2nd Place, Creative Prose, 2021 Literary Awards
Ding-dong!
The sound of the doorbell is squeezed among the sizzle and pop of onions and green peppers sauteing in a pan.
“Ry, could you get that?” Janie calls from her place at the stove. The pasta almost seems done, but she needs to check it.
She gets no reply.
She risks a chance look behind her shoulder to her unresponsive son, sitting at the kitchen island in his own little world. “Ryan Hadley! Get the door!”
Ryan finally removes his Beats headphones from his ears. “What?”
“The door! Victor is here.”
Her son’s brows draw together in mild confusion. “You invited Vic to lunch?”
“No questions,” Janie admonishes. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
Ryan pushes off his chair with an eyeroll, but Janie sees the rush of excitement that fires through his legs the moment his feet touch the floor, his anticipation to get to the front door. Mothers always know their sons more than they think they do.
Ryan opens the door to see Victor smiling at him wanly with a piece of ceramic kitchenware clutched to his chest. The glass cover is heavily steamed.
“Hey, come in.” Ryan’s best friend in the world barely needs an invitation to enter their home, but Ryan doesn’t really know what else to say. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Really?” Victor’s expression shifts into a sheepish grin. “When Janie invited me over, I assumed it was your idea.”
They share a look of bemusement, enhanced with a slight slant of casual suspicion. Janie Hadley is somewhat infamous for her elaborate scheming — though usually the two boys are in the know and on her side, not on the receiving end. Yet something about this situation feels decidedly… off.
Regardless, when they get to the kitchen, Janie finishes draining the bowties over the sink in one sudden motion and all but throws the strainer at the counter to take Victor’s kitchenware out of his hands. There was always a sort of excitable violence to the way she cooked that both captivated and disturbed everyone who witnessed it, her son included.
“Victor, welcome! So lovely to see you. What’s this heavy thing?”
“Mi mamá handed it to me moments before she dropped me off. Had it stowed away in the backseat. She would never dare send me to another person’s house without bringing food. I thought she would slap me for not thinking of this myself. It looks like chicken flautas. I know you and Ry are pescatarian, but she evidently forgot.”
“Today can be a cheat day,” Janie says, winking slyly.
Another minuscule look passes between Ryan and Victor. She’s definitely up to something.
She rests the dish atop the two oven pads Victor carried it on and transitions to the stove to stir the alfredo sauce. “Ry, can you take the flautas into the dining room?”
“She literally just set them on the counter,” Ryan blithely mumbles under his breath, carefully grabbing the dish from beneath the oven pads anyway.
His comment makes Victor chortle.
“What’s so funny, you two?” Janie asks.
“Nothing,” they cry out in unison.
“Sure…” Janie responds. Her eyes subtly track Victor as he follows Ryan into the dining room. She smiles softly to herself.
After Ryan has set the flautas at the table, Victor comes back, eyes curious. “Is there anything I can do, Janie?”
Janie considers telling him no, before deciding against it. “Could you set the table? Ryan usually just tosses everything in front of the chairs and leaves it at that.”
Victor laughs, then shrugs. “He’s an animal.”
“I heard that!” Ryan shouts from the other room, his voice laced with faux-offense.
Victor only laughs harder. He efficiently grabs three plates and three sets of silverware and heads back into the dining room. “I meant it in the most endearing way,” Janie hears him say.
“Of course,” Ryan’s voice replies dubiously.
Janie tosses all of the ingredients into the pasta while eavesdropping on the two boys’ casual conversation. Everything they say sounds coded to her ears.
“How’d you do on Luckwicke’s test the other day?” her son’s voice inquires.
“Three points off an A.”
“Hey, better than me, like always.”
“My dad still chewed me out big time, though.”
“Of course he did. This is Alejandro we’re talking about.”
“Yeah. Good isn’t ever good enough, especially for a ‘Dark-Skinned Latino in America™.’”
“We should really be expecting that trademark to go through for real any day now.”
Victor’s softer laugh doesn’t travel far, so Janie can barely hear it. “I’ll be okay,” Victor says.
“I know you will. You got me to vent to.”
“Yeah, true!”
Janie’s ex-husband would say she’s being overdramatic. Boys just being boys, Jane. Let it go. She can almost hear him in her head. And a year ago, she probably would’ve agreed with him. But that was before her son turned to her from the passenger seat of their CR-V and uttered the words, “I’m gay,” and her marriage reached the beginning of the end. Her entire world shifted, and she saw new possibilities where, with her heteronormative bias, she had previously saw none.
