step for you is to get weaned from your parents' checkbook"--and he never tried to provoke me back.
He tried to talk to me, he tried to reason with me--"And what kind of a time frame do you think is reasonable for making a decision of this magnitude? Today is the 13th. We met on the 3rd."--, he tried to take care of me, he tried to show me how much he liked me.
He came over to me in the middle of the night, despite my name-calling and hanging up on him, because he knew I was in an emotional uproar and that I needed him. He had stayed with me, and he had talked to me, and he even had voluntarily offered to come over the next night when he realized, seeing me online in the middle of the night, that I needed him once again.
Did Andrew put a foot wrong, all of last week, Silvio? I don't think so. He dropped the issue of my provocations immediately after Judy's Tuesday night phone call to him, and he never raised that issue again. He only discussed that issue again on Friday in the car because I had raised it with him first, when I had wanted him to tell me some things. Otherwise, he has done nothing but give me great care and affection and show me how much I mean to him.
And he has done this despite his being so shell-shocked after my outbursts of Monday and late Monday night. When we talked in my bedroom early Tuesday afternoon, before he left my house, he was so depressed, so forlorn, so spent, that I believed that he would never recover any affection for me.
But he moved forward, and seemed to put all those events out of his mind, and concentrated on taking care of me. He arranged to devote his entire weekend to me. He pondered a great deal about our future during the day we were apart, as I know from his conversations in the car. He kept sending me email messages during the two nights and the one day we were apart, telling me how much he looked forward to spending the entire weekend with me.
I don't think I could have asked anything more from him.
After going to bed early on Saturday night, we got up fairly early on Sunday morning--around 9:00.
As soon as we got up, Andrew asked me to let him know whether there was anything I wanted to see in New York that day. "Like what?" I asked. "Like any of the sights, or tourist attractions" he answered. I told him "There are things I would like to see, except it's so COLD outside. To be frank, I would rather stay here and visit with Alec and Lizbeth."
"Well, we'll plan on staying in, then" he said. "But if you change your mind by early afternoon, you must say so, because nothing will be open tonight, a Sunday night."
Andrew made apple pancakes for everyone for breakfast--his grandmother's recipe--and then he went back to his cleaning regimen. He cleaned the bedrooms and the bathrooms, and I again helped him. And once again, I mean we REALLY cleaned--scouring down the shower tiles and shower doors, cleaning the light fixtures, polishing everything. Lizbeth and Alec tried to offer some assistance, and Andrew told them to leave us alone ("too many people, and we would only all run into each other").
We did not finish until mid-afternoon, and when we were done we cleaned up and joined Alec and Lizbeth in the living room. Andrew said to them "Now you have to let us come again in two or three weeks, and let us have a weekend in which I show Josh the town." They said we could come any weekend we wanted and as often as we wanted, and that they would be delighted to have us, and that we were always welcome there. They said they had no plans of any sort since, with the baby, they could not go anywhere, and that they would like to see as much of us as possible, especially since Andrew was still relatively close by for another couple of months before law school ended and he moved back home.
Sunday afternoon was the first time Alec and Lizbeth asked anything about how Andrew and I had met and how long we had known each other. Alec died laughing when we told him that our dads had been law school classmates, and that it was THEIR idea that we meet. He thought that was hysterical. Alec said he was going to call their father, right then and there, and inform him of what their father had fostered, and this is when Andrew told Alec that he did not want Alec to say anything to their parents just quite yet, and that in fact he did not even want Alec to tell his parents that he had brought a friend with him when he had visited this weekend.
"Oh, you're going too far now" said Alec, and Andrew said "No. If you tell Dad that I brought Josh to New York, he will know immediately what that means."
And Andrew told Alec that it was important to him that HE, not Alec, be the one who gave the news about me to their father, and that he wanted to choose the right time and manner to break the news.
"So, your Dad doesn't know, either?" Alec asked me, and I said "No, he does not."
"What are you guys going to do when school's over?" asked Alec.
Alec had no idea that he had stepped into an issue that had been a matter of great concern to both of us.
Andrew tried to sidestep the discussion by saying "Nothing's settled", but Alec did not let Andrew drop the matter that easily and he asked "Are you saying that this is just a school thing, over at the end of term?"
THAT WAS THE VERY WORST THING ALEC COULD HAVE SAID, but he did not realize that.
"We have been thinking and talking and exploring, but we haven't decided yet what to do" Andrew said.
Again, Alec would not drop the issue. "You mean you don't know if this is going to end after school's out, or that you DO have tentative plans to see each other after school is over?' asked Alec.
"We are going to continue to see each other after we both graduate, we just don't know yet how to work it" said Andrew, very quietly and with measured words. Clearly, he was trying to halt Alec's pursuit of this issue.
"You mean a long-distance relationship?" asked Alec.
Andrew paused for a very long time. Alec and I were looking at Andrew very intently, but Lizbeth turned away. Then Lizbeth tried to save the situation: "I think, Alec, that they don't know how they are going to handle this yet, and that they need time to decide what they are going to do. So I think we need to leave them alone on this point until they know more firmly how their plans proceed."
"That doesn't tell me anything at all" said Alec, and Lizbeth interjected "And that's because there isn't anything to tell. Don't you think we should start dinner now?"
And Lizbeth, very effectively, ended that particular inquiry.
We had a very nice dinner Sunday night, and after dinner we played cards for a couple of hours in the kitchen, and we all had a lot of fun playing cards--a wonderful, wonderful time. I think Alec and Lizbeth really like me, or else they both are very good actors. If the latter is true, you should invite them to join the Foundry Players.
While we were playing cards, Alec and Andrew's parents called. They talked to Alec and Lizbeth, and they asked whether Andrew was staying for the weekend, as they know that Andrew generally goes up to NYC and visits Alec and Lizbeth on almost all three-day weekends. They said that yes, Andrew was with them, and Andrew talked to his folks for a while, too.
During the course of the call, Andrew's Dad asked him whether he had booked his flights yet to come home for Spring Break. Andrew said he had not. Andrew's Dad pointed out that he had missed the 14-day advance-purchase deadline if he planned to fly home on Friday night, March 2.
Andrew told his father that he might not be coming home for Spring Break after all. According to Andrew, his father asked "Why not? Are you going to spend that week with Alec and Lizbeth? If so, your mother and I could come to New York to be with you all."
Andrew told his Dad that he was thinking of staying in D.C. for his Spring Break. His father said that he would be very disappointed not to see him during that week, and he wanted to know whether Andrew wanted his Mom and Dad to fly to D.C. to visit HIM that week.
"Let me do this, Dad" Andrew said. "I will call you Wednesday night and talk about Spring Break on Wednesday night. How's that? I just haven't been able to get organized about Spring Break yet."
Then Andrew's Dad asked him whether he had seen me since the last time they had talked [which was last Sunday night's call, the call that occurred in the kitchen of Andrew's apartment--the "cousin" call, if you remember], and Andrew said "Yes, I have seen Joshua since last Sunday". (Alec was smirking at this.)
Then Andrew's Dad asked him what I was doing this weekend, and Andrew answered "I believe Joshua went out of town this weekend" and Alec started snorting, loudly. Lizbeth was shushing him.
Then, according to Andrew, his father asked him "Do you know where Joshua is, because his Dad is trying to call him. He can't locate him, and Joshua's roommates don't know where he is." (I did not take my cell phone with me to New York, Silvio.)
After a very long pause, and with a very painful face, Andrew said "Dad, Joshua's here. He's here with us. I mean he's here with me." And Andrew's Dad told Andrew to ask me to call my Dad. After he passed on this request, Andrew's Dad asked to talk to Alec again and Andrew handed the phone back to Alec.
I don't know what Andrew's Dad said to Alec, because Alec afterward said he didn't want anything specific, but I think Andrew's Dad asked Alec to call him back later. Alec turned away, busying himself in a kitchen cupboard, so that we could not see his face during that final portion of the call.
I did call my Dad right afterward, and my Dad said "Oh, I guess you just got back from your weekend out of town. Where'd you go?"
I told my Dad that I had gone to New York for the weekend and that I was still in New York. "Oh, your roommates said you were out of town and that they didn't know where you had gone, but I see that they tracked you down after all" my Dad said.
Silvio, I did not know what to do: correct my Dad's assumption, or let it pass. After a second, I decided to let it pass.
The reason why my Dad had been trying to reach me was because he had wanted to make arrangements to buy MY flight tickets for my trip home for Spring Break. He said he had been trying to call me since Friday, without success.
Well, Silvio, I had to go through the same darn thing Andrew had just gone through. I told my Dad that I had not decided whether to come home for Spring Break, and that I might remain in D.C. for that week.
My Dad was very surprised, and he asked me why I wanted to stay in D.C. that week (he knows I don't like D.C.). I told him that I just thought that this would be a good opportunity to stay in Washington and see some stuff I had never bothered to see before, and that the Spring Break week would be my last free week in town. My Dad said that he and my Mom really wanted me to come home that week, and that he would call me Thursday night, and convince me to come home, at the very least for a substantial portion of the break period.
My Dad asked me what I had seen in New York. "Nothing, really" I said "Because it has been too cold."
"So what have you been doing?" he asked me.
"Staying indoors" I said.
"Where are you staying?" he asked.
"I'm staying with friends" was my answer.
"I didn't know you had any friends in New York City" my Dad said.
Silvio, I had not a clue what to say, and I tried to say nothing, hoping my Dad would move on.
But my Dad was persistent and did not move on. "Who are these friends in New York?" he asked me.
After a very long pause, I said "I came to New York with Andrew Van Z, and we are staying with the oldest Van Z son and his wife."
My Dad did not say anything for a minute, and then he said "Oh. I see. So you got the message to call me through Mr. Van Z, then, and not through your roommates?" he asked.
"Yes" I said.
"Are you spending a lot of time with the Van Z boy?"
"We see each other quite a bit" I said.
"I'm surprised, because you two seemed so reluctant to call each other."
I didn't say anything, and my Dad didn't say anything, for the longest time.
"Does Mr. Van Z know that you two boys are spending so much time together?" my Dad wanted to know.
"I really wouldn't have any idea" I said.
After another long pause, my Dad said "Well, I understand that Andrew is very reliable and very responsible and very serious and very dependable, so I suspect I don't have to worry about you as long as you are with him. He is supposed to be a very nice boy. Do you enjoy his company?"
"Yes, very much" I said.
After an enormously long pause, my Dad asked "Does Andrew have the same Spring Break you do?"
"No" I said. "His Spring Break is the week before mine."
"Is Andrew going home for Spring Break?" my Dad asked.
"I don't think he has decided yet" I answered. "However, he talked to Mr. Van Z about his Spring Break tonight, and that's when I learned that I should call you."
"You know that Andrew is the apple of his father's eye" said my Dad.
"That doesn't surprise me" I said.
"Is Andrew as handsome as his Dad says he is" my Dad asked.
"I don't know what Mr. Van Z says about Andrew, but, honestly, Dad . . . Andrew is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He makes models on magazine covers look unremarkable" I said.
After a VERY long pause, my Dad asked me "Do you like Andrew, Joshua?"
"Yes, I like him very much" I said.
"Do you like him . . .in more than a friendly way?" my Dad asked.
I really didn't know how to answer this question, Silvio, so, after a long delay, I said "It's too early to talk about anything like that yet, Dad. I hope you understand." This was the best answer I could come up with.
"You're not hiding anything from me, are you, Joshua?" my Dad asked me.
I did NOT know what to say, Silvio, and finally I said "I'm not hiding anything from you, Dad. Thus far there is nothing to hide from you."
"When will you be back in Washington?" my Dad asked.
"Tomorrow" I said.
"Then please call me as soon as you get back" my Dad said.
"We may not get back until late" I said.
"Then call me at the office first thing Tuesday morning" my Dad instructed me.
"I have class between 7:30 and 11:30 on Tuesdays" I told my Dad.
"Then call me at 12:00 Noon Tuesday, which will be 11:00 a.m. my time" said my Dad. "Josh, this is important. I want to talk to you. Seriously. Make sure you call me. All right?"
"I'll call you, Dad" I said.
"12 Noon your time" said my Dad. "Don't forget."
"I won't forget" I said.
Then my Dad said "Good night" and the call ended.
Not long after these calls, Andrew and I went to bed.
We talked about our phone calls with our fathers.
Andrew told me that his Dad was royally pissed at him, and that his Dad had icily ended his talk with Andrew as soon as Andrew let his Dad know that I was with him in New York. His Dad, Andrew said, viewed what he had said on the phone--"I believe that Joshua went out of town for the weekend"--as the equivalent of an outright lie, which it more or less was. Andrew said that what he had told his Dad was a half-truth, technically accurate as far as it went, but designed to conceal and, in his father's view, unworthy of Andrew. Andrew said that his Dad was very disappointed at what he had done and that he had never lied to his Dad before and that he was very ashamed. (Silvio, Andrew worships his father--absolutely worships him.)
"What will your Dad do" I asked Andrew.
"Call Alec and ask him what's going on" Andrew said.
"What will Alec say to your father?" I asked.
"Alec will probably hedge, which will tell my Dad all he needs to know" Andrew said.
"Do you think you should call your Dad?" I asked.
"I was thinking about it" Andrew said. "I'm trying to decide whether to wait until later in the week, when his level of irritation will have decreased. If I call him now, he will just be very icy again with me, and I fear I will not accomplish anything. But maybe I should try to call my Mom, and ask her to work on him."
"I think you should" I said.
"I can do that, Josh, but my father will probably answer the phone, and be very stern with me, and lecture me, before he passes me on to my Mom, at which point there is not much else to say to either of them." said Andrew. "The very fact that you are here tells them something significant, and the fact that I engaged in a half-truth tells them something even more significant. They already know the score, and they believe I am trying to hide this from them."
"Do you think they will call my Mom and Dad and tell them" I asked Andrew.
"No, zero chance" said Andrew. "They would view that as a shocking interference with another family's personal matters. Besides, there's nothing to tell yet."
But Andrew added, after a few seconds "But that may not be true much longer."
"My Dad has guessed the situation" I told Andrew. "He knows I like you, and he wants to know where we are--where we are in terms of our relationship. That's why I am supposed to call him as soon as possible."
"And then what will he say or do?" asked Andrew.
"I don't know" I said. "He may counsel me to hold off anything personal--anything sexual, I mean--until after graduation. He may tell me to go very slow. He may tell me to think about some particular angle, thinking he has bought himself some time. I really don't know what he will say to me."
"Well, I guess both sets of parents know a little more than we necessarily want them to know at this point, but they would learn everything eventually anyway. I don't think this is worth getting into a stew over" said Andrew.
And Andrew drew me to him, and started kissing me all over, and we touched each other all over.
Then the phone rang, and Andrew said "That's my father, calling Alec. If anything significant happens, Alec will let me know."
Andrew asked me whether I needed to be back in Washington at a fixed time tomorrow. I said no. Then he asked me if it was all right to get back to Washington very late in the evening. I said that was fine with me.
"Well, what I'd like to do is to stay until after dinner tomorrow, and leave at 8:00 or 9:00, avoiding most of the traffic, and get back to Washington very, very late at night--like 1:00 or so" he said. "What are your thoughts on that?"
I said that was fine by me. "Where are you going to sleep tomorrow night?" I asked him.
He paused, and then he said "Where are YOU going to sleep tomorrow night?"
I told him I was going to sleep wherever he slept.
He paused again, and then he said "What would happen if you told your roommates you were gay? You know, you live in a house and you have your own bedroom. I can come see you at your house and stay out of everyone else's way. I live in an apartment and share a bedroom. There is no way you can visit me and stay out of everyone else's way. I like you coming to our apartment, whether the guys are there or not, but it will cause problems if you are there all the time. Is there any way I can sleep at your house on sort of a regular basis? Maybe instead of telling your roommates you are gay, you should tell them what my father said: that we are like cousins."
I told Andrew that I wanted him to come over and sleep with me every night, and that I would not tell my roommates anything at all. I told him that they'd see him, and figure it out, but that there was no need for an announcement.
"So you want me to stay at your place tomorrow night, then?" Andrew asked.
"Yes, and every night" I said.
"Sometimes I WILL want you to stay over at my place, too" said Andrew. "But it can't be very often. It would tick the other guys off."
"As long as we're together, I don't care where we sleep" I said. "But I don't want to sleep alone any more. It's too hard for me."
"OK. Then we'll sleep together every night from now on" said Andrew. "And I do want to sleep with you every night--every night for the rest of my life if that were possible. But we have to get up in the mornings!"
I asked him whether he really meant that last part, about sleeping with me every night for the rest of our lives. "Yes, I mean it, with all my heart" was his response.
And then we lay next to each other again, and kissed, and touched each other, until Alec came into the living room.
"The old man is pissed" he said to Andrew. "I think you need to call him. Lizbeth is talking to him right now, trying to tell him that there is nothing going on between you two. Of course, unlike me, she didn't see you guys making out just now. Do either of you need a cigarette?"
"I will call him" said Andrew. "Tell me when Lizbeth gets off the phone." And Andrew went and got his cell phone.
While he was waiting for the all-clear signal from Alec, Andrew asked me whether we should amend our plans and head back to Washington right now.
"That wouldn't do any good, because you could still talk to your Dad in the car" I said.
"Not if I forgot to bring the cell phone with me" he said.
And then Alec came back into the living room, and at the same time Andrew's cell phone rang. It was his father calling.
The call lasted about one minute. Andrew hardly said a word. His father told him he was angrier with him than he had ever been in his entire life, and that he wanted to talk to Andrew at some length, but only when he himself had had time sufficiently to reflect and only when he was sure he would not say anything rash. He told Andrew that he would call him the following evening, but that he wanted Andrew to know, right now, tonight, that he was very, very disappointed in him. And that was the call.
