Educating Simon (40 page)

Her face crumpled. “It's not universal. I don't know what that feels like.” She sat there and cried, not even trying to cover her face or turn away. It was everything I could do not to weep, myself. I felt an urge to reach out to her, but that felt wrong for her. I got up and fetched a box of facial tissues; it was the only thing I knew to do, other than to repeat, “I'm sorry I can't tell you more.”

And then something else occurred to me. “But I will tell you this. I think the fact that you cry for wanting to feel is important.”

“You do?”

“I do. I think it's very important.”

She nodded and blew her nose. “You can go now.”

 

I can't sleep. My brain keeps bouncing between that dart Persie shot at me, about not caring about other people, and the realisation I came to at the memorial. I've come to the conclusion that I have no excuse for ever falling back into that way of thinking, of feeling—the way that Persie can't escape. Maybe she will one day; I don't know enough about AS. Yet.

And now I think that this escape from not caring that she wants and doesn't know how to find might be the area that I want to concentrate on when I get to Oxford.

I've just browsed back through my journal, picking a spot here or there to reread, surprised that I haven't done more rereading than I have up to now.

There's so much of me in here. I mean, of course, that should be obvious. It is obvious. But my point is . . . What
is
my point?

My point is that this journal paints a picture of me that's painful for me to see, in places. Some places it makes me ashamed, or it makes me laugh, or it makes me cry, and sometimes it makes me proud. And always, it makes me wonder what will come next. What will I be like in five, ten, twenty years? Will I be that Oxford don Mum has in her mental picture of me? Will I marry some handsome fellow, and will we have children? For sure, we'll have cats. Will Kay come and visit me in England? Will she be at Oxford, perhaps?

I had a dream about Michael the other night. We were a couple, and we were at school together someplace. We walked around campus holding hands. And we made love. Tender, sweet love.

Michael. What will become of him? What
has
become of him? We haven't been in touch since that night in his rooms when he'd told me he really is gay, and I never did go to his
nonna
's for dinner. Did I leave him in the lurch? I don't think so. I've searched my soul a few times to consider what I might have done to help him. And each time I found myself on the verge of contacting him, it felt like a fool's errand. What could I say to him? If we could have been friends, perhaps I could have offered support. But I'd wanted him, and even after that was no longer true, he had wanted me. Nothing good could come of that. Still, perhaps I'll at least let him know I'm truly off for home in a few months.

 

Persie has changed so much since that first dinner when I'd shown up a few unforgivable minutes late. Will she be able to live on her own someday? That might be too much to hope for, but I'm fairly sure she'll be more independent than Brian ever thought she could be. He was very impressed with my Theory of Knowledge paper, and I'm pretty sure he'll keep giving her chances to stretch herself.

I want her to see the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.

And I want Mum and Brian to be happy together.

And I want Kay to win!

 

Daren and I are considered an item at school, though we see our connection as much looser than that. Even so, we have done a few more things together, including a serious make-out session once when I visited him at his parents' home in Newton. He knows I'm headed for Oxford, and he'll be at Harvard next year. So, as with Luther (whom I'm also still seeing occasionally), it's for the simple pleasure of being with someone. No strings. No expectations. Just a lot of fun.

 

Almost forgot. I threw out my razor blades.

Oxford. Oxford! I'm over the moon. I don't have the mental focus to document the trip over or the logistics of renting a furnished flat until I can move into my Pembroke rooms. I'm looking forward to digging into the things Mum and I put into storage nearly a year ago and pulling out what I'll use at Pembroke.

Mum wanted me to stay in Boston through the summer, of course, until the fall sessions begin. But I wanted to go home. Staying in Boston felt like so much time being killed.

I will devote some space here to Miss Kay Lloyd, second runner-up in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I went with her and her mother to the competition in May. She was magnificent. Being one of the final three contestants meant she had all the time she could have asked for on stage. Abby and I had gone with her earlier in the month to shop for clothes, and she looked beautiful up there in a white blouse with a lace collar and a pale blue skirt. She was so confident, so adorable, and her bubbly personality sent the audience into laughter so often that she was dubbed Kay the Comedienne.

I thought she might be unhappy about coming in third. I should have known better. “I'll win next year. And my hair will be longer!”

Her hormone treatments began as soon as she got home. She's starting in a new school in the fall, and she'll be able to present herself as who she really is.

 

Parting with Luther had gone about as I had expected. We'd seen each other several times after that special, wonderful New Year's evening together. We didn't have sex every time, and when we did he didn't always play top. Usually, though. He's so good at it.

We took a walk through the Boston Public Garden, sat on a bench for a bit, talked about where we'd be this time next year. He's been accepted into Columbia for the next phase of his academic studies in philosophy, so he's going to New York City. Might be a good place to visit someday.

When we got up from that bench we embraced, kissed, and walked in different directions.

