“We wanna go to a nude beach!” Brooke shouted.
My eyebrows shot up. “For real?”
“Yeah,” Christy said. “Black’s Beach. It’s right below where her dad works. But we don’t want to go by ourselves—”
“Good idea.”
“—so we’re going to wait till this weekend, when you’re here.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“I kinda told her about you, last night.”
“Pillow talk?”
“Yes, Mr. Understanding.”
“Yeah,” Brooke said from closer to the phone, “thanks for being so understanding. I needed a friendly shoulder to cry on.”
“Oh?” I teased. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”
“She can’t hear you,” Christy said. “She’s a total spazz. Sorry. And she’s trying to drag me out the door, so I’d better say goodbye. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.”
We said goodbye and hung up. Then I chuckled. Brooke sounded a lot like Wren, which made sense. Christy’s girlfriends fit a certain type, and I was eager to meet this one.
Chapter 3
Mom and I ate leftover pot roast for dinner and then watched The Facts of Life and Night Court. I rarely had time to watch TV at school, so it was nice to relax and enjoy something mindless. We chatted through the commercials, but she abruptly fell silent when St. Elsewhere came on. She had a crush on one of the doctors—she unconsciously moistened her lips whenever he was onscreen—and I could imagine what she must have been thinking.
When the show ended she asked me, “How come you never thought about becoming a doctor?”
Oh? I thought whimsically. Do you wanna blow a guy in a lab coat? I hid my amusement and said neutrally, “What do you mean?”
“Well, Gina and Kendall both want to be one. You dated them for a long time. I thought they might’ve talked you into it.”
“No. They never tried. Besides, I like architecture too much.”
“What about Christy?”
“What about her?”
“Does she support you?”
“Of course! She understands what it’s like. More than Gina or Kendall ever did, I think. It wasn’t their fault, though. They weren’t artists. And they never understood why I want to create things. I have this… urge. I know that sounds weird, but I want to make things beautiful.”
“Sounds very… New Age.” Mom didn’t mean it as an insult, but it came out that way. To her, “New Age” meant dirty hippies, lazy malcontents, or idle dreamers.
“It isn’t,” I said with a laugh. “I mean it literally, not figuratively. Too many buildings are ugly, purely utilitarian. They don’t have to be. They can be functional and beautiful. That’s what I want to do, and Christy understands that. She even helps with my designs.”
“How? She’s an artist, right? Not an architect?”
“What do you think architecture is, Mom? It’s art you live in, work in, relax in. It’s proportion and symmetry, color and space, mood and texture. It’s the same things art is, except it’s three-dimensional. Although… when it comes to that, Christy’s art is three-dimensional too. I think that’s why we both see things so clearly, especially about each other. Her art and mine go hand in hand.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Neither did Gina or Kendall.”
“Ah. Now I get it.”
“Right. Christy and I connect on an artistic level too.”
She paused and chose her next words carefully. “So you connect on other levels?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I know you’re getting serious with her.”
“Very.”
“But… how much does she know about your lifestyle?”
“Our lifestyle, you mean?”
“Mine and your father’s?”
“All of us,” I laughed. “Erin and I are swingers too. She has Leah and Mark. Others too, probably. I have Christy, Wren, and Trip.”
“So you and Christy…?”
I immediately shook my head. “Not yet. Trip and Wren are definitely in the lifestyle, though.”
“That’s what Susan said.”
“But not Christy. Not yet. She’s coming around, even though… it’s been slow.”
“Still, she knows about it?”
“She does. She figured out most of it and I confirmed the rest.”
“Seriously?” Mom said, surprised. “She seems like such a Catholic schoolgirl.”
“It’s an act. And please don’t call her that. It really bugs her. She didn’t have much choice in the matter, but she actually liked being a Catholic schoolgirl.”
“So, how do you go from being a you-know-what to a swinger? Your dad and I started when it was fashionable, the Swinging Sixties,” she said with a laugh. Then she grew serious. “But these days it seems like Christy’s kind of people are taking over.”
My eyes narrowed automatically. “What do you mean?”
“Oral Roberts. Jerry Falwell. The Moral Majority.”
“Christy isn’t like them at all. Neither are her parents. They’re nice people.”
“But very… religious.”
“Mom, they didn’t try to convert me or anything. Religious people come in lots of varieties. Sure, there are televangelists and prigs like Falwell on one end, but people like Christy and her family are more in the middle.”
“With people like us at the other end of the spectrum?”
“We aren’t lepers!” I laughed.
“Sometimes it feels like it.” She wasn’t usually a sour person—my own general optimism came from her, after all—but she brooded about it for a moment. (My occasional moodiness came from her as well, but I digress.) She eventually took a deep breath and visibly relaxed. “You’ve changed so much lately.”
“Healthy living,” I said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“That isn’t what I mean. You’ve grown up.”
I gave her my usual smart aleck reply, “Had to happen sooner or later.”
“Will you be serious for a minute.”
“About what?”
“You. Your life. Me. Mine.”
I suddenly grew concerned. “What’s the matter? Everything okay?”
“Yes, but I’m trying to have a serious conversation, and you keep trying to lighten the mood.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But for a while there it seemed like you were trying to darken it.”
“I guess I was,” she admitted. “I’m just… wondering where you think things are going with you and Christy.”
“And that put you in a dark mood?”
“No!” She stopped and thought about it. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Why?”
“I guess I’m feeling old lately. Erin’s growing up and headed to college. You’re growing up and in a serious relationship, maybe an official one.”
“Don’t worry, we’re still a long way from the altar.”
“I know. But it sounds like that’s where you’re headed.”
“I think so.”
She nodded.
“That doesn’t make you old, though.”
“Tell that to my gray hairs.”
I laughed. “Mom, you’re more beautiful now than ever.”
She forced a smile.
“Seriously. Besides, guys are looking at… um… other things. Not gray hairs.”
“Well, I notice them.”
“You’re too critical,” I said, although I laughed at a sudden memory.
“What?”
“Christy, a couple of weeks ago. She was doing her nightly lotions and potions when she stopped and stared at herself in the mirror. She actually lifted her breasts to see how much they sagged.”
Mom’s eyebrows rose.
“Yeah,” I said aloud. “She’s twenty.”
“And a B-cup.”
“A firm B-cup at that. But still, she worries about her looks too. So I understand why you do. I guess most women do it. I mean, it’s a double standard. Society says men get more handsome as we get older. While women—”