We were unable to get to sleep for another hour or so after that call.
I remember first waking up at 10:00 a.m., and Andrew was still with me--actually, he was on top of me. He was already awake.
I woke up again at 10:30, when Andrew got up. When he left me, he said "I have to get up now and help out. You stay here, Josh, and sleep as long as you need" and he kissed my forehead and got out of bed and enveloped me in the covers.
I woke up again at 12 Noon, and then snatched another 30 minutes of sleep before I finally got up. I obviously had been very, very tired.
No one seemed in the least affronted by the fact that I had slept half the day away. I went into the kitchen and drank coffee in my "sleep gear" and everyone was entirely friendly to me. Andrew asked whether I wanted breakfast or lunch, or both, and Lizbeth told me that they were just slowly poking around themselves, too, and that they would all be happy to have breakfast with me, if I wanted breakfast. She said they had all eaten a bowl of cereal when they got up but nothing more since, and that if I wanted breakfast that she would have Andrew make omelets for everyone.
I said that sounded wonderful. Andrew asked me "Do you want us to do it now, or do you want us to wait until you have a chance to get cleaned up?"
I said "Give me thirty minutes, and I will be ready."
And we all had breakfast at just past one o'clock, and then we all just stayed in the apartment for the rest of the day. No one went out, in large part because of the bitter cold.
Alec did most of the work for the baby that day, even though Andrew and I also held Tim and fed him his bottles. Apparently Alec does most of the "baby" work on weekends to give Lizbeth a break.
Andrew and I spent the entire afternoon cleaning the kitchen. And I mean, Silvio, that we CLEANED that kitchen. Andrew took the stove apart, and cleaned every individual part. He removed everything from the refrigerator and cleaned every removable component. We cleaned all the cupboards, and all the cabinets, and all the closets. We cleaned every single kitchen appliance, large and small. We cleaned and waxed the floor. There was nothing in that kitchen that was not absolutely spotless by the time we were done.
Andrew told me I did not need to help, and that I should just go into the living room and watch basketball games, or go into the guest room and take a nap, or just talk to him while he worked in the kitchen. I told him I preferred to help, and I did so, and he seemed to welcome my help. Alec and Lizbeth kept going back and forth all the time between the living room and the kitchen, talking to us, and telling us that we seemed to be taking our work far too seriously. However, both of us seemed to enjoy the work, and we talked--to each other and to Alec and Lizbeth as they came in and out--and the afternoon passed by in a flash.
When everything was clean, we put away all the stuff that Andrew had brought up from D.C., and he pronounced, "OK, Lizbeth, you are good for another two months."
Why were we cleaning the kitchen in the first place? Because, Andrew said, Lizbeth just doesn't have time, what with the newborn. Andrew had last performed this project during Veterans' Day weekend, shortly after Tim was born.
When we were done, Andrew asked me whether I wanted to go to a show or something else that night. I answered him "It's so cold--only if you do." Andrew said he was more than happy to stay in, but that he would also be more than happy to go out so that I could see something of New York. "Otherwise, we might as well be in Peoria" he said "and I am afraid that you will be disappointed with your New York weekend."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon stay here" I said, "and I AM enjoying my New York weekend. I'm here to be with you, not to see New York." Andrew said that it was perfectly fine with him if we stayed in.
And we had a nice dinner in the apartment, and everyone watched television for a bit, and we all took turns holding the baby, and then everyone went to bed early.
In bed, Andrew asked me whether I wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art early tomorrow morning--"it is so close, we can be there in minutes" he said--and then have lunch in the Founders' Dining Room, which he said he was entitled to use. "If you want" I said. "What time were you looking to get up if we were to go?"
"Well, 7:30 to 8:00, something around there" he said.
I said to him "Well, if you want to go, let's go. But if you want to go only because of me, I would prefer to sleep in."
"Then let's sleep in" was his response.
Saturday night was the first night we slept together in which we did not fall asleep almost immediately. On the previous five occasions we had shared a bed, we had always been extremely tired, but on Saturday night we were well rested, and we talked in bed for about an hour before we fell asleep. We were laying on our sides, looking at each other, talking, and also kissing, and I rubbed and held Andrew' and he rubbed and held me. I finally asked him a question I had been dying to pose: "When we make love, Andrew, how do you want to do it?"
I thought the time and the timing was right for this question, Silvio.
[I omit this extended juvenile discussion.]
After waiting for a few seconds, I asked Andrew "When?"
"I think this coming week" he said. "I'm not 100% sure, but I think this coming week. If you want to."
"Yes, I want to" I said. "Should we make any advance plans, like getting a room, or something?"
"No. I want to play it by ear" said Andrew. "Maybe I'll surprise you. But I think we will both know when the time is right. And that time is coming soon. Don't you think we'll both know when the time is right?"
I thought about Andrew's question for a minute, and at first I was not certain whether he was right or not. But the more I thought about what he said, I started to think that, yes, he was right. We would both recognize when the time was right.
And the more I continued to think about it, I realized that, yes, he really WAS right. I thought back to exactly a week ago tonight, when I first briefly made a move, and Andrew had pulled away. I decided that, yes, he had been right that night--that the time was just not quite right. Not only was the location NOT the right venue--his apartment, with his roommates nearby--but the timing was too early.
And I also realized that, in just the last week, I had grown to know Andrew much better and that I had grown to love him much more deeply than I had only a week ago, and that we were much closer to each other now than we were only a week ago.
I was asking myself why we were so much closer than only a week ago, and I wondered whether we were closer because of all the dreadful events of Monday and Tuesday, which we somehow successfully got through. I was asking myself whether surviving those episodes had made us closer--you know, Silvio, on the premise that what hurts you but doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and all that--or whether it was a mere matter of additional time together. I don't know the answer to that last question, but there is definitely something more there now between us, something additional, that was not there a week ago. Andrew and I are unmistakably closer now than we were just seven days ago.
I also trust Andrew more now--I trust him to make the right decisions with respect to us. I did not have this same level of trust only a week ago. But because of what we went through this past week, and because Andrew seemed to make the right decisions all through those events, I now trust him more to look out for MY interests and I now trust him more to look out for OUR interests.
I guess I did not have the same degree of comfort a week ago and I wonder, had I enjoyed my current level of comfort only six days ago, whether I would ever have precipitated Monday's events. I was uncertain on Monday, but I am not so uncertain now. What was I so uncertain about? I was uncertain of myself, I guess, and I was uncertain about the depth of Andrew's feelings for me, and the extent to which he would tolerate "guff" from me and nevertheless remain with me.
I had been mean to Andrew, I had said terrible things to him, I had provoked him, and what did he do in response?
He didn't get mad at me, he didn't say terrible things back to me--well, only one: "Now the next big step for you is to get weaned from your parents' checkbook"--and he never tried to provoke me back.
He tried to talk to me, he tried to reason with me--"And what kind of a time frame do you think is reasonable for making a decision of this magnitude? Today is the 13th. We met on the 3rd."--, he tried to take care of me, he tried to show me how much he liked me.
He came over to me in the middle of the night, despite my name-calling and hanging up on him, because he knew I was in an emotional uproar and that I needed him. He had stayed with me, and he had talked to me, and he even had voluntarily offered to come over the next night when he realized, seeing me online in the middle of the night, that I needed him once again.
Did Andrew put a foot wrong, all of last week, Silvio? I don't think so. He dropped the issue of my provocations immediately after Judy's Tuesday night phone call to him, and he never raised that issue again. He only discussed that issue again on Friday in the car because I had raised it with him first, when I had wanted him to tell me some things. Otherwise, he has done nothing but give me great care and affection and show me how much I mean to him.
And he has done this despite his being so shell-shocked after my outbursts of Monday and late Monday night. When we talked in my bedroom early Tuesday afternoon, before he left my house, he was so depressed, so forlorn, so spent, that I believed that he would never recover any affection for me.
But he moved forward, and seemed to put all those events out of his mind, and concentrated on taking care of me. He arranged to devote his entire weekend to me. He pondered a great deal about our future during the day we were apart, as I know from his conversations in the car. He kept sending me email messages during the two nights and the one day we were apart, telling me how much he looked forward to spending the entire weekend with me.
I don't think I could have asked anything more from him.
After going to bed early on Saturday night, we got up fairly early on Sunday morning--around 9:00.
As soon as we got up, Andrew asked me to let him know whether there was anything I wanted to see in New York that day. "Like what?" I asked. "Like any of the sights, or tourist attractions" he answered. I told him "There are things I would like to see, except it's so COLD outside. To be frank, I would rather stay here and visit with Alec and Lizbeth."
"Well, we'll plan on staying in, then" he said. "But if you change your mind by early afternoon, you must say so, because nothing will be open tonight, a Sunday night."
Andrew made apple pancakes for everyone for breakfast--his grandmother's recipe--and then he went back to his cleaning regimen. He cleaned the bedrooms and the bathrooms, and I again helped him. And once again, I mean we REALLY cleaned--scouring down the shower tiles and shower doors, cleaning the light fixtures, polishing everything. Lizbeth and Alec tried to offer some assistance, and Andrew told them to leave us alone ("too many people, and we would only all run into each other").
We did not finish until mid-afternoon, and when we were done we cleaned up and joined Alec and Lizbeth in the living room. Andrew said to them "Now you have to let us come again in two or three weeks, and let us have a weekend in which I show Josh the town." They said we could come any weekend we wanted and as often as we wanted, and that they would be delighted to have us, and that we were always welcome there. They said they had no plans of any sort since, with the baby, they could not go anywhere, and that they would like to see as much of us as possible, especially since Andrew was still relatively close by for another couple of months before law school ended and he moved back home.
Sunday afternoon was the first time Alec and Lizbeth asked anything about how Andrew and I had met and how long we had known each other. Alec died laughing when we told him that our dads had been law school classmates, and that it was THEIR idea that we meet. He thought that was hysterical. Alec said he was going to call their father, right then and there, and inform him of what their father had fostered, and this is when Andrew told Alec that he did not want Alec to say anything to their parents just quite yet, and that in fact he did not even want Alec to tell his parents that he had brought a friend with him when he had visited this weekend.
"Oh, you're going too far now" said Alec, and Andrew said "No. If you tell Dad that I brought Josh to New York, he will know immediately what that means."
And Andrew told Alec that it was important to him that HE, not Alec, be the one who gave the news about me to their father, and that he wanted to choose the right time and manner to break the news.
"So, your Dad doesn't know, either?" Alec asked me, and I said "No, he does not."
"What are you guys going to do when school's over?" asked Alec.
Alec had no idea that he had stepped into an issue that had been a matter of great concern to both of us.
Andrew tried to sidestep the discussion by saying "Nothing's settled", but Alec did not let Andrew drop the matter that easily and he asked "Are you saying that this is just a school thing, over at the end of term?"
THAT WAS THE VERY WORST THING ALEC COULD HAVE SAID, but he did not realize that.
"We have been thinking and talking and exploring, but we haven't decided yet what to do" Andrew said.
Again, Alec would not drop the issue. "You mean you don't know if this is going to end after school's out, or that you DO have tentative plans to see each other after school is over?' asked Alec.
"We are going to continue to see each other after we both graduate, we just don't know yet how to work it" said Andrew, very quietly and with measured words. Clearly, he was trying to halt Alec's pursuit of this issue.
"You mean a long-distance relationship?" asked Alec.
Andrew paused for a very long time. Alec and I were looking at Andrew very intently, but Lizbeth turned away. Then Lizbeth tried to save the situation: "I think, Alec, that they don't know how they are going to handle this yet, and that they need time to decide what they are going to do. So I think we need to leave them alone on this point until they know more firmly how their plans proceed."
"That doesn't tell me anything at all" said Alec, and Lizbeth interjected "And that's because there isn't anything to tell. Don't you think we should start dinner now?"
And Lizbeth, very effectively, ended that particular inquiry.
We had a very nice dinner Sunday night, and after dinner we played cards for a couple of hours in the kitchen, and we all had a lot of fun playing cards--a wonderful, wonderful time. I think Alec and Lizbeth really like me, or else they both are very good actors. If the latter is true, you should invite them to join the Foundry Players.
While we were playing cards, Alec and Andrew's parents called. They talked to Alec and Lizbeth, and they asked whether Andrew was staying for the weekend, as they know that Andrew generally goes up to NYC and visits Alec and Lizbeth on almost all three-day weekends. They said that yes, Andrew was with them, and Andrew talked to his folks for a while, too.
During the course of the call, Andrew's Dad asked him whether he had booked his flights yet to come home for Spring Break. Andrew said he had not. Andrew's Dad pointed out that he had missed the 14-day advance-purchase deadline if he planned to fly home on Friday night, March 2.
Andrew told his father that he might not be coming home for Spring Break after all. According to Andrew, his father asked "Why not? Are you going to spend that week with Alec and Lizbeth? If so, your mother and I could come to New York to be with you all."
Andrew told his Dad that he was thinking of staying in D.C. for his Spring Break. His father said that he would be very disappointed not to see him during that week, and he wanted to know whether Andrew wanted his Mom and Dad to fly to D.C. to visit HIM that week.
"Let me do this, Dad" Andrew said. "I will call you Wednesday night and talk about Spring Break on Wednesday night. How's that? I just haven't been able to get organized about Spring Break yet."
Then Andrew's Dad asked him whether he had seen me since the last time they had talked [which was last Sunday night's call, the call that occurred in the kitchen of Andrew's apartment--the "cousin" call, if you remember], and Andrew said "Yes, I have seen Joshua since last Sunday". (Alec was smirking at this.)
Then Andrew's Dad asked him what I was doing this weekend, and Andrew answered "I believe Joshua went out of town this weekend" and Alec started snorting, loudly. Lizbeth was shushing him.
Then, according to Andrew, his father asked him "Do you know where Joshua is, because his Dad is trying to call him. He can't locate him, and Joshua's roommates don't know where he is." (I did not take my cell phone with me to New York, Silvio.)
After a very long pause, and with a very painful face, Andrew said "Dad, Joshua's here. He's here with us. I mean he's here with me." And Andrew's Dad told Andrew to ask me to call my Dad. After he passed on this request, Andrew's Dad asked to talk to Alec again and Andrew handed the phone back to Alec.
I don't know what Andrew's Dad said to Alec, because Alec afterward said he didn't want anything specific, but I think Andrew's Dad asked Alec to call him back later. Alec turned away, busying himself in a kitchen cupboard, so that we could not see his face during that final portion of the call.
I did call my Dad right afterward, and my Dad said "Oh, I guess you just got back from your weekend out of town. Where'd you go?"
I told my Dad that I had gone to New York for the weekend and that I was still in New York. "Oh, your roommates said you were out of town and that they didn't know where you had gone, but I see that they tracked you down after all" my Dad said.
Silvio, I did not know what to do: correct my Dad's assumption, or let it pass. After a second, I decided to let it pass.
The reason why my Dad had been trying to reach me was because he had wanted to make arrangements to buy MY flight tickets for my trip home for Spring Break. He said he had been trying to call me since Friday, without success.
Well, Silvio, I had to go through the same darn thing Andrew had just gone through. I told my Dad that I had not decided whether to come home for Spring Break, and that I might remain in D.C. for that week.
My Dad was very surprised, and he asked me why I wanted to stay in D.C. that week (he knows I don't like D.C.). I told him that I just thought that this would be a good opportunity to stay in Washington and see some stuff I had never bothered to see before, and that the Spring Break week would be my last free week in town. My Dad said that he and my Mom really wanted me to come home that week, and that he would call me Thursday night, and convince me to come home, at the very least for a substantial portion of the break period.
My Dad asked me what I had seen in New York. "Nothing, really" I said "Because it has been too cold."
"So what have you been doing?" he asked me.
"Staying indoors" I said.
"Where are you staying?" he asked.
"I'm staying with friends" was my answer.
"I didn't know you had any friends in New York City" my Dad said.
Silvio, I had not a clue what to say, and I tried to say nothing, hoping my Dad would move on.
But my Dad was persistent and did not move on. "Who are these friends in New York?" he asked me.
After a very long pause, I said "I came to New York with Andrew Van Z, and we are staying with the oldest Van Z son and his wife."
My Dad did not say anything for a minute, and then he said "Oh. I see. So you got the message to call me through Mr. Van Z, then, and not through your roommates?" he asked.
"Yes" I said.
"Are you spending a lot of time with the Van Z boy?"
"We see each other quite a bit" I said.
"I'm surprised, because you two seemed so reluctant to call each other."
I didn't say anything, and my Dad didn't say anything, for the longest time.
"Does Mr. Van Z know that you two boys are spending so much time together?" my Dad wanted to know.
"I really wouldn't have any idea" I said.
After another long pause, my Dad said "Well, I understand that Andrew is very reliable and very responsible and very serious and very dependable, so I suspect I don't have to worry about you as long as you are with him. He is supposed to be a very nice boy. Do you enjoy his company?"
"Yes, very much" I said.
After an enormously long pause, my Dad asked "Does Andrew have the same Spring Break you do?"
"No" I said. "His Spring Break is the week before mine."
"Is Andrew going home for Spring Break?" my Dad asked.
"I don't think he has decided yet" I answered. "However, he talked to Mr. Van Z about his Spring Break tonight, and that's when I learned that I should call you."
"You know that Andrew is the apple of his father's eye" said my Dad.
"That doesn't surprise me" I said.
"Is Andrew as handsome as his Dad says he is" my Dad asked.
"I don't know what Mr. Van Z says about Andrew, but, honestly, Dad . . . Andrew is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He makes models on magazine covers look unremarkable" I said.
