Tanner hadn’t seen much of our house the previous time he was here. We’d gone straight to my bedroom, where we’d spent all our time.
I was proud of our house, but a little embarrassed, too, because I knew a lot of kids didn’t live in such a nice place, either house or neighborhood. But I thought maybe Tanner did. If his dad had been an NFL lineman, well, they made truckloads of money, didn’t they? But I didn’t know much of anything about him, and so maybe he was older and had played at a time when the O-line guys weren’t paid like they are today. Or maybe he’d made a lot of money but squandered it. Maybe he liked fancy cars and, even worse, fancy women, and the money he’d made had disappeared with the end of his playing days.
I thought about this while walking down the stairs with him on my heels and decided this wasn’t the sort of thing friends talked about. So I took him to the kitchen first and asked what he’d like to drink. At the same time, I got out some chips and dips.
He wanted a Diet Coke, and so I plucked two of those from the fridge, filled two glasses with ice and set everything on the table next to the chips. I sat down; he did, too, and, against my better judgment, I attacked.
“I love having you as a friend, but friends talk about stuff. Especially things they’re curious about but couldn’t talk about unless it were with a friend. So, I’m really wondering: why don’t you want me to come to your house?”
Okay, so I was putting him on the spot. But he was smart. If he didn’t want to answer that, he’d find a way to avoid doing so without being either shy or offensive. I was sure of that.
He poured his Coke into his glass, being careful to keep the foam inside the glass, and took his time getting as much liquid in as he could. I thought he was delaying but didn’t say so.
When his glass was full, he took a healthy swig, set it back down, and looked me in the eyes, then grinned. “You caught that, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay. A little more background. My mom died when I was eight. My dad really loved her, and of course I did, too. We both grieved for a long time. The African trip was partly to get us past that, for us to join an adventure in a different part of the world with people who had problems much different from ours, some of them much worse. And it worked. I still miss my mom, miss her a lot in fact, but I was able to move on. Dad was, too.
“But the thing is, he’s still a name; he’s famous in some circles. And football is still his life. He’s on TV a lot, different talk shows, and on a weekly broadcast as color man for the team he played for, the New York Giants. Because of that, he’s away a lot. He’s apologized to me over and over and feels badly about it but says his fame has a pretty short shelf life for most ex-players, and, when he’s no longer remembered as he is now, the offers and money can both dry up. So, he has to do this job while he can.
“So, that’s one part of it: why he isn’t around much. Another part is, he met one of the people also traveling to Africa with the group, a woman, and, well, he got married again. They love each other, but she’s not my mom. I try, but her way and my way are different in just about everything. So we butt heads a lot. The thing is, she agreed to his being away a lot, mostly in New York and Los Angeles, but also traveling to different cities for game broadcasts. She recognized this was a short-term thing for him and eventually they’d settle down in their own house. But, in the meantime, she told him that she wanted to live in her hometown with her parents rather than being alone in a city she didn’t know at all and without him around much. He agreed to that, and that’s how it ended up. I’m living here because he wouldn’t have time for me if I were with him. He’s flying all over the country all the time.
“But the thing is, my stepmom is difficult. She had very strict parents and thinks that’s the way to raise a kid. And, to make things worse, we’re living with them in their house. They’re around all the time, and they approve of her strictness, and they like to act the same way with me.
“So, to remain sane and not start a war, I try to be out of the house as much as I can. This often leads to some squabbles at home because she wants to control me a whole lot more than I like being controlled. I’ve had to ask for Dad’s help to get her to back off a little. She wanted a seven o’clock curfew every night! She wanted to know everywhere I was going, who I was going to be with, and to call their parents before I went! I swear, she wanted to watch me brush my teeth at night! So, Dad’s intervened at times, and I try to get along, but I’m just afraid it wouldn’t be good for you to be there, even though we’d be studying.”
That gave me a few things to ponder. Did that mean he was using me? He’d said he liked me and wanted to be friends, but was this why? Was he escaping a bad situation at home and just pretending to like me to make life easier for himself?
I’d never thought I was a very transparent boy, but I must have been because, while I was thinking those unpleasant thoughts, he was looking at me and began shaking his head.
“No,” he said. And he said it kinda loud.
“Huh?”
