"Yes. I said I wasn’t comfortable with the idea yet. I didn’t want to have to explain or defend myself before I felt completely comfortable." She placed her hand on her mother’s knee and gently asked, "Is that how you feel?"
Catherine gave her a nod so slight that it was almost imperceptible.
"Okay. I promise I won’t bring it up. But I hope you don’t expect me to lie about Ryan. I’m proud of my love for her, and I can’t betray that love by denying it. But I will agree to do my best to avoid the topic in conversation. Is that good enough?"
"That’s very generous of you, Jamie." She reached up and brushed the hair off her daughter’s forehead with a gesture very similar to one that Ryan often made. "You’ve been so mature about this whole thing, it makes me very proud of you."
Jamie took her mother’s hand and kissed it gently before releasing it. "You’ve been very supportive so far, Mother. I want to thank you for that support by giving you the time you need to become comfortable with my sexual orientation."
"Thank you, Dear. I know this is just temporary for me. And it won’t bother me if you wish to speak to your cousins or even my cousins about this. It’s mainly your great-aunt’s and uncles that I’d rather have not know just yet."
"All right. I don’t know any of my cousins well enough to assume the subject will come up, but if it does I might tell them."
"Thank you, Dear. Are you ready?" she asked as she stood.
Jamie stood and hooked her mother’s arm in hers. "Let’s go greet the Dunlops," she said with a smile.
Just a few minutes before ten, Jordan came up the driveway on her bike, an enormous backpack nearly causing her to tumble off when she stopped. "Hey, what are you doing sitting outside?" she asked, when she spotted Ryan sitting on the top step, head in her hands.
The dark head lifted, and it was obvious that she hadn’t even noticed that Jordan had arrived. She blinked her eyes slowly, trying to snap out of the fog she was in. "I’m sorry, what did you say?"
Walking her bike up the sidewalk, Jordan approached cautiously, a little surprised by Ryan’s odd demeanor. "Hey, are you okay?"
Ryan looked anything but okay, but Jordan couldn’t actually figure out what was wrong with her. She looked more depressed than anything, so Jordan hazarded another question when Ryan didn’t immediately respond. "Are you really this upset to be leaving Jamie?"
Standing up and stretching to unkink her back, Ryan shook her head briskly. "No, she’s out of town with her mother. She was going to go later in the summer, but when I found out about this, we decided to move it up. It’s actually worked out well, schedule-wise."
"Then what is it?" Jordan was not usually the type to pry into the personal lives of others, but Ryan looked so completely bereft that she couldn’t help herself.
"Long story, pal," she said. "I’ll fill you in on the way down to Santa Cruz." As they walked into the house to fetch Ryan’s gear, she added, "Next time, let me come pick you up, okay? I didn’t realize that you didn’t have a car."
"It’s a deal," the lanky blonde agreed, sliding her arm around Ryan’s waist as she gave her a grateful smile.
"Now, let me get this straight," Jordan said, nearly an hour after they had departed. "Jamie’s in Rhode Island with her mother…
her father came here this morning and basically threatened you…
now tell me again why you’re not on the phone with her?"
"I told you," Ryan explained patiently. "She just got there, and I don’t want her to get hit with this the second she walks in the door. Besides, she said she was going to go to bed as soon as she could. She took the red-eye, so I know she’s really tired."
"Ryan," Jordan said with less patience, "You are insane if you don’t tell her immediately. Her father sounds like a total loon! You said yourself that he was going to make her stay in Rhode Island for the rest of the summer, and that he threw you out of the house! I don’t know Jamie that well, but if it was me, I’d be on the first plane back here!"
Ryan shook her head in irritation, knowing that Jordan had a good point, and not really wanting to be reminded of it. "You don’t know Jamie well, Jordan, but your guess is completely accurate. She’d probably hire a charter jet to get back here this afternoon! She’s usually calm and deliberate about her decisions, but this will drive her absolutely crazy!"
