Summer Love

Another summer on the Jersey shore, the boardwalk at night teaming with people from all over the country, bored Tristan Gillen by June 12th. And he had only arrived on the 10th. Not that he wanted to be back in school; his junior year had been a disaster. He turned to face the dark Atlantic Ocean as he mentally flipped through the disheartening inventory of the past nine months: broken arm to start the school year, Pittsburg for Thanksgiving, the flu over Christmas break, still not making the varsity soccer team, and the icing on the cake, his guidance councilor and the prom queen (and queen of gossip) catching him and Bradley Keen kissing in an upstairs office in the banquette hall where the prom was held. Monday came with the expected drama. Mr. Reed had called his parents, and the prom queen had spread the word far and wide. The last month of school had been hell. Taunts and slurs followed him as he walked through the halls. Teachers said nothing when they overheard. Only the safety of his car shielded him from fights after school. Funny that no one ever asked why the forty-five year old guidance councilor and the seventeen year old prom queen were seeking out that same deserted office.
At home the month dragged by in an uneasy don’t ask don’t tell atmosphere, despite the fact that the telling was already over. His mother cried, his father called it a phase, and both never mentioned it after that first Monday afternoon. Of course, by that time, he was grounded for the rest of the school year, ordered to come right home after school, and forbidden to see Bradley. Tristan stayed in his room, coming out only to eat meals and go to school. He counted down the days until he could get away to Sea Isle and leave the school year behind him.
Now he leaned against the railing, the moon glimmering on the ocean, bored after two days. Tristan turned back to face the parading crowd. After years of coming here he easily identified the locals, the Jersey people, the ones from Philly. A Jersey boy like him caught his eye across the boardwalk as Tristan scanned the crowd. Tristan stared for a minute, until he realized the other boy was staring back. Tristan quickly looked away and turned to head home. Damn, he thought. I have to be more careful.
The next day dawned bright and sunny. Tristan stumbled down the creaking old stairs to find breakfast and ran into his mother in the kitchen. Sandy Gillen looked tired. She had bluish bags under her eyes. Her wavy raven hair was already pulling itself out of her sloppy ponytail. And she was dressed, not in her bathing suit as usual in the summer, but in linen slacks and blouse. Tristan looked her in the eyes, so much like his, then looked down. As he set his cereal on the table Sandy spoke. “Your father and I have to go to Atlantic City with some of his work colleagues from out of town. I’m meeting your father there. It’s going to be a long day.” She sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “You are on duty with Grandmother Arabella. She’s already sitting on the front porch”
“Ok.” Tristan kept his gaze on his spoon.
“Your cousin Stacey will be checking on you today. If we decide to spend the night, she will stay here with you.
“Ok.” Tristan kept the rest of his thoughts to himself. He was seventeen. What did he need a babysitter for? And if she wanted to baby-sit, why couldn’t Stacey stay with Arabella? Of course, Stacey was a great time. She was a master of showing and telling Sandy exactly what she wanted to hear, while letting Tristan do whatever he wanted. Stacey had known Tristan’s big secret for two years, ever since he had kissed his first boy and had to tell some one. The three years older and wiser Stacey had taken it all in stride. She had even made sure to bring a couple gay friends home from college in case Tristan had questions he wouldn’t ask her. And he did! He learned a lot by asking everything he could think of. Stacey’s friend Jack had stayed up late into the night explaining things Tristan hadn’t even known enough to ask about. That was an eye opening night! Tristan couldn’t wait to find some one to try some of those things with.
Sandy’s hand on his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. This was the first time she had touched him in a long time. He looked up at her face as she spoke. “We’re going to have a good summer.” Tristan just nodded. “Well, we’ll try to, at least.” She surprised Tristan again when she leaned over and kissed the top of his head. With out another word she grabbed her keys off the hook by the back door and left.