Janie tosses the grilled shrimp onto the pasta. She’s waited seven months for Ryan to finally fess up and tell her the full truth, but she’s done waiting around. She wants validation. She needs to know it’s not all in her head.
They’re just close friends, Jane. Don’t make this weird.
What’s so weird about it?
It’s… I just… I don’t like thinking about what it would look like.
Since when are you this interested in the intricacies of your son’s dating life? You barely batted an eye when he brought Kelly home.
That was when I thought he was normal.
Normal doesn’t exist, Steve.
That was the conversation that convinced her to put divorce on the table. If he couldn’t accept their son completely, she didn’t want him in the house making Ryan feel any worse than he already did.
When Victor came out to her and to his family as pansexual, she thought that the last hurdle had finally been passed, and that the last shoe would drop. That was three months ago; still, nothing.
She walks into the dining room to Ryan and Victor chuckling softly at one of Ryan’s jokes that was impossible to make out from the kitchen. She doles out their plates on either side of her, then gives the remainder of the pasta to herself, finally taking her seat at the edge of the table. They each take a flauta for themselves. Janie takes a bite of hers even before trying her own pasta. “Mm-mm! Tell your mother that she has done it again, Victor. These are delicious!”
“Sure thing. She’ll be happy to hear that.” Victor raises a brow across the table at Ryan.
His friend just shrugs. Neither of them can figure out what is going on, or why Victor was invited to Saturday lunch.
“So Victor, how’s life outside of school?” Janie asks before blowing on a bowtie she has skewered on her fork. After a quick swallow, she gets to what she really means. “Are you seeing anyone? Romantically?”
Victor nearly chokes on a bit of flauta. “No. Definitely not.”
Janie frowns. “You sure? You seem different lately.”
“I changed my hair,” he offers simply, suggesting alternative reasons for his change in attitude. It was true — he has never had bangs before, and now they were styled off to the side, as if he were 1950’s Greaser.
“I noticed. But that’s not it.”
“Mom. Where is this going?” Ryan demands, irritation creeping into his voice.
“I’m just making conversation,” Janie explains innocently. “It’s not as if you’re so forthright and honest about what’s happening in your or your friends’ lives. So I’m forced to find everything out by way of some light interrogation. You don’t mind, do you, Victor?”
“No,” Victor bumbles. “Not at all. But I am genuinely single.”
Janie shifts tactics, whipping her attention to her son. “What about you, Ryan? Are you still single?”
“Yes!” Ryan exclaims, starting to become genuinely exasperated. “I would have told you if that changed!”
“Would you have?”
Ryan sets down his fork in a huff. He exhales his frustration and engages her much more calmly than before. “What is all this about? Why did you invite Vic to lunch? We’ve never done this before, and you’re acting like this is a weekly occurrence.”
“Well, why shouldn’t it be?” Janie ventures. “I love having Victor over, and I feel you two are always holed up in your room whenever he’s over. I never get to see him.”
“You invited me over because you missed me?” Victor questions. “That’s… sweet.”
Janie hesitates. Is she ready to give up the goose? “Well… that’s not exactly it…”
“Then why did you invite Vic over?”
Janie takes a deep breath before she says, “To give you both a chance to confess.”
“A chance to confess what?” Victor asks, curious eyes flicking to Ryan.
“That you’re dating!” Janie blurts, immediately embarrassed at her lack of tact. But at least it’s finally out there. She looks back and forth between the two boys as they stare at each other in shock, eyes wide.
Ryan starts laughing first, but Victor soon follows. It is truly a gut-busting and uproarious sort of laughter; it fills the dining room before Janie finally realizes: they find the idea absurd.
Victor wipes a tear from his eye. “We aren’t dating, Janie.”
“We’re just friends,” her son echoes.
Janie deflates slightly. She had been so sure. “What? No, that can’t be.”
Ryan’s levity dissipates. “I think we would know if we were dating, Mom.”
“But you’re perfect together!”
The two boys aren’t laughing this time. They look concerned for her.
No, she isn’t crazy. She knows what she sees. She knows that she isn’t wrong: these boys are in love with each other.
They just don’t know it.
“Think about it. Both of you. Considering the possibility, at least. I know I can’t be wrong about what I’ve been seeing here. I know you both too well.”