"And that’s a reason NOT to tell her?" Jordan was completely puzzled by her friend’s hardheadedness on this topic, and she could tell that Ryan was struggling with it.
"I’m torn, Jordan," she admitted. "She’s a little hot-tempered where her father is concerned right now, and I’m afraid she’ll come back here and do something crazy."
Jordan took that statement in, letting it roll around in her mind for a few moments. She finally looked at Ryan and asked, "Isn’t what her father
did
crazy?"
"Yes, yes, of course it was," Ryan said, irritated that Jordan was bringing up yet another good point. "But with him angry, and her angry, God knows what would happen. I don’t want her to have an irrevocable split with him."
"Isn’t that her decision?" Jordan’s soft soprano voice was unyielding, and once again Ryan wished she had given one of the nice, malleable freshmen a ride, rather than her opinionated friend.
"Yes, Jordan, it is her decision. And I won’t stand in her way if she chooses to do that. But I want to calm down before I tell her. There’s no sense in me getting her more upset than she will be on her own. She’s supposed to call me tonight…I’ll tell her then."
Reaching across the car, Jordan squeezed Ryan’s knee. "You’ll feel better when you do, Ryan. I’m sure of it."
"That makes one of us," Ryan muttered, knowing that having Jamie upset never made her feel better.
On the way down the stairs, Jamie could hear the murmur of voices as well as the tinkling of ice in glasses coming from the solarium. The lovely glass-enclosed room was located right next to the dining room, and was the usual gathering place for the family for before-dinner drinks.
Entering the sun-drenched space, Jamie mentally corrected herself to include before-brunch drinks, also. All three generations of Dunlops were gathered, and the alcohol was flowing liberally.
When their arrival was noted, Patsy Dunlop, David’s wife, approached and greeted Catherine with a tentative hug and a kiss that landed well short of her cheek. Turning to Jamie, she made a move to offer the same to her, pulling away immediately when Jamie attempted to actually touch her body. After several more rounds of uncomfortable encounters she wondered,
Lord, does everyone have osteoporosis, or do they just hate touching!? I was hugged with more enthusiasm by Ryan’s neighbors at the 4
th
of July party than I am by relatives here!
Much was made of Jamie’s attendance at the gathering, most of the family having not seen her in 12 years. Her uncle David was mixing Bloody Marys for everyone, and he pointedly told Jamie that he was glad she and her cousin David were finally "legal."
She accepted the drink, but almost choked when she tasted the tremendous amount of alcohol in it.
He seems to have forgotten the ‘Bloody’ part,
she thought while she tried to find an inconspicuous place to leave the drink.
If I drink this, I’ll be on my ass, and it’s only eleven a.m.!
Luckily, a white-jacketed butler called them to brunch. As everyone filed out, she dashed over to the wet bar and poured half the drink down the sink. Filling the glass up with tomato juice, she trotted after the others into the dining room to take her seat.
She observed her great-uncle David as he took his place at the head of the table. He was a small man, as were most of the Dunlops. He actually looked a good deal like the faded photos and oil paintings of the patriarch of the family, Wilbur Dunlop. Jamie’s mind strayed for a moment to her great-great-grandfather, the font of the family wealth. Wilbur’s eventual social standing belied his humble beginnings as an accounting clerk in the office of one of the leading coal mines in Pittsburgh. His tremendous business acumen and a series of very favorable circumstances slowly gave way to his rise, first in the Pittsburgh Mining Company, and eventually to the ownership of Dunlop Mines. This ultimately led to his becoming known as the "Crown Prince of Coal"–a sobriquet which befitted his position as the owner of over 30% of the operating coalmines during the last part of the 19
th
century. He and his wife Maxine, had two children, Orville, Jamie’s great-grandfather, and a daughter, Julia, who died at the age of 88 the year Jamie was born, never having married.