After a VERY long pause, my Dad asked me "Do you like Andrew, Joshua?"
"Yes, I like him very much" I said.
"Do you like him . . .in more than a friendly way?" my Dad asked.
I really didn't know how to answer this question, Silvio, so, after a long delay, I said "It's too early to talk about anything like that yet, Dad. I hope you understand." This was the best answer I could come up with.
"You're not hiding anything from me, are you, Joshua?" my Dad asked me.
I did NOT know what to say, Silvio, and finally I said "I'm not hiding anything from you, Dad. Thus far there is nothing to hide from you."
"When will you be back in Washington?" my Dad asked.
"Tomorrow" I said.
"Then please call me as soon as you get back" my Dad said.
"We may not get back until late" I said.
"Then call me at the office first thing Tuesday morning" my Dad instructed me.
"I have class between 7:30 and 11:30 on Tuesdays" I told my Dad.
"Then call me at 12:00 Noon Tuesday, which will be 11:00 a.m. my time" said my Dad. "Josh, this is important. I want to talk to you. Seriously. Make sure you call me. All right?"
"I'll call you, Dad" I said.
"12 Noon your time" said my Dad. "Don't forget."
"I won't forget" I said.
Then my Dad said "Good night" and the call ended.
Not long after these calls, Andrew and I went to bed.
We talked about our phone calls with our fathers.
Andrew told me that his Dad was royally pissed at him, and that his Dad had icily ended his talk with Andrew as soon as Andrew let his Dad know that I was with him in New York. His Dad, Andrew said, viewed what he had said on the phone--"I believe that Joshua went out of town for the weekend"--as the equivalent of an outright lie, which it more or less was. Andrew said that what he had told his Dad was a half-truth, technically accurate as far as it went, but designed to conceal and, in his father's view, unworthy of Andrew. Andrew said that his Dad was very disappointed at what he had done and that he had never lied to his Dad before and that he was very ashamed. (Silvio, Andrew worships his father--absolutely worships him.)
"What will your Dad do" I asked Andrew.
"Call Alec and ask him what's going on" Andrew said.
"What will Alec say to your father?" I asked.
"Alec will probably hedge, which will tell my Dad all he needs to know" Andrew said.
"Do you think you should call your Dad?" I asked.
"I was thinking about it" Andrew said. "I'm trying to decide whether to wait until later in the week, when his level of irritation will have decreased. If I call him now, he will just be very icy again with me, and I fear I will not accomplish anything. But maybe I should try to call my Mom, and ask her to work on him."
"I think you should" I said.
"I can do that, Josh, but my father will probably answer the phone, and be very stern with me, and lecture me, before he passes me on to my Mom, at which point there is not much else to say to either of them." said Andrew. "The very fact that you are here tells them something significant, and the fact that I engaged in a half-truth tells them something even more significant. They already know the score, and they believe I am trying to hide this from them."
"Do you think they will call my Mom and Dad and tell them" I asked Andrew.
"No, zero chance" said Andrew. "They would view that as a shocking interference with another family's personal matters. Besides, there's nothing to tell yet."
But Andrew added, after a few seconds "But that may not be true much longer."
"My Dad has guessed the situation" I told Andrew. "He knows I like you, and he wants to know where we are--where we are in terms of our relationship. That's why I am supposed to call him as soon as possible."
"And then what will he say or do?" asked Andrew.
"I don't know" I said. "He may counsel me to hold off anything personal--anything sexual, I mean--until after graduation. He may tell me to go very slow. He may tell me to think about some particular angle, thinking he has bought himself some time. I really don't know what he will say to me."
"Well, I guess both sets of parents know a little more than we necessarily want them to know at this point, but they would learn everything eventually anyway. I don't think this is worth getting into a stew over" said Andrew.
And Andrew drew me to him, and started kissing me all over, and we touched each other all over.
Then the phone rang, and Andrew said "That's my father, calling Alec. If anything significant happens, Alec will let me know."
Andrew asked me whether I needed to be back in Washington at a fixed time tomorrow. I said no. Then he asked me if it was all right to get back to Washington very late in the evening. I said that was fine with me.
"Well, what I'd like to do is to stay until after dinner tomorrow, and leave at 8:00 or 9:00, avoiding most of the traffic, and get back to Washington very, very late at night--like 1:00 or so" he said. "What are your thoughts on that?"
I said that was fine by me. "Where are you going to sleep tomorrow night?" I asked him.
He paused, and then he said "Where are YOU going to sleep tomorrow night?"
I told him I was going to sleep wherever he slept.
He paused again, and then he said "What would happen if you told your roommates you were gay? You know, you live in a house and you have your own bedroom. I can come see you at your house and stay out of everyone else's way. I live in an apartment and share a bedroom. There is no way you can visit me and stay out of everyone else's way. I like you coming to our apartment, whether the guys are there or not, but it will cause problems if you are there all the time. Is there any way I can sleep at your house on sort of a regular basis? Maybe instead of telling your roommates you are gay, you should tell them what my father said: that we are like cousins."
I told Andrew that I wanted him to come over and sleep with me every night, and that I would not tell my roommates anything at all. I told him that they'd see him, and figure it out, but that there was no need for an announcement.
"So you want me to stay at your place tomorrow night, then?" Andrew asked.
"Yes, and every night" I said.
"Sometimes I WILL want you to stay over at my place, too" said Andrew. "But it can't be very often. It would tick the other guys off."
"As long as we're together, I don't care where we sleep" I said. "But I don't want to sleep alone any more. It's too hard for me."
"OK. Then we'll sleep together every night from now on" said Andrew. "And I do want to sleep with you every night--every night for the rest of my life if that were possible. But we have to get up in the mornings!"
I asked him whether he really meant that last part, about sleeping with me every night for the rest of our lives. "Yes, I mean it, with all my heart" was his response.
And then we lay next to each other again, and kissed, and touched each other, until Alec came into the living room.
"The old man is pissed" he said to Andrew. "I think you need to call him. Lizbeth is talking to him right now, trying to tell him that there is nothing going on between you two. Of course, unlike me, she didn't see you guys making out just now. Do either of you need a cigarette?"
"I will call him" said Andrew. "Tell me when Lizbeth gets off the phone." And Andrew went and got his cell phone.
While he was waiting for the all-clear signal from Alec, Andrew asked me whether we should amend our plans and head back to Washington right now.
"That wouldn't do any good, because you could still talk to your Dad in the car" I said.
"Not if I forgot to bring the cell phone with me" he said.
And then Alec came back into the living room, and at the same time Andrew's cell phone rang. It was his father calling.
The call lasted about one minute. Andrew hardly said a word. His father told him he was angrier with him than he had ever been in his entire life, and that he wanted to talk to Andrew at some length, but only when he himself had had time sufficiently to reflect and only when he was sure he would not say anything rash. He told Andrew that he would call him the following evening, but that he wanted Andrew to know, right now, tonight, that he was very, very disappointed in him. And that was the call.
We were unable to get to sleep for another hour or so after that call.
February 20, 2006: The Eighteenth Day I Knew Andrew
Andrew and I got up about 9:00 Monday morning, but we seemed to be in no hurry to get the day started.
We hung around the kitchen and drank coffee and ate breakfast before we got cleaned up, and it was almost 11:00 before we decided that we really needed to get showered and dressed for the day.
Lizbeth did laundry on Monday, and I helped her while Andrew was talking to Alec in the living room.
I told Lizbeth about my episodes of poor behavior, primarily the events of Monday and Monday night, and I asked her what she, a psychiatrist, would make of them, and I asked her what I should do to make sure that such events never happened again.
"Oh, dear" was her first response.
Then she continued "This is not a psychiatric question, this is a question involving romance."
And she told me that what I had experienced on Monday was not dissimilar to what many other young people have experienced in the early stages of love, and that it was not unusual to experience rapid mood extremes between wanting to be with the other person all the time, and finding it almost unbearable to be separated, even for short periods, and finding the pain of love to be so aching that there can exist a tendency to want to possess the other person completely and, if that proves impossible, which it always does, to break off the romance.
She told me that that is what had happened on Monday, based upon what I told her, and that what had happened was not really that unusual. "Of course, you don't want to carry that sort of thing on too far or too long" she said. "If those sorts of things continue to happen, that may be a sign that one or both of you is not ready for or cannot handle a relationship."
I asked her what I should do if something similar happens in the future.
"Talk" she said. "Talk. Andrew will listen. Talk."
I asked her if she thought Andrew really loved me.
"Oh, goodness, I cannot answer that question. Only you can answer that question. You, Joshua, more than anyone, should be able to gauge the extent of his feelings for you. Don't you have some indication what his genuine feelings for you are? Do you think the fact that you are here with us this weekend perhaps says something significant? I suspect that you do" she told me.
I told her that he always asks me to spend time with him, that he has always seemed to enjoy my company, that he seems always to try to take care of my feelings and that he has always been extremely kind to me.
And Lizbeth said "Then, Joshua, you should be able to figure out whether he loves you or not. And I don't think you need any help answering that question. If you need help, the answer, most likely, is 'no', don't you think?"
I told Lizbeth that I loved Andrew the first time I saw him, and I asked her whether she believed in love at first sight.
"Yes and no" she said. "I think it is possible to like a new acquaintance a lot on first sight, but I would not necessarily identify that as love."
She went on. "You know that big lug in the living room? I think I loved him the first time I saw him, but if, on getting to know him, I discovered that he was not an admirable person or a person without the qualities I needed, I believe I would have given him pretty short shrift. That initial fascination would have evaporated very quickly. Whether you call that initial fascination 'love' or something else, I know that it is possible to be completely captivated by a new acquaintance. And of course that initial captivation may, over time, turn into love--that much I would readily admit. That very well may be what people identify as 'love at first sight', don't you think?"
I said that might be true.
I asked Lizbeth whether she had any advice on entering into a relationship with Andrew.
"None at all" was her answer. "But you should know that, like most people, Andrew responds to kindness. And anyone contemplating entering into a relationship should be prepared to be kind to that other person as a matter of course. If routine kindness is difficult or impossible, very likely something is wrong."
I asked Lizbeth whether she thought I was mature enough to enter into a relationship with Andrew.
"Oh, Joshua, that is an impossible question! How could I, or anyone else, POSSIBLY answer that question?"
Then I asked her to let me re-phrase the question, and I asked her whether I possessed the qualities Andrew needed in a friend and partner and lover.
"And I'm supposed to be able to answer this one?" she asked. "Goodness, you must think I have a crystal ball!"
"So what general advice can you give me?" I asked her.
"Be a mensch!" was her reply, and she laughed. "Do you know what a 'mensch' is, Joshua?" she asked me.
"Like a real person, a real down-to-earth person, I think" I said.
"Yes, a human being, with human characteristics" Lizbeth said. "Just be a real person, a real human being, and everything will be fine."
I asked her why no one should ever tell another person that he is only happy when he is with him.
"Well . . ." she said, and she paused. "I think that it is perfectly fine to tell someone that you are at your HAPPIEST when you are with him, if that is true. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that."
And Lizbeth paused, as if she were searching for words. "But to express it the way you did might suggest that the you are UNHAPPY UNLESS you are with him, which, if true, could be very worrisome, for both of you. There is a significant difference between the meanings behind those two different expressions."
And, after pausing, Lizbeth added "And when most people use that expression, I believe that they generally mean it the way I expressed it, not the way you expressed it. It may be a distinction without a difference."
"Well, I have never said that to Andrew, but I have long wanted to. But I meant it in the way you expressed it, not in the way I did" I said.
"Well, I don't think you need to worry about offending Andrew if you say something like that to him."
She paused again, and she said "When you have questions, talk. Talk. Talk to Andrew. I see that he talks to you. I see that he talks to you openly and honestly. I see that he likes to talk to you. So talk to him. I think, between the two of you, you can find answers to most of your questions. I don't sense that Andrew is going to give you the silent treatment, Joshua."
"No, no, he has not" I said. "My problem is that I love him so much that he drives me crazy."
"Then enjoy his company, and be a mensch" Lizbeth told me. "When you sense that things are starting to go off kilter, sit down and talk. Talk it through. Talk through your feelings. That's all you can do."
"Well, we talk a lot" I said.
"And don't make too much of these things" she said. "You both are young, and just starting out. Don't take things so seriously! Both of you take things so seriously. Lighten up!"
After this, we had a very late lunch and, after eating, Andrew and I went out and walked around the neighborhood for an hour and a half. It was a nice neighborhood, and lots of people were out walking around, like us, even though it was still very cold. We walked part of Museum Mile and part of the border of Central Park.
I asked Andrew whether he and Alec had been talking about what to say to his father tonight.
"Actually, no" Andrew said. "I already know what to say to my father."
"Then what were you talking about?" I asked.
"I was telling Alec what I had told you on the drive up here--about tentative longer-term plans, and about telling our parents of tentative longer-term plans, but not until the period between the end of final exams and our graduations. Since he had raised these issues yesterday, and was asking questions, I was trying to answer him and I was asking him whether he had any ideas on both topics."
"Did he?" I asked.
"Not really" Andrew said.
"What are you going to say to your Dad?" I asked.
"First, I will let him ventilate all he needs to, and then I will explain the situation to him" Andrew said.
"Will he be OK with everything?" I asked.
"Yes, I think he will" Andrew answered. "The thing he is upset about is the misleading statement I made to him. And I think I can make him understand why I felt that last night, with everyone around the table listening to the conversation, was not the time or the place to talk to him about you. I think I can make him understand that. At least I hope so."
I asked Andrew whether Alec had said anything about me.
"Yes, we talked about you, of course" said Andrew.
"Does Alec like me?" I asked.
"Yes, he likes you very much. You already know that" Andrew said.
"I thought so, but I just wanted to be sure. Does Alec think I am the right person for you?" I asked.
"Well, he didn't say, precisely, and I didn't ask him" Andrew said. "But I think he observes that we get on well together. He said that we looked 'cute' together. And, actually, he made a point of saying that we 'looked right' for each other and 'seemed suited' to each other, whatever that may mean.
"What he did remark upon, that was interesting, was that he said you were extremely intelligent and clearly came from a conservative background, and he was saying, between the lines, that those two attributes were essential--essential in a lasting friendship for me, that is."
"You mean he was suggesting that you could not be happy with anyone who was not intelligent and not from a good family?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's what he was saying, more or less" Andrew said.
"Do you think what he said was true" I asked Andrew.
"Yes, I do. For good or bad, yes, I think that is true" Andrew said. "And I think he was merely trying to say that that increases the likelihood of our chances for happiness."
"I think your brother is exactly right on that issue" I said.
"Yes, I suspect he is. For BOTH of us, as a matter of fact" Andrew said. "Can you imagine finding happiness in someone with little if any intelligence?"
"It would be a fate worse than death" I said.
"I agree with you wholeheartedly" Andrew said.
Andrew paused for a long time, and then he said "And, Josh, it is good that Alec volunteered those kinds of remarks to me, because that means that those will be the exact kinds of remarks he will make to my Mom and Dad, and my Mom and Dad will be comforted by hearing those sorts of things. In fact, he may have already told them something like that last night, even though he said that he told them nothing whatsoever last night, which I don't quite believe."
And Andrew paused, and then he continued "And that's important to me. If we are together, I can't and don't want to segregate my family life from you. I want my family life and my life with you to be all of the same piece. I don't want to keep my love for you segmented, away and apart from the other parts of my life."
"Well, Andrew, I want to say something to you, something important, along those very lines" I said. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that you permitted me to join you in spending time with members of your family. That has meant a great deal to me. I can't explain why, necessarily, but it has meant a great, great deal to me. The fact that you brought me up here, so openly, so naturally, so happily, almost makes me want to cry. If our Spring Breaks coincided, I would insist upon taking you home and meeting my entire family. I really would."
"It has meant a lot to me, too" Andrew said. "I want you to get to know everyone in my family, and become very close to them and become an essential part, an inherent part, of my family. I think you will love each and every one of them, and I think each and every one of them will love you. Even Rex."
"Who's Rex?" I said. Now, Silvio, this was a name I had never even heard of.
"Our dog."
"Will your Dad ever be a problem?" I asked.
"No, not at all" said Andrew. "He will like you very much. You also have something going for you right up front: he knows your Dad, and he likes and respects your Dad. Plus you have something else, totally unknown to you, already in your favor."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Alex's fiancé visited us at Christmas, and made a horrible impression on everyone in the family. Everyone hated her" Andrew said. "After her disastrous visit, I could take Genghis Khan home and, compared to her, Genghis Khan would make a favorable impression. Maybe I should take you home RIGHT NOW, while those unpleasant memories are still fresh in everyone's minds!" And Andrew laughed and laughed, and Andrew's laugh is so delightful.
"What did she do?" I asked.
"It's a long and funny story, and I'll tell you some other time" Andrew said. "That engagement is on the rocks, and I am happy to say that I provoked her departure from our home."
"You did?" I asked.
"Yes, I did" Andrew said.
"How?" I asked.
"In a nutshell, by pointing out to her how impossible she was, and how impolite and inconsiderate she was to everyone in our family, especially to my mother" Andrew said. "Everyone else in our family but me was afraid to take her on. After nine days of her shenanigans, I had had enough and I took her on."
"And what happened?" I asked.
"She left--that very morning" Andrew said.
"Well, is the engagement still on?" I asked.
"Technically, I think so, but plans for a June wedding have been 86'ed. Alex is just waiting for the right opportunity to officially break it off. In fact, my take is that he is just waiting for her to get wise and break it off herself, which will save him the trouble of a confrontation."
"Does Alex love her?" I asked Andrew.
"No, I truly don't think so" Andrew said. "That is the weirdest part about it."
"Then why did he ask her to marry him?" I asked.
