“Heh.”
“Oh good gravy Brandon will you look at that giant fake wine bottle?” He points to a decorative bottle-vase on the opposite wall with two orange poppies stuck inside. “We must have it!”
“Uh-huh.”
“We can take it to college. We’ll share custody.”
“You can’t take the decorations, dummy.”
“Oh yeah?” He takes out a five-dollar bill and brandishes it, doing a sleazy eyebrow-wiggle. “My friend Mr. Lincoln says otherwise.”
I snort a little. He cracks up. Loud.
“I’m so glad you wanted to come here.” Abel reaches out and grabs both my hands. My eyes dart around.
“It’ll be fun,” I say lamely.
“Yes! Thank you. I hate when people are snobby about the Olive Grotto. My dad has this one surgeon friend, he’s like the world’s foremost expert on being a douchenozzle, and he’s always like ‘the Olive Grotto is the Spam of Tuscan cuisine’ and I’m like dude, cram it, ‘cause sometimes you want to stuff your damn self with chicken parm bruschetta, you know?”
I nod. I wish he’d talk quieter. “The breadsticks are good too.”
“They are godlike.”
You know what isn’t Godlike?
“What would Cadmus order here?” I blurt.
“Ooh! Excellent question.” He scans the menu. “I think he’s a straight-up lasagna guy. Maybe some short ribs.”
“Mm.”
“And for Sim…he’d go clean and simple, if he ate at all. Some grilled lemon chicken…?”
Across the room, a gray-haired guy with jowls and a bald-eagle t-shirt is staring at us. He turns away when he sees me looking. Whispers to his wife.
“All right.” Abel slaps the menu shut. “What’s wrong?”
Be honest. Tell him this is a mistake.
“I’m having a…” I hate this a lot. “You know.”
“A baby?” His eyes go tender in a cartoony way. “Awwww, honey. It’s just like that mpreg where Cadmus tells Sim he’s expecting twins and—”
I wave away the joke. “A relapse. You were right.”
“Oh.” I see panic cross his face. “Oh. God. Is it because I sang ‘Personal Jesus’?”
“No. No.”
“It was the dollar store, wasn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“Back there, back there! When I made Spongebob eat the nun figurine?”
“No. It wasn’t that—”
“God, I’m an idiot! I knew I should’ve—”
“It’s not your fault, okay? Relax.”
He sits up straight, nodding fast. “Okay. Okay, then. I don’t want this to turn bad. What can I do?”
“I—nothing, really. Nothing.”
He blinks at me. “Please don’t break up with me at the Olive Grotto.”
“I’m not breaking up with you!”
“Well, I have to do something. I’m your boyfriend, right?”
The way he says that is so sweet I feel like crying. What can I tell him that doesn’t sound deeply insane? Well, things just haven’t been the same since I found out hey_mamacita is a screwed-up kid instead of a divinely inspired matchmaking warrior.
Abel folds his hands. “So—I guess, talk to me.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Tell me exactly what happens. Do you hear that Father Mike’s voice in your head or something?”
“I don’t actually hear it.” I shoot him a dark look. “I’m not crazy.”
“No, I didn’t mean…” He sighs. “Shit. Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”
“I know.” I reach across the table, stroke his arm. “It’s more like I remember things he said before. Or I imagine what he would say, if he saw me.”
“But you said you don’t believe that stuff anymore, right? Like, it’s a sin or whatever.”
“My brain doesn’t. No.”
“But your heart…?”
“No, my heart pretty much approves, too.” I give him a faint smile and squeeze his hand.
“So what’s the problem, then?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“You’ll think it’s weird.”
“What, like, did you see Jesus in your pancakes this morning?”
“Okay.”
“Did an angel appear to you in the iHop bathroom?”
“See.”
“Repennnt! Mortify your flesssssh! Order the Smokehouse Combooooo!”
“You’re getting all judgy.”
“I’m getting judgy? I don’t judge anyone!”
“You get judgy about religion.”
“So? I think I’m entitled.”
“So it’s complicated for me.”
“Uh-huh. Okay.” He twists his mouth and tilts back in his chair. “So here’s what I don’t get. You met with Father Mike that one time, and he gave you that stupid Step On the Brakes book and quoted the Bible at you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So why didn’t you fight him?”
“What, like…” I make a fist, mime a punch.
“No, goofass. Why didn’t you argue with him? Tell him you didn’t believe God was really like that? And don’t say you were scared, because I know you have balls. I’ve seen them. In action.”
I shrug, blushing. “I don’t know. It’s like, how do you argue with Leviticus?”
“I do. So do tons of people, right? Aren’t there gay theology people? Those churches with rainbow flags and shit?”
“Yeahhh, but…” I rub at a water splotch with my thumb. “He’d just tell me they were wrong.”
“Which would be his opinion.”
“Right, but—”
“And why is his opinion more valid than yours?”
He’s hiding a trap in a stupid question. I roll my eyes. Pass.
“I’ll tell you why.” He points at me with his fork. “Because you’ve been conned into thinking anything that makes you too happy is some kind of sin.”
“Oh, okay.” I kick at the table leg. “I guess I’m stupid, then.”
“No! Not at all. That’s just what organized religion does, Bran. I’ve seen it before.”
Mom serving stew at Our Daily Bread. Candlelit “O Holy Night” at Christmas Eve Mass. “That’s not all it is.”
“Well, that seems to be the key feature.”
“You just know about the bad parts. You’ve never seen the good stuff.”
“Oh, well, pardon me, Mr. Sudden Random Piety.” He’s shredding a napkin. Angry eyebrows. “You tell me one good thing about it, then. Tell me what’s so awesome, huh? The guilt and shame? The weird OCD rituals? The no-condom rule? The priests who—”
“Stop! That’s cheap.”
“Facts are cheap?”
“People do great things because of religion, too.”
“Uh-huh. Like Bec can’t do charity work because she’s an atheist?”
“I’m not saying—”
“In fact, it means more because they’re not just doing it to get to heaven. Next!”
“Well,” I squirm. “The sacraments, I guess…and like, the sense of community.”
“Aha. Okay. Sure.” He taps his chin and squints. “Whispering your sins in a little closet…eating a flat tasteless cookie once a week—”
“All right.” It’s stuff I think myself, but when he says it I hate him for it.
“—The sublime joys of singing hymns with folks who think you’re earmarked for eternal doom. Now it makes sense.”
“You’re just being shitty now.”
“I’m trying to understand—”
“Well, you never will!” I shoot back. People glance over. “You never will, because you didn’t grow up in it.”
“Yeah, thank fuck for that.” He mashes the napkin shreds into a ball. “My parents weren’t sadists.”
My mind tangles up with sweet memories. Mom adjusting my pipe-cleaner whiskers on the tiger costume she stayed up all night sewing. Dad narrating backyard batting practice: Number 44, Brandon Page, steps up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth…
“Don’t talk about my parents,” I say, evenly.
Abel blushes.