When Stacey wrote to ask her if she should save up money for a plane ticket, that after freshman year was over, she could visit her wherever she ended up, Lisa wrote back, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Stacey felt shame that, at first, she was faking her own broken heart. It was complicated, but she was relieved Lisa had left. With her gone, Stacey’s family would never find out. With the temptation of Lisa Han removed, she could get on with her life: go to college, meet a boy, marry, have children, be happy. She honestly thought this was for the best.
It was only a few months later, when she got to school, that the fury and the sadness and the hurt she’d sublimated began to bubble up. No eighteen-year-old is equipped to understand how love can inspire so much shame, so much self-loathing. Even after nearly a decade she could summon the anguish, like a rotting tooth you feel with each bite of a meal, once it dawned on her that she would probably never see Lisa again. She wanted one phone call, one opportunity to scream at her, to vent everything. But Lisa never gave her the chance. And this all led to darker thoughts. At first it was only the bereavement of a breakup and the anxiety of a secret, but that lonely first year at Wittenberg, Stacey tested the hanging rod in the closet of her dorm room. It was high and felt sturdy enough to hold her. If she got the length of the cord right, her feet wouldn’t be able to touch the floor. That she’d considered this seriously seemed impossible now, but that was the corner she found herself in: so deeply terrified of what she would never be able to get away from or suppress, something her family would never understand. She’d have to choose between them and her sanity, and some days the rod in the closet felt like the easiest option. Especially now that the one person in her life who understood had left her for anywhere else, for distant lands and climes.
Mr. Clifton bought the round. They sat in a booth away from the pool table, and she caught him up on her story as fast as she could, answering backward. Yes, Columbus. Catching up with some old friends on the way home. Let the night get away from me. Michigan. Graduate school. Transnational Ecological Catastrophe in the Context of the Global Novel. An explanation of what that meant. All the while wondering—since she wouldn’t have the time now to track down Bill—how to ask him about Lisa. Before his retirement, Mr. Clifton had been one of the most beloved teachers at the school. She’d only had him for the one music requirement, but it endeared him to her forever.
“You know, it’s amazing. I’ll never get over it,” he said, sweeping a hand enthusiastically before tucking it back into the handle of his mug. “I see some of you kids I had in class years and years ago, and I can never believe the way you grow into yourselves as adults. Thirty years of teaching, and it still makes me want to cry tears of joy every time. It’s really an incredible gift to be able to see that. Especially a young woman like you who had so much potential.”
“Then it’s probably okay to tell you that during your class I spent most of my time writing notes to Ben Harrington.”
His laugh carried across the bar, and she imagined it filtering into the streets and out into the gloaming country.
“Oh my gosh. You were always so spicy, Ms. Moore. You were so terrific to have in class I would have let you get away with anything.” His laughter receded as he remembered what this meant. “I’d forgotten you and Ben were sweethearts. I’m sorry. So much tragedy these last few years.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of unbelievable.” In order to change the subject, she said, “I should also mention that I don’t write notes to guys anymore. I came out.”
“Came out?”
“You know, came out.” For some reason she twirled her index fingers.
He brightened. “Did you now? Good for you, Stacey Moore. Good for the people around you.” She thanked him. “Are you seeing anyone? How did your folks take it?”
“In between wonderful women right now, but yeah. My dad’s just my dad—I could probably show up with a dead hooker in my trunk, and he would beam at my resourcefulness with a club hammer. But my mom really gets out there and tries to change people’s minds. She’s made it like a full-time project at her new church. I give them credit.”
He really did look overjoyed by this. She decided he’d already had a few drinks tonight somewhere, but he was still such a heart-on-the-sleeve man.
She left out the part about her brother Patrick, although Mr. Clifton surely had an idea. Dread rippled through her, and she was grateful for the buzz of the beer.
“You know.” He twisted his coaster. “My father once told me that it’s on other people to let go of their fear and prejudice. And this was a man who had his shop burned to the ground because he tried opening in a white neighborhood in Cincinnati. It’s their problem, he said, and that’s on them. But he also told me that it’s on you to give people a chance to change.” He looked at her quizzically. “Dan Eaton was your class, right?”
“Yep. I heard he’s home too.”
“Take Dan’s dad, Paul. When my wife and I first moved in next door, that guy looked at me like the whole world had lost its damn mind. That real estate lady didn’t show me this crazy cracker ’Nam vet I was going to have to neighbor with. But I made an effort. Then again, I didn’t have much choice because we were about the only black family for forty miles it seemed. But I heard it was his birthday and got him a bottle of whiskey. And then he made an effort. And then we were all just good. By the time Rosa passed away, there was no one…” He stopped, smiled into his beer. “Though obviously, these are different experiences we’re talking about.”
She raised her glass. “No way. Inspirational music teachers, issues of queerness and race—we’re writing our own really condescending movie right now.”
He laughed and cracked his glass into hers.
When she was home from college the summer after her freshman year she ran into Ben Harrington and his mom at Kroger’s (epicenter of New Canaan stop-and-chat time sucks). She and Ben decided to meet for lunch at Friendly’s, the high school hangout chain rival to Vicky’s. Stacey had only meant to catch up, to sit across from this old flame of hers and see how he was growing into the world.
“I’m writing weird songs,” he explained, shy eyes darting. She was reminded that she loved how uncomfortable he was about his music and ambition. “My plan is to get five songs together that I’m really proud of and release an EP, and then hopefully get a full album within a couple of years. Part of my thing is I’m such a tinkerer. If a song’s not perfect I stay awake at night biting my nails.”
“You were always a worrier.”
“Not when I was with you! And that’s not flattery either—you just chilled me out.”
“You’re flirting with me,” she warned.
His eyes were summer sun dappling off a dirty river. “I’m not trying to get you out to the Brew, but let me have a little flirting, Stace.”
He did look impossibly handsome.
His skin had cleared up, and he’d grown his hair out and kept brushing the thick blond locks off his brow. She wasn’t sure what clicked in her at that moment, but he just had this way about him, this quiet empathy, and before she knew what she was doing, she said, “I’ve got something sort of crazy to tell you,” and spilled the entire story about Lisa. He listened, and as she got to the end, taming the conclusion, leaving out the part about the night Bethany found them, his face remained too even, his disappointment transparently subdued. He’d surely thought the Brew was at least a possibility, and there she was putting her guts on the table about the woman she’d fallen in love with.