"That was the question we all constantly asked ourselves the entire Christmas vacation" Andrew said, and he laughed.
"Is Alex mad at you about this?" I asked.
"No, not at all. In fact, I think he is secretly pleased" Andrew said, and he laughed again. "I may have saved him a lot of trouble, both in the here and now, and far down the road."
And I asked Andrew if Alex is like Alec.
"Well, yes and no" Andrew said. "Alex is the jokester in the family, and he is probably the least responsible. He IS responsible, don't get me wrong, but he is not as responsible as Alec, and he is not as responsible as I am. In another way, Alex is sort of midway between Alec and me: Alex can be very outgoing, like Alec, and he also can be very withdrawn, like me. And Alex has issues with my Dad."
"Like what?" I asked.
"My Dad gives off these subtle signals that he is sort of disappointed in Alex, and Alex sometimes thinks that there is nothing he can do to please my Dad, no matter what he does. When this happens, he sort of withdraws into himself.
"And, at Christmas, Alex withdrew into himself. He saw what a fool Anne-Sophie was making of herself with the family, and he basically withdrew--he started to ignore her, he ignored my Mom and Dad, he ignored Lizbeth and me and the baby. The only one he did not ignore was Alec, and that's because he was looking to Alec for moral support. The whole thing was sort of sad, but then the minute Anne-Sophie hit the trail, he immediately came out of his shell."
"Do you think Alex will like me?" I asked Andrew.
"Yes, but don't be surprised if he teases you a lot" Andrew said. "He likes to tease, and elicit a reaction."
"Do you think I will like him?" I asked.
"Well, I think so--since you like me and since you like Alec, I think you will probably like Alex, too" Andrew said.
About this time we got back to Alec and Lizbeth's apartment, and Andrew tried to call his father as soon as we got back.
He asked his Dad if they could talk that afternoon, instead of during the evening, since we would be heading back to D.C. that night.
I could hear Andrew's side of the conversation, and so could Alec and Lizbeth. None of us made any effort to leave the room, and allow Andrew to have a private conversation. Alec, in particular, seemed to settle in comfortably, prepared fully to enjoy himself.
For about fifteen minutes, Andrew did very little talking into the phone. He said the same things, over and over, at rare intervals: "Yes, I agree with you", "Yes, you are right", "I could not agree with you more", "I know", "Yes, it does", "I am with you on that point", "I fully understand" and "I do not contest that point".
Then, the conversation started to change, and Andrew began talking a bit more. At first, his answers became slightly more assertive: "I can only go with you half-way on that point, Dad", "I think there's another side to that issue, Dad", “No, on that, Dad, I disagree with you", and "Respectfully, that may be a matter of difference of interpretation".
Finally, Andrew started doing most of the talking, and he told his father that he wanted to make three points.
Andrew's first point to his father was that, if there were to come a time when he needed to tell his Dad about me, he had always had every intent of doing so, and doing so in person, and not over the telephone. That time would be, Andrew said, when things between us (Andrew and I) were "fixed"--that is, when he and I had settled upon an agreement that we would have a relationship and that it was our intent for that relationship to be long-term and permanent. "And nothing is fixed, Dad, and until such time, there is nothing to tell you. We are seeing each other, which you already know, and beyond that there is not much to say at this point. I have only been seeing Joshua for two weeks."
Andrew's second point to his father was that, during Alec and Alex's dating years in college and grad school, his father had had no expectation that they would report their dating activities to him, and that in fact he had exhibited little interest in their dating activities, assuming that they would bring up the matter once they were serious about someone, but not until that time. Andrew very gently pointed out to his Dad that that former standard now seemed to have changed as it applied to him (Andrew), and he sensed that his father somehow now believed that he was more entitled to be kept fully apprised of Andrew's dating activities than was the case for Alec and Alex. (And when Andrew said that to his father, Alec turned to Lizbeth and said "Observe. The master at work.")
Andrew's third point to his father was that last night's phone call occurred when all four of us were playing cards in the kitchen, and that any confession of his dating activities seemed to be out of place at the time--he was not free to talk openly about his personal thoughts and feelings, EVEN IF HE HAD HAD SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT TO SAY, WHICH HE HAD NOT. Andrew said he had thought, at the time, that the best way of handling the call, and his father's questions, was in an offhand manner. It was "not a good platform for personal revelations or private confessions"--and at this point Alec turned to Lizbeth and said "Bravo!"--and, further, Andrew said, that he was reluctant to say very much about me in my own presence--"it was not apt, and it may have been very unsettling, to everybody." (And Alec said to Lizbeth, "Oh, He's GOOD!")
Andrew's father had some responses of his own to these points, and we could hear Andrew answer them.
"Well, Dad, I am not really sure what to say about the fact that you know Josh’s Dad. Does that fact somehow change the requirements at my end? I'm not sure why that should be so."
"But, Dad, I would never knowingly embarrass you. You know I would never do that. I love you very much. Your opinion means more to me than anything in the world. But kids in college go away for the weekend all the time without telling their parents where they're going, and I don't think their parents are generally embarrassed by not knowing where their college-age kids are at all times. I don't think anyone would find that fact particularly remarkable. And as it turned out, you DID know where I was, or at least you were able to guess it easily. You had no problems at all in tracking me down. You knew exactly where to look first."
"Yes, I understand that, Dad, and I totally agree with you. But nothing has happened yet. Until something happens, you are worrying about a non-event. It is hard for me to address your worries about a non-event. How would you have me do that?"
"I understand that very well. Believe me, Dad, I understand that. But you KNOW me, Dad--you know I am very cautious, you know I am not quick to warm to people, you know I am not one to engage in flights of fancy, you know I am not headstrong, you know I don't lack discipline. Your worries there are misplaced. You have nothing to worry about in that regard. If you don't believe me, you should call Alec later in the week and ask him--I think he will tell you that you are worrying about nothing."
"I know. That fact remains. I can't change that. But had I laid out everything to you, upfront, before you started asking questions, wouldn't that have been awfully strange? Wouldn't you have thought that was awfully strange? Wouldn't Joshua have thought that was awfully strange? Wouldn't Alec and Lizbeth have thought that was awfully strange? I think so."
"Well, if it ever comes to that point, Dad, you WILL meet Joshua. If it ever comes to that point, you WILL see a lot of him. But until that point arrives, it might be a little early to discuss getting together, don't you think?"
"Well, I have to think about that. My initial reaction is that it seems premature."
"I have to think about that one, Dad. I would have to think about that question very hard. I don't know what to say right now. I don't know how to answer that question."
And then, when it was time for the call to wrap up, Andrew told his father how much he loved him, and how much he loved his mother, and how badly he felt about what had happened last evening, but how he did not know what he could have done to have handled the situation differently without making the situation possibly even worse. And after Andrew telling his Dad again how much he loved him, the call ended.
No one said anything for the longest time, and then I asked Andrew, very quietly, whether his Mom had been on the phone, too. And Alec, not Andrew, answered me: "No".
And then it was time for dinner.
I learned quite a lot over dinner.
Apparently Andrew can talk to his father in a way that Alec and Alex cannot. I observed how well Andrew could talk to his father but apparently he is alone in this regard.
According to Alec, their father only listens seriously to Andrew, but that he does not listen seriously to Alec or Alex. Both Andrew and Lizbeth, however, said that that was not true. They said that neither Alec nor Alex KNOW HOW to talk to their father, but that Andrew does.
Lizbeth said that Alec and Alex are too confrontational with their father, and too emotional when discussing serious issues with him. By comparison, Andrew, Lizbeth said, will use a respectful and intellectual approach when discussing serious issues with him and that their father responds differently to such an approach.
Apparently their father is putty in the hands of their mother, absolute putty, and their mother can get their father to do anything she wants. When Alec or Alex have a difficulty, they will always go through their mother in approaching their father.
However, there is one thing their mother apparently CANNOT do: she cannot stop an argument between Alec and his father, once started, and she cannot stop an argument between Alex and his father, once started.
But apparently Andrew CAN stop arguments between Alec and Alex and their father, and do so instantly, and Alec said he has never been unable to understand why this is so. Even Lizbeth said she can only theorize why Andrew is the only person who can stop such arguments, but she cannot say why this is so with any certainty.
Alec said it is because Andrew is their parents' favorite child, and the youngest, and that both of their parents' positively dote on him. Lizbeth said it is because Andrew has been sheltered more than the other boys, and that their parents continue to shelter Andrew, and that such sheltering includes not exposing him to emotional conflicts.
Lizbeth also said that, as punishment, Alec and Alex both have always teased Andrew relentlessly, but that they also have followed along in their parents' footsteps and have participated in the doting on Andrew and the sheltering of Andrew--which "they do to this very day" said Lizbeth. She continued "And that has been both a very good and a very bad thing".
I asked Lizbeth how this has been a bad thing. "Well, number one, Andrew positively detests conflict--and yet he's going to be a lawyer? Isn't there a major disconnect there? And yet no one in the family wants to talk about it."
"But he's very analytical, and that will help him get by" offered Alec.
"Number two, Andrew has never been exposed to many of life's hardships" Lizbeth continued "And most persons his age have experienced many, many more hardships than he has. In many ways, Andrew has lived life in a cocoon. That cannot be good for his long-term development--as you may be in a position to find out" she said, looking at me.
And do you know who popped up to answer Lizbeth, Silvio? It was Andrew himself.
"You're wrong about that, Lizbeth. I'm the strongest member in the family, and I just do things in a different way. In that regard, I am like my mother. I have her quiet resolve and her quiet strength."
"I wish I were as confident about that as you are" Lizbeth responded.
"And who was it who knew how to handle Anne-Sophie?" Andrew asked. "I didn't see anyone else attempt to handle that situation."
And, Silvio, they all burst out laughing, uncontrollably, and I told them that they MUST tell me the story of Anne-Sophie.
We hung around the kitchen and drank coffee and ate breakfast before we got cleaned up, and it was almost 11:00 before we decided that we really needed to get showered and dressed for the day.
Lizbeth did laundry on Monday, and I helped her while Andrew was talking to Alec in the living room.
I told Lizbeth about my episodes of poor behavior, primarily the events of Monday and Monday night, and I asked her what she, a psychiatrist, would make of them, and I asked her what I should do to make sure that such events never happened again.
"Oh, dear" was her first response.
Then she continued "This is not a psychiatric question, this is a question involving romance."
And she told me that what I had experienced on Monday was not dissimilar to what many other young people have experienced in the early stages of love, and that it was not unusual to experience rapid mood extremes between wanting to be with the other person all the time, and finding it almost unbearable to be separated, even for short periods, and finding the pain of love to be so aching that there can exist a tendency to want to possess the other person completely and, if that proves impossible, which it always does, to break off the romance.
She told me that that is what had happened on Monday, based upon what I told her, and that what had happened was not really that unusual. "Of course, you don't want to carry that sort of thing on too far or too long" she said. "If those sorts of things continue to happen, that may be a sign that one or both of you is not ready for or cannot handle a relationship."
I asked her what I should do if something similar happens in the future.
"Talk" she said. "Talk. Andrew will listen. Talk."
I asked her if she thought Andrew really loved me.
"Oh, goodness, I cannot answer that question. Only you can answer that question. You, Joshua, more than anyone, should be able to gauge the extent of his feelings for you. Don't you have some indication what his genuine feelings for you are? Do you think the fact that you are here with us this weekend perhaps says something significant? I suspect that you do" she told me.
I told her that he always asks me to spend time with him, that he has always seemed to enjoy my company, that he seems always to try to take care of my feelings and that he has always been extremely kind to me.
And Lizbeth said "Then, Joshua, you should be able to figure out whether he loves you or not. And I don't think you need any help answering that question. If you need help, the answer, most likely, is 'no', don't you think?"
I told Lizbeth that I loved Andrew the first time I saw him, and I asked her whether she believed in love at first sight.
"Yes and no" she said. "I think it is possible to like a new acquaintance a lot on first sight, but I would not necessarily identify that as love."
She went on. "You know that big lug in the living room? I think I loved him the first time I saw him, but if, on getting to know him, I discovered that he was not an admirable person or a person without the qualities I needed, I believe I would have given him pretty short shrift. That initial fascination would have evaporated very quickly. Whether you call that initial fascination 'love' or something else, I know that it is possible to be completely captivated by a new acquaintance. And of course that initial captivation may, over time, turn into love--that much I would readily admit. That very well may be what people identify as 'love at first sight', don't you think?"
I said that might be true.
I asked Lizbeth whether she had any advice on entering into a relationship with Andrew.
"None at all" was her answer. "But you should know that, like most people, Andrew responds to kindness. And anyone contemplating entering into a relationship should be prepared to be kind to that other person as a matter of course. If routine kindness is difficult or impossible, very likely something is wrong."
I asked Lizbeth whether she thought I was mature enough to enter into a relationship with Andrew.
"Oh, Joshua, that is an impossible question! How could I, or anyone else, POSSIBLY answer that question?"
Then I asked her to let me re-phrase the question, and I asked her whether I possessed the qualities Andrew needed in a friend and partner and lover.
"And I'm supposed to be able to answer this one?" she asked. "Goodness, you must think I have a crystal ball!"
"So what general advice can you give me?" I asked her.
"Be a mensch!" was her reply, and she laughed. "Do you know what a 'mensch' is, Joshua?" she asked me.
"Like a real person, a real down-to-earth person, I think" I said.
"Yes, a human being, with human characteristics" Lizbeth said. "Just be a real person, a real human being, and everything will be fine."
I asked her why no one should ever tell another person that he is only happy when he is with him.
"Well . . ." she said, and she paused. "I think that it is perfectly fine to tell someone that you are at your HAPPIEST when you are with him, if that is true. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that."
And Lizbeth paused, as if she were searching for words. "But to express it the way you did might suggest that the you are UNHAPPY UNLESS you are with him, which, if true, could be very worrisome, for both of you. There is a significant difference between the meanings behind those two different expressions."
And, after pausing, Lizbeth added "And when most people use that expression, I believe that they generally mean it the way I expressed it, not the way you expressed it. It may be a distinction without a difference."
"Well, I have never said that to Andrew, but I have long wanted to. But I meant it in the way you expressed it, not in the way I did" I said.
"Well, I don't think you need to worry about offending Andrew if you say something like that to him."
She paused again, and she said "When you have questions, talk. Talk. Talk to Andrew. I see that he talks to you. I see that he talks to you openly and honestly. I see that he likes to talk to you. So talk to him. I think, between the two of you, you can find answers to most of your questions. I don't sense that Andrew is going to give you the silent treatment, Joshua."
"No, no, he has not" I said. "My problem is that I love him so much that he drives me crazy."
"Then enjoy his company, and be a mensch" Lizbeth told me. "When you sense that things are starting to go off kilter, sit down and talk. Talk it through. Talk through your feelings. That's all you can do."
"Well, we talk a lot" I said.
"And don't make too much of these things" she said. "You both are young, and just starting out. Don't take things so seriously! Both of you take things so seriously. Lighten up!"
After this, we had a very late lunch and, after eating, Andrew and I went out and walked around the neighborhood for an hour and a half. It was a nice neighborhood, and lots of people were out walking around, like us, even though it was still very cold. We walked part of Museum Mile and part of the border of Central Park.
I asked Andrew whether he and Alec had been talking about what to say to his father tonight.
"Actually, no" Andrew said. "I already know what to say to my father."
"Then what were you talking about?" I asked.
"I was telling Alec what I had told you on the drive up here--about tentative longer-term plans, and about telling our parents of tentative longer-term plans, but not until the period between the end of final exams and our graduations. Since he had raised these issues yesterday, and was asking questions, I was trying to answer him and I was asking him whether he had any ideas on both topics."
"Did he?" I asked.
"Not really" Andrew said.
"What are you going to say to your Dad?" I asked.
"First, I will let him ventilate all he needs to, and then I will explain the situation to him" Andrew said.
"Will he be OK with everything?" I asked.
"Yes, I think he will" Andrew answered. "The thing he is upset about is the misleading statement I made to him. And I think I can make him understand why I felt that last night, with everyone around the table listening to the conversation, was not the time or the place to talk to him about you. I think I can make him understand that. At least I hope so."
I asked Andrew whether Alec had said anything about me.
"Yes, we talked about you, of course" said Andrew.
"Does Alec like me?" I asked.
"Yes, he likes you very much. You already know that" Andrew said.
"I thought so, but I just wanted to be sure. Does Alec think I am the right person for you?" I asked.
"Well, he didn't say, precisely, and I didn't ask him" Andrew said. "But I think he observes that we get on well together. He said that we looked 'cute' together. And, actually, he made a point of saying that we 'looked right' for each other and 'seemed suited' to each other, whatever that may mean.
"What he did remark upon, that was interesting, was that he said you were extremely intelligent and clearly came from a conservative background, and he was saying, between the lines, that those two attributes were essential--essential in a lasting friendship for me, that is."
"You mean he was suggesting that you could not be happy with anyone who was not intelligent and not from a good family?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's what he was saying, more or less" Andrew said.
"Do you think what he said was true" I asked Andrew.
"Yes, I do. For good or bad, yes, I think that is true" Andrew said. "And I think he was merely trying to say that that increases the likelihood of our chances for happiness."
"I think your brother is exactly right on that issue" I said.
"Yes, I suspect he is. For BOTH of us, as a matter of fact" Andrew said. "Can you imagine finding happiness in someone with little if any intelligence?"
"It would be a fate worse than death" I said.
"I agree with you wholeheartedly" Andrew said.
Andrew paused for a long time, and then he said "And, Josh, it is good that Alec volunteered those kinds of remarks to me, because that means that those will be the exact kinds of remarks he will make to my Mom and Dad, and my Mom and Dad will be comforted by hearing those sorts of things. In fact, he may have already told them something like that last night, even though he said that he told them nothing whatsoever last night, which I don't quite believe."