Tristan sat processing the brief exchange for several minutes. His mother was always so awkward at talking about what she really wanted to say. She always left him feeling vague and unsure. Was she just trying to tell him she accepted him being gay? Was she tired of the distance that had grown between them even before the prom incident? Why did she always have to be so confusing? Tristan washed his bowl and wondered around the big old house. It had been in his family since it was built, way back when Central Avenue really had been in the middle of the island, and not beachfront. Instead of returning to his room via the tightly curving back stairs he walked through the dining room, living room (Arabella called it the second parlor), and turned into the hall before the front room. He climbed the main staircase to the second floor and proceeded to his room in the back corner. It was the smallest of the five bedrooms in the house, but it had the old maid’s stairs to the kitchen offering easy access to the back door and another steep curving staircase going up to a room in the attic only accessible by those stairs. In the attic room, Tristan had created his own world; here he came to write, to read in isolation when the house was full of guests, to do what he had in mind this morning. He stripped out of his pajamas in his bedroom and walked up the stairs to his favorite place. Just the act of walking naked had him already half hard. He flopped down on the old couch, reached down and started to slowly stroke. As he did, he filled his mind with images of the Bradley. He picked up the pace and just as he released a different face flitted into his mind, the boy from the previous night.
After cleaning up, he headed for the bathroom. The house was rarely completely empty and he took advantage of it. He crossed the hall naked and left the door to the bathroom wide open to prevent it from becoming a steam room as he indulged in a hot shower long enough to drain the water heater. When he finished, he towel dried in front of the fog free mirror and appraised his body. Tristan wasn’t tall, at 5’8” he was barely average, but he was lean and could easily muscle up if he wanted to. He ran his hand over his flat stomach and pulled at the happy trail that ran down from his belly button. The hair on his legs matched the dark hair on his head and he turned to check the progress of he light dusting that had only recently started to cover his butt. He flexed his butt and admired the muscles there and in his thighs. Soccer, even if it was only junior varsity, had paid off there. He turned to the front again and ran his hand over his chest, still nothing there. He checked out his sharp jaw line and decided there was still no use in shaving. Once or twice a week was plenty. Tristan reached up and messed up his damp hair. The natural wave made it look really hot when it was messy.
He returned to his room and suited up in the usual summer day uniform: a tight square cut Stacey had taken him to buy in the gayborhood in Philly served as bathing suit underwear, a practice he adopted after his mom and Aunt Gail had told a story about looking up men’s bathing suits on the beach, then nylon board shorts to the knee and a plain t-shirt. The flip flops and sunglasses some where down stairs would complete his outfit. Dressed to face the world he headed back down his staircase, grabbed a banana off the kitchen table and went to find Arabella on the front porch.
He found her in a well-cushioned wicker chair that had once been white, but was now more a grayish tan color. She rested her feet up on the table and her head back against the chair. Her gleaming white hair hung around her jaw line in a bob. On each hand she wore sparkling rings no one thought were real. Her narrow frame swam in some complicatedly wrapped kimono robe mumu thing. The neighbors all thought she was senile; a few of the older ones said she had always been crazy. Some of the nicer ones said eccentric. When the screen door shut she looked up at him. “Tristan, I hear your parents finally found out you’re queer.” Old Arabella rarely wasted words on small talk, the complete opposite of her daughter, who seemed only able to manage small talk.
“Uh..” He hadn’t been expecting that kind of greeting.
“Relax, boy.” She waved a hand toward the chair next to her then changed her mind. “Wait. Before you get comfortable, run upstairs and get my cigarettes from my bedside table.”
Tristan hesitated. “Mom says your not supposed to smoke.”
“Right. Good thing she’s not here. Get moving.” Arabella waved him on. Tristan dashed back in the house and up the front stairs. On the return, he used his staircase again and stopped in the kitchen. Since the old lay was in a rule breaking mood, might as well go all the way, he thought as he opened the refrigerator and poured two glasses of pinot grigio from the open bottle left from last night. When he got back to the porch, Arabella smiled. “Good thinking, boy.” She reached out for the glass and cigarettes. When they were both settled in their chairs and she had lit up she raised her glass to Tristan. “Here’s to you. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.” They clinked glasses and Tristan took a big gulp. If Arabella was this talkative it was going to be a long day.