 

I rang Michael up a few weeks before I left. It was an odd conversation, and it left me feeling I had been right; I couldn't really have helped him. He's gone back to X, back to pretending he's straight. It makes me very sad. I just don't know what to do about it. And I can't help wondering if friends of addicts feel at least a little like this: I want to help, but the change has to come from inside him. I also can't help wondering how badly things would have gone if I'd responded differently, if we'd started a relationship.

Not all love is meant to be, I guess. Still, this is one problem that isn't mine that I really wish I could have helped resolve.

 

I've been putting off writing about what it was like to leave my family behind. And that is what they've become. My relationship with my mother will never be roses and candy, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was a year ago. We treat each other with respect and affection now; I think we've both learned a lot about each other—and about ourselves.

I would never in a million years have thought I'd miss Brian. But I do. We developed a camaraderie that matured over evenings in the music room, trying different brandies and cognacs, critiquing different performances of music we both know and love. He has quite an acerbic side to his personality, too, when he lets it out, and some evenings we tried to outdo each other, neither willing to reveal how brilliant he thought the other's last comment was, both often fighting laughter that would reveal exactly that. And often we lost that fight.

Persie gave me a going-away present.
Clyfford Still: The Artist's Museum,
by Sandra Still Campbell. It's full of glorious colour plates of his work and describes his life and the creation of the museum in Denver. I was quite moved. I gave her my iPad; it's a great way to display art, and I knew I'd need something different at home anyway because of the different power supply. Besides, it was a good excuse to get a new one. As I was leaving the house for the airport, with Mum and Brian, Persie threw herself at me bodily. My arms went around her, and I realised with a shock that we had never touched before.

I've left Ned till last because of the connection we had. And also because of a certain shame I feel. As wonderful and sensitive as he'd been to me, and as much help as he'd given me, it wasn't until the night of that party in October that I had asked about him, about his life, other than that challenge I'd thrown at him about maybe needing a push (when he told me he'd finished his master's degree in food science). And although I met Manuel eventually, I didn't ask much of anything else.

So the Saturday before I left, when he sent iced tea and biscuits up in the dumbwaiter for our last rooftop repast and handed me his going-away present, I was stunned. It's a watercolour drawing he did himself. It's beautiful and poignant, full of love and tenderness. The near ground is a tangle of brambles, black and reddish brown, thorny and massive. But on the left side, a passage has been torn through them. Leading away from them is a faint path over soft green grasses, winding diagonally up to the right under a soft blue sky. Barely on the paper, where the path disappears, the blue of the sky gently feeds into faint rainbow colours. Not a rainbow, nothing that obvious—just the colours. It's titled
The Colour of Life
. And “colour” is spelled just like that—the UK English way.

I cried, and it wasn't only because it was so beautiful and so perfect and so “us.” It wasn't just because I expected never to have another connection like this one. It was also because I hadn't even known he could draw. A talent like this, and I hadn't known.

If he realised what I was feeling, he said nothing about it. He did tell me his plans, though, despite the fact that I'd never asked again.

“You asked me once, when I told you that you needed a push, if I might need one, too.” He took a sip of tea. “You were right. I did. And you, Simon, you pushed me.”

“I did?”

“Yup. Because all that great advice I was giving you? I needed to take it, myself. My brambles were different. They had more to do with lack of confidence. With fear, even, that I wasn't good enough to follow my own path. I've watched you clearing away bramble after bramble and making baskets out of them where you've packed everything you want to take with you. It's inspired me.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned. “I'm going to art school in the fall.”

“Ned! That's—oh, my God, that's so wonderful! Where?”

“RISD. Rhode Island School of Design. So I'll cook for Brian through most of the summer and then head to Providence.”

“And . . . Manuel?”

“Oh, he's coming with me. His company has a branch there. He works from home half the time, anyway. And I have more news.”

“Yes?”

“We're getting married in August.”

I couldn't sit there any longer. I jumped out of my chair and pulled him to his feet for a long, long embrace. As I sat down again, I asked when, and if there would be guests.

“August tenth. It will be small, but yes, a few guests. Brian and your mom will be invited. I'm not expecting you to come back for it, though.”

“If I want to, am I invited?”

“Of course.”

“Then I'll be there. With bells on.”

So the final lesson I take from Ned is that I have it in me to let the sweetness, the connection of a wonderful relationship be one-sided. To let it be all about me. That won't happen again.

 

I took a tourist bus around the city today, in the open top of a double-decker. Great way for me to get the lay of the land, as it were, and start to feel at home in my new home.

Graeme sat beside me on the bus, smiling with me, at me, helping me remember everything we were seeing. It felt bittersweet. I'm not sure, but it was almost as though he were letting me know that it's close to the end for us, that he'd seen me safely here, carried me through my exile, and soon we won't be together any longer. I will miss him so much. But if that's the way it has to be, I can take it.

Because I'm here. I'm home.

Bright yellow

Bright orange, terra cotta, Kelly green, lilac

Brick red, periwinkle

Bright orange, bright yellow, pale green, lilac.