And Andrew paused, and then he continued "And that's important to me. If we are together, I can't and don't want to segregate my family life from you. I want my family life and my life with you to be all of the same piece. I don't want to keep my love for you segmented, away and apart from the other parts of my life."
"Well, Andrew, I want to say something to you, something important, along those very lines" I said. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that you permitted me to join you in spending time with members of your family. That has meant a great deal to me. I can't explain why, necessarily, but it has meant a great, great deal to me. The fact that you brought me up here, so openly, so naturally, so happily, almost makes me want to cry. If our Spring Breaks coincided, I would insist upon taking you home and meeting my entire family. I really would."
"It has meant a lot to me, too" Andrew said. "I want you to get to know everyone in my family, and become very close to them and become an essential part, an inherent part, of my family. I think you will love each and every one of them, and I think each and every one of them will love you. Even Rex."
"Who's Rex?" I said. Now, Silvio, this was a name I had never even heard of.
"Our dog."
"Will your Dad ever be a problem?" I asked.
"No, not at all" said Andrew. "He will like you very much. You also have something going for you right up front: he knows your Dad, and he likes and respects your Dad. Plus you have something else, totally unknown to you, already in your favor."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Alex's fiancé visited us at Christmas, and made a horrible impression on everyone in the family. Everyone hated her" Andrew said. "After her disastrous visit, I could take Genghis Khan home and, compared to her, Genghis Khan would make a favorable impression. Maybe I should take you home RIGHT NOW, while those unpleasant memories are still fresh in everyone's minds!" And Andrew laughed and laughed, and Andrew's laugh is so delightful.
"What did she do?" I asked.
"It's a long and funny story, and I'll tell you some other time" Andrew said. "That engagement is on the rocks, and I am happy to say that I provoked her departure from our home."
"You did?" I asked.
"Yes, I did" Andrew said.
"How?" I asked.
"In a nutshell, by pointing out to her how impossible she was, and how impolite and inconsiderate she was to everyone in our family, especially to my mother" Andrew said. "Everyone else in our family but me was afraid to take her on. After nine days of her shenanigans, I had had enough and I took her on."
"And what happened?" I asked.
"She left--that very morning" Andrew said.
"Well, is the engagement still on?" I asked.
"Technically, I think so, but plans for a June wedding have been 86'ed. Alex is just waiting for the right opportunity to officially break it off. In fact, my take is that he is just waiting for her to get wise and break it off herself, which will save him the trouble of a confrontation."
"Does Alex love her?" I asked Andrew.
"No, I truly don't think so" Andrew said. "That is the weirdest part about it."
"Then why did he ask her to marry him?" I asked.
"That was the question we all constantly asked ourselves the entire Christmas vacation" Andrew said, and he laughed.
"Is Alex mad at you about this?" I asked.
"No, not at all. In fact, I think he is secretly pleased" Andrew said, and he laughed again. "I may have saved him a lot of trouble, both in the here and now, and far down the road."
And I asked Andrew if Alex is like Alec.
"Well, yes and no" Andrew said. "Alex is the jokester in the family, and he is probably the least responsible. He IS responsible, don't get me wrong, but he is not as responsible as Alec, and he is not as responsible as I am. In another way, Alex is sort of midway between Alec and me: Alex can be very outgoing, like Alec, and he also can be very withdrawn, like me. And Alex has issues with my Dad."
"Like what?" I asked.
"My Dad gives off these subtle signals that he is sort of disappointed in Alex, and Alex sometimes thinks that there is nothing he can do to please my Dad, no matter what he does. When this happens, he sort of withdraws into himself.
"And, at Christmas, Alex withdrew into himself. He saw what a fool Anne-Sophie was making of herself with the family, and he basically withdrew--he started to ignore her, he ignored my Mom and Dad, he ignored Lizbeth and me and the baby. The only one he did not ignore was Alec, and that's because he was looking to Alec for moral support. The whole thing was sort of sad, but then the minute Anne-Sophie hit the trail, he immediately came out of his shell."
"Do you think Alex will like me?" I asked Andrew.
"Yes, but don't be surprised if he teases you a lot" Andrew said. "He likes to tease, and elicit a reaction."
"Do you think I will like him?" I asked.
"Well, I think so--since you like me and since you like Alec, I think you will probably like Alex, too" Andrew said.
About this time we got back to Alec and Lizbeth's apartment, and Andrew tried to call his father as soon as we got back.
He asked his Dad if they could talk that afternoon, instead of during the evening, since we would be heading back to D.C. that night.
I could hear Andrew's side of the conversation, and so could Alec and Lizbeth. None of us made any effort to leave the room, and allow Andrew to have a private conversation. Alec, in particular, seemed to settle in comfortably, prepared fully to enjoy himself.
For about fifteen minutes, Andrew did very little talking into the phone. He said the same things, over and over, at rare intervals: "Yes, I agree with you", "Yes, you are right", "I could not agree with you more", "I know", "Yes, it does", "I am with you on that point", "I fully understand" and "I do not contest that point".
Then, the conversation started to change, and Andrew began talking a bit more. At first, his answers became slightly more assertive: "I can only go with you half-way on that point, Dad", "I think there's another side to that issue, Dad", “No, on that, Dad, I disagree with you", and "Respectfully, that may be a matter of difference of interpretation".
Finally, Andrew started doing most of the talking, and he told his father that he wanted to make three points.
Andrew's first point to his father was that, if there were to come a time when he needed to tell his Dad about me, he had always had every intent of doing so, and doing so in person, and not over the telephone. That time would be, Andrew said, when things between us (Andrew and I) were "fixed"--that is, when he and I had settled upon an agreement that we would have a relationship and that it was our intent for that relationship to be long-term and permanent. "And nothing is fixed, Dad, and until such time, there is nothing to tell you. We are seeing each other, which you already know, and beyond that there is not much to say at this point. I have only been seeing Joshua for two weeks."
Andrew's second point to his father was that, during Alec and Alex's dating years in college and grad school, his father had had no expectation that they would report their dating activities to him, and that in fact he had exhibited little interest in their dating activities, assuming that they would bring up the matter once they were serious about someone, but not until that time. Andrew very gently pointed out to his Dad that that former standard now seemed to have changed as it applied to him (Andrew), and he sensed that his father somehow now believed that he was more entitled to be kept fully apprised of Andrew's dating activities than was the case for Alec and Alex. (And when Andrew said that to his father, Alec turned to Lizbeth and said "Observe. The master at work.")
Andrew's third point to his father was that last night's phone call occurred when all four of us were playing cards in the kitchen, and that any confession of his dating activities seemed to be out of place at the time--he was not free to talk openly about his personal thoughts and feelings, EVEN IF HE HAD HAD SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT TO SAY, WHICH HE HAD NOT. Andrew said he had thought, at the time, that the best way of handling the call, and his father's questions, was in an offhand manner. It was "not a good platform for personal revelations or private confessions"--and at this point Alec turned to Lizbeth and said "Bravo!"--and, further, Andrew said, that he was reluctant to say very much about me in my own presence--"it was not apt, and it may have been very unsettling, to everybody." (And Alec said to Lizbeth, "Oh, He's GOOD!")
Andrew's father had some responses of his own to these points, and we could hear Andrew answer them.
"Well, Dad, I am not really sure what to say about the fact that you know Josh’s Dad. Does that fact somehow change the requirements at my end? I'm not sure why that should be so."
"But, Dad, I would never knowingly embarrass you. You know I would never do that. I love you very much. Your opinion means more to me than anything in the world. But kids in college go away for the weekend all the time without telling their parents where they're going, and I don't think their parents are generally embarrassed by not knowing where their college-age kids are at all times. I don't think anyone would find that fact particularly remarkable. And as it turned out, you DID know where I was, or at least you were able to guess it easily. You had no problems at all in tracking me down. You knew exactly where to look first."
"Yes, I understand that, Dad, and I totally agree with you. But nothing has happened yet. Until something happens, you are worrying about a non-event. It is hard for me to address your worries about a non-event. How would you have me do that?"
"I understand that very well. Believe me, Dad, I understand that. But you KNOW me, Dad--you know I am very cautious, you know I am not quick to warm to people, you know I am not one to engage in flights of fancy, you know I am not headstrong, you know I don't lack discipline. Your worries there are misplaced. You have nothing to worry about in that regard. If you don't believe me, you should call Alec later in the week and ask him--I think he will tell you that you are worrying about nothing."
"I know. That fact remains. I can't change that. But had I laid out everything to you, upfront, before you started asking questions, wouldn't that have been awfully strange? Wouldn't you have thought that was awfully strange? Wouldn't Joshua have thought that was awfully strange? Wouldn't Alec and Lizbeth have thought that was awfully strange? I think so."
"Well, if it ever comes to that point, Dad, you WILL meet Joshua. If it ever comes to that point, you WILL see a lot of him. But until that point arrives, it might be a little early to discuss getting together, don't you think?"
"Well, I have to think about that. My initial reaction is that it seems premature."
"I have to think about that one, Dad. I would have to think about that question very hard. I don't know what to say right now. I don't know how to answer that question."
And then, when it was time for the call to wrap up, Andrew told his father how much he loved him, and how much he loved his mother, and how badly he felt about what had happened last evening, but how he did not know what he could have done to have handled the situation differently without making the situation possibly even worse. And after Andrew telling his Dad again how much he loved him, the call ended.
No one said anything for the longest time, and then I asked Andrew, very quietly, whether his Mom had been on the phone, too. And Alec, not Andrew, answered me: "No".
And then it was time for dinner.
I learned quite a lot over dinner.
Apparently Andrew can talk to his father in a way that Alec and Alex cannot. I observed how well Andrew could talk to his father but apparently he is alone in this regard.
According to Alec, their father only listens seriously to Andrew, but that he does not listen seriously to Alec or Alex. Both Andrew and Lizbeth, however, said that that was not true. They said that neither Alec nor Alex KNOW HOW to talk to their father, but that Andrew does.
Lizbeth said that Alec and Alex are too confrontational with their father, and too emotional when discussing serious issues with him. By comparison, Andrew, Lizbeth said, will use a respectful and intellectual approach when discussing serious issues with him and that their father responds differently to such an approach.
Apparently their father is putty in the hands of their mother, absolute putty, and their mother can get their father to do anything she wants. When Alec or Alex have a difficulty, they will always go through their mother in approaching their father.
However, there is one thing their mother apparently CANNOT do: she cannot stop an argument between Alec and his father, once started, and she cannot stop an argument between Alex and his father, once started.
But apparently Andrew CAN stop arguments between Alec and Alex and their father, and do so instantly, and Alec said he has never been unable to understand why this is so. Even Lizbeth said she can only theorize why Andrew is the only person who can stop such arguments, but she cannot say why this is so with any certainty.
Alec said it is because Andrew is their parents' favorite child, and the youngest, and that both of their parents' positively dote on him. Lizbeth said it is because Andrew has been sheltered more than the other boys, and that their parents continue to shelter Andrew, and that such sheltering includes not exposing him to emotional conflicts.
Lizbeth also said that, as punishment, Alec and Alex both have always teased Andrew relentlessly, but that they also have followed along in their parents' footsteps and have participated in the doting on Andrew and the sheltering of Andrew--which "they do to this very day" said Lizbeth. She continued "And that has been both a very good and a very bad thing".
I asked Lizbeth how this has been a bad thing. "Well, number one, Andrew positively detests conflict--and yet he's going to be a lawyer? Isn't there a major disconnect there? And yet no one in the family wants to talk about it."
"But he's very analytical, and that will help him get by" offered Alec.
"Number two, Andrew has never been exposed to many of life's hardships" Lizbeth continued "And most persons his age have experienced many, many more hardships than he has. In many ways, Andrew has lived life in a cocoon. That cannot be good for his long-term development--as you may be in a position to find out" she said, looking at me.
And do you know who popped up to answer Lizbeth, Silvio? It was Andrew himself.
"You're wrong about that, Lizbeth. I'm the strongest member in the family, and I just do things in a different way. In that regard, I am like my mother. I have her quiet resolve and her quiet strength."
"I wish I were as confident about that as you are" Lizbeth responded.
"And who was it who knew how to handle Anne-Sophie?" Andrew asked. "I didn't see anyone else attempt to handle that situation."
And, Silvio, they all burst out laughing, uncontrollably, and I told them that they MUST tell me the story of Anne-Sophie.
February 20, 2006: The Eighteenth Day I Knew Andrew, Part Two
Anne-Sophie's Christmas stay with the Van Z's was not a happy one--for all parties, as it turned out, except perhaps for Andrew, who almost immediately, on the very first day, started to make fun of her, and to her face.
To make a long story short, Anne-Sophie was an absolute pain from the moment her plane landed in Minneapolis.
All of the family members arrived on the same early afternoon--coming in from New York (Alec and Lizbeth and Tim), Washington (Andrew), Denver (Alex) and Los Angeles (Anne-Sophie) so that Mr. and Mrs. Van Z could pick up everybody with one trip to the airport in two cars.
Mrs. Van Z had prepared a nice lunch for everyone, and it was waiting for them at home, but Anne-Sophie insisted upon being taken to a restaurant for lunch, even after being told that a nice lunch awaited her at home. Alec and Lizbeth could not go to a restaurant, what with the baby, so Andrew drove Alec and Lizbeth and Tim home in one car and Mr. and Mrs. Van Z and Alex and Anne-Sophie went to a restaurant in the other car so as to please Anne-Sophie.
Anne-Sophie embarrassed them, exceedingly, at the restaurant, complaining nonstop about the food and the service. Mr. Van Z said it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, and that they should never have gone to a restaurant where people knew them.
When they got home, Mrs. Van Z showed Anne-Sophie to her room, where there was a fresh-flower arrangement for her. "Get these out of here--I might have a reaction!" Anne-Sophie shrieked, and Mrs. Van Z had to get rid of the flowers. Alec, Lizbeth and Andrew all knew how to mimic Anne-Sophie, and they re-enacted this scene with glee.
Then Anne-Sophie complained about the Christmas tree--"I might have a reaction!"--and announced that she could not go into the living room unless they got rid of it. "Great!" said Andrew. "Then we'll call this the safe zone!" Every time Anne-Sophie was in the downstairs hall and passed by the living room, she held her head back and dramatically refused to breathe, so Andrew started doing the same thing whenever he passed by the living room, too. And Alec and Lizbeth and Andrew all imitated Anne-Sophie doing her "I dare not breath" gestures.
After her first night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her room--she could not sleep because she could hear the grandfather clock in the hall ticking outside her bedroom. Consequently, Mrs. Van Z changed her room for her.
After her second night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her second room, either--she could hear the wind outside blowing against the dormer windows. Mrs. Van Z, once again, changed her room for her.
After her third night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her third room, either (which was right across the hall from Andrew's room)--because Andrew made "strange noises" at night.
Alas, by this point, Anne-Sophie had gone through all the available rooms, and Mrs. Van Z told Anne-Sophie that she had nothing more to offer her. Anne-Sophie herself suggested that she be given the room being used by Alec and Lizbeth and Tim--which apparently she had wanted all along for some reason, or so Andrew thought--and Mrs. Van Z was on the verge of turning this room over to her, too, when Mr. Van Z stepped in and told Anne-Sophie that, if she could not accommodate herself to one of the three available rooms, he would take her to a hotel. Andrew's suggestion was that Anne-Sophie move to the basement--no ticking clocks, no dormer windows, no "strange noises"--and he asked her if she needed any help packing up her things for the move to the basement.
Anne-Sophie refused to help around the house, and she showed no interest at all in the baby. She never held the baby once. She would only speak to Mrs. Van Z when she wanted something, and she never uttered a syllable to Lizbeth the entire time she was there. Andrew said that was because Anne-Sophie knew that Lizbeth was a psychiatrist, and that Anne-Sophie feared that Lizbeth would officially declare her "wacko" on the spot.
Anne-Sophie did not want Alex to leave the house, so Alec and Alex and Andrew could not go visit their friends or go play basketball or go swimming or go anywhere or do anything. On the couple of occasions on which Alex did leave the house without her, Anne-Sophie threw a fit.
Anne-Sophie did not like the food, and was always asking that special things be prepared for her. Anne-Sophie would get up late, and come downstairs around lunchtime, and then want breakfast. On the third morning, at lunchtime, she told Andrew she wanted him to prepare her some breakfast. "What do you want?" he asked. "Anything with lime in it" she answered. "Great! What about scrambled eggs with lime--I can do that!" he said.
On Christmas morning, Anne-Sophie stayed in the hall while everyone else was in the living room opening presents. During this time, Andrew kept making funny sneezing noises until his Dad told him to stop it, but his Dad was laughing, all the same.
On Christmas day, for Christmas dinner, Anne-Sophie looked at the huge spread of food and said that she feared she would not be able to find anything she could eat. Andrew told her "Well, let's see--there are only about seventy things here for you to choose from. If you can't find something you can eat here, sweetheart, I can rustle you up a bowl of Science Diet!"
On Christmas night, around 8:00 p.m., Anne-Sophie told Alex that she was hungry, and that she wanted to go out to a restaurant and get something to eat--"maybe get some Thai food".
Andrew told her "Today is Christmas Day. It is 8:00 o'clock at night on December 25. This is Minneapolis, Minnesota. How many Thai restaurants do you think will be open in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Christmas night?"
"Well, maybe we could just do carryout, then" Anne-Sophie ventured.
"And these restaurants are going to be open for carryout business only, on Christmas Night?" Andrew asked her. "Knock, knock, is anybody home? Anybody at all in there?" And he knocked on his head.