“No,” he repeated. “I meant what I said. I feel really lucky to have found you. You’re the perfect friend for me, much better than anyone else I’ve come across at school. I can see you wondering. Well, stop it!”
I was sure he’d follow that command with a scowl. He didn’t. He reached across the table and laid his large hand over my smaller one, and he did it gently.
“I truly want us to be friends, and if you want to come to my house, we can do that next time, but I’d really rather you stayed away. You’ll have to be prepared for a grilling, and if my step-grandparents are around, it could be worse. You won’t like it. It’d be ugly. But if you need to see what I’m escaping from and what it’s like, how edgy we all are with each other, you can come.”
I didn’t doubt him. He was just too genuine, his eyes too readable. He wasn’t hiding anything when he said he liked me. He wasn’t using me; I believed that. But I now saw something else as well. He said it wouldn’t be good for me to be there. I had an idea what he was saying without his saying it.
“Do you mean she’s homophobic?” Might as well get this straightened out right away.
He shook his head. “No, she’s not. Well, not like her parents. Not to that extent. I don’t think so, at least. Two of the people with us in Africa, a male doctor and nurse, were partners, and she didn’t seem to have a problem with them. Treated them just like everyone else. The problem is her parents. They are homophobic, both of them; racists, too. I’ve heard them swear at the TV set and turn some shows off. I don’t want you subjected to anything like that. We’re better off here.”
I was embarrassed, but also very aware of his hand over mine. He gently squeezed it three times, then lifted his hand off and said, “Now, my tour. ‘Carry on, Jeeves’”
I guess he did read a lot.
≈ ≈ ≈
I took Tanner through the house. Large, well-furnished rooms. I hardly spent any time in several of them. The living room and dining room were only used for guests, and we didn’t have a lot of those; when we did, I stayed away. The kitchen had a small family eating area off it and that’s where we had family meals. The kitchen was pretty impressive, with black-granite countertops and light-colored-birch cabinets with dark-ebony trim to complement the counters. It was a large room with an island in the center and high stools along the far side where I’d have a bowl of cereal in the morning if no one was cooking that meal. That didn’t generally happen, though.
We had a finished basement with a game room and another wet bar in the adult area. I showed Tanner through all this, and he didn’t comment much. I had my usual mixture of pride and embarrassment about it all, so I didn’t speak all that much either.
Then we went outside.
“Wow!” he said. Standing on the wide, covered patio, he could see the pool, which was quite large. It was regulation-competition length, and there was a pool house bounded by flower gardens, a wide expanse of lawn, and fruit trees in the back.
“Do you swim?” I asked.
“Sure. Not my best sport, but I do okay. We don’t have a pool. I can’t wait for my Dad to be back with us again. He’s said we’ll have our house, a brand new one, built for us. He’ll hire an architect, and together they’ll decide what we’ll have, and I’ll be in on that. I don’t know where it’ll be yet. My stepmom would like it to be here. I have the idea, an impression only, that he’d like to get her away from her parents. He says she’s probably a much different person when they’re around. So, the house probably won’t be around here.”
He saw the look on my face and said, “But that won’t be right away. Probably a few years. About the time I’ll be ready to settle down with dad, it’ll probably be about time for college. But it sucks, you know? Just when I’d most like to be living with him, right now, that’s when I can’t.”
“Let’s swim,” I said, trying to change the mood.
“No suit,” he said.
“There’s a cupboard full of different sizes in the pool house. Most people don’t bring one when they come. Or, of course, we could swim without one.”
He gave me a look, and I blushed. Damn, I didn’t want to do that. Now I had to save myself.
“Kidding. You can go find a suit that fits, and I’ll get mine from my room and change there.”
He was still looking at me. “Do you ever swim without one?” he asked.
“Sure. No one can see the pool other than from one of our upstairs windows, and I don’t really care if either of my parents sees me. Nudity isn’t a big deal in our family. Not that we walk around bare, but if someone happens to catch a brief glance at someone, it’s not a biggie and doesn’t even get mentioned.
“Swimming is more fun naked. But I don’t expect you to, and I’d be embarrassed anyway. Puberty is mostly still on my doorstep, waiting to do its thing, and you’re 14.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe we can swim like that sometime. I’ll have to think about it.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” I said and then blushed again.