“Thanks, Arabella.” Long ago she had nixed the grandmother business. “Umm.” He hesitated, but had to ask. “Do you know what queer mean?” He held his breath.
“Do you have any idea how old I am?”
The apparent subject change confused Tristan. “Umm, eighty?”
“I was older than that when you were born.” She took a drag. “What year is it?”
“1998.”
“Then I’m 98 years old.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Tristan still had no idea where she was going with this.
“It’s shit, but that’s besides the point.” She paused for a sip of wine and Tristan waited for the point to become clear. “The point is I was in my twenties in the 1920’s. Don’t they teach you anything in school?” The question was obviously rhetorical as she didn’t pause to let him answer. “I know what queer means. I’m part of the generation that started using it to mean what you use gay for.”
“Oh.” Tristan braced himself with another gulp of wine. “And how do you feel about me being gay?”
“You ever notice the picture at the top of the steps?” Tristan just nodded at the subject change. “That’s my Aunt El. Of course she was only seven years older than me, so we were more like sisters.”
“That’s the flapper woman, right? Several old framed photographs lined the wall at the top of the stairs and he wanted to make sure he pictured the right one.
“That’s her.” Arabella stubbed out her smoke and drained her wine. “Why don’t you go fill us up and when you get back I’ll tell you stories I bet your mother never told you.” Tristan raced to the kitchen and back, this time bringing the remainder of the bottle with him. “Ah, you get smarter every second.” Arabella sipped her wine and settled in for some serious story telling. “Now dear El, well, she was born Eleanor, decided when I was twenty-one that Europe had calmed down enough and it was time I saw the world. My parents agreed to foot most of the bill and we took off.” Arabella smiled at her memories as she enjoyed her wine. “Now Paris in the twenties was the place to be.”
“That was the Jazz Age, right.” Tristan wanted to show her he had learned something in school.
“It sure was, boy. And did we ever love it. El and I went to Paris planning on staying one month then moving around Europe for the next four or five months. We ended up living in Paris for nineteen years.” Arabella paused to light up another smoke.
While she fumbled with the lighter, Tristan quickly did mental math and realized he could show off his education again. “So you left because of the Nazis?”
“Yes we did. We were on one of the last trains out.” Her smile faded and Tristan wanted to get her back to El and the Jazz Age. He tried a joking allusion to one of his favorite movies. “So the Germans more grey. Did you wear blue?”
That got a chuckle out of the old girl. “You know only a queer seventeen year old would know that movie.” She laughed again and drank some more. “So, the point I am sure you have been waiting for: El never married. In fact I don’t think she ever even kissed a man.” Arabella wiggled her penciled eyebrows at Tristan. He stared blankly back. Arabelle smacked his arm. “Think about it, boy. Why would I be telling you this story?”
Honestly, Tristan thought it was because she was going senile. He looked at her impatiently tapping her cigarette on the ashtray. He wanted to be smart. Finally he got it. “No way!” He took a drink of wine. “El was a lesbian!”
“Yes indeed.” She reached out with her glass to clink his. “Took you long enough.” They drank. “While I slept my way through half the straight men in Paris, and a few of the queer ones, that woman fell in love with Claudette Chevalier and never strayed.”
“Cool.” Tristan looked at Arabella with new respect. Turns out she wasn’t as senile as she appeared.
“Yes it was. Now, as for you, don’t take any shit from your parents.” She ground out her cigarette and took another swallow of wine. “You want to roll in the sheets with boys, you go right ahead.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Easy for you to do. Stand up for your self.” She smacked him again. “Be respectful and demand that they respect you in return.” She polished off her wine and looked at him to finish off the bottle in her glass.