On December 26, Anne-Sophie told Alex, at lunch, how disappointing she had found Christmas day. "It was not at all what I expected" she said. "And what, then, did you expect?" asked Andrew. "I thought we would go golfing or something, and then have a nice lunch somewhere" Anne-Sophie said. "Well, tell you what" said Andrew. "Why don't you let me drop you off at the golf club right now--it's 22 degrees, and there are four inches of snow on the ground--and I'll come back and pick you up in five hours. How's that? Ready to go?"
One night the men were all watching a basketball game downstairs in the family room, and Anne-Sophie was watching, too, because she always stayed near Alex. She asked Alex to take her somewhere. "Like where?" he asked. "Maybe we could go to a modern-dance performance?" she asked. Andrew's interjection was "Great! Minneapolis is a hotbed of modern-dance activity at Christmas time. What a great idea!"
On another night, Anne-Sophie complained that she found the conversation boring, and she asked everyone to talk about something interesting. Andrew said "Great! Let's get started now on that conversation we've been saving for years, the dialectics of Kierkegaard! You go first, Anne-Sophie! You're the guest!"
Anyway, no one else but Andrew would take on Anne-Sophie. The culmination of this story was at New Year's, at 6:15 in the morning, "when Andrew drove her out", as Alec and Lizbeth said.
All throughout the holiday, to spare his mother, Andrew had got up at 5:00, ran the dog to get him taken care of, made coffee for everyone and took the coffee upstairs, along with the newspapers, and laid this stuff out on a chest in the upstairs hall for everyone to access as they got up. Then Andrew would go back downstairs to be ready to make breakfast for everyone as they assembled, one by one, in the kitchen.
On that morning, he had taken the coffee and newspapers upstairs, and he noticed Anne-Sophie poking around inside a hall closet.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he had asked her.
"Yes" she said. "First, what ARE those strange noises you make in the middle of the night?"
"You probably heard Rex yawning. As I told you, he sleeps in my room. Dogs make yawning noises at night, even while they sleep."
"Well, I listened outside your door for over an hour last night, trying to figure out what those noises were, and they did not sound like dog noises to me."
"You stood outside my door for over an hour last night, listening for noises? Doesn't that strike you as a rather odd thing to do?"
"Well, I was trying to figure out what those noises were."
"And is that why you are looking in the closet? Strange noises in there, too?"
"No, I am trying to find some soap. I don't like your soap."
"You don't like our soap? What's wrong with our soap?"
"I don't like it."
"What kind of soap were you looking for?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Well, let's see here, I see that we have Ivory, Safeguard, Zest and Irish Spring. You can't use any of this?"
"No, I need special soap."
"So what kind of soap do you need?"
"I don't know, but I can't use any of this."
"I can't believe you. You don't like anything. You don't like your room, you don't like our food, you don't like our Christmas tree, you don't like our friends, you don't like our relatives, you don't like our pastor, you don't like our dog, you don't like our Christmas presents, you don't like Alex to leave the house, you don't like anyone to watch television, you won't talk to anyone but you say our conversations are boring, you won't lift a finger to help out, you treat my mother like a servant, you pretend the baby doesn't exist, you haven't said one word to Lizbeth since you walked in the door. And now you don't like our soap!
"IF YOU NEEDED SPECIAL SOAP, YOU SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT IT YOURSELF OR AT LEAST TOLD US IN ADVANCE SO WE COULD GET YOU SOME! NOW WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? BECAUSE I'M GOING TO GO TO THE STORE AND GET IT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW! IT IS 6:15, AND THE STORE OPENED AT 6:00, AND I AM GOING TO GET YOU YOUR GOD-DAMN SOAP RIGHT NOW! SO TELL ME, YOU STUPID GIRL, WHAT KIND OF SOAP IS IT YOU NEED?"
Well, Andrew woke everyone up--everyone opened their bedroom doors and came out into the hall to see what was going on, and Anne-Sophie started crying and went back into her room.
And Anne-Sophie left for the airport later than morning, three days earlier than scheduled, "because Andrew had been so mean to her and ruined her Christmas holiday" at least in Lizbeth's funny and snide way of saying it.
So, Silvio, I learned what Andrew meant when he had told me that Genghis Khan would make a favorable impression upon his family after the dreaded Anne-Sophie. And all three of them loved telling different facets of this story. The way they told the story was absolutely hysterical, and clearly "The Tale Of Anne-Sophie" is now one of their favorite "family" stories--I could easily see that. I wish that I had been there at Christmas to observe it all myself.
After dinner, we had to make preparations to get on the road back to Washington, so the first thing we both did was to hold the baby for a bit, one last time, and we both kissed him. We got our stuff together and, while we were doing so, Alec asked Andrew to come with him for a moment. They went into Alec and Lizbeth's bedroom for a few minutes, and then they both came out.
Alec and Lizbeth both told us what a wonderful weekend they had had, and they said we both were much better conversationalists than Tim, which they welcomed. They said we had to come back soon, and see something of New York next time. And when we finally left, Lizbeth kissed and hugged both Andrew and me, and Alec hugged me--the first time he had given me a hug--and he hugged and kissed Andrew over and over. And we left.
And I was very glad that we had spent our three-day weekend in New York. I think that was the best choice for both of us.
On the way home, I asked Andrew what Alec had said to him when they were alone.
He said that Alec had wanted to know what their Dad said on the phone, and that Alec had wanted to know how to respond to certain questions he suspected their Dad would direct to Alec.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Well, Alec had already guessed what our Dad had said" Andrew said "And he just wanted confirmation of that."
"So what did your Dad say?" I asked.
"Well, you can probably guess most of it" Andrew said "From my answers to him."
"And what about what I cannot guess?" I asked.
"He asked me to withhold any intimacy, until he and I talked, in person" Andrew said.
"He really asked you that?" I asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"And Alec guessed that?" I asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"Why did he ask that?" I asked.
"Oh, it could be for several reasons" Andrew answered. "It could be because he knows your Dad, it could be because he thinks I am too young or too unprepared, it could be because HE is not prepared for this, it could be because he thinks he needs to meet you first, it could be . . .heaven only knows."
"So what did you tell him?" I asked.
"I told him I truly was not prepared to answer that question, and that I would have to think about it" Andrew said.
"So, what do you mean by that, Andrew?" I asked.
"Well, I was trying to tell him . . .I told him I couldn't give him an answer . . .I told him I needed to think before I could provide him with an answer to that question . . .That's all."
"So you are awaiting for your Dad's Seal Of Approval to carry on, and your Dad's Seal Of Approval of me, before we do anything--is that what you are saying?" I asked.
Andrew looked at me, and he looked somewhat hurt, and I immediately said "Oh, Andrew, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
"Joshua, I don't know what I'm going to do. You heard what I said to him. I made no representations, no representations of any sort."
Andrew did not say anything for a few minutes, and then he said "I, for one, will be curious to see what YOUR Dad says tomorrow. Aren't you?"
"Sure" I said.
"Well, I am going to make a prediction, right now" said Andrew.
"And your prediction is . . .?"
"That our fathers will speak by phone tomorrow morning, at their offices, before you call your Dad. That they will sound each other out, indirectly, to find out what the other knows or suspects. That when you call your Dad at Noon, he will ask you to withhold intimacy until after Spring Break, and that he will insist that you return to Oklahoma for Spring Break. That tomorrow evening I shall receive a phone call from my Dad and that he will . . .not insist, but very, very strongly encourage . . .that I delay intimacy until after Spring Break, and he will very strongly encourage me to return to Minnesota for Spring Break. That is my prediction . . .And, further . . .in my case alone . . .I believe that my Dad will pressure me to agree not to be intimate with you until . . .I talk to him about it, face to face . . .and until he meets you . . .and perhaps until your father meets me, which my Dad may insist upon. Of course, on that last point, that would require your father's full complicity. And if that happens, then that means, definitely, that they ARE talking to each other, and in great detail, and not in indirect generalities."
"Andrew, I don't think they would go that far" I said.
"Well, you know your Dad, and I don't" he said. "I could be wrong. But I know my Dad . . .and I think that is what he is shooting for."
"Why would he do that?" I asked.
"Because he knows that I am returning to live at home after June 1, and he believes, by buying time, that I will return home and live at home forever and ever, with him and my Mom, guarded from the cares of the world, until I am too old to have sex, at which point it would not matter to him any more, and then he could die peacefully, with his mind at rest. That is what is in his mind."
"And you are going to let him get away with that?" I asked.
"I never said that" Andrew said. "I made a prediction. You asked me what I thought would happen, and I told you what I thought would happen."
"So WHAT are you going to say to your father if he DOES ask those things?" I asked.
"Well, Josh, I am thinking about that as we speak. And I think I know what I am going to say to him."
"Well . . ." I said.
"First, on answering his question, I think I am going to have to tell him, with all due respect, that I am prepared to have intimacy right now, and that if it is of such great importance to him to talk to me face-to-face prior to any intimacy between us, that he had better make flight arrangements as soon as possible and get to Washington in a matter of days. But I am going to make it clear to him that I would provide him with that face-to-face discussion ONLY because of its apparent importance to HIM, and not because of its importance to me."
"And what will he say?" I asked.
"He will say to hold everything for another ten days, and to get myself on a plane to Minneapolis on Friday night, March 2, and he will say that I am merely being difficult, on purpose, by refusing to wait for another ten days, until Spring Break, to have this discussion with him. Of course, among other things, what he is truly hoping for is a cooling down period of two weeks, two weeks that will encompass MY Spring Break and YOUR Spring Break. And I think he will try to sell this idea to your Dad. He can be very convincing."
"You know, you may be right" I said.
"Well, I KNOW that's what he's going to try" said Andrew. "Whether he can sell that idea to your father, I have no idea. But I assure you that that is what is in the back of his mind. And he thinks, by asking me that question today, that I, out of consideration to him, will do nothing . . .no intimacy . . .until he and I talk. He thinks, by virtue of making the request, that I must go along with his thoughts, out of respect for him, whether or not I answer the question. He has put the burden on me, and he knows that fact--boy, does he know that fact. He has sort of made this a point of honor now between us, and he has put the onus on me whether to break that honor or not. Oh, Josh, he's GOOD at this! He knows how to mess with my mind!"
"And you're going to let him get away with this?" I asked.
"I didn't say that" said Andrew. "I just said he is very good at making this an honor issue, and placing the burden on me."
"Well, I think we should make love tonight, Andrew. Let's make love tonight! Then we can make love every night. I want to make love tonight. And forget your father! Forget your father and forget my father, too!" I was getting really irritated, as you can see, Silvio, and tired of so much pondering.
"But I think there's a better way" said Andrew.
"You're still thinking, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes. What about this? You talk to your father tomorrow, as scheduled. Find out what he has to say to you, and what he wants from you. And LISTEN to him! Josh, LISTEN TO HIM! He might have very good advice for you, or instructions, or whatever you want to call it. He may give you a perspective you had not thought of before, a perspective that will change your way of looking at this. Please listen to what your father has to say."
"And then what?" I asked.
"You call me after you talk to your father. And we discuss what he has had to say to you."
"And then what?"
"And if, after that call, you still want to carry forward, then we make plans to go to Westfields, the minimum-security prison, for next weekend. And if we want to make love while we are at Westfields, we do. And if we don't, then we don't, in which case, no harm, no foul."
"And what about your Dad" I asked. "What are you going to say to him, so that you have not committed an 'honor' violation?"
"If you want us to carry things forward after talking to your Dad, then I will make reservations at Westfields for us. Then I will call my Dad at his office tomorrow afternoon, and tell him that you and I are going out of town this weekend--so he cannot accuse me of sneaking out of town without his knowledge, which was a crock, as he darn well knew that I would most likely be visiting Alec and Lizbeth this weekend--and that I will be unable to provide him with an answer to his question."
"And what will that do?" I asked.
"That tells him two things. First, it tells him that . . . it tells him . . .it tells him that we are probably going to be intimate this coming weekend, but it also tells him that we are not going to be intimate UNTIL the weekend. Second, it tells him that he is not going to get an answer from me on his question, which means that the effective answer is "no", and that I am letting him know that I do not feel bound to him, as a point of honor, on the question any more. He will understand the significance of what I say. He will understand, fully."
"And then . . ." I asked.
"The ball is back in his court. He will argue the proximity of Spring Break, the fact that there is no need to rush things, and anything else he can throw at me. He will be subtle, but very good at making his point, and will try to make me feel very guilty and very disrespectful of him if he does not get what he wants. Oh, he's good at this, I assure you. But I will try to leave the ball in his court."
"Andrew, I don't understand. So, what does all this mean?" I asked.
"It means that, if YOUR father cannot dissuade you tomorrow, that I am prepared to carry forward, unless MY father is able to dissuade me tomorrow, with new and better arguments than the ones he posed today. And we have one great thing in our favor, at least in terms of dealing with my father" Andrew added.
"What's that?" I asked.
"He is very uncomfortable talking about sex" said Andrew "And he talks about it only in the most indirect, opaque way."
"So now I know where you get that trait" I said. "Only teasing."
"So you don't like any of this, do you?" Andrew asked.
"No, Andrew, I don't" I said. "I think you're both crazy. I think we need to make love, and make love now. Tonight. Everything will change as soon as we do. Stop the car!" And I laughed.
"You can wait until this weekend, Josh, can't you?" Andrew asked.
"No, I can't" I said.
"And you do not understand at all how my father, by posing that question, put the burden on me to provide him with an answer, and that, until I provide him with an answer, I am honor-bound not to undertake any actions?" Andrew asked.
"If I were you, I'd call him right now, and give him the answer, and tell him ‘no’, that it's really none of his God-damn business" I said. "You have your cell phone."
Andrew looked at me, Silvio, and there was a gleam in his eye. "You know, Josh, I just might do that" he said. "I am going to pull off at the next rest stop, and let you drive. You know how to drive standard transmission, don't you?" he asked.
"Of course" I said.
"And I will call him while you drive" Andrew said.
And Silvio, that's what we did. Andrew took the next exit on the New Jersey Turnpike, and we traded places and I took the wheel.
Andrew immediately started to call his Dad, and I said "Wait. Wait until I get out on the Turnpike." I said that so that I would have time to get into fifth gear, and then have my right hand free to put my hand on Andrew's knee or his leg or his neck or his head or whatever I thought I needed to touch, while he was on the phone, to remind him that I was now more important to him than his Dad.
Andrew dialed his parents' number and the line was busy. "He's talking to Alec now" Andrew said.
Andrew then dialed Alec's number, and the line was busy. "See, I was right" he said.
Andrew then dialed Lizbeth's cell number and she answered. Andrew did not even say "hello" to her. "Can you do me a favor, Lizbeth?" was the first thing he asked her.
"Ask Alec and your Dad to get off the phone so that you can call home?" she asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"Hold on for a second" is what Lizbeth told him, and apparently she told Alec that Andrew wanted to talk to his Dad and that he needed to hang up the phone. She came back to the phone and told Andrew "the line's free" and Andrew thanked her, and he called his Dad.
This call was a lot different than the call I experienced in the afternoon. That three-part call--Andrew beginning by letting his Dad ventilate, Andrew initiating the transition to less than full agreement, and Andrew then making his own arguments--was totally different than this call.
Andrew got straight down to business. "Dad, I have been thinking of the question you asked me to answer, and I told you then that I was not prepared to provide you with an answer at that time. I have been thinking about that question ever since, however, and I am prepared to answer your question now."
And Andrew paused, and his father apparently said something.
Then Andrew said "Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that. As you know, there is only one answer I can give you to that question, and that answer is "no". That is the only possible answer a son can give to a father on a question like you posed, assuming that the necessary formalities on "the birds and the bees" have already been disposed of. And you and I disposed of those particular formalities long ago, and now it is my time to make these sorts of decisions on my own. If I were younger it very well might be different, but I am 25. And at age 25, these sorts of issues are my own to deal with now, and these sorts of decisions are my own to make now. I have always valued your judgments and opinions, and I always WILL value your judgments and opinions--always--but on a particular matter like this, a matter that involves feelings--primarily feelings, if not exclusively feelings--I have no choice but to go with my own judgment here, as it is my feelings that are involved as well as the feelings of another human being who means very, very much to me. That does not necessarily mean that I am making the right judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the best judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the same judgment another person might make under identical circumstances, but that does mean that I am making my own judgment and, on this issue, it MUST be my judgment and mine alone. I am sure you understand that, Dad, and I think, on reflection, you will agree with me."
And Andrew stopped. I thought, Silvio, that Andrew had been extremely eloquent. I was dumbfounded at how eloquent he had been.
Then Andrew said into the phone "I appreciate that, Dad. That is very magnanimous of you. I hope you know that you are the world's best father. You know I love you very much. I could not possibly love you more than I already love you."
And his Dad said something else.
"Well, it is interesting you asked that. I believe that Joshua will be talking to his father tomorrow, because I think that Josh’s father wants to have a serious talk with him. But, Dad, PLEASE keep in mind that we are not at that stage yet. If it gets to that stage, of course I would want you to meet Joshua and to get to know him and to spend lots of time with him. But I fear that you and Josh’s Dad may be way ahead of US in that regard. Way, way ahead of us."
And at this point, Silvio, I put my hand on Andrew' leg and started rubbing it, and I started vigorously shaking my head "no" back and forth.
After listening to his father say something else, Andrew said "Dad, have you forgotten how slow-moving I am in that regard?"
And, Silvio, at hearing this, I started vigorously shaking my head "yes" up and down.
"So, Dad, you have nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine. And I hope my answer is satisfactory to you, and that I have expressed it in a satisfactory fashion. That was my intent."
