There's a plus side to having a high school experience void of passion, spontaneity, and risk taking. It means by the time you're a senior, your overprotective parents have stopped worrying you're going to get yourself OD'd or pregnant or thrown in jail for loitering if they turn their backs for five minutes. And they give you way more leeway than you ever wanted in exchange for being such a model teenager.
Which is why my parents don't bat an eye about leaving me home alone to host my annual New Year's Eve soiree while they visit my brother in New York.
I don't tell my friends the event will be unchaperoned. But somehow, they figure it out.
Joshua shows up alone and gorgeous in a blue Irish sweater his mother gave him for Christmas. It takes every ounce of self-control I can muster not to drag him into my bedroom the instant he crosses my threshold.
Ali is sweet enough to invite herself and her cousins from California, one of whom is the very cousin she was out with when she cheated on Joshua last summer. Nice, Ali. Real nice.
Lilliana is here with her current boyfriend, Dean, a prep-school senior who brought enough beer and cigarettes to satisfy a biker bar on the fourth of July. This means I get to play the strict, nagging mom role, prohibiting the smoking of cigarettes indoors, and making anyone indulging in more than a celebratory champagne toast give me their car keys. I don't want to think about how many people are going to puke in my car later tonight.
Marcus brings his older brother Rich--weird--who is home from college for winter break. This means Tom and Marcus will not be kissing each other at midnight which has Tom on the verge of a breakdown, and it's only 10:30.
Kendall arrives with half a dozen football players, who immediately engage in a death match of beer pong on the pool table, which I have to 'mom' a vinyl tablecloth over to keep them from ruining the felt. Kendall himself is MIA. If I get half a second to look for him, I'll probably find him watching a game in my dad's office. The liquor cabinet is locked in there. Not that I'm worried. Kendall doesn't drink or smoke, for athlete reasons. And because it's not his style.
But I don't have time for anything because the doorbell is ringing, and I can't for the life of me think of who and their mother isn't already here.
I check my bedraggled self in the small hallway mirror before I open the front door.
It's Bud. I swear I saw him downstairs earlier. Didn't I?
"Happy New Year," he says. "Did I miss all the fun already?"
"No, but if you see any fun, you can send it my way? It's eluding me at the moment."
"Aw, that sucks." He frowns. "I was hoping you were having a good time."
I wave him inside. "I'll get there. There's just a bunch of people here I don't know, and Lilliana's boyfriend brought substances, so now I'm worried about everyone getting home."
He shoots his hand up like an overeager second grader. "I call designated driver!"
I laugh. "I don't think anyone's going to fight you for it. But it's okay. I don't mind driving people home."
"You do enough," he says. "Let me do it. I'm a good driver."
He hasn't taken his coat off, but I can tell he's adorably overdressed underneath it. He's wearing a lavender button-down shirt and dress pants, and his hair is combed. I'd say he has a shot at snappiest dresser, if not for Tom, who looks dashing as hell storming up the stairs toward us in an emotional huff.
"Oh," he says, noticing I'm not alone. "Hi."
"Hey," Bud says. "Everything okay?"
"Dot, do you have a minute to talk?" Tom asks me, as if Bud is the wallpaper.
"Yeah sure, um...." I'm torn. I want to make Bud feel welcome, but Tom is clearly wounded.
"I'm good," Bud rescues me. "I can show myself around."
"Are you sure? I can come find you in a few minutes," I say.
I know I'm throwing him to the wolves by letting him venture into the party alone. At this hour, people are going to be even less accommodating to Bud's special brand of awkwardness.
"Great," he says. "And hey-" He reaches into his pocket and brings out a red envelope. "Merry Christmas. And thanks, for letting me come tonight." He hands me the card and blushes when our fingers meet on the exchange. I giggle over how warm the envelope is.
Tom clears his throat. "Dot, I'll be in your room when you're ready to talk."
He heads down the hall and I give Bud an apologetic look.
"Don't worry about me," he says. "Go play therapist with Tom. He needs you."
I laugh a little because that's exactly what this feels like. I hold up the envelope. "I'm going to wait to open this until I see you."
"Awesome," he says. "Wish me luck."
A swell of noise erupts from the basement. Some crucial moment in beer pong.
"Good luck," I say.
Poor Bud. He's going to need it.
* * * * *
I find Tom in front of my bedroom window with his hands in his pockets. Still and silent.
"Hey, Tommy. What's going on?"
He sniffles and my heart clenches in my chest. "Marcus came out to his family on Christmas," he says quietly.
I want to be thrilled for him. But Tom's demeanor tells me we don't have anything to celebrate. "That's a good thing, isn't it?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "And no." He turns to face me, and his eyes are wet with tears. "They don't believe him."
"What do you mean they don't believe him?"
"They think he's confused. That it's a phase and he'll get over it. That he needs to make better friends and stop--" his face twists in despair -- "stop seeing people who are making him think he's gay. And they want to take him back to church. They want him to learn what's right and wrong because they say he forgot. They're telling him it's wrong. What he has with me is wrong." He brings his hands to his face and turns away.
"That's bullshit, Tom," I say, rushing to his side. "Marcus loves you. He's not going to stop seeing you, no matter what his parents say."
"He can't," he cries. "They only let him come tonight with his brother so he could tell me in person that they're pulling him out of school."
"They can't do that!" I say, suddenly terrified by how much power Marcus's family has to ruin his life. And Tom's.
"They're his parents and he's seventeen," he chokes. "They can do whatever the hell they want." He pulls me into a crushing hug and buries his face in my neck. "Oh God, Dot, I'm going to lose him. I never should have made him do this. It's all my fault."
Jesus Christ. What do I do here?
"Tom, listen to me," I say. "You and Marcus are going to be eighteen this spring. You'll be adults. His parents won't be able to stop you from being together, right?"
He shrugs weakly. "What if they convince him he doesn't want me before then?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Marcus is madly in love with you. He'd marry you right this minute if he could. That's not going to change. You have to believe that."
He's starts to calm down and I take his hands in mine and get him to look at me.
"They want Marcus to go to church? Does it matter what church he goes to?"
"I don't know. I think they just want him to go."
"Is he still here?"
Tom shakes his head. "No. They left right after Marcus told me he couldn't see me anymore." He starts sobbing. "He was so upset he could barely breathe. It killed me to see him that way, and I couldn't even hug him because his brother was there the whole time."
I can barely get my head around it. This was all happening at my party, and I didn't know about it? What the hell else is going on while I'm in here talking to Tom?
"Tom, I'm going to fix this," I promise him. "I'm going to talk to Marcus and we're going to make sure you can see him. Okay?"
His eyes are drowned in defeat. But under that, hope.
"Thank you," he says.
I give him a kiss on the cheek and wipe his face with my sleeve. "Stay in here as long as you want," I say. "I need to go make sure my house isn't being destroyed."
He laughs a little and nods, moving to sit on my bed. He takes my pillow and hugs it against his chest. "Hey Dot," he says.
I stop in the doorway. "Yeah."
"Josh really needs to talk to you. And I just want you to know, I'm here if you need me."
I don't know what he means. But I nod to let him know I heard him say it.
* * * * *