Victor has gone quiet, pensive.
Ryan veers in the entirely opposite emotional direction; he tenses his hands into fists that scrunch up their tablecloth into tight bunches of fabric. “Mom, you’re being ridiculous. I would know — we would know if we liked each other. We don’t — I don’t feel that way about Victor. And I am frankly offended that you would ambush us like this and orchestrate this lunch as if we were two of your clients. You can’t lawyer us into a relationship!”
“That’s not what I’m doing — where are you going?” The course of Janie’s approach alters abruptly when her son rises to his feet and starts stalking out of the room.
“My room. I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Ryan Maurice Hadley. Come back here!”
Victor hasn’t said a word, until in a small, thoughtful voice, he urges her, “Let him go. He needs to sit with this, alone.”
Janie shifts her gaze to lock fully onto the turbulent emotion swirling behind Victor’s dark brown eyes. His eyes downturn, embarrassed, before he lays his hand over hers on the table. “… Thank you, Janie.”
Janie realizes the change in Victor’s posture and demeanor and the answer as to why is tantalizingly close at hand. Could she really have knocked something loose? “Victor—”
“I need to tell him. Even if what he just said reflects how he really feels…” Victor’s voice trails off. He sniffs. Janie can clearly see he is holding back tears. “I know I’ll regret it forever if I don’t shoot my shot.” He is able to once again meet her eyes, his flat expression breaking into a mild smirk. “Especially when you set this up so impeccably.”
They sit in silence for a while, appreciating the other’s company and bearing witness to Victor gathering his nerve.
When Victor has finally withdrawn enough courage from reserves deep inside of himself and is able to stand, Janie fixes him in place with a pointed, insistent stare.
“Whatever happens, you are always welcome here, Victor.”
“Thanks.” This is all Victor can bring himself to say while the majority of his brain is singularly focused on coming up with the right words for the upcoming, terrifying situation he is about to put himself in.
Victor heads out of the dining room. Janie can hear his soft, courteous steps plotting his way up the stairs and down the second floor hallway. Though the sound is distant and faint, she hears the gentle knocking on her son’s door by the hesitant knuckles of his best friend, a boy she herself has known for years and has seen grow into a burgeoning young adult ready to soon take on the world in just eleven short months.
She hears Ryan’s door close again. She has no idea what to think. She knows what she wants to happen, but she is now questioning everything she thought she was picking up on. It is easily possible that she had been witnessing an unbalanced equation and made the math work through sheer hope. It’s in their hands now, and there is nothing scarier to her than that.
⧼⧼⧼⧽⧽⧽
The knock on Ryan’s door is distinct and familiar. From his perch at the end of his bed, he is caught betweening wanting to answer it, to run and fling his door open, while at the same time wanting to barricade it with his bed so that Victor can never get in.
“Come in.”
Victor enters and closes the door with extreme care.
His best friend’s spiraling — Ryan could tell the moment he walked in. Victor still hasn’t turned around to face him, still learning against the closed door of dark oak. He’s taking deep breaths that sound to be getting progressively shorter and shorter until Ryan recognizes with a jolt that Vic is hyperventilating.
He is off the foot of his bed and behind Victor in a moment, his hands finding Victor’s shoulders naturally. He pinches them, and instantly feels the resistance of tension far and above Victor’s usual stress levels. “Hey, I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Ryan turns Victor around. “Look at me. Look around at the room. Ground yourself. You know what to do.”
Victor’s breathing shallows out, and in a sudden burst of movement shakes Ryan’s hands off his shoulders.
Ryan takes a step back involuntarily. This was Victor as he has never known him. This was — he realizes with a start — a Victor with no masks.
His eyes meet Ryan’s with their full emotional intensity as he thickly requests, “Sit back down on the bed. Please.”
Ryan does as he asks. Victor finds a spot also at the foot of his bed, but as far from him as physically and logistically possible.
Victor speaks before Ryan can say a word. “Now, this is so damn hard for me to spit out, so I really can’t have you interrupting me to put in your two cents.” He jerks his head to look at Ryan again and narrows his eyes. “Nod if you understand.”
Ryan nods. He has never in their lives seen Victor this unhinged. No, that’s not right, Victor isn’t out of control — if anything, he is more calculating and careful than Ryan has ever known him to be — which in of itself is worthy of note. There was no one in Ryan’s life more exacting.