Then Andrew's Dad said something else.
"Yes, I would love to."
"Hi, Mom. Are you taking care of Dad?"
Andrew talked to his mother for five minutes, but not with reference to anything concerning me or our situation. Andrew's mother obviously did not ask about any of these issues, or even touch upon them.
When they call was over, Andrew put down the phone.
"Yippee!" I started whooping. "You listened to my idea, you son-of-a-gun, and it worked! It worked! It really worked! What do you have to say, 'Baby Brother'?" And I grabbed Andrew's head and started wildly massaging it.
"What do I have to say? I'm exhausted. That's what I have to say. Utterly exhausted."
"Is it always like this, dealing with your father?" I asked.
"More than I would like" said Andrew. "And he is worried that I am not doing the right thing. But he also knows now that this is my step to take, and he withdrew from the battlefield tonight, graciously. As I said to him, that was very magnanimous of him. It was my reference to 'feelings' that did the trick. He understands feelings. He understands the importance of feelings."
"From what I know about him, he has always struck me as ultra-rational, almost devoid of feelings" I said.
"That's because you don't know him" Andrew said. "He is one of the most loving people on the planet. His exterior is very formal, very correct, very cool, very urbane, very considered--but he is a man of the deepest feelings. He has the deepest feelings for my mother and for all three of his children. He has the deepest feelings for Lizbeth and Tim. And, if we stay together, Josh, he will have the deepest feelings for you. And he shows his feelings within the family, but never outside the family. He gives lots of affection, enormous amounts of affection, in his own way."
"How did you know to stress the issue of 'feelings' with him" I asked.
"Because my mother's family did not want her to marry him, thinking he was not good enough for her" Andrew said.
And, Silvio, Andrew began to cry. Literally, tears flowed out of his eyes down his face. I was shocked. I had never seen him cry before, and I thought that Andrew would be incapable of crying so nakedly. I put my arm on his shoulder, and I wanted to kiss him, but I had to keep my eyes on the Turnpike.
"Do you want me to pull over?" I asked.
"No" Andrew said. "And excuse me for being so silly, but things got to me for a minute there."
And after a few seconds, Andrew said "I will explain to you why I cried, if you want to know."
I said "Well, if you want to tell me. You don't have to, Andrew, if you do not want to."
"No, it does not bother me. Things just got to me there for a minute."
He paused again, and took a deep breath.
"Short version. Very, very short version. My father came from a very poor family, farmers. They had no money and he had to put himself through school and then he had to put himself through law school. He always had to work while he was in school, sometimes at two and even three jobs just to scrape by.
"He met and fell in love with my mother, and she fell in love with him. Her family thought that he was interested, not in her, but in her money. But they were wrong, totally wrong. My father was not interested in her money, he was interested in her. He has always worshipped my mother and he has always had the deepest feelings for her. That is still true today.
"Her family did everything possible to dissuade my mother from marrying my father. They were very mean to him and very insulting and very demeaning, even vicious. It was my father's deep feelings for my mother that got him through those early years. Otherwise, he could never have survived that horrible time.
"Of course, they got married and had three kids, but still my mother's family acted as if my father was dirt, despite the fact that he was more intelligent and had more character and was more hard-working than just about anyone in the Twin Cities, let alone any of my mother's own siblings. And my mother's own siblings always have treated my father horribly, as did her own mother and father. In fact, her own parents never visited Mom and Dad's first house until Alec arrived, and they only came because they wanted to see their grandchild.
"My Mom's family, many of whom are now deceased, never made peace with my father, but they all lived to see what my father did with himself, and they all lived to see what a happy household and what a happy family he and my mother had created, on their own. The household and family my mother and father created were far better than the households and families my mother's siblings achieved, and in their later years those siblings grew very bitter over this fact. They could not help but see that my Mom and Dad were so happy, with each other and with their children and with their lives in the community.
"And what got my Dad through the worst of those years was his feelings for my mother, without which he could not have kept going. He is a man who understands the importance of deep feelings.
"And when I mentioned feelings to him, Joshua, and pointed out the importance of feelings in dealing with the question he posed to me, he understood. He understood, because of his own feelings. And that's why he dropped the issue.
"And I was crying, Joshua, for two reasons: first, I was crying because I was going through, in my mind, everything my father had suffered through; second, I was crying because I felt so ashamed in using the tool of 'feelings' with him in making my argument--I feel that I took advantage of him by using that tool, and I feel so ashamed, because I fear that somehow I cheapened that discussion and misdirected it to my own ends."
And Andrew was weeping, uncontrollably, when he said this, and I started crying, too, because I felt so badly for him. He obviously has the deepest feelings and the deepest respect for his father, and I admire that very, very much. I love my father, too, Silvio, but I have nothing like the deep bond with my father that Andrew shares with his father.
After about ten minutes of silence while getting over this point, Andrew said to me "And, Joshua, I need to tell you something, so that you don't think I am some sentimental and weepy fool."
"Tell me" I said.
"My father WAS entirely wrong on the issue he was raising with me, entirely wrong, and he DID need to be told that he was entirely wrong. Don't get me wrong, I made the right decision in telling him that I could not give him what he wanted. I have no regrets about that. I only regret that I had to use a cheap shot to make him see that he was wrong. Alas, nothing else would have worked--he would not have dropped the issue. I would still be talking to him, right now, otherwise."
We listened to music for the rest of the trip. We listened to Haydn symphonies--you know, "cheerful, ear-catching reflections of The Age Of Enlightenment, free of the mournful Weltschmerz and Wanderlust of so much 19th-Century German music", to quote Andrew.
We stopped in Maryland to get some coffee and use the washrooms, and Andrew gave me a wonderfully cheerful kiss and an affectionate arm-and-neck hug before we got out of the car.
Then we continued back to Washington, with Andrew driving again, and we went to my house, and we turned in almost as soon as we arrived. It was almost 1:30 a.m., and we talked quietly in bed for 30 minutes, between kissing and nestling against each other.
Andrew told me what a wonderful weekend he had had with me, but he said that for next weekend he wanted to spend it all with me, alone, and that he thought Westfields was ideal for that. "We don't even have to mix with any of the other prison inmates, except in the dining room" he joked. "How do you think that sounds?" he asked me.
"I'm ready to go there tonight" I told him.
"Well, tonight's Monday, so can you wait until Friday?" he asked me. "That's only four more days."
"I'll wait" I said.
And he kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me, and he put most of his body on top of mine, and he put his arms beneath me, and we went to sleep.
To make a long story short, Anne-Sophie was an absolute pain from the moment her plane landed in Minneapolis.
All of the family members arrived on the same early afternoon--coming in from New York (Alec and Lizbeth and Tim), Washington (Andrew), Denver (Alex) and Los Angeles (Anne-Sophie) so that Mr. and Mrs. Van Z could pick up everybody with one trip to the airport in two cars.
Mrs. Van Z had prepared a nice lunch for everyone, and it was waiting for them at home, but Anne-Sophie insisted upon being taken to a restaurant for lunch, even after being told that a nice lunch awaited her at home. Alec and Lizbeth could not go to a restaurant, what with the baby, so Andrew drove Alec and Lizbeth and Tim home in one car and Mr. and Mrs. Van Z and Alex and Anne-Sophie went to a restaurant in the other car so as to please Anne-Sophie.
Anne-Sophie embarrassed them, exceedingly, at the restaurant, complaining nonstop about the food and the service. Mr. Van Z said it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, and that they should never have gone to a restaurant where people knew them.
When they got home, Mrs. Van Z showed Anne-Sophie to her room, where there was a fresh-flower arrangement for her. "Get these out of here--I might have a reaction!" Anne-Sophie shrieked, and Mrs. Van Z had to get rid of the flowers. Alec, Lizbeth and Andrew all knew how to mimic Anne-Sophie, and they re-enacted this scene with glee.
Then Anne-Sophie complained about the Christmas tree--"I might have a reaction!"--and announced that she could not go into the living room unless they got rid of it. "Great!" said Andrew. "Then we'll call this the safe zone!" Every time Anne-Sophie was in the downstairs hall and passed by the living room, she held her head back and dramatically refused to breathe, so Andrew started doing the same thing whenever he passed by the living room, too. And Alec and Lizbeth and Andrew all imitated Anne-Sophie doing her "I dare not breath" gestures.
After her first night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her room--she could not sleep because she could hear the grandfather clock in the hall ticking outside her bedroom. Consequently, Mrs. Van Z changed her room for her.
After her second night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her second room, either--she could hear the wind outside blowing against the dormer windows. Mrs. Van Z, once again, changed her room for her.
After her third night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her third room, either (which was right across the hall from Andrew's room)--because Andrew made "strange noises" at night.
Alas, by this point, Anne-Sophie had gone through all the available rooms, and Mrs. Van Z told Anne-Sophie that she had nothing more to offer her. Anne-Sophie herself suggested that she be given the room being used by Alec and Lizbeth and Tim--which apparently she had wanted all along for some reason, or so Andrew thought--and Mrs. Van Z was on the verge of turning this room over to her, too, when Mr. Van Z stepped in and told Anne-Sophie that, if she could not accommodate herself to one of the three available rooms, he would take her to a hotel. Andrew's suggestion was that Anne-Sophie move to the basement--no ticking clocks, no dormer windows, no "strange noises"--and he asked her if she needed any help packing up her things for the move to the basement.
Anne-Sophie refused to help around the house, and she showed no interest at all in the baby. She never held the baby once. She would only speak to Mrs. Van Z when she wanted something, and she never uttered a syllable to Lizbeth the entire time she was there. Andrew said that was because Anne-Sophie knew that Lizbeth was a psychiatrist, and that Anne-Sophie feared that Lizbeth would officially declare her "wacko" on the spot.
Anne-Sophie did not want Alex to leave the house, so Alec and Alex and Andrew could not go visit their friends or go play basketball or go swimming or go anywhere or do anything. On the couple of occasions on which Alex did leave the house without her, Anne-Sophie threw a fit.
Anne-Sophie did not like the food, and was always asking that special things be prepared for her. Anne-Sophie would get up late, and come downstairs around lunchtime, and then want breakfast. On the third morning, at lunchtime, she told Andrew she wanted him to prepare her some breakfast. "What do you want?" he asked. "Anything with lime in it" she answered. "Great! What about scrambled eggs with lime--I can do that!" he said.
On Christmas morning, Anne-Sophie stayed in the hall while everyone else was in the living room opening presents. During this time, Andrew kept making funny sneezing noises until his Dad told him to stop it, but his Dad was laughing, all the same.
On Christmas day, for Christmas dinner, Anne-Sophie looked at the huge spread of food and said that she feared she would not be able to find anything she could eat. Andrew told her "Well, let's see--there are only about seventy things here for you to choose from. If you can't find something you can eat here, sweetheart, I can rustle you up a bowl of Science Diet!"
On Christmas night, around 8:00 p.m., Anne-Sophie told Alex that she was hungry, and that she wanted to go out to a restaurant and get something to eat--"maybe get some Thai food".
Andrew told her "Today is Christmas Day. It is 8:00 o'clock at night on December 25. This is Minneapolis, Minnesota. How many Thai restaurants do you think will be open in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Christmas night?"
"Well, maybe we could just do carryout, then" Anne-Sophie ventured.
"And these restaurants are going to be open for carryout business only, on Christmas Night?" Andrew asked her. "Knock, knock, is anybody home? Anybody at all in there?" And he knocked on his head.
On December 26, Anne-Sophie told Alex, at lunch, how disappointing she had found Christmas day. "It was not at all what I expected" she said. "And what, then, did you expect?" asked Andrew. "I thought we would go golfing or something, and then have a nice lunch somewhere" Anne-Sophie said. "Well, tell you what" said Andrew. "Why don't you let me drop you off at the golf club right now--it's 22 degrees, and there are four inches of snow on the ground--and I'll come back and pick you up in five hours. How's that? Ready to go?"
One night the men were all watching a basketball game downstairs in the family room, and Anne-Sophie was watching, too, because she always stayed near Alex. She asked Alex to take her somewhere. "Like where?" he asked. "Maybe we could go to a modern-dance performance?" she asked. Andrew's interjection was "Great! Minneapolis is a hotbed of modern-dance activity at Christmas time. What a great idea!"
On another night, Anne-Sophie complained that she found the conversation boring, and she asked everyone to talk about something interesting. Andrew said "Great! Let's get started now on that conversation we've been saving for years, the dialectics of Kierkegaard! You go first, Anne-Sophie! You're the guest!"
Anyway, no one else but Andrew would take on Anne-Sophie. The culmination of this story was at New Year's, at 6:15 in the morning, "when Andrew drove her out", as Alec and Lizbeth said.
All throughout the holiday, to spare his mother, Andrew had got up at 5:00, ran the dog to get him taken care of, made coffee for everyone and took the coffee upstairs, along with the newspapers, and laid this stuff out on a chest in the upstairs hall for everyone to access as they got up. Then Andrew would go back downstairs to be ready to make breakfast for everyone as they assembled, one by one, in the kitchen.
On that morning, he had taken the coffee and newspapers upstairs, and he noticed Anne-Sophie poking around inside a hall closet.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he had asked her.
"Yes" she said. "First, what ARE those strange noises you make in the middle of the night?"
"You probably heard Rex yawning. As I told you, he sleeps in my room. Dogs make yawning noises at night, even while they sleep."
"Well, I listened outside your door for over an hour last night, trying to figure out what those noises were, and they did not sound like dog noises to me."
"You stood outside my door for over an hour last night, listening for noises? Doesn't that strike you as a rather odd thing to do?"
"Well, I was trying to figure out what those noises were."
"And is that why you are looking in the closet? Strange noises in there, too?"
"No, I am trying to find some soap. I don't like your soap."
"You don't like our soap? What's wrong with our soap?"
"I don't like it."
"What kind of soap were you looking for?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Well, let's see here, I see that we have Ivory, Safeguard, Zest and Irish Spring. You can't use any of this?"
"No, I need special soap."
"So what kind of soap do you need?"
"I don't know, but I can't use any of this."
"I can't believe you. You don't like anything. You don't like your room, you don't like our food, you don't like our Christmas tree, you don't like our friends, you don't like our relatives, you don't like our pastor, you don't like our dog, you don't like our Christmas presents, you don't like Alex to leave the house, you don't like anyone to watch television, you won't talk to anyone but you say our conversations are boring, you won't lift a finger to help out, you treat my mother like a servant, you pretend the baby doesn't exist, you haven't said one word to Lizbeth since you walked in the door. And now you don't like our soap!
"IF YOU NEEDED SPECIAL SOAP, YOU SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT IT YOURSELF OR AT LEAST TOLD US IN ADVANCE SO WE COULD GET YOU SOME! NOW WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? BECAUSE I'M GOING TO GO TO THE STORE AND GET IT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW! IT IS 6:15, AND THE STORE OPENED AT 6:00, AND I AM GOING TO GET YOU YOUR GOD-DAMN SOAP RIGHT NOW! SO TELL ME, YOU STUPID GIRL, WHAT KIND OF SOAP IS IT YOU NEED?"
Well, Andrew woke everyone up--everyone opened their bedroom doors and came out into the hall to see what was going on, and Anne-Sophie started crying and went back into her room.
And Anne-Sophie left for the airport later than morning, three days earlier than scheduled, "because Andrew had been so mean to her and ruined her Christmas holiday" at least in Lizbeth's funny and snide way of saying it.
So, Silvio, I learned what Andrew meant when he had told me that Genghis Khan would make a favorable impression upon his family after the dreaded Anne-Sophie. And all three of them loved telling different facets of this story. The way they told the story was absolutely hysterical, and clearly "The Tale Of Anne-Sophie" is now one of their favorite "family" stories--I could easily see that. I wish that I had been there at Christmas to observe it all myself.
After dinner, we had to make preparations to get on the road back to Washington, so the first thing we both did was to hold the baby for a bit, one last time, and we both kissed him. We got our stuff together and, while we were doing so, Alec asked Andrew to come with him for a moment. They went into Alec and Lizbeth's bedroom for a few minutes, and then they both came out.
Alec and Lizbeth both told us what a wonderful weekend they had had, and they said we both were much better conversationalists than Tim, which they welcomed. They said we had to come back soon, and see something of New York next time. And when we finally left, Lizbeth kissed and hugged both Andrew and me, and Alec hugged me--the first time he had given me a hug--and he hugged and kissed Andrew over and over. And we left.
And I was very glad that we had spent our three-day weekend in New York. I think that was the best choice for both of us.
On the way home, I asked Andrew what Alec had said to him when they were alone.
He said that Alec had wanted to know what their Dad said on the phone, and that Alec had wanted to know how to respond to certain questions he suspected their Dad would direct to Alec.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Well, Alec had already guessed what our Dad had said" Andrew said "And he just wanted confirmation of that."
"So what did your Dad say?" I asked.
"Well, you can probably guess most of it" Andrew said "From my answers to him."
"And what about what I cannot guess?" I asked.
"He asked me to withhold any intimacy, until he and I talked, in person" Andrew said.
"He really asked you that?" I asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"And Alec guessed that?" I asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"Why did he ask that?" I asked.
"Oh, it could be for several reasons" Andrew answered. "It could be because he knows your Dad, it could be because he thinks I am too young or too unprepared, it could be because HE is not prepared for this, it could be because he thinks he needs to meet you first, it could be . . .heaven only knows."
"So what did you tell him?" I asked.
"I told him I truly was not prepared to answer that question, and that I would have to think about it" Andrew said.
"So, what do you mean by that, Andrew?" I asked.
"Well, I was trying to tell him . . .I told him I couldn't give him an answer . . .I told him I needed to think before I could provide him with an answer to that question . . .That's all."
