“Mikey isn’t going to be happy, Mrs. H.,” I said, sitting in her kitchen and waiting for him to arrive home from work.
“Trust me, he will,” she insisted. “Even if I have to make him be.”
“It was just a misunderstanding,” I said, trying my best to warn her away from bringing my last conversation with Mikey up again. “You know how we fight once and a while.”
“This isn’t that, young man,” she said, setting a plate in front of me as she set up three place settings.
Mikey’s Mom had texted me Thursday after school and requested that I share dinner with her and Mikey when he got off of work. We hadn’t hung out since Monday and she didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that wasn’t the norm. I skipped dinner at my place, telling my mother that Mrs. H. asked me for dinner and asked whether I should pass or not.
“You absolutely should go,”she said. “I agree with Kathleen one thousand percent. You boys need to clear the air,”she added.“I suggest you two talk this through and then get right with each other again. Kathleen is right. This has gone on long enough.”
“It’s barely been three days,”I’d responded.
“Which is a lifetime for you two,”she argued. “You’re going.”
So here I was, in a home I’d practically lived in my entire life, afraid of what would happen when Mikey got home. The tradeoff was the lasagna I smelled and the giant loaf of garlic bread Mrs. H. had on the counter waiting to be toasted.
Kids always think the food at other kids’ houses is better than at home because it’s not their own parents’ cooking, but in my case, it definitely was. My mother couldn’t cook. Neither could my father. So Mrs. H. was a five-star chef in my opinion.
We ate a lot of prepared frozen food and take-out at my house. Maybe that’s why I hung out at Mikey’s more than he did at our place. I didn’t blame my parents because they worked; certainly not my mother because she had an important job with long hours. One of the worst things about growing up in a house with no cooks was that I wouldn’t learn how to cook either. I could microwave like a Martha Stewart Wizard though.
I heard the front door and looked at Mrs. H. in panic.
“You’ll do fine, kiddo,” she assured me, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Just be you, okay?”
I nodded.
“In here, honey,” she hollered to get Mikey’s attention.
Mikey’s dress shoes were loud on the hardwood floors when he clomped to the kitchen. “Smells so frikkin good, Mom. I’m star . . .” He stopped, surprised to see me, but his face didn’t sour or anything. “Coop,” he said before turning to look at his mother.
“I invited Cooper to join us, honey,” she stated, stepping forward and untying his tie and smoothing the front of his shirt. “Take this and go change into something comfier,” she added, handing him his tie. “Garlic bread going in now so no dilly-dallying.”
“Cool word, Mom. Very hip.” Mikey turned his attention to me. “Thanks for coming over, Coop. I’ll be right down.” He hurried around the corner and up the stairs.
“See?” Mrs. H. asked. “He’s happy you’re here. I knew he would be. What do you say we get things back on track tonight?”
“What do you know exactly?” I whispered, cupping my hand in case Mikey could hear. There’d be a slim chance since I heard his footsteps above us in his bedroom.
“Everything,” she said. “Mikey told me.”
“He told you . . . e-ver-y-thing?” I asked, dramatically pronouncing eachsyllable.
“Yep,” she casually responded. “He sure did. And guess what?” she asked, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I let out a long sigh full of anxiety and shook my head.
“We are going to talk about it. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“We can’t,” I insisted, standing and moving toward her. “No, Mrs. H.. We can’t talk about that,” I repeated, tugging on her arm. “He’ll die of embarrassment, and then so will I. He’ll never talk to me again. Please don’t?” I begged, appealing to her senses and to the woman who’d always listened to reason.
“This will be fine. I already told you that he told me everything. I know about the off-handed comment,” she remarked. “And I know he told you he is gay. I know it all, so we are going to clear some air so that the two of you can get back to being close.”
“Oh my God, oh my God,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “He’ll hate me.”
She pulled my hands away from my face. “He won’t. He loves you, Cooper, and we are going to discuss precisely that,” she declared. “I don’t usually get caught up in your boys’ lives but this is a biggie. Do you understand me? A biggie. Huge,” she added, spreading her hands apart. “Best to nip this in the bud right now.”
“Nip what in the bud?” Mikey asked, jumping to the floor from four steps up and smiling at me once again. This was the old Mikey. He didn’t seem angry or sad, or any of a dozen things I imagined he’d be. He was my typical happy-go-lucky Mikey.