Ryan focuses on the rhythmic balling and un-balling of Victor’s fists, which have flopped into his lap as if he doesn’t know what his hands should be doing. The clenching continues unabated even as Victor turns away from him to look straight forward, only engaging with Ryan in the periphery of his vision.
“Your mom caught me off guard just now just as much as she did you. But the moment the words flew out of her mouth, it was like a wall in mind started to crack, releasing thoughts I’d hidden away the moment I had them. Thoughts of you and me. Of us. Of what… of what we could be like, if we… were together. This isn’t coming out nearly as eloquent as I’d hoped it would, but what I am saying is that Janie was at least half-right. I like you, a lot. I probably more than like you, but I’m not about to say those words aloud just yet. And this probably comes to you as a total shock and I know that I am literally firing a torpedo at a six-year friendship as if I don’t care about the consequences, but I do. Trust me, Ryan. Trust me, I know the consequences — they’re the exact reason I built that wall around those thoughts of us in the first place. What we have now is… it was good enough, if you’d didn’t feel the same way I did. Before today, I could totally live with being your best friend and not also getting to call you my boyfriend. But…”
Victor’s head tips ceiling-ward, fixing his eyes on the middle of Ryan’s rotating fan. “Janie’s pushed me into this place of wondering, of hoping, of dreaming of what I could be missing out on if I never told you how I really feel. And now, I can’t be okay with just being friends until I hear that anything more than that isn’t going to happen. I needed to get the truth out there and know what you’re thinking. So—” Victor’s tone abruptly shifts without warning, turning to look at Ryan again, pinning him place with a deep, pleading look that begs only for honesty.
Ryan, in an instant, is a butterfly held in place with the needlepoint of Victor’s piercing gaze.
“What’re you thinking?” Victor’s head is spinning. His hands have finally stilled. He’s certain he has a headache. Ryan hasn’t broken eye contact — is that a good sign or a bad one?
After clearing his throat, Ryan replies, “I’m kind of a mess right now.”
Victor can’t fight the guffaw that explodes out of him, directly from his chest. “How do you think I’m feeling?”
“I’m surprised, but also not as surprised as I think I should be if I didn’t… if I hadn’t been aware on some level that you liked me.”
“Okay…” Victor says, injecting a curiosity into his tone that urges Ryan to keep going.
Ryan looks away, kneading his eyes with the heels of his palms as if to clear away the film of old eyes. When he looks up, he doesn’t turn back to Victor. “I truly don’t think I’ve ever thought about us in that way. Even after I got over all of my internalized homophobia BS and accepted to myself that I was gay, I never crushed on you, like they say queer guys always do with their best friend. I just didn’t. Was I protecting our friendship by not ever considering it is a possibility… Maybe…? And even after you came out to me, the thought didn’t even cross my mind, honestly.”
“Oh.” The sound comes out softly, delicately. Victor is trying and failing to not sound disappointed — devastated. Ryan’s letting him down easy.
“No!” Ryan shouts, a little too loud. He finds Victor’s eyes, his own as wide as is humanly possible. “It’s not — It — I… This isn’t coming out right. What I am trying to say is, I hadn’t considered it until my mom accused us of dating. But now… I’m considering it.”
Victor’s throat catches. His lungs have tied themselves into a knot that grows tighter with every intake of breath. “… And?”
Ryan inches cautiously closer to Victor. “And I want to know what it feels like.”
Victor’s best friend clutches the sides of his face and pulls his face even closer to his own. In a whisper, exploratory and vibrant with something undefinable, Ryan asks him, the breath of his words warming Victor’s lips, “Can I kiss you?”
Victor wants to scream, but instead he whispers back, “Yes.”
Their lips meet in an uncertain configuration. Then, after only a moment, there is nothing uncertain about it.
It is minutes before Ryan finally pulls away.
“I hate it when my mom is right.”
“You mean, ‘always?’”
“… Yes.”
“Are we going to keep kissing?”
A giggle escapes from Ryan’s mouth that he has never heard come from his body before. “What do you think?”
They kiss again while below them, in the dining room, a mother is fretting over her choices. She stares out over the table.
Their pasta’s getting cold.
Anton Maslowski is an English major who lives and breathe stories. He believes that the power of fiction lies in its ability to speak to emotional truths, and hopes he has done that with this piece. He dedicates it to anybody else attempting to navigate a world that was not built for them. He hails from a little-known city outside Madison, WI, by the name of Fitchburg.