Orville had assumed control of the mining company upon his father’s death, but the business never held his interest. In this instance, however, his indifference served the family in good stead. Fortuitously, he began to sell off individual mines to smaller companies, just before the price of coal began to plummet thanks to the more ready supply of natural gas and diesel fuel as a source of home heating. He wisely diversified his massive wealth, investing in a wide variety of concerns. Even after the market crash of 1929, he was still flush enough to be able to acquire a great deal of stock in many companies at rock bottom prices, and when the market began to turn around in the 40s, the financial security of the Dunlop family was assured for many, many generations of spendthrifts. Jamie was pulled from her reverie by the scion of the family making a semi-formal address.
"I’d like to welcome the last of our group to our little gathering," David began. "It’s been quite some time since Jamie has joined us, and I hope this is the first of many trips she and Catherine will make together." His small face broke into a playful grin as he teased, "Of course, I assume one of these years she’ll bring a handsome young man to join us also."
She blushed at this prediction, shaking her head a little, while not commenting on the accuracy of it.
I promised Mother.
"Thank you, Uncle David. It’s wonderful to see you all again, and I certainly hope to be able to attend in future years."
"Hear, hear," David agreed, lifting his Bloody Mary in a toast. Glasses clinked and everyone joined in, tilting their glasses in celebration.
Please, don’t let us do this for everyone. They’ll have to carry me out of here!
Luckily, no more celebratory toasts were offered, and the meal continued to the accompaniment of polite conversation. Jamie was seated near a coterie of David Dunlops--her great-uncle, his son David Junior, known as Skip, and Skip’s son, David III, called Trey.
Her great-uncle David’s only other child, John Orville Dunlop, and his son J.C. were also seated near them, and Jamie spent a moment considering her two male cousins.
Trey was just two months, and J.C. three years, older than Jamie. At 24, J.C. was still trying to finish college. He had been thrown out of the best prep schools in the country, and finding a college to admit him had been a chore. But enough donated money can make even the poorest student shine in the eyes of the administration of an under-endowed university, and the Dunlop money had gained him admittance to a small private college in New Hampshire. As it turned out, one too many calls to the local police station had made even the Dunlop money an inadequate inducement, and several small-and medium-sized colleges later, he was crawling towards a degree in American Studies at a degree-mill in New York. With any luck, and an inattentive police force, he would graduate when Jamie did.
Trey had already successfully graduated--from the Betty Ford Clinic. He had been struggling with substance abuse since he was in high school, but he had ostensibly been clean for over a year now. Jamie wasn’t sure what type of treatment program he was participating in, but she had never heard of one that allowed Bloody Marys for breakfast.
Even with their checkered backgrounds, Jamie had always been fond of her wild cousins. She had enjoyed the summers spent in Newport when she was small, since it was the only time of the year that she really got to act like a kid. Trey and J.C. were raised by nannies also, but they went through them quickly. When the families were in Newport, the nannies were left behind, and since the adults had neither the time nor the interest to supervise the children much, they were allowed to run a little wild. Even though Jamie had loved her nanny, Elizabeth, she enjoyed being allowed to play with the boys in unaccustomed freedom.
She had never thought about it in this way before, but she wondered if the burgeoning delinquency of the two boys played a role in her mother’s quick agreement to allow her to stop coming to Newport twelve years earlier. By the time Jamie was ten, J.C. had already been expelled from two schools, and there were more to follow. He would regale her and Trey with tales of his pranks and his nearly chronic class cutting. She always found his stories funny, but even then she thought that he seemed to be crying out for attention from his parents.
"Going sailing later, Jamie. Would you like to go with us?" Trey asked.
"If mother hasn’t planned anything else, I’d love to," she agreed. "I haven’t been out all summer." She fondly remembered the last time she and Ryan had been on the boat, just before the AIDS Ride. The thought of lying in the hammock on the gently swaying boat brought a wistful smile to her face, and she had to blink repeatedly to dispel the images of her love and bring herself back to the present.