"So you are awaiting for your Dad's Seal Of Approval to carry on, and your Dad's Seal Of Approval of me, before we do anything--is that what you are saying?" I asked.
Andrew looked at me, and he looked somewhat hurt, and I immediately said "Oh, Andrew, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
"Joshua, I don't know what I'm going to do. You heard what I said to him. I made no representations, no representations of any sort."
Andrew did not say anything for a few minutes, and then he said "I, for one, will be curious to see what YOUR Dad says tomorrow. Aren't you?"
"Sure" I said.
"Well, I am going to make a prediction, right now" said Andrew.
"And your prediction is . . .?"
"That our fathers will speak by phone tomorrow morning, at their offices, before you call your Dad. That they will sound each other out, indirectly, to find out what the other knows or suspects. That when you call your Dad at Noon, he will ask you to withhold intimacy until after Spring Break, and that he will insist that you return to Oklahoma for Spring Break. That tomorrow evening I shall receive a phone call from my Dad and that he will . . .not insist, but very, very strongly encourage . . .that I delay intimacy until after Spring Break, and he will very strongly encourage me to return to Minnesota for Spring Break. That is my prediction . . .And, further . . .in my case alone . . .I believe that my Dad will pressure me to agree not to be intimate with you until . . .I talk to him about it, face to face . . .and until he meets you . . .and perhaps until your father meets me, which my Dad may insist upon. Of course, on that last point, that would require your father's full complicity. And if that happens, then that means, definitely, that they ARE talking to each other, and in great detail, and not in indirect generalities."
"Andrew, I don't think they would go that far" I said.
"Well, you know your Dad, and I don't" he said. "I could be wrong. But I know my Dad . . .and I think that is what he is shooting for."
"Why would he do that?" I asked.
"Because he knows that I am returning to live at home after June 1, and he believes, by buying time, that I will return home and live at home forever and ever, with him and my Mom, guarded from the cares of the world, until I am too old to have sex, at which point it would not matter to him any more, and then he could die peacefully, with his mind at rest. That is what is in his mind."
"And you are going to let him get away with that?" I asked.
"I never said that" Andrew said. "I made a prediction. You asked me what I thought would happen, and I told you what I thought would happen."
"So WHAT are you going to say to your father if he DOES ask those things?" I asked.
"Well, Josh, I am thinking about that as we speak. And I think I know what I am going to say to him."
"Well . . ." I said.
"First, on answering his question, I think I am going to have to tell him, with all due respect, that I am prepared to have intimacy right now, and that if it is of such great importance to him to talk to me face-to-face prior to any intimacy between us, that he had better make flight arrangements as soon as possible and get to Washington in a matter of days. But I am going to make it clear to him that I would provide him with that face-to-face discussion ONLY because of its apparent importance to HIM, and not because of its importance to me."
"And what will he say?" I asked.
"He will say to hold everything for another ten days, and to get myself on a plane to Minneapolis on Friday night, March 2, and he will say that I am merely being difficult, on purpose, by refusing to wait for another ten days, until Spring Break, to have this discussion with him. Of course, among other things, what he is truly hoping for is a cooling down period of two weeks, two weeks that will encompass MY Spring Break and YOUR Spring Break. And I think he will try to sell this idea to your Dad. He can be very convincing."
"You know, you may be right" I said.
"Well, I KNOW that's what he's going to try" said Andrew. "Whether he can sell that idea to your father, I have no idea. But I assure you that that is what is in the back of his mind. And he thinks, by asking me that question today, that I, out of consideration to him, will do nothing . . .no intimacy . . .until he and I talk. He thinks, by virtue of making the request, that I must go along with his thoughts, out of respect for him, whether or not I answer the question. He has put the burden on me, and he knows that fact--boy, does he know that fact. He has sort of made this a point of honor now between us, and he has put the onus on me whether to break that honor or not. Oh, Josh, he's GOOD at this! He knows how to mess with my mind!"
"And you're going to let him get away with this?" I asked.
"I didn't say that" said Andrew. "I just said he is very good at making this an honor issue, and placing the burden on me."
"Well, I think we should make love tonight, Andrew. Let's make love tonight! Then we can make love every night. I want to make love tonight. And forget your father! Forget your father and forget my father, too!" I was getting really irritated, as you can see, Silvio, and tired of so much pondering.
"But I think there's a better way" said Andrew.
"You're still thinking, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes. What about this? You talk to your father tomorrow, as scheduled. Find out what he has to say to you, and what he wants from you. And LISTEN to him! Josh, LISTEN TO HIM! He might have very good advice for you, or instructions, or whatever you want to call it. He may give you a perspective you had not thought of before, a perspective that will change your way of looking at this. Please listen to what your father has to say."
"And then what?" I asked.
"You call me after you talk to your father. And we discuss what he has had to say to you."
"And then what?"
"And if, after that call, you still want to carry forward, then we make plans to go to Westfields, the minimum-security prison, for next weekend. And if we want to make love while we are at Westfields, we do. And if we don't, then we don't, in which case, no harm, no foul."
"And what about your Dad" I asked. "What are you going to say to him, so that you have not committed an 'honor' violation?"
"If you want us to carry things forward after talking to your Dad, then I will make reservations at Westfields for us. Then I will call my Dad at his office tomorrow afternoon, and tell him that you and I are going out of town this weekend--so he cannot accuse me of sneaking out of town without his knowledge, which was a crock, as he darn well knew that I would most likely be visiting Alec and Lizbeth this weekend--and that I will be unable to provide him with an answer to his question."
"And what will that do?" I asked.
"That tells him two things. First, it tells him that . . . it tells him . . .it tells him that we are probably going to be intimate this coming weekend, but it also tells him that we are not going to be intimate UNTIL the weekend. Second, it tells him that he is not going to get an answer from me on his question, which means that the effective answer is "no", and that I am letting him know that I do not feel bound to him, as a point of honor, on the question any more. He will understand the significance of what I say. He will understand, fully."
"And then . . ." I asked.
"The ball is back in his court. He will argue the proximity of Spring Break, the fact that there is no need to rush things, and anything else he can throw at me. He will be subtle, but very good at making his point, and will try to make me feel very guilty and very disrespectful of him if he does not get what he wants. Oh, he's good at this, I assure you. But I will try to leave the ball in his court."
"Andrew, I don't understand. So, what does all this mean?" I asked.
"It means that, if YOUR father cannot dissuade you tomorrow, that I am prepared to carry forward, unless MY father is able to dissuade me tomorrow, with new and better arguments than the ones he posed today. And we have one great thing in our favor, at least in terms of dealing with my father" Andrew added.
"What's that?" I asked.
"He is very uncomfortable talking about sex" said Andrew "And he talks about it only in the most indirect, opaque way."
"So now I know where you get that trait" I said. "Only teasing."
"So you don't like any of this, do you?" Andrew asked.
"No, Andrew, I don't" I said. "I think you're both crazy. I think we need to make love, and make love now. Tonight. Everything will change as soon as we do. Stop the car!" And I laughed.
"You can wait until this weekend, Josh, can't you?" Andrew asked.
"No, I can't" I said.
"And you do not understand at all how my father, by posing that question, put the burden on me to provide him with an answer, and that, until I provide him with an answer, I am honor-bound not to undertake any actions?" Andrew asked.
"If I were you, I'd call him right now, and give him the answer, and tell him ‘no’, that it's really none of his God-damn business" I said. "You have your cell phone."
Andrew looked at me, Silvio, and there was a gleam in his eye. "You know, Josh, I just might do that" he said. "I am going to pull off at the next rest stop, and let you drive. You know how to drive standard transmission, don't you?" he asked.
"Of course" I said.
"And I will call him while you drive" Andrew said.
And Silvio, that's what we did. Andrew took the next exit on the New Jersey Turnpike, and we traded places and I took the wheel.
Andrew immediately started to call his Dad, and I said "Wait. Wait until I get out on the Turnpike." I said that so that I would have time to get into fifth gear, and then have my right hand free to put my hand on Andrew's knee or his leg or his neck or his head or whatever I thought I needed to touch, while he was on the phone, to remind him that I was now more important to him than his Dad.
Andrew dialed his parents' number and the line was busy. "He's talking to Alec now" Andrew said.
Andrew then dialed Alec's number, and the line was busy. "See, I was right" he said.
Andrew then dialed Lizbeth's cell number and she answered. Andrew did not even say "hello" to her. "Can you do me a favor, Lizbeth?" was the first thing he asked her.
"Ask Alec and your Dad to get off the phone so that you can call home?" she asked.
"Yes" Andrew said.
"Hold on for a second" is what Lizbeth told him, and apparently she told Alec that Andrew wanted to talk to his Dad and that he needed to hang up the phone. She came back to the phone and told Andrew "the line's free" and Andrew thanked her, and he called his Dad.
This call was a lot different than the call I experienced in the afternoon. That three-part call--Andrew beginning by letting his Dad ventilate, Andrew initiating the transition to less than full agreement, and Andrew then making his own arguments--was totally different than this call.
Andrew got straight down to business. "Dad, I have been thinking of the question you asked me to answer, and I told you then that I was not prepared to provide you with an answer at that time. I have been thinking about that question ever since, however, and I am prepared to answer your question now."
And Andrew paused, and his father apparently said something.
Then Andrew said "Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that. As you know, there is only one answer I can give you to that question, and that answer is "no". That is the only possible answer a son can give to a father on a question like you posed, assuming that the necessary formalities on "the birds and the bees" have already been disposed of. And you and I disposed of those particular formalities long ago, and now it is my time to make these sorts of decisions on my own. If I were younger it very well might be different, but I am 25. And at age 25, these sorts of issues are my own to deal with now, and these sorts of decisions are my own to make now. I have always valued your judgments and opinions, and I always WILL value your judgments and opinions--always--but on a particular matter like this, a matter that involves feelings--primarily feelings, if not exclusively feelings--I have no choice but to go with my own judgment here, as it is my feelings that are involved as well as the feelings of another human being who means very, very much to me. That does not necessarily mean that I am making the right judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the best judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the same judgment another person might make under identical circumstances, but that does mean that I am making my own judgment and, on this issue, it MUST be my judgment and mine alone. I am sure you understand that, Dad, and I think, on reflection, you will agree with me."
And Andrew stopped. I thought, Silvio, that Andrew had been extremely eloquent. I was dumbfounded at how eloquent he had been.
Then Andrew said into the phone "I appreciate that, Dad. That is very magnanimous of you. I hope you know that you are the world's best father. You know I love you very much. I could not possibly love you more than I already love you."
And his Dad said something else.
"Well, it is interesting you asked that. I believe that Joshua will be talking to his father tomorrow, because I think that Josh’s father wants to have a serious talk with him. But, Dad, PLEASE keep in mind that we are not at that stage yet. If it gets to that stage, of course I would want you to meet Joshua and to get to know him and to spend lots of time with him. But I fear that you and Josh’s Dad may be way ahead of US in that regard. Way, way ahead of us."
And at this point, Silvio, I put my hand on Andrew' leg and started rubbing it, and I started vigorously shaking my head "no" back and forth.
After listening to his father say something else, Andrew said "Dad, have you forgotten how slow-moving I am in that regard?"
And, Silvio, at hearing this, I started vigorously shaking my head "yes" up and down.
"So, Dad, you have nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine. And I hope my answer is satisfactory to you, and that I have expressed it in a satisfactory fashion. That was my intent."
Then Andrew's Dad said something else.
"Yes, I would love to."
"Hi, Mom. Are you taking care of Dad?"
Andrew talked to his mother for five minutes, but not with reference to anything concerning me or our situation. Andrew's mother obviously did not ask about any of these issues, or even touch upon them.
When they call was over, Andrew put down the phone.
"Yippee!" I started whooping. "You listened to my idea, you son-of-a-gun, and it worked! It worked! It really worked! What do you have to say, 'Baby Brother'?" And I grabbed Andrew's head and started wildly massaging it.
"What do I have to say? I'm exhausted. That's what I have to say. Utterly exhausted."
"Is it always like this, dealing with your father?" I asked.
"More than I would like" said Andrew. "And he is worried that I am not doing the right thing. But he also knows now that this is my step to take, and he withdrew from the battlefield tonight, graciously. As I said to him, that was very magnanimous of him. It was my reference to 'feelings' that did the trick. He understands feelings. He understands the importance of feelings."
"From what I know about him, he has always struck me as ultra-rational, almost devoid of feelings" I said.
"That's because you don't know him" Andrew said. "He is one of the most loving people on the planet. His exterior is very formal, very correct, very cool, very urbane, very considered--but he is a man of the deepest feelings. He has the deepest feelings for my mother and for all three of his children. He has the deepest feelings for Lizbeth and Tim. And, if we stay together, Josh, he will have the deepest feelings for you. And he shows his feelings within the family, but never outside the family. He gives lots of affection, enormous amounts of affection, in his own way."
"How did you know to stress the issue of 'feelings' with him" I asked.
"Because my mother's family did not want her to marry him, thinking he was not good enough for her" Andrew said.
And, Silvio, Andrew began to cry. Literally, tears flowed out of his eyes down his face. I was shocked. I had never seen him cry before, and I thought that Andrew would be incapable of crying so nakedly. I put my arm on his shoulder, and I wanted to kiss him, but I had to keep my eyes on the Turnpike.
"Do you want me to pull over?" I asked.
"No" Andrew said. "And excuse me for being so silly, but things got to me for a minute there."
And after a few seconds, Andrew said "I will explain to you why I cried, if you want to know."
I said "Well, if you want to tell me. You don't have to, Andrew, if you do not want to."
"No, it does not bother me. Things just got to me there for a minute."
He paused again, and took a deep breath.
"Short version. Very, very short version. My father came from a very poor family, farmers. They had no money and he had to put himself through school and then he had to put himself through law school. He always had to work while he was in school, sometimes at two and even three jobs just to scrape by.
"He met and fell in love with my mother, and she fell in love with him. Her family thought that he was interested, not in her, but in her money. But they were wrong, totally wrong. My father was not interested in her money, he was interested in her. He has always worshipped my mother and he has always had the deepest feelings for her. That is still true today.
"Her family did everything possible to dissuade my mother from marrying my father. They were very mean to him and very insulting and very demeaning, even vicious. It was my father's deep feelings for my mother that got him through those early years. Otherwise, he could never have survived that horrible time.
"Of course, they got married and had three kids, but still my mother's family acted as if my father was dirt, despite the fact that he was more intelligent and had more character and was more hard-working than just about anyone in the Twin Cities, let alone any of my mother's own siblings. And my mother's own siblings always have treated my father horribly, as did her own mother and father. In fact, her own parents never visited Mom and Dad's first house until Alec arrived, and they only came because they wanted to see their grandchild.
"My Mom's family, many of whom are now deceased, never made peace with my father, but they all lived to see what my father did with himself, and they all lived to see what a happy household and what a happy family he and my mother had created, on their own. The household and family my mother and father created were far better than the households and families my mother's siblings achieved, and in their later years those siblings grew very bitter over this fact. They could not help but see that my Mom and Dad were so happy, with each other and with their children and with their lives in the community.
"And what got my Dad through the worst of those years was his feelings for my mother, without which he could not have kept going. He is a man who understands the importance of deep feelings.
"And when I mentioned feelings to him, Joshua, and pointed out the importance of feelings in dealing with the question he posed to me, he understood. He understood, because of his own feelings. And that's why he dropped the issue.
"And I was crying, Joshua, for two reasons: first, I was crying because I was going through, in my mind, everything my father had suffered through; second, I was crying because I felt so ashamed in using the tool of 'feelings' with him in making my argument--I feel that I took advantage of him by using that tool, and I feel so ashamed, because I fear that somehow I cheapened that discussion and misdirected it to my own ends."
And Andrew was weeping, uncontrollably, when he said this, and I started crying, too, because I felt so badly for him. He obviously has the deepest feelings and the deepest respect for his father, and I admire that very, very much. I love my father, too, Silvio, but I have nothing like the deep bond with my father that Andrew shares with his father.
After about ten minutes of silence while getting over this point, Andrew said to me "And, Joshua, I need to tell you something, so that you don't think I am some sentimental and weepy fool."
"Tell me" I said.
"My father WAS entirely wrong on the issue he was raising with me, entirely wrong, and he DID need to be told that he was entirely wrong. Don't get me wrong, I made the right decision in telling him that I could not give him what he wanted. I have no regrets about that. I only regret that I had to use a cheap shot to make him see that he was wrong. Alas, nothing else would have worked--he would not have dropped the issue. I would still be talking to him, right now, otherwise."
We listened to music for the rest of the trip. We listened to Haydn symphonies--you know, "cheerful, ear-catching reflections of The Age Of Enlightenment, free of the mournful Weltschmerz and Wanderlust of so much 19th-Century German music", to quote Andrew.
We stopped in Maryland to get some coffee and use the washrooms, and Andrew gave me a wonderfully cheerful kiss and an affectionate arm-and-neck hug before we got out of the car.
Then we continued back to Washington, with Andrew driving again, and we went to my house, and we turned in almost as soon as we arrived. It was almost 1:30 a.m., and we talked quietly in bed for 30 minutes, between kissing and nestling against each other.
Andrew told me what a wonderful weekend he had had with me, but he said that for next weekend he wanted to spend it all with me, alone, and that he thought Westfields was ideal for that. "We don't even have to mix with any of the other prison inmates, except in the dining room" he joked. "How do you think that sounds?" he asked me.
"I'm ready to go there tonight" I told him.
"Well, tonight's Monday, so can you wait until Friday?" he asked me. "That's only four more days."
"I'll wait" I said.
And he kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me, and he put most of his body on top of mine, and he put his arms beneath me, and we